Digital Bento - Rambling In The Digital World

How-To: Speed Reading

Hiong Lin Chung — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 12:14:03 -0400

Everyday, more reading materials are published, including printed materials and content-based websites. Picking what to read and what not to read is important so you don't waste time on junk text. Besides, reading speed is also very important. I had always been reading at average reading speed of around 200 wpm until I bumped into Scott H Young's articles Double Your Reading Rate and Speed Reading Follow-Up. Apparently what I had been doing very wrong when I read was trying to subvocalize every word in the text...

Like Visual Search Helps You To Wear Like A Star

Hiong Lin Chung — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:31:38 -0500

Many people, especially ladies who care about fashion trends most likely have run into a situation where they saw a celebrity wearing a cool accessory, but had a hard time to find it (or at least to find something similar) in any store. If you are one of them, you probably have tried online shopping to spot the item, although convenient, the hunting process could be boring and tedious. Ryan Inc's new Likeness search technology comes in to rescue you from browsing tens or hundreds of pages of online catalogs.

Windows Vista Software Compatibility List

Hiong Lin Chung — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:13:21 -0500

If you just upgraded to Windows Vista, there's a big chance that some of the softwares you used on Windows XP do not work on Vista anymore, well, at least not for now. While browsing through the list of compatible software on Vista, I noticed that my favorite security suite -- ZASS (Zone Alarm Security Suite) isn't on the list...

Identify Unknown Fonts Using Identifont

Hiong Lin Chung — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 08:33:37 -0500

After I formatted my hard disk drive last August I lost some free fonts which I didn't backup, including the Bauhaus font which I used for aigoo.net's text-based logo. I had to look it up while renovating that site last month. After trying some font identifiers returned by Google's search result, I found Identifont very impressive...

SearchMash - Google Search with Better User Interface

Hiong Lin Chung — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 08:11:05 -0500

I wonder when is Google gonna decide to bring their experimental search user interface at SearchMash over to Google Search, or make SearchMash out of beta. Like other Google sites, SearchMash is powered by AJAX user interface which gives pleasant user experience. If the current Google Search is a one stop search engine site, then SearchMash is a one stop search engine page. It neatly integrates web search, image search, blog search, video search, and even Wikipedia look up into one page...

Chinswing Powers Audio Discussions

Hiong Lin Chung — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:14:45 -0500

Discussion boards have been one of the most popular ways to exchange opinions on serious topics, to seek for the answer you need in a community, and to help others by giving your answers for what you are knowledgeable in. However, it could be tiring to go through a long thread which you are involved in after a long day at work. To spice things up, Chinswing offers a platform for audio-based discussions, allowing users to spit out their thoughts with their own voice instead of a chain of letters...

GetMooh Helps You To Get Out of Sticky Social Situations

Hiong Lin Chung — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 05:12:03 -0500

I had totally forgotten about GetMooh until I saw an article about it earlier today at LiewCF.com. Basically Getmooh is a free automated call back service designed by Antonia Caffrey, with a good intention to help you escape a variety of situations by calling you automatically on your phone at a pre-scheduled time and playing you a recording of your choice. The nearest time you could schedule a Getmooh call is 15 minutes from present time.

Web-based Image Editor: PXN8 vs nexImage

Hiong Lin Chung — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:09:18 -0500

There are plenty of web-based image editors around thanks to the free image processing libraries. But not many of them are notable either due to lack of functionalities or lousy user interface. PXN8 and nexImage are two of the more notable recent web-based image editors. PXN8 (pronounced as pix-en-ate) is aiming for photo editing while nexImage, currently at version 2.3.1, is a more ambitious project aiming for image editing with more functionalities.

Assemble A Facial Sketch In Minutes

Hiong Lin Chung — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 23:22:27 -0500

Facial sketch composing software isn't new, indeed it has been widely used around the world for years. But how often would someone buy or develop such software system for personal use? The answer is "very rare". Ultimate Flash Face comes in to fill the hole for home users. Now everyone could compose a facial sketch by assembling facial parts easily with this free-to-use software made in Flash.

Let Your Visitors Preview External Websites With Snap Preview Anywhere

Hiong Lin Chung — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 11:52:25 -0500

Most of the time it's great to be able to preview what you're gonna get, this is also true for links to external websites even though it is not a necessity. I always wonder what I'm gonna see before clicking a link to a website I have never been to, with Snap's Snap Preview Anywhere, I don't have to waste anymore of my time to load ugly pages (especially when they are graphics-heavy pages hosted on server with slow computing/connection speed).