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Obama & McCain edits November 4, 2008

Posted by Jonathan in : Other, application, opensource , add a comment

I’ve been tinkering around with photoshop and I’ve edited a picture which I found on Google Images of Barack Obama, a US candidate for the United Sates of America. (Whom I’m a huge fan of) The results in UK time will be announced today, at 11pm on Sky News and of course around the world. Moving on, here is the image I edited:

I edited the second image, with the more ‘bright’ background.

That’s the image I found on Google Images and I must say, it was a nice image to edit, for the 5 minutes I had. Here are the results:

Please click both images, to see the change! :)

As you can see, there are small changes, I made to the American flag and Barack Obama himself. I’m only doing this, as my sister is in University and she sometimes asks me to ‘re-do’ some of her images that she creates in her media class; to make it look better in terms of quality e.g. Get rid of that ’shine’ mark, or that red eyed effect.

I also done a John McCain ‘photoshoped’ picture. I can’t say I’m the best, but I think, I done a pretty neat job as the original image looked boring and ’samey’. I changed the back ground, like with the Obama image with the ‘Filter tool’, but layering John McCain onto a separate layer via the ‘Quick Selection Tool’, just as I did with Obama’s picture edit.

I edited the second image, with the squared background!

I’m hoping for Barack Obama to win. I like his foreign policy and that he wants to give every American a ‘free’ health care. I mean lets face it, America, one of the worlds richest countries and that has ’some’ if not a lot of influence on the world, has people dying because they are not ‘able’ (In financial terms) to get medical care. - Obama will change that, and that’s what I like; humans being humanitarian. As for foreign policy, Obama is quite diplomatic, and that’s what the world needs under the worlds most powerful and budgeted army!

While I was in Romford, I took a couple pictures of our buses that we have here in the UK, and seeing as I had them on my computer, I thought I’d edit them and this is the result:

This is just a simple “Filter” and ‘Cut out’ effect, and cropping to make the image smaller and more centralised on the bus. I actually like the effect that it gives off and it’s one of those things which you actually see inside the buses with the posters on the ceilings and sidewalls. To see the full visual effect, just click on the images, it’s at the very lowest quality, so it should be easy to load however visual quality, seemed to have stayed the same. :)

Rest in peace, Madelyn Dunham - She died at the age of 86 of cancer.

I added the ’round’ shade affect to the image. :)

It’s such a shame, she didn’t get to see Obama become president (I’m guessing he will be, as the results haven’t been released yet), however it’s just sad.

Ten days ago, Mr Obama broke away from the campaign trail to pay one last visit to Ms Dunham, whom he had mentioned at several key moments during his run for the White House.

BBC News - Barack Obama’s grandmother dies

That makes me smile, that he at least visited on the last days that she was alive.

At Mail (atmail.org) September 4, 2008

Posted by Jonathan in : Hosting, Internet, Other, application, opensource , add a comment

I’ve recently had installed an email platform to which is comparable to software’s such as RoundCube and Squirrel Mail the software is for Linux and is called atmail and is an open source application as you can tell by the logo above. They do have a ‘premium’ version which is for clients such as Ford, NEC and generally for any bigger usage applicants for premium websites/services. So far I’m using their open source version and it isn’t half bad when comparing to RoundCube/SquirrelMail as those are the most used applications for Linux by far if you have cPanel installed. Here are some neat screenshots of my own I’ve taken through my Flick Cabin emails and you’ll see that it’s better than most of the free ones out there.

As you can see At Mail is a pretty well constructed software and is quite easy and ‘general’ to use as it has most features which other softwares have and best of all it is totally free and open source!

Features

This software is packed with features and generally the loading time of it is pretty good and loads adequately on a high-end server (from what I’ve experienced); as I do run off a high-end server. The thing with this software is that it is open source, which means people will make modifications for it as time passes and at mail is quite a large company and they have some influence over Internet branding of major companies which use their software. AtMail.org’s software is brilliant and is highly recommended, heck even my free hosting service uses it, so if you are looking into using At Mail along with running a website, use my free service which has been running since the the start of 2007. :)

Googles Browser, Google Chrome September 2, 2008

Posted by Jonathan in : Internet, Other, Search Engines, Webmaster, application, opensource , add a comment

Recently, or I think just yesterday Google released their own browser which has been named by them as ‘Google Chrome’ to which end I have downloaded, installed and have tried. From what I’m reviewing right now, it seems like a very good browser, as such being user friendly, and has the basic features which most browsers have right now and they seem to have incorpertated multi-tabbing as can be seen in also IE7 and Firefox 3.

With the release of such browser a lot of people may make some sort of transition to Google Chrome, from perhaps Internet Explorer 6/7 and FireFox 3 seeing as it’s less CPU intensive (As it does have less features) and actuallys shows XHTML compliant pages in proper format, plus it’s by Google, a huge internet company which has huge influence over any product they bring out to any user online, as Google is thee brand of the century in internet marketing.

[Click the above image to go to Google Chromes official download website!]

Criticisms

With any product there are always critics and I’m for that, as in the end it will develop the product and perhaps improve it however I have some simple criticisms about Google Chrome, as some features which come default via other browsers are not apparent in Google Chrome, though it’s no problem as it seems Google have gone for the simple approach. However they never actually delivered the ‘finished product’, thus why it is still in ‘beta’ which is labeled on the Chrome website. My major criticism is that they released this browser without incorperating their search engine toolbar, Google Toolbar, I would have used Chrome as a defualt browsing platform if they had incorporated such feature however sadly they did not. They will of course one day release it with Google Toolbar and perhaps the likes of Yahoo Toolbar! and all the major search engines which decide whether or not they want to be apart of Chrome, to which end I think they will.

It’s not surprising why Google has come out with a browser, I knew one they would make a browser as you have to take into account they started of with Google Video, took over YouTube with a purchase of $1.65 billion US to which end is kind of an internet monopoly. - Google is that that company that like to compete with everything and if they don’t win they’ll buy there way through, so my assumption is that if Google Chrome is a failure, they’ll most likely buyout Mozilla Firefox and everything which is within that company thus Googles inventory will become much larger. I don’t think this browser is as of yet comparable to Firefox 3, as it doesn’t have those essential features however small they are. One big problem which Firefox has come around to is if you get rid of a tab accidentally you can always restore it easily via right clicking and by clicking ‘restore tab’; I’ve noticed that Google Chrome does not have this feature. However Chrome is very young and only came out today

It is a very good move on Google for them to do this, I just wonder how things will turn out, I will later post features and screenshots of whatever feature people would like to see of it. There is also another and much smaller problem, it’s the scrolling feature via my scroller on my mouse, it certainly does work when scrolling up and down with it however I click on the scroller then move my mouse up and down as it is more convenient for myself as I read large documented websites etc. Firefox & Internet Explorer have these smaller features however it is these smaller features which make the final product likable and unlikable and I would again make this my defualt browser as it simple however there are not enough addons as of yet to make it my defualt browser thus why I’m sticking with FireFox for now and waiting on for Chrome to develop a little more.

Another criticism is that Chrome doesn’t handle videos to well, especially YouTube videos as I was viewing one video on YouTube then after a minute of watching; the whole browser would freeze. I tried to duplicate the same results in Firefox and I couldn’t, I even opened up multiple videos in Firefox and not a single problem. Perhaps an isolated incident or an annoying bug which the Google team haven’t fixed yet.

Features

Google Chrome comes with some extensive features to which end are comparable to the latest and most used browsers around today. Features such as multi-tabbing which enables you to view multiple sites at the same time, in a single browser window is an innotive but used feature and is a needed-feature for any browser today to become some sort of sucess.  Small time features such as searching in documents/websites by using the ‘Find function’ in ‘Control the current page’ options to find specific wordings you specify make this browser somewhat worth having. You also have the ability with this browser which is unique and not done in such a big way that you can create shortcuts to websites which can be accessed via application-style process on your desktop or generally anywhere on your computer. This isn’t new and can be done via browser, however Chrome has a feature which is specific for this task and is not at-all manual, to which end it is with other browsers. So… let’s get down to the feature list:

  • Search relative terms - This is where search terms you type in the http box gives relative terms to what words or website you are typing in which you have been to, to which the most visited websites will come up first in the list. So for example:
If I typed in echo however I had visited echo-news.co.uk several times or just once, you would also see echo-unlimited.com along with echo-news.co.uk with the echo-unlimited.com URl being visited the most as it’s my blog, so echo-unlimited.com will be shown first in the http box. It’s like the Google suggestion feature on the Google.com search engine, here is an image example:
  • Multi-Tabbing/Multi-Browsing - This is the most needed feature as a lot of people depend on this as it works and is convenient for the end-user. Multi-tabbing/browsing is where you can browse multiple sites in one window switching from each website per tab. Image example:

  • Crash control - This must be my favourite feature, I usually browse hugely intensive websites which can overload your browser as the website is big and takes time to upload and I do this via tabs in which commonly known FireFox utilises and sometimes this crashes my entire browser and data can be lost when I’m careless. With Google Chromes ‘Crash Control’, this fear goes out the window and any tabs which will cause the browser in itself to crash, the tab will go all together to prevent a total crash of the browser.
Those are the features I wanted to highlight however there are better explanations and videos on Google Chromes feature page, which can be found here. There are many more features which could be listed however I have prioritised my special features above to which I like the most. Have fun with Googles new browser platform! :)

Vlexo.com March 4, 2007

Posted by Jonathan in : Chitika, Hosting, Internet, Me and my life, My Sites, Other, Webmaster, free hosting, opensource , 3 comments

Vlexo.com is a service which started in February 02-07, since then the service has grown in a ’seen to be’ state which is reliable and which is fighting to make it through the hosting market with the tight niche and actively competing market. However plans to grow and add additional services such as emailing, blogging and even forum making only services are in the making along with a lot of other additional services. At current Vlexo Services provide free web hosting, with cPanel with an ample amount of features to which end is a service which has since proven itself from when back in Feb 07; that one, it would be reliable, two, it would last and third… support would be there when needed.

I started this free service ‘venture’ as I was co-owner or a helper of many free and big hosts and even a small-time paid host; I had the experience and the cash to throw in so I said why not? There needs to be a change in the free hosting market that proves free hosting can be just as reliable and feature rich compared to paid hosting and that support answers could be dealt with faster via our support compared to other paid hosts out there, which ‘try’ to provide some sort of premium service. At current we lease dedicated servers from a provider named WiredTree which we have found to be the most reliable dedicated/vps service to-date. There is a major difference between us and other providers out there, which is that we provide daily, weekly and monthly backups. However this is soon to change as we are taking in a high-volume of users thus why we maybe charging or be doing something in order to have the privilege of having free backups for your website and everything else you host with Vlexo!

Staff acceptance

We accept everyone from anywhere as long as your English is good and that you have some field of experience in the free/paid hosting side of things and as long as you are able to use Web Hosting Manager and cPanel (WHM/cP) to which is a requirement.

Staff payback

With the staff working for a free service such as ours, you’ll get ad-free hosting on any premium servers we open up and of course we will make free online backups for you on the 250GB HDD we utilize. We will also work better with staff members if requests are made where normal members wouldn’t get such request accepted.

Support

Support is something which most reputable hosts provide however a select few or big minority of hosts do not as they simply only have time to support the server running the websites which are hosted. However we are dedicated to the free hosting provided, thus why we provide fast & quick resolution support to which we pride ourselves in and to-date we have answered thousands of help threads/tickets/emails in a timely manner. Support is something which new people as well as old need in case something sticky happens and we provide this and the server is always monitored in case things go haywire on the back-end. We also post regular Announcements on our forums and on our news blog; just to keep the end-user informed of things.

Support site that is not likely to fail

The thing we provide is a support website which is not likely to fail, as our main website and everything else is hosted on totally different and redundant service. So if the server ‘you’re’ hosted on takes some hits (DDoS) or generally problems then most likely our website will be available and readily available for updates that will be made on our news blog and forums. - Thus far making any support requests which need to be indited won’t be to serious if our support sites goes down or if your need help in getting things setup!

Flexibility

With Vlexo comes to the awesome amount of flexibility we have to offer, if you run out of bandwidth or space or simply anything, you’ll be able to work with us to get something sorted to enable you to have more resources in return for something small.

Kindness

As a free host we don’t employ ‘you ain’t paying, so you are a lesser being’ feeling, as it’s just not right, however we like to be treated with the same respect and we’ll do so if you are nice to us. We will help anyone from anywhere and we won’t go to harsh on you if you are wanting to ask simple questions or need help to solve simple problems. This is the kind of flexibility we have on offer and help is always around the corner when you need it. :)

Design

In February 2007, Vlexo started with a horribly designed template, to which it was a template and looked real old however it was one of those things I thought looked stylish then after a while it got boring and just ‘old’, you can see the design we used to have. (I will post an image later today) :) Here is the current design we have as of mid-2007-2008:

As you can see the design above isn’t to bad and it is a custom one that I bought for $250 if I can remember correctly and it was worth every cent/penny as the design works. However as of 2008, a new design is in order to keep in touch with the growth and the user base that we currently have and a new design will be done before 2009, with this new design will come more functionality and integration of the design into our forums.

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