Meebo home page now featuring a background ad.

Meebo has finally started to monetize its home page. I like the design. Unlike many monetized backgrounds on popular web sites, their is more integrated, in style, with the content on the page. Good job.

At this time the add is for the Toyota Prius – 3rd generation.

Meebo does have some other products and services to complement its main function – integrating various instant messenger networks and protocols on the same web site. My favorite of their products is the Meebo notifier.

The Meebo notifier is a small app that sits in your system tray and it stays connected to the Meebo network, allowing you to exit your browser. The memory footprint is small, so it is not resource hog. In addition to providing notification when contacts come online and when new IMs are received, you will also be notified when any of the added accounts, like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, have new emails. A feature, which can be disabled if you don’t care much for emails. Lastly, the notifier is not an Adobe AIR app. Something, which to some extend, I find to be beneficial.

One thing I would like to see Meebo support is micro-blogging services, like Twitter, Identi.ca or Jaiku.

By the way, Meebo powers the chat room on this blog.

So, do you use Meebo? If you do, where do you use it? If you don’t, do leave me a comment regarding the reason.

Whois domain record: Meebo

After watching the movie trailer, it think that it looks more than decent. In many people’s eye Uwe has the reputation of being the man with the ability to take a great game and turn it into a total shit movie. I have seen number of his movies and I do like his work. I have also watched interviews with him and at first he can come across as an arrogant prick, but he is “cool” and gets the job done, when others can’t event get off the ground.

Good cast also.

There are couple of discrepancies I would like to talk about that were in the movie. First, both Amanda and I agree on this one, Professor Dumbledore was moving way too fast for his age. I mean, this guy was all over the place. But that is the actor’s and the director’s fault. The actor, who played Dumbledore before, passed away. Now, my guess is, they have a young actor in a costume and the guy has not completely embraced his character, or maybe he is so into it that he just forgets about his age.

The second discrepancy I want to talk about is directed toward the author, JK Rowling. If you are going to use names from a nation, which is not your own, do research the names and language. I am talking about Victor Krum. That guy was supposed to be Bulgarian, correct? Well, in the Bulgarian language words have genders and so do names. Men’s names end on OV. As you can see the last name in the title of this blog ends on OV. It is not Tzan, it is Tzanov. The way she had his name, Krum, it was a first name. If she had added the OV, and it was Victor Krumov, then it would have qualified as a Bulgarian last name, and she would not look ignorant in the eyes of so many people around the world.

Other than that the above, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a good movie.

Everyone deals with the expression of feelings and romanticism between same gender persons in their own way. Last night in the theater there was a group of people, I think it was mostly man, who in the typical macho self preservation behavior were cracking up jocks and laughing every time there was a scene of homosexuality. I do not even think I can agree that it should be called homosexuality, it was more the expression of love between two males. Love and trust between two mails can be strong and openly expressed without having to associate it with homosexuality. It is a bond. But in this nation and today’s world that is hard, because people are thought to be macho and crying, hugging and the open expression of love is unacceptable. Two things: 1) although no one thinks about it, and it is well hidden, as well as the modernization of communications and the speed things move with now days, such love and trust continues to exist between war veterans. It is hard to see that now days because people’s needs are pretty much satisfied in all extends. 2) I am not arguing that Alexander might have been a homosexual, but if you look into the history of those reagents at that time and maybe hundred years back and forth, men where not allowed to be with women until their twenty first birthday. I think it was twenty first, it might be few years earlier. Anyways, they would live in barracks and homosexuality was part of the traditions and ways of life. But that’s homosexuality not like the one portrayed in the movie or the one we see today, but it was a right of passage.

Returning to the movie, I was somewhat disappointed at the movie because it did not show many of his battles. Alexander had number of them, and the strategies he employed to win them were remarkable and brave. I would have loved to see more of them in the movie, but that would have made the movie longer than ever. One battle I would have liked to see included in the movie is the last battle between the Macedonians and the Greeks. One in which Alexander demonstrated his leadership and bravery for a first time. In my opinion that would have enriched the experience produced by the movie. Although there were only two or three battles played in the movie that is not to say that they were not amazingly well done, very graphic and fairly detailed. But a small detail I would like to note, which was misrepresented in the movie are the Persian’s chariots. In the movie they had a spike sticking out from the center of the wheels. Just like the ones seen in the coliseum scene in the movie Gladiator. The actual Persian chariots had two or three sabers attached to the wheels. I saw a picture of them on the History channel. If I ever come across a picture like it or one that shows the general idea I will update this post. Oh another things. Later in the movie Alexander gives a speech and quickly mentions catapults. Ahh, I would have loved some catapult work and the damage done by them in the battle scenes in the movie.

Just to conclude. I did not even know that Anthony Hopkins was in the movie. I have seen interviews and have heard comments about almost all of the other major actors in the movie but nothing about Hopkins.