Like most of you, I look for deals on eBay, even deals on web hosting. But you know what they say, you get what you pay for and hosting on eBay is exactly that! In my past experiences, I’ve had “companies” go out of business, lack of support, not honoring refund guarantees and more. All bad news if you’re looking for uptime and overall good performance. So in the business of hosting, cheap is not always a good thing. I’ve learned my lesson!

When they say Unlimited or Unmetered hosting, they are lying to you and overselling server space. When you get near that amount, your account will be limited or suspended. They never think that you might actually fill up the space. There are so many gimmicks on eBay, it’s hard to tell which is legit. Most companies promise a lot but in fact are only resellers of larger companies and thats usually bad news for support inquiries.

Lesson Taught: Never purchase services like web hosting from eBay!
[audio:http://tonycai.com/billiejean.mp3]

Joost’s concept of the TV on a PC is amazing! I will update this post as I trial it further.

P.S: I have Beta Account Invitations, if interested please leave me a comment!

Download it for Windows XP here.

The Democracy Media player downloads and plays all videos from YouTube, etc. This open source software available for all platforms including Linux and OSX can be the ultimate player for you, powered by VLC player.

• 1. Play All Your Videos
  Play virtually any video– Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID, and more. Browse your collection, make playlists, stay organized.
• 2. Get Internet TV Shows
  Subscribe to any video RSS feed, podcast, or video blog. Explore hundreds of free channels with the built-in Channel Guide.
• 3. Search YouTube
  Download and save videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and other sites.
• 4. High Definition and Fullscreen
  Your computer screen is a high-def display. Watch free HD videos in gorgeous fullscreen.
• 5. Torrent Power
  Easily download any BitTorrent file. Fast. Then watch it in the same app. Simple.

To get the Democracy Player now, click here! Highly Recommended!

OpenID is a security system that allows you to login to many* websites with just one universal ID. Seems easy and secure right? Many things can potentially go wrong. A OpenID company can go out of service and your ID is lost but luckily there are many providers out there. Well how are there many providers of OpenID? Think of it this way, it’s a code that you can run on a server.

The problem is that too little primetime websites are using the service at the time. Recently, AOL says they would start using OpenID which is good news for OpenID because it’s getting a better user base.

* Too little websites using OpenID as of now.

I just signed up for an OpenID and it serves me pretty useless now.

Google Apps goes Premier Edition, meaning you get all of Google Apps standard plus more! All for the price of $50 per year. However, their target customer base are only companies and educational institutions so for the personal accounts that we all have, we should be good with just the standard basic.

“We offer multiple editions of Google Apps to meet the needs of different organizations. So whether you’re a small business or a Fortune 500 company, Google can power up your organization with the right services and support, for the right price.”

Of course with Google Apps, you need a domain, you can use your existing or register for a new one. Remember! Google is now a domain registar!

For a nice comparason chart between the differences, click here!

Spent the day with the family at home like I do every year. Didn’t get a chance to go out and see the Lion Dance in Chinatown but I did catch up on my sleep this weekend.

Till this day I still don’t know how the Lunar New Years work, apparently they are a little over a month later compared to the regular calendar. I’m not a traditional guy at all. I know very little about the values of Chinese culture, my parents didn’t really teach me about it. I use to ask and they would tell me I was too young to know so I just lost all curiosity. All my friends tell me that I’m not even Asian, in a way it’s kinda true. I have more Hispanic friends than I do have Asian friends. I’m a disgrace! LOL

Yep, this year is the year of the Pig. Google does a good job of keeping up with Holidays! Well, it’s time to hop back on the trains, next post from Stony Brook!

[audio:http://litstudies.org/liondrums.mp3]

Did you really think HP Customer Service Representatives knows everything they tell you? Well this goes for all customer service representatives at any company, the fact is that they don’t know crap. They get all their instructions and information from a back-end website. All it really is, is a knowledge base they search though to troubleshoot problems. Besides, all they do is speak in a Indian accent which is annoying as hell! The funny thing is that they don’t admit that they are from India.

You can even do it yourself! Check it out here! Think twice before you call someone you think can help you, all they will do is waste your time. Your better off doing it yourself.

WOW!, I remember back in the day of Elementary School – High School. You would never find a snow day if you go to school in New York City because subway would be our way of transportation and since Subways ran underground, there was no excuse for not going to school but out here, we had only 1 inch of snow and the school announced “classes canceled after 2PM”. Here’s the email I got shortly after 1PM:

To All Students, Faculty, and Staff:

Due to the weather conditions, classes scheduled to start after 2 PM
today, Wednesday, February 14, have been canceled.

Please be aware that only Governor Spitzer can order State offices
and facilities to be closed. When classes are canceled, University
offices are still open and employees are expected to report to work.
If individual employees choose not to report to work because of
weather conditions, they must call in and charge their absence to
appropriate accruals with supervisory approval.

In the case of rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, which can
occur during the work day, an employee who wishes to leave early must
secure supervisory approval, and charge this time to appropriate
accruals.

Lynn M. Johnson
Director, Human Resource Services
Stony Brook University

God damn I was happy! I hope the same for tomorrow, especially when the snow gets all icy. Muhahaha!

Picture Update

All pictures were taken by my Motorola E815 Camera Phone. Sweet!

Barack Obama, democratic runner up for Presidency in 2008 has just recently launched his website. Now, I don’t care much for politics but I couldn’t help but to notice he used a lot of Web 2.0 services to help promote his campaign. He is using a series of social networking components on his website as well as multiple 3rd party sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

Now whoever building his site is taking full advantage of what the web offers today. Facebook, MySpace, FlickR, YouTube, Blogs, StreamingTV are all fabulous tools to spread the word about a campaign. So many people visit these sites that it’s almost hard to miss one of his ad impressions or pass his blog.

One impressive feature I saw on his website was the MY.BARACKOBAMA, where he allows supporters to 1) Create a Profile, 2) Find New Supporters, 3) Plan Events, 4) Network with Friends, 5) Fund-raise and 6) Starting a Personal Blog. All these will invite a user to stick around while promoting his campaign. Pretty impressive if you asked me.

He has all tiers of good online advertising covered! Advertising this way will reduce the cost of his campaign heavily and still have the same effect if not more of an effect on his campaign.

See it for yourself at BarackObama.com! Check out this same post on Barack’s blog!

Tangent Music!
[audio:http://litstudies.org/lastnight.mp3]

First Looks on PC Magazine for February 2007 features two great looking WiFi phones for Skype. They are just like little cell phones. The Belkin Wi-Fi phone and the Netgear WiFi phone are both costly and you’d need a bit of luck if your going to seriously rely on the product to work for you. The first limitation is the wifi network security. The wifi network has to be 100% unsecure with no browser authentication, this is really rare and hard to find if your on the road! 100% unsecure like that can only come from those network with the owners not knowing how to add some sort of security for it. If you want to use it at a public wifi area, their most likely to have some kind of browser authentication software.

The second limitation is that it ONLY works for Skype. After 2007, Skype to landlines were no longer free and you need to purchase Skype Credits. They are pretty affordable but just keep in mind that it isn’t free even though you have a wifi connection to use it on.

Well Where Can It Work?

Well, you can use it at home assuming you have network features like WEP and WPA off on your router. I really can’t think of anywhere else where they provide free unsecure wifi with no browser authentication. So make a list of locations where you plan to use it first and check with them to see if they have any type of security of their wifi before you go out and purchase a wifi phone.

Me?, I wouldn’t get it but one day, it will be HACKED! MUHAHA