Susan Boyle, the next Paul Potts?

Susan Boyle has become the latest You Tube sensation after her singing act on the third series if Britain's Got Talent 2009. She surprised the judges with a strong performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables in the competition's first round, aired on 11 April 2009, getting the live audience on its feet within 20 seconds and eliciting the "biggest yes in three seasons" from Piers Morgan and "yes" votes from both Simon Cowell and Amanda Holden.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

47 year old Susan is a church volunteer and lives alone in Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland with her cat Pebbles, and has never been kissed! She has been catapulted to international fame after her performance on Britain's got Talent.

Mobile phone sales man Paul Potts brought people to tears with his amazing talent as did six year old Connie Talbot with her perfect voice!

Is Susan Boyle going to be the next Paul Potts?

Funny Thainglish at a major Thai website

Found this funny message written in Thainglish at a major Thai website that sells concert tickets. If you've stayed in Thailand long enough, you can easily guess the name of the website.

For those of you who have no idea, the website I'm talking about is called Thai Ticket Major.



I came across the message while checking out the details for Kylie Minogue 2008 World Tour Live in Bangkok concert.


The message reads "Please, present tickets to staff anytimes, limit for tickets, we so sorry for who lose of tickets".

This message is displayed on the details page of the 3rd Acoustic Winter Music Festival at Bonanza Khao Yai, which they call the "3th Acoustic Winter Fest".



They have a warning for everybody that reads "You could to join with fan or friend via to this event together."!

That's not all, they have some more:
Disallow for drink made of glass or tin can at concert zone area
Disallow for weapon at concert zone area
Disallow for video record
Don't smoke at concert zone area (Allow prepare zone area only!!)

Most interesting Tinglish words/phrases I learned today:

1. anytimes
2. we so sorry
3. prepare zone area
4. Disallow for drink made of glass

Looks like I have a lot of learning to do...

Video clip of Somchai?

A video clip is circulating on the internet featuring a man who resembles none other than Thailand's embattled prime minister Mr. Somchai Wongsawat, brother-in-law of fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra.

Isn't that a familiar face?



As reported in Bangkok Post today, the 25-minute video footage, shot by an unidentified cameraman between March 22 and 27 this year, has become the talk of the town. The video was viewed more than 261,000 times in less than 24 hours after it was posted on the Manager website at about 8pm on Wednesday, and there were reportedly hundreds of thousands of clicks on other websites where it was being featured.

In short, the 4-part clip shows the man in his red Mercedes picking up a woman in her 20s, in front of a convenience store, and the couple have dinner at a restaurant serving southern-style Thai food. The second part features the same fellow driving a BMW to a love motel after picking up another woman from a house. The third part shows the man wearing eyeglasses parking his white Lexus SUV at a restaurant and has lunch with his wife, who resembles Thaksin's younger sister, Yaowapa. The final part was taken on March 27 when the man picked up a woman at the Justice Ministry on Chaengwattana Road for lunch, and then went to HomePro department store where they bought a refrigerator.

When asked about the unusual video clips yesterday, Mr Somchai, who also happens to drive a Lexus SUV, a Mercedes and a BMW, refused to comment. He just smiled and rushed back into the House of Representatives.

Hotmail Server is too busy

The screenshot says it all. Hotmail Server Too Busy!!!



We are experiencing higher than normal volume and are therefore unable to service your request at this time. Try one of the following:

• In your browser, click Refresh - Refreshed, no luck
  
• In your browser, click Back, and try again - Tried, no luck
• Wait a few minuted an try again - Waited, no luck

We apologize for this inconvenience.

I think they forgot to mention the words "Do Not Disturb" before "Server Too Busy".

Wake up Microsoft!

Large Hadron Collider Google Logo

Today Google displayed a logo of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the Google Home Page.



The LHC is a large equipment which costs $3.8 billion and is part of the world's biggest physics experiment underway today. The experiment has succeeded in its first major test as a beam of protons was successfully fired all the way around a 17-mile tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border.

The Collider is what that scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe, or the "Big Bang". Scientists hope to see what the components of atoms are made of by smashing them together.

Some Russian scientists say this experiment could create a tiny black hole, and some even joke that part of Europe might be sucked into the black hole, and the world could end.

You can read more about the Collider at Scientific American.

Hey wait a minute! The Bangkok sky is turning very dark right now, its just 4:20 pm here. Is this the outcome of the experiment? Is the world going to end?

Hey, Captain John Luke Picard! BEAM ME UP! HURRY!

Google Inc. celebrates 10th birthday today

Google was conceived by its two founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin in 1995, and as per the date of incorporation on 7th September 1998, today is the 10th anniversary of this amazing company called Google.



Some of Google's services I currently use are:
Gmail, Blogger, iGoogle, YouTube, Google News, Google Alerts, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Analytics, Google Reader, Google Groups, Orkut, Picasa Web Albums, Google Talk, and a few others.

Lets look at some of Google's timeline:

1995 - Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin meet at Stanford University

15 September 1997 - Google.com domain name registered

7 September 1998 - The first incarnation of the Google search engine is launched

2000 - Google starts selling keyword-related advertising

2001 - The Google News service is introduced, inspired by the 11 September attacks on the US

2003 - Google moves to its Mountain View campus, where it is still based. It has since become known as the 'Googleplex'

2004 - Google launches GMail

19 August 2004 - Google floats on the stock market

2006 - The verb 'to Google' added to the Oxford English Dictionary for the first time

October 2006 - Google buys YouTube for $1.65 bn in stock options

November 2007 - Google forms the Open Handset Alliance to work on the Google Android project

2 September 2008 - Chrome, Google's first web browser, is launched

6 September 2008 - Google successfully launches GeoEye-1, a super-sharp Earth-imaging high-resolution satellite


Happy Birthday Google!

Google is now responsible for roughly two-thirds of U.S. search traffic.

Let's see what's in store for the world in the next 10 years...

ICT to shut down 400 websites?

Bangkok Post reports that the ICT Ministry has sought court orders to shut down about 400 websites and advised ISPs to block 1,200 sites it considers a danger to national security or disturbing social order.

The ICT Ministry said that between March and August this year, it has detected more than 1,200 websites that violated the Computer Crime Act - of which 344 had content deemed insulting to the monarchy.

The ministry had also sought help from the police to bring all the violators to trial. The blocked websites included two with religious content, one video sex game and five obscene sites.

This move to shut down the websites follows the Thai governments' declaration of a state of emergency yesterday as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to demand the government's resignation.

Google Chrome, Microsoft IE / Firefox killer?

Search Engine giant Google Inc. is releasing its own web browser aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine.

Google Chrome Logo



Chrome, the free browser, is supposed to be available for downloading Tuesday in more than 100 countries for computers running Microsoft's Windows OS. Google said it's still working on versions compatible with Apple Inc.'s Mac and the Linux OS.

Until now, Google had been trying to undermine Internet Explorer by supporting Firefox, a Web browser developed by the open source Mozilla Foundation. Bolstered by an advertising partnership with Google's search engine, Firefox ranks as the second most popular browser, with a market share of more than 10 percent. Google recently extended its advertising alliance with Firefox through 2011.

In a blog post Monday, Google touted Chrome as a more sophisticated Web browser better suited for displaying the dynamic and interactive content blossoming on the Web as people migrate from television, radio and newspapers.

I've been trying to locate a link to download Google Chrome, and have found www.google.com/chrome, but there is nothing online yet as of the time of writing this post.

Google released a 38-page Chrome comic book, in which Google gives the technical details into the open source Google Chrome project.

Read the full story - Google takes aim at Microsoft with new Web browser

iPhone Girl's cute angel smile makes headlines

Following the footsteps of YouTube's Lonelygirl15 and Chris Crocker, the next self-made viral super star is shaping up to be a mysterious Chinese factory worker, whose pictures were found on a new iPhone sold to a British customer.


(Photo credit: MacRumors.com/AP)

The "iPhone-girl" frenzy began last week when three of her photographs appeared on the popular Apple discussion forum MacRumors.com, show a young Asian woman working on what appears to be an assembly line for iPhones.

She might have done nothing more than flash a smile to her colleague testing an iPhone camera, but her cute angel-like smile has attracted the attention of iPhone users across the world. Internet users have generated keen interest about her identity - and her fate.

Dressed in a pink striped uniform, a hat and wearing white gloves with yellow fingertips, the round-faced asian girl now known on the Web as the "iPhone Girl" is shown smiling and making victory signs as she poses next to an iPhone.

The MacRumors.com user who posted the photos last week, identified as only "markm49uk" from Kingston-upon-Hull, England, said in a posting that one of the pictures showed up on a new 3G iPhone when the iTunes program was launched.

"It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun. Has anyone else found this?" the posting said.

The posting received more than 360 responses on MacRumors.com, with readers commenting and speculating about the woman's age, looks and working conditions - and whether the pictures had gotten her into trouble with her managers.

"She is so fired," a reader identified as "PredatoryWasp86" said.

"That's nice that at least they have some fun in the drab of assembling technology," another reader, "BrownManUPS," said.

"She looks about 12 or 13 to me! I don't think Stevo is going to be impressed at all. It looks a little bit too much like child labor," "sibruk" wrote, referring to Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs.

News reports say the woman may work at a factory run by an Apple contractor, Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen.

Calls to Foxconn spokesman Edmund Ding went unanswered Wednesday. Ding also didn't immediately respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press seeking comment.

But the South China Morning Post on Wednesday quoted another Foxconn spokesman, Liu Kun, as confirming that the young woman in the pictures works for Foxconn.

Liu said workers testing the device took the pictures and may have forgotten to delete them, the Post reported.

Dubbing the mystery worker "China's prettiest factory girl," China's Southern Metropolitan Daily on Tuesday quoted an unidentified Foxconn official as saying the woman was not fired.

Source: China Daily

Featured Blog of the Day at FuelMyBlog!

My blog "HaPPi Like a HiPPo" has been featured as blog of the day at FuelMyBlog.com today!


The above picture I received from FuelMyBlog is my award award for the occasion :)

Blog of the day features a different blog every day, and today is my day.
If you liked my blog please vote for me by clicking on the image below:

Let this blog enjoy the limelight for today!



Below is a screenshot from FuelMyBlog with my blog displayed on the top left-hand corner under "Blog of the Day".

Funniest Twitter teaser video - Mein Führer

I just watched one of the funniest videos, it's about Twitter's service downtime. It's from the German comedy film Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler (My Leader - The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler). This video has been edited with English subtitles to make it humorous.

Führer is a noun meaning "leader" or "guide" in the German language, derived from the verb führen meaning 'to lead'.



You can watch the video and enjoy your laughter.

Firefox version 3.0.1 consumes 97% CPU?

I just upgraded my Firefox to the latest version of Firefox 3.0.1, and noticed that it is hogging up 97% of my CPU! I had only around 10 tabs open, and don't even have any RSS subscriptions (Live Bookmarks) on it.



I never had any problem with Firefox before, but this time the Task Manager reported that firefox.exe is taking up more than 95% of the CPU, even though I did not see any flash animations on any of the websites on the open tabs.

The worse part is the downloads, which takes up to 97% CPU even for a tiny little file. My laptop became so slow that I had to use my license to kill and go for the "End Process" button.

I shouldn't have updated so soon, Mea Culpa! Anyways, I have Internet Explorer on emergency standby, so I can leave Firefox alone for the moment.

Google apologizes to bloggers for the S-word

Google had offered their sincere apologies last Friday, for locking down many blogs under the Blogger.com domain after mistakenly marking them as Spam.

Google's official blog Blogger Buzz had this to say in their post titled Spam Fridays,

"While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool features or other Blogger news, sometimes we have to step in and admit a mistake.

We've noticed that a number of users have had their blogs mistakenly marked as spam, and wanted to sound off real quick to let you know that, despite it being Friday afternoon, we are working hard to sort this out. So to those folks who have received an email saying that your blog has been classified as spam and can't post right now, we offer our sincere apologies for the trouble.

We hope to have this resolved shortly, and appreciate your patience as we work through the kinks."

The next day they offered another one You Are Not Spam

Google insists that the problem is purely due to their computer algorithm. They said they tracked down the problem to a bug in their data processing code that locked blogs even when their algorithms concluded they were not spam.

But it seems that bloggers who are campaigning against Senator Obama's presidential run have had similar problems with their blogs being marked as Spam and their accounts temporarily frozen. Here's an article New York Sun Covers Shut-Down of Mitchell Langbert's Blog/Google Apologizes about it.

Wowzio Blog Widgets look pretty impressive!

Wowzio, a widgets platform that targets blogs and publishers, offers free customizable widgets that help blog readers easily navigate blogs. These widgets bubble up rich media content that includes text and images, which spices up a blog's content discovery process.



Wowzio widgets are based on open standards (javascript & css) as their creators claim, and supports all blogging platforms that allow javascript to be embedded. The creators of Wowzio also claim that "the architecture is designed for high performance and scale, from the ground up". Since they just launched their widgets in June this year, we will have to wait and watch if it is really going to perform well over time.

I've just added the Wowzio widget on my blog as I found the live traffic activity widget pretty impressive! It contains a post's title text along with an image that looks really nice and is completely customizable.

Wowzio offers 4 types of widgets seen in the pictures below:

Panoramic Slideshow Widget

Live Activity Widget


Feed Content Widget


Slideshow Widget


Click here if you want to add these widgets to your blog, no signup required!

Websites crash in Internet Explorer due to SiteMeter's tracking counter

Tens of thousands of websites and blogs are inaccessible after their pages load due to some issue in SiteMeter.


Anyone using Internet Explorer to visit a site which has SiteMeter's counter sees the page loading normally for a few seconds and then an error pops up with the message "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://tekxplorer.blogspot.com Operation Aborted" and redirects to the "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" page.



This is been happening since 02 August, 2008 and is affecting Internet Explorer version 6 and 7 browsers only. Firefox users are not affected with this issue. I believe that all websites that use Sitemeter are currently down. A number of sites are reporting that once they remove the Sitemeter code, the problem disappears and their page loads fine in IE. Apparently, Sitemeter is still able to log visits and the problem seems to occur just after the SiteMeter logo image loads.

You might find this information useful if you have a blog, since it may be affecting your blog too! SiteMeter, one of the most popular free web traffic counters on the internet, recently made some changes in their website traffic tracking code. The result is that this has been bringing down the internet. You can read more about this at Wired.com: Web Sites Using SiteMeter Are Crashing with Internet Explorer

Cuil - the next Google killer?

Cuil (pronounced ‘COOL’) is a new search engine startup created by Google's former top engineers. Cuil claims that it can index web pages significantly faster and cheaper than Google. Cuil has told potential investors that their indexing costs will be 1/10th of Google’s, based on new search architectures and relevance methods.

A look at cuil.com start page below brings to mind Google’s minimalist home page.



I searched for "Thailand" which returned 92,925,481 results (not bad for a startup which is only a few hours old) as against Google's 306,000,000 which seems to good a number to be ending in that many zeros. The search results for Thailand looked like the picture below:



The search results are shown in three columns and contain an image and more summary text than existing search engines. Along with the results there is an "Explore by Category" box on the top right corner of the page which breaks down into categories like "Cities In Thailand", "Islands Of Thailand", "Districts Of Bangkok", "Regions Of Thailand", and "LPGA Tour Golfers". Each of these categories consists of links (such as "Phi Phi Islands") that displays more specific results.

Cuil is already being touted in the blogosphere as the next 'Google killer'. But unless Cuil can develop an advertisement platform to rival Google’s, Cuil will have a tough time challenging the search giant.

Cuil launched publicly on 28th July, 2008 but then crashed immediately after launch owing it to "overwhelming demand." It is back in business now busy serving pages.

Cuil is pioneering a new approach to search, unveiling its innovative search offering, which combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy. Cuil was founded by several lead engineers from Google, including Anna Patterson, chief architect of the company’s TeraGoogle search index. Cuil claims its search algorithm scans through 120 billion web pages - three times the number that Google sifts through. Cuil also claims to have better search results than Google and others based on how they index websites. They do not simply catalog keywords on a site and then rank the site based on its importance. They also work to understand how words are related, to return more relevant results to users.

Summary of Cuil’s features:

• Biggest Internet search engine - Cuil has indexed 120 billion Web pages, 3x more than any other search engine
• Organized results - Cuil’s magazine-style layout separates results by subject and allows further search by concept or category
• Different results - Unlike other search engines, Cuil ranks results by the content on each page, not its popularity
• Complete privacy protection - Cuil does not keep any personally identifiable information on users or their search histories

The launch of Cuil certainly raised eyebrows at Google. But will Cuil be the next big threat to Google which has a decade's experience in perfecting their search engine?

Let's wait and watch.

Top 100 English Blogs in Thailand, I'm on!

My blog is featured in the Top 100 Thailand Blogs compiled by The Lost Boy, a blogger based in Phuket, Thailand. HaPPi like a HiPPo is currently ranked 59th in the list, which has grown upto 155 entries as of now. You can take a look at the list and vote for the Thailand blogs you like, but please don't forget to vote for my blog (listed as HaPPi Like a HiPPo) if you liked it, thanks in advance!



Kudos to Matt, The Lost Boy, as he has spent a long time compiling this list, searching for active Thailand blogs, and introduced the list on April 26, 2008. Most of the blogs are in English, although some of them are in French. An explanation of how the list was compiled is here, which is based on a combination of Google's Page Rank, Alexa rank, Technorati rank and user voting system.

The Top 10 blogs currently listed are:

1. New Mandala
2. 2Bangkok
3. Thailand Land of Smiles
4. Thailand Blogs
5. The FARANG Speaks 2 Much
6. Bangkok Pundit
7. Wise Kwais Thai Films
8. Bangkok Metblogs
9. Bisean
10. Absolutely Bangkok

I did have a look at some of the blogs in the list and found some interesting ones, which I think is a great way to explore what other bloggers from Thailand are saying.

Bangkok voted World's Best City 2008 by Travel + Leisure magazine

For the first time, Bangkok (Thailand) has just been chosen as the World's Best City for 2008 in an online poll by Travel + Leisure magazine, winning over last year's winners Florence (Italy) and Bali (Indonesia). Bangkok moved up from its third place ranking in 2007 to top the list for 2008 with a score of 87.61. Travel + Leisure is one of the most influential international travel magazines in the world.



Other awards bestowed by Travel + Leisure included the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador as the World’s Best Island for 2008, Singapore Airlines, once again, as the World’s Best Airline, New York City, for the 8th consecutive time, as the Best City in the US, and Singita Sabi Sand, at the Kruger National Park, South Africa, as the World's Top Hotel. Singapore Airlines was voted number one, followed by Emirates, Thai Airways and Cathay Pacific. Last year's number one hotel, the Oberoi Udaivilas in India, fell to number 4 this year. Singita Sabi Sands was voted the number two hotel in 2007.

The result was announced by Editor-in-chief, Nancy Novogrod, of American based Travel and Leisure on Thursday. The results were compiled from votes by magazine subscribers in an Internet poll which went live between January and March 2008. Travel + Leisure will honor the winners on July 24, 2008 in New York City, USA.

As an expat living in Bangkok for almost 20 years it is great news! I've always been in love with Bangkok, and really missed Bangkok when I had to live away from Thailand for almost a decade. During that period when I was away, I visited Bangkok every year for a week or two and kept up with the changes and all that was new here. During all these years Bangkok got cleaner every year and the traffic has also improved as compared to some years ago when Bangkok traffic was at its worst. But still, everyone who's been to Bangkok cannot stop complaining about the traffic here, as it will always be bad. The pollution is also pretty bad but not at its worst.

But overall I think Bangkok is a great city to live in, you can smile at a Thai person here and get a better smile back, as Thailand is called "the land of smiles". These are some of the best things about Bangkok that I really enjoy:

1. The Thai food and Thai sweets
2. The smell of flowers, jasmine garlands and food from the vendors
3. The delicious meatballs on a stick be it chicken, pork, fish, shrimp, or octopus
4. Tuk-tuks (motorized autorickshaws) zooming past you loaded with farangs (tourists)
5. Soft drinks, coffee or tea served with ice cubes in a plastic bag tied with a rubber band
6. Motorized vendor carts with food/toys/stickers/broomsticks that zip along major roads
7. The sight of robed Buddhist monks receiving alms early in the morning
8. Elephants with a tail light roaming the city streets at night with their mahouts, begging from tourists
9. Pantip plaza, shopping malls, authentic brand names as well as fake brand name clothes, apparel, watches, DVDs, electronics, computers, and almost everything else
10. Wet & wild people splashing water at passing vehicles during Songkran water festival
11. Unique Thai Buddhist temples
12. Riding a long tailed boat down Bangkok's canals (khlong)
    
13. Kathoeys (ladyboys) surgically altered to perfection, looking better than most women
14. Street dogs sleeping wherever they like
15. Pretty Thai girls riding up the escalators on malls and skytrains
16. And the list just goes on...
    

The entire results are listed below :

Top 10 Cities (World) :

1 Bangkok, Thailand 87.61
2 Buenos Aires, Argentina 87.24
3 Cape Town, South Africa 86.59
4 Sydney, Australia 86.49
5 Florence, Italy 86.24
6 Cuzco, Peru 86.15
7 Rome, Italy 85.12
8 New York, US 85.03
9 Istanbul, Turkey 84.61
10 San Francisco, US 84.42

Top 5 Cities (Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific) :

1 Sydney 86.49
2 Melbourne 80.35
3 Queenstown, New Zealand 79.95
4 Perth 77.78
5 Hobart 77.38

Top 10 Cities (Asia) :

1 Bangkok, Thailand 87.61
2 Kyoto, Japan 84.27
3 Chiang Mai, Thailand 84.14
4 Hong Kong 83.69
5 Udaipur, India 83.51
6 Shanghai, China 81.83
7 Siem Reap, Cambodia 81.15
8 Beijing, China 81.05
9 Hanoi, Vietnam 80.87
10 Jaipur, India 80.78

Top 10 Cities (Europe) :

1 Florence, Italy 86.24
2 Rome, Italy 85.12
3 Istanbul, Turkey 84.61
4 Paris, France 82.59
5 Krakow, Poland 82.14
6 Prague, Czech Republic 81.81
7 Venice, Italy 81.74
8 Barcelona, Spain 81.32
9 Vienna, Austria 80.99
10 Salzburg, Austria 80.63

Top 5 Cities (Mexico and Central and South America) :

1 Buenos Aires, Argentina 87.24
2 Cuzco, Peru 86.15
3 San Miguel de Allende, Mexico 82.19
4 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 80.15
5 Antigua, Guatemala 79.92

Top 10 Cities (Africa and the Middle East) :

1 Cape Town 86.59
2 Jerusalem 84.39
3 Fez, Morocco 80.77
4 Marrakesh, Morocco 80.46
5 Cairo 80.23
6 Dubai 78.86
7 Tel Aviv 78.60
8 Amman 74.52
9 Tunis 71.93
10 Alexandria 70.72

Top 10 Islands (World) :

1 Galapagos Islands 87.64
2 Bali 86.32
3 Maui 86.09
4 Kauai 85.87
5 Tasmania 85.00
6 Easter Island 84.78
7 Hawaii 84.66
8 Santorini 84.52
9 Great Barrier Reef Islands 84.42
10 Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia 83.82

Top 3 Islands (Asia) :

1 Bali, Indonesia 86.32
2 Phuket, Thailand 82.64
3 Penang, Malaysia 81.67

Top 5 Islands (Europe) :

1 Santorini, Greece 84.52
2 Dalmatian Islands, Croatia 83.50
3 Sicily, Italy 82.92
4 Ischia, Italy 82.41
5 Cyclades, Greece (Santorini rated separately) 82.40

Top 3 Islands (Mexico and Central and South America) :

1 Galapagos Islands 87.64
2 Easter Island, Chile 84.78
3 Ambergris Cay, Belize 78.08

Top 20 Hotel Spas :

1 Wickaninnish Inn Tofino, Vancouver Island, Canada 92.66
2 Four Seasons Resort, Chiang Mai, Thailand 92.19
3 Lodge at Pebble Beach, California, US 90.94
4 Four Seasons Resort, Nevis, US 90.88
5 Maroma Resort & Spa Riviera, Maya, Mexico 90.79
6 Esperanza Resort, Los Cabos, Mexico 90.63
7 Auberge du Soleil Rutherford, California, US 90.37
8 Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris, France 90.28
9 Camelback Inn, A JW Marriott Resort & Spa Scottsdale, Arizona, US 90.14
10 Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands 90.10
11 Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa, Maui, US 89.66
12 The Oriental, Bangkok, Thailand 89.58
13 Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa Asheville, North Carolina, US 89.51
14 One & Only Ocean Club Paradise Island, Bahamas 89.47
15 Four Seasons Hotel, Las Vegas, US 89.42
16 Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, US 88.75
17 The Peninsula, Chicago, US 88.64
18 Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch Beaver Creek, Colorado, US 88.62
19 Hotel del Coronado, San Diego, US 88.16
20 American Club Kohler, Wisconsin, US 87.99

TOT launches TOT Netcall VOIP service

TOT Thailand launches TOT netcall, an internet softphone-based calling service, with a promotion which includes 30 minutes worth of free calls for 1 month until Dec 31, 2008. You can call 16 countries to their fixed land line numbers at 1 Baht per minute (exclusive of taxes).

Another promotion called TOT Prepaid starts from 17 satang per minute for domestic calls, available from now until July 31, 2008.

Click on the image below to see a larger view of the list of 16 countries included in the promotion.

Firefox 3 Download World Record Certificate

Hurray! So here's my Firefox 3 Download Certificate that help set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours in which more than 8 million (8,002,530) people downloaded Firefox 3. It is one of the most bizarre Guinness World Records I've ever heard of.

Bravo! So I'm wondering what to do with it... Hang it on the wall? Set it as my desktop wallpaper? Email it to my college buddies? Back it up on a tape drive? I think it's best left here on this blog post.



In the Firefox website (pictured below) it says "We did it! We set a Guinness World Record."