Techie Running Loose..

Google Master Plan

2007-04-20T22:55:00.000+05:30

Watch the video and get mesmerized!

Designing for AJAX

2007-04-12T13:41:00.000+05:30

A great presentation shared on SlideShare. The presentation is about Designing for AJAX - principles and patterns for rich interaction.

Usefulness of Breadcrumb Navigation

2007-04-10T13:29:00.000+05:30

I have always found Breadcrumb navigation very useful and Jakob Nielsen in his latest alertbox has written at length about usefulness of breadcrumb navigation which is considered to be secondary navigation.

Here are few important tips about breadcrumbs:

Breadcrumbs show people their current location relative to higher-level concepts, helping them understand where they are in relation to the rest of the site.
Breadcrumbs afford one-click access to higher site levels and thus rescue users who parachute into very specific but inappropriate destinations through search or deep links.
Breadcrumbs never cause problems in user testing: people might overlook this small design element, but they never misinterpret breadcrumb trails or have trouble operating them.
Breadcrumbs take up very little space on the page.

There has been an argument that breadcrumbs are so minute that many people overlook them and they benefit only a majority. So why to use such a design element?
Jakob Nielsen writes

As I've long argued, breadcrumbs are different than most other little-used design elements for the simple reason that they don't hurt users who ignore them.

To read the entire article, click here.

E-Mail Judo

2007-04-08T15:39:00.000+05:30

Thats how we IT guys work! :P
Hungry for more Dilbert strips.. click here.

Light Painting

2007-04-08T14:51:00.000+05:30

Interesting.. huh?! This is a product of Light Painting Workshop.

Light painting is a photographic technique in which light sources are projected or "painted" using handheld light source in selective areas during the camera exposure. All work is done in camera, no computer manipulation occurs.
Exposure can range from 20 seconds onwards to an entire evening to achieve!

For more on light painting, click here. Meanwhile check out more of our cool work:

Cheers!

2007-03-28T10:30:00.000+05:30

Barcamp Bangalore's third edition is scheduled to be held on 31st March & 1st April 2007 at IIM-B. Theme of the event is Internet, Mobile and Society.

To read more on Barcamp Bangalore 3, click here. It should be a great event with the presence of lot of technology and design enthusiasts. To register, visit BCB3 Registration Page.

Cheers!

Mac v/s PC

2007-03-12T10:37:00.001+05:30

Apple "Get a Mac" ad takes a dead aim at Microsoft Vista!

Dekoh: Integrated experience of Web and Desktop

2007-03-10T13:30:00.000+05:30

Dekoh is desktop platform for applications that deliver integrated experience of web and desktop. Along with the free Dekoh Desktop, comes a gallery of personal media applications and Dekoh Network service that helps users share content/applications directly off their PC.

So far Desktop applications and web applications were built and deployed as silos. Desktop applications are usually written OS specific and offer richer user interface. Web applications are accessed through web browsers. They require Internet connectivity and user data uploaded or saved on websites. Collaborating and sharing data is easy in web applications.

Jay Pullur, CEO of Pramati says, "Dekoh bridges the big divide between Desktop and the Web. Using browser-based applications seamlessly when offline or online is a compelling value. Writing desktop applications using the same web standards like Java^TM, AJAX, DHTML, Flash, and PHP is exciting for developers".

A very interesting concept - I have signed up for Dekoh and will start using it. Lets see do they live up to the expectations.

To read the press release, click here or visit Dekoh's Home Page.

On a lookout for fresh new design!

2007-03-05T13:06:00.000+05:30

I am bored of the standard blogger template and technophobic does need a new look. Now I am setting out for a fresh new design. I just hope I find enough time to wrap it up quickly.
Any suggestions/feedback for new design are welcome :)

Cheers!

Adobe to take Photoshop online

2007-03-01T16:47:00.000+05:30

Hoping to get a jump on Google and other competitors, Adobe Systems plans to release a hosted version of its popular Photoshop image-editing application within six months, the company's chief executive said Tuesday.

Now this is exciting news but Photoshop is a heavy piece of software and how Adobe will take care of network latency while performing actions is going to be interesting.

Click here, to read the entire article.

Cheers!

SNAP Preview

2007-02-14T15:19:00.000+05:30

Snap Preview Anywhere provides high quality link previews for site owners to add an informative and sticky experience for their users. By rolling over any link, the user gets a visual preview of the site without having to go there, thus eliminating wasted "trips" to linked sites.

Look, it works great here at technophobic:

Click here and try out this cool free service - SNAP Preview.

Cheers!

What is Apple's next product?

2007-02-12T00:48:00.000+05:30

We all get fascinated and bamboozled by Apple's Product. They revolutionized the music player industry with the iPod, and now they're poised to take over the phone market with iPhone. But the big question is - what is the next hot thing that Apple is going to revolutionize?

Maybe we have an answer, have a look..

Is it IPiano?

Or is it iPottie?! :P

Worth1000 had started a photoshop competition to make people sneak into Apple's R&D facility and show us what new products they are currently giving the patented "Apple" look.

People came up with some real creative entries. Click here to see the list.

Cheers!

Do you have time?

2007-01-29T14:38:00.000+05:30

Click on the image and see amazing interaction. [Courtesy: KrazyDad]

Eye Tracking: The 'F' Shaped Pattern

2007-01-29T11:04:00.000+05:30

The 'F' shaped pattern

F for fast. That's how users read your precious content. In a few seconds, their eyes move at amazing speeds across your website’s words in a pattern that's very different from what you learned in school.

According to Nielsen (2006) users tend to focus on the left side of the body of a webpage when reading and fixate very little on information located on the right-hand side. Users maintain this ‘F’ viewing pattern with a few horizontal scans, the first one being longer than the second and a long vertical scan (Figure 1). Implications of this are that users may miss valuable information located on the right-hand side of the page.

To read more, click here.

Mobile Revolution: Apple's iPhone

2007-01-12T13:54:00.000+05:30

Get ready for the Next Big Thing!

The mobile revolution is in place: iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone.

Related Links:

Cheers!

Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic

2006-12-27T09:31:00.002+05:30

A great post examining the two contrasting visual approaches employed by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in their presentations.
You will definitely enjoy this one. Click here to read this great post.

Cheers!

UI Cartoon

2006-12-04T16:38:00.001+05:30

Designing using a systematic process based on the best usability practices is our mantra!

Ms Dewey

2006-12-04T16:33:00.000+05:30

A search engine with a 'sexy' difference!
Ms Dewey comes and asks you strange questions, says spooky thing to catch your attention, powered by Microsoft's Live Search, Ms Dewey is an amazaing search engine.

Cheers!

Now thats Collaboration!

2006-11-27T16:46:00.000+05:30

Talking with Orkut

2006-11-24T11:22:00.000+05:30

Yes, you read it right.. talking with Orkut is now possible. Google is continuing with its innovation process and has built Google Talk into Orkut.

Sounds groovy.. right? For more details and how to use it, click here.

Cheers!

The Google Story

2006-11-21T14:37:00.000+05:30

The Google Story by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed is a great read. Get your copy soon and learn great things about its founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, their philosophy and the inside world of Googleplex.

If you are a big fan of Google, drop in regularly to Google's Official Bog for latest insights from the hottest firm.

The Dilbert Principle

2006-11-21T13:43:00.000+05:30

With appraisal at my workplace around the corner and seeing the signs of things to come, it was inevitable for me to fall to the Dilbert Principle.

The Dilbert Principle refers to a 1990s satirical observation stating that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management, in order to limit the amount of damage that they're capable of doing.

How true the dude Scott Adams was or is!

Have a look at one of the strip:

Dilbert truly rocks, to read more on Dilbert, click here.

[Post inspired by enginerd]

Cheers!

Everyday Usability

2006-11-06T12:20:00.000+05:30

Scene at Bangalore Railway Station. Where do we go for platform 5, right or left?

For some more fun examples of everyday usability, click here.

End of an Era?

2006-10-25T10:09:00.000+05:30

With 7 time World Champion, Micheal Schumacher retiring from Formula 1, he has left behind a huge void in the Ferrari camp and perhaps in F1.

He graced F1 for 16 years and broke almost all possible records. But he would be just a touch disappointed that he couldn't win the Brazilian Grand Prix, his career's final race.

Many believe that F1 minus Micheal will never be the same and may even cease to exist. But as is always the case, with end of one era, a new one begins..

If that's the case perhaps we may now witness the new era of the Spaniard, the 2 time world champion, Fernando Alonso..

Long Live Formula 1..

Cheers!

Heuristic Evaluation

2006-10-24T13:34:00.000+05:30

Heuristic Evaluation (HE) is defined as "Inspection of an interface against usability heuristics, with the goal of identifying usability issues." It is conducted by 3-5 trained evaluators and it does not involve end users.

Problems can be identified across several UI categories - Branding, Site Strategy, Navigation, Layout, Wording, Graphics, Animation, Color, Fonts, Control Elements, Web Standards, Error Handling etc.

Usually following severity types are considered:

Showstoppers – Catastrophic issues that prevent people from accomplishing their goals.
Major Issues – Issues that cause waste of time, increased learning and error rates
Irritants – Minor cosmetic or consistency issues that slow users down slightly / are a minimal violation of usability guidelines

Here are couple of examples of a typical HE:

Cheers!

Particpation Inequality

2006-10-24T13:11:00.000+05:30

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

Click here to read the article by Jakob Nielsen where he talks how participation inequality affects the web.

Cheers!

Frame by Frame Playback in Windows Media Player 10/11

2006-10-06T13:32:00.000+05:30

Just in case you have not tried this yet…

You can do frame-by-frame playback in Windows Media Player 10 by enabling ‘Play Speed Settings’. (View > Enhancements > Play Speed Settings)

Cheers!

Kicking Nielsen!

2006-08-16T12:08:00.001+05:30

Celebrating the 100th post at technophobic via some skepticism!

I always thought Jakob Nielsen was the unchallengable guru of usability but here are a list of few articles which challenge his invincibility and mock the king of usability! Check them out..

1. Jakob Nielsen Drinking Game

2. How usable is Jakob Nielsen?

3. Spanking Jakob Nielsen

Cheers!

How UI design has to incorporate the good and the bad..

2006-08-08T16:13:00.000+05:30

An interesting article by Mike Padilla tells us that how designing the UI is fundamentally an exercise in compromise—not compromise between designers and other project stakeholders —but compromise between the drawbacks and benefits of design decisions.

Click here to read the article.

Cheers!

Card Sorting Technique

2006-08-01T13:47:00.000+05:30

How to discover the user’s model of information space?
How to start with the information architecture process?
How to validate the information architecture?

Though these questions don't have a straight forward answer, but Card Sorting Technique eases out most of the complexity from these questions.

Card Sorting is a technique for exploring how people group items, so that you can develop structures that maximize the probability of users being able to find items. It is a quick, inexpensive, and reliable method, which serves as input into your information design process. Card sorting generates an overall structure for your information, as well as suggestions for navigation, menus, and possible taxonomies.

How it is done?

[via useit]

Card sorting is done by giving users a bunch of index cards with concepts from the server written on them. The users were then asked to sort the cards into piles such that cards representing similar concepts were in the same pile. The users were also allowed to group piles to indicate looser levels of similarity, and we finally asked the users to name their piles. These names provided us with additional insights into the users' mental model of the information space and served as inspiration for the names we finally chose.

For more information, you can visit this link.

Cheers!

Engineer or Designer?!

2006-07-25T11:24:00.000+05:30

I was in hibernation for last few months but Iam back now in a new avatar! From being an engineer I have turned into a User Interface Designer in one of India's top-notch corporate design setup.

Interesting? Well I will furnish more details later on.. for the time being, here is a pic of my office building which is famously known as The Studio.

"CON"

2006-04-29T23:57:00.000+05:30

Say the word "CON" in front of Bill Gates and his face is bound to get red because of embarrassment. Apparantely on Windows XP, one cannot create a folder named "CON". Creating a new folder with the name "CON" just renames it to "New Folder". Microsoft team has no answers for this screw-up. Don't belive it, try for yourself!

Cheers!

Why Google needs Orkut?!

2006-04-25T12:06:00.000+05:30

A ubiquitous question which has been even answered many a times. But for the ignorant junta Jeremy Zawodny lucidy explains why Google badly needs Orkut and how they are banking on the viral fever of social networking sites.

Click here to read the article.

Cheers!

PS: Feels good to be back at the helm after a long hiatus. Lot of good things have happened but lot of confusion has also persisted, but its time to move on!

15 year old fools around with Google News credibility

2006-03-25T13:02:00.000+05:30

A practical joke resulting in international tech story.. doesn't get better than this!

[via Stepforth]
15-year old Tom Vandetta, Vandetta found an article that explained how to fool Google's news system by writing fake press releases. Sensing an opportunity to experiment and play a joke on his friends, the self-described "Google fanboy" decided to see what would happen if he submitted a fake Google press release claiming the 15-year old New Jersey student was Google's youngest employee. The press release was issued through the free service I-Newswire and contained a number of spelling mistakes.

(I-Newswire) - 15 year old student, Tom Vendetta has been hired by search engine giant Google Inc. The student will receive a lowered salary, which will be placed into a bank account for future education, said Google CEO Larry Page. When asked what role Vendetta will play at the Tech Giant's offices, Page said he wouldnt have a role at the Main Offices. Instead he would work from his home in the New Jersey suburbs. Vendetta will be incharge of working with recent security flaw's in Google's beta e-mail service, "Gmail". Google said they first found out about him when they discovered the student's blog, at http://tomvendetta.be. The media giant said they looked forward to working with Vendetta's expertise in JavaScript and AJAX.

A few hours after posting the fake press release, Vandetta logged into the news search tool Digg after receiving an automated email from MAKEBot (Digg's Spider), to find his practical joke had become a credible international tech story. Google was even displaying reference to the press release in Google News and at in the news results placed above search results relating to Google employment or hiring. According to his confessional blog posting, "At that moment, I felt my stomach knot up and my heart drop. I knew exactly what happened and knew that I would end up regretting posting that."

While the prank was a juvenile as it was creative, Vandetta's fake press release has exposed a credibility problem for Google and might introduce new costs for search marketing firms that use legitimate press releases as a means of promotion. His experiment exposed the fact the automated system that is Google News does not verify press releases before publishing them as factual news pieces.

Its hard to imagine, Google falling prey to this but it all exposes that there is still a long way to go before we say digital age has truly arrived and is away from all the glitches.

Cheers!

Pi Day!

2006-03-15T01:22:00.000+05:30

March 14 is celebrated as Pi day.. can't get it?!

March 14, written as 3-14 in the United States date format, represents the common three-digit approximation for the mathematical constant π: 3.14. It is often celebrated at 1:59 p.m. in recognition of the six-digit approximation: 3.14159

Wierd, but cool right?

[courtesy: shutterediris]

Cheers!

PS: Herez wishing the readers a very happy and colourful holi :)

A day to remember for sport lovers!

2006-03-12T23:14:00.000+05:30

Iam on a high!
One of the greatest day in history of sport entertainment was recorded today and I witnessed it (on TV that is!).

It began with start of 2006 F1 season and champion Fernando Alonso muscled his way around Ferrari ace Micheal Schumacher in some spectacular driving to win the inaugral Bahrain race.

Meanwhile records were tumbling at Johannesburg Cricket Stadium, South Africa. In the series decider the invincible Aussies smacked 434/4 in their stipulated 50 overs, a world record for highest ODI total.

They broke a 10 year world record but little they knew that this record was about to be broken again in less than 4 hours! South Africa, backed by brilliant knocks by Gibbs and Smith chased the score in a cliffhanger of a match. They won by 1 wicket and with 1 ball to spare. Anyone who is remotely interested in cricket and somehow missed the match.. well he has missed the match of the lifetime!!

What a day it has been today..

Cheers!

Perfect recipe for sadist Webmasters

2006-03-09T10:53:00.000+05:30

The world is full of sadist characters and when they turn out to be webmasters, they cook up a perfect recipe to irritate visitors and ensure that they never come back!
Click here to read the top 12 favourite irritants ensuring no returning visitors for your website.

PS: You can combine more than one irritant to gain more pleasure :D

Cheers!

The Best of Web 2.0

2006-03-01T23:58:00.000+05:30

After an unexpected hiatus from my regular activities, Iam back to resume blogging in full glory.

Every now and then, we are seeing new and hot web applications coming up, which are redefining the power of web. Herez a peek into the Best of Web 2.0 sites; these sites are one on which the whole world is going gaga over. Barring couple of websites, I think all are very popular in our college itself.

Cheers!

Tiny URL

2006-02-13T12:00:00.000+05:30

We often have very long URL and sending them to someone or remembering them is a sort of problem. TinyURL is here to the rescue. An example to show their working:

Turn this URL:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?ovi=1&mqma
p.x=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252bKZmeiIh6N%252bI
gpXRP3bylMaN0O4z8OOUkZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6
OzE5XVqcuc5zb%252fY5wy1MZwTnT2pu%252bNMjOjsHjvN
lygTRMzqazPStrN%252f1YzA0oWEWLwkHdhVHeG9sG6cMrf
XNJKHY6fML4o6Nb0SeQm75ET9jAjKelrmqBCNta%252bsKC
9n8jslz%252fo188N4g3BvAJYuzx8J8r%252f1fPFWkPYg%
252bT9Su5KoQ9YpNSj%252bmo0h0aEK%252bofj3f6vCP

into this tinyURL:

http://tinyurl.com/6

Which one would you rather cut and paste into your browser? That's the power of TinyURL!

TinyURL is amazingly powerful, and as they say tiny is better, so go and explore this tiny thing.

Cheers!

Design Speak: Seminar on User Centered Design

2006-02-12T12:47:00.000+05:30

To describe Design Speak, Annual Event @ NID in one word would be DISAPPOINTING. Theme of the seminar was User Centered Design (UCD). Seminar started with an introductory lecture from Dr. Eric Schaffer, CEO HFI. Absolutely no content in his talk and I found him to be a Jabberwocky! Same was true for all the speakers who followed. Though every speaker had exceptional profile but no one could justify the topic of the seminar and at the end of the day, Usability still remains a field which is not science and is just matter of common sense.

Anyways some very few points that I found useful in the seminar were:

ISO process can make UCD more reliable and person independent.
Times New Roman font was designed to compress characters and put more text in limited space.
Verdana font was primarily designed for screen based interface.
Minimize the load on the user on following counts - visual, intellect, and memory.
The Design Process: Idenity Need -> Create brief -> Brainstorming -> Data Gathering -> Redesign Brief -> Conceptualize -> Validate Concepts -> Final Design
Punctuations can be made bigger than normal text to attract attention.

These were the points from inital few lectures, after that I dozed off. Just on our way back, visited NIDUS, NID's Design Outlet, displays products made by NID graduates, and proffessors.. though touch expensive but very nice.

I hope, future seminar/workshops based on this theme would be more insightful. One such workshop is scheduled soon at Synapse. For details, click here.

Cheers!

Personal Note

2006-02-11T22:47:00.000+05:30

technophobic takes a break from technology today and is uploaded with a rather personal note.

People,
Iam Celebrating

Because Iam 21 now,
Officially ready for Marriage!

EDIT (Feb 12, 2006): Yesterday's crap removed.

Cheers People!
-m0r0N

"Live LiFE and sTop ANalyzing iT."

rediff completes 10 years

2006-02-08T10:15:00.000+05:30

rediff is 10 years old now, read this effusive message from the founder himself:

A message from Ajit Balakrishnan, Founder, rediff.com
Ten years ago, on a day like today when Bombay's mild winter was slowly sliding in, a small band of programmers, writers, designers, management specialists got together on a mission.
The mission was to create a platform for people to meet and interact. One that would rival the best in the world.
Ten years later the small original group has grown to include many other like-minded creative spirits.
The platform that we collaboratively created is admired in many countries of the world. Sophisticated investors value us highly; discerning digerati come visit us every morning.
The world admires our creative and independent spirit and expects great things from us.
The journey is just beginning.

Cheers!

egoSurf

2006-02-07T10:44:00.000+05:30

egoSurf: ego surfing without the guilt

It was this tagline which took me to the website of egoSurf. egoSurf finds your blog ranking in Google. Its working is simple, you enter your name and your blogs web address. They search google and find links to your blog and thus, calculate your ego ranking. For more insight, visit their FAQ section or much better straight away head to egoSurf and calculate your blog ranking.

PS: I won't tell my egoRanking, way too low :(

Cheers!

Perception about HCI in India

2006-02-03T02:14:00.000+05:30

It was during my research internship last year that I developed interest in the field of HCI. At that point of time, I found it to be very interesting, innovative and creative. But all of a sudden a lot many people from my college has ventured into this field, not because its creative, but they think HCI gives them the perfect platform to break away from the coding paradigm and still call themselves technocrats. This is kinda irritating (Iam not at all expert but still) because this attitude belittles the importance of this field.

Dr. Dinesh Katre, HCI guru echoes my concern and has written a superb article highlighting the above points in a very lucid manner.

People have a superficial belief that HCI does not require training or special skills (the minimum eligibility crierion is to be born as a human!). Many IT companies perceive that software usability process is a fad like ISO and CMM, which must be complied with because it is the current fashion in developed countries. Some are attracted to it because you can charge the customer more for fancy things like context study and affinity maps. Some feel that it is just a new terminology to be used while discussing user interfaces.

You get the feel where this article is heading, so anyone and everyone related to HCI should read this article and all those creeps who think HCI is just a fancy word, this article is a must for them.

Cheers!

Do you like flickr logo?

2006-02-02T02:12:00.000+05:30

If you do like flickr logo, then unleashing to you flickr logo maker, which allows you to make your own personalised logo in flickr style. I made one for myself:

Cheers!

Paper Prototyping

2006-02-02T02:02:00.000+05:30

Concentrate on paper work before the actual work!

This funda applies to design of interfaces as well and is called Paper Prototyping. Paper prototyping is a cheap and fast technique for rapid iterative design of user interfaces. Here are a few examples:

Paper prototype of typical forms-filling screen.

Paper prototype of a tabs-based design.

Testing hardware user interfaces: mockup of a kiosk.

[via Nielsen Norman Group]

Cheers!

Gates vs Jobs: Whoz the hero?

2006-01-31T02:40:00.000+05:30

Gates vs Jobs: The ubiquitous question in the tech world!

Without doubt both are genius, Without doubt both are living legends. But enter into tech world and you could find them to be star attractions of all conspiracy theories. Both seem to have an uncanny knack of attracting accusations. Read the article here which compares the two maven's.
My pick of the hero will be Steve Jobs, primarily because of his love for creativity and innovation. I was and I still am completely bowled by IPod's User Interface, only Apple could have come up with such a product!

Cheers!

Mozart's Birthday

2006-01-27T14:25:00.000+05:30

Google Logo's always fascinate me primarily because they celebrate all events including events which one would really not remember though they are important. Thanks to google.com for spreading the word that today is Mozart's Birthday. Kudos to Google team for regularly coming up with such catchy and dynamic logos.

Cheers!

Web Design & Usability Guidelines

2006-01-19T19:38:00.000+05:30

A web resource which will be cherished by Web Designers.

National Cancer Institute has build a site which is designed to provide over 50 of the top Web design and usability guidelines based on emerging research and supporting information in the field. Click here to explore the wealth of usability information.

Cheers!

Nokia Concept Lounge

2006-01-19T19:26:00.000+05:30

Take few minutes out, sit back and explore this fantastic design idea from Nokia. Nokia Concept Lounge is a must checkout to understand how creativity can be unleashed in websites.

Cheers!

Bill Gates at a recent conference!

2006-01-17T03:00:00.000+05:30

Photowhere

2006-01-16T23:10:00.000+05:30

One problem with digital cameras is that they tend to name their pictures in a cryptic fashion (i.e. DSC0034.jpg).

To help users organize and retrieve digital photographs, a system has been developed, entitled PhotoWhere, which annotates digital photographs automatically with relevant keywords based on data from a GPS receiver and the World Wide Web.
Using a GPS receiver, the system tags each picture with the specific GPS coordinates where it was taken. The system then queries a geographical database that indexes web pages by GPS coordinates, which produces a set of web pages that are associated with these coordinates. Next, these web pages are analyzed using a combination of standard and unique information retrieval techniques in order to best determine what the web pages are about, or even better, what topics and keywords they have in common. From this information, an accurate annotation of about 5-10 relevant keywords is deduced. These keywords are presented to the user in real-time, right after s/he took the picture, thereby giving the user instantaneous information about the place where they are taking a picture. The keywords are also stored with the picture to facilitate keyword-based (and location-based) search and retrieval of pictures from a database.

Photowhere is Interactive Experience Group, MIT Media Labortary project. These people sure are helluva creative bunch!

Cheers!

New age concept of "Six Degrees of Separation"

2006-01-16T22:46:00.000+05:30

Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries.

Social networking sites like Orkut have been pitched as the internet version of the 'six degrees of separation' supposedly connecting most people, first proposed by psychologist Stanley Milgram and Ithiel de Sola Pool. Click here, to read this interesting article which relates the theory to these sites.

Cheers!

Water resistant PC from Intel @ Rs. 10K

2006-01-11T11:55:00.000+05:30

[via Rediff]
Intel Corporation, in an attempt to bridge the digital divide in India, is planning to launch a personal computer priced below Rs 10,000 by this year-end. The global IT major is also on track with its earlier announced plans of investing over $1 billion in the country for its research and development (R&D) initiatives. It is also planning to look at newer locations for setting up centres, in addition to its Bangalore facility.

"We are working on the sub-Rs 10,000 PC and expect it to be commercially available by the end of this financial year. The PC will enable India to become one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world," Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice-president and general manager (sales and marketing group), told reporters on Tuesday.

Click here to read the entire article.

Cheers!

10 World Changing Web Moments

2006-01-11T00:46:00.000+05:30

Webby Awards team has unveiled a list of 10 web moments that changed the web. It talks about the dotcom boom and bust, napster shutdown, 9/11 and much more.

Click here to go through the 10 World Changing Web Moments.

BTW, Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality. They are calling in entries for 10th annual webby award, so if you think you have a creative and innovative website at your disposal, just enter your site to win Oscar of the Internet.

Cheers!

Executable Internet or XInternet

2006-01-10T14:32:00.000+05:30

Read George F. Colony's article which claims, the web will fade and new paradigm of XInternet will come up and replace web in about 2-3 years!

Cheers!

Software Aging and Rejuvenation

2006-01-10T14:07:00.000+05:30

Common saying goes that only humans age and get themselves rejuvinated. But apparantely Prof. Kishore Trivedi has brought this idea into software paradigm as well. According to him,

Software Aging is:

Deterioration in the availability of OS resources, data corruption and numerical error accumulation.
Potential fault conditions gradually accumulating over time leading to either performance degradation or transient failures or both.

Manifestation of aging is seen with performance degradation, crash/hang failure etc. Windows 95 is one such example.

Software Rejuvenation is:

It is a proactive fault management technique aimed at cleaning up the system internal state to prevent the occurrence of more severe crash failures in the future. It involves occasionally terminating an application or a system, cleaning its internal state and restarting it.

Current methods of software rejuvenation include system restart, application restart (partial rejuventaion).

It seems to be a very interesting idea and is soon starting to become a hot research topic. For more info, click here.

Cheers!

New Year Greetings

2006-01-05T12:03:00.000+05:30

Wishing one and all a very happy and colourful new year!

Moron is back after a long overdue vacation. New year resolution: Have a blast on everyday of the year!! Keep up with this space for technological odyssey 2006..

Cheers!

India's IT Capital to be renamed

2005-12-12T20:10:00.000+05:30

As reported in news agencies,

Authorities in India have decided to rename Bangalore, the country’s Information Technology capital, as Bengaluru. Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh has asked the state’s top bureaucrat, Chief Secretary B.K. Das, to initiate steps for renaming the city, the NDTV network reported. Bangalore is known as Bengaluru in Kannada, a Dravidian language spoken in the state. Singh added the change of name was proposed at a meeting of prominent Kannada litterateurs recently. The name change will be effected by November 2006, the golden jubilee of the formation of the state.

Indian authorities continue to bamboozle me. They are renaming Bangalore based on the logic that if Bombay, Madras, Calcutta can change their name suiting their traditional culture, why can't Bangalore follow the suit. But one teeny-weeny point they forgot is that Bangalore is not just India's IT hub, its a powerful global brand now. Outsourcing worldwide is synonymous to Bangalore, they even made a verb out of Bangalore. Changing name of such a brand doesn't make any sense. Come on guys, what local culture are you trying to address with a stupid name as Bengaluru. This is the time when we should be using our brand image and be making big strides in world economy. Alas, but who cares what this moron thinks!

Cheers!

Rejection #1

2005-12-12T20:07:00.000+05:30

One down! Plenty more rejections on their way.

$100 Laptop from MIT

2005-12-09T23:49:00.000+05:30

A hand-cranked laptop that will cost roughly $100, developed by MIT is expected to be available to poorer countries by late 2006. This project is for bringing poor school children in poor countries closer to computers and create a new wave in field of education.

In principle, the project seems simple: Design a laptop with built-in wireless and minimal power consumption, find manufacturers willing to build it for about $100, convince governments to buy it in quantities of at least 1 million as an initial order, and give it to schoolchildren to keep as their own property.The proposed design of the machines calls for a 500MHz processor, 1GB of memory and a unique dual-mode display that can be used in full-color mode, or in a black-and-white sunlight-readable mode. It's not clear yet how much cranking will be needed for the higher-power color mode.

It's expected to run an open-source operating system, probably Linux, MIT Media Lab Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said, rather than a closed-source product from Apple Computer or Microsoft. Companies including Google, Advanced Micro Devices, News Corp. and Red Hat have donated to the project. This laptop will surely bring one hell of a technological revolution in developing countries. The wait is on!

Cheers!

Mouse-less Firefox

2005-12-09T23:25:00.000+05:30

I always believe one thing that differentiates nerds from newbies is way they handle computer interaction. You will always find nerds, instead of using mouse, use keyboard shortcut keys for interaction. And with the world going gaga over Firefox, here is the list of few keyboard shortcuts that could reduce your trips to the mouse and can lead to a much more fulfilling web browsing experience.

Navigation from the toolbar:

Select location bar: Ctrl+L or Alt+D
Select search bar: Ctrl+K
Change search engine: Ctrl+Down after doing Ctrl+K

Opening pages:

New Window: Ctrl+N
New Tab: Ctrl+T

Grab Bag:

Switch tabs: Ctrl+Tab
Select tab (1-9): Ctrl+[1-9]
Home Page: Alt+Home
Complete .com Addres: Ctrl+Enter

For comprehensive list, click here.

Cheers!

Bill Gates LIVE webcast!

2005-12-09T16:59:00.000+05:30

Bill Gates today in Bangalore will launch the next generation of integrated computing platform - SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006. If you don't have the invitation, just do no miss the webcast. Register for Bill Gates LIVE webcast.

[via Enginerd]

Cheers!

foXpose: Cool Firefox Plugin

2005-12-09T03:55:00.000+05:30

The Viamatic foXpose plugin is a tiny little extension that lets one view all the tabs inside a browser window. This extension will works only on Firefox 1.5 or higher. With this we just need to click on the icon in the status bar to view all the browser windows with a single click. Its nifty and impressive, check the result:

Install foXpose extension now.

Cheers!

Bill Gates visits India

2005-12-09T02:57:00.000+05:30

Bill Gates, chairman and founder of Microsoft Corporation, the chief architect of software revolution, is in India from 6th to 9th December. He has come here with his wife Melinda and had numerous public engagements such as Confederation of Indian Industry-hosted CEOs' Forum and Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in New Delhi. Today there is a Developers' Forum in Bangalore.

As always, a visit from such a high profile personality raises lots of investment hopes and to be true Bill Gates has lived up to the expectations with his announcements. He said that the company will invest $1.7 billion in India over the next four years to expand its operations. The amount will be deployed across select focus areas in line with Microsoft's strategic vision for India. He also announced that Microsoft will scale up its India operations by increasing the local headcount by 3,000 over three to four years, taking the total strength to 7,000. Gates was emphatically impressed with India's human resource saying, "India has a fantastic pool of software professionals. The world needs to benefit from this. I never thought with so little product companies software services sector will grow so strong as it has grown here."

Bill Gates also met political and industrial heavyweights. He met Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi. He had a meeting with Anil Ambani to discuss cooperation between the two companies on next-generation Internet Protocol (IP)-based television services in India.

This is a very high profile visit and has generated lot of hype. One view is that he came to India and has conquered the mindspace of everyone with his announcements, but techies like me think that he has come here just to buy some cheap labour in disguise of big announcements. Pretty wierd thought.. huh?!

Anyways hail Bill Gates, hail Microsoft because for last few days I have been using Linux extensively and have realized that nothing beats the simple and effective user interface of Windows. I simply love windows!!

For complete coverage of Bill Gates visit to India, click here.

Cheers!

Reboot (Ctrl+Alt+Del)

2005-12-02T00:32:00.000+05:30

Rebooting was never such fun.. David Bradley would be so pleased!

World AIDS Day

2005-12-01T22:09:00.000+05:30

Today, December 1, is recognized as the international day of action on HIV and AIDS. World AIDS Day is about people getting the facts about HIV and AIDS. Considering that in developing countries like India, AIDS is still considered a taboo, such days should be marked with tremendous awareness campaign. It can make help people accept an HIV positive in the society. Its about time, we make a difference and help eradicate the social injustice done to the sufferers of this deadly disease!

Random #1

2005-11-24T19:34:00.000+05:30

Iam creating a repository of some good links on world wide web. Herez the first edition:

1. Celebrity Maps
Hey where does Pamela Andreson live? The question is about to be answered.. unleashing Celebrity maps which combines the power of google maps with celebrity address found across the web.

2. Guess-The-Google
Guess-The-Google is a simple web application in which a grid of images is displayed and the user has to guess the keyword which when entered in google image search will give the same result as is appearing on the grid. Simple but very addictive!

3. Protopage
Protopage provides you free personal start pages. You can have list of your favourite links, some sticky notes, panel amalgamating all search engines. This is how moronz start page looks like.

4. 10 ways to keep updated about new Google services
Google is officially releasing a new product every six days, and a new google rumor cuts the blogosphere’s fresh air every couple of hours. How to keep tabs on all the happenings? Click on the link to find out more.

5. Cool Animation
Click on the link to check out a very nifty and impressive animation.

6. Rtm86
A website made up of only images. Very innovative and very original!

7. Don't Click It
This site is making waves with HCI aficionado's. This site aims to remove the entire concept of mouse clicking.. interesting, isn't it?

Stay tuned for more such randomness.

Cheers!

Did you get an e-mail from FBI?

2005-11-23T00:34:00.000+05:30

This is the question that is doing the rounds today in the computer society worldwide. This is because a mass e-mail purportedly from the FBI is circulating online, carrying with it an attachment that contains a variant of the Sober computer virus.

ComputerWorld reports of this fake e-mail scam:

In an announcement today, the FBI advised computer users that the agency never sends unsolicited e-mails and that they should not open the attachments in the fraudulent messages. The scam e-mail tells recipients that their Internet use has been monitored by the FBI and that they have accessed illegal Web sites, according to the FBI. The e-mails, which are sent from e-mail addresses including mail@fbi.gov, post@fib.gov and admin@fbi.gov, then direct recipients to open an attachment and answer questions.
The text of the fake e-mails says: “We have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites. Important: Please answer our questions! The list of questions are attached.” The messages then include a fake name of an FBI official and the real address and phone number of the agency.

No information was available early today on how many of the e-mails might have been sent or how many computer users might have launched the viruses on their machines. The FBI said it “takes this matter seriously and is investigating” the scheme. Recipients of the fake messages are being asked to report them online to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Hmm.. seems like even, FBI are vulnerable!

Google Base up and running

2005-11-22T23:19:00.000+05:30

Yesterday Google officially released Google Base. Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that google will host and make searchable online. Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. Google will host the items and make them searchable for free.

Google says "our goal is to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible, and the world's information certainly includes almost anything you might wish to contribute. We encourage you to submit your item, whether it's your store inventory, collection of original poetry, or research paper on cancer receptors."

You can read more about google base at google's official blog but Iam off to try my hands at google base first hand.. you coming?

Cheers!

The 8 basic steps of Image Editing

2005-11-22T22:52:00.000+05:30

Tweaking around with images is always fun but not everyone's cup of tea. To help dolts like me Matt LeClair author of Oreilly’s, “Photoshop in a Nutshell” has written an article explaining the very basic steps of Image Editing. Author claims that this article will also help you to understand how to use Photoshop’s tools together.

Know, The 8 basic steps of Image Editing and manipulate digitally your way to glory.

Cheers!

The Great Indian Dream aka CAT

2005-11-20T22:34:00.000+05:30

The Great Indian Dream is left shattered.. shattered Big Time..

One year long fucking journey to 20th November ended in a huge disaster. Iam left depressed, demoralised and rejected. Life cannot be any more fucking full of shit! Hope the imprints of this Black Sunday are erased from my memory soon..

Letz go sightseeing

2005-11-11T22:34:00.000+05:30

Want to go to exotic locations?
Getting in touch with Cox & Kings or SOTC?

No need!, Google Sightseeing offers you the pleasure of roaming around the world from the comfort of your own computer. It is an intelligent and innovative extension exploiting Google's excellent Maps technology.

Google Sightseeing is not a part of Google Maps or even sponsored by Google, it simply links to the data found there, but is an excellent way to quickly locate many of the most popular tourist destinations in the world via satellite images from Google Maps.

So try out Google Sightseeing, meanwhile Iam off to a virtual tour of NYC!

Cheers!

Take on Project Management

2005-11-08T22:34:00.000+05:30

By any chance did you ever think that Project Management is a highly systematic and specialized thing? If yes, then your illusion is about to be eliminated..

In case you can't read:

Pic 1: How the costumer explained it
Pic 2: How the project leader understood it
Pic 3: How the analyst designed it
Pic 4: How the programmer wrote it
Pic 5: How the business consultant described it
Pic 6: How the project was documented!!
Pic 7: What operations installed
Pic 8: How the costumer was billed
Pic 9: How it was supported
Pic 10: WHAT THE COSTUMER REALLY NEEDED

Cheers!

World Usability Day: Making it easy

2005-11-03T23:59:00.000+05:30

Today, Novemeber 3 is celebrated as the World Usability Day. World Usability Day promotes the value of usability engineering, user-centered design, and every user's responsibility to ask for things that work better. The Usabililty Professionals' Association is doing that by encouraging, organizing, and sponsoring 36 hours of activities at the local level around the globe, all occurring on November 3, 2005.

Staying put on the same topic of usability, here is a piece of article, which says India is short of 60,000 usability professionals.

Stop It

2005-10-30T01:34:00.000+05:30

Stop it Pakistan..
Stop the terrorism..
Stop disturbing our peace..
When will you stop this blood bath?

A series of explosions rocked Delhi yesterday evening, killing at least 55 people and leaving many injured, some of them critically. Terrorist planted these bombs at very strategic locations targeting innocent people doing their last minute Diwali/Eid shopping. Blasts took place at busy South Delhi Markets of Sarojini Nagar and Govindpuri and in Central Delhi at Paharganj market. Fortunately, bomb in Chandni Chowk area was diffused. Market areas of Paharganj and Sarojini Nagar were reported to be choc-a-bloc with shoppers doing their last minute purchases for Diwali, just a few days away. The blasts are suspected to be the handiwork of banned Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Toiba outfit.

Without any reports or evidence, I have blatantly blamed Pakistan for the serial bomb blast that has rocked the capital city of India. I don't know why, but immediately after hearing this news, I couldn't control my anger against them and their act of sponsoring terrorism. They have continously stabbed our genuine efforts of peace building measures. Their terrorist stormed into our parliament, they unnecessarily bought up Kargil and are wholly responsible for turning beautiful valley of Jammu & Kashmir into terrorist haven. A stupid advise to top honchos of our country, stand up, get the forces in order and demolish this sick country, so that we can live in peace..

I apologize for my outburst, but terrorism is turning to be a huge menace to the society. They have turned the festive season of Diwali into days of grief and sorrow.

Readers, I didn't mean to hurt any sentiments. Well to digress from this topic, FYI, I am taking a sabbatical from blogging for few days as Iam heading to my home town, Delhi for Diwali, to be with my parents, brother and friends. But yesterday's event will have a bearing on how this festival will be celebrated this year. Wishing all a very happy diwali and at the same expressing grief over the incident and praying that affected people get well soon and the city comes out of chaos soon.

Arpit.

Human Clock

2005-10-28T11:13:00.000+05:30

I always thought machines were replacing humans. But alas, I have been proven wrong. A very unique clock has emerged on webscape recently; our good ol' mechanical clock is being replaced by the human clock! Oh, you credulous soul, have a look below:

The Human Clock is a collection of photographs and images made by people from all over the world to signify each minute in the 24-hour clock. The pictures vary between people holding up signs with the time on them, to photographs of every day objects made to look like the time. Charm of this clock is unthinkable and it is really fascinating to see all the different types of entry. Yesterday, I spend more than 1 hour checking all the entries and now this site is my official time-piece!

So what say, wanna check time on human clock?

Cheers.

What exactly is this RSS?

2005-10-27T15:34:00.000+05:30

RSS is a new web technology that helps online users manage the flood of information in cyberspace. RSS, these days is one of the latest buzzword on internet. Many tech savvy users or "geeks" might be aware of it, but for rest of the dolts, here is a quick FAQ on RSS, courtesy ABC News:

1. What is RSS?

RSS is a new way to publish information online. Depending on who you ask, RSS stands for either "Rich Site Summary" or "Really Simple Syndication." At the heart of the technology is special Web coding, called XML, that has been widely developed by the global online community over the past few years.The XML code for RSS describes a new type of Web information called a "news feed." Essentially, the feeds can contain a summary and links of the new content on a Web site or anything else a creator desires to share. Anyone — an online surfer or another Web site — can pick up the RSS codes and with the appropriate Web software display the information automatically. The concept is similar to how a newswire service operates: Information published by one news organization can be "syndicated" — picked up and displayed — by any other news organization.

2. What Does RSS Mean for Web Site Publishers?

Through syndication, online content creators have a much easier way to get their information published and seen. By supplying the RSS code on the Web site, visitors can "subscribe" to the feed and automatically receive updates on their personal computers of new content on the site. Such an RSS feed will free content creators from creating and sending e-mail reminders — many of which may be stopped by anti-spam filters.

3. Why Would Ordinary Web Users Like RSS?

For Web surfers, the advantages of RSS are quite simple: They save time and bandwidth. Instead of remembering to visit a favorite Web site, the news comes directly into your computer daily or at whatever interval you want. What's more, most RSS feeds contain just links, headlines or brief synopsis of new information only. That means the small amount of Web data can be sent to any XML-compatible device — a cell phone, pager or handheld computer — without a lengthy download process. More importantly, RSS gives you control over receiving information you want without revealing information about yourself. Unlike subscribing to an e-mail newsletter, you never have to give out your e-mail address with an RSS feed. That avoids the possibility of receiving spam or unwanted junk e-mail from the Web site.

4. What Do I Need to Receive RSS Feeds?

First, you need a so-called feed reader. Performing a search for "RSS Feed Readers" in any major online search engine such as Google.com or Yahoo! will produce a slew of software options — many of which are free or at little cost. Once you've obtained a feed reader, subscribing to an RSS feed is as simple as looking for the appropriate XML code. Most Web sites that publish an RSS feed will display a tiny orange box or button labeled "RSS" or "XML." Click the button and your Web browser typically goes to a page of cryptic code. Just copy the Web "address" or URL of that page and plug it into your feed reader. The software will then automatically retrieve and display that site's latest information.

Thatz all to know about RSS, guess now you are ready to conquer the information world!!

Cheers.

Apple gets sued over iPod nano scratches

2005-10-24T21:34:00.000+05:30

Unhappy iPod Nano customers are taking Apple to court over scratching issues they have experienced with their players. The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in San Jose, alleges the screens scratch even during normal usage, "causing Plaintiff class members to incur loss of use and monetary damages." The suit is the latest in a string of headaches for Apple over the device. Scratching problems have been the most common complaint from users, although several had screen breakage issues that Apple dismissed as a "quality control issue."

The lawsuit asks for damages including the retail price of the iPod Nano, statutory and punitive damages, and attorney's fees. Furthermore, the class action members want a portion of the Nano's profits.

Apple has repeatedly dismissed the scratching issue. "A few vocal customers are saying that their iPod nano is more susceptible to scratching than prior iPods," the company said previously. "The iPod nano is made with the same high-quality polycarbonate plastic as the fourth-generation iPod."The suit disagrees with this assessment, and suggests that Apple was attempting to profit off of the issue. "Rather than admit the design flaw when consumers began to express widespread complaints about the screen's propensity to scratch easily and excessively, Apple concealed the defect and advised class members that they would need to purchase additional equipment to prevent the screen from scratching excessively," the complaint alleges.

Click here for related article.

Few Internet Deception Methods

2005-10-23T19:34:00.000+05:30

It is a well known fact that consumers' ability to spot fraud in the Internet is still not very good. Even savvy users sometimes falter against the newest scam. What are the possible Internet Decpetion Methods? Here is a list of few:

Phishing: (also carding and spoofing) is a form of social engineering, characterized by attempts to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication, such as an email or an instant message. The term phishing arises from the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish" for users' financial information and passwords.

Pharming: is the exploitation of a vulnerability in the DNS server software that allows a hacker to acquire the Domain Name for a site, and to redirect that Web site's traffic to another Web site.

Page-jacking and mouse-trapping: are techniques used by scammers to divert Internet users from their intended Web destination (page-jacking) to the scammers site from which the user is unable to leave using their browsers back, forward or even close buttons (mouse-trapping).

Click here to read the article, Fine-tuning your Internet deception detectors.

Arpit.

Letz track her

2005-10-22T23:34:00.000+05:30

Worried, your wife is cheating on you?

Want to know where your daughter is late at night?

Forget-me-not panties answers all these questions. These panties have built-in GPS and unique sensor technology which can help give you her location, and even her temperature and heart rate, and she will never even know it's there! Unlike the cumbersome and uncomfortable chastity belts of the past, these panties are 100% cotton, and use cutting-edge technology to help you protect what matters most.

Want to order one? Or have a look at people's view of this amazing device.

Cheers.

| WetNoodle

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes

2005-10-21T13:49:00.000+05:30

Jakob Nielsen, often referred as the usability guru, has addressed usability issues concerning weblogs. According to him,

Weblogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.

Click here to read the top ten design mistakes concerning weblogs, which will enable you to put your blog for a usabiltiy test.

President Kalam warns against Google Earth

2005-10-21T05:23:00.000+05:30

Google Earth puts a planet's worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop and ever since its launch, has become one of the most popular services on the internet.

But many top government officials are wary of this service. Recently, Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has joined the list of government officials charging that the geographic details provided by Google Earth's satellite imaging program pose a security risk. "Developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen." Kalam said.

While addressing the nation's top police officers at the Vallabhabhai Patel National Police Academy at Hyderabad, he cautioned them to be aware of emerging "open-source intelligence." He also showed the audience aerial pictures of some of the sensitive locations in India.

"When you look deeper into it, you would realize that the specific laws in some countries, regarding spatial observations over their territory and UN recommendations about the display of spatial observations, are inadequate" he noted.

For entire story, click here.

Shitty Blogs

2005-10-21T05:04:00.000+05:30

While browsing random blogs, I stumbled upon a post which talked about Shitty Blogs. Shitty Blogs is a new and supposedly clever (or so the makers think) website, which aims to review all the really bad blogs out there in Blogland (good luck with that, dudes!). It's title is, very originally, Shitty Blogs, and this is how they describe themselves:

Shitty Blogs features reviews of blogs that are really boring, stupid, or ugly.

I liked their reviews and mailed their mastermind, Horatio to review my love blog - moronsgospel. But what followed, wasn't pretty. He tore my blog apart and described me horny! So all of you, looking for a good laugh, click here to read the review.

Cheers!

We have new 007

2005-10-19T11:04:00.000+05:30

The name's Bond. James Bond
.

This line has almost become a trite, but has always been associated with class and elegance! After Pierce Brosnan announced that Die Another Day would be his last outing in the famous tuxedo, the search was on to find his successor. Couple of days back, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Sony Pictures Entertainment, announced the arrival of new Bond Man. It is Daniel Craig, who takes over 007 mantle.

Craig will follow in the footsteps of previous Bond stars Pierce Brosnan, Sir Sean Connery, Sir Roger Moore, George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton. Daniel Craig has been cast in the role of the legendary British secret agent, James Bond, in the highly anticipated 007 adventure thriller Casino Royale.

Casino Royale will be the 21st James Bond film produced by the franchise holders, EON Productions. The MGM/Columbia Pictures production begins shooting in January and is due for release worldwide on November 17, 2006. It will be filmed in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy and the UK.

Bad Designs

2005-10-18T23:19:00.000+05:30

We have bag full of products, which we use almost daily, but are badly designed. Here are few examples:

1. Mixer Lid

While operating the mixture the snaps as locking device are not sufficient enough to hold the lid of mixer jar. It needs an external force for keeping it on the jar. This keeps the operator engaged unnecessarily. Even though its not required to hold it in position and a separate jar is provided for this purpose, due to the requirement the user uses in his own way.

2. Console Indicator in Pulsar

The dashboard consol show a blinking light as an indication when left or right indicator is on. But it doesn’t provide which indicator is on as the arrow provided without any separation. The two arrows have a common light. So when the indicator is turned on this light is lit. What it conveys could be more suggestive by lighting only one-half. The user can get the feedback by seeing the actual knob or by seeing the actual light. But when the console is provided which is located in such a way he get to see all the information, this could be enhanced more.

3. ATM - Swallowing of cards

One feels insecure if the card is swallowed by the machine. On contrary user feels in control with swapping action since he still holds it than loosing it altogether. Swallowing is rather a systems requirement than a users’ preferred option. Moreover, if case of system failure, the card gets stuck inside and the user is frustrated in such scenarios. Users especially in rush hours forget to get card back, which puts them in difficult positions. The next person may take advantage of his position which could have been avoided.

4. Door Handle of Hyderabad Buses

The handle at the door of entrance of Hyderabad city buses are hidden inside making it difficult for the users to find the location. It should be more promptly seen and accessible. Most of the passengers especially in rush hours and in Indian scenario run and catch the bus.

And there are plenty of more such products, coming out of our daily lives and we being ignorant fools, continue using them. Need of the hour is, good design to facilitate usable products for the users.

Arpit.

Big Black Pencil

2005-10-18T02:14:00.000+05:30

Wooden Wisdom has many takers and while surfing along Pencil Revolution, I came across very interesting website of Big Black Pencil, which say, Big Ideas come out of Big Pencils.

Visit the home of Big Black Pencil for one of the most coolest designed websites around. They say,

"Big black pencils are as much a part of Leo Burnett as
that ever-present bowl of crisp apples. Why? Because
Leo believed big ideas come out of big pencils."

Who is Leo Burnett? Well, Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 - June 7, 1971) was an advertising executive famous for creating such icons as the Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger.

Arpit.

Season to remember for Renault

2005-10-17T14:30:00.000+05:30

2005 Formula 1 season comprising of 19 races, most ever, came to an end yesterday. This season will go down in history books as the season which broke the back of Ferrari's and Micheal Schumacher's stranglehold on this sport. Fernando Alonso of Renault outfit, won 7 races on his way to becoming the youngest F1 champion at the age of 24. Throughout the season, he has been a model of consistency amalgamating it with cautious aggression and audacity. Meanwhile, in the last race at Shanghai, Renault also won the Overall Constructors Championship pipping McLaren by just 9 points. For, Renault a team which was never a big shot in this sport, all these achievements maybe looking like a dream come true and you can just imagine the wild celebrations that will be going on this time..

Congratulations to Renault and Fernando Alonso, but I cannot hide my disappointment that Kimi Raikkonen, the Iceman could not pull it off. He had argubaly the quickest car and the best package, but guess lady luck was never with him and he had to settle for 2nd position in the championship. Cheer up, Kimi, its just matter of time before you and McLaren totally dominate F1 and destroy your opponents!

A quick word on Micheal Schumacher:
This seven time world champion is undoubtedly the god of Formula 1. But for his sheer arrogance and supremacy, I hate him and his all red Ferrari Outfit. With great pleasure, I tell you that there is now a refreshing change in the sport. Ferrari have lost and Schumi's arrongant, all victorious arse has been kicked! And, it seems all is not well in Ferrari Camp, to my belief, Micheal has taken this season defeat very badly and after crashing out of the Shanghai race, he was so embarassed, that he could not show his face to anyone and was seen running away from the action to possible exile! Have a look below:

Cheers!

Google Fight

2005-10-16T13:04:00.000+05:30

Sachin Tendulkar v/s Sania Mirza

Cricket v/s Formula1

Love v/s Lust

Ever wondered who or what will win these fights? Worry not, we now have Googlefight at our disposable to put an end to all the nagging fights. Googlefight is a simple web service that allows users to compare the number of search results returned by the Google search engine for two given queries. The results are displayed graphically in a Flash animation.

Two animated stick figures fight on screen after the queries are entered, and then an animated bar graph appears showing the results.

So you ready to fight.. err, Googlefight.

Cheers.

Desi Cyberwar

2005-10-14T15:20:00.000+05:30

The hottest topic on blogosphere for quite sometime has undoubtedly been IIPM.

Brief History:
The furor started with the article by JAM, a youth magazine exposing IIPM. JAM and its editor Rashmi Bansal enjoy a strong following which troubled IIPM as their credibility was getting seriously tarnished with such an explosive article being read my thousands of people. They quickly got into action and gave Rashmi Bansal a legal notice and accused of her taking bribe, and claimed it was caught by a sting operation by AajTak. This accusation broke out a desi cyberwar, first of its kind with all the bloggers backing the JAM editor. Most desi bloggers supported her and wrote post in their blogs condeming IIPM and supporting Rashmi Bansal. One such blogger is Gaurav Sabnis, who was an IBM employee. IIPM decided to act against Sabnis and fired a legal notice to him. But this thing did not seem to bother Sabnis. But IIPM had another trick up its sleeve, they put pressure on Sabnis employers IBM - saying they would burn the IBM laptops they use on their campus in front of IBM Delhi Office. IBM last year sold 1,500 laptops to IIPM . Seeing that, IBM was unnecessarily being dragged into the controversy, Sabnis being a man of principles, decided to stand by his opinion about IIPM and thus quit his job at IBM.

Current Status:
Blogosphere is united, and totally against IIPM. This controversy has now become a national news. To put smile on bloggers who condemn IIPM, Outlook Magazine has issued a caution notice:

But sad news is that after Gaurav Sabnis, another blogger has become a victim of IIPM rage. Varna has recieved a legal notice and that too, a 175 crore lawsuit. This war is turning real ugly, innocent bloggers are getting targeted, which has angered the online community a lot. In response to this an Online Petition has been created to protest against IIPM.

This is turning out to be a fascinating story because this war is looked at as a fundamental breach of the right to free speech. But as they say every war is ugly and same is the true with this one. Bloggers are getting threatning legal notices, people are losing their jobs but the sad part is that future of IIPM students is getting damaged because of all the bad publicity their institute has gained in these last few weeks. Just for the record, Iam sympathizing with IIPM students, but not with IIPM. For years it's outrageous ads have been a menace and it was about time, things were put in right perspective.

To end this post, I have this great feeling to witness and be part of the first cyberwar of the country but at the same time, my sympathy to Rashmi, Gaurav and Varna. I hope they come victorious out of this mess!

Arpit.

Other Side of the Coin

2005-10-12T12:51:00.000+05:30

When you come across such things, frustation level just soars up because other side of the coin is rusting and we seem to be doing nothing about it.

Can't we do something to stop this rusting.. don't we have any moral responsibility?

Arpit.

Aargh..

2005-10-11T11:29:00.000+05:30

whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy
whythewhywhywhymoronwhywhyinsidewhywhy
whywhymewhywhywhyrefuseswhywhywhytowhy
whywhywhywhydiewhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy

.
Don't even try to make sense out of this gibberish!!
Alas, I thought, I had regained senses :(

Toxic Blogs

2005-10-11T04:29:00.000+05:30

Blogging has oflate stormed into the Internet Community and its presence can be seen anywhere and everywhere. With such phenomenal success, it was just matter of time before cybercriminals took a note of it. This is exactly what has happened, below is a shocking piece of news:

Cybercriminals are increasingly hosting malicious files on blogs, ready for a Trojan to download them to a victim's PC.

Blogs started turning toxic in the first half of 2005 as malware authors started using free Web hosting and blogging services to store their malicious files, according to Internet security firm Websense.
According to the Websense Security Trends Report 2005, the first half of this year saw the Web become "by far the fastest growing attack vector", as malware authors started distributing links to malicious files in socially engineered e-mails instead of sending the actual files, which would most likely be blocked by corporate antivirus and spam filters. "These aren't the kind of Web sites that someone would stumble upon and infect their machine accidentally. The success of these attacks relies upon a certain level of social engineering to persuade the individual to click on the link. In addition, the blogs are being utilised as the first step of a multi-layered attack that could also involve a spoofed e-mail, Trojan horse or keylogger," the report said.
The increasing popularity of sites offering free blogs and Web space means malware authors now have access to an almost unlimited amount of hosting space in which to store their code. Websense claims that the general lack of security provided by these services means they are now regularly used to launch attacks.
"The blog can be used as a storage mechanism, which keeps malicious code that can be accessed by a Trojan horse that has already been hidden on the user's computer [blogs] do not require any identity authentication to post information, and most blog hosting facilities do not provide antivirus protection for posted files," the report said.
In July, Websense told ZDNet Australia that it had seen an alarming increase in Web sites offering free hosting services being used to store and distribute malware, which indicates that this trend is set to continue being a problem for the foreseeable future. At the time, Dan Hubbard, senior director of security and technology research at Websense, said more malware was found on free hosting services during the first two weeks of July than in May and June combined.

Sorry state of affairs..

No. 1: The Knife

2005-10-09T05:28:00.000+05:30

Forbes ranked the "2o Most Important Tools" recently, and the knife topped the charts.

Forbes.com readers, editors and a panel of experts rank the knife as the most important tool of all time, in terms of its impact on human civilization.

The knife is one of the most ancient tools in our arsenal, in use for more than 2 million years, longer than modern humans have walked the Earth. It's evolved alongside us, changing form to meet our needs and demands. Knives help feed us, shelter us, defend us and assure our survival. It's the most reliable, useful and important tool in human history.

For full story on this, click here.

Cheers.

Notice

2005-10-08T12:14:00.000+05:30

October 7, 2005
1902 Hours

Moron Regains Senses,

ANNOUNCES

Termination Of
MORONSGOSPEL

Arpit.

Possible Avatar?

2005-10-08T02:36:00.000+05:30

Gone are the days when mobile phones were used only for talking. Now we are in age where mobile phones means ringtones, SMS, caller tunes, bluetooth, games, photos and the list simply goes on. I was contemplating what else could be in store for us in coming years and then I got my hands at an interesting pic:

Doesn't Mobile Phone + Swiss Knife makes for a good combo?

Cheers.

England stamps Ashes triumph

2005-10-06T15:30:00.000+05:30

Its no secret that I hate Australia's cricketing supremacy and I was totally ecstatic when England won the Ashes. For me, arrogance of Australian players and media, a byproduct of their supremacy is perhaps most irritating. But England have come up with a great idea to kick their arrogance by stamping Ashes triumph, their style of celebrating their nerve-wracking series victory this summer. Imagine Ricky Ponting receiveing mails from his friends from England with this stamp on it.. is he going to cry or tear that mail apart?

Images of Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen and England colleagues will appear on four stamps to mark the "momentous occasion" of regaining the Ashes from Australia. The English cricketers will be the first living people outside the Royal Family to have their likenesses clearly identifiable on British stamps.

The stamps go on sale this Thursday.

| Rediff

Yahoo! trying to catch up

2005-10-04T08:20:00.000+05:30

Google has been working on the idea of Online library for over a year now and now Yahoo! is trying to catch up. Guess, they have realized that this idea is a hot cake, so today Yahoo! came up with plans to build a vast online library of books and multimedia files.

Check out this piece of news:

INTERNET group Yahoo! today outlined plans to build a vast online library of books and multimedia files that will address publishers' copyright concerns.

The Open Content Alliance, a project that the search engine is backing with several other partners, plans to provide digital versions of books, academic papers, video and audio. Much of the material will consist of copyrighted material voluntarily submitted by publishers and authors.

Other participants in the alliance include software firm Adobe Systems, PC maker Hewlett-Packard, the Internet Archive, O'Reilly Media, the University of California and the University of Toronto. The potentially vast library would be searchable and freely available to anyone, whether individual web surfers or commercial sites.

Although Yahoo! will power the search engine located at www.opencontentalliance.org, all the content will be made available so it can be indexed by all the other major search engines, including that of rival Google. By joining the project, Yahoo! is hoping to upstage Google, which has a one-year head start on scanning and indexing books so more literature and academic research can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

David Mandelbrot, Yahoo!'s vice president of search content, said: "We are building a collaborative effort that will make a great deal of copyrighted material available in a way that's acceptable to the creators. That is novel."

Guess in this fight of supremacy between Yahoo and Google, we users will probably emerge as winners because of free access to loads of materials.

Banned Books Week

2005-10-02T14:10:00.000+05:30

Banned Books Week, celebrated this year from September 24 - October 1, came to an end yesterday. Herez a short note on Banned Books Week:

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.
Banned Books Week (BBW) celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

Each year, the American Library Association (ALA) is asked why the week is called “Banned Books Week” instead of “Challenged Books Week,” since the majority of the books featured during the week are not banned, but “merely” challenged. There are two reasons. One, ALA does not “own” the name Banned Books Week, but is just one of several cosponsors of BBW; therefore, ALA cannot change the name without all the cosponsors agreeing to a change. Two, none want to do so, primarily because a challenge is an attempt to ban or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A successful challenge would result in materials being banned or restricted.

To check the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 1990-2000, click here.

Just Curious

2005-09-30T03:42:00.000+05:30

Questions just keep popping up in our minds and most of the obscure questions remain unanswered. But not any longer, because now therez a site which can satisfy your thirst of curiousity. Website's URL couldn't have been more intutive -

This is what they say about themselves:

justcurio.us is an anonymous question and answer system, open to anyone, with one simple rule: to ask a question, you must first answer someone else's question. Question yields answer yields question. Strangers helping strangers.

The questions can be about anything — the best Beatles album, your saddest moment, your worst fear, your biggest regret, your fondest childhood memory, the meaning of life, whether you should break up with your girlfriend, the best crepe place in Paris, the best cure for loneliness. Anything at all. This is our chance to lean on each other, to look to a stranger for help, to discover what other people think.

justcurio.us is entirely confidential, allowing anyone to ask and answer questions with complete anonymity.

So, what's on your mind? Somebody may have an answer to it!

Arpit.