If Google can pull this off, without too many bugs, then they might be onto something - but I'm surely skeptical at this point of time.
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Internet Explorer and Shopper Discounts
One of my rule of thumb is that Microsoft is internet challenged. They cannot produce one internet based product which is useful for your daily life (including Bing, which is more interested in giving you some service related search results instead of what you are searching). See below: Shopper discount is a scamster online who have a pop-up for IE and when you use your CC it phishes for it and uses it to charge $12.00 every month. I googled the word shopper discount and also searched for it on Bing. While google's second link was about scams, the money hungry Bing tries to promote this scam service. And the LYAO part comes with the Bing advertisements on TV parodying Google. There is a typical tamizh cinema thittu (dad to udhavakarai son) which comes to mind. I don't want to say that. What I shall say is even if Microsoft drinks water standing upside down, they cannot get any close to Google in terms of Internet technology. When it comes to OS and Software suites, I take my hat off to Microsoft - they are God - Windows XP might perhaps be one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life, but when online, run away from Microsoft as if they have the Swine Flu.
Point in case: I'm an Internet Explorer averse person. In my opinion, Internet explorer is like an American car - useless, unreliable and of course, susceptible to every tom, dick and harry out to make a fast buck. A person whom I know quite well is, well, for personal reasons a big fan of Microsoft - and sadly, Internet Explorer and so via that channel, this moron Shopper Discounts phished my credit card number and have been happily charging me 12 every month. Since I quite recently, with a superlative mind control methods chose to zap out all balances on all credit cards, I was surprised to find that there was a balance in one through this shopper dicsounts. So, this whole blogpost might be a result of some personal experience/bias, but the point to take is stay away from Internet Explorer. Use Google Chrome. I swear on God that I've not had any pop-ups at all - even when I visit the usual suspects like Rediff.com, Cnn.com, Ibnlive.com. You never know - when Internet Explorer might let you down next.
Point in case: I'm an Internet Explorer averse person. In my opinion, Internet explorer is like an American car - useless, unreliable and of course, susceptible to every tom, dick and harry out to make a fast buck. A person whom I know quite well is, well, for personal reasons a big fan of Microsoft - and sadly, Internet Explorer and so via that channel, this moron Shopper Discounts phished my credit card number and have been happily charging me 12 every month. Since I quite recently, with a superlative mind control methods chose to zap out all balances on all credit cards, I was surprised to find that there was a balance in one through this shopper dicsounts. So, this whole blogpost might be a result of some personal experience/bias, but the point to take is stay away from Internet Explorer. Use Google Chrome. I swear on God that I've not had any pop-ups at all - even when I visit the usual suspects like Rediff.com, Cnn.com, Ibnlive.com. You never know - when Internet Explorer might let you down next.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Search War is ON!
So after redesigning the Microsoft Live (I have to accept that they made a nice idea of those pictures), Microsoft is trying to beat the God of Search Engines with Bing. Bing from the promotional video seems to be a more advanced version of the Google Suggest and a few other google features already existent. But given the desperation levels of Microsoft to better Google, you can be sure that they have something up their sleeve - which leads us to the next question - What is Google going to do? Its not by luck alone that they are the most successful Internet based company in the last 20 odd years. And remember that they contributed their company name as a verb to the english language.
Sabaash! Seriyaana poatti!!
Another take, albeit by a much more professional person.
Sabaash! Seriyaana poatti!!
Another take, albeit by a much more professional person.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Monday, December 01, 2008
Microsoft ups the ante....
Finally Microsoft seeks to dent Google's stranglehold on Internet based services. Google has already started Google Health . This gets interesting - much like Mortal Kombat. Already Yahoo! has been left to lick its wounds - its virtually Microsoft's Muscle against Google's perceived 'cool' factor.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tech Reviews - September 2008
1. Nintendo Wii
I know that I have living under the rock as far as the gaming thing goes. While all my makkal in SVCE used to be glued on to God of War, Diablo and all that, I thought that video games were for kids. And finally when I got to play some game on Sony PS in 2005, I was bored of the story-board pattern of the popular games. You did this, and then this and then that... It didn't really have me hooked. Wii, from the time it was leaked to the press that Nintendo was working on Project Revolution which utilized MEMS technology, I was curious. I used to do research on Bio-MEMS and so was definitely interested in one of the MEMS commercial products - Though I know that Nintendo will have a few 1000 patents on them, the Remote and Nunchuck seem to have a network of Gyros and Accelerometers which are used to detect and simulate user's actions and position into gameplay movements. While the previous commercial application, Segway, a sucker application - the 'thing' which Kamal Haasan used in the equally sucker movie, Dasavatharam. In fact the movie provided a glimpse of why it was a flop. The Segway costed around $5000 and it replaced you walking. While the Government did not allow it to be used as on sidewalks and other pedestrian areas (as it was not classified as a medical device). The accelerometer is a big hit - the Airbag system in automobiles uses the accelerometer predominantly to deploy the airbag, which itself uses a MEMS Chemical Igniter to generate a high density vapor which fills the airbag. More recently, the Apple iPhone, seems to use Gyroscopes. While Apple has never let its technology out, the games that can be played on the iPhone makes me suspect that there are definitely Gyros involved in it too. And the fact that Steve Jobs was involved during the hyping phase of Segway leads me to suspect it more. Well, coming back to the Wii, the game play is certainly innovative. Rain or Shine, you can have fun.
The Wii comes for $250 (plus taxes). The trick is to get it for this base price. The recent trend amongst gaming companies (others like Apple follow it too) is to release small stocks frequently so that it results in an ever present scarcity of the products. This will have 2 scenarios: 1. The people in search of the product will go to Circuit City / Best Buy two or three times and feel that since they have invested so much of time, they need to get it at any rate. 2. Some people get pissed and give up. Scenario 1 happens if the product is an universally acclaimed product, much like Wii. Scenario 2 happened some years back when Fiat tried that in the Indian Market for its Palio T-Max model. The more educated makkal, like Hawkeye, who have a MBA can elaborate on this further. But, thus far, the gamble seems to have paid off for Nintendo. If you check out Walmart or Game Stop, they have bundled the console with some add-ons which do not make financial sense in buying. But pyschologically, anybody who has gone to Circuit City or Best Buy, will I think give in to frustration and get one of these. I'm trying to be in the economy mode for the past 1-2 months and was not really looking to buy anything, but a chance article on Cnet about Wii got me interested. And incidentally a good friend of mine got it on the same day that I made a spot decision to get one. I drove over the Circuit City closest to my house only to find out that Wii stocks come in on Sunday mornings at 10.30am and are over by 12noon. I call up my friend and ask him to get another Wii console for me and send it through a friend who was travelling from OC, California to TPA. The installation, to me, was quite simple. The graphics is more of the Sega Times - atleast in the game CD which comes with the console - Wii Sports. But the important aspect to me was that the games require me to be doing some stuff - not sit on the couch and grow my love handles to glory.
Wii Sports:
1. Bowling: Is very close to the actual game. I'm not much of a night person. I generally hit the sack by 9.30 - 10.00 pm unless I'm travelling or I go to the movies. So, I never used to go to bowling night with makkal here who hit the alley at 10.30 pm-ish. So, to me, this actually lets me practice those spins I never get to do on the alley. The sensitivity of the remote is really good to your wrist position and release angle. This game does not utilize the nunchuck.
2. Golf: I'm an avid Wodehouse-ian. And anybody who's read the Clicking of Cuthbert by the Master, cannot help wanting to play the game. This game again is very good, especially if you have not had much of actual Golf experience. I think the total number of times I have swung an iron is equal to two. The only aspect where this game is lacking is that the sensitivity of the remote is inadequate when you are trying to putt a hole. This also, does not need a nunchuck.
3. Boxing: The game where I seem to be doing too well. It employs the remote and nunchuck and gives you a decent workout, if you really get into the game. The sensitivity side is very average, wherein the computer player tilts at an angle and even if you mimic that angle, your on screen representation doesn't do it. So in every boxing bout, you are the underdog!
4. Tennis: Is too kidding, but still you get to play almost real back hand and fore hand shots. The serve part is mokkai.
5. Baseball: The game which is least appealing - as it is, on its own, a slow and unexciting game. Also, to get used to get the timing right takes too much time. I have not yet gotten it.
Apart from the out of the box games, I got SpiderMan-3 (a story board game :( ) which is okay and MarioKart Wii which is really cool - but obviates the need to be active as all you have to do is use a Wii Wheel to turn and do other stuff to drive.
Planning to save up some cash and get Wii Fit soon. :)
Google Chrome:
On an another direction, Google introduced its open source browser Chrome. They released a comic book detailing what is different in their browser and did have some palin-esque comments to other browser developers - Mozilla and IE. To be brutally honest, Chrome sucks - Majorly!! I'm a big google fan and am not happy to say this, but since there is a minute delay in loading pages, even if they are on different tabs, PDF pages are warped onto you - Stay away from it until they come up with a better version. But I think, Google has to fail every now and then so that they keep giving us better ones. Their last few apps - Google Reader, Gtalk (for mobile and mail and client), blogger have become a part of my daily (hourly?) life.
I know that I have living under the rock as far as the gaming thing goes. While all my makkal in SVCE used to be glued on to God of War, Diablo and all that, I thought that video games were for kids. And finally when I got to play some game on Sony PS in 2005, I was bored of the story-board pattern of the popular games. You did this, and then this and then that... It didn't really have me hooked. Wii, from the time it was leaked to the press that Nintendo was working on Project Revolution which utilized MEMS technology, I was curious. I used to do research on Bio-MEMS and so was definitely interested in one of the MEMS commercial products - Though I know that Nintendo will have a few 1000 patents on them, the Remote and Nunchuck seem to have a network of Gyros and Accelerometers which are used to detect and simulate user's actions and position into gameplay movements. While the previous commercial application, Segway, a sucker application - the 'thing' which Kamal Haasan used in the equally sucker movie, Dasavatharam. In fact the movie provided a glimpse of why it was a flop. The Segway costed around $5000 and it replaced you walking. While the Government did not allow it to be used as on sidewalks and other pedestrian areas (as it was not classified as a medical device). The accelerometer is a big hit - the Airbag system in automobiles uses the accelerometer predominantly to deploy the airbag, which itself uses a MEMS Chemical Igniter to generate a high density vapor which fills the airbag. More recently, the Apple iPhone, seems to use Gyroscopes. While Apple has never let its technology out, the games that can be played on the iPhone makes me suspect that there are definitely Gyros involved in it too. And the fact that Steve Jobs was involved during the hyping phase of Segway leads me to suspect it more. Well, coming back to the Wii, the game play is certainly innovative. Rain or Shine, you can have fun.
The Wii comes for $250 (plus taxes). The trick is to get it for this base price. The recent trend amongst gaming companies (others like Apple follow it too) is to release small stocks frequently so that it results in an ever present scarcity of the products. This will have 2 scenarios: 1. The people in search of the product will go to Circuit City / Best Buy two or three times and feel that since they have invested so much of time, they need to get it at any rate. 2. Some people get pissed and give up. Scenario 1 happens if the product is an universally acclaimed product, much like Wii. Scenario 2 happened some years back when Fiat tried that in the Indian Market for its Palio T-Max model. The more educated makkal, like Hawkeye, who have a MBA can elaborate on this further. But, thus far, the gamble seems to have paid off for Nintendo. If you check out Walmart or Game Stop, they have bundled the console with some add-ons which do not make financial sense in buying. But pyschologically, anybody who has gone to Circuit City or Best Buy, will I think give in to frustration and get one of these. I'm trying to be in the economy mode for the past 1-2 months and was not really looking to buy anything, but a chance article on Cnet about Wii got me interested. And incidentally a good friend of mine got it on the same day that I made a spot decision to get one. I drove over the Circuit City closest to my house only to find out that Wii stocks come in on Sunday mornings at 10.30am and are over by 12noon. I call up my friend and ask him to get another Wii console for me and send it through a friend who was travelling from OC, California to TPA. The installation, to me, was quite simple. The graphics is more of the Sega Times - atleast in the game CD which comes with the console - Wii Sports. But the important aspect to me was that the games require me to be doing some stuff - not sit on the couch and grow my love handles to glory.
Wii Sports:
1. Bowling: Is very close to the actual game. I'm not much of a night person. I generally hit the sack by 9.30 - 10.00 pm unless I'm travelling or I go to the movies. So, I never used to go to bowling night with makkal here who hit the alley at 10.30 pm-ish. So, to me, this actually lets me practice those spins I never get to do on the alley. The sensitivity of the remote is really good to your wrist position and release angle. This game does not utilize the nunchuck.
2. Golf: I'm an avid Wodehouse-ian. And anybody who's read the Clicking of Cuthbert by the Master, cannot help wanting to play the game. This game again is very good, especially if you have not had much of actual Golf experience. I think the total number of times I have swung an iron is equal to two. The only aspect where this game is lacking is that the sensitivity of the remote is inadequate when you are trying to putt a hole. This also, does not need a nunchuck.
3. Boxing: The game where I seem to be doing too well. It employs the remote and nunchuck and gives you a decent workout, if you really get into the game. The sensitivity side is very average, wherein the computer player tilts at an angle and even if you mimic that angle, your on screen representation doesn't do it. So in every boxing bout, you are the underdog!
4. Tennis: Is too kidding, but still you get to play almost real back hand and fore hand shots. The serve part is mokkai.
5. Baseball: The game which is least appealing - as it is, on its own, a slow and unexciting game. Also, to get used to get the timing right takes too much time. I have not yet gotten it.
Apart from the out of the box games, I got SpiderMan-3 (a story board game :( ) which is okay and MarioKart Wii which is really cool - but obviates the need to be active as all you have to do is use a Wii Wheel to turn and do other stuff to drive.
Planning to save up some cash and get Wii Fit soon. :)
Google Chrome:
On an another direction, Google introduced its open source browser Chrome. They released a comic book detailing what is different in their browser and did have some palin-esque comments to other browser developers - Mozilla and IE. To be brutally honest, Chrome sucks - Majorly!! I'm a big google fan and am not happy to say this, but since there is a minute delay in loading pages, even if they are on different tabs, PDF pages are warped onto you - Stay away from it until they come up with a better version. But I think, Google has to fail every now and then so that they keep giving us better ones. Their last few apps - Google Reader, Gtalk (for mobile and mail and client), blogger have become a part of my daily (hourly?) life.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Google Chrome
To Download, Click
Screenshots:
The screenshots show the 3 webpages that I use the most and so far from what I've seen, its not faster or better than Mozilla.
Screenshots:
The screenshots show the 3 webpages that I use the most and so far from what I've seen, its not faster or better than Mozilla.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Google April Fool's Pranks - 2008
It was Gulp, jobs in the moon, MentalPlex, Pigeon Rank, Gmail Paper and Tisp in the last two years. What will Google do this year??
Updated:
This the new one I found this morning on my Gmail Login Page:
The next one: Click
Build You Own Airplane
One more here.
They are coming thick and fast! What could be next?
Updated:
This the new one I found this morning on my Gmail Login Page:
The next one: Click
Build You Own Airplane
One more here.
They are coming thick and fast! What could be next?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Google - New Feature
Thanks to the Seattle Shahenshah, I came to know about this new google search option. Should say its going to give one more mile for Yahoo and MSN to catch up, if at all they are still nurturing hopes of beating Google. Google is NOT God, but something close to it!!
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