Coffee maker, machine, pot, pod, equipment, table, cup, mug, bean, caffeine, decaf, espresso is the reason I hang out at coffee shop and blog. Coffee House is fun.
Part of saving the trees and forest is to reduce the usage of papers. It’s what we call saving the environment. It is one of the methods to slow down global warming. Green forest is the air conditioner for the world that we live in. Reducing the usage of trees, woods and papers is the best method to reduce cutting down the forest. That means reducing the production of books. One way of doing this is to digitalize the books. Saving and selling it in a form of ebook. As long as information can be kept and transferred then it should be fine. Country like Japan is transferring hardcopy books into softcopy where people can read it through laptops, palm or cellphone. Here are couples of sites that I found giving out free ebook. Check it out, you might just find some information that benefits.
The Free Site is the place for you to grab some free product samples. The site will try to keep things up to date so that you won’t miss the samples. Unfortunately free stuffs come and go pretty fast, so you need to act as soon as it is available. The offers in this site are mostly for US. That’s a bit disappointed but there’s nothing much we can do about it. All we can do is to keep on searching free stuffs that are available in our country. There is nothing personal about this but business. All of the free samples listed in this site are absolutely free. There are no postage fees, shopping fees, stamping fees or handling fees. All you need to do is to sign up forms.
The price of gasoline is increasing rapidly these couple of years. It’s still increasing at this moment as you’re reading this post. It is said that the price will go up until $200 US dollar per barrel. No doubt with the increase of oil price, many related products will increase their price too. The first direct effect will be transportation. That means taxi, bus, trains, ferries and planes will increase their fees. So what can us as a consumer can do to reduce the price? Well, just do the obvious one, cut down the fuel usage. Besides, it’s saving the environment too.
Lately I downloaded an online game call World of Magic Online. I was bored and looking for some online games to spice up my Internet life. World of Magic Online happens to be one of the latest online game that is free to play and it seems interesting. After playing it for couple of days and it sure is a nice game to play. The size of the installation client is about 2G and it is better to download it through BitComet. That way you don't have to worry about broken file and the download process is faster.
World of Magic Online is just like any other MMORPG with a special feature of video chat. That means you can see your teammates of guild mates. The things that I like about the game is easy to play and tons of things to do. There are 4 types of characters that you can use which is summoner, warrior, mage and archer. The things that you can do in this game is basically leveling your character. Other features of fun are building your own house, complete quest, raising pet mount, making cloths and armor. As far as I know, you won't feel bored playing this game. There are more events available that you wish you have more time for it. If you're worried about having to press buttons frequently during battles, then there is a solution in this game. There is a robot feature that you can configure your character to auto pick, battle, repair, dig and harvesting. Makes you online gaming much more easier and relax. Check out the video below for a clear understanding how the game is.
P/S: You may notice that some people are advertising their sites in the game. You'll know it once you've login the game. That's one interesting part. This proves that this game is so popular that people are advertising in the game.
PC Tools Software has a collection of drivers guide for Windows that is very useful. You might notice that the site is always trying to sell related software but still there is some useful information that we can benefits from. Some of the features that are useful are registry guide, security guide, software guide and scripting guide. The only guide that I found interesting is the registry guide. There are some nice tips and tricks provided so that you’re able to customize your PC. If you intend to modify your registry, do it cautiously and with your own risk. Any action done incorrectly might crash your Windows. There are also some configuration help available in this site, for example autoexec.bat, boot.ini, config.sys, msdos.sys, and system.ini. Basically if you’re trying to fix or tune your PC, this site has a lot of information that might helps.
IZEA has just introduced SocialSpark lately and it seems that it’s going to be one of the fun sites this year. SocialSpark is more like payperpost that includes social network. It’s a place that you can promote your blog, get to know other bloggers and earn some money by blogging. SocialSpark is not just for bloggers only but also a place for advertisers. That means bloggers and advertisers are able to communicate with each other by giving comments, feedbacks and messages.
As a blogger you can first create your own profile by filling up your details, upload your picture and include all the blogs you have. After you have introduced yourself, you may start to request others to include you as their friends. If you’ve been actively involved in other social community networking, I’m sure many already know you.
The best part of SocialSpark is the new method of taking paid posting opportunity. You get to queue up for the opportunity if there are no open slots. In this case you don’t have to keep on checking the site for open slots. You’ll receive an email once an open slot is available for you.
The only thing that I don’t like about SocialSpark is that the site is sending out too many emails. Every activity that you involve will be an email send out by the site. If there are 100 people approved your request as their friend, then you’ll get 100 emails. That means if you’re actively involves in SocialSpark then you’ll get lots of email. It will be better if the site can summarize everything into an email and just send out once a day.
SoapBoxxer is a site where you can voice out your opinion and let others judge it. Well, maybe not judge but just vote for agree or disagree. It’s just a simple site that you can have fun asking question and see how others response. There are few categories like politics, news & event, society & people, science & people, science & tech, arts & entertainment, sports & leisure and others. You can check out others opinion as you might be surprise to see what people are asking. Just be nice when you asked a question. You might get flag inappropriate if you’re being bad.
iLocker is a site where you get to lock away text that you type. Sounds a bit strange? Well, to it does really sound strange. Normally we used a locker to put our personal stuff and things that need to be store so that people can’t get to it. When you take this idea and do it online, it doesn’t sound right. What does this sound to you - “Store important personal information online”? The best way for me to store important information is not to put it online. That is the absolute safest way to keep information. It doesn’t matter how safe an online site claims, if hackers really want to get the info then there is no guarantee that they won’t succeed. Any how I find iLocker interesting as an idea.
No matter how you calculate it, prepaid phone cards still have the cheapest rate compare to the offer given by the fix phone line. I still remember there is one time that I try the offer for the international call for a certain fix line company. It started out pretty good even if the rate is a bit higher. The problem with this kind of offer is that they have a time period. After the offered time, the rate will shoot up high. That’s the time that you started to scream “I should have remember to cancel it”
Finally I decided just to stick with the prepaid phone cards. It makes my life easier and less worried. I don’t need to keep an eye on it as the most that I’ll loss is the amount of money that I bought the card. I don’t have to make phone calls after seeing my phone bills. In fact I won’t be getting any phone bills by using the prepaid phone cards. Life is happier with less payment to make.
Another thing that I like about prepaid phone cards is that it is convenient to use. All I need is the card and I can carry it along in my wallet where ever I go. If I need to make an international call, I just need to fine a phone. I know that nowadays that a lot of café are offering free wireless internet access and I’m able to use my notebook for emails, messenger and video calls. But seriously, it’s easier to just carry a card then a notebook. Besides, if you’re calling your parents, it is much better to do it the old fashion way.
Having a prepaid card as a present to your friend that plans to study aboard is just perfect. You can just give him/her the card and said “Remember to call me”. That’s better than getting flowers, cookies or teddy bear. It’s a way to tell them that you’ll be there to listen if you ever felt lonely out there.
Mobile phone has become popular nowadays. Almost everybody have it. This is one of those things that you need to have in order to survive in big cities. Learning to use a mobile phone is a must. That’s the technology side that we can learn from the mobile phone maker. Mobile phone maker needs to teach customers how to use it. That’s part of their sales services. They even print out a manual for customers just in case people like to study it from a book. Nowadays mobile phone maker even included “Easy to use” as part of their mobile phone design. So we don’t have to worry about don’t know how to use a mobile phone, just let the mobile phone maker deal with it.
What I’m really concern is the new language created due to the birth of mobile phone. I’m talking about the language that is used to send out SMS through mobile phone. I’m telling you it’s not English, not even close. If you really want to communicate with youngsters, you need to learn up. Unfortunately, you can’t learn it from anywhere because nobody teaches and there are no reference books about it. Lucky for you here is one site that is able to translate those text messages into something that we can read – transL8it! The site also enables us to translate our text messages into something that youngsters can read. Check it out.
I’m kind of surprise to watch this video. Sometimes you’ll never know what you really bought. It’s still acceptable for things like battery. What I’m really concern about is food. Especially now that rice supply is insufficient worldwide, we never know how those unethical businessmen will take advantage on this.
TechBeat is site where you can find jobs related to IT/Multimedia in Malaysia. The site is not as famous as jobstreet.com but you still can find some jobs listed. The site is still new as it was launch last year. If you’re looking for a programmer or web designer for your company, you can post for job vacancies through the site. It’s a free service and no charges for that. That’s the only good thing that I can find on the site.
I think TechBeat has the potential to become one of Malaysia Top 100 site. At this moment the site is too empty and lots of work needs to be done on the site. The only attraction is the jobs listing. Only people looking for jobs or companies looking for programmer will be interested of stopping by. It would be better to hired couple of bloggers to post about current issue related to computers, programming and web design in Malaysia. This will make it a site for people searching for jobs and info related to IT/Multimedia in Malaysia. It gives people another good reason to visit the site.
P/S: IT/Multimedia job seekers will also be interested in knowing the free courses offered by Microsoft, HP, Xerox and other software companies.
Dilbert reminds me of a class that I attended when I was in college. I still remember it was a programming class and the lecturer is really into Dilbert. I mean really obsesses with it. Before the lecturer starts to teach, he’ll put up a strip of Dilbert using the projector and share it with the class. That’s what I remember about him rather than the things he teaches. Thanks to him I was introduced to Dilbert.
After so many years reading Dilbert from the newspaper, I finally get to put it into my blog. Dilbert.com is where I can get my own Dilbert widget for my blog. You get to choose widget size from 400x300, 300x250 and 160x300. The widget is compatible with almost all the well known social network like blogspot, facebook, myspace, friendster, Xanga, Multiply, Typepad, LiveJournal and many more. Go grab it. Having to watch Dilbert on your blog should be interesting then reading it from the newspaper.
Did you ever check out your country Alexa top 100 sites? You can easily check it by visiting the Alexa site. There is some information that you can gather from the top 100 list. The most obvious info is that you get to know the favorite sites in that particular country. That means you get to know what the people in that particular country likes. It’s one good way to do market research if you’re planning to do business. You just need to remember that this market is only for people who have access to the internet. Take for example – Malaysia Alexa Top 100 sites. You get to know where Malaysian surfer hangout. Plus if you’re a foreigner that planning to visit or travel to Malaysia, you can check out Malaysia Alexa Top 100 sites for information regarding the country, culture and the people. You’ll also get to know what’s really going on in the county at that moment. If you plan to buy something for a Malaysian friend that you’re going to visit than you really need to check it out. You don’t want to get a gift that he/she doesn’t like but pretend to like it.
Building links to your blog is a must if you really want to get more traffic. It’s an ever continues work that keeps on going and going. Here’s a site that you can add your blog into their million blog list project. The site is trying to get 1,000,000 blogs to list themselves on their site. The project just started on April 10th, 2008 and just reaches No.1139 as I write. You just need couple of seconds to add your blog into it and you have the chance to be chosen as Blog of The Week. That will increase you blog exposure and more people will visit your blog. This blog is listed at No.1107 and that seems to be a good number. You can also wait for the list to reach your favorite number and add your blog. If you have a lot of blogs to add then I suggest you spread them out. That might work better in getting more exposure without others feeling annoying about it.
The first thing that I do everyday right after having my breakfast is to check my email. This has become a routine work without thinking about it. The email that I received each day is about 20~50 and that does not includes spam email. That’s considering to be a lot for me. I even have friends that received more than hundred a day. Each day I send out at least 5 emails. I tried not to send out too many emails as I really considered that as pollution. As emails are free and easy to send out, a lot of people tried to make full use of it. That is how email spamming arises. It’s not a good thing as this causes a lot of junk email going though the network. Can you imagine the email that we send out with important issue or information is flooded together? It won’t be a surprise that some of our emails do not reach their destination. The question is where do these missing emails go?
Previously I post about howstuffworks. Right after that a friend of mine introduces me to this site –WonderHowTo. The site is pretty much the same as HowStuffWorks. The difference is that the site uses Videos to explain things. Currently there are 165 videos and most of them are related to food. The idea of using video to explain things is really a good idea. Unfortunately having only video as the only way to present the information faces a lot of competition. One big competitor will be Youtube. The same information or videos can be easily found in Youtube. Plus Youtube has larger collection of videos online and that makes it the first place people will visits. In order to compete, the site needs something better to stand out from the competition. The most common and effective way that I seen most sites uses is revenue sharing. Just share part of the revenue will members that contribute their videos will sure help boost the site. It’s not something new but it sure is a method that works.
I’m currently using a desktop and a laptop. I do most of my blogging and work with my desktop and when I’m on the road then laptop will be one that I’m using. Sometimes I use both of them at home. That makes 2 screens with different processor. I never thought of having 3 monitors with 1 processor before. Lately it seems to become popular as a lot of people say that it’s easier to work with more than 1 screen. Well, at least you don’t have to switch from 1 window to another for references. The only thing that I can think of having multiple screens is for gaming. Take a look at the next picture and you’ll know why.
When it comes to international call or long distance call, I tend to go for phone cards or calling cards. It’s not that I can’t make the call directly from my phone, just that it is better to use the cards. It might be a little bit troublesome to use the phone cards because you need to dial a lot of numbers before you can get through, but still there are couple of benefits that worth all the trouble. The first benefit is save money. The rates are much lower then calling it directly from your home phone. You can compare it by just checking the telephone book. The rates are listed there. If you’re using phone cards, you’re restricted to use the amount of money that you bought for the services for each cards. That helps to control the money you spend for making calls. Sometimes we just get carried away when having a conversation, especially with our loves one. We always end up taking too much time on the phone. The best thing about phone cards is simple to use. We don’t have to sign any contract to use it. Just pay for the cards. Follow the instruction to push the numbers and we’ll be connected. It’s best for everyone, especially for students that study aboard.
Here’s a site where you can get a shot of espresso comic weekly - Coffee Comix. It’s a site that posts a new comic regarding coffee every Monday morning. You can sign up the newsletter and have the comics delivered to your email box. You can also request for html code to post the comics in your personal blog. That is if your blog or site is a “not for profit”.
There is just one thing that I have to mention about this site. I’m not just having coffee on Monday but every weekday, sometimes even Saturday and Sunday if I have unfinished work to do. I think most of us are having this kind of work schedule. It would be better to have a shot of coffee comic at least for every weekday. That’s 5 comic per week. It may sound a lot of work but many people are having at least a cup of coffee every day. Only a cup of coffee per week for Monday is just not enough.
I post about Zemanta at my other blog few days ago. This tool looks interesting and useful for bloggers, so I decided to post about it here too. Good things should be shared. Zemanta is a tool that enables you to add extra content to your post. Right after you type in your title and original content into your post, related information will be displayed for you to choose and insert to your post. Before that you need to download and install the tool. The tools works under Firefox browser and supports platform like Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad. A sidebar with related content will displayed right after the installation. Check out the demo video for better understanding on how this tool looks like. You’re able to add related stuff like pictures, articles, links and tags using this tool. It should be able to spice up a little bit for your blog when you don’t have much content.
I posted about a site that links to a lot of free TV series, movies and shows last month. I never thought that I found another site that providing the same free stuff. In fact this site is better. Tv-Links has tons of free movies, shows, cartoons, anime and sports. I try it out by searching for my favorite TV series – Gray’s Anatomy and I found the whole new seasons 4. I’ve watch 1 episode and the display is just nice. The only thing that I don’t like is I need to wait for the site to completely load the episode. Depending on the speed of your internet service provider and the speed of the video server, you might need to wait for at least couple of hours before you can enjoy the series. The video quality might not be that good, but at least you get to watch your favorite shows.
