Posts filed under 'Net'
Check out this article by John Dvorak on Microsoft. 100% true. Great read.
I am fully convinced that Microsoft is loosing focus on its bread and butter business - i.e., developing good software. Instead its spending most of its energy in territories like advertising and search. Leave those things alone! Yes, agreed that there is lot money involved in advertising, but that does not mean that you should jump into the other territories without having the capabilities.
Microsoft is too occupied and obsessed with what Google is doing and that’s gonna cost Microsoft a lot!. Where as, Google doesn’t bother about what Microsoft does!!.. The day it does, Google too would be in big trouble!
One of the points from the above article…
8. Preoccupation with Google. Microsoft is too easily distracted by successful companies who are not competitors. There is a deep-rooted belief that if a company like Google is successful, then they are an enemy per se. So the company obsesses on what Google is doing rather than concentrating on important Microsoft projects. Now Microsoft is about to do a deal with Yahoo to flank Google. This old-lady-like skittishness is unbecoming for a company this size.
Check this: Possible Microsoft & Yahoo merger article on slashdot.
More: Mr. Ballmer’s mail to Micro$oft folks.
I feel that the next couple of years would really decide Microsoft’s future!
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May 3rd, 2006 at 04:41pm
Thanks to digg.com and this post at the Google OS blog, my Yahoo! Mail account is now Ajax enabled! And…it looks cool!
Yet to fully test it, but looks outlook-ish.. The performance is pretty decent. Mails load up pretty fast. Right clicking on a mail gives you some pretty cool options including mark mail as unread/read!. Wow. That’s useful!…..
All set to explore it. Do try out the procedure mentioned in the link about to convert your Yahoo! mail to the brand new Ajax based Yahoo! mail (beta).
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April 25th, 2006 at 12:53am
Google Calendar is Live… and it rocks!… Its just too cool. I am really impress at the feature set they have provided on day 1. Almost as good as outlook. … in fact its much better than outlook!
The entire blogosphere has gone crazy about this, and i think this would be a hot topic for the next few days!.
I just quickly reviewed it, and I am amazed at the features that they have provided. The best part is the “Quick Add” feature. Just say “Meet Mr.XYZ at Bangalore at 3PM this Saturday” , and it understands!. It also gives you an option to view the map of that area (i.e., Bangalore in this case)! Very Impressive. Besides, the entire calendar is click-able/draggable. Its totally Ajax based. You can setup notifications too (emails and if you are in US, you can setup SMS notifications too).
The UI is just fantastic. Oh yes, there is very good support of data import/export. You can import your Outlook calendar, Apple iCal data, or Yahoo! Calendar data. You can also export to both XML and ICAL. And… the best part is, you can share the calendar with rest of the world or you can allow granular access to people you choose!!
One more step close to a Web-based world! Can’t wait for web-based document editor (aka word) and a web-based spreadsheet (aka excel)!
Do give it a try!, and ..yes, its still a beta!
More info from Google available here.
More review here, here, here and here.
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April 13th, 2006 at 02:19pm
Patents = big money… Well, not always. But this one is the latest Patent Infringement suit which involves big money : Netflix suing Blockbuster for Patent Infringement.
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V/S |
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Here is what it says…
Netflix holds two U.S. patents for its business methodology, which calls for subscribers to pay a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company’s Web site and to maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the films, according to the patents, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit. The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles. The second patent, issued on Tuesday, “covers a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue — of DVDs to be rented“
WTF ? I am just wondering at the IQ of people who granted this patent!
It also means one can Patent things like…
“I get up early in the morning, brush my teeth, and then go to the restroom… have bath and then go to office”…. and then once the patent is granted, can sue anyone who follows this routine………..including the person who issued this patent.
How about a restaurant which says……
“The guests at our restaurant can sit at the restaurant as long as they want and enjoy the food served……. ” - Yes, surely you can patent this….
Then how about…..Walmart or any big shopping chain says…. “Our customers can shop as long as they want and we won’t charge them for being at our shop & spending time …..” — Well, this can be patented too… and sue every other supermarket chain on the planet.
Oh.. ya… what about breathing…? I am sure a patent would soon be granted for that too.. Just a matter of time…Real crazy.
More discussion on Digg.com & Slashdot
Check these crazy patents too!
BTW, did you know that Micro$oft has been granted a patent for double click??
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April 4th, 2006 at 11:59pm
Haven’t switched to Firefox yet ?
Its not too late. Switch today.
Lots of new critical security vulnerability reported in IE…. Switch to Firefox, browse safe, be happy.
More info on Asa’s blog.
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March 28th, 2006 at 02:02am
Upgraded WP to the latest version (v2.0.2). This was due for quite sometime now. Found time over the weekend for the upgrade. As usual, WP upgrade was as easy it has been! Don’t expect any visual changes, its more of a security update kind of upgrade.
Going by my past experience, its always good to keep WP updated!
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March 28th, 2006 at 01:16am
While I was working on the laptop on Saturday night, all of a sudden, the laptop stopped responding. A minute later, I got to see the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).
For me it was pretty much routine to see the BSOD, and I thought to myself..”yet another Microsoft/driver problem”… but I was wrong. I rebooted the laptop, and found that the system wasn’t booting up. Further investigation showed that the hard-disk wasn’t detected in the BIOS itself :(. Aaahhhhrrrrrr………
What a bad time for the HDD to crash. I didn’t have a boot disk or any alternative media with which I could boot. :( So, the entire Sunday, was without a computer. Somehow spent the day seeing some (stupid) TV channels ….etc.
Monday.. i.e., today took the laptop to the office, and they said that its totally dead, and all the data is gone. .. they could try sending it to some external agencies to recover the data, but its gonna cost quite a bit. Luckily, there wasn’t any major data loss.
So, spent most of the day today setting up the software and environment that I would need for my day to day work…and its not fully over yet.
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February 28th, 2006 at 09:27am
I got this email couple of days back. Check out the conversation. This is called solicited spamming. The person was kind enough to ask me if he could spam my blog with track-back spam. Check out the conversation………..
Looks like this guy has bought some “Make Money Instantly” kit, and trying his luck.
(Read from Bottom to Top to get the proper context………….)
Alright Arjun, thanks for your replies. I’ll be more careful nextime.My intention is to put ads on people’s blogs so that they in turn can put ads on my blog to increase popularity of my blog and products (and theirs).
The program Blog Blaster claims to do this and by way of keywords sort out blogs which relate to my business & blog.
Like I said it is not my intention to pollute or spam your personal blog.
Regards,
Mr. XYZ
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
From: Arjun Prabhu K [mailto:email ID]
Date: Sunday, February 05, 2006 7:21 PM
To: Mr. XYZ
Subject: Re: [blog.arjunprabhu.com -Arjun’s Blog!] Blog post
no problem.
btw, you can’t post to my blog!. Its my blog, and I post what is appropriate for me!
Thanks for your understanding!
regards,
Arjun
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
On 2/5/06, Mr. XYZ [Mr.XYZ@ABC] wrote:
Arjun,
I apologize, I was led to believe (by the program Blog Blaster) that it was legal to post like this with their program.
No offense meant
Respectfully,
Mr. XYZ
PS How should I post to your blog?
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
From: Arjun Prabhu K [mailto:email ID]
Date: Sunday, February 05, 2006 7:12 PM
To: Mr. XYZ
Subject: Re: [blog.arjunprabhu.com -Arjun’s Blog!] Blog post
thats unsolicitated advrt!. or in other words trackback spam!.
So, i think my filters took it off automatically. sorry.
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
On 2/5/06, Mr. XYZ [Mr.XYZ@ABC] wrote:
My link is hxxp://t******p.o****y.com
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
From: Arjun Prabhu K [mailto:email ID]
Date: Sunday, February 05, 2006 6:41 PM
To: Mr.XYZ@ABC
Subject: Re: [blog.arjunprabhu.com -Arjun’s Blog!] Blog post
it should have picked up immediately. but not very sure.
let me know your link…
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
On 2/5/06, Mr.XYZ@ABC [Mr.XYZ@ABC] wrote:
A trackback!
Regards
Mr. XYZ
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
From: Arjun Prabhu K [email ID]
Datum: zondag, februari 5, 2006 5:55 pm
Subject: Re: [ blog.arjunprabhu.com -Arjun’s Blog!] Blog post
do you mean a trackback ? (or pingback?)
kindly clarify!
regards,
Arjun
—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-::—-
On 2/5/06, Mr. XYZ [Mr.XYZ@ABC] wrote:
From……: Mr. XYZ
Email…..: Mr.XYZ@ABC
Url…….:
………………………………………………….
Subject…: Blog post
………………………………………………….
Hello,
I have added a post to your blog with Blog Blaster. How long
does it take
foryour blog to pick it up?
Respectfully,
Mr. XYZ
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February 15th, 2006 at 05:50am
Skype 2 Beta with video support was launched recently. And, it rocks!. At least as of now, I think its the best video conferencing software which can be used without any major investment. All you need is a decent web cam, and at least 256kbps broadband connection.
My wife too has a basic web cam now, and now we have video calls! The quality of the video is really amazing. Its a lot better then yahoo messenger or other software. Even the voice quality is very good. gTalk comes close.
So, do try it out! But, be warned that…video conversation is a bandwidth hungry affair. Just to give you an Idea, we had a 1 hr video call today, with bidirectional video and audio. And, we ended up with 100MB upload, and 100MB download. So, 200MB bandwidth used up in one hour!. So, if you are on a connection which has bandwidth limit/cap, keep this in mind! Else you might end up getting billed like crazy!
I use the Home 999 plan from Airtel, which does not have any restrictions on the bandwidth used!.
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January 15th, 2006 at 12:53am
Still stuck with 2MB or 250MB hotmail mailbox ? Follow these three simple steps in IE… and enjoy!
Step 1: Log into your hotmail account using Internet Explorer - Does not work if you try to activate this using Firefox. Also make sure your address in your hotmail account is United States.
Step 2: Click on this link
(better copy the link given above and paste it into the window in which you have your hotmail account opened!)
Step 3: Click Join Mail Beta
Now your hotmail account is upgraded to Live Mail with 2GB of storage!
This procedure worked fine for me when I tried it out a couple of mins back.
Not sure how long it would last!
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January 3rd, 2006 at 07:54pm
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