Justin Blog

Photoshop Effects Affecting Life

2008-07-03T23:35:00.001+08:00

This is not quite an alarming thing to know. We already know that almost all the pictures on magazines in one way or another have gone under the Photoshop knife.

As argued in the videos below, the photoshop-ed pictures can leave on many a teenagers an unrealistic image of what looks "good" and cause them to try to achieve too perfect a beauty. I really think it's not excessive to show warnings that the pictures have been digitally retouched to remind the readers that what they are seeing is not real.

Wall-E Video Game

2008-07-01T00:27:00.001+08:00

Wall-E video game to have some fun. I'd love to play it. :)

High quality video is available at the YouTube site.

Wall-E and Eve Toys

2008-07-01T00:24:00.001+08:00

:D Nice toys. I want them too.

High Tech Toilets

2008-06-30T01:37:00.001+08:00

This video is about the very high tech toilets in Japan. Really cool.

The video can be found at this link.

Dinosaur Leonardo

2008-06-30T01:30:00.001+08:00

An interesting video about a fossilized 4-year-old dinosaur named Leonardo.

No embed code. So watch the video here at NatGeo.

Funny Prank Video

2008-06-29T13:48:00.001+08:00

Just sharing a funny prank video I came across. Something like Gags. :D

Call of Duty 4

2008-06-28T21:55:00.001+08:00

This is an acting of the game Call of Duty 4, a game I love and am very impressed with. If you have played along the whole story of CoD4, you would find this video sweet; the closing scene and the background music are all from the game. :-)

If you like to watch in high quality, visit the YouTube page for the video.

Euro 2008 Goal Song

2008-06-27T14:04:00.001+08:00

I have been wondering what song they play every time a goal is scored. Now I have found the songs; I actually found two songs with similar names. One is Samba de Janeiro (according to wikipedia article) and the other Samba e Gol. But they share the same (or almost the same) chorus.

Enjoy them below.

Samba de Janeiro

Samba e Gol

By the way, aren't Trix and Flix cute?

Search Engine Keyword in Firefox

2008-06-25T23:44:00.001+08:00

This is not really a new feature in Firefox 3. It's been in Firefox for a long time. However, more people seem to use keywords for bookmarks than they do for search engines. You can also specify keywords for search engine to quickly search something using that search engine from the address bar or location bar.

Click on the drop-down arrow (the icon on left side of search box) in Firefox. Click on Manage Search Engines.

Select the search engine you want to define a keyword for. For example, I chose Google. Then click on Edit Keyword. Provide the keyword for that search engine.

Now to search for "Google" using Google search engine, type g google (g is the keyword I defined for Google search) in the address bar. That will directly take you to Google search result page for the search term "google".

You can add so many search engine and instead of switching search engine in the search box by clicking, you can quickly search something directly from the address bar (which can be focused with Ctrl + L).

Animate Network Tray Icon in Vista

2008-06-22T00:20:00.001+08:00

Windows Vista has a new set of icons. The Network Tray icon is no exception too. There's one difference from XP network tray icon. By default, the network icon in Vista does not animate. In XP, the two overlapping computers lights up to show the incoming and outgoing traffic. In Vista, you can make it animate too; just that the animation is turned off by default.

To turn on the animation, right-click on the icon and click Turn on activity animation. That's it. Now it will animate to show the traffic.

Can’t Delete More Than 20 Contacts in Gmail

2008-06-21T23:50:00.001+08:00

I was trying to clean up my contacts in Gmail. I was selecting so many contacts which I have never known (there are a few hundreds of them out of my 1000+ contacts). Then I click Delete Contacts. The message below not just simply disappointed me but made me feel I wasted so much of my time.

I’m not the first person to complain about Gmail’s contacts. Gmail not only helps you collect junks in your contacts but it also doesn’t give you a way to clean up those junks. That you can’t delete more than 20 contacts at a time means you can’t export your contacts to CSV, clear your contacts, clean up the contacts in Excel and then import back to Gmail. Gmail simply doesn’t want you to clear away the junks; these junks are, in other words, some form of traces of your communication too. So many people have complained but Google is resistant to this change; this probably means Google may have a hidden agenda for keeping these junks.

UAC useless after Explorer restarts

2008-06-20T00:38:00.001+08:00

As stated in the title of this post, Windows Vista UAC does not work anymore after the Explorer (process: explorer.exe) restarts-albeit in a certain way.

I have noticed this behavior a few months ago but remember to talk about it just now. My Explorer was churning half of my CPU resources at that time, so I restarted it. I did it from Process Explorer (Sysinternals Process Explorer is a better alternative to Windows Task Manager) which has been granted "admin" privileges when it was launched. When, after restarting Explorer, I opened Registry Editor, Auslogics Disk Defrag and Device Manager, there were no UAC prompts to allow these processes to run. It was a strange thing to me; I didn't disabled the UAC and even if I did, it would take one restart to make such a drastic change in security.

A look at the process hierarchy hinted that it must have something to do with Explorer inheriting the rights from Process Explorer. I am not very familiar with how processes are handled by Windows, but it's obviously apparent that the child processes are inheriting properties from the parent process. Now that Explorer has obtained the privilege, its child processes, the processes launched from Desktop, Start Menu, or Run command, will also inherit the "admin" privilege by default even with UAC turned on.

What's the matter with this? This is the way it works by design. But, what if someone who is moderately tech savvy-know enough tools to tweak around but does not know enough to properly protect himself/herself from malwares-gets to use Process Explorer (which asks for the "admin" privilege at the launch) and restarts Explorer knowingly or by mistake or by playful habit? This is the end of UAC protection for him/her. Launching any program will not result in UAC prompt and the Internet Explorer will no longer run in Protected Mode. This is the time when a plethora of malwares can start to exert their power, and the user will be left with thinking why his/her computer is infected even when UAC is turned on and wondering how these malwares escaped the UAC; in worst case, the user will probably think UAC is nuts and will turn it off which exposes him/her even more.

In my opinion, this should NOT happen when the UAC is turned on. I know that it is by design of processes in Windows NT. Anyhow, when the UAC is turned on, Microsoft should enforce that Explorer starts or restarts with the default privileges ("non-admin" privilege) or parameters irregardless of the state of the parent process. I am not sure how hard it is to make this change but I will be very glad if Explorer is made to start with the preset parameters instead of inheriting them from the parent.

In terms of severity and impact, this is a High severity and Medium impact case.

Bill Gates' Speech at Harvard

2008-06-17T20:39:00.001+08:00

Just another commencement speech. This time, by Bill Gates at Harvard. It was made last year, so a bit old. Bill, like in another speech one year ago (which I don't remember where I watched), made his point of thinking for the less and the least privileged groups of people on the world while not compromising the interests of the most privileged ones. Good! This is a long speech which will take 25 minutes of your time.

Steve Jobs' Speech at Stanford Commencement

2008-06-17T20:14:00.001+08:00

This is a pretty good inspirational speech by Steve Jobs uploaded on Standford YouTube channel. It's worth your 15 minutes. Do try to watch it.

Duke University YouTube Channel

2008-06-06T21:46:00.002+08:00

Duke University recently launched the official YouTube channel of the school, showcasing the Research, the Student Life, and the University. I wonder this will become a major way of advertising the universities—private and public—since videos are more effective than just the mere words on the university prospectus.

Thinking of this, I wonder when I will start to see the Official NUS YouTube Channel.

Below is a sample video from the Duke YouTube Channel:

By the way, I'm writing this from a new Blogger gadget for iGoogle which allows you to write posts to your blog from iGoogle page.

BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype

2008-06-06T21:36:00.001+08:00

This looks like a revolutionary desktop for the computers to match the realistic feel of dealing with documents. It's promising indeed. But, I wonder how much effort I have to put in to learn the strokes and, more importantly, why I would want to deal with my "digital" files the way I deal with the paperbacks. Anyway, take a look at the video; you might find it amusing at the very least.

Adobe BuzzWord

2008-06-02T23:31:00.003+08:00

I just know about this new web site called www.acrobat.com, a surprise launch by Adobe. It's basically another document creation tool on the web.

I tried BuzzWord, the word processor, but was immediately disappointed by the user interface and the difficulty the features can be deciphered, let alone the slow start of the Flex application (I think it's done with Flex, a somewhat stupid language developed by Adobe; you can get the SDK free but you have to pay for the eclipse plug-in Flex Builder.)

I will just go through the user interface elements. It is very obvious that Adobe is assuming users are very good at visual cues—that they can know the function once they see the icon. True if the icons are standard icons that have been used to convey the same meaning for years, but as you will see in the screenshots below, Adobe's icons are not only the standard icons but seriously lack the inherent meaning of the function or feature behind them.

Please try to guess the functions of the icons below. They appear on top right corner of the BuzzWord word processor.

Does the meaning come to you easily? Without any payload on your brain? Did it come to you that the third icon from left is for inserting image? Another one here:

What does the Greek statue have to do here? What is "3"? What is the circular ring on the right side? Why are they all too cryptic? Only when I hover my mouse over the statue did it show the word History. But, what history does it refer to? Am I getting to a Wikipedia page about the Greek Statues if I ever click on it? I think they should have used Document History or Revision instead of just the word History.

I haven't finished. Take a look at one more screenshot:

Do you see the icon for Strikethrough? What is it? Is it a Chinese character meaning a rod? One more: did you see on the far left end of the image above that there is a small dark green something. What do you take it for if you see it just like that? Believe it or not! It's a visual cue for a ruler! Congratulations!

The cryptic icons are not the only blames. Adobe reinvented the Text Color box. Take a look.

Why don't they make it simple enough for an average word processor user like me? I know Adobe is very good at image editing and colors, and a lot of people use it. I also use it in Photoshop. But, this is a word processor! Not an image editor. Why give me so many color choices so that every title of my page will have subtly different color hues, since all the color circles are so closely packed that I would inadvertently click on the wrong one that resembles the color I had chosen for another title. In all its best look, I, being a biomedical student, see it more like a microarray chip (albeit more colorful) than a text color picker. Another congratulations!

There may be many others but the last one I found I don't like is the bouncy UI elements. Remember those six cryptic icons on the top right corner of the document processor? When I hover my mouse over each icon, they animate too much, especially the last one, that their position has become "unstable".

All the icons move just too much to the left to give way to the text explaining the function of that enigmatic icon.

Well...my tirade has come to an end. To sum up, I'm not at all impressed by BuzzWord and it is nowhere near the quality of Ajax alternatives like Google Docs. Apple and Orange!

Appendix: As with all Flash application, it is very annoying to lose the focus from the browser to the application; you can't press Ctrl + L to get to the address bar anymore.

Einstein's Doodle

2008-06-01T12:05:00.001+08:00

How much do you think some doodles of Einstein are worth? Or how much are you willing to pay for them?

I just found on Discovery web site that the estimated value is $150k to $250k. I couldn't believe who would be so crazy enough to pay that much. Or is (s)he possibly hoping to discover something from the handwritings of Einstein when he was doodling his scientific thoughts?

Risk of Boiling Water in Microwave Oven

2008-06-01T11:35:00.003+08:00

This is about heating water alone in a cup in microwave oven. I don't know what phenomenon it is called as I have not done any research on it or I am no physics expert. But, read and take a look at the demo video attached.

Below is the exact reproduction of the email that I received. Anyone who wants to claim the copyright of or mention of name for the attached video and/or the text can leave a comment (of course, with proof).

Hi folks, for your safety read the article below and see the demo attached. This is a repeat.

Important to see the demo attachment. Just incase u dont know....

Adrian wrote:
A 26-year old person decided to have a cup of coffee. He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up (something that he had done numerous times before). I am not sure how long he set the timer for, but he told me he wanted to bring the water to a boil. When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven. As he looked into the cup, he noted that the water was not boiling, but instantly the water in the cup 'blew up' into his face.

The cup remained intact until he t hr ew it out of his hand but all the water had flown out into his face due to the build up of energy. His whole face is blistered and he has 1st and 2nd degree burns to his face which may leave scarring. He also may have lost partial sight in his left eye.

While at the hospital, the doctor who was attending to him stated that this is fairly common occurrence and water (alone) should never be heated in a microwave oven. If water is heated in this manner, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy such as: a wooden stir stick, tea bag, etc. It is however a much safer choice to boil the water in a kettle.

General Electric's response:
Thanks for contacting us. I will be happy to assist you. The e-mail that you received is correct. Microwaved water and other liquids do not always bubble when they reach the boiling point. They can actually get superheated and not bubble at all. The superheated liquid will bubble up out of the cup when it is moved or when something like a spoon or tea bag is put into it.

To prevent this from happening and causing injury, do not heat any liquid for more than two minutes per cup. After heating, let the cup stand in the microwave for thirty seconds before moving it or adding anything into it. If you pass this on ... you could very well save someone from a lot of pain and suffering.

Google Android Phone Preview

2008-05-30T23:59:00.001+08:00

This is a first public preview of the Google Android mobile phone OS. It has gone through a lot of UI changes since the first version of SDK was released and I worked on it to develop an application for my internship last December.

With the right hardware, Android is gonna be an apple of everyone's eyes. It sure beats Apple's iPhone, with no doubt.

Google's Treat for Euro 2008

2008-05-30T00:49:00.001+08:00

Google is doing something for the soccer fans for the coming Euro 2008 tournament. There's gonna be a fan map which shows the latest standings, the stadiums and the kick-off of matches.

There will also be an iGoogle gadget for the live matches just as Google did for the last World Cup. The gadget is not live yet but it will soon be.

A YouTube fan diary page is also now live for the fans to share their diary clips of the tournament.

Nice offerings from Google. But, the whole tournament is not exciting for me somehow since England was knocked out earlier.

Congratulations to the Man Utd

2008-05-25T18:44:00.001+08:00

How glad am I to see United do the double this year. I'm hopeful the current squad will do it again next year, probably a treble then!

While I feel joyous for the United, I feel as much pain, if not more, as the captain John Terry for the loss Chelsea suffered that night; I must say though that while Chelsea played as good soccer as United, their style was not a very entertaining one.

Salute to the champions and to the proud runner-up. Isn't it that in a final, one side must always lose?!

Unchanging Mind

2008-05-14T03:34:00.001+08:00

Referring to this excerpt from BBC News article on 13 May regarding the relief measures in Burma for the Cyclone Nargis:

Vice-Admiral Soe Thein said [the country] was grateful for the aid shipment from the United States that arrived on Monday but insisted that "skilful humanitarian workers are not necessary".

Oh...really? That makes me wonder if we have more than enough skilful aid workers. =)

Before and After Marriage

2008-05-12T02:21:00.001+08:00

Before marriage: read top down

After marriage: read bottom up

He: Yes. At last. It was so hard to wait.
She: Do you want me to leave?
He: No! Don't even think about it.
She: Do you love me?
He: Of course! Over and over!
She: Have you ever cheated on me?
He: No! Why are you even asking?
She: Will you kiss me?
He: Every chance I get.
She: Will you hit me?
He: Are you crazy! I'm not that kind of person!
She: Can I trust you?
He: Yes.
She: Darling!

Did you just smile? Would you wonder why?

Live QnA Redesign

2008-05-11T17:06:00.001+08:00

Microsoft has redesigned the Live QnA page. The new page is apparently more appealing to the eyes.

It also features a tag cloud to browse the questions (and the answers).

I hope Microsoft will move to standardize its web service pages. So far the UI has been very unattractive and not intuitive and is not consistent across all products.