Drishtikone
Here is a slideshow of some interesting applications built on Twitter that I found today. Go ahead and try some. Read more
Here is a slideshow of some interesting applications built on Twitter that I found today. Go ahead and try some. Read more
Twitter has a lot of applications come up.. I am using one to start a poll. Please do share your thoughts on this topic and let me know what do you think? Read more
Ok, the next browser offering from Microsoft is here. They have released the RC1 version (Release Candidate 1). It brings some more added headaches for most of us who own our own blogs - specially the hosted variety! Microsoft had promised that this version would be standards compliant but the promise has been broken yet again.. as Register notes: This week, the promise was broken. It lasted less than six months. Now that Internet Explorer IE8 beta 2 is released, we know that many, if not most, pages viewed in IE8 will not be shown in standards mode by default. The dirty secret is buried deep down in the «Compatibility view» configuration panel, where the «Display intranet sites in Compatibility View» box is checked by default. Thus, by default, intranet pages are not viewed in standards mode. Read more
The social media sites have enabled interaction in a lot of ways that were earlier not possible. TV for example was a one-way channel. They give. We receive. With phone some of it changed - one could call into, say Larry King Live and talk live and ask questions. But the interaction was limited yet. Then Rick Sanchez used Twitter, Facebook and MySpace in his afternoon program to interact and discuss/debate/chat on various issues (from hurricanes to elections).. and a new way of disseminating news was born. Now, I read of another cool use of Twitter - where a couple of doctors Tweeted their entire surgery! Dr. James Peabody , and Dr. Raj Laungani, of Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit live tweeted the entire cancer surgery. They had decided to do it and gotten the necessary clearances to obviate the legal issues. (Feed for the Surgery Tweets). Btw, they used tweetdeck on their laptop to tweet the whole time. One would ask - How would Tweeting the surgery have helped? Well how about these benefits.. apart from the obvious advertising and PR that such news provides..for free! Read more
Iceland was rated as the best country to live as per UN living index. That was Two years ago. Last week in an unprecendented riot, the crowd threw stones at the police and the Parliament (Althing). The crowd wanted the Prime Minister Geir Haarde to resign, the parliament dissolved, the constitution replaced with a new one, and investigations of politicians from the current administration. A complete rehaul and nothing short of that would do for the people. Here is one of the most chilling anecdotes illustrating the situation in Iceland:[1] On Friday morning, human rights campaigner and protest organiser Hordur Torfason told a chilling anecdote to illustrate the desperation many Icelanders are feeling. He had received a phone call from a man who said that four generations of his family had lost everything. "He wanted me to help them build a gallows in front of the parliament building," says Torfason. "I asked him if this was to have some symbolic significance. 'No,' came the answer. 'A member of my family wants to hang himself in public.'" "I said I would help them but not in this way," says Torfason. "But he killed himself two days ago." Such is the desperation! But it is not starving nor will the people die of cold. It is a country rich in resources - fish, geothermal energy and natural gas. Hopefully, all will not be sold for cheap to the outsiders. Read more
Did you know that Microsoft had its own version of Sourceforge? I didn't. It is called Codeplex and people host open source projects there. In the last one year, it has grown by leaps and bounds. It now has over 120k registered users and 7,500 projects. Other stats are impressive as well: Visits to the Website more than doubled to top 19-million in 2008, while new registered users were up more than 70 percent to over 66,000 and the number of new projects more than doubled to 4,542 over the year. There does seem to be a lot of value in community effort and open source work. Apple has been using the community driven effort to enhance the applications that are coming to the iPhone and iTouch users. That has the potential of completely obliterating the laptop market one day, as per a close friend. Heck, if you can do all that you can with a laptop.. and more.. then why carry the heavy brick? Read more
Gmail has been a great product ever since it was launched. The only issue with all the online based emails is that you have an issue when you are not connected. You can of course use the pop based option - like I use Spicebird to circumvent the issue - but now Gmail has launched a functionality where by it can use Google Gears to accomplish offline usage. When you are offline, Gmail automatically shifts to the offline mode and uses the cache linked to Gears. In fact, it also has a flaky connection mode as well.. for the times when you are "borrowing" you neighbor's connection. The Google team seems to have used live squirrel to chew the lines and test them out to create the ideal "flaky connection" conditions. 🙂 The functionality will come on for everyone in the US and UK shortly. Check if you have it under settings. Here is how to do it: Read more
Only 3 people have won medals in both Winter and Summer Olympics: Eddie Eagan, USA; Jacob Thames, Normay; and Christa Luding-Rothenburger**, Germany (she is the only one to have done it in the same year!) 7000 tons of used currency is shred in the US annually. Galileo had become totally blind before his death Our eyes remain the same size from the day we were born to the our adulthood. Europe is the only continent without a desert Read more
In Hindu mythology, often the annointing of a new king - if he was benevolent and good - was joined in by the people of "other worlds". Now, that was mostly, logicallly speaking, a figure of speech with perhaps wide poetic license. But it seems that in the case of Barack Obama, creatures from outer space may have visited the innauguration - as a black disc like thing flew past the Washington monument! Look at the video below.. it does seem strange. It surely could not have been an aircraft - for the security was as tight as it could be on any event ever!. But it could have been a bird. But that fast? So, my guess is that either its a hoax, or a camera trick or a real UFO (if that is how those green men still travel - man they seriously need an upgrade.. we are catching up on their technology pretty fast! Just think - we earthlings have moved from those propeller planes to some kick-ass air machines.. and these green men still move around in those little round discs!) Read more
According to my humble experience and some others, the time invested in searching for deja-vu's is definitely well worth. The first positive manifestation is that we start to listen to Nature. Like in the movie THE SOUND OF MUSIC we indeed are able to listen to PATCHA –MAMBA. Hills, beaches, deserts, forests, jungles, sky, clouds, even gardens, planets, moon, sun, and the whole Universe begin their amazingly beautiful melodies, so immediately we are mesmerized by such special musicians. After this difficult to describe experience , our life changes for the better.Our sensitiveness for knowing people’s desires is greatly improved, so we can’t look the other way, seeming that we haven’t been aware of their needs. But the most amazing fact is that our affinity with small children increases a lot. Their need for being loved , understood and supported becomes a very loud voice in our now sensitive ears. We become not only our children’s spiritual teachers, but many of them become our spiritual instructors. Amazing, right? Quite amazing indeed! Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In