Dizzy Dee

Online backups are becoming more and more popular. Its so much more convenient than having to carry your memory stick, or portable hard drive along.

You might know I’m close to paranoid about making backups. I have lost data before, due to my PC hard drives crashing (repeatedly), and I know the feeling of not being able to get back your photo’s or emails.

Even business documents and your CV is safe and secure with iBackup. For only $9.95 / month for 5GB you will have peace of mind, knowing that your data is safe from harm.

Some things can just never be replaced, and I strongly suggest that you keep these in a place where you know they won’t get hit by lightning, stolen, or just plain lost.

So finally, when I have a few moments to sit down, pick up my pen… I mean,… Sit at my PC and type I don’t have much news, except that I got the Rooibos for Beth, Christine & Joe, and will send it off :). I am so glad that its weekend, but aren’t we all?

So instead of boring you with my monotonous daily routine or something like that, I will show you what options you have if you’re upgrading your mobile phone sometime in the nearby (or not so nearby) future…..Some of these really remind me of the horrible 60’s films which were made about the ‘future’.

1 . Nokia 888 Communicator
Nokia definitely has the most interesting concept phones. Nokia 888 Communicator is a striking futuristic concept phone. The phone, which uses liquid batteries, speech recognition, flexible touchscreen and touch-sensitive body cover,is designed by Tamer Nakisci and won the Nokia Design Award

2 . Nokia Aeon
Nokia Aeon was presented by Nokia on their website in the Research & Development section. What is so great about this phone is that it looks like it will actually go into production next February. Of course, its just a rumor, but still, makes us hope to actually see it someday in the GSM shop. All we know about it for now is that its a touchscreen phone and it looks fantastic.

3 . Sky “Sleak n Slim”
“Sleek & Slim” from SKY is another concept based on touchscreen technology. The phone has a discretely glowing touchpad, hideaway keys and generally utterly-fashionable minimalist design.

4 . Benq-Siemens “Snaked”
Benq designers thought of women too and presented Snaked. This is a “reptile” looking phone, creepy somehow, but still is very cool. The Snaked is a fashion phone for sport loving women, because it also has body monitoring sensors to help the ladies keep those fine shapes. Somehow similar to the Snaked concept, the NEC Tag is a flexible phone concept that can be , for example, hung from a belt or wrapped around the user’s arm. Interesting is that the phone has shape-memorizing material and sensors that allows the phone to change its shape according to the mode.

5 . What You See is What You Get Concept
One thing is for sure about this concept phone…they could’ve named it shorter. Designed by Pei-Hua Hang, the phone’s name comes from the fact that this concept no longer uses an LCD as viewfinder for the digital camera, instead it uses a transparent frame. And of course, interaction is made through a touchscreen.

6 . Retroxis By Dark Label
If most phones presented here will never be sold in store for sure, the Retroxis concept phone from Dark Label looks kinda human, and makes us hope we’ll be able to get one of these one day. Designed by Lim Sze Tat the phone is encased in high polished polycarbonate renowned for its lightweight and toughness and has an invisible OLED display that silently hides away when inactive.

7 . Benq-Siemens “The Blackbox”
Black Box designed by Benq-Siemens uses a touch screen as its keypad and, depending on the functions you are using, the touch screen changes the control layout immediately.

8 . NEC Tag
Somehow similar to the Snaked concept, the NEC Tag is a flexible phone concept that can be , for example, hung from a belt or wrapped around the user’s arm. Interesting is that the phone has shape-memorizing material and sensors that allows the phone to change its shape according to the mode.

9 . TripleWatch
Though the idea of a cellphone watch is not so new, the TripleWatch designed by Manon Maneenawa has an interesting triple flip technique that allows the user to transform the watch into a normal cellphone. When used as a wrist watch, the phone has a speaker button that allows the user to answer the phone and hang up while driving.

10 . Asus Aura
And here’s another concept phone - Asus Aura, produced by Hungarian design company Egy Studio for Taiwanese vendor. It was clearly inspired by iPhone, although it has some interesting innovations addressing commonly mentioned shortcomings of Apple’s cellphone.
Asus Aura Concept Phone. One of them is a movable navigation module with navigation buttons, another - a sliding QWERTY keyboard that should make text entry much easier. Other features of Asus Aura include - 3,9″ touchscreen covering the whole surface of the phone, 2 megapixel camera, microSD memory card slot, GSM, UMTS, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. All of this in a 6mm thick package. Unfortunately Asus Aura is just a concept so far and will stay that way probably a few years.

You know I am always going on about backups. I cannot stress this enough. It is important to make backups. Even if its of things you think you will never use again.
I got myself a 250GB external hard drive a while ago, which works like a charm (If I remember to backup obviously).

But for those of you who do not have something like this, its now easier than ever. For $9.95 per month for 5GB you use IBackup’s Online Storage.
You can sign up for the free trial on their website just to make sure that it is what you want. Pretty cool, huh?

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on:

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash……..Twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation” warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

Hey you all… Just popped in to say hi, and that I’m on BloggersChoiceAwards - So please vote for me!

As you will see, the button is already there on your top left hand side (had to think for a moment which side <- that is…)
I’ve been trying hard to get back to everyone who has ever commented on my site, and was surprised to see how many of those blogs don’t exist any more.

You might have noticed that I’ cleared my blogroll too - removed some of the old and dead links. If you’d like to be on my blogroll however, please contact me by leaving a comment or e-mailing me.

Please note however that I do reserve the right to deny adding your blog due to lack of updates, obscene material, abusive advertisements, or any other offensive material which I do not wish to promote.

Okay, I know about ways to find answers, but I don’t want google of wikipedia answers this time. I want YOUR answers, and only because I believe you’ll tell what really worked for you!

I want to get my pagerank up from the current google pagerank of 4 - please give me lots of suggestions?

LOL. No seriously now, I’d like to know if anyone knows about a fairly simple way change this?

Do I have any hope of getting it to a 5 or 6?

I’ve always been a loyal Google fan. No other search engine has thus far impressed me more. Shockingly enough I realized that not all people even know what is? I suppose I cannot blame them, but as for us bloggers, I assume we all know what Google is, and what it does. Well, maybe not all of it… I was surprised to find a few more items to add to the Google functionality list… If you have a gmail account you get access to a lot of really cool services - all for free! Have a look at the list below, because you may not not about them all. I still have some Gmail invites left, so if you’re interested in getting a Gmail account, you can e-mail me and request an account, or you can leave a comment. I only have a certain amount left, so first come first serve!

…Google AdSense is adverts which you include on your website or blog, and when someone clicks on an advert, you get paid! Easy as that!

…Google Analytics offers very detailed information on who visits your website or blog, where they’re from, what links were clicked etc. Once again you have to add a small bit of script to your page(s).

…Google Calendar allows you to add calender notes, appointments, and birthday, and also comes with an option to set an alarm for each even you add, for which you will get an e-mail reminder!

…Docs and Spreadsheet allows you to either create or upload word documents and spreadsheets. These are not limited to Microsoft word documents, or excel spreadsheets, but you can also upload OpenOffice documents and spreadsheets, as well as RTF and HTML documents. This includes a spell checker, and most of the formatting found in Microsoft Word. You can also download these documents again, as word documents and even pdf’s! You can also share your documents, choose between making your documents public, or only inviting certain people [by e-mail address] to view your documents. You can even publish your documents to your blog!

…Gmail is Google’s web based e-mail service. This is by far the best free web based e-mail account I have EVER had! You can set it up to download as POP3 [Meaning you can receive your mail into Outlook, Outlook Express and Thunder Bird].

…Google Talk is part of Gmail, and you don’t need to download anything to use it!! If you have your Gmail e-mail account open in a browser, you can chat with your friends in the same browser! You can however download the Google Talk application which is relatively small [1.5MB], and enables you to make a phone call to someone else who has Google Talk, send files, and type chat.

…Google Groups allows to join a group of people in a discussions, or create your own group. Groups are divided in categories, such as science, technology etc. When creating your own group you can set it to be public, or private. When set to private, only people you invite will be able to join your group. This is especially useful if you want other people’s opinions on a specific subject, or if you want to create a place of discussion, instead of sending out loads of e-mails to a group of people.

… A personal favorite of mine is the Notebook, here you can keep all your notes. Shopping lists, ideas for birthday gifts, and even notes about your next blog entry.

…Reader is a built in RSS Reader. If you’re wondering what an RSS reader is, its the abbreviation for “Rich Site Summary”. This basically mean that you can subscribe to a blog with the RSS Reader, and whenever there is a new post you will be able to see it in your RSS Reader, without having to go to the blog to check manually.

…Google Video allows you to upload video’s and share them with your friends, or to watch already uploaded video’s. These are again categorized, just like the Google groups, to allow you to find what you’re looking for fairly easily.

… Google Photos is something which I’ve only noticed recently, and haven’t tried out myself. Apparently you can download Picasa for free, or use the Google web interface to upload your photo’s to an online album. Again you can choose to keep your photo’s private, or make them public. There’s 250MB of space to use, which is not too much, but should allow for about 65 fairly large photo’s. They do however have an option to increase your storage space for an annual fee. Here are the different upgrade options: 6.25GB [$25 per year], 25GB [$100 per year], 100GB [$300 per year], 250GB [$500 per year].

…There’s also a pretty neat extention for Firefox called Gmail Space. This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space [2.5 GB and growing] for file storage.

Apart from the features listed above, there are a whole long list more, see below if you’re interested!

Note: The features below don’t require a Google account, and is accessed from the normal Google search page. The applicable keyword must just be entered in the search box along with the commands listen below.

Glossary & Dictionary

…For the glossary of any English word, type define:word for which Google will return definitions. This page includes all the definitions for the word that Google found on the web.

…You can also try adding “What is” in front of the word you want to know the definition for. Like what is sleep, for which Google returns a natural and periodic state of rest during which consciousness of the world is suspended.

Calculation & Mathematical Constants

…Google calculater handles basic addition, multiplication, subtraction & division. But also helps you with more advanced calculations such as, trigonometric functions, inverse trigonometric functions, hyperbolic functions, and logarithmic functions. Just enter the proper formula into the search box, and wait for Google to display the answer. By entering 4 + ((16 x 66) / 2) Google will give you the answer, 542 - easy as that!

…In addition to performing calculations, Google also knows a variety of mathematical and scientific constants, such as pi, Avogadro’s Number, and Planck’s Constant. It also knows the radius of the Earth, the mass of the sun, the speed of light, the gravitational constant, and a lot more. For example, if you’re not sure what the value of pi is, just enter pi into the Search box and press Enter; Google returns 3.14159265, as it should. How about the speed of light? Enter speed of light, and Google returns 299,792,458 m/s.

Converter

…If you want to convert any unit of measure into another, for example 5 minutes in seconds, you type just that, and voila, you get 300 seconds. You can do the exact same with mass, temperature, and probably every other unit of measure you can think of.

…Google lists facts, so if you type in the key words of what you’re looking for, Google will give you the facts. For instance, if you type in William Shakespeare birthday, Google returns Date of Birth: 23 April 1564. Google will also be able to return the population of a certain country, birthplace of a well known person, currency of any country, and even the current president of a country.

As you know there is also Google Earth, which is a application you can download showing satellite images of nearly the whole Earth! Froogle is Google shopping, but I haven’t spent much time researching that, as it really doesn’t interest me. If you know anything else interesting about Google, make sure to leave your comment!

Sources: Google, and Informit

Something that’s been puzzling me for the past while, is who exactly reads my blog. Since I’m with Wordpress, I cannot use Google Analytics to check where all my visitors are from. On my other sites, I’ve setup Google Analytics, and its quite cool to see how small the world actually is. I’ve tried to figure out who would be interested in my blog; here’s my conclusion…

Firstly there’s the googlers - these are people that come across something that was posted either via google, or some other search engine. A lot of times these people don’t stay long, they either find what they were looking for, or they don’t.

Then there are the guys from the trafficking sites, such as BlogMad & 25 Peeps - once again, these will know within the first 8 seconds whether they like your blog or not. Some will stick around, and some will even return, but the majority seem to just browse past in their daily pursuit of credits.

People who you know read your blog. Whether they be friends, or just contacts from the net. These people probably have a blog of their own that you read too.

Lastly there are the snoops. These are the people that you KNOW. Your family, your friends, and even sometimes your co-workers. But you don’t know that they are reading your blog. They’re probably looking for something that you’ve leaked out onto your blog that they don’t know about yet. These people never leave comments, and would never admit to even knowing that you have a blog. I find it quite amusing to think that I’m being spied on… Just wonder if they find what they’re looking for.

If I’m missing a category, please feel free to correct me. Otherwise let me know which of these you are… If you have the guts!

So I tried everything to remove this obscure folder from my desktop. I don’t know how it got there in the first place, or who put it there, I just knew I had to get rid of it. I managed to delete all of the files in the folder except for two of them. With the help of someone I tried to delete it through the Cmd Prompt, and then just got an error that the files don’t exist. Finally I googled and found this cute app ( http://www.d-a-l.com/help/showthread.php?t=18815 ) Its can delete virtually anything!! Sounds a bit stupid now I know, but it was really handy at the time. If you ever have the same trouble, I really recommend it