Comments (1)

By TaiTran, September 6, 2008 1:57 am

A response to Anh Hung’s question on success possibility of CyVee.

Comments (0)

By TaiTran, November 29, 2007 12:03 pm

CyVee cares about security of information by providing security options and regularly reminding its users of setting security issues. This is what I applaud.

However, this concern of security conflicts with its Account levels.

Currently CyVee offers 3 levels of account: Personal, PersonalPlus and Premium. Details can be viewed here

To upgrade to PersonalPlus for free, user needs to complete 100% profile. I have filled in most information about my portfolio and career, and I am very cautious about these fields:

1. Birthday in Personal Information
2. Email in Contact Information
3. Cellphone in Contact Information

I eventually decided to fill in Email field with a little tweak so as only human can get it correctly, and left the other 2 blank. Since I leave 2 fields out, my profile is 60% complete, which means I am not able to upgrade my account to PersonalPlus.

So in order to upgrade the account, one has to violate basic security practice by revealing his/her crucial information.

My suggestions

1. Provide built-in email image-generator like that of Facebook
2. Make these 3 fields non-required

Thanks,

Tai Tran

Comments (0)

By TaiTran, November 29, 2007 12:03 pm

CyVee cares about security of information by providing security options and regularly reminding its users of setting security issues. This is what I applaud.

However, this concern of security conflicts with its Account levels.

Currently CyVee offers 3 levels of account: Personal, PersonalPlus and Premium. Details can be viewed here

To upgrade to PersonalPlus for free, user needs to complete 100% profile. I have filled in most information about my portfolio and career, and I am very cautious about these fields:

1. Birthday in Personal Information
2. Email in Contact Information
3. Cellphone in Contact Information

I eventually decided to fill in Email field with a little tweak so as only human can get it correctly, and left the other 2 blank. Since I leave 2 fields out, my profile is 60% complete, which means I am not able to upgrade my account to PersonalPlus.

So in order to upgrade the account, one has to violate basic security practice by revealing his/her crucial information.

My suggestions

1. Provide built-in email image-generator like that of Facebook
2. Make these 3 fields non-required

Thanks,

Tai Tran

Comments (6)

By TaiTran, November 22, 2007 8:13 pm

Overall

Why would I want to use a Vietnamese web service

1. Connection speed, especially for video streaming
2. Local opportunities

What would drive me away

1. Security, including revelation of my account information and spam
2. Careless design
3. Immature communities

Networking

Professional Networking

I’m favoring CyVee because opportunities are real and more closely intact.

LinkedIn is terrific, but opportunities might come at a lower pace.

Social Networking

I’m currently very happy with Facebook.

If faceViet or yobanbe want to get me, they have to provide

1. Professional theme
2. English interface
3. Strong personalization options.

Social News

It’s a pity I prefer utilizing my RSS Reader over social news sites such as Digg. Therefore, no remark just yet.

However, the news sharing platform of CyVee looks nice and could be very useful in promoting company brand like the way Tim of TRG is doing.

Additionally, if Vietnamese service provider can create something like StumbleUpon, it would make a hit and I’ll definitely consider.

Photos Networking

Picasa has everything I need: 1Gb free account, folders, tagging and an uploader.

Is there a local site focusing on photos networking?

Music Networking

I’m enjoying sharing music on imeem. I am more into English songs. I like new age, hard rock and symphony and I’m not sure whether nhacso, Zing mp3 are rich of such genres.

Video Networking

Youtube is absolutely wonderful. I am amazed by its fast connection speed and stability.

Therefore, I don’t have the plan to move to Clip.vn just yet.

Mobile Networking

Has any Vietnamese vendor invest in this area?

Blogging

I am maintaining my different blogs on self-hosted WordPress, Yahoo! 360 and Windows Live Spaces.

If local blogging providers such as ngoisaoblog, blog.com.vn want to attract me, they would have to ensure:

1. High SEO compatibility
2. High security, including spam protection and splog tracking
3. Backup options and standard-compliant import/export functionalities
4. Permalinks

Instant Messaging

My clients in the US are using MSN Messenger. Most of my friends are using Yahoo! Messenger. For conference, Skype is just wonderful.

I don’t feel the urge of switching to Zing chat.

Email

Apart from professional emails on my domain, I use a Gmail account to access Google services and a Yahoo! email to make it easier for my friends.

Any company is investing in providing free email service in Vietnam?

Portal

I use my portal for work purpose and netvibes is still number one.

Zing looks very nice, but I’d rather having something customizable.

e-Commerce

I’m not having a real need of C2C e-Commerce, so no comment on this.

Map

A vote for diadiem, simply because I need to find ways in my local areas.

Entertainment

I’d rather go out playing sports than wandering online, so good luck socvui, hihihehe and so on

Conclusion

In conclusion, the 2 local web services that I utilize are CyVee and diadiem

CyVee give me real local opportunities and diadiem is definitely more useful than its Google counterpart.

For others, if they can bring me real values I’m seeking…

Comments (6)

By TaiTran, October 29, 2007 11:08 pm

Facebook

73.5 million users and growing fastest

What I like about it

1. Mini-Feed is useful in seeing a quick snapshot on the latest happenings within your network without going to several sites to check.
2. The ability to supply how you know a person.
3. Nice applications. Approximately 10% of Facebook applications I’ve tried are interesting and useful while others are not as good.

I think these can be improved

1. Fixed 600 width and non-resizable
2. Non-customizable design
3. No blogging functionality
4. Tight security: profile only viewable by friends. How do you determine if a profile is your friend or not just by looking at the screen name which can be different from the real name?
5. One account can only join no more than 200 groups. Unlimited is preferred.

Orkut

24.6 million users

What I like about it

1. Simple design, Google philosophy after all
2. Extensible width
3. Ad-free

I think these can be improved

1. Name. Honestly speaking, the Turkish name “Orkut” is very unfamiliar. Just a remark, as the brand name is not supposed to change
2. Very few, if any, extensions

Yahoo! Mash

What I like about it

1. Wider width
2. Larger font
3. Allows profiles to be updated by friends
4. Mini-feed is also supplied

I think these can be improved

1. Check boxes to select friends to add should be provided
2. More group levels
3. Informal language. I am especially not easy with the word “fugly”
4. Profile with non-removable fields such as “What’s most likely playing on my iPod”… Excuse me, can I NOT have an iPod?

MySpace

107 million users. The currently largest site

What I like about it

1. Integrated all-in-one solution that includes social networking, blogging, mail, favorites, forum, movies, events, media

I think these can be improved

1. Inconsistent design
2. Music landing page
3. Spam, including spam invitations, protection
4. Tons of ads

Other notable networking sites

Read more

Wikipedia, List of social networking websites

Mashable, Facebook Hammers MySpace on Almost All Key Features

Techcrunch, Facebook platform

American Class Divisions

Nerdlifestyle, Media restrictions

My choice

Facebook to keep in touch with international friends and English-speaking communities

Yahoo! Mash. Many young Vietnamese users rely on Yahoo! services

for socially musical networking

How about you?

Share your experience here…

Which site do you like best? What you wish your site had offered?

Comments (0)

By TaiTran, October 20, 2007 2:24 am

I’m going to Safari on Mac looking for what Firefox 2.0 doesn’t offer.

Good

Safari is even simpler and cleaner than Firefox. It give much space to the webpage.

Bold font display is good for the eyes.

It is more stable and less frequently crashes on heavy sites.

Easy popup-blocker switch: Command+K

Not so good

Apple advertises that Safari’s performance is 1.5 as much as that of Firefox. Unfortunately, on my PC Safari is about 15% faster.

There aren’t many extensions, which make Firefox famous, for Safari yet.

Security settings of Safari are so basic: no password control, certificate authentication, encryption.

Comments (0)

By TaiTran, October 20, 2007 2:24 am

I’m going to Safari on Mac looking for what Firefox 2.0 doesn’t offer.

Good

Safari is even simpler and cleaner than Firefox. It give much space to the webpage.

Bold font display is good for the eyes.

It is more stable and less frequently crashes on heavy sites.

Easy popup-blocker switch: Command+K

Not so good

Apple advertises that Safari’s performance is 1.5 as much as that of Firefox. Unfortunately, on my PC Safari is about 15% faster.

There aren’t many extensions, which make Firefox famous, for Safari yet.

Security settings of Safari are so basic: no password control, certificate authentication, encryption.

Comments (1)

By TaiTran, October 20, 2007 1:57 am

Setup the environment

Install and Turn on an many Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware software

Some free software may include:

• ZoneAlarm free version http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
• Avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
• Comodo Firewall http://www.comodo.com/products/free_products.html

This is a screenshot of ZoneAlarm with Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware turned on. Your software may look different but dig for similar options.

Set security in your browsers

Click here to see the illustration

Develop Defensive Habits

• Scan for virus from external storage: flash drives, hard disks
• Scan for virus/spyware at least weekly
• If some program prompts you to install, don’t if you are suspicious. However, some ActiveX from trusted websites such as microsoft.com can be safe
• Don’t open attachments from someone you don’t know. Scammers and virus spreaders can even fake their email address to something familiar to you, so just don’t.
• Don’t visit sites that look suspicious
  • Check your browser’s status bar left corner (the bar at the bottom of the window) for the URL while hovering your mouse over the link
  • If the domain name is from a source you know well, it is safe. Example of domain name: taitran.com is this site’s domain name
  • If the URL is hidden then it is suspicious
  • If the URL contains commercial words such as “refer”, “bill”, “cash” in its domain name then it is suspicious
  • If a message sent to you via Instant Messages contains links and a message that looks like mass-sending and is ambiguous (come here and check), it may be auto-generated by a virus. It also applies for IM statuses
  • The recent virus spreading in Vietnam is Vietnamese without accent. We can assume that messages with accent might be safer, but this is not guaranteed.
• Confirm with the sender if they sent suspicious-looking messages. If they don’t know, the message contains virus.
• Resist temptation (!) to click on tempting links

How to send messages that contain safe links to people who have already been cautious

• Sign your message with your name
• Address the receiver by name or group name (dear RMIT alumni)
• Write in Vietnamese with accent

Comments (1)

By TaiTran, October 16, 2007 12:17 am

Recap of new features

Though you might have experienced them already. I’ll make a quick recap when the new Yahoo! Mail turns official and becomes default.

New hot keys

Although Yahoo! Mail classic already provided hot keys and prompts, new Yahoo! Mail makes them shorter thus more memorable.

Tabs

Tabs come into place. Now we have different tabs for each of our task, whether it is reading different messages or composing different letters.

Integrated RSS reader

It allows you to forward a post as an email.

Unlimited Storage

I still remembered the time when we used to have only 4Mb per account. It was only 4 years ago. Time flies any now we have more and more and more storage due to cheaper hardware.

In 2007, storage is no longer a big concern of users. At the time of this post, Hotmail already offers 5Gb, Gmail will be offering 4Gb. Nevertheless, unlimited is always nice.

Integrated Yahoo! Messenger chat

Though basic, it comes in handy.

SMS Messaging

It currently works for U.S., India, Philippines and Canadian mobile numbers.

More effective spam-filters

It’s hard to estimate how effective it is, but it works well on my account.

Built-in Context Menu

Context Menu refers to a menu that appears when you right-click on a Graphical User Interface element.

Hint: in some browsers, the browser’s Context Menu is displayed together with Yahoo! Mail Context Menu and is of higher priority. To use Yahoo! Mail Context Menu, hit “Esc” once.

What I wish Yahoo! had offered

• Forwarding
  It’s only available with Yahoo! Plus. Gmail offers forwarding for their free account. The strategy is Yahoo! and Google is different so I have to learn to live with it.
• POP3
  Also available with Yahoo! Plus

How I use different email services

I tried around 40 free email services in 2003. I now narrow down to one Yahoo! Mail, one Gmail, one Hotmail and some email accounts on my professional website taitran.com

1. Yahoo! Mail and other Yahoo! services such 360 are for staying in touch with my personal networks
2. Gmail is for more professional connections such as organizations, societies
3. The Hotmail account is more exploring Microsoft Live, MSN and Hotmail
4. My professional email at taitran dot com is for occasions when branding is really important

Which email services do you use? Do you use different email services for different purpose?

Comments (4)

By TaiTran, October 7, 2007 3:15 am

Operating System

Linux http://www.linux.org

Linux Ubuntu http://ubuntu.com/download

Office

OpenOffice http://download.openoffice.org/

StarOffice http://pack.google.com/

ThinkFree Viewer Firefox Addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4038

Audio Decoder

K-Lite Codec Mega Pack http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack.htm

Web tools

Webshot http://www.websitescreenshots.com/

WebRipper http://home.lyse.net/webripper/WebRipper_1.25.exe

Music Player

Winamp http://www.winamp.com/player/

Musicmatch Jukebox 10 http://www.musicmatch.com/download/free/index.cgi?OS=pc&MODE=input

PDF Reader

Adobe Reader http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Foxit Reader http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/

PDF Converter

PrimoPDF http://www.primopdf.com/

Bullship PDF Printer http://www.bullzip.com/downloadmgr.php?download=pdf

novaPDF http://www.novapdf.com/free-download.php

DJVU Reader

Windjvu http://sourceforge.net/projects/windjview/

Vietnamese Typewriter

Unikey http://www.unikey.org/bdownload.php

Security

ZoneAlarm free version http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

Avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Comodo Firewall http://www.comodo.com/products/free_products.html

File Compressor

Winrar http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

Browser

Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Maxthon http://www.maxthon.com/download.htm

Instant Messager

Yahoo! Messenger http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php

Skype http://www.skype.com/download/

MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.com/

GTalk http://www.google.com/talk/

Image Viewer

Picasa http://picasa.google.com/download/

Faststone Image Viewer http://www.faststone.org/download.htm

CD/DVD Burner

Click ‘N Burn CD & DVD http://www.mp3hitmachine.com/clicknburn/index.htm

ImgBurn http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Link Finder

URLSnooper http://www.dirfile.com/freeware/urlsnooper2.htm

MMS Downloader

Streambox VCR http://www.etplanet.com/download/details.php?file=215

Download Manager

FreedownloadManager http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

FTP Manager

SmartFTP http://www.smartftp.com/

wiki(RSS) Reader

GreatNews http://www.curiostudio.com/download.html

Dictionary

Bien Ngo http://huybien.somee.com/

Calendar

Calendar Magic http://www.download.com/Calendar-Magic/3000-2124_4-10338284.html

Desktop Calendar XP http://www.soft32.com/download_27446.html

Linux / Unix

Putty http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Hard Disk Managers

Partition Logic http://partitionlogic.org.uk/download/index.html

CCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/download

Screen Capture

MWSnap http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

FastStone Capture http://www.faststone.org/download.htm

POP3 email software

Mozilla Thunderbird http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Eureka Email http://www.eureka-email.com

Macro

AutoHotkey http://www.autohotkey.com/download/

The Rename http://www.herve-thouzard.com/therename.zip

Freeware Sites

http://www.filehippo.com/

http://www.freeware-guide.com/

http://www.blaiz.net/

http://www.freewaregenius.com/

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_shareware_sites.htm

http://www.muftware.com/index.php

http://www.garybeene.com/free/fr-sites.htm

http://www.passtheshareware.com/software_downloads.htm

http://www.freebyte.com/links/software.html

http://www.atlascomm.net/willie/freeware.htm

http://www.tucows.com/

http://www.msu.edu/user/heinric6/soft.htm

http://www.nonags.com

http://www.freewarehome.com

http://www.itsfree4u.com

Source

Binh Tran binhan_tran83@yahoo.de

Bien Ngo bhngo@fcg.com

squallA begau_alex@yahoo.com

happyboy1992 pikachu1786@yahoo.com

flashflare terawolf37@yahoo.com

Tai Tran