Chatter Of The Squirrel

New GMail Themes

Cute! Themes for my GMail!

I’m setting my GMail to look like this :

Brings back those warm fuzzy memories when I suffered at an internment camp for half a dozen years, and my one solace was subverting the library’s VAX/VMS OPAC terminals to steal a telnet connection to my nyx.net email account.

At that time, we had all of THREE computers with WWW access! For 2 bloody faculties!

Never understood why those terminals needed the function to search the libraries at Berkeley or something. But am most grateful for it. Subverted the connection to telnet into my free Unix shell account at nyx.net.

Nyx was my primary email for many many years. Till an ex-classmate *discovered* email in 2001 and gave my address to a spam list (in exchange for promises of petrol vouchers)… I was royally PISSED OFF. I had a stronger relationship with my email account that I’ll ever have with that passing acquaintanceship.

But I still soldiered on with my nyx.net. Thankfully I figured out how to setup SpamAssassin and filtered out THOUSANDS of spam. Until I finally got a GMail invite.

I *heart* Google. This new theme is way cool.

Getting Ubuntu To Work Right

This is important.

Before I ran this script from http://www.x2on.de/eeepc/ubuntueeetweak.sh, my Fn+2 button (to toggle Wifi on/off) wasn’t working. Only after this script, I could switch off the wifi when I’m not using it.

The wifi draws a lot of battery power.

Automatic Wordpress Upgrade

Wordpress comes up with updates every once in a while, and it’s always a good idea to keep up to date.

But I can’t always spare the time to keep up. It’s a procedure that I dare not rush. It took some effort to get my website the way it is. One mis-step and I might break something.

I found a plug-in some while ago, Automatic Wordpress Update. It didn’t quite work when I first tried it. Some issue with the FTP password or another. But I just tried it again, and this time it worked!

Fuss-free update to Wordpress 2.6.3 !

Happy happy joy joy!

ASUS EeePC 4G 701

It’s been slightly over a year since the ASUS EeePC took geek-dom by storm. An ultra-portable little notebook, weighing under a kilogram, and petite enough to fit into a lady’s bag, or a man’s lunchbox. All for MYR1500 when it launched last year.

It’s brilliant. But even at such an attractive price, I don’t see myself getting MYR1500 worth of value out of something that I’ll treat as a toy. I don’t chug a lot of Starbucks. Nor am I so pretentious that I need the whole world to see me when I type, like some Hollywood wannabe. So, whilst I appreciate the EeePC’s beauty, it was not something that I’ll get. Not at that price.

Then last week, on an IT hunting expedition, I dropped by the store where a friend was working. I was looking to upgrade my LCD monitor, but my friend told me that the 22″ LG that was going at such a freaking bargain is already sold out. Tough. But while chitchatting, he also revealed that the store was doing a grand opening on the Saturday, and there’ll be limited units of EeePC going at MYR599.

Holy frack! At this price, even I can’t resist picking up the EeePC finally.

My friend assured me that with his inside pull, he can hold a unit for me. So Friday morning came, and I didn’t worry. Was thinking of making a trip during lunch and grabbing mine. But at 11:15am, it was all gone. The manager caught my friend reserving the unit and stopped him.

Tough luck. But there’s another 50units available on Saturday morning, and this time, my friend spoke to a colleague in the notebook department to hold a unit. So, there shouldn’t be a problem this time.

Saturday morning came, and I went to the store at 10am and found an orderly queue. And a long one at that. And a grand opening ceremony so the store will only open at 12pm.

Didn’t seem likely that I would get the EeePC again. But luckily that an HP friend of mine, has a sister who went to queue with her boyfriend, and she was able to get an extra EeePC for me!

Kindnesses from strangers I’ve never even met

Hurrah for making friends with random cat-lovers

Webhosting Rating

E-commerce isn’t only for big businesses anymore.

I frequently see random small entrepreneurs, usually with a niche hobby, who set up online businesses, then sell their wares on e-bay.

Prime example being Budget Boardgames, where I’ve just purchased my Agricola

Here’s a guy, probably with a passion for boardgames, who’s bringing in small quantities of popular games and selling them on ebay while promoting on blogspot. Without wanting to go to the hassle of putting up an e-commerce site proper, he was able to promote his wares just using a blog and with links to an e-bay store.

It’s simple.

But still… having a URL that ends in blogspot.com kinda kills the credibility a little. Without knowing the person behind the store, one might develop some preconceptions about the store. The ‘cheap’-ness of the set-up, while good for the bottomline, is also a negative point to a store that wants to do legitimate business. And with domain names so easy to buy nowadays, not getting your own dot.com might also suggest a lack of commitment.

I’m not being negative to this fine store. I bought my Agricola from them, and I’m very happy. But I’m merely using their URL as an example, and suggesting improvements.

It’s trivially EASY to get your own dot.com nowadays. I never once regretted my insanesquirrel.com.

But finding a decent webhoster, that’s harder.

There are tons of webhosts out there. Varying features, bandwidth, prices, operating systems etc. If you’re not IT savvy, this overload of information and choices will overwhelm you and deter you from making the leap to owning and hosting your own domain. I got lucky with my webhost. But one bad roll of the die, and you might end up with a server that’s down more often than up, and will give you a year of frustration until you can switch hosts… if you are up to the job of backing up everything you’ve built so far and then transfering it over to another host and cross your fingers again.

Here’s where you need a source that will rate the choices of webhosts out there. Distill the information down to what you need.

http://webhostingrating.com does just what it says. It rates the website hosting choices out there, and you can be better prepared and better informed before taking the plunge. Find something in your price range. Find a company with good buzz, so that you’ll be less apprehensive in this new adventure.

The articles are worth a read too.