Kolkata - A Classic Scene

  

Windows Vista Readiness

Don't buy PCs or Laptops for a while:) And don't forget your notepad.

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Call Centers: The Great Data Theft - Channel 4's Dispatches

Channel 4 exposes some holes in the big cheese of Call Centers. The great boom in the Indian economy owes a great deal to the call centres, BPOs and other associated industries - which could come down like a house of cards if these companies decide to up sticks and move out, en masse.

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Wisconsin farm has third rare white buffalo SOMETHING BESIDES A COW!!!

Only in Wisconsin would cows be news:)

SOMETHING BESIDES A COW!!! -
MILWAUKEE - A farm in Wisconsin is quickly becoming hallowed ground again for American Indians with the birth of its third white buffalo, an animal considered sacred by many tribes for its potential to bring good fortune and peace.

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bLaugh Blogging Truths

Apple's new iPod pricing and features

Apple's not-news announcements earlier this week didn't change the world, but some new features were introduced to the iPod line (of which I have a 5G one), and you can now buy movies at exorbitant prices that will only play on your PC.

ahas this interesting table comparing the new iPod prices to the available memory:

1) What’s the new iPod pricing scheme?

iPod shuffle 1GB: $79 ($79 per GB)
iPod nano 2GB: $149 ($74.50 per GB)
iPod nano 4GB: $199 ($49.75 per GB)
iPod nano 8GB: $249 ($31.13 per GB)
iPod 5G 30GB: $249 ($8.30 per GB)
iPod 5G 80GB: $349 ($4.36 per GB)

By storage capacity standards, the 80GB iPod is the best value in iPod history - under $4.50 per Gigabyte, and the cheapest top-of-line iPod Apple has ever introduced. Even the 1GB shuffle is only slightly more expensive than the now discontinued $69 512MB iPod shuffle.

I wonder when these prices will reflect in Indian stores.

The movie pricing and restrictions make this another way the industry refuses to recognize the ability to reach out to customers and make this a viable channel. bittorrent is the killer app - and they don't want to accept that.

Some thoughts on a viable solution for utilizing bittorrent as a sales channel coming up...

Like iTunes for Digital Comic Books!

While looking for a good free CBR/CBZ reader, I came upon Comic Rack, and I found nirvana. Comic Rack is a reader that builds XML libraries like iTunes complete with covers and meta data for the files. The software is in early development, but is something to keep an eye on if you're looking for a good reader/database program

I like CDisplay, but this will be worth checking out..

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Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax

PHP and Ajax are literally on a roll. You see websites pop up all the time with fancy ajax effects. Did you know that Google Maps is also a heavy user of Ajax? This is a review of a good book on Google Maps which explains the various ways in which Google Map API can be used to create and integrate user interactive maps on ones personal website

It's a review, but still a good pointer to a book one shall scout out

Prediction: PHP+Ajax is going to go head-to-head with Adobe Flex

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I Hate Summary RSS Feeds

I subscribe to over 200 RSS feeds that I check daily, earlier with Bloglines, and more recently with Netvibes It's the easiest way I've found of handling information overload - my use of multiple computers both at home and at office means I'm never going to be using a desktop-tethered software for handling RSS.

One thing that gets me, though, and it's not the fault of the software, is the number of producers who have cryptic one-line summaries for their feed entries. and I'm expected to click on or right-click/new tab-window and find out if it's worth digesting - I mean why do RSS and not give me the whole shebang? Traffic is important, but I can't believe it will impact your traffic that much to give me the whole story - if I use it, I'll link to you, so you get your backlinks. Why put me through the rigmarole?

Desicritics has all full-text feeds, and we don't seem to be hurting for traffic. I've actually found our traffic increases and we have a number of referrers from netvibes, etc.

Most of the short-feed bums are media-types, like the New York Times, and Slate. It's funny Slate doesn't get it, being such a pioneer.

Give it all to me, baby!

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Malice Aforethought

The Jason Fortuny Craiglist experiment has netted nauseating results, but as J. Leroy points out, was malicious in intent, and for simple reasons, wrong.

Malice, in my mind, is never justified. It is small and wrong. You can rationalize anything. But rationalizations are not justifications, they are attempt to excuse.

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Ban Indian Companies from the H1B program

A strong case can be made for allowing H1B visas only for people holding advanced degress from US universities.The following points make for a much bigger case of banning all Indian companies from the H1B and L1 visa program:

Some interesting insights into one of the Indian IT industry's biggest shibboleths - the addiction to US revenues through onsite-led offshoring

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HP's Patricia Dunn Should Go

It is high time that HP stands up and in the process sends a firm, loud and clear message that it is once and for all putting behind the shame and agony of the ugly happenings centered around its board members. For a global technology company, being able to respect privacy rights and behaving in an ethical manner, is an absolute must

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Frothy Bubble Chambers or the Tao of hot

What do the following have in common? a) Scobie's lament about web2.0 stars b) Jason and Kevin's skirmish over taste-makers c) The NYT reports on web 2.0 taste-makers?

All three of them are using old-school thinking to understand hotness. They all seem to think that the world is one â??superclubâ??

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Simplest way to using ajax

If your programming abilities are not good enough, but Web 2.0 is beckon - it's for you.

Nice teaser, we'll see...

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I, Cringely . September 7, 2006 - Apple controls Amazon?

What I think is coming next week is exactly what I thought was coming last January when Apple at the last moment changed its mind about an earlier set of announcements. We'll see a bunch of iPods, two televisions, and the Video Express adapter I first wrote about more than 18 months ago. Also, how Amazon blinked, but may still win the e-video wars

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Live Documents is Powerful Stuff

A new service called Live Documents allows Windows PC users with Office already installed on their computer to syncronize documents across multiple users over the Internet. The next step for Live Documents should be to look for a partner amongst the online office players to make their service work across applications as well.

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More Than a Grudge and a Ring: Why Asian Horror Films Rock

Over the last decade or so, Asian cinema has taken over the horror film genre, and effectively left its own indelible stamp upon it. While western film makers continue to recycle the tame tired plots and ideas, Asian movie makers have gone into their cultural well to dig out new tropes and concepts - or, at least, new variations.

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TorrentPortal Down

TorrentPortal, one of the better torrent trackers around, is down for a while. They are apparently upgrading their servers and will be down until September 10th.

They have an offer of 15 free ringtones for US-residents. I guess there are people who like that kind of thing.

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UK tests out wikipolicy theory, with predictably hilarious results

England's Environment Secretary published a draft policy as a wiki. Guest editors changed headlines like â??Who are the parties to the environmental contract?â?? to â??Where is the party for the environmental contract? Can I come? Will there be cake? Hooray!â?? Here's the final page before the site was locked and reverted.

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Reporting on FOO Camp 06

The events at O'Reilly's FOO Camp 06, and a brilliant piece on Applying Web 2.0: Leveraging Network Effects for Fun and Profit. Intentional or not, many of these techniques for embracing the power of networks have been used by sites like MySpace and YouTube to a considerable measure of success.

There's some real 'secret sauce' here - well worth perusing.

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