Saturday, May 30, 2009
Microsotf… uhmm…. Bing! I mean, really??! =))

A few hours ago xo directed me to this forum thread on Channel 9. Honestly, at the first glance this seemed to me like some sort of an elaborate joke, but as it turned out, it very much isn’t! As you can read here, apparently yesterday at D7 Steve Balmer announced the new MS search engine called…. well yes, it’s actually called “Bing” =)) And here is the new Bing webpage, not a joke! Now of course there’s no talk of other Live services being rebranded as of yet, but I can see how the starter of that C9 thread could have came to this conclusion. If one of the very main features of “Live” is going to be rebranded, what are the chances that the rest of them will be too? Specially since they’ve already announce “Bing Maps” too, which is the new name for MS’s Virtual Earth. 

And now try to imagine the verbal disaster that this would entail. For instance, if WLM is going to be called Bing Messenger, would you really feel like telling someone to “Bing” you? =)) And even if it is just the search engine…. “let me Bing that for you”!! =D Can somebody tell me, how in the universe MS managed to come up with a name as ridiculous as this?? It almost looks like a very desperate attempt at being hip! Plus, I read on another C9 thread that Bing actually means “disease” in Chinese Mandarine!! Way to choose a proper name Microsoft!

Well at least now the ludicrous name matches the ludicrous policies. =P



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Pluff! =P

ga090217

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Inspector Morse Theme Song <3

I can’t begin to put in words how much I love this song….. the theme music for Inspector Morse series, by the ingenious Barrington Pheloung.

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Monday, May 25, 2009
WLM = Acute Pain In My Neck!

My current mood: 

Ok so in the category of terrifyingly silly technical glitches that annoy the universe out of you, can anyone tell me how to stop a single contact from constantly disappearing off of my WLM contacts list? Yes, I literally do mean “disappearing”. =P When I first added this contact on WLM something didn’t work and the contact didn’t appear on my list, so I had to go and try adding him on my WL homepage. That worked, but then after a few hours a second instance of the same ID appeared on my connections list, that was looking permanently offline. So then I made the mistake of removing the repeated ID, which resulted in the working instance getting removed as well. Then I re-added the contact and things were working fine until a few days ago when the current royal mess-up started. Now every time I log out and log back in, that specific contact is no longer on my list. [And this is on my mobile account.]

On the other hand, as I mentioned before, I don’t see the correct online / offline status for my contacts on either one of my accounts. And to top that, some of the contacts that I only have on the messenger and not my profile page, also keep disappearing and reappearing. [Is it now the case that you absolutely have to have a contact on both messenger and the profile page?!] Except I didn’t know that they were going to reappear, so I re-added them, and now I have 2 instances of these contacts, and I guess you can imagine what will happen if I try removing the extra copy. Yeah, the exact same mess. =P

Ridiculous, isn’t it? From what I read on the web I’m not the only one with these issues at the moment. And I have no clue when the darn thing is going to start properly working again. What’s even more confusing is that both my accounts are experiencing the exact same problems with the exact same contacts. I wonder if that’s because the 2 accounts are linked?! A few of my friends [including an MSie, ironically! ;)] suggest that I should create some sort of a back up account, brand new and with no links to the other accounts, and add my connections in there, just in case things get worse!! Well I wonder, just how many WL accounts does 1 person need, and how many instances of me do my friends need to have on their connection lists? =))) But if things keep looking scary, I may as well do that.

Of course my smarty pants friend xo tells me something like “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s this thing called Google Talk…”. =))) Well d’ah, I know there are other messengers out there, but how am I ever going to get everyone on my rather lengthy connections list to switch to another messenger, just so that the other one will also at some point mal-function? =P Specially since neither me nor anyone else want to switch to GTalk or Skype or any other messenger from WLM, due to the fact that the other services simply don’t have the WLM functionalities [on a good day when WLM actually functions. ;) ]

Honestly, Microsoft’s decision to make Live services unavailable to a number of countries including Iran, makes the thought of abandoning WLM all the more appealing right now. Well, perhaps gradually I will…..

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Saturday, May 23, 2009
Secher Nbiw

I recently found out that my Ixian page has regular visitors, apparently that’s how some of my friends find out what I’m up to! Or if I’m really busy, that’s how they find out that I’m still alive… basically by checking out my news collection. =)) So that gave me the idea to create a bit of an extension to it. I created a new blog called “Secher Nbwi”. This new blog is in fact an auto-blog. The way it works, is that my activities around the web get automatically posted in there, via the feeds. Blog posts, twine posts, blip.fm posts… and everything else. So well, if you would like to web-stalk me, this is the easiest way to go! =D

I also added a couple of new toys to the Ixian page recently, and did some general updating on the website, including getting rid of the non-working last.fm widgets and adding my own brand new music player widget.

P.S.: If you’d like to know exactly what “Secher Nbiw” is all about, I suggest you read Frank Herber’s “Dune” series. ;)

Friday, May 22, 2009
WLM Royal Mess-up

My current mood:

Windows Live Messenger never fails to surprise with all sorts of new and improved bugs and glitches. But as of this morning, I’ve ran into a problem that’s much worse than anything I had ever experienced before. In the morning I noticed that somehow some of the people who I usually see online during those hours, appeared offline. Then near noon when I logged on again, a friend who was looking offline to me, started a group conversation with me that included another friend who was also appearing offline! Well this was obviously quite odd, since offline people don’t even get listed in the group conversations on WLM, but they were both listed, with an “offline” sign in front of their names. And one of them, was talking to me!

Then I started testing around and found out that a good number of people who appear offline to me, are in fact quite online. And as for trying to communicate with them, it works quite randomly. As in, they may or may not receive my messages, and I may or may not receive theirs. Of course I did try logging out and back in a few times, with no change. Then I got on my Palm Pilot and logged onto my mobile WLM account, and guess what, the same people look offline over there too! Also shortly after, I started noticing that people’s nicknames don’t show up correctly, and I see their email addresses instead. And to make things worse, I know 1 contact which has disappeared off of my mobile account so far.

So, since the same issue is repeating on different clients on different systems with different accounts, well, this is obviously not a local issue. I have to mention that the 2 accounts are linked, but…. well I don’t know if that’s even relevant. Honestly, this makes absolutely no sense to me. It’s the oddest thing I’ve ever encountered on WLM. For now, I’ve told everyone that I’ll be available on Skype… but I have no idea what to do if this problem doesn’t somehow resolve itself. Any ideas anyone?

Update: Boy do I hate Microsoft and do I feel like completely boycotting Windows Live altogether right now. While looking for news on the issue [which apparently is not just mine], look what I found:

“Microsoft has shut off the Windows Live Messenger IM for users in the countries embargoed by the US, hence Microsoft no longer offers Windows Live Service in those countries.”

That of course includes Iran. Enough said I believe.

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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Blood & Chocolate

Blood_and_Chocolate

To my own sweet surprise, I just managed to steal the time out of my hectic schedule tonight to watch a movie I’d been meaning to watch for a good 4 months now, and ha d never found the time to. Blood & Chocolate, pretty good movie if you’re into the whole werewolf / vampire genre. Which I happen to be. =P And it…. well…. ehmmm…. well… ummmm….. gave me slightly wet eyes.

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LOST Season 6……

Ok so I just wanted to take this opportunity to say this is bloody PAINFUL. So I have to wait until February – May 2010 for a new season of LOST, and then guess what, it’ll be the LAST season. I am NOT happy right now. =P

“Lost Season 6 is scheduled to be the final season of Lost. It has been confirmed in an ABC press release. [1] It will air from February-May 2010. It was originally intended to include 16 episodes. Due to the 2007 WGA strike, it will now comprise 17 produced hours.”

Season 6 - Lostpedia - The Lost Encyclopedia

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Monday, May 18, 2009
Wolfram Alpha

So finally Wolfram’s computational knowledge engine, Wolfram Alpha, has been launched for public testing. Admittedly I had been waiting rather impatiently to try it, and now I’ve played with it quite a bit. Well, for now it can only compute answers to rather obvious and simple questions. I only hope that in time it’ll improve, since even though the ideas behind the engine are VERY intriguing [read this article by Nova Spivak for more info!], but well, it would just not be so useful if you could only ask it the size of the population of different countries.

And below is an interesting video of Wolfram Alpha going live. Posted to my twine by xo. Check it out!

On a bit of a different note, in case anyone here didn’t see this yet, make sure to watch Wolfram’s lecture on “A New Kind Of Science”. Currently reading the book… it’s quite amazing.

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Saturday, May 16, 2009
See What….. =)))

ga090405

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LOST?! Very very LOST!!

Well I feel completely lost about LOST now! =P This rather famous sci-fi series which LostSeason5Poster managed to get my attention only after its mid 3rd season [due to the first seasons being rather boring in my opinion!], has now reached a place where I can’t stop wondering what in the universe is going to happen next! The series has been extremely exciting during the current season [5th], and the recent 2 hour MIND BLOWING episode has really left me hanging! I just can’t stop speculating! =D Jacob DEAD???? We finally got to see Jacob and he’s dead now? That’s just not happening! And the bomb finally went off! At this point, everything has been annihilated and I haven’t got the slightest idea how the next episode is even going to begin!

Big kudos to the producers and writers, for creating something that really gets under my skin! =) 

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Thursday, May 14, 2009
Star Trek Movie: YAAAAAY! =D

StarTrek_Posters

So on Sunday I was out with my mom for the Mother’s Day, and guess what we did. We went and watched the new Star Trek movie! =) I know, probably not the most typical Mother’s Day activity. ;) But you have to keep in mind that it’s my mom we’re talking about here, and she’s as big a sci-fi fan as myself. So for us, a new Star Trek movie is considered a major major event! =)

Honestly at first I was worried about getting disappointed. I’ve always been such a huge fan of Star Trek, but the last TV series with Archer didn’t really catch my attention that much. [I have to admit though, the series got much better in the latter seasons, and the very last episode was a master piece.] Also, I have always been a much bigger fan of TNG characters than the original series….. so, altogether I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Well, it turned out that the movie is in fact AWESOME, MARVELOUS, FANTASTIC and I could go on like this forever. =) I can’t put in words how much I enjoyed this movie! I can’t say much since I don’t want to give way spoilers, but I lets just say that this isn’t like any normal prequel. ;) You think you know what has happened and what will happen? Well, think again. Also, I love the fact that this movie has re-built the main characters of the original series so that on one hand the signature characteristics aren’t lost, and on the other hand there’s much more koolness to them now than there ever was before. The movie has an awesome plot, awesome characters, awesome visuals and basically awesome everything.

And…. uhmmmm……. Spock and Uhura?? How exactly did that happen??? Well that’s certainly cute! =D


Picture of me at the “event”. ;) Click for higher res.  

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Sunday, May 10, 2009
Twine Comix!

Me and a friend called xo [aka. B] recently decided to use cartoons as the medium to communicate our thoughts on certain Twine related issues. Below is the result. I know that a lot of people loved them, but certainly not everyone. =P It appears as though some took it pretty hard. Unfortunately.

The first episode:

And the second episode:

 

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Ahoo "Aasemoon" Pirsoleimani, 1998-2014