varnam

In May, the city of Munich decided to switch to Linux from Windows. Microsoft had agreed to upgrade for $23.7 million and the Linux deal was worth $35.7 million. Still why they decided to go with Linux for their desktop machines ? USA Today has an behind the scenes look at what went on.

Though Microsoft underbid IBM and SuSE by $11.9 million in Munich, city officials were concerned about the unpredictable long-run cost of Microsoft upgrades, says Munich council member Christine Strobl, who championed the switch to Linux. And the more Microsoft discounted, the more it underscored the notion that as a sole supplier, Microsoft could -- and has been -- naming its own price, she says.

''What's striking about the Munich deal is the use of Linux on the desktop,'' says Paul DeGroot, tech industry analyst at research firm Directions on Microsoft. ''It's a threat to Microsoft's real source of strength, the desktop, where it has no competition and is used to winning all sorts of battles.''

Prasenjeet says that Google Toolbar now offers popup blocking ability, so he finds himself using less and less of Mozilla Firebird. But I am still sticking to Firebird. Read this article by Ben Goodger which explains Why You Should Switch to the Mozilla Firebird browser

I am addicted to Tab-Browsing. You can also bookmark a set of tabs. So I have tabs with India related news sites, US related news sites, finance news etc.

Google search is integrated into the browser. So I don't need a Google Toolbar. Besides this there are features like "Smart Keywords", where by I can give a nickname to a bookmark. This enables me to type "newshopper" to take me to Sulekha Newshopper. To search something in a page, all you need is keep typing the string and the search is performed on the page. No more Ctrl-F required.

Now besides this, the weblog reader I use, NewsMonster, runs under Mozilla as a sidebar.

Till IE has all these capabilities, I think I will use Firebird.

Update: Dan Gillmor has a column on RSS Aggregators

If you are interested in buying electronic stuff and keep looking for good deals, here are three sites which I normally follow

• Hot Deals Club
• Tech Bargains
• Bens Bargains

If you have lot of audio tapes and want to convert them to digital format, here is a solution that I am trying now.

First I got Microsoft Plus Digital Media Edition. This comes with an analog recorder (The software costs $19.95 now, but if you keep looking there may be a deal in which you get it for free)

I connected my walkman to the sound card of the desktop and the software did its part. The audio track was filtered for pops and hisses. The end product was clear digital audio, in WMA format. There is no way you can dump in any other format.

The process is very slow. You have to play the casette first, then it takes about that much time to write the digital file after applying all the filters. But it is worth it. Soon my house will be audio tape free.

During the last Tax season, Turbo Tax decided to treat all their consumers as criminals. They built in many obstacles into their software that prevented even people who bought the software from using it. The software had to be activated to be used on a single machine. This meant that if you used your Home PC to prepare taxes, you could not take a print out on the office computer. And to prevent users from misusing the system, Intuit also installed third party monitoring software on the PCs.

Due to this Walt Mossberg of Wall Street Journal had said that time

So, this year I emphatically recommend H&R Block's TaxCut over Intuit's TurboTax. They both do the job of preparing any straightforward tax return. But Intuit has decided to treat all its TurboTax customers like potential criminals, and to limit the ways that even honest people can use the product. Why subject yourself to that?

I followed his advice and bought TaxCut and found that it does not accept my wife's ITIN. It allows only people with Social Security Numbers to file taxes. But as per IRS, people who do not have SSN can use their ITIN. It would not even go to the next screen.

But now Intuit is apologizing for past behavior.

"I want to personally apologize for any frustration you may have experienced due to the restrictions that came with our use of anti-piracy technology," Tom Allanson, general manager of TurboTax, said Thursday in an open letter to customers. The letter was published in advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, as well as on the company's turbotax.com Web site.

Now the activation technology has been removed and the software can be used on multiple PCs.

The American job market is improving

In October, the economy added 126,000 new jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday. September's increase in private-sector payroll jobs was revised up to 125,000.

The article does not break down into how many jobs were created in the Technology field. But from personal experience I can tell that it is definitely improving. Many people I know are leaving their jobs and finding new ones. And that's about 15 people in the past few months. The hourly rates for contract programmers are increasing. There are more permanent job postings as opposed to only contract jobs a few months back. Even the salaries for permanent jobs are increasing.

The golden era of the 1999 boom may not come back. But I will be happy if I could change a job with some effort.

When the first Palm Pilot came out, I was one of its enthusiastic users. But then over a period of time, I stopped using it. But recently I dusted the old Palm III and found that none of the new applications run on it (low memory). So I have been looking for a new PDA. After lot of research, I have finally settled on the Sony CLIE SJ-35

I have always found Sony CLIE to be much better looking than Palm devices. This one has an MP3 player also built in. Does anyone use an iPaq ? What's your experience with it ?

Today I got an invitation from Microsoft to be a Beta Tester

You are cordially invited to join the MSN?? Beta Program. We use beta programs to help define features for future products and services. This is your chance to make a difference! Participation lets you share your ideas and plays a key role in the development process. And together, we will build a better MSN!

I was all for it till I read the fine print.

During sign-up and installation of the beta software you will get prompted for credit card information. The MSN beta software will be free during the program and you will not see any charges on your credit card until the beta has expired.

This way Microsoft is getting Beta Testers to pay for all the work they should be doing. What a terrific business model.

For the past month or so, I have been using iTunes on my Windows laptop to listen to music and have become a fan of Apple software. iTunes is just like Windows Media Player or an y other Juke Box out there. But the feature I like the best is called Smart Playlist.

This works similar to a normal playlist, except that it is dynamically updated. You can set the codition for the list, like say, all songs by Yesudas, in the language Malayalam, which has been listened to atleast 3 times but not greater than 10 times. So during the normal course of listening, when a song qualifies under this category, it appears in that smart list. So as I listen to my library, songs get classified into various smart lists I have created.

This is the first piece of software that Apple has released for Windows and is amazing.

Today's vital technology standards are largely controlled by companies and consortia from the developed world. China and other nations effectively pay taxes to American, Japanese and European companies in order to use these standards in a variety of fields including computers, communications and personal technology.

But China, unlike other developing nations that lack its growing clout on the global stage, isn't planning to keep paying these taxes. It's political-economic establishment is absolutely determined to set its own path in the Digital Age.

China isn't just reluctant to pay what amount to taxes to the developed-world owners of global technology standards. With the largest domestic market on the planet, at least potentially, plus an increasingly creative and well-educated workforce, China is creating its own competitive set of standards for its own market, although the global potential is obvious.

The business wars of the digital age are begining.

[via dan gillmor]

For the past few months there have been many rumors about the new mini iPod. The present iPod models are very expensive, and so the rumors were that the new ones would cost $99. That turned out to be wishful thinking. In MacWorld, Steve Jobs announced that the new 4GB models would cost $249. If you pay $50 more, you can get a 10GB iPod.

There are many MP3 players which offer the same set of features offered by iPod, but none of them can match the elegance of an iPod. Also Apple is not a company known for low priced devices. They may not be market leaders in terms of hardware, but they have a cult following, which swears by their products.

I would have bought an iPod, for the coolness factor, but it is way too expensive.

Few days back we blogged on the disappointment on the pricing of the new mini iPod. Alex Salkever of Businessweek also thinks so.

Even Jobs's Jedi-esque powers of reality dispersion can't alter the unfavorable math behind Apple's new offering. Here are the hard numbers. The new miniPod will cost $249. That's about $100 more than the rumor sites had posited. It will offer 4 gigabytes of capacity on its hard drive. By comparison, the entry-level iPod now costs $299 and has 15 gigabytes of disk space. The miniPod's cost per gigabyte is $62.50. In the entry-level iPod, it's about $20.

So Apple is asking customers to pay three times as much per gigabyte. I have one word for that. Ouch.

But now HP is going to release an HP version of the iPod under licence from Apple. The HP Digital Music Player is to be priced competitively to other digital music players currently available. Also HP is going to pre-install iTunes and a link to Apple's iTunes music store.

Dan Gillmor thinks that Microsoft will have to work harder and spend more to achieve the domination it wants. With Real Networks and Sony announcing Online Music stores, Microsoft can soon throw a spanner into the works by starting their own music store and requring resellers to have a link to their store instead.

Off late there have been tendencies by gadget makers to produce two versions of the same device, one for the American market and one for the European market. Most of the time, both models will have the same features, and the only difference would be that the American one would not have Bluetooth.

The first one was Sony Clie TH-55 This is a new PDA which features integrated Wi-Fi, a camera, high resolution screen and built-in audio player. That's for the American market. The UK Version features all of the above plus Bluetooth

The next product to do this is Dell Axim PDA

And the reason ?

"Nokia and Ericsson are driving Bluetooth heavily in Europe," said Kris Karppi, Dell EMEA product manager for Axim. "The market for in-vehicle GPS is also greater in Europe, he said, adding that most of these systems use Bluetooth antennae. There are also "a lot of proprietary solutions for cable replacement," he said, and a strong corporate customer base that could drive Bluetooth use. With all that, Dell had "no hesitation at all" in launching a Bluetooth version in Europe, said Karppi.

?The picture in the US is rather different, showing considerable hesitation and perhaps a U-turn or two. The company told IDG's PC World at the launch that it would "eventually" offer a Bluetooth device, but did not say where, only pointing out that Bluetooth demand is stronger in Europe.?

I have been evaluating various PDAs for quite sometime and had settled on the Sony Clie TJ-35. I ogled for quite a while without actually buying the device till Sony withdrew it from the market and came out with three new devices. I decided not to waste anymore time and got myself the Sony Clie TH55

This device has a 320×480 high resolution display, a camera with 2x optical zoom, audio and video player and integrated Wi-Fi. Considering that I used to own a Palm III before this, it is like owning a Lexus RX after driving a Toyota Corolla.

Brighthand has the review of the TH55 and PalmZone has a comparison of TH55 and Palm T3. The best site for keeping track of Clie news is ClieSource

Software sources for the Palm are

• Sonystyle
• Palm Gear

It was only a few months back that I bought the Sony Clie TH55 after over-analyzing various PDAs. Now Sony has announced that they are no longer going to release PDAs for the American Market. This means there will only be Palm devices running the Palm OS. I always found that Sony Clie's looked much more elegant than Palm Devices while running the same OS.

Mr. Limp told Brighthand that this simply continues the trend toward consolidation of marketshare in the traditional PDA business to two major players, HP in the Pocket PC arena and palmOne in the Palm OS arena. "The market is in transition from a standalone PDA market to a wireless communicator market," said Mr. Limp. When asked whether Sony would be releasing a Palm OS-based communicator in the future, Mr. Limp said "there are no guarantees in this world." Brighthand

PDA Buyers Guide has the following reasons for the annoucement.

• Sony had 20% of the Palm OS market in Q1, down from 25% in 2003, not good.
• Sony as a company is struggling financially. They need to concentrate on game consoles and games, and other bread and butter ventures.
• Sony is trying to buy MGM, which involves a great deal of money.
• The Clie's high end multimedia niche didn't pay off.
• They came out with 30 different models and that made for hard work to differentiate models.
• Innovation slacked, with the UX50 being the last innovative model, and that came out 1 year ago.
• Sony Clie models are expensive to produce.
• Sony didn't keep pace with PalmOne restructing and cost reduction.
• PalmOne products are cutting into Sony territory: T3, Zire 71 and 72.
• Only 160,000 PDAs shipped in Japan last year. Todd wonders how worthwhile PDA sales in Japan are since high end feature phones are king there.

Since GMail is offering 1GB storage, the Folks at Yahoo! have increased my mailbox capacity to 100MB. This was a meagre 6MB before. They have also increased the message size to 10MB. I wonder when Hotmail is going to follow.

Competition is good. Competition is very good.

Till recently I was using newsmonster as my newsreader. It worked ok on Firefox 0.8. But now that I have upgraded to Firefox 0.9, the newsreader has stopped working.

I tried RSS Reader, but it brings up old articles again and again as if they are new. What newsreader do you use ?

After finding that Apple had a huge marketshare in portable music players, Sony, who revolutionized the portable music market 25 years back decided to step in. So they introduced the Sony Network Walkman which got many things right. The Sony device is smaller and has a much better battery life. But they decided to screw up in the most important area, the format of the songs. They decided not to support any of the popular music formats, including MP3.

One major downside of the new Walkman is that it can't play MP3 files, or any of the other standard formats. It can play back only a proprietary Sony format called ATRAC3, or a variation called ATRAC3plus. This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files. Sony claims it designed the player this way because ATRAC3 produces superior sound, and because it has features that extend battery life.

For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files. SonicStage 2 refused to transfer 15 of the files, posting a nonsensical error message. After that, it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman. By contrast, Apple's iTunes software transferred all 431 songs to an iPod in about four minutes.

Will this kill the iPod ? I don't think so.

CNN has a story on a innovative way used by IIT Kanpur to bring technology to the masses. They use a bicycle richshaw to carry a computer with high speed Internet access to give classes to people.

A few miles from Bithoor, another cycle rickshaw carries its high-tech load to Gorahah village, where men and women gather side-by-side for a class on electronic mail. The mix is nothing short of a revolution in tradition-bound rural India, where women are often kept indoors.

"We are now learning computers. There is no point if we can't use that new knowledge. We have to go out and do something worthwhile," said Snehalatha, 22, who also attends college. Clad in orange pants and a pink tunic, Snehalatha signs up for Yahoo mail, as an impatient queue lengthens behind her.

The classes teach the basics of computing, word processing, spreadsheets, Internet browsing and Web cameras. Once they learn to use a webcam the villagers can take part in online classes, something the info-cart organizers hope to implement later.[Wheels of hope bring Internet to villagers]

MT Design Thought: Entries like these belong to a sideblog since I have no commentary to offer. MT 3.1 will have support for Multi Blogs and after that I should also implement one.

Could Chandra Babu Naidu have used technology to prevent the suicides in Andhra Pradesh?

Technology can unlock the potential of poor farmers by making agricultural production more efficient. The World Resources Institute's (WRI) Digital Dividends Project Clearinghouse includes several hundred examples of successful ICT-enabled development projects. One example currently attracting international attention is ITC, an Indian agricultural processor. ITC has initiated the e-Choupal ("choupal" means "gathering place" in Hindi) effort that places computers with Internet access in rural farming villages, creating an e-commerce hub that enables farmers to receive a fair price for their produce.

In Uganda and Kenya, farmers use short message system (SMS) technology to receive updates on commodity prices, which allows them to negotiate fair prices for their produce with traders and middlemen who have exploited them for generations. Bangladesh's Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a non-profit organization, uses boats that are outfitted with computers, printers, and an Internet connection to deliver agricultural education modules to isolated farmers that are unreachable by roads.

Perhaps Andhra Pradesh's new government could take a page from the book of its neighboring state, Maharashtra. There, the government-funded Kisaan Call Center fields inquiries from rural farmers, who get advice from operators speaking their own language and whose directive is to treat every farmer as a customer, emphasizing respect.

In all of these cases, information technology is driving innovative solutions to the problems of poor farmers. "More Internet" is not what plagues these farmers; in fact, Internet technology is helping them climb out of poverty by connecting them with information, educational opportunities, and financial resources. "Connectivity for the sake of connectivity accomplishes very little," says Jonathan Lash, WRI president. "Connectivity that links marginalized citizens with needed services, however, can play a major role in economic development."[In the Aftermath of "India Shining"]

There has been a study in Britain on the brain structure of bilingual people and

They found learning other languages altered grey matter - the area of the brain which processes information - in the same way exercise builds muscles. People who learned a second language at a younger age were also more likely to have more advanced grey matter than those who learned later, the team said. Scientists already know the brain has the ability to change its structure as a result of stimulation - an effect known as plasticity - but this research demonstrates how learning languages develops it.

The scans revealed the density of the grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex of the brain was greater in bilinguals than in those without a second language. The effect was particularly noticeable in the "early" bilinguals, the findings published in the journal Nature revealed. Learning languages 'boosts brain'

Dan Gillmor is making absurd comments on Google News' creator Krishna Bharat's statement that Google News has no view point. He points to an article in the Register which calls Krishna as BharatBot and claims that this is like saying the cat ate my homework.

The register article just complains about the fact that Google News indexes Press Releases (but still tags them). It then goes on to complain that Krishna gives the same reply about the working of Google News. I don't understand this. If a certain program works a certain way, what are you supposed to do ? Change you answer each time ?

For all the technology news Dan has been covering I don't think he understands programming and seems to have really liked the Register's arguments. A program is written using an algorithm. So as Dan says, it could have its programming mistakes sometimes resulting in pictures from some other story appearing in an unrelated news section. But how news gets ranked would depend on the incoming data and not on manual intervention.

If there are more stories on John Kerry, it would get priority than say George Bush. Sometimes when there is a cricket match in India and all English newspapers there report it, that becomes front page news on Google News even though rest of the world has nothing to do with it.

It all depends on the data. That's what Bharat was trying to say.

Netscape has released version 8.0 of their Firefox based browser. The UI looks slick and it has nice features like warning while visiting spyware sites and passcard to manage all your passwords. Since it is based on Firefox 1.0.3, you get tabbed browsing and fast rendering with the Gecko engine.

But while taking it on a spin today, there were two things that put me off

• When I click on the feeds in bloglines, it does not open anything in the tab


• When I open many tabs, the tab which is in focus expands, this reducing the space for other tabs and thus reducing the space for their titles. Now to see the names of the other tabs, you have to click on an icon on the right, which is one additional click.
  

In South Korea

Just a few years ago, Michigan State University scientist Jose Cibelli was considered the leading expert on cloning human embryos to treat and study disease. Now, there's no debate that the cloning king is Hwang Woo-suk of Seoul National University.

On Thursday, Hwang announced yet again that he had successfully cloned human embryos, this time extracting stem cells from embryos created using the DNA of sick and injured patients. It was the second time in a little more than a year that Hwang had successfully cloned. He remains the only acknowledged scientist to have done so.[S. Korea Takes Lead in Stem Cell Research]

Scientists hailed on Friday the announcement that British researchers have succeeded in creating the country's first -- and the world's second -- cloned embryo, a breakthrough that keeps Britain at the forefront of the fast-moving, potentially revolutionary field. [Scientists Hail Creation of Cloned Embryo]

"I am a strong supporter of stem cell research, but I've made very clear to Congress that the use of federal taxpayer money to promote science that destroys life in order to save life, I am against this," said Bush, speaking in the Oval Office during a brief joint appearance with the Danish prime minister, Anders Rasmussen, by his side. Therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it."[Bush threatens stem cell veto]

• You can't imagine the stuff you can find using Google Maps
• When Google kicked Yahoo's ass, they decided to innovate like there is no tomorrow - So you get Yahoo! Photo Mail , Movie Recommendations and from Yahoo! Research, Mindset
• Apple is going to support podcasting in the next release of iTunes. Now that KQED is offering podcasts of Forum, this would work well for me.

Q: How do two Mallu strangers get to know each other?
A: Zimbly using GMail.

It all started when one G.S. Kutty started getting GMails meant for a Narayanan Kutty. If those emails contained some juicy information, it would have been interesting, but these emails contained photos of fish farms and technical papers as Narayanan Kutty was a former United Nations official specializing in acqaculture. G.S.Kutty knew something was fishy and he wrote to Narayanan Kutty's correspondents that they stop sending mail, which Narayanan Kutty did not like.

N. Kutty contacted Google for help, but never heard back. Maybe he is still on hold. But finally the mystery was solved by N. Kutty himself.

Kutty has found some relief. At a certain columnist's suggestion, he checked his GMail settings and found his account was set to forward mail to an E-mail address that was one letter off from his own alternative address. One letter.

Kutty says he doesn't recall choosing the forwarding option, but he is glad the problem is fixed. So is G.S. Kutty.

``Thank the Lord,'' he said by phone from Mumbai.

The other bright side to the delayed solution? If Narayan Kutty had fixed the problem immediately, he never would have gotten to know the other Kutty.[A GMail fan bobbles his account settings, and brings strangers together in cyberspace]

This may not happen in any other country - a college dropout being asked to give the commencement speech in one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Steve Jobs gave the speech at Stanford University's 114th commencement this weekend and our local TV channel which specializes in human and animal deaths around the world spent a segment on it.

Jobs began by rehashing the fact that he dropped out of college, and that Sunday's ceremony was the closest he had ever gotten to a university graduation. He then launched into the first part of his address, which focused on having faith that the dots of one's life will connect down the road, even if the journey so far has not followed a clear pattern.

Jobs said his biological mother was an unwed graduate student who had planned to have him adopted. She had chosen a professional couple to be the adoptive parents, but because they wanted a girl, he was adopted by a husband and wife who didn't have college degrees, Jobs said.

They pledged to send the boy to college, and when the time came, he chose Reed College in Portland, Ore. But because all of their savings was going toward his tuition, Jobs dropped out and began taking courses that interested him instead of those that were required—such as a calligraphy course that later inspired him to design different fonts in the first Macintosh.

The last part of his speech was about death. When he was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago, Jobs said doctors expected him to live no longer than six months. He had surgery not long after and has since recovered, but the experience nonetheless taught him another lesson.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life," Jobs said. "Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."[After traditional Commencement antics, Jobs imparts straightforward advice]

Jobs also recounted founding Apple in his parent's basement and his tough times after being forced out of the company he founded when he was only 30. "I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the valley," Jobs said. Instead, he founded Pixar Studios, which recently released enormously popular films such as "Madagascar," and "Finding Nemo.""It was awful tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it," Jobs said.[Apple CEO tells Stanford graduates to pursue their passions]

Here is the full transcript of the speech

In his rare public comments involving a rival, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji on Friday said his company's organisation structure was "superior" to that of Infosys Technologies.

"I think, our structure is superior to the Infosys global delivery model," Premji told reporters here in response to a question on how Wipro's organisation structure compared with that of Infosys' global delivery model.[Our structure superior to Infy: Premji]

"Frankly, I have not fully understood the Infosys global delivery model.

"It's not for me to comment on somebody else's structure," he added.

Update: Smiley added for people who take things seriously.

Srijith got his GMail account locked down citing unusual usage. After leaving a comment at his blog, I went to check my GMail and found that I was locked out as well. I had left my GMail browser window open the whole day and when I checked, the page was refreshing every second, instead of whatever default they have. It was when I clicked on one of the unread mails that the screen changed to a locked out message. Unlike Srijith, I had a greasemonkey script running which adds the delete button to GMail.

After disabling greasemonkey, I sent a mail to the address mentioned on the lockdown page and my GMail account was active in an hour. Due to this incident, Srijith has ditched GMail. I am still going to use it, for all the unimportant mails.

Update: Rajat Paharia too got locked out and here is why it happened. So even though Srijith did not have greasemonkey installed, the fact that he was retrieving 150 messages caused GMail to believe so.

Each day comes with the announcement of an exciting new product due to the war like competition between Yahoo! and Google. It was only few days back that I deleted Google Desktop and installed Yahoo! Desktop Search. But today, Google has come up with a new version of their search tool and I knew I had to get it.

After resisting the initial impulse, I browsed over to the Google webpage and read a bit. Still not convinced I was about to leave and then I saw the screenshots, which are like rain songs in Indian movies. They tantalize, but don't reveal much. But that was enough for me to download Google Desktop. Then I was frantically configuring the Sidebar to read random feeds and display photos from various sources. Then I configured a few stocks and installed a few plugins.

I also configured Sidebar to show weather in the city I am in and so I get weather via a plugin on my browser, a widget on Konfabulator and now on Sidebar. All of them agree that it is going to be cloudy. I also turned around in my chair, looked out through the window and verified it. I have TODO lists on Konfabulator and Google Sidebar each holding various pieces of things to do. Action item number one is to merge all of them.

According to those ever helpful analysts, the Sidebar is Google's aggressive move against Yahoo! and Microsoft and it's true. The Sidebar aggressively pushed all my Windows applications to the left and occupied some valuable real estate on the right side. I had to select Auto Hide to reclaim the space back.

It was only few days back that I installed Konfabulator from Yahoo! after seeing the screenshots of some cool widgets. It displays weather with some stunning graphics, and shows alarm clocks in various ways, all of which I don't need. But this is the closest to a Mac, that my Windows machine can get. But Sidebar can also display clocks. There was this old adage that all software would expand until it can read mail. Now it expands to display alarm clocks.

After the new install Google Desktop started indexing my data and it was slow. Since I had to search for something (the txt file which is my TODO list), I started Yahoo Desktop Search and it started indexing again. Google was indexing too and both of them reached my email held by Thunderbird almost at the same time. Since Thunderbird was not designed for a threesome, it thew up some expletives in hex and quit.

When I thought I could take a break from configuring various desktop searches and slick widgets, there is news that Google is going to release a communication tool. In this crazy widget eat widget world Microsoft has thankfully stayed away. Instead of burdening the user with innovations each week, they have decided to stand back and concentrate on something called Vista which is due next year, which means we will get it when America pulls out of Eye-Rack.

Update: Both Microsoft and Yahoo! are going to upgrade their web mail services.

Firefox is one sleek browser and comes with features like Tabbed Browsing, Pop-up Blocking and integrated search. But most of us like browsers with <insert your favourite feature> feature. We also like bloatware. Firefox lets you decide how obese you want your browser to be through extensions. By installing extensions, you can choose those features without which your life would be meaningless.

Larry Page's keynote at the CES in Las Vegas was one sold out show. Few things he mentioned made sense, while a major annoucement, Google Pack, did not impress that much.

Now shifting to talk about electrical power. Shows photo of power adapter clutter. "Why can't we just standardize the power with a really nice power supply? (shot of happy power supply) We really needs standards in these areas.

"Most devices can be connected through adapters. You can basically adapt anything to USB for like $20. Do you really need all these ports running around? I don't think it's really necessary. Phones have been a really positive example. You can connect any bluetooth headset to any blue [Live coverage of Google Keynote with Robin Williams]

Though there were rumors that Google would unveil a cheap PC running the Google OS, noting of that sort happened. Instead Google announced a video store as well as Google Pack. Google Pack makes it convenient to install various pieces of software easily as well as manage the updates. The pack includes software from Google like Earth, Picassa, Desktop and Desktop Toolbar as well as third party software like Real Player, Firefox, Norton Antivirus, Ad Aware, and Adobe Reader.

Google decided to do the pack to make it easy for users to manage the installed set of programs. They also like software which comply with their list of software principles and one of the items mentioned in the list is Upfront Disclosure.

When an application is installed or enabled, it should inform you of its principal and significant functions. And if the application makes money by showing you advertising, it should clearly and conspicuously explain this. This information should be presented in a way that a typical user will see and understand -- not buried in small print that requires you to scroll. For example, if the application is paid for by serving pop-up ads or sending your personal data to a third party, that should be made clear to you.[Software Principles]

The second point is against the Norton Antivirus which is also included in the Pack. The installed version comes with a six month subscription of updates, and after that you have to purchase. Since Google's policy seems to be to buy companies and make their software available for free (Picassa, Earth), it goes against that trend to sell subscriptions of Norton Antivirus.

While some think that Google Pack is directed against Microsoft, there is nothing in the pack which reduces Microsoft's revenue or attacks their cash cows. It would have been useful if the Pack contained Open Office. With user having to give their first born to buy a version of Microsoft Office, this would have been a direct hit on Microsoft.

Looking at the log files of varnam.org, I find that a lot of visitors do not use any feed readers, instead come to the site via a bookmark or by typing varnam.org/blog in the address bar. This means that you are visiting this site daily, to see if there are any words of wisdom from me and believe me, it is the most inefficient way to read blogs.

If you read news from about three hundred sources daily, imagine how much time would be wasted if you had to manually check each site for updates. Some folks like The Acorn have many posts each day, while Seriously Sandeep and The Palm Leaf are not updated daily. Now there is software available which can keep track of blogs, let you know which have been updated, all for free. This is how I read about three hundred blogs daily and efficiently.

When I heard about podcasts for the first time, the immediate reaction was to who would want to listen to some guy saying something using a microphone and some audio recording tool. Already there are many terrible blogs and if such people switched to talking, it would be just more noise. I was pleasantly surprised to listen to many podcasts, some Indian, some American, some amateur and some professional and realized that I was so wrong about this, as wrong as the Main Stream Media was about bloggers. I want to share some podcasts which are now part of my regular listening schedule.

Let me start with the only two Indian podcasts which are in my list. Both of them are done by amateurs, but the programmes have a professional quality.

• A Podcast about Indian Music by Amit Varshneya: The first program I listened to in his series was the one on disco themed songs and was hooked. This program was an analysis of all the disco songs of the 70s and 80s with songs from Rishi Kapoor movies like Karz, Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahi and the songs of Nazia Hassan. This program usually has a bunch of songs either based on a theme such as Music Director or the best songs of the month with commentary by Amit


• M-POD by Jo: This Malayalam podcast is a talk show on news, music, literature etc. The episode I liked was the interview with Pradeep Somasundaran, of Meri Awaz Suno fame, where he talks about his association with music director Raveendran and general news about the music industry. In case you did not know, Jo is a talented singer himself. (just listen to this song even if you don't understand Malayalam)


• KQED Forum with Michael Krasny: The only station my car radio is tuned to is 88.5 FM, the National Public Radio station. Even though there is a liberal bias to most of the programs, it covers a wide range of topics with great depth. Forum, one of best programs on NPR is broadcast from the station here in San Francisco is very topical and covers everything from what is happening around the world to interviews with authors. Forum is one hour long, sufficient enough to overload you with information.
  
• News Hour with Jim Lehrer Jim Lehrer is the grand daddy of American broadcasting and this hour long daily news is broken into segments where just a few issues are covered, but in depth.
  
• Science Friday NPR has a daily talk show called Talk of the Nation. On Friday's it is called Science Friday and very topical science events are discussed.
  

Tags: Podcasts

It was probably on the last day of JavaOne 2005. There was a panel discussion with James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy Steele, and John Gage on the future of Java. During that conversation, Gosling joked that since Google maintains a cache of of all the websites, we can shutdown the internet and use Google's servers to access all information.

Now it seems Google wants to store all information on their servers, including your personal files. This is a new concept called GDrive which promises infinite storage for users.

With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc). We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today.[Google's "GDrive" part of promise for infinite storage]

If you live in United States, you can be rest assured that your personal data is all over the place. Medical records are stolen, tax returns are sometimes made public, and whole set of credit card information is lost. The only protection you have is the possibility that hackers do not find your data interesting.

While we are debating if rising oil prices leads to less freedom or vice versa, the point of truth is that, oil prices are rising. The price of crude is going up and the price at the pump is moving faster. Various businesses have decided to pass on the the rising costs directly to the consumer. Since consumers are already struggling to make ends meet, they probably may not notice this slight increase in price for almost everything. The situation is so bad that President Bush raised the CAFE standards, which sets the fuel economy for vehicles.

Meanwhile American car makers are seeing their cars sitting on the lot, while Toyota cannot make enough Prius for American consumption. Is there a way to get rid of the oil dependency and at the same time boost the slowing sales of American cars? Tom Daschle and VInod Khosla seem to have a solution. Their proposal is to give automakers incentives for making vehicles which can run on gasoline or E85 fuel, a blend of ethanol and gasoline.

First, it could set America free from its dependence on foreign oil. As Brazil's "energy independence miracle" proves, an aggressive strategy of investing in petroleum substitutes like ethanol can end dependence on imported oil.

Second, switching from gasoline to ethanol produced from perennial energy crops like switch grass can slash our carbon dioxide emissions.

Third, it could build on a comparative advantage of American automakers. American auto manufacturers are churning out hundreds of thousands of flex-fuel vehicles. Their foreign competitors make far fewer. Promoting these vehicles will help our automakers build on their already strong market share.

And fourth, by encouraging the production of ethanol and new renewable fuel technologies, this new CAFE standard could invigorate rural communities in America's heartland and innovation and research centers along its coasts. [Miles Per Cob]

Ethanol based cars are not without issues for this fuel results in lower fuel economy. This would result in the driver paying more and currently it is not cost effective compared to regular gasoline based vehicles. According to Business Week "it would cost around $3,368 per year to run a Dodge Ram 1500 pickup on regular gas and $3,615 on E85." Even if you want to buy a flex fuel car, there are not many choices right now. If you own one, then you don't have many fueling stations.

A lot has to happen before E85 becomes a viable alternative to oil. Atleast people are thinking about it.

There are many advantages of not having to depend on oil for fuel needs. For a nation like India, energy independence will remove the need to bow before the middle-east dictators  and remove this competition with China to grab all oil wells in the world. With this freedom, United States could ignore the lunatic statements from Hugo Chavez and we all could live to see the day when Saudi Arabia's major business is exporting camels. The problem though is in finding a cost effective alternative.

The market for alternative energies is huge and Venture Capitalists in the Bay Area like Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures have invested in biofuels companies like Altra and Cilion. With companies like VeraSun and Aventine going IPO, ethanol is getting focus as that major alternative. Using E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) could also revive the slumping American car industry and give a boost to farmers.  Going by market trends, Ethanol seems to be the silver bullet as even Wal-Mart is planning to pump ethanol based fuel in gas stations around the country.

But corn based ethanol is not without problems. Ethanol is expensive to make. The fuel efficiency for E85 based vehicles are less compared to the ones running on gas. Besides this ethanol has to be carried in trucks or trains (as there are no pipelines) which requires more fuel to be spent. 

In Back To The Future II  or III, Dr. Emmet Brown comes back from the future , flying in his time machine and is seen scavenging the garbage carts for fuel. He find some soda cans and other pieces of garbage and stuffs it into the fuel tank. This future is near and soon we will all be doing the same , if we are going to use cellulosic ethanol as fuel.

In corn based ethanol, the corn is ground and mixed with water. The enzymes convert the starch to sugar and sugar eating micro-organisms  excrete ethanol, which is distilled and used. With cellulosic ethanol, we don't have to depend entirely on corn. Farm waste like corn kennel, wheat and barley straw, leaves and stalks of plants can also be used as the source of ethanol.

Finally the cost of cellulosic ethanol is expected to be $1.35/gallon compared to $3.20/gallon right now for regular gasoline. This should be a big boost to consumers who can then buy Ford Explorers and H3s without guilt. Since cellulosic ethanol depends on farm waste, these giant SUV owners can claim that they are clearing waste instead of creating it. In Kerala where we stay, throwing garbage over the wall to the road is considered  good civic sense. If it turns out that this garbage can be used as fuel, then my neighborhood will be the cleanest place in India.

Google purchased the two-car garage of the Menlo Park home in which they opened their first offices.

The two-car garage and a few rooms served as the company's headquarters for five months after the founders took leave of their graduate studies at Stanford University to focus on their search engine, now the most popular in the world.

Google bought the 1,900-square-foot home in September from Susan Wojcicki, a Google vice president, who had leased the garage to Brin and Page in 1998 for $1,700 per month to help pay her mortgage. The sales price wasn't disclosed, but similar home

Google's founders worked in the garage shoehorned between computers and boxes piled head high. In a list of corporate milestones, Google mentions its home in Menlo Park with its characteristic humor, saying "the office offered several big advantages, including a washer and dryer and a hot tub."[Google buys garage, search engine's home]

In the 70s, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started a company, their first offices were in the Jobs family garage. His father moved out his car restoration equipment and the garage served as Apple's first manufacturing base. In 1938, Dave Packard and his wife Lucile move into the first floor flat of a house in Palo Alto. Bill Hewlett, his friend rented a shed behind the house and began work in the garage with a working capital of $538. Their association resulted in Hewlett-Packard.

Even after living in the midst of all these famous garages, I made the mistake of keeping the computer in the office room. Tomorrow, first thing, I am moving it to the garage, so that when varnam.org becomes a multi-billion dollar business, I can also claim that it all started in a garage.

Apparently someone from Amazon is hand crafting each of those 100 DVD-R's in my order.

Imagine you are driving peacefully on your Ford on Highway 101. There is the mandatory accident at Marsh Road exit and someone driving a Chevy Tahoe at 55 miles/hr on the left lane blocking your view of not just the road ahead, but also of the sun. Then there is that someone driving a 1900 Toyota Corolla thinking it is a Ferrari weaving across lanes, you know, the usual stuff. Your car halts abruptly, brings a window on the display and informs you that it has downloaded the latest updates and the machine needs a reboot to proceed. Of course, this is an exaggeration, but some version of this is soon possible as Ford is planning to install an in-vehicle operating system developed by Microsoft in Focus and Five Hundred sedans.

The Dearborn, Mich., auto maker will unveil next month a hands-free Bluetooth wireless system and in-vehicle operating system developed by Microsoft that will eventually be an option for its entire Ford brand lineup, according to people familiar with the matter. The new system, to be dubbed Sync, will allow for hands-free cellphone communication and other wireless information transfers inside the car, including the ability to receive email and download music, these people said.

Sync is based on Microsoft's automotive operating system that has been under development in recent years by the company's Windows Automotive division, which in 2004 struck a broad development deal with Fiat related to in-car computing. A person close to Microsoft said the company has turned in a spotty performance when it comes to Bluetooth technologies and that the Ford deal could help spur Micros