All posts by The Artist

Computing & Internet

Google Honours Hans Christian Andersen With Doodles

Leave a comment

One of things that I like using Google search is the surprise doodles that sometimes appear on its homepage. Google loads the fastest too among all the other search engines but the doodles give it a personality.

Over the past five days, Google has been honouring Danish fairy tale children’s author, Hans Christian Andersen, with its very own set of doodles. Normally, Google would only honour someone with one doodle, unless it’s an event like Summer and Winter Olympics.

With Hans Christian Andersen, who would have celebrated his 205th birthday on 2nd April, Google has five doodles for him, each depicting one of his famous children’s fairy tales.

By the way, Google will be unveiling a new homepage design for its search engine soon. I understand that some users are already seeing the new design while some others will have to wait a little longer. In any case, I hope that the new homepage will loads just as fast as it did previously.

General

Saving The Date

Leave a comment

A good friend just sent me a text message to save a date for May. His wedding is coming up, it seems. I hope it will truly come true because he has already postponed his wedding two times previously due to deaths in the family.

I asked him why he is being so informal now by just sending text messages to us when he could make the occasion extra special by sending us Save The Date Cards. He said that having done all the ground work and in the end had to postpone his wedding TWICE, he was tired of preparing for his wedding already.

I said that he could do away with save the date cards since it’s not a tradition to send those out but he cannot forgo sending out Wedding Invitations. It’s a MUST. A wedding card also makes a great keepsake to commemorate a big lifetime occasion like a wedding, don’t you think so?

I know that my friend will be planning to start a family as soon as they sign on the dotted line. The couple isn’t getting any younger in age so I am expecting to receive Baby Shower Invitations from this couple before long. I better start saving some money for wedding and baby gifts!

Computing & Internet, Finances

April Fool: Google Vowel Outage

Leave a comment

Google made a fool out of many users on April Fool’s Day when it mentioned on its Official Gmail Blog that they were experiencing serious technical problems whereby somehow, vowels were not recognized hence words on Gmail homepage had every vowel missing. Emails were not affected.

I actually noticed all the vowels missing from my Gmail before logging in and I thought that it was a funny thing that Google did but I didn’t consider it something serious. I still could understand all the words even without the vowels.

I have to admit though, that I did not for a second link this missing vowel to an April Fool’s Day prank. I think the prank was pulled earlier than 1st April because I know that when this happened, I was traveling and hence did not spend a lot of time online. I remember seeing all these words with missing vowels in hotel rooms and yet, I am already home on 31st March. Strange, eh??

Blogging

Comparing Cheap Web Hosting Packages

Leave a comment

My friend, Carol, told me that she has finally decided to be a self-hosted blogger. Right now, she has a blog with a free host and although she is not entirely satisfied with the service, she has continued to host it there because of the nightmare of moving hosts. I can certainly understand her concern but I guess she will have to make the decision of leaving her original blog as is or to move the entire blog to the new host.

Carol asked me if I could help her choose a web host but I think that it is better for her to choose a web host and hosting package herself. According to Already Hosting, hostmonster has a 99% rating but I guess she would have to read up on web hosting reviews of the current top ten web hosts and compare prices and features.

I told Carol that web hosting packages changes all the time with special promotions and perhaps additional features so she really needs to be on the ball until she commits herself to a hosting package. Also, she should also look for a coupon code before subscribing to one or renewing it as it would help her save some money and makes self-hosting a blog even cheaper!

*** This post has been sponsored.

Computing & Internet

Google China: It Was Technical Error

Leave a comment

When web users in China couldn’t access Google, they thought that the Chinese Government had blocked off the search engine completely. Well, Google reports that it’s only technical error that has caused this problem and is looking for a way to fix it. Meanwhile, users are redirected to Google sites in Hong Kong.

I think this is good news to web users in China. Sometimes things happen way too many times that we always assume the worst. If the Chinese government is going to leave Google alone, it means that web users in China will be able to receive uncensored news on the web readily at their finger tips.

Blogging

Deciding On A Web Host

Leave a comment

My friend, Carol, told me that she wants to set up a new blog. She said that since she doesn’t want to spend any money on it as she is not serious about blogging, she will set up a blog with a free host.

I don’t think that is a good decision and told her to check out b4udecide.com for the list of top web hosts and their packages. Hosting a blog may not be very expensive, after all, since there are so many different web hosting packages. Surely there is one that is suitable?

Anyway, the best web hosts are always coming up with new and more attractive packages so it is a good idea to keep checking prior to committing to a web hosting package!

Computing & Internet

China Blocks Google Services Again

Leave a comment

Users of Google in China are reporting that although they are able to access the website of Google, standard searches are not working as normal. It seems that China has once again disabled Google services in the mainland. Google also reported that its mobile services in China have also been blocked partially.

Google moved its search engine to an uncensored website out of Hong Kong recently and it caused displeasure with the authorities in China but whether this is the cause of the Great Firewall of China has yet to be confirmed by Google themselves.

Well, whatever the problem is, let’s hope that it is ironed out as soon as possible since the people who are losing out are internet users in China!