Google's holiday wishes

This is the mail I got from Google wishing me happy holidays. Its more focused on google.org , Google's philanthropy arm. Check out the greetings here - http://www.google.com/advertising/holiday2009/. Nice one.

Chapter one - The end game

Finally after 3 yrs and still with no plot in hand , I managed to take the story to a logical conclusion. You can read it here. I got this idea to break up the entire thing into chapters from one of the comments posted in the site.So, Read on...

Why a job is bad for you!

Consider a watchman. How much does he earn in a city like Bangalore ?, where each and every mud hut needs a security/caretaker. Contrast it with the pay of the very people he is guarding/caretaking. What will be his sense of achievement and what are his career prospects say like after 10 years of service? He shall become the respected Head watchman,if he's not already died of boredom.

Now consider a software engineer. How much does he earn? The same case holds true for him also. Every other fellow walking on the streets of Bangalore works for a software company. What are his career prospects,again take a ten year time frame. He shall become the veritable team lead after 5 and maybe if he's not fired or dead , a project manager. Contrast this with his employer's.

Can't you see the analogy ? Hard to miss I'd say. Spending a lifetime guarding someone else's property is hardly appealing but that's what people do for a living.

The employed works for a life,the employer lives the life.

Find (And Watch) Your Favorite TV Shows On The Internet

A good one from the Netted. This new site Clicker offers a precise way to locate and watch 400,000 episodes from about 7,000 TV shows. Clicker brings you only broadcast-quality TV shows and web originals .It makes it insanely easy to locate the studio-produced versions of the TV shows you want to see with none of the junk that comes up when you’re doing a broader search. (They also have movies and music videos).When you find something you want to watch Clicker either plays it on the site or takes you to one of the hubs where this content is shown, such as Hulu, CBS.com or Amazon Video on Demand.

One of the more useful features is the ability to make playlists, which essentially allows you to “subscribe” to a particular show. Clicker will send you an email notification when new episodes are available.

I haven't tried it out yet.

The story of the 'unfinished'

The valley of fear - ii was inspired from a character 'Birdy Edwards', in one of the Sherlock Holmes' novel titled 'The valley of fear'.The story inside the story, is of a detective from the famous Pimberton detective agency going deep under cover to break up an illegal organisation in the old, wild west of the U.S of A.
Thus I started my feeble attempt at writing, but without a plot in hand it was destined to fail from the start. Now after some three years ,as I look upon to revive the story, I still have no solid plot and I don't even know what to do with the characters; whether to place them in the pre-internet era or to give them a crime of sherlockian standards.

With the kind of reviews that are coming in, urging me to complete the story, I fear to tweak the original text to suite the new plot, for I'm sure I won't be able to keep upto the quality of the original.

Back to the past - Chemistry

Long back, when i was in my 11th and 12th, preparing for IITs,NITs and all other Ts, my dream was to become a chemical engineer. Chemistry was home turf for me , especially the organic part. My dreams revolved around the Benzene rings , the H2O2 and the likes of HexaMethylene Tri-Acetides (Does it exist??). All I could see were elements and compounds around me waiting for me to tinker with. And some of the most horribly gone wrong experiments in my life involved chemistry(there are others involving physics and magnetism too, but all about that later).Once

• when I tried creating hydrogen from water ( was pretty dangerous and dumb too)
• and when for the sake of human kind , I ventured into home based Methane production.It was a failure on a grand scale.

The lessons learnt ? - That water is a good conductor of electricity and that trash kept for a long time stinks.

So when i saw this article in sciencenews.org about Nitrogen-Nitrogen bonds all that terrible memories came flooding in.
The article talks about a new method of breaking N-N bonds to create carbon-nitrogen bond.
Facts that I learnt in school about N2.

Nitrogen is the element that makes up the largest percentage of the atmosphere, about 80%.But still we need nitrogen fixing bacteria to bring it to soil. For fertilizer production the N2 has to be bonded with Hydrogen and converted to ammonia to form a carbon-nitrogen bond,because N-N bonds are one of the toughest bonds found.

Why don't you just read the rest here - article

Domain woes - resolved

I found this site http://everydns.com where poor chaps like me who can't afford to rent a server can find solace. Just go there and you can add your domain name and configure the so called A name, CNAME , whatever whatever. Essentially, my point is , you need not own a server to point your domain name to your blog or for that matter even for creating a subdomain.

The step by step procedure on how to go about it is given in Google itself. https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=76049

P:S - my domain is http://autumn.co.in and the www is kept parked as of now and http://sarathainside.blogspot.com will automatically redirect to http://blog.autumn.co.in

Pagination

As part of my office research time (read, there is absolutely nothing to do at office) and as a part of my ongoing study of oracle (learning!!, I need it for my survival ) , I was pondering how to retrieve a set of rows from MIN_ROW_NUMBER through MAX_ROW_NUMBER. I was looking to replicate the functions of "head" and "tail" commands in unix.

The word might be hard to swallow, but the concept in plain english is digestible like a banana. I am talking about Oracle pagination - put in simple terms, the process of getting a set of rows between a specified min and max rows. Say , we need to get all the rows between 3rd and 5th including them both. How do you go about it? It is basically used in web pages for displaying a set of fields, say set of rows from 10-30, and user can click next to view resultset 30-50 or click the previous button to view another set of rows.

Solution , you gotto use the magic column "rownum". Read it in detail here - http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/07-jan/o17asktom.html
(rownum is an oracle specific field, please find your own solution for other DBs like MySql)
Here's the query i came up with .

select * from (select * from "tablename" where rownum <=5 order by rownum desc) where rownum <=3;

the only issue here is that the retrieved set is inverted,that is you get from 5 to 3 , rather than 3 to 5 as you were expecting. Workaround is to introduce a seperate column, populate it with rownum and orderby that.

Domain woes

My long time dream of owning my own domain name bore fruit today and as usual along with it came new and unnecessary troubles. I simply don't know what to do with it, since I don't have a hosting plan. And trying to make it point to this blog, well, I just wasted 4 hrs and is still shooting at the stars.
Another bad Bangalore day

The need to try

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.

Essentially , we owe it to ourselves that we try and try we must.Since It is only by trying that we learn. So why a departure from my usual posts? Well , I have had this feeling for the past few days that I've converted my own blog into some sort of a portal, instead of taking time to deliver valuable content. And also, I am becoming increasingly frustrated at how easily people are give up just because things don't happen the way they intend them to. I'm referring specifically but not necessarily confining myself to the case of

job hunting.

People look for jobs for a variety of reasons,

1. Simply because they have no other job, and job hunting is like a passion , rather an obsession for them
2. Because they are in dire need of a job
3. Or they need a job just for the heck of it.
   

Whatever be the reason, If one needs a job or forget job, if one needs something, anything, he/she must be prepared to work for it, give it 100% and even if things don't work out the way they planned, be prepared to try, until the very end, until the objective is attained. Getting a job is not that hard but the only hurdle towards getting one is lack of trying. You might not get it the first time, not the second time, maybe not even for the fifth or sixth time, But in the end, perseverance pays. All that focused work, towards a needy goal, all that effort wouldn't just go wasted, would it?

Panasonic wins control of Sanyo

Panasonic has bought majority shares in Sanyo. Both lead the market in rechargeable batteries for hybrid cars and other such environmentally sound products. with the current hype in environmentalism reaching a feverish pitch , the deal makes much sense, for the opportunities are clear and evident.
Related :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8405757.stm
http://www.skynews.com.au/tech/article.aspx?id=404593

KBBWWCW84S6P

Bing to index Twitter updates

Microsoft has a new weapon in its Internet search duel with Google - full access to Twitter’ tweets.Microsoft apparently outbid Google Inc. for the right to index and display the tweets almost as soon as they are posted.

But,recently i had also come across another article saying Google is coming up with a next generation search engine that indexes tweets real time. Also there are claims of Yahoo having access to twitter's data. Well, one thing that's certain is , that access to twitter , the one window to real time happenings is the apple pie that everyone wants.

And the most ironic thing is twitter is yet to make a profit.

Google to limit free news access ?

Well, apparently , the web giant found it difficult to take on the likes of Rupert Murdoch and is setting a limit on its users on the number of free articles they can read from a site.
Read original article

Google to limit free news access

Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced.

The concession follows claims from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages.Under the First Click Free programme, publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages.

"Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free," Google senior business product manager

“ This may still be a significant moment in the battle between old and new media ”
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent

"Now, we've updated the programme so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing."Google users may start seeing registration pages appear when they click for a sixth time on any given day at websites of publishers using the programme, according to Mr Cohen.

'Significant move'

The announcement is seen as a reaction to concerns in the newspaper industry that Google is using newspaper content unfairly.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of Newscorp, has accused firms such as Google of profiting from journalism by generating advertising revenue by linking readers to newspaper articles.

Some readers have discovered they can avoid paying subscription fees to newspaper websites by calling up their pages via Google. This is because Google searches frequently link directly to newspaper articles, bypassing some sites' subscription systems.

The Webby Awards

link I came across this award way back in 2000 and what caught my attention was their five word limit for the winner's speech. And the eye catcher was Al Gore's five word speech -
"Please don't recount this vote"
A reference to that year's presidential race fiasco . Al Gore was given the webby lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet .Article

The Webby Awards is an international paid-entry-exclusive award honoring excellence on the Internet, including websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile web sites, presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences since 1996.[Wiki]

2009 awards-http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/the-webby-awards-in-more-than-five-words/

News : Webby Awards Entries Deadline Is On DEC. 18TH!

The annual webby awards deadline for entries is on Dec 18th link.

I promise to write a detailed article on webby awards and their most interesting award winning speeches. My favourite one is Al gore's.

[The Webby 411]
WEBBY AWARDS ENTRIES DEADLINE IS DEC. 18TH!

The time to submit your entries for the 14th Annual Webby Awards is now. Never have there been more ways to be recognized for your amazing online content. With over 100 categories, this year promises to highlight the best of the best on the Web like never before. To acknowledge your innovative Mobile Web work, last year we introduced the much-requested Mobile Applications category. This includes apps for the iPhone, Android, Nokia devices, and all other mobile operating systems. We're getting some very exciting entries in this category already and we're sure there's more to come. In the meantime, go check out last year's winners. Enter now to get your work in front of the judges and part of the only award show CNN referred to as, "An online institution for more than a decade." Enter now before the Final Entry Deadline of Dec. 18th.

Netted - apologies , It's a good site :D

Well, seems my prejudiced mind has led you down the wrong road of prejudices once again. my post Netted? about the Netted site was wrong.

Sincere apologies to that.

Ever since that last post, The Netted has been sending me "netted" contents from all over the net to my inbox. The best part of which is , it doesn't spam your inbox.There is not more than 1 mail per day.

Spamming! Innovation abound

Who said the spammers are dead? Well if no one has, my apologies.. :D . They aren't.
And guess what, the new phishing people (the phish people) are capable of cheating even the mighty google and that too, at their own home turf -The Anti webmail spam technology.Here's a mail that cheated their most efficient spam filters(my gmail inbox is virtually spam free , so even occasional glitches get highlighted ;) . sorry google).And this time, its not the usual *****, its JOB OPENING .How they knew i was jobless is a different story altogether :P.

JOB OPENING
brenda flisher Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 8:38 AM
Reply-To: brenda_consult03@yahoo.com
Hello,


We are offering this position (Accounts Receivable Officer) interested applicants. Please carefully read through. We serve the entire United States and a growing export market, particularly in the supplies of selected products.

Superior products including Sofas & Love seats, Bedding Ensembles, Chairs & Ottomans...Your primarytask for now, as a representative of the company is to coordinate payments from customers and help us with the payments processing. You are not involved in any sales for now.

Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer. After this has been done the customer has to pay for the products but in most cases we make our clients prepay for orders or items they ordered for.

About 90 percent of our customers prefer to pay through Cashiers Checks or Money Orders or Cash drawn from the United States. Because of the increasing number of clients, We have decided to open this new contract -to-hire job position for solving this problem.

Your First Primary task(Collection of Payments):
1. Receive payment from our Customers or Clients..
2. Cash Payment at your Bank or any cashing facilities near you.
3. Deduct 10% which will be your percentage/pay on Payment processed .
4. Forward balance after deduction of percentage/pay to any of the offices you will be contacted to send payment to.

You'll have a lot of free time doing another job because this job is part-time.. You'll receive good income. Get back to us with the below information so that we can add your mailing address to our regional database and forward it to our customers for them to send payments.

NAME:
HOME ADDRESS (NOT P.O BOX ADDRESS):
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
COUNTRY:
PHONE NUMBER:
EMAIL ADDRESS:
PRESENT OCCUPATION:
AGE:

Human Resources Department,
Regional Manager,
GLASSGOW FURNITURE COMPANY
Email:brenda_consult03@yahoo.com


At GLASSGOW FURNITURE, We are proud of our past, encouraged for our future and genuinely excited to make furnitures for the most important people there are - you.

BRENDA FLISHER
FOR: GLASSGOW FURNITURE

I googled the name brenda flisher to no avail. Maybe time shall cast light upon this mysterious woman, whom i shall call hence forth - 'The Woman' .

Sherlock style

Best of Web - 1

http://ubersuper.com/ . As the name indicates, it indeed is a super site with ubundant creative photography skills displayed. And guess what? "it's all for free" !!!! .

Nice photos. You'll love it. Here's a glimpse to what awaits you at this beautiful site.

9/11 wikileaks

Wikileaks at http://911.wikileaks.org/ have given unprecedented access to the pager data of all the officials and individuals in and around the NewYork city about the time the 9/11 events were unfolding.

9/11 tragedy pager intercepts.

From 3AM on Wednesday November 25, 2009, until 3AM the following day (US
east coast time), WikiLeaks released half a million US national
text pager intercepts. The intercepts cover a 24 hour period surrounding the
September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

The messages were broadcasted "live" to the global community —
sychronized to the time of day they were sent. The first message was from 3AM
September 11, 2001, five hours before the first attack, and the last, 24
hours later.

Text pagers are usualy carried by persons operating in an official
capacity. Messages in the archive range from Pentagon, FBI, FEMA and New York Police
Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults at investment banks
inside the World Trade Center

The archive is a completely objective record of the defining moment of
our time. We hope that its entrance into the historical record will
lead to a nuanced understanding of how this event led to death, opportunism and war.

Twitter users may use the hashtag

#911txts. We will give status updates at twitter.com/wikileaks.

Observations may be

posted to reddit. Please vote for important material.

Please remember to

protect and support our work.

An index of messages released is available here.

All pager messages released can be downloaded here as a single compressed text file.

BSNL launches prepaid broadband

BSNL has come up with yet another innovative scheme. This time its broadband and guess what , it has gone prepaid.I recommend BSNL because i have been its subscriber since their plan 250 was introduced. Superior quality coupled with low prices with excellent customer care service. That's BSNL for you.

Check it up here. http://www.thehindu.com/2009/11/19/stories/2009111961780300.htm

Oprah Winfrey to End Her Talk Show !!

I don't know much about this talk show simply because i haven't seen even a single episode. However one need not see a thing to believe it. So it came as a shocker when news about drawing the final curtains on the show broke.
Well , it had to end some day.And no better time to stop than when the show is going well, sitting on the top of the charts with loyal viewers who have nothing bad to say.

This is the original news article on the topic. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/oprah-winfrey-to-end-her-talk-show/?hp&emc=na

Kerala KSRTC booking goes online

Kerala KSRTC a.k.a aana vandi has gone online (Late as USUAL).

Here is the link - http://keralartconline.com/

Finally our kerala govt has caught up with the rest of the states. Only thing to be seen is whether this will be a case of the classic "too little, too late". I got to know it from this obscure article in The Hindu.
The site offers booking for some 180 bus services including for intra state transportation.How many will avail of this service is something that remains to be seen.
The booking for inter state services seems to be good.With the fare far below than what is offered by other bus services. I have not tested how robust is the site with transactions. Or what are the means through which transactions can be done - net banking or credit/debit cards.

Netted?

Another of those beta sites that tell you what's interesting out there in the WWW.
I got this site from webby awards site. Since subscribing to it , i have received only two mails. http://www.netted.net/ Going there isn't much use to anyone. They have made registration mandatory to subscribe.

Tactics

;).

And their claim to send one GOOD mail everyday , Well, that ain't the case for me.

Internet Evolution

The macrosite for news, analysis and opinion about the future of the internet

This is a vast site , therefore getting around is not easier. If you are a casual observer/browser , it indeed is a macrosite. There is a logo that says "sponsored by ibm" right at the top.That gives the site an aura of credibilty.

Site Layout:
At the left side is a tab that says NEWS , big and bold. And it indeed is a news section worth going through. It is an aggregate of tech and internet related news from sites like www.nytimes.com, www.reuters.com, online news etc. The news is vast and does not necessarily pertain to internet as such,but the tech industry as a whole. It is not a US oriented news section and has sufficient enough coverage about the whole virtual world. Its so long that it stretches right to the bottom of the page.

The site is divided into two sections vertically. The left side is for news and the
RIGHT SIDE, contains various features and contents spread out one over the other like..

a moderated blogosphere of internet experts

various IBM sponsored contents.

an IBM information resource

also unsurprisingly it seems they are in need of moderators for this vast site.

Wanted! Site Moderators

Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?

Please email: moderators

The Guardian (Tv series) -Simon baker - theme song

The guardian is a series being aired on axn. Wiki link . Here's the IMDB link
The opening music was very haunting , so i extracted the opening music from a youtube video .. ripped the dialogue apart , and joined up the two files using audacity.

Download it here

100 Days of blogging

Today Starts the blog a day marathon. Hopefully these blogs will be of some value to someone out there.

Linux.com is Relaunching

Just found out this post from linux.com. They are relaunching

The Linux Foundation is taking over Linux.com. We couldn't be more excited to work with you on building a community resource for Linux users worldwide.

For the community, by the community, Linux.com will be the central source for Linux information, software, documentation and answers across the server, desktop/netbook, mobile, and embedded areas.

Much like Linux itself, Linux.com will rely on the community to create and drive the content and conversation. While the Linux Foundation will provide the collaborative forum, we hope you - the real experts on Linux - will provide the content. Starting now, we'd like to hear your suggestions on what you'd like to see in the new Linux.com. We've created an IdeaForge for you to post, vote and discuss these ideas.

wonder what they will come up with .