I was quite a late starter to the internet but even then, it was way before the birth of Google. Yahoo! just started back then and the primary search engine that my online friends used were Ask Jeeves.

I also started to use Ask Jeeves upon the suggestions of these online buddies. Actually it was because I needed answers to some questions and didn’t even know where to look since I was an online noob. And they went, “Go ask Jeeves!” sort of like how we would reply to people to “Go Google it” if they needed to know something.

Oh yes, I remember back then, there was also another search engine giving Jeeves a run for his money. It was called Dogpile. Anyway, soon, Ask Jeeves became just Ask.com and Google dominated the web search business.

Now, Ask.com is bringing back Jeeves from his retirement, although the search page remains as Ask.com. Apparently, Ask.com wants to challenge Google’s dominance. Well, let’s see if Jeeves could do it!

I received a message via Facebook that there will be a Facebook developer gathering called Facebook Developer Garage which will be held in Cyberjaya on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009. This event aims to allow developers and developer wannabes to mingle and share ideas, socialize and network or look for joint venture partners.

I am signed up as a Facebook developer a while back because I have an idea for a Facebook application. I thought that it would be easy to do it after reading how so many people could easily build their apps with the tools that are available but bah, I guess I am not as technical minded as I thought I was. I couldn’t make head or tail of where to start!

Participating in Facebook Developer Garage would be most useful but too bad it is a tad too far for me to travel. Anyway, if you are interested to participate in this event, you should RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=72921469339

Gmail released this feature to certain Gmail accounts in stages and one of my accounts is already enabled for voice and video chat within Gmail. Of course, I jumped at the chance to try it out.

Well, while the quality of voice and video chat still very much depend on the speed of our internet connection, I find that it is not that viable to video chat in Gmail, even though a new window is opened, because when I am logged into Gmail, all I want to do is email. Voice and video chat just distract me and I would not be able to collect my thoughts to compose a proper email. Text chat is not too bad, though.

However, I do see an advantage to have voice and video chat within Gmail. This is good for people who are travelling and not using their own computers or laptops. Perhaps they are in a cyber cafe using a computer that has not been installed with a third party chat client.

Or if you are using a company assigned system that disallows third party chat system, you could circumvent that restriction with Gmail voice and video chat. But then it means that you are using company property for something that the company doesn’t want you to use!

When I read a couple of sites that mentioned the worm attack on Twitter this Easter by the name StalkDaily or Mikeyy, straightaway I logged into my Twitter account to see if there was anything wrong with my account. You see, I normally only use twitter from my iPhone and only to tweet and do not view any profiles or read other people’s tweets LOL so if my account was infected, I wouldn’t even know.

But then, StalkDaily infected other accounts when someone clicked on the link in a message which would then send out similar spam messages through this infected account. And so the infection spreads this way. It looks like none of my Twitter friends have been infected too.

Apparently, this worm was created by 17-year-old Mike “Mikeyy” Mooney who did it out of boredom. Twitter has hinted that they may take legal action against Mikeyy. Well, let’s just see how Twitter Inc. deals with this and what sort of repercussions awaits Mike Mooney, even though Twitter Inc. has assured victims that their log in details and personal particulars have not been compromised.

A couple of days ago, I was a little worried when I could not access my Hotmail. Since I access my Hotmail account through various ways from Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express, iPhone and Nokia E61i, at first I thought nothing of it when I kept getting a prompt to ask for confirmation of my user ID and password. This happens sometimes when the server could not be connected but I know that my user ID and password are correct as I could access my mail without problems normally.

After a long while getting the irritating prompt, I went to my Hotmail account directly and was shocked to see the message, “You don’t have an inbox … yet”. You bet my heart fell to my stomach. LOL

Although I use Gmail and Yahoo! Mail too, Hotmail remains my primary web-based email account and I still do receive important email here. I was afraid that I would never see any of them anymore.

Luckily, this lasted for maybe two hours or less, and I was able to access my Hotmail account again. PHEW! Thank God for small mercies!

Ever so often, my friends, who are bloggers and webmasters, would complain about their web hosts. Our primary grouses include unacceptable server downtime, paying for something that we are not getting and poor customer service and technical support. Technical support is extremely important to me.

I think that all these problems could be avoided if only we had done thorough research and comparison between all the major web hosting companies and most importantly, ask friends for their first hand experience with their webhosts.

Web Hosting Choice has a very good comparison list of major web hosts comparing web hosting packages and taking into account pricing, including set up cost and domain cost, disk space, data transfer and other features plus professional reviews which could be an excellent guide to help us decide on which web host to go with. Compiling our friends’ experiences and checking that against this chart, I believe we would be able to have a fairly trouble free web hosting experience.

I don’t know if you have had a bad experience with a web host before but it could be an awful nightmare. I am sure those of us who have been through it before would never want to repeat the same mistake!