i shuai dot org

Today, which is Tuesday, June 28, 2005, for the dately challenged, Apple released iTunes 4.9. Was it just yesterday that they released iTunes 4.8?

Looks like Apple is the only one ahead of the game. iTunes 4.9 was supposed to be released July 9, but changed its deadline to almost two weeks earlier.

iTunes 4.9, now has support for PodCasting for iPods. If you don’t have an iPod, then this is not news that is too important.
So, you ask, what is a podcast? The simple answer is that it is free radio. On your iPod. iTunes 4.9 features a Podcast Directory that includes over 3,000 podcasts (good enough for your liking?) that Apple says includes stations like CBS news and ESPN.

On iTunes 4.9, you can manage your podcasts as you manage your songs. You can even rate them. When you plug in your iPod, it can be automatically updated.

Auto-Update your iTunes now to get iTunes 4.9, or download it for free..
» Click Here to download ♫iTunes 4.9

AIM Mail is here….the AOL competitor of Google Gmail. Now with 2GB of storage, this is going to be a hard battle.

YOUR_SCREEN_NAME@AIM.COM is your email address when you log in.

http://www.aim.com/aim_mail.adp is the link to go to AIM Mail.

I have took some screenshots:

This is the start page interface. Ads, Ads, Ads!

This is the inbox. Again, ads! The interface is well built, though.

Reading a message. There is supposed to be an ad at the side, but AdBlock blocked it.

Composing a message. Again, an ad is supposed to be at the side, but was blocked.

Reading the message I sent myself. Now, I can prove there are ads on the side.

This is AOL’s explaination of AIM Mail:

Use Your AIM Screen Name as Your E-Mail Address!
Here’s a summary of the features you will enjoy with AIM Mail:

• Industry-leading Spam and Anti-virus protection: Users of AIM Mail can rely on AIM to help keep their mail box free of junk mail and harmful viruses.

• 2 GB of mail storage: Users of AIM Mail can access their storage from any web-enabled computer. AIM Mail also comes with a search feature that makes it easy for users to find messages in their Inbox, Sent Mail, or Stored Mail.

• IMAP access, coming soon: Users can get their AIM Mail through their favorite e-mail application including MS Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Macintosh Mail, and Eudora.

• Single Log-on: Users will only have to login once to use both AIM and AIM Mail. Once logged into AIM, they can check, read and send mail without having to login in again. They can also launch the e-mail service from the AIM Buddy List or the Mail panel in the AIM Today welcome screen.

• Integration of AIM Presence: The Running Man icon appears in the e-mail headers if a sender or cc-ed recipient is logged in to AOL or AIM. This allows users to see when friends and colleagues are online and enables them to respond easily via e-mail or IM.

• Unsend Message: Users can cancel and unsend a message after it’s been sent to another AOL or AIM Mail user if the message has not been read. Users can also check the status of a message sent to an AOL or AIM user and confirm if and when the message has been read.

• Plus, many other features, including: Enhanced spell-checking, auto-addressing, rich-text formatting, message signatures and more!

It took us awhile, but it was worth the wait. Click here to activate your AIM Mail account.

I don’t like the ads. Gmail: Text ads (that actually helped me once or twice). Also sticking with Gmail, with its MB counter going up by the second.

In other kind-of-unrelated-news, Gmail changed its address to http://mail.google.com/mail/. This news is very stupid and should not be cared about, because you would still go to www.gmail.com or use Thunderbird.

My current project that I am working on is OptiNex, a directory of innovation and cool stuff from 2005. On the top of the list is, of course, Mozilla Firefox!

I am planning to release OptiNex:2005 by June 30. This date is subect to be changed in accordance with how much stuff I put in the document. It will be released in .pdf format that can be opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

A bit of the e-pamphlet:

Web Browser
Firefox
Mozilla Organization
Free, Open-Source, http://www.mozilla.org/
Email Client
Thunderbird
Mozilla Organization
Free, Open-Source, http://www.mozilla.org/
Email Service
Gmail
Google Inc.
Free, http://www.gmail.com/

I’m planning this to be over 10 pages long, so there should be lots of information.

Comments and suggestions/ideas welcome.

Just another start page. Something like the Google start page, but looks better.
MSN Start Page (convenientely placed at www.start.com) is pretty cool. Third version of the start series.
To “start”, go to http://www.start.com/3/ and answer the questions that boasts about the MSN search technology. When you’re done, you’re presented with a link to the start page.

If you really don’t feel like doing that 5 question quiz, click here. (hehe)

Looks great. Integrates with the MSN search. With some cool links, and you can integrate it into your dashboard. Very cool. But all of the news items are feeds. Heh. Of course.

I guess you can use this as your start page, if you don’t mind the MSN searching. I added it to my handful of Firefox homepages.

Next thing, there is a site called BillGatesIsDead.com. As you probably know, it is a stupid site. As you probably also know, Bill Gates is not dead.
This Jack Purdue guy here curating is a stupid person.

News stories: point into his cgi-bin, and uses this setup:
http://www%2Elatimes%2Ecom@209.61.162.98/news/front/20000420/t000012986.html or http://www.latimes.com@209.61.162.98/news/front/20000420/t000012986.html
(links disabled)
Oldest trick in the book. Seems like this guy’s IP is precisely 209.61.162.98. Or something like that. This is NOT the real link, this is going to trick someone to thinking that this is the real one.
Plus, the links don’t even work.

The video guy could be some other guy dressed as him, in the “Citizens for Truth” video.

If he is dead, how can he write a book in 2001, two years he was “killed”?

A few years ago, I went to this site. Thinking it was stupid, I went into discussion.

RE: He is NOT Dead.
Date: Thu Aug 1 [2:09 PM]
Posted By: Bill Einstein (a24431@netscape.net)

Calm Down. I am a computer expert, Here. He is my best hero. I read about 50 books on him. He is my american dream, too. I have proof that Bill Gates was a tragic victim. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/bio.asp. Go the beginning of the seventh paragraph. It says:

In 1999, Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. The book was published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries. Business @ the Speed of Thought has received wide critical acclaim, and was listed on the best-seller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com.

How can he write a book-a FULL book when he is dead?!?!

A computer Expert

(of course, so many years ago, I was so full of myself. Now the links do not work.)

Anyway, now, I emailed Jack Perdue with this:

Dear Jack Perdue:
I am now fully convinced that BILL GATES IS NOT DEAD. I am sorry. I don’t believe it. Let’s see if you can get YOUR news articles working on the front page first, and then let’s see if you can actually get REAL articles, not from your cgi-bin, from the REAL articles, and then let’s see if I can believe it.
You say you got proof? It is 2005 here, buddy. Not 2003. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. 2005. Your site was last updated 2003. Gates was “killed 1999″.
The “proof” video is completely fictious. Could that be another person right there? Huh? I am currently awaiting a reply email from my friend Bill Gates right now, as I have his email, of course.

You are very stupid to waste money setting up a site like this, plus the citizens for truth, plus a video to “prove” this.

Shuai
Fighting for the REAL truth.
http://www.ishuai.org/

Now, two minutes later, I get this:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

jperdue@billgatesisdead.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 10): 554 Recipient Rejected: Not accepting mail for this account : Account Inactive

—– Original message —–

Received: by 10.54.50.43 with SMTP id x43mr3272794wrx;
Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:49:08 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from ?192.168.0.0? ([0.0.0.0])
by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id 65sm2001238wra.2005.06.06.12.49.07;
Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:49:08 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <42A4A8B1.7030903@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 15:49:05 -0400
From: Shuai
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206)

—– Message truncated —–

A mailer-daemon, of course.
Now, focus on this part.

Not accepting mail for this account : Account Inactive

It is what it is. Account inactive. End of story.

The question is: why did Perdue set up a useless website that I had wasted an hour of my life, an hour that I will never see again, researching on? One would think that Jack was jealous of Gates. I think not.

Would I be crazy to think that Perdue was planning to assassinate Gates? Probably, I would not believe it myself.

status
Wallop Invites Status: OK
Orkut Invites Status: OK

Update: WOW. Overnight, I get 3 commenters asking for Wallop invites. To all of you that asked, thank you.

In an attempt to get more visitors to my blog ( ) I am now offering invitations to Wallop (Microsoft Research Labs) and Google Orkut.

Usually, I am not into Microsoft innovations. But this Wallop thing running on Macromedia Flash is extraordinary.
Welcome to Wallop, where you can share photos, blog, and interact with your friends.

Wallop is a research project of the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research, exploring how people share media and build conversations in the context of social networks. We are currently conducting a small, real world trial of Wallop with small friendship groups. Therefore, membership in Wallop is limited to study participants until the trial is over. For more information about our research projects, please go to our Social Computing web site.

Yes, you heard right. Wallop. Something similar to the Yahoo 360 Friends System.
Click Here for a (remotely hosted) screenshot. Very cool. Bear with the chinese stuff, and take a look at the UI and the system.
Click Here for an animated gif of jas9’s screenshots.

It logs in with your email and a password. There is a Profile System, friends network, a friend’s-friend’s network, a friend’s-friend’s-friend’s network (or what seemed it), etc. Music player, Pictures, Links/RSS, Gifts, Web Refs, Favorites, Searcher, Filterer, File Upload, and guess what….A BLOG!
The blog is sooooooo down to basic. But interactivity make this blog stuff AWESOME!

Anyway, the last thing there is that I like is a skinner. You can make a skin, or use skins from people in your network. I am currently making skins called “MyBlue”, “MyGreen”, “MyGray”, and other modern color skins.

The Google Alternative to Microsoft Wallop. Welcome to Orkut (actually is affiliated with Google).

Orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends.

We are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.

Orkut is not flash-based, but is very cool. When you sign up (and this can be a good or a bad thing) you get a handful of pages that prompt you to describe yourself. For example: Books you liked, movies, music, single, married, looking, college graduate, industry of work, liberal, conservative, like pets, no like pets, humor, fashion, etc., etc.

Orkut connects you to people through your friends. Look at this extrordinary text:

You are connected to 6087631 people through 2 friends.

Smack-dab on your front page.

Heyhey! There’s also a message center system. And communities. And search. Album, lists, scratchbook, and testimonials.

I know that I like Google innovations more, but I have to go with Wallop. Wallop’s Flash interface makes it easy (and sleek!) while the HTML interface of Orkut is slow. Keep in mind, though, both of these services are betas.

Well, anyway….it’s kind of late, so I will put more information about Orkut later.

If you would like an invitation, please comment on this post, and please use this:
Wallop and/or Orkut
Email (for your security, use this: me AT gmail DOT com, or put it in the email field under “Name” and don’t put it in the message body. If you put your email in the email field, it will not be displayed.)
And whatever you want here.

Thanks, have a great day!