Internet rates in Davao, Flying Google Images and Shoemoney getting hacked?

Internet Shops are all over the Philippines, It had a boom when people really got into YM! and online games. Believe me, back when it started, I was one of those people who really spent a lot on online games and the internet. Back then the rates was quite expensive, considering that it was only dial-up internet back then, we were paying P35-45/hour and suffered terrible connection speeds.

That was years ago, now, Broadband and Wi-Fi are what people normally use. Of course there are still dial-ups out there but it wouldn't quite reach the number of people on broadband.

I read that In Davao City, you could surf the net for a bout P4/hour! Wow! I could just imagine myself being online all day and pay just P96. Back in High School and College, I use to spend way more than that just to play for about 6-7 hours. Do they even break-even at that price? I think, somehow, they still make a profit or else they wouldn't continue with such endeavor.

I also saw something cool while surfing the net. Want to see all the images from Google Images fly? I saw a code that makes all the pictures on a page of Google Images fly when you type in this code on the URL box.

You just cut and paste the code in the URl box and watch the images fly in circles.

Shoemoney's site was defaced a couple of hours ago but is now back up. The image on top was how the site looked like a couple of hours ago. Just hope this doesn't affect Shoemoney that much and i also hope this is not just one of his creative link baits.

PS: Paypal Philippines got approved. But it only lets you send money, $100 mac. Well, it's a start.

Yahoo Search Update: What Update?

Yahoo announced that an update just took place. The whole update report is :

Weather Report: Yahoo! Search Index Update

Welcome to our first weather report of the fall season. We are rolling out an index update tonight. As usual, you'll see some changes in ranking along with shuffling of the pages that are included in the index.

To share your thoughts with other Yahoo! Search users, please visit the Site Explorer forum. For other feedback or support issues, please refer to our webmaster resources page. We read all your feedback.

Thanks!

Priyank Garg
Product Manager
Yahoo! Search

Funny thing is, It didn't create quite a buzz, unlike when Google or MSN makes an update. As of now, the only forum it is discussed in is the digitalpoint forum.

Most users who noticed the changes had positive remarks. Just hope the Yahoo people's efforts won't go unnoticed :D

The new IE7

Internet Explorer 7 is coming out before this week ends and there are some improvements from the previous version.

Aside from the tabbed browsing, It also boasts of having RSS feed directly from the browser, a search box in the corner which of course has Windows Live as main search provider and the improvement in security focusing more on fraudulent websites and online phishing scams.

But I read a review on Techcrunch. They have 10 things that they wish were different in how IE7 functions:

Useful RSS viewing

The option to click through one feed at a time falls far short of the potential that RSS offers and as things stand the feed view in IE 7 is just a way to look at one page at a time, perhaps with truncated entries and without page design. The option to automatically download enclosures is the only part of RSS that this implementation succeeds at.

One click RSS subscription

Believe it or not, when the browser detects a feed on a page you still have to view that feed and then chose to subscribe with another click. I fantasize about a day when I’ll be able to view all the feeds from the domain I’m at, but for now at least make it easy to quickly subscribe to.

Tagging and Online Access to Favorites

Tagging is useful. It’s how one item can be classified and thus discovered in multiple ways. Folders may be the preferred way to organize favorites or feeds for most people, but the option to view by tags would be very helpful. Likewise, online access to my favorites and feeds while away from my computer is something that everyone would appreciate. Watch some one’s eyes light up when you tell them that what we call social bookmarking lets them access their bookmarks from any computer.

Drag and Drop Organization

If you’re going to give me folders, at least make it easy for me to move items around in them. Most other online feed readers support this now.

Multimedia in the Feed Reader

Bloglines and some other feed readers now support viewing of video files inside their UI. IE 7 strips files like embedded videos from the feed reader view.

Social Annotation

IE has such market dominance that it only makes sense to let all those users communicate with each other about the pages they visit if they so chose. Take a page from StubleUpon or some of the many attempts to offer a wiki sidebar tied to each URL. It would be good if IE’s market share was able to be leveraged by users and not just as a means for Microsoft to profit.

P2P

Likewise, P2P can be powerful in the browser. See the newest version of Opera, it has BitTorrent baked in. I know - that couldn’t be more unrealistic from IE, but wouldn’t it make sense? Even a DRM locked down P2P system would be smart for much faster downloads.

See the FireFox plugin from AttentionTrust.org. The ability to capture, leverage and selectively expose our online activities will some day be considered a basic civil right. I know it’s fanciful but it would be great if Microsoft made more moves in that direction sooner rather than later.

Full Cross Platform IM Compatibility

Windows Live Messenger announced IM compatibility with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice in July. There are a limited number of other cross platform compatibilities that various IM providers have announced. The IM in IE7 doesn’t appear to even work with Yahoo! Why couldn’t they have just ended this charade and built or bought a cross platform IM program? Is that too much to ask?

Standards Compliance

IE 7 is reported to be the most standards compliant version of the browser yet, but it would be great if the bully attitude was dropped and full WC3 compliance was at least aimed for. Instead the web gets a warning that IE7 is coming and that everyone had better test their applications to see if they will work in the new browser. Standards create a common space in which to innovate, it’s that simple.

To read the full article, just visit Techcrunch - Ten Things I wish IE 7 was about to Deliver

Not Feeling Fine

Been sick since last friday night, Last night I went to the doctor for a check-up and she told me it was Tonsillitis. So that was the cause of the recurring headaches and fever since last friday.

If you think that's bad, It is accompanied by my wisdom tooth saying hello to the world.

As I said in the Update, Google did buy Youtube. A whopping $1.65B worth of stocks. There, you do the math.

I also read an article saying that a Yahoo employee was fired for not watching porn and instead doing some PERL programming. This guy works for Yahoo's Erotica Department as the editor. This whole thing was just a prank post :P

Google Buying Youtube?

There are some discussions going about regarding this issue. Youtube has been really the subject of many online discussions for the past weeks, mainly because of the legal issues it has been involved in.

Shoemoney gives out 10 reasons why he thinks Google buying Youtube will be a success. Some of these are: Why rent when you can own, to block of competitors like Microsoft and land-grabbing for publishing space.

Some of his arguments make sense. I will just stay tuned to what will happen next, if Google will confirm or deny this matter.

I'll hust keep you guys posted

Update - Google Buys YouTube for $1.65B

So it's finally confirmed.

"When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world's most popular services for video entertainment."


Let's just see where this will lead to.