Digital Life
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Digital Life by Chin Wong » Web 2.0 A-Z
Video created automatically at Animoto IT’S been four years now since Web 2.0 was first used to describe more interactive and collaborative Web sites that behaved like desktop applications. In those days, there were only a handful of sites that qualified. Nowadays, there are hundreds of such sites, offering users everything from online storage to social networking to browser-based video … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Change we need
HISTORIC is how most people will describe the US elections this year. Coming after eight disastrous years that weakened the United States and damaged its reputation abroad, it’s no surprise that change was the big theme for both presidential candidates. And what a dramatic change these elections portend. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, is poised to be the first African-American … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Avoid piracy pitfalls, go open source
IT’S the kind of news that should strike fear in the hearts of chief executives and MIS managers who condone the use of unlicensed software in their companies. Earlier this month, police raided the Makati office of a large construction company, seizing 24 computers loaded with pirated software. Reports estimate the software at SKI Construction was worth P2 million, and … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » No boundaries
IN the Internet age, you can access any content you want, right? Wrong. If you have ever tried to watch full episodes of popular American TV shows on Web sites such as Hulu, or buy songs from iTunes, you’ll quickly realize that not everything that technology makes possible is doable. Often, it is licensing problems that get in the way. … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Office without the MS
I never took to MS Office 2007. Having used earlier versions of MS Word for years, I was frustrated when I couldn’t easily find the menus or commands where they used to be on its newfangled ribbon interface. I also disliked that its applications wrote by default to a file format that was unreadable by earlier versions of MS Office. … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Free cell phone calls
ANYONE who has made a free call to relatives abroad using Skype knows how cool Internet telephony can be. For some time now, with the right software on both ends of the conversation, you could make and receive clear PC-to-PC voice calls over the Internet and bypass the expensive long-distance rates that phone companies typically charge. Until recently, however, if … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Part of our history
MOST people who pass Manila City Hall every day hardly pay attention to the the old clock tower that rises above it. The beige structure with two red clock faces capped by a brick-red dome is a fixture, a decades-old landmark from another era. Fewer people, still, will realize that the clock tower was put there by a pioneer of … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Apple of Mark’s eye
AS A Mac user for the last two years, I can understand why the company behind Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions, wants to be on par with Apple in terms of usability. It is a big hairy audacious goal that Mark Shuttleworth, chief executive of Canonical, laid down at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland last … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Easy online storage
EVER work all night on a document only to realize the next day that you had left it on your home PC? In the old days, you could save yourself a trip home by using remote control software such as PCanywhere, Laplink or VNC. These days, you could also use GoToMyPC, LogMeIn or similar online pay services to do the … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Shiny new browser
Google Chrome runs in a Windows XP virtual machine inside Ubuntu. LEAKED pages from a 38-page comic book tipped off most Google watchers that the Internet search giant was about to announce its new browser, Chrome, last week. “As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit ‘send’ a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » VirtualBox revisited
Ubuntu Hardy Heron running in full-screen mode on a Macbook, courtesy of VirtualBox. WHILE looking for a way to run some Windows video software on my Linux PC last year, I stumbled upon VirtualBox, an open source program that enables you to install and use different operating systems on the same computer. Despite the complexity such a task entails, VirtualBox—developed … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Can Seinfeld save Vista?
THERE’S something a bit desperate about the way Microsoft is pushing Windows Vista. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft is spending $300 million on an advertising campaign featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld as the key pitchman. Starting September, TV ads featuring Seinfeld and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will seek to address what the company’s chief executive, Steve Ballmer, … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Digital newsstand
WHY would anyone want to emulate the iPhone on his desktop computer? That question crossed my mind when I heard that some people were using a Firefox add-on called User Agent Switcher to do just that. You’d think the only people who would want to shrink a beautiful wide-screen display to a fraction of its size would be developers who … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Ubuntu netbook
ACER’s Aspire One is a solid netbook, but it can be much more. In the last two weeks, I’ve been using it as a full notebook, running office applications, editing digital photos, surfing the Web and watching videos on a robust, full-featured system. The remarkable thing is, I’m doing it on a such a small, lightweight computer (less than a … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » More than search
Zimbra Desktop accommodates multiple e-mail accounts on one screen, using Prism, an open source, site-specific browser for Web applications. IN the kerfuffle over the failed Microsoft takeover bid, people tend to forget that Yahoo is about much more than online search. Sure, Google is far ahead of Yahoo and Microsoft in search, but those who believe putting No. 2 and … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Ace in the hole
IT’S difficult to write about the Aspire One from Acer without gushing. Out of the box, this mini-notebook is the perfect traveling companion for anyone who simply needs to surf the Web, send e-mail and perform typical office tasks such as typing up documents, working on spreadsheets or giving a presentation. Its compact size—6.7”x9.8” and less than an inch thick—and … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Ubuntu for business
Ubuntu on a mobile Internet device IT’S shaping up to be an exciting year for Ubuntu, the Linux distribution that can knock the socks off Windows Vista and free your company from expensive software licenses. Just last week, Dell, the third largest computer manufacturer, announced it would expand the number of desktop and notebook PCs that would come with Ubuntu … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Empires lost
Gates and Ballmer, with the best line at D6 DOES anyone still remember NetWare? If you started using computers with Windows XP, chances are you have never even heard of it. Yet back in the early 1990s, this network operating system from Novell Inc. was considered the de facto standard for connecting personal computers, enabling them to share files and … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » The shape of things to come
First shot of Dell’s mini-notebook, courtesy of Gizmodo ACER will be rolling out the Aspire One mini-notebook this week in Manila, its answer to the ground-breaking Asus Eee-PC. I’ve been itching to get my hands on a review unit after reading about its specs (8.9-inch, 1,024×600 screen, Intel Atom 1.6Ghz processor, 512MB memory, 8GB storage on the Linux version, built-in … [Link]
Digital Life by Chin Wong » Gmail speed-up
IN the four years since Gmail was introduced, Google has done much to improve its free Web-based e-mail service. Still, there are a number of ways it might be improved. This week, while watching the progress bar crawl toward completion on a slow connection, I realized that speeding access to the inbox is one such way. When you point your … [Link]
