New Year Resolutions

1. Will work on an another company with a larger client-base.
2. Increase the revenue of 360 Degrees and make it run without me
3. Concentrate on meditation & stress relieving exercise
4. Learn one additional language (Hindi or French - not decided yet)
5. Will try for a National Record
6. Un-learn things & relearn it with different perspective
7. Try my best to spread language computing
   
8. Involve in more Community development
9. Spread the word about Animal care
   

Although, in deep shock by Tsunami, still i hope the new year will be a good year for everyone and sincere rehabilitation efforts will be done for all those Tsunami victims. If you are off for a party, send atleast One Beer's amount to Chief Minister Relief Fund in Tamil Nadu.

The Making of a Paper

If you are in India, you wont' have missed this word "Tehelka". The Tehelka team in the BJP period disclosed how politicians can go at length to sell military secrets for few thousand US dollars. The then BJP Govt. put a lot of legal cases against the founder of Tehelka and its team. In their earlier incarnation, they were a dotcom company. And it moved them to shut down their website. That's end of Part 1.

The Part 2 begin with a different stroke. A paper. A paper for the people. A paper which aims at what lied benethe the surface of India. A paper not funded by VCs but purely encouraged & funded by self-respecting individual, who care for free press. A paper which demands the reader to open their minds. The trouble, issues faced before the launch itself is a big thriller. Here, after a long time, i have chance to read the making of a paper (Tehelka) article once again online.

Of all the "Param Veer Chakara" holding majors, this man, Tarun Tejpal is much braver than everyone. The courage of this man to put the truth first in a straight forward manner, made him special to be respected as one of the top most journalist team in this country. ( Btw, i like the total team at NDTV , with names like Rajdeep Sardesai, Pranaab "Boss" Roy, Burkha Dutt, Srinivasan Jain, Vikram and others )

I remember searching for the first issue of this paper desparately and found one in Kodambakkam to posses. If you think, you can make a difference in your own life & others in India, just subscribe to this paper. It's worth defending for freedom to express than munching about it.

Untold Mysteries of CSS

In this week article in Informit, Molly takes us to some of the often unused or underutilized CSS properties. The 3 properties Molly is explaining are the

• star selector (* {-----} ),
• multiple classes (div class = borderInfo contentInfo styleInfo)
• !important declaration ( h1 {color: #FF6600; font-weight: bold;} !important).

View the full article

Killer Tsunami - Few perspectives

I am hurried & bombarded with statistics of death toll thru' out the state. I can see disturbing visuals of dead bodies in rows & numbers in various places. I just can't believe still, the beach i love the most, can turn to be a nightmare for so many people. I am troubled by viewing death's of countless innocent kids, infants and children. I am deeply moved by people who are either searching their loved ones or crying on the bodies of their loved ones. I am looking for alternatives to come out of this total grief.

Water is scarce in chennai and water is deadly. I have been armed with statistics every minute. But honestly, i dont find any meaning in these statistics. The statistics wont' reveal the true picture of what had happened. It is not mere numbers. It is lives of people. Kids, infants, children, husbands, wifes, elders, grandpa, grandmas and so much more. I am struggling to find words to express. I am disgusted & ruined in my minds.

One killer wave and it turned my city into a growing graveyard of dead bodies. You can see bodies everywhere. Male, female, kids, infants, the scene is horrible and absolutely terrific to gasp. I still can't digest what had happened to this state. I have always seen all these Tsunami videos and never realised how worst the impact is. Today, sadly, i learnt the brutal force of nature at a huge cost.

I am seriously upset for those people who lost their blood relations. They are in a deep dilema of what to believe & where to search. It's horrible to imagine a situation like that. How can a mother carry on her life, without even knowing whether his child is alive or dead. It will be an endless sleepless nights & will cut a deep scar in the heart. Whether living or dead, all i pray is that every missed, lost and dead person will be in account. I certainly believe, imissing or lost is more devastating than death, for, you will carry that fear of losing for your lifetime.

Knowledge & wisdom completely goes blank when you see the hard reality. I can always juggle, technical facts, scientific details and Tsunami statistics worldwide, but what best will that make. It's all gone. It's all ruined. It's all lying devastated. Disaster to the core is what you can see in & around TN.

Just hoping to come back to my normal routine in a week. But the shock will remain for the rest of my lifetime.

Microsoft loses EU-Anti trust case

A Blow to the Redmond based 4 colour flag giant!

" A European Union court recently upheld penalties imposed by the EU executive on Microsoft, dismissing the software giant's appeal for a suspension.

The EU's executive commission levied sanctions and a record fine on Microsoft in March, finding the US company had abused the virtual monopoly of its computer operating system Windows. "

Full story here

Tremors in Chennai & After Effects

My Deepest condolences for all those soul who died across the globe in this killer Tsunami. It takes time to digest things in the long days & nights to come. To me, it is a striking reminder of the "Day After Tomorrow".

We had a discussion on this yesterday at a bar. It's very sad that India always have some colossal dissastar happening in the year end. Consider Parliment attack, Flight Hijacking. In the last count these are all the indicative statistics of death toll from various parts of India & the rest.

• Tamilnadu - 1,705 (officical govt. figure- expected to be around 5,000)
• Andhra Pradesh - 250 (expected around 500)
• Pondicherry -120
  
• Kerala - 40
• Sri Lanka - 2,500 (expected around 5,000 / 1 million people are said to be homeless)
• Indonesia / Sumatra - 1,800 (expected to be more)
• Thailand - 1,000

With badri's comment, i fear the overall toll can be anywhere between 10,000 - 15,000. For the first time, an earthquake attacking a series of countries and created a lasting devastation. In India, Tamil Nadu is the worst hit state. Around 250 people died in chennai alone. Nagapattnam is the worst affected, around 2,000 people are dead and another thousand people are missing.

My worrying factor in this is how the missing will be informed. For the dead, it's a confirmed one day suffering with a lasting memory. What about the people, who missed their kids, spouses, relatives, friends in this. Their suffering can't be written with words. They need to take the scar of this thruout their life. I hope, that every individual who is affected in this killer wave will be identified either dead or survived. Atleast, that brings a sort of full stop for the life long suffering of their closed ones.

The government has taken faster steps. A dissaster committee has been set up in India.
But, sincerely I doubt on our Dissaster Management abilities. It is even proved in the Gujarat earthquakes too. Unlike countries in the western world, Asian countries has rarely a competant team to handle dissaster recovery and crisis management. Let's hope for the best.

Let's hope the government takes necessary actions to clear this dissaster. In a side note, it is a valid point raised by the MET dept analysts. That people surrounding the Indian Ocean have less knowledge about Tsunami unlike their counterparts in Pacific Ocean. This is partly attributed to less amount of Tsunamis formed in Indian Ocean.

Tremors in Chennai & Media Ethics

Today morning, there was a slight tremor in chennai. I din't realise it, since i slept only at 2.00 AM in the morning, after spending time in my friends's house for a get-together. The sea water entered into the coastal sides of chennai. Santhome, Merina, Tiruvottiriyur, Royapuram, Adyar, Besant Nagar, Neelankarai, Tirvanmiyur are affected. People are started to evacuate from thse places.

It is feared that there are more no. of fishermen community is at risk both in terms of human value & financial value. It's feared there are thosuands of people are homeless & possibility of severe loss of humans in this natural black christmas gift. I wonder for those Millonaires & "Kotteshwarans" who invested heavy money in building sea-side bungalows & other resorts. That's the sarcastic irony of this episode.

Regret to say, the government haven't taken a concrete step to stop the rumours spreading across. Everybody is spreading rumours across the state. The prime accused is Sun TV. Instead of pacifying the people, it actually increases the fear. This is sheer commercialising media journalism. It repeats the same clips from the morning to prove their point and criticising the government inability to handle the situation. I don't see there is honesty in these kinda of telecasting. What is more important for the people is to tell the truth, scientifical back ground and calm down the tensions raising out of this issue. But Sun News to me, is purely targeting to sensationalise & glamorise this natural dissater.

And the reporter, purposefully asking every fellow reporter from various districts about the Police & Government intervention and telecasts the people's hazy thoughts about how government establishements are at strike. A shot from the same channel, tells the clear story. There are thousands of men loitering the place and huge no. of vehicles on the beach road with a heavy traffice on the road. How can a government servant can do his duty. Somehow, we are more curious on how things are unfolding before us. It's being a nature of living in Chennai.

You can see the same mentality, if there is an accident or a shooting happening in this city. Everyone will crowd the place and do nothing productive. All are merely watching the scene in front of their eyes. We atleast, my personal experience with the people in Chennai, restates the fact that we somehow are more emotional than logical when crisis struck.

I do admit, in the initial stage, your mind may not work. But it becomes a collective mass psychology that we are more interested to learn the emotional part of the dissater than the logical next step to move forward.

I only look for Govt. taking faster actions & rescue as many people as they can. It proved all the more one time, that before Nature all our inventions go dumb

Making customers as Evangelists

Have a look

3 Movies in a day

the NO. 3 strikes again. This happened yesterday, dint have time to post, so documenting today.

It all happened with a phone call from my friend saravanan. I immediately cancelled one useless appointment and went straight to Anand theatre to see the first film in 2nd Chennai International Film Festival organised by ICAF.

The movie started at 4.00 clock. The first movie i saw was "SuWaas" directed by Sandeep Sawant. A touching story of how an old man tries to teach his grandson the preciousness of vision & beauty of life. The poor boy will lose his sight completely after a major surgery. A sensible, touching and riveting story in marathi. Tipped to be the nomination from India for Oscars this year 2004.

Came out and had a light snack and get back to the theatre again for a live, real, social pardoxical comedy about Isrealians & Syrians in Syrian Bride. It's a story about a syrian Bride who lives in Israel, wanted to marry a Syrian Television star across the border. With complications, in terms of occupancy rule & UN interruption, socio-economical status of Syria and other elements. Although, this is meant to be a socio, comedy drama, some of the scenes are really touching. In one scene, where the brothers are separted by borders, talk to each other using loud speakers to convey family matters. It's so realistic and happening still in Syrian borders. Touching drama.

It finished at 8.30 and i am scheduled for a tamil movie ("Kaathal" ) at Sathyam. I gotta kill my time till 10 so i take a visit to nearby Reliance webworld and do the most i do at webworld. Watching International trailors. If you are on broadband in your office with good media player support, i suggest the following trailors for you to watch

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/carandiru.html (spanish) - True story
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2637251 (italian) - drama
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2454193 (mature content) - non english / european - true story
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/houseofflyingdaggers-tlr.html (chinese) - mythology
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/lemony_snickets/ (english - box office no.1 now) - Jim Carrey at his BEST!!

Kaathal is a tamil movie about a love story & realistic consequences of escaping from the home town. Running in the backdrop of Madurai, the entire crew is almost new to cinema and this brings certain authenticity & credibility to the entire script. I haven't seen a movie in recent times, which is so close to your heart and looks real. This movie is absolutely & stunningly realistic. The director in the final title card actually claims that this is a "true story". Worth watching!!

Molly's crystal gazing for WEB Design 2005

Molly is a respected professional in the Web design & standards circle. She has done a neat article about here experiences Web Design World 2004. More than an experience sharing article, this clearly paves the way for the issues & positives we have with standards based approach and also sort of guidelines for the industry expectations and change overs in 2005. Her article molly.com web design world cool-down gives you the details.

It's a black truth, that people, who are well known about web too, is skeptical about the acceptance of CSS & separating presentation from content. I had a discussion with a VP of one of Chennai's leading off-shore software company. He is surprised & amused about the kind of works we do and is still skeptical about the wide acceptance of standards compliant website development. Although, he is of a view, that only US & UK needs standards compliants sites for its business advantages & devices adapatability.

To me, that itself is bit surprising to look at. NTT DoCoMo (btw, see their never ending story a flash presentation in their website, just a pre cursor to what a mobile can do to your life!!) is the largest mobile commerce player in the world, who is in Japan, Korea. Reliance infocomn is world's fastest CDMA distributor who is based in India. Taiwan is the base for manufacturing of world's largest technology conglomorates. So, why is that we need to think, standard compliance & device compatibility and related business benefits for only Western countries.

But, I am seeing a welcome change in the way people are reviewing their website & internet strategies. People are now more concerned about marketing & lead generation via websites than traditional media. I hope, next year will be a good year for web designers & developers as a whole.

Googlsim for Me

This is absolutely funny. Try googlism for yourself

Googlism for: narain

narain is new defence secy
narain is ninth
narain is ninth india's narain karthikeyan set a record at interlagos in brazil by becoming the quickest during practice at the famed f
narain is new defence secy press trust of india
narain is also eyeing
narain is not just another youngster out for a ride
narain is interested in ideas
narain is also able to communicate with patients in spanish and hindi and strives to answer all their questions before their exam is complete
narain is a vitreo
narain is a great fan of late ayrton senna
narain is getting ready for the next year’s championship series
narain is third in the standings at the british formula
narain is to continue his testing duties on tuesday at the famous silverstone grand prix circuit before his car is stripped down and airfreighted to the first
narain is very good
narain is very committed to his sport
narain is hailed in some quarters today as indias answer to carl bernstein and bob woodword
narain is
narain is his single
narain is awaiting the next f
narain is ready to rock the hotel industry's most awaited hnfs host 2003 exhibition planned from 11th february to
narain is doing research in the area of internal condensing flows and dealing with related topics of heat transfer and gas/liquid flows
narain is highly talented and perhaps it will not be too long before we see the brilliant indian driver in a formula i car
narain is the founding editor
narain is well known in india for exposing the so
narain is proud grand
narain is being welcomed by the hon'ble chairman of rajya sabha on 2nd september
narain is fascinated by the tiny village of chaukori in kumaon
narain is clearly the faster and better driver
narain is president and ceo of real intent inc
narain is far senior to me in racing
narain is a nmeri employee contracted to the us air force at cheyenne mountain air force base
narain is a leading firm in the field of sculptures
narain is a young indian from coimbatore
narain is briefed by the commander of the carrier uss carl vinson
narain is active in accellera’s assertion language standardization efforts to improve electronic design verification efficiency and productivity
narain is a doctoral candidate in the faculty of law at mcgill university
narain is doing a great job and without any
narain is based on one common characteristic
narain is director
narain is the research and development officer
narain is one of the
narain is currently racing in the prestigious 2002 telefonica world series
narain is one of the few indian sportsmen who aptly personifies the spirit of the new tata's as a fast track indian competing in tough global scenario
narain is bound to take up with the russian side the issue of streamlining acquisition of spare parts to russian
narain is leading the campaign at cnu
narain is incensed at the way dr mashelkar has given ram naik and the delhi transport minister ajay maken a reason to rejoice by legitimising that nothing more
narain is still in search of sponsors to meet his huge financial requirements to enter the f
narain is pictured as a warrior riding to battle
narain is a junior at springbrook high school
narain is performing on july 13th at sodhi palace
narain is the managing director of spantech products ltd
narain is active in accellera's assertion language standardization efforts to improve electronic design verification efficiency and productivity
narain is alive or dead today (i am alive)
narain is that people
narain is deputy director of the centre for science and environment in new delhi
narain is a fifth year dual degree student in the chemical engg
narain is a fifth year dual degree student in the mech
narain is now racing in the formula nippon
narain is in the forefront as one of the leading companies undertaking top projects in the country
narain is 5'2 with black hair and brown eyes (this is wrong..i m taller than that and no brown eyes :-) )
narain is a native of india who has been studying ayurvedic and homeopathic medicine for 15 years
narain is headquartered in the financial and film capital of india and feels the pulse of the industry and has a state
narain is strongly against the laissez
narain is one of the few african american models to hit the cover of playboy
narain is a settled driver today
narain is hopeful about seeing change
narain is senior lecturer in english at the university of sussex
narain is doing a
narain is known among the bureaucrats lost no time in getting the government's policy of raids on economic offenders changed after he took
narain is er nog altijd veel vraag naar content
narain is optimistic of realising his f
narain is a committed christian who has given herself to the ministry of god
narain is going fast enough
narain is a senior lecturer in the school of african and asian studies at the university of sussex
narain is particularly impressive in showing how the british lauded their claims as progressive for women
narain is not looking to purchase anymore pbcs at this time
narain is the director of the centre for science and environment in new delhi
narain is a ms in computer engineering
narain is creating a network of retired army personnel and university students
narain is the 69
narain is carefully prepared
narain is the deputy director of center for science and environment
narain is a veteran of the shipping industry in mumbai
narain is among india’s most eminent geophysicists
narain is in washington as the head of the indian delegation to long
narain is currently the managing director and ceo of the national stock exchange
narain is lord vishnu
narain is working on the project and is based here and at fmrib
narain is currently the director of the centre for science and environment and the director of the society for environmental communications in new delhi
narain is india's greatest hope of representation on this global stage of sport and he is making sure that he does everything possible to bring his dream to
narain is distinguished by a raised platform in the pyramidal form where the idol is enshrined
narain is very critical 15 and blunt about this
narain is also of the view that "the ministry of environment and forests is focussing more on conservation than being a promoter of development"
narain is not only interested in motor racing

Google to digitize University Libraries

Indexing information, cataloguing it and give proper search guidelines are all came from libraries. World libraries organises information under different heads, and making the experience unique and searchable. This was in the last millienium.

Enter Google.

Consumers start using google as a means of their search of information. With its accuracy & faster turnaround, in last 5 years, Google is defacto standard in search. With its enormous site indexing (as of this writing, Google indexes "©2004 Google - Searching 8,058,044,651 web pages" ) and information retrival, Google now sets to change the way the world reads in libraries.

According to news reports from here, here, here, here and here, Google sets to scan some of the top libraries.

"Google plans to scan five vast library collections into its Internet search engine. The project will make available online the libraries of four universities -- Oxford, Harvard, Michigan, and Stanford -- as well as the books of the New York City Library no longer covered by copyright."

It's really amazing, how Google has evolved "Search" as a factor in business. In Hindu Philosophy, it reiterates the point, that Life is full of constant search. It exactly applies to Google. From a search engine, Google today has news, groups, desktop, shopping, web, pictures, print and what not.

I am an ardant fan of The Matrix. Google, somehow amuses me to be a real life Matrix. If today, i want to be neuro scientist, load google, wants to study taxonomy, load google, and for my every learning & interaction activity, i can always load google and get the stuff i want.

In a side note, i read after much legal, public battle finally Oracle buys Peoplesoft. News here. Oracle finally taken over his much needed company for a whopping $10.3 billion. It once again proved Elephants always wins & dance :-) in the Corporate Jungle.

Browser News: Find Browsers - discover where to get browsers both new and old

Browser News: Find Browsers - discover where to get browsers both new and old

Notable Ref. on Web Standards

Essential Lists/Notable References: A web standards checklist, The Big Web Design Details List, Learning CSS, Client guide to web standards, Web development mistakes and so on.

This is an essential list of recommended sites. This site is by Andrew Fernandenz and hosts some of the best tutorials in CSS & Web Standards. He has a very impressive page on Resource Links, which includes CSS, Accessibility, Guides, Tutorials and more. Chk his resource page

Interface Design

Some of the new media development paves way for different professional streams of employment. Interface Design is one among the prime. What is Interface Design ? and why you need to care about?

This article though a bit old in terms of published date, making the case for it

MIT IS&T: Usability Guidelines

Usability guidelines from MIT. Must have reckoner if you are running a standards compliant design agency.View & Print here

Google Suggest

Google labs is experimenting with a new service based on their Zeitgeist information. The idea behind the service is "suggesting" relevant key phrases based on their collection of search history worldwide.

It works like this. Suppose you would like to search for a query like "learning spanish", when you type "learn" itself it gives you the options of choosing from various related queries seached till date. It can vary like, learning english, learning webdesign, learning interiors etc. You can either type the full keyword or choose the relevant one from the list. Each listed keyphrase comes along with the statistics of how many times it is used to search. Looks Impressive.

Chk Google Suggest

How 2 young Engineers changed what was not done in 53 years -- 636 months -- of various Indian governments

This is a true story. A story which can definitely make you cry. A story which can actually rubs your wrong areas about Government. A story how the Young India is ready to change the way India is. A story we all need to be proud & ashamed of. A story, which is finally brought back to the silver screen by Astoush Gowrikar as "Swedes".

I really don't bother about the box of hit of this movie. All i worry is about Domkhedi and it's villagers on their fight against the Sardar Damodar Project.

Read the complete story

Off 2 Bangalore

I am off to bangalore tonite and will be back on saturday. In the last 6 months, this is the first time I am going to bangalore not for my MNC client (sorry just can't reveal his name, under strict NDA :-)).

Hope this time, i am having a row of meetings and looking forward for a good business trip and new lines of activities of business in 2005. Hope for the best.

Seth Godin & SEO

"SEOs are not a shortcut to success, at least not for 99% of the companies out there. You won't win by fooling Google into listing you first for a common search term. You will win once you figure out the simple mechanics of turning strangers into friends and friends into customers."

Seth's Blog: The problem with search engine optimization

It's true, that 90% of the clients think that by paying $5 to Google to start an AdWords account will fetch them no.1 Position in google search. WRONG. SEO is a continuous process. Only good content matters most. It's also assumed that tweaking a few things with content will list you top position in google. The answer is temporarily yes.

Good SEO is not just about content. It is about good markup. Separating design, content, functionality and presentation. Good Linking strategy. Good amount of listing in various directories. Active participation & contribution to your users & community.

Technically, i can always point you to a no. of resources to make your SEO count. But more than anything technical, it is sheer common-sense approach to web. More than optimising your website for search engine, you need to understand how search engines basically index or list your site. As Godin, rightly pointed out, it's a black art. One in a million company can provide you with a clear strategy & optimisation of your website.

I really dont know whether we figure in that one in a million company. But based on our client's feedback, we are fairly doing well. As a shameless self promotion, 360 Degrees gives you a beginner's guide to SEO in its website.

Btw, we are working hard on our revamp of the site. Will post you by Xmas.

Web Design forecast for 2005

Forty Media - Phoenix Web Design

The OQ of the day - Opera & Questia

Just got thru this link via Zeldman. Questia is a searchable online library and you can read books cover to cover. I mean "Cover to Cover" - full book. No jokes. It's true. They give you free book of the week and so on.

I just throw a simple query like"web design" and it replies with 14628 Books 4043 Journal articles 1741 magazine article, 851 newspaper articles and 5 encyclopedia articles. Simply amazing. If you are in your learning mode, i think this is the best place to start.

In a similar note, just downloaded Opera 7.54 and that rocks.Opera has improved a lot over the years. It's a all built-in browser with chat, email clients, transfers, contact manager, chat rooms and more. You can download Opera here. Downloaded purely for my testing purpose to test our webpages but still it's worth a try.

Still firefox is my default browser to go with.

Dope Mezzanotte by Davide Ferrario

Last night, I had a chance of watching an Italian Movie. The auditorium was full. I watched the entire movie standing in one corner of the auditorium. The movie is brilliantly directed by Davide Ferrario and the movie is "Dope Mezzanotte (2004)" translated loosely as "After Midnight" in English.

The Plot summary is this

In After Midnight, the magical Mole Antonelliana (the cavernous Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy) is the setting and inspiration for a very unlikely love story. One fateful evening, Martino, an avid cinephile and the museum's timid night watchman, comes to the aid of Amanda, an enchanting young fast-food cook on the run from the police after dousing her overbearing boss with hot oil. Martino's dreamy kingdom of silent movie characters becomes a sanctuary for Amanda, as she awaits rescue by her devilish car-jacking boyfriend Angel. Spellbound by the museum, Amanda develops a surprising romantic connection with Martino, who until now has only found companionship in his celluloid dreams. Torn between her newfound feelings for Martino and her troubled relationship with the irresistible Angel, Amanda attempts to balance the affections of her two suitors.

Misadventure and chaos ensue as the characters become embroiled in this dubious love triangle. Infused with humor, intelligence, and passion, After Midnight is a masterful homage to the silent movie era. Ferrario's daring visual choices and unconventional storytelling make for a charming celebration of love and cinema.

More than the story, it was brilliantly weaved story with Silent movies as part of storytelling, along with our present talkies. What I am more & more seeing in all these European films is that they like to "live" rather than doing work to live. I may be wrong also here. They don't damn care about sex. They value love most. Human relationships takes a greater emphasis in any one's life.

This movie filled with a sarcastic comedy thruout. Btw, the cinema museum at Turin is fantastic.

Btw, if you are in Chennai and interested in International movies ( i.e, not your regular muscle fisting, hollywood action movies) there is an International Film Festival starts from 17th Dec. 2004 and runs for 10 days. About 90 movies are scheduled to be screened in Pilot & Anand Theater parallely. Mail me if you require any details.

Blog Update - del.icio.us added

If you haven't noticed, i have added del.icio.us RSS link to this blog. del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website, allows you to bookmart your websites based on categories, key words, key phrases along with others. You can also know how many people have linked the same URL and you can also copy + paste interesting URL to your bookmark manager. Interesting thought.

I haven't added this to Microsoft's recommendation. But I dont' think Microsoft can look at it, since this is more or less open source :-)

Can we speed up Browser Evolution by Mike Davidson

Just going thru the blog of Mike Davidson. An old post of why the state of browsers are looking pathetic. He argues at length about auto updates & strict, compulsory implementation of standards (not the XML purists though) in upgrading browsers. Seems lot more sense to think that way. He compares the browser upgrade with Flash upgrade.

Full article is a worth read for any web developer. Btw, subscribe to his RSS Feed (2.0), it's a fascinating read about one of the powerful designers of our time. Some of the highlights of the article i like are:

"The message is, “Let’s speed the adoption rate of W3C standards and let’s also speed the rate at which we apply them on our own sites.” If that causes a few more people to upgrade browsers before they’d like to, so be it."

"If the recent success of Safari and Firefox has shown us anything, it’s that “open” wins in the long run, and if you aren’t producing what the community wants, the community will eventually not want you."

"The fact is that part of the reason Internet Explorer has a 95% market share right now is that Microsoft has successfully reduced the concept of the internet down to a postage-stamp sized icon on your desktop."

"Create the Rapid Browser Improvement Delta Force (or R.B.I.D.F.) I mentioned earlier in the article. I’m serious when I say that I’d rather have a handful of representatives determine actionable browser improvements and then immediate act on them than wait for initiatives work their way through years of committees only to result in hopeful recommendations. Please know that this is not a knock on the incredible amount of thought and effort coming from these committees… it is just a realization that sometimes the more people who are involved in a decision and the more perfect these people try to make that decision, the slower things tend to move. Sometimes you don’t need perfect decisions… you just need helpful, swift ones. If anyone has suggestions for such a panel of people, please post them in the comments. 10 or less people sounds about right to me."

"I realize that some of my thoughts on browser development are a bit naive (seeing as I have never developed one myself), but I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that the inability for us to use newer coding standards shortly after they are released is largely self-imposed. We settle for browsers which don’t upgrade their rendering engines transparently, we settle for specifications which take too long to pass through large committees, and we settle for coddling to the 1% of the population who doesn’t see fit to upgrade with the rest of us.

We need to quit settling."

MSN Spaces

As usual, Microsoft is entering to the blogging platform after every humans have realised in this planet. It's long been a strategy Microsoft adopts as a corporate policy. Some new technological innovation happens in the webosphere, (Is that a correct word to use) new entrants coming in proving the concepts' worth (ex. Google AdWords, Search Engines, Hotmail, iTunes) then Microsoft will take a plunge.

what is sad about that is, when Microsoft enters into an upcoming industry, they decide on the rules of the industry, rather than the industry practices. Heard some of the US hotmail accounts have got upto 250MB space for their accounts, where the industry now talks in GB terms for free email accounts (Gmail, Rediffmail)

Following in the footstep of Apple's very successful iTunes, Microsoft reveiled their replica of the same Music store with MSN, some time back. The music store is still in its beta stage. Close in the heels of similar note, following Yahoo's RSS Integration, MSN now is working on a blogging platform in MSN called "MSN Spaces"

I may have the right to fear that once Microsoft is in, the industry will take a nose dive on many counts. When they introduced Intenet Explorer competing against Netscape, we all know the fate of Netscape and how brutally Microsoft moved away from common Web standards to create a worst browser in the history of Internet and still proud to bundle that along with their OS. (Bring back the web, my dear reader with FireFox )

It will be now interesting to watch the big battle of fight between some of the world's biggest, hottest Internet brands competing for their space in the RSS platform.

I can now recommend some of the more tech. innovations Microsoft can always look at

• Social Networking ( Meetup, Linkedin, Ryze )
• Wi-Ki
• Desktop Search (Google Desktop, Blinkx )
• Email Marketing
• Integrated Online Marketing services

Any viewers from Microsoft India for this blog?

How to be Creative ?

I am not a senior guy to comment on this. But i think, this guy can certainly open a kitchen-receipe-style pdf for you to go thru.

Hugh MacLeod , an advertising executive and popular blogger with a flair for the creative, gives his 26 tried-and-true tips for being truly creative. Each point illustrated by a cartoon drawn by the author himself.

Download from changethis

I am slowly engrossing myself into these communities both changethis & del.icio.us