Month: July 2007

Bora Yoon Plays Music Using Mobile Phones

So, what do you know, mobile phones can serve to produce music that isn’t always as annoying as ringtones…

“A cell phone is as good an instrument as a piano,” says Bora Yoon, a 27-year-old Korean-American who is becoming famous for playing the portable phone as a musical instrument. On Friday Yoon performed at the Time Warner Center’s Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, the dream stage for aspiring jazz artists.

The performance sponsored by Samsung Electronics proved that cell phones can indeed serve as high-tech instruments. Violinist and vocalist Yoon used the tones of the phone’s keys, and combined them with piano, violin, xylophone and loudspeaker sounds. The music, on top of her bright purple dress and the night view of Central Park outside the concert hall, impressed the audience.

[Source: Digital Chosun Ilbo]

It sounds pretty cool, I’d really like to listen to the resulting music.
I’ll be searching for some sound or video clips.

Google’s Top 10 Mistakes

GoogleIn the tech circles, we almost always get carried away by all the greatness of Google and its products, that we forget that Google too is not perfect. Yep, Google too have made a number of big mistakes; and here’s the top 10 list according to me, a loyal fan.

1. Google Web accelerator: The idea behind this product was to speed up page loading for users and all as it name suggests, but the product went down amid privacy concerns, web application problems resulting from the system and Google’s announced inability to handle all the traffic.

2. Picasa Web Albums: Picasa is a really sweet piece of software that was acquired by Google a few years ago. A while later Picasa Web Albums was announced, which a lot of people thought would be a flickr-killer, but instead it turned out to be a crappy badly-presented service that leaves much to the liking.

3. Dodgeball: This was an interesting startup that Google also acquired a while back, they were the first big startup that leveraged mobile phones and text messages for social networking. Google bought them and didn’t do much with the service, leaving the door wide open for twitter to come along and take over the show.

4. Orkut: This is yet another social networking site that was much-hyped and that Google put their hands on launched as an inside project a few years ago, but ever since then they sort of put it on the back seat and forgot about it, while MySpace and Facebook took over the world.

5. Google Video – 1st Version: When Google first launched Google Video, it just didn’t work for the users, it felt half-baked, it didn’t live up to the level the competition had already set and people couldn’t find their favourite shows easily. Google fixed this pretty quickly, but still the first version is worthy of noting.

Continue reading Google’s Top 10 Mistakes

The Screening Room’s Top 10 Animated Films

CNN’s The Screening Room have released a list of their top 10 animated feature films.

Their list goes as follows:

1. Toy Story/Toy Story 2
2. Princess Mononoke
3. Sleeping Beauty
4. Akira
5. The Jungle Book
6. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
7. Grave of the Fireflies
8. Fantasia
9. Watership Down
10. The Triplets of Belleville

I’ve seen most of the animated films on their list and do agree that they’re some of the best out there, but I’m not sure my list would turn out the same.

I’m quite sure there’d be more Pixar films on my list, a couple more Disney ones, a few from the other studios and some other Japanese ones. I’ll try to get around to posting my top animated films soon.
Till then which are your faves?

Best Global Brands 2007

Interbrand have released their report on the best global brands for the year 2007.

The brands are valued using sales and a consideration of how important the brand is in the sector.

The top 10 brands for 2007 according to this study are:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Microsoft
3. IBM
4. GE
5. Nokia
6. Toyota
7. Intel
8. McDonald’s
9. Disney
10. Mercedes-Benz

Even though Google doesn’t make it into the Top 10, it is the brand that has gained the most in value over the past year; its brand value rising 44% in the past 12 months to $17.8bn, which put it in 20th place.

On the other hand, the biggest faller was Ford, whose brand value fell 19%, putting it at number 41 in the league.

[More: Interbrand, BusinessWeek]
[Source: BBC]

Extreme Web Development Job Offer

This gives the term “Extreme Programming” a whole new meaning…

Title: Web Developer
Job Type: 6-12 month contract (could go shorter)
Salary: $200K plus DOE
Taxes: No Federal taxes taken out for the contractors that accept a 12 month. (6 month contractors will have taxes taken out)
Location: Iraq
Start date: ASAP with 2 weeks training (one in Washington DC and another in Ft. Bening GA)
# of Openings: 1

So if you enjoy programming and have no problem doing it while being shot at, this is the job offer for you.

[Via: Houblog, Ajaxian]
[Source: CareerBuilder]

Latest Diet Advice: Avoid Fat People

So here’s the latest news on losing weight and staying fit…

If you want to stay thin, don’t choose fat friends.

Researchers have found that obesity is socially contagious – it spreads from person to person within the same social group.

A study of 12,000 people whose height and weight were measured repeatedly over 32 years has revealed that when one person gained weight those around them tended to gain weight, too.

Unexpectedly, the greatest effect was seen not among members of the same family (who shared the same genes) or household but among friends.

A person’s chances of becoming obese rose 57 per cent if they had a friend who was obese but only 40 per cent if they had an obese sibling and 37 per cent if their spouse was obese. People of the same sex had more influence on each other than people of the opposite sex.

[Source: The Independent]

… And we’re basically back to the stupid days of teenagehood and middle school again, when fat kids where not cool to hang out with.

Whatever…

To keep fit, it’s true you have to avoid the fat, but not your fat friends, but rather all that fat you’re gobbling down at unhealthy fast food restaurants.

New Or Improved Stuff On The Blog

These past two days I’ve been playing around with a couple of things on the blog, some really minor design changes and some new stuff; I thought I’d just put up this little post to tell you about them.

Featured Entries: On the middle-right column, a little block with 10 featured entries has been added. Here you will find some of the most interesting posts on Subzero Blue over the past years.

Asides: Also, on the middle-right column, you’ll find the last 5 of the most interesting links that I’ve come across while surfing the web and that I thought I’d share with you. A feed is available for these links for access to all the links: Asides Feed.

Previously…: Just below the current entries, you’ll find a list of the 15 previous entries on Subzero Blue. This has been on for quite some time now, but I just changed its design a bit.

That’s about it, the rest are too small as changes to even mention.
If you have any ideas or suggestions, please do share, I appreciate your help.

Traveler – Season One (ABC TV Series)

TravelerLast night, we finished watching the first season, and maybe only season, of ABC’s TV series “Traveler“.

The show is pretty much along the same style as FOX’s “Prison Break“. It has a really interesting and catchy storyline, and is very well done that it keeps you sucked in throughout the whole season.

The series is about two graduate students, Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog, who are framed by their long time friend Will Traveler to make them look like they are terrortists responsible for bombing a museum in New York. When they tell the FBI about Traveler they are told that no one exists by that name. Cornered, suspects of terrorism and on the run, the boys realise that the only way to prove their innocence and clear their names is to find Traveler, find out who he is, why he’s trying to frame them and who is behind him; all this throughout an ongoing manhunt by the FBI.

I personally enjoyed this show a lot, I wish the first season was a bit longer than the eight episodes it was made to be. It did feel like it was compressed and cut short towards the end.

ABC apparently have dropped the series and won’t be renewing it for a second season, which I think is a big big shame. This show has potential to become one of the best on TV, at least as big as Prison Break, if not more.
There’s already a petition asking ABC to renew Traveler for a second season with over 18310 signatures including mine.

Anyway, whether the show is renewed or not, I recommend you check out the first season if you get a chance to. It’s really a fun and exciting series to watch.

My Top 5 Firefox Extensions

Ever since I converted to Firefox, I haven’t really looked back; I have tested other browsers for the sake of it, but never really considered moving to another one.

What makes Firefox even more interesting and exciting for me as a user is the various extensions I can plug into to it to extend its functionalities.

The following is the list of my top 5 Firefox extensions:

1. Web Developer: This is an essential extension for anyone who is involved with web development or design in any way.

2. Firebug: Another great plugin for web developers and designers; enabling you to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page

3. Fireftp: Everything you need in an ftp client right from the comfort of your Firefox browser.

4. SearchStatus: A handy little plugin that gives you an idea about how each site you visit is performing search- and rank-wise.

5. Google Notebook: I’ve been using this extension more and more lately to jot down notes and thoughts or save info on the fly.

I could go on forever listing extension after extension, but I thought I’d limit it to five only here.
What about you: what are your favourite Firefox extensions?

Subzero Blue’s Top Search Engine Keywords

One of the things I find most amusing and interesting to check in a site’s statistics are the keywords people typed into search engines to find it; sometimes you’ll find some really funny and unexpected stuff in there.

Here are some of the top keywords people type and the pages they end up on for Subzero Blue:

– Arab Porn / Arabic Porn: Arab Porn Singers
– Madonna dancers: Hung Up On Madonna
– Nicole kidman sex: Sex with Nicole Kidman
– Last day at work: Last Day At Work
– What is happiness: What Is Happiness?
– Describe me / words to describe a person: 10 Words That Best Describe Me
– Robot sex dolls: Robot Sex Dolls
– Sami Yusuf: Sami Yusuf
– Middle east sex: First Middle East Sex Survey Results
– ass.com: ASS.COM TUNISIA

Interesting…
A lot of sex related stuff in there, further confirming that sex does sell.
No worries though, I won’t be turning this into a 100% sex related blog just to get more traffic.