Google is buggy right now. It even tagged itself as an unsafe website. Rumors have been spreading that the issue’s scope is worldwide — this I can’t confirm myself.
The bug shows up when opening an entry from the search engine results page.
Translation of the error above. Warning- visiting this website may harm your computer.
The recently-installed Internet access in the dorm has brought much fun and comfort for all of us. Before, we had to go to the University Computer Center to access the Internet. Worse, it was not available on Sundays, and was only accessible till 7pm for the rest of the week.
This evening, Jeff of the adjacent room tried to google my given name, Conrad Miguel. The results page was filled by pages and profiles made by me. I got excited when he told me about an article by someone with my name on it.
It was a blog post from my blockmate Nathan, titled “Kakalase ko si CatWoman, si Conrad Miguel (the Web Celeb), nakita na namin si “Sarah”, at naligaw ako sa CS subject ko” posted last June 14, 2008, start of the school year. It shared Nathan’s experiences in his first days in college. Here’s an excerpt from his blog:
Kaklase ko rin si Conrad Miguel. Well, di siya artista, cguro di nio xa kilala, ako, di ko xa kilala dati, pero nung sinabi ng prof namin na blogger xa, at nalaman kay michelle na WEB CELEB xa, nagulat ako. He pays his own fees sa server nia, and ang laptop nia, SWIVEL lang naman.
I did not expect that someone would actually blog that I was his classmate. Moreover, I wasn’t expecting that there were people who considered me as a Web Celebrity – but they did. This reminds me of my first day in CS11 (my major class) when my CS11 instructor recognized me right before I introduced myself to the class. Pretty cool, eh.
Reading the article drove me to look for more articles. Here’s another interesting one.
Cool! WikiPilipinas is a Philippine-centric encyclopedia in wiki format.
Who would expect that my website would have an article there? Most of the contents of the article, though, came from my very own about page. It’s sort of outdated ’cause according to the article I am still an incoming freshie in UP Diliman.
I’m tempted to share more, but I guess I have to limit it. Here’s the last one.
Honestly, this one was caught my attention the most. One blockmate of mine and other members of the CandyMag forum talked about me and my attendance in class. My blockmate was sharing on how stubborn I was back then; on skipping my Math class and on how late I entered the same class (entering a 10:00 to 11:15 class 15 minutes before dismissal). Some people even asked if I passed the subject which I did.
Just a defense, despite my stubborneity (for sure, such word doesn’t exist but I know you know what I mean), I still manage to get concerned on my grades.
And that’s me on the World Wide Web. Have a nice week!
“It’s fine to say ‘don’t use Internet Explorer’ for now, but other browsers may well find themselves in a similar situation”, these were the exact words of Darien Graham-Smith, PC Pro security editor.
Recently, Microsoft discovered a new security hole (vulnerability) to all released versions of Internet Explorer. Being the default Internet browser on most Windows workstations, this issue undoubtedly placed Internet Explorer to the spotlight.
The security hole was discovered by hackers before Microsoft did. In return, malicious websites that install programs that steal passwords for online games were already on the cloud (Internet) during Microsoft’s discovery. Even nongamers should be worried about this as the same security hole could have been used to steal more sensitive information.
Even though Microsoft already released a patch to the vulnerability, not everyone is vigilant enough to download it. I guess Microsoft has to give this issue more publicity. Internet cafes and maintainers of public Internet terminals should know the issue as the general public’s safety is on stake.
Personally, I’ve quit using Internet Explorer 5 years ago. I’ve been overwhelmed with the large volume of security holes that install malicious software. I switched to Mozilla Firefox and was very satisfied.
Related reads:
After performing a full format on my Windows Vista partition (I have a separate one for Linux), I reinstalled the usual Windows applications I use — specifically those software I use for freelance projects that doesn’t have a good Linux alternative. Obviously, I did not settle with my project essentials. I still installed my favorite time wasters; Instant Messaging software, games, etc. I installed the latest version of Google Talk and the Vista-version of Yahoo Messenger.
Choosing the “Yahoo Messenger for Vista” instead of the old version 8 (which had no ads embedded to it) I always loved was one of the greatest reversible mistake I did. Yahoo Messenger for Vista, was indeed, a crap — worse than the previous versions of Yahoo Messenger.
Yahoo Messenger for Vista is a memory hog (memory pig, memory hoarder). Running the program is almost the same as running a decent PopCap or Yahoo game. On a rather average machine, everything just turns sluggish once it logs in. But on a pretty fast one, it’s doing okay.
It has a trying-hard eye candy interface. The term trying hard is there as eye candy is not a right term basing on it’s definition that is visual images that are pleasing to see but are intellectually undemanding (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). I bet Yahoo’s designers tried their best to make it as attractive as possible; but mind you I was never astonished by it. The heavy typeface applied on the items of the messenger list just suck, plus the bad choice of font.
The notification popups are no less than annoying. Previous non-Vista versions of Yahoo Messenger has this small notification popup whenever a buddy signs in or out. This feature has not been removed in the Vista version, but instead made it a lot bigger and more distracting. It just annoys me the way it is, I hope Yahoo would revert it back to the smaller ones on the next releases.
The visual effects were good. The effects are attractive and soothes the eyes. The windows are non-rectangular; unlike the typical windows we have. Translucency (partial transparency) is also evident especially whendealing with popup menus.
Most of the features are not outrightly visible. To change the chat text font, one still has to click the intuitive “A” font icon on the conversation window. To add a friend or perform other contact-related options, one still has to click the very unintuitive downward pointing arrow. Everything is unfamiliar.
Given all those observations, an assumption that Yahoo tried to concentrate on the visual appeal to the extent of compromising stability (yes, it’s unstable plus it’s nature of being a memory hog) can be concluded.
They should also consider putting the essential features outright on the window and not hide them behind menus. Yahoo should redesign the said application putting balance on the visuals and stability.
Woot!
I just came home (dorm, my second home) from a Google event at Manila B of Shangri-La Makati. In contrast to most of the events I attend, I went to the venue all alone this time since the slots were too limited that I was not able to tag anyone to go with me.
The Google event was their launching Power User Launch of their new product Google Map Maker. In a conversation with John Pinette, Google’s Director of Communications in Asia Pacific, Philippines is the only South East Asian region where Google Map Maker has been officially launched – although it is already deployed in some countries such as in Vietnam. Continue reading “Google Map Maker: the Power User Launch” »
While checking the trends of the keyword “UPCAT“, I noticed that Google spelled Muntinlupa as “Muntinglupa”. Muntinglupa ‘s literal Tagalog translation is little land. Wahehehe.
I hope Google’d correct this. 
LOSER [ang post na ito]!
Smart Bro is a wireless internet service provided by Smart Telecommunications, one major player in the Philippine mobile services arena.
Smart Bro connections differ in two types: the fixed antenna and modem usually installed above the house and the USB 3.5G modem, the more handy and truly mobile option.
I happened to use the second type, the USB 3.5G modem, which is actually capable of using 2G (the old-school voice and text), GPRS, EDGE, 3G and 3.5G (HSDPA) signals. I borrowed the 3.5G modem from a high school classmate. I tested the connection at Kalayaan Residence Hall of University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City Philippines.
Specifically, I used Smart Bro’s service in my room which is located on the basement and at the newly renovated lobby. First off, I’ll discuss my internet experience on my room.
The connection was virtually dead even if it was connected to Smart’s servers. A high school batchmate earlier reported that she can’t connect to the Internet. The inner geek in me went out and suspected the DNS server to be the culprit. I switched to OpenDNS and tadaaa, it worked. Continue reading “The Smart Bro Experience” »
Hey guys, here in this post you’ll read how I love A Small Orange. If you don’t want to read the entire post, you may skip to what happened to me today with them.
It was the rage of Dreamhost users; the time when downtimes as long as four hours FREQUENTLY happened. That time I decided to move on a new host — good thing A Small Orange do have a good and cool web design (even if it’s simple). Their design made me remembered them when I needed a new host most.
As an impulsive buyer I am now, I swiftly checked out their plans. Then picked the right plan for me — added it to my shopping cart and checked out. Voila, I was officially the latest A Small Orange account holder that time.
Uhm, I got a $5 a month plan which featured 400MB web space and 10GB bandwidth. The per-capita cost (cost per megabyte or gigabyte bandwidth/webspace) of my plan was far more than I had in Dreamhost. I do have about 240+ GB webspace and 5TB (that’s 5,000 GB) bandwidth. But it was no big deal since I was not able to utilize all my resources in Dreamhost. The ASO plan gave me something that best suited my current traffic.
As most of the current web hosts, they support PHP — both 4 and 5. Also with MySQL 4 or 5, Ruby-on-Rails and a lot more. You may request them to add special modules for you if you need them.
Reliability-wise, they are FAAAAAR better than Dreamhost. Although I experience downtimes, they were mostly fast — some were even just seconds while the average is 10 minutes (but the longest was two hours) as compared to Dreamhost’s at least an hour downtimes.
I usually contact them when my site is down, and they respond right away and fix it in a snap. Continue reading “A Small Orange Rocks” »
Internet’s global invasion must come with localization.
Google recently localized their Google Webmasters Central Tools to four more languages; supporting up to 26 languages to press date.
The four languages made available today are Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi and Thai.
Now, there are more reasons for webmasters to use this tool. There’s no need for non-English webmasters to suffer the pain of understanding jargon (for them) English terms.
I admit that I am a one big Alexa fan despite the many criticisms surrounding it (from bitter people). So, as my usual weekly routine I checked my Alexa ranking.
It read 378,153. What?? 378,153 from a dazzling 300,715 last week? What the heck! So I concluded that the sudden plunge was caused by my gradual loss of traffic.
Then, I saw this cute button saying Our rankings have changed! Click here for more info. Thank God I found the answer.
With Alexa’s New Ranking System, it is more reliable as it collects aggregate data from different sources. They have also improved their methodology to maintain consistency and integrity. This move will most probably result to a better-than-ever Alexa ranking!
Congrats Alexa for than even though you gave my ranking a huge plunge!