Tech Talk

Last April, I made a post in my other blog about the news that Geocities is closing down, a news that made me feel sad and somewhat nostalgic because my first website was made in Geocities.

Just today, I read that Yahoo! officially shuts down Geocities, so I guess it’s time to say… Goodbye Geocities…

The closure of the free-webhosting facility is all part of Yahoo! cost cutting strategies.

“We have enjoyed hosting websites created by Yahoo! users all over the world, and we’re proud of the community you’ve built,” the California-based Internet pioneer said in a message at the GeoCities website.

“However, we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways.”

(I wonder why though, I just tried accessing my old site, and it was still able to load. I am not sure though after making this post).

Internet giant Google continues to refine its searches by introducing more options allows to refine your search results.

The new Google search options is an enhancement of its options sidebar added last May. You will see the options side bar by clicking on the “show option” link at the top of the search page result.

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The aftermath of tropical storm Ondoy has seen many Filipinos homeless and hungry, and the number of death reaching more than a hundred… and still counting. Still, the resilient Filipino isn’t losing hope, and continue to rise, harnessing the power of technology to send help to the victims of Ondoy.

Online social media like Twitter and Facebook have become major sounding board of Filipinos asking for help, to send rescuers to where help is most needed and to give status updates of different people and places affected by the storm.

After the storm, the internet has become a channel too in helping the victims of Ondoy. TXTPower has a Paypal account exclusively for accepting donations for the victims.

Anywhere you are in the world, if you have a Paypal account, you can send your donations through TXTPower’s Paypal and they will forward all the money to the Philippine National Red Cross.

Donations can also be sent via SmartMoney at 5577-5144-1866-7103 or GCash at 0917-9751092.

You can also visit Red Cross and send your donations directly to them.

Other websites and blogs have also joined the campaign to raise awareness and help for the victims of tropical storm Ondoy.

Internet giant Google has just launched its new news service – the Fast Flip online news reader. The new online news service allows users to consume news more quickly. It is called Fast Flip because it simulates the readers flick through magazines and newspapers.

Fast Flip will feature stories from major media outlets, like BBC, The New York Times, The Washington post and other news providers to which Google has teamed up with. Google Fast Flip at the TechCrunch50 technology conference in San Francisco.
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I was doing fine with the ‘current‘ version of WordPress. Really I do, and I don’t have any plan of upgrading to the latest version. I’ve even discussed this with my friend Jan last Sunday who said he already updated his blog to the latest version of WP, and said it was just easy. Jan, like me, is a self-confessed non-techie too.

So what made me change my mind and finally upgrade my WordPress version? There were warning signs all over the place! It’s like a fire alarm that won’t stop, and every corner you turn, there’s another alarm ringing.
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Just in case you haven’t noticed yet, there are series of changes in your Yahoo mail, messenger and search facility.

For the Yahoo Mail, several new social networking features have been incorporated. The redesigned Yahoo Mail now allows for status updates, as well as sharing articles with your contacts.

When you sign-in, you’ll see updates of contacts that are deemed important to you. You’ll see if they uploaded new pictures to Flicker, commented on a certain blog, or wrote a new post in his blog.

The series of upgrades unveiled by Yahoo is all part of its effort to make its core Web properties more compelling to users.
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A list of the Dirtiest Web Sites has been made by Symantec calling it “the worst of the worst” when it comes to malware threats.

According to the CNET report, while the dirtiest websites list contains sites that have adult contents (48%), more than half the sites cover a wide range of other categories as well. From legal services, catering, figure skating, and electronics shopping.

Garry Egan, Symantec’s director of security response said, “the number of web attacks is off the charts because it’s the easiest path into a consumer’s machine.” The dirtiest list contains, on average, 18,000 threats per site, but 40 of the site have in excess of 20,000 threats.

The Web “has become the primary delivery of vehicle for malware,” said Egan.
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Last night, I can’t seem to log in to my twitter account. After a number of attempt, I thought that it was just undergoing maintenance… so I just let it be.

This morning, I tried logging in again… totally forgetting about the problem encountered with Twitter 10 or 12 hours ago… and what surprise I got!

I had a tweet which says “I just earned $152! Will update later http://sumdumurl.org”
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Now, before you panic, this is not a new virus nor a resurrection of April Fools day virus which kept us all on our toes before.

This Virus Alert! is yet another song of Weird Al Yankovic. This is in keeping with the plant of putting a Weird Al song in each of my blog.

Here’s Virus Alert! by Weird Al Yankovic

In the latest State of the Mobile Web report of Opera Mini, the world’s most popular mobile web browser said that Google dominates even mobile web searches.

In the same report, Opera said that the Philippines top Opera Mini users in Southeast Asia.

The report says:

Google continues to assert itself as a global leader in search, but Yandex and Baidu continue to be the top players in Russia and China, respectively, and Yahoo is particularly strong in Indonesia and Nigeria
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