Hands on...Google pages

At last, Google released it's much rumored service, 'Google Pages'. Now you can create your home page on the fly with a simple online page creator from Google. To have a home page on Google pages, all you need is a GMail account. Sign-in, choose the template and layout. And you are ready with your home page at .googlepages.com.

As every other service of Google, its so simple to use and has very nice features. In my opinion, this is the easiest and effective online web editing tool available. Templates are very nice, with provision for 1/2/3 columns, with sidebar on left or right. We can create addtional pages also, and of course with a storage limit of 100 MB. It has page-manager to edit/create/delete pages. You can upload images with simple resizing facilities. Adding links in the page are very simple. It would be more interesting, if they allowed direct HTML editing also.
I tried my hands on the Google pages mmm... and see the result by yourself.

:) Bush Collection...

:) Three Brazillian Soldiers

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.
Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

Privacy.... don't be funny... you are using Google

Google Desktop 3 contains a feature called "Search Across Computers" that, according to the search giant, enables users to search their documents and view Web pages across all of their computers.

While previous versions of the desktop search application indexed files stored on a person's computer(is it? who knows?), the beta version of Desktop 3 copies files to Google's computers. This permits the data indexed on one computer to be searched by a second system.

Users can limit the automatic transfers by changing the settings in the application's preferences.

Although Google said it stores the personal information for only 30 days and deletes the files if unused(believe them...), privacy experts are up in arms over the potential for abuse.

"It's shocking Google expects it will be allowed to store consumers' files on its servers," Kevin Bankston, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told internetnews.com.

The new feature is "one-stop shopping for hackers if they get hold of your password," he added.

“If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don’t configure Google Desktop very carefully—and most people won’t—Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn’t even be notified in time to challenge it.

We already have examples of Government asking privacy information from search engines.
"Google was asked for information on the types of query submitted over a week, and the websites included in its index". Yahoo! already submitted everything the government asked for. And this dispute is not over yet.

Bird Flu...PANIC.... no way...

The government’s message to the Indian citizen, as articulated by health minister Anbumani Ramadoss is: “Eat chicken, no need to panic.” The minister repeated the assurance in Parliament on 20th Feb.
Hours later, as he ate his lunch at the Parliament canteen, the bird stayed off his plate though it was on the day’s menu.

Parliament, the army and both the national carriers have banished chicken from their kitchens.
source: The Telegraph
Be proud to have these kind of brave politicians...

Happy valentine's day

"perfect love is not receiving, it is giving and forgiving.
perfect love is not red roses on valentine's day, it is the rest of the 365 days of knowing each other.
perfect love is not phone calls and stolen kisses, it's the silent smiles in memory of ur sweetheart.
perfect love is not a grand wedding, but spending a lifetime together.
perfect love is not a fight-n-kiss, its loving the one who annoys the hell out of u."
have you found your perfect love...?

"The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness! "
wish you all a very happy valentine's day...

p.s: for your kind info, I'm in a green shirt today.

A Generation Awakens

...Don't mistake it.. Its not another review of "Rang De Basanti" , something else, something important. But I will write about this movie later for sure.

"a generation awakens" it's the caption used by the latest bollywood flick, "Rang de Bsanti". A wonderful movie, which focuses on today's youth, and their perspective on our country and why they are not taking up the responsibility of improving our motherland, as the youth of late 1940's did during the course of independence struggle. And the movie goes on to tell, how the youngsters get motivated to contribute to this country. Basanti means Yellow, the color of sacrifice. Sacrifice for the motherland.

Every person amongst us having a dream to change our country's fate and saving our country from this corrupted system, stepping up the growth rate, eliminating poverty and more. But who will start all these things. We are all waiting for something, which is not going to happen, if we are not ready to start. Whenever we or our beloved ones affected by this system, our inner mechanisms were boiled to certain level and they are getting diluted over certain period of time. We keep on saying it's fate of this country, no one can save this. YES it's true. No one can save our country, if we are not ready.

Now I can see a glimpse of hope here and there. More youngsters are getting ready to dedicate their life in serving our motherland. I don't know, how long they can sustain, amidst political "Shakuni"s. But I don't want them to go alone. I would like to follow them and give my whole-hearted support rather than following the existing corrupted politicians. We have to support them. The wait is over. If you are not ready to take up any responsibilities, better try to extend some support to the youngsters, who are prepared to do that. A political party named "Paritrana" formed by five ex-IITians. You should have read about that party. The following is their ideology mentioned in their website, which is still under construction.

"Responsibility is proportional to abilities.
Those with superior abilities naturally bear more responsibility and should come forward to change the pitiful condition that the nation is facing. Everyone must do what one should."

what will we do now...?

Fate of blogs...

source: www.perseus.com
“Here are some statistics on the percentage of total bloggers for the years 2003 and 2005, broken down by age group. The youngest segment, which comprised the largest number of bloggers from the beginning, increased its share; bloggers under 19 now account for almost 60% of the total. The only other group to increase its numbers was the 40-49 range, with a nigh-insignificant .1% gain. The 20-29, 30-39, and 50+ age groups all lost some of their share, with this loss increasing in relative magnitude as the ages increased. Relative positioning of the age groups remained constant, with a sharp dropoff after 30.”
and more on abandoned blogs..

“The most dramatic finding was that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned. Apparently the blog-hosting services have made it so easy to create a blog that many tire-kickers feel no commitment to continuing the blog they initiate. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days. The average duration of the remaining 1.63 million abandoned blogs was 126 days (almost four months). A surprising 132,000 blogs were abandoned after being maintained a year or more
Males were more likely than females to abandon blogs, with 46.4% of abandoned blogs created by males, as compared to 40.7% of active blogs being created by males. Abandonment rates did not vary based on age. Those who abandoned blogs tended to write posts that were only 58% as long as the posts of those who still maintained blogs, which simply indicates that those who enjoy writing stick with blogs longer.”

Tiruttani trip collage

luv
.shiva.

Fog haunted Chennai

These are the photos taken at 7.30 am..

Making Dreams Come True

Keep your heart open to dreams

For as long as there's a dream,

there is hope.

And as long as there is Hope,

there is Joy in Living.

The Key to Happiness is Having Dreams.

The Key to Success is

Making your Dreams come to True!

-read somewhere

Luv

.shiva.

A trip to Tiruttani

I went to Tiruttani with my friends this sunday. Actually the trip was planned only around 10pm on saturday night. As I was mentally very much down on saturday and was in search for a big break. It came as a gift to me.

Tiruttani - a highly commericalized holy place
I really shocked(i think this is the right word to use) to see how much everyone given their share in commercializing this spiritual place. The contributions were from everywhere, the government, the business people, the public. They exploited each and every possiblity of making money from this place. As we found ourselves as victims in several places. One of the incident is, every shopkeeper invited us to leave our footwears in their shop, they kept on telling that we won't be allowed to wear our shoes when we walk through the steps to reach the temple. We fell in their trap and we then realized that we were fooled. And as we entered the temple, they had 4 separate queues for dharshan, General(dharma) dharshan(no fare), Special dharshan(Rs.10), Quick dharshan(Rs. 25) and VIP dharshan(of course its free, not for us). Every priest in side the temple who gives "prasadam" keep on asking for money, without hesitating. If you give money you they will give you a parcel contains prasadam otherwise you will be getting the 'prsadam' that is thrown uncaringly on to your palm. Amidst all these kind of money making techniques there is still i can see lack of proper systems in place and zero maintenace. They are just using this place to make money and nothing else. I noticed dirty walls and pillars, poor ventilation, very narrowed paths, 'mayil vaahanam' with broken mouth piece. And there I was searching peace of mind...aiyo aiyo...

We had fun
And what is important from our friends' perspective is "WE HAD FUN" lots of fun. Enjoyed each and every moment. We saw new people, new places, hardcore devotees, Vyaabara kanthams(business magnets) and ofcourse some beuatiful girls. We took photos everywhere with my new k750i mobile phone(Its an awesome phone i have to write a separate post on that.) The day went like anything. I will be posting all the photos taken during this trip with captions on future posts. So keep an eye on this space.

Enjoy.
Cheers!!
.shiva.

Hi all

This is my first ever blog. I'm not ceratin about, what im going to do here. It might turn out to be a photo blog, music reviews or another scrap bla..bla.. My basic interests are music, movies and books. Hope this blog will find a theme for itself as it shapes up. I created this blog to bring my friends come together and to make more friends.

luv
.shiva.