Echo Binary

I’m testing the new Yahoo! Messenger version 9.0 beta and it’s quite stable. It has not crashed on me yet or gave me any serious problem.

Few things I noticed in this beta version is the ‘detailed’ listing of friends. You have an option to go back to classic ‘compact’ friends list if you don’t like this new format. The plug-in area is now cleaner and is collapsed by default. Maybe Yahoo Messenger dev team have noticed that very few liked many plug-ins opened so they decided to let the users activate the plug-ins one by one instead. This is good because casual chatters won’t bother what those extras are anyway. What’s more obvious now is the phone-out balance, placed on top to remind you on your available phone-out credit. A new group to show address contacts is visible by default but it can be disabled in ’show/hide’ option from the menu. The small ad banner at the bottom is still there and cannot be disabled.

The skins are improved and you can easily change them depending on your mood. You just have to click the orb-like thing near the minimize button and you can access new skins — orange, green, blue, purple, pink, violet and brown. These skins are more artsy now because they sport unique vector art unique for every color. In version 8.1 you only have 3 skins to choose from so you have to download extra themes in order to get more colors but version 9.0 has 7 themes out of the box. Not entirely useful nor useless but it’s neat to have these new themes by default to suite your style.

For the message window — still no tabbed options. I don’t know how useful it is for typical users but power users have been screaming for this feature quite some time already. If 3rd-party chat client such as Trillian can have it, why not YM? Down to the core feature of the new IM window, you can now preview links to pictures and videos right in your IM window. It’s really convenient when you are showing off pix or vidz from the web to your friend. There are new emoticons for this beta release but I have not checked if there are new hidden emoticons. You may want to invite your friend to get the beta release because the current version (8.1) cannot render them yet.

YM 9.0 beta has an option to forward calls to your mobile phone, pretty much like Skype-in, and yes, you should have a ‘phone out’ credit to use this feature. Sending SMS to a friend is now well integrated in YM just like ICQ. Good news to Philippine local users because YM is now localized so it has better support to text messages. I tested it and the text messages are transmitted from mobile phone to YM chat window, and vice versa, almost instantly.

To share a few disappointments, there are things I am not happy about. If you are using picture avatars instead of the default Yahoo flash avatars, I noticed that there is a bit of distortion on your friend’s avatar in the IM window. Sometimes the dimension is correct, sometimes, it’s a bit stretched. It’s irritating to look at. Then, they removed the option to reveal/hide your avatar and your friend’s avatar separately in the IM window. Now, you only have the option to reveal or hide both avatars at the same time. But why? Why would they remove the option to hide your avatar? I’m happy to look at my friend’s avatar but viewing my avatar in the main window and the IM window is redundant already, that’s why I miss the separate hide option for each avatar. This new beta also has a bit of increased RAM usage.

Anyway, if you want to improve this new version of YM drop your feedbacks to Yahoo Messenger team. You can also report some bugs if you encounter one. So far, in the duration of my test, this beta release is very solid and stable so don’t hesitate to try it out.

Link: Yahoo! Messenger beta website

I really wonder why I’m still stuck with my old ATI Radeon 9550 graphics card after reading this review. It is already aged and it still uses AGP. Unbelievable. I totally skipped PCI-e version 1 because I’ve read that new graphics cards are now shipping for PCI-e 2.0 already.

As much as I like to upgrade, I pushed back my computer upgrade this coming Christmas ‘07 instead of last year’s. Then I’ll ask this question again. Do I really need an upgrade? My cheap-o-meter will instantly tell me that I don’t need an upgrade soon because my computer is still good for my work. Most of the times I’m running 3 different web browsers (Mozilla, Opera, IE) and a couple of multimedia applications. Overall, I’m still satisfied with the speed of my computer in image manipulation and compressing or uncompressing zipped files. I could play games in medium settings smoothly. Maybe I’m just excited with all these technologies that I am missing so I’m itching to get my hands on these products. What makes me excited are the following: Intel Core 2 Duo, Nvidia 8800 series, DDR3 Corsair memory modules and liquid cooling system. Man, if I can just buy all these on December, I’ll be so happy. Then, I’ll ask myself again. What will I do after 6 months? Will I buy the newer Intel microprocessors? I’m sure that 8800 series will be cheaper and there might be DDR4 as well. Will I still need to buy now?

I really hate how fast hardware gets outdated. Don’t let me start with cellphones. It’s just ridiculous how fast a cellphone with a price tag of P40,000 drops value after 6 to 9 months. Computer hardwares are more forgiving as they decrease in value slower than a cellphone unit but it’s disturbing if you want to invest on a gadget for a long term.

Nevermind how slow my computer is — the fact that I can still post in my blog using this good-old computer means that I don’t really need an upgrade yet. I play console games so why would I invest in P10,000++ graphics card when I can use that money to buy a PSP or PS3. The only reasonable thing I have in my mind to buy a new CPU this year is to get a fresh hardware to run my work-related stuffs and use my old hardware to run a local Linux file server.

So will I still buy a new computer this coming Christmas? Maybe.

I spent a week in “hermit mode” to focus on my office work and some other things that kept me busy. For instance, the Halloween costume party that we had last Friday — I spent several days pondering what the hell I’m going to wear that day. I’ll discuss the details later on.

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To begin with, I feel cheapskate these days because I want to save up more money to recover from my overspending last quarter. I’m happy that I managed to tune my car’s fuel consumption to the minimum since the recent oil price hike. I haven’t refueled for the last 3 weeks. That’s a record. Either I’m not using the car too often or the last change oil significantly improved the fuel efficiency of my car. Either way, I’m not complaining. It’s good no matter how I look at it.

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Now for the Halloween party last Friday, I cosplayed Akatsuki — more or less Itachi — since I didn’t have any weapon or accessory to carry. I didn’t have the Sharingan. That would be too silly or ricey (baduy)!. Red eyes… sore eyes? Bleh. It was my very first cosplay so I had a mixed feeling about it since I just improvised the costume. I made the cloak out of a black graduation gown (toga) and I put white straw / Japanese paper strips around the cone “rice hat” (actually I used bathroom tissue because I couldn’t find Japanese paper! kukuku!). I had to be creative to patch the symbol of Akatsuki, the red clouds, around my cloak. I used red construction papers and white paint to draw the outline of the clouds. Then I pasted, clipped and stitched the clouds around my cloak. I have 5 red clouds evenly distributed around my cloak and it was not an easy feat because the paper clouds can be ripped easily. If you’re familiar with toga, it does not have a collar so I had to wear black long sleeves to cover my neck. I also had to wear red shirt inside because the underside of my toga is also black. The underside color of Akatsuki’s cloack is red. Just use your imagination.

That’s not the fun part yet. The event took place in Manila Peninsula Hotel. Just imagine what the executives and VIP in the hotel lobby were thinking when I was walking along the hallway. Were all pretending like children there. I was fortunate that other people wore more ridiculous costumes than mine. It’s just a whim of my mind to cosplay Akatsuki. I can’t be bothered spending money for a costume so I just made one — and it happens that Akatsuki’s costume was very easy to create.

Near the end of the event, the organizers nominated best costumes. Since my costume was all improvised, when you inspect it closely, you’ll agree how overrate my costume was. It’s just appealing from a distance but the overall quality sucks big time when you scrutinize it. I’m lucky to be in the top 15 costumes because other people who spent real money on their costumes were not even recognized.

The lesson learned here is simple — it’s the thought that counts! If that makes any sense at all.

I’ve seen how TechCrunch started from a small site by Michael Arrington that blogs about Internet startup. To read about its success is both exhilarating and awe-inspiring. It may not seem obvious but we’ve come to another wave of dotcoms and TechCrunch is geared towards that direction to report the the latest scoops and development. It’s something that I really envy when I look at Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. People can really get rich when they have the concept, network, guts and right timing to create something new.

I’ve linked TechCrunch in a number of my entries I’ve made here in my own blog and I’ve also commented a few articles in there. To know that it makes more than 240K USD a month is just insane. How can a blog create so much money. It appears that Michael Arrington and his crew got a lot of creative juices to boot.

This is just one example of success story which represents how serious business the internet can be.

Source: Yes, some blogs are profitable - very profitable [via Digg]

For the lighter side of my blog, let’s talk about videos. I know that YouTube needs no introduction and I won’t believe that you have not seen a YouTube video yet. Now, if you are a gamer you’ve probably watched videos that gamers have recorded and encoded, splitting to multi-part videos on how they beat an entire game from start to end. Honestly, would you watch a game instead of playing it? If you are too eager to watch game videos then watch from the real source of game video entertainment.

There is only one website I know that exhibits game franchise history with deep details and trivia that game enthusiasts would love to watch — Gametrailers.com. You can even download the videos from the website in different formats such as .mov, .wmv or iPod-ready mp4.

These retrospective easily sets apart Gametrailers.com from any other game websites I know. There are game reviews and even previews in Gametrailers.com but these retrospectives do not only review games — each retrospective takes a good look on the influences of the game during its time and often describes how a game developed from one simple franchise to one of the most prolific one.

To give an example, let me introduce the Final Fantasy retrospective. It is the longest retrospective in Gametrailers.com right now, spanning 13 episodes. It’s not even finished yet so I’m looking forward to how these guys are going to end it. There are a lot of information in each episode. If you have not played any of the games prior to FF VII, then you’ll need to watch these videos to appreciate the older FFs. Be prepared to watch some spoilers but rest assured, spoilers are kept to the minimum. Sometimes even game reviews cannot prevent spilling some spoilers to let the editors explain the game plot easier.

Now, I’m not really a Zelda fan but I appreciate adventure RPGs as well. I’ve played Zelda once in Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) but I didn’t finish it. Watching the retrospective videos not only gives me the overview of the series but it also enrich my understanding of the game history. I wanted to play the series from the beginning but it’s going to be troublesome finding old Nintendo hardwares and classic games like Zelda.

I’m sure you’ll think twice in watching game videos in YouTube again. I encourage you to visit Gametrailers.com and watch more videos!