Bridge to Nova

I don't trust Cnet anyway. I have always doubted about their product reviews and ratings. I'm sure all of these reviews are clearly biased based on how well someone paid them.

You know what? Cnet just named Vista as top ten terrible technology of the year. Come on, I confessed that Vista has been out for almost a year and has got many resistance than XP introduction was. But this is because XP has been out for 5 years and as strong as a rock. When the time XP was introduced, everybody was sick with Windows 9x Blue Screen of Death.

I'm sure Cnet must be paid by Apple marketing guys behind the door. Just look at their pathetic sentence such as:

Windows Vista conforms to all of the above. Its incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM, not to mention its general pointlessness as an upgrade

Isn't this funny?

I wonder whether Apple marketing guys has got anything to do other than to attack Windows Vista. I mean Apple should tell their potential customers about how good their MAC is and why they should get it. Not simply making a stupid ads like below.



The only thing good about this ads is the idea of using two leaderboards to make one video ads. That's it. Are you thinking to buy a MAC in the near future? Read my top 10 reasons why you shouldn't waste your money on MAC.

I've noticed that many webmasters become very obsessed with Tinyurl.com services. Of course, I can't deny that tinyurl indeed provide very useful service for all of us. But there are many alternatives available too.

Why shouldn't you rely on TinyURL?

Do you know that if you solely rely only on TinyURL.com for URL shortening services, if it faces technical difficulties, then all your links could become broken. If you google for tinyurl.com reported outrage, you can find it happened already.

Shouldn't you use URL shortening services at all?

Of course not. URL shortening services help us a lot. Making our life a lot easier by not having to post longer url. Also keep our affiliate links save from danger hand. I'm not saying you shouldn't use URL shortening services, but I'm suggesting that if you use URL shortening services, don't use tinyurl.com for all your links. Try to make balanace with many alternatives out there.

Where are the alternatives?

Here are my favourites. You can google for many more.

• Decent URL
• Elf URL
• SN URL

I have no reason to be against Tinyurl.com. I am just giving you all to avoid disaster. Better safe than sorry!!

Most of my visitors (90-95%) are Windows users. So I discussed with some of them about why they use Windows and what they love about it. Here is most common points.

Application Support
Don't get me wrong, the competitors have some cool software suites, but if there is a program out there, then there is a good chance it was made for XP, or has a version available for Windows.

Gaming
Hands down, XP is a gaming machine. Gaming companies always make an XP version, and very few port their game over to the competitor's operating system. Virtually, there are no games available only to competitor's operating system, not to Windows. It's always the other way around.

Customizations
Sure prepackaged computers may be great for novice users . But what if you want to build your own? Windows makes it extremely easy. You can just go into any computer shops, buy any hardware components you want without having to worry about whether there's a driver available or not.

Familarity
Like it or not, most companies/corporations use Windows. So if you are a PC users, you must be able to use Windows. That made most of us familiar with Windows. Microsoft marketing teams are really genius too. Instead of bashing competitors' OS, they offered great discount to high schools and University. After all those kids have graduated, what would they get used to? Huh, see?

Free help from friends or family
When your computer faces some problem or you want to tweak a bit, it is easier to find Windows expert among friends or family. It would be very difficult to find people who are expert in other OSes.

If I have to write it down all, the list would go on and on. So let me stop here.

Apple is giving reasons what they think is imperative for making the change from a PC to a MAC can be found on their website and their famous "I'm a PC, I'm a MAC" ads. After I've seen most of the Apple ads and have read their long lists of conviction, I don't see any apparent reasons why Windows users should switch to MAC. Let's start the list!

1. It just works.

Huh? What do you mean it just works? Many MAC ads will tell you that all people that own MAC are really satisfied with their computer and MAC never crash. This all turns out to be a pack of lies. It does crash a lot.

Normally, Windows crash because of third party faulty hardware, for MAC, it's simply because their OS is suck. Just wonder why Apple Sweden website is running Solaris, not MAC OSX. Maybe they know their OS is not reliable.

For those who doubt whether MAC really crashes or not, watch this youtube video. It's a proof that MAC crashes a lot.

2. You can even run Windows.

Apple just invented BootCamp and then came out and say "Come all Windows users, buy our expensive hardware; you can still use your Vista". If you can indeed run Vista like on your normal PC, I wouldn't complain. But you know what, all the function keys will drive you crazy.

**F5 changes the volume instead of refreshing.
**F4 lowers the volume instead of dropping a combo box.
And if all that weren’t bad enough, THERE’S NO RIGHT CLICK BUTTON!!! So besides being pretty, there is no point using the hardware for Windows.

3. Macs run Microsoft Office.

Come on! This is the funniest thing of all. I am really wondering about this. I mean Microsoft Office runs on Microsoft Windows. It just ported to MAC doesn't mean we should switch to MAC. I just ask myself why should I switch when it's the exactly same on the mac?

4. Instant video chats.

Yeah! Yeah! Go and tell your grandmas. All PCs users are having great video chat, conference with Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! and so on since a long time ago.

5. Design that turns heads.

I won't deny MAC looks stylish, neat and tidy. The problem is that their focus on design hinders them from creating practical machines. If you have ever used the small round iMac mouse, you may have probably too suffered from aches in arm and hand.

6. No hunting for drivers.

Apple stated that USB and firewire devices will be working at MAC without having to install drivers. Well, that happens to PC since introducing Windows XP five years ago.

7. You can take it with you.

Apple website stated that most popular applications for MAC and PC use the same file formats, making it simple to exchange documents with friends and coworkers or move existing files from a PC to a MAC.

That is not true. We don't have to be genius to know that switching to the MAC means we will be sacrificing the diversity of software available for the PC. Sure, you get the essential word-processor and web-browser. But you will get Gtalk with only chatting, who would want Gtalk if you can't make voice chat?

8. 114,000 viruses? Not on a Mac.

Apple says their OS is based on UNIX, so it is more secure. But, in reality, the reason is that they can't make OS from scratch like Windows, so they adopted FreeBSD and put some make-up on it.

Of course, there are many viruses for Windows, but Apple forgot to state that there are many Antivirus choices for Windows users as well. Most PCs users who've got antivirus never really suffer from virus problem too. MAC is not virus free (Bad boys can release viruses) and Antivirus choice is very limited if there's any.

9. More fun with photos.

Apple is saying their so-called great invention program named iPhotos that will revolutionize the way we look at digital photos.

Maybe Mac users are new to digital photos on the computer but Windows users reached that stage of evolution ages ago.

10. Hollywood-style movies.

It seems that Apple thinks that they've revolutionized computing by developing mediocre software for viewing digital photos, editing video, burning CDs and DVDs and listening to music. Well they haven't!

So don't be fooled by Apple ads. You have nothing to gain by switching to a Mac. Apple has proved it on their website already. Who would want a mouse with just one button anyway???

I'm always wondered why Yahoo! can't defeat Google yet? I know that Yahoo! acquire many many companies and tried to be in front of Google in the search war.

But except simple search terms, Yahoo! search results are far far behind Google. Yahoo! results usually look spammy and irrelevant. Anyone with one week experience of both search engines can tell you that Google is a clear winner.

Why? why?
Well, the answer actually lies within Yahoo! itself. After you've built a new website, if you want your site to get indexed by Google, everyone can submit for free. Even though Google have adwords program with sponsored search results, Google clearly states that no one can buy search results.

For Yahoo!, even though there are free search submission available, they also accept paid submission. For Yahoo! free submission, it took ages for your site to come up.
There are two types of paid submission for search results.

For Yahoo! Search submit basic

When you initiate your Search Submit Basic subscription, a nonrefundable annual fee of $49 per URL is charged. This annual fee also includes account setup and a basic quality review of your pages. You can submit a maximum of 5 URLs per domain into the program.*

For Yahoo! Search Submit Pro

Pricing is based on cost per click - customers are charged each time a user clicks on one of the customer's search listings. The specific cost is based on the type and category of content provided for inclusion in the algorithmic search results.

See? Despite having Sponsored search results program like Google, Yahoo! also have paid submission to include in their search results. So Yahoo! search results are clearly biased.

My advice is that you shouldn't rely on Yahoo! as long as they have their biased programs, their search results will be their sponsored less relevant webpage presented to you to increase Yahoo! revenue rather than the best relevant results to your keywords.

If you are my regular readers, you might know that I am a big fan of domain names. I have posted about important of having key domain names. business.com sold for $7.5 million. If domain name is not that important, who would have paid $7.5 million in the first place, isn't it?

But after I've checked it out all the high paid domains, they are not really the home of any corporations or businesses at home. For example, business.com. If you checked that website, you may find it surprise that it just contains lists of sponsored links. Not sure they have made enough money to cover the cost of domain or not.

Hey from digg, I have found out Top 30 Most Wasted domain. Yes, they really are wasted. First I thought most people in the world won't hesitate to kill someone to get 3 letters domain names. But after I have seen that lists, I feel that domain names are not that important after all.

Some of the domains in the list that made me surprise are

• Hot.com
  A single page with nothing on it except a lame colored logo. The sky is the limit for a domain like this.


• Toy.com
  PageRank: 0
  Alexa: Over 3 million
  An amazing 3 letter domain! Yet just another parked page.


• Pay.com
  Parked


• Men.com
  PageRank:3
  Alexa: Over 250,000
  Acquired for 1.3 million dollar and seems fully developed. However, a domain like this carries so much power that it is ridiculous it is not more popular.


• My.com
  A 2 letter domain! Seems like an unsuccessful hosting company. This is the only 2 letter domain in this list, and man this is wasted.

It is quite obvious that most of those domain owners are waiting for their dream day, when a big company would throw a big cash at them to take over those names. I believe that day would hardly come as most of the internet users go to Google for whatever the thing they want. Not like 1990s, when no search engines are available, users have to type in the domain names to get what they want. I mean if you're looking for toys, you'd better type toys in the Google than randomly going to toy.com, toy.net or whatsoever.

So when you are starting new businesses or blogs, don't pay high price for domain names, you'd better save your efforts for the better contents and businesses.

After I have read Cow's freak email, that's freak me out too. Do you really know that Abraham Lincoln, American president in 1846 and John F. Kennedy, another American president in 1946 have got a lot in common. Okay, here's the email:

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln ’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named ‘Ford.’
Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘ Lincoln’ made by ‘Ford.’

Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here’s the kicker…

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.

That's really WOW!!! Isn't it? Some people claim they have already learned about this in high school and some said this is very old news. But for me this is really WOW again and again.

Someone worked very hard to say this all coincidence are not really surprising.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

It's hardly surprising that two men who (as noted above) both achieved their first political successes at the national level a hundred years apart would also ascend to the Presidency a hundred years apart. This "coincidence" is even less surprising when we consider that presidential elections are held only once every four years. Lincoln couldn't possibly have been elected President in 1857 or 1858 or 1859 or 1861 or 1862 or 1863, because no presidential elections were held in those years. Likewise, Kennedy couldn't possibly have been elected President in the non-election years of 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, or 1963. So, even though both men were politically active at the national level during eight-year spans when they might have been elected President, circumstances dictated that the only years during those spans when they both could have been elected were exactly one hundred years apart.

You can read the long list of convictions of all the facts are not really surprising at snopes. But I don't agree with those convictions. For me, all these facts are really surprising, amazing coincidences.

Now if you go to Netscape.com, you'll get suprised that there are no longer what-so-called digg killer is there. Now, aol realized that their social networking site is gradually killing them. So they get rid of that into another domain called Propeller.com



Now the old netscape.com is back. Even though it is quite a shame to see big company like aol have to take a step backward, I congrats them for making a right decision. Yeah, that's right, in the Web 2.0 world, you can't kill digg, it's as simple as that.

Apple made following announcements on September 5th.

To make iPhone affordable for even more customers this holiday season, Apple today lowered the price of the 8GB iPhone—its most popular iPhone model—from $599 to just $399. The 4GB model of iPhone will remain available while supplies last. Apple also announced that it is on track to sell its one-millionth iPhone before the end of September.

Can you believe it? That's insulting, isn't it? After this official announcement from Apple came, many of their loyal users feel being bully. One of their loyal users posted in Apple official discussion board,

I am divorcing Apple for irreconcilable differences. My alimony is a $100 store credit, and the children (my Macs, iPods and other products) will go to foster care in eBay.

I am joining my friends on the "dark side" because Apple doesn't look so sunny or friendly anymore. Fly your flags at half-mast. It is a sad day for former Apple supporters.

But Mr. Steve Jobs react just like in the old days. He doesn't seem to mind. He replied with open letters to all iPhone users. I quote:

There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you'll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon.

After reading many of right and wrong debates, I will stand neutral and give warning to all those early technology adopters. Never forget the Apple iPhone example!

Most people ask me why don't I blog about Linux anything at all? I don't know Linux or why? Okay, I will refer to this one of PC world user responds:

Linux versus Windows XP Don't make me laugh! Like your writer, I took a long look at one of the latest versions of Linux (Red Hat Linux 9 in my case). The OS installed nicely, but it took me no less than 1.5 hours to get online with my dial-up connection--after 2 hours of getting my modem configured. Installing software? Don't look for the .zip files you may be used to, and once you get downloaded files unpacked, don't expect them to set up painlessly the way Windows apps do.

After two weeks of this nonsense, I went back to Windows XP. I'll take its ease of use and hardware compatibility any time.

Yeah, that feedback goes almost the same for me, except for the fact that I have tried many Linux distros not just Red Hat Linux 9. You don't have to believe me, you can try yourself.

After I have found out about Google Flight simulator, I have noticed that Marco submitted his story to four community based sites : Digg, Reddit, Shoutwire and Slashdot, at the same time. As Slashdot is editorial based, I won’t discuss about that here.
Here are the screenshots for the other three.





Oh My GOD! 352 views and only 2 shouts? Come on, this article definitely deserve to be shouted. It is impossible that all those 352 people have already known about this easter egg before Marco.

When you compared with Digg and reddit, all the community users gave Marco the diggs and points he deserved.

Why all these Shoutwire users are so mean? Maybe they can't shout anymore as their voice are running out? Come on shoutwire, you can be a lot better than this. I don't mean to offend anyone, just sharing my thought.

Since I restarted my blogging, I am looking for Google Page Rank update. But now, Google must be doing really big to crack link baiting scam. That's a good thing actually as many people are taking advantages of a number assigned by Google almost every 3 months.



According to SEOlogs, this is the longest pagerank update in history. I can't wait to see when Google will update.

Come on Google! We know you are busy and we all are waiting.

All the webmasters need traffic first. In the hope of finding so-called magic formula, we should focus on the quality content first. Cow have got great articles about how A-listers' bloggers are guilty. Check it out!

If you're planning to build online store or are looking for Shopping cart software, I would like to introduce you Ashop Commerce ecommerce software.



To get it setup for Ashop Commerce shopping cart software, you don't need any knowledge of HTML, graphic design or programming skills. They have already provided you with super-easy setup tool.

By using that shopping cart, accepting credit cards couldn't be easier. Ooh, they also integrate Google Checkout feature. Their pricing plan vary from $39.95/mo to $189.95/mo depending on the disk space and number of products your store would handle. They also provide a lot of add-ons feature to add with additional fees if you need. Before you commit yourself, you can try their 10 day free trial first.

My personal advice to you is that if you're doing real business online, you should well spend your budget on shopping cart software and let the expert handle it for you as they are also the winner of Best Technology in Small Business award 2006.

Since I've bought bridgetonova.com domain, I haven't setup up any email addresses yet. Of course, my domain registrar provide Forward Email for free of charge, but I want POP3 access. So I am shopping for email services.

Yahoo! provide these email services.



But when I checked for Gmail, it's free! (Link) Not only Google provide this services for free, but also far more better than Yahoo! Services.



While Yahoo! provide only 1 or 10 email addresses for either $34.95/year or $9.95/mo, Google provide 100 email addresses for free. Yes! that's right 100 email addresses for your domain.

Without any hesitation, I've already signed up with Google. Now you can contact me at jason at mydomain name.

I'm really wondered is there anyone who would buy Yahoo! email services.

At last, Google official blog announced Google more storage services plan.

With a Google shared storage plan, you won't have to worry about deleting files, pictures, or emails. After purchasing a storage plan, some of your individual Google services (e.g. email and photos) will share a single new storage space.

It's a good news, isn't it? Well, it looks like $500 / year for 250 GB is a lot more expensive than external hard disk, you can't compare external hard disk with Google storage.

1. Google will protect your data with their million dollar cluster servers.
2. Unlike your external hard disk, you can access your data anywhere without having to carry anything.
3. Imagine 250 GB Gmail inbox? Of course, only if you're doing email archiving for all descendants, you'll need that much. But, I mean, it's a lot!
4. Google share storage plan looks very cool as you can use in many of Google services including Picassa and Gmail and many more.

Ready to purchase? Go Here!

Are you scared to give your email address on internet for signing up, downloading trial, etc??

Sick of spammers filling your inbox? Currently, there are many spam filtering and fighting techniques available, but none works perfect yet. Spammers always get their way around.

Yahoo! Mail Plus offer throwable email addresses, but to be Yahoo! Mail Plus users, you need to pay their annual fees.

I've found out the free throwable email address provider. It is called 10 minute mail. Their name explain it all.



You get temporary throwable email address for 10 minute, after that email address will self-destruct. You don't need to fill in anything. Just click and you get your email address. You can use it anywhere on internet. Oh, by the way, if 10 minutes is not enough for you, you can easily click "Give me another 10 minutes button" as much as you want.

Enjoy the new spam avoidance solution.

Link : Visit 10 minute mail

Well,

I just found out this very cool firefox plugin, that I can't surf without it anymore. After using that adblockplus plugin, your Yahoo mail will look like Yahoo mail plus, without annoying graphical ads anymore. Your favourite blog will be really ads-free.



The hot debates are "Is this ethical?", "Are we killing the goose?", blah, blah, blah

But the answer is that actually, Adblock Plus gives the user control. If you want to view google ads, don’t filter them.

If you got annoy with chitika ads on my blog, just install that plugin and boom, you can browse Bridge to Nova for ads-free. Trust me, I don't mind. Why?
Guess what, if you got really annonyed by ads on the internet and you love to use this software, maybe you aren't the guy ads company are targeting. It is as simple as that.

Here is what happen if you carelessly place your ads without thorough moderation.




Isn't that pathetic someone accidentally dead from skydiving and the ads nearby says, "we know why you fly" ? Geez, there are many more ads here.