Niri | Blog

This election has been special for many reasons and it’s become a world event with media coverage everywhere on a daily basis. Maybe that’s why a couple of folks from Ireland decided to create a website to see what the world as a whole thinks about the two candidates for the President of the United States.

I recommend checking it out and even if you don’t vote yourself it’s interesting to see the results and the breakdown of percentages for each country.

IF THE WORLD COULD VOTE

Here’s some information taken from their website.

Who is behind the site?

Just three guys from Iceland. The site is independent from all political parties, companies or hidden agendas. It’s just an idea a 22 yo guy in Iceland came up with and executed with a little help from a couple of friends.

Why are you doing this?

Just out of curiosity. The president of the United States is a powerful man, probably the most powerful person on the planet. So everyone seems to have an opinion on who should be the next president of the United States. We thought it would be interesting to see who would be the next president if the whole world could vote. It’s also a challenge to try to beat the number of voters in the last US elections. So spread the news!

How many times can I vote?

Only once. Each computer can only vote once. Yes you can clear your cookies and vote again, but we have a script(called the Psychic Monkey) that looks for multiple votes and specific voting patterns and deletes fake votes before we publish the results.

I’m from the U.S, can i vote?

Of course you can, that will only make it more interesting to see how the U.S would vote in relations to the rest of the world.

Where are the other candidates?

Unfortunately it is clear that either of these two will become president. Although the 3rd party candidates have a theoretical change, that wont happen. And since we are not giving the world a real chance to vote, we want to see which one of these two the world wants. If we do this again though, we will include the 3rd party candidates.

Do you really think the world should be able to vote?

No i don’t! The United States of America is an independent country. The website focuses on what would happen IF the world could vote. And lets not forget, we are only doing this for fun. Just to get the worlds opinion.

I really commend them on this effort and being a big fan of statistics and the freedom of speech it’s exciting to see the world chime in on such a high profile issue.

I hope everybody will use their voice and go vote on November 4th. This is an important day and if you have the right to vote you should really be part of this.

I’m a huge Bejeweled fan and if you haven’t heard of Bejeweled you’ve been living under a rock, with no Internet. (Remember you can get the Internet everywhere now so you have to spell that stuff out.)

For the uninitiated, or those who plainly do not care (so why are you still reading?!), Bejeweled came out in it’s first edition some eight years ago. The brainchild of Jason Kapalka and a few of his friends over at PopCap the game was first called Diamond Mine and was purely a Flash-based game back then.

Bejeweled 2: Deluxe

I got really addicted to Bejeweled 2 which featured more polished graphics over the crude, low-gfx first version. Today I play Bejeweled 2 on my XBox, my iPhone and occasionally fire it up on my PC when I need to refresh my brain. (For those days I run out of Brawndo!)

If you want to know how popular Bejeweled is world wide consider this; in the eight years it’s been around, addicts like myself have dropped around $300 million – and more than 6 billion hours – on the first and second game. Consider those numbers for a while. Now, on to Bejeweled Twist!

According to developers PopCap’s been developing Bejeweled Twist for 3 freakkin’ years. This better be a smashing hit because Twist will have some amazingly large shoes to fill.

Get set for a vivid sensory rush as you spin and match explosive gems for shockwaves of fun. Rotate jewels freely to set up electrifying combos, outwit obstacles, and blast high-voltage gems. Rev up with a strategic challenge or just relax in the gem-spinning zone. Any way you play, you’ll find endless ways to win!

Check out the video from the official web site

Some screen shots of the new gem.

Bejeweled Twist

Bejeweled Twist

Bejeweled Twist

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP/Vista
Memory: 256 (minimum); 512+ (recommended) MB RAM
Processor: 1.2GHz MHz or faster
DirectX: 8 (minimum); 9.0c+ (recommended)
Internet: Internet connection is required to register both the download and CD-ROM versions of the game

So what are you waiting for?! Head over to PopCap and download the new demo.

I’ve been using the Internet since it was available back in Norway. Through my years I’ve changed my online persona and user names a few times, often using different user names for different web services. It’s not always easy to remember what you registered where, and sometimes it’s annoying signing up for a site only to find out your user name is taken. Enter Usernamecheck.com. They have a search engine database that will check your name against 68 of today’s popular online services (Yep, that would be Web 2.0).

I hid my username for all you wannabe-h@ckz0rs out there.

TechCrunch readers have commented on the service being inaccurate at times. You’ll just have to check for yourself. Or raise your stalker rating and check on your friends! ;)

If you have a WordPress blog you probably already know this but in case your weekend was a little fuzzy (Hope you’re using Google’s Mail Goggles!) here’s what WordPress had to say about this update:

A vulnerability in the Snoopy library was announced today. WordPress uses Snoopy to fetch the feeds shown in the Dashboard. Although this seems to be a low risk vulnerability for WordPress users, we wanted to get an update out immediately. 2.6.3 is available for download right now.

If you don’t want to download the entire package for the update you can download the following two files and copy them over to your 2.6.2 installation:

1. wp-includes/class-snoopy.php
2. wp-includes/version.php

As always WordPress is on top of things keeping us blog lemmings safe! Thanks for your hard work guys!

WordPress 2.6.3

PS. I wrote this post on a shiny new DasKeyboard Ultimate. My review of both the Ultimate and the Professional is coming soon so stay tuned!

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret

Had I read this on April 1st I would dismiss this as an April Fools joke. Maybe that’s even where this ingenious idea started. I’m talking about Google’s latest Google Labs addition, Mail Goggles! Even the name is funny!

The concept is awesome. This add-on lets you define a period of time during the day throughout the week when you are most likely to to send e-mails you surely will regret later. You probably get the idea, but to illustrate; that e-mail to your ex asking to get back together, or that drunken gibberish you sent to your team mailing list at work. All these horrible, but probably brilliant, ideas can now be prevented!

Mail Googles settings

The way it works is fairly simple. You go to Gmail / Settings / Labs and enable Mail Googles. Set your settings and choose your difficulty level as shown above. Next time you feel inclined to write a masterpiece at 2am after 12 beers and a tray of Jäger shots you might be presented with a screen similar to this after hitting that infamous Send button.

This will seem hard if you're an idiot

Now some of you should consider leaving this on all the time – I’m just saying! You know who you are!

The Fring App

Fring has released the iPhone version of their service today as a free download in the App Store.

Fring allows you to chat and interact with others on a variety of networks including Skype, MSN, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo, Twitter, and ICQ. In addition, Fring offers Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) using the iPhone’s Wi-Fi connection. Features listed include:

• VoIP (Voice) Calls over WiFi
• Instant Messaging
• Integrated dynamic contact list ?with real-time contact availability
• SIP integration
• Multiple Connection types

Fring supports SkypeOut and SIP which allows you to make calls to landline and mobile phones. Some charges may apply depending on the type of call and plan. Fring is available as a free download in the App Store. (App Store)

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Norway drops bid to host 2018 Winter Olympics due to estimated costs

OSLO, Norway — Norway has dropped plans to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics after new estimates doubled the projected cost of hosting the Games in the Arctic city of Tromsoe. ((Tromsø))

Silly Canadians, it’s Tromsø!

“It was a difficult decision,” Tove Paule, president of the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports, said Monday.

Last week, a government-commissioned study estimated that the cost of hosting the 2018 Games would be about 29 billion kroner (C$5.1 billion), or nearly double the figure used by the Tromsoe ((again…Tromsø)) organizing committee.

That’s a bummer… Well at least we still have this!

iPhone 2.2 Includes Hidden Japanese Emoji Icons

According to MacRumors the latest iPhone 2.2 firmware has one hidden feature that should please Japanese iPhone customers: the inclusion of 461 emoji characters.

The hidden iPhone emoji (emoticons)

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Obama ‘08: The Official iPhone Application

In these times people are wanting change while protecting their shiny iPhones with their lives. The Obama camp has decided to combine the two. Basically you get the Obama ‘08 campaign on your phone.

Feature list

From the website

This year’s presidential election is a real chance for Americans to create change and build solidarity. This campaign has been about people like you making a difference. With Obama ‘08, you have the information and tools necessary to help deliver the change we need come this November.

Norway consumer body challenges Apple over iTunes.

So a Norwegian consumer agency has decided to go after Apple planning to take it to court over not being able to use iTunes store downloads on music players other than iPods. I don’t think they’ll get very far with this but they’re hoping other countries will follow suit and do the same thing.