Tour de France

The 95th Tour de France will run from Saturday July 5th to Sunday July 27th 2008. It will be made of 21 stages and covers a total distance of 3,500 kilometres.

These 21 phases have the following profiles:
10 flat stages,
5 mountain stages,
4 medium mountain stages,
2 individual time-trial stages.

Distinctive aspects of the race:
4 mountain finishes,
2 rest days,
82 kilometres of individual time-trial,
17 category 1, category 2 and highest level passes will be climbed.

Google is covering Tour de France 2008 with a 360 degree view of the entire tour route. You can actually travel the entire route on the map and see the photographs of the different stages. Go here.

To know more about he history of Tour de France, read this article on Wikipedia.

Updates
Romain Feillu (France) leads the standings after the 3rd stage results were declared.

Google - Yahoo! Advertising Partnership

Following the partnership reached between Google and Yahoo! over advertising where Yahoo will have Google Ad words advertisements along side the search results on it's pages, Justice department's anti-trust division has started looking into this deal as a possible anti competitive strategy. Subpoena has been issued in this regard to the concerned companies. The NYT article can be read here.

In an another development around Microsoft's bid for Yahoo!, Yahoo! has released a letter to its shareholders saying that why an advertising deal with Google is a better alternative than Microsoft's bid for the search business of Yahoo. The transcript of the letter can be found here. To read the NYT article, click here

World Internet Statistics

While browsing web for something related to YouTube vs Viacom legal showdown, I came across this site which records Internet usage world-wide. The data is collected through varied sources, which includes ITU, Nielsen/Net ratings, NICs and other reliable sources.
The site has this whole data pretty well structured and grouped. You can find amny different charts and comparisons.
As of March 2008, there were more than 1.4 bn internet users world-wide. India had reportedly 60 mn internet users as of March 2008 which makes 13.0% of Asian users. India comes on third spot in Asia, China and Japan leading the pack there. In India the internet penetration is only 5.3 %. Nevertheless, user growth in India has been 1,100 % over 2000-2007 which is more than China's 833.3%.

Bill says good-bye!

Bill Gates bid adieu to Microsoft on June 27 as a full-time employee. He is moving on to devote time to his philanthropic causes through Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The company he founded and steered to the top slot in the IT industry will surely miss him. No matter how many rumors, bad words g o around about Bill and Microsoft, everyone of one us must acknowledge the fact that it was Microsoft in first place which led the computer revolution and helped in bringing the PC to every home. I am no big fan of Microsoft, when it comes to practice but then I do acknowledge the efforts and innovations.
The Microsoft website is featuring Bill's farewell on their homepage. And check here for more on Bill. And here is the article from Reuters

GMAT cheat sheet?

I came across an article on BusinessWeek which covers the story around a recent court order on closure of a website which apparently provided prospective GMAT takers live questions before their exams.
GMAC sued the owner of the now defunct website, scoretop.com A Virginia court has granted GMAC, a $2.3 mn judgment against the operator of the site, Lei Shi, who is now absconding and reported to be back in China.

GMAC currently has the hard drive used by the website in its possession and has sent out a message that students who used the $30 service on the website for getting live questions, will be revoked of their scores and will be barred from taking the exam again. GMAC has gone to the extent that they have hinted that the name of such students will be even sent out to the business schools so that they can act upon them. Obviously a great discussion has started around this issue and a lot of students who may have used the service knowingly or unknowingly are facing the axe!

To read the whole story go here. There is an interesting discussion going on the same website, where some freaks have gone to an extent saying that all Asians are cheats and have raised questions over intelligence of Asian students. Apart from such sick comments, there are people who have raised good questions over this whole issue. Do go through the comments.

Boston Again

Last Saturday, I went to Boston. This was my second trip to the city I loved most in US till now. I don't know the exact reason but somehow I feel this is the best city to be in on the east coast. One thing that attributed this liking was the fact that there were so many young people in the city, thanks to MIT, Harvard, Boston College. The student community is so strong and vibrant up there. Especially when you go in Cambridge and start strolling around the place, you will see youngsters all around there.
This time I went around Harvard and felt so great about the whole neighborhood. Not only, inside the campus boundaries but all around the campus students were there. It felt great and I was having a constant urge to join some university here and start my higher studies right away. I had the same feeling when I was inside MIT. Man, I can't tell you how much I wanted to be inside some lecture room, hearing some professor and finishing assignments and being awake all night, chatting with room mate and friends. Damn, I miss so much the good old college days.
Apart from this, I also happened to see the ongoing shooting of a Bruce Willis action flick scheduled to release sometime next year. The movie is "The Surrogates" . The shooting was going on in the Financial District and I saw the whole set. When the movie comes, I am gonna see it and try to figure out the scene which must have been getting shot down there :)

Hold your breath....here comes the Killer

The countdown begins again. After speculating hell lot about the latest iPhone and what's gonna be the price and all, Apple finally disclosed the sturdy, feature packed and smart iPhone on Monday this week.
The way iPhone knocked the cellphone market when it was launched last year is gonna happen again. Other devices in the market will be killed again. This time this whole thing is gonna be more grand with more people queuing up Apple Stores on July 11.
Much more is being written and spoken about this beautiful device this time, reasons are many. Apple has slashed the price by almost 200 USD and iPhone now starts at remarkable $199. At this price, gadget lovers who were reluctant last time due to high-price will not like to miss this chance to own one. Apart from price, iPhone now has an embedded fully functional GPS device. That's a feature many will be looking ahead for. And then, there's 3G to make sure that the internet surfing capabilities are utilized efficiently. The phone still has two-year contract with AT&T in USA.
What I loved about this whole thing, Apple had cut production of the earlier version of iPhone a long ago to make sure that all pieces of iPhone v1 are consumed completely from the market.
After the price was disclosed, people are talking everywhere about iPhone. Even in my office, we talk about this near coffee machine :)
Check out new features here

Juno

I saw this movie back in India and I really loved this simple n sweet movie. A simple storyline but presented in a beautiful way which won many hearts. The soundtrack for the move was also so well done. You will love all the songs for sure.
Here's "All I want is you" from Juno:



And after that, watch this for some really cool lines from the movie :)

4 minutes

One of the latest hits on charts now a days here is 4 minutes by Madonna ft Justin Timberlake. I had listened this song many times and liked it too. However, I didn't saw the video for this one. Today when I was browsing YouTube for another song from Justin, I came across the vid for 4 minutes. Actually not the vid, but the Video on Trial episode for this vid. Man, the way they busted this very video made me laugh.

You'll love the way they have made fun of this :D

The French Connection!

I was in New York again today. Went there with Ashish as he hasn't been there till now. He had asked me to come with him today. The weather was good, thunderstorm were predicted in the later part of day and it was mostly cloudy. Even then, I decided to go. When we left home, it was drizzling but we were like "lets' go.
So, what made me name this post like this? Well, I was waiting at the Staten Island Ferry Complex for the ferry when a French chick sitting on the bench beside us came over and asked for a cigarette. I told her that I don't smoke and she left. She seemed desperate for it as she asked 3 more people standing there before she got one from a Chinese fella who sat on the bench next to her's. Actually this girl was accompanied by another friend of hers, she also being a girl. This friend was not all interested in smoking and so was busy looking inside her bag. Well, both of them were beautiful n hot. But the other one, who was not interested in smoking was more hot in a way :)
Soon she was done with her smoke and then they were talking again in French between themselves. Few minutes later she (the one who smoked) came over to me and asked me as to "Do I speak English?" I answered her in affirmative. Then she asked me what place in NY she can see. First of all, honestly I was startled, by the fact that a good looking girl is talking to me. Not that none has talked me before. A many had and day in and day out I talk to a number of them here and there at work and outside. But for this one I was not expecting for some reason. So here we go back, well I told her that she can go to Times Square, Central Park, roam around 34th. At that point her friend too came over and joined. She said that they were looking for some nice place where they can have fun. A part of my mind was stunned and thought exactly what they were looking for and asking. At this I took a step back (which I feel sorry for now :( thinking of them) and said that they can go to Central Park and sit there in peace and spend some time if they are looking for a cool place away from hustles. But she insisted that they wanna go to a "nice place". She then said that where can she get drinks. I told her that why not try in Times square as there as some bars, I know, and then they can have good time spent there. After this she inquired where we are from and what are we doing here. Well, we exchanged our origins and purpose of being there. At that time, I asked them as to where they are coming from and they told that they are from France. Some talks here and there and then greetings exchanged and they left.
I sat there thinking of them and waiting for the ferry and looking again for them but they were not there to my sorrow.

The Icons!

I came across a slide show on Discovery website regarding early days of the three icons of the computer industry, viz. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates.
Have a look to know about their early days. And yes, there's a mugshot too. Guess whose?

The All Time Hits!

In India, everyone of us have grown up with those utterly butterly delicious Amul advertisements. Be it in print or on tv. I always used to love those ads. The print ads still continue to come on the billboards. They have a knack of coming beautifully on the current affairs which make me love the creators and the ideas more and more.

So, here it goes for all the lovers of the utterly butterly ads. Check out & Enjoy!

Strike!

Strikes were so common back in India for me. Everyday someone somewhere in the city was on strike for some reason. At times, I had faced hardship due to them in a way or another.
When I came to USA, one of the many things I thought don't happen here was a strike! But I was proved wrong today. And what a day they chose to call a strike. This is a long weekend here as we have a holiday on Monday for Memorial Day. I was supposed to leave for Virginia today afternoon. In the morning, I thought I would take a Shortline bus to my office as I had some luggage and going with Manish can be troublesome as Ashish and Harpreet will also be carrying their stuff to office. So much fitting in the car's trunk would not have been a certain problem but I didn't wanted to give it a chance. So, there I was waiting for 8:47am bus, but it didn't came. Harpreet had joined me at the bus stop as he had decided to take the bus today for office. We waited till 9:00am when a fellow standing there and waiting for the bus like us inquired as to "how long have we been waiting there?". We said that its more than 15 minutes to which he replied that it may be a strike as he heard somewhere in the morning on tv or radio. He was not sure but we were. It was indeed a strike as no bus had passed from the other side also and we were waiting for almost half an hour. So we decided to go back. We came to office with Manish without any hassles for the luggage we all were having.
Anyways, I checked on their website, and they had the strike information on the schedules page. I had only one alternative now and that was to take a train. But to my misery, there was a train from Ramsey station at 12:07pm which reached NY at 1:10pm and after that at 1:07 which reached NY at 2:10pm. Well, my bus from NY to DC was to leave at 2:00pm and in no way I would be able to make it if I was supposed to board the 1:07 train. I could not leave office at 11:30 to make for the 12:07 train as I had came out out weekly meeting and I had some things to work on prioirty. So I decided to call it off and informed my relatives that I would be taking the bus on Saturday morning now. I hate this stuff, when I am all in mood and something crap happens.
Now I am just sitting idle in home, doing nothing but writing this blog and watching Prison Break.
Happy Weekend to you all!

Another Lawsuit against MS

Well, well well MS seems to being better at facing lawsuits. I'm not pretty sure but is it a part of their marketing strategy? I know, it's not but then I don't know how they are handling it and managing it so beautifully.
Back in March, a lawsuit was filed agains Microsoft and guess who's to blame this time? Dude, it's pretty simple. Comeon, yeah its their so hyped baby, all thanks to Vista.

The plaintiffs, Dianne Kelley and Kenneth Hansen, bought PCs in late 2006, before Vista’s release, and contend that Microsoft’s “Windows Vista Capable” stickers were misleading when affixed to machines that turned out to be incapable of running the versions of Vista that offered the features Microsoft was marketing as distinctive Vista benefits.

What's intersting that a whole pack of internal company documents, emails and communications have been unearthed. Many of these documents concern senior executives and the way they are unhappy with Vista in one or another way. At times, peopl inside MS who had a sying felt that things are not good with Vista thing at all.

Check out the New York Times article here.

Happy Birthday Spam!

30 years ago, on May 3, 1978 Spam was born on Arpanet. Gary Thuerk, a marketer at Digital Equipment Corporation, sent an email to 393 users of Arpanet, the US government run computer network which eventually became Internet. Gary had sent an sales email for latest series of DEC computers that were going to be launched. The email contained venues for product display in California.

You can see the original email verbatim here.

An exhaustive story on Spam is posted on New Scientist Tech.

Google does it again!

One of the reasons I love Google so much is coz of their concept to mix fun and work so beautifully. Being in the Software Industry and an inquisitive and informed individual, I have heard of lot many companies who claim that they have a fun place to work. But one thing I doubt is how do they define Fun?
Take the case of Goolge, it always tries to beat the rest with its silly pranks and funny ideas.

This Year on April fool's day, Google had a prank on almost all of its products :) I dint noted all of them that day as I dint accessed much of the internet that day. One thing I saw was Virgile. This particular thing was done so beautifully with blogs/videos by top executives. Sir Richard Branson had a blog on Google Blog about the new venture with Google and then Sergei Brin had a video about the venture with Virgin. Hereis the logo of the venture they floated :)

Not Just Another Sunday!

After so many lonely and boring weekends, I had something to cheer on this Sunday. I dint wasted the day alone.

I went to the college to meet Akshay near 1 PM and has a long chat with him in front of the new tuck shop (Its named A to Z now). They have placed bences in front of that SAC building on the footpath. [ Can you visualize that :) ]
Many new faces and some old ones. Some other guys also came to meet me who recognized me sitting there. And the best part, the safai wale bhaiya who used to clean our block did recognized me in one shot! For me that was more rewarding than some teacher recognizing me for licking his boots! Coz that's what I would say a humane relation which must have had some sweetness in terms of true respect! So I did see BG also on the college gate only (ATM wala gate). The funny part is that guards are still troublesome. I had to do some talking before the guy let me in. But once I was in, everything was like known to me. Akshay is doing good in studies. He is not that 9 pointer but he is godd at what's he doing and he is committed. We talked about a lot of stuff ranging from studies to fake professors to girls to US and blah blah. I felt so good after talking to him. Felt like old days. However, I couldn't roam in the campus as I was not much in mood to waste more time of his :)

I left at around 2:20 and then thronged Shipra Mall to walk down. Nothing interseting so I just wkinda walked all over the place and decided to head back home.

In the evening, some old friends met up at Lomash n Soma's place and have a good chat for some time. It was as the newly wed couple was wished and we gave the gifts to them.

Bakc home, I started Apocalypse Now but slept in between due to lingering back pain. Overall a Good Sunday.

This is the end

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

What a country we live in!

No country in the world you will see or hear about which places restrictions on movement of its citizens across different states in search of a better living, studies, employment, travel, leisure, business or whatever. There are excpetions but they are in exceptional scenarios. One I know is China, which used to place restrictions on movement towards Tibet, which it controls.
Come to India and here politicians, who think they are nothing less than God are preparing to place restrictions on who lives and who leaves a particular city or for that matter state. Yes, I am talking of a Maharashtra politician who thinks Maharashtra is only for people of Maharashtra origin and people belonging to other states in India have no right to enter the capital Mumbai or any other part of Maharashtra. What made him issue such a statement? He knows the answer to this question and no one else. And which group of people irked him to made such a statement? It's people of Bihar, who else it can be. People all over the country hate in a way or other Biharis. The word Bihari is used a slang in most places and Biharis who make their presence in all most all states and cities throughout India and looked down upon. It doesn't matters whether that guy from Bihar is pulling a rickshaw, driving autorickshaw or taxi, is a daily-wage labour, is plumber, electrician or doing your household chores or is a software engineer or is a senior manager in some organization or is an IAS officer or is a diplomat or a senior official in central government; everyone is made a part of abusive talk between non-biharis. All Biharis as talked about and taunted in a way or other. The politician I talked about is Raj Thackrey who feels he will decide who lives where and would really love to re-write the constitution to place a ban on people of Bihar entering Maharashtra. That guy even made an obscene comment on a holy festival, Chhath which is celebrated in Bihar and Western UP. No one takes action against him! I see no reason for not taking any action against that man. We have provisions under Indian Penal Code to register a case against anyone who hurts or tries to hurt religious sentiments of any particular section of society. But since the offender is from a state other than Bihar, media wont cover it much and nobody cares until it is someone from Bihar!
This country and its people really are going awry. I dont want to live in such a country where the fellow country men insult you, abuse you and make fun of you all because you come from a state which is Poor and yet produces finest talent and laborious people for the whole country.
Welcome to a shining India which has started practising Racism in a new flavour!

Apple Macbook Air

Another technological marvel from Apple. They keep on proving again and again that they are the undsiputablew leaders when it comes to desgining products. Product after product, they keep the competitors on their toes, who fail to emulate Apple's innovation.

Steve Jobs unveiled World's thinnest laptop at Macworld 2008. They have named it Macbook Air. Whats more intersting than the sleekness of this product is the revolutionary multi-touch trackpad interface. The tested and applauded interface of iPhone and iPod touch comes to Macbook Air. You can have a look on the trackpad here.

The thickness of this laptop varies from 0.16 inches at its thinnest point to 0.76 inches at its thickest point! Apple has had to shed some features to make this ultra thin. There's no optical drive, Ethernet jack in here. Its built for the wireless world. Thought not for masses as it is priced at $1799 (base model). Having no optical drive does not mean you can't install any sofwatre or play your favourite movie from your DVD/CD. There's remote disc software which enables you to play your DVD/CD on your PC/Mac and transfer the content onto you Macbook Air. Check out details here.


Keep going Apple!