i shuai dot org

Old news, but…

London, September 12, 2005 – eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY; www.ebay.com) has agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global Internet communications company, for approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration. The acquisition will strengthen eBay’s global marketplace and payments platform, while opening several new lines of business and creating significant new monetization opportunities for the company. The deal also represents a major opportunity for Skype to advance its leadership in Internet voice communications and offer people worldwide new ways to communicate in a global online era. Skype, eBay and PayPal will create an unparalleled ecommerce and communications engine for buyers and sellers around the world.

Question is, what is eBay going to do with Skype? Is eBay going to create a community where ebay users can communicate with other ebay users by voice?

No more Skype. Maybe. Just Google Talk and Gizmo Project.
I am thinking that the whole Skype is dead, for 2 billion.

For all of you guys that use Photoshop and store your photoshop stuff in a folder called “photoshop” in My Documents (this is for Windows), I have an icon file for you.

Sorry about the weird filename “adobelogo” but I was in a rush.

Right-Click the file and click Save Picture As or Save Image As and then go into your My Documents (or where the photoshop stuff is stored) and right click the folder. Then click Properties, Customize, Change Icon, and Browse to where you saved the ico file. Then click OK and select it. Then click OK and OK again. Refresh and it’s there!

Hope you like it,
Shuai

For no apparent reason at all, I have started a technology blog (isotope technology blog) and a music blog (musiic). They took me a while, but it’s worth it.
I like the design on both these pages. Clean, simple, and most of all easy to use.

Hope you like them.

George from copperbeechco found this:

As I was playing around with the new iTunes 5 I discovered that iTunes will display any videos that are located in the music folder in your home directory. It even has a little icon of a Cinema display to show its a video. The format of the video was MPEG 2, but I am sure this would work with some other popular video formats. Could this feature forshadow an iPod Video? when you have selected to play the video the “Artwork” panel appears and displays the video as it would in QuickTime. Then if you clickt he artwork it opens in a large window inside iTunes. Its awsome!

Beware of this crappy software program for Windows.
I was trying to find a program that would hide a window by a touch of a hotkey, when I came across “Quick Hide Windows”. This thing is a piece of crap.
At 1MB unpacked zip, this thing is unbelievably crappy. I installed it and such and then opened it. It started with a nice tutorial. Okay, nice, CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+Q, ok, CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+Z and X, okay, alright, done.
This program lets you hide a window with a hotkey, CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+Z and bring them back with CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+X. You can also lock the screen with another hotkey. I tried locking the screen. “Not supported in this version of Windows”. Ok, I’m on Windows XP. No matter.
So I then try hiding windows. Umm, it hid ALL the windows. Ok, so unhide all the windows. “Not supported in this version of Windows.” Uh oh.

Eventually I had to end the program, and it didn’t even restore all the programs when I closed it. I had to go into the Processes in the Task Manager and end them completely and restart them.

This program is NOT worth getting. Beware of this crappy software!

Take everything you love about iPod and shrink it. Now shrink it again. With 2GB (500 songs) and 4GB (1,000 songs) models starting at $199, the pencil-thin iPod nano packs the entire iPod experience into an impossibly small design. So small, it will take your music places you never dreamed of.

This is the iPod nano.

The revolutionary successor to the iPod mini. Now super-thin and small as hell. With a color screen.

Pictures

Dimensions: 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27-inch. That’s 1/4 of an inch deep! The iPod nano is more than 60% smaller than its older counterpart, the iPod mini. It is 1.5 ounces, or 40 grams. Think of that, 40 grams, that’s really light! This sleek thing can only be from Apple. 2GB version for 500 songs ($200), or 4GB version for 1000 songs ($250). Comes in Shiny White or Super-Sleek Black.

The iPod Nano replaces the iPod Mini, the older-generation mini ipod thing. iPod nano will blow the mini away.
(iPod Mini was found missing from the Apple iPod page when it debuted.) Also, it does have a click wheel, which looks kind of small because of the larger center button. Of all changes, the headphone jack is on the bottom now. It has a 14 hour battery life. Not too shabby, iPod+HP’s have <10 battery life.

You can also have a lot of accessories with your iPod nano, such as the iPod lanyard headphones for $39, just for the iPod.

Get this and other accessories, including the nanodock, nanotubes, and other accessories here:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/accessories.html

motorola ROKR and iTunes 5 review coming soon

I found an easy blogging tool when I was looking in the Widget Gallery (www.widgetgallery.com).
It’s called the lightBlog Blogging Tool.

http://www.lightblog.com/
But first, the blog host. The host looks pretty solid, with a banner ad/google ad at the left…
It comes with a bunch of templates and a lot of tweakable settings.

I tested the blog and it’s pretty good for a quick blog.
http://www.lightblog.com/member/shuai/

Supports comments and the such.

The blogger is quick and efficient. I suggest you get it if you want a quick blog.

Konfabulator 2.11 is this month’s Software (which isn’t updated a lot.)
This awesome and awesomely free program lets you display beautiful “widgets”, which are little applications that are displayed on your computer.

Konfabulator runs on Windows and Mac, and is totally free.

Konfabulator comes with a bunch of awesome widgets such as wireless network indicator thingy, battery level indicator, weather, Yahoo! search, calendar, digital clock, and more. You can set them transparent or translucent, set the z-order (mouseover for def) and more.

You can also get widgets from the Widget Gallery, at www.widgetgallery.com, where developers contribute self-made widgets for the whole widget community.

Plus, there is a mode called “konsposé”, where you can display all the widgets open even if their z-order isn’t always on top. You can also set widgets to display only in konsposé, so you don’t get to see them all the time. You can show konsposé by pressing F8, or your previously set key.
Konsposé Example

This is one of my favorite programs. Now a Yahoo! product (Konfabulator was bought by Yahoo! not too long ago) this is a great program.

I suggest you get it!

And finally, our download link: Konfabulator.com

I am wishing the best of luck to the Hurricane Katrina victims.
Donate for the cause at: