http://patrickyong.net will be shifting to new web host next month

3 more days to go and I will point the DNS to a new web host at Cyberjaya. Do expect the site to be down for the whole weekend starting 1st August Friday night.

365 days validity war between DiGi and Maxis

Good news for pre-paid users like me, DiGi and Maxis launched their respective 365 days number validity plan. For DiGi customer, you have to reload RM100 at one shot before 31st August to enjoy the offer while Maxis just need RM33 balance before you send in a #100 activation code.

  vs

Regardless how, it will be consumer who benefit the most from competitions. I hope Celcom will do the same because I occasionally uses their pre-paid 3G services. So this will encourage people to take up extra phone line for various purposes.

Delphi no longer belongs to Borland.

This happened sometime ago but I was not aware until today. Codegear is the company that owns the famous Delphi programming IDE as well as the once popular Turbo suite of development tools under Borland. When open source IDEs such as Eclipse and Netbeans started eating into Borland’s JBuilder’s market share, they realize IDEs are becoming commodities and started focus on value added businesses such as Application Lifecycle Management. Then they spin off all developer tools (incl Delphi, CBuilder and JBuilder) to a subsidary named CodeGear with the intention of selling it. As of 1st July 2008, database tools vendor Embarcadero bought over CodeGear, and this closed another chapter of Borland which the father of C#, Anders Hejlbergs once worked there to create the tools we known as IDE today and fathered Turbo Pascal and Delphi.

Another futuristic video by Microsoft

Quite some time ago we saw this video about the future and how people do their banking.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNBJYH2jhko]
YouTube – Microsoft’s future vision on banking

The technologies showcased that time was a bit ‘old’ you still see the old Windows Mobile devices with stylus (its so yesterday huh). So fast forward a bit, Microsoft industry innovation group comes out with this video about how technologies help us with our health in the future. Some currently hot technologies like multi touch (it will be found on any devices, any furnitures including a smart card which will be your digital wallet) and WPF driven user experiences (developers can really get a lot of inspirations of how application UI should look like here). Check it out here.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35Kv6-ZNGA]
YouTube – Microsoft Future Vision : Healthcare

Website to visit: 2advanced studios

The art work of this website is just too damn cool to ignore. The loading page (because it is running on Flash) looks like a Command & Conquer game loading screen. And not to mention the theme music of the website rocks (yea… they got theme music some more)

Speaking of Command & Conquer, 2advanced Studios actually did the mini/ teaser site for Tiberium Sun game and also Star War’s The Force Unleashed.

Currently they put version 5.0 for this website, so I guess it went thru a few make over. Go here and pay a visit. Enjoy your weekend. 🙂 http://www.2advanced.com/

Beware of msg/ sites requesting your Hotmail/Messenger password

Please be aware of a malicious email circulating around the web that claims to be able to see who has blocked or deleted you from Windows Live Messenger. This is a hoax email which redirects you to a site when you click on the link in the email. The site then requests your Hotmail/Messenger password or Windows Live ID and starts spamming everyone on your contact list with this hoax.

Some of these sites even automatically infect your computer with a Trojan/Virus that steals all passwords on your computer. Below is an example of how the email looks like, these change over time so please be aware of suspicious emails such as this.

Paparazzi @Microsoft

Found out about this microspoting blog by someone at MSFT campus who

creep around campus talking to my favorite kinds of people: geeks who are passionate about what they do.

Interesting gig she has there, it looks like a Web 2.0 journalist or something like that. But the site has some cool stuffs about life at MST Corp with blogs, photos and videos.

Wonder will she comes to Tech.Ed SEA…

I can read this, can you?

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs pselse bolg it.

Have you watched Indiana Jones tonight?

This is the night, but due to work tomorrow I was not able to watch it. If you can tell me more about Indiana Jones than Lara Croft, certainly you are around my age. Most of the interns I asked have no single idea about the movie franchise, I wonder what kind of childhood they went through without heroes like Indy.

So in case you are one of the unlucky Y-generation, go to Wikipedia and find out more. My friend who just came back from cinema (she also don’t know anything about Temple of Doom or the lost Ark) told me the starting part is a bit boring with little action but at the end there is a surprise appearance of UFO?! Celaka…. don’t know how true is it for Spielberg and Lucas to go this extreme. Come on lah. I always think Indy’s movie is to encourage kids to study history so leave the flying saucers to George Lucas’ Star Wars lah!

Older and younger Indiana Jones, not much difference, but when you are younger, you dare to show more skin ><

Kopi Luwak – The king of all coffees

And the price you pay for? Its selling at $65 somewhere in US! Check out this video from Veronica Belmont. (FYI she is voted one of the 2007 Top 10 Sexiest Geeks)

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV7yvCoI0EY]
YouTube – Kopi Luwak Coffee – $65 a cup!

As a coffee drinker, kopi luwak is really a legend to me. It made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet. Because of the lizard’s slow metabolism, the beans inside pass through their system undigested. The effect of this process is the enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee’s flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste.

Check out more info at Wikipedia