Better URI for your Google Profile

Just knew that Google Profile gives us better URIs [via TechCrunch]. The old (but still work) URI is http://www.google.com/s2/profiles/115422682039760465813, which is awfully long and you can't guess who's that by seeing the URI. The new one is like http://www.google.com/profiles/livibetter, which is the same username of Gmail box. So, you probably want to put a dot in if you use your real name, for example, you can have http://www.google.com/profiles/livi.better as if you can do for your Gmail: livi.better@[gmail]. That also works.

Go to edit profile, scroll down to bottom, you will see the option to have new style of URI. If you click on see more options, you will also have an option like http://www.google.com/profiles/115422682039760465813, but I doubt that anyone would use that.

Life before the computer

This is possible an old joke at the time when 3 1/2" still be the most awesome portable storage media. Stronger than 5 1/4". I searched for this joke and I found more complete version:

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!

Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 1/2 inch floppy
You hoped nobody found out!

Compress was something you did to garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile!

Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode!

Cut - you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu!

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead!

Before I first experience of computer use, I could not speak any English at that moment. I was about 8 years old. Since then, my vocabulary bank started to grow up, but it's in very limited and special way. I only know the meaning of computer field and barely can pronounce them. Until now, many words in my head are still strong bound to computer terms. Sometimes, it's hard for me to think outside of computer.

It's interesting when you look back on this joke. Many things have changed after this joke being written. I think the best time of 3 1/2" has past about a decade. If another decade passes, how many in this joke would remain?

Now livibetter.mp is my new index.html

Months ago, I decided to use Google Sites as my index.html. Now livibetter.mp is the new one. Chi.mp looks like a profile plus little scale of FriendFeed. You can give visitors your contact information, activity stream and many other things. Chi.mp designs well, though there is still some small things are not perfect.

Once you signed up, you can get the dashboard. From there, you can update your status, e.g. Twitter's updates, add photo (to Facebook and/or to Flickr), or write blog post on Chi.mp. Clear view of your contacts and contents. If you switch to Dashboard / Personas & Privacy, you can change theme and switch every single content source on/off.

Composing your Profile, you can put phone numbers, addresses, emails, etc. And give them into to different personas. For example, you can only allow friends accessing your phone number. You can also upload avatars. You can even upload favicons. Both avatars and favicons are able to show differently to different personas.

In Content section, you can import content just as you do in FriendFeed, but you don't have many services to import. As of writing, there are Yahoo, Feed, Flickr, Twitter, Hotmail, Facebook, and Gmail. Here is one drawback, you actually already set some social networking websites and blogs in Profile, however, you need to do again here.

In Setting / Site Settings, this section also amazes me, you can set page Title, HTML Meta Description, Google Analytics ID,  Google Webmaster Tools Verify Code, and MicroID.

Chi.mp even gives you one Email Forwarding, what can I say, I love Chi.mp! You should already know Chi.mp supports OpenID, and you wouldn't possible to find an OpenID in so short URL, mine is http://livibetter.mp/.

After I go through all settings, I dumped Google Sites and Google Profile.

Own. Evolve. Enjoy!

Google Earth Sky and Stellarium

If I need to find any information about stars of universe, the first program which I can think of is Sky mode of Google Earth. I don't know if this Sky mode is for professional use or not, obviously, I am not into it.

Here is another application, it's called Stellarium. It's Free and Open-sourced, and All major systems are supported natively. You can see many screenshots here.

Google Earth's Sky mode has many layers and seems to be a little bit of mess if you turn on too many layers. Stellarium is much more clean. Its UI is simple as well and easy to use. However, if you are not familiar with what you just looking at, it's more easy to access online information with Google Earth.

pastebinit

pastebinit, a small Python script helper to paste text/code to pastebin.com, which is really handy. You don't need to open editor/select all/paste. You only need to run this script with filename or type in and hit CTRL+D.

Since it's written in Python, I guess it should be having no problems with all systems that Python lives on.

Making ghost avatar

Earlier today, I changed my avatar on Twitter. It's for fun that make avatar look like blank image. However, you still can see something from the avatar.

So, here comes this post. I use GIMP to make another one from a cat image. The original is

(Kind of cool face, isn't?)

The rough steps

1. Firstly, open it and duplicate the layer. And don't forget to add alpha channel. Name the duplicated layer as “Edge.”
   
2. Apply Filters » Edge-Detect » Sobel... on Edge layer. The result looks like
   
   
   
3. Remove some unwanted edges, only leave the main part. In this case, the cat's head.
4. Add Black (full transparency) layer mask to Source layer.
5. Copy Edge layer onto Source's layer mask.
6. Reduce Opacity to make the image be barely seen.
7. Enhance if the ghost image is not evenly seen:
   a) Duplicate the Edge as Enhance.
   b) Remove the parts that are too strong from Enhance layer.
   c) Adjust Opacity of Enhance layer to make ghost image looks balanced.
   

The final image

Yes, it's right above. (I set the opacity way too low. :p) The final GIMP file is here.

Some websites that support avatar in PNG format

I just changed my avatar to:

(Yes, it's really here, I guarantee!)

Because it's special, therefore only those websites which support PNG can use it, or it will only be ugly black avatar.

Anyway, here is the list of those websites that support PNG avatar:

• Blogger
• Get Satisfaction
  
• Google Groups
• Google Profile
• Jamendo
  
• Last.fm
  
• LiveJournal
• Picasa Web Albums
• Twitter
• Yahoo
  
• Youtube

Here is another list of those websites which don't support PNG avatar:

• 43Things
• Blip.fm
  
• Disqus
  
• Facebook
• Flickr
  
• FriendFeed
• Gravatar
• Technorati
  
• Ustream.tv
  
• Verisign PIP
• Vimeo