Tame a Geek?

Here is how to do it

India: Broadband, Indo Mail and Open Sky

Last time I heard, Pakistan's broadband policy was to be announced two weeks ago. But what do PR managers for the Minister of IT know, eh? ;~) If you've seen any news confirming anything about the policy, do comment.

Meanwhile, the Indian broadband policy is serious about spreading the 'always-on' bug and getting 'Indo-Mail' back to India. Thanks to my friend Murali for the pointer.

From The Hindu news item of Saturday: "The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will monitor the speed offered by the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and consumers can cite the broadband policy and take the ISPs to court if the speed is less than the minimum of 256 kbps. 'There was no broadband and no classification. We were stuck at the dial-up network stage. My feeling is that people using dial-up will migrate to the `always-on' 256 kbps. They are paying Rs. 1,000 per month for low Internet speeds. Our initiatives will bring higher speeds for less than Rs. 500 per month.' The broadband policy has also attempted to cut through red tape. VSAT dish owners can start operations one month after all the documents are submitted for approval."

Google's newest tool!

Google's newest tool is out for beta testin!. Its called Google Desktop. Its like having Google search engine for your local drives. Its a tiny 400kb application which sits in the system tray. Here, google explains it better:
http://desktop.google.com/about.html

In case somebody is wondering, the indexes are kept at:
/documents and settings/USERNAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Google/Google Desktop

No data from your PC is ever sent to Google! The listing you see on google.com for your local drive is a feature of the desktop tray application. Read the privacy policy for more info.

Digital Dialogues

Exploring blogosphere, I came accross this thought for today ....

"When you say you're going online - where exactly are you going???"

Twist in the tale!

If any of you had a chance to use the illegaly leaked MSN 7.0 Beta, than you might have probably degraded to MSN 6.2 by force.

After security vulnerabilities being posted on the Internet and its availability to end-users has prompted MS to postpone its release to testers.

There is no way you will be able to sign-in with it as of now.

Spyware deemed illegal

The US government has passed a bill that would make spyware illegal.

This was long over due considering that most of the spyware/adware... on the Internet originate from US!

Victory at last (or is it?).

Rich Archives

Young scholars, explore science and humanitarian subjects here. No time wasting clearinghouses

Local goodies.....

Ata kirmani has developed an Urdu desktop for Windows XP. That is having a start menu in Urdu (left to right), having desktop icon names in Urdu.....

For more details and those interested can contact him at ataullahkirmani@yahoo.com.

Yayha Noor has developed an interactive training for Win 98 in Balochi language. He can be contacted at yahya_noor@yahoo.com. Good for those institutes giving basic computer training to the totally new.

Hats off to both of them for their efforts.

Gmail updates

Gmail has updated. Gmailers using Window 2000, XP or more recent version can download Gmail Notifier. Google could have done a better job. They say more is to come . . .

Posting on this blog

So far, the number of entries I've deleted from this blog = 1. It was irrelevant to this blog.

The number of comments deleted from this blog = 4 out of which 1 was a mistake.

I respect your point of view and expect you to respect mine. This is the only way to encourage discussion, simply put. If at any point I feel a comment is out of place and aimed at generating a bad vibe towards a person or an organization [including Spider], I will delete it.

ONLY healthy criticsm is welcome. Not all of us will find everything on this blog useful but plenty of us do. As an informed and aware visitor, you are free to say anything sans throw verbal punches at or abuse anyone. Thank you for stopping by.

Donations required....

After the success of SpaceShipOne and winning the US $10 million Ansari X prize, Sir Richard Branson new company Virgin Galactic ventures into a new market of space tourism, registration is open.

Flights expected as early as 2007 will allow you to gaze the stars for about US $200,000 per person (at least we don't need to apply for a visa :P) for a two-hours trip and three days pre-flight training.

Donations accepted, send in your US $1 bank drafts (minimum) to me.

Your favourite Spider Magazine is also in contact with Virgin Galactic for an agreement or sorts to give a complimentary copy to each tourist on-board the trip. Plans also underway to release a few issues of them into space. Going global in style.

Yipee, SPIDER Alien edition ;)

Gates: Microsoft to offer anti-spyware

It's about time. Hope they build it in IE by defualt just like the much need pop-up blocker given to IE 6.2 (XP SP2).

And may be, we might some day hear of Microsoft Anti-Virus 2007.....

Clusty searching

I am begining to like looking at search results in clusters. It is far more organized than Google's gazillion pages. You too should give Clusty.com, a brand new search engine from a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist, a spin!

MSN 7.0 Beta on the way....

MS might have released to testers the beta version, by the time you read this.

What's new:
- Contact cards
- New Display Pictures
- Set status before signing-in (appear offline while signing-in).
- MSN Search Bar at the bottom (has been there with YM 6.0)
- Search words within conversation in chat window
- Maybe Avatars and emoticon packs (YM 6.0 ???)