Cowboy 1 ….. Smart Ass 0

My friend sent me this email … thought it would be worth of posting here. Enjoy.

A young, well-educated man on a business trip get on a plane to find himself seated next to an older, weathered man in a western snap shirt, faded jeans and a cowboy hat. Thinking himself above the old cowboy, the young man decides to make sport of him.

“You know,” he says, “I’ve heard these flights go much more quickly if you strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger. So, let’s talk.”

The cowboy looks at him wryly and says, “Well I suppose that’d be all right. What’d ya like to discuss?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” says the young man with a hint of sarcasm, “How about Nuclear Proliferation?”

“Hmmm,” says the cowboy, sensing the young man attempt to belittle him, “That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first —horses, cows and deer all eat the same stuff—grass. Yet, a deer passes little pallets, a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse makes muffins of dried poop. Why do you suppose that is?”

Dumbfounded, the young man replies, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“So tell me then,” says the cowboy with a smile, “How is it that you feel qualified to discuss nukes when you don’t know shit?”

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PageBull

Not long ago, I mentioned about Snap Preview Anywhere. I talked about its own search engine a bit. The search engine is great and useful. It does like Google, Yahoo, or MSN, but it has a bigger thumbnail preview on the right. It saves your time rather than clicking every link page to look at it. The look of Snap search engine is very simple and modern. It also do images. You click one image, it will enlarge on the right for viewing.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN do have thumbnail preview on each link on the right via Firefox/Flock extension called BetterSearch. But they are small and hard to see. However, with Better Search, you have another option of previewing the website when you see the ‘P’ next to the link in any search engine. That ‘P’ is called Quick Preview. You can see the images below.

Thumnail Preview on Google:

Quick Preview:

It is a great extension. There is also another great extension called Cooliris or Browster. Both opens webpages real-life time when you point at the specific icon somewhere on the end (Cooliris) or in the front (Browster) of the link and it will pop up to the screen almost like a full page on the same tab/windows. I have mentioned that before. But Snap does not need any plugin or installation. It is nice and save your space on the computer.

You may wonder what does PageBull fit in this all?

Well, it is a another great Thumbnail Preview search engine. It shows thumbnail previews only, no listing like the the rest…I just found about that last week. I thought it is a nice search engine just to view webpages. You can view them in either 3×4, 2×6, or 4×3. Those means how many previews in the row and columns. I took a screenshot of the PageBull (3×4) search query: deanscyberspace. You may notice some of them. One is my current blog and other one is my former blog by Blogger.

Honestly every day, I found something cool, better, and more quick in googling something in the search engine. Thumbnail previews are wonderful. However, it is hard to make decisions, which search engine I would like to use — Google, Yahoo or MSN with BetterSearch or Cooliris and Browster extensions, Snap, and now PageBull. But it is a nice change for alternative search engines, rather than using same search engine every day. Well, I use Google.com more often. It has best search results. I use Cooliris for website previewing for now. I like it because I can share the links with anyone via Cooliris using its own email box. But I would use PageBull or Snap once in a while. I like to see what is happening to them and see them grow and become better search engines in the near future.

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Snap Preview Anywhere

When I found about http://www.snap.com last year. I was impressed with this newly search engine. You type anything just like you do to google.com, and then you press enter. You will see the list of links on the left, and, unlike Google.com, it will display the big thumbnail of the webpage on the right. I say it is a modern search engine… but Google still tops of all. Google has to act fast, or Snap.com or other search engeines will topple Google. LIkely it may happen. But you never know. There are cool search engines out there. When I have a chance, I will list the search engines that you should check out.

Recently, I found out that you can add ‘Snap Preview Anywhere‘ on your blog or your personal web page. I want to add to my blog, but WordPress won’t let me do it. I was a bit disappointed. I know that you can do with Blogger.com and other sites. But it made my day when I found today through WordPress blog that they are adding ‘Snap it’ widget to the WordPress.com blogs, though it is only a beta. They are testing out to a few WordPress blogger; only 10 percent of them would have this beta. And guess what? I am one of them. Now you can point to the link and preview a thumbnail of the website before you can open to a new window, or a new tab! I did try it myself. it was awesome!

Since its first public’s Snap Preview, it already has more than 16,300 signups in 5 weeks! And there are already 17 million previews viewed. I have seen several blogs outside of the WordPress.com already used it. It is useful. I can see if it is worth to read or not before I can open the link, it may be small to read. But hey, it may have more features later on to do customization of thumbnail sizes.

Everyone should get ‘Snap Preview Anywhere’ on their blog or webpage. It is free. For the rest of 90% of WordPress blogger, I am sure it will be acceptable and open to the public.

Thank you, Matt, for making it possible. I always wants this Snap Preview on my blog. In case, you wonder who Matt is. He is a blog writer for the WordPress.com.

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Eragon

The Eldest LE Releases in the US! (Sep 26)!

49 days until the Eragon Game US Release!

80 days until the Eragon Movie US Release!

I have mentioned Eragon not long ago… many of you know that Eragon will have a movie at the end of the year, to be exactly on December 15th.I am quite excited about that. I loved the book. I have not read the sequel to the Eragon yet. I am still waiting for the paperback Eldest.

They just released a new trailer for Eragon. I have watched it today. It was awesome. I am sure it is going to be very good, when I watch the whole movie. Saphira is a wonderful dragon. She is enormous. I wish I have one; it would be cool to fly around with a dragon. She can be darned mean if you mess up with her. She will fire you to ashes. heh. I have seen every single of her in the book and some in trailer. Ooooh, be fear. Nah, she is really sweet.

This photo is a single snapshot from the movie. You can enlarge it by clicking that image. Is it a beauty thing? :

Oh, yeah, you know that Christopher has been working on a third book. There is no annoucement on the title or release date yet. In recent entry about Eragon, I hvae mentioned that it will be titled starting with E _ _ _ _ _ . Some say it could be Empire. We shall see. If you want to read the Book III excerpt, you can buy Eldest: The Deluxe Edition. It will be released on September 26th, which means it will be out by tomorrow. I might go to the bookstore and check it out. heh.

I was checking the book covers of Eragon and Eldest all over the world. I like two covers of Eragon and one from Eldest. They are below. The first one says to be USA cover. I never see that one. Must be very new. Second is Sweden. The Eldest cover (the third image) is Japan. they are different.

Are they very nice covers… different. I like them. I like the first image… an beautiful of Saphira! Sexy. LOL.

I am surprised they already have made a game on Eragon. I was in awe… wow… it will be released in November. I think it will be on Microsoft’s XBox game. I see the trailer of that game. It seems cool. I am not gamer, but maybe I would give a try because I love Eragon! You can check it here. You can click that image to go to the game site.

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I long to watch the Artemis Fowl Movie

I have mentioned in my blog at least twice.

In 2004, it was announced to make a ‘Artemis Fowl’ movie. It was supposed to be out sometimes this year, but I guess it is not ready yet. They are still looking for actors and actresses. The author wants Winona Ryder to play Holly Short, the fairy, but I don’t know if it will happen. Cameron Diaz and Hally Berry have been connected the possible to the role of Holly. Catherine Zeta Jones may play the role of a brilliant Opal (which is in the fourth book called The Opal Deception). Lastly the role of Artemis Fowl may be played by Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter movies. I love Holly Short. She is strong-willed and smart. The movie should be out sometimes in 2007. You can come back and check the update on wikipedia.org. According to wikipedia.org, it should be out by 2007.

Eion Colfer, the Irish writer, wrote a series of Artemis Fowl. I have read all four of his books. I love them. Holly is in every book, so is

Artemis Fowl II, himself, too. He is a genius 12-years-old criminal mastermind. Oftentimes, he is called anti-hero. He would provoke anyone who gets in his way. At first he was working against the fairies, captived Holly, and try to steal the Gold. He even has a butler working with him. He is by his side and acts like a bodyguard protecting Artemis. But in the second, third, and fourth, he has helped Holly to save the world on many occasions. I think it is the best series I have ever read since Harry Potter series came out. You can read the characters at The World of Eion Colfer’s Artemis Fowl stories.The Artemis Fowl series:

• Artemis Fowl (2001)
• Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (2002)
• Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (2003)
• Artemis Fowl: The Seven Dwarf (2004) a short story – Specially written for World Book Day. It also can be found in Artemis Fowl’s Files. No excerpt, sorry. You have to buy it to read the short story. It was published in 2004.
• Artemis Fowl” The Opal Deception (2005)

Now he writes the 5th book, which will come out this year. It is called Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony. It will be the last book. It will be out on September 15, 2006.

The summary of the The Lost Colony:

Ten thousand years ago, humans and fairies fought a great battle for the magical island of Ireland. When it became clear to the fairy families that they could never win, they decided to move their civilisation underground and keep themselves hidden from the humans. All the fairy families agreed on this, except the eighth family, the demons.

The demons planned to lift their small island out of time until they had regrouped and were ready to wage war on the humans once more. However, the time spell went wrong, and the island of Hybras was catapulted into Limbo, where it has remained for ten thousand years.

Now, the tainted time spell is deteriorating and demons are being sucked back into the present space and time. The Fairy Council is naturally concerned about this and are monitoring any materialisations. When the spell’s deterioration accelerates, the materialisations become unpredictable. Even the fairy scientists cannot figure out where the next demon will pop up.

But someone can. Artemis Fowl, the teenage criminal mastermind, has solved temporal equations that no normal human should be intelligent enough to understand. But Artemis Fowl is no normal human.

So when a confused and frightened demon pops up in a Sicilian theatre, Artemis Fowl is there to meet him. Unfortunately, he is not the only one. A second, mysterious party has also solved the temporal equations, and manages to abduct the demon before Artemis can secure him.

This is a disaster for the fairy People, because this demon was no ordinary fairy. He was the last demon warlock, and as such held the key to the survival of the entire demon race.

It is up to Artemis and his old comrade Captain Holly Short to track down the missing demon and rescue him before the time spell dissolves completely and the lost demon colony returns violently to Earth.

Click the image to enlarge

The image above: You would think wtf is this? I know, it is in Gnommish language. That is the fairy written language.

For fun, and it would keep you busy from boredom. You can figure what this image tries to say above. They are Gnommish alphabet in English below. Have fun!

Click the image to enlarge