Blogged on September 28, 2007 at 04:11
This post won’t mean anything to you unless your Portuguese, or live and speak Portuguese and have interest in the sporting life in Portugal.
** Pictures and Video after the break **
Some months ago, every time I wanted to read sports news online, I’d go straight to Record Online (I’m not even going to link them… keep reading to know why!).
Now that I’m away from my beloved country, I subscribed to some news feeds… well, I already had some, but not so many sports-related, since I’d always go for a “bica e ler o jornal” after lunch, and get my daily updates on soccer and sports news there. So I subscribed to Record’s feed on my favorite team (Sporting Clube de Portugal for those who are wondering :p). So yesterday, as I was reading the feeds, a specific one caught my attention and so I proceed to read the full article. I always open a bunch of tabs in the background as I read the feeds, and go back to them after I collected a few to read. To my surprise, my Safari window resized, and showed a pop-up: one of those “You’ve been infected with Virus and Spyware!!” (it included a pseudo-progress bar, like it was actually checking my computer!) For Pete’s sake, a Windows-only app running on my… OS X?? Yeah, sure, I’m gonna buy that now!! WOW
Than the page I go to the page of the article: nothing but the side columns, header and footer… no real content there!! Record’s new website (I don’t know how old it is… just noticed it now) is not only b0rked with spyware fake ads, like the ones you’d expect from pr0n or piracy-related websites (even the “big” ones are more careful to what kind of ads get there!) .
And the design… Oh God!!! Did they pay for that crap??
And thinking Record is one of the best sellers in sports newspapers… I for one will not buy a single issue again when I go back to Portugal, I’ll unsubscribe to it’s feed immediately and recommend everyone to do the same! UNACCEPTABLE!
PS: For those wondering, I do have Safari 3.0 with popup block activated and even SafariBlock which is an “AdBlock”-like plugin that works great! And I did try the same website with WebKit, just to see if the content would appear. And with Firefox, then content does show up, but also do the popup ads…
PS2: If you think “Oh, I have AdBlock+ and I’m not getting those ads or popups” you should consider that most people are using Internet Explorer with no ad blocking system installed, and might just believe the “story” does ads present them!
Like I said: U.N.A.C.C.E.P.T.A.B.L.E
PS: I made a little video to show how the page looks in Safari, and took some snapshots of the “ads” that pop’ed up! Click “More” to see them!
Read more… »
Blogged on September 25, 2007 at 05:08
from andrewparker.net
via evhead.com
It’s so true… Since the advent of Twitter, it’s hard for the “regular blogger” to not be tempted to just say whatever they want to say… in under 140 characters…
Anybody else with me on this?? 
Blogged on September 25, 2007 at 03:25
… almost a week ago!
And so I did take a picture of the box the moment I got it off of FedEx’s ugly brown box! :pI received it almost a week ago, and have been ACTIVELY “playing” with it! I could go on and on about how “great it is”, etc… but I won’t: read 32482734982734 blog posts out there on that if you must!On my behalf I can just say that my experience with it has been beyond what I expected… and I had some “up there” expectations on this thing.
I did install Installer.app and fiddled around with some of it’s apps! Like the geek I am, I installed Apache, OpenSSH and irssi! :p hehe It worked!!!! But I don’t plan on keeping any of this in there, as I don’t have use for it, and I rather take advantage of the new features coming out firmware 1.1.1!! 
Because of this, I encourage anyone that would like me to try their website on it and send some screenshots, I’d be glad to do it! Just leave a comment and I’ll do that… at least for the first few (don’t wanna loose my job over it! :p)
PS: I do have some complaints, bug “reports”, etc… Just keep checking as I’ll try to post them! Oh… and get Twitter and follow me there!! Most of the bugs that infuriate me make their way “Live” into Twitter… LOL
PS2: I’m trying out MarsEdit 2.0… It’s annoying that it doesn’t have a WYSIWYG editor… At least for including the links, I feel it would make my life a WHOLE lot easier… is it just me? :S Besides, I really don’t see it’s “biiiig” advantage. Yes, it’s useful to have Flickr (did I mention I got myself a Pro account?? whoaa :D) integrate so nicely, and I like having the ability of controlling the code… But at least in WP’s editor I have both… err..
Blogged on September 24, 2007 at 23:19
I couldn’t agree more with the self-titled “unsuccessful writer” Jeff Harrell, when he rambles on the true reason behind Apple’s decision of not allowing custom ringtones on their new & shiny iPhones. Of course, they kind of backed on that decision by allowing those debatable “double paid” ringtones through iTunes Music Store (not on every music though…).
Make sure to read his full post, but basically he says:
Apple is, far beyond anything else, a brand. It’s not a computer company; it’s not a consumer electronics company. It’s a brand. And everything Apple does serves that brand, which is by far the company’s most valuable asset.
Apple, therefore, has a strong vested interest in making sure that people who see other people using iPhones aren’t immediately annoyed by them. So there would be no ringtones that are creepy-as-hell covers of bad 80s synth-pop jingles as interpreted by computer-simulated frog sounds.
Oh my… I think he got it right on spot!
Blogged on September 18, 2007 at 18:23
Well… To avoid having a whole month go by without updates, I’ll try to summarize the main reasons why this happened:
- Switched ISPs (Clix > Meo) and that left me sometime without internet.
- When I had internet again, I had to pack stuff… (read on)
- On September, 6th I officially moved to the US: Porto > Frankfurt > Chicago > Des Moines on plane and Des Moines > Ames by car. Yes, I now officially live in Ames, Iowa, US. (check the Google Maps links ;))
- I couldn’t bring my PC tower (my hand-picked one… FOR SALE as of now… contact me for details!), so besides my work computer (Apple iMac G5) I’m somewhat offline.
- I’m not in the US with a work visa as I’m not getting my paycheck from here. I’ll be in training and will do some work, but I’ll be paid from Portugal. This situation my change in the future depending on… might happen. (updates on this later on, along with details of my current… errr… “job description”)
- I won’t buy my next computer, a Macbook Pro, until OS X Leopard comes out… And I hope no rumors of MBP updates come out by then… or I might just have to wait!! :/
- To ease my wait until then, I will buy an Apple iPhone… There, I’ve said it!
- I will now try to update this a LOT more often (3 times a week is my personal minimum goal average).
- Even though I haven’t been updating here, I have been trying to keep my Twitter somewhat updated… And oh, I did upload some pictures of where I’m staying to my Flickr!
- Thank for reading this. I know it’s personal stuff, but after all that’s what makes blogging such a social part of life.
PS: Yes, I always wanted to make a “10-item-list” blog post…
PS2: I’m getting the iPhone tomorrow 
YEY (had it sent on next day shipping! ;))
PS3: I just (09/23 2am) edited this post to get the links working again… Safari 3 beta is acting very weird with the wordpress editor… And FF had some issues aswell… Edited on Camino 1.5.1 with no problems (I’m loving it so far… If I can only get some of my FF extensions here… ;))
Hey! I‘m Levi Figueira, an ‘82 portuguese tech enthusiast a.k.a geek! My interests range from design, photography, multimedia, production and music to linux, networking and development! *Personal tastes are subject to change without prior notice* :p Enjoy! =)
