Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Within seven days, it would be another new year. 
Wow, that was fast…
Anyway, what is Christmas? I’m going to quote this beatiful message from a friend: It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.
I’ve been consistent in my wish every year and it’s always peace on earth.
Have a happy holiday!
I saw this picture from Kotaku.com. Rumors say that Sony would be using Japanese models for PS3 yet that model in the picture is Korean. I smell something fishy here.
I recognize the girl in the picture as The Girl from the Korean movie “The Sassy Girl”. Her name is Jeon Ji Hyun, a Korean actress/model. There’s a bigger picture here if you want to look closer. A quick search in Google Image reveals the unedited photo of Jeon Ji Hyun.
It seems that someone had cooked this picture up. I’m not sure if this is official but it looks cool. 
Links:
Kotaku.com: PS3 Apparently Released Next Sept in Europe
As a big fan of Digg.com I’m very pleased that Digg Spy 2.0 was released. The new version includes new features and you can spy (in real-time) on all site-wide activity, all powered by AJAX auto update. It’s very useful if you don’t want to miss Digg updates.
How it works –
After loading, Spy automatically polls digg every few seconds for the latest site- wide activity. The Spy page is then updated via AJAX to show the latest happenings.Choose what you want to spy on –
In the upper right corner of Spy are four checkboxes. These checkboxes represent the type of activities you can spy on:
The new page icon spies on newly submitted or promoted stories.
The thumbs up icon spies on newly dugg stories.
The thumbs down icon spies on stories as they are being buried/reported.
The message icon spies on new comments posted to a story.
If you deselect any of these icons Spy will stop looking for that type of activity. (Example: deselecting everything but comments (yellow icon) will only spy on new comments)
Digg Spy 2.0 also allows you to spy on different areas. By default you spy on all stories. You can also choose between queued stories and front page stories. Digg queue is the repository for all newly submitted stories so if you want to promote new Digg stories, “spy on queued stories” is your place. Selecting “spy on front page stories” display the current activities of stories promoted in frontpage only.
If stories are updating too fast, you may want to pause. Play and pause controls are located near the colored icons. The pause icon is too small and is easily forgotten by users so take note of that.
New to Digg? Here is a brief introduction from Digg website: Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.
Links:
Digg Spy: http://digg.com/spy [ Digg news ]
Digg Blog: Digg Spy 2.0 Released
Remember my previous post regarding Microsoft adopting Firefox’s RSS feed icon? Someone had already made an initiative to bring the new standard RSS feed icon to everyone. Matt Brett had taken the 32×32 icon in the Microsoft Team RSS blog and reproduced it into Adobe Illustrator vector. You can scale it easily and customize the way it looks. The best part is you can change the color if don’t like the default orange RSS icon, in case you want to include the RSS feed in your graphics design.
Take note that the RSS feed icon is meant to be orange. One of the goal of Microsoft and Mozilla on the RSS feed icon is to create the most consistent and identifiable element used to represent feeds today: the orange rectangle. But no one is forcing you, the designer, to keep it orange if you really want it changed. The orange icon is only suggested in browser standards, not design standards anyway.
You should read his blog to on how to customize the icon. It can be done in a number of ways. You should read the readme file inside the zip file to get started. The zip file includes both Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop files.
Update:
Matt Brett started a site to promote the use of a standard feed icon for RSS feeds which can be found at http://feedicons.com [ via Digg ] .
Links:
Matt Brett’s Blog: The New Standard Feed Icon, Feed Icons
Direct download: Get the zip file here
Tuesday December 20, 2005 22:51
Posted by MV as Insights, Technology
I recently read this article about ear buds causing hearing loss and it’s very alarming as MP3 players are so popular today. So you own an iPod or Zen? You probably want to change the earphones / ear buds that comes with it. The article suggests using ear muffs / headphones because they have noise-cancelling which eliminate background noise unlike ear buds. This prevents the user from stepping up the volume of the device, possible for causing hearing loss after just about an hour of listening.
Links:
Techtree.com: Ear Buds Cause Hearing Loss?
Recently Bugmenot.com was updated and the new site looks very different from what it used to be. The picture above (left) is the previous site. It’s all white and simple and it has a Googlish look and feel. The picture next to it (right) is the new Bugmenot site. It now has a dark façade.
Along with this update are new additional features: Bugmenot now shows the success rate for the login information. Success rate is easily computed using the votes from “Did this login work out for you” question — it is the ratio between “Yes” and “No” votes. It makes it easier to choose which login information works and which are bogus. The new Bugmenot also display multiple login info unlike before, it only shows one login info at a time. The new website is more convenient and useful.
No doubt that these new features make Bugmenot more effective and efficient in bypassing registrations; however, having the color themes of the site completely changed is a bit myterious. I think that the previous color theme of Bugmenot was just fine. Having a dark color theme isn’t bad but I just prefer the old one.
Links:
Bugmenot.com
Several days ago I received my pin number from Citibank, without the credit card itself. This afternoon the credit card arrived. I thought it was weird that the pin number arrived without the credit card but the postman told me it’s really meant to separate the mailing of the card and the pin number so that when one is lost by the post office, the credit card holder is still able to use his credit card number.
Ok, now that I have my own credit card I would not be using my father’s credit card anymore; however, I’m worried that I might be spendthrift because, historically, I’m not good in financial management. I promised myself I won’t be using this credit except for online purchases. It is a little scary why I have a credit limit as high as P75k when I’m only entitled for supplementary card… or is it a full credit card account? I’m not sure since my father did all the paper works for me. Anyway, having a credit limit this high shouldn’t be taken as a joke. You can get in-debt easily when you don’t record your credit card usage.
I’ll be hands off this plastic card as much as possible.
