50,000,000 to take back their interweb safer and faster

Woohoo! Firefox downloads have recently broken the fifty million mark and rising even more. Although this only counts the people who actually download from the official firefox websites like Spreadfirefox.com, it is still a significant number. Remember that their counter doesn't factor in the people who download directly from the mozilla.org ftp, nor those who download the source and compile it themselves, nor those who download from third party file mirror sites like download.com, nor those who download once and use the installer on multiple computers.

Internet Explorer may still have dominance for the moment but if they don't improve their browser in the near future, Firefox and other newer, safer browsers will ultimately breakthrough that market dominance of theirs. In the meantime, if you still haven't used Firefox yet. It is no big loss for you to click on that foxy button after my archives list and try out the magic of Firefox yourself.

Making your Windows XP Look Better Lesson 1

Gather around kiddies!

Uncle Wil-B's gonna tell a nice nice story.

Once upon a time, there was this wee little ugly kid called Windows XP.

Every morning he woke up, An ugly Microsoft sign shows up on his face.

And Blue and Green squares runs around and around and around...

One day, he got tired of seeing it everyday so he came to Uncle Wil-B and said "Please take away those ugly blue and green squares and the big ugly Microsoft sign from my face." *cries*

Uncle Wil-B couldn't stand to see a wee ugly kid cry so he said OK...

and after a few minutes of tinkering... Tadaaaahh!

Proud to be a Pirate!


Uncle Wil-B changed the wee ugly kid's boot screen to this new fancy, piratey one.

And the wee ugly kid lived happily ever after. The End!


Props to swissboy for this cool bootscreen.

You can get it and more at ThemeXP.org

Installation instructions included with most of the files there. But in case you were wondering. It is quite easy to change the bootscreen. But if you're not careful, you might end up not being able to boot into your windows box.

Some things to remember:
An SP1 bootscreen is an SP1 bootscreen and won't work with non SP1 boxes. So don't interchange the files.

There are many ways to change the bootscreen. The boot.ini way (safe and easy) and the overwrite the old bootscreen file way (some risk involved). Choose the boot.ini way if you're not too familiar with tinkering with Windows system files.

Finally, read the instructions that come with the files.

After you're all done, you can be assured that the wee ugly kid won't be so ugly anymore. See you next time kiddies!

Beware the Revenge of the Sith Fries

In a Galaxy Far, Far, Away...

The next and last installment in a long running movie franchise has finally come.

Well... on May 19 anyway. Yes, Its the Third episode of the Star Wars saga.

It's the last part to come out but actually not the last part of the story since its in the middle of the story. The first three to come out were actually Episode IV, V and VI. And that the fourth and fifth movie to come out were Episode I and II and . . . What the hell, never mind!

Already movie pundits are expecting it to be as bad as they found Episode I and II to be and Star Wars FANatics just plain don't care and will rave about it any which way they want to.

Me, i'll watch it probably or I could just wait for the DVD set. I can hardly wait although I'm not exactly a true fan of the series and all

Watch out though for the newest and baddest Sith Lord yet.

He's Big, Mean, Round and Brown.

He's Darth Tater!

On the effects of the Indonesian earthquake...

Would you believe our days are shorter now because of the recent Indonesian earthquake that also caused the devastating tsunamis?

Scientists from NASA have determined that we now have 2.68 microseconds less everyday to do our stuff. As if our days aren't short enough already LoL

The earthquake also caused our dear Earth to become slightly more compact. Now we have even less space to live on Earth. Overpopulation anyone?

Another effect is that the Earth's oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) has been affected. So... does this mean that earth is now more svelte and slim? Kind of sounds like Mother Earth is on a diet and fitness regimen : )

Get the rest of the juicy details here

I won the lottery last night !!!!

Well, actually it's a lottery with no money involved, but still a lottery nonetheless.

In truth, I was actually the unlucky recipient of a vehicular accident last night. It all happened so fast (which is how all vehicular accidents happen hahaha). I was riding this motorcycle sidecar type public vehicle (which we call tricycles in the philippines, kind of like the tuk-tuk of the Thais but slightly different). And then this whacko in comes speeding from out of nowhere and BANG.

It's all that guy's fault since we have right of way. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt. All I got was a slightly bruised butt (however funny that may sound, it still hurts). Another good thing that happened is that this all happened about 15 feet away from my house so my family was right there to help me : )

And to think that I always thought I was unlucky ^_^

Why I love my books

My most favorite pasttime is reading but not just reading anything of course. My bookshelf mostly consists of fiction of the more obvious genres, that is, fantasy, sci-fi. Why these particular ones is obvious. My life is pretty much boring, which is my own fault entirely. I'm not the type of person who would do something for the sake of doing it. You'd need to poke, prod and push me before I do anything that's overly exciting and seemingly life-threatening. In short, I don't live life on-the-edge. I'm more of the wake-me-up-when-you're-all-done-okay type. Which all boils down to the problem of boring.

What my books give me is an escape from reality. I've been to the bottom of the sea and the center of the earth, Jules Verne took me there last weekend. I have real working time machine, H.G.Wells gave me one a few birthdays ago. I've been to places full of wondrous creatures that will never be heard or seen in this planet. I've seen empires rise and fall in the blink of an eye. I've fought invading hordes singlehandedly and live to tell my story. I've personally seen the goodness of good and the evilness of evil. I've destroyed countless worlds with my death ray for no apparently good reason. All in all, not too shabby for a day's adventure I'd say. And to think that I did all that while sitting down too. ^_^

Welcome to the Year 2005

Wheeeeee ! Happy New Year Everybody !

well... actually there still an hour so so but I won't be here to post it since there's gonna be a pretty big fireworks display that I don't want to miss ^________^

May 2005 be more eventful, positively eventful that is. More Happiness for all and Peace for all and Food for all and new hi-tech gadgets and gifts and candy yeah, don't forget candy and oh!almostforgotgoodbooksandanimeandmangaandIwouldn'tminda
promotionandraiseandmaybethrowinanewpcandblahblahblah.....

Edit: As of posting its almost like war zone outside, I can hardly hear the tv from the noise Whoooohoooo!

Before you say Happy New Year

Time Check: approx. 3 and a half hours before New Years Eve

I'm sure almost everybody has heard or watched about it already. The earthquake and tsunami that devastated a big portion of South East Asia has really made this New Year into a big downer.

With nearly 200,000 people dead, definitely NOT the best way to end the year. One can only assume that 2005 will be better but no one really knows. I'm hoping this won't be a harbinger of things to come : (

If you're still feeling the Christmas spirit i'm sure Red Cross would be happy to accept any type of help you can give. American Red Cross website

That's it for now : )

- Wil-B counting the minutes till New Years ^___________^ -

I and Me but They

From: Me
To: They

Is it my fault that I am I and not they?
Ignored cause me I am is not me like they.
Unliked for I is different to they that they.

I ask for mercy but they give nay.
The me I am cannot be they say,
That I must be they, no other way.

And so I struggle to change my way.
To please them they, I hold my stay.
But in the end I just can’t be they.

And so it ends, my tale today.
It hurts me for I can’t be me and they.
So please accept me for I am, Okay?


***Edit: approx. 1 hour later***
To quote from Green Day's new song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" which by the way great.

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

Lyrics for the rest of the song here

The overhype of professional I.T certifications.

For the past few days, I've been studying or should I say trying to study for a certain exam. This exam, if passed, would accord me the the privilege and honor (actually it's not that exclusive or superbly honorific lol) of being called an MCP, short for Microsoft® Certified Professional.

It's kind of a requirement, so much as I like to pass on it, I can't, unless I want to be fired, which I don't.

Understand though that I'm not against these so called professional certifications. The exams are tough and you really need to be experienced in the areas that you'll be tested on. Passing in these tests means only two things:

A. You really took the time to study and devote yourself to understanding the intricacies of the darn stuff.
or
B. You really took the time to learn the shortcuts to pass these type of exams.

What the?!

You might be saying. There's a shortcut???

Yes. Well... this applies for most of the exams. Y'see there are these "reviewers" or "sample exams" that have questions which are eerily similar to what would come out in the cert. exams.

Long a ago, stuff like these would probably be called "crib notes", "leakage", "cheat sheets" but today they're called "preparatory materials".

Granted, they don't all come free (you need to pay for the really good ones). But, a real net-savvy person knows how to work around these things. *wink*
Who wouldn't want to take the shortcut that's readily accessible.

Back to the point, so generally, all a person really needs to do is study these sample tests and he should be able to easily pass a certification exam. To prove this, I relate a story about a co-worker who did it.

He was able to get the highest certification, called MCSD, in less than 2 months. MCSD stands for Microsoft® Certified Solutions Developer. This type of cert. requires you to take at least 5 exams of a really broad coverage. You need to be really familiar with the whole strategy, design and implementation of the .NET Framework of Microsoft to get this certification. That means hands on experience, probably more than 1 year working with everything . NET. And here he takes 1 exam per week and he even aces a few of the exams. He has only been with company for less than half a year, only 2 or so months before me. He has not previously worked with .NET until coming into the company and yet he had gotten the highest certification ahead of other employees who have been with the company from the start.

Long story short, aside from bragging rights, what's the point of getting any certification. It doesn't really prove anything. It only means that you passed an exam. Society today is obsessed with names and recognition. They don't really care how you got them as long as it looks good in the C.V.

Work's a bitch...

Work's a bitch when you have it 2 days after Christmas on a day which was made a non-working holiday which also happens to be a monday. Nuff said. : P

I'm so busy but finally an update : )

Would you believe, I haven't even posted in my own blog for a month already :(

But it's all for a very good reason y'know. It's just that i'm so busy these days.
Then again, "busy" rhymes with "lazy" so... its all in your own interpretation. :)

A new feature in my blog. LINKS

I know... I know... they should have been already there from the start.

Whooo! Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Official Release

Finally, the most awaited release ever. If you don't know what Firefox is, then by all means go to the Mozilla website and enlighten yourself once and for all.

So why is it so awaited for? Well, its finally the official release after a half dozen or so preview releases. And honestly, although its just my opinion, I do really feel that IT IS SO FAR MUCH BETTER THAN IE with good reason of course. Let me list my favorite features

1)Tabbed Browsing - It is oh so convenient. Simply put, you don't have to open a dozen windows to view a dozen websites. Only one. (Not that i actually open a dozen websites at a time)

2)Built in pop-up blocker - Yeah sure IE can do that too but its not built in, you have to install some prog to do it.

3)Built in Search Bars - I love having the Google search bar conveniently in the corner and you read that right, I said "bars" . Google,Yahoo,Amazon,Dictionary.com, and Ebay's are there by default and you can add even more if you want. You can even code your own search bars (it's true).

4)Faster than IE - My pc isn't the best that money can buy (i wish :P). So this is important to me. Plus, I'm only on dial-up connection and by experience I've found that Firefox loads pages faster than IE. So Firefox gets my nod on this.

5)Simple Set-up - It's just install and go. It even imports you settings/bookmarks. So you don't need to worry about losing any of your old bookmarks.

6)Simplicity - That is to say, its easy to learn how to use. Not to mention easier to use. It may be just me, but i've found Firefox much more easier to use than IE. And browser settings are much more visible and intuitive than IE's.

7)Skins - Heehee! Personalize! Personalize! Personalize!

8)Security - Welllll, So far I haven't heard about any news about "Firefox has a serious flaw that would severely compromise you system" unlike some other browser I know out there. You know those stuff that they call "vulnerabilities", It seems that its Microsoft's jargon for "serious bugs and security holes" *cough* IE5 *cough* IE6 *cough*

Well, I think that more than enough reasons :)

Take note that there are still some websites that are still "Written especially and only for Internet Explorer" . So you might still need "you know what" lying around. I hope that changes in the near future. :)

So .... why are you still reading this.... Go! Go! download Firefox now!

Eqqusive News!

Hmm, has anybody tried this Eqqu.com thingy yet? It's supposedly a free-mail service. Y'know like Yahoo! Mail and the ever-intruiging G!Mail (the one that starts with 'Hot' is not worth talking about Har!Har!) It gives you 100 MB like Yahoo!. It's online so you can acces it anywhere. But it's main selling point is that they will supposedly give you money just for using their service. What's more, they give you more money by recruiting other people and as long as they use it, you get a share of the profits as well. Are you getting hooked yet? If you are go here. Now some more information, if you go on that link, you'll come to a subscription page with me as referer. Just so it's clear, the service has not yet started(it's still on recruiting phase).

A word of warning though, It's just my opinion but the whole thing sounds and smells as fishy as a can of sardines. Why? Point 1 the subscription pages aren't even secure, remember subscribing on Yahoo! Mail and you'll see what I mean Point 2 at some point the website displays your newly chosen username and password in plain sight and again on a non-secure page. Give me a real website that does this? Even public messagebords send this thru e-mail (which at the least is encoded) Point 3 They will supposedly pay you your supposed earnings thru Pay-Ace.com. Nothing fishy there at least not until you go and create for yourself a pay-ace account. This site at least uses secure pages but again you will see a surprising coincidence as Pay-Ace.com like Eqqu is also still on some kind of recruting phase and will not really start operations until 2005. What's more, they also supposedly give you money, $150 in fact (you can't touch it yet though) and when you recruit more members, they give you more money supposedly, just like Eqqu. How about that? It's like your lucky day has come.

Coincidence or not, like I said (or if not I'm saying it now) take caution in joining these two great services or shams if you will. These are all my opinions only and I think it's all just a ploy to harvest your information/e-mail adresses. If you do have proof that somebody actually got paid for anything already tell me and I'll delete this whole entry. Cheers :)

Working stiff again...

Lessee, after working last year for 3 months or so. I took a break, reluctantly or otherwise :P Somehow, the break/vacation/time off kind of got a bit too long, about a year I reckon. Anyhoo, I kind of got to thinking and was prodded too to get another job. And so... After a few false starts and dead ends, I finally got a new job, by the grace of God I think LOL. It doesn't pay as much as the old one though (:/ Bummer) but I'm hoping this will be for the long term. It's not as if I'm that wanting for money though but I at least want to last until after the training period and we'll see what happens after that :P Anyway whoever gets to read this, Wish Me Luck :)

New Additions

Whee! New stuff in my blog. I'm actually getting to like tinkering with the site code which I wouldn't really give a damn before. Thanks to Blogger/BlogSpot or whatever other aliases there are for the cool new NavBar. I see that it actually replaces the banner ads. As a token of good faith, I placed some Google AdSense ads in the sidebar. After all Blogger is a free service.

Hmmm? Ads?
Now what to do with them? How about clicking them for fun.
Y'know *wink*wink*.

After all by cliking the ads, You might just actually be happy where they take you. For sure you'll be making Blogger and Google happy. You'll also be making me happy *wink*

Last addition, if you look below the Mosquito Eradication Updates Box. There's this little Google search bar for when anybody might need to search something : ) (FYI this is just for the people who are still stuck on using microsoft IE *har*har*)

Once again thanks to Blogger for their great service in giving people the power to blog!

^ ^ Sharing Your Idle Processor Time ^ ^

Is your PC running 24/7 and sometimes just doing nothing like when you are sleeping? Did you know that there's a way to let your PC do scientific research in its idle time. How would you like your PC to search for a cure for cancer or even find out if there aliens sending a message to us? Your idle computer/s can do this and more. All you gotta do is install a nearly unobtrusive program that will do these things.

Now, by itself the process of searching for a cancer cure is no easy task. Otherwise we would already have the cure. The work is a humongous matching of possible drug molecules and testing for favorable reactions. Here is where your idle PC comes in. You are given a certain molecule to test, afterwards the results are sent back to a central server and you get a new molecule to test and so on. The technology behind this is called distributed computing or grid computing wherein there is an infinitely huge amount of work that is chopped into itty-bitty pieces that can be distributed to available machines the does the work. In reality this means that a certain work that would have taken 1 super-computer 10 years to finish can be finished much more quickly when the work is distributed between 1000 small PC's like the one you are using right now.

The program I'm running right now is the one for the United Devices grid. Currently, I'm testing for drug candidates for a cancer cure but you can choose which type of work your computer will do. You can find more information on United Devices grid here: United Devices Website

If looking for E.T. is your cup of tea, you can instead install the SETI@Home client that analyzes radio signals from space for possible Extra-Terrestrial messages. Go here: Seti@Home Website

There are lots of other distributed computing programs out there. Go google them sometime : )

Who wants GMail? Me wants Gmail !!!

This is post goes to all those people who have this particular problem:

Too many GMail invites to give out and not enough people to give them to. (as it this is possible :P)

Nevertheless, if ever you have this problem, feel free to send one( or more if you want) to me at XXXwilbcATyahooDOTcomXXXX (sans the X's and replace AT and DOT)

I shall be very happy to alleviate said problem from your backs. Believe me when I say that handing me a spare GMail invite could be one of the best things you would ever have done o.O

Now the possibility of anyone actually giving me an invite because of this is close to nil but what the heck :P

Warning: This selfish Ad is paid for by the people of Blogger who are also the people of Google who are also the people of GMail which doesn't really have a connection to me or to anything I said which doesn't really make a that much of a sense and is really close to the delusional ramblings of a man who has been deprived of Gmail so give me one please : )

Pajeros Galore and Even More !

Wheee! I never saw so many Pajeros (Montero to some people) and all in one place. Not only those, there are also Landcruisers, Prados, Rav4s, CRVs,Troopers,Bighorns. Its 4x4 paradise. There had to be more than 40 pajeros in different shapes and models there. Granted , they weren't exactly new, they're second hand cars actually. That's because I went this morning to the display lot of a second hand car dealer who specialize in 4x4s from Japan. There are quite a lot of them in this country.

So, I was like wow... so many 4x4s... big wheels and chrome wherever I looked. I suppose the highlight of it all was the single lone Pajero Evolution there. It was white all over, edgy and radiated coolness. It was beautiful and it was just sitting there waiting for everybody to look at it, touch it... *drools*

After an hour, we had to leave. It was a nice experience being drowned in a sea of 4 wheel drive

Mosquito Eradication Updates

Oh yeah! I added a little section on my sidebar. I'll update as much as I can although it's a drag if I'm just gonna add one kill. Then again, it's also one way to push myself to surpass previous my records. lolz