Ali Kuru

Although I had an account at Facebook for quite some time, using it never really interested me before.

Now, I’m about to permanently leave the town which I’m living for 14 years and the university which I’m working for nearly 9 years, thought that I would probably need something more efficient than email and IM for keeping connections with my friends and colleagues. Since all of them are using Facebook (just like the rest of the world must I say, if we consider the network is dwarfing any other alternative with its 400 million users!), using it seems inevitable. So, I decided to came out of the rock I’m hiding under for years, and created myself a profile.

Since every once in a while I read about privacy concerns of Facebook users on the net, I was skeptical about how it handles the privacy, and this was on top of my list of reasons for not using Facebook. However, I found their way of handling privacy more robust than I imagened. It looks like Facebook listens their users voice (“scream” could be more appropriate here), and evolves with their needs, which is good know.

I still have few annoyances about the service though; Read the rest of this entry »

After six years of tiring course work and boring lab studies, I’ve successfully defended my dissertation at the 23^rd of last month, and welcomed 2010 with a new title; “Doctor of Philosophy”.

Now, I’ve dedicated myself enjoying the unusual emptiness in my life, which feels eternal for the time being but will last with the beginning of April :/ Military service is mandatory for every healthy men in Turkey and I have postponed it to date because of my studies. The first week of April will probably mark the beginning of that duty.

There are several alternative ways for serving in Turkish Military depending on your education and in my case it will either take ~6 months if I’m lucky or a whole year if I’m not!

So, please wish me luck :)

After two weeks waiting, I’ve received my Google Wave invitation today. Wave had generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks and, what I understand from what I read/listen/watch about it, almost everybody have the same impression; Google Wave will blow! Well, either in a good or a bad way :)

Anyway, my account came with 20 invitations. Please leave a comment to this post if you are looking for an invitation. You don’t need to publish your email address at your comments body, I’ll send the invitation to the email address you filled in the comments form. Invitations will be send first come, first serve basis.

And, please don’t forget to come back and tell your first impressions about the Google Wave, I’d love to hear what yo think.

UPDATE: All gone, no invitations left, sorry. Please don’t post anymore requests!

Also, note that Google Wave’s invitation system is more like “nominating you for an invite” than “directly issuing you an invitation”. Since I “nominated” you for an invitation, it’ll take some time before you actually receive an invitation.

Here is what’s been told on my invitation Wave;

Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.

Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

I’ll let you know if I receive more invitations. You can subscribe to my feed, or follow me on Twitter (@alikuru) for updates.

You’ve got yourself a copy of Wheelman, installed on your PC, but couldn’t make the game pass the grey start menu? Well, then you’ve probably have a PC with ATI graphics card and installed latest ATI drivers, as it’s been suggested at Wheelman readme.txt.

Bad news is Wheelman hangs on the start menu screen with the latest ATI drivers. Good news is downgrading your graphic cards drivers to previous versions can solve your problem.

I had ATI Catalyst v9.8 installed on my PC, which has a Sapphire ATI 4850, when I installed Wheelman, and it failed. Than I’ve tried the latest v9.9 (as of 11th of September, 2009), and it failed too. After that, I digged into Google and found a guy with the same problem, who told on the Ubisoft forums that downgrading the driver worked for him. I have uninstalled the latest drivers and installed v9.2, as he suggested, and game started working fine :)

You can download old drivers from AMD website here, if you are having the same problem.

This is kind of late reporting and I’m sorry about it. I was really busy at work and couldn’t create much time for an update. Anyway, it is always better late than never, right? So, here is the rest of the story;

A week after I blogged about the Philips customer service’s approach to my problem with my Philips earphones, a friend advised that “Why don’t you file a dispute at the local commission of consumer problems arbitrators at the district governorship? It’s a much more effective way than writing on about your problem on your web, just let the officials deal with them”. And I thought “Why not?”. Read the rest of this entry »

Moore’s Law assumes that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years, which means chip makers have to squeeze an increasing number of transistors onto every chip. According to Wired Gadgets, IBM is experimenting DNA Origami to create smaller chips;

Researchers at IBM have made a significant breakthrough in their quest to combine DNA strands with conventional lithographic techniques to create tiny circuit boards. The breakthrough, which allows for the DNA structures to be positioned precisely on substrates, could help shrink computer chips to about a 6-nanometer scale. Intel’s latest chips, by comparison, are on a 32-nanometer scale.

“The idea is to combine leading edge lithography that can offer feature size of 25 nanometers with some chemical magic to access much smaller dimensions,” says Robert Allen, senior manager of chemistry and materials at IBM Almaden Research. “This allows us to place nano objects with 6-nanometer resolution. You don’t have a hope of doing that with lithography today.”

Giving DNA to our computers? I guess we can start counting down for Skynet after that :)

I’m a long time HTC Touch Diamond user, and the phone I’m using now was already SIM-unlocked when I bought it. Recently, I had a chance to grab another one for real cheap from eBay for a friend, which was locked to Orange. Since we don’t have Orange here in Turkey, I’ve started a search for ways of unlocking the device.

Below is the method I used for unlocking my new Diamond. If you don’t want to use the overpriced unlocking services that certain web sites offering, you might find this free alternative useful ;)

Read the rest of this entry »

I like Philips, and I’ve never thought twice while buying their goods. Not only I trust their quality, I also recommend their products to everyone around me. But the company officials severed my trust to Philips last week. Here is the story;

I’ve bought a pair of Philips earphones (SHE 3600) 6 months ago and, because they use a weak adhesive material putting it on while manufacturing, the rubber cover of the left earphone dropped last week. Since it is impossible to wear the naked earphone because of the uncovered sharp edges after the rubber cover dropped, I’ve decided to call Philips for help. I thought that 2 years warranty Philips offered is still valid, why not use it?

I called the toll free number written on the warranty and they gave me the number of the local service center.

I told my problem to the Philips representative at the local service center. She told me that “because the dropped part is an accessory, Philips doesn’t produce any replacements for it”. After a few seconds of shock, I told her back; “How could this part is considered as an accessory? It’s impossible to use the earphone without it because of the underlying sharp edges. If it is preventing my usage with its absence, then it is obviously a necessary part for the functioning of the earphone!”. Then I told her that if they are not producing spares for this part, they should replace the earphones. She told me that they can’t replace the earphones unless the sound is problematic or there is no sound coming.

After I felt the dead end, I left the service center and called the Philips customer care again, and told them her response to my problem. The lady on the line approved their approach to my problem and told me pretty much the same things. I told her that it’s written on the warranty that the “whole product, including all parts, is under warranty of Philips”. She told me that the warranty only covers “malfunctions”. Meaning; only sound complaints about the Phillips earphones are considered worth giving repairs or replacements under the warranty, according to Philips.

Well, that sucks.

I always believe that there are little or no differences between products of competing well-known consumer electronics brands and what makes a company “big” in its league is the customer support.

I can understand not producing spares for a product which itself retails between $15-20. But, if you are offering 2 years warranty to that cheap-labored product, you must at least show the courtesy of offering new one instead of lowering your reputation, which doesn’t come easy.

Opera is definitely the best browser for Windows Mobile and, because it comes preinstalled on most PDAs, it’s quite popular. According to Gizmodo, soon to be released 9.7 version of Opera Mobile will have long awaited Flash. It will also support Google Gears, which allow Windows Mobile users to enjoy offline versions of Google applications like Gmail and Google Calendar.

Opera Mobile will have an option for connecting Opera Turbo, the content compression service used in Opera Mini, which does a lot to reduce downloading times for a small sacrifice in image quality.

I’m happy to hear that it will support Flash and Gears, but I don’t think I will ever interest in Opera Turbo. It’s sounding like having a constant “men in the middle” :)

Enjoy the video demonstration of Opera Turbo below.

[via Gizmodo]

Yesterday Disqus commenting system has launched an update, and previously reported Facebook Connect caused messy statistics issue showed itself again with upgraded WordPress plugin. Since workaround offered at Disqus blog is not working anymore, I’ve tried to fix things manually.

Disqus plugin tells Facebook Connect to look for the xd_receiver.htm at the Disqus plugin directory with the variable facebookXdReceiverPath. Problem is, Disqus plugin doesn’t ship with the xd_receiver.htm, and that’s why Facebook Connect’s attempts to reach this file are returning with errors, and causing statistics mess.

Here is my solution;

1. Remove the previous workaround code, if you’re still using it.
2. Download the xd_receiver.html file here (right click and save as) and change its extension from “.html” to “.htm”.
3. Upload the renamed file to your Disqus WordPress plugin directory (to /wp-content/plugins/disqus-comment-system).
4. You’re done.

Hope you find it useful.

Update: Disqus team repacked the plugin with the previously missing xd_receiver.htm. Just update the plugin and your problem will be solved.