Facebook Song

10 Awesome Things Built on the Facebook API

REF: http://mashable.com/2007/05/02/10-awesome-things-built-on-the-facebook-api/

May 2, 2007 — by Adam Ostrow

As opposed to the relatively new Digg API, the Facebook API has been available to developers since the summer. With more than 100 applications now featured in the Facebook Developers Product Directory, we decided it was time to cut through the clutter and pick out the ten that we think add the most value to the Facebook experience:

1.) Facebook Toolbar for Firefox – This application extends the Facebook experience to the browser. You receive automatic notifications of friend requests, new messages, and can check what your friends are up to in the “Facebook Friends Sidebar” feature. The toolbar also comes with the “share” link which allows you to quickly import and share any web site with your Facebook friends.

2.) rendezbook – Serving as an anonymous “MeetMe @ HotOrNot” type service, rendezbook lets you identify Facebook friends as someone you a) would like a stronger friendship with b) would like to date or c) would like to have a “random fling” with. Your preferences are anonymous, until of course the person you desire indicates the same feeling. The homepage claims more than 1,700 users so far, with a surprising 200+ matches already. I have left all boxes unchecked in this example :

3.) CampusRank – This site allows you to nominate people in the type of categories you might expect to find in a yearbook – Best Smile, Campus Clown, and even “Metrosexiest.” The service doesn’t appear to have a whole lot of traction yet, but perhaps they’re just waiting to show off users once they have more nominees.

4.) Friend Analyzer – This tool shows you which of your friends are most similar to you in a variety of categories. You can also see what the most popular items are in your network. It appears that I have rather feminine taste in music:

5.) College-Roomies – This service lets you search for other students looking for a roommate at your school. In addition to being able to check out the Facebook profiles of other students in search of housing, there is a cool split screen feature where you can see housing preferences (for example, cleanliness, smoking habits, etc.) that prospective roommates that they have filled out on the College-Roomies site:

6.) Your True Self– This site is built around the premise that “your friends say a lot about you.” It analyzes your friends’ political views, favorite movies, music, television shows, and books to guess at things that you might like. For example, 5 of my friends like Family Guy, so Your True Self indicates that I might like it:

7.) The Friend Match – This service randomly pairs up two of your friends and allows you to rate on a 5 star scale how good of a dating match you think they make. If someone has matched you with someone else, you can see it under “My Matches.” I’m pulling a big goose egg so far.

8.) FbCal.com – The Facebook Birthday Calendar Generator creates an iCalendar (.ics) file with your friends and their birthdays that can be imported into iCal, Sunbird, and Google Calendar. For Outlook users, there is the Facebook Birthday Exporter.

9.) Facebook to Twitter – Facebook and Twitter in the same application? How have these guys not received millions in VC funding already!? In reality “FT” will save you maybe 37 seconds per year, as you need to point to the fbtwit.com site each time you want to automatically post your Facebook status to Twitter. Additionally, Facebook recently added the ability to update via SMS, so it’s unlikely many Facebook users will care much about updating Twitter with the same status message.

10.) Votetronics – This simple voting application allows you to setup a poll that only your Facebook friends can participate in. It seems like this would be an easy and logical feature for Facebook to add to the main service, as polls and surveys are always popular on social networking sites.

PlayStation 3 firmware upscales to 1080p

REF: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/12383/532/ By Stephen Withers

Thursday, 24 May 2007

New firmware for the PlayStation 3 will upscale DVD movies plus PS1 and PS2 games to 1080p resolution on compatible HD TVs. "The capability to upscale DVDs to HD quality is a feature normally only associated with top range DVD players, and its inclusion in the latest firmware upgrade now allows PS3 owners with an existing DVD collection to dramatically enhance the viewing pleasure of their DVD collection when viewed through a compatible HD TV set," Sony official said. Upscaling DVD content requires an HDMI-compatible TV. Available from today, the 1.80 firmware upgrade includes several other significant features, including the ability to view or play content stored on DLNA-enabled devices such as PCs and media servers on the same network. Dedicated media players sell for $US200 and up (significantly more for HD models) so this is a valuable feature. The ability to print photos stored on the PS3's hard drive or removable media such as CDs will also be welcome, and will help extend the PS3's appeal. While nobody is going to buy a PS3 just for this capability, we can imagine younger would-be PS3 gamers saying "But Mum, if we get a PS3 you'll be able to print your photos without having to mess around with the computer." The downside is that it seems only certain Epson printers are supported, but we would expect to see other brands and models added if this feature proves as popular as we predict. But upscaling of PS1 and 2 titles isn't the only thing the upgrade does for gamers - it also enables remote play of content stored on the PS3 across a broadband connection to a PlayStation Portable. Exactly how much bandwidth is required remains to be seen, and the feature requires the PSP to have the 3.50 firmware due by the end of the month.

Need for Speed 2007 - 2008

This is the new Teaser for the next release in the Need for Speed series

The greatest basketball player to walk the planet

It's the one and only Michael Jordan... Here are top 10 of his best dunks...

Banned Commercials

Here are two really cool banned commercials that I enjoyed, hope you do to... Enjoy

Mastercard


Nike

Terrorist - Russell Peters Style

This is so funny, this is the Terrorist joke by Russell Peters in his Outsourced show. Hope you enjoy it.

Prank on YouTube

Speed Paintings

These are some of the Speed Paintings done by NICO Di MATTI, everything is done in Adobe Photoshop. The following are some of the Paintings, for more paintings got to http://www.speed-painting.com

SPIDERMAN


SAWYER from the TV series LOST

Only 6% market share for iPhone? Apple wishes!

REF: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/11770/1023/ By Stan Beer

Wednesday, 02 May 2007

When Apple founder Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in January, he stated how happy he would be if the iPhone managed to capture a 1% share of the 1 billion unit annual global market for mobile phones in its first year. Therefore, if the figures of a new purchasing intentions survey are accurate, Jobs should be jumping in the air and doing heel clicks. According to the survey from US-based market research firm Markitecture, 6% of 1300 mobile phone owners polled indicated that they were likely to buy an iPhone in the next 12 months. Much of the media is portraying this as a negative figure. However, given that an iPhone has not even been viewed let alone handled by the majority of mobile phone users, the survey result appears to be sensational. Translated into a global figure of annual unit sales 6% would be around 60 million iPhones sold, a market share to rival that of the highly successful Motorola RAZR. However, the news gets even better for Apple. According to the Markitecture survey, 77% were aware and 41% had a good impression of the iPhone based on everything they had seen or heard. What's more, familiarity with the iPhone is positively correlated with overall impression - strength of impression increases dramatically with increased exposure - 83% of those very familiar with the iPhone had an excellent or very good impression of the product. The survey cited the fact that two thirds of consumers surveyed said there was zero chance they would buy an iPhone. Once again, at this stage of the game, with no product in the market, it is a fair bet that Apple is not too dissatisfied with the knowledge that 33% of the market would at least consider an iPhone when making their next purchase. The biggest hurdles for Apple to overcome in selling iPhone into the mobile phones space, according to survey, were the high cost (US$499 and US$599), followed by carrier issues (just Cingular in the US) and contracts (iPhones will be sold with a two year contract). However, 6% of consumers surveyed have already indicated that they're willing to buy an iPhone despite the hurdles. If the product lives up to its promise after release and Apple manages to rope in a few more of the 33% prepared to at least consider the new phone, Apple could end up with a monster on its hands.

What's the Moral

It’s funny how governments, in their bureaucratic wisdom, are so undecided on the games industry.

On one hand we have politicians and lawmakers like Hilary Clinton and Jack Thompson who clearly oppose the games industry and in particular the creation of violent games. Then on the flipside we have government branches that not only encourage video games but encourage VIOLENT video games. For example: America’s army and CC: First to Fight, games specifically made in part by the U.S. government that are clearly encouraging violence. Huh? So let me get this straight. Fictional games depicting copious amounts of blood and gore should seriously be considered for banning, but games depicting REAL violence in REAL places are not only alright but encouraged by the very same governments. It seems to me that these lawmakers moral high ground just got a bit smaller. So what’s the moral of this story?

Well I guess we can all relax a bit next time some Politician starts blaming games for the next school shooting, cause it was possibly one of their games that taught the kid to reload his SMG.

Heroes, Episode 20: You Dropped A Bomb On Me *SPOILER*

REF: http://www.bullz-eye.com/television/blogs/heroes.htm

Heroes, Week 20: You Dropped A Bomb On Me: C’mon, did you really expect any other subject line?

You know, for all the talk about how Mr. Linderman’s plan to drop the bomb (so to speak) and destroy New York smacks of Ozymandius’s endgame in “Watchmen,” I dare say this week’s episode will have people saying, “Is it just me, or is this a whole lot like like a cross between the ‘Days of Future Past’ saga in ‘The Uncanny X-Men’ and the plot of ‘X-Men 3‘?” And they’ll be right. I mean, seriously, you go check out those Wikipedia entries, then come back here and tell me that I’m wrong…

Also, am I the only one who, at approximately 43 minutes into the show, uttered an obscenity under their breath? Holy mother of God, was that some shit or WHAT? But we’ll get to that…

So it’s five years in the future. What’s everybody’s story?

* Peter’s a major-league badass. Nice to finally see that scar Future Hiro spoke of so many episodes ago.
* Nikica’s a stripper AND Peter’s girlfriend. (Moral: being a badass has its benefits.) Oh, yeah, and she’s also not Nikica anymore. She’s just plain Nikki. Her husband’s gone, her son’s gone, Jessica’s gone…and we don’t really know for sure what happened to any of them, except that Micah’s demise is directly related to the explosion in New York.
* Mohinder is the advisor to the President of the United States on all things Hero-related, but despite everything that’s gone on during the last five years, it’s nice to see that he’s still naively hopeful about the chances for the future…to the point that he’s willing to commit murder to achieve it.
* Matt Parkman’s working for Homeland Security (along with Brother Voodoo), and he’s become a complete and total dick.
* HRG’s rustling cattle in Texas…okay, well, not really. But that’s the phrase Nikica used, and it made me laugh. It appears that he’s actually part of an underground movement to keep Heroes safe from the government by providing them with false identities. He’s also given up his trademark glasses! What the hell…?!?
* Claire’s a waitress who’s changed her name and her hair color and is on the verge of getting married.
* Hiro’s a fucking terrorist.
* And Ando…well, let’s not discuss Ando’s future fate. It makes me sad.
* Nathan is the President of the United States…though, of course, we knew that was coming…but did we really imagine that he’d become pro-genocide, especially given that he’s a Hero himself? Why would he do that?

Oh, wait, I know why he’d do it: because he’s SYLAR! HOLY CRAP!

There were a lot of great moments in this episode, but a very small one particularly stood out for me: how sad was that pitifully honest thought of Hiro’s that Matt caught? “I just want to be a hero.”

I also loved this exchange:

Parkman: So he’s a time traveler…?
Mohinder: Is that any different than being able to read minds?
Parkman: Uh, yeah. Yeah, it is.

Other nice moments: a newscaster’s reference to “the Linderman Act,” the way Parkman yelled “WHAT?” after Peter busted in, stopped time, and swiped Future Hiro and Ando from underneath his and his people’s noses, and the sheer depth of Parkman’s assholosity, when he thanks HRG for saving his child, then proceeds to threaten his life and go after his adopted daughter. Hey, if you’re gonna become an asshole, don’t do it in half measures, right? Which is why he goes on to kill Future Hiro before the episode’s over.

Okay, so the battle between Sylar and Peter had way too much of a Darth Vader vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi overtone to it, with the red and the blue lights. I still found myself thinking, “This is AWESOME!”

“Now, the hard part,” indeed. These three last episodes are going to be something else. I say again: there’s no other show on TV that’s as must-see as “Heroes.”