At last, the transformation is complete. It has been quite a journey, beginning with this and slowly morphing till it reached this final stage. Seems the eventual theme for this year is a Google Christmas tree, complete with a sprinkling of glittering stars, red and white striped candy and a red bow ribbon. Unsure of what the blue hue in the background is though, but it sure adds to the effect. But I must admit I'm slightly disappointed that there aren't any little stick figures making merry in front of the holiday logo.
Showing posts with label fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fun. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Well, well, what have we got here. Butterflies/Fireflies, an uprighted bow ribbon, a fishing figure and a Christmas caroler? Or is he grooving to Christmas tunes instead? The pieces are falling into place and yet I still have no idea what Google is up to. Can't wait to see what's in store tomorrow. Btw, you've heard it before but here it is once again - Merry Christmas!
The end is coming, but what is it?
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Well, it looks like I was partly right, but the rest of my predictions were just plain off target. The construction dude was working on a red ribbon bow, but its companion was not washing the logo. Instead, it was candy coating the red letters. Wonder what their friends are up to with that giant green glass jar. Is something about to happen with the letter l?
What's next?
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Ok, wow. I was totally not expecting this. In case you missed part 1, this was how Google's logo looked like yesterday. Now tell me you had predicted the logo was going to look like this today. The recurring theme this year appears to be two stick figures sporting construction outfits and doing something in general. This time though, they're hard at work instead of just messing about. Suspended by a single wire, one of them is giving the Google logo a good scrub. Its partner appears to be in charge of transforming that red ribbon into a bow. Looks like that red ribbon is in fashion again.
What's coming next?
Friday, December 21, 2007
The first of Google's holiday's doodle logos for 2007 is out. Continuing with previous years' tradition of having multiple celebratory logos, Google's 2007 Holiday Doodle page teases us with the as-yet-unknown second logo that will surely be gracing the front page of Google tomorrow. Last year's series began with Google's logo decorated with a bright red ribbon on Google's big blue G and ended up with a happy kangaroo family standing in front of its logo. If you missed the 2006 series, visit Google's 2006 Holiday Doodle site to view all 5 logos. For more of previous years logos, go to Google's collection of Holiday Logos.
Can you guess what's coming next?
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Tired of waiting for your tiny teacup pigs to arrive? Or are you still in the six month long line? How about getting lokulokus for the time being? Squash the lokulokus and watch them regain their form. Not enough? Do it over and over again and be amazed as the pigs fatten up for your perverted pleasure. I've always wanted to squeeze the fat out of a pig. :)
Visit the Official lokuloku site.
[via Pig Toy Gets Completely Squashed, Raises Like Terminator T1000 @ Gizmodo]
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Dicky @ PQ Computing Inc just emailed me about an excellent deal that they're currently offering. Simply talk about PQ Talking Photo in your blog and you'll be able to receive this $59.90 software for free!
In case you haven't heard about PQ Talking Photo, it allows you to convert your photos into animated characters. With a few clicks, you can animate many different types of photos and sync them to speech. With Christmas just around the corner, it's a great way to amuse your friends and family.
If you're interested, you should act fast as this is a limited time offer that expires after Christmas. Head over here for more details.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Ever since eToro was featured on TechCrunch and got dugg, I've been addicted to Forex trading with eToro. Actually, I've been playing this since yesterday. :)
As TechCrunch rightly points out, eToro's friendly interface makes the boring, serious world of Forex fun. At this stage, let me just state for the record that I'm not a professional Forex trader nor do I have any prior experience with Forex trading. I do however have the (very) basic knowledge of how currencies work.
With that in mind, I skipped the introductions and dived straight into the big bad world of Forex. Out of the 4 eToro games available, the first game I tried out was the Forex marathon. Just select the currency which you think would rise above the rest and sit back and relax as they race against one another. 
It was quite enjoyable to watch the Japanese sumo wrestler pitting himself against the American and European. As your selected currency rises/falls, the corresponding character will lead the pack or fall behind the rest. I'm sure many new traders will prefer this alternative representation to the standard graphs and charts as a single glance will tell you whether you made the right choice even if you're a layman.
However, Globe trader was the game that I excelled in. In Globe trader, you buy/sell currencies to make a profit. As the market fluctuates, you will hear a pinging sound, which was useful and sometimes annoying (it can be turned off).
Within an hour of risky trading, I made over $500. Unfortunately, my lucky streak came to an end and I ended up losing over $1000. This goes to show that the volatility of the Forex market is something that cannot be underestimated.
Although eToro's interface may seem very childish, it does actually provide vital details like the market spread, your current profit/loss and the ability to take profit or stop loss (profit/loss threshold). However, after my short trading experience, I wished it had more features like scheduling and the ability to carry out more consecutive trades. Nevertheless, eToro brings the much needed element of fun into the Forex trading world.
eToro runs on Windows XP and possibly Vista.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Offtopic: Hope you're enjoying your weekend. If not, maybe these will help. :)
Clippy
The ghost of Clippy is back to haunt you! Or someone you know. :P Remember when you trivialized/despised Clippy and his helpful tips? Well Clippy isn't pleased with the way you've been treating him all these years. Revenge is the only thing on Clippy's mind and he will not stop until he claims his next unsuspecting victim. :P
If you're feeling really evil, run Clippy with this command - "clippy 1 random" - without quotes. He'll popup every second to irritate the person behind the chair. :) Note: Clippy is joke software and some antivirus software may flag him as a baddie, but he's pretty harmless. Clippy runs on Windows 95 onwards.
Crayon Physics
The objective of Crayon Physics is to get the red ball to the yellow star. Sounds easy eh? Just wait till you see what's in store for you. ;) I personally spent 30 minutes completing it the first time. Yeah, I went back for a second time, because it's very addictive.
Crayon Physics is 5.6MB large and runs on Windows only. The author's working on a newer version called Crayon Physics Deluxe. It looks way cooler than the old version but its name doesn't sound very free.
Don't let Clippy find you. :)
Monday, November 12, 2007
Offtopic: Yesterday there was an overdose of Windows programs. Today, it's the revenge of the online applications. :P
Songza
If you like the simplicity of Google, then Songza is the perfect music search engine for you. With a simple and uncluttered interface, Songza relies on YouTube to get you the songs you desire. Unlike Google however, Songza is jazzed up with AJAX and Web 2.0 effects. You'll be able to enjoy seamless inline page loads and cool fade in/out animations while searching for your favorite music. One of the strengths of Songza is also its main weakness - its dependence on YouTube means not every song can be found, although Youtube's vast catalog of music videos more than makes up for it.
Feed Crier
If you're not satisfied with the current delivery methods of your favorite feeds, Feed Crier offers you yet another alternative - feeds by instant message. Just enter your alias and a feed's URL and you're all set to receive updates via IM. Feed Crier only works on the AIM, MSN and Jabber/GTalk networks.bookr
Create a scrapbook of your favorite Flickr photos with bookr. Search for pictures either by users or tags and drag and drop your chosen images onto your book's pages. If you like, you can type a short caption for each photo. When you're done, publish your book for the world to see. Here's one I've made in less than 5 minutes.Want more? Subscribe to me by Feed Crier and you'll be notified ASAP when I write anything new. :)
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Offtopic: Yes I know there was no freebie post yesterday. The fault lies with Apple as they released 1.1.2 a day early. :P
Over 40 free fonts
Smashing Magazine does it again by bringing you some of the best free fonts you'll ever see this year. In 40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional Design, you'll see a wide range of fonts, including serif and sans serif fonts, award-winning fonts, a handwriting font and even pixel fonts. Designers and font collectors are bound to love this typeface collection. The only snag you'll face is a handy zip file for download convenience. Perhaps someone could step in to fill this void?music-alerts
Too busy to keep track of album release dates? Why not let music-alerts worry about that? Tell music-alerts about your favorite acts and it'll keep a watchful eye on them. Whenever they attempt to sneak an album past you, your personal music-alerts RSS feed will be updated and you can catch them red-handed. You can be sure you won't fall too far behind as music-alerts' database is refreshed every 3 days with Amazon's latest stock.Foamee
What do you get when you mix Twitter with beer? Stumped? With Foamee, you'll be able to answer some of the most important questions in your life - how many beers you owe someone and how many you're owed. That is, if you remember to send out the message to Foamee...If you enjoyed this, I guess you owe me a (root) beer. ;) Don't worry, Foamee's root beer tracker is still bubbling. :P
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Offtopic: Oops forgot about this part. Nothing here today, just enjoy the games. ;)
Drop.io
At its very core, Drop.io is simply a file host. Unlike other file hosts however, Drop.io makes it convenient for users to use their service. For example, registration is not required and a drop (a place to store files) can be created in seconds.But the part where Drop.io really shines is their drops. Drops can be sorted in three different views - chronological, media and interactive - depending on your preference. And if you need to collaborate with others, uploading of files and sharing of links or notes are also possible in your drops.
If you're worried about your privacy, drops are not indexed unless you explicitly share their location. For the paranoid, drops can be protected with a user password and an admin password. With an admin password, you can retain control over your drop long after it's been created. This allows you to change a drop's characteristics such as disallowing file uploads.
To save you some time, I made a test drop at http://drop.io/testdropper with a password of asdf so you can see how Drop.io works.
User Interface Icons
Made by Abdylas Tynyshov, the icons at User Interface Icons are free for personal and commerical use. Available in 4 sizes, ranging from 80x80 to 24x24 pixels, there are 560 icons in total in PNG format.The ten most addictive online flash games ever made
CNET has an article about the ten most addictive online flash games ever made, which includes one of my favorites - Desktop Tower Defense. Anything that lists Desktop Tower Defense is instantly worthy of my time. (Don't forget about the Multi-Player Desktop Tower Defense.)Sure enough, there are some games that keep drawing you back in for one last try. But once is never enough. Which is why I'm cutting this short and going back for another attempt. :P
Back to my flash games... More freebies tomorrow... maybe. :P
Friday, November 02, 2007
Offtopic: You know who to blame for the timing of today's freebies. :) Hint: It's in the previous post.
Deki Wiki
MindTouch Deki Wikiis a free open source wiki and application platform for communities and enterprises. Deki Wiki is an easy to use and sophisticated wiki for authoring, aggregating, organizing, and sharing content. Deki Wiki is also a platform for creating collaborative applications, or adding wiki capabilities to existing applications.
It's got the feel of a desktop application and looks better than most wikis I've seen. Notable features includes tags, RSS, a rich text editor and its search engine. And it's all for free. Of course if you want to pay them for support, that's also possible. :P Don't know about you but I think I'll stick to keeping my wallet fatter. :)
YouGetSignal
I has got signal. :P YouGetSignal actually consists of 2 useful network tools - Open ports tool and Network location tool - for the price of none. As its name suggests, the open ports tool checks for open ports, which is useful for checking if your port forwarding succeeded (quite important for torrents :) ). You could also use it to find if there are holes in your network. Similarly, the network location tool shows you your location on Google Maps via your IP address. Naturally you could also use YouGetSignal to get your IP address. ;)Free Layouts
Steal all kinds of templates at Free Layouts! :D They stock website templates, blog (MySpace/Xanga/WordPress/Blogger/Movabletype) themes and CMS (Joomla/Textpattern) styles. Maybe I should go get one myself... :PKitchenBug
KitchenBug hopes to be your social cookbook. Share your secret recipes or I'll leave you with two interesting links I saw today - pen web and HEMA. I have totally no idea what they are, but they are nice to look at.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
In case you're wondering where Monday's freebies went, I'd like to know as well. Tell me if you find them. :) Just kidding, I kinda forgot/didn't have time for freebies yesterday. Besides, most visitors seem to have more interest in my iPhone posts. Hmm... is that a light bulb above my head?
Another change you may have noticed is the inclusion of the Intense Debate comment system. It's easy to install, has a ton of options (threaded comments, comment moderation, reputation, top commenters, recent comments widget and more) and recently had a login bug fixed. :) Yeah, I helped a bit with that bug. ;)
But the best part of Intense Debate, in my opinion anyway, is that it gives Blogger blogs inline comments. Do away with complicated hackery and just install Intense Debate. It's simple, free and gives you more features than the default Blogger comment system. A dedicated post on Intense Debate should be coming up some time soon, I hope. :)
Anyway on to the freebies that were supposed to be out yesterday...
Listas
Another day, another Microsoft web service. This time it's Listas, a web app that allows you to make lists on your own or with others, as well as sharing them out to the world. Different types of content can be added to the lists created, such as RSS feeds, videos and audio. However, I didn't test it out fully because I'm not too crazy about lists, but if you're the organized type, Listas could be right for you.Free fonts
It's that time of the month again. Smashing magazine has compiled some fonts in its monthly Free Fonts post. Be sure to check out Moderna, Mido, Liberation and a couple more well made fonts.Fix-It Club
Learn how to repair broken stuff at Fix-It Club. There are 145 guides available and membership is free and optional. Basically just visit the site and you're a member. Well, that was simple. :)ASCII Art Generator
Take an image, run it through the ASCII Art Generator and you get an image made out of text. Try it out with the highest quality settings (tick color as well) and you'll be surprised at the resolution of the ASCII art and the size of the generated HTML. Hint: It's fun to use and nice to look at but it requires more overhead than the original image at the highest settings.Free Documentaries
I guess the title says it all. Free Documentaries has loads of documentaries that you can immediately stream online for free. From Africa to Asia, catch the documentaries you missed or re-watch your favorite ones. As always, videos are hosted elsewhere so watch it while you can.Gyminee
Ah, finally a high tech solution to a low tech problem. Computer users worldwide rejoice as Gyminee provides a way to improve your (un)fitness. You can create workout programs, track your exercise/diet goals and share them with buddies (GymBuddies) at Gyminee. In beta and currently totally free, Gyminee also supports the iPhone. Only one problem - looking at those tedious exercises has made me too exhausted to try them out. :)Crush3r
Crush3r is an event planner/informer/inviter. Registration is optional for everyone involved (yup, that includes the creator). If you're worried no one will actually turn up, there's a handy poll feature that asks everyone for their best date and time. Customization is also possible and many options are available (RSVP, printing out invitations, photos/videos, map and more) but if you're in a hurry, just fill in the bare essentials and your invitations will done in a jiffy. Anyone want to try using Crush3r for their engagement/wedding invites?Songkick
Songkick tracks your favorite singers/bands/performers and notifies you when they're touring in the vicinity so that you can buy tickets. They do this by crawling ticket vendors' feeds and the internet. Songkick has a plugin called the SongKicker that scans your harddisk for music files to track artists it finds. In addition, Band Manager can be used to add/remove artists you like/dislike. An interesting feature from Songkick is their embed code that is able to automatically list tickets from bands that you mention on your blog. Of course the bands must be touring for this to happen. :) At the moment, Songkick lists only acts performing in US/UK.That's it for today's freebies. Or is that yesterday's freebies? :) Well, be sure to come back later for more freebies, I hope. ;)
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The second part of today's freebies!
Get My FBI File
If you've always wondered if the FBI has anything on you, Get My FBI File is where your next stop should be. They provide a simple form for you to fill in and print to mail to the FBI to request your FBI file. Afraid they may steal your info? Just print out the blank form and fill it in by hand. Or you could check out the FBI Privacy Act page.WeBot
Want to stream your music online but don't want to upload your entire music collection (not to mention that it'll take ages to do so)? WeBot is just what you need. Simply drop WeBot into all of your computers and you're all setup to listen to your music (at 128kbps) from anywhere with an internet connection, even with your iPhone. And photos are supported too. WeBot is in beta and currently supports Windows/Mac, Linux support is reportedly coming soon.FreeRice
FreeRice is probably the coolest freebie that's been featured so far. How is that so? Well over at FreeRice, there's a free word game. Each time you win, FreeRice donates 10 grains of rice to a hungry person. It's not too difficult and the words are automatically adjusted to suit your linguistic capabilities. Spend 5 minutes a day playing, not only will your vocabulary improve, you indirectly donate a bowl of rice to someone who really needs it. Now that's killing two birds with one stone. :)Sadly, that's the last of today's freebies. No worries, tomorrow brings with it more freebies! Don't forget yesterday's freebies or today's freebies part 1 are still quite fresh!
Edit: Fixed the post time.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The last freebie post was still a bit long, so I'm keeping it short and simple. :)
Free Beer
If you're going to San Francisco, the nice guys/gals at Reddit would like to buy you a beer or two. Actually it's Wired but as long as someone else is paying, you should be happy. :) It happening from 7 - 9pm at the Gallery Lounge. They're heading over to a couple of other cities as well, so check it out.
5 Free Games
Over at GigaOm, there's a quick post about 5 free flash games that you may have missed. Actually there are 8 games listed and linked to, and I can vouch for at least two of them. Those two would be GrowCube and Desktop Tower Defense. I would definitely recommend the Grow series of games and Desktop Tower Defense. Just be prepared to waste lots of time. :)
Free 100MB Remote Drive
You've heard it all before, every other site offering you free 100MB storage. But when you want to upload your files, ie get work done, the interface fails you. Who.hasfiles is different. With who.hasfiles, you actually get a remote drive that you can map to your system without downloading extra software. What does this mean? It means you can use your favorite file manager, eg. Windows Explorer to transfer files! Plus you can also share the drive with your friends. The best part is it works with Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Now that's something you don't see everyday. It's a pity SSL starts at $1/month.
Rubicon
Rubicon is an ad network aggregator (that's the best description I could come up with). What it does is that it connects 300+ different ad networks to you. How does Rubicon help you? Well watch Rubicon's 3 min demo to see how you could further optimize your website and earn mad cash with Rubicon. The basic idea is that Rubicon can determine which ad would net you the most revenue for a particular visitor. And with so many networks available, I could see how maximizing ad revenue for each and every visitor could earn you mad cash. If you're interested, Rubicon is now in private beta accepting only 500 sites. I've already signed up. :)
Regarding today's freebies, What say you?
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Looks convincing? But did you really think that was how you could make glow-in-the-dark mountain dew? That's only if you blinked your eyes during the 29th second (scene cut) and again during 0:38 - 0:40, where he takes his hands off the mountain dew bottle. But what would really happen if you did try that out? Or what does that actually net you?
Turns out while that wouldn't result in glowing mountain dew, your teeth would be glowing. Yup, that is a homemade recipe for making teeth whitener. Add some hydrogen peroxide to baking soda and brush to get some glowing white teeth. That wasn't so bad after all, at least you learned something useful because you came here. :)
As for how you could create the glow-in-the-dark mountain dew, try dissecting some glow sticks and pouring the liquid in slowly. Shake it to get the desired glowing effect. Drinking from the bottle after that is definitely a bad idea.
Monday, October 01, 2007
How do you get a nail into the middle of a solid piece of wood? The wood has several protruding teeth but looks solid and in one piece. The nail resembles the stick in a Shish kebab except that it's trapped by the wood. Hurt your tiny brain? Spare yourself the agony, here are the answers - one by Roy Underhill and the other by Joe Greiner.
Something interesting I found out was that this isn't the first Youtube video about this tooth and nail trick. And considering the solution can be found online, I guess the guy didn't look hard enough.
[Source: Tooth and Nail trick - a nail inside a wood @ O Just Me]
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
It's that time of the year again - Talk like a pirate day! Wait that's no right let me try it again - Be rrrattlin' on like a pirrrate day! Here's how it got started from Wikipedia:
International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD) is a parodic holiday invented in 1995 by John Baur ("Ol' Chumbucket") and Mark Summers ("Cap'n Slappy"), of the United States, who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate.[1] For example, an observer of this holiday would greet friends not with "Hello", but with "Ahoy, me hearty!" The date was selected because it was the birthday of Summers's ex-wife and consequently would be easy for him to remember.
Not sure how a pirate sounds like? Try out a english-to-pirate-speak translator here or here.
The talklikeapirate site (link below) has more coverage like global pirate events, FAQ and more.
Edit: Video on Pirate speak
[Link: Wikipedia]
[Source: Original website]
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