Silent Bob Speaks ! New book by Kevin Smith is out.

Looking for a funny and quick read ? Something for the toilet perhaps ? Well look no further because Silent Bob aka Kevin Smith has released his collected writings ( short articles published in Arena magazine and others ) titled Silent Bob Speaks ( as the image above suggests ).
The stories range from mildly to extremely funny and are mostly autobiographical. You'll get to read about Ben Affleck, Mr Smith's s#*ting problems and lot's of Hollywood inside scoop, although expect to read a lot of knows facts.
I'm not your average book reader, hell I only read manuals, but this book makes a good and quick read ( line spacing is a bitch on this one ) , I'm sure the hardcore fans will enjoy, the rest of you can actually skip it or snatch it from a friend.. need to know more ? click here..

The Yamamoto VOIP phone is one of the coolest ( or geekiest ) gadgets that can accompany your Skype account. All of the program tabs are accessible through the phone's top buttons ( in, out and two arrows ). The whole experience of Internet telephony becomes more natural and doesn't draw any attention if you are in an Internet cafe ( I've tried that myself ). Seems like if you are talking through a phonelike device people don't pay attention, while talking to thin air ( on a handsfree device ) draws all the attention you can get and makes people believe you're nuts, well in Greece at least..

Skype in Greece ? Well yeah !

After the initial drawbacks I finally got Skype to work as promised, well almost.. I managed to set up Skype along with a Yamamoto USB Skype compatible phone on an internet cafe with an 8 Mbps connection ( a standard home connection for the Northern Part of Europe, a luxury for the Greek folk.. ) and I managed to make crystal clear phonecalls through SkypeOut which seems to be the most useful function of Skype since most of my friends are not willing to install the software, yet. I am hoping that Skype will become the standard since it's dead easy to setup and use and with a larger following my guess is that prices will drop. My second hope is that rates for Greek landlines and cellphones will drop even more making Skype an affordable solution for geeks (ahem), Greeks like me.

Got Skype ?

I tested Skype today ( free internet telephony through a p2p network ) and more specifically I tested SkypeOut which is a service provided by Skype for making calls to standard land and cell phones all around the globe, through the internet.
I'm quite sure SkypeOut works fine in the States but what about Greece I hear you say. Well let's just say that it needs 4 to 5 years of evolution ( unless of course someone fixes something on the Greek side ).
I made 3 phonecalls ( 2 on cell and one on a standard land connection ) and in all of the cases the voice on the other side was coming in slow motion, I know that sounds weird but that's exactly what I was listening to, a slow motion version of the speakers original voice. My voice was heavily distorted making it not recognizable, all in all a major fix on SkypeOut for Greece is needed. I won't compare charges made by Telcom companies and Skype because the latter's product is still far away from complete, the day I manage a decent call to a land phone then I'll revise my review.

Calling another computer on the other hand was flawless. I called a PC in my own office thus doubling the bandwidth used and everything worked fine. My guess is that Skype started as an Internet only phone and now the company is trying to move into the more common land phones area.

Skype will be a top choice in some 3 to 4 years time ( in my country that is ).

EDIT: Just to be fair I tried SkypeOut over my 56k modem line @ home and I called my girlfriend at her house number and things were a lot better than my first try this morning. Both our voices sounded ok and there was but minimum lag so communication was quite possible so my guess is that a 56k can also do the job and the best use for Skype would be to call relatives and friends abroad, especially in the States and in the UK, since rates there are crazy cheap.

If you are interested in contacting me through Skype my nick is " alexk7110 " .

Please sign in ( this Hotmail header makes me laugh ).

Do people still sign up for Hotmail accounts ?
It sounds like such a joke nowadays. 25 megs of space ( HELLO ? ) and 250 if you live in the states ( ahhhhh .. wtf ?).
Microsoft being the dominating force in the computer business for so long kinda makes you wonder how it managed that, cheap bastards.
I don't remember giving a penny at Google yet it offers me a great e-mail solution ( Gmail ), a great picture archiver ( Picasa ), this very blog ( Blogger ) not to mention the obviously great search engine that started it all FOR FREE, yet Microsoft is still number one. My guess is that you have to be a prick to get the top notch in business.
Who knows maybe in some 10 years time the picture will change.

Yahoo Calendar

Yahoo Calendar
Originally uploaded by alexk7110.

Did you know that every yahoo e-mail account also has an appoinment calendar built right into it? Well, I have been using my Yahoo e-mail account for years now and I never thought of clicking that calendar tab on top of it. Today while looking for a currency converter I stumbled upon yahoo calendar only to realise it was built in my e-mail account. Nifty.. if you have an account check it out. Amongst other things it displays your city's current and near future weather ( as long as yo choose your city that is.. ) Have fun with it.

Essential PIM on a USB stick, try all your contacts and your schedule on any computer.

Looking for a free Personal Information Manager, and one that runs on a USB stick that you can plug into any computer and keep up with your schedule ? Look no further Essential PIM is here, in two flavors, standalone and USB powered with no setup required. My money is on this little app, the filofax has been dead for years now, your palm is next, well maybe not, still go try Essential PIM at http://www.essentialpim.com/index.php

The coolest skin for Winamp !!

This has to be the coolest winamp skin ever, packed with features and goodies, you have to try it out. You can find this wonderfull skin over at deviantart, it's called Avalon. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/13506806/

Why wasn’t I informed earlier on? [A shortcut monologue.]

Did you know that Winamp had global keyboard shortcuts? All you have to do is enable this feature in it’s properties and then press Ctrl+Alt+Home for pause, Ctrl+Alt+Insert for play C.+A.+Page Up, Down for Pev Next, and of course you can customize those settings to suit your own needs. Now why wasn’t I informed of that the day it came out, this could be a month or 4 years for all I know. It’s pretty clear that I am a shortcut freak and since I work 8 hours everyday with headphones on and winamp playing throughout my day this nifty feature is a major plus. If only Justin returned back to the winamp team to secure the growth of this wonderful player..

By the way I haven't smoked for 1 month, 3 weeks and 19 hours, saving 1,847.52 cigarettes and 249.41 Euro ( information courtesy of Quitomzilla, a firefox extension try it over @ update.mozilla.org .