Echo Binary

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
Technorati Tags: Free, download, RSS icon, web standard, vector, Illustrator, Photoshop

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?
Technorati Tags: ear buds, earphones, headphones, audio, mp3 player

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
Technorati Tags: Bugmenot, bypass, registration

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.

After several complains from pre-3.0 Konfabulator users, Yahoo had finally released a new version of Yahoo Widget Engine (YWE). This version (3.0.1) fixes most of the bugs present on the last version.

From the change log:

• Improved upgrade path from pre-3.0 installs. We now migrate preferences for Stock Ticker, The Weather, and PIM Overview correctly to Yahoo! Stock Ticker, Yahoo! Weather, and Day Planner. We also now adjust the user’s loaded and recent Widgets lists so that the Widgets launch as expected after the upgrade completes.
• Fixed crash when unescaping a string with bogus escape codes in it.
• Fixed problem in animations that could lead to a crash if a function object went out of scope.
• Fixed Traditional Chinese string file. Was leading to a crash on startup.

It’s good that Yahoo offered this new version soon after the release date of YWE 3.0. I think that Yahoo really made a mistake not doing a proper upgrade path from Konfabulator 1.x / 2.x to 3.0. Some old Konfabulator users had been traumatized and pledged not to upgrade again since the good old Konfabulator 2.x is working fine anyway.

Link:
Yahoo Widget Engine (previously Konfabulator)
Technorati Tags: Konfabulator, widget, Yahoo