This article written by Joshua of Bokardo.com really is a good read and very informative. Every single line makes a great sense and creates awareness about design. The site also provides many other resourceful articles hence I’m rolling it now. Whoever interested in design should take note of the mentioned 5 principles.

• Technology Serves Humans
• Design is not Art
• The Experience Belongs to the User
• Great Design is Invisible
• Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication

Do read through each principle significance, it’s really worth reading.

This one give 5 minutes FREE call per day just from your browser. You only need a small flash plugin to add to your browser and you are all set to go. By registering to their site, you get extra 5min and total of 10 minutes of FREE calling per day.

Gizmo Call is a modernized way to make web-based calls developed by the team who brought you the Gizmo Project voice and IM software, as well as the SIPphone VoIP platform, a robust network and directory for efficiently carrying VoIP calls. www.gizmocall.com

I’ve tried to Singapore and Australia numbers, they all work like a charm. The voice quality is quite alrite too but can’t talk in unison. When I try myanmar number, I got this reply.

Sorry, We intentionally block calls to this country.

It’ll be abit nicer if the message goes like “Sorry, we don’t provide service to this country” or something like that but they use that “intentionally block” phrase. Man, that was just so mean.

I haven’t tested for Fiji numbers as I can do local calls easily but I’m sure it works fine. Oh when you register, don’t enter the last text-box ie. Enter your phone number, otherwise you cannot click on “register” button. Only when you remove it, the button becomes active. Anyways it’s pretty good if you wanna test calls to friends overseas. Enjoy calling. Call me too?

I’m feeling really down these days. I got a lot of posts to write about and a few photos been prepared but just not in the mood to sit and type it up. I’m also reading some books and watching movies a lot these days that I couldn’t come back to my blog. I’ve been extremely lazy these days that I don’t even want to visit my own blog. This evening I feel a bit refreshed after a long shower and sat down to do some posting. So here I am, out of the blue, reanalysing what to write and where my blog stands as Mayvelous ages into her third year. It’s been a great three years journey together with Mayvelous.

I learn many things about blog, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere and a whole lot of blogging aspects. I’m also gradually improving in terms of habitual writing. I don’t mean writing as in proper literature with perfect grammar and smooth reading. I just mean as a regular habit of putting your thoughts down in your blog. Mayvelous keeps me awake, she lends me ears, she shares my joy, sorrow and laughters. She’s very lame with keeping secrets but she’s very good listener. She’s been a great friend anyone would ask for.

As time pass, I’m thinking what kind of path I’m driving Mayvelous into. I’ve read an old ebook by Seth Godin a few year back about types of blogs and I remembered I noted down some quotes from there. I’m sorry it’s been too long that I noted down these points and I’ve lost the direct link to the ebook so couldn’t provide you with proper reference link.

From the book, I got to know that there are 3 kinds of blogs namely :

1. Cat Blogs
2. Boss Blogs
3. Viral Blogs

CAT BLOGS are blogs for and by and about the person blogging. A cat blog is about your cat and your dating travails and your boss and whatever you feel like sharing in your public diary. The vast majority of people with a cat blog don’t need or want strangers to read it. If you’ve got a cat blog, you should embrace that fact and stop wondering where all your traffic is.

BOSS BLOGS are blogs used to communicate to a defined circle of people. A boss blog is a fantastic communications tool.

Mainly used for projects and activities to share latest news with team members or activity partners

VIRAL BLOGS: They’re viral blogs because the goal of the blog is to spread ideas. The blogger is investing time and energy in order to get her ideas out there. Why? Lots of reasons—to get consulting work, to change the outcome of an election, to find new customers for a business or to make it easier for existing customers to feel good about staying.

Some of these blogs are for individuals (call them citizen journalists or op-ed pages) and others are for organizations trying to share their ideas and agendas. These are the blogs that are changing the face of marketing, journalism and the spread of ideas.

If you’re writing for strangers, that means you’re building a viral blog. The first principle is to make your entries shorter. Use images and tone and design and interface to make your point. Teach people gradually.

On the other hand, if you’re writing for colleagues, you’ve got a boss blog. That means you can make your entries more robust.

Reading through these and thinking what kind of blog do I own makes me confused. Mayvelous is personal diary-like blog though I don’t write too personal matters, yet I do write about my daily issues and occasional outburst of personal feelings. So it goes into the category of CAT-Blogs.

Mayvelous also talks about work matters and project/technology related news which mainly concentrate on programmers, web developers and IT professionals. So it’s kind of gets under BOSS-Blogs category as well.

Blog by nature is very public, hence you’re writing for various types of strangers. Some may find your post informative and some might not. It’s all depends on which type of “strangers” your blog attracts more.

You’re not interested/attracting anyone then the blog is obviously a CAT-Blog. When it attracts more of your friends and family attention, it becomes the BOSS-Blog. Ofcos, once it catches the attention from general public then you become the VIRAL-Blogger. In my opinion, all blogs aim to be Viral some day. The three blog types are very much inter-related; many blogs start as CAT-Blogs then move their way up to Boss-Blogs and finally be the Viral-Blog.

So, where is Mayvelous? Mayvelous is still in the state of the BOSS petting her CAT. Sometimes the cat runs away and a few times the boss wants to quit. I’m hoping to move mayvelous towards a wider circle of audience with informative content to become the VIRAL-Blog in near future.

So this is what I’ve discovered about types of blogs. Which type does your blog fall under and is it in the correct path that you want it to be? Just something to think about anyways.

Arh so IE + Firefox = MS Firefox

+ =

Such an ugly icon. The fox now looks like a lobster with one mustache. Also it got such a long name – “Microsoft Firefox 2007 Professional Edition“. What’s up with MS and their long versions? Professional version, developer version, standard version, etc.

The combination of Microsoft’s power and might along with Firefox’s extensive fan database will create one of the world’s largest, most innovative and diversified browsers ever. The acquisition brings together two of the industry’s strongest contenders and is the most ubiquitous incorporation of technologies for creating, managing and delivering compelling spyware and viral experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media (Subject to Microsoft Compatibility).

Features

• Simplified User Experience
• Amazing Marginal Manipulation
• Instant Search Box
• Favorites Center
• RSS (Real Simple Sex)
• Tabbed Browsing
• Quick Tabs
• Tab Groups
• Page Zoom, etc..etc..

So now what? Do we ditch recent IE7 and replace with this MSFF? Anymore IE series to come? hmm…
Full Features | Get MS Firefox 2007 Professional Edition

Don’t feel like testing it yet. Kinda ZzzZz..Zzz at the moment. Let me know how it goes if you tested it.

So they found some bugs in 2.0.6 and releasing a new version before they go into 2.1 at end of this month. Only a few files to upgrade though.

Recently a bug in certain versions of PHP came to our attention that could cause a security vulnerability in your blog. We’re able to work around it fairly easily, so we’ve decided to release 2.0.7 to fix the PHP security problem and the Feedburner issue that was in 2.0.6.

Here is the list of files that have changed since 2.0.6:

• wp-admin/inline-uploading.php
• wp-admin/post.php
• wp-includes/classes.php
• wp-includes/functions.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-includes/version.php

Download here. Toooo many upgrades…..a hint..

Hey guys, check this site out, ziptophone.com. It’s free text messaging using Ajax and MooTools effects.

ZipToPhone is a free text messaging service. Using this tool, you can easily send text messages and send MMS messages to a cell phone. This is ideal for sending custom ringtones, games, wallpapers, logos, photos, or any other file that your cell phone can process. It’s also perfect for sending a quick message to a friend when you are without your phone.

Very clean, no registration required, no ads and nothing what soever at all. Very simple and sweet. Works like a charm. I tried it to my gangs in Fiji. All works and very fast too. Most of free sms sites doesn’t offer service to send to Fiji but this one does, so i’m sure if Fiji can receive it, other countries will be just fine.

Currently, there is a limit of 5 messages per day per IP address. We’ll be rolling out the option to upgrade your account and send more messages soon.

But ofcos, there is a limit of 5 messages per day from one IP. It’s very new site, so may be they’re still test driving.

Another wordpress update is out and about – WordPress 2.0.6, seems like this is the last release before WP goes into 2.1 beta stage.

This is the latest release in our stable 2.0 line, which we’ve committed to maintaining for several more years.

Here’s what’s new:

• The aforementioned security fixes.
• HTML quicktags now work in Safari browsers.
• Comments are filtered to prevent them from messing up your blog layout.
• Compatibility with PHP/FastCGI setups.

For developers, there’s a new anti-XSS function called attribute_escape(), and a new filter called “query” which allows you filter any SQL at runtime.

Right, so gotta upgrade it this weekend. Just a note for you guys anyways.