Disqus - Latest Comments for Steven Bao

Re: EditGrid syncs with Excel, useful for serious number-crunchers

Steven Bao — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:46:57 -0000

Excellent idea - EditGrid is probably the most powerful web spreadsheet, and now that we don't have to export and reimport into Excel, it's much better. Kudos to EditGrid for thinking on the right track.

Re: Life Hacker’s assinine Vista poll…

Steven Bao — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:51:17 -0000

The poll reads: "Will Vista be the reason you switch to a Mac or Linux?"
*Not* "Do you like Vista?" Linguistic difference between those, what will a negative answer be? "No, Vista will not be a reason that I will switch to Mac or Linux."

Re: Show Off Your iPhone on Your Profile

Steven Bao — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 19:29:06 -0000

Thanks for the mention!

Re: 2006/12/19/social-networking-awards-vote-for-your-favorite-mainstream-network/

Steven Bao — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:13:43 -0000

Vote: Facebook.

(For polls, maybe try PollDaddy or ZohoPolls or something...)

Re: 2007/01/18/myspace-disables-flash/

Steven Bao — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:18:03 -0000

It definitely affects me, as I do have a Twitter widget on my never-used MySpace page. But I do realize that many people do use MySpace, and disabling Flash is not a very good idea.

Re: 2007/01/17/facebook-im/

Steven Bao — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:25:05 -0000

Five, maximum. I was about to punch in my ICQ number before I found that I couldn't add any more.

Also surprised to see Gadu-Gadu here. I don't use it, however it's not big, but it's mentioned. They should, however, add a Gtalk one, because it gets confusing for most people if they have to enter the jabber server and etc.

Re: 2007/01/16/myspace-tracker-tracks-teens/

Steven Bao — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:15:03 -0000

Obviously a violation of privacy, but do we (teens) have rights anyway?

The answer is no.

Re: 2007/01/28/mashable-relaunches/

Steven Bao — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:26:52 -0000

Pete, love the new design, looks nice and fresh.

Re: 2007/04/06/google411-jotspot/

Steven Bao — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:08:46 -0000

Sensationalism... how about "JotSpot Probable Relaunch"?

:)

Re: 2007/07/02/prediction-markets/

Steven Bao — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:02:43 -0000

VirtualStockExchange from MarketWatch (www.virtualstockexchange.com) is also another virtual stock market - almost completely realistic.

Re: 2007/09/12/yahoo/

Steven Bao — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:16:42 -0000

Great. Yahoo! really needs to catch up in the API world and be more open with their stuff. Yahoo! is very robust (and I'd especially like a Finance API) and developers will love this.

Re: 2007/09/12/wikipedia-2-million/

Steven Bao — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:20:06 -0000

Citizendium is also of note.

Re: 2007/09/26/video-applications-facebook/

Steven Bao — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:29:44 -0000

Hope you won't mind a plug for my own app.
http://hs.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=...
TopVideo allows you to put a YouTube video on your profile, have friends comment on it, view the most popular videos, and other stuff.

Re: 2007/11/20/facebook-apps-find-your-email-address/

Steven Bao — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:45:12 -0000

Email contact for developers to contact users has been here since the beginning of the Facebook Platform through the API call Notifications.send in optional parameter email.

This feature is only allowing restriction of emails.

Re: 2007/11/27/brightcovetv-shutdown/

Steven Bao — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:46:27 -0000

Note that Brightcove is still offering its options for services other than direct consumer upload, which means their other options (internet TV over its network and platform) is still available to publishers. They have numerous contracts with others and those aren't affected by the end of "ordinary user" uploads to Brightcove.TV. I believe that they're taking a step in the right direction - serving video through their platform to larger organizations, not to personal users (to make like another YouTube, albeit much improved.)

Re: 2007/12/05/live-documents-looks-exactly-like-office/

Steven Bao — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:15:38 -0000

I don't think I'm the only one smelling a lawsuit.

Re: 2007/12/20/open-web-awards-finalists-start-page/

Steven Bao — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:20:30 -0000

Saying that Netvibes is simply the "ultimate RSS reader" adding widgets is an understatement. It's one of the original start pages and though it has less of an apparent following than younger iGoogle, it's on par, if not better than iGoogle. RSS is just one widget/module.

Re: 2007/12/25/adam-ostrow-2008-predictions/

Steven Bao — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:44:31 -0000

You can probably agree that LinkedIn is dominating the business networking sector. There are other competitors in the same space, such as primarily-European XING and Ryze. All of them have a Free account version, and all of them have "premium" plans. LinkedIn gives a lot of freedom for its free users to use its service, backed by advertising. In my experience with the other sites - not so much.

I can't speak for XING as I'm not in Europe - but none of these competitors in my experience have as large of a userbase as LinkedIn - and for a professional networking site, that is absolutely crucial. Two-thirds of the people I network with in real life are on LinkedIn. Plaxo, a "revived" competitor, doesn't have the userbase either.

Unless the other competitors with similar features have some kind of ingenious way to gain many users, LinkedIn will remain at the top. The userbase is important, and even more so in professional networking sites.

Re: 2008/02/29/myspace-rockyou-spam/

Steven Bao — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 09:06:49 -0000

Hey, just like RockYou's apps on Facebook!...

Re: 2008/03/22/apple-safari-updater/

Steven Bao — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:04:51 -0000

Like the same crap that happened between Microsoft and Google...
This is getting old, seriously, these companies need to know that.

Re: How To Access Bebo, MySpace and Other Blocked Website from School

Steven Bao — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:52:15 -0000

I must suggest UnblockFacebook.com and UnblockMySpace.com. These work all the time for me.

Re: Stop, Don’t hit that Delete Spam Button

Steven Bao — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 16:34:22 -0000

Great suggestions - I myself was dissatisfied with Akismet, so I downloaded myself a copy of Spam Karma 2 this morning. Also, Capacha works sometimes but hurts your reputation a bit.

Thank you for this post!

Re: Why Digg Top Users Always Stay on The Top ?

Steven Bao — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:23:15 -0000

Very interesting analysis, Thilak. I think that Digg users do not realize that by voting for their friends' posts they will trump other posts that might be interesting, maybe more interesting. At the time of this comment there were 11/14 frontpages made by some guy named aaaz - he has pages upon pages of front page posts - and has 400 friends.

So concluding, Digg does NOT have a democratic system of voting - my submitted stories' diggs went up as I befriended top Digg guys. Well, in voting theory, it does, but in reality it does not as people almost *mindlessly* vote for articles their friends dugg.

Nowadays I use digg (I submitted an article about Itanium 2 being released - maximum 10 diggs much less a front page) and Reddit, which is proving to be a better service for tech AND other news (though I do realize Digg has other news as well.)

Good article.

Re: Google Acquires JotSpot

Steven Bao — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 18:18:24 -0000

I smell some BS here - it feels like Google is going to do to JotSpot what it did to Writely - kill a lot of functionality and design, and make it their own (i.e. Google Docs & Spreadsheets, maybe Google Collab or something)

Google is becoming evil. :(

Re: Google Talk gets Offline Messages

Steven Bao — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:11:53 -0000

Ah, very good! Thank you for the heads-up Thilak!

Re: Official Zune Website from Microsoft

Steven Bao — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 20:55:28 -0000

Thanks for the update. Even though it's Microsoft, it looks really nice...

Re: Here comes Virtual Earth 3D from Microsoft

Steven Bao — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 18:17:54 -0000

I have to say though Thilak, it isn't as bad as I thought. Though not as good as Google Earth, it is better than I expected.

Thanks for the article.

Re: Here comes Virtual Earth 3D from Microsoft

Steven Bao — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 09:39:52 -0000

@Thilak: Kinda off topic, but I suggest the Mozilla browser Camino for Macs :)

Re: Skype 3 Beta Includes Shopping Features

Steven Bao — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:49:05 -0000

Excellent article. Have you also seen the Lifehacker article, Skype one-click dial with a text file? Very interesting implementation of the new features of Skype.

Skype is great, if not the best. I'll be downloading this soon. Thank you.

Re: Yahoo Plans to Integrate Chat inside Yahoo Mail

Steven Bao — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:56:31 -0000

Google Gmail had better keep up with Yahoo! Mail, I have seen and liked better the Yahoo! Mail Beta frankly. Which is dissapointing, since I like Google better than Yahoo (lesser of two evils).

Re: Google Accidentally Sends Virus

Steven Bao — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:55:15 -0000

It seems that Google is having more problems every single day, right? Disappointing.

Re: Google Accidentally Sends Virus

Steven Bao — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:56:29 -0000

Agreed Vyoma, Google is definitely breaking their Don't be Evil motto with its recent happenings.

Re: Microsoft Releases Photosynth

Steven Bao — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:52:47 -0000

I have to admit that this is one of the most innovative applications that I have ever seen. But it is agreed that it needs more work to be actually even released as a beta, for example not taking weeks to render the photoset.

But still, this app is innovative, and might be interesting to mess around with.

Re: RARhost – Host your RAR Files for Free

Steven Bao — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 09:27:47 -0000

Nice find Thilak. Note that their maximum filesize is 350mb, but apparently you can have them into split archives. That makes the maximum around 35000mb, or 35GB, in which case one shouldn't use this host for that, heh.

Thanks.

Re: RARhost – Host your RAR Files for Free

Steven Bao — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:05:15 -0000

Yeah Thilak - looks like Nithin beat me to it, which is strange since when I wrote my comment there were only 2 comments.

Re: QuickThumbnail – Web Based Photo Resizer

Steven Bao — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:15:05 -0000

Excellent! I also recommend ShrinkPictures for resizing my 6MP digital camera pictures - very good tool.

Good if you don't want to fire up Photoshop every time you want some web service to accept an image.

Re: Get Vista Transformation Pack 6 RC1

Steven Bao — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:13:42 -0000

That looks quite nice, but they should definitely streamline the process to install/uninstall, since it would be a great opportunity to try it without risking having to keep it forever or to have to deal with a messy uninstallation.

Re: Hidden Windows XP Sound Track

Steven Bao — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:11:57 -0000

Excellent find Thilak! It actually sounds pretty good... good first impression if they had a soundcard, though.

Wow, that is some sweet music.

Re: Get Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007 for Free

Steven Bao — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 22:01:43 -0000

This program looks alright - but in my opinion technical support is pretty vital. I have never heard of Ashampoo before. I will try this though. Great find Thilak!

Re: Google is Secretly Testing Impression Based Ad Network

Steven Bao — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:49:41 -0000

Very interesting; myself, if I were Google, would not implement an impression-based ad network; but you said it correctly, building a brand name might be useful for this.

Re: Random Flickr Image Clock

Steven Bao — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:52:10 -0000

Excellent. Their design is clean and simple. The loading times do take a while, though.

I'd rather use maybe a Konfabulator widget for the time, it seems this is good for eye candy :) Excelent tags functionality as well.

Re: Firefox with 101 Extensions

Steven Bao — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:47:38 -0000

Very interesting - how does he really manage to use Firefox? I am convinced that he is not able to multitask, unless he has 5GB RAM, seriously.

I have 512MB RAM, and the only extensions I do not disable are Greasemonkey, del.icio.us and Stylish; this is to prevent it from taking 30 seconds to open and suck 100,000K RAM when I have ten tabs open.

Re: Google’s Secret Evaluation Site

Steven Bao — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 21:29:19 -0000

Very interesting - the flash movie definitely exposes some interesting stuff, but it is good to keep results good and spamfree.

Re: Link, Ping, Promote Other Blogs

Steven Bao — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 21:50:18 -0000

Yes, that is very true; naturally, I do bookmark or subscribe to other blogs that link to me, for example Technospot which pinged me a minute ago, and pinged your StumbleUpon post. Most bloggers that ping me I subscribe to, so there's outbound links for you. And why not promote some good content by doing so? There's no excuse.

Re: Million Dollar Homepage Comes Back as Pixelotto

Steven Bao — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 22:14:40 -0000

Following the success of the MDHP, there have been spawning many, many copies of it. I'm not sure if this one will succeed amidst all the competitors.

Re: eBoy’s Pixilated Web 2.0 Poster for Sale

Steven Bao — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 22:16:43 -0000

I believe it is called 'isometric'.

Re: TechBuzz v3 Beta

Steven Bao — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 18:16:23 -0000

I like it... it's clean, and it's nice. Good work.
The header is a bit misaligned though.

Re: Prepare for a Traffic Dip Ahead

Steven Bao — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:30:12 -0000

Agreed, Thilak. I am planning to release another article on my blog on Sunday so that hopefully some people might be able to read it.

Then again, I don't have many readers ;-)

Nice snowflakes.

Re: Gmail Open to all?

Steven Bao — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:41:12 -0000

I can confirm that in the United States.

Re: Gmail Open to all?

Steven Bao — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:41:52 -0000

Actually, sorry, never mind. Doesn't work in US.

Re: Microsoft Hints About Internet Explorer 8

Steven Bao — Sat, 05 May 2007 11:10:42 -0000

First things first - get rid of NCSA Mosaic or whatever it's based on. That was just about the first web browser ever made.

Rewrite the engine from scratch, you have two years. If it's good, well, maybe us web designers and developers won't be as frustrated with the mediocre software.

Re: 14K Solid Gold iPhone Arrives on eBay

Steven Bao — Wed, 16 May 2007 10:59:34 -0000

That frame has to be the fakest photoshop I've ever seen.