The time has finally come. I have gotten myself my own host, and I have hosted my own WordPress site there.

http://dmartinng.com/

I hope to see you all there!

~Tek, or now call me Dodie.

Technorati is a site where people register their blogs in the aims of finding people who will want to see their blogs. It’s also a place for readers to search millions of blogs world wide for what they are looking for. Technorati’s directory of blogs is really huge.

Technorati is a great place to start your blogging world, wether reading or writing. It’s a simple site (that’s still in beta till now) that is certainly important to the Internet world. So what are you waiting for?! Why not register your blog there today.

One of the most addicting thing about Facebook is the big library of games it supplies. Usually the games will let you play with your other Facebook friends and sometimes even trying to beat their scores. I know some people who left their Wii untouched for a while playing games in Facebook. The games are always easily accessible, and they always find ways to make you want to play, and one is that sense of achievement when you see your score pass your friends’. Some games even offer you to donate to them to get perks that help you in the game. I’m not saying that’s a waste of money, nor do I have anything against Facebook game developers, it’s just that they help make Facebook the greatest distraction of all times.

Here I’ll list down some of the games that I see to be very addictive.

1. Pet Society

This is one of the first things that attracted me to Facebook. I joined Facebook at a request of some people, and that time when it was still fresh, I was introduced to Pet Society. As a kid I loved playing with Tamagotchis, digital pets were a great improvement for me since I’m allergic to pet’s hair plus they have a tendency to die in my house. Pet Society, often called PS, is very addicting game in Facebook, wherein you take care of your pet in their fantasy universe. The game attracts you to play it everyday as you earn coins once a day when you visit a friend (earning you 20 coins per friends, but once you reached around your 100th friend it starts to lower and it will continue to lower). This even tells you that your other friends should play so you can earn more money. Everyday you’re allowed to play in the stadium 10 times where you race with other pets, but really you’re just avoiding obstacles and you don’t really have control over your pet’s speed. You earn 30 coins if you win the race (in first place). Doesn’t the game sound so boring then? After reading how I said the game goes, and really that’s the basic game. There are a bunch of add ons, like making your house look nicer and all, but really they’re just adding things to make the game less of a “take care of a pet” thing to a “I need your money fool, so chuck up some cash to make your pet look nicer” sorta thing. Paying real life money lets you get special perks such as better furnitures, better clothing, and all that, but really, you’re just buying air with a certain percentage going to charity (hooray charity). If you’d ask me, I’d rather stick to the basic Tamagotchi.

2. Mafia Wars

Zynga’s really addictive game, Mafia Wars, is something I always see in Facebook. To be honest, I never played it. I got sick and tired of all the posts I see about Mafia Wars. Okay fine, it’s probably unfair that I give all these comments to Mafia Wars without me trying it out first, but my point is just that it’s an addicting Facebook game, and why you should avoid it.

From what I can see, Mafia Wars is a game wherein you build your Mafia to beat others’. So again, it’s a game enticing you to play it to achieve victory amongst others. Of course, you can’t have a Mafia without people, so one thing that this game does is invites your friends to join your Mafia, tricking them into playing Mafia Wars. Sleek move they got there.

Your stamina and energy (in game) depletes as you play, and it will recover every other few minutes or so. So what happens is, you see the timer there, and again you are enticed to come back again and deplete it and leave and come back again. Sometimes, if you’re really an addict, you might even find yourself staring at the timer to finish. If I’m not mistaken even cash has a timer.

One more thing. I keep seeing posts of shouting out the needs of having such items. The item list of Mafia Wars is an interesting one. Probably one more reason to get more people to play. Trading in this game is also a way to help out one another, again a trick to get you the need to have more your friends play along as well.

3. MouseHunt

Call me a hypocrite, but I confess I’m an addict to this game.

The game is very simple yet complex. For first timers, the game is nothing more but waiting every 15 minutes to race with others to sound the hunters horn and see what mouse will appear. As you progress through the game, the game becomes more complicated with more difficult combinations of traps, bases and cheeses while strategizing where to head off to and hunt while aiming to grab hold of one of those really rare mice to brag around for.

The game doesn’t really let you compete with friends other than who gets to sound the hunter’s horn, but the bragging rights is what makes this game so competitive. Racing to reach a higher rank doesn’t really compete.

The game offers a huge library of mice ranging from a simple white mouse to the rare Mobster Mouse.

The game lets you donate to them money for Super|Brie+. Super|Brie+ (or SB for short in my world) has a 99.9% chance of attracting a mouse, but then again it doesn’t offer a 100% chance of catching it. Catching the mice will then totally depend on how you setup your trap and base combination. Some off better powers, but make your cheese stale faster, while there are those that do nothing much basically, but make your cheese insanely fresh.

Overall MouseHunt  can easily be avoided, after all, if you’re up to it, just leave the tab open and wait for others to sound the horn for you.

4. MindJolt Games

It’s the mother of arcade games in social networking.

MindJolt is the home of hundreds of arcade games that just really make you miss playing all those flash games found in Newgrounds. All those simple flash games are really addicting. Like all arcade games, there is always a high score, and that urge to beat it. MindJolt just made the high scoring system more addictive by making it more social (well duh it’s in a social network).

To be honest, not all the games are addicting, but to those which are you can just never close that tab. Now I don’t want to list down the games here that I find addicting because my point is you should avoid these and not to entice you to play.

5. Farmville

I don’t really have much against this game. I used to love pretty much all Harvest Moon games, and this is sorta a really trimmed down to farming version online. This other Zynga game is really addicting. This game also encourages you to make your friends join in for your own benefit.

Farming has been one of those video game activities that are both boring and yet addictive. Zynga’s attraction is making it and addictive game that shouldn’t be boring, thus bringing farming into the social community. The cute sprites they have are pretty attention grabbing as well, giving you a look that it will be an authentic barnyard experience, but sooner or later it just seems like it’s just a ploy to make you make you grab hold of the bait. The game reels you on to keep on coming back to check on how your farm is doing and if it’s time for harvest.

I never really played this game, I was just forced to join it because of that whole beneficial thing to the player. I just nibbled on the bait, and left.

There’re a lot of similar farming games in Facebook like Barn Buddy or Country Story.

So pretty much this is only a roundup of some of those really addicitive games you find in Facebook (or some of these are even found in MySpace), and later learn that these games is what gives you the biggest distraction. More over try to get over it. Speaking of which, I should start avoiding MouseHunt. )

When I first saw the iPad, the first thing that came to my mind was, “OMG! It’s a giant iPod Touch!” True enough, it actually really is! Looking at the specs given by Apple, it looks like they just enlarged the iPod Touch. Of course there are a lot more that changed like the processor, and such, but for everyday consumers, you will most likely just experience it to be a bigger iPod Touch, but with a more improved interface, but that is more of an outside improvement just to make the iPad look better.

Of course, I’d have to give Apple an applause for the 3G compatibility, but it adds another $120 [USD] to the price. That price doesn’t even include any 3G plan, so you’d have to pay some more extra cash so you can actually use the 3G signals to go online. Although, think about it, having 3G connection means you can practically go online anywhere there’s 3G signals (which is pretty much everywhere!). Other than the 3G, I also would like to commend their 10 hours battery life. Well, 10 hours would be relative to how you would use the iPad, but that is still one heck of a powerful battery. You can also use the iPad for business now thanks to their release of iWorks for it (which, if I’m not mistaken, will cost $4.99 per App, so all 3 iWorks App will cost $15.)

Okay, now for all the thumbs down. First of all, I would just like to say again, I have no first hand experience with the iPad.

• To start off, the iPad doesn’t even carry a camera, but I have been reading some recent blog posts say that they have discovered a possibility that Apple will be adding a camera (considering they found an App in the iPad that uses a camera).
• The iPad isn’t efficient in terms of being a hard drive. It only comes in the range of 16, 32 and 64 GB (yes, like the iPod Touch), but you can get other netbooks of the same price (or even cheaper) and get around 160GB or such. Basically, the iPad would just be your media center, or eBook reader like the Amazon Kindle (thanks to their new product, iBook, which sadly is only available in the US).
• Flash support?! Nope, not yet. This is just plain sad.
• It’s not widescreen.
• A buncha accessories will empty your wallets.
• You can only use 1 app at a time, like an iPod Touch/iPhone.
• If your PC/Mac is old, good luck, because the iPad needs at least Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Mac OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard).

Well, pretty much that’s all I can say for now. Maybe Apple will improve their product before they actually start selling it. But still, a tip, 2010 will be the year of tablets, and Apple isn’t the only one joining the market.

Yes I also own that blog. XD

Dock Icon

I was first introduced to such beauty by Mac.Appstorm via Twitter. At first, the name had no appeal to me, but then once I entered the site, harmony rained. The site has a beautiful design, and true enough, the app itself also holds such beauty and harmony. It’s where a writer should write, and it’s how a writer should write. If you haven’t heard of WriteRoom before, Ommwriter is something similar to it, but with a lot more features with a much lower price, FREE. Okay, I must admit, Ommwriter is missing a lot of features as well, but there are solutions to the problems.

Ommwriter, like Writeroom, is a distraction free environment for writers but with a twist. Ommwriter’s environment is not for everyone, but for me, it’s the best way to write. So how exactly is it special? Well, the title “distraction free” isn’t all true because it’s writing environment features a harmonic background, three styles (Sans-Serif, Serif and Script), a gentle tune for every tap of the keyboard (which can be mute or changed), and a lovely background music (which you can also mute or change). It does sound distracting, but for me, it’s a lot better than writing in utter darkness and silence. It allows you to relax. Writing relaxed, not under pressured, makes writing a task that is enjoyable for those who hate to write.

Ommwriter's beauty using the script font style.

It’s truly not your average, ordinary, everyday distraction free writing environment.

Other features:

• Auto-saving
• Word count

The app is a freeware (hopefully not just for now) and under their beta testing (when I wrote this it’s still v2), and since it is only in beta, they are requiring you to enter your email address, and they will send you the link to where you can download the file (don’t worry, they wont spam you and you wouldn’t have to wait long for the link). If you are having difficulty understanding what I just wrote, you can checkout their video at their site* (that’s how I got convinced). Also, the app for now is only for the Mac (10.5.x, 10.6.x only, meaning this app won’t work on Tiger), but the developers are planning to release one for Windows (Dark Room is free Windows app similar to Writeroom). Cross your fingers Windows writers.

At the beginning of this review, I mentioned how there are some problems this app has, and now I’ll list down what they are and their possible fixes.

• Problem – You can’t print.
• Solution – Copy paste your work into a word processor. NeoOffice is a free alternative to MS Office or iWorks.

• Problem – All the font’s are the same.
• Solution – Live with it! This app is meant for you to write, not to beautify your font style for publishing. You can change them later at your word processor.

• Problem – File saves as .omm
• Solution – You can save files as .txt, it’s just not default.

Basically those are all the problems I encountered, if you found some more comment here and I’ll see if I can find a fix. You can also just contact the developers yourself (via here).

Sources:

* http://www.ommwriter.com/en/

If you read my last post, the one about short URL’s, you would’ve seen me talk about Tweetie. Tweetie is a Twitter app for the Mac and the iPhone. It’s design if very beautiful, as well as it’s functionality.

Unlike most Twitter apps I’ve seen, like Twitterific, Tweetie is built to be more of functional then minimal. The window it has is a lot bigger, but the side effect is that the tweets are placed in a way that you can easily distinguish the importance of each. Even the whole DM, mentions and such are noticeably being put into importance in Tweetie. If you get mentioned by someone, the tweet will turn a color blur, and to reply all you need to do is right click, reply or simple click the reply button on the upper right side of the tweet. Eventually if you start replying again and again and again, Tweetie recognizes that and allows you to view it in conversation mode – only the tweets that are replied to each other will be displayed. They can even give a preview of the link of the shortened URL’s you click (like what I’ve mentioned on my last post). It can even support multiple twitter accounts! These are just some features I failed to see in others.

Their menu bar icon sits right there, warning you if new tweets arrive. The icon will turn blue signaling you to click it, which will open the window so you can view the new tweets. It has an option wherein it wont automatically scroll up to the top, rather to stay at the place where it thinks is the last tweet you read to help you make sure you don’t miss out reading all the tweets.

If someone posted a picture, Tweetie does a good job on previewing the picture. It saves you a lot of time for opening a web browser. Apparently, Tweetie can also give you a bigger version of an profile picture by clicking on the image on the profile page.

Tweetie is both free and paid. For $19.95 you can remove the ads, but that’s pretty much all paying for it does.

Some extra info on using Tweetie:

• Have you checked out the preferences window yet? There’s a lot to do there!
• Press ⌘U to search for a username. In the profile you can click on the cog drop down menu to see more options (like Follow). Clicking on the “(i)” will show you infos like how many tweets or number of followers/following.
• Non-payed Tweetie will show ads every hour or so in the timeline.
• You can make video tweets.
• It doesn’t consume a lot of memory to run it.
• It has been my first Twitter app, and always will be my Twitter app. I did have tried others, but I always came back to Tweetie.

Download Twitter here – http://atebits.cachefly.net/tweetie-mac/ or click on the logo of Tweetie on this post.

If you haven’t followed me at Twitter yet, please do! @dmartinng

There are many short URL’s out there. Some examples of such are bit.ly, tinyurl, youtu.be, wp.me. One common trait of them short URL’s is that they are just the host’s domain name + some random code or number. “http://wp.me/pG4lX-L“ is the shortened URL given to me by WordPress.com for this post.

Short URL’s were pretty much mass popularized when Twitter came along. Twitter, only allowing 140 characters, forces micro-bloggers to really micro-blog. The idea is simple, but to compensate for the limitation, URL’s were founded a way to be shortened.

One big disadvantage of short URL’s, is that fact that you cannot Google it. If someone sent you a link to a website you don’t know, be suspicious at once and Google it. If someone sent you a short URL, you can’t just Google it, and so for you to know what the site is, you are forced to actually enter it. So you can never be too sure if you are entering something safe, or something that could give your computer a virus until you actually entered the site, and of course, if it is a virus, chances are your computer already got infected as you enter. Even if the short URL is embedded on an image, when you place your cursor over it, you will just see the short URL on your status bar.

Short URL’s aren’t just all bad too anyways. Personally, if I find this really neat website but I get to lazy to write it’s super long URL, I just get a short URL so I can write it down on paper very easily. Biy.ly offers a service which allows you to make your custom URL’s. Pretty neat huh?

There are some ways to help identify the short URL. Bit.ly is nice enough to release a Firefox plugin* that will give you a short preview of not only their short URL’s but apparently any short URL. For Mac users, you can try out my favorite Twitter app, Tweetie**. The app allows you to preview short URL’s (image). Just go to preferences and then click on the advance tab.

So, what do you use to help prevent falling into the traps of a shortened URL?

Sources:

*https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10297

**http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

One thing you cannot enjoy wave without is contacts. What’s the point of collaboration, if you have no one to collaborate with?! So after I sent away my 8 invites to my friends, they sent it to their friends, and so on and so forth that it’s starting to spread faster than A(H1N1).

Revolutionary the webapp is. To summarize it, it’s just a live forum board. If you’ve never heard of what a forum board is, checkout Proboards or Invision or something. But unlike forum boards, each wave can only have people who you (or any other one of the current people who are part of the wave) invite to see, edit and add to it. And yes any one can edit anything, even if the post wasn’t yours. Another thing is that you can’t remove people who you already added to the wave. I made this one mistake of accidentally clicking one of my contact instead of the other, now he has full access the wave, unless he’d be polite enough of course to unfollow it himself.

Collaboration is truly a main key into this. As much as I use it as a chatroom, I still found it useful on doing projects. For example, as we’re preparing for a play, we have a wave wherein we post there all our info’s like advertising updates, complete props list or meeting schedules. There’s even a Yes/No/Maybe gadget that allows all the wavers in that wave to see the RSVP. And yes, you can upload files. Limit? I don’t really know ).

Some other features that are easily found here are like embedding YouTube videos or the robots. To embed YouTube videos all you’ve gotta do is copy paste the link into the blip and a light bulb button will appear, click it. It will then embed the video. See how easy that was? The robots on the other hand are like special contacts. You add them to the wave to add some special features to it. For example will be the Rosy robot that will translate in real time. Rosy is made by Google and uses the same features of Google Translate.

Well, for now Google Wave is still in limited preview. If you’re lucky to have gotten one from Google, like me, enjoy! If not, try to beg around for an invite.

Created by Oatmeal

I was just wandering around the net as always and I stumbled upon a nifty site (theoatmeal.com) and I found a quiz there “How Addicted to Facebook Are You?” I am a fan of logging, and as you can see I got the result of 49%. I guess I can say I’m only half addicted to Facebook? Anyways, after finding out about this, I have cooked up some home remedies to avoid Facebook Addiction.

1. Start reading blogs. I personally subscribe to dozens of blogs and reading 100′s of them a day. In my experience, I take 45 mins – 1 hour to read all my blogs. You surely will learn a lot more then reading what you’re friends have to say about their MouseHunt.
2. Read a novel, or if you could, write one.
3. Play your consoles, Wii, PS2/3, DS, PSP. I’m sure they miss you.
4. Surf Wikipedia. You’ll realize how each article will start linking you to one to another and it gets more enjoyable and fun to read.
5. Go outdoors, there’s plenty to do there, just don’t bring your laptop or cellphone along.
6. Learn a programing language, it will surely take up too much time that you’d get away from Facebook.
7. Learn to play a musical instrument.
8. Try out Plurk or Twitter, it’s like Facebook only cut down to having the live feed only.
9. Use Flickr or Picasa for photosharing.
10. Remove Facebook in your bookmarks, as your homepage, and as a web app in your dock (or any other way you can easily be tempted to access Facebook).

Following these I got myself five days without logging in… What?! Five days is an achievement .