TechBytes | Technology Bytes

Two new features introduced in Webmin 1.5 that really attracts me are

1. Software Package Updates module, it notifies about new available updates and optionally can send email and/or install security or all updates
2. System Status, collects system information by running a background cron job on your system

The interface has also improved a little, and its slower while loading (figures!), but gives more information in the dashboard.

Facebook is rolling out its redesign to some of its users and they are somewhat like this, claims Om Malik on gigaom.com. Here are some of the screen shots of the new sleek look

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Just found out this morning that WordPress has released 2.9 so I click-updated my blog to the latest version. Thank you WordPress for the one-click-update feature

This may be an old news for some since I am late in getting this on the blog. Nero has introduced a FREE version of Nero 9 for Personal Use only. Nero is one of the most widely used CD/DVD burning software in Home and Offices (plus commercially) alike.

Smoking a shisha pipe is as bad for people as smoking tobacco, the Department of Health and the Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre has found.

People who smoke shisha, or herbal tobacco, can suffer from high carbon monoxide levels, its research revealed.

It found one session of smoking shisha resulted in carbon monoxide levels at least four to five times higher than the amount produced by one cigarette.

High levels of carbon monoxide can lead to brain damage and unconsciousness.

Shisha is a water-pipe, popular in many Arab countries, in which fruit-scented tobacco is burnt using coal, passed through an ornate water vessel and inhaled through a hose.

The Department of Health said it was difficult to know exactly how much carbon monoxide one cigarette produced, due to the differences in smokers’ inhalations.

Read more @ BBC News Health

Countesy: BBC News Health

Well, my initial estimates were wrong. I thought I could retweet the posts and Twitter would give me accurate results. The problem is with twitter results. They are giving me wrong and irrelevant results.

Also, when I ask Twitter to only send me “positive” tweets, it sometimes does not mark most of the positive tweets as “positive”, in fact they are not marked at all. So there are the “positive” tweets, “negative” tweets, “questions” and “unknown” (or “unrated”) tweets. A quick look at these tweets and I can see many of them as good ones that should have been retweeted but they were not.

To get over this situation, I need to have an admin panel where I can see statistics and possibly “approve” the negative / unrated tweets.

Having previous experience working in Zend Framework, CakePHP and CodeIgniter, I would prefer to build it in Code Igniter. I will keep this page updated with more info.

Yes, I know what I just said that … its true because my new project HashPakistan is using Twitter Search API to get all posts with hashtag #Pakistan and last night twitter gave it results containing #ashes (and has nothing to do with Pakistan).

I noticed it today and removed those updates from the twitter timeline. Hopefully it does not happen again.

P.S. There are no official words on the Twitter Blog regarding this

I tried to access youtube today and its down for maintenance. How am I suppose to pass my rest of the sunday?

Twitter Down Time Rescheduled because of Iran Protests, originally uploaded by asim.zeeshan.

Twitter says “A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight’s planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran).

Our partners are taking a huge risk not just for Twitter but also the other services they support worldwide—we commend them for being flexible in what is essentially an inflexible situation. We chose NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services early last year specifically because of their impeccable history of reliability and global perspective. Today’s decision and actions continue to prove why NTT America is such a powerful partner for Twitter.”