Yes, I'm still alive!

My apologies for not blogging over the past week. Nothing eventful, besides getting a little hooked on Yahoo! Answers. More on that in a separate post =)

It's no big secret that my pageviews have dropped with the lack of postings. This really is hard work!



Blogging aside, hope you have a splendid week ahead!

tsulin.com makes its debut!

Tsu Lin just switched to using tsulin.com as her primary blog URL. Point to http://tsulin.com from now on.

*p/s: Happy Belated Birthday, babe!

Related links:

• Read this if you own a personal blog

Pucker Up!

Beautiful "cuppacakes" by wondermilk!



Some useful links:

• Pricing information & how to order (between RM15 - RM75)
• Frequently asked questions
• More photos of beautiful cupcakes!

I wonder if it tastes as good as it looks.

Read this if you own a personal blog

By personal blog, I am referring to a blog where your identity is known to your readers.

I've come across many blogs with interesting blog titles usually in a mould similar to something like "The Chronicles of Praveen".

In most cases, I add these personal blogs to my list of feeds on Google Reader. Now, it's easy to sift through feeds when you're faced with only a few. But when I have to read through over 50 personal blogs, it makes more sense to have it named after the blog author's name as it sticks in my mind more than the trivial title that the author may have chosen. It's a good thing I can edit the feed name via Google Reader, but this is time consuming.

So if you're reading this post, and own a personal blog, why not use your real name as your blog title? Taking the example above, it may be better to rename it to what you see today with my blog: "Praveen Rajan".

Here's a screenshot of what my Google Reader looks like with a little "renaming" for some blogs:



Moreover, there's a better chance that your name / identity will be indexed and rated higher by search engines.

Just a thought, not a directive =)

Hello Choco!

My cousins, Vajra & Varuna, got themselves a new puppy over the weekend. They decided to name her Choco for obvious reasons =) Here are some photos of Choco and the boys:

From Choco & the boys

From Choco & the boys

Create giant posters in 60 seconds

That's right! Super cool billboard posters, up to 20 metres in size using your regular inkjet printer.

RASTERBATOR is a slick piece of software that allows you to turn any photo into giant posters. Here's how they describe it:

The Rasterbator creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. Upload an image, print the resulting multi-page pdf file and assemble the pages into extremely cool looking poster up to 20 meters in size.

You can either download the software to be used offline, or use their online Flash app which works just as well.

Example of what's possible:



Here's a screenshot of what the online app looks like. It's a simple step-by-step process. By the way, this one depicts Roundhead & Double D, the guys behind Traffic on TraxxFM:



Related links:

• Rasterbator: Homepage
• Rasterbator: Gallery of user-submitted photos

Does your building have a 13th floor?

Related links:

• Yahoo!: Why don't buildings have a 13th floor?
• Flickr: Elevators Are Unlucky

Happy Birthday, Double D!

It's Double D's birthday today.

DD - hope you have a splendid birthday. Looking forward to the string of parties this weekend. KL's gonna rock. Can't wait to see everyone.

This one's of us at The Ivy last year posing for a Darlie ad. (Darlie's on Wikipedia too!)

Why use Gmail?

Here's a whole series of Google-made videos that makes it easy enough to understand why they rock. Bravo, Gmail Theatre!

Act 1: Attack of the Spam


Act 2: The In-Boxer:


Act 3: The Isle of Lost Emails


Act 4: Chat In The Name of Love

How to get a free copy of BUSINESS 2.0 every month!

The Business 2.0 is a monthly magazine that you can buy at most news stands. It is a substantial magazine that covers the latest news, trends and opportunities in technology.



Rather than pay US$3.99 for a print edition, you can just read the entire copy online, for FREE!

Just point to: http://digital.business2.com

As far as I know, they are not promoting this link yet, but I have been reading the magazine online for the last few months. The service is run by Olive Software, and does not provide an archive of back issues.

Here's a screenshot of the online magazine in action:



The magazine opens in a new browser window, and the requires Flash. You can download the magazine for offline reading (with IE), or alternatively print the entire magazine; print it as a PDF, and you instantly have a back issue!

You can do most of the things you do with a regular print edition, and this includes zooming, printing and panning the page. However, you won't be able to fold the pages, or paste your colourful Post-its =)

By the way, if you live in the US / Canada, you might want to subscribe to the print edition of Business 2.0 -- it's an amazing deal at $6.99 for 11 issues! That's about 64 cents per magazine, WOW!

Store up to 4,000 photos for free with Picasa Web

Just in case you missed it, Picasa Web now offers 1GB of free storage space for photos and videos. Enough room for about 4,000 photos. Moreover, there isn't any bandwidth limitation (does Flickr still do this?). Google has introduced lots of new features that makes it easier to manage and share your photos -- bravo!



Related links:

• Google Blog: Store and find even more photos on Picasa Web Albums
• PicasaWeb: New features
  

What's up with Twitter's badge?

It's been displaying "undefined" instead of the timestamp (e.g. 15 minutes ago) for the past week (possibly more?)

Evan Williams (Twitter co-founder) and Tsu Lin seem to be having this problem too:







Anyone know why?

The happiest country in the world is ...

Denmark.

At least according to Adrian White, a psychologist at the University of Leicester.



The 20 happiest countries are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

On a positive note, Malaysia was ranked 17th, ahead of the USA, UK, Singapore and Australia. This is nothing to brag about, but is something worth thinking about. The study is a projection of subjective well-being based on data collated from various sources.

Either way, be happy. After all, your Monday needs it!

Related links:

• Adrian White: A Global Projection of Subjective Well-being
• BBC News: Denmark 'happiest place on earth'
• ScienceDaily: Psychologist Produces The First-ever 'World Map Of Happiness'
• Guy Kawasaki: The World Map of Happiness

Does Yahoo! Answers work?

On this account, YES.

I need to get to Alexandra Technopark in Singapore later this afternoon via MRT, and figured I'd put Yahoo! Answers to the test as my googling returned very little information on directions.



Within an hour of posting my question, I received a detailed answer from PoshBerries. The thread now contains an answer offering an alternative from Frankenstein.

I'm not sure whether the answers are accurate, but it does seem fairly substantial. I will of course know when I travel later today =)

To the YA-addicts out there, thank you! And, bravo Yahoo!

Is your website worth more than mine?

Mine's worth a paltry US$508 according to dnScoop.

I doubt this can serve as a final authoritative value, but it does give a good overview of what is valuable. It provides an illustrated report detailing the estimated value based on your website's pagerank, Alexa traffic rank, inbound links and number of indexed pages.

Go ahead, beat mine!

Related links:

• dnScoop: Domain name value, history & stats tool

Introducing Gmail Paper

A new product from Google, introduced yesterday, in conjunction with Lirpa Loof.







Some memorable testimonials:

"It's paper, plain and easy. I sometimes find myself wondering: what will Google think of next? Cardboard?"

"Now that I have Gmail Paper, I understand the difference between labels and folders. I had one message with two labels, but when I tried to stick the paper version into two filing cabinets at the same time, it just wouldn’t go."

Related links:

• Google: About Gmail Paper
• Wikipedia: About Lirpa Loof