[Recap] December 2007

December 2007 have been a month full with joy and fun ^^ and lotsa holidays here
This is the month where i post very little ! A record for me :P Anyway, it's a holiday mood ^^ so bare with me :P

But then again this recap should be good for those of you who may have missed one or two posts here at zlythern ;)

1. Blogosphere

10 Years Ago On The Internet ..., Dec 17

Exactly on December 17, 1997, a man named Jorn Barger, coined the term "Weblog" for the first time.

Jorn Barger describe his daily routine of surfing the internet and write down a list of links that he came across as a process of "logging the web" thus the term "WEBLOG" appeared ;)

2. Christmas

Send A Secret Holiday Greeting Card, Dec 24

Send your friends a Holiday Greeting Card, with your message coded ;)

Your friend will have to enter the secret code to be able to read it ;)

A little fun way to send a Greeting Card :D

The Twelve Days of Christmas, Dec 14

During the Middle Ages, Christmas celebrations in Europe were elevated to new heights when people adopted the custom of giving 12 gifts to loved ones, one every day from Christmas to Epiphany. From the grandest of lords to the poorest peasants, the tradition was celebrated with great enthusiasm.

Can't Wait For Christmas, Dec 12

The counter has hit the 0 mark and the day we've all been waiting for is finally here! We hope that all your wishes have come true and we thank you for counting down with us.

Stay safe this holiday and never stop wishing! We can't wait to see what Christmas has in store for everyone next year!

3. Flash

The Golden Compass - What's Your Dæmon ? Dec 10

All humans in Lyra's world have a Dæmon, which is an animal spirit, much like our other half ^^ and all of these Dæmon looks VERY GOOD in the movies :D

You can take one too ;) Find out What's Your Dæmon Is :)

4. Personal

Merry Christmas 2007, Dec 25

To all my readers who celebrate, I wish to you all Merry Christmas.

May we all filled with joy and happiness ^^

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 1428H, Dec 20

To all my readers who celebrate, I wish you, Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2007 / 1428H. Note: I made a mistake, it should be Eid al Adha ;) (thanks dodot)

_________________________________________________________

That is all folks, December's laziest month recap ever :P

Hope you all enjoy the posts, and

Enjoy the long holidays,
with a joyful spirit,
and a welcome to a
Happy New Year ^^

Merry Christmas 2007

To all my readers who celebrate,

I wish to you all

Merry Christmas

May we all filled with joy and happiness ^^

Have a nice Holidays ^^

Send A Secret Holiday Greeting Card

Christmas is less than 1 day ^^

Tomorrow is the day we all be waiting for ^^

Send your friends a Holiday Greeting Card, with your message coded ;)

Your friend will have to enter the secret code to be able to read it ;)

A little fun way to send a Greeting Card :D


p.s: I wish I can write more than 40 characters :P It would be a perfect message :P

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 1428H

To all my readers who celebrate,

I wish you

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2007 / 1428H


Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
by ~awangpurba on deviantART

Mohon Maaf Lahir dan Batin ^^

Have a nice holiday ^^

10 Years Ago On The Internet ....

Exactly on December 17, 1997, a man named Jorn Barger, coined the term "Weblog" for the first time.

Jorn Barger describe his daily routine of surfing the internet and write down a list of links that he came across as a process of "logging the web" thus the term "WEBLOG" appeared ;)



Jorn Barger has a say he share with Wired.

My intent for weblogs in 1997 was to make the web as a whole more transparent, via a sort of "mesh network," where each weblog amplifies just those signals (or links) its author likes best.

He also gave an advice to all those who blog, some of it really match the first idea why i started one here at zlythern :D

• A true weblog is a log of all the URLs you want to save or share. (So del.icio.us is actually better for blogging than blogger.com.)
• You can always improve on the author's own page title, when describing a link. (At least make sure your description is full enough that readers will recognize any pages they've already visited, without having to visit them again.)
• Always include some adjective describing your own reaction to the linked page (great, useful, imaginative, clever, etc.)
  

And there's an advice that i really need to work out on zlythern :P

Re-post your favorite links from time to time, for people who missed them the first time.

Check out the rest of his advice on Wired. The complete 10 Tips for New Bloggers From Original Blogger Jorn Barger ;)

But be warned that Jorn Barger definition of "WEBLOG" is a collection of links :D Some of you may have offended by his #2 tips :P (read the sentence again very carefully) ;)

Anyway...

Happy WEBLOG 2007 ^^

The Twelve Days of Christmas

The first time i hear this song, i hardly can understand each and every day of the presents being sung. More worse, i hear the song in the Disney version ! Which Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck (his voice was the worst :P can hardly understand what he is saying), Goofy, and all others, each with a different voice and accent sing the song ! The worst of all, i was still a little kid, minimum English vocabulary, don't have an English dictionary, and still no Internet access back at my hometown in Indonesia :P

Heh, what a story that is :D I always chuckle when i hear and remember this song :P

Anyway, now with all the access to Internet, world's largest knowledge database, now i know the whole lyrics of the song :D And even the stories behind it too :)

There are different stories regarding to The Twelve Days of Christmas. To quote some of it:

The Twelve Days of Christmas as a celebration and festival is old and steeped in traditions from Christian cultures around the world. For many, the idea of the 12 days as a length of celebration is based on a sequence of verses in the Holy Bible (Matthew 2:1-12), and a belief that it may have taken 12 days for the three kings (also called wise men or magi) to travel to Bethlehem. The number 12 is also symbolic of the 12 Tribes of Israel, who received Christ before the Three Kings, the Gentiles came to pay him homage.

[source: Wikipedia]

During the Middle Ages, Christmas celebrations in Europe were elevated to new heights when people adopted the custom of giving 12 gifts to loved ones, one every day from Christmas to Epiphany. From the grandest of lords to the poorest peasants, the tradition was celebrated with great enthusiasm.

[source: howstuffworks]

So, incase some of you still don't know the lyrics, here it goes

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" Lyrics

1. On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
A partridge in a pear tree.

2. On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

3. On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

4. On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and partridge in a pear tree.

5. On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

6. On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Six geese a-laying ...

7. On the seven day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Seven swans a-swimming ...

8. On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Eight maids a-milking ...

9. On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Nine ladies dancing ...

10. On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Ten lords a-leaping ...

11. On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Eleven pipers piping ...

12. On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Twelve drummers drumming ...

After knowing the lyrics, i feel it's kinda weird, and apparently the Taking Back Sunday feels the same too ;)

Oh, and howstuffworks have a nice Christmas Game for you to print out the pdf version, and have it with your family ;) It's called Find The Twelve Days of Christmas :)

Can't Wait For Christmas

Can't wait for Christmas? Here's the 10-step remedy from it's Facebook Event:

1. Visit Can't Wait For Christmas
2. Admire the countdown
3. Share your holiday wishes
4. Spread the holiday joy to your friends and family
5. Check the countdown again
6. Bookmark to the site
7. Come again tomorrow, and the next day, and the one after that
8. Watch the countdown hit 00:00:00:00 with glee
9. Leave Santa some milk and cookies (chocolate chip please)
10. Rejoice with your wishes come true

The spirit is around the corner ^^

Can't Wait For Christmas indeed :D and it will be my first one in Singapore ;)

The Golden Compass - What's Your Dæmon ?

7 December 2007 worldwide, The Golden Compass movie is scheduled to launch, but at Thursday night on 6 Dec 2007, me and my girlfriend watched it already ^^

Hehe.. dunno why but on 6 Dec, we already can saw the movie here in Singapore :)

Anyway, this movie is nice, the whole CG thing was very good, everything looks very natural and real ^^

But be aware that the movie's plot are those of fantasy world ;) LOTR, Narnia kinda thing ;) In my opinion, it's quite nice, although some says that the movie is below average, with hanging ending (ops, spoiler alert!), short plot, bad battlefield scene, etc. But i don't see any of those mentioned :P

Here's some excerpt from the official site:

There is a world where witches rule the northern skies, where ice bears are the bravest of warriors, and where every human is joined with an animal spirit who is as close to them as their own heart.

But this world is dominated by the Magisterium, which seeks to control all of humanity, and whose greatest threat is the last remaining Golden Compass and the one child destined to possess it.

My girlfriend was very amazed with how real the CG is being rendered, and i have to admit that it indeed IS !

All humans in Lyra's world have a Dæmon, which is an animal spirit, much like our other half ^^ and all of these Dæmon looks VERY GOOD in the movies :D you can almost be sure that those were the real animal being used in the movies, and trained to do some lip-sync :P

And for being a geek, i go through the official site directly after watching the movies :P I got lotsa things from it, and most importantly i got the answer for my curious questions

What's My Dæmon ?


[RSS Reader may not be able to see the Flash]

So here it is ;) She is called Onthia :)

You can take one too ;) Find out What's Your Dæmon Is :)

Despite all the bad words of the original source of this movie taken from :

Director Weitz said "in the books the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots" but that the organization portrayed in his film would not directly match that of Pullman's books. Instead, the Magisterium will represent all dogmatic organizations.

Weitz said that religion would instead appear in euphemistic terms, yet the decision has been attacked by some fans, anti-censorship groups, and the National Secular Society (of which Pullman is an honorary associate), which said "they are taking the heart out of it, losing the point of it, castrating it".

The Atlantic Monthly said also that "With $180 million at stake, the studio opted to kidnap the book’s body and leave behind its soul."

I feel that the movie is 'safe' ^^ well maybe I'm not too expert on this kinda thing,

I just enjoyed the movie :D

[Recap] November 2007

The late November 2007 Recap is here at last :P sorry for the wait folks.

This recap should be good for those of you who may have missed one or two posts here at zlythern ;)

1. Add-ons

OpenBook - Handy Firefox Add-ons !, Nov 19

If you are using Firefox, then this OpenBook Add-ons is a must have !

Everytime you hit Ctrl+D to bookmark, you will have your bookmarks tree opened automatically !

It has a capability of remembering your last folder that you save your bookmark into ;)

2. CSS

CSS - A Recipe for Success, Nov 26

You have to play with this one for sure ! It's the most detailed tutorial, or shall i say, recipe ;) on styling a list using CSS.

Even the very first beginner in styling using CSS will hardly find any problem reading through the tutorial!

3. Flash

The Story of Tatty Teddy Bear, Nov 21

“A grey teddy bear… with a blue nose?” she thought. “How strange!”

The teddy bear wanted to cry. He thought she didn’t like him and would throw him back with the other unwanted things.

“But he’s lovely!” she continued and she fell completely in love with him.

Take A Look. Click The Book, Nov 28

We know that nothing will replace the magic of reading a book with your child at bedtime, but we aim to replace the overwhelming and frustrating process of finding the right books for parents and their kids.

4. Freeware

Get Your Facebook Notified by FizzBoost !, Nov 14

Bringing together the best of all the other alert programs, its clean interface and snazzy alerts, FizzBoost is the perfect companion to Facebook.

No need to logged in to your Facebook every ten minutes or so. You won't get caught easily by your boss if you had this FizzBoost, while you can still now what happenin' in your Facebook world ;)

5. GIVEAWAY

[GIVEAWAY] My Name In Arabic, Nov 02

The first batch of zlythern GIVEAWAY ^^

Together with Reem we have decided to give for FREE 3 Arabic Names for 3 lucky reader

Congratulations to Winners of My Name in Arabic GIVEAWAY, Nov 12

Beautiful results of Reem's work for 3 lucky readers ^^

First batch is a success :)

[GIVEAWAY] 2nd Round of My Name In Arabic, Nov 16

Second round of Reem's excellent service. But turns out nobody interested anymore :P

Well if we still had 10 people who are still interested, i might re-open the GIVEAWAY ;)

6. Personal

Happy Deepavali 2007, Nov 08

Deepavali (in Hindi - दिवाली or दीपावली), is a major Indian festival, significant in Hinduism , Jainism and Sikhism. Celebrated by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs across the globe, as the "Festival of Light" where the lights or lamps signify the uplighting of darkness and victory of good over the evil within.

My Ubuntu 7.10 Arrived !, Nov 09

The long awaited free CD. I made a request for a free CD of the new Ubuntu 7.10 on Oct 19, 2007. After only 3 weeks, it arrived in Singapore :D ! That was fast ! The whole package was perfect ! The CD nice, no scratch at all :D And it comes with a nice STICKER ! 4 nice Ubuntu Sticker !

Happy Thanksgiving 2007, Nov 23

To all my readers in the U.S. and Canada, and those who celebrate

Happy Thanksgiving 2007

Thank you for all your support and for keep reading my blog :D
Wish you all a nice holiday with your family ^^

7. Tools

Do You Understand "Teen Speak" Language ?, Nov 06

Parents out there, who have kids lurking around the chat room, myspace etc. nowadays these kids have no worry when they chat each other. This is because they use Acronym to cover their sentence.

And all of that will remain a mystery. But not until i found out Teen Chat Decoder ! This super easy to use, accessible everywhere, is a MUST BOOKMARK for you !

_________________________________________________________

That is all folks, November 2007 recap ^^

Hope you all enjoy the posts, and thank you very much for still being here with me :)

Have a nice day ^^

Take A Look. Click The Book.

Lookybook is a really nice concept in bringing books for parents and kids. They bring you nice illustrations from all around the world ^^

We know that nothing will replace the magic of reading a book with your child at bedtime, but we aim to replace the overwhelming and frustrating process of finding the right books for parents and their kids.

You can also create your very own bookshelf ;) What is a bookshelf for ? Well, to put your favourite books of course :D


Another interesting idea is that if you are a new or self-published author or illustrator, or a publisher and you want more eyes on your book, you can send it to them ;) And hopefully they will put it on our shelf for everyone to look at ;)

Lookybook currently features over 200 titles and is growing daily.


And here's another catch, you can EMBED the books to your blog, myspace, friendster, or anywhere on the net ! NICE ! :D

But of course, you can always consider to buy the book ;) After all, what picture books is bad for a gift ?! ;)

And it's almost Christmas too :D

Well, then, here we go, i've embed one for you ;)

First Snow
Written by Bernette Ford | Illustrated by Sebastien Braun
9.875 x 10.75 | 32 pages | Ages 4-8 | Holiday House | Published in 2005 | ISBN 9780823419371

(RSS reader, click through my post to see it)


[via: Drawn!]

CSS - A Recipe for Success

Search-This.com posted A Recipe for Success in styling a list using CSS.

You have to play with this one for sure ! It's the most detailed tutorial, or shall i say, recipe ;) on styling a list using CSS.

It all inspired by a restaurant menus, which have the dish described on the left hand side followed by a dotted line that continues to the right side of the menu where the price is situated.

Even the very first beginner in styling using CSS will hardly find any problem reading through the tutorial!

It is not just a tutorial on how to make the list looked like this and that kinda things. It starts from ground zero. With all the possibility, even those with bad looking results called A Recipe for Disaster! Nice name BTW :D

Practically this is a study case, where you will see the good things and the bad things, and learn from all of those to apply and get the very best style.


The end result were just awesome ! Whether you're on FF or IE, this simply is a must to learn :D

Usually i just bookmarked all the good CSS tutorial out there. But this one deserves a whole post for it :D It truly is A Recipe for Success ;)

Happy Thanksgiving 2007

(image credits: *AngELofREbellion)


To all my readers in the U.S. and Canada, and those who celebrate

Happy Thanksgiving 2007

Thank you for all your support and for keep reading my blog :D
Wish you all a nice holiday with your family ^^

The Story of Tatty Teddy Bear

Did you know those ugly looking Teddy Bear ? A grey bear with a blue nose, that has torn all over his body ? Err.. i mean.. i don't really know all kinds of Teddy Bear, but when i saw this kind is becoming popular back then, i was kinda feel strange, what's so cute and nice from this bear ?

Well, anyway, Veron got a very nice story behind this Tatty Teddy Bear :) Now after i read the story, i think this Tatty Teddy Bear is kinda cute though ;P

......

The little bear was now so cold that his nose started turning blue... so cold that his brown fur started turning grey.

He was cold, unloved and all alone in the world, and felt very, very sad.

Winter finally passed and the weather got warmer. One beautiful spring day, a little girl was playing near the old house, when she spotted the grey bear in the pile of unwanted things. He was like no other bear she had ever seen and she pulled him out from where he was trapped.

She dusted him down and lifted him high in the sky to look at him.

“A grey teddy bear… with a blue nose?” she thought. “How strange!”

The teddy bear wanted to cry. He thought she didn’t like him and would throw him back with the other unwanted things.

“But he’s lovely!” she continued and she fell completely in love with him.

.....

Now, i'm started to think for buying this one for my girlfriend :P Christmas is near ;) This Tatty Teddy Bear is a perfect gift i think :D I can tell her the story behind this poor Teddy Bear :D

Anyway, read The Story of Tatty Teddy Bear here, it is made using Flash ;) with a nice flip effects, just like you read the real book :D

OpenBook - Handy Firefox Add-ons !

If you are using Firefox, then this OpenBook Add-ons is a must have !

You see, the default Firefox Bookmark dialog window is kinda ... not perfect ... in my geeky view :P

It's a bit waste of time, to add extra clicks to save a bookmark to certain folder. You hafta expand the tree, choose your folder, etc. These extra steps can save you enough time when bookmarking ;) especially when 'someone' is around :P


OpenBook add-ons allows a nice customization for this old boring ... not perfect ... bookmark dialog.

It will transform your default bookmark into this beauty !

All in one place ! Including all those tree, you can even have the whole complete properties, the url, keyword, and description too (for those of you who loves details ;) )!

PERFECT !

So, everytime you hit Ctrl+D to bookmark, you will have your bookmarks tree opened automatically !

It has a capability of remembering your last folder that you save your bookmark into ;)

What more could you ask for ?! :D

If that's not saving you enough time, here comes the ultimate options for you ! :D

Activate the options to 'Add bookmark to folder below'

Choose your default folder for all the bookmarks to go into (you can sort it later on :P)

And there you have it ! Hit Ctrl+D ! Bam ! No dialog box ! Your bookmark will straight into your folder ! :D

How's that for saving your time ?! ;)

Bottom words, this OpenBook Firefox Add-ons is a must have one for me :) and for you too ;)

Have a nice day ! Start bookmarking more often now ;)


[via: the How-To Geek]

[GIVEAWAY] 2nd Round of My Name In Arabic

Previously Reem and me are running a GIVEAWAY for a FREE Arabic Name.

And again, we have a VERY GOOD NEWS for everybody ;)

2nd Round of FREE 3 Arabic Names for 3 lucky reader is up for a grab ;)

Well, you know the rules

Simply post a comment here, WRITE your name AND your PRONUNCIATION (a name without pronunciation will not be counted !)

This giveaway will last for one week until the next Friday, November 23th, 2007

Good luck, and have a nice weekend ;)


p.s: for those of you who don't have a Blogger account, don't hesitate, use the Other option, even anonymous will do ;) just write your name and the pronunciation :)

Get Your Facebook Notified by FizzBoost !

Lorien Benjamin Gamaroff developed a really useful desktop application. A Notifier. Yes, FizzBoost a Facebook Notifier!

With recent Facebook hype everywhere around the world, you can get many notifications, message, invites, zombies, slayers, etc.

FizzBoost aims to bring the best in alert program. It's the perfect companion to Facebook.

FizzBoost for Windows exploded onto the scene in mid 2007 and immediately made an impression on Facebook users. Bringing together the best of all the other alert programs, its clean interface and snazzy alerts, FizzBoost is the perfect companion to Facebook.

No need to logged in to your Facebook every ten minutes or so. You won't get caught easily by your boss if you had this FizzBoost, while you can still now what happenin' in your Facebook world ;)

FizzBoost is packed with a complete feature you can expect for ;)

• View Facebook Feeds directly in FizzBoost!
• Update your status directly in FizzBoost without having to go to your Profile Page.
• A sound for your notification.
• Twitter Status Updates You can now sync your Status between Facebook and Twitter.
• Notifications of Friend, Group and Event Invites.
• Notifications of Pokes, Unread Mail and Unread Shares.
• The ability to view your friends with convenient shortcuts to Message, Poke, View Profile.
• Notifications of Wall Posts.
• View Friend Photo Albums from within FizzBoost.
• Upload Photos to Albums and Create Albums from within FizzBoost.
• Nifty Event Viewer

More importantly Lorien the developer of this application is really active on the FizzBoost Applications and Discussion Board ;) This is a very nice situation, i certainly choose an application that really had an active developer, not like others who just create and then ignored it completely! Well, i'm not sayin' that the developer should be there 24/7, i mean if the application was 100% perfect then you can do that. Well that might be a little exaggerating :P but again, it's always nice to see the developer are still around right ?

Anyway, like Lorein said,

Try it... you won't be disappointed!

FizzBoost is the best desktop notifier for Facebook ! Highly recommended for you to try it out ;)

Congratulations to Winners of My Name in Arabic GIVEAWAY

The Winners of My Name in Arabic GIVEAWAY contest is out.

Congratulations to all the winners ;)

Reem have done a MARVELOUS work on the 3 names ! The screenshot above speaks for it ;)

Each person, gets 3 different FONTS for the name! Instead of just two which i mention in the contest before. This was A VERY GENEROUS of Reem !

Another word, initially i was supposed to mention that a full name would be counted as two names! But then again, Reem is willing to do your full name counted as one ! Thanks Reem ! So the screenshot above is not your full name. But no worry, the results are in your full name ;)

And to Bruno, Joshua and Helen, as soon as you read this post, drop me a mail (look for my email at the very bottom of this page).

Each of you will get 3 formats ! A .jpg .doc and .pdf ! Nice eh ?! ;)

Bottom words, i would like to thanks Reem from My Name in Arabic for all his efforts to make this GIVEAWAY contest possible :)

Congratulations again to all the winners !

My Ubuntu 7.10 Arrived !

I made a request for a free CD of the new Ubuntu 7.10 on Oct 19, 2007. And yesterday the thing is arrived ! It took only 3 weeks to ship to Singapore ! That was fast ! :D And the timing is perfect. I'll be spending this weekend with this new toy :P

I had to request a CD coz the file is to big for me to download :P But if you have a decent connection, you might as well download the Ubuntu 7.10 image :)



The whole package was perfect ! The CD nice, no scratch at all :D And it comes with a nice STICKER ! 4 nice Ubuntu Sticker !

And for those of you who wanted to request the CD for free, here you go

Many thanks to Canonical and Ubuntu ^^