Liae Blog

I’m a gameaholic and PC is all I have.

When it comes to playing modern games, manufacturers assume everyone owns the ultimate PC. Isn’t that a crazy fact. Even the latest most sold game FIFA 10 requires  much better than the recommended system to enjoy the full visual experience. Tell me if I am wrong. What is the  point of playing a game in  minimum requirements; characters may look like GHOSTs, game play may suck and you feel you had spent a little more on your laptop or PC.

These days, we want to carry our gadgets and laptops are no exceptions.
Most are budget and when we buy our computer, we don’t think about the purpose. Later we start wondering if games could kill some time or giving us some enjoyable moments or even could educate us. Games slowly enter into our lives in our PC experience.

Look at those manufacturing sites. They all show PC category somewhere– at last. Does it mean that games for PC is near its death zone ?

Games listed here can easily be googled; found on  the Internet. So goggle`um.

Let’s go. Games that I’m playing work great even on this lousy laptop.

• FIFA 09 – just because there is new one out, dont’ have to go grab it. FIFA 09 wins FIFA 10 in many levels when it comes to BUDGET. Yes, don’t flap me for a few extra features that FIFA 10 has that FIFA 09 lacks. Yes, reduce everything from resolution to 3D grass to even the Refree. Play and you will surely enjoy it.
• FLASH Games – these are surely the best to go for but if you love game pad such as logitech, its difficult (or should I say next to impossible) to get a FLASH game that works with a game pad.
• Allie Arena – open source action packed game, FREE. what more would you expect. Runs great even on a BUDGET PC.
• Think MARIO will cost you something, try Secret Maryo Chronicles; it’s free and you will be hooked.
• Fall Out (both versions) although version runs great.
• Need for Speed PRO STREET – online game play seems to be history; Just under 10 bucks this one is yours if you download from the EA store. Supports Game Pad such as logitech and game play is awesome. Just make sure to reduce some of the gra phic level.
• Volvo racing game – OMG, did they really make this for users ? It takes forever to load and since its free there are beautiful flash screen even when you decide you won’t want to play anymore; i.e. you hit the exit button. Anything FREE should be okay though, It runs good enough but you will go for another game sooner or later.
• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 – works with game pad but you must reduce resolution and other graphic details to get it running smoothly. Try landing in places like LUKLA or other airports. Games like these require a lot of time, so unless you have an hour or so, what’s the fun being up in the sky for less than an hour ?
• Look for older version of games instead of new one. Reason ? They probably don’t demand much system requirement. Not all old games have only keyboard as the input, you might find games that support gamepad. Here are some, try older version of the games and check again the system requirement; Tomb raider legend, Halo, Simpsons, Metal Gear, Lego Star Wars, Grand Theft Auto 3, Prince of Persia, etc.
• FEAR (is FREE) – it’s a multiplayer online game and being FREE, I wouldn’t ask more. Try it if you like.
• Abuse – it’s not what the name really says. It’s a shooting game with a great game play.
• Gothic 2 – another great game that runs superbly on a budget pc.
• Halo – older versions run awesome.
• Grim Fandango – an Adventure game that has a nice game play, runs great on a budget PC too!

You can probably do your own research and find even more games. It makes sense to get a PC that has at least these to get any PC game to run the way they were meant to; to enjoy fully. If you are going to play a lot of games, never buy a budget laptop. Period.

Go get with…

• 4GB RAM
• Dual Core
• 1GB to whatever more you can handle Graphic Accelerator card. You could argue with me 256MB card or 5K card will be fine, but believe me– want realistic game play ? The higher you go, the better it is.
• Wide Screen monitor.
• any PC brand is your brand.
• Large Hard Disk Capacity

Price : Laptop anywhere from $1K to $2K, Desktop $1K perhaps.

Tips :

• Playing games without the game pad is like playing DOS games. Before you buy, see system requirements. If you don’t like the GAMEPAD, then, what games are you planning on playing ?
• Instead of getting a DVD or CD, buy online now called Electronic Download or Direct Download. I would see if they have any extended feature you can buy or is given for free such as download period. What if your laptop needs a system restore and you need to download the game again ? Don’t worry. These days, most of such store have their download manager; a tiny program you can which will help you download the program. Ensure to add/check how long you can download. Adding $5 to a game to ensure you can get it for another 5 years isn’t a bad deal. Most direct downloads don’t need CD. So the hassle of having to insert CD every time you play a different game would be thing of the past!

Ready to play games ?

List of TOP software manufacturers and links to their PC game site:

• Eastore.com – thank goodness, the PC is on the top here under platform.
• activision.com – lot of games from yet another popular game maker
• Ubisoft – I don’t know if I am right but when it comes to fighting or should I say Arcade games, Ubi has more games than others. Are they all born from the Prince of Persia game engine that’s hidden for years to come. Would the Internet community benefit if that game engine were to be shown ? LOL !!
• Sega.com – The sound of the name makes me feel like I was in a gaming zone sitting behind a real looking car. Remember those SEGA racing games you played back in 1992 or even in1986 ? I love their racing game as much as I love the Arcade once as well.
• Microsoft - for me the name is more of a PC software rather than games, but I was once hooked with the game Midtown madness. What is lacking on this, their store or should I say website (really?) makes me dizzy cause, look at the other game sites full of video and attraction. I guess Microsoft wants you to go else where to buy their game products. I’m surely loving the flight simulator and nothing more from this one.
• PatchProducts – When it comes to puzzle or Educational games, I think of this one. Check it out!
• ValveSoftware – click on the games on the site.  Among the latest popular games comes, here it comes… Left for Dead from the maker.
• RockStargames – who can forget this name ? even as I write today, GTA is still the most popular PC game; forget what user ratings mean. GTA3 ran pretty fast and even with good graphic on a budget PC. Loaded like as if it wasn’t game at all. Check the site now later for any other games, I sure will.
• Blizzard - who can’t play enough of the WARCRAFT ? You need or should I say YOU MUST. check out this site. There is a saying now, people have two gaming lives; the other on online. Where is your gaming life ?
• 3drealms – I played the NUKEM Manhanton project, 2D with awesome game play.  I guess it’s rated R for the dialogure more than the Violence ? Are you ready for FOREVER ? Check out the site!
• Eidos – The Eidosinteractive actually. It rocks for the shooting game TOM Raider; among the most selling PC games. Visit the site and meet LARA — the latest; ready for demo.
• Bungie – Hello world. Os, sorry, Halo Halo Halo world. I’m talking about the latest one. Halo 3. Call me crazy. I love the title when I visit Halo Everytime I visited the site Bungie.net the title changed. One time it said, if you are good your mama is classy lady. LOL !! go grab some Halos at Bungie.net
• Idsoftware - The doom lives here. One heck of a game that’s addictive enough to close this blog and start playing DOOM right now. Peace out!

It’s so many to list and I thought I give you everything; sort out the needles from the hay stack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_manufacturers

For me, these manufacturers are just like humans having their own unique characters like the big and short nose, big eyes or small ones. Short or tall. No matter which game you buy, if your PC ain’t meeting the requirement, you ain’t gonna have fun. Most active game makers such as the ea.com have online tools to test if your PC has the minimum requirement.  Run such utility before you buy the game.

Well, I hope you find something useful in this post. Have fun.

When you are hooked into Games, everything else seems unreal.

PEACE OUT.

What is life ?

It’s a pretty touch question to answer even if you are a human being. Believe me.

First, let’s define the term then carry on.

“Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes (“alive,” “living”), from those which do not^[1][2] —either because” read more from the WIKI

So for a life to be life, it must have biological process. By that anyone would understand that a life would have to be living; eating; breathing; and what-not and everything.

For me, life is nothing but an experience you are given by the LORD. Yes, experience the first touch of fire — when you are a kid, stand in front of a class room beside a teacher and looked down on the floor, for you forgot to do your homework, as you grew older, you made mistakes on the way. Hey, nobody is perfect. Perhaps, even your marriage had trouble, did it got washed away and now the only things you have are nothing but hopes ?

I asked a friend of mine. What’s life ? He says, It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful.

Yeah, right. But then he added more,

It’s the people that make your life miserable. Life given to you is beautiful. It’s how you take it from there on.

I thought it was pretty interesting so I decided to right down a note to myself, yes, it’s on a piece of paper on my bag and the title of the notebook says:

Write 3 things that you are thankful for the day.

For today,

• I thank you for visiting this blog and how nice you found it. Thank you again.

• I thank the lord for giving me a day to live and experience. Boy it was busy at work. Busier than usual. A bit of tooooo much experience really.

• I thank for some angry customers, for they must have their own reasons of waiting to be served. I thank for their willingness to eat in-spite of waiting for an hour. Yes, eating, fresh food, cooked right-in-front of their nose; — Japanese Hibachi table that is.

Now, coming back to the point, what’s life ?

We are pretty sure that everyone will have different answers.

A long time ago, a question popped up and a female friend said, life is a bunches of bs tied together then you die.

I think she was depressed and her answer is write or wrong is for her to decide, for it’s her life. Perhpas my question is stupid.

I think life is beautiful, and if your life is not beautiful — perhaps, other people are making it not right. Should I put it like they are making your life miserable and you don’t have the time or want to notice it.  Watch out! Life is beautiful, but others make it worse. But what if the life is beautiful and others were the reasons for it.

I’ve got a job for you for tomorrow or next day or right now. What the F ?

Say hello to three  new people you meet today.

Smile and take control of your life.

Don’t let people be the reason for not making your life beautiful. When I say people, count every single one of them — including your family members.

Are there people who are making your life not beautiful ? Count them! Know them! Do something about it. Avoid if possible, or become friends, or find ways to divert those to your advantage.

Well, it’s bed time now.

See you soon.

A friend of mine has requested a pretty interesting topic which I might post soon. It’s about Hibachi, the Japanese Cooking In-front thing. I’m not going to write much but if you love to eat or want to be a chef, you are going to love this post, perhaps in multi-part.

I would love it, if you could add/bookmark or subscribe to this blog. Topics will surely vary but I won’t divert the main theme; “LIFE is an EXPERIENCE ? “.

No matter where you live, or what else you are doing, your life is life so long you are happy. There goes another definition or twist.

Is happiness enough for life or should I say, will it follow upon uncountable hurdles which you must experience second by second ?

See ya

– ruben

This is based on my experience after purchasing a HP laptop.

As soon as I put it on my laptop, it got very hot. I mean I couldn’t bear it. I had to put a pillow or something below it.

So bought a cooling fan and thought things would be okay. <<<< Unwise move if your laptop is still under warranty. Why? Let’s use this product as it is and see if anything inside gets burnt!

After 7 months, my laptop gave up! I suspected nothing like virus or hard disk or anything at all. Because it was brand new and i had taken a good care of it. Yes, the system test BIOS/bla bla now, found both memory and Hard disk just fine.

Lucky that HP has a great customer service. I love it. and that’s why I am with HP since well, a long time.

A night just went by doing this and that as per instructions from a HP technician. He was very nice and humble. He told me to do just about everything that was on their website which I had read before. It goes like this;

1. unplug everything including battery and hold the power button for 20 seconds (i did that for a minute!)

2. on the back of your laptop, unscrew this and that, OMG, including the hard disk and memory and putting them back. Taking out the memory was tricky. I hope in future, HP writes does instructions on the back on how to take out things and also includes a small screw driver. That would come in handy when you are like me; disorganized person. I think I knocked about 20 stuffs everywhere to find a screw driver that would fit there. I once even tried my nails!

3. Then the usual stuff happens. the tech guy tells you to hold for a while (in minutes for me) I was terrified when he said, “please don’t hang up, if you do, your order won’t be processed.”  Don’t hang up… I am processing your order.

Since my laptop was within the warranty, I was happy there would be no cost for repair. They sent me a box, I put it in, I dropped it at FEDex, then it came home. It was really fast in fact, just 9 days.

I got my laptop back to what it was.

Now the heat gone. I can feel the fan. I looked at the paper inside and there were two marks on a repair sheet; CPU and Cooling Fan.

What’s the lesson here for me if I go out and buy another laptop ?

Feel the heat !

If it’s away tooooooooooo hot, I better get another or extend my warranty. period.

Hope this helps for folks who have purchased cooling fans to aid the heat coming out of their laptop. But believe me, you should avoid this during the warranty time (LOL), let it heat, it’s not your fault. HP surely not made a mistakes here, perhaps it put a robust laptop that needed some better cooling fans, or HP only knows.

Let’s wrap it up now!

If you’ve already purchased a laptop and you feel the heat and you can’t return it back to the store, do this:

a) Use your laptop to the max during warranty period. No don’t drop it, that’s not what I meant! I meant, run all sorts of programs etc. No virus etc please.  Play games like I do, FIFA 09, and etc. Buy some video editing software, make some films etc and burn. Use your Laptop to it’s full capacity. and use it very often.

d) Use cooling fan after the warranty period. Why would you want to help that Laptop you just bought ? After warranty? Sure. Cooler the laptop, longer the life it might get.

d) I am repeating this again; use your laptop to the MAX during the Warranty period. If anything goes bad, it’s probably not brand new Hard disk or anything like htat, but could be the board of CPU or a wire gone melted inside.

Hope this little info helps. Cooling fans are great but when you have to use everyday, it feels like you’ve got two laptops!! I would use them only after the warranty period.

bye for now.

– ruben
“Warranty is a time frame; for you to use your PC or Laptop to the MAX.”

Do you ever worry if your graphic content won’t fit in your page layout? What should be the size of my photo so it fits nicely on my blog layout ? I used to solve this by measuring using paint program (Screen Print the content than bring it to graphic editor like paint.net. Yes, with lots of sites knowing size of content body can be difficult, specially for someone like me who keeps forgetting  things)

I knew I was doing the old way. But Today, I am happier all of a sudden.

After searching the internet, I found some free tools and I’m so happy to share with you.

This technique rocks!

(A) Kevin’s Firefox Measure It

http://www.kevinfreitas.net/extensions/measureit/

http://www.kevinfreitas.net/extensions/measureit/measureit.xpi

After installing, Restart Firefox, and there you go a wonderful icon on the left, that looks like this one…  click on it, click drag and find-out dimension. This is by far the best solution there could be… I’m loving it.

(B) Pixel Ruler 3.

This was okay but it has a few more features like being able to rotate it. I have not used it, may be you will find use for it. It is nicely designed.

pixelruler

is the link for it. http://www.mioplanet.com/products/pixelruler/pixelruler.exe

After further search, I found this one.

Now I’m addicted to having bunches of rulers installed.

What I like, you may not like.
May be, you will like this one even better. Here you go,

(C) Pixel Ruler

http://www.soft.tahionic.com/download-ruler/PixelRuler.exe

More info on this download ruler is here :
http://www.soft.tahionic.com/download-ruler/features.html

For web designers, tools like these can be very useful to measure size of a graphic objects such as photo, buttons. For layouts, they can even measure distance between to objects and so on.

(D) Ruler for Windows.
Takes a while to install, but I love this one as well. To be honest with you, this is by that the most sophisticated one, bunches of options, you can even use the MAGNIFYING Feature here. Slide vertically if you like, make it transparent, pressing ESC gets you back to where you left off. A bit difficult to re size since you need to use the re size button to do this. What more features would you want… it’s free ! (A ruller for Windows Version 1.1, works with VISTA beautifully)

bye guys,

– ruben

For MAC USERS, I found this, I haven not tested it though. http://www.pascal.com/software/freeruler/

What I meant to write and Never Could.

I started this blog to talk a lot about the word “Experience”, but I have gone away. Let me be where I need to be.

First, you would have to be some insane or crazy person to keep talking about  something that’s obvious to everyone. Believe it or not, all my friends know what I talk about the most. It’s experience.

Life is an Experience. Life is an Experience. Life is an Experience.

Do you feel like throwing up ? Sorry. I just love those Four words.

Let me consider, who you are… No, I am not a fortune teller.

You are depressed of all the things that is going on in your life. You don’t have job. You can’t find one. Your married life sucks. You have kids who scream back at you for no reasons. You want to go out, but you can’t because of your wife won’t let you. Your friends have never returned the money you gave them. Every time you look in the mirror, you try hard not to notice growing wrinkles. When someone looks down, you believe they are looking at the fading colors of your shoes. You just ordered bunches of grocery, but you feel like you lost your money. You went to a restaurant, well, once in a blue moon, and the service was terrible, but you left a hefty tips instead of complaining. The road to home looked beautiful, but today it’s rainy and a  muddy. All your friends have a wonderful life, many with masters degree. You wish you had never married. You always ask god why on earth does it have to be for you?

There are lots of people out there who have even tougher life than yours. Think about that. But just because others have a bad life, is never a valid reason to feel good either. Don’t you wish they too have a better life ? Bad wishes that makes you feel good aren’t good.

Are you confused ? Don’t worry. I used to. I might be considering everything false about you. You are probably not married. Have a wonderful life. You never have a single problem to worry about. But do you ever wonder you will always remains the same ? Would you shed tears when things go bad ? Are you 100% sure the girl you love is loving you unconditionally ? Are you sure you can always afford mortgage on your home ? Does the stock market ever scare you ? No ? then why on earth are you here ?

My mantra is simple but kind of hard to understand at first though.

“Life is an Experience”

“Life is an Experience”

“Life is an Experience”

and

“Life is an Experience”

Did you get it ? No ?

Well, it took me  a while to understand what it meant. I won’t lie to you that I I have a good memory, but this blog does help me remember my mantra every now and then. Specially when I have bad times, I wish I was on the Internet, reading/writing something like this.

Argue with me, why experience things ?

Well, what would be your answer to the question, Why did God created You ?

If you are still skeptical to my term which I will repeat here as many times as I can, here… more..

Life is an Experience. Life is an Experience.

Don’t worry. I will take you with me to experience a whole lot of things as we go, but don’t ever take my mantra negatively like Experiencing bad stuff (you know what I mean so I am not going to write all the bad things) that only shortens your life to Experience more. The point here is, do all the things that enhances your life to Experience more. When bad things happen to you, just remember that you are simply experiencing those.

A while back there was a great discussion on TV about “What happens when you die ?” I was laughing that time,  dude, my topic isn’t really strange.  I write about Experience. When you die, you simply leave your body, the ENERGY that created you, the ENERGY that is sum of you, will live on.

But you will have that Experience which has to be Experienced by anyone. Think about it, everyone comes to this world to Experience stuff, then one day, they have to pass away. Aren’t we all equal in one way ? – Experience. But how on earth can I just say that I know all the answers. What do I know ? I am just like you. I could be wrong.

My friends think I’m crazy. But If everyone in this world is experiencing stuff and nobody has said “Life is an Experience” as the mantra, than I must be soooooooooooooo unique. I love it.

Do you ever look at those tiny ants ? Where ? You just found them outside your home near your front yard. Some of those are still walking because you missed a step. Don’t you know they have tiny hearts that is pumping blood too. And look at those birds, flying here and there, and yet, you know, the sky is about to fall down, for, not so far a way there is the thunder roaming something you hate. You poor soul inside your comfortable home can’t even take the word “Experience”, aren’t everyone and everything experiencing another ?  The next-door farmer is happy that it is raining now.

Let us try and see if it works. I’m assuming you are depressed. If you can, go see your doctor, but you can still try this:

(1) Tell me the experience you had with your morning coffee ? Did you take the time to taste, see color, and feel the aroma.

(2) After you wake up in the morning, do you ever thank Lord that he gave you one more day. Perhaps one more day to experience things.

(3) When you bite that apple, do you experience biting it again ? Do you hear that crushing sound you make ? Please don’t laugh. To understand what I mean by EXPERIENCE, you have to be willing to experience fully. There are infinite ways to count your experiences today. Put a smile on your face right now. If you are like many of us who compare things, it’s time to say good bye to comparison. Everyone has unique life, ups and downs. Yours is yours. The other happy ones don’t know expect you. They too are experiencing but you only know. Experience, Experience, and expereince. <- There, that one I left as is to feel bad-spelling.  LOL !!  See what I mean ? Experience.

(4) When you are sad and low, remind yourself, you are simply experiencing it and no more, for there are enough experiences to be had before we say good bye.

Well, we are now coming to the end of this post.

If you feel like I have wasted your time.  I won’t say sorry.

because … now experience feeling like someone just stole your time.

don’t be mad, just laugh!

I’ll leave you with two questions to ponder:

(a) How do we taste things ?

(b) How do we taste life ?

I’m looking for a PHP script do use with google/youtube’s API. The script will not only use the feeds, but also allow users to login to youtube and other video hosting sites, and upload videos directly from my website.

I know there are lot of other useful scripts, but I want something that is simple and plus it works with PHP 4.3.1, that is what I have with my hosting.

Everywhere I read, there are a lot of scripts for PHP 5.

Here is what I have done so far.

• I downloaded http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/ from there.
• Downloaded Jquery and  also Ceebox from here, http://catcubed.com/tag/jquery/
• Parsed the feed and it works nicely.
• But I’m stuck :
• What fun is there spending a lot of time creating a script that only searches videos and no more ? Besides, searching videos can be done with plain JavaScript too.

Before I continue, here are some Ifs:

If your host supports PHP,

{ http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/code.html#PHP }

If you want javascript,

{ http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/wizards/videobar.html }

if you want the best free php script,

{ http://www.clip-motion.com/ – it’s a good one. }

So, while I am still searching for alternative ways to get this API working,  following is a brief code that works. It’s in its basic form. But you might actually enjoy learning as I am doing with this script.

I will share with you the final script as it develops further.

Thank you.

Download Script

When it comes to finding a free open source PHP script shopping cart, you simply can’t ignore osCommerce.

Reason number 1, you don’t need to install another content management system like joomla or mambo for their version of FREE virtuemart – which, for many, remains a popular choice. But wait a minute. For a shopping cart to work, I thought I only needed the cart. Right ? But I was wrong. You really needed everything. You needed the firstpage, last page, products, categories and a whole lot more, oh yes, including the taxes and allowing customers to login. I guess, you can’t run a store without the buildings. Same goes for scripts.
osCommerce is itself a CMS for online store. You can use it for FREE to run online store and in fact be one of the richest dude on the block. The only thing that’s lacking is, you and i doing nothing! LOL !!
Reason number 2, there are a lot of good reputable online shopping sites which are older than others that run under this script. So, for me, it gave me confidence in terms of security and usage. What works for me, may not work for you and what works for you may not work for me.
Without talking too much, let me give you the links you have been waiting for. I have only tested a few of these, but changing yourself manually seems to be even fun. So find a few of my know-hows at the end.

Free oScommerce Templates .

• http://addons.oscommerce.com/category/Templates_and_Themes – why would you look somewhere else ?
• http://www.onixsoft.com/FREE-OSC-templates.htm has a list of some intersting and free templates
• http://www.freetemplatesonline.com/templates/Pets-Store-175.html – 1 Pets Store 175 (osCommerce old version)
• http://www.templatemonster.com/sampleDownload.php?id=27 1 template for new version
• http://www.webmaster-tool.co.uk/webpage-templates/free/osCommerce-template.htm 1 Business Template
• http://wvw.downarchive.com/2008/06/24/10-premium-oscommerce-templates.html – 10
• http://www.7dana.com/download/pafiledb.php?action=category&id=4 – 4 7dana templates for oscommerce.
• http://darylwtlau.googlepages.com/jewellery_green.rar - google pages, one jewellery template
• http://myersleisure.com/ – 1 template. click to download.
• http://info.template-help.com/sample_templates.html – 4 templates old/new look for word oscommerce there..
• http://www.badeziner.com/2008/07/12/gg9-free-lightbox-oscommerce-template/ - gg9 template
• http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=71985&package_id=119333 – old version
• i
• will type some from my bookmark tomorrow.
• thanks guys.

How to modify default or any template for this matter. While the script does have a way for you to manually change contents of many files such as index.php, you might find it your-way to change them using text editors then FTP to server.

Knowing these Five Files will save you a lot of trouble. View them and you should be able to make your own DESIGN. Cheers!!

Files under

includes\header.php    footer.php   left_column.php   right_column.php    and

stylesheet.css on the default folder. There is a wonderful post on this and many, don’t forget to read it.

oscommerce.com : forum : Template Design
(1) remove osCommerce logo/text at  the footer. Let’s face it. Who is going to buy stuff from yoursite if you show your users that you don’t even hire programmers ?? A flashy color and design and those 10000s of products you are listing should show your users that you own the script. Right? Wrong ! and what the heck, I could be wrong and you could be right.

Showing that you care about others should make your users feel good rather than hiding the facts. Users today are smarter than we think. They will probably land on our web page going through lots of websites. I personally would leave the link and all and I would add “Proudly Powered by” to show that you REALLY care about other people. Those who want to remove, just edit the footer.php located under includes folder.

(2)  The first thing anyone want to do with a script is to change what it shows on the front page although everything the programmer wrote is perfectly fine to use. Ready to get a call from a customer who says, “i just bought it did you not get it… ?” ha? what? well you know what i mean. locate the file includes\languages\english\index.php (or any other language file you are using) then change everything in between ” of define(‘TEXT_MAIN’,'what you want to say goes here’);

For me, that define TXT_MAIN has to be the most scary function to edit. How abou you? Having seen how powerful it is, it makes you think that what is not possible to put in a variable ? Earth??? I did get problems with that since I rush a lot. May be you won’t. Just a note, be sure to leave the two string characters ” <---- e.g.

Could many of us be searching for help, only because we hate manuals ? I seem to be doing just that and I mean it.
Here is one heck of a wonderful post you ought to read. http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=274968

See ya.

if you liked what i gave, can you at least say thank you. <— who put this here…. please help ! LOL !!

7 months of using Iphone isn’t a very long time to write something of this magnitude, but if every single day is your day to visit news website at least (1 hour daily), then perhaps there could be something to share. So here I am to share with you and see how you will find it.

Among the features of iPhone, you sure like the the Internet browser (Safari) don’t you? If you don’t like it you are probably busy with it’s great feature Youtube or IMS (Instant messaging system). No? then you are probably indulged with the built in mail program that lets you access your web mail account such as gmail.com

Iphone’s Safari brings me the entire World Wide Web in my palm. My favorite sites are news websites and blogs, Google portal, some joke sites when I need a laugh, and some political blogs like politico.com and others at the blogspot.com

Browse news sites on your cellphone, a bit of photos and videos along with the news are  something we all would want to appreciate but not all of them do it. Also, why would anyone be looking for mobile content on Iphone? Why not just visit the regular site.

Well, if you don’t have WIFI, i.e. visiting the main site will be like slow.

I have noticed that buildings which use A/C have more reception bars than those that don’t have A/C. Wonder why ? Call me silly if you like, because we all know that the Phone’s Reception bars can drop to zero inside a building if there are no airs coming in, and reception bars can change even with an inch of a movement from one side to another!

A friend of mine, sticks his phone outside the window!

Although things might change in the future; such as specialized antenna in buildings that  receive not only digital signals for our TVs and Internet but also for our mobile devices.

For the purpose of “download speed comparison”, testing was done at home where I can get 4 to 5 bars – very god reception that is. But again not always do I get those bars. So on this day when I am testing, I have 4 bars for all these sites, it’s a lucky day!

We all know that search engines and news sites dominate most of the Internet traffic – they also do well in delivering content formatted to user’s device; be it for mobile or desktop using all kinds of Internet Browsers.

iPhone has become so famous, news web sites are taking the advantage and so are the portals like Google and Yahoo. They are delivery specially Formatted content only designed for iPhone, making the content more user-friendly, easy to navigate, and get the content faster. They push only the contents enough for user’s to use. Unlike the regular website which could be so attractive with flashy designs and tons of graphics, these so called formatted contents are rich in text and low in graphics, the idea is simple – reduce what’s not needed for users, but enough content and graphics that even a small mobile device can handle. And as for iPhone, there is no need to reduce graphics or etc. You can actually enjoy viewing the regular website instead of the mobile version. But mobile version will be much faster since there aren’t WIFI’s everywhere even in this land of superpower.

So most users are using the regular Unlimited Internet package from AT&T (in the United States). It’s not that slow nor its fast. It’s in the middle.
News websites to a die-hard fans like me who use Iphone to browse news, are looking for everything. Graphics, Videos, Texts, and all, as well as the menus, options and links to click and follow reading another news. Reading news and enjoying it and loving it. They could be looking for design. And they could be asking tons of questions… and here are mine I wanted to drop it here before I do the comparison of the sites.

• When I tilt my screen, will the font remain the same ?
• When I am half way reading a news and decide to lock the phone, then come back and read, will I be at the exact paragraph where I left off ?
• Will I get some news photos to watch and can I see them in big. I mean big enough to believe ?
• Will I have a link to an external resource from where the story is being heavily written ?
• Will it take forever or a news video to play? It does!
• Can I sign up for breaking news so I will know in advance so I can tease my friends? Buddy, did you hear about that news?, I can rely with 100% confidence “I know, I already know! U R Dumb!”
• Well the questions can go on and on…. Will my Iphone actually have a feature that will read the news content so I can look else where ? Can some lady please read my news, while I do something else ?

Enough about talks. Lets get to the point now.
COMPARISON:

In this post, let’s explore, and compare news sites that are formatted for Iphone. I’m not going to compare to show you which is best or worse, rather I’m just going to explore. I will write, and you decide and share you knowledge as well. Also do know there are many other probably even better sites that I don’t know.
Updated on September 7, 2008 . P.S. This post is subjected to update in the future with another post. Bookmark if you like. All download tests were done 8:37PM, with AT&T’s service provider, inside my home with reception being 4 bars. No WIFI access, just the regular Internet package. And My Iphone was among the first Iphones Apple had released. Here we go…

CNN NEWS

Main News Site : http://www.cnn.com/
Mobile address as shown on the iPhone: http://m.cnn.com/

Description :

The fastest of all but there is a reason – because the content is not fully formatted for Iphone. To me, it appears that the contents are formatted for all devices. Home screen consists of links to news stories and other resources with a small picture on top and a brief headline linking to the latest news. It seems to me that CNN has yet to format content for iPhone. Why is CNN not formatting its news for Iphone? Is Bill Gates telling CNN to wait ?

I haven’t tried accessing the address from another mobile device, but it looks as if this is it, for all mobile devices.

Could there be a reason why CNN is doing this. But I am happy because I can actually increase the font size unlike those that are formatted for Iphone, I haven’t been able to increase font so reading is troublesome at times.
It’s the most updated I have found.  So, if you are like me, wanting to know what’s happening not only in the U.S. but around the world and want regular updates, this site does better and this might be yours too. When a story breaks, you can read the breaking news on top with a brief caption surrounded by a yellow box. Guess what makes you angry. No links to read further. Come on, a link please so we know a little more about the breaking eyes. Is the baby chicken out of the egg shelf, half-way? or is it dancing already on the floor ? Just a yellow bar won’t work. Sorry. You are telling me this: Three is a terrible news broken. Now what. Just stay where you are and not know about it further. For news readers like me, I wanna go deep and findout a little bit more than just breaking news. Go break it more and show.
Here, You can check weather; enter zipcode and you are done to read 5 days forecast for your region. You might not like that feature since you already have the push content from Yahoo – The “Weather Icon” as part of the iPhone ’s feature which can be found on your iPhone’s Home Screen. See Weather icon there. But, I like the Vote on the Question of the Day. It’s just fun. But it could go further rather than just a click to see the result, it could actually pull more content and display below the poll data, so t has much better use.

Like all news sites, sign up to get text messages of breaking news is here. I haven’t used this feature. But if you have limited Internet plans, but you do have sufficient text messaging plan, this Mobile Breaking News Alert might be a pretty cool feature to use.
Conclusion : Fast, Frequent Updates, Lack of Multimedia, No User preferences recognized and/or saved, Read Paginated Articles or Full Articles, Content fits your screen, Content can be enlarged, so good aim towards accessibility for those who have trouble with small fonts.

MSNBC.msn.com

Main news site : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Mobile address as shown on iPhone: same as above.
Description: I love this site like all here, it’s wonderful. It’s fast as the CNN.com. What you gonna like is that the MAIN story is alreayd displayed so no need to wait for heated news to be shown only after clicking on a link, its there for you to read – just scroll down and you have the latest stuff right infront of your news. You can increase the font size etc. So it is similar to CNN.com (not yet fully formatted for Iphone) [About being able to increase the font and pictures; this is true for all regular sites as well as contents that aren't formatted for Iphone or for mobile. Most people who have Iphone would be lucky to get WIFI so they don't really need to visit mobile sites, but some might for the sake of speed and for fun.]
After you read the top news, there are bunches of links under the topic More Headlines: They seem to categorize news improperly, at least I think so, I could be wrong. So you might spend a little bit of time searching to find what you want to click to read here. Politics? I want you to Go down and click on the Menu Item 6. It’s about getting used to it. But this is by far no worse or better than the others listed here, that’s my view after regular use.
Video Coverage:   The best of all is the “Video Coverage”, you gonna love this if you are a news video fan. Foxnews which is listed below and CBSnews do better in delivery videos faster than the rest listed here. After all, what’s Iphone for ?

Conclusion : Fast, simple, a bit could be done to categorized news articles, length of video  could be made a bit longer. Hey, it has something that none has “Edito’s picked Video?” Wow.  But often, I find it really worthless, useless. So my advice, browse and pick the video yourself. Editors do well in newspapers not on video picking. Take youtube editor’s picking videos selected as “Featured” and just ask how many people agree that how many of the featured videos are good enough to watch.
FOXNEWS

Main news site : http://www.foxnews.com/
Mobile address as shown on iPhone: http://iPhone.foxnews.com/

Description :
Very well formatted content, it fits perfectly on the screen.
It includes a search option on top, so you search easily (just click on the magnifying glass with a handle). I find it fast like others listed below. What you will love most? Videos are thumbs up! Almost every news article offers a small Icon related to the article, and below the icon is a button called Tap. Just tap it and you have a beautiful slide-show to view news pictures, and when you are done, just click the link “Return to the Story” which will take you back where you left off. “Tap” – simple and very useful feature which is rarely found in other news sites mentioned on this post. Tap, Tap, after all Iphone is just that. and this Tap feature is one of my best part here.

Conclusion : Slide-show (Tap) is a cool feature you will love, news videos you can watch easily, browsing is fun here too. Love to see contents truly formatted for iPhone? You will love this news site and the one listed below. No user preferences are saved and/or recognized.

CBS NEWS

Main News site : http://www.cbsnews.com/
Mobile address as shown on iPhone: http://iPhone.cbsnews.com/

Once, this site used to look a lot like the content formattted by foxnews.com. It was much faster than what it looks today, but by no means it’s slower than the others in relative to the content it carries on the first page.  Ever since this corporation bought CNET.com and it’s associated sites, it looks very Tech savvy, attractive and offers news and rich multimedia. If you love Rich Media, this is your news site. But just reading news from one site, wouldn’t fill your thrust for news. Would it ?
You can sign up (i.e. Enter your phone) to get breaking news alert, watch videos, browse through news fully categorized just like the Foxnews.com’s content. When it comes to speed, it’s a bit slower than Fox News and Times.

Conclusion: iPhone isn’t just for plain texts and boring links. It’s for rich multimedia, and CBS takes it to that level. You will love the way it shows Sections fully categorized from US to Evening News. Just click the Plus sign and a list of links pop up, no waiting for links to news to arrive; they are already loaded when you visit the site. Paginated articles or Read all in one page. Log in and personalize the content. Of all the sites, CBS News’s content formattted for Iphone looks more futuristic and that’s something every user will appreciate.

Time

Main news site : http://www.time.com/
Mobile address as seen on iPhone : http://mobile.time.com/

Description:

Content is fully formatted for iPhone. Sliding effect is cool as you can see when you click on the link and as you browse the mobile site. Wanna see photos capturing moments, news, or even views? Then, Time’s Photo Essay is worth more than the full page of article. It also carries news, articles, views and opinions on broader topics which I classify as “Keeping an Eye on The World”.
Conclusion:  Major news stories of the world, followed by neatly organized categories and blogs are here. For the lack of Multimedia contents, it points to you to use CNN’s main site. That’s not a surprise since Time and CNN are news partners. Paginated articles but No “View All in one page” available. Shows related articles so you don’t have to search to find the article you could be interested in. 10 Questions, Time Lists, Quotes of the Day can make your Every Day worth the while at mobile section of time.com.

Google’s News Search

Main news site : http://news.google.com/
Mobile site as seen on iPhone : http://news.google.com/
Google is leaving everyone behind. If you are looking for top news, world news and you want the news to read from various sources, there is no other better place than this. But it does acts silly at times, perhaps has unimaginable visitors. A few days back I clicked the link “Most Popular”, I didn’t get any error. the screen was blank. Could it now be gaining more visitors than CNN.com ? We all love to find news not just from one source but various and to me, nobody does this better than google’s news search. It’s extremely fast and also you can search for a particular news here.

Conclusion: I have a feeling that, one day, Google might news crews on the ground and beat CNN.com. I don’t see a reason why they should simply spider news sites and be so popular and not have any crews on the ground. Isn’t that amazing. Try this and you will love it, promise you. Yes, you will love it like all the sites listed here.

LA Times

Main news site : http://www.latimes.com/
Mobile site as seen on iPhone : http://mobile.latimes.com/

Description:
Conclusion : Blazing fast mobile site. I have noticed that sites powered by Crisp Mobile Inc, delivers content faster even the content of the first page is bigger. It is also fast because the first page basically with links to news resources.
I will try to add more news sites. For now, enjoy them and if I have missed any, please let me know. I am a news hungry guy and I love news sites more than anything else. Every site has something you like and something you don’t like. It’s nearly impossible for one to judge only based one factor for example the quality of a video or content or accessibility.Browse these news sites and see for yourself.

Challenges for These and Many Other News Sites are

• Detect User’s Location and Deliver First News Article Relevant to the Location
• Save and Use User Preferences such as Paginated Articles, View Articles On A Page. If I like reading articles on a single page, remember my choice the next time I visit your site.
• Pod casting. Not all of us want to drain our iPhone batteries watching videos. An alternative option on every article page ? “Hear this news” This would also add “accessibility”; delivering news to blind persons.
• Customizable News, Videos, Articles and what not and everything – allow users to customize the content. I hope the news sites will learn something from igoogle.com

and You ?

While going trough a forum, I found one cute signature and It made me ponder more than reading the entire forum topic.

The signature I found was ………….

“No one ever wins, no one finally loses, except the dead. Under the sun they rot together, in absolute biological equality.