A $35 Computer anyone?

I just discovered Raspberry Pi, a tiny one board computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. The computer cost a startling $35!

According to the the Rasberry Pi:

"The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming."


This product is so hot that the first batch of availability was sold out in just one day. Back order will take as much as 2-3 months. I just ordered mine and I won't get it till July. 


Oh and of course it runs Linux! I can just imagine how the Open Source Community will take this little Gizmo to the max. For me am thinking one RaspBerry Pi per kids.

it's all about the cloud

I just finished the re-launching of abrenian.com after so many attempts. Instead of the traditional hosting environment, I decide to use amazon ec2 cloud for my platform using an ubuntu cloud image.

abrenian.com has been continuously running since 2002. Since then, there were many transformation as far as the underlying technology.


The site is now running wordpress, which started as primarily a blogging software but now considered as a full blown Content Management System. The email system is completely hosted by google apps.

It sounds expensive you think? Not really. Consider this...google apps is free, wordpress is free. Although amazon ec2 is pay as you go, it's less expensive than the more traditional hosting. Plus I can run other web applications on the same server image.

who can beat the cloud?

228: Quick! Grab your Google Voice Number

I wrote about google few months ago in this post. Back then you can only get Google voice via invite. Today Google finally open it to all U.S. Residents (sorry Canada).

Of course you need to have a gmail account first. For those outside the US, if you try opening an account, it will ask for a U.S. phone number to verify your location.

I love Google Voice, I used it to forward my calls at home so I won't miss anything and of course block unwanted phone numbers like those telemarketers. Quick grab yours here.

#166: Friendster makeover, now up for sale

Friendster, was the pioneer of social networking until it was overshadowed by myspace and facebook. Although this is the case, there are still big following specially in the Asia-Pacific Region.

I have not logged in to my friendster account for a long time until i bumped into this article outlining major makeover. I was curious and checked it out. It was indeed a major facelift. Somehow the design  has a facebook look and feel. Gone are the clutters and it's much cleaner.

But just as the big fuss on the announced change, a Malaysian based company is about to buy friendster with a reported price tag of $100M. This is much lower than when the asking price was about $200M a couple of years ago.

So the battle lived on. Looks like Friendster won't easily drop dead despite the dominance of Facebook and Myspace. Take your pick. And if you can't then settle for a much closely knit  community of abrenian.com.

#119: Microsoft vs Apple vs Verizon

It's an all out technology war. With the release of Windows 7, so are these new commercial from Apple taking a shot at the "broken promises" of Microsoft.

Just in time for today’s Windows 7 launch comes a new Apple “Get a Mac” ad called “Broken Promises” swinging at the new operating system.
“Windows 7 is out, and it’s not going to have any of the problems my last operating system had. Trust me!”

Replace Windows 7 with Vista, XP, Me, 98, 95 and even Windows 2, and you’ve got another pot-stirring ad spot. Watch “Broken Promises” on Apple’s site.

 Here's another video and another video

But then Verizon is giving Apple a taste of it's own medicine blasting the iPhone and AT&T

first there's this ads "There's a map for that" obviously mocking Apples "There's an app for that" catch phrase.

then recently the iDon't ads highlighting every thing that the iPhone can't do. At the same time launches the site drioddoes.com

Gloves are off, it's survival of the fittest

#116: Playing around with Google Voice

I recently got an invite from Google to sign up for Google Voice. This free service (available only in the U.S.) enables you to create a phone number. You can set it up so that when someone call this number, you can either route the call  to your cell phone, your home phone, your office phone or simple send it to your google voice mail.

Another great feature is you can use your google voice phone number to make free calls and SMS anywhere in the U.S.

But there more which I think the best feature of this service is it automatically transcribe voice mail into a text message and will send it to your email or text directly to your cellphone.

Not everyone can get google voice at this time, you need to get an invite from google to setup your google voice. Check out this page on the different features and also how to get an invite.

Want to try how it works? go to my blog and click the "Call Me" widget.

Now I can see why Apple blocked the gooogle voice app for iPhone since it truly will affect AT&T's revenue stream. But the app is available for blackberry and android phones.