UOB Personal Internet Banking doesn’t work on Mac OS X Lion because of Java Applet + Workaround

 Technology  17 Responses »
Aug 012011
 

For those thinking (or who have) upgraded to Mac OS X Lion, you’ll realize that Java is unavailable for Mac OS X Lion. Naturally, the first thing you should do is to download and install Java for Mac OS X Lion. However, UOB Personal Internet Banking still doesn’t work on any browser including Safari, Chrome, Opera, Firefox.

The workaround for now is to use Firefox, install User Agent Switcher extension and switch your user-agent to the iPhone. Try loading up the UOB Personal Internet Banking again. It should work now and you’ll be able to log in.

Remember to switch back to your default user-agent if you’re using it to browse other websites, otherwise you might have a weird web surfing experience.

Google+ is the Glue between the Google Services (Part 1)

 Articles, Publications, Technology  3 Responses »
Jul 142011
 

Google launched Google+ just a few weeks ago, and it has boomed into a relentless hunger from the Social Media scene to be on the newest and hottest social media platform from one of the most popular brands on the planet, Google. However, I still hear a lot of people asking what exactly is Google+, why they should want to be on it, and how to use Google+. Well, I’m going to try to answer all those questions, and talk about what will become possible in future for Google with this new Google+ social media platform.

Be forewarned, this is a pretty heavy article. Read on after the break. Continue reading »

Inside Search – Introducing Google Search by Image, Voice Search and Instant Pages (Video)

 Technology  No Responses »
Jun 152011
 

Google announced their new search features at a media event – Search by Image, Voice Search and Instant Pages. Above is the complete video recording of that event.

Search by Image

Search by Image is now available at images.google.com. You can now drag and drop, upload with the camera icon, or provide a url to an image and it will search relevant information about the image for you. Think Google Goggles for the desktop.

Voice Search

Voice Search on desktop takes advantage of Chrome’s Speech API and will be available to everyone using Chrome 11+ in English after it has rolled out over the next week. You’ll also need to make sure you have a microphone that works, whether it’s built into your computer or an external mic that you plug in.

Instant Pages

With Instant Pages in Chrome, you can skip the extra seconds waiting for a page to load and get to the answers you’re looking for faster with webpages that load instantly. This prerendering technology is currently in the Chrome Dev Channel and will be going to Beta later this week.

Google I/O 2011 Keynote Day 2

 Technology  No Responses »
May 122011
 

Summary of Google I/O 2011 Keynote Day 2:

  • Google Chrome Browser
    • Speech to Text input
    • Using GPU to hardware-accelerate graphics
    • 10X performance improvement to Canvas 2D
    • 10X performance improvement to WebGL
    • Tinkercad – web-based 3D modeling tool
  • Chrome Web Store
    • Available in 41 languages to all 160 million users of Chrome
    • Seamless, painless, simple in-app payments within online web apps
    • 5% flat fee to Google for purchases within online web apps
  • Angry Birds on the Web
    • In Chrome Web Store
    • Play the complete game offline
    • Mighty Eagles will be available on Chrome soon (when in-app purchase is released)
    • Used Google Web Toolkit (GWT)
  • 3 Dreams of Black
    • Interactive music experience project from Google Creative Lab
    • Uses the power of Javascript, HTML5, WebGL to make an immersive, interactive, multimedia 3D experience for the web
    • Chris Milk, wrote and direct the script, based off some music off of Danger Mouse and Daniel Luppe’s new album called ROME, featuring Jack White from the White Stripes and Nora Jones
    • Involves composited video, animation, and 3D graphics all into one space
    • Chrome Experiments to see a number of demos
  • Google Chrome OS / Chromebook
    • Nothing but the web
    • Instant-on (8 secs), always connected, all-day battery, access your stuff anywhere, gets better over time, security built-in
    • Able to download files and open with new File Manager
    • Added a new Media Player, plays music + video with full screen mode
    • Movie rentals and Music beta works seamlessly
    • Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, music, MOG, Pandora, etc. all works out of the box
    • Send to Picasa, Save to Box.net, Open with Google Docs, etc. Chrome Web apps able to install local file handler for file types
    • Offline versions of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google docs
    • Built-in 3G
    • Samsung Chromebook
      • 8 second boot
      • 12.1″ display – 300 nits
      • 8 hour battery
      • WiFi + built-in 3G option
      • Available in 2 colors
      • WiFi – US$429, With 3G – US$499
    • Acer Chromebook
      • 8 second boot
      • 11.6″ screen – full HD display
      • Full size keyboard
      • 6.5 hour battery
      • WiFi + built-in 3G option
      • US$349 and up
      • Available June 15, in US at Amazon.com and Bestbuy.com
      • Also available in UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Italy
    • Chromebox – without screen
    • IT management and administration
      • Web Console to centrally manage all Chromebooks
      • Add, remove users, apps, and have a centralized group policy settings for their entire employee base
    • Chromebooks for Business
      • Software and hardware as a service
      • Get Chromebooks, centralized web console, full support, warranty & replacements (ship a new device when breaks down), hardware auto-updates (upgrade to the next generation Chromebooks)
      • $28/user/month
      • Chromebooks for Education – $20/user/month
      • Available June 15 for companies, schools, governments, in US at Amazon.com and Bestbuy.com
      • Also available in UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Italy

Setting Google Chrome Canary Build for Mac as Default Browser

 Technology  4 Responses »
May 092011
 

Google Chrome Canary Build for Mac was released not long ago. If you’re like me living on the bleeding edge of browser technology, and are more than willing to make Google Chrome Canary Build for Mac as your default browser, you might have encountered a slight problem when going to Google Chrome preferences and trying to “Make Google Chrome My Default Browser”. You’ll get a message saying “This is a secondary installation of Google Chrome, and cannot be made your default browser.”

Well, never fear. Open Safari and go to preferences as seen below. You can set your default web browser to Google Chrome Canary Build in here. Awesome!

ChromeLite – Text-based Lynx-like browsing on Chrome

 Technology  No Responses »
Apr 032011
 

Lynx

ChromeLite

This is an April Fool’s joke by Google, but a very good one which I can see myself using. ChromeLite is an extension for Google Chrome that removes all images, formatting, etc., and tries to render a page in its bare minimum like how Lynx, a popular text-based browser, renders web pages. I think it’s useful for low-bandwidth situations where you just need the text and information, not caring about how the webpage looks like. It also brings out how some websites are badly structured in HTML.

Try out the ChromeLite extension.

Google Chrome Web Store Apps on Google Chrome

 Technology  1 Response »
Dec 172010
 

I may be late to the game regarding Google Chrome Web Store launching on 7th December. Today, I woke up to a surprise after an update on my Google Chrome dev build which now has Web Apps integrated into the default home page.

For now, most of the Google Chrome Web Apps seem to be just bookmarks to the various web applications like Twitter, Google Books, etc. that are redesigned and optimized for HTML5 and Google Chrome. Try them out and let me know what you think of the new Google Chrome Web Store Apps, and what are some of your favourites.