Yahoo! Photos shutting down

I have just received an email from Multiply telling me about the option to transfer my Yahoo! photos. i was quite perplexed by this! Why in the hell would I want to transfer my Yahoo! Photos?! I am not a regular user of Multiply and I can't even remember the last time I logged in there, it's been ages and eons ago.

Making a quick search on Google, I got the answer to my question. Yahoo! Photos is shutting down its photo service and concentrating more on Flickr. By the Fall of this year, it should close down. Yahoo! Photos subscribers are encouraged to shift their photos to other photo sharing services such as Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Photobucket and Shutterfly. Or they can download their photos, one by one as Yahoo! does not support more-than-one transfer at a time! The option of ordering a CD archive of your photos is also available.

This is a real pain after having spent so many years hosting my photos on Yahoo! Photos. And the options and tools it provided were just perfect. I went through some of the other providers and they are not as handy as Y!P is when it comes to uploading photos, you have to upload them manually one by one. Only Kodak Gallery I know has an uploading tool, which can be integrated with Mozilla Firefox.

Check out your options now, so that when the time for the transition comes, you know where to go with your photos!

Check out CNET's reviews of Photo Sharing Services.

You can also sign-in to your Yahoo! Photos account to learn more about the issue.

Test Word 2007 Blogging Capability

I very recently acquired the latest baby from Microsoft Office, the comprehensive masterpiece Office 2007 suite. The features are more than enough and the revamped interface is a breeze and a charm to use and feel. I just found out about the integrated Blogging feature directly from Word's interface and I am just trying it out. Microsoft went far to bring out this new version of Office and I daresay it is worth every single penny you pay for it. Cheers for this one Mr. Gates…

Flock?!! New Web Browsing Generation?!?

Many of you who are technology or software oriented, like me, would have come across advertisements and sites promoting the all new web browser Flock since the past few weeks. Many things are being said about it and I decided to try it out for myself since it was so blatant in my RSS feeds and CNET updates.

The software comes in a neat packaging amounting to 9.05 MB. The file size is much larger than any of its concurrent's from the open source corner. Mozilla's Firefox weighs 5.72 MB and Opera's offering does a 6.25 MB. Its two competitors sure have a much respected market of their own. Opera came up first with much of the technology upon which Firefox is based. Features like tab browsing were the result of Opera's research, at least that's where I first used it five years ago.

The funny thing I noticed when I ran Flock was its similarity with another browser I am darn familiar with since it's my default browser and I use it at least 5 hours a day. I was, to tell the truth, confused for a few seconds!! Did I press the wrong button on the Quick Launch bar?!! Nope, I didn't. Flock is the exact look-alike of Firefox. Identical to such an extent, you can say they are twins. The reason behind this is simple. After searching the web for 10 minutes or so, I found out the relationship. Flock is not only the son of Firefox, but it has also been built by some people who used to work for Mozilla Foundation, more notably Bart Decrem. He and his small cadre of programmers in Palo Alto, California , have spent this summer quietly readying Flock, an open-source browser. Flock is entirely based upon Firefox, for that point, or more precisely on the beta code of Firefox 1.5, not even 2.0.

So what's so different and new about it? Why is the world bragging about it? The difference is that Flock, unlike Firefox, comes with some integrated "plug-ins" which many users use often. That's one of the reasons why Flock is branded as a "social browser," meaning that the application plays nicely with popular web services like Flickr, Technorati and del.icio.us. Flock also features widely compliant WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop blogging tools. The browser even promises to detect and authenticate all those user accounts automatically. It's a clear attempt to be the browser of choice for the Web 2.0 user as it caters mainly for bloggers and web 2.0 savvy users.

What its not?

"Flock is not the browser that just anyone can pick up and use. Unlike Firefox, there is a slightly sharper learning curve. The way regular bookmarks are managed has changed, making it remarkably different from IE and Firefox, but seemingly closer to the way Safari handles bookmarks. Oh and I should mention, they are now called favorites not bookmarks. Apparently the bookmark has lost its cool factor now. Flock is not yet compatible with every extension and theme made for Firefox, therefore much of the functionality that Firefox users gain from extensions will be lost in Flock."

(Taken from PaulStamatiou.com)

Once you first start it, it asks you for the famous "whether you want to set it as your default browser," to which I graciously answer no as I have to experience it to make a decision. After this you can a dialog which asks you to configure the browser with any Photo service you use; like Flikr and PhotoBucket. Then comes the configuration screens for the blogging service and favourites. Once done, you get access to the normal browsing window. On the Favourites toolbar you can see sites like MySpace, YouTube and MTv already added for your convenience. Just a quick roam about the application will reveal nothing more, but the Firefox usual interface.

You don't get much from Flock what you wouldn't have got from Firefox. Its just some add-ons and, as I understand it, for web 2.0 compliance which Firefox has too, since Flock is based on it. They brand Flock for the power users when in fact I would say it is for non-power users, as it makes surfers' life easier. Power-users can have add-ons installed into Firefox whenever they wish. Though Flock enthusiasts bring forward the point that installing add-ons makes Firefox unstable. As a hard core Firefox fan since the fall of Internet Explorer and an alternative to Opera (since Opera is not quite compatible with all web-pages but damn powerful and loaded), I have never experience any, I say ANY, problem whatsoever while running the Father of Flock for the past four years or so, that is since Firefox was first branded as FireBird.

If you are a Firefox or Opera user, Flock won't bring much to you. Maybe if you're an all-time blogger or you upload photos like its nobody's business, then Flock can save you some time, that's all you get and an easier web experience, from my point of view. I am sticking with the old Firefox 2.0.0.3 and my Opera 9.10. Oh by the way, I also use Internet Explorer 7.0, since Microsoft pages look awesome on it.

Go ahead make your choice, you have a lot to choose from. Hurrah to the Open Source community to bring out such wonderful pieces of lines of codes…

Confused about which one to use? Read more about Flock's features on PaulStamatiou's blog.

Visit the official homepage of Flock.

Microsoft Acquires Firefox !?

A usual check of my email dragged me to this one superb article on Yahoo! while I was on its home page.  It talks about Microsoft acquiring Firefox, and just made it better.  Both thrilled and saddened by this news, I went forward and checked the "official" website.  Amazing.  Its blended with the new Microsoft design and everything is well polished.  They even published the video for the marketing and I can tell you its one hell of a video - so funny yet so professional.  Give a look when you want.

http://www.msfirefox.com/

All this to say that the guy after the website went to some length and troubles making all the plot look so nice.  Yes, people as some of you may have guessed, it was all a carefully planned and much elaborated masterpiece of the digital era in which we live and get mistaken and tricked easily, by what is termed as phishing.

But I didn't get caught or tricked or anything like that, since the article I was reading on Yahoo! was "The Top 25 Hoaxes and Pranks."  Want to read for yourself, find the link just below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070503/tc_pcworld/131340

Enjoy!  Aaah, don't forget to watch the video, you'll be perplexed by this guy's creativity...Worth being a Microsoft Marketing Manager.

9 Things that are awkward but common!!

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the T.V. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually.

3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? Gonna Kick their asses!

5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.

6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?"....Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

7.When something is 'new and improved!' Which is it?If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.

8. When people say "life is short". What the hell?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came would I be standing here, dumbass?