Its news about a week ago, but on the Blogger Buzz, its was announced that they are going to shut down the FTP publishing feature:

Rick Lau from Blogger Buzz explains:

FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP — yet the percentage of our engineering resources devoted to supporting FTP vastly exceeds that.

Its sad and will probably wreck havoc for a lot of bloggers. Even though 0.5% of the active blogs are published via FTP, I feel that this would have been the ones which are MOST active!

This means that the only way to have a blogger powered blog using your domain is via their “custom domain” settings, where you own a domain, but point it to the Google servers.

This also means that blogger affected by this will have to migrate their blogs back into Google’s servers. The Blogger Buzz post mentioned that they are going to provide tools and extensive documentation on how to do it.

But, frankly if I’d had to do that, I’d rather switch to WordPress and maintain control over the hosting. Not that I don’t like Blogger, but because there is so much more you can do when have more control over the files on your site.

Here is something commendable. I must say I am very impressed with the web hosting support from Hostgator.

I am in the process of migrating a domain over to a their servers, and I was experiencing some issues getting a big mySQL database file imported. I headed to their live chat, and I was advised to submit a support ticket for my issue.

So on I went to submit a support ticket thru email, explaining my case. MINUTES later, there was a reply in email asking for confirmation, and within 20 minutes, I received another reply (from a separate support administrator) saying the database has been imported successfully.

Here’s my screenshot from Gmail.

I don’t know about you, but I think this support is awesome. I’ve had experience with other hosting companies that take MONTHS to resolve a technical issue.

Well done Hostgator!

If you are considering a web hosting service, consider Hostgator.

I’ve just been to the IT Show Singapore 2009 at Suntec City Convention Center, and to me, it seems like nobody gives a heck about the economy crisis! Retailers are still sardine-packing the place like before, and consumers are still buying like they’ve got pockets as deep as the Indian ocean!

Heh.

And as much as I wanted to buy a Panasonic DMC-LX3, the prices there are more expensive than the same model being sold at specialty camera shops in the suburbs (as I’ve expected)… so, I’ll continue to consider and keep the cash in my own pocket.

Here are the prices of some of the items sold at this year’s IT Show.

Western Digital Hard Disks

• Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB – $109.90
• Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB – $179.90
• Western Digital My Passport Studio 320GB – $169.90
• Western Digital My Passport Studio 500GB – $229.90
• Western Digital Mac Edition 320GB – $119.90
• Western Digital Mac Edition 500GB – $199.90
• Western Digital My Book Essential 640GB – $109.90
• Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB – $169.90
• Western Digital My Book Home Edition 640GB – $119.90
• Western Digital My Book Home Edition 1TB – $199.90
• Western Digital Mirror Edition 2TB Dual Drive – $349.90
• Western Digital My Book Mac Edition 1TB – $179.90
• Western Digital ShareSpace 4TB – $1249

IBM Laptops

• IBM Thinkpad SL300 – $133.35 x 12 months
• IBM Thinkpad T61 – $149.92 x 12 months
• IBM Thinkpad X200 – $2699
• IBM Thinkpad T400 – $2199
• IBM Thinkpad X300 – $2999
• IBM Thinkpad X61 – $2099
• IBM Thinkpad R61 – $1399

iMac

• iMac 20 inch 2.66Ghz – $1948.00
• iMac 24 inch 2.66Ghz – $2448.00
• iMac 24 inch 2.93Ghz – $2888.00
• iMac 24 inch 3.06Ghz – $3488.00

Panasonic Digital Cameras

• Panasonic DMC-LX3 – $799
• Panasonic DMC-FX180 – $649
• Panasonic DMC-Fx48 – $549
• Panasonic DMC-G1 – $1199
• Panasonic DMC-FZ28 – $749
• Panasonic DMC-TZ15 – $599
• Panasonic DMC-FX38 – $499
• Panasonic DMC-FX520 – $549
• Panasonic DMC-FS15 – $399
• Panasonic DMC-FS7 – $349
• Panasonic DMC-FS6 – $299
• Panasonic DMC-LZ8 – $199

Panasonic Camcorders

• Panasonic HDC-HS300 – $2199
• Panasonic HDC-TM300 – $1999
• Panasonic HDC-HS200 – $1799
• Panasonic HDC-TM200 – $1699
• Panasonic HDC-HS20 – $1499
• Panasonic HDC-TM20 – $1299
• Panasonic HDC-SD20 – $1199
• Panasonic SDR-H90 – $949
• Panasonic SDR-H20 – $799
• Panasonic SDR-SW21 – $699
• Panasonic SDR-S26 – $599
• Panasonic SDR-S15 – $499
• Panasonic SDR-S7 – $499

Samsung Digital Cameras

• Samsung L100 – $249
• Samsung L201 – $299
• Samsung NV9 – $399
• Samsung ES10 – $199
• Samsung ES55 – $269
• Samsung PL50 – $329
• Samsung WB500 – $599
• Samsung NV100HD – $599

Samsung Camcorders

• Samsung VP-MX25E – $599
• Samsung VP-MX20 – $499
• Samsung VP-DX103i – $499

Compaq Desktops

• Compaq Presario CQ2019P Desktop PC – $399 (without monitor)
• Compaq Presario SG3670AP Desktop PC – $799
• Compaq Presario SR5780AP Desktop PC – $1299
• Compaq Presario SR5690CF Desktop PC – $1499
• Compaq Presario CQ2018AP Desktop PC – $499
• Compaq Presario SG3680AP Desktop PC – $999

Compaq Notebooks

• Compaq Presario CQ40-339TU Notebook PC – $999
• Compaq Presario CQ20-108TU Notebook PC – $1399
• Compaq Presario CQ45-401TX Notebook PC – $1599
• Compaq Presario CQ60-133TX Notebook PC – $1399
• Compaq Presario CQ40-320TU Notebook PC – $1299
• Compaq Presario CQ20-315TU Notebook PC – $1499
• Compaq Presario CQ45-404TX Notebook PC – $1899
• Compaq Presario CQ60-206TX Notebook PC – $1499

Samsung Mobile Phones

• Samsung F480 – $499 (first 10 customers), $519 (11th customer onwards)
• Samsung D980 – $589 (first 10 customers), $609(11th customer onwards)
• Samsung Omnia – $729
• Samsung Pixon – $699
• Samsung L700 – $229
• Samsung S7330 – $339
• Samsung M7500 – $519
• Samsung J700 – $179
• Samsung E251 – $149
• Samsung C160 – $59

The IT Show 2009 is here!

This time, I’m looking for a replacement digital camera! During my last short getaway at Sentosa, I broke the LCD of my Canon IXUS 750. Actually, the camera is still working fine, except I’ve got to use the viewfinder, which is really irritating at times 🙂

I’m tempted to get a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, which features a 24mm wide angle and awesome aperture range of F2.0-F2.8.

My SEO mentor got his a couple of months back, and here is one awesome photo taken by him during one of our meals together – just to showcase what the LX3 camera is capable of!

Photo Credit: Shi

Today is already the second day of the IT fair in Singapore. I’ll probably be dropping by when they open at noon later. 🙂

Over on the Gmail Blog, they announced the release of something new in their labs. You can now convert your Gmail into a Google Docs in 1 click!

Here’s how to activate it.

1. Login to your Gmail (on the web silly!)

2. On the top right, click on settings. You will see a few tabs.

3. Click on Labs.

4. Scroll down till you find an item like this. Enable it and save (at the bottom of the page)

Done! The next time you view a message you can convert it into Google Docs in 1 click!

More about this at the Gmail Blog.