Linora Low » google

I WANT Google Nexus One!

Linora Low — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:09:55 +0000

***Please please permit me to go all geekly on this post and don’t mind the occasional drool.***

I’ve already gotten myself a Nokia N97 last year. I was waiting for that phone to come out and i got really excited bout the specs. However, yes.. i know, the phone i was harping on has been dethroned from my list. Short from the fact that i own it, of course

I’m now toying with the idea of getting the Google Nexus One. Oh my GOSH!!! After checking it out on the Google Nexus One site, checking out reviews on youtube. I’m a sold bunny. I believe in android!

The only annoying part of the entire image above, is the little grey box that says “Sorry, the Nexus One is not available in your country.”

This was the video that had me completely sold. Now I just wish that Google Nexus will come to my stores soon. If not.. well there is always Singapore. Which according to Saadkamal price of Google Nexus in my ringgit currency would be

$529, Shipping DHL – $28.32 + there is a 7% vat in SG which is $37. SO total = US $595 (Aprox – RM 2,000). 4-7 days..

After going around online and doing some virtual reserach (since i couldn’t get my hands on the real thing) I landed on Youtube. I want to express my utmost appreciation for Lisa from MobileTechReview.

She gave a wonderful breakdown of the phone which you can watch here.

And after that what i really wanted to know was whether I could live without a keypad in the future if i do consider getting the Google Nexus. According to Lisa, the other phone in the market which is similar in terms of OS, functionality and roughly in size is the Motorola Droid. The only big difference is that The Droid has a keypad. Something which i’m still very much comfortable with. Here is the difference between the two.

I’m still a keypad person, however i do like the look of the Google Nexus. I may complain about how i can’t live without a keypad. It’s just a matter of getting used to. Playing around with my Ipod Touch, typing isn’t so bad. As long as you cut your nails and there is the option for the keyboard to be shown in landscape format, i think typing on a keyboardless gadget is reasonable.

There were some comparisons on the Iphone too. I have been getting suggestions to wait for the new Iphone 4 which will be out soon too. Well i hope Apple will get it right especially after their iPad let down. For me anyway.

Share and Bookmark easily with Clipmarks and Ibrii

Linora Low — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:03:32 +0000

Back in the day, there was the pencil and paper. For taking down notes.

Back in the day, there was a thing called the bookmark. For dog earring where you left off in a book or in your research or whatever.

Now in the present, we still use those. In my generation though, there is a thing called the internet. The mother of all information providing in a snap. When you come across all this information, you would like to have a way to notedown and bookmark and hopefully share your finds.

And that ladies and gentlemen is where Clipmarks and Ibrii come in.

I came across Clipmarks about 3 years back.

The first time i did, i was fascinated. What i love bout the concept of Clipmarks? You know how when you surf around on the web, there maybe some sites whereby not all the content is something that you require. Perhaps only a portion is what you really need or interests you. Could be a photo, a line or a video. Whatever. Bookmarking is great but i personally would like to note down why i bookmark a link in the first place. With Clipmarks you can do just that.

Originally with Clipmarks you need to install it into your browser, only then you will be able to clip your interesting materials. But now since Clipmarks has just affiliated themselves with Amplify. It’s just a bookmark click away.

Now comes along Ibrii.

I’m sure Ibrii has been around for a while, however i only got my hands on it just about a couple of days ago. And i have to say i love it!

This is what Ibrii will look like on any browser. A column on the right will pop open and from there just start jotting down your notes. Drag images straight off from any website. Highly the text, bold, underline, do whatever you wish.

So far online.. these are the only two services that i have found that provides this kind of social and convenient bookmarking/clipping/not taking. But if anyone knows anymore please let me know.

Difference


Can be installed on IE and Firefox	Installed on IE, Firefox, Chrome
Has it’s own widget	N/A
Social sharing ability	Social Sharing Ability
Friendly	Friendly (can be buggy cause it’s still new)
Registration required	Registration not required

Now the biggest difference between the two, to me anyway is that ibrii, allows you to continuously edit one particular note. Where as Clipmarks, once you’ve saved it, that’s it. You can’t add on more. With Ibrii, even after saving i can still add on more stuff into my note.

Oh and a lil trivia. Ibrii was actually set to replace Google Notebook (also something i used before and thoroughly enjoyed)

I still like using Clipmarks, since that’s where i started. But since everything of mine is now on Google Chrome, I think Ibrii has won my heart. Until of course clipmarks decides to create a Chrome extension

Do give them both a try, i’m quite certain your the sharing if information will be a lot more interesting.

Google Made Me Do Maths

Linora Low — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:12:00 +0000

All i wanted to do was just to send an email. That’s all. Not really asking much. Then all of a sudden I get this lil pop up. asking me to do maths.. Maths! And they only gave me 60 seconds to do all those math questions. Yeah yeah, 60 seconds is a lot. I’m just a lazy. lol. So in order to ensure that I’m not going to fall asleep while sending an email, they decide to create a little thinking game. Come on!! I just wanna send my mail lol. Actually this was my fault, I think I must’ve enabled the function in the settings. Haha Google has tons of things happening it’s lab. This is an old one but take a look at Mail Goggles.

Happy Birthday Gmail

Linora Low — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:40:50 +0000

Guess who’s Birthday is today!! Today when i woke up, I was amused to see Gmail had changed their logo again. But this time I saw a cake with a number 5 candle on top of it. Hehe. April the 3rd happens to be Gmail’s birthday. It’s been 5 years since the giant Google shared to the world what was suppose to be an internal application, became a huge resourceful app that is now used by millions all over the world. I remember my first time when I heard about Gmail. I was pretty comfortable using my hotmail account. Then I found out that there was a new email client that provided 1 gb worth of email space. Ooo I had to check this out and get my own account. After much pestering my friend into giving me an invite. I finally got one. And I’ve been using Gmail ever since! So here’s wishing a Happy Birthday to Gmail. Who has made my email life so much easier and faster! You can read their post on Gmail Has Turned 5. But if you want a history recap. Read their days of of how it all started on their Gmail Press Release 2004.

Blacklisted By Google

Linora Low — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:12:36 +0000

This is one of the worst things that could happen to anyone who owns a site. My friend has been having some issues with a website I helped build for him a while back. What happened was about a month ago. He messaged me stating that his website couldn’t be entered to due to some malware distribution problem. I checked back with the hosting provider and he said that I may have to replace all the files because any of them could’ve been infected. Well I removed all the files but it still stated that site was still considered as a blacklisted site by google. Then I tried another thing. So here’s what you do when you have a website that is blacklisted by Google.

First of all go straight to your Google Account here at this address https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount
Sign in for the Webmaster Tools
Add a site that you want to send in for reviewing. Once you do you need to verify the site. To verify a site it’s very easy to do.

Click on the link asking you to verify the site and from there select the method of how you want to verify it. I prefer uploading a html file.
Once that’s done send a review to Google stating the reason the review. Requst for the site to be unblocked here.
While you wait for their actions to unblacklist a site. Go into your ftp account and either remove all the files or clear up the ones that are possibly infected. Upload the files from your computer to your ftp again.

Now all you have to do is wait. Surprising I did all this yesterday and today my friends site it now back to normal and running smoothly. If you ever have a site blacklisted just contact google immediately via you google account. Don’t waste time doing it, you never know when your site is your business.

Download a Book from Google Book

Linora Low — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:10:52 +0000

Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy Google? Well if i have I’m saying it again. Google just has all sorts of stuff that makes the net all the more worthwhile to browse and be inspired/ motivated when you find new stuff. Google Books is one of my recently favourite places to visit. Especially when I want or need to read up on something. The collection of Google Books is not too shabby either. With a wide list you can find almost anything from gardening, teaching to even medical stuff. I was browsing for some of the techniques that we were taught at the Astro-Nida course and I came across two very helpful books. Now while I don’t mind reading it online, it would be great to have an actual copy, selecting only certain parts that I want to read. Hence that got me on a search of how to download a Google Book. Very simple folks. Just follow these steps or go to the actual link here on book.huiho.com

First of all you need Firefox.
Then install these following plugins: Greasemonkey and [ Userscript ] Google Book Downloader
Then one last plugin called FlashGot
Got all that down? Now just head on to any books.google.com url and you’ll see a new download button popping up at the sidebar on the right.
Once you click download the images of each page will be converted into an easy file for you. Just highlight the ones you want and then right click and select FlashGot Selection
But just a note, don’t download everything at one go, cause this may cause your IP to get banned.

Enjoy reading your new found book.

Gmail Beta New Themes

Linora Low — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:10:22 +0000

Every day, when i wake up, the first thing I do is check my email on my favourite email of all emails – GMAIL. When i click on the tab on my Google Chrome, something looked a bit off with my gmail login page. Usually I’ll see a simple white screen with a light blue line at the top with little updates on gmail, how much space i have left… stuff like that. And a nice light blue that will be the login section. However this is what greated me. No more whitish background instead I have mountains.. lol

Nice look for a change all though I did prefer the white background. Then when we go into our main page, we see the header and tabs, not much difference except that maybe now the colour reaches over to the sidebar.

Then we head on into settings and we see the new tab called themes. Which allows you to choose all sorts of designs for your background layout. Reminds me very much of the iGoogle application.

Wheee all sorts of new stuff. Very sweet. I picked the Tea House as my new layout, since I’m in the whole asian phase.

Wala.. this is what my gmail looks like now. And woot, I like what I see. I love it when Google gives these surprises just to because they can.. hehe.

Google Chrome Beta

Linora Low — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:23:57 +0000

I didn’t know Google had come out with their first ever web browser. So to read about it was quite intriguing. The Google gian is never one to not surprise me. Sleek, fast and easy to install with ajax features, this webbrowsing baby is all that I can ask for. Take a look at the new Google Chrome. You can read the full announcement here. I had a great chuckle when i read this on my favourite webware site.

So why the mystery? Human error, it appears. According to the official Google blog, “At Google, we have a saying: ‘launch early and iterate.’ While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit ‘send’ a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open-source browser…” I honestly think that accident was no accident. If i recall even Gmail was like a hidden propaganda slowly spreading in the virtual world at one point. By allowing only invited guest to have an account. Now practically everyone is using gmail, or at least has one.

Brownie Points: When I say this browser it really is fast. Furthermore, the thing with IE and Firefox (bless it’s program soul) that they are both very heavy on resources. In fact a couple of times my comp has slowed down because Firefox was lagging a bit. IE.. i have nothing else to say other than, I refuse to use IE. Google is extremely smart in creating this, even if it is at the beta-stage, there is nothing but praises right now. You can view more video features of Google Chrome here. This is pretty much the Browser in action. What I love is that now all the pages i visited have been tabbed into one page. Neat and very clean. In fact according to this new entry today, Chrome is outdoing Firefox 3 and IE. That’s not bad for a browser in the prelim stages. The find button is also a must have for any browser now. Just click ctrl+f on your keyboard and the search for a keyword will pop down from the top panel, just under bookmarks. Importing bookmarks, history, and what other nots u need is a dream. It imported everything for me in a manner of seconds straight from my Firefox, all the while still retaining the favicons. Usually on Firefox i need to load the page first to get the favicon to appear, but with Chrome it all came over like as if nothing happened. Moving house was a breeze here. Oh and of course, because it is a google browser, your search engine is your address bar rather much like internet explorer (bleh on that) but great for the Chrome . Can you tell I’m super bias.

Google Chrome Comic Book – Upload a Document to Scribd

The Naughty Points: The bad thing at the moment, is that I find Chrome a tad to sensitive. Especially for my mouse when i need to scroll a page. It suddenly wooshes down, requiring me to make an effort to slow down my finger on the mouse. Secondly, there is no spelling correcter on Chrome, like how Firefox has the spellchecker and the thesaurus (see i could be misspelling something right now and not even notice). Plus i would love for the bookmarks at the top bar to be just only favicons rather than it being favicon and the description. But I found a way to get rid of the description.. just right click edit on the bookmark and delete the title. Well it sorta works. Also the main thing that it must be able to cope with is my blogging. Right now there seems to be a few glitches, certain things I could do on Firefox like readjust my images straight away by just toggling the corners arrows are now gone on Chrome. I can do multiple uploads for images on Chrome like Firefox.. which bums me out. But the speed in itself is enough to make me smile. My Two Bits: Overall I like it! That’s all i gotta say and I’ll forgive the glitches for now because it’s still in Beta phase. My gosh I can’t believe what it’ll be like in the solid phase.

Google Lively

Linora Low — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:40:51 +0000

I just saw this while hoping around and waiting for “someone” to play with me on Guild Wars! Google has just come out with their latest toy called Google Lively which reminds me a lot of . Which I have not touched in ages… in fact I wonder if my character has already died there. Anyway back to Google Lively it was launched i think abotu two week backs. You can read the full article here which i found on mashable. It is quite easy to sign up, so long as you have a google account you are set to go in making your own avatar in a 3d surrounding. Create your avatar, your new room and a place for friends to hang out lol.

Since it’s still new things are right now free. All apparels and accessories are free for people to put into your inventory. Although I have no idea why the rooms that I first have my eyes on are all either meeting people for dating, or some sex romp..

Chatting over there, is like IRC revamped. It’s a bit of a headache at first cause the chat bubbles seem to be coming form all directions and it’s not so easy to pin point who is saying what. You can even embed the rooms that you create or are chatting on into a website. Like what I’m going to do now. My only issue with it , is that it take s awhile to load up and that is because it’s purely webbase, furthermore I think Google as much as I love them have been having some hiccups lately where their site has been having downtime.. at least on my browser anyway. But I like the concept, they are really expanding their possibillites and it’s crazy.

Picasa WordPress Plugin

Linora Low — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:44:31 +0000

Finally I have been mucking around like forever with a plugin for my Picasa album and finally I found one plugin which I think is an absolute must have for anybody who blogs, has a picasa account and doesn’t want the fuss and muss to upload pictures, followed by adding captions. Honestly adding pictures to a post is the most tiring thing, because sometimes alignment may run and then you have to erase. Or worse you do the ol’ Ctrl+z command which works on most things, but doing that sometimes may cause your post to be wiped out to an earlier point with much lesser text. So anyways the plugin I’m going to fully recommend is the KB Easy PicasaWeb plugin created by Adam R Brown. Why am I recommending it? Because I think it will help loads in saving time and blogging shouldn’t be a bout hassle. KB Easy PicasaWeb is the easiest, fastest, most visitor-friendly Picasa plugin for wordpress.

Easiest: This plugin does not require you to insert funny markup into your posts–all you need is a link to a PicasaWeb album, and the plugin does the rest.
Fastest: The plugin uses efficient caching to keep your blog’s pageloads quick.
Most visitor friendly: The plugin uses PHP, not JavaScript, so it won’t cause errors or annoying movement when loading. (If you’ve used JS-based PicasaWeb plugins, you’ll know what I mean.)

How it Works

This what you have to do:

Downloadthe plugin
Write a post (or edit an old one). Somewhere within it, create a link to a PicasaWeb album (on a line by itself).
Done. This plugin finds your link, recognizes it as a PicasaWeb link, and converts it into a nicely-formatted series of photos (with captions). If you want the images bigger or smaller just head over to Options->KB Picasa and fiddle with the numbers.

Here are screenshots of what it’ll look like. This is what the admin page will look like.

This is what it looks like on the Picasa album.

Then see how its so neatly arranged in this post. Take a look at my Chinese New Year post and you’ll see that even my caption from the Picasa album has been imported in to the post as well. SO cool! Hope it helps you out too.