Nothing too great but now you can upload your Mobile Photos to your Yahoo Photos account via certain mobile networks. Funny thing i tested such a system with
Albinator about a year ago which was network independent. Well it seems like i got one before Y! did
The blob of flesh found on the coast of Chilie a year ago, was been perceived as a giant octopus and in some cases a rotting alien. Well, finally the researchers at University of South Florida have termed it as nothing but old whale blubber. They used the good old DNA analysis to reach to this conclusion. Thats a bummer ... i had anticipated it to be some lost old species ...
Well i missed by chance to participate in the
WCG 2004, as the Delhi prelims were held about 5 days ago. If you are from Jaipur, Pune, Kolkotta or Indore then you still have a chance, rush to the games
Indian site.
Now thats some design! No wonder it won the
IDEA 2004 Design Exploration Gold Award. The product i am talking about is the new and very innovative concept by Kang-il Chung from Samsung Electronics who has presented a unique and a practical solution for portable printing,
The Circular Printer. Now going around in circles, is worth it.
Well, its been a long week, I was busy handing over the lead developer post and the copyright's to Albinator Group (the new development team). Manny (Manmeet Arora) will be taking over as the new the Lead Developer of
Albinator. Albinator came into existence in 2001 when my elder sister asked me to build something for her to manage her travel photos via an Album based system. Since then it has grown to be one of the most known scripts in its category.
So does it mean I won't be working on Albinator anymore? Well yes, programming or profit-wise, in any way I won't be able to take part anymore. It's been hard time to let go but I simply wouldn't have time for development in the coming months. Though I will try and keep in touch via the support forums and would try and reply few queries, if and when i get some time. I have had some great moments working on the script but i guess its time to say goodbye, all good things come to an end, well my role has reached its terminal. I will surely miss Albinator but i am sure Manny will prove to be a great leader. Best of luck to team.
It has finally arrived, the brand new and most talked about version of PHP, the v5 ... with a new core of the latest
Zend Engine 2. Though its the final release of the version, it would still take another 7-8 months for the version to reach a stable status; but considering its huge response, it shouldn't be long before its adopted everywhere.
Here is the announcement by Andi Gutmans on
php.net yesterday.
quoting "Andi Gutmans"
Some of the key features of PHP 5 include:
- The Zend Engine II with a new object model and dozens of new features.
- XML support has been completely redone in PHP 5, all extensions are now
focused around the excellent libxml2 library (
http://www.xmlsoft.org/).
- A new SimpleXML extension for easily accessing and manipulating XML as
PHP objects. It can also interface with the DOM extension and vice-versa.
- A brand new built-in SOAP extension for interoperability with Web Services.
- A new MySQL extension named MySQLi for developers using MySQL 4.1 and
later. This new extension includes an object-oriented interface in addition
to a traditional interface; as well as support for many of MySQL's new
features, such as prepared statements.
- SQLite has been bundled with PHP. For more information on SQLite, please
visit their website (
http://www.sqlite.org/).
- Streams have been greatly improved, including the ability to access
low-level socket operations on streams.
- And lots more...
Ok is it just me or the lesson during Computer Science 101 was messed up? My Gmail a/c says: "You are currently using 0 MB (0%) of your
1000 MB.", hmm wasn't Gmail supposed to be 1 GB ? = 1024 MB. Though Gmail has never mentioned 1 GB in its storage space offer (accept in the invitation mail), and I am sure I will not be needing the last 24 mb as yet ... but still technically speaking ...
Microsoft has just released a
technical preview of its new search technology. As per MS there are about 1 billion Web pages in the index. The search preview is purely for beta testing and doesn't guarantee speed or any other performance level. Yea, I agree it took about 3 secs to find my name itself. Though with another keyword it was lightning fast. I guess it is really in Beta or my name is getting some weight after all
...
It will be replacing the existing MSN Search, I liked the options, though bare minimum ... Will keep checking it for updates.
"Why is this never-ending obsession for an invitation to
beta test something which eventually will be free of cost", asked my yet not so geek friend. Well, I had no answer but that's been the case for most geeks out there (ahem, including me, ahem). A recent article at
Wired.com,
My Left Arm for a Gmail Account, says it all about the Gmail craze. As someone posted on
Slashdot, "its a way for the net dorks to get revalidated...", really, is it just that?
Now that Yahoo and Rediff have started giving comparable storage space accounts and MSN will be joining them soon, then why is the Gmail craze still on. Well, the key thing here is that they all have their existing users, who have already taken almost all possible combinations of a human name. After all 99% of us don't have unique names. I am pretty sure Osma Bil Laden won't even get his choice email id now.
So, basically the only logical reason I can think of is that the rush to get a 1 GB email a/c with your name preference before someone else does. No wonder initially there were bids running into huge numbers at
eBay for an early invite. Now as more invites pour in, that craze is cooling off, right? Yea, sure, there are still too many gmail-starved out there. These guyz are going crazy at Free Gmail Invite give-out websites. The webmasters of these sites are practically working full-time to be able to hold the huge traffic coming in. So I went and reviewed some of the most popular ones:
Gmail Swap
As the name suggests, its a place where you can basically put up anything for an invite. Developed by a dude named Sean Michaels, the site has offers from
shining new digital cameras to simple a
Christmas card every Christmas to the infamous,
My left arm. Though on second thought I just might go for the card offer, i haven't received a real card since these ecard sites started. (P.S. before anyone mails me, i don't have any extra gmail invites yet).
Gmail Machine
A random number Lotto, gives out an invite to anyone who gets a specified number out 100,000 randomized ones. So basically the only skill you need to win here is to know how to hit the refresh button and basically have no life. Last week I tried my luck on the website and it was being practically hit by more than 1000s of visitors every second. Now there's a million dollar idea to boast the traffic of your site. Though these hits are kinda useless as most of them aren't unique, but I just think the guy who made this Site, (Scott) is a pretty intelligent being, as one thing is for sure, he is getting some real publicity and I won't be surprised if he is approached to put ads before the random number is displayed.
Gmail Chain offer
This one is the simplest, just plead or according to the site promise to beta test and create chain of gmail invites. But make sure you pass it to your friend to create a chain, or else!, well they can't do anything about it then
. I posted a simple beta testing promise to check out what happens, well nothing has happened for about a week now. There were almost 500 posts above me, so I am expecting my invitation anytime around 2-3 months after Gmail's public release.
There are loads of other ones going up everyday, just try a simple search on google to be surprised. Contests ranging from Designing Templates to basic Beatles quizzes, there are just too many of them. The contests are easy and very frequent, though it seems getting a real invite might just not be.
btw, Sean, Scott, got any spare Invites for me?
I just love the user-interface, its very user-friendly. Nifty features to ease one's WebMail experience. Personally, I never use WebMail from their designated sites, for me if it ain't on POP then I am not for it. That's simply because the whole appeal of these webmail websites is very restricted.
Well thats old news, Gmail just is different, from Keyboard shortcuts to email remembering clues it has all the neat tricks for you to make a quick transition from your email client. Also, worth mentioning is the very innovative use of the classic threading display for their Chat like-arrangement for all the follow-up mails. Also, I like the way they display small quotes if your current folder is empty, neat stuff.
