So I was listening to Windows Weekly and heard Mary Joe Foley, from Cnet, mention the word Brogrammer. Hmmm never heard that before!

What is a Brogrammer?

A simple search sent me to the UrbanDictionary.com and according to this site, a Brogrammer is:

A programmer who breaks the usual expectations of quiet nerdiness and opts instead for the usual trappings of a frat-boy: popped collars, bad beer, and calling everybody “bro”. Despised by everyone, especially other programmers.

I continued my search, and guess what I found.. the ten commandments that makes one a Brogrammer! OMG WTF? These are:

1. Brogrammers focus on the hippest possible web development technologies: Ruby on Rails, Scala, Node.js, SASS, HAML and CSS3 are all acceptable
2. Exercise: Usually in the form of running or pull-ups, between bouts of coding
3. Caffeine: Lots of it, all day
4. “I don’t often test my code, but when I do it I prefer to do it in production:” Cowboy up and ship code to the live site
5. Music: some Dubstep and a little Skrillex to put you back in the dev zone
6. Continuous deployment: pushing code on every single commit.
7. Shirts optional [this i don't agree with]
8. Standing desks [yeah right]
9. Start your day with Steak & Eggs [this i actually do]
10. Beer o’clock is any time after noon: However, if an all-nighter is pulled, Beer o’clock is whenever [i would change beer with some vodka red bull]

So I think I’m in between a programmer and a brogrammer.. I’m not the nerdy programmer everyone thinks about, but on the other hand, I don’t call everybody “bro”. So what are you?

Resources: here and here

So this is a quick post, but I’m always forgetting the exact sizes for Facebook’s Cover Photo and Profile Pictures.

Cover Photo Dimensions

This is easy, one size and remains the same. Cover Photo dimensions are 850 by 315 pixels.

Profile Pic Dimensions

The Profile Pic must be 200 by 200 pixels, with the visible area being 176 by 176 pixels. When you view your profile pic on Facebook, it is viewed as 125 by 125 pixels.

Resources: here and here

Last Sunday I’ve been using Android all day long, and loved it. My girlfriend has an HTC Wildfire which was very slow, even to write a simple message it would take ages. So I’ve started the rooting and install procedure to install Froyo (Android v2.3) using Cyanogenmod 7, but I’ll post the update procedure in a future post along with the problems to root it!

Anyhow, some of the problems of slowlyness was attributed to the large amount of messages that there were stored on the mobile, but you don’t wanna delete them. So we took a backup of her SMSs using SMS Backup and Restore, which is a really good app at what it does. After the update, you could either restore all the messages back to the phone or start clean.

But what about my SMSs?

I found this simple Android SMS viewer, built using .Net. You can find the application from here. You just click the browse button, search for your SMS backup file (copy it from your phone to your PC), and it loads all the messages in a list view. I’ll try to add some functionality to this app in the future hopefully making it available for others. More info on this app can be found here. So stop restoring and happy viewing

And just like that, I finally published my Facebook Timeline.. been thinking to do it for a while, and finally on the 5th of May (05/05) at exactly 5:05 PM, I published my timeline.. hehe wanted to make it special lol.

So why have I been holding out?

At first I didn’t like the fact that anyone can go through my timeline and watch and read what I did during the past years. You could have done that in the Pre-timeline facebook, but you would have to click lots of “Load More…” buttons to arrive at least at the beginning of the current year.

And what changed my mind?

After bing-ing and googl-ing, I found out that you could actually allow only certain friends to view your whole timeline. How? I found some websites that have step by step instructions on how to do just that. I will soon write a post myself, but until then, you can check out these links on how to protect your privacy on your new facebook timeline. Check this and this.

What’s great about the Timeline?

I just love the Cover Photos Happy timelining!!

This is just great.. the new BlackBerry 10 OS will have this amazing feature in the camera application, you can go back in time to get the perfect picture.. check out the video yourself.. it’s just amazing

BlackBerry 10 Camera App

After much waiting, Samsung execs are about to take the stage in London to unveil the next-generation Galaxy device, which will probably be names as the Galaxy S III after the company let the name slip earlier this month… we’ll have to wait a few more minutes to find out.

What we know so far?

Samsung already confirmed that the next generation Galaxy device will include a 1.4GHx Exynos quad-core processor.. hmm let’s see what else will be revealed

Already an Update…

Engadget just outed the Galaxy S III on their website. Apparently Samsung gave them the opportunity to play with their new handset.. which I don’t really know why Samsung did that, ruined the surprise. Anyhooo here’s the Galaxy S III. I’ll start adding the features of this device…

S III Features

• Dimensions: 8.6 mm thin and weighs 133 g
• Battery: 2100 mAH
• Apparently the phone “Sees you“, “listens to you” and “understands you” by monitoring your eye movement (this seems interesting)

Feature: Smart Stay

Keeps the screen awake when we are awake, thus wehn you’re reading a pdf, it doesn’t turn off the screen

Understands You

It understands 8 languages

S Beam

Want to share a video? Load up the video, touch your S III with another Galaxy S III, and the video is sent to your friend’s device by Wifi.. almost instantly!

Launch Date and Price

It will launch on the 29th of May in Europe.. wohaa Am still waiting for the price…

NO I DON’T! By checking www.speedtest.net, I found that from the promised 12 Mbps internet connection, I was only getting 1.2Mbps. What should I do next?

First check with your ISP

They “found out” that I was only getting 8Mbps, Oh My, and in a matter of 2 mins, they “upgraded” me “again” to 12Mbps, that I payed for! So if I hadn’t contacted them, I would be getting much lower speeds!! At least one thing was solved. But it still wasn’t going over the 1.2Mbps mark, and sometimes it was going even lower.

Next up, the Router

I bought a Belkin Modem Router, model number: F5D8635-4v1, never had problems, at least which I noticed. When I connected the modem given by my ISP, and re-tested my connection speed, I got a full 11.3 Mbps.. so my ISP was finally giving the full speed I paid for. Thus I found my problem.. it was that little bastard sitting next to me on my desk!! I checked all my router settings but nada, everything seemed fine. To make things worse, I tested the wireless connection… and to my surprise it was getting the full 11.3 Mbps whilst the wired connection was getting a mere 1Mbps!

Hmm the Solution!

After checking every setting, I found that the problem was the firmware. The router had firmware version 1.00.17 installed. I searched on the net and found that the current firmware was 1.00.23 (from here). I was like “please please make this work”! Downloaded the firmware and installed it!!!

The RESULT

Thumbs Up.. FINALLY I had my full Internet connection speed that I was paying for!! Yihaaa! Let’s start the torrents again

In less than an hour, Microsoft will show off its latest preview of their new operating system, Windows 8. It will be unveiled in a Press Conference at the World’s Premier Wireless Show, MWC 2012, in Barcelona (ehh wish I’m there :] ). By using the word “Consumer Preview” instead of “Beta” Microsoft is emphasizing that this OS is ready for everyday users to try on their PCs and tablets (ps. no ARM tablets for the moment).

What shall we expect in this Consumer Preview?

With the Developer Preview, Microsoft showed how Windows 8 will be, and what is capable of doing. It was only meant for developers. This new Consumer Preview is meant to be tested by everyone, so it will be much more stable, much more compatible, and almost all features will be in place.

Also, the early Developer Preview was not optimized for the mouse and keyboard, so this should change drastically in the Consumer Preview making it more usable for the normal users.

How about the Start Button?

As previous reports stated, the Start Button from the OS is likely to be removed. But instead, it’s being replaced (actually it was always there on PCs) by a hardware button. On tablets it will be an iPad like button, and for normal users using PCs, it will be the normal Windows button. It might need some getting used to.

And the Windows Logo?

Most probably, the consumer preview will sport the new Windows Logo (like the one at the top of this post). This new logo is showing the roots of Windows (it’s like the first logo ever of Windows), and is showing the new Metro Language which Microsoft is using throughout its whole range of products.

This event is not being Webcast, but if you still want live coverage (like I certainly want), you can log on to ZDNet or Engadget in less than an hour.

Finally, after much waiting, Microsoft and Skype announced the much awaited Skype app for Windows Phone, although it’s still in Beta. Apparently, compatible devices are the second gen Windows Phones including the Nokia Lumia Family Phones 710, 800 and 900 (and most probably the new Lumia 610 – more details on this one soon). This Beta version will allow free audio and video calls over Wifi or 3g, plus also paid calls.

Download it now from the Windows Phone Marketplace and Happy Skyping

(ps. Make sure you’re using Wifi as the file size is about 7Mb.)

It all started with a broken kettle at work… anyhow, I wanted to create a custom “Y U NO” meme and found this online tool/generator. Check it out and send me your custom Memes

Happy YUNOing!! But before, next there’s some background info on “Y U NO”:

“Y U NO” Guy (also known as “Y U No [X]?”) is an image macro series using SMS shorthands and carefree grammar as a way to bring someone’s attention on a particular subject or issue. The unique facial expression worn by stick-figure character is believed to have been traced from the Japanese sci-fi manga / anime series Gantz. More info here!