Blogger's Dynamic View

Blogger recently has implemented major change to the way your blog can be viewed. You can access the  Dynamic View by simply adding "/view/" (without the ") to the end of the blog's URL.

There are currently 5 viewing options offered:

• Flipcard: available at [blogURL]/view/flipcard

• Mosaic: available at [blogURL]/view/mosaic

• Sidebar: available at [blogURL]/view/sidebar

• Snapshot: available at [blogURL]/view/snapshot

• Timeslide: available at [blogURL]/view/timeslide

I really think this is a cool way to enhance your reader's experience (which was also the major purpose of the Dynamic View anyway). Of course, at this state (being beta and all) there are a lot of room for improvements. Nevertheless, every big achievement started with small, simple steps as these. So, I'm looking forward to what extent Blogger and Google really intend to take these changes in time to come.

Here are examples of Dynamic View for my blog Common Copy:
Common Copy Flipcard
Common Copy Mosaic
Common Copy Sidebar
Common Copy Snapshot
Common Copy Timeslide

I really like the Flipcard and Mosaic.Which one you like the most?

The Lost Beatles Photographs

The Lost Beatles Photographs: The Bob Bonis Archive, 1964-1966

A collection of Beatles' photos during their three US tours.

The Full Moon And Uchiha: An Uncomplete Theory

I believe many of Naruto fans out there have heard about the theory (the term hypothesis will be more suffice since it hadn't been proved yet, but I'll still use "theory" for keyword's sake) of the relation between The Full Moon and Uchiha Clan's power.

Basically, the theory said that The Full Moon somehow heighten the Uchihas fighting prowess (either their ninjutsu, genjutsu, or both).

The theory is based on several shots of incidents that marked the Uchiha Clan's destiny specifically and things that marked major happenings in the Naruto Manga's storyline in more general sense.

Chronologically, that would be:

1. First, the Battle between Uchiha Madara and Hashirama Senju (The Future Shodai-Hokage).
2. The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's attack on Konoha
3. The Uchiha Clan's Massacre by Uchiha Itachi and Madara.

All happened in Full Moon nights.

There are more shots of minor incidents that further shows Full Moon, one of those is when Sasuke beat  whole lots of Ninja while being supervised by Orochimaru.

Interestingly, the Full Moon seems to affect the Senju clan also, in the same way as, if not more superior than, Uchiha. How come? Well, in cases when these two descendants fight under the full moon, Senju is always the victor, such at these :

• Full Moon was seen in the battle of The Valley Of The End between Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara, where the former was the victor.

• Another Full Moon seen in the Kyuubi attack of Konoha. Yondaime (4th Hokage, a Senju) beat Madara.

I guess the most interesting prove of Full Moon effect toward a Senju was Naruto's battle against Pain. Yes, that's a full moon alright.

Kishi yet to explain this to us, but hints are abundant. It even can be traced back to the descendants of the Sage Of the Six Paths (ancestors to both Senju and Uchiha clans). They fought under the full moon in which the younger (ancestor to Senju) became the victor. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Blood Red Shoes

Blood Red Shoes

The White Stripes they ain't, Blood Red Shoes is my most recent favorite band! I mean how can you not knocked head over heels to this Brighton-based two pieces?

Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell formed the Blood Red Shoes, back in 2004 after the break-ups of their previous bands, Lady Muck and Cat On Form, respectively.

They productively released 7" vinyls before they made their first LP, titled Box of Secrets in 2008 and Fire Like This in 2010. By the way, you can read more about the band here

I've gone head over heels after I listened to their "It's Getting Boring By The Sea" which is featured in the OST of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. I know it's kinda lame way to be introduced to a particular band that way (by means of movie's soundtrack), but hey, it's a revelation, nonetheless, and I'm grateful for it.

Being a washed-up drummer like I am, I must admit that Blood Red Shoes is the band I never had. They got both the sound and attitude of the 90's, which they admit as their influence, without having the slightest obligation to really affiliate themselves with the genre.

I won't make any notion about the way they looks (I can imagine how sick and bored they are with the subject by now). Yes she is cute, and yes he is also (I guess... I've never judge a man's looks before) and they both can switch to modelling any day they want, but that's that.

More important to me is the way they made me feel. Listening to them makes me want to write my music again, listening to them have reminded me of dream long forgotten: to be heard, to inspire, to make some damage through music, for which I eternally indebted.

Nyepi: The Sounds Of Silence

As I stood on a junction in Kerobokan street, a monster passing me by. The crowd cheers, there were more monsters to come, and I've just joined the crowd to cheer at them.

No, I wasn't in horror movie. I was in Bali on the eve of the annual Nyepi day ritual, the Day Of Silence according to Hindu-Balinese's custom, to watch the Ogoh-ogoh, the Monsters Parade, which was a complementary ritual of the former. The monsters made of mixed materials of papers, Styrofoams and fiberglass by each village in one precinct and paraded over the precinct's junctions and main roads. Some monsters were 35 feet tall, while others were small enough to be carried by the local children.

The parade symbolizes the cast-off  of evil spirit before entering the holy state of Nyepi, during which Hindu-Balinese spend 24 hours indoor, practicing silence, restraining themselves from daily activities by fasting and meditating.

The Future Of Internet

Apparently, a lot of Internet experts have agreed that the future of the internet lies in the cloud computing technology. The easiest way to describe cloud computing is to juxtapose it to electricity grid: end-users (that means you and me) don't need to know where it sources from nor how it delivered or how to configure it. As long as you pay, it'll be there. We've seen some of its implementation already. Remote servers on which our blogs ran, online games where people all around the world, not necessarily knowing each other, joint in a single gun-toting futuristic slaughter or teeth bashing medieval blood-bath are some example.

A full implemented cloud computing though, will be as far stretch as to not require you to buy any software installment whatsoever. Because you see, everything happen in your Mac/PC will be done in the network grid in the cloud, hence, the name.

Cool, huh?

How To Change The Fonts On Your Blog Using Google Webfonts

Just recently, Google launched the Google Webfonts (beta).

Google Web Fonts lets you browse all the fonts available via the Google Web Fonts API. All fonts in the directory are available for use on your website under an open source license and are served by Google servers.

Get it? That means you can use them to beautify your blog. It's pretty easy. Here's how.

First go to Google Webfonts. There you will find lists of fonts. Click whichever you want to use. You will be brought to the font's page. Before you do anything else, please read the License of each font to avoid the violation of its corresponding TOS.

There are several tabs about the font in that page. You can check them out by yourself.

To start using it to your blog, click the Use This Font tab. Check the variant of the font you intend to use (Regular/Bold etc). And copy the code beneath it. For example (I use the Droid Sans):

Next, go to your HTML editor in Blogspot, (dont forget to backup it first before you proceed), paste that code somewhere between the head and /head tag. Save it. Note: Don't forget to add the "/" (without quotes) in the closing tag "'/" (without the quotes) (after the type='text/css'>) so that it looks like this: type=text/css'/> or else you won't be able to save your change.. Next, copy the other code, in my case it looks like this:

You only need to copy the font-family part. Next, still in HTML editor, decide on which part you want this font to be (the header, headlines, body etc) search (ctrl+f  in Firefox) that part and look for the default font-family of that part. Replace that default font-family with the one generated in the Google Webfonts. Save your change and voila. You just change the font on your blog.