King: A Hero in One Way or Another

In 1955, a black woman was arrested when she refused to give up her seat on a municipal bus to a white man.  Because of the existence of this type of discrimination, the black community chose one person to organize a boycott to end it.

Martin Luther King Jr. was chosen to lead the boycott. He was a civil rights activist and if there was one movement he was well-known for, that would be the movement against racial discrimination which he led. This movement focused on ending the racial segregation on public transport and achieving racial equality in the United States.

Martin Luther King Day is a Federal Holiday observed in honor of King - his life and achievements as an influential civil rights leader. The holiday is celebrated every on the third Monday of January, each day, around King's birthday on January 15. His quest for racial equality has led to his assassination on 1968, and the federal holiday in his honor began soon after his assassination. It was first observed on 1986, three years after the holiday was signed into law by former US President Ronald Reagan. And for this year, the holiday fell on the 18th of January.

King was an advocate of a non-violent protest. His famous address, "I Have A Dream" speech has been very known for through this, he had awaken the public's consciousness on racial equality and an end to discrimination. He was also known to be the youngest man awarded as one of the Nobel Peace Prize winners.

King was more than just an ordinary black man. He was a symbol of heroism who opted to fight for his people's right in a non-violent way. He was a symbol of equality, and indeed deserves such recognition.

Friendster: A Changing Social Network

From the very title of this post, you might already have an idea on what it's all about. Indeed, there is only one constant thing on earth, and that is change. If you don't believe in this, well, I won't force you for you are entitled to your own opinion.

If you are a fan of social networking sites, you must be familiar of friendster. Though it did not rank 1st on any surveys nor reviews conducted before December of this year, still it is used by many social-network users.

I only started engaging myself into social networking sites when I was in college, and the main reason for this was, to keep in touch with my high school friends (as well as to new found ones) and of course, to go with the flow.

Few weeks ago, I decided to open my friendster account after not updating it for almost a month. I got myself too hooked-up with facebook that I almost forgot my password. And, I got so surprise when I saw green. Yes, friendster has turned from blue to green. It's not only that the color has changed, but also the lay-out and some of its settings and features.

 

Friendster is starting to employ some fun features in the page making it more appealing to its users. Not to mention its new page color which appers to be so relaxing (my personal opinion). More games, easy shout-out updates, and friendster wallet  are only few of the many new features incorporated in the account. And guess what made me more surprised? The popular farmville or may be farmtown in facebook now has a friendster counterpart. The application's name is The Farmer (I haven't tried it yet, but I'll try one of these days). I won't be surprise if one day, there will be cafe world or fishville - the friendster version.

Those changes which friendster had started to make in their site only showed that, social networking sites also evolve into something better. Changes are not only made for the sake of competition but with the goal of having more users o sign-up and encourage those who are already in the network to stay. And of course, the marketing side of the story - the more users you'll have, the more advertisers will find their way to you since you have their targets.

Got to go. Need to check out my friendster account and find out more about the new things it could offer... I'll get back as soon as I can. ;-)

Give Life To Your Account With Free Blogger Templates

Have you ever wonder how you're going to spend your downtimes while at work into something worthwhile? If you haven't yet, well, I have.  I simply don't want to spend my free-times staring at the computer's monitor while everything in my consciousness slowly turns blurry until I see nothing else but darkness. I want to keep my mind awake despite my body is almost sleeping and even snoring.

The moment boredom came knocking on my system, I usually grab a pen and along with my diary of poems, I scribble words that slowly flood the parchment. But since I don't have my diary with me while I'm at the office, the blogsites have become my reliever. It's either I'll start juggling some topics on my mind and come up with an acceptable post or, I'll find out how to change the template of my blogs for them not to look (I hate this word) boring.

Few moments ago, while I was staring on my blogger account, I noticed something. It wasn't that alarming, but, as a reader myself, that template didn't have any appeal on my sight. What am I talking about? Well, it's my blog's template.

Having that craving in changing the template of my personal blog, I decided to ask help from my ever dearest friend, Google, who led me to this site:  BloggerTemplatesFree, a site that offers free templates for web blogs.

Here are some screenshots of some templates you may find.

 

 

There are still other sites that offer free templates for the different blog sites. Just find time to explore the wide ocean of the virtual world and you'll surely find one that will fit your taste.

No matter how much you deny it, the lay-out, or let say, the template of the blog which you are reading or you might want to read greatly affects the interest you'll have for it. How did I say that? Let's just say, the fact that I am a journalism graduate made me realize how the packaging of the write-up contributes to how many readers you will be able to pull (or maybe drag) to read your post or published write-up (though I'm not a pro on lay-outing).

It's now your turn to change those pale-looking templates. Who knows, your blog might be the next most visited account. By the way, you don't need to be an expert in HTML codes in order to change those lay-outs. But, I must say, it's an advantage. ;-)

Need to Translate? Try Google

Guess what? I am writing this post for the second time. Why? It's just that, my first draft containing five paragraphs wasn't saved when I logged out few hours back. When I rechecked it for polishing, I found out that what remained was only the title. I can no longer remember how I started the article and so, I decided to make this introduction. Oh, by the way, I'm working on OpenOffice.org Writer right now so as to make sure that my write-up would be saved (thanks for the piece of advice Tita Barbie).

If you have the capacity of speaking (may be writing as well) different languages, you are considered to be a linguist. Unfortunately, I am no Jose Rizal (Philippines' National Hero) who has given that acquired talent and I cannot speak Spanish nor Latin like he did.

Surfing the net happens to be one of my favorite habitual past times when I am at the office. Just to kill some time, I usually search for some interesting articles or sites that contain interesting topics that might inspire me to post something on my blog. I am a fan of photography, thus, when I come across a photography related site, I can't help myself but try to look at it, even just for a moment.

It was like yesterday (literally) when I came across one site that really captured my attention. I was (almost) hypnotized by the pictures on it and how the blogger (it was a blog site) related each picture to colors – colors that became alive in those pictures. No more illusion and picturesque descriptions. Only reality.

The blog's name was 'Japanese Color'. I had all the enthusiasm to browse each and every page of the blog since all contains pictures. Pictures which, I know, have other meanings that lie behind each. Then, I got frustrated. Why wouldn't I?..I can't understand the captions! Why? Because they were all written in Japanese characters.

Then, I relaxed. Trying to get back my almost lost temper. I remembered using one  application when some 'alien' messages got into my inbox. I knew it could help.

Google ---> (type the keyword) google translate ---> search

or, to make it easier, just click on the link below:

http://translate.google.com/#

Then, after few minutes, I was able to read the captions. What I did was copy the Japanese characters to the 'text' window in Google translate, chose Japanese in the 'Translate from' tab and English in the 'Translate into' tab. If you are not sure of the language you want to translate from, you may choose 'Detect Language' and Google will detect the language for you.

Now, I will no longer carry the burden of translation in my mind. As long as the web (and Google Translate) is there, I know that my linguist friend will be always at hand..;-)