After such long years sticking to Internet Explorer and unwilling to switch to Firefox, I have finally succumbed.

No, it is not because I think that Firefox is better than Internet Explorer NOW, but it is because after changing to a new hard disk drive and installing a new copy of Windows XP, Facebook no longer display well on my Internet Explorer. I tried changing different configurations but it is still the same with an error message at the lower left corner of my status bar.

Well, despite being Pinked by Facebook a couple of days ago, I still spend a lot of time there playing games and with this new copy of Internet Explorer, not only does Facebook not display well, the games also have problems loading. That’s why I am forced to change to Firefox so that I could continue playing Mafia Wars, Restaurant City, Pet Society, Glamour Age, Sorority Life, Underworld and Street Racing. Yes, these are all the Facebook games that I play daily. Now that I have gotten them listed out, no wonder I feel as if I am hopping from one game to another THE WHOLE DAY!

Although now that Firefox 3.5.1 is my default browser, I still have a couple of issues to pick with it but that would probably be another post for another day.

My aunt, who is not web savvy, told me that she heard from friends that one could get freebies on the web. I have been using the internet for a long time and I have seen companies that offer freebies (or even money) online come and go, so I told her not to listen to such things because there’s no free lunch in this world.

However, lately, it seems to be the trend to complete offers for freebies and one could easily sign up with partnering companies that offer freebies, and then cancel the subscription before one gets charged. I have heard bad but equally good experiences from friends who participated in such programs though I never tried it before but I think it all boils down to how diligent one is in keeping tabs of dates!

This evening, I got to know of this freebie network called Free4Me which boasts that we could get whatever we want for free. I have to say there is not much information available on the website unless we sign up with our email address. I reckon this is also one of those trial or referral sites but it sure is very tempting with its promise about getting whatever we want, for free, especially consumer electronics!

A few days ago, the hard disk of my computer broke down and because there was an issue with the Windows OS where I would have to buy a new one because the one I have was used in another system already, I thought I wanted to change to an open source operating system, like Linux. It’s the most popular open source OS, after all.

The reason I wanted to do that was because of economics, of course. I don’t see a reason why I should pay more than MYR300 for a single license OS. Certainly, MYR30 would be more than enough already!

So I was weighing my options and I asked a friend’s opinion. He said I could definitely do that if only I was willing to relearn the whole works because Linux is just so different from Microsoft Windows. It would be an entirely new ball game and I certainly do not have the time to mess in uncharted territory.

In addition, my friend said that there would be many common programs that I am currently using that would be incompatible with Linux. Eekkk!!! In conclusion, according to my friend, freebies may not be good. And good stuff definitely don’t come cheap!

I remember that Yahoo! is launching their new homepage redesign today, so I went to check. I don’t have the new homepage as my default Yahoo! homepage yet but I am able to preview it. Frankly, it has been such a long time that I even accessed Yahoo! that I thought that the homepage that I got was the new one.

Anyway, I kind of like the new homepage, especially the ability to add our favourite links to the sidebar. It’s supposedly very helpful that when we hover our cursor over the links, we could see an extension of box with links. I like this when it comes to previewing my new Yahoo! email but I can’t say the same for other links. The box is too large and would not be good if you are using a slowing internet connection. Also, does Yahoo! really have to bombard us with an advertisement in these boxes?

Luckily, we can opt to access Yahoo! homepage in compact view which means that we get to do away with the sidebar of links. And so we get a very clean homepage, sort of like a blog using a media template.

In any case, I do not think that a new homepage redesign would make me spend more time on Yahoo! than what I am spending now.

I received a message through this blog earlier this morning with the question, “Do you help us spread the voice?” I ignored it because poor grammar turns me off and at the same time, as a blogger running numerous blogs, I get a fair share of messages like these asking me to review or promote such and such a site or service without compensation.

But I visited the link out of curiosity and realized that the website in question was set up to push Google to release the top 100 ideas for voting which were submitted to Google’s Project 10 to the 100th which was launched late last year and till now, have no news on.

I did not personally submit an idea but I did it on my father’s behalf so I do see myself as a victim and see myself as being scammed, though I am not saying that this was a scam. We just don’t know at this point.

Therefore, I am doing my part in promoting this website, Project 10 to the 100th NOW at http://project10tothe100now.org/ and with a united voice, let’s call on Google to proceed with the next step of Project 10 to the 100th; releasing the top one hundred ideas submitted to the project so that we could vote for the best ideas worthy to win ten million dollars.

I read about this 14-year-old Australian student, Chanelle Rae, who took her own life after being bullied online. This probably wasn’t the first instance for her and I assume was a continuation of what transpired in school. The bullying seemed continuous from school to home and home to school.

However, just like I mentioned in my post about sexual predators on instant messengers, I wonder why these “victims” do not use the BLOCK feature. It is very easy to STOP receiving messages from people whom we do not want to. Just block that person off and delete him or her off our messenger. Is that so difficult?

I don’t understand why victims would still want to continue talking to people who they think bully them or being lecherous to them. Some victims even continue to bait these predators and then go to a corner and cry that they have been bullied or taken advantage of. Whatever for?

The internet is a wonderful tool with many advantages but we must not misuse it or even allow small unfortunate incidents to mar our experience. In any case, we must be careful with the kind of information that we want to disclose online because you never know who will get hold of them!