The Whole Story

Yup, I so hate being sick. Headaches, sore throat, coughing every 2 minutes, will it ever go away!  Its been a day or two since i’ve written anything new here on my blog, being sick will do that.

I thought i’d just write a quick post for today to let you all know that once I get better, i’ll have some new stuff to share with you guys here on my blog. Don’t be alarmed at the lack of posts recently lol I’m still here, just been too sick to write.

Take care everybody, keep checking back, you’ll see some new stuff on here soon.

Once again I’ve been looking through a whole lot of documents I have on my computer and stumbled across the original first draft of a script from the film ‘Back to the Future’. Any fans of the Back to the Future movies might find this interesting.

The script written by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale was a first draft only of the film which they wrote on the 24th February, 1981. Just reading through, the script feels much longer than the actual finished film and for any die hard fan, it’s interesting to read through some of the things that never made it into the final production.

Its just like reading a Harry Potter Novel, or any book in which has been adapted to film. The book always includes many of the details lost in the movie and getting a hold of a first draft of a film is quite the similar feeling. You can read through the first draft via the link below. This isn’t a copy that I wrote myself and am not 100% sure on it’s authenticity, but similar documents can be found elsewhere online also.

Back to the Future - First Draft

Very cool, enjoy!

But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit…and keep moving forward. How much you can take.”…….

Yes you’ve heard right folks, The king of all fighters Rocky Balboa, champion of decades ago, is making a comback to the ring to take on the boxing champion of today. Any Rocky fans out there should definately take a look at the trailer via the link below.

Again, another short post but if I ever find anything useful or interesting worth sharing, you’ll see it here no doubt!

read the story | digg story

I live in Melbourne (Australia) and a friend of mine is really big into working on his computer outdoors. He works in a typical office enviromnent in the Melbourne CBD but on his lunch breaks or afternoons he just wants to get out of the office, find a comfy spot in a park and work away.

Any Melbournian in this position will absolutely love to know where the hell all the avaliable wireless hotspots are for internet access. Well my friends, I may just have the answer.

I stumbled across a really detailed listing of ALL the avaliable WiFi hotspots in the Melbourne CBD and inner city suburbs such as South Yarra, St.Kilda, Southbank, Chadstone, etc. This comprehensive list is accurate as of 2004 so its kinda dated, but all these hotspots do still exist (most im sure anyway) and there is a big possibility more businesses have added them to their buildings in the last 2 years.

There is a good possibility that some (not all i’m sure) of these listed hotspots arent free, or may belong to a closed network in which you won’t be able to log into or access. I have a friend who I used to attend a class with in my 2nd year of university who once told me that he was in Melbourne recently (as of 2005 recently that is) and said he could pick up a bunch of wireless signals in the CBD with his laptop, and many were open, although many were closed and unable to access. I have no first hand knowledge, just basing my accounts on experiences such as this.

The list includes very popular and well known hotspots anyway such as at starbuck coffee stores, Gloria Jeans cafe’s etc so I’m sure they won’t be too hard to find.

Finding a hotspot in Melbourne will never be easier. The Excel Spreadsheet is avaliable for download via the link above or below:

Download: WirelessHotspots.xls (34kb Excel Spreadsheet)

I’ve had this file lying around on my computer for quite some time and figured anybody currently living in Melbourne or the greater metro area would definately find a use for a document such as this. So everyone, tell your boss you’re out of the office this afternoon…office tasks await you outdoors today!

And you thought Moscow looked great above ground?

Moscow’s sub-terranian (rail network i pressume) is one of the oldest in the world, but that’s not to say some of the architecture is absolutely stunning.

I was taking a look at this and just thought I’d share it with you guys, a small post for today, but take a look at some of these amazing photos via the link below.

read the article | digg story

Recently the word “google” has been added to the popular American dictionary Merriam-Webster.

Google noun (pronounced goo-gol)

“to use the well-known search engine to look for information on the web”.

Apart from the word “google” in its noun form, it is now a common transitive verb being used more and more commonly “I think I’ll go google that!” or “Just google it”.

With it’s addition into mainstream vocabulary and dictionaries, has the word ‘google’ started to loose its meaning?

Since the search engine google has become so widely used amongst the hundreds of millions of internet users the word “google” seems to have cemented itself into popular vocabulary and culture. I feel the term ‘google’ is quickly becoming recognised as a pop culture term describing the act of searching all together, regardless of medium or platform.

Google’s success might very well come at a cost though. Sure, who wouldn’t love to have their company printed into dictionaries for all to see, but this “overexposure” if you will could start damaging the search engine and use of its own product name will quickly loose its impact and meaning.

To quote Google: “We also face risks associated with our trademarks. For example, there is a risk that the word ‘Google’ could become so commonly used that it becomes synonymous with the word ’search’. If this happens, we could lose protection for this trademark, which could result in other people using the word ‘Google’ to refer to their own products, thus diminishing our brand.”

source: The Age - From Google to just plain google

This is not the first time google has found its name appearing in dictionaries. According to sources from The Age newspaper (Melbourne, Australia), the term google has also been recognised and printed in the highly renouned Australian Macquarie Dictionary listed as a verb similarly to its entry appearing in Merriam-Webster “to google”.

Google has dominated the internet search market for such a long time now and whenever they appear to be doing it tough, they do seem to bounce back quite often. They are a resiliant company and having their name in many dictionaries across the globe I’m sure won’t hurt them too much.

It’s Google afterall!

Millions of people worldwide listen to their music on their iPods, play their music at home via iTunes, but do you have a home network and ever wonder, “How can I play my music on my other computers?”. Many friends have asked me this same question before, and yes, there is a way. Quick and simple!

iTunes has music sharing functionality that some people are aware of, some aren’t. It isn’t really obvious in the main iTunes interface, rather burried in the preferences panel.

go to: edit –> preferences –> sharing tab

Which is where you’ll find the music sharing controls.

At PC with music to share (server):

Click the ‘Share My Music’ checkbox which will share your music collection amongst other PC’s on your network.

At PC to look for shared music (client):

Click the ‘Look for Shared Music’ checkbox which will look for your music which is being shared on your ’server’ machine.

You also have the ability to password protect your shared music from prying eyes on the network if you have many computers owned by different people on the network.

It is fairly easy to set up, and once it is you’ll never have to worry about manually moving songs to/from your other computers. iTunes will automatically sync your lists with all shared PC’s. How cool is that! Very convenient and a time saver.

As angry clients increasingly turn to the Internet to settle scores, companies, independent retailers and everyday wrongdoers are learning that consumers can have the last word — and often the last laugh. The Web has turned into a place where shame and humiliation are sometimes the strongest weapons in fighting scams and unfairness.

I have seen many instances in which people have used methods such as these to publicly shame a large company or organisation in an attempt for financial gain and/or simply to prove a point. The article “Angry Customers Use Web to Shame Firms” in the Washington Post takes a very interesting look at how people are getting away with this.

The article discusses how recently AOL got publicly slandered this past week by a customer regarding online broadcast services. You can check out the article with the above link, or follow the read more link below.

I’ve thought of an idea for an article which will be written for tomorrow’s post. I hope you guys like it, but in the meantime, check out this article and let me know what you think.

read more | digg story

Everybody loves to see their friend’s newest photos they’ve just taken on their latest holiday, sporting event, birthday or whatever the occasion. There’s just something fun and interesting about photo sharing online, not only with your friends and family, but with the whole world!

Popular online photo sharing site Flickr has been around for quite some time and in a way pioneered the concept of online photo sharing, storage and organisation. While they do offer free accounts to new users, they are limited in upload bandwidth, storage and photo collections (or sets) which their pro accounts offer unlimited.

I’m an avid amateur photographer myself, but recently I just haven’t had the time to take as many photographs as I would like to which personally cannot justify purchasing a pro account on flickr. So I found myself wondering, are there any (possibly) free alternative online photo sharing sites to flickr out there? I went to find out…

It’s actually quite hard finding totally free one’s, but free in a way. Here’s a list of great photo sharing sites which give you more upload capacity and bandwidth than a FREE Flickr account gives you:

• http://www.photosite.com/
• http://www.shutterfly.com/
• http://www.albumtown.com/
• http://www.fotolog.com/
• http://fotopic.net/
• http://www.ringo.com/

Each of these photo sharing sites does offer some kind of storage capacity which isn’t too bad. Averaging around ~250MB online storage which is nice for being free. These site’s don’t have many of the limitations on their free accounts as Flickr does on their’s.

Free accounts on Flickr these days have an upload bandwidth cap of 20MB per month, while these sites do not.

So if you’re into photography but don’t get out as much to take your photos, or just a casual snapper wanting to share that special moment, look no further than a few of these sites. They don’t have the same restrictions flickr has on ther free accounts and are still easy to use. Be sure to check them out, and start sharing your photos!

Since her crowning of Miss Universe in 2004 , Jennifer Hawkins’ fame has skyrocketed. She is a television presenter on The Great Outdoors for channel 7 (Australia) these days which takes her all over the world and also the face of lovable Lingerie Australia, this ‘lovable’ beauty from oz now has something new to add to her resume…the new face of Covergirl cosmetics.

The 22 year old’s life totally changed from an aussie cheerleader to an aussie icon in such a short time, and people seem to just love her. She has such an interesting (and beautiful) quality about her which is really taking her places, and her latest job as the newest cover girl is definately testimate to her growing power and celebrity.

She has grown to be not only an Australian figure, but a well known international personality, appearing in many fashion shows and television specials & interviews. This year has definately been one of Jennifer’s biggest years since her triumphant miss universe win. We have seen her picture plastered over television, magazines, advertisements, train stations, sides of busses and god knows where else.

She recently appeared on the Seven Network’s Dancing with the Stars which helped make her more of a household name (if she wasn’t already). People just can’t seem to get enough of her these days, and why not. She ‘appears’ to be a very bright and talented woman, not to mention her amazing looks.

Covergirl Australia are planning to use Jennifer in their latest marketing campaign throughout the country over the next few months, but it has been said that the deal could see her photos appearing in overseas covergirl commercials also. Covergirl I’m sure have sealed their success in concrete with getting Jennifer on board, and before long, we’ll all be seeing much more of her once again…but who’s complaining?