RSS
 

Archive for March, 2006

New Version Of GoogleTalk

31 Mar 2006

Philipp scoops us up with the latest version of GoogleTalk. I tested it out with Nathan and it looks just great. Now you can add icons, choose the appearance and do some other funny stuff. You can also add a picture as avatar, just like in any other chat application. I was looking for a cross-chat possibility, but I can’t seem to locate it. Nevertheless, it got better.

New GoogleTalk

Download the new version (right-click, save as) | read illustrated reviews at Nathan’s & Philipp’s

 

Google Shirt Of The Month

31 Mar 2006

Heheheh. You might think it doesn’t happen, but the fact is, it already happened before! Randy points to this extremely funny t-shirt which is for sale at T-Shirt Humor:

Man She Forgot To Google

Women used to be warned when they were little girls. They told them not to take candy from strangers, not to drive along with unknown men. Now we can add to this: Google your date before you go out with him. Google has become part of our culture, even more than we could’ve possibly assumed.

You can also have it printed on a mug, a mousepad, a cap or a poster.

Get this goodie now !

 
No Comments

Posted in Geek, Humor

 

YouTube Running Out Of Feet To Shoot

31 Mar 2006

I don’t quite know if this is an early April’s fools joke, but I just saw YouTube has built in yet another obstruction in their video display mode. I followed a link Randy had put on his blog to an Office XP commercials (that apparently has been uploaded many times) and all of the sudden there’s this warning page I’m directed to that says:

This video may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube’s user community.
By clicking “Confirm,” you are agreeing that all videos flagged by the YouTube community will be viewable by this account.

Here’s the message, as described above:

Warning

The (fake?) commercial itself doesn’t show any nudity, there’s no explicit scenes, there’s no extreme violence whatsoever. Agreed, for Microsoft’s image, the ad is a bit risqué, but still… what’s up with this? There are thousands of videos that feature far more worse content than this one…

Here’s the YouTube link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CFKTGpUoens

Really. I wonder how much further you can bring it. Either the movie gets flagged, verified and then removed or you remove the flag and let it go live. This ‘in between’ thing is just ridiculous. Every movie has its fans and its haters. Either the content is ok to go live or not.

The sad part is, you only get the message when you’re logged in. A small but subtle WTF comes in one’s mind as he begins to wonder how much more YouTube is going to do to pester their existing users. I’m getting pretty tired of all these warnings and limitations. I like the service, but all this extra stuff that pops up, all these restrictions… pffff. I definitely don’t like it.

 
4 Comments

Posted in General, Video

 

Spicing Up The Catalog

31 Mar 2006

The Shai Clothing line is taking things just that bit further with the 2006 Sexpacking Catalog. If you’re tired of all these semi-naked women and men dancing around in all kinds of commercials from kitchenware to hamburgers, this might be what you’re looking for. In three Adobe Flash movies, the interactive catalog is presented with roll-over motion controls. This means that you’ll be looking at a spicy movie where there are little green dots next to the clothing items the actors are wearing. Rolling over the movie wilt pause it, giving you the opportunity to explore the products that are shown. It’s a pretty daring concept, and it’s the first of this kind I’ve seen. These clips are definitely not safe for work. Seriously.

Shai Clothing 1

Shai Clothing 2

The catalog is downloadable in many types of formats. There’s a PC download (.mov), an iPod download, files for PSP and mobile and a source code to blog the clips. Since I’m not really sure how many people read this blog from work, I’m not going to blog the movie. I’m sure you’ll understand.

Shaï interactive catalogs include X-rated pornographic content intended for adults only. These catalogs can be downloaded for private use only,
and in no case should be transferred to non-consenting individuals or to minors.

The ‘Goodies’ section contains screensavers, wallpapers and track downloads. The audio has been produced specially for this project by nventa. The song you hear is called “No reason to be Shai” and it’s carrying the brand message.

Created by: agence7seven (FullSix Group)
Directed by: Hervé Bodilis
Produced by: Video Marc Dorcel
Starring: Oksana d’Harcourt, Sébastien Barrio, Titoff, Gamal Simon, Sophie Moon and Zafira.

Check out sexpacking.com | via MIT Adverlab

 

Company Backtalks

30 Mar 2006

There’s an email going around that I’ve received a few times already from former colleagues. In this email there are testimonials of employees that discuss certain pains inside the company policies or that show the ridiculous ways of thinking of some executive people. Reading these comical situations might teach you some things about ‘how not to manage’ and ‘how not to treat your employees’. Apparently the quotes were collected for some sort of competition, but I don’t know which one or where…

  • “As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.”
    (Fredrick Dales at Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA.)
  • “What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.”
    (Lykes Lines Shipping)
  • “E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.”
    (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)
  • “This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.”
    (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)
  • “Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.”
  • “No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.”
    (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)
  • “My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn’t edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected.”
    (CIO of Dell Computers)
  • “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.”
    (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)
  • My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, “That would be better for me.”
    (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)
  • “We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.”
    (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)
  • We recently received a memo from senior management saying: “This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above.” (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
  • One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, “If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!” (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards)
  • “As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company’s training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director’s office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn’t stand for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired-and the word “pedagogical” circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words, which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper.” (Taco Bell Corporation)
 

Download IT Crowd Movies

30 Mar 2006

For those who’ve followed my previous posts about The IT Crowd and waited patiently until YouTube loaded the videos, or for those who adore the series as much as I do, there’s a link to a fansite that has all the episodes available in .avi and .wmv format so you can download these goodies for keepers. Ever since the British policy came around that said ‘content is for UK residents only’ it’s been hard for surfers outside the UK to find any UK movies or audio files to download. Even the BBC plays that card with their Open Earth Archive of 400 movies using a rather bold disclaimer:

The BBC has decided to limit access to Creative Archive Licence Campaign content to UK residents to ensure best value for the UK licence fee. Users outside of the UK are not able to access clips and programmes that form part of this campaign. Regrettably we are therefore unable to offer you content and would like to apologise for any disappointment.

Yeah sure, if you’re outside the UK, you can pay to see the content, but that’s just plainly stupid. It discriminates 99% of the world.

So, us non-UK’ers are mostly depending on some sharing UK residents to link us up, which is exactly what The IT Crowd fansite is doing. Cheers to those guys and their download link.

The IT Crowd

Still want to see it online instead of downloading? Sure !

Episode 6
Episode 5
Episode 4
Episode 3 – 2 – 1

 
2 Comments

Posted in Geek, Humor

 

Two Funny Signs

30 Mar 2006

Bart sent me these two images of strange signs he dug up somewhere on the internet. (Well in fact he sent me over 25 signs, but most of them were either ‘unfit’, ‘too rude’ or ‘plainly stupid’, so I picked out these two). I especially like the one with the circus. I wonder where it was put up and for what reason, it’s just so damn funny.

Warning

No Nothing

Thanks, Bart

 
No Comments

Posted in Humor

 

Official Web 2.0 Certifyr

30 Mar 2006

Hah. Wicked. This is the thing I was looking for. It’s absolutely everything web 2.0 has to offer. This site rates the true values of any 2.0 web application and style. I’m 81 % Web 2.0 Compliant ! Take that, Web 1.0 !!!

I especially like the selection fields where you have to tick what you display:

Super 2.0 Selectah

Try out the One & Only Official Web 2.0 Certifyr Beta | via ‘Cross The Breeze