Happy Thanksgiving

Thilak Raj Rao" has sent you an e-card! You can view the e-card by
following the directions in your e-mail program to display the HTML
image.

If you have any comments or questions, please visit
http://ecards.plaxo.com/ or contact us at ecards@plaxo.com. Thank
you!

Card text follows:
Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and generosity.

You're the best!

- Thilak

Wikipedia Day 2006 : Wikipedians Celebrate Fifth Birthday

Wikipedia is 5 years old on January 15 and is fondly known as Wikipedia Day to Wikipedians. Commenting about the Wikipedia Day 2006, a Wikipedia page says "The English Wikipedia alone now has more than 920,000 articles, with over 340,000,000 words. The millionth article is expected to appear in late February or early March.

Read More.

Firefox 2 roadmap

If you are enjoying browsing with your latest version of Firefox 1.5, then Firefox 2 roadmap will give you an insight for what lies ahead... Mozilla.org has released the Firefox Roadmap 2. And it says "Firefox 2 will be based on continued development of the Gecko 1.8 branch created for Firefox 1.5. The goal is that Firefox 1.5 and 2 are compatible from a web developer's point of view

'Blackcomb' Renamed to 'Vienna'

Microsoft has changed the code-name for the next version of Windows after Vista from "Blackcomb" to "Vienna," according to company evangelist and blogger Robert Scoble. Blackcomb was named back in 2000, when Windows XP was still known as Whistler. But Microsoft says it needed a name that fit the "Vista" theme.

Gmail Gives Up, Adds Delete Button

When it first launched in 2004, Google's Gmail was missing a key feature available in competing e-mail services and clients: a prominent delete button. Although Gmail offered deleting through a dropdown, Google felt users should never have to delete messages thanks to expanded storage. But the company has finally given in.

Send Huge Files

If you have large files to e-mail, you owe it to yourself to check out this free service, www.yousendit.com . It lets you send files up to 1GB to anyone with an e-mail address, without clogging up the recipient’s mailbox. It uploads your file to their server, and then sends a link to the designated e-mail address. The recipient clicks on the link to download your file. A great service and highly recommended

Florida spammer faces $11bn fine

A US-based ISP has been awarded $11.2bn (£6.38bn) in a judgment against a Florida spammer who sent millions of unsolicited emails to its users.
The damages were awarded to CIS Internet Services, according to a the report by Associated Press.

Robert Kramer, the owner of CIS, filed a lawsuit against James McCalla and other defendants in 2003 claiming that more than 280 million spam email messages were sent to CIS email accounts. The emails advertised mortgages, debt consolidation services, pornographic and gambling Web sites.
The judgment, given by US District Judge Charles R. Wolle on 23 December, 2005, also prohibits McCalla from accessing the Internet for three years.

All I can say is Yay!!

Florida spammer faces $11bn fine

A US-based ISP has been awarded $11.2bn (£6.38bn) in a judgment against a Florida spammer who sent millions of unsolicited emails to its users.
The damages were awarded to CIS Internet Services, according to a the report by Associated Press.

Robert Kramer, the owner of CIS, filed a lawsuit against James McCalla and other defendants in 2003 claiming that more than 280 million spam email messages were sent to CIS email accounts. The emails advertised mortgages, debt consolidation services, pornographic and gambling Web sites.
The judgment, given by US District Judge Charles R. Wolle on 23 December, 2005, also prohibits McCalla from accessing the Internet for three years.

All I can say is Yay!!

Victorinox Swiss Army Knife with MP3 player

The Victorinox Swiss Army Knife cannot be accused of being behind the times – it now comes with a 1GB detachable MP3 player. Staples include a blade, nail file, and a pair of scissors. The MP3 player comes with an FM radio, voice recorder, a remote control dongle, a jogging arm-band, and supports MP3, WAV, and WMA playback. Check out the features after the jump. Via Random Good Stuff

Click here to see it

Windows XP SP3 Not Until Late 2007

According to an update on Microsoft's support lifecycle Web site, the next service pack for Windows XP isn't due out until the second half of 2007 -- one full year after Windows Vista launches. XP SP3 will likely serve as a cumulative update for what will soon become Microsoft's legacy operating system.

Google Talk Opens to Other IM Services

Google on Tuesday announced it was opening up Google Talk to all other instant messaging networks that utilize the XMPP protocol, developed for Jabber. The move to federate means Google users can communicate directly with users of Earthlink, Gizmo Project, Tiscali, Netease, Chikka, MediaRing and others.

IE 7 vs Firefox 1.5 vs Opera 9

The upcoming releases of IE, Firefox, and Opera show that innovation in Web Browser Development has just come to an end. Companies are simply integrating the more popular features of rival products into their browsers. No radical changes are planned in any of the upcoming browser releases. It is very possible that in near future - IE, Firefox, and Opera will all have similar features and similar, tight interfaces.

1. IE 7 includes tabbed browsing, a capability that Firefox and Opera have offered for a while.
2. IE 7 has an integrated search box similar to that in Firefox and Opera.
3. Both IE 7 and Firefox 1.5 offer an easy method for deleting personal browsing data (browser cache, URL history, saved forms) via one menu option. The feature already exists in Opera 8.5.
4. Firefox 1.5 offer automatic updates similar to IE.
5. Opera comes with several advanced features that you can get in Firefox only with add-ons, and that IE lacks entirely.

Erik Larkin compares the three most popular browser on earth - Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1, Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 1, and Opera 9 Preview 1. He also mentions Flock, a social browsing application. Flock rethinks the browser as a tool for creating Weblogs, organizing bookmarks and connecting with others online.

IE 7: The new Phishing Filter in IE aims to warn users if they visit a known or potential phishing site--a function previously available only via third-party toolbars.

Firefox 1.5: Firefox 1.5 includes drag-and-drop tab reordering. The new Auto-update process is streamlined and smooth.

Opera 9: Users can choose which Web sites can run JavaScript or display images. And the impressive built-in RSS feed handler now supports Atom 1.0. However, Opera has no plans to introduce Firefox-like extensions, so if you don't like the way it does something, you're stuck.

Browser Market Share: Though IE has been losing market share, it remains dominant yet. The number of users jumping to Firefox has slowed recently leading some experts to suggest only a finite number of people are willing or able to try an alternate browser.

Read full story at PCWorld - Browser Face-Off

The $100 laptop is a design for an inexpensive laptop computer intended to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. The computers will be rugged, Linux-based, and so energy efficient that hand-cranking alone will generate sufficient power for operation. Ad-hoc wireless mesh networking may be used to allow many machines Internet access from one connection. The pricing goal is to start at $100 and then steadily decrease. The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child.The laptop is being developed by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization. OLPC is a Delaware-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute the laptops. OLPC was announced by Lab chairman and co-founder Nicholas Negroponte at the January 2005 World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. The laptop is sometimes called the Green Machine

Features:
A "special" 500-MHz CPU by AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) Inc with 0.25 W power consumption. SVGA 7.5″ diagonal transmissive and reflective liquid crystal display used in one of two modes: Transmissive Color/DVD mode with 350 by 470 pixel resolution with backlighting (for laptop use) Reflective "sunlight readable" monochrome mode with 800 by 600 pixel resolution (for ebook reading outdoors) 128 MB of DRAM 512 MB of flash memory Wireless networking using an "Extended Range" 802.11b wireless chipset run at a low bitrate (2 Mbps) to minimize power consumption. Conventional layout alphanumeric keyboard localized for the country of use. touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input two loudspeakers 4 USB ports. Power sources: AC Cord that doubles as carrying strap two C (R14) or D size rechargable batteries and a hand-crank generator four C (LR14) or D (LR20) alkaline batteries.

The Brand new Logo of this Weblog