Josue Rodriguez

Google Tasks with FireFox

2009-03-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick tip, for anyone looking to integrate Google Tasks (standalone) with FireFox, you can bookmark "http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig?pli=1" then change the bookmark properties to load it via the sidebar, hence you get standalone version of Tasks, and become a bit more productive.

See my preview:

Two of the same or just a story?

2008-11-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

I must admit, I'm a trailer junkie. I like spending my time watching movie trailers from Apple's website so that I can look forward to good cinema entertainment at my local theaters but today was a bit different. I noticed something odd about two particular movie previews and it leads me to believe there is more to each plot and the actresses that play each role.

I watched a few weeks ago "The World Unseen" by the beautiful actresses Sheetal Sheth & Lisa Ray. The story: a free-spirited woman named Amina (Sheetal) meets a traditional wife/mother, Miriam (Lisa), both women divided by culture and society learn a great deal about one other when their paths cross together yet stuck in a complex love triangle. It's a drama movie, so it begs to be a "chick flick" without much interpretation.

Today, I came across the trailer "I Can't Think Straight" by the same actresses Sheetal & Lisa. The story: spirited Tala (Lisa) is in preparation of her wedding until she encounters Leyla (Sheetal), they both become best-friends in which they fall in love for one another. This is also another "chick flick", so let’s not beat around the bush too much. (No pun intended)

Now here's my conclusion. After seeing both trailers I've come to think that: (a) they are the only two actresses to pull these stories, (b) they both wanted to be part of another excellent storyline or (c) they have a lesbian secret to share with the world and they are creatively releasing two movies to explain their “real-as-you-can-get” and “coming-out-of-the-closet” love affair. I'm more incline to think the answer is "all the above" because frankly I love women who love women, it is one of men’s greatest fantasies. I just hope that it really is the real deal; their lesbian love that is.

Coincidently both movies are directed by Shamim Sarif. I'm not too fond of chick flicks, but this may look good after all and I might just see them. So folks, go watch the movie trailers (below) for yourself and tell me what you think. Am I right?

The World Unseen

I Can't Think Straight

4HourSearch & Me

2008-08-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, SERP's should be taken with a grain of salt.

I came across the new search engine 4HourSearch, which mocks the recently released "Cuil" site. Sam Pullara, the developer of 4HourSearch makes available the source code to his own demonstration of Yahoo's BOSS and YUI tools, so I took a quick peek at his demo.

I did a basic search for my own name and the results were a bit scary for me. My blog (this one) was linked to an Orlando (FL) armed robber's mugshot as you see below:

My blog description but the mugshot is not me.

Now, I'm not blaming the developer of 4HourSearch nor Yahoo. But imagine some authority figure was to use Yahoo's search results only to find my personal or related details and came to a conclusion that I have committed a crime based on the example SERP pictured above! It's disturbing and unacceptable; a "false accusation" in same cases.

Before any SERP's can be considered plausible, one must understand how vital information is used, linked and sometimes doubtful when doing research or just plainly looking for information on someone.

By the way, I think Sam Pullara's demo is a great example of new creative search engines on the rise.

Apache 2.2 & PHP 5 (troubleshooting tip to fix force-download php script from localhost server)

2008-03-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

1) Make sure the 'libphp5.so' file exists in '/usr/lib/apache2/modules' and file 'libapache2-mod-php5' is installed, use 'sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5' to install.

2) Create a 'php5.conf' in '/etc/apache2/mods-enabled' then insert the code below:

LoadModule php5_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp5.so

AddType application/x-httpd-php3 .php3
AddType application/x-httpd-php3-source .php3s

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

NOTE: Apache2 will load all the *.conf/*.load files automatically when it starts/restarts.

3) Make sure to edit the file 'default' in '/etc/apache2/sites-available' folder to the code below.
These settings are for VirtualHost's/DocumentRoot and more:

# Enable named virtual hosts
NameVirtualHost *

# Override the default httpd.conf directives. Make sure to
# use 'Allow from all' to prevent 403 Forbidden message.

Options Indexes ExecCGI FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Allow from all

# A basic virtual host config

DocumentRoot /var/www/websites/

ServerName dev.mysite.com
ServerAlias mysite
DocumentRoot /var/www/websites/mysite/

NOTE: The 'default' file overrides 'httpd.conf' settings because it's configurations loaded after the 'httpd.conf' loads.

4) Make sure the file '/etc/hosts' has the following DNS settings for localhost server:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 dev.mysite.com
127.0.0.1 mysite

5) Last step, load the server via browser 'http://localhost/'. This will give you a directory listing or point to index.php/index.html file.

6) While in browser, if you site directory continues to force-download the php script then clear browser cache and refresh.

BONUES TIP: to enable mod_rewrite for htaccess in server, make sure the module 'rewrite' (mod_rewrite) is installed, then use command 'sudo a2enmod rewrite' to enable it in apache2.

International Raving

2007-05-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

Plans have been set in motion to travel to Barcelona, Spain for two weeks (two weeks from now) with great friends. The apartment is reserved and the rave list continues to grow. My hope is that I have enough time to sightsee and learn more about the cultural environment. It's my first time to Europe and I don't want to have high expectations, at least not yet. I will be blogging about my experience and post pictures as often as I can. Fourteen hour flight is a long way to travel, but I only hope to carry with me enough entertainment to last me through, spark a few conversations onboard and learn a little Catalan if possible.

We expect to run into other friends from Miami, in the second week during the SONAR music festival.

Stay tune.

I Love House Music on MySpace

2007-03-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

If you like House music, here's a little widget I made using Google's MP3 flash player.

Streaming live house music from your MySpace profile, just enter the HTML code below in your About Me and enjoy all the HouseMusique from NetMusique!

<a href="http://www.netmusique.com" target="_blank">HOUSEMUSIQUE - Deep Underground House Grooves from NETMUSIQUE</a><br>
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://mail.google.com/mail/html/audio.swf?audioUrl=http://scfire-nyk0l-1.stream.aol.com:80/stream/1033" height="26" width="425">
<param name="movie" value="http://mail.google.com/mail/html/audio.swf?audioUrl=http://scfire-nyk0l-1.stream.aol.com:80/stream/1033" />
<param name="allownetworking" value="internal" />
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" />
<param name="enableJSURL" value="false" />
<param name="enableHREF" value="false" />
<param name="saveEmbedTags" value="true" />
</object><br />

Don't break your wallet for the iPhone yet.

2007-03-05T11:38:00.000-08:00

Guy Kawasaki has a great post on the great expectations of the iPhone from Apple.

Here are a few points Guy makes and I agree and ponder about:

#2
Will people tolerate Cingular’s Edge network? I switched from Cingular to Verizon to get EVDO. Edge is supposed to be three to fours times slower than EVDO. The knock on EVDO is that it has much less coverage, but I’ve seldom had coverage problems. Maybe only people like me who have used EVDO will ever realize that Edge is so much slower...

#4
Is there voice navigation? This will help the keypad issue, but I haven’t seen anything that says that there will be. If you can do this on a Windows Mobile smartphone, I’d be astounded if you can’t on an iPhone. But I’ve been astounded before.

#6
Will people pay $500-600 for the convergence of phone, Internet device, and music player? And this doesn’t even count the $100 or so contract-termination fee since carriers treat current customers worse than new ones. Perhaps we should look at the iPhone as an Internet tablet or a PSP for old people—if you didn’t have to buy a service contract. (Will an iPhone run without a SIM card in it?) Maybe Apple could remove the phone from iPhone and make it a high-end iPod.

#8
What’s the impact of a closed system where developers cannot create software for a phone? Imagine, for example, if you could only use iLife and iWork on your Macintosh. Is that what using the iPhone will be like? What about VPN? What about synching with an Exchange server? This is a consumer phone, but consumers do have corporate jobs.

I'll save my money for now until all major bugs in the 1st release of the iPhone have been fixed. The phone is sleek and stylish running MacOSX. The real question is, will I switch from my cheap, unlimited minutes, and useful MetroPCS phone to the more expensive, limited calls, and contracted plan by Cingular? If you are not awared yet, Cingular will have exclusivity over all other mobile networks (T-Mobile, Sprint, etc) on how the iPhone will be sold with whatever plans they make you pay for.

I left Cingular over 2 years ago and wouldn't go back, but the iPhone is just tempting me to reconsider. If Apple or anyone outside the company happens to sell unlock version of the iPhone, i'll be on that sweet baby faster than you can say "APPLE".

Bloggers Common Grammer Mistakes

2007-03-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

I've read many blogs and articles on how bloggers make simple but repetitive mistakes when it comes to their grammer. I, too, have made the same mistake over and over again but I try to correct myself when I catch 'em.

"What grammer mistakes" you ask? Using such incorrect words in a sentence like "Their vs There" and "Your vs You're". I have to say, the hardest one to remember would be "It's vs Its".

So read CopyBlogger's "5 Common Mistakes That Make You Look Dumb".

When you've learned something from the article, I'll be you'll come back to your most recent blog or article to make those minor corrections =)

I think Brian of CopyBlogger and I shared the same educational experience, as he says:

I learned to write by reading obsessively at an early age, but when it came time to learn the “rules,” I tuned out. If you show me an incorrect sentence, I can fix it, but if I need to know the technical reason why it was wrong in the first place, I go ask my wife.

I have no wife, but if I need to know the technical reason, I'll simply search for it online.

Unhappy Americans, Be Happier

2007-02-24T19:19:00.000-08:00

Adrian G. White, a psychologist at the University of Leicester, made a mapping of the top 20 happiest countries around the globe.

Unfortunately, I'll give it to you straight, USA didn't make the top 20... but hey, look at the bright side America, we made it as # 23 so we have a long way to go now.

Maybe Stephen Colbert can do something about this study?

Maybe if all tv networks were tuned to 20/20's John Stossel's report on "Scared Stiff", we would all be less stressful and more happy with what we do and how we live.

Keep on smiling America and "don't worry, be happy" =)

via Guy Kawasaki

JetBlue's flight delays extends to Iraq

2007-02-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

The Borowitz Report breaks news that President George W. Bush has selected JetBlue as the dedicated airline to bring back troops home from Iraq.

President Bush stated “Setting an exact timetable for a withdrawal from Iraq would be playing right into the enemy’s hands... By going with JetBlue, our enemy will have no idea when we’re leaving.”

It comes as no surprise that JetBlue's CEO David Neeleman had to take desperate measures to reaffirm the consumer of solutions to the airline which faced recently with flight delays, lasting almost 6 hours inside the airplane in the middle of the runway. With pressure from the media and the public, JetBlue declared a Customer Bill of Rights, which in hope will give consumer's an advantage to future flight delays or problems.

Makes anyone wonder how long will it take for the troops to come back home? Well, according to President Bush's "strategery" plan, US troops may return as late as Easter of 2012.

If JetBlue's flight delays persist, we will be seeing future flight delays in Iraq lasting longer than 6 hours or worst even for days.