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Wordpress 2.0.1 is now available a month after Worpress 2 was released.

The current version has fixed a total of 114 bugs from the previous release boasts of a couple of new and improved features:

You can now specify an upload directory, and whether to use date-based storage or not.

Caching has been fixed under certain PHP enviroments.

Permalinks have been fixed for weird enviroments as well.

XML-RPC uploading works.

Compatibility with older versions of PHP.

Several WYSIWYG fixes and cleanups.

Imports now use much less memory.

Now works with MySQL 5.0 in strict mode.

As usual, the upgrade process was effortless. Haven’t played much with 2.0.1 so I really can’t really say how better it is from the previous version.

Nevertheless, hats off to the guys over @ WordPress for releasing such a wonderful piece of work

Microsoft just released IE7 Beta 2 Preview for Windows XP SP2. It has a couple of new cool stuff that is in the Beta although Vista users may have seen some of it already.

This major release is intended for developers, early adapters and enthusiasts since Beta 1 was a closed Beta available to MSDN subscribers only.

This release is Beta 2 Preview and so not Beta 2, which should be released about the same time as Vista Beta 2 is released somewhere in April.

New is the RSS platform in IE7 is more then just a feed reader, this platform provides rich functionality for downloading, storing and accessing RSS feeds across the entire operating system and will enable more users to take advantage of RSS-related innovation. Support for the Windows RSS Platform means that once a user subscribes to a feed in one application, that subscription and all the associated content will be made available across the operating system to any application available to make use of it.

As you all know, IE 7 supports tabbed browsing, but there is more:

Quick Tabs, this feature is designed to make tab selection and navigation fast and easy. After opening multiple tabs, users can view and manage them with an at-a-glance thumbnail view in a single window.

Tab Groups, This feature allows tabs to be grouped and saved in logical categories. Further, users can open all pages within a group with a single click, saving them time in opening pages they visit regularly. Users can even set a tab group to open automatically every time they launch Internet Explorer from the Start menu, so the pages they want open are displayed as soon as they open the browser

The Phising Filter is in my opinion a great feature, OK I know when I receive a phishing email, but not everyone does.

The new printing center is the most popular new feature, now IE finally can print a webpage right, without words falling of on the right. But there is even more, in page preview you can set the margins and even zoom and get it all printed. You can see multiple pages in print preview so you can see that you won’t need to print the last page cause it only contains a footer,or choose not to print header andf foorter in the first place.
Also New is to select a part of a page and print just that.

What I personally like is the Zoom feature, there is a button on the right side of the status bar where you can zoom the page you are currently viewing, it enlarges text and images. This used to possible in IE by changing the text size in the View menu, but since CSS this didn’t fo the trick.

OK there is more,

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Having problems with your webhosting service is a known fact. It probably is ok if it doesn’t happen all the time and if your webhosting provider has good and prompt tech support.

What if you get to experience problems often and nobody seems to answer your support tickets? Nobody answers your emails and they no longer even have a phone number you can call! Well that exactly what happened to me.

I’ve been with my previous webhost since time immemorial. I signed up for their reseller webhosting package wayback 2000 since the price was good and the original company owner was hands-on and had a pretty good reputation within the webhosting community. 

I’ve encounter problems every now and then but their support was always their notifying clients if their will be scheduled downtimes and sending out advisories when a service interruption occurs. Thay had this superb community in their forums where clients and the support guys from the webhosting company help each other out. Their email support was even fantastic. Fire up an email and an actual support person will reply to you within minutes!

The whole atmosphere changed when the original owner got sick and decided to sell his company to another webhosting service. That was when problems have worsened.

Mail service would go out for a day or two without any notice from them. I’ve experienced on several occasion data loss from my sites due to either their system breaking down and once it is restored… my newly posted data gets overwritten due because they did a restore-from-back-up without informing their clients. I was also billed twice a couple of times. And support tickets took so long to be answered.

Disaster struck once again towards the last week of January of this year. My sites can no longer be accessed. No mail service. So I fired up a couple of support tickets. None was answered. After a day, sites were back up but mail service is still down. I fired up a couple more support tickets regarding the problem but still no response from them. The following day I noticed that my recent posts on my sites got wiped out. Posts I made a couple of hours ago vanished and my sites indicated that the latest post were made 3 days ago (before the service went down). So once again I fired up a couple of support tickets but still failed to get a response. I was fed up and decided to transfer to a different webhosting provider.

I got my girlfriend a webhosting account for her Accidental Chef food blog over at plogHost a couple of days before my webhosting went down.

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This podcast will provide you with a detailed discussion describing how Microsoft IT uses SQL Server 2005 to improve data security for its line of business applications. SQL Server 2005 enabled Microsoft IT to implement column-level encryption together with a robust, and yet easy-to-use encryption key management framework.

 Listen to the podcast:

How Microsoft  IT Implements Encryption Using SQL Server 2005 (MP3) – 23.8 MB

How Microsoft  IT Implements Encryption Using SQL Server 2005 (WMA) – 8.7 MB

I just gave a talk on Internet Security basics for PUP - Polytechnic University of the Philippines’ 5th year Computer Engineering students during their “2nd Students’ Conference on Information Technology”.

Grab a copy of the materials I presented earlier.

Internet Security Presentation (Powerpoint)
Internet Security Additional Resources (PDF)

Speaking Japanese - Filipino/English to Japanese translations:

Manok - Sekken
Mamaya - Sakana
Joke - Biru
Stereo - Akai
Cook - Giza-giza
Ayos - Furo oke
Fingernail - Koko
Laughed - Anata-wa
This - Itto
Small piece of cloth - Retasu
Cornfield - Mais-san
Hindi Masyado - Natsu
Cigarette - Yoshi

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• Supported OS: Windows Server 2003 

  • ISA Server 2004 Enterprise Edition
  • ASP.NET version 1.1
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000
  • Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services Service Pack 2 (SP2) Client

  Download Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Sample Pack for ISA Server 2004

Provides a technical overview of Internet Authentication Service (IAS) accounting and describes three ways to deploy IAS SQL Server logging with Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 and SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000).

Grab a copy of the guide from Microsoft.

Pacquiao wins by TKO against Morales in Round 10

Round 10
Morales returned to the jab, and looked like he could control the fight in center ring. But Pacquiaos body shots sent him to the ropes, and Morales retreated as Pacquiao attacked. Morales caught Pacquiao with a counter as he came forward, but Pacquiao resumed the attack to body and head and put Morales down for the first time in his career. Morales rose, but Pacquiao attacked again and dropped Morales against the ropes. Referee Kenny Bayless waved it off at 2:33, and Pacquiao won by TKO.

With that Pacquiao sets a new record being the first person to knock out Erik Morales.

Congrats Manny!

FarmOut Central Intouch Inc, a call center in Dagupan City, Pangasinan, Philippines, is looking to hire at least 25 agents for a daytime campaign from 6:30am -5:00pm Mondays to Fridays.

FarmOut Central is looking for agents who are at least college level, with pleasing personality, and with an above average command of both written and oral english.

Interested parties are asked to call (75) 515-8750 up to 52 and look for Arlene to set up your inteview appointment. Please bring your resume to the interview.

With the upcoming release of its MySQL 5.0 series of certification exams, MySQL AB has announced a new certification structure for its titles.

Currently, the MySQL 4.0 certification comes in two options: Core and Professional. Each requires passing one exam.

According to the company’s Web site, the new 5.0 track will offer two different designations: Developer and Database Administrator. Each of these titles will require candidates pass two exams.

The two MySQL 5.0 Developer exams are currently available in beta format at Pearson Vue testing centers worldwide. Betas for the Database Administrator exams are expected to launch at the end of this month.

A final release date for the 5.0 exams has yet to be announced.

For more information on these announcements, visit the MySQL Training and Certification website.

News Source: Certcities

SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services build 2174 contains hotfixes that were originally released for SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Service Pack 3, but were not included in Service Pack 4.

Note Clients that connect to a server that has received this hotfix rollup package should be running the updated OLE DB for OLAP components. To install the updated OLE DB for OLAP components, run the PTSLite.exe client installation.

If you are not a Filipino you might be wondering what the word “Talasalitaan” means. Talasalitaan is a Filipino word for “vocabulary”. Talasalitaan used to be taught in Philippine schools as the english counterpart of “vocabulary words”.

I listed a couple of words below from the Talasalitaan

(Disclaimer: You have to be a Filipino who understands Filipino/Tagalog to be able to appreciate this Talasalitaan)

Contemplate - kulang ang mga pinggan
Punctuation - pera para maka-enrol
Ice Buko - nagtatanong kung ayos na ang buhok
Tenacious - sapatos na pang tennis
Calculator - tawagan kita mamaya
Devastation - sakayan ng bus
Protestant - Tindahan ng prutas
Statue - Ikaw ba yan?
Tissue - Ikaw nga!
Predicate - Pakawalan mo ang pusa
Dedicated - Pinatay ang pusa
Aspect - Pantusok o pandurog ng yelo
Deduct - Ang pato
Defeat - Ang paa (ng pato?)
Detail - Ang buntot (ng pato?)

I got hold of this talasalitaan when I chanced upon the Spammed - Funny Annecdotes Jokes and Humor blog. Kudos to The Jester for the effort in reviving this classic funny talasalitaan. I really had a good laugh and enjoyed it. Thanks!

Check out the complete Talasalitaan

Check out A Newbie Blogger’s Journal as he blogs about Google Adsense, Google Adwords, Blogs, Computing, Information Security, Call Centers, BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & VoIP.

If you would like to optimize Firefox usually you have to do it manually, which can be time consuming and difficult especially for the novice user.

FireTune helps you here. FireTune is a free extension developed by the guys from Total Idea. They based it based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts. It includes all the performance optimizations. The only thing you must do is: make your selection. FireTune does the work for you.

Grab a copy of Firetune 1.0.9.