Wesley's Tool-Box

Some of you may have heard about how Microsoft is considering pulling Windows or delay new versions of it from South Korean market if the Korean Fair Trade Commission's final ruling about the recent investigation turns out to be unfavourable for it (Korean news article equivalent). I, for one, greatly encourage Microsoft to get their filthy Windows out of here.

Well, I guess it was inevitable. Google now has its own instant messaging client. 'Google Talk' has just been released, and well, it's very clean and simple. Currently there's only Windows client available, but it's interoperable with iChat, so I can talk with my friends in Mac, too. KPUG members had lots of enthusiasm towards the new Google gadget, and I got around 30 buddies registered in 3 hours. Whoa.

Since this uses the Gmail address, Google Talk has the upside of doubling as Gmail notifier. Well, I'm already sold on this product. There are serious functional shortcomings (no group chat, no file transfer, slight typing incompatiblities for Korean language, etc.) but since this is a preview version and I've already filed bug reports, I expect it to improve considerably as it hits official release.

This is entirely my opinion on what I think is a good website design.

- Avoid Flash as much as possible
I sometimes come across websites that havethe menus or even the entire layout of the website based entirely on Macromedia Flash. But I seriously doubt if any of these cannot be done with a scripting language or DHTML. Also, Flash poses some limitations on what platform and computer speed it can be run on. One should not assume that a good-looking website can only be done with Flash.

Well, with the new 2.00 firmware for PlayStation Portable, there's a web browser inside. I tried it out with... what else? My website. It loads nicely, although CSS stylesheet isn't exactly doing its job right.


Nevertheless, it works without too much hitch, and other websites work, too, more or less. The input method is pretty crude, though, so I hope there's a USB keyboard for this coming out soon.

Maps for Japan on Google Map seem to be provided by a Japanese map company already. The sad thing about it is, of course, because of that, even Korea Strait is marked 'Sea of Japan' (see the body of water between Korea and Japan; Koreans prefer to call the vast sea next to the Korean peninsula 'East Sea').

The other sad thing is, Google Map still lacks any Korean maps. Yes, there are various websites that have online map of Korea, but they're not as cross-platform happy. I hope to see Google Map sign a contract with a local map maker to have the map filled in.

Cookies go to those who find Dokdo on the map above.

Click here to see the actual map.