Internet

24 November 20053 September 2011

Technology convergence: internet, entertainment & communication

Google has been in the news quite often of late.

One moment, they are swallowing up the public domain book library. Another moment, they are acquiring something or another… but one thing’s for sure Google has made the internet business work through their advertising revenue model. To date, Google is hoarding up a cash pile of more than a few billion dollars.

Yup. They are that successful. So what next for Google? No doubt some sort of buying spree will ensue. Naturally, this has to be something which Google can continue to add value to its business. So what would that be?

I don’t know, but what about an entertainment / media content based business? The success of the iTunes audio and video downloads shows that there is a market. And the recent “agreement” between the bittorrent community and Hollywood, could possible pave a way for commercial film downloads. What about Google and TiVo?

There are more technology news on this website accessible via the world news link at the top menu.

21 November 20053 September 2011

Google Base – a new tool?

I came across a link to Google Base whilst browsing the Google Blogs recently. It looks like a new way of indexing information on the net. I am not yet sure how it should be used, but would leave it to you to figure that out, whilst I figure it out myself. Here’s an excerpt from Google.

What is Google Base?

Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we’ll host and make searchable online. You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.

Quick Facts about Google Base

Cost: Free

Item types accepted: All types of online and offline information and images

Languages: Google Base is currently available only in English.

Reach: Items you submit to Google Base can be found on Google Base and, depending on their relevance, may also appear on Google properties like Google, Froogle and Google Local.

How it’s different: Google Base enables you to add attributes that better describe your content so that users can easily find it. The more popular specific attributes become, the more often we’ll suggest them when others post the same items. Similarly, items that become more popular will show up as suggested item types in the Choose an existing item type drop down menu.

17 November 200524 April 2017

my-KART project updates

One of the best things that I’ve been involved with outside of family and work is the things that Azlan and I started with my-KART.

my-KART started out as a way that Azlan and I could have regular kart races with our friends. We previously found it very difficult to get a good “quorum” individually so decided to “pool” our group of friends. We then formed the Yahoo mailing list and that was when the interest spread quickly – mainly thru word of mouth.

Today (Nov 05) we have something like 170 registered members (give or take 20). And we constantly attract around 40 participants for our monthly races and our quarterly enduros.

We now see a lot of opportunities opening up to my-KART. Certainly, my-KART has a key role in shaping the motorsports industry in Malaysia. Our vision of building racing talent for the country through popularising grassroots motorsports starts with the amateurs, the PBEM (professionals, businessmen, executives and managers) segment, the casual enthusiast, the parents, local companies, car-clubs and not forgetting the youngsters who are the country’s future. To this end our aims and behaviours must be noble and sincere. We must ensure we build the community and awareness whether they race or not.

Over the next few months until end 2006 we shall focus on 5 key areas (in no particular order):

community: building the community & be active in social activities
members: continue to drive memberships & inculcate our values amongst our members
excellence: focus on excellence in our racing events
alliances: forge alliances
awareness: create corporate awareness, and wider visibility

Now we have a group of 20-30 core members sharing common ideas and actively contributing towards my-KART’s and the local motorsports industry’s future. I would invite all of you to be part of this journey as my-KART moves into 2006 and beyond.

1 November 200525 January 2016

Things to adopt from other drupal themes

Been swapping themes on this website, and note some good practices that I’d like to adopt for my default site.

vertically aligned search box in the top menu: alternate / lincoln’s revenge does it well
clean layouts like a printed page: chameleon does this well
blockquote techniques – the left bar at the indentation of the quote is good
different type face for headline titles – say using Georgia to distinguish headline from body text
lines to separate content blocks
different block style for “sticky” blocks
distinct menu headers like the type used by gworks
simple clean design like pushbutton (is there a phptemplate version?) – like the large clear fonts and colours… the menu columns are nicely distinguished
the squiggle dividers from Tokyo / Persian is a nice touch
how do I make dropdown menus work?

1 November 200525 January 2016

Web Updates – Drupal patching, CSS layouts

I am planning to do a few things:

installing a taxanomy access control module

I did some research on the subject by first visiting http://drupal.org/ and went straight to the drupal module downloads. Read a bit on the taxonomy access module and find that this would require me to patch the existing core taxonomy.module – now I am no expert on unix patching and my linux host only provides me a cpanel access… so I cannot do patching without a shell access to the host. Also read that patching also is a bit of a minefield, so scratch that thought. Let’s wait for another solution to come up.
installing a web links module

The weblinks.module for 4.6 has been reworked and the directory module has been removed. This is done in anticipation of a “links bundle” which is supposedly better built.
re-designing the layouts using CSS

There are a few links on the www which are very useful references in this regard. But I think I shall post them on a separate page.