Entertainment and Technology

This Blog is Moving

2012-02-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

Hello to all my readers. This short note is to let you all know that soon this blog will move from Blogger hosting to a self hosted Wordpress platform.

The URL will remain the same: wannatech.com , however post pages will no longer be available at the same addresses.

I was thinking about keeping the old blog here so you can easily find the old content but I have decided to simple move everything instead. Unfortunately I cannot keep the same URLs for all the old posts so if you are looking for an old post you will need to use the new blog's search feature.

This move will happen very soon, I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you.

The reasons for the move are simple, I rather not wait around until google bans this blog. It might sound paranoid but the fact is, I have been banned twice from other Google services and someone close to me has been banned from one as well. To make a long story short, I'm leaving Blogger before Google kicks me out. Also I have to admit that I'm using this blog as a guinea pig to test how smoothly I can move from Blogger to Wordpress.

The good news is I will be keeping my feeds at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Wannatech . I know what you're thinking, Feedburner is owned by Google as well but I don't mind losing my feed distributer.

Thank you for reading.

Still using Yahoo Mail Classic

2011-10-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

If like me you can't let go of Yahoo! Mail classic you will understand why I'm still using it long after Yahoo's deadline for making the big move. I believe they moved the date from September to October (is is a wonder that Yahoo has problem...). Anyway I kept it on my browser and I will do all I can to keep using it until it does not work anymore. Hopefully that time will not come soon.

Grimm on NBC - Palm product placement

2011-10-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

It seems that before HP had decided to pull the plug on Palm and WebOS they paid what must have been an important amount of money to showcase their Palm Pre on the pilot of Grimm. As you can see in the snapshot below the main character is holding a palm pre in his hand. I want to say that it's a clever product placement but maybe only Pre fanatics like myself noticed it. I assume the idea was to showcase the features of the touch screen. The character is seen ignoring a call by sliding his thumb from left to right on the screen. When the call came in I thought it was an iPhone because of the way the incoming call is featured on the screen than again maybe it was a call made from Skype because I'm not sure this is how incoming calls show up on WebOS. Then again I might be wrong I never owned a Pre and I have never seen the latest WebOS in action.

Palm Pre in NBS's Grimm

Palm Pre wallpaper on Grimm

I don't care if they don't make them anymore. I want one!

In case you are wondering about the show itself I think the pilot was really good, one of the best I've seen this season.

End of Yahoo Mail Classic on Monday September 19, 2011

2011-09-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

Fellow Yahoo! Mail Classic users, You only have a week left to enjoy the "old" version of Yahoo! Mail before it is taken offline. Yahoo! Mail Classic users will have to use the latest Yahoo Mail interface which according to Yahoo! is faster (2 times), has better spam filtering capabilities, than the old version. What I really appreciated about Yahoo! Mail is the fact that even when new versions of the Mail came out Yahoo! never forced users of the Classic version to adopt them, until now that is.

I enjoy using Yahoo! Mail classic because it's very easy to find my way around. I did not move to the New Yahoo Mail when it came alone because I quickly discovered that I could not create custom folders. For the volume and diversity of email I received everyday, custom folders are a must. Granted you could switch to the old version to create the folders and then go back to the new version to use them but I thought I was too much to ask for from users. I do a lot of email filtering and sorting using custom folders I find it to be more efficient than tagging emails.

I don't have anything particularly to say about the latest Yahoo! Mail, my only problem with it is that I have to give up something I am familiar with. I am simply not ready to learn to use a new interface and find out how to do things I have been doing for every with this new version of Y! Mail. Hopefully I will not be to annoyed, it's not my choice anyway. I also use Gmail, Hotmail/live, Facebook messaging, I still think Yahoo! Mail is the best, most convenient. It's easy to use, has an intuitive layout and is very flexible. I fell in love with Gmail at first then I found it to be a bit to rigid in the sense that you had to manage your email the way Gmail wants you to, yo could not customize the behavior. Of course the one thing Gmail mail does offer that makes it more attractive than Yahoo! Mail, in my opinion, is IMAP support. Nevertheless, I forward my Gmail messages to my Yahoo! inbox because most of my email reading and writing is done in a browser.

The End of Yahoo Mail Classic

2011-04-18T00:22:00.000-07:00

or How the color Purple is killing an Internet Giant!

I created my first Yahoo email address about 12 years ago. I'm a long time Yahoo Mail user and a huge Yahoo! fanatic. I do have to admit however that Yahoo is no longer the company it used to be. With competitors such as Microsoft, Google and now Facebook, it seems that Yahoo's best days are far behind it. But for someone who uses Hotmail, Gmail (I also had a usa.net address back then...) Yahoo Mail Classic has remained throughout the years my favorite web-based email.

I will not go over why I find Yahoo mail easier to use and much faster to load than Gmail. Hotmail has always had a spam problem. It's much better now than in earlier years but I constantly get "spam" from people in my contacts on Hotmail who also happen to have Hotmail addresses. When you consider that my Hotmail address is a secondary address that I only seldom use, the amount of spam I get there is outrageous.

So why don't I like the new Yahoo! Mail? Because, in my opinion, it fails in two major areas: speed and usability.

Old and new Yahoo! side by side. It's the Purple's fault.

Yahoo! promises that the new mail is faster and has an easier-to-use design. The truth is if you have a connection as slow as mine the New Yahoo mail will never be as fast as the Yahoo Mail Classic. It simply takes a little longer for the emails to show up, at least that's the impression I get. I imagine that for people with a broadband connection speed is not an issue.

As for the design, well, I can think of one word to describe it: annoying. Yahoo decided to remove to leaderboard ad on the top and replace it with a vertical banner on the right side of the page when you're checking and reading mail. I find it annoying because if my screen is not wide enough or if my resolution is too low, it leaves me with the feeling that the ad is eating up the reading space. Of course Yahoo allows you to collapse the ad but all it takes is for you to load another message and it's back. And did I mention the fact that each email opens in its own "page" (in addition to the Inbox page) consequently, you need to close each one of them when you're done. If you are like me and you seldom use the Previous and Next buttons to browse your email, this can be annoying. And have you tried to scroll down to browse you old messages? What a nightmare! Once again, if you have broadband (or only a few messages in your inbox) this may not be an issue for you. As for me, I haven't deleted an email in ages!

I'm guessing that Yahoo gets paid for the ads it displays per impression and not per click. The reason I say this is because I'm also guessing that this new side ad gets fewer clicks than the top banner ad. Then again, I may be wrong, its not like Yahoo shares its ad data with me.

Users are invited to make the switch now voluntarily until we are all upgraded to the New Yahoo Mail.I still fail to see what the New Yahoo! Mail has that the Yahoo! Mail Classic doesn't. Then again, I might just be the kind of person who resists change.

The following is the email I received. It was edited for privacy reasons.

Dear MJ,

Thank you for being a Yahoo! Mail user for the past 3 year(s). We look forward to bringing you an even faster, safer, easier-to-use Yahoo! Mail very soon.

In the coming months, we will ask you to upgrade to the newest version of Yahoo! Mail for your account not_my_actual_email@yahoo.com. All Yahoo! Mail customers will be asked to upgrade. But in the meantime, you don't have to wait, you can have the newest Yahoo! Mail today.

Upgrade Now

What You Can Look Forward To

• Faster email
• Latest Yahoo! Mail spam-protection technology
• Easier-to-use design
• Unlimited email storage so that you can keep everything you want

Learn more about the newest version of Yahoo! Mail.

When you upgrade to the newest version of Yahoo! Mail, everything in your account (messages, folders, contacts, etc.) will be there.

You Can Upgrade Today

You can upgrade now to the newest Yahoo! Mail if your browser is Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, Safari 4, or Chrome 5 or newer.

Upgrade Now
If you do not have one of these browsers, you must first update your browser (it’s fast and free), and then return to this email and click the Upgrade Now button.

If you don’t upgrade now, we recommend that you upgrade soon. Your current version of Yahoo! Mail will be available for the next few months, but eventually you will need to upgrade to the newest version of Yahoo! Mail , or review Yahoo! Mail Help for other options.

Thank you for being a loyal Yahoo! Mail user.

We hope you enjoy the newest version of Yahoo! Mail.

David McDowell
Senior Director, Yahoo! Mail Product Management

Did I mention that my browser of choice is Opera? Will this new Yahoo! Mail work with my Opera 11? I guess I'll find out on September 19.

Are Scotty and Lauren splitting the country vote

2011-04-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

I have read it over and over again that Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina should team up and make a country album together. Apparently it is something that many want to see happen and would like to be able to buy in the near future. In the mean time, Scotty and Lauren are still competing against each other and the five other remaining contestants on American Idol season 10. In spite of the love that country fans have for both southern contestants it does not seem to heart either one of them when comes the time to get the votes. Neither Scotty nor Lauren were in the bottom three last night unlike Paul McDonald (see this Paul McDonald bio) for instance who did not seem to be sharing votes with any other contestants. To be fair the guy didn't have enough votes to be safe let alone share them.

During the top 8 performance night Scotty McCreery sang I Cross My Heart while Lauren Alaina sang The Climb by Miley Cirus.

In the mean time people are finding resemblance between Scotty and many celebrities whether they are related to country music or not. Fans have also pointed out that Scotty seems to do a good job at picking songs that are just right for him.

In spite of Thia Megia's ely elimination from the finals, I think that younger contestants are usually favored in the competition both by the judges and the voters. Therefore I think they are going to be rooting for Lauren and since she is only one of two females left that should help her as well. I think the reason they didn't like Thia as much is because she acted and behave with what seemed to be more maturity than the average 16 year old (except when she gets criticized) I guess American Idol prefers Lauren because even though she looks older with all the makeup she still acts like a silly teen ager.

American Idol Season 10 Top 9 Performances

2011-04-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

We are in studio 36 at CBS Television City, the tension is growing and nine performers are about to make history at the American Idol: The Search for a Superstar Show. Steven Tyler introduced the American Idol show while standing inform of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Steven gave a quick rundown about what the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is all about. Contestants had to do songs performed by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. With a “Long Live Rock and Roll” Steven Tyler scream, Ryan Seacrest quickly takes the stage and the show begins, Live!

First up was Jacob Lusk. He chose “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson. Jacob sang the song at a slower tempo than the original which allowed for a softer soulful rendition. The co-writer Siedah Garrett and 3 background signers accompanied Jacob. Jacob showed off his showmanship by grabbing the microphone and prancing around the stage in a white vest and pants. The audience screamed “We Love You!”

Next, Haley Reinhart was to sing Janis Joplin's “Piece of My Heart”. Before she performed they showed her rehearsing and Will I. Am suggested that she put more emotion into her singing. This song is difficult to do properly because no one does it better than Janis. Janis Joplin's style of singing was always powerful and over-the-top. But Haley did a good job singing “Piece of My Heart.” The audience response was a bit better.

Casey Abrams performed next. He chose to sing the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Have You Ever Seen the Rain.” Casey sported an upright bass and a piccolo player. All the judges loved his performance. Lauren Alaina was up next with her soulful R&B version of Aretha Franklin's hit “Natural Woman.” Standing middle stage with red floodlights in the background, Lauren gave a sultry performance considering that she is only 16. Next to take the stage was James Durbin. He sang George Harrison's song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” He was accompanied by 2 female violinists and a female cellist. At the end of his song the crowd applauded with extended cheering and screaming. The judges liked seeing the “other side.”

Then it was on to Scotty McCreery. Scotty sang “That's All Right Mamma” by Elvis Presley. Scotty rocked the song while sitting on stairs with background singers. Then he stood up and commanded the song. At the end, young girls from the audience ran up onto the stage and hugged him! A new Scotty, loved it and flavor where some of the terms used by the judges to describe his performance.

Pia Toscano changed her predictable style of singing ballads by singing the Tina Turner song “River Deep Mountain High.” With a horn section and background singers she gave a good performance but the judges suggested that she study the great performers to improve her singing skills. Then Stefano Langone took the stage and sang “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge. His interpretation was smooth and cool and was received well by the audience and judges.

Surprisingly, maybe the best performance was given last by Paul McDonald with Johnny Cash's “Folsom Prison Blues.” Paul was told to sing “crazy” during rehearsal. And he did just that in a black suit and a wild hairdo. The bottom 3 for the April 7th, 2011 American Idol Results Show are Jacob Lusk, Stefano Langone and Paul McDonald. Tune in to the FOX Network and see the American Idol Results at 8/7c PM.

The result show was a bit of a surprise not only because Pia was eliminated but also because punk rocker Iggy Pop performed live. The Pia Toscano bio will tell you all you need to know about this songbird who auditioned multiple times for American Idol and who, until last night was thought to be a front runner this season.

Top 12 performances in brief - American Idol season 10

2011-03-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

Pia Toscano is so composed. The kind who would play the mean popular girl in high school. Except that she wears glasses. She's very strong vocally and probably one of the reasons people didn't vote for Ashton....She's being pimped so... I hope it won't push people away from her. A contender but maybe only for 2nd place because it doesn't seem like she can sing many different types of songs, power ballads yes, something else... not so sure it gets boring after a while on reality TV it only works for established stars.

James Durbin is surfing. You can tell he is in his element, he's comfortable and yet he is trying hard to show everybody night after night that he deserves to be there. He is doing a good job. I don''t know if he has star power like David Cook or even Adam Lambert but he has got something. A contender.

Steven Tyler is fun to watch, he's funny even when, especially when he doesn't say anything just his facial expressions...

There is something about the ones who look right into the camera during their performance. Paul McDonald does that really well. It's like he's looking right at you and I'm sure that look gets him tons of votes. That's something Stefano Langone does not do. Speaking of him have you read about Stefano Langone DUI scandal?

A seemingly effortless performance by Scotty and you don't have to try or be a country music fan to enjoy it. It was good, not the best ever but efficient and good, at this stage in the competition it's more than enough for him to advance. I hope he can wow people when the time comes. Much more enjoyable than Stefano's performance.

Naima is looking right into the camera and Jimmy Iovine loves her, she's in the pimp spot and has quick a$$ special effects they really want her to make it yes.

Zune player being phased out by Microsoft

2011-03-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

Microsoft throws the towel in the MP3 player battle. After failing to pose any kind of threat to the market's leader, the Apple iPod the Zune will be discontinued.

According to Bloomberg, Microsoft decided to focus on the software component of the Zune (worse MP3 player name ever, not cool at all) which can also be found on Windows Phone 7 and the XBOX among other devices. The Seattle firm also wishes to focus more on the music selling business.

Microsoft Zune player troubles

The Zune was launched in 2006 but it never really took off. In European markets it was launched only in 2010 and failed to be a hit there as well. To make matters worse the first version of the Zune was plagued with bugs and look kind of bulky compared to the sexier iPods.

Microsoft succeeded in producing a much better device afterward, the critically acclaimed HD Zune (pictured below) yet it was took late to compete with the iPods and their 70% market share.

If you always wanted a Zune player or if you are a gadget collector you might want to buy one now before they are no longer available in stores. Search Amazon.com for the Zune player Now!.

Win a free 64 bg Apple iPod touch.

American Idol Top 12 - Season 10

2011-03-10T19:33:00.000-08:00

Here is the list of the top 12 American Idol contestants for season 10.

Casey Abrams (A front runner, the judges love him and so do a lot of viewers), 20 years old from Idyllwild, CA.
Haley Reinhart (A lot of people like to hate her for some reason), 20 years old from Milwaukee, WI.
Jacob Lusk (I'm not a fan of his, I really don't get the appeal), 23 years old from Compton, CA.
James Durbin (He undeniably has something, he looks really comfortable when he performs and it makes it makes his performances enjoyable to watch), 22 years old from Santa Cruz, CA.
Karen Rodriguez (she seems like a good singer but I have yet to see the greatness in her), 21 years old from New York, NY.
Lauren Alaina (I think she's really good), 16 years old from Rossville, GA.
Naima Adedapo (wild-card selected by the judges), 26 years old from Milwaukee, WI.
Paul McDonald (Quite the character, fun to watch), 26 years old from Huntsville, AL.
Pia Toscano (Another one I think who is very good she kind of reminds me of Katharine McPhee), 22 years old from Queens, NY.
Scotty McCreery (This season's country and western guy), 17 years old from Garner, NC
Stefano Langone (Wild card, selected by the judges and one of my favorites), 21 years old from Kent, WA.
Thia Megia (The Philippino teen, she can sing but I find her performances lacking. Maybe it's just nerves, whatever it is she needs to get over it) , 16 years old from Mountain House, CA.

Ashthon Jones (Wildcard selected by judges, many people think they made a mistake)
24 years old from Nashville, TN was eliminated tonight and did not get saved by the judges.

american idol wednesday february 23, 2011

2011-02-25T21:09:00.000-08:00

Because everybody wants to see Jennifer Lopez cry after breaking the news of his elimination to Chris Medina.

I don't quite understand why she says she can't do this anymore. One the one hand she seems to genuinely care about contestants, but on the the other it does come across as a little unprofessional. But this is show business and television gold.

American Idol season 10 Top 24

2011-02-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

The Top 24 have been revealed. Starting next week the audience is going to have the opportunity to vote for their favorite contestant and keep them in the competition.

I don't want to sound like Randy Jackson but there is really tremendous talent on the show this season. In this year's top 24 you have a lot of very likable people. The kind of people you want to root for. If the producers play this well this season might turn out to be very satisfying for fans. This is coming from someone who did not watch season 9 at all because for me season 8 was the worst I could tolerate from AI and frankly I did not think that taking Paula Abdul out and replacing her with Ellen DeGeneres would make the show better and it didn't.

A three-judge panel is definitely the best format for the show in my opinion.

Here is a full list of the Top 24 American Idol contestants for season 10:

Naima Adedapo
Casey Abrams
Lauren Alaina
Jovany Barreto
Kendra Chantelle
Jordan Dorsey
Ashthon Jones
James Durbin
Thia Megia
Clint Jun Gamboa
Haley Reinhart
Tim Halperin
Karen Rodriguez
Stefano Langone
Pia Toscano
Brett Loewenstern
Lauren Turner
Jacob Lusk
TaTynisa Wilson
Scott McCreery
Rachel Zevita
Paul McDonald
Julie Zorrilla
Robbie Rosen

Photo credit: americanidol.com

Yahoo is Shutting Down MyBlogLog

2011-02-24T07:53:00.000-08:00

Yahoo sent out an email informing MyBlogLog customers that the service will be discontinued on May 24, 2011.

Dear MyBlogLog Customer,

You have been identified as a customer of Yahoo! MyBlogLog. We will officially discontinue Yahoo! MyBlogLog effective May 24, 2011. Your agreement with Yahoo!, to the extent that it applies to the Yahoo! MyBlogLog, will terminate on May 24, 2011.

Unfortunately this was predictable. There was a time when bloggers were very active on MyBlogLog and everyday a new person would join my community. It's been a while since I've seen a new face show up on the MyBlogLog widget that I still have on the bottom of my blog templates. The feature that I am going to miss the most is the statistics. Event hough I am a bit Statcounter fan and user I still find that MyBlogLog has better way of showing click statistics. Though it does not seem to pick up all the clicks especially clicks on ads but showing the title of a link instead of the url makes all the difference for me as a user.

RIP MyBlogLog you did well.

The brand new American Idol season 10

2011-02-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

I did not watch American Idol season 9 but I tuned in for season 10 just to see how the new judge panel would work. What can I say? It truly is a new American Idol. It's much more fun and less sarcastic. Oddly enough the meanest judge on the panel is Randy Jackson. Jenifer Lopez is incredibly professional, she's the "serious" judge who's looking for a star. Steven Tyler is a mix of Paula Abdul and Simon except nicer and crazier. He is not as dry as Simon, he's crazier than Paula and he can be really really funny without being mean to the contestant. As far as entertainment goes the man is a genius which is why having Jeniffer Lopez at his side makes for a good balance. Randy is well Randy except during auditions he seemed to keep saying no on purpose just so Jenifer or Steven would feel pressured to put one of their fans through. Overall it's been fun so far.

Nikon D3100 for $599.99

2011-01-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

Nikon D3100 . $599.99

Nikon - D3100 14.2-Megapixel Digital SLR Camera - Black. Get it now from Best Buy, online or in a store near you.

TomTom ONE 130S with Carry Case for $79.95 and Free Shipping

2011-01-02T22:05:00.000-08:00

If you are looking to buy a new GPS might just be the time to get a TomTom ONE 130S with Free Carry Case for Only $79.95 + Free Shipping! Save $69.95! Shop Now! Get it directly from the TomTom outlet store.

American Idol Season 9 - March 9 2010

2010-03-09T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is my first American Idol episode for this season. I have no bias towards any contestant, I have never seen or heard any one of them.

My first impression from American Idol season 9 is that it's gross and ridiculous.

Katie Stevens
She looks very normal and young. I didn't notice anything special about her. Is she short? The background vocals almost cover her voice it's really odd, she's getting too much help from the backup singers. Can you spell boring.

Randy does not get it. Ellen did not feel it, she wants to see personality. Kara thinks Katie has a great radio voice... *yawn*... she says Katie does not know who she is yet, she thinks the singing is not perfect and that Katie did not stand out. Simon thinks she looks better than before and has taken the advice. "Not great song choice....you sucked the energy out of it and made it a bit gloomy....".
I hope it gets better.

I don't think she looks great, the makeup is not excellent and the hair.... oh well.

Everybody looks so normal this year.

Siobhan Magnus
TV is cruel. She's pitchy when she tries to scream, but a much better overall performance than Katie Stevens.

Randy likes that she does not listen to the judges' advice and think she was hot. He didn't say pitchy. Ellen thinks she was spectacular. Kara loved it and thinks she's unique and different...*blah blah...filler*...she really liked her tonight. Simon thought it was all a bit weird, that she didn't do anything different with the song. He thinks she was much better the night before, he thinks it was a bit dark. He didn't get it, he's apparently looking for sunshine tonight and Siobhan just didn't have that "moment". (Judges like this girl).

Lacey Brown
So unfair, she did not get an interview.... she reminds me of....some popular singer......awful hairdo but her face is much more symetric than the previous two, the camera is actually quite....oh wow so many colors on her... she's ok , she should definitely go forward... solid!
Randy, thinks it was her best perf for a long time...very cool Ellen agrees with the R-man...really good. Kara efortless singing ..reaching in different places ...back on her path. Simon didn't love love the song but she sang it really really well.. he agrees with me... she's good with the camera
(Judges can't deny this girl''s talent). Watch the video of Lacey Brown's performance

lacey 16 @ Yahoo! Video

Katelyn Epperly
She plays the piano...the new Brooke perhaps...Maybe she brought the sunshine Simon is looking for... He hair looks like a wig, there's something about her eyebrows and her hair...normal song, or should I say boring...She looks so comfortable that's the only plus she has over Katie Stevens
Randy....didn't really like it didn't feel the right collection , the vibe. Ellen trying to make a joke..not the right song to wow people...thinks it wasn't enough. Kara didn't feel she was competing tonight. Simon likes her hair...chose a simple song and didn't do anything special with it. may have made a mistake in choosing the song. (Judges they have something against this girl they are not helping her )

Kris Allen is in a Ford commercial... this guys looks so normal, in a good way...

Ok I'm sleepy, I'm not sure I can make it until the end of the show...

Didi Benami
Odd voice...nice...not too much make up... another Norah Jones type,. She''s got it America vote for her... oh wait... I can vote for her...and the music is nice...she has good stage presence and the camera loves her...so does the crowd.
Randy a whole lot better than last week...not sure there was a wow moment. Ellen another corny joke... a lovely performance...likes what she did with it. Kara one of her favorite of the show so far this season for once I don't mind what she has to say... wow Kara sounded sincere and
Simon agrees with Kara me too...Didi proved she's an artist, well balanced, loved the end, brilliant choice of song...

Paige Miles
She has wind-brushed hair. I'll refrain from saying anything about her make up. She's trying but it sounds like she does not really have it.
Randy? It's one of Randy's favorite songs but it didn't work for him, "went completely flat didn't work at all".
Ellen was not uplifted by the song , was sad and heavy, thinks she didn't shine, wrong song choice
Kara it was all wrong, not the night to do that. Simon horrible choice of song..thinks this could be the end of the road for her. I actually think they are nice with her she really did not do a good job and that's the least that can be said.

Crystal Bowersox
She reminds me of Amanda Overmeyer. but she looks a bit more laid back. She's so comfortable, I wonder how long she's been doing this?
Randy this is what this show's about for him, he loved it, that was hot. Ellen thinks she's amazing, best performance of the night. Kara likes her too starts to see what her record will be like. Simon 1 billion % going to be on the top 12, the one everyone has to beat.
She's a judge favorite. I wonder if the other girls like her.

Lilly Scott
She chooses such a slow song, short and without any real high moments. It's alright, not bad but not super extra ordinary.
Randy thinks it was hot, she's in the zone. Ellen loves her voice, originality, style. Kara thinks she made happy times feels current. Simon thinks she's very brave, didn't have the wow factor, cute quirky a risky thing to do. (She'll be OK.)

Paula Abdul quits American Idol

2009-08-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

It's been confirmed by both parties that Paula Abdul will not be returning as a judge on American Idol season 9. I can hardly believe it. It seemed to me that Paula brought something unique to the judging panel. When they brought in Kara DioGuardi last season there were speculations that it was a move to replaced Paula whose contract was coming to an end. The rumors were right.

I fail to see what Kara brings to the show that the other judges didn't already. She simply does not come across as a very likable person when she's on the show. I still can't forget some of the awful things she personally did to contestants last season. There was bikini girl in the finale. Yes I understand that many people don't feel sorry for her but please do people get outrage when Beyoncé uses her body to sell albums? No they don't. Think about. If she covered herself just a bit more you think she would have been as popular as she is now. How about Britney Spears?

But Kara did worse. There was this contestant who seemed like a nice girl. She wasn't a great singer though but she believed she could make it like many others. They interviewed her as she waited in line for a chance to audition for the judges. After she sang for them Kara literally laughed at her face. Calling her a joke. Because she was nominated the most humorous when she was in school Kara DioGuardi assumed she was only kidding when she auditioned for American Idol. Needless to say nobody found that funny. The contestant cried, she had just been humiliated on national television. Worse, Simon was the one with the nice words for her telling her "nicely" that she seems like a nice person but singing is not for her...

I wonder if Kara costs less than Paula?

I read a few reports suggesting that maybe Paula didn't want to come back because she had other things she wanted to do....

Watch the Paula Abdul vs Kara DioGuardi video below

@ Yahoo! Video

Miley Cyrus chat

2009-07-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

If you want to chat with Miley Cyrus July 5 is the date you need to know. Miley will be answering questions starting at 7PM eastern time. She will be online and live and you can be part of it by letting her know your questions before the chat starts. The questions that receive the most votes will be selected for answering. The Miley Cyrus live chat July 5 is a must for all fans.

It's not really interactive as far as asking the questions but the answering of the questions will be live just like you expect a chat session to be. If you love Miley and Hannah Montana you should not let this opportunity pass you by.

Kris Allen wins American Idol season 8

2009-05-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

While many people were surprised to see Kris Allen win American Idol, I wasn't, not that much. Of all the people who made it through the top 13 before the wild card, Kris Allen is the only one whose audition I hadn't seen. He even dared to sing Michael Jackson in the top 36 something that would have sent any "ordinary" contestant back home but not Kris Allen. From that very first surprise everybody following American Idol knew that they should keep a close eye on that kid.

He's come a long way since "Man in the Mirror". I remember last year finale when Simon Cowell was criticizing David Cook for not singing Billy Jean in the finale, he told Simon that the show was about growth and he didn't want to go back to something he did long before but instead he wanted to show that he had grown along the process and did knew songs. Frankly when he said that it was clear that he had the edge over David Archuleta who did re-sing Imagine in the finale. And David Cook won. If you go back to auditions, the top 36, the top 13 until the top 3 tell me which one do you think has "grown" the most Adam Lambert or Kris Allen. Adam has stayed practically the same he was when he entered the competition and his over exposure on the show and the constant lobbying by the judges didn't help. Simon was even impatient to have Adam crowned the American Idol. But Kris Allen over came all the major obstacles like the fact that before the top 13 most people didn't even know his name and even after that they only mentioned him for his niceness, like the fact that he helped out other contestants on Michael Jackson week. At no time he was favored to win this until he made it to the top 3 and sang Heartless then the judges started to doubt that it was a sealed deal for Adam but the Kris Allen's fans already knew by then that they could count on him to go all the way.

If you can remember some questions aimed at Kris, they were constantly asking him if he took the competition seriously, if he's in this to win it. The same questions they were asking Jason Castro during season 7, the judges, especially Simon Cowell never believed in him at least not until the very end.

I have to confess that I was extremely happy last night, once again the judges didn't have it their way and Kris Allen won the title he fought so hard for. Allison Iraheta, Danny Gokey, Adam Lambert and all the others were tough competition to overcome but he did it.

Congratulations Kristopher Neil Allen.

Here is a video of how fans gathered in Conway, Arkansas (Kris' hometown) reacted to the news.

Who Will Win American Idol Season 8?

2009-05-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

Depending on who makes it to the finals tonight we could already now, one week in advance who will be the American Idol in 2009.

Let me explain. If Adam Lambert makes it with Kris Allen, chances are Adam will win. If it's a Danny Gokey/Kris Allen finale then it will be harder to tell who will win. If it's a Danny Gokey/Adam Lambert finale it will depend on how well/or badly Adam performs. I find Gokey to be more consistent especially when he gets to pick his genre and song.

Personally I'm hoping for a Kris Allen/Danny Gokey for next week. I'm being optimistic for Kris since everybody's talking about his "Heartless" let's just hope it paid off. Buzz is always a good sign. It means people actually remembered you after the show was over let's just hope they also remembered to vote.

After looking at the photo above I think I finally understand the Danny Gokey phenomenon. Danny is actually "cuter" than the other guys. Yes he can sing also but the does not look bad either and that always helps in show business. The appeal for Kris is not much his cuteness but the fact that he is perceived as an underdog. Until this day some people are still trying to find a photo of Kris Allen's wife on the Internet. Just to tell you how much some people are interested in him. His a celebrity now.

American Idol Results May 6 2009

2009-05-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

Allison Iraheta was eliminated on May 6th 2009 from American Idol season 8. She made it all the way to the top 4 but on results night it was her time to say goodbye and go home.

This season was labeled the guy's season early on. When they decided not to have equal gender participation in the semi finals, it was clear that the public had a preference for guys since only three women made it into the top 13 with votes alone, the other two needed the wildcard to be admitted in.

The results are in. After the nationwide vote Allison Iraheta is sent back home. Though it's probably too late for her to go back to school.

I'm not sure if I can say there was any suspense tonight. It was clear that in spite of what the judges had to say there were only two people at risk of going home, Kris Allen and Allison Iraheta. If we are to learn the lessons from last season and from the semifinals in general, it is clear that American Idol's audience is made up mostly of females who love so-called cute contestants. And that is why I was pretty sure Allison was the one going home. Kris is cute Allison isn't.

I'm not saying that Allison is ugly not at all, and she also seems like a nice and cool kid but she lacks that force of attraction found in people like Kelly Clarkson. The same can be said of last year's Sayesha Mercado. Those are people that would have never won American idol no matter how far the advanced in the competition they were bound to loose to a cute guy!

Kris Allen probably picked up the votes of Anoop Desai's fans. He did have his own fan base but I don't see the people who liked Anoop voting for Adam or Allison, they might vote for Danny Gokey as well.

I'm not saying Kris Allen made it in the final three because of his looks but I'm saying that had he looked like let's say Nick Mitchell he probably wouldn't have made this far...

American Idol season 8 Top 4 with Slash in a photo

2009-05-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

The remaining 4 contestants on American Idol season 8 pose with this weeks mentor, Slash. This week is Rock week on American Idol and with the help of Slash the remaining contestants, Allison Iraheta, Danny Gokey, Adam Lambert and Kris Allen will try to prove once more that they deserve to be the American Idol for 2009.

In case you didn't know Slash used to Gun N' Roses lead guitarist. He's currently a member of a band called Velvet Revolver. Wednesday for the results show, we will have performances from No Doubt and ex-idol contestant Chris Daughtry and his band Daughtry.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-04-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, today the much anticipated X-Men Origins: Wolverine is premiering. Fan will get to know more about Wolverine and his past. Other mutants not seen in previous X-Men movies are also introduced in this film.

While reading an article about a special screening of Wolverine a few days ago I noticed they mentioned American Idol season 8 ex-contestant Scott MacIntyre. He was present at the world premiere in Tempe Arizona along with the stars of the movie like Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch and will.i.am . I guess Scott is a star now. Know what you're thinking 'but isn't Scott blind?' Yes that's what I thought too. He may not be able to enjoy all the special effects but I'm guessing he must be a Wolverine fan?

Photo by © Chris Hatcher / PR Photos

Here is a photo of Hugh Jackman arriving at the wold premiere in Tempe, Arizona on his Harley Davidson.
Photo by © Chris Hatcher / PR Photos

For those who like to be teased before actually watching a movie, here is a clip fromX-Men Origins: Wolverine , 'Hunting Mutants?'

American Idol results - April 22 2009

2009-04-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

The results are in. Lil Rounds and Anoop Desai were sent back home last night. They had a long ride but it's the end of the road for them.

Because the judges 'saved' Matt Giraud the week before this week was a double elimination week. For some odd reason everybody seemed to expect Lil Rounds to go home. Maybe it was because Simon Cowell said he wouldn't have considered saving her had she been the one on the chopping block last week? Or maybe it was because the people of Votefortheworst had chose her as their pick of 'worster' to vote for? Or maybe it's because she was this season's Lakisha Jones and the judges just couldn't stand her anymore after considering her to be one of the front runners? Everybody knew Lil didn't have much time left in this show. Personally I feel that if they had let Matt go home last week she could have had a chance. In fact, it seems to me nobody expected Anoop Desai to make it through, his elimination was expected. Again, it seems that week after week no single contestant gets to be super safe anymore.

It's definitely nothing like what we saw last year where it was clear early one that the two Davids, Archuleta and Cook would make it to the finals. This year people were talking about a Adam Lambert / Danny Gokey final but now what we're seeing is that it's not guaranteed because for some odd reason those do can no longer separate themselves clearly from the rest of the pack in terms of votes. Meanwhile Kris Allen has been growing his fanbase steadily and so has Allison Iraheta. How many times has Kris been in the bottom three?

American Idol season 8 should be remembered as the Matt Giraud show or "How you to can very far in this competition if the judges really like you". That's right, we need to remember that Matt made it to the top thirteen because he was picked by the judges after the wildcard round, so was Anoop by the way. When America wasn't convinced that Matt needed to stay any longer and voted him off the judges thought they should give him a third chance and 'save' him. Just take a moment to think about the other contestants who made it this far thanks to America's votes alone. Hopefully the judges no longer have to power to impose their veto on the outcome of the eliminations at this point.

I wonder how last season would have turned out if Michael Johns had been saved by the judges the way Matt Giraud was...

Those that we will soon forget from American Idol season 8

2009-04-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

There are only 8 contestants left on American Idol Season 8 at this point, we are a long way form the top 32 and yet some people who had caught our attention early on just didn't make it this far. Frankly, before the top 12 I had no idea who Kris Allen was. In fact of all the people still standing there are only a few that I can remember from the Auditions, Danny Gokey, Anoop Desai, Lil Rounds, Adam Lambert, Matt Giraud and Scott MacIntyre. Ok, so I can actually remember most of them....

I would like to remind you of some people who help feed the buzz on American Idol even before they appeared on the show and some who were rumored to be contenders. No I'm talking about Michael Castro. See below for those that we should not forget simply because I wanted to see and hear more of them.

Ann Marie Boskovitch

Because I was impressed when she auditioned and the judges seemed to like her so much. It seems to me that she was a victim of the horrible top12 selection process where most female contestants didn't stand a chance. If only they had kept last season's format maybe , just maybe Ann Marie could have gone further. Though I have to say not keeping the male female ratio to a clear 50/50 seems to have benefited the show in terms of viewership.

Taylor Vaifanua
Labelled a contender even before they showed her audition on television. Some people saw in her the next Jordin Sparks. And yet she not only didn't make it to the top 10 she wasn't even brought back by the judges in the wild card round.

Alexis Grace

The young mother who was told by Kara DioGuardi to dirty herself... What can I say, they insisted that she unpolished her image and yet they didn't save her when the time came. Maybe Simon didn't like her lack of personality. Notice, the female judges were the ones telling her not to wear pink and to get dirty. Her stay in the top 13 was short lived.

Brent Keith

He looks much better on television then he does on photo, seriously. You could tell the Kara and Paula were under his spelled when he was smiling after he sang during his audition. Like many females around the globe they thought he looked cute. Not sexy but cute, maybe it's the dimples.

Felicia Barton
I'll admit that I haven't seen Felicia sing because I don't actually watch every single minute of every single episode. But it felt so...Well they brought her back only to let her out again. I know it wasn't the judges fault but they could have kept her with the wild cards and yet they didn't.

Jackie Tohn
Jacky was funny, I liked watching her. It has nothing to do with her singing I really thought she was funny unlike some of the people in the top 8.

Kai Kalama

Kai, also known as mama's boy. He was cute also, not as cute as Brent Keith but...what can I say they already had Kris Allen they didn't need Kai or Brent.

Matt Breitzke

I saw one of his performances, he's someone I would like to hear more, he was different, not over the top different but simply different.

Mishavonna Henson

At some point she convinced me that she had worked really hard and deserved to go farther. Have you ever wondered who could have been in the top 12 if they didn't have the wild card? Maybe Jeanine Murray wouldn't have made it, Maybe Megan Joy wouldn't have made it? maybe... Maybe Mishavonna could have made it, maybe.

Tatiana del Toro

If someone was exploited by American Idol this season that someone was certainly Tatiana del Toro. Yes, she seems almost unreal, yet she's a real person with real feelings and it seems that American Idol over used the fact that she expresses her feelings in excessive manners. They even brought her back in the wild card which I felt was not a bad call. It seems to me that if they focus less on the drama surrounding her and more on her singing maybe people would have found her more likable. On TV all you see is the image they want you to have of a person.

Kristen McNamara

I've never heard her sing either but I think she looks like Victoria Beckham. See photo proof.

American idol results 2009

2009-02-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

American Idol season 8 building the top 12

Photo: Frank Micelotta/ Getty Images/ Fox

It's performance day for the second group of semifinalist for American Idol season 8. The first one to sing is Jasmine Murray. Singing first if a big challenge you need to be really good to make a lasting impression after 11 other people follow you on the stage. Unfortunately Jasmine wasn't up to that. She used to be the judges' pet but not anymore. They simply didn't like and basically tell her she needs to grow up...

I didn't watch the performances last week and I find it a bit strange that they get to sing so long. I remember from previous seasons, in the top 24 the performances were super short, it starts then it ends almost right away. It's good for the contestant to have more time to convince and show off their talent. It also gives them time to correct a mistake if they start the song badly but when the performance is not so good, it's excruciating.

Kara DioGuardi, for some reason they are giving her more attention then he other judges but she sucks. She practically killed all Jasmine's chances with her remarks. Even Paula Abdul is crucifying her. It's definitely not Jasmine's night.

Matt Giraud chose to sing Viva la Vida from Coldplay, the music could have saved him but the performance is so unenjoyable you can tell he won't make it.

Jeanine Vailles also choose a very popular and recent song to sing, by Maroon 5. But all the judges seem to remember from her performance are her legs. She was wearing shorts and high heals. She looks much better on TV than she does in her photos. Kara is really rude to her...

Then came Nick Norman, and he blew it. He has many fans out there but seriously people the first time he performed this song in Hollywood was so much better.

Allison Iraheta was pretty impressive. She sounds more mature when she sings than when she does her interviews. She's not very articulate and definitely not lady-like. She's only 16 after all... At this point there is absolutely no doubt that she will make the top 12. She reminds me of Kelly Clarkson because of her looks mostly.

Kris Allen singing Man in the Mirror probably made the poorest choice song for the night. A Michael Jackson song is a big no-no, usually.

Then came Megan Joy Corkrey and I think she looks a bit weird..... I find her quite forgettable if it weren't for her huge arm tattoo.

The second Matt followed, Matt Breitzke, I really wanted this guy to make it. Maybe because he looks so much more "normal" than all the others. Unfortunately he blew it. He's just not mainstream enough. That's what happens when you choose a song you're too much in love with.

Jesse Langseth is one more who's sinigng s song she thinks is the greatest song ever written. After hearing that you just know it's going to suck. And it does. Whenever a person says she's so lin love with a song, it sucks.

Kai Kalama called mama's boy tries himself at what seems to be an oldie. The female judges are obviously in love with him. But it semsa that overall they want him out.

The girl with the unusual name, Mishavonna Henson pleasantly surprises me. Did you know that she had made it to Hollywood last year? It's my second favorite performance fot he night. She was great and she looked nice as well. But the judges are just full of it and they are trying to drown her. Some people say that it's because they wanted to "pimp" Adam Lambert, the last contestant for the night. So they had to make the people who performed before him seemed really horrible.

Anyway, along came Adam Lambert and he does exactly what you think he would do. An over the top performance, loud and whatever.; Here's one more who looks better on TV than he does in photo. If it were for me, he'd be out and he wouldn't even make the wild card round. That's the kind of performance you do when only one person is going to be eliminated. But the judges want him to go through so badly that he might just make it. They chose to sacrificed both Kai and Mishavonna for the benefit of Adam, what a shame.

Strangely enough I find myself singing What becomes...

No American Idol on Tuesday February 23

2009-02-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

Click here for American Idol Wednesday February 23, 2011.

Indeed, the schedule for this week has been slightly changed.

The president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, will address the congress of the USA on February 23rd and Fox has chosen to broadcast it, therefore no American Idol for us on that day. The show will air the following day instead, on Wednesday, February 24th at the usually 8PM easter time, it will be two hours long. The results show will air the following day, on Thursday.

American Idol season 8 top 12 week 1

2009-02-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

I barely caught the results show last night. It was all about how Stevie Wright seemed to have succumbed under the pressure. They there was group singing. The dance moves! I guess the reason why it does not look better is because they don't have enough time to rehearsal right? Then the results. I'm a bit confused, I usually don't really watch much after the auditions and before the top 12 and knowing that this year they adopted a new format didn't help me follow the show very smoothly. And it seems also that I spent too much time looking up the contestants online. Now that they are going to leave the competition by packs of nine, what a waste.

Though I must say I remember the audition of each one of those who made it to the top twelve last night. Alexis Grace was shown with her baby and they even showed the photo of her fiancé. One one site she was labeled poster-child for teen pregnancy, I wonder why??? The judges wanted her to be dirtier and apparently that's what she did and America liked it. I wonder if America would have liked it as much if she stayed a nice girl. After all Jordin Sparks had a nice girl image, didn't she?

The other lucky ones were Michael Sarver and Danny Gorky. I think Danny looks weird when he sings. Not a natural performer at all... Like he has a cold. He reminded me of Michael Johns with his awkwardness except that Michael Johns is a much better singer and he is more fit.

Speaking of Michael Johns, he made a guest appearance with Carly Smithson, both oddly dressed like members of the Adams' family. The sang a song I believe they had sung last season? I think, I believe I've heard it before. Somehow I'm starting to believe all those people saying that those two were plants. Unless they brought them back because the best singers from season 7 (David Cook and David Archuleta, according to America) are two expensive and the rest (Syesha Mercado, Jason Castro, Brooke White) are just not as good or as appealing or? Or maybe they are saving the best of last year for much later this season when things get really interesting.

Ann Marie Boskowich on American Idol season 8 in Jacksonville

2009-01-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

Ann Marie Boskowich has auditioned for American Idol in Jacksonville. The auditions in the Florida town will be aired on Tuesday January 27th, that's tonight(!)

American Idol season 8 episode 5 promises to be more exciting than what we got to see last week. This is a little spoiler for you before you get to see the show tonight. Watch out for Ann Marie Boskowich because it is rumored that she will make the top 50.

Here is her Jacksonville audition where she was asked to go and make herself look like a star before coming back for the audition. You can tell that they liked her and the way she idolizes Kara DioGuardi.

She seems to be very talented. Let's hope she picks good songs to sing and goes far on the competition.

Listen to her sing Part of you world for the Little Mermaid 2. It's the sequel to Disney's Little Mermaid that went straight to DVD.

Some people call her a plant, that's what they call contestants who've had previous record deals and/or actual records that came out and were sold, but apparently she didn't have any, at least that's what I've read online. In there defense I have to say that most of those so-called plans were obviously not successful with their previous records and that's why we hadn't her of them before American Idol.

Becaus

American Idol Season 8 Episode 3 - Recap and thoughts

2009-01-21T04:57:00.000-08:00

Last night was one of those less exciting nights for American Idol. We were shown mostly bad signers with a few uninteresting ones who made it to Hollywood.

The auditions were taking place in San Francisco where they had discovered Katharine McpPhee in season 5 and and William Hung.

After watching the show from end to end, all I can say is that it was not really worth it. Certainly there were many fun moments and I did laugh a lot, especially in the beginning but by the end I started to feel tired and completely unconvinced that the next American Idol would come from San Francisco this year.

The show started with Tatiana del Toro. She was labeled a beauty pageant contestant and I still can't get her laugh out of my head. She looks like a nice girl. Not an excellent singer technically speaking, she's a bit of a drama queen which means she certainly wont win this. Below is a photo of Tatiana taken from Myspace.

Here is the video of Tatiana Nicole del Toro's audition

For some odd reason, one contestant seems to have caught America's attention. He's name is Adam Lambert. He sang “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Simon thought his audition was theatrical and I can only agree on that with him. He's voice is not bad but he's more of a showman than a singer. I'm not actually looking forward to seeing more of him but I bet you the judges wouldn't agree with me on that. According to his fans, he can sing rock and can carry both high notes and low notes. I'm pretty sure he does not make an impression on people with his voice only but also with the show he puts on when he signs. It's probably due to his background in theater, the musical kind.

What I found a bit odd is that Ryan Seacrest was not looking his best either. It looked like he was wearing no makeup at all, he didn't even look as good as an average contestant. But he was nice to the people that they showed him talking to.

The inspiring story for the night wast that of Kai Kalama, he sand “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". He put his dreams on hold to take car of his mother and now is his chance to make them come true with the help of American Idol. He looks like a nice guy but of course Simon Cowell thinks he lacks personality. In fact he said that he had the personality of a "ship singer"...

Bikini Girl Katrina Darrell on American Idol

2009-01-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

According to msnbc's readers, the most memorable auditioner of season's 8 first day is none else that Katrina Darrell who Ryan Seacrest called bikini girl. But her bikini is not the only reason why she will be remembered. The sound off with Kara DioGuardi that she won in my opinion made her come off as one who does not have her tongue in her pocket. I have to admit that the new judge did not make a valuable impression on me after that. She does not seem to add much value so far...

Photo by Michael Becker/ Getty Images

Photo by Michael Becker/ FOX

Michael Castro made it to Hollywood

2009-01-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

Click this link to see Michael Castro's photo.

Jason Castro's little brother Michael charmed the judges, particularly Kara DioGuardi to win his gold ticket to Hollywood. Personally I was not impressed by his audition. And I couldn't believe Kara D. thought that his 'if my brother can do it I can do it' answer was reason enough to send him to Hollywood. That's a childish answer and it shows that his auditioning has little to do with wanting to win American Idol it's mostly about sibling rivalry.

It seems many Jason fans are already crazy in love with him, I hope for them that he makes the top 12 at least but it's really too early to tell if he'll even make it pass Hollywood.

I really don't like his hair, he looks like a soft-punk version of a Disney star.

What I really enjoyed though was when they showed him with Jason, that was fun to watch. Jason is still as laid back as he was during season seven. If Michael does make it pass Hollywood he can probably count on Jason's fans to vote for him.

For all Michael Castro fans who don't know it yet, Michael is selling posters of himself on Jason's web site.

Jason Castro also has a younger sister, Jacqueline Castro.

America's best dance crew season 3 and American Idol

2009-01-16T14:55:00.000-08:00

What do the two have in common? Randy Jackson of course. I saw a commercial for America's best dance crew (ABDC) season 3 this week. I have to admit I've never seen the show. All I could think of was how is it that Randy Jackson's name is associated with that show. Is he a dance expert or does he just present the show? No idea but surely with all those dance movies they've made recently I'm not surprised to see that this show is very popular. Clearly not as popular as American Idol but AI is one of a kind.

It's that time of the year again - American Idol time

2009-01-13T12:28:00.000-08:00

I just realized that American Idol starts tonight. I didn't realize that the premiere was today until I read an article about how this season will be different from the previous one.

If you're an American Idol fan you probably know by now that this year there will be four judges. Kara DioGuardi is the newest judge added to the panel.

Yahoo search is the best

2009-01-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

Kind of...

OK, I admit it, I use Google more often than I use Yahoo but when Google fails to deliver the results that I'm searching for where else to turn if it isn't to Yahoo Search?

I was searching for information on an IP address that was generating a lot of traffic on the network I'm using. I thought that all this traffic going to and coming from a single IP can't be normal and probably other people have encountered the same problem.

I faithfully typed the IP in the Google search box and hit enter only to have Google tell me that it found no results. So I went to Yahoo, even more faithful that I will find what I'm looking for. Then it happened, while Yahoo had no web page containing the IP address it did suggest that I try to visit the website directly, warning me that the site might not exist. So I clicked on the link and Voila! It's a site I know very well, except that I never knew its IP address. Why couldn't Google have told me that? Because Yahoo search is the best! Kind of. At least Yahoo seems to often have a better understanding of what people are looking for.

Knowing exactly what people are looking for and delivering the best results for search queries are two different things...

You know Vista is a Failure when...

2008-11-05T06:33:00.001-08:00

You know Vista is a Failure when Yahoo announces that it will no longer continue working on a Yahoo messenger for Vista. Yes Yahoo had a messenger version made just for Vista. I guess Yahoo really believed that Vista would be the next XP. Not quite! In fact Vista looks more like the new ME, remember, Windows Me, the precursor of Windows XP.

Here is what Sarah Bacon had to say about it:

As of today, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista will no longer be available for download from the Yahoo! Messenger website. We have discontinued stand-alone releases of the Yahoo! Messenger for Vista application in order to focus on delivering one Windows experience that is optimized for all Windows users.

Microsoft probably made a lot of money from Vista and yet Vista is mostly associated with all sorts of problems than anything else. Right now, Microsoft is trying to put the Vista nightmare behind him and getting ready to launch a new version of it's OS that will be, hopefully, much better than Vista.

Microsoft Buying Yahoo!

2008-08-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

You might have noticed I'm a long time Yahoo! user. By long time think about 10 years on the Internet ten years is a very long time. My first email address was a Yahoo email address that I still use until this day. I enjoy chatting in Yahoo chat, using Yahoo messenger for IM, I like answering questions and making contacts on Yahoo Answers. I used to like the now closed Yahoo photos a lot and so on. I'm a Yahoo user you can tell. Yes, I have had a few hotmail accounts, but spam on Hotmail was the worst back then. Even though I still use a Hotmail email address I'm not really an msn user, I mostly use it for business, reluctantly I must add.

I am one of those who felt concerned but not surprised that Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo! I was glad to see that Yahoo did not sell itself but I would not be surprised that in the future parts of Yahoo were sold to Microsoft like the IM services and the chat. Have you looked at Yahoo messenger lately? With every new version they are one step closer to becoming MSN messenger. A merger of the two messengers, Yahoo! and MSN seems plausible and even reasonable. I just hope that the resulting YMSN(?) messenger does not have frequent mandatory updates like MSN does, I hate those. If they could find a way to combine the best of both messengers they would have one killer IM client.

Cranberry Juice with High Fructose Corn Syrup

2008-08-11T14:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've seen the TV commercials for Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice with no sugar added. What they don't tell you in that commercial is that they do sweeten their cranberry juice, not with sugar but with High Fructose Corn Syrup. Apparently nobody would drink a completely unsweetened cranberry juice cocktail.

I searched a little and so far this is the only video of the commercial I could find online. It's not top quality but it's watchable.

To know more about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) read this.
I don't understand such commercials, we don't add any sugar in it. Basically they're saying that they don't add sugar in order to make the juice better for you but they add HFCS. Is HFCS good for you? Is it better than sugar? What's wrong with pure cane sugar? Its price maybe?

There are other brands out there that don't use HFCS(or sugar) in their cranberry cocktails you might want to try them out if you are looking to cut back on the amount of HFCS in your diet.

On Adsense Invalid Click and Click Fraud

2008-08-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

I was reading a post from Inside Adsense, you know the official Adsense Blog. The post was about Invalid Clicks and Click Fraud.

Read it if you want to know all the details, nothing new really. Why am I mentioning it? Well, after reading that "Third-party programs for purchasing fixed amounts of traffic, e.g. "$10 for 1,000 page views" are considered invalid impressions, guess which ads were being displayed near the message (I'm reading it in my Inbox) ? Yes, you've guessed right "10,000 visitors for $12.25" and "10,000 real visits $7.95".

The moral of the story, it's OK to make money from "$10 for 1,000 page views" programs, Google's doing it, as long as you don't use them on a site that runs Adsense.

Mario Vazquez

2008-08-01T14:36:00.002-07:00

Can somebody please tell me who is Mario Vazquez? For some strange reason Google thinks my blog is associated with this man. Until today, I wasn't even sure I knew who he was. Then of course I searched and found Mr Vazquez. He's a former American Idol contestant (season 4), he quit right before the top 12.

At first I did think he was the actor from saved by the bell who was a contestant on dancing with the stars (Mario Lopez). Then I thought that maybe he was the singer who sings with Jordin Sparks in No Air (Chris Brown)...

I don't remember writing about anybody named Mario but still it seems you my beloved readers would be interested in reading about him. So here you go, better than a Mario Vasquez wiki, he's photo, simply.

American Idle, idole, idel or ?

2008-08-01T14:36:00.001-07:00

Read the latest American Idol News.

Apparently some people searching for American Idol write American Idle instead. Idol, Idle, close enough, at least Google understands what they're actually searching for. I often make such mistakes, mixing phonetically close words. Other variations are American idole (a French or Canadian typed that), American idel (?), American Idlo (no idea how that happened), American Idols (that one was searching for little statues). I only hope I have not made those typos here, I've written so much about this show I wouldn't be surprised to see a typo slip here and there.

Melinda Doolittle News

2008-08-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

Melinda Doolittle has finally signed a recording contract with an independent label Hi Fi Recordings. I've also read that she's supposed to release something this fall, an album or single, I'm not sure.

I get quite a few visits from Melida Doolitle fans, especially from some who have started their own Melinda Doolitle fan sites. I thought I'd share with you the addresses that they left and that you can visit if you are a fan as well. Here they are:

www.mdstreetteam.com
wwww.melindafan.net

I still believe that her myspace page is a good place to go to know where she's performing and simply keep up with her and read from her.

I can save and restore my Firefox sessions painlessly

2008-07-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

A friends asked me about saving sessions in Firefox and having it restore your session automatically at startup. I told him that your sessions are restored after a crash and that what I do is shutdown my computer with my browser open to ensure that when I turn it on next time and launch Firefox it would ask me if I want to restore my latest session.

I'm the one who wrote a post about wanting the Save/Restore session feature in Firefox. Then I thought about it realizing that it's been over a year since I wrote that post, there had to be some progress made in that area since I'm convinced that I was not the only one asking for that feature....

Guess what? It was there all along! Indeed, Firefox stores your sessions but it simply does not offer to restore them on start up by default. The default behavior is to offer a restore after a crash or unexpected close. Firefox also automatically restores your session after an automatic update and when you use the restart button from the Add-ons Manage.

One year of voluntarily crashing my browser and I had no idea I could simply ask it to restore my session and close it nicely.

For those of you who want to know how to do this simply to go Tools>Options>Main under Startup you'll see When Firefox starts: choose the third option Show my windows and tabs form last time. The default option is Show my home page. Voila!

Why would you want to do this? Because you need to close your browser and wish to come back later, or on another day, to the same pages you were visiting when you left. I wonder if Internet Explorer has that feature too?

You bought tickets for the American Idol Tour?

2008-07-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Here is the American Idol 7 Tour Set List

Chikezie:

"I Believe to My Soul" by Donny Hathaway
"Caught Up" by Usher
"So High" by John Legend

I'm not a big Chikezie fan therefore I don't really care what he sings....

Ramiele Malubay:

"I Want You Back" by The Jackson Five
"Love Will Lead You Back" by Taylor Dayne
"If I Never See Your Face Again" by Maroon 5 featuring Rihanna

Not great song choices for Ramiele or maybe I'm just saying that because I only know the first song.

Michael Johns:

"We Will Rock You"/"We Are the Champions" by Queen
"It's All Wrong But It's All Right" by Dolly Parton
"Dream On" by Aerosmith

I can't believe they gave him the exact same songs he sang on the show. Isn't "Dream On" the song that got him eliminated? Beatles, that what they should have given him.

Kristy Lee Cook:

"Squeezin' the Love Outta You" by Carolyn Dawn Johnson
"God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood
"Cowgirls" by Kerry Harvick

Kristy seems like a nice girl...

Carly Smithson:

"Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence
"Crazy on You" by Heart
"I Drove All Night" by Cyndi Lauper

I can't really imagine Carly singing "Bring Me to Life". She probably shouts her way through the song...

Brooke White:

"Let It Be" by The Beatles
"1234" by Feist
"Yellow" by Coldplay

So they gave Beatles to Brooke, they must really really like her. I'm not sure "Let It Be" is a great choice of song for the tour, anyway.

Group medley, featuring the bottom 6:

"Pride In the Name of Love" by U2

Intermission

Jason Castro:

"Over the Rainbow" (the Israel Kamakawiwo'ole version)
"Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley
"Daydream" by The Lovin' Spoonful

Jason the man! I hope he's singing skills have improved and I hope they let him play the guitar. They should have let him sing "If I feel in love with you"

Syesha Mercado:

"Umbrella" by Rihanna
"If I Ain't Got You" by Alicia Keys
"Listen" by Beyonce

I was never interested in listening to Syesha, those songs have not changed that. Is it written somewhere that a black girl only has to sing songs by other black girls?

David Archuleta:

"Angels" by Robbie Williams
"Apologize" by OneRepublic
"Stand by Me"/"Beautiful Girls" by Ben E. King/Sean Kingston
"When You Say You Love Me" by Josh Groban

Same as Syesha, couldn't care less.

David Cook:

"Hello" by Lionel Richie
"The Time of My Life" (the songwriting contest winner)
"I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith
"My Hero" by Foo Fighters
"Billie Jean"

Was never a David Cook fan, no change there.

Group encore:

"Don't Stop the Music" by Rihanna

I'm not a Rihanna fan either so I guess I would not have enjoyed the tour too much.

Disney - Pixar's WALL•E

2008-07-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

I have yet to see the latest Disney -Pixar animated movie but from the previews I've seen WALL•E himself and he reminds me of another robot.

Have you see Short Circuit? It's the story of a robot, Number 5, that is electrocuted, becomes intelligent, and then escapes from the lab where it was developed. They even made a Short Circuit 2 where the robot goes to the city, kind of like the Babe movies. Take a look at Number 5 and WALL•E surely they are family.

Google is retiring Adsense Referrals

2008-07-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it?

You have about two months- until the last week of August - to remove all the Google Referral ads from your sites. Apparently this move was triggered by Google's acquisition of Double Click. You also need to save your referrals reports because after the last week of August they will not be available.

Yesterday I updated some of my referral ads to see if I could make more money out of them. I typically place my referral ads in less visible areas of my blog where I usually don't have any ads. I managed to get a few clicks and a few conversions some for up to $2, nothing phenomenal really. With Google's referrals I even promoted sites who didn't approve me as a referral on other advertising networks. The best part about Google's referrals is the fact that you could use them with your existing Adsense account. Adsense is one of the most open ad services for publishers. Now that Google Referrals is making way for what is called Google Affiliate Network expect more restrictions.

One word of advice if you try to register with Google Affiliate Network, or ConnectCommerce to be precise, and can't see your country's name in the list, scroll all the way to the bottom of the list, you'll find "Other", when you choose "Other" as your country a longer list of countries appear where you'll probably find yours.

I find ConnectCommerce/Double Click too restrictive. They may decline your application if the information you provide them does not match the WHOIS registration information for the domain you are submitting. In case you use private registration for your domain the email address you provide must match the url you're submitting. When I joined Adsense I only had two blogspot.com blogs. I didn't have a domain name I could call my own. Even though I do have a few domains now, I would not submit a single one of them to ConnectCommerce because my blogspot.com blogs are my most popular sites and they are the ones on which I wish to run ads from Google Affiliate Network.

Yahoo Mail, Ymail, Rocketmail, it's all the same

2008-06-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Now you can have a Yahoo! mail account with a Ymail.com extension or a rocketmail.com extension. Ymail looks like an imitation of Gmail except that it doesn't sound as cool. Rocketmail is a name that many people will recognize since Rocketmail was one of the first free e-mail services around that was acquired by Yahoo in 1997. Both Ymail and rocketmail are in fact Yahoo! mail with a new alias. With both of those new mail domains you will get the exact same Yahoo! mail service.

So what is the use of those new email domains? For those who always wanted their name as their email handle this might be your chance. Let's say I wanted marguerite@yahoo.com but couldn't get it now I have two more chances now, one with Ymail and one with rocketmail. I didn't even try to register marguerite@yahoo.com because I doubt it's still available, besides I already have an email on Yahoo!.

If you have a short handle in mind you might want to try and secure it right now before someone else grabs it. How do you do that? Simple, go to Yahoo! mail's home page and click the link to get a new email address. If you are signed in to Yahoo, you need to sign out first.

Google changes its favicon

2008-05-30T05:31:00.000-07:00

Did you noticed the new favicon that Google is using lately? I was so used to the old look this one is very unfamiliar for me. I suppose I'll get used to it overtime but I don't think it represents Google's colors well since it's only blue, the red, the yellow and the green are not there. Maybe we'll see a change in Google's logo soon. Or maybe they'll just use different letters of their logo alternately as their favicon but I don't think that would be a good move since you need to print your image in people's mind and the only way to do that is to expose them to your logo/favicon long enough for them to automatically associate it with you.image from blogoscoped.com

Is Yahoo migrating all the 360 blogs to Wordpress?

2008-05-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been announced a long time ago and it should be effective soon, Yahoo! 360 is transitioning to a more integrated Yahoo! experience. This means that Yahoo! 360 will never get out of Beta.

If you followed the link you've noticed the high number of comments on the latest posts of the official Yahoo! 360 blog. The Yahoo! 360 team probably has one of the most popular Yahoo! blogs out there.

Back to my question, is Yahoo! migrating all the 360 blogs to Wordpress? After all, many Yahoo! blogs are Wordpress blogs, their music blog, their video blog, their flickr blog, their corporate blog- at least it used to be, now I'm not so sure -... Maybe Yahoo! has a special partnership with the Wordpress people? Or maybe they just hate their own blogging platform.

If Yahoo! can come up with a blogging platform that is easy to use, allows full control of content and layout, allows third party code integration and that is also integrated in the rest of the Yahoo machine they might have a winner. The Yahoo! 360 seemed to be integrated with only Yahoo! messenger. At some point I thought they would upgrade all the old profiles to 360 but they didn't. Then came the Mybloglog acquisition and now it seems that they have come up with a new profile system that integrates all the information you enter on any Yahoo! site. My wish for them is that they don't loose any bloggers in the transition process.

Am I still watching American Idol?

2008-05-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

Not really.

For many reasons that I wont detail here I have not been able to watch the latest episodes. Hopefully for me, my latest favorite, Jason Castro is still in the game. I'm not mad that Carly Smithson and Brook White went home. I was never a Carly fan, she may be a good singer but... I never heard one of her songs that I wanted to hear again. As for Brooke, I liked here a little, she can sing really well but the crying.... no, no, I had seen enough of that since she sang "Let it Be".

I'm afraid Jason might be the next one to leave unless Syesha Mercado chooses a really bad song or if the same thing that happened to Kristy Lee Cook happens to her- she would get eliminated even though she seems to be doing a better job week after week -. Even with a performance like "Somewhere over the rainbow" or "Draydream" he can't win over David Archuleta or David Cook unless they do something really bad. By the way I wasn't all crazy about his "Hallelujah" performance. I think he needs to do something very simple but original.

So far there are only three contestants I don't mind listening to more than once a week: Michael Johns, Jason Castro and Brooke White. I think Michael Johns should still have been in the competition but like many others, Carly, Brooke, he felt he had already achieved his dream in the competition, so I guess there was no point in still keeping him. I do believe however that he has the potential to make a great recording artist if they give him the right songs to sing. I think the same thing of Jason Castro and Brook White but those two might be appealing to fewer people. Even though I don't like David Cook I also think he has enormous star potential. He's the best stage performer I've seen this season, he looks natural and at ease. As for David Archuleta, the judges' favorite, this season's 17 year old that they absolutely want to win just like Jordin Sparks last season, I think he should be cast in High School Musical 3- or 4 since it might be too late for 3 -, he could play the new kid in town who's in love with Gabriella. Sorry for those who've never watched HSM-apparently that's what they call it -and have no idea what I'm talking about.

Shiny New Yahoo! Mail Classsic

2008-04-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

Yahoo upgraded my mail account from Yahoo! Mail Classic to New Yahoo! Mail Classic. I had tried the New Yahoo! Mail and didn't like it. It's heavy, cluttered, painful when you don't have a really wide screen and plain ugly plus some features like folders don't work. Folders! One of the most useful features of Yahoo! Mail, it's really great when used with filters by the way and it's a feature Gmail doesn't have but I digress.

Well since Yahoo is not forcing his users to use the New version of Yahoo Mail, at least not at this time they simply changed my Classic Mail to the New Classic Mail without a warning. For once, I'm not complaining. This new version looks like a mixed of both New and Classic Yahoo Mail. It keeps the wide viewing space but adds some functionality. They have however taken out some features like the "Instalist" which allowed you to instantly create a mailing list for recipients when you are sending a message, it was a very practical way to create list for people you mail as a group. Yahoo has a full list of added and removed features.

I have more than one Yahoo! mail account, and no, I don't think it's illegal. I've noticed that only one of them was upgraded the others remained in the old Classic Mail version, still I'm not complaining as long as it's not the New Yahoo Mail! I felt the New Yahoo! Mail does not provide a good ad space, the ad at the right side of the screen just seems to eat up my inbox/mail viewing space while the old placement, when ads are at the top of the page, kept the ad away from my viewing space which I found more convenient. I personally think horizontal ads are better than vertical ones but that's just me.

Have I become a Jason Castro fan?

2008-04-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ramiele Malubay and Michael Johns were my two favorite contestants this season. Both are gone now and I barely watch the show. Though I have to admit, even before their departure I was starting to slowly but surely finding interest in none else than Jason Castro... Maybe it's his goofiness, his messy hair, his big smile or the fact that he looks like a girl or just the guitar or his tight pants???... The guy is an original and he is so distinct from most of what you hear usually, he does not have this mainstream I hear it all the time voice unlike some other contestants. I also like his laid back attitude. I still don't get the tight pants... But really I could listen to some of the songs he sang again and again.

My mom likes David Cook. Even though she doesn't listen to rock but for some reason she thinks he's really good, which means that David Cook will probably go really far in this competition, by the way my mom accurately predicted that Michael Johns was going to be eliminated last week while many people were surprised when it happened. I'll probably ask her from now on who she thinks is going to be eliminated next.

More Spam on Yahoo Mail

2008-03-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

It just doesn't stop. This morning again while checking my mail I found a few more spam messages in my Yahoo Mail Inbox. I wonder when Yahoo Mail is going to do something about it.

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Daily spam on my Yahoo mail

2008-03-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

I used to get the occasional spam message delivered to my Inbox on Yahoo mail but nowadays I don't get one but many spam messages daily. I report all of them as spam but still day after day or ever later on the same day I receive similar messages from obviously spammy addresses (many are freenet.de email addresses) and with obviously spammy titles.

I don't remember giving away my email address on any site recently but I guess somebody sold my email to some spammers out there I just hope Yahoo! mail's Spamguard would do a better job at catching those spam messages and sending them to the Bulk folder considering that I've been reporting them regularly for a few days now. Funny, after writing the first draft for this post I went on my Indox again and found yet another spam message from a freenet.de address I had just marked the ones I found earlier as spam and they were removed from my inbox.

Again a few hours later, before publishing this post I find yet another spam message and you've guessed it form another freenet.de address... Disappointed with Yahoo! Mail.

American Idol season 6 contestants where are they now?

2008-03-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Melinda Doolittle - not Dolittle -
She finally released her first single last month, it's called "My Funny Valentine", it's available online for purchase at itunes, napster, amazonmp3 and emusic.

Jordin Sparks
She was the American Idol season 6 winner. She released her album and even sang a song with Chris Brown. I find her a bit boring, still, I was never a fan.

Blake Lewis
For some reason Blake Lewis is the one I read the most about since the end of season 6 as if he had the most fans. He hasn't changed his hairstyle much,he released his CD "Audio Day Dream". He also has a fully loaded official website where you can find video clips, a blog, pictures, audio clips and all other things Blake Lewis that it's possible to find online.

Watch Blake Lewis' video Break Anotha

American Idol top 11 results night - Bye Amanda

2008-03-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

It was result night on American Idol season 7, on Fox last night. The contestants will know if they will get another chance to try and convince America that they can be the new american Idol or if they will be sent back home.
The first person to make the bottom three is Carly Smithson, surprisingly. Less surprisingly Kristy Lee Cook joins her, she's been a regular of the bottom three for the past weeks, just like Phil Stacey was last season, he made it pretty far and landed a Disney contract. Kristy and Disney sounds like a good match. And finally, and not surprisingly at all, Amanda Overmyer joins them. As I predicted yesterday Amanda Overmyer was the one sent home. I doubt anybody who's been watching the show since the top 12 is surprised especially if you watched the previous night. She looks like a really nice girl underneath the goth-rocker-biker-chick image, when she's not wearing a lot of make-up she does look "sweet" but saying that I'll miss her on the show would be lying. American Idol being a singing competiton and not an attitude competition I can say that logically she was the weakest singer of the remaining 11.

American Idol - Top 11 performance night - Will Amanda Overmyer go home tonight?

2008-03-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, March 18th 2008

A two-hour show, you know one of the long long shows with plenty of fillers. The contestant will perform for a chance to spend one more week in the competition and come one step closer to win.

American Idol is back with yet another Beatles night! No way. The Lennon/McCartney night was far from successful, the contestants perform better with more contemporary songs. In fact, the week before was near catastrophic. A bad choice to bring the Beatles back on the show.

Amanda Overmyer, she feeds of fthe audience's energy, she's a vampire... or a singerpire!, she's singing "Back in the USS army". Her voice is awful, she's screaming and it's not melodious. And they call that singing... mercy! When will it end, stop the torture and send Amanda home. Since it's a performance competition and not a singing competition anymore the judges might just like it.

What did the judges think?
Ryan, "... pitch problem, 7 out of 10".
Paula, "... when you connect, you are authentic, I love you ...stay who you are"
Simon, "... predictable, a bit of a mess in part, the same thing week after week after week, ....in danger of becoming a bit boring..."

She's trying herself at being a diva, trying to please the crowd. Simon reminds her that her tickets are not on sale yet while she brags about showing the audience what they would see if they came to see her in concert. Yep, she's ready to leave, she just bought her ticket out of this competition.

Kristy Lee Cook came with her photo book. She's a cute nice girl with a powerful voice. I don't quite like her outfit. She chose a boring song with too many low notes especially in the chorus. I'm not sure many people know this song, I don't. She finishes with a long high note. People like her for her personality even though Simon thinks she doesn't have any.

What did the judges think?
Ryan says it's one of his favorite Beatles song but he found the performance a little boring.
Paula, "... would have been safer to stick to the melody... a little safe... good"
Simon,".. you need hypnosis, you're not a good performer... like musical wallpaper..." His basically telling her she's forgettable but he still thinks she was better this this week than last week.
Kristy tells Simon she can blow him out of his socks. And Ryan just couldn't stop laughing after that comment, me neither. She'll be back, she's still modest and being a good girl, trying her best.

David Archuleta thinks he wont forget the lyrics tonight, he sings "the long and windy road". I think Beatles' night is easier on the guys than the girls in general. He chose a better song for his voice. Yeah he's not bad, I'll grant him that.

What do the judges think?
Ryan,"... David Archuleta has brought the hotness back to the play... very nice..." he obviously loved it.
Paula,"... the most exciting and wonderful performance...you rose above adversity and came back strong ..."(she 's actually giving performance feedback this week).
Simon thinks he was amazing, "...you made my point... master class...". The girls kept on screaming after the performance, you could barely hear Ryan... I guess he is this season's Sanjaya.

Michael Johns, "A day in the life". I like Michael Johns but you already know that. He is trying to sound like a Beatle. He choose a good song. He's a good singer but, Beatles is not exactly relevant, it's really old school, that's the least I can say and he chose an old school song. I guess being older than the others gives him an edge for this week. Still looking nerdy. What I like about him on Beatles' night is that he's the only one who makes those song still sound like Beatles' songs, being a Beatles' fan I really enjoy that.

What did the judges think?
Ryan, "... not one of your best performances..."
Paula "...".
Simon, "... it was a mess, you didn't hit the right notes... not enough time for that song ...". And I think he's right, it's a full song that needs full time. But I still think Michael was great as usually, I loved his performance. He's one of the strongest singers they have.

Brooke White, still not back to the ground from her "let it be" performance. I don't think it was that great. She's singing "Here comes the sun". The melancholy in that song , yes that's just right for Brooke White. I still have issues with her voice. I think she sucks. Very very Karaoke, and not a great karaoke. Boring. She's trying to dance to an un-dancable song, unless you're...
What do the judges think?
Ryan,"... what's going down? what's going on? ...awkward for me... not hot for me..."
Paula, she couldn't help but smile, she loved the yellow dress Brooke was wearing. I don't think she liked the performance, she said it wasn't challenging enough for Brooke.
Simon,"... I thought the performance was terrible...lack of conviction... forgettable".

David Cook, singing "Day Tripper". I think it's more of a girl's song, really... It's a short song if you know it, and it does not have too many words in it. He really feels like a rock star at a rock concert and he acts like one.

What did the judges think?
Ryan, "... I love seeing you. not necessarily your best performance but ...."
Paula didn't like it.
Simon, "... a bit predictable... didn't like it..." me neither.

David Cook stopped being irritating to Simon, now he's being modest saying his taking all the opinions of the judges and building off of it for next week.

Carly Smithson, Simon has compared her to Kelly Clarkson twice. She's singing "BlackBird". The song Simon was waiting to hear from a contestant tonight. She sings very well. She kept it simple.
What do the judges think?
Ryan, "... another great performance for Carly Smithson, very nice man..."
Paula, "... an amazing tone otoyour voice... beautiful arrangement".
Simon,".. not a very smart thing to do, the song was indulgent..." He didn't like it at all.

Jason Castro, singing "Michelle" and Ryan does the impersonation of a French man, "Voici Jason Castro!" He sings nicely.
What did the judges think?
Ryan .....
Paula thought he was a little awkward in his moves
Simon, "... a very weird show. ..this is all getting a bit strange..." He thinks Jason has charm and that's what makes it work for him.

Syesha Mercado, she's singing "Yesterday", will she do a better job than Ramiele. She takes it acoustic and sits down. She tries a "soul" version if I may say. Interesting, it's all about doing something unusual with the songs and she did just that. I guess she wont be the one going home next week. She looks nice tonight.
What did the judges think?
Ryan, "... very very good performance tonight...".
Paula thinks she should work on connecting with the audience
Simon ,"...you're best performance so far... not incredible..."

Chikizie, "I've just seen a face". He's definitely not an original. He sounds so familiar. Then, he plays the harmonica. R&B meets country. I didn't like the R&B part but the country part was interesting.
What did the judges think?
Ryan, "...some good part some bad part..." He thought he was better in the fast country part.
Paula loved it."... You did it again...".
Simon thought he started off ok but the harmonica part was atrocious. "It was gimmicky".
Can you believe they didn't even give him a second to say a word while all the others had a chance to respond to the judges and save themselves after getting bad awful reviews.

Ramiele Malubay, trying herself at "I should have known better". Trying not to bore the judges. She seems to have made friends with all the other contestants, Brooke, David Cook, Syesha. I think her song is actually boring... Yep, there's something missing, she sings but she does not perform I guess that's what's missing. But I don't expect too much from a Beatles' night on American Idol. I think what the judges don't like about Ramiele is that she's not very emotional like Brook White or very sensational and bursting like Amanda or David Cook, or even fake and looking like she's always happy and jolly and carefree and in a joking mode like someone I wont name...
What did the judges think of her performance?
Ryan," ...I wasn't jumping up and down.... alright... you did your thing..." Sounds a bit like what he would have said to Sanjaya, maybe Ramiele is this year's Sanjaya?!! I'm just kidding.
Paula, ".. better than last week....." I can't tell you if she liked it or not.
Simon, "... sounded like Chikezie on the harmonica. very amateurish...."
At least they let Ramiele Say "Ok" Chikezie wasn't that lucky.

American Idol Season 7 - Top 12 performances

2008-03-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, March 12th it was the American Idol season 7 top 12 performance night. The contestants were performing songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I watched the full two hours of the unnecessarily long top 12 performance night.

As a Beatles' fan, I was looking forward to this night. But I forgot it was American Idol and not and all star karaoke night. The contestants thought they had to twist and thorn the songs in order to impress the judges because we all know that American follows the judges when the time comes to vote except in those rare cases when the contestant is Oh so cute or Oh so original that the viewers just want to see more of him even when he/she fails to impress with his/her vocal skills but I digress. Some songs are beautiful enough that you are better off just doing a karaoke version than trying to make it your own. Besides you're already singing it with your own voice that should be enough to make everybody feel your personal grain of salt.

I'll start with Brook White's performance.

Brook White sang "Let it be", she bought Sergeant Pepper's lonely hearts club band album when she was younger- I have that album too -. She does not do the song justice. I think her voice is not strong enough. She changes the notes but it's hard to tell whether it's her personal touch or just a pitch problem. I think she did an awful job. It's a beautiful, timeless song, she messed it up.

Ryan , talks a lot, I don't think he really said what he believe, but in the end he said he loved it. Paula , felt an emotional connection bla bla bla.... Simon , thought it was one of the best performances of the night, " brilliant choice of song , it's believable. " what?!

I really didn't like it, I'm sure I'm not the only one. She said, "this is it", after her performance. I guess she's not aspiring to become "the idol" because she believes she's already where she was aiming to be.

David Hernandez sang 'I saw her standing there'. I don't really like him. He does not look or sound authentic. He's a bit country and pop. He sings with ease but really he can't help looking uninteresting to me, almost like he's pretending something. Please give me Michael Johns next, I can't take any of this anymore.

Ryan, " you got a big voice... too over done" he was lost. Paula , "thinks" he over did it. Simon, " David, no no no, corny verging on desperate. ... wasn't very cool"

I like the fact that he's confident and reacts maturely. The guy knows exactly what to say, he's dangerous or very efficient or both. This guy can go far even if he does not go for a career in music.

Amanda Overmyer, I'm not a big fan of hers. The contrast between her talking voice and singing voice is huge. She saing "You can't do that" from "A hard days night". She reminds me of the Adam's Family. She's just shouting the song, it's not easy on my ear at all. You can still hear the Beatles in the song. It's not a song I know but it's so obvious that's it's from them, even with the "Amanda spin".

Ryan , " Beatle song to southern rock, very cool ". Paula , " you look fantastic, she's blown away cause this is the best season". Simon doesn't think it was as good as last week- that's the least I would say -.

I think it sucked.

Michael Johns, was next, finally! He's cute, in a nerdy kind of way. He sang "Across the Universe". Not sure it's a good song for this competition, it's completely slow, I was worried it would probably sound too old for most people. Michael is a very strong singer but he has no clue of what he's supposed to do while he's singing. His performance was a bit short but I love Michael! He even says thank you at the end, a nice guy who knows he's safe for at least one more week.

Ryan ," good, ok for him , a little sleepy".
Paula ," brilliant performance". Women can't resist Michael!
Simon , " you should have done something like Carly.". He's still a big fan of Michael but he's not overwhelmed by the performance.
Once again Michael Johns is sweating like a pig. I wonder if I would have liked him as much if he were American instead of Australian? Maybe it's the accent or the way he says G'day!

kristy Lee Cook, she's all about impressing Simon. She sang "Eight days a week", country style. She looks like she got her clothes out of a thrift shop. She reminds me of "spiritual Cindy"- can't remember her name - from "Grease, you're the one that I want" on NBC. Her jeans really looked awful.

Ryan , " ...wild for me. half and half".
Paula didn't enjoy it, she didn't get it.
Simon thought it was horrendous- that's what you get for trying to impress Simon Cowell- . I guess country is not Simon's thing.
According to Paula Kristy has a large fan base that should keep her safe for next week.

David Archuleta sang "Wee can work it out". It's a good song, at least one that I like. Unfortunately David kills the song. He even forgets the lyrics in the first sentence! No he didn't? Or maybe I just didn't hear what he was saying because he's cutting the words. David Archuleta is a pop singer, definitely. There's something missing... I guess he didn't really realize what the song was saying. He made the song sound meaningless.

Ryan ," not on point. very forced, didn't work for him".
Paula thought this was not his best week, but " we love you". That's the kind of thing they would say to Jordin Sparks last season.
Simon thought it was a mess, he stumbled on the lyrics, it was his weakest performance so far. He said that he had to be fair to other contestants.

David's problem is that he let everybody know how nervous and unprepared he felt to sing a Lennon or McCartney song so they expected to see his nervousness and unfortunately for him it showed right in the beginning.

To summarize the night.

Syesha Mercado performed first and she was was so-so. Ramiele did a very good job but the judges were merciless with her. Jason Castro is cute and he chose a cute song so the girls are going to vote for him even though his performance wasn't great. Carly Smithson is good even I like here. Jason Cook over-rocked his song, as always. Brooke White whispered her song and cried after her performance, nothing new there either. David Hernandez.... whatever, he chose a boring song. Amanda Overmyer was overconfident. Michael Johns was good and chose a nicey-nice song. Kristy Lee Cook sang a weird country version of a song... maybe she's the one going home. David Archuleta forgot his lyrics but he was well dressed and stayed cute so I guess he's safe. Oh wait, I can't believe I forgot to say something about Chikezie, I'm not a big fan, he did a lot of noise with a song, he was very confident and the judges loved it so he's very very safe.

As much as I don't want to see Kristy go home tonight I'd rather see her go than having to say bye to Ramiele who is still my favorite female contestant.

Ramiele Malubay dedicated her song to her friends who've already left the competition. Was it her way of telling them that she'll come and join them soon?

Many people seem to think that Kristy Lee Cook is the one to go tonight. The judges crushed her last night so that might be her faith.

American Idol Season 7 - Top 12

2008-03-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 6th, 2008.

It was about time we had the final 12. Last season I did not watch much of the show prior to the top 12, this season I realized that it was a smart move. The show is long and boring, so many fillers. Having to watch American Idol not two but three days in a row before knowing who's been eliminated, is a bit too much. At least this week we only had to suffer to one hour episodes...

Thursday is not a good day to watch American Idol, it's elimination night, two guys and two girls will go home. There will be cries and still it's a long way to the final night when America chooses the "One".

Blake Lewis stopped by for a performance and everybody seemed happy to see him again on stage doing his "thing". He wasn't a finalist for nothing.

And finally they tell us who goes home. Kady is gone, no more Britney Spears on American Idol! I'm really going to miss fake Britney. I think Kady Malloy has a future in show business.

Luke Menard, Danny Noriega and Asia'h Epperson are also gone.

I predicted the eliminations pretty much accurately then again who hadn't?

American Idol Season 7 - Top 16 - Women

2008-03-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

March 5th, the women take the stage to see if they can convince America that they deserve to sing another day in this competition.

Asia'h Epperson, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody".
She's definitely not very articulate. It's karaoke night people. Her voice is not strong and the backup singers do a better job than she does at least they sound better. And her performance just goes on for ever, no, it didn't work for me at all. What is she wearing?

What do the judges think? Randy,recorded that song with Whitney Houston, he thinks it was Hot! -I don't thinks so- . Paula thinks she nailed it. Simon, is not quite so enthusiastic, " at best it was second rate Whitney Houston. She did the Whitney version of the Whitney song. " I completely agree with him.

Kady Malloy,"Who Wants to live Forever". She didn't think America would pick her instead of Alaina Whitaker, the girl has no self confidence... What she doesn't know is that they just love it when she impersonates the celebrities. She should have done Britney Spears tonight to secure her place in the top 12. She kind of sucked.

Randy thinks it was a very interesting song choice, a nice queen song, she did a good job, pretty good- whatever - . Paula, thinks it was, to date her best performance, she likes the tenderness and softness of her voice. Simon thinks it was definitely better than last week, but has issues with her " massive lack of personality". How can you say that to someone? I think it's offensive.

Amanda Overmyer ,"I Hate Myself for Loving You". She seems to have adopted the Robbie Carrico look in her pre-performance video... I don't know the song but it rocks. A great choice for her but I'm wondering how well she customized it?
What did the judges think? Randy found the Amanda that he loves, "the bluesy rocker chick, well done baby! ". Paula, " your face is beautiful, I like your hair, this is who we fell in love with". Simon thought it was fantastic," absolutely nailed that song, his favorite girl performance of the competition so far."

She looks better tonight indeed, better makeup, better hair, she looks younger and more
approachable, nicer, more feminine and less gothic.

Carly Smithson,"I Drove All Night". Irish Girl who can sing but probably looks too old and too married for the AI people. Did you see her tattoos? They always show you inside her mouth when she's doing those loud long notes, you can see her tongue it's a bit weird.
Not a great performance, pure Carly, technically good. I kind of like here, she's very likable.

What did the judges think? Randy, " I love that dude, another great performance ".
Paula, " dude ...", she liked it. Simon, once again, he doesn't think she chose the right song, she made the most out of it. Just not a great song for her and bla bla bla...

Kristy Lee Cook ,"Faithfully". She's an atypical girl. She has a real nice powerful country voice. Not perfect but charming. Her tongue looks red though they only showed it from the side unlike Carly's that they show right up front.

What did the judges think? Randy, " this is cool man, great song, I actually liked it...". He liked the country version. Paula thinks it could be a hit for her in country music, " you look great tonight ". Simon , thinks she's forgetable, he's not right. Who can't remember Kristy, the one who sold her horse and never watches R rated movies...she's the tall blonde. Maybe Simon has something with blond country girls or blonds in general.

Ramiele Malubay,"Against All Odds". My favorite female contestant, isn't she cute? Trying to look her age tonight. She has a good voice but .... I don't know, something's missing.

What did the judges think? Randy, " big song , big vocals, he feels she's not confident enough, you got mad vocals dude come on with it ". Paula, " you have such a beautiful face .... bla bla... "ok Paula... finaly she says, you deserve to be in the top 12 " , as if the top 12 was the end of it.
Simon, " because you're so little and cute it was quite good, but didn't hear the big money performance he was looking for.

Brooke White,"Love is A Battlefield". There's something with her voice, it's not clear enough, almost like she's coughing. But she's oK, not a bad performance compared to what I've heard so far.

What did the judges think? Randy really liked it, "very interesting ".
Paula "a very wise choice". Simon, it worked purely for the reason she didn't use the complete band but only a guitar . So they all loved it, she's very safe.

Syesha Mercado, "Saving All My Love for You". I don't quite like her. But she usually delivers a solid performance probably because she's confident and a confident performer is usually a good one. She's definitely not dressed for the occasion. What's up with all those Whitney Houston songs? She does something really weird with this song, a bit too piercing for my sensitive ears. America will probably like it, I don't. I think it's just oK. They should stay away from WH's songs, she's a real diva you can't outsing her.

What did the judges think? Randy " good ". Paula, " sophisticated lovely". Simon " a bit predictable but good".Very short comments from the judges they probably told them that their time was up.

I feel so sad to see Kady go- Though sh'es not gone yet but I'd be surprised if she made the top 12-. We need her on this show! I'm really really going to miss Kady. Who will go with her? It's not obvious I can't really tell. I also have to say that Ramiele might be in danger also... I just hope I'm wrong. Maybe Asia'h will also be in the bottom three?

Did you see Asia'h carrying Kady on her back? Asia'h is one of the shortest female contestants and Kady is one of the tallest female contestants.

American Idol Season 7 - Top 16

2008-03-05T05:02:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I've written anything about American Idol. Now that there are only 16 contestants left I thought I'd comment on last night's performances and about the remaining contestants. The performances were shorter, which gave the contestants less time to try to impress the judges and the viewers but they did make the best out of it, you can feel the increasing pressure on their shoulders.

March 4th, the show is back to the reasonable 1 hour performance format. I enjoy watching American Idol but I think two hour performance shows are too long, a lot of fill-ups. Last nigh was 80's night.

First up, Luke Menard (29).

I've found his performance to be so-so. Not much more I can say about it really.

Then came David Archuleta (17).

I see he's trying to look sexy, yeah so many girls are going crazy for him. I think he sounds good. The judges have been trying to imposing David Archuleta as a favorite for this season, makes sens doesn't it since he's "only 17"! But I'm not sure that's a good thing at this stage in the competition, soon they're going to start telling him that he's so consistently good that he's become boring...

Danny Noriega (18) performed after Archuleta.

What was that? He should not try to dance during his performances. If only he had great hair like Sanjaya Malakar, maybe then, there would be a really good reason to keep him for a few more rounds.

Then there was David Hernandez (24).

I found his performance not bad actually, he's surprising me, really! I've never been a fan of his but what can I say?

Then came Michael Johns (29).

He moves the microphone strangely when he holds it. I don't quite understand his posture, and the man just can't dance! But he's still cute! Where did he find that song? That's such a wrong choice for him, it does not showcase his vocal skills enough. He looks nerdy or maybe a bit like Aerosmith... He's still my favorite guy. I don't think I've ever seen a contestant sweat so much after such a short performance.

What did the judges think? Randy loved it and thinks it's a good song choice. Paula thinks it was the perfect song and loves the hear him in the low range.- Her chest looks bigger tonight... -
Simon liked it, loved it. He thinks Michael has huge talent but still hasn't had his moment yet, he thinks Michael's going to do very very well in the competition and really likes him. I hope Simon's right about him doing very well in the competition.

The "rocker", David Cook (25).

Remember people David Cook is the rocker who plays the guitar and has short colored hair not to be confused with the blond long-haired rocker called Robbie Carrico who was voted off last week- he failed to convince the judges and America that he truly is a rocker -. I don't understand why they take so much pride in being called "rockers", like rocker=cool or many it's the Daughtry effect- rockers make more money(?)-. I don't really like that guy I don't find him "nice" and likable enough but he's not a bad artist though I think he overdoes the "rock thing". This season seems to be all about the rockers and instrument players. He plays the guitar and does this "rocked out" version of Hello from Lionel Ritchie. Starts a bit hesitantly then "rocks it out". What can I say, the guy has talent and I like rock so yeah, I think it was really good and quite impressive actually, no doubt about it, David Cook is a stage performer.

What did the judges think? Randy loved it, he thinks it was a brilliant and "evil" version of the song. Paula loved it too, she likes David Cook, and believes he'll be a great shining star. Simon thinks it was a brave thing to do and he loved it. He thinks David took a risk and hopes he'll see him next week.

Next, Jason Castro, (20).

The make up makes him look like a girl or maybe he just naturally looks like one? Or maybe it's the facial expressions? Did you see how he opens up his nostrils every now and then? Quite a sight. He chose a soft song. Not bad, he does not look satisfied with himself. But he looks like a nice guy, very likable.

What did the judges think? Randy said it was one of his favorite songs," Good looking out man, Good looking out baby, nice." Poetic don't you think. Paula,... is she ...? Well let's move along with Simon. One of his favorite songs, he thought it was absolutely brilliant, "Probably one of his favorite performances of the night."

And finally came Chikezie (22).

He sounds quite a bit unoriginal. He's still trying to prove himself.

What did the judges think? Randy thinks he did a good job, he thinks it was "really good". I hope he didn't say that because Chikezie is the only black male contestant. Paula thinks Chikezie's vocals sound really good, and Simon thinks it didn't work at all, " much more caberet than last week, not a very smart move ". What's wrong with cabaret by the way?

So who is going home this week? Luke and Danny probably, Chikezie will be close once again. At least that's what I would like to see happen.

No more website links in Blogger comments

2007-12-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

I've notice recently that I was unable to add a link to my blog while leaving a comment on Blogger. If you comment on a Blogger blog with your Blogger identity it links to your Blogger profile which has a list of your blogs.

I often like to leave a direct link to one of my blogs on Blogger blogs that allow anonymous comments that's why I usually allow anonymous comments on my own blogs. Now Blogger gives you three commenting identity options: Google/Blogger ID, Nickname and Anonymous neither one of those allow you to leave a direct active link to your site. I'm guessing the Blogger team did this as part of their continuous effort to fight comment spam but was it a smart move? What do you think?

The big guys and their blogging systems

2007-11-23T06:54:00.001-08:00

Don't worry this post is not about the bloggers who make big money with their blogs.

WordPress seems to be the most popular blogging platform among high profile bloggers. Yahoo, Google and Microsoft all three have their own blogging platform. Yahoo has it's 360 blogs, Google has Blogger and Microsoft has Msnspaces blogs....

Google proudly uses Blogger for all its official blogs, they all have a .blogspot.com URI. Yahoo has a few of its blogs on 360 like the Yahoo Answers blog but they didn't think the Yahoo 360 was good enough for their corporate blog so they used WordPress instead. And they expect Yahoo users like me to take the 360 seriously? They built the system and they don't even have enough confidence in it to use it for they own blogs. What does that say about the quality reliability and perennity of the product? Maybe one day they'll buy Wordpress and close Yahoo 360 blogs and push all the 360 users to convert their blogs to Worpress blogs? (By the way Yahoo is going to transition the 360 starting next year).

Blogger's blog search is also case sensitive

2007-11-07T05:37:00.000-08:00

I found out this morning that the search feature provided by Blogger is also case sensitive. This is getting ridiculous.

Blogger labels are case-sensitive

2007-11-05T12:23:00.000-08:00

In case you want to use links that point directly to label pages, you have to be careful to write the labels the exact way you wrote them in the post otherwise you'll get a blank page see Melinda Doolittle Vs melinda doolittle. Therefore, if you write the same label with different cases in two posts they will show up as two different labels.

About Melinda Doolitte (not Dolittle), did you know that she used to sing with the Mile High Orchestra when she was in college? Well now you do. For those wondering what the Mile High Orchestra is, it's a band competing in Fox's The Next Great American Band.

A blogger is an athlete

2007-11-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

I once read somewhere that a blogger is like an athlete. As an athlete, here's all you need to reach those high performances your aiming for:

Start young. Sorry grandpa but your blogging muscles are just not as flexible as junior's.
Practice. As in everything else practice makes perfect, the more you blog the better you'll become at blogging.
Find a good coach. Some might succeed at being self-taught bloggers but for the rest of us, a coach/mentor or famous blogger we can look up to is necessary to give us guidance and ideas, inspiration and encouragement on our path to becoming just like them or even better.
Engage in competition. Or set challenges for yourself, it's an excellent way for you to evaluate your performances.
Know when to take a brake and when to retire.

My profile has a higher pagerank than my blog!

2007-11-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

I just realized this morning that my blogger profile page has a higher Google pagerank than my Wannatech blog. I know I have not put enough effort in updating this blog in order to secure a decent pagerank for it as Google updated them, but still. I also discovered this morning that Google uses nofollow for links to your blogs in your blogger profile (!).

Isn't that odd, I guess they consider that your profile can't vouch for links to your blog or that maybe somehow you're only spamming blogger so they won't be passing any PR from your blogger profile to your blogs. But of course the links at the bottom of the page which point to Blogger buzz, the Google store etc.. are regular links, I guess they are more relevant to your profile than your own blogs. But I'm forgetting, your profile is not about you, it's about Blogger.

I started blogging sometime in 2004 (see my blogger profile :D) but until this year I wasn't even aware of the existence of the pagerank concept. To me the Google pagerank is a sort of award system like the levels on Yahoo Answers. So by giving me a low PR Google is telling me, your blog stinks, fix it and wait for the next pagerank update to see if we like it.

Taking my Blogger template from two columns to three

2007-10-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

If you had visited this blog in the past, you've certainly noticed that I've added an additional column to my template and increased its width (see an archive of the old wannatech template at archive.org).

Old Template >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>New Template

I wasn't always a fan of three column templates but as my sidebar was getting longer I knew that one additional column would allow visitors to see more sidebar content without having to scroll. I did not want to switch to another template and hopefully I found an easy step-by-step guide to changing a two-column-new-blogger template into a three-column-new-blogger template on LawnyDesignz.

Related posts
Removing Page Elements Titles
New Blogger
Register your domain name directly from Blogger

Access Hollywood Video in Yahoo Mail

2007-10-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed the videos in yahoo mail? No? Well I just watched a clip from Access Hollywood featuring Hayden Panettiere and Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus. They were asking Hayden about her relationship with Heroes co-start Milo Ventimiglia, she couldn't believe that people think they are dating -why not?-.

I'm not much of an online video watcher but I do watch entertainment and celebrity news on TV every once in a while and I'm a Heroes fan too. I prefer those videos over the car insurance ads.

Problogger is down

2007-10-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Problogger is down. At least I can't access it. All I got was this

Update: Guess what? Problogger is back up again...of course.

Register your domain name directly from Blogger

2007-10-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Google is indeed offering domain name registration through Blogger. Actually the domains are registered with either eNom or GoDaddy who have partnered with Google, and they cost only US $10. To register your domain name for your Blogger blog, go to your blog's Settings from your Dashboard. Click on Publishing from the settings menu then choose "Switch to: Custom Domain ". There, you'll be able to check for the availability of your desired domain name and eventually buy it. If you already own a domain name that you want to use with your blog use the Advance Settings.

You might think that US $10 for a domain name is not a good deal but consider what you get for the price:

1 year custom domain name registration

1 Google Apps account for your new domain

private registration to protect your personal information (a US $9 value)

Once you've bought the domain, Google will configure everything for you so your shiny new domain will work instantly with your blog. Moreover, you'll be able to use all of the services available through Google Apps and have full control of you domain settings which will allow you to use your domain for other services not provided by Google.

I guess the people at Google are reading my blog(!)

Read the Blogger Help Guide on "How do I buy a custom domain through Blogger?"

Related Posts:
Domain Names
Renting a Domain Name
Who stole my domain name?

Who stole my domain name?

2007-10-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

They're watching you and your domain. ..

After writing about buying a domain name I've searched a little to find the perfect domain for my blog. I was ready to buy a brand new shiny domain name that I could call my own.

As I searched through the Internet to find the domain registrar that would be right for me, I found and settled for goDaddy.com because they seemed to have the lowest prices. The name I wanted was available, I jumped in joy but just didn't buy it right away because I had other things to do and thought it could wait for the weekend.- If only I knew that a company called UltraRPM was spying on the domain name searches.- The day after I came and searched for the name again only to have goDaddy tell me that it was taken! No! it's not possible ! Yes it is, it was registered a few hours after I had searched for it the first time by a company called UltraRPM. This practice which seems to be quite common is called domain kiting or domain tasting. Wikipedia describes it as

".. a practice of registrants using the five-day "grace period" at the beginning of a domain registration for ICANN-regulated generic top-level domains to test the marketability of a domain name. During this period, when a registration must be fully refunded by the domain registry, a cost-benefit analysis is conducted by the registrant on the viability of deriving income from advertisements being placed on the domain's web site."

The fact that people register domains only to test them out and release them a few days later is not bad in itself. What is bad is that they take domains that they know people are interested in buying so they can try and sell them to those same people at a high price during the period when the domain costs them nothing. Hopefully most domains are released after the five-day grace period and can then be registered at a regular price.

So the next time you see your desired domain taken soon after it was said to be available, wait for about five days and it will most likely be available again, be patient.

Read more about domain kiting:
http://pocketseo.com/domains/7
http://www.heritage-tech.net/466/does-domain-hijacking-spyware-exist/#comment-50554
http://www.domainnameregistrationblog.com/2006/08/04/whois-hijacking-another-reason-to-hate-ads/

BlogRush - Bloggers should know better

2007-09-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

I don't understand all those bloggers being disappointed with BlogRush. Seriously, what did they expect? All those so called A-list bloggers backing BlogRush should only prompt warnings in the common blogger's head. What's in it for them? That's the question you should ask yourself every time you see a blogger promoting a product or service. And yes you should do that when you see me inviting you to join a site or buy a product.

I'm not saying that bloggers shouldn't profit from the exposure they provide to websites but you should keep in mind that often, the incentives that a blogger gets from advertising a site or product -or service or company- does not leave him with a completely objective state of mind. Many times you'll see bloggers recommend sites or products they've not used at all or with which they've only had a limited experience - it's called advertising-. I've read about BlogRush on every other blog about making money online that I visited recently. Even bloggers that didn't write about it used the widget. Still I failed to see what BlogRush had that other earn-credits-and-get-exposure (traffic exchange) systems lack except for the buzz. I only see BlogRush as a variation of many other such services already available out there. And since it's based on the same model, it has the same weaknesses. Yet another widget to clutter your sidebar with.

Yahoo is closing Yahoo Photos

2007-08-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Only thirty more days until you loose all your photos permanently. I was in shock when I first read about it; though I should have seen it coming. After all aren't I the one who wrote about the redundancy of two such sites as Flickr and Yahoo Photos. Though a kind yahoo answers member did point out that they don't exactly offer the same service. Indeed Yahoo Photos it mostly aimed at online storage and printing while Flickr is mostly for online photo sharing (and hotlinks!).

I don't remember the last time I visited my Yahoo Photos account but I do have a friend who has hundreds of photos in his Yahoo Photos photo albums. He wasn't even aware of the closing until I told him about it. Even if you never used Yahoo Photos directly, if you have used the photomail feature in Yahoo Mail, those pictures you sent were uploaded to your Yahoo Photos account, if you don't do anything about them you will loose them forever. But hopefully you have all the original versions on your computer or on a CV/DVD don't you?

Here is what the people at Yahoo are saying :

We will officially close Yahoo! Photos on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 9 p.m. PDT.
Until then, we will offer you the opportunity to move to another photo sharing service (Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Photobucket), download your original resolution photos back to your computer, or buy an archive CD from our featured partner (for users of the New Yahoo! Photos only). All you need to do is choose from these options before we close or any photos remaining on Yahoo! Photos will be deleted and no longer accessible.

Go to http://closing.photos.yahoo.com to make a decision about your photos before September 20, 2007.

** Note for users of Yahoo! Photos’ international versions: Please stay tuned for information about changes in your countries later this year. You do not need to take action at this time.

Hopefully international users -those using yahoo.fr .co.uk etc..- have a bit more time to know what they'll do with their photos.

I personally don't like Flickr. I know how so many people think it's cool. I agree that pictures look better when displayed on Flickr than they do on Yahoo photos. Nevertheless Yahoo Photos (the old version) was very easy to use, it had a simple interface and it offered unlimited storage!

Yahoo kindly sent me a message today reminding me of the upcoming. Not having to manage two online photo sharing services is not the only reason why Yahoo is closing Yahoo Photos. Like I've pointed out earlier, they could have merged the two instead of eliminating one. By merging I mean keeping the best of both and offering the ultimated online photo sharing service that would have all the benefits of Yahoo Photos and Flickr combined. If you look at it closely many of the free features of Yahoo Photos are also available at Flickr but only with a paid membership of US $24.95 a year, not exactly change. I think we will probably see more internet companies do the same, have you pay for services and features that were previously free. You don't believe me? Wait and see.

Google's blog and Wannatech

2007-08-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's been almost two months since I wrote about Google Marratech and TechCrunch, and until this day, that particular post is one of the most visited of this blog with the post about Melinda Dolittle being eliminated on American Idol. Why is that post so popular? Most importantly, how are people regularly being sent to it directly? They are coming from Google's blog. Of the over 100 links featured on the page containing that article, mine is currently showing at the sixth position from the top. Being positioned so closely to the top is achieved by not linking to the blog as soon as the post is published but only later on after most people have reacted on the news on their blog. I'm sure that the 100th link gets fewer clicks than mine.

Help fight Malaria, donate today

2007-08-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

You can help save lives of children by donating money to the Unicef who will provide them with insecticide-treated bed nets that cost just $10 and will protect. Those nests will protect the children from the mosquitoes whose bite causes malaria. Your gift of $80 today will be matched to become $160 and provide 16 bed nets.

Below is the entire content of the message sent by the vice president of the US fund for Unicef Christine Squires.

Every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria caused by a simple mosquito bite. Virtually every one of these deaths could have been prevented. Support UNICEF's fight against malaria today and your gift will go twice as far.

Malaria is entirely preventable. But it is one of the leading killers of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa, causing over 1 million deaths each year.

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Is your blog really a blog

2007-08-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago, the word blog had no meaning, in fact it did not even exist. Nowadays what sets web sites, called blogs by their owners, apart from other web sites is not always clear. Initially a blog was non other than a web log, a web log being a web site where a person enters logs. A log being any type of information recorded with a date tag. No matter what your web site looks like, if it contains dated text entered chronologically, it probably qualifies as a blog.

Blogs have evolved to become more than just logs, they've become online resource centers for people seeking all types of information on various topics. In fact most bloggers now provide shortcuts to their content based on categories or topics covered by the content rather than the date and time the content was written (...), others have gone even further to transform what used to be their blog into a more complex web site which includes the blog among other sections. This later model is not new but going from blog only to blog among other things seems not to be so common among bloggers.

Would you have guessed that all those long sentences were meant to introduce my comments on whether a blog should allow comments or not? Probably not.

I recently wrote about Kumiko Suzuki removing comments completely from her blog (cashquests) and then dedicating an entire post to the benefits of not having to worry about comments. Right after she had removed the ability to comment on her blog, she published a paid review of John Chow's blog - notice Kumiko Suzuki does not disclose when the reviews published on her blog are paid. Though in this particular case John Chow did write on his own blog that he had ordered the review from Ms Suzuki - . After realizing that cashquests' readers were not able to react to Ms Suzuki review of his blog, John Chow wrote "I dare say that a blog without a comment system isn’t a blog." Then Ms Suzuki replied on her own blog with a post that shows, in my opinion, why she still has many fans (be aware that she included a partial picture of a naked woman in the post though it's only R rated, not X rated ). Of course all this sounds more like a reality television show, it's entertaining, a bit dramatic and rather pointless.

The fact is, there are countless blogs, and many very popular ones who don't allow comments (Google's official blog for example). Different people have different reasons for not allowing random visitors to leave comments on their blog, it does not make their web site less of a blog, it only makes some visitors - like me- feel like outsiders especially when the reader does not consider a particular blog to be solely an information outlet but an open door to a really small part of another person's life.

Having said all this, do I think that Cashquests is a blog? Yes and no. Yes, because I regularly receive email updates from the website containing dated posts. No, because if you visit the site you'll see that the posts are not dated, they are presented in an order that is only assumed to be chronological.

Nowadays, most blogs are not logs of anything except for the day and time the posts are published.

Related post
No comments Please

Gmail and Yahoo Mail

2007-08-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

I've been using Gmail for over a year now. In the beginning I had my Gmail addresses only for the sake of having one and the feeling of being part of a restricted group. But these days I use Gmail almost daily and many aspect of the Google Mail make the experience pleasant.

The first feature that I really enjoy is the automatic saving of emails addresses to contacts. How does it work, basically any email address that goes through your mail (sent/receive) is saved with the sender's name. When you have to write a message as soon as you start typing the address, Gmail suggests matches from all the addresses remembered so far and all you had to do was receive and send email.

Second most appreciated feature is the grouping of messages in conversations. I think it's even more ground braking - for me at least- than the first one. Now there is no need to go from page to page trying to find that message this person wrote you not so long ago, they are all kept together in the most convenient way, as long as they are from the same person and on the same topic.

I wont talk about the gadgets, like the chat within Gmail. But there are of course a few negative aspects to Gmail. For instance the standard interface is somewhat heavy. I understand it's not an issue for people with broadband internet access but if you have a poor quality internet connection you might want to avoid Gmail altogether. Otherwise you'll end up using the basic HTML version without all the cool features.

There is one other aspect of Gmail I particularly dislike. I've you noticed that when you check a message to perform an action (mark as read for example or add label) unless you go and uncheck the message it's left checked. This can be unpleasant if you happen to need to perform another action for example on other messages and forgot that you had not unchecked that first message. I don't understand why they left it like that you would think automatic unchecking after an action is perform is something they would have obviously thought of.

As a Yahoo Mail user of almost 10 years, I think Yahoo mail (the old version) still has a few features that Gmail might want to imitate because they do make the user's life easier, like the automatic "unchecking" mentioned early and the possibility to create folders. There is no way to create folders in Gmail. For those who think that folders are so not web 2.0, I want to say that they allow you to organize your incoming mail especially when you use them in conjunction with filters -or labels-. Adding labels help me identify specific messages but what I really want to do is have those messages delivered into one place. I have a few subscriptions and I don't like to have my subscription messages scattered around my inbox because sometimes I like to go through those particular messages in chronological order. Am I asking too much?

InfraRecorder a must have for CD/DVD burning

2007-08-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

"InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows". Beside the basic features of such an application, it also allows you to record disc images. Most CD/DVD burning software with basic/Free versions ask you to upgrade to a pay version to use such options as disc image copies. It is the case with the Sonic RecordNow that came preinstalled on my Laptop. The recordNow 9 upgrade would cost me US $34.99 after and instant $15 rebate. I needed to burn one image, it was very urgent but definitely not worth spending all that money.

InfraRecorder is a good Free alternative and it's extremely easy to use, nonetheless I do recommend taking a few minutes to look at the help topics for the tasks you want to perform before you start.

Read more about :
InfraRecorder On Wikipedia
ISO Images also on Wikipedia

No Comments Please

2007-07-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

I've been following Kumiko Suzuki and her cashquest for a while. I find her to be an "interesting" blogger. Lately she's written a very long post to glorify the virtues of not having comments enabled on her blog. I find it a curious attitude seeing how avidly she comments on John Chow's blog for instance.

She writes on the benefits of not having comment on your blog, "Productivity will increase: When a question is asked in the comments, I feel it is polite to reply. Furthermore, when someone disagrees with me, I feel obliged to correct them on why they are wrong. Without having to spend time doing this, my productivity has increased and I’ve been able to spend more time researching content." She only forgot to add that she also has more time to spend commenting on other people's blog.

She also writes, "Without comments, there is definitely a decrease in the community feeling of the site. However, I believe that a blog isn’t a community in the first place. If Cash Quests were a community everybody would have an equal chance of having their voices heard and there wouldn’t be just one person writing 90% of the content for the site - and taking 100% of the revenue! A blog is part of a community of bloggers but it isn’t a community itself." What a blog is not a community? Tell that to MyblogLog.

Will I still read her blog? Probably, I've subscribe to it by email. Will I keep writing about her? As long as I find her interesting enough. Will I link to her blog? Yes, if I write about her but I'll probably use nofollow.

On Melinda Doolittle and Why Yahoo Search is still the most successful competitor to Google

2007-07-07T07:50:00.001-07:00

Noticing people coming to Wannatech searching for "Melinda Dolittle" (a typo, the name is Doolittle), I thought I'd check to see what the former American Idol contestant has been doing since being eliminated from the show. In case you hadn't watched American Idol, Melinda Doolittle was one of the favorites to win the contest but she was eliminated right before the finals.

On Google a search for Melinda Doolittle gives you many results with only the (old) American Idol Melinda Doolittle page as an official source of information among the first few, five others are from technorati, wikipedia, blogs and fan sites. A Yahoo Search with the same query gives you Melida Doolittle's myspace page as the first result. Why is Melinda's myspace page a better result for her name than her Fox American Idol contestant profile page? Her myspace page is more recently updated, it has a listing of her upcoming performances and links to her latest blog entries. The Fox American Idol contestant page has not been updated since the beginning of the show in January, need I say more?

On White Soap and John Chow dot com

2007-07-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

Recently I've discovered many interesting web sites. One of them is Yahoo's corporate blog called "Yodel Anecdotal". While I was there I somehow managed to find out about the intern (Paul Stamatiou) who was in charge of the project. While I was wandering around his blog I came across whitesoap. As I was thinking about taking a shower with some lavender soap I went to whitesoap.com to see what it was all about then I ended up reading about how under inflated tires waste gas... Those were just typical minutes on the internet but what does all this have to do with John Chow?

As I was surfing around JohnChow.com in order to write a review of his blog, I saved a few pages including one with Archives of his ReviewMe reviews, I saw one for whitesoap. No matter how big the web grows everyday all it takes is one link to connect one site to the other until they all end up being interconnected at some degree.

The internet is like a village they say, one where Darren Rowse and John Chow live on the same street and Kumiko Suzuki, a few blocs away.

Even though there are theoretically no dead ends on the internet, being "sent" back to whitesoap from JohnChow after going link hoping makes me feel that the web is getting smaller.

Yahoo's music is silent today

2007-06-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

I didn't want the day to end without saying that I support the Internet Radio DoS (day of silence). I enjoy listening to launchcast radio stations very much I've discovered many artists through their service and even ended up buying their albums.

Yahoo music is one of the many webcasters who will stay silent today. Read the official Yahoo blog entries regarding the protest: On yodel anecdotal (Yahoo's corporate blog) and on Yahoo Music blog.

All should be done to preserve such services and encourage people to listen to music online "legally" and then eventually purchase albums or songs that they like. If it weren't for launchcast there are so many great artists I would never have known of. I can only encourage you to join the movement by clicking here for US residents, and here for people outside the US.

Update on July 16th, 2007: Hope for internet radio, but the battle is not over.

Yahoo! Music will be silent on June 26th

2007-06-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

Yahoo is joining thousands of webcasters across the US in a protest movement against the Copyright Royalty Board's increase in royalty rates.

I just read the news on WebrProNews. None of Yahoo's official (Yodel Anecdotal, Yahoo Music blog) had any posts regarding the protest.

Google is treating me like a virus

2007-06-20T06:40:00.001-07:00

Trying to access reviewme's website I type reviewme in the Google search box integrated in my Firefox browser - that's how I access many websites especially those I've not bookmarked -. Instead of serving me a result page with www.reviewme.com as the first result, Google sends an error "403 Forbidden". Apparently "...[my] query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application...To protect [their] users, [they] can't process [my] request right now." I'm also invited to check my computer for viruses and spyware. Hopefully I'm allowed to proceed to the result page after going through a Captcha test.

I thought the problem might be coming from Firefox so I tried going to Google.ht first and then type the query again but the same thing happened. Then I thought that maybe it was because my IP was located in Haiti so I tried the same request with the same browser but this time with an IP located in another country, and everything went fine. Maybe my Haitian ISP has a virus problem?

Google, Marratech and TechCrunch

2007-06-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

From Suray's blog I read about Google acquiring Marratech. For obvious reasons I was attracted to the company's name and went on to perform a search leading me to Google's official blog.

It turned out Google did not buy the company but a software developed by that company. Many people didn't get the news from Google's blog but from TechCrunch, a weblog with PR 8 just like Google's blog and with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. You would think that Michael Arrington, the editor of TechCrunch who wrote the article, would have update the article after Google published a clarification note in the same blog post Mr. Arrington links to in his article? No, he didn't. Neither did he do it after a commenter pointed out the mistake. I suppose the 415K TechCrunch feed subscribers couldn't care less whether the news was completely accurate or not.

Make Money Blog by Google

2007-06-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

The image on the left is not a live Adsense ad unit but one I saw on my blog a few weeks ago, I've seen it on other blogs as well ever since. You've probably encountered it yourself.

When I saw "Make Money Blog" I immediately thought it was an ad for one of those blogs about how to make money online like Kumiko's Cash Quest or JohnChow.com or even Problogger. But no, it was only an ad for Adsense itself. I understand the need - and right - for Google to advertise for Adsense within the program itself but the way that ad was titled is clearly misleading. An ad titled "Make Money blog" should be an ad for a blog about making money shouldn't it?

The second image was taken from johnchow.com, it shows the "Make Money Blog" ad by Google and a similar one saying "Make Money With Your Blog". Why didn't Google title its ad "Make Money With Your Blog"? Wouldn't that have reflected better what is being advertised?

Old News from Yahoo mail and Gmail

2007-06-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

A while ago, Yahoo announced that it's free mail service would soon have unlimited storage. Yes, it means you can store as many emails, photos and all sorts of attachments as you want without ever worrying about reaching your storage limit.

I personally thought that this just wasn't exciting news at all. For someone who has practically not deleted an email since the latest limit increase to 1GB it sounded more like they were saying "well we don't really have anything interesting to offer you so we'll just make this announcement and try to make it look like a big deal".

It seemed to me like increasing the size of attachments would have been more useful. The 8MB limit is just something I can't live with anymore. I had to send a heavy file to a friend and the only option I had was to split it and send each peace one by one. I had a total of 15 pieces of files, a nightmare! Unlimited storage whatever! At my current rate it would have taken me a few years to reach my 1GB limit, I don't receive videos or mp3 daily. The worst part of this announcement is that it did not come with a date. No, I just see the message on the screen while signing in to Yahoo mail. So when am I going to have unlimited storage? I need to know just so I can brag about it!

This was back then, I don't even remember when, probably a few weeks ago. Last week, or was it the week before... As I was checking my emails on Gmail I noticed they were calling my attention to a new feature, 20MB attachments. Now that's news. Yes, surely, the people at Google are reading my mind! Bigger attachments! That's exactly what the people need. I'm guessing Yahoo and maybe Hotmail will soon follow and I'm hoping that 20MB is just a starting value until the battle starts for the free email service that allows the biggest attachments!

Technorati tags:gmail, yahoo mail

On Reviewing John Chow's blog

2007-05-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

Did reviewing John Chow's blog do Wannatech any good?

I'll have to say yes since I've received about a dozen visitors from his blog within 24 hours from the time he posted the batch with the link to my review. Yes I know what you're thinking 12 visitors, big deal! But keep in mind that this is a very-modest-still-searching-for-it's-voice-extremely-low-traffic blog. Twelve visits from a single source in less than two days is actually an event.

Would I do it again? No! Are you kidding why would I do that? I'm still not a regular reader of his therefore I wouldn't have anything new to say.

Renting a Domain Name

2007-05-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about buying a domain name. I've looked up the prices and realized they weren't so expensive after all. I'll probably keep hosting the blog on blogger for now until I become super famous and need more control. In the meantime I'm wondering where is the best place to buy a domain name? Is 10$ a year a fair price? I was thinking about buying the name from goDaddy.com. Any thoughts?

I just couldn't resist - Sanjaya's American Idol

2007-05-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

I actually watched American Idol last night, just a little bit, but enough to see Blake Lewis perform Bon Jovi's "You give love a bad Name" and Jordin Sparks sing Martina McBride's "Broken Wings".

I'm not a huge fan of Blake's beat boxing but the audience just loves it. Blake is a weak singer. The only thing missing from Jordin's "Broken Wings" performance was the dress she wore the first time she sang the song, otherwise she did a really great job, keep in mind that I'm not a fan of hers. In the end who should win? Jordin probably.

Did you notice that I mentioned Sanjaya in the title? Well, as a former Fanjaya ,I just had to find an excuse to write about him shouldn't I? Wanting to read what others had to say about last night's show, I did a Google search for "American Idol" -without the quotes - the first result was the Official Fox Site for American Idol and the second one was... the Official-Fox-Site-American-Idol-Sanjaya-Malakar Contestant page! Will this season be remembered as the year when America discovered Jordin Sparks' voice, Blake Lewis' beat boxing or Sanjaya Malakar's hair?

Blake vs Jordin - I won't be watching

2007-05-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight it's ... Blake vs Jordin, on American Idol. I don't see how Blake can beat Jordin, I think she is a much better singer than he is. Then again I didn't see how Blake could be Melinda, in the beginning that was. I wish Blake wins even though I probably am not going to watch the show tonight.

Are You An Unsigned Artist? Promote your music at American Idol Underground.

Technorati tags:american idol

John Chow's blog

2007-05-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

This blog has little traffic. If you exclude the time I wrote about Yahoo Search giving better results then Google search I usually get only a few visits on Wannatech.

I've decided to make an effort to promote this blog and one of the ways to do that is to review John Chow's blog. At least in theory. Since he's blog is highly ranked once I review him I'll get a link from his blog to mine which should get me a few extra visitors and boots my pagerank, all this of course, in theory.

Of course I could have reviewed him on my Meeting People Online blog but it just wouldn't fit over there. So read on to know my thoughts on John Chow's blog.

In case you've never heard about him, -just like me a few weeks ago-, John Chow is a celebrity on the Internet. He makes a lot of money online thanks to his blog Make Money online with John Chow dot Com where he discusses among other things, how to make money online.

He's blog has a ratter sober and classical blog look with no flashy colors. The only non-classical aspect would be the image in the header. I believe that it takes up too much space. But surely you can tell it's very well organized and you can easily find the posts related to the specific topics you want to read about. Even though his blog is about Making Money online, if you read his posts one after the other it looks more like a personal blog, you know like the old fashioned online journals with plenty of pictures.

It's not the kind of blog I would read daily because he often discusses topics that are of no interest to me but it's worth the occasional visit. I would recommend people wanting to make money online to look around a bit they might find valuable information.

I'll just add this bit, I discovered John Chow's blog through Kumiko Suzuki 's, a "smaller" blog also about making money online.

Technorati tags: John Chow, make money online,Kumiko Suzuki

Google AdSense and traffic exchange programs

2007-05-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm a member of Blogexplosion, even though I had stop assigning traffic credits for my Meeting People Online blog for a while now, I never deleted my membership.

I came across Blogexplosion via Google Adsense itself. They were running an AdWords campaign and their ads were showing on my blog very often. Since I could not click on my own ads I had to type the URL (hopefully I had the type of ads that shows the URL) and that's how I landed on Blogexplosion.

So Google is advertising a service that he does not want publishers displaying Adsense ads to use.

The time when the only way to advertise your blog is through Adwords might be coming soon.

Read about it on the official Adsense blog:Inside AdSense: A note on traffic exchange programs

Read A discussion on the topic

Technorati tag:Adsense, Adwords, Blogexplosion

Melinda goes home

2007-05-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

Don't say you're surprised. America probably got as tired from her as the judges did. When they told her she was "consistent" it sounded like they were saying she was consistently boring. They sat through her performances knowing exactly what to expect so in the end well.... there's nothing to say.
On the other hand, Blake has his Beat Boxing working for him and Jordin is the cute teen ager they just love. How many times have we heard "You're only 17.." on the show, too many times if you ask me. Now Jordin is the one saying "I'm only 17..." please give me a break, so what you're only 17? The truth is, the judges love her and they wanted her to win, they've pushed her as a front runner while dropping Lakisha and now I'm sure they're all be rooting for her against Blake.

Speaking of Blake...I was surprised they didn't use the word Karaoke after he sang "This Love" in the semi finals. It's a popular song, I didn't feel Blake added much to it.

Are You An Unsigned Artist? Promote your music at American Idol Underground.

Technorati tags:American Idol, Jordin Sparks, Blake Lewis, Melinda Dolittle

Bye Lakisha

2007-05-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

Would you believe that I accidentally started to write Bye Sanjaya instead of bye Lakisha, well this -and the fact that I'm writing about it only now- tells you how much interest I have in the competition at this point. I don't have a favorite anymore so it almost doesn't matter who wins at this points as long as it's not Jordin. I guess if I still watch when they are announcing the results, it's only to see if "America" will choose Jordin as their idol despite her bad performance, I suppose the American idol doesn't need to be perfect as long as she cute.

Technorati tags:American Idol,Jordin Sparks, Lakisha Jones

Bye Chris

2007-05-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

Chris and Blake are the two ones left to know their fate but frankly I think this one is easy, Chris is the one going home following Phil. I actually prefer Chris to Blake but what can I do their are so many girls just crazy for Blake, he's still in the competition. Yeah I'm writing this before actually knowing the results

I didn't notice the girls crying for him but Blake seemed to be..

Technorati tags: chris richardson, american idol

Bye Phil

2007-05-02T18:28:00.001-07:00

And all the girls were crying for him, Melinda, Lakisha and Jordin. I know I'll miss Phil, I'm sure I would not have missed Lakisha that much. Now that Phil has gone home I'm left without a favorite contestant again, first Stephanie now Phil...

For some reason I always think that the result show is at 8PM eastern time but no, it's at 9PM I just can't get used to it.

Technorati tags: phil stacey, american idol

American Idol - Bon Jovi Night

2007-05-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'm a Bon Jovi fan, I even own the "Best of Bon Jovi Crossroad" album. It sounded like a promising American Idol night. And it started out really well.

The unshaved Ryan looked like he just came out of bed.

Phil Stacy - Blaze of Gory

I love this song! It's hard for anybody to make it sound bad. The only thing I did not like with the way Phil performed it was the ending, I prefer the original ending it's more powerful but hey this was Phil's version of the song. I think he was good tonight and I do wish that he'll be safe even though Simon said he did not do enough for that.

Jordin Sparks - Living on a Prayer

Either she's the clown of the class or she's over acting. I don't think Jordin will ever be my favorite. Jon Bon Jovi praises her even though she is strugling a bit with the song. I think her voice was too low. I guess being a girl and having to sing a guy's song makes it hard for Jordin. The music was all over the place drowning her voice and she was not comfortable enough. Like everybody who witnessed it, the judges didn't like Jordin's performance.

Lakisha Jones - This Aint a Love Song

Lakisha never listened to Bon Jovi, what a shame! She chose a more recent Bon Jovi title. I had the time to see her outfit, not a wise choice but the satellite let me down and I had to go all over the web to know how things turned out for the remaining contestants

Here are the links to the blog posts and articles I've read:
phillyBurbs Idol Blog
Buddy TV - American Idol
American Idol Fodder
nj.com - American Idol
O'DonnellWeb

Who's going home tomorrow, bloggers seem to be anonymous on Chris with the other person being either Lakisah or Phil, I'm thinking Jordin could go home...why not?

Technorati tags: bon jovi, american idol