I was Googling for B.A.G. films - a medium sized production house, but was surprised when I did not find their homepage among the first few entries on the search page. I scrolled down the whole page, went to the next page - still only external page mentions to it. Astonished, I went back to first search result - it was amusing- why should Dynamic HTML Central turn up when I search for BAG? And then I realized - this was indeed the homepage for BAG, but the developer did not even bother to change the 'title' of the page. He picked up a template from Dynamic HTML Central, changed the text and the links in it and lo - the page is ready. He didn't even bother to edit the 'Title' of the page, which in the Google listing appears as 'Dynamic HTML Central ...". The internet is the epitome of collaboration and open source. Huge number of scripts and templates are available for reuse for free. So using one of these scripts on your company's website is no crime.

While I don't use the mouse anymore (have switched the trackball-touchpad long ago) ... but many of you who do will find this useful - Amit Agarwal's mouse cleaning tips. Most of these mouse problem are because of the dust that sticks to the bottom of the mouse surface at points that are in constant touch with the table or the mouse pad .... from accumulated dust that is disrupting the smooth movements of the mouse. To solve this problem, hold the mouse over a piece of white paper and gently (but firmly) drag the mouse from the top edge of the paper to the bottom Source: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/07/clean-mouse-with-white-paper-for-smooth.html

Millions of online customers using the Reliance Communications Website are being taken for a ride by the company. The site proudly displays the 'Verisign Verified' seal on its bill payment gateway ' http://bill.reliancecommunication.co.in '. However, on clicking the seal one will get the following message from the Verisign server: Alert! You have accessed an outdated Verisign seal verification page. This page cannot confirm that this Web site is a current VeriSign customer. You should investigate the Web sites security before transacting with it. Verisign is a seal of trust on the web - just like the ISI mark on electronic goods in India. Displaying an outdated Verisign seal on a website is similar to forging the ISI Mark on household goods. While I am not aware if Reliance Communications can be legally challenged in the courts (especially in India) - this is definitely tantamount to cheating its online customers.

Check out this demo courtesy Vodafone and see how different websites would look on a standard Nokia N95 .... Even if you are not ... check it out just for fun! Cool stuff .... eh?

The more time Steve Jobbs spends at Apple, the more he vindicates my point that ' Apple is in the business of selling software '. In the latest release of the Safari browser, Apple released a version of the application for Windows, pitting the browser directly against Internet Explorer (and Firefox, Opera et. al.). I have been a fan of Steve from before he was reappointed at the helm of Apple, before he created the iPod revolution and much much before he released the iPhone. Here is my original write up on how Jobbs was disgracefully ousted from Apple way back in the 80s. ReadWriteWeb , commented very aptly on the irony of the situation: Interestingly, things seem to have come full circle for Microsoft and Apple. Back in the 80s, Microsoft was one of the biggest software developers on the Apple platform, and today, Apple is fast turning into one of the largest Windows developers (an irony not lost on Gates and Jobs two weeks ago at the D5 conference ).

Those interested in Technology might have been following the news of Facebook (a social networking website like Orkut ) releasing an API to allow service providers build applications on its platform for its users. While it is indeed an impacting development, it isn't an lifestyle changing behavior as some tech gurus are proclaiming. Take for example David Sacks , who says: Facebook has a new answer to the portal question. The social graph, or your network of relationships, will push information to you. You'll learn from your friends. Thanks to Facebook's new developer platform ... To be frank there is nothing new in we learning about new content from our network of friends. From the pre-Yahoo days till today, we come across new websites, less so from a random Google Search and more so due to recommendations from friends. The majority of these recommendations flow through traditional methods - emails, IMs and SMS. So, if at all something changed 'thanks to Facebook'

Shubham wrote about some GMail tips a few days ago. I follow the most of the points mentioned by Shubham - in fact some of these habits were perfected by both of us together in our NITIE days. But there are some slight differences in my ways, and a few more quirks which I use; I annotate them below: I follow points 1 & 2 and 6& 7 ditto, except that in point 2 - I don't need a 'Misc' label. Almost everything I receive either will get labeled and archived or simply get trashed. The only equivalent to 'Misc' that I can think of is my label 'Forwards'. About Mailing lists / Groups - I don't have a generic label like ' faltu ' but have very specific labels. For example, emails from all Open Source software / Linux related groups goes into GNULinux label. Similarly, all mails from social work networks go into 'SocioPolitic' label. I am guilty of not following point 5 - I don't usually label my Sent Mails. So my Sent Mails remain u

Hope you noticed the 'Link Preview tool' that I put up a few days ago. It displays previews to links embedded in the text so that you can take a look at the link without leaving this site. Its called 'Snap' and if you want it to put it on your website visit www.Snap.com . However, I noticed that it was a bit annoying to have a 'Snap Window' pop up every time you hover over any link - also because I put up quite a few links here. So, I have now disabled the 'Snap Window' from popping up on hovering the mouse on the link. Instead, you will see a small 'Snap Icon' after every link. To see the link preview, hover your mouse over the icon! Hope you like the usability quirk !

Source: http://xkcd.com/c256.html A lot of new concepts are floating on the web recently .... one of them is Second Life an alternate world - online .... "a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents." One can buy islands, start new businesses, buy and sell products (even make money in the real world through it). I just got news that people are exploring possibilities of hacking in second life! Just combine the concept of SecondLife with the map above ... the map of online communities ... and you have the next step towards The Matrix !

Searching information on your machine is nowadays more painful than searching information online - Windows search* companion sucks in comparison to a Google Search .... I discovered the way out by installing Google desktop on my laptop .. the good news is that Google Desktop's latest version 5 is available in Hindi. After Blogger in Hindi - this is the next tool to come out in Hindi. Google sure is surging far ahead of Windows in the vernacular desktop tools segment! *PS: Windows has subsequently come up with its own desktop search tool which does a decent job in searching but like any other M$ app - it crashes a bit too much. The interface is ok, but it does not show any 'text snippets' as in Google Search and the document preview takes ages to load and often causes the system to hang! Google Search UI Windows Desktop Search UI

I am confused! When we were kids - the sentiment used to be high against Brain Drain - young talented students migrating to the US for studies and then work. But today, after the government and 'thinkers' realize the amount of benefits that accrue from the Diaspora - the situation has changed .. we are simply calling it a form of 'Globalization' On the other hand, the country which held the 'Globalization' flag high in the 70s and 80s - the US - is today faced with protests like this . The fight though is not so more on the streets than on the cyber'streets. Yes, anti-immigrant sites in the US are now using Google Bombing in an effort to combat the job-drain problem. Truthfully, I am on neither side of the debate. In my opinion, where you live, how you live, what kind of jobs you do should depend on your own likes and dislikes (aren't there several Indian who are today choosing to stay in India than migrate?) on your talent and its value in the market (

आज से Blogger हिंदी (Hindi) में उपलब्ध हो गया है [ न्यूज़ Item ]। अब आप अंग्रेजी keyboard की मदद से हिंदी में टाईप कर सकते हैं! ये सुवीधा अभी पूरी तरह से develop नही हुई है, परंतु काफी अच्छी है। यदि आप इस पृष्ठ को Firefox में पढ़ रहे हैं, तो कुछ शब्द ठीक से दिखाई नहीं देंगे - जैसे की हिंदी (Hindi) और सुविधा। समस्या छोटा 'ई' लिखने/ पढने में होगी और अर्धाक्षर ठीक से नही दिखाई देंगे। मगर आशा है की यह सुवीधा जल्द ही सुधरेगी और भारत में लाखों हिंदी Bloggers को जन्म देगी। External Links (बाह्य तीर): Hindi में शब्द ढूँढने के लिए यहाँ जाइए Desktop Based Hindi editors के लिये कृपया यहाँ जाएं. Blogger कि मदद लेने के लिये यहाँ जाइये.

Amazing graphic to illustrate the power of Microsoft ...

Google Devta - this is an internal slang we use among our group of friends. Indeed for some of us 'Google Fans' - Google is akin to God. It serves most of all online needs: want to surf the net - use Google Search, want to check email - use GMail, want to read blogs - use Google Reader, want to write a blog - use Google Blogger, want to find out how many INR is $1 - use Google Search [ Click to know how ] , need data from a French website - use Google translator, want to calculate "4 + 4" - use Google Search again! [ Click to know how ] But I am sure none of us is a freak enough to propound that Google can take over the internet. However, it seems there are much more die hard fans of Google on the net who feel this way . So much so that there are now debates hosted on popular blogs on this subject. I guess, such kinds of 'extremist' views have been propounded even in past but in this case they have been coming to light because of the easy accessibility of in

Dr. Eric Shmidth, CEO Google explains : Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can't pay. Read More about the Net Neutrality Debate here , here and here .

I was reading an article on capturing tacit and explicit knowledge when I realized how the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are distinctly related to these terms. In fact, on a second thought, between the mid 1990's and mid 2000 the internet / web has come a full circle in terms of its purposes. When internet first started as the 'inter-network' of university-LANs, the popular services were usenet / newsgroups and email. The concept of personal or department web pages (precursors to today's websites) though present from the beginning was not the most popular service then. Clearly academicians and scholars were more fascinated by the collaborative nature of the internet and the ability it gave them to reach the most'resourceful' co-scholar for a query or project. Slowly as 'the net' spread to the business world, the concepts of 'websites' became more popular and the Web 1.0 as we would call it today (traditionally known as the World Wide Web ) became a glob

Steve Ballmer said during Windows Vista and Office 2007 kick off : "Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system also provide the core platform that will enable businesses to take advantage of the benefits of Internet-based software services. These products incorporate key XML and Web services technologies that will help companies tap into online services and select the mix of on-premise and hosted applications to deliver the right balance of control, convenience, cost-effectiveness, and security while helping increase productivity. " The keywords here are control, convenience, cost-effectiveness and security. You will notice that each of these are targeted towards a different audience, but directed against the common enemy - Web Based Office Productivity Apps * Lets break them down: Control : Most Chat, Online Storage, Networking etc sites are blocked in may companies, who nevertheless acknowledge that these things enhance productivity. Why the do they block them? Th

VC Confidential writes : "three specific flavors of capitalism: American capitalism (emphasizes the individual), European (capitalism that focuses on community and preserves continuity) and Asian capitalism (Confucian capitalism that emphasizes networks and the extended family). The US has to realize it is not the only model. Americans (or other foreigners) get rolled in Asia if they don't have or realize the role of extended networks. " Wow! I never thought it this way ... did you?

The 3 P's of Business for ... ODC's and Off shoring software companies Process, Process and Process Software Product Development Companies Process, Presentation, Process Web Development Companies People, Presentation, Process Related: Arbit Choudhury Comics' - 4 P's of MBA Visit www.arbitmba.com for more Arbit Comics

For those interested in this debate, the links below ensure reading material to fill your weekend ... [I plan to collate lots of thoughts on this topic and make a post here ... but that's a gigantic task and should take me some time to complete] The Latest: Will Google Develop Google OS? The Original: Google OS: What to expect? Comments Highlights: Nipun Jain from OCRA desktop - comment 1 Nipun Jain from OCRA desktop - comment 2 Andrew Young Mark shadilac .... there are a lot more interesting comments in there ... but you'd better go to the post directly to read them Related Links [plucked out from the comments]: Google life or Why Google Should be The Firefox Kid Is Google OS an Always-Online OS? Google Client Web 3.0 - The Future Is Almost Here Talk about Google OS? Google: Lighthouse Centre Of The Online Universe Google's Writely Points To and Online offline Future Abandon Vista We Dont Need Another Desktop OS