by ·Comments Off on 101 Websites worth seeing before you die. Really? (part 1 of 4)
best websites

credit: Salvatore Vuono

The February 2011 issue of Maximum PC has an article touting 101 websites you need to see before you die.  In this article, I will post the 101 links along with my opinion about whether it is really worth seeing.  This will be part 1 of 4 parts since there are 101 sites after all.

  1. http://ww.wechoosethemoon.org – Yes.  Make sure to see this site before you die.  The Apollo 11 mission to the moon is probably one of “the” greatest human accomplishments of the 20th century.  This site shows you the various stages Apollo 11 had to go through to land on the moon and return to earth.  The combination of animation and real footage gives you a good feel for that event.
  2. http://personas.media.mit.edu/ – Maybe.  It scours the Internet for information about the name you enter at the site.  When done it comes up with a graphical representation of your known persona.  You might as well see what kind of legacy online you will leave behind when you die.
  3.  http://www.wefeelfine.org – No.  It is a very visually luring site.  I’m not sure how it figures out the various information it is showing, but I imagine it has done some web searches on the web and has consolidated that information for visual representation.  Its content is definitely visually entertaining.
  4. http://soytuaire.labuat.com – No.  This site shows another way at listening to music…by doodling on the screen as various visual effects overlay on our doodle.  Interesting but not enough to waste your time on.
  5. http://false.jp – No.  Good eye candy, but could be just a waste of time.
  6. http://www.shapethehive.com – No.  It is one way to leave your mark on line; but I wouldn’t say it is really something to see before you die.  It is one interesting asynchronous collaboration site with visual effects, but I don’t see the point.
  7. http://us.akinator.com – Yes.  This is an amazing site.  I imagine it uses the power of the Internet to figure out who you are thinking of.  When I started playing it, I thought it would not guess who I was thinking of.  To my surprise, it guessed it and it even showed a picture of the character!
  8. http://www.dionaea-house.com – No.  This site is like reading other people’s email.  As with anything, it is hard to get interested in the site since it doesn’t give you a clue about what it is about, nor does it try to tell you what story it is trying to convey.  It’s like watching a movie from somewhere in the middle.  You don’t have a point of reference and can’t really tell where the story may be going.  So, I would skip this site, for sure.
  9. http://www.linerider.com – Maybe…if you like drawing and animation.  This site provides you with interesting drawing tools to create a path for the line rider.  In some of the sample works, some users have gone through some length to create the most elaborate line path for the line rider.  Interesting, but can be a time sink if you start tinkering with it.
  10. http://prettyloaded.com – No, absolutely no–unless maybe you like watching grass grow.  This site provides you a collection of “Loading” animations.  “Loading” animations are typically shown to show that something is loading.  This is typically what you watch, when you are waiting for something to load.
  11. http://anasomnia.com – Maybe.  Interesting animation of someone’s dream representation.  Turn off the light and see what happens.  It seems to just keep going on; but if you press the arrow on the top left, you’ll wake up the girl who is supposedly dreaming.   The images are basically line drawn images of some very abstract shapes and figures.
  12. http://www.stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net – Yes.  This site gives you a different perspective of the various state of the union speeches given by all presidents.  It can give insight into what the focus was of that time.  It even rates the president’s grade level for the speech given.
  13. http://hubblesite.org – Yes.  This site shows you some of the most amazing pictures of heavenly bodies as seen through the eyes of the Hubble telescope.  The pictures here will make you realize how seemingly insignificant we are in the big scheme of things.
  14. http://www.eyezmaze.com – No.  There are better things to do on the web than play games.  These games are time sinks.
  15. http://www.mcdlr.com/bsod – Yes.  You need to use this site to at least play a joke on someone at work.  If they are a techie and they happen to be running Windows 7, they’ll probably scratch their head.  Windows 7 doesn’t do BSOD!  If you play this trick on a non-techie, they won’t know any better regardless of which operating system they are using.  They will know, however, that something might have gone wrong.
  16. http://atom.smasher.org/error – Yes, if you like playing practical jokes on tech support, this site would be a good one to visit.
  17. http://mrdoob.com/lab/javascript/effects/ie6 – No.  Nothing seems to show–just white space.  What a waste.
  18. http://www.lmgtfy.com – No.  This is just an extra shell that will record what you typed and then transfer it to google’s search.
  19. http://blublu.org – Maybe.  This is an interesting site.  Viewing the site is like viewing someone’s scrap book.  The presentation is pretty easy to follow.
  20. http://www.mrwong.de/myhouse – Yes.  It’s probably a good idea to check out the world’s tallest virtual building before you die.  The author was pretty creative in creating such a site.  The project has since been closed, but apparently the site is still getting lots of visits.
  21. http://www.360cities.net/london-photo-en.html – Yes.  If you’ve never been to London, you can see a lot with this very high resolution (80 gigapixel) image!
  22. http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com – No.  It is however a very interesting work of animated art.
  23. http://milliondollarhomepage.com – Yes, absolutely.  This is an example of how anyone can make it big on the Internet.  Just the right idea, and” BAM!!!” money rolls in.  The originator of this site made a million dollars selling pixels from his pixelated homepage.
  24. http://www.archive.org/web/web.php – Yes.  If you have time, you can see how the Internet has evolved through the web pages that have been archived here.
  25. http://www.cleverbot.com – No.  This is a site that looks like a search engine, but it is really an example of an online artificial intelligence (AI).  This reminds me of an old AI-like program, the name which escapes me, that existed way back in the late 1970s.  You can ask it questions, it responds.  It asks you questions, and you respond.  The program looks intelligent, but after a couple of exchanges, it isn’t.
  26. http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com – Yes.  This has some over 500 snippets of wisdom.

Look for the next 25 on my next posting.

by ·Comments Off on How to Get Free Website Hosting

Already got a domain name?  I know, I just bought one recently, and it only cost me $4.99 per year!  That is cheap.  Wouldn’t it be great if you can take that domain and use it on a free website hosting service?  If you are interested in learning how to do this, then read on.

Now-a-days, you can buy a domain name anywhere.  And like with anything, you always want to get the best deal on it and not necessarily host it where you bought it because of hosting cost.

If you are like me, you try to save where you can.  In this case, you can save on website hosting if you do it through 000webhost.com.  The good thing about using a hosting service like this is they provide the primary and secondary name servers you need to have the Internet know of your web site.  In this case, theirs are as follows:

  • ns01.000webhost.com
  • ns02.000webhost.com

You’ll have to note the above as you will need to enter them at the site where you bought your domain name.  For example, at GoDaddy.com, you’ll have to log into your account, then go to the Domain Manager page; there you can set the name servers to the name servers listed above.

At 000webhost.com, you just need to sign up for a free hosting service, and specify the domain name you own, and you are pretty much good to go.

By doing this, the cost of your website which uses your domain name is pretty much the cost of keeping the domain name.  If it costs $4.99 a year, then it only costs you no more than 42 cents a month for the domain and the hosting service combined!


Free Website Hosting

by ·Comments Off on A White iPhone, Woohooo!!!
An ad as seen on Apple.com

An ad as seen on Apple.com

A few days ago I received an email from Apple.com with their announcement of the availability of the white iPhone. Only Apple can create such a big hoopla around the availability of such an essential feature such as color.

I wouldn’t be surprised if die-hard Apple fans would line up to get a white iPhone.  Some of my friends are figuring out the Apple marketing scam.  They dupe their loyal and die-hard customers into buying a new iPhone through the incremental introduction of features.  Here are some of the most obvious examples:

  • The original iPhone didn’t have a camera facing the user.  The iPhone 4 added that feature.
  • The original iPhone was in silver/black color; now there is white!
  • The original iPhone had its buttons located in a certain position; the new iPhone made some slight design changes, causing the buttons to move by a  few millimeters–enough so that you can’t use your existing or current iPhone cases with the new iPhone 4 phones.

Here’s what I predict Apple will do to squeeze more moola from its loyal customer base.  In a future release of iPhone, Apple will include or offer:

  • A micro SD slot; NOT! Memory limitation or restriction is what keeps users coming back for more iPhones.
  • Flash player-capable iPhone
  • Standard USB interface
  • A 100% silver colored iPhone.

That’s all I can think of right now.  If you have other ideas to add, please post in the comments section.

by ·Comments Off on Internet in my Daily Life

created by jscreationzs

created by jscreationzs

Since the emergence of the Internet in the 1990s, it has evolved from being a simple means to communicate via e-mail, chat (IRC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC), and retrieve information.  It has since evolved into something that is now part of almost everybody’s lives.  Having lived through that evolution, how I use the Internet has evolved as well.  I went from simply using it as a tool for downloading device drivers (via FTP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ftp) to using it for my day to day activities!  Here’s a breakdown of how I use the Internet today:

  1. E-mail–for keeping in touch with people and receiving various notifications
  2. News–why subscribe when you can get them free on the Internet
  3. Social networking–I keep in touch with friends and family this way
  4. Watch TV shows–goodbye to cable TV
  5. Watch movies–goodbye to cable TV
  6. Pay bills–I save a lot of first class mail postage by paying online
  7. Download software–I try before I buy
  8. Banking–no more lines or waiting in lines, I bank online
  9. Investing–I buy and sell stocks and maintain my 401K this way
  10. Real Estate–look for and research properties at the comfort of your home office
  11. Dictionary–no more hard copy dictionaries, I just look up word meanings online
  12. People finder–find long lost friends or high school buddies
  13. Video/slideshow creation–create videos and slides shows with ease
  14. Picture/video storage–save and access pictures and videos
  15. Shopping–shop, compare, and buy stuff online
  16. Earn passive income–many ways and many places online to do this
  17. Personal blog–I express my opinion and interests through my personal blog
  18. Photo development–everything is digital, including the process of getting photos developed
  19. Business presence–people look to the Internet to find out about businesses
  20. Maintain professional connections–professionally network online
  21. Job search–I found my last job through an online search!
  22. Maps/directions–no need to buy maps; I get directions and maps online
  23. Navigation–the Internet, in conjunction with GPS technology gets me turn by turn directions
  24. Listen to music
  25. Online phonebook–who needs a paper phonebook any more; save trees.

In the second half of the 1990s, I was working for a high tech company called Network General Corporation (http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/14/14226.html).  I didn’t start using the Internet there until around 1996, the year its commercialization became more prevalent.  At around that time, e-mail, file transfer via FTP, and information access were  the biggest use of the Internet.

Fast forward to present…

How I use the Internet has totally evolved.  My use of it is completely intertwined with my life and day-to-day activities.  Here’s a typical day.

When I wake up in the morning I go for a run.  I use one of those things from Nike called Nikeplus.  When I finish, I take the little gadget that logs my run and plug it into one of my computer’s USB ports.  It uploads my running data to nikerunning.nike.com where my running record is maintained.  I’ve also tied that to my facebook account so that a facebook app logs an entry into my profile.

Thereafter I read the latest news through Google News; then check for any new e-mails through Google’s gmail and Yahoo’s e-mail.  From there, I go to Facebook for any new messages or postings from relatives, friends, and favorite pages.

On occasions, I have bills due to be paid.  For example, my city utility bill can be paid via the Internet.  I simply visit the city’s web site, go down to the finance section where one can log in to pay their bill.  I’ve saved countless amount of postage by paying my bills this way.  Besides, I don’t even have to use a check.  Everything can be paid using a credit card!  On occasion, when our checking account is low on balance, I would access our other bank accounts and transfer funds.  The transfers would occur within one business day.  Very convenient, and all that without having to stand in line.

When I have time, during early morning hours or late at night, I do a bit of writing.  Since I like to write, I thought that I might as well earn a few bucks while I’m at it.  To that end, I write various articles online at sites that pay writers to post short articles on their site.  I write for Helium.com, Bukisa.com, infobarrel.com, ehow.com, brighthub.com, hubpages.com,  and on my own blog site freetechzone.com.  All the money I make there goes to an online account on paypal.com or to my adsense account on google.com.  After a certain period of time, I actually collect enough money there to buy stuff online!  The good thing about this little gig is that even when I’m not doing anything, my articles earn me money!  By the way, sometimes while I write, I connect to pandora.com and listen to some online streaming music.  I simply identify a particular artist, and it plays music from that artist and others with similar styles of music.

At work, I sometimes have to visit a site that is several miles away from my office.  I use google maps to help me find a route to get there.  On my smart phone, I have a built in GPS which uses google maps to show my actual location, the route I’m following, and the estimate of how many more miles before I reach my destination.  Because of google maps, I don’t even buy maps anymore.  Who needs maps when one can get the entire world’s map through the Internet!

When my wife and I get a chance to relax, we sometimes watch movies or TV episodes.  We use to have cable TV, but not anymore.  Since 2010, we’ve been cable TV free.  We watch movies and TV episodes via the Internet.  Hulu.com has many movies and TV programming episodes you can watch for free, and if you have a projector and a big white wall to use as a projection screen, you can have one heck of a big screen to watch movies or TV shows.  If you purchase their Hulu Plus offering, you can watch even more recent TV episodes.  I’m not sure how it differs with regards to movies though.  YouTube.com has also come a long way.  They too offer movies (http://www.youtube.com/movies) and TV episodes (http://www.youtube.com/tv).  Most recently, we discovered Netflix.com.  They too offer streaming video service over the Internet.  If you purchase service from them, you can get watch relatively new movies, and TV episodes.

My family run a business.  We teach martial arts.  Like most business, we too have an online presence. We get leads through this web site.  When people look for a Taekwondo school in Stockton, California, (i.e. go to google.com and do a search for “taekwondo stockton ca”) our schools shows up at the very top!  I built that web site, and with the help of the Internet we can reach customers that would otherwise miss our street sign.

The last thing I would like to note is that I found my current job though an Internet job search.  I used the Internet to make my job search very easy and convenient.  Had I not done that, my search would have been limited to news paper clippings, actual business visits, and word of mouth knowledge of openings.  Today, you can set alerts that would send you emails telling you of the latest job openings.  You don’t have to look for them, as job openings come to you!

With the fast upsurge in smart-phone technology and its integration with applications tied to the Internet within the last 2 years, expect more amazing things to come.  As things stand now, the power of the Internet is no longer limited to your desktop.  You can be anywhere, and have access to the Internet and everything that can be done through it.  Isn’t the Internet and technology amazing?

If you have comments about how you use the Internet in your daily life, please share it here.

by ·Comments Off on Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day to my better half!!!

Thanks to the power of Animoto.com, I was able to create the above online animated greeting for that very special someone…my wife.

by ·Comments Off on Free Maximum PC Magazines online!

Can’t afford to subscribe or buy technology magazines? Guess what, if you have Internet access and you don’t mind reading PDF files, and you don’t mind your content being about 2 to 3 months old, then you can get them for free!

Maximum PC is one such magazine who provides archives of issues from their web site. Just head on down to their PDF archive page and you’ll see what I mean.

by ·Comments Off on Free Financial Education
E*Trade Free Online Financial Education

E*Trade Free Online Financial Education

I’ve been with E*Trade for some time now–over a decade, as a matter of fact.  One thing about that company, they provide a lot of value add.

In this short posting, I provide a link to some of their free online financial education.  Check it out at:  http://www.etrade.com/education.

Be advised that because this is their own site, they may illustrate matters using their own product offering–nevertheless, the information can be generalized.

by ·2 Comments

Today, I tried to see if I could use one of my eFax account to fax a document to my credit union.  It turns out that they no longer provide the client software and it looks like they charge for everything now.

Free Fax Service

Free Fax Service

So I did a little searching and found FaxZero.com.  They provide both free and premium FAX services.  Of course, being the free-seeking person that I am, I opted to use the free service.  And guess what?  It did the job!

It was very simple.  You just need to make sure that the document you wish to FAX is already in electronic format–e.g. in PDF, JPG, DOC, or some other well known format.

When you setup to send, all you need to have are the following information:

Sender info

  • Your name
  • Your email address

Receiver info

  • Name
  • Company name
  • Fax number

You also have to enter some confirmation code.  This is to help the site protect itself from SPAMMERS.

That’s it!  You don’t have to register, or anything.

After I you click the Send Free FAX button, you will be asked to confirm by checking looking for their confirmation email and clicking a link there to actually send the fax.  Once you send the fax, you will receive another email stating that your fax has been sent.

For the price, you can’t beat this service.

by ·Comments Off on Earn or make money online

Yesterday while driving, I heard that there is a way to make a couple of bucks…or $4 to be exact…by selling your services online.

There is a web site that does just that.  It is called www.fiverr.com.  Through that site, people can basically buy and sell service.  Those selling, sell what they have to offer for $5.  Those buying, purchase a service for $5.

In the end, the buyer gets something for $5, the seller get $4, and Fiverr.com gets $1!  So who said you can’t make money online; with Fiberr.com you can.