June 2008 Total Traffic

• Total Hits: 7,080,355
• Total Files: 6,379,971
• Total Pages: 623,724
• Total Visits: 152,955
• Total KBytes: 23,339,839
• Total Unique Sites: 102,765
• Total Unique URLs: 17,040
• Total Unique Referrers: 16,419
• Total Unique User Agents: 4,622

June 2008 Daily Traffic

• Hits per Day: Average: 236,011 - Max: 307,398
• Files per Day: Average: 212,665 - Max: 281,803
• Pages per Day: Average: 20,790 - Max: 29,335
• Visits per Day: Average: 5,098 - Max: 6,099
• KBytes per Day: Average: 777,995 - Max: 1,108,793

Note: Green denotes increase and Red denotes decrease when compared with May 2008.

Previous month site traffic: May 2008

I spoke about Developing Plugins For WordPress on Wednesday, 18th June 2008 at the Singapore PHP User Group, June 2008 meetup.

This is the second time I am speaking at the user group. The first time was in December 2007 meetup where I spoke about the same topic WorPress Plugin Development With PHP.

I think this time my pace was slightly better.

By embedding this video, it breaks my site XHTML validation!

Powerpoint Slides and Source Code can be downloaded here.

OMFG! Blizzard has finally announced Diablo III.

Introduction
Two decades have passed since the demonic denizens, Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, wandered the world of Sanctuary in a vicious rampage to shackle humanity into unholy slavery. Yet for those who battled the Prime Evils directly, the memory fades slowly and the wounds of the soul still burn.

When Deckard Cain returns to the ruins of Tristram’s Cathedral seeking clues to new stirrings of evil, a comet from the heavens strikes the very ground where Diablo once entered the world. The comet carries a dark omen in its fiery being and it calls the heroes of Sanctuary to defend the mortal world against the rising powers of the Burning Hells – and even the failing luminaries of the High Heavens itself.

Features
Explore a fully-realized Sanctuary – the living, breathing gothic fantasy world of Diablo III rendered in gorgeous 3D.

Battle the unholy forces of the Burning Hells with all-new character classes like the otherworldly Witch Doctor, or with re-imagined warriors from Diablo’s past: such as the fierce Barbarian.

Rain Hell on your enemies wielding the interactive environment as a weapon: lay cunning traps, turn destructible objects against your foes, and use environmental obstacles to your advantage - all powered by the Havoc physics system.

Experience the intensity of multiplayer Diablo III over an all-new, wickedly-enhanced Battle.net platform with numerous enhancements to make connecting with your friends easier – and cooperative gameplay more fun.

Go: Diablo III Official Site

You may want to go to the Diablo III Media Page to see the goodness first.

Read: Diablo III Press Release

I seriously DO NOT think that is a good idea. Lawyers and analysts has already said that ICANN vote will cause URL chaos!

This is really a RETARDED decision by ICANN. I think when they are in need of money, they will just launch a new TLD and companies will have to buy them to protect their intellectual property.

This is just another form of business to them as you can see they are charging $50K to $100K for the new names, which is ridiculously priced.

At its meeting in Paris, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a not-for-profit organization that oversees the naming scheme for web sites, voted to accept a proposal that will allow companies to purchase new top-level domain names ending in almost whatever suffix they choose.

So, for example, instead of being restricted to sites ending in .com or .org., eBay could have a site that ends in .ebay, or New York City could end its website address with .nyc.

The new naming process will begin in 2009. The first suffixes will probably be given to businesses and other major organizations. Countries are expected to keep their specific suffixes, but, as in the example above, cities could also get individualized URLs, such as .london or .chicago.

In an effort to deter cybersquatters, the organization is likely to charge a hefty price for the new names. Some experts have estimated that the new domain names could cost anywhere from $50,000 (£25,200) to $100,000 or more. ICANN plans to give companies with trademarked names priority for those names.

Source: ‘.wow’: ICANN to allow almost any domain suffix

Caught Wanted last night at GV VivoCity. It was a 109 minutes show. The show is pretty good especially the visual effects. Lots of bullet time and lots of slow motion which I like personally.

There is a twist towards the end which I think was pretty good. I would call it a “different perspective” rather than a actual twist.

I think they focus a lot on Angelina Jolie (Fox) rather than the main character of the movie who is James McAvoy (Wesley Gibson) in terms of advertising and promoting the film.

I just love it when they “Curl The Bullet” whether it is the action of saying the 3 words.

I think I remember this sentence by Morgan Freeman (Sloan) in the movie, “if people didn’t tell you that bullet flew straight, would you think it is possible to curl the bullet?” Somewhere along those lines.

For those who like the show, Wanted 2 is already in development.

Fourth Jason Bourne Film
The Jason Bourne trilogy is one of the best trilogy of all times, it is definitely on par with LOTR. I can’t wait for this 4th installment.

Marshall told IESB on the red carpet of the Saturn Awards that Bourne 4, as it’s being called, will “absolutely” happen. Since the fourth book, titled The Bourne Legacy, was written by Eric Van Lustbader instead of Ludlum because he was no longer alive at the time, they’re going to go down their own path. “We’re probably going to take our own direction and we’re working on what that storyline’s gonna be right now.” As for where Bourne might be going to this time, since he already made it all the way back to New York City - South America. Marshall says that they’ll probably take him “down south” to South America in the fourth installment, but story details aren’t fully finished yet.

The Host 2
The Host 1 was quite a crappy show, I don’t think the 2nd one will be good.

Although it’s been mentioned before, Variety now confirms that a sequel to 2006’s Korean monster flick The Host is in the works. Although it’s being produced partially by the same Korean company, Chungeorahm, the film is a “Chinese sequel” that will explore what happens when people ignore a monster due to their desire for money. The production budget is around $12 million and shooting will start sometime early next year for release by the end of 2009.

Kung Fu Panda 2
Some people do want the sequel of Kung Fu Panda. But for animations, normally the sequels is worst than the 1st installment. Keeping my finger crossed.

This is completely unconfirmed, but the blog of The Animators Guild recently wrote a post that mentions that DreamWorks is already working on a story for a sequel to Kung Fu Panda. Considering the film has already earned $162 million at the box office, it’s very likely that this is accurate. The film definitely leaves open the possibility for sequels at the end and I think I’m not alone when I say I’d love to see Po the Panda return in yet another adventure.

300
300 was not bad, I wonder what will be the sequel called, 301?

We first mentioned that this was “in the works” after 300 hit theaters in early 2007, now it seems to be actually coming together. Producer Gianni Nunnari tells Collider that they’re currently working on a sequel to 300. He says that they’re working with Frank Miller and Zack Snyder to create something authentic which would involve a new story of some kind. If you don’t believe it, Collider says they spoke with Zack Snyder separately and confirmed that it is indeed true and is indeed in the works.

Hellboy III
Hellboy I was not bad, Hellboy II has not shown in Singapore yet. Also keeping my finger cross.

All eyes are currently set on Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army, due out in theaters on July 11th, and his work on The Hobbit soon thereafter. However, Guillermo told Collider that he would love to make Hellboy III after he finishes work on The Hobbit, so if all goes as planned, we might see Hellboy III in 2012 or 2013. Don’t hold your breath though - that’s so far out and the success of Hellboy II hasn’t been guaranteed yet, so the possibility of this actually happening anytime soon is very slim.

Cloverfield 2
Say NO to Cloverfield 2.

Cloverfield 2 - Unfortunately this is the bad news of the bunch today. Cloverfield’s director Matt Reeves also spoke to Collider and told them that unfortunately Cloverfield 2 is on hold. He confirms that they promised only to make a sequel if they could find a story that was as fresh and unique as the first Cloverfield and right now they haven’t come up with that. He does say that they do have a couple of exciting ideas, but it’s in the very early stages and it’s not clear if they’ll develop into anything.

The only sequel I am looking forward to is Bourne 4.

Source: More Sequels: The Host, Kung Fu Panda, 300, Hellboy and More! and More Sequels: Fourth Jason Bourne Film on Track for 2010

Gizmodo goes to Lego and gives you an article on everything you always wanted to know about Lego.

Q: Why did I always have pieces left over when I built my castle sets? Do they just do that to jack with kids?
A: For two reasons: first, because some pieces are so small that they weigh too little to be measured by their scale, during packaging (you will see this when I publish the factory tour. J.) Second, because it’s better to have too many of those pieces than have one of them missing. Since we statistically know what pieces may get lost, we include some extras when appropriate.

Q: How many Lego bricks are produced each year?
A: Approximately 19 billion Lego elements are produced per year. 2.16 million are molded every hour, 36,000 every minute.

Q: Approximately, how many bricks they’ve ever made since Lego started to produce them?
A: More than 400 billion Lego bricks have been produced since 1958. There are about 62 Lego bricks per person of the Earth’s population.

Q: How many Lego sets do they manufacture per year?
A: The number of sets varies per time of year and per year. In the U.S., we launch on average 130 new sets per year. Approximately 7 Lego sets are sold every second around the world.

Read: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lego

This Friday, the 27th June 2008 will be Bill Gates last day of work as a full time employee at Microsoft. After the 27th June 2008, he will focus on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and its work in health, vaccines, education. However, he still remains as Microsoft Chairman as he is the largest single shareholder.

Source: iTWire: Goodbye to Bill Gates on June 27… but it’s not goodbye forever!

Here is another interesting article entitled, “Do you need to be a programmer to run a software company?” and in this article, they mentioned about Bill Gates and Microsoft and they are wondering whether Bill Gates time in technology is up.

What did I take from all this? Bill Gates was amazingly technical, and he knew more about the details of his company’s software than most of the people who worked on those details day in and day out. He understood Variants and COM objects and IDispatch and why Automation is different than vtables — and why this might lead to dual interfaces. He worried about date and time functions. He didn’t meddle in software if he trusted the people who were working on it, but you couldn’t bullshit him for a minute because he was a programmer. A real, actual programmer.

….

Gates is probably getting out of technology at the right time. Funnily enough, it’s not really a business for nerds anymore. Gates was at the center of the personal-computer revolution and the Internet revolution, but now the big innovations are about exactly the things he’s bad at. The iPod was an aesthetic revolution. MySpace was a social revolution. YouTube was an entertainment revolution. This is not what Gates does. Technology doesn’t need him anymore.

Read: Do you need to be a programmer to run a software company?

This article is dated 4 days ago and posted on Nokia Conversations.

Here is an excerpt of it:

ESPOO, Finland - There is no doubt, now that the product has been launched officially, that the Nokia E71 takes the crown as the most leaked product I have ever known at Nokia. And, with such distinction in mind, now is a good time to discuss product leaks, their impact, and hopefully get a discussion going that benefits all of us.

I don’t want to turn this article into a whining-fest, nor point blame at someone. The whole history of some product leaks in the past few months is a mixture of dumb moves, broken NDAs, maybe some thievery, and possibly someone with best wishes.

I’ve written about this on my internal company site, and it generated lots of comments. It was interesting to see that the comments I got pretty much reflected my own feelings about the subject. Indeed, I give Nokia the benefit of the doubt and stick to the company line: we do not discuss products that are not officially launched publicly.

Read the full article: Product leaks just lead to trouble & headaches for all

After 1 month of weekends into my Mystery Shopper part time job, time for me to blog/rant about it so that I can share it with you all.

Mystery shopper may sound like a nice, interesting and perhaps a unique job. I would have to agree on that at the beginning and totally disagree on that after just 1 day of being a mystery shopper as it is becoming a chore instead.

As I am busy on weekdays, I am only available to do the mystery shopper job on the weekends. Somewhere inside me makes me regret that decision, I should say I am only available for Saturday so that I can have a good rest of Sunday to prepare for Monday.

We started on the first weekend of June, it was rather a new experience and interesting job for the first few shops we visited and we are quite enthusiasm about it. After visiting almost 10 stores for that day, we got really sick and tired of it. It was really tiring walking the whole day and perspiring all over your body as Singapore is fucking hot during this period.

On the average, our working hours range from 11am to 11pm depending on the time they allocate to us. And yes there is a time limit. So for example they give you 5 stores to visit during a time frame from 1pm to 3pm, you MUST visit it ONLY within this time period. You NEED to also purchase something within the store so as to obtain the receipt as an evidence that you have to BEEN to that store at this particular time and day.

So if your planner does not know Singapore well enough (you will be amazed at road names that you didn’t know existed), he or she for example will plan you 1pm to 3pm at Boon Lay, 3pm to 5pm at Bukit Panjang and perhaps 5pm to 7pm at Jurong at then 7pm to 9pm at Choa Chu Kang. Notice the merry go round?

Worst still if your planner does not know that we have to wait for bus and mrt, he or she will plan you from 2pm to 5pm to visit 4 stores, 1 store at Chinatown, 1 store at Bugis and 2 stores at the opposite end of Orchard Road. This scenario pisses me off more than anything else.

Here comes the worst part, we are underpaid, to be precise SGD$8.00 per shop we visited and we can’t claim transport unless the time assigned to us is after 11pm. Only if we wrote in the form that we have car, then there will assign us this time slot. The amount we can claim is SGD$0.30 per kilometer traveled.

We are also “given” a maximum of SGD$1.50 to spend in each store, the receipt will act as evidence of the amount we spend as well. But if we bought something less than SGD$1.50, then we can only claim up to the the price of the item we bought and not SGD$1.50.

We need to observe a lot of thing like the cleanliness of the store, the service as well as the items displayed in the store. Normally we get assigned a total of 12 stores each day which is about 6 stores per person and we have to write it down immediately after we leave the store if not we definitely cannot remember as our memory tend to overlap one store with another.

When we have reached home, we have to type what we have scribbled on a piece of paper into Microsoft Word and THIS IS THE PART I HATE MOST! The questionnaire has a rating scare as well as an additional comments field for EACH question and it is COMPULSORY for us to fill in the additional comment field and we CANNOT repeat the same comment twice. The should just renamed the additional comments to compulsory comments instead.

All this work for only SGD$8.00 per shop, but before we applied, we are told that we cannot earn much from being a mystery shopper. So in another words, we shoot our own foot.

But anyway, since we are not earning much, I have been driving around to complete my chore rather than taking bus or MRT. So minus off SGD$2.00 for parking and SGD$2.00 for petrol for each store, we are only earning SGD$4.00 per shop.

My heart feel for Li Xiang as from Monday to Friday she got a full time job and weekends she do not even have enough rest, so normally immediately after we ended our mystery shopper job, she will KO immediately and worst still if it is a Sunday, she will KO and have to wake up at 7.30am on the next day for her full time job.

So think twice before becoming a mystery shopper.