one of the newest features of friendster really caught my attention… a javascript photo organizer and uploader for the gallery… it's a long-awaited feature that should have been there ages ago…i haven't really got to test it thoroughly but from what i've seen… it seems to be pretty neat and user-friendly… compared to its previous buggy and plain gallery manager… nevertheless… there's still room for much improvement… take for example the schools and colleges section where multiple entries exist for some of the education institutions… there should be more moderation and standardization when it comes to creating the list… then i wouldn't have six variations of my university's name to choose from…

the dropdown menus at the top are a new addition which eases navigation somewhat… however… the content of the blogs section is totally unrelated to what one would expect… instead of displaying a collection of feeds from your friends' blogs… another personally often-used feature is the explore friends' photos part which has been pretty inaccurate for the past months right up till now still… it doesn't really display the newest photos as it should… it used to work quite fine in the beginning but nowadays it's just plain hopeless… old photos are being with mixed with the new ones somehow…

for all the ranting about bad programming and implementation… i'd have to admit that my scripts are not completely bug-free too… and it's a matter of time before someone rants about it :P

i have thought of writing an article about rss for some time… because it's something so useful and time-saving… but yet so many casual surfers haven't got a clue what it is… finally someone made the perfect introductory video on rss for the uninitiated… which is much better than whatever i would have attempted to explain through plain words… here it is anyway… take a look…

my first contribution in yahoo! answers has been chosen as the best answer :) well… considering the amount of q and a that goes on there… it's not a big deal… but it is a good start for me at least… i read about the recent launch of the malaysian version so i thought i'd check it out… i don't really have any questions in mind to pose there… so i just devote some of my time and effort in answering what others have to ask… sounds like i'm too free huh…

in the web 2.0 age… i'm pretty sure most of you have multiple accounts spanning across various social networks… blogs… and the likes of it… anyway… here's one site to rule them all (almost)… profile linker… it's only been about a few months since it was released as public beta so i suppose there is still more to look forward to… it's all about the integration of whatever accounts you might have into a centralized location… from blogger to xanga… friendster to facebook… youtube to flickr… it's the most comprehensive meta network search engine there is for now… so i'm giving it a try…

international p2p traffic has been throttled of late… in some areas it's worse than others… and this has led to an emerging local scene of torrent trackers and forums such as mytorrent and bolehbit… which spells good news for most… if not all of us… well of course the choice of files is limited… far from the mega-sites… but at least most of the popular tv shows are available at blazing speeds… which is better than nothing… :)

i've recently joined the facebook community… which is still relatively unpopular in this region despite its immense popularity in the west… its feature-packed but clean interface has definitely got me hooked a lil… i hope it catches on around here in time to come…

malaysia today has a whole lot of interesting columnists who dare to speak their mind… and a whole lot of unpublicized truth on happenings in the country… it's thoroughly enjoyable to read them and get another not-so-mainstream perspective of issues…

i still haven't got decent sleep since returning from penang… it's been a busy yet fun weekend… and an even more busy week… and months ahead…

my analytics shows that a quarter of my visitors use ie6… i guess they're just used to the old crappy browser from the prehistoric era of the web… ie7 is out and after taking a look at its reviews… i can safely conclude that there isn't anything innovative about it… it's pretty much on the same level as firefox2 which is due on tuesday… the firefox sports a couple of new features over its 1.x versions… most notably… an anti-phising tool… a dropdown tab selector… needless to say… ie7 was a drastic leap from its predecessor… an answer to firefox's growing market share…

however… the topic of today shall be flock… the social web browser based on the firefox engine… only much better in terms of features… let's have an in-depth look…

1… a built-in search bar where you can look for anything using the search engine of your choice right away without ever navigating to the search site itself… google… wikipedia… dictionary… ebay… and even scrapetorrent for all you download freaks out there… just type and enter away!

2… the photobar… this feature ain't in firefox… it enables you to view the photostream of anyone's flickr or photobucket accounts… provided they're shared by the owners of course… it makes browsing so convenient… and again… you don't have to specially navigate to the person's account page to view their pics… flock also enables you to setup your own account through the browser so that you can upload your pics to any one of these webhosting services directly… at a click of the button… 3… tabbed browsing… most of you wouldn't need an introduction to this i assume… it simply allows multiple pages in various tabs to be simultaneously loaded… a convenience you can't live without once you've started using it… it's such a simple feature… and yet it wasn't around in all the older versions of ie… 4… live bookmarks… also known as rss (really simple syndication) feeds… there's a built-in news reader in flock where you can instantly view the latest articles or blog posts that you have subscribed to… gone are the days where one had to visit each and every of their favorited blog or news source to update themselves on their friends and worlds… just simply get all the updates live and fresh in your browser… and yet again… there's no need to navigate anywhere! to subscribe to the sites of your preference… just click on the orange icon on the right of the address bar… importing your bookmarks is also possible… so don't worry about losin' your old faves on another browser…

5… snippets bar… just drag to the bar any text or images that you wish to save or refer to at another time… well… it doesn't need any further explanation does it? simple and user-friendly…

6… foxytunes is an extension which allows you to control more than a dozen kinds of media players… includin' web-based stations like pandora… it's so cool that you don't have to leave your browser window to play or skip your mp3s… and of course… the best part about broswers like flock and firefox are the amount of extensions and add-ons available that provide (almost) any functionality and feature you can dream of…a notable one is videodownloader… which lets you save flash videos from the likes of google video and youtube…

7… social bookmarking… set up your del.icio.us or shadows account through flock and share your browser bookmarks with the rest of the world… or for your personal use when you're at another computer… either way… exporting your bookmarks to the web has never been easier…

8… blog… with flock… you can write and post to your blog directly from the browser… just like how you can upload photos as explained previously… various blog engines are supported… such as blogger… livejournal… wordpress… typepad… movabletype… and etc… just press ctrl+b… type your thoughts… and submit… as easy as 1-2-3… what's more… you can even add which notification service you'd like to ping about your new entry… for example… technorati

as you can see… there is just so much you can do with flock… so much you can do in half the time… from blogging to photo-sharing… reading news and browsing for information… flock makes the www experience… pleasantly wwwonderful…

i’ve added a live news feed from digg… a cool site on all things techy… and geeky?
meanwhile below are some pics from asian beat… long overdue… ;)