I was browsing around the net looking for interesting things to blog about and I stumbled upon this website which allowed me to create this cool Dummies book cover.

“How To Become Tony Cai”, I know you guys just can’t wait to dig your nose into this one. LOL! You’ll never know, it may one day be available! I’ll be glad to autographs, haha.

At Smoke420, you can create this and many other customizable graphics. Ideal for your MySpace or website! You know what I always wanted? A Cambell’s Chicken Noodle Soup can that I can customize. I’m a big fan of Andy Warhol!

You can customize your own Dummies book cover here!

Yet another use for your hand helds! A new service offered by Perooz.com allows you to download videos, music and HOT magazines straight to your Apple iPod’s, Sony PSP’s, Microsoft Zune’s, Palm Treo’s and Blackberry’s, Creative Zen’s and MORE!. So whats the big jiffy? Well these devices can play music and videos but none of them are able to view full colored magazines optimized for their devices until now.

No software or new installations are required for this service. This is basically some image scans of the magazines and using your devices image viewer, you can view them. So who needs a periodical on the train when you have your cool hand held devices. The site looks to be HOT and well maintained!

Start downloading today from HOT magazine sources here!

So as I previously blogged about media not being on CD’s anymore, refer to my post about installing Windows Vista without using any CD disc media. The world of technology is changing fast, as we know bandwidth are getting larger and that allows us to download a vast number of things easily and quickly. Especially with competition and services like Verizon FiOS [Fiber to the Premises] and Optimum Boost, Americans are getting a lot faster connections for a more affordable price. I still can’t say it compares to the broadband services like the UK or Japan offers but we’re slowly getting there.

Now back to my original topic, YES!, Netflix is going IPTV, soon [as in this week] you can rent movies online by downloading them, however, this isn’t UNLIMITED downloads as long as you pay a subscription fee like the snail mail service that Netflix provides, wouldn’t that be great! LOL. But you pay by the number of hours of video you download. The quality of the downloads are going to be close to DVD quality, Netflix has setup the service for up to 6 million subscribers as of now but is expecting 250,000 initial subscribes in their first month.

Snail Mail NetFlix:

NetFlix IPTV:

Since people stopped renting video cassettes from stores and started to switch to CD media, Blockbuster had lost a lot of business. In the past few years, Blockbuster has been struggling to keep up with NetFlix’s Snail Mail service, because we Americans are just too damn lazy to go out to the store. Will Blockbuster provide a similar service soon? We’ll wait and see!

As of now, unfortunately, it’s only available to PC users with the IE browser. We, Mac and Linux users are always being discriminated against, but we’ll show them who’s boss in a few more years!!

Refer to my previous posting about NO CD’s:
http://www.tonycai.com/2007/01/08/ahh-screw-the-cds/

WordPress 2.07 just came out 2 hours ago and I have grabbed the script and upgraded it from WordPress 2.06, there aren’t any surprises to the upgrade, everything went smoothly. They fixed a Feedburner bug as well as other smaller details.

When upgrading your WordPress engine, be sure never to delete these files:

• wp-config.php file;
• wp-content folder; Special Exception: the wp-content/cache folder should be deleted.
• wp-images folder;
• wp-includes/languages/ folder–if you are using a language file do not delete that folder;
• .htaccess file–if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess, do not delete it;
• robots.txt file–if your blog lives in the root of your site (ie. the blog is the site) and you have created such a file, do not delete it.

At the time of this post, they have not released the change log:
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Versions

Affected files from WordPress 2.06:

• wp-admin/inline-uploading.php
• wp-admin/post.php
• wp-includes/classes.php
• wp-includes/functions.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-includes/version.php

Things they fixed in this release:

• Security fix for wp_unregister_GLOBALS() to work around the zend_hash_del_key_or_index bug in PHP 4 versions less than 4.4.3 and PHP 5 versions less than 5.1.4 with register_globals set to “On.”
• Feeds now properly serve 304 Not Modified headers instead of mismatched 200/304 headers (a.k.a. the FeedBurner bug).
• Backport of another 304 Not Modified fix from WordPress 2.1
• Deleting WordPress Pages no longer gives an “Are You Sure?” prompt.
• After deleting a WordPress Page, you are now properly redirected to the Edit Pages screen.
• Sending an image at original size in Internet Explorer no longer adds an incorrect “height” attribute.

Good luck on upgrading your copy of WordPress, remember to backup your database and your wp-content files before beginning! You shouldn’t see any problems.

Song of the day for the new fix! YAY!
[audio:http://litstudies.org/proofs.mp3]

I’ve never done a podcast before or really had a clear understanding of how it works but today, I did my homework. Apparently, podcasting does not involve any new technologies that wasn’t already available a few years ago. All it is, is a mp3 file of the podcast and an RSS feed to publish it. In fact, you can even publish it without RSS but RSS is ideal for subscriptions. Apple coined the term in 2005 but you can listen to podcasts on your computer or any mp3 player, doesn’t necessarily have to be your Apple iPod.

Here’s A Sample Podcast Recipe I Found:

• Shoot for a show length of 20-30 minutes.
• Keep topics moving, and limit topic coverage to 5-8 minutes.
• Try to use guests as a way to break up the conversation, pace, and tone of your shows.
• Use musical backgrounds (known as jingles) or other non-music interludes to transition between topics. These topic breaks are typically described as bumpers or sweepers, giving your listeners the time they might need to digest the content you just presented.

Here’s an example outline of how your show should flow:

1. Show intro monologue (who you are, what you’re going to talk about): 30-60 seconds
2. Intro music jingle (repeat for each show so listeners identify the jingle with your show): 30-60 seconds
3. Topic 1: 5 minutes
4. Topic 2: 5 minutes
5. Interlude (music or break): 30 seconds
6. Topic 3: 5 minutes
7. Topic 4: 5 minutes
8. Closing remarks (thank the audience for listening, thank guests, talk about the next show briefly): 2 minutes
9. Closing music jingle (suggest same as Intro music jingle): 2 minutes

Now there are a few things that you need in order to produce a podcast, a computer, a microphone and software to record. Then you just upload it to your server as a mp3 file and submit the RSS feed to iTunes or Yahoo Podcasting directories. The software I’m planning to use and I’m sure most podcasters use is Audacity, it’s a free open source recording tool. One more thing, don’t forget the LAME plugin so that Audacity can export mp3′s.

So everyone, watch out for my first podcast celebrating my first month as a blogger soon!

Sit tight and enjoy some music: Josh Groban
[audio:http://litstudies.org/raisemeup.mp3]

Many of my friends have asked me how to blog and publish on the internet. Well, I’ve taken the time to compile a easy step by step tutorial if you will, of how to start from nothing to having a fully running, visitor visiting blog. First you need some core things to start off and about $15 to start off and about $5 to maintain every month. While you do this, grab a Snickers, I’ll be eating ramen as I write this. LOL! [[RIP to Mr Momofuku Ando, inventor of the ramen - Jan 5 2007]]. Now, I’m really writing this for the super newbie so don’t comment and say things like, duh or no shit!

1 – You’ll Need a Domain or a Website

You can get a domain from ICANN accredited registrar such as Yahoo Small Business or GoDaddy.com. You can get one from as little as $1.99 [on sale] to $8.00 [normal price] for a year. Discounts may apply if you register for more than one year. You will need a credit or debit card or PayPal to pay for this service. PayPal is a popular web payment service.

2 – You’ll Need Web Hosting

You can get web hosting from me or thousands of other websites who offer it for anywhere from $3 – $10 a month. There are some for more and others for less, you get what you pay for but somewhere in the $5 range is adequate. Here are the server specifications to look for while you shop for your hosting plan.

• Linux servers, I go with Linux because they are easier and safer to use.
• PHP, MySQL, CGI enabled, you will need these services to run your blog. Most hosts should already have them.
• FTP access, again, most hosts has them.

Sign up for a web host and they will give you 2 very important IP addresses you have to jot down. These are your DNS name servers, they are required so your domain can point to your web hosting server and display your website properly. They usually look like this: ns1.hostsite.com and ns2.hostsite.com, hostsite being your hosting company.

3 – Log In To Your Domain Control Panel

There are two main features of a domain control panel you should know about, the domain locking feature and the name servers feature. The domain locking feature enables or disables your domain from being transfered to another registrar, default, you should have this On or Locked or someone can steal your domain. The other feature, name servers, you need to change them according to what your web hosting company gives you, this is that ns1.hostsite.com business you have to worry about. When you logout of the domain control panel, make sure the name servers are set correctly and you have domain locking on or enabled.

4 – Log In To Your Hosting Control Panel

The popular web hosting control panels are easy to use, for example, cPanel which I’ve been using for years allow to you to control almost every aspect of your website. From adding email accounts to created MySQL databases. To create a blog, you first need to create a MySQL database with a username and password for the database. You have to note down all these things as you will need them later. So go ahead and create your MySQL database with a username and password.

5 – Download a Blogging Engine or Script

This is fairly easy to do, I like to use the WordPress blogging engine, it’s simple and easy to use. There are other engines out there such as TypePad but you do your research and find out what fits you best. But for this tutorial, I will use WordPress as an example. Go and download the WordPress engine script here. After you download it, extract it onto a folder on your desktop for easy access.

6 – Log In To Your Website via FTP

FTP stands for file transfer protocol, with a FTP program you can easily access your website and transfer files on and off the website. These files will be the extracted content of the blogging script you downloaded on the previous step. I recommend you to download the FileZilla FTP Client, you can get it here. When you install and run the program, there will be a few things you should know from your web host. Your username and password. On the top of the program, you should type your domain name for the Address field. So mine would be Address: tonycai.com, you can fill in the username and password field on your own. For the port number, put 21 as it’s the port number for FTP. Then click quick connect. Get use to the program and how it works before you continue to the next step. The left side are files from your local computer, and the right panel are files on your website.

7 – Upload Your Content On The FTP

Navigate with your FTP client to the folder public_html, any files in that folder can be accessed on your website. For example, if you have a file in the folder like this, /public_html/test.html then you can access it though your website like this, www.yourwebsite.com/test.html. Now go ahead and upload all the extracted files from the WordPress download into your right side panel in the public_html folder. The FTP program will handle this automatically for you and upload all the files onto the server.

8 – Now Run and Install The WordPress Blog Engine

After all the files are uploaded correctly, you should rename the file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php, then right click it and click View/Edit.

Make sure you change these settings according to the MySQL info you jotted down:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress‘); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘username‘); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password‘); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value

The BOLD is what you need to change. You should already have this info jotted down from before. If you don’t have this information, you probably did not create your MySQL database yet. Please see STEP 4. After you changed this file, save and press X and it will re-upload and you have to click YES to overwrite the older file already on the server.

9 – Finish Installtion

Now you can finish your installation by by running the install script, just simply go to your website, www.yourwebsite.com, and follow the directions to complete the installation!

10 – Log In To Your WordPress Blog Administration Panel

Now your installation is complete, you need to log into your WordPress admin panel by going to www.yourwebsite.com/wp-admin, you should bookmark this site as you will use it every time you blog. Familiarize yourself with this control panel. Head over to Write to write your first blog post!

Congratulations, you installed WordPress! Your a BLOGGER!

I would like comments and suggestions to this tutorial. Thanks!

I spent to day home today so I was bored and decided to dedicate my free time to create a Mozilla “Stony Brook University” site search plugin for all Mozilla browsers. You might already have some pre-installed plugins like Google or Yahoo! but there isn’t one for Stony Brook, until now.

With this plugin you can search StonyBrook without having to be on their homepage. This should be very convenient for all university students and staff. Why not help my college community search better with this tool?

See the Google Code Project page here!

You can find this plugin and install it here!

Go Stony Brook!

Thats right! Now you can call anywhere in the world for free! No calling cards, nothing! Simple dial 712-858-8094 and when prompted dial 011 + Country Code + Number! It’s that easy! Eliminate buying phone cards all together. You will be charged as a local call, I have VOIP [[Voice Over IP]] calling to anywhere where in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico so a simple call to Iowa won’t cost me anything. If you own a cell phone and have free nights and weekends, this could defiantly benefit you.

So far, the countries that are available for free are:

Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil (Rio De Janerio), Canada, China, Christmas & Coco’s Island, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland (Warsaw), Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, UK and USA.

And more are coming soon, so check back at my blog and I will update!
Shh, keep this on the down low! lol

!UPDATE!

TIP: Wait for all the messages to pass, right after it says Thank you, you can start dialing your destination number, if you dial while they are speaking, it might not go through.

The service is back online again however the way to use it has changed. Please visit Yak4Ever a.k.a AllFreeCalls to see instructions!

In a jolly mood, how about a song?:
[audio:http://litstudies.org/blackparade.mp3]

This is the first instant messenger program made specifically for Windows Vista, and boy it looks HOT! I think I’ll start using Yahoo messenger more often if they keep up the good work! I’m currently using OpenSource GAIM!

Below are some information from Yahoo:

Read more about Yahoo Messenger for Vista here!

Hate pre-recorded people trying to sound like their excited on tv or radio? If you listen to internet radio then you know what I mean. Ongoing playing music but no real people, no real DJ’s. All they have is pre-recorded advertisements. Want something more lively? Most live radio stations now have streaming services online with real DJ’s. Yeah, you’ll still get recorded advertisements but at least the person talking to you is real.
I have compiled a list of New York City FM radio stations so you can listen LIVE even if you don’t have a real radio at hand.

Z100 100.1 FM – www.z100.com

Power 105.1 FM – www.power1051fm.com

106.7 LiteFM FM – www.1067litefm.com

KTU 103.5 FM – www.ktu.com

These are just some of my favorites, feel free to recommend me some!