Legazpi on SkyscraperCity's Banner

Legazpi City made it to SkyscraperCity Forum's banner for today, 17th of April 2008. SkyscraperCity, fondly called SSC by members, is a forum dedicated to architecture, development, urbanity, photography and travel with over 180,000 forum-ers from all over the globe.

SSC has a very vibrant Philippine sub-forum which has become a rich source of information about various developments in the country - from up-to-date news about upcoming skyscrapers in the Metro to spellbinding photos of unspoilt beaches and islands.

Legazpi is only the fifth city featured on SSC's banner, which changes daily. The photo, taken by Arnold Faller, is a panoramic view of Legazpi with the majestic Mayon Volcano in the background. You can view the original photo here.

PicLens: 3D Image Viewing Experience

If you love browsing through media-rich sites such as Flickr or deviantART, here's a cool add-on you can install in your browser to enrich your image browsing and viewing experience. Now you don't have to just click through online photo galleries or a boring parade of small thumbnails. PicLens by CoolIris transforms your browser into a cool, full-screen 3D picture wall.

I found the PicLens interface quite fast, easy-to-use and intuitive. When you install PicLens, it adds a small 'play' icon on the images which you can click to open the superb full-screen 3D experience. Here you can drag, click, scroll and zoom through images with ease.

PicLens view of My Flickr gallery

PicLens is best viewed on Mozilla Firefox but it is also available for Internet Explorer and Safari. It works with a growing number of websites including Facebook, Friendster, and Image Searches for Google, Yahoo, etc.

For Firefox Users, click here to install PicLens. Visit the PicLens website for more details.

I've Upgraded to Flickr Pro

I finally decided to get myself a Flickr Pro account. Why? For no serious reason, really. I've been a Flickr user since 2005 and I think it's still the best photo sharing website today. Unlike other services such as Photobucket or Imageshack, Flickr is not just another photo storage facility.

What I love about Flickr is the interaction with other users, from professional photographers to amateur shutterbugs like me. I get a kick out of random people appreciating my humble photos (all taken with an old point-and-shoot digital camera) by leaving a comment or even adding them to their 'Favorites'.

Flickr is also home to a mind-blowing collection of images from around the world (over 2 billion). I can waste hours just ogling at the impressive photos, wishing I can also take such awesome shots. There are also other cool stuff to do with my photos using third-party Flickr toys. By the way, I made that 'Dextr' logo using this Flickr logo maker.

Flickr Pro comes with additional features and privileges not available to free accounts, such as unlimited storage, unlimited sets, unlimited bandwidth, permanent archiving of high-res original images, ad-free browsing and sharing as well as account and photo stats. I like the last feature since I'm a bit of a stats freak.

Please do check out my Flickr photos. And if it isn't too much to ask, don't forget to leave a comment. hehe. ;-)

Web Finds: Cabos - File Sharing Program

Cabos is a free Gnutella file-sharing program based on the popular Limewire. I found this software while browsing through StumbleUpon a few weeks ago and I have been using it ever since. It's better than Limewire because it's free from adware and spyware. It also has a clean and uncluttered interface and uses a smaller chunk of your computer's memory compared to Limewire.

Aside from MP3s, you can also find other files such as documents, and movies. However, the Gnutella network offers a very limited resource when it comes to movies unlike torrents. I don't usually download full-length movies so I'm okay with that.Cabos is basically a simplified, no-fuss, no-nonsense version of Limewire. One little feature I like is the iTunes integration because I use iTunes as my default media player here at home. Cabos automatically adds audio files to my iTunes playlist as soon as I finish downloading them. Now I don't have to locate these files from my chaotic folders.

So there, if you need a simple, easy-to-use, file sharing program to download small files such as MP3s, I recommend Cabos.

Getting the Good Vibes on Netvibes

I've heard a lot of good reviews about Netvibes before but I didn't really care about using it. Until I read Time Magazine's '50 Best Websites of 2007'. Netvibes is currently #8 on the list, and is one of the Top 3 Web Services Sites this year. To the uninformed, Netvibes lets you create your own customized homepage where you can have everything you need in neat little boxes that you can easily rearrange via drag and drop. You can display email, top news stories, bookmarks, search boxes, Flickr photos, calendar, to-do list, and RSS feeds of your favorite blogs all in one page.

Netvibes is also very easy to customize, with hundreds of widgets and modules available, as well as themes and wallpapers. You can also add various games, utilities, and applications to your personal page. There are also Twitter and Facebook modules available.

So far, I'm getting the hang of using Netvibes as my personalized 'centralized' home page. Now, I don't need to open a new tab on Firefox just to view my email, get the latest news or read my favorite blogs. I don’t need to download and install an RSS reader, either. They're all in one page. However, I can't access Yahoo! Mail because my account needs to be POP3-enabled for me to be able to do so. Unfortunately, POP3 on Yahoo! isn't free. Gmail works fine though.

I think I will be using Netvibes from now on. After all, it pays to be a bit more organized. Hehe. Here's a screenshot of my Netvibes page.

The Fox becomes a Snail?

Ever since I first used Mozilla Firefox a few years back, I have been a loyal user. I have used other browsers, aside from Internet Explorer, such as Avant and Maxthon but I quickly settled for Firefox as soon as I used it and haven't looked back since. What I like about Firefox is that it loads faster, is much easier to use and customize and is more secure than Internet Explorer.

Until last week, though.

Lately, I have been having problems with Firefox 2 at home. All of a sudden, Firefox has become extremely slow. What normally takes a few seconds to load, such as logging in to Blogger or opening my Gmail account, now takes more than a couple of minutes. I thought maybe my ISP, Smart Bro, is acting up again since I don't have problems with Firefox at the office. But then I used IE7 and Opera 9.23 and the pageload speeds were quite okay, way faster than Firefox's actually.

Unfortunately for me, the sites that load the slowest are the Google sites I frequently use such as Gmail, Google News, Image Search, Blogger, Analytics and others. It sucks that I now have to suffer very slow page loads while using my preferred browser at home.

What's the problem, Firefox? I have already tried uninstall/reinstall. I have also disabled extensions and add-ons including my StumbleUpon and ImageShack toolbars. There isn't any improvement. I guess I need to research further to find out what really caused Firefox's sudden slowdown. Sigh. I may have to settle with Opera for the meantime while I further investigate the fox's apparent transformation to a snail.

Update (8.24.07): Firefox is OK now.

Blackle - Not Quite Green

A few weeks ago, I blogged about how Blackle promises to save as much as 15 watts simply by rendering the Google Search webpage in black. However, detailed testing by Techblogg.com involving 27 different monitors revealed that, although Blackle did reduce energy consumption in CRT monitors, it wasn’t really by 15 watts as Blackle claimed.

Moreover, when accessed using an LCD monitor, Blackle actually consumed more power than regular Google. But, the power consumption difference in LCD monitors between Blackle and Google is actually so small (an increase of 100mW or 0.1Watts). Thus, it doesn’t really matter if you use either site.

With Blackle and other so-called green Googles revealed to be not really as green as they claim to be, Techblogg suggests better, tried and tested ways to reduce power consumption with computers.

1. Turn off your PC after work.
2. Drop the screen brightness.
3. Switch off your ADSL modem at night.
4. Switch everything of the wall.
5. Set your desktop PC management.

It's a no-brainer actually - the best way to keep the power bills down is simply to turn the thing off and pull the plugs when not in use. However, when in use, I keep my monitor’s brightness and contrast level as low as my eyes can possibly allow. But still, I’m guilty of keeping my PC on overnight often, especially when I’m downloading large files. Yikes. Hehe.

By the way, I’ve been planning to replace this CRT monitor with a new LCD monitor, which I heard is much more energy-efficient than the former. Any suggestions where I can purchase an inexpensive but reliable LCD monitor? :-)

Blackle: The Energy-saving Search Engine

How can a search engine possibly save energy? That was the first thing that came to mind when I encountered Blackle, maybe short for Black Google, which claims to provide energy-saving search. With its rather funny name which made me chuckle (pun intended), I was a little skeptical about the site's claim. Blackle is basically Google Search rendered in black, instead of the usual white. There lies Blackle's advantage, or so it claims.

Apparently, a black webpage uses only 59 watts to display while a white webpage uses about 74 watts. This is similar to saving a laptop's battery by turning down the monitor's brightness. The 15 watts difference may not seem much at first glance. But a blogger proposed that if Google search, which receives over 2.5 billion queries a day, is displayed in black, this can translate to a global energy savings of 8.3 megawatt-hours a day or over 3,000 megawatt-hours a year.

Come to think of it, it does make sense. With billions of computers accessing Google Search daily, the small amount of wattage (15 watts) that can be saved if Google is displayed in black can easily add up to reach the megawatt levels. This also works for me personally since I don't have a problem with websites rendered in black (including this blog..hehe)

I tested Blackle to see if there would be any significant difference in the search engine results compared to regular Google Search. Thankfully, there wasn't any drastic difference- except for the absence of sponsored links, which is actually great. I think I may be using this search engine from now on. Maybe even in this small and insignificant way, I can actually help in the efforts to save energy. :-)

Visit Blackle - http://www.blackle.com