This is my first ever reply to a tag. I don’t do tags normally but since it’s a holiday now and haven’t got a topic to blog these days, I took the time to finally reply to a tag, haha.

This is a tag by Ong Wen Sher~!

• 7 FACTS ABOUT ME

1. A very decent guy (I guess…haha)
2. Love design, tech stuff, international news and anything to do with PC (games, web design, blog etc.)
3. Prefer sarcasm than lame jokes (but most Chinese prefer the latter..sad…)
4. Single and looking
5. A Leo (stubborn, always wanna lead and always think that I have the best ideas, LoL)
6. Always keep myself busy in U
7. But freaking lazy during holiday

• 7 THINGS THAT SCARES/DISGUST ME

1. Smoker
2. Uncivilized acts/people
3. Being alone
4. Made anyone angry, especially close people - friend or family
5. Flying bugs
6. Being rejected
7. The world without internet

• 7 SONGS FOR NOW

1. Nitrus - Resah
2. Delta Gooddream - In This Life
3. Taylor Swift - Our Song
4. Coillie Colbat- Bubbly
5. Pink - Who Knew
6. Grey’s Anatomy soundtracks
7. Gossip Girl’s soundtracks

• 7 WORDS/SENTENCES I FREQUENTLY MENTION

1. Oh my
2. What the
3. LOL
4. Haha
5. Hey
6. Swt
7. ?

• 7 VALUABLE THINGS

1. Family
2. SS + KT Friends
3. Friends
4. Life
5. PC
6. Hard disk
7. Internet

• 7 FIRST TIMES
  

1. First time do tag
2. First time own a laptop
3. First time went Sunway Pyramid 2
4. First time bought a dozen Big Apple Donuts
5. First time fall in love with Grey’s Anatomy
6. First time not really listening much to Chinese songs (most new ones not really appreciable)
7. First time wasting so much time doing tag!!

• 7 FRIENDS I WISH TO TAG
  

1. Amy Jie
2. Raja
3. Vern
4. Philip
5. Chiew May
6. Sue Mei
7. Poh Chin

(if u guyz are reading..lol)

Often people ask: What’s so good about Sony?

And most of the time I get comments like, Sony is a ‘hot blonde with no brain’ - great looks and ‘but we don’t get the quality we pay for or that we can get something better with ‘that amount’ of money.

The Sony-is-a-hot-blonde part is true, but Sony as a no-brainer… is NOT.

I don’t just judge something expensive as good, or judge something beautiful as good, or judge without thorough screening and reading tonnes of review,  constant prying on a particular brand’s or company’s performance as well as personal experience with the products the company produce.

I have two very old Sony products, and they are still working fine up to date.

1) My first ever Sony Walkman (yes! ‘the’ walkman, not the new rebranded MP3 Walkman) which I’d bought like, since before Form 1 and is still working great although I’ve dropped it like a million times…! (okay, exaggerated, but definitely more than 10 times! LoL)

2) My father’s Sony Hi-Fi Player, still producing great bass and high quality of sound. It is more than 10 years old now.

Finally after 2 years of much thought and considerations, I’ve decided to go for a Sony Personal Computer. The reason why is that it has great quality (less noise and lower temperature compared to other laptop), chic & aestehically pleasing to the eyes, great customer service, plus a lil’ of my personal trust for the brand, and it’s GREEN.

Latest report by Greenpeace International ranks Sony among the greenest electronics company:

“Sony and Sony Ericsson have come out on top of the latest Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, although most companies saw their scores drop due to a new ranking system based on wider criteria.

Sony comes in 2nd with the same total score of 5.1 as Sony Ericsson, but with fewer points on the chemicals criteria, which determines the ranking when total scores are tied. Sony still does relatively well on chemicals, its score boosted by having models on the market that are partially free of PVC and BFRs, including three models of video recorders and many models of the Personal Computer VAIO, “WALKMAN”, Camcorder and Digital camera.

Some companies that promote their ‘green’ policies come up short when measured against global standards of measuring impacts on climate change. Dell scores relatively poorly while Toshiba, Samsung and LGE score close to, or zero, on climate change criteria.”"

I really wouldn’t mind paying more for a greener world

The world wide web is a place of mass info, mostly helpful, but sometimes it could be dangerous. It can be a free space where people can blackmail you, post anonymous hate letter, or worse still, talk bad about you behind your back!

Well you can’t stop what people want to say or comment about you, but it is possible to ‘spy‘ or know what people is talking behind your back.

Welcome to the world of ‘Google Alerts’, not a new service, nor a spy service either, but if you know how to make use of its feature, it can turn out to be a good, free, spy service for you.

Google Alert, which the name implies, alerts you about anything that you want to be alerted. For example if you want to be alerted about news on Britney Spears, simply type the name in the alert box, and every single entry of Britney Spears on the internet will be sent to your email.

Got the idea? To ’spy’ for you, simply type in your name, or nickname that you usually use or be called upon. For example in my case, I want to be alerted on ‘goch’ and ‘goch1988′. I’ll be alerted for the latest entry on these two words. So anytime someone put in their blog: goch sux! he’s a total …etc etc.., I’ll be alerted! haha (okay don’t try that, lol)

Here’s some example:

This morning, I’m being alerted on my own blog entry, since my blog is registered under my nickname.

Well not all the time we get what we want to know, but it’s kinda interesting and worth a try.

And not all the time we get bad entries, some can be good too (just got this few mins ago):

(latest blog entry by wen sher! haha, we went movie the other day at MV)

Hope it helps And happy trying…

Mascots are usually animals adapted as a symbolic figure, normally used to symbolize an event, especially a sports event. If you were to look at history of international mascots, there’s only a few that is actually considered ‘decent’ mascots.

Others…are really.. well.. you be the judge!

SUMMER OLYMPIC GAME MASCOT

1972 Munich Olympic game. It is indeed the first mascot in the history of Olympic. Fancy some colourful coney-dogs anyone?

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1976 Montreal : This is suppose to be a beaver, but it is easily mistaken as a big, black fur ball. I bet cats like it very much.

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1992 Atlanta and 1996 Barcelona mascots. Plush-version of the mascots looks pretty decent, but when it come to full figured mascot…it spells disaster:

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening described it as “a bad marriage of the Pillsbury doughboy and the ugliest California Raisin. In the US press, it was derided as anything from a “blue slug” to a “sperm in sneakers”. *ouch* LoL!

———

Imagine when these 3 cute lil’ animals were transformed into …

these 3 ugly beings?! Well that happen in 2000 Sydney Olympic Game. Did someone call the animal protection department? This is abusing animal’s right… (to be protected from being depicted uglier than it originally is… haha!)

Oh, and, the full figure is even worse! :

———

‘Bigfoot’? Or simply elephantiasis (big leg disease)?

Athens-2004 olympic

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WINTER OLYMPIC GAME MASCOT

1992 Albertville - Patrick in pyjamas???

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Another case of animal abuse in 1998 Nagona winter olympic games. Never would have guessed Sukki, Nokki, Tekki and Tsukki are owls huh?

———

Meet Mrs. Snow and Mr. Ice Cube ….. *roll eyes* I guess they should stick back using animals instead… >.<

That’s all for now

Just last week, we have Opera 9.5, the new chic and nicely-built (not to mention - fast) browser by Opera Inc. Added security, and faster speed.

Tomorrow, (Wednesday 1.00am), we gonna witness a remarkable release of a remarkable browser - Firefox 3. Lighter, more secured, and more features.

And what’s next?

Of course we can’t miss out Microsoft with its Internet Explorer. IE 8 will be the latest browser waiting in line of the browser war. Unknown of its release date, IE 8 is currently undergoing beta testing and beta version is available for download. IE Beta 2 is set to be released this coming August. (I’m no big fan of testing beta versions, so I’ll just wait for the final one)

Personally, I would say that IE evolves rather rapidly, thanks to Firefox and Opera. We witnessed the ‘ultra’ transition from the sluggish IE6 to the ”okay’, up-to-par, good looking IE7. Their next project, the IE8, will be greater.

Before I lay out facts and figures of professional review, let me start with my own review.

From my experience on these 3 browsers, Opera 9.25, Firefox 2 and IE 7, I would say Firefox 2 tops the chart (though I still have all of them). Opera 9.25 was a fast browser (Opera 9.5 is even faster) and it is the fastest among the three.

3 reasons I stick with Firefox 2 rather than Opera 9.25 :

1. The web-page-load-speed between the two browsers doesn’t differ much. Plus, I did not fancy the way Opera loads images.
2. Firefox 2 offers wide range of addon, extensions and plugins, whatever you name it. It is built by user for user and can be easily obtained from Firefox Addon site. Among my favourite addons are DownThemAll, Nuke Anything Enhanced, and Hide Menubar
3. More used to Firefox and nothing super-catchy in Opera that can lure me to change my mind.

IE7 is definitely out of the choice due to lack of features and security as compared to the other 2 browsers. Nevertheless it is a decent browser, compared to IE6, which is not even worth using.

In terms of ranking:

Firefox 2 > Opera 9.25 > IE7

How about ranking of the new browsers?

I haven’t really tried out all of them and is still waiting for 1.00am … !! for Firefox 3

The browser war can lead to many uncertainties. From professional testing, it is found out tat Firefox 3 handles java script the best, among the 3 new browsers. In terms of speed though, IE8 is 2x faster than Firefox 3, which pretty remarkable. All 3 new browsers has added security, improved ’smart’ location bar and Firefox 3 still tops in terms of user-friendly features. ( read below: Firefox 3 vs IE8 )

So, whats the ranking gonna be and who will win the browser war? I can give u an answer if it is 1 to 4 years back, but now…only time will tell…

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Okay now, for the professional review and as additional reading material for the ‘tech savvy’:

FIREFOX 3 VS INTERNET EXPLORER 8

Source: Channel Web

Well it’s your chance to be part of the Guinness World Record, and yes! This can be a great opportunity and a good starting point if all this while you would like to contribute to set a world record.

Below is the 6 easy steps to create a world record:

1) Grab a PC and make sure you have a decent internet connection
2) Sit and wait till 18th of June, 1.00 am (*edited*)
3) Open a web browser of your choice (preferably Mozilla Firefox)
4) Go to www.firefox.com
5) Download the latest Firefox 3!
6) You’re done~ and for the announcement at the end of the day

That simple? Yes it is! Find out why:

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*sorry for misinformation earlier, Download Day starts at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, San Francisco, which will be 1.00 am on Wednesday (18th June) for Malaysia*

Help Firefox set a world record by participating in the attempt - to set its Firefox 3 as the most downloaded software in a 24-hour period.

And stay on using Firefox if you are not a regular user, because it’s the best browser in the world. It totally changed my browsing experience (back in the old days where there’s no other option except the super slow IE and busted Netscape), and best of all, it is the browser that ignites the browser war - and after that various updates to IE (which still lacks behind in terms of feature, speed and performance) and the introduction of Opera (also another good browser, but I still prefer Firefox).

It reignites the world attention towards web browser industry, which can offer so much more through creativity and innovation, which many were started by Firefox.

“Our goal because we are non profit isn’t world domination,” said Mr Schroepfer, Vice President of Engineering of Firefox. “It’s just to make sure the internet is open, collaborative, competitive and innovative.”

Firefox 3 includes a new rendering engine, so pages load faster. It also uses fewer system resources, addressing a complaint in earlier versions of Firefox 2, as well as equipped with anti-malware warning system.

Firefox 3 scores higher than Opera 9.25 (just released Friday 13th) and IE7 in the SunSpider Javascript Benchmark.

And what really differs Firefox than other browser is its extension/plug-in. Firefox offers great collection of add-on and plug-in that made the browser more user-friendly and fun! I’m currently using like 10+ addons to enhance my firefox. If you’re interested, check it out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/

I’m posting this blog using Opera 9.25 now, trying out the new chic look but I’m still waiting for the new Firefox for my new lappy. Can’t wait to download! Are you a Firefox fan too?

P/s - Oops, Did I mention my new lappy? .. Oh and thanks for the clap, renae. Yup I’m back to my blog, and God knows for long this time… But it’s still cool, keep attracting lots of international clicks everyday

Image above edited from the banner from spreadfirefox.com. I do not claim the right for it.