I Won An iPad

This past Tuesday, I went to a special event, and they held a draw. Read more for the details.

Grecian Formula Update [end of week 4]

This week, I only started applying the stuff on Friday, if I recall correctly. In general, I have been applying more than normal, and it seems that just like previous weeks, it started showing more colour after about 3 days. Read the remainder of the blog entry for more information.

Questions For Accepting An ESL Contract In China

When I was looking for a job to teach English in China, I found this page, that I thought others might like: 45 Questions to Ask before Accepting that Contract to Teach English in China.

Self Mummification

Here is a sad piece on self mummification. I hope that things like that do not happen today.

Book Sizes That Are Eligible For Lulu.com Distribution

I found out that only certain book sizes are eligible for distribution by Lulu.com. If you want to get a free ISBN number from them, then you'll need to look over which book sizes are available.

The link might not work for some of you. The important thing that I took from it is that A5, which is eligible for distribution, is a good replacement for Digest, which is not eligible.

The End Of The Week About Opera Web Browser

The end of the week came quicker than I thought. I am glad that I did it. I have a couple more tips that I would like to share, but they are small tips, so I will save them for later. It would be nice to have another week of blog entries that follows a certain theme.

The Failings Of Peer Review

Peer review is a good thing.

My main complaint with it is the people. Read on for my complaints.

Uploaded Sample Of My Puzzle

You can try it at my storefront, by printing the page, or just using a text editor as a scratch pad.

I Got A Job Offer To Teach ESL In China

I will go for a January contract.

Send To-Do List Items To Your Mobile Phone With Opera's Notes Tool And An SMS Portal

You can use SMS web portals and Opera's Notes tool to send to-do list items to your phone. It's easy enough to copy and paste things into and out of Notes, but read the remainder of the blog entry for tips on saving clicks, and streamlining your process. I think that this blog entry will really help you to be more organized.

Bear in mind that this idea is geared for cell phones that are no longer capable of using the web, and therefore, are not capable of using Opera Link, and for those who are allowed to send free text messages from the web. There are Opera widgets that help you to get organized, but if you do not like those widgets, and/or do not like widgets at all, then keep reading.

Use Opera's Windows Panel To Organize Your Tabs

This will be old news for those of you who follow Haavard at the My.Opera.com community.

You can organize your tabs [i.e. dragging and dropping them] by using Windows Panel. You can even transfer them from 1 window to the other, for better organization.

Overall, Windows Panel gives you better control, because you can drag and drop more than 1 at a time. The only good reason to drag and drop your tab, using the tab bar, is when it is a quick drag and drop.

Organize Opera's Bookmarks, Sessions, Personal Bar, And Speed Dial

Most Opera users should already know how to use bookmarks, the personal bar, and speed dial, but from my own experiences, I feel that I did not get the best value out of them. As I started using them more, I began to keep my tab bar less and less cluttered.

Some of you will be happy to have many tabs open. How much time do you spend trying to find your tab, because it gets buried in the other tabs? How often have you clicked on a tab, only to find that you clicked on the wrong tab?

Read the remainder of the blog entry to see my suggestions.

Grecian Formula Update [end of week 3]

I cannot believe that I did not use it even once this week. I guess when the stuff does not work very well, and when it leaves a little bit of brown residue, we tend to have a lot less incentive to use it. Maybe I will use it tomorrow, since I am planning on going to bed now.

Use Opera's Start Bar And Google's I'm Feeling Lucky To Avoid Polluting Your Address Bar History

There are times when I want to type in an address, but not want the address to remain in the address bar's history.

To accomplish this, I enabled the start bar, which is a tool bar, that appears below the address bar, when you click in the address field. Next, I added a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" search box, to the start bar. To keep the field accessible in smaller window sizes, I kept it on the left side of the bar.

To use it, I just click in the address field, then click in the "I'm Feeling Lucky" search field. So in 2 clicks, you are ready to type in an address.

This will be very handy for when you need to type an address that you might only need to visit a few times or less.

How To Middle-Click In Hotmail's To-Field

For me, Hotmail's email composer does not seem to work very well, when I use Opera. I have not tried it with the other web browsers. Even though the text field appears very large, I cannot use Linux's middle-click to paste in an email address, as I should be able to.

I found out, by chance, that there is a small part of the field that is available for middle clicking. To make it easier to find, I recommend that you disable any styling of forms.

• View Menu -> Style -> Manage Modes
• Deselect "Enable Styling of Forms".

Use Opera's Inline Search To Help You Edit Your Blog Entry

This blog entry was written about using Opera web browser, but it should apply very well to any web browser that highlights all the searched text in the web page.

Opera does not have a search-and-replace feature for correcting typos. However, I found out that you can use the search feature to highlight and find stuff, and then correct them manually. I would probably get the best use out of it, by searching for apostrophes, and then breaking apart contractions [e.g. break apart "don't" to "do not"].

Opera's Kubuntu Font Problem Partially Solved

I have been experiencing font problems lately. I know that others have. Install metapackage ubuntu-restricted-extras and 10.62 Release Candidate

A Week About Opera Web Browser

For those of you just joining us: I decided to post a week's worth of hints and tips about how to get the most out of Opera web browser. Read this blog each day.

Bible's View About End Times And About Increase In Wickedness

There have been a few unbelievers that claimed that we ought to be sinning more, if we really believe what we believe about the Bible. The Bible states that the increase in wickedness will correlate to us getting closer to the rapture. From a simplistic view point, the more we sin, the closer that day will be.

So, if we truly want to be raptured as soon as possible, then what stops us from sinning as much as possible? Read the remainder of the blog entry for my answer.

Challenges To Being Grateful

I was on the way home on Tuesday night, and I was touched by a woman's kind gesture to me. At first, I thought that she was the only person who had done anything nice to me, in a long while, but I realized that it is not true. It took me a while to realize that I had forgotten all the good things that my parents and friends did.

Read the remainder of this blog entry for how I intend to be more grateful.

The Concept Of Interruptions Implemented In Entertainment [i.e. DVDs, Movie Theatres]

Dan Ariely, in his book "Predictably Irrational", introduced the concept of interruptions affecting pleasure and displeasure.

Read the remainder of my blog entry to read about my suggestions on how to increase the pleasure of entertainment, such as DVDs and movie theatres. You are more than welcome to use this idea for your profit, without attributing me, and without giving me any money, royalties, or compensation.

Grecian Formula Update [end of week 2]

Read the blog entry for the results of my second week of using Grecian Formula 16. I was not happy about the results.

Mark Of The Beast And Biometric IDs

I like to pay a little bit of attention to privacy issues, regarding trade and business, because I think that the more we move towards a 1-world currency, and towards attaching our identification to our bodies, the closer we will get to the end times.

I read an article about biometric IDs being forced upon India's inhabitants. I began to wonder if this could be the mark of the beast. Read the remainder of the blog entry to see what I came up with.

Chinese Language Puzzles Ready For Demonstration

I managed to get the sample puzzle uploaded to my on-line bookstore. Would you be willing to check it and try it, please? Since they are only images, you'll need paper or a text editor to do it yourself.

Market Research: Chinese Language Puzzles

On Friday, I did some market research for a new product that I am trying to test. I want to be able to sell language learning puzzles. So far, the results have been quite positive. I think that I will need to refine the survey, and the product. It seems so new, that people are struggling to figure out how to do the puzzles.

I intend to upload a sample to my Lulu.com store, so that you can try it, as well.

Negative Product Placement And Your Products

It seems that companies are resorting to giving their competitors a negative image, by giving those products away to people who will tarnish the image. It makes me sad to read about methods like this.

• Forget Product Placement; Get Ready For Product Anti-Placement
• How Snooki Got Her Gucci: The Dirt on Purses

A Week's Worth Of Blog Entries About Opera Web Browser

I have discovered some neat little techniques to using Opera, to improve my web browsing experience. I would like to share them. Therefore I am writing a special feature of 7 blog entries, that I will call, "A Week At The Opera Web Browser". Starting September 19, 2010, I will post 1 blog entry per day, for each of the 7 days.

Publish Several Blog Entries Ahead Of Time

A while ago, I discovered that we can publish our blog entries ahead of time. This means that we can write a bunch of them at once, publish them, and then have them appear in the blog, at the time and date of our choosing.

If you already do this, then I would love to read about your experiences. Please comment.

If this sounds like a useful feature, then read the remainder of the blog entry, to see how to do it.

Grecian Formula Update [end of week 1]

I have used Grecian Formula for 1 complete week.

I will post another Grecian Formula update, next Thursday.

Read the remainder of the blog entry for the results.

Wonderful Howto [tutorial] For Playing DVDs On Kubuntu [also Ubuntu and Xubuntu]

I am so happy to finally be able to play DVDs on my Kubuntu 10.04 desktop computer thanks to the Comprehensive Multimedia & Video Howto. It was made for Ubuntu, but it has a good amount of information for Kubuntu.

This is the holy grail that we've been searching for. The DVD that I tried plays wonderfully.

True Type Fonts Available For Kubuntu

The web seems to classify fonts into 5 categories: serif, sans-serif, mono, cursive, and fantasy. Read the remainder of the blog entry for my recommendations to Kubuntu users. Other Linux users should be able to get them as well.

I Uploaded My Photos From Grouse Mountain

I added photos to the blog entry about the hike up the Grouse Grind.

The First Few Chapters Of Genesis

I like the first few chapters of the book of Genesis, from the Bible, because they act as a go-to reference, for comparisons of a perfect life, and an imperfect life. Throughout our lives, we can ask so many questions about life in general. Our culture portrays those questions and answers as trivial, but I prefer to portray them as critical. I believe that it is important that we answer these questions correctly, and answer them early on in life.

Read the remainder of the blog for all the questions that I can think of off the top of my head, that can definitely be answered [or at least answered in a reasonable way].

I Am Using Grecian Formula [that transparent liquid]

On, Wednesday, late afternoon, I decided to try some Grecian Formula. I found this appealing, because it is a clear liquid, which would be less likely to stain, and because it did not need to be used up each time, like other colouring products.

Bear in mind that at 1 time, they used to use lead in them. For Canada, I think that they no longer use lead. The best thing to do is just check the ingredients, and just avoid the lead.

Those of you who know me, probably know that I never intended to colour my hair, until now. In the remainder of the blog entry, I'll explain how the Bible influenced me both ways.

ODF Text Template Containing All ISO 216 And ISO 269 Sizes

The other day, I uploaded a new ODF template, that contains most of the ISO paper sizes.

In the remainder of the blog entry, I'll try to explain my technical choices for the design of the template.

KDE Lets You Rename Files In Numbered Order

In this blog entry, I discuss a new discovery that I made, while downloading photos from my camera: you can easily rename many files at once, in consecutive order.

Finding Parts Of OpenOffice.org [area dialog; colour tab; colour palette folder; colour palette load button]

Apparently, 1 or more people were having trouble with using the colour palettes that I distributed. This blog entry is a tutorial on how to find these things that are related to colour palettes.

• the Area dialog
• the Color tab
• your color palette folder
• the Load button for your color palette