The Bing Challenge.
If you haven’t heard by now, Microsoft revealed a new search engine called Bing which is set to compete with Google. I have realized that I am extremely used to using Google. Every time I am going to visit a website and I’m not 100% sure of the name I would google it and even for simple things I find myself using Google all day long. But because Bing has been growing so strong lately I have decided to give it a shot more than just looking at it. I’ve been using Bing for a bit over 24 hours now. I do find myself using Google every now and then without even noticing it but I’m slowly getting better at using Bing. I haven’t really found anything that really beats Google so far except for the Image Search. The way Bing shows you images makes it really easy to look through hundreds of images at a very quick paste. I have also heard that looking for flights and hotels is very easy and useful through Bing but I have not given it a try yet. I think everyone should try Bing for at least 24 hours and then make a judgment if they like it or not. I know I will be using the Image Search that Bing provides.
On another note…It seems like many users have been using Bing a lot lately seeing as I have been getting a very good amount of traffic coming from Bing lately.
Yasser
Facebook: Make it easier to tag and find picture of friends.
Everyone who uploads a whole album of pictures hates tagging pictures over and over and over again. But a company called Face.com has introduced a new program that uses facial recognition technology to find friends and possibly even tag them for you. This would save you lots of times. As of now it seems like the website is still undergoing testing but people could start trying out the product. According to users in TechCrunch it works perfectly and should be open completely to everyone. It seems like finally someone made a program for Facebook that is actually useful for the users and not just entertaining. Make sure to try out and remember that is still undergoing development so don’t be surprised if something doesn’t work just right.
Yasser
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
I usually never go to see movies on the first day they came out but a couple of friends convinced me to go see Harry Potter on the Wednesday it premiered. I have slowly become a Harry Potter movie fan because there movies are unpredictable for the most part and keeps you in this world of mystery where you always want to find out “what else can they do?” Before I saw the movie I did read some reviews saying that the movie wasn’t what they expected and that it was ok. I do understand why a lot of people said that, I don’t blame them, the Harry Potter movies have set the bar pretty high for every next movie that comes out.
With that said, I think The Half-Blood Prince was a very good movie, another great success for the Potter movies. It is not the best I have seen of his movies but none the less it was still a good movie. The movie is very dark with a lot of dark magic and discovering things from the past that helps explain more why things are happening. We also see the characters keep growing into newer situations. What I like the most about these movies is that it is like one long book, you never loose trail or things don’t change much, it is always going forward and leaves you keeping wanting to know more. I think people should definitely go see this at the movies if they have time, it is worth it.
Yasser
Twitter Classified Documents Leaked.
It seems that a lot has happen over night while I was sleeping. Reading TechCrunch this morning, I learned that they received an email with plenty of confidential information leaked from Twitter. For some odd reason the users at TechCrunch have responded saying that it is unethical to publish that information, even though websites do it all the time, that is how they get the information no one else has. It seems that the hack is somewhat related to what happen back in May where someone got access to several high profile accounts. To have gathered all this information the hacker must have been working from the inside or gone pretty deep in with his hack, unless Twitter security sucks.
The only thing TechCrunch has revealed so far from the documents is the announced TV Show that Twitter was/is thinking of doing called Final Tweet? It is a reality show where people have to complete tasks or mission, assuming that somehow like the amazing race but users Tweet about their updates and what they are up to and users could respond back to help them. If they still plan to do it I hope its more like they join some reality show that already exists because if they trying to start a new one then it smells like failure.
Update: Information about Twitter financial plans and earnings projected.
Lets see what else will TechCrunch be releasing any time soon…
Yasser
HBO: Hung.
I got to see the first two episodes of HBO new original series titled Hung. It is about a guy who is well hung, has a big member if you know what I mean… His life isn’t going very well economically and in other ways and has realized that he actually is hung and people would pay for that. He decides to run his own escort service marketing that he is hung. So far the series doesn’t look bad, quite interesting as HBO series always are. The only minor problem I have with it so far is that it is not as funny as I thought it would be and so far the story isn’t going very far, there doesn’t seem to be a great story that makes me want to see more and what is going to happen next. It has only been two episodes yet so we will have to see how it keeps developing and where it goes from here. It isn’t a bad show and you should take a look at it, the show, when you have some time.
PS: I love the song at the end, the soundtrack, it goes very well with the show. The song is called My Dick by Mickey Avalon.
Yasser
ImageShack Hacked.
It seems that the popular image hosting service ImageShack was hacked recently. Mashable is reporting that the website was hacked by a group calling themselves “Anti-Sec Movement”. It seems like they left a nice long message on the website saying who they are and what they do. They also added to their message that no images were damaged during the process which means they didn’t do any “specific” harm to the website. It had been a while since such a big service suffered from such a big hack. So far there is no information from ImageShack talking about the hack or any specific information of what the vulnerability was that allowed the attackers to take control over the website.
Yasser
Residente Calle 13 Concert.
I can’t really remember when was the last time I went to a concert but yesterday I had the opportunity to go to a free one. Summer Stage, the free summer concert series at Central Park in NYC, brought one of my favorite Spanish artist Calle 13. Calle 13 is known for his unique style where he doesn’t sing the usual Puerto Rican reggaeton but more of a Spanish rap mixed with cumbia style. The music was great and of course he is one of the artist that raps and has a full band on stage with him which makes the music sound even better. The crowd was very mixed with not only Puerto Rican or Dominicans but also Colombians and Mexicans and Caucasians which seemed to love the music even though they might not had understood everything. The weather was also very nice which allowed everyone to enjoy the concert to the fullest. He played a mix of old songs like “atrevete”and some of his latest songs like “baile de los aburridos”. And of course it can’t be Calle 13 without delivering a message to the crowd, he talked about uniting Latin America and not fight with each other, start acting as one. And also sent a message to all Immigrants of the world telling them to never stop fighting because if you want to make it to somewhere no one should be able to stop you.
If you are in New York City for the summer and want to catch one of the Summer Stage events take a look at their schedule and find any artist or show that you might be interested in attending. The shows are free and go from Monday to Saturday most of the times.
Yasser
HTML 5, The Next Big Thing.
If you haven’t heard by now HTML is releasing version 5 which is said to redefine the internet as we know it. Now some of these changes and modifications would not be very noticeable to any regular user who just reads website. But to everyone who develops websites it will be a pretty significant change. It first showed up in January 22, 2008 and since then it has been going through revisions and debates. One of the biggest additions being done to HTML 5 two new tags called video and audio. Obviously they speak for themselves on what they do but they will also accomplish to standardized video formats across the internet and hopefully getting rid of using Flash for video contents. There is an ongoing debate on what format and codec to use for the video but it should be resolved in less than a year or so.
HTML 5 is already “out there” but its more of a browser thing to adopt it. As far as I know only Google Chrome 3 (When it comes out) will be supporting HTML 5 at least most of the tags but it will take a few releases of each browsers to actually get it right and perfect it. A few old HTML tags have been depricated because there doesn’t seem to be a need for them since it could be accomplished through CSS. One of my favorite new tags besides the video one, will be footer, article and section which lets you organize your website easier without too much CSS problems. For more information on HTML 5 read the links listed below.
Google Will Launch Operating System Called Chrome.
By Federico Fieni
Google recently made the biggest announcement that it has made in a while, they are going to release an Operating System in 2010. This might just be the greatest competition that Microsoft will ever have in terms of regular users. It seems like Google Chrome the browser was just a small part of what is going to be Google OS. Google on their blog said that it will an Open Source OS which will be made to take full capacity of the x86 architecture. That is one of the main reasons they just didn’t use their Android OS.
Chrome is going to be targeted for Netbooks so they can run light and faster Operating Systems. This could take a good market share and later expand to bigger and more robust Desktops. We all are expecting Google Chrome to have a simple and light way of working. Google already has a bunch of online Applications which they could easily integrate with their Operating System. This is already creating a lot of buzz on the internet and I can not wait to see what other details will they be giving about this new Operating System.
Update (7:22pm): The partners that are supporting Chrome OS have been announced and Google has announced a small FAQ answering some of the questions that have been going around the internet. The first question asked is the one that many were hoping to hear, Chrome OS will be free. And the list of partners supporting Chrome OS say a lot about what we could expect. Just to mention a few of the sponsors are Adobe, ASUS and HP. Two of those are one of the biggest creators of NetBooks. This gives a bigger answer to everyone, Chrome OS will come out strong.
Cartoon by Federico Fieni
Yasser
Stop FreeCreditReport.com Scam.
If you haven’t heard by now FreeCreditReport.com has this very nice way of “scamming” people out of money. And yes I am talking about the FreeCreditReport.com that has those “nice” commercials on tv all day. The reason I put the word scam in parentheses is because they do tell you about it in very small prints and hidden areas so you do have a choice of accepting it or not. What I am talking about is the service called CIC Triple Advantage which they offer when you sign up for a FreeCreditReport account. The service allows you to monitor your credit score and other nice features which you probably didn’t want at all. The scam part comes in when you start getting charged $14-$17 a month on the card you registered for with this service. It actually took me a few months to notice these charges since I have online e-statements and don’t read it often (bad habit).
Keep reading for the solution… Read more
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