It had been quite a while since Web 2.0 became a buzzword on the Internet. Although O’Reilly had given a substantial idea of how Web 2.0 intended to be, ideas remained divided throughout the community.

Some raved the use of AJAX components on their websites, decorated with bits and pieces of eye candy to simulate the experiences that of desktop applications offering lag-free responses.

I remember Mei Yuan opines that Web 2.0 applications ought to have “logos with reflections”; that, on the record, is a rising trend for most web 2.0 applications.

There were other various definitions on how websites should be in order to be Web 2.0-ready. And in my humble opinion, the power of web 2.0 is further accentuated only through collaboration. Sounds really like a sales pitch, but by collaboration, I mean not necessarily in among the users or consumers per se but rather among other web 2.0 applications alike.

Enough of the technological spiel already.

I thought I might as well embrace the ideology of web 2.0, since I really am a fan of web technologies.

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You may not realize, but the avatars you see when you place a comment on The Tributum are actually global avatars called Gravatars; if you sign up for a Gravatar account, any blogs out there that are Gravatar enabled will have your picture shown! The cool thing is, even if you decide to change your avatar tomorrow, all the comments you ever made will automatically reflect the latest. The best end of this deal? It’s absolutely free.

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Those timely updates found at the side of this page are actually feeds taken directly off Twitter. These updates can either be sent through the web or through my mobile phone; furthermore, the statuses that you update on FaceBook can also be synced with the Twitter feeds. If you like the idea of stalking someone, (preferably me, haha), you can even have every darn update sent to your mobile phone. and at no cost!

Technologies like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace started with people running thoughts like, ‘It’s probably crazy’, ‘A waste of time’, ‘Pointless’. Like reading blogs, who would have thought that ideas like prying into someone else’s diary will be cool, or a pleasure to read. It’s a disease actually, once you’ve started, you will get addicted albeit not necessarily long.

Just came home from the hospital, a place where not many find it pleasant to visit. Well, we had to, or at least for dad and I; dad’s having several bouts of puking and crappin’, one coming after another. I’m not at all complaining, I can’t, and I know I shouldn’t.

Visiting the hospital makes you feel sick, even when you’re not. It’s partly the atmosphere and conditions at fault. A glance around you and you’ll see several others whining in pain, crouching the leg, bleeding profusely or suffering from aftershock from their appalling episodes. The scene makes me sick.

I saw one young lad, looking perfectly fine to me on the exterior, laughing and smiling, but sitting on a wheelchair, and he seemed to be lovin’ his ride. His friend enjoys pushing his god-knows-where-injured friend around for occasional milo breaks, performing the wheelie once in a while getting both of themselves an inch nearer to another accident, not forgetting getting a earful from the angry nurses.

Another trio came by and sat at the waiting area with us, awaiting for the doctor’s calling to be examined. It was apparent that these fine young teenagers were serving their national service. One pale looking fella struck a conservation with his pal, listing the usual disdain about army and the guard duties, occasionally punctuating his sentences with Hokkien vulgarities. Wonders if they’d attempted to feign illness to escape booking in. Sure they look ill, but altogether?

It’s only after two hours when we gotten our turn. The excruciating wait at the hospital sure drained my energy. It turned out that Dad’s gotten a virus infection, not the food poisoning which I suspected earlier.

Something in the papers caught my eye today. Creative Labs, a subsidiary of the home grown sound blaster maker firm Creative Singapore released a public warning against a sound blaster enthusiast, only known as Daniel-K for profiteering from illegal computer drivers distribution. The turnout is ironically amusing, I must say.

Apparently, Creative has been selling hardware running on substandard drivers which claimed to run compatibly with Windows Vista. Advanced features which could run on Windows XP were locked when the drivers detected that Vista was present. Daniel-K wrote patches which inject life, restoring full functionality to the cards.

The entire debacle raised to a new level when Creative Labs attempted to crucify Daniel-K publicly, accusing him of gaining monetary benefits from something “he did not own”. Forum moderators also removed Daniel’s forum posts, effectively silencing him.

As the news spread like wild fire, the power of the Internet or the justice of the Internet Community seemed to back Daniel up as countless netizens threatened to boycott Creative products totally. Daniel-K spoke up too.

It’s sad to hear a Singaporean company weathering criticisms eh? Furthermore, Creative Labs came across as some kid who lost his toy to some next door kiddo who could play it better. Here you have a sound card not performing at its peak, a gifted child comes along and restores it to its full glory. Why the harsh rejoinder from Creative?

The debate on rights and terms of use has always been a controversial one. Here you spend your monthly hard earned on a really expensive hardware which promises Dhoby Digital among other things, you go home happily with your purchase but discover instead that you just spent half a month’s wages on a really pricey paper weight. You then download some back alley patches and the manufacturer accuses you of infringing intellectual property, challenging you not to use the product if you don’t agree to what is first agreed upon.

Remember the iPhone incident when owners of newly released iPhones could not get them to work on other mobile carriers other than AT&T? Users attempted to jailbreak the iPhone firmware but were threatened with yet another overwrite with the next firmware update, rendering the iPhone useless.

Same thing that happens here.

And as if it isn’t enough to make you paint the entire town red with false hopes on getting the hardware work, the company then drops a hint that they do brick your hardware intentionally.

O’Shaughnessy (Director, Corporate Comms, Creative Labs) also wrote that whether or not it cripples its Vista drivers is a “business decision that only we have the right to make.”

Seriously, you bought the freakin’ sound blaster, for crying out loud. It’s supposed to be blastin’. Who’s the one here manipulating the entire situation by making an asinine business decision of sealing up functionalities on Vista. Not very creative of Creative right?

The worst mistake Creative had made was to make it a public matter. Creative could have protected its intellectual property by getting Daniel-K to join them as one of the developers, or buy over his hard work. He’s a talent, isn’t he? And isn’t Singapore scouting for foreign talent? He’s the exact candidate here. By doing so, it would have contained the spread of some verboten, closet technologies.

But no, that’s not what Creative had done. The modified drivers are now downloading like hotcakes on the BitTorrent networks.

I think Creative is just sore that Daniel have gotten some donations amounting to some $146. In the Open Source community, developers often ask for donations to help them fund for further developmental costs. And in this case, Daniel needed extra perks to buy new hardware to work on. Yes, it’s probably true that Creative’s work were never Open Source to begin with, but here’s someone who’s helping Creative to sell more Vista capable sound enhancers. Wouldn’t it be a win-win situation if Creative shuts an eye, Daniel’s work could probably do more good than harm. Besides, a full fledged public listed company against a friendly computer programmer? Oh please. Now, Creative will have to lose more than $146 if people are to boycott its products.

I totally agree that Daniel shouldn’t have solicited payment in the first place; however, for a case of this scale, Creative really has nothing to lose.