Featured Artist: Ingrid-Silvia Erikson

While I've been busy updating Orkut Cute, I came across some oil paintings by Ingrid-Silvia, who is eagerly seeking feedback regarding her work.

Ingrid is from Estonia (a very cold place--at least to us Americans) and she does not describe much about her life on her profile (she may be shy). Ingrid has thus far published several of her works to her album, and hopefully we will be able to get some more images down the road. Here are two of her paintings below.

(Note: In order to respect copyright laws, original photos were not uploaded)

I am not all too familiar with oil paintings, but from what I can gather they seem to be much harder to conceive than say regular drawings with color. Either way I am impressed by these two paintings, and hopefully she will find a job somewhere where she can paint this stuff all day.

Orkut Advertises Joga Companion

(Published on The Social Networking Weblog)

It seems as if the Google team has decided to advertise Joga.com within every Orkut member's home page. Joga is a cooler version of Orkut and is a joint project of both Google and Nike. Having most of Orkut's features (as well as several that Orkut lacks) it seems Joga lacks the traffic of it's older sibling (and thus why Orkut members are now being exposed to it).



This download is for Firefox users only (sorry IE fans) and once installed it creates a sidebar highlighting various soccer scores between nations as well as videos within Joga. It also doubles as a Firefox skin which may irritate some users who have already customized their browser layout.



Users of Joga will probably find this Firefox extension useful, although if you are not into soccer as much as half the planet is then you will probably want to pass on this one.

Orkut Fighting Against Scrap Spam

(Published on The Social Networking Blog)

Apparently spammers have decided to make Orkut their home territory for annoying users by filling up their scrap books with links towards pornography or "get rich quick" schemes.

Google is apparently fighting back by not only warning users about these links but by surpressing them as well.



(Note: the above image says, "Warning: Please be careful when clicking on unfamiliar links in scraps or other parts of this site that navigate away from orkut.com.")

If a link is deemed suspicious by Google, the team will not only warn the potential victim but replace the link with a "SUSPICIOUS LINK SUPPRESSED" in bold.



Spammers have been using a variety of tools to "spam the masses" which many people have found to be very irritating. Although the war against spammers will probably out last the war against terror, it is good to see Google taking aggressive measures against them.

Update: Added text underneath first image to clarify what it said.

Email Subscription Working Now

Well, I've returned back into cyberspace (although I still have to catch up on emails) and I found to my horror that the email subscription was not alerting me to newbie's signed up on the list.

I've updated the list so those of you who were missing out on the action before have been updated and hopefully this problem will not occur again.

Featured Artist: Babrus

Babrus (over in the Drawing forum) shows off his talent by pointing users towards his album. An avid drawer of Anime, Babrus has a unique gift of not only drawing surreal characters but also adding life to them via color (a hard thing to do while sketching or drawing).

My favorite images are Dark scythe (at the bottom left hand corner) and Warcries!! which you can not see displayed below.

(Note: In order to respect copyright laws, original photos were not uploaded)

Babrus has a talent and hopefully we will see it used in an Anime film someday (or perhaps even in a surreal one like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within).

Be sure to check out his other photos outside of Orkut and be sure to scrap him and provide feedback on his work.

Confession: A Short Film

Taniya (in the Short Films forum) has posted a mini film she had to do for school. Simply entitled Confession, the mini flick depicts a man struggling with "very dangerous urges."

I assume no kids were hurt in the making of this film but you can check it out for yourself over on YouTube (warning: not suitable for work).

She is asking for feedback and it seems that Uday enjoyed it without complaints although Ritesh gives some constructive criticism.

The Short Film community seems is full of talented people looking for public reviews of their films. And if you are interested in acting within a short film, Wet Dog Stinking Willie is looking for a female actor for the summer.

How Would You Change The World?

Over in the World Peace forum, (which can also be accessed over at PeaceTalk.org) Angel is asking members what would they alter about their world if they could change just one thing.

While many people post ideas such as changing people's attitudes, ending wars, making Bush and Bin laden "get along" (fat chance of that happening), Hari provided a thoughtful answer by saying:

Corruption would be my top priority. Corruption usually causes more harm than anything else. If everyone did what they are supposed to do, instead of looking out for one which is themselves.

The world in general would be better off. And it would benefit from this state of no corruption. As a result of this state, the funds for the poor will go where they are supposed to and people won't just use the poor or the weak for their own benefit.

Corruption, whether in politics, religion or business is probably one of the most wide spread issue of our day and of all the suggestions mentioned in the forum, is the easiest to tackle as I don't think Bush and Bin Laden love each other, especially after what happened to Al-Zarqawi in Iraq.

Changing Your Orkut Background

Although Orkut's sibling Joga.com gives users the ability to change the appearance of their background, members of the "deep blue forums" were unable to alter Orkut to their desired taste--that is until GreaseMonkey came along.

Many users within the world of Orkut have found ways of altering their screen backgrounds with the aid of GreaseMonkey, a tool (for Firefox) used to alter a web browser's appearance (more info via Wikipedia).

Here are some of the best background hacks that I have seen thus far:



1) Creamkut gives Orkut a total face lift. What I love about Creamkut is the fresh look it gives by adding new font styles, borders and even replacing the original buttons with customized ones to match the hack. Creamkut also has an official forum for those with further questions.

Recommended for anyone looking to escape the basic baby blue colors of Orkut as well as spice up the overall look of the forum. (download script)

(Designed by Alex da Silveira Ceara)

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2) Pinkut is a skin that makes Orkut...well pink. The design is not as beautiful as Creamkut, but it does add a "feminine touch" to Orkut, which many girls would probably enjoy. Pinkut also has a dedicated forum for those with questions or comments about this skin hack. (download script)

(Designed by Jacques, or is it Julie now?)

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3) Blackut is for those who like their Orkut rather dark. Although it appears to me as if the skin makes it "grayer" than anything else. This skin piece also looks fairly well, and may be preferred for those who think that the baby blue color of Orkut is really dumb (although the color has a weird calming affect on the mind).

You can visit the official Darkut forum for further details and questions. (download script, or install directly into Firefox)

(Designed by Jacques)

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4) Bluekut (not to be mistaken for this Bluekut which I misspelled) is for those who enjoy Orkut's blue background, and like Creamkut this is a complete hack as it covers not only the background and forums, but also the buttons as well. (download script)

(Designed by Igor Thiago)

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5) Redkut is also a complete hack although you may notice spots not covered while surfing throughout Orkut. This hack kinda reminds me of blood, which may be cool for those either in the medical field or if you are into the "vampire" mood. Redkut has a small forum here, although from what it appears this skin does not seem to be as popular as the previous ones. (download script)

(Designed by Marcella)

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6) Orkut Roxo (or Purple) gives the Google forums a slightly romantic look. Also Designed by Igor, this skin would also be recommended. I am not sure if this is the official Roxo forum, but from all appearances it may as well be. (download script)

(Designed by Igor Thiago)

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7) Orkut Verde (or Green) is for those who are feeling a little bit of Irish. This skin also has a very nice layout, and the green does make Orkut appear a little bit more "relaxing" than the baby blue, although it may wear out on you over time. Their is a forum inside Orkut dedicated to Orkut Verde where you can post further questions or comments on. (download script)

(Designed by Igor Thiago)

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There are many other skins you can try out, although I posted what I thought were some of the best ones out there. More scripts are listed on Igor's Orkut Scripts page (as well as more Orkut tweaks). For those interested in customizing your own personal skin of Orkut, you can either try creating a GreaseMonkey hack or simply download Orkut Cute, the unofficial browser for Orkut.

If anyone knows of any other skins, feel free to let me know by posting below or scrapping me via Orkut.

Update: Corrected some grammer.

Orkut Greater Than Blogger?

It might as well be. I've been experiencing "blogger woes" for several days and what use to take three seconds to log into blogger now takes ten minutes! Oh well, I am using free software...and blogger has been experiencing many problems lately.

Ironically, Orkut's servers have been relatively smooth, with no donut errors in site. Could it be that the Google teams have switched places in regards to performance?

Al-Zarqawi Killed In Iraq

On the news it was reported (and confirmed) that the terrorist mastermind Al-Zarqawi in Iraq left this world via two 500 pound bombs on his head. Although this is great news (as my friends in Iraq are celebrating) apparently some within Orkut are mourning his loss.

(Via Apoio a Al Zarqawi or Support to the Al Zarqawi)

Chiquinho: (Translated via Google) Today it was one day sad, therefore lider of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Zarqawi, was died for the American troops. It is my pezames here and the fight against the invasion did not finish!

For those wanting to see a picture Michelle Malkin has the round up (as usual). May Zarqawi join his friends in the after life, and may he never again harass humanity (of all faiths) with his dark logic.

Changing Orkut Background Black (Blackut)

Apparently while surfing Orkut I came across this nifty hack for those bored with the baby blue background that Google provides Orkut users. Entitled Blackut, this nifty hack makes your Orkut background darker.

(note: this hack also has a forum entitled blackut: The Dark Orkut which you can see a screen shot of below).



This hack is much prettier than Blukut by far, although not as beautiful as Creamkut (which I'll do a review on shortly). One advantage this has over Blukut (and others) is the fact that you do not need GreaseMonkey in order to install as it is packaged as a Firefox extension.

This could also be its weakness, as the only way to remove it is to uninstall the extension (while in GreaseMonkey you can actually turn off the hack and return to normal).

Update: You can install the Firefox extension by clicking here.

The Problem With Love Is...

Swarup has written an excellent poem in "The Problem With Love Is..." forum which has so far received dozens of responses. Here is a snippet for you to preview.

[...] I once had a friend
who grew to be very close to me.
Once when we were sitting at the edge of a swimming pool,
she filled the palm of her hand with some water
and held before me, and said this:
"You see this water carefully contained on my hand?
It symbolizes Love."
This was how I saw it:
As long as you keep your hand caringly open
and allow it to remain there,
it will always be there.
However,
if you attempt to close your fingers round it and try to posses it,
it will spill through the first cracks it finds. [...]

Swarup's poem has received praise from Rashmi, with Venom commenting this as "a first rate interpretation of love" while Jyoti thinks everyone should read this post.

Not everyone is entirely happy with the poem though as Shah goes on to explain that it's okay to have certain demands.

it does'nt sound simple to me at all!! it's remote from practice!! and y?? y shud'nt u expect n demand? if ur love is true it shud fulfill ur expectations n demands... love cant be there under the influence of a fear... that if i demand or expect this love thing may turn wrong for me... i think that if ur love is true.. the one who loves u is true to u... u shud come off in accordence with the expectations ur love makes n u got a right to demand!

Either way it seems this poem is stirring quite a discussion with several members asking Swarup advice on dating, love, etc. He is even later on called the love doctor by Shah because of the number of questions regarding love and dating posed towards Swarup by members.

I wouldn't be surprised if Swarup's scrapbook was filling up, and if anyone has any questions regarding dating, feel free to post a message in his scrapbook.

Does Orkut Limit Your Friendship Number?

Apparently Amit Agarwal has reached the maximum amount of friendships allowed on Orkut and even provides a screenshot of the warning he received over on Digital Inspiration:



According to Amit this not only includes current friendships (regardless of level) but also open invitations as well.

You can have upto 1000 connections on Orkut. If you reach that limit, you will not be able to add new Orkut friends. This 1000 limit also includes Open Orkut Invitations - people you have invited to join Orkut but they haven't do so yet.

I have only 200 friends on Orkut [...] but when I tried adding adding a new friend, it says that before I can add new friends, I must remove old friends. [Hope this is not the case in real life]

I have heard rumors in the past of Orkut limiting friendship numbers to 1000, although there are users who have surpassed this amount, and have even created a forum called ­Tenho Mais de 1000 Friends (or I Have More than 1000 Friends) to celebrate this fact.

One user who goes by Gerente do orkut? reclamacoes aki has well over 10,000 friends and seems to be doing pretty well expanding his social network.

Perhaps these "mega friendship" users surpassed 1000 connections before Orkut imposed a limit system wide (and are thus grandfathered into the system). Either way it will be interesting to see if Orkut lifts or increases this in the future. If not, I would not be surprised if someone developed a hack around this.

Featured Artist: Adarsh Sharma

Over in the Water color painting lovers forum, Adarsh Sharma alerts members about some incredible sketches that he has drawn and placed over in his album.

Since Orkut is all about "staying beautiful," I thought it would be nice to display some of that beauty that members are able to etch on a piece of paper.

Here is some of Adarsh's art work below:



(Note: In order to respect copyright laws, original photos were not uploaded)

Adarsh also has some more artwork over at his personal site. Worth viewing for those who have an artistic eye.

Translating Orkut Into Bangla?

For those of you who do not know what Bangla is, here is a Wikipedia definition:

Bangla [...] or Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language of East South Asia, evolved from Sanskrit and Prakrit. The traditional English rendering is "Bengali", but recently the rendering "Bangla" has been gaining currency in English.

With nearly 200 million native speakers, Bangla is one of the most widely spoken languages of the world (it is ranked between four [1] and seven [2] based on the number of speakers). Bangla is the second most commonly spoken language in India (after Hindi-Urdu). Along with Assamese, it is geographically the most eastern of the Indo-European languages.

The author of NiponWave.com is translating Orkut into Bangla for the Google team as part of the Google your language project which helps Google share its services by translating its features into other tongues.

He (or is it a she?) seems pretty excited about doing this in their spare time, and it will be great to add another language to the list.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Users in the X-MEN *X3* forum are already posting their reviews of the movie. Jaadu is already asking members how they felt about the movie, and so far all of the reviews have been positive.

Jaadu: Did ya like the movie? cause i did!!!

Anish: The story, the effects and acting were all stunning. i loved the part when they trick magneto. it was amazing. wat abt others?? wat do u guys think?

Aditya: hey its xmen.. got to be good!!!!

I have not personally seen the movie (that problem should be remedied soon) although according to MANGESH Fox is already talking about making a fourth movie. Awais Ahmed later on clarifies that it will not be a sequel however, but rather a spin off.

Hopefully they will launch one with just Wolverine.

Orkut Disabling Hyperlinked Text?

(Note: Now that Blogger is working, I can finally post.)

Update: Published on The Social Networking Weblog.

Apparently the boys and girls at Orkut have decided to disable users from posting hyper linked text. Users attempting to hyperlink text (example: [link=http://www.orkut.com]orkut[/link]) will come to a quick surprise when they publish their scrap or forum post.



If a person uses the code above, it will simply put the link next to the word they were attempting to hyperlink, which basically makes the post very ugly. Ironically, the above code is mentioned in the Orkut formatting tip window, even though it no longer works.



This not only affects future posts, but it seems to have affected the ones in the past as well. Google may have done this to combat link spam, (a never ending problem for the Orkut team) although revealing the full URL of links does make the forums look a bit tacky.

Happy Friday (And Funny Orkut commercial)

Well, its that time again! And I have some great news! Unfortunately I won't have time to post it over the weekend, but I will update everybody when Monday comes around!

Anyways, in order to humor everyone while I'm gone, here is a funny Orkut Commercial that I previously mentioned before. Enjoy!

Changing Orkut Background (Blukut)

It looks like someone was getting tired of the baby blue background inside Orkut and decided to change it--by making it even bluer.

Over in the Orkut Tricks forum, (a place to exchange tips to enhance your Orkut experience) My Nick Iz Sick points members towards a Grease Monkey hack (for Firefox).

This hack allows users to change their Orkut background from baby blue to "various blues" (recommened for blue lovers only).

Here is a screen shot below:



Although I think this hack is "a good start," it would be even better if one had more options in changing their background (such as red, green, purple, whatever). I'll see if I can later on figure out a way of manipulating the code to fit my preferences.

If someone more knowledgeable could develop a Firefox hack outside of Grease Monkey, (with color options) then this feature might be more useful to the masses.

Note: Hack created by Perfeitoidiota, adding to "Orkut User Tools" list.

For the Geeks: First install Grease Monkey (click here) then install Blukut hack (click here).

Changing Orkut Background (Blukut)

It looks like someone was getting tired of the baby blue background inside Orkut and decided to change it--by making it even bluer.

Over in the Orkut Tricks forum, (a place to exchange tips to enhance your Orkut experience) My Nick Iz Sick points members towards a Grease Monkey hack (for Firefox).

This hack allows users to change their Orkut background from baby blue to "various blues" (recommened for blue lovers only).

Here is a screen shot below:



Although I think this hack is "a good start," it would be even better if one had more options in changing their background (such as red, green, purple, whatever). I'll see if I can later on figure out a way of manipulating the code to fit my preferences.

If someone more knowledgeable could develop a Firefox hack outside of Grease Monkey, (with color options) then this feature might be more useful to the masses.

Note: Hack created by Perfeitoidiota, adding to "Orkut User Tools" list.

For the Geeks: First install Grease Monkey (click here) then install Blukut hack (click here).

Should Women Be Imams?

Within the world of Islam, this is probably the oldest debates, and also one of the most controversial. Andy G, over in the Muslim Christian friendship, is wondering Women can act as Imams.

Sameer and Sheri seem to be at odds with each other with Sameer saying:

There was only one Muslim Women who was asked to teach other Muslim women how to make Namaz(Prayer).

She also was instructed to stand in the same row as the other women praying during Namaz. This special instruction was given to avoid what misconception some people are now trying to spread that is "women are allowed to do the Imamat as per Islam".

While an Imam (Prayer Leader) is supposed to lead from front. No one stands in the same row as the Leader. Why was a women instructed by Prophet(PBUH) to pray while standing between them and not leading them like an Imam.

Sheri (on page three) disagrees and voices her opinion by saying:

sorry, but just because there is no example in islamic history of something, does not mean that it is not allowed or cannot be done

typical men making translations by themselves for themselves
this is not what i believe in

i dont believe in strict or orthodox islam, i am a flexible muslim
however that doesnt mean i'll go against islam's teachings or anything but i think that women have every right men have [...]

women have the right to lead namaz in my view and i'll support any movement trying to achieve that

This is not the first time this controversy has appeared, as ironically a women did lead prayer as an Imam although she was criticized for doing so from other Imams around the world.

I don't see the harm in it and it would be interesting to actually see one conducted by a woman as they generally have been neglected many of the rights of their male brethren.

Do Men Prefer Older Women?

Over in the Women Ask, MEN ANSWER forum, Bubbly wants to know why some men prefer older women and the excuse reason behind it.

After asking if some of these men are "insecure by nature" she received these responses below:

Faisal: Men generally don't prefer older women. In the off chance that some do its mostly because women are more experienced in certain aspects of life and / or are more mature than their younger counterparts.

Ali: older women find young men respectful and obidient, young men can listen to their painful stories, can provide a shoulder to cry on. So they can be connected very well emotionally. Rest is all natural.

Sameer (on page two): older women do not expect much from guys..young girls expect a lot from a guys..trully speaking guys get bored from their expectation...

Danish: Two kinds of guys go for older women. One's who need a 'mother' and ones who seek intelligence and maturity. There's a third category as well but thats more about turn on's than anything else....

From my experience, most of my previous dates have been older than me (by a month or a year) and they are generally more mature in wisdom as well as grace. Although other members saw similar reasons for an arrangement, few thought that such a relationship would lead towards marriage while others commented that relationships like these are only about "the physical."