ajb{log}: learn something new each day

Got this from Mona’s friendfeed.

I Am Rich iPhone App silently (or loudly) made it into the iPhone App Store. What is it? It’s nothing. It’s just an image that allows you to brag to everyone that you can afford such an app that does nothing.

It’s priced at $999.99. Wow, I think, is an understatement.

Here’s the direct link to iTunes (until they pull it out). Don’t Apple check each and every single App that goes into the App Store? Makes you think they don’t.

Tirso Lacanilao was gunned down in Bulacan, Philippines today. He is the father of my Don Bosco Pampanga high schoolmate Roy Lacanilao who was also ambushed and killed in December 2006.

In behalf of the Don Bosco Academy Batch 1990, our sincerest condolences. We are very sad to hear this story.

Windows Mojave is actually Vista. It was just renamed in an experiment to prove that Vista doesn’t really sucks.

The videos on the Mojave Experiment proves that you can’t really judge a book by it’s cover. Participants were surprised to know that it was Vista after all.

Ok, Vista wins this round.

Spreading the news

Date: August 7, 2008 (Thursday)
Time: 7:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Venue: Isla Ballroom, Tower Wing, EDSA Shangrila

Globe Labs is a new organization within Globe Telecom whose mission is to help bring in the newest future technology services at the earliest market-relevant time. We explore new and future technologies, and partner with developers to create new Internet, wired and wireless applications.

What Globe have in store for you: Learn, Build, Compete and Succeed

• Discover the different opportunities with Globe Labs
• Learn how to use Telco tools and various development platforms to build innovative applications
• Join the Globe Labs Challenge and compete amongst the best

PHP User Group Philippines, Inc., being one of the institution partners of Globe Labs, has been given 200 SLOTS for this upcoming big event.

We are inviting PHPUGPH members to attend. T-SHIRTS designed for PHPUGPH would be given away as freebies plus exciting raffle prizes awaits you…

***FIRST 300 individual registrants gets a GIFT***

Below are some links of articles regarding the event:
From Businessworld (Entreprenews)
http://entreprenews.com.p…in.php?id=062508.gonzalez
From the Inquirer:
http://technology.inquire…gets-3G-mobile-developers
From the Manila Times:
http://www.manilatimes.ne…htimes/20080627tech5.html
From Manila Bulletin:
http://www.mb.com.ph/INFO20080627128372.html
From PCWorld:
http://www.pcworld.com.ph…5&ID=H,485,PWP,PWP-16
From Yugatech:
http://www.yugatech.com/b…pens-globe-labs-division/
From Globe Labs website:
http://www.globelabs.com…./News/Forms/AllItems.aspx

More information here

First off, what is Baidu? Why does it make sense to submit all your websites there? Ok, simply put, Baidu provides an index of over 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files. According to Compete, the Baidu has more than 1.5 million monthly visitors. And that’s the main reason why.

I can’t understand Chinese. How and where do I submit my site? Here’s how:

1) Go to this URL: http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html

2) You should see something like this:

Just enter your URL (web address) on the first input box.

3) Enter the code that you will see just right at the bottom (It’s Y2C2 in my case. That code changes randomly).

4) Click the submit button beside it and you’re done!

Easy huh?

Here’s the URL again http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html, bookmark it for future use.

Here’s the English translation if you really wanted to know.

Here it is:

“Publishers with websites, creating content
Wondering about their sites
If with their content, they could show some ads
Before the day was done
Something in AdSense, was so inviting
Something about those ads, was so exciting
Something in our Help Center
Told them they must be one
Publishers with websites, yearning for earnings
They were just publishers with websites
Up to the moment
When they placed their first ad code
Little did they know
Revenue was just a click away
A happy-user-generated click away and –
Ever since that day, they’ve been monetizing
Newbies at the start, they’re now optimizing
It turned out so right
For publishers with websites.
Newbie, newbie dooo, da da da daaaa da…”

Originally posted here

Top level domain extension dot me (.me) landrush starts in an hour (at least to us).

Grab one here.

Wuala is a new social online storage from Zurich, Switzerland which allows for secure file sharing, online backup storage and remote file access. Unlike traditional online storage systems, Wuala is decentralized and can harness idle resources of participating computers to build a large, secure, and reliable online storage.

A Wuala user starts with 1GB of online storage but can get as much as they want, either by trading idle disk space on their own computer or by buying additional storage. As a new user, I preferred the idle disk space trading. It makes more sense than buying additional storage for now.

All files on Wuala are encrypted on the users’ computer and the user chooses who gets access to which folder. Is it secure? Yes. Wuala employs the 128 bit AES algorithm for encryption and the 2048 bit RSA algorithm for authentication.

Wuala’s desktop application is available on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It can also be directly started from within the browser.

So how do you get it? Wuala is opening up Alpha for everyone starting tomorrow July 17 to 21. You can get access over here.

Here’s an installation walkthrough and some screenshots for the Windows Vista user

After installing the desktop app, you will be prompted with the above window. New users will need to click the “Create a new account” link.

Use invite code “OpenDays” from July 17 to 21.

Complete the above form and note one important thing, you should choose a password that you will remember. Wuala will not provide password recovery.

Here’s their explanation:

“NO PASSWORD RECOVERY! WUALA ENCRYPTS AND DECRYPTS ALL FILES LOCALLY. YOUR PASSWORD NEVER LEAVES YOUR COMPUTER. WE DO NOT KNOW OR STORE YOUR PASSWORD. THIS PROTECTS YOUR PRIVACY, BUT ALSO MEANS THAT, APART FROM SENDING YOU THE HINT YOU CAN SPECIFY ABOVE, WE CANNOT HELP YOU RECOVERING IT IN CASE IT GETS LOST.”

Finally, complete the form above.

Once you finished with the registration, the desktop app will automatically open up. It should look like the one above.

Customize the desktop app to your liking.

Start inviting your friends via Facebook, Skype or by simply entering an email address.

The above is the world tab. It’s everyone’s shared files. You have the ability to create your own groups where you can share private stuff.

Sharing access rights is easy. Right-click a folder and select “Access rights…” Start sharing with your friends. And please do let me know what your thoughts are for this app. I’d love to hear them.

My overall first impression of Wuala is that it’s so easy to use, install, configure and customize. And did I already mention it’s free?

I’m already a user of Dropbox, Mozy and Zecter on my Windows machine. I have Dropbox and Mozy on my Mac. Wuala is definitely a nice, not to mention a very cool addition to my backup and file sharing efforts.

If case you missed their pitch at LIFT Conference here’s the video below

And lastly, Wuala’s presentation at Google Tech Talk (sorry, embedding is disabled).

About the founder of Wuala, Dominik Grolimund
Dominic is 26 years old and studied Computer Science at ETH Zurich. He founded the software company Caleido in 1998, and developed the Caleido Address-Book, a professional contact management software, of which over 35,000 licenses have been sold so far in Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

Wuala looks like a good buy for a Google social backup service. Not to mention a very good addition to their talent pool.

This is great news for all Gmail junkies. I personally dislike that (un)feature. Here’s what Google posted on their blog:

“Google has finally realized that it’s a bad idea to automatically add to the list of Gmail contacts all the people you’ve sent an email. An updated version of Gmail’s contact manager has a separate section for the people you’ve emailed: “suggested contacts”.”

I love this move. Now, I have to give some time cleaning up my Gmail’s contacts because it’s currently marred with emails I don’t personally know.

Love it Gmail team!

More information