Yahoo is acquiring HotJobs. So Yahoo is continuing with it's acquisitions. With a big number of acquisitions behind it, Yahoo is emerging as one complete solutions provider on the internet. Name any generic service(that can be used by any net user) and Yahoo seems to have it. They have built their empire with a series of acquisitions. That way, they were able to provide more services quickly than any other portals. But still it is amazing to see the speed and efficiency with which they integrate new services. And the site hardly fails to deliver.
Personally it is very difficult for me to manage without Yahoo. Lot of my friends agree with me. The thing is that I have not yet seen any other internet company that can give me the kind of services that Yahoo gives. And almost all of them for free(At least for now). The customization provided by Yahoo is also very good. Added to it is their excellent speed and very well written, user friendly pages. Here are the services that I use from Yahoo. If I were an American, I am sure the size of the list would have doubled.
1. e-mail. This is not my primary email, but I still use it.
2. stocks and business news.
3. News, India and international 4. Yahoo clubs. I am a member of Kannadigara Committee.
5. My Yahoo. Amazing is the customizablity here.
6. This weblog is on Yahoo geocities. :-)
7. Yahoo messenger
Too bad they do not have a webloggin service ;-). But I am sure they will come one with one some day.
But on the downside, if Yahoo continues to go without competition for long(which is likey to happen) it can go the way all the monopolies(MicroSoft, for example) go. Add to it is the danger that the company has database of almost every internet user in the world. Just to take my example, after Yahoo acquired geocities and e-groups, they had all my active email ids in their database. The issues of privacy and the like also come up. But so far, Yahoo comes out very clean with respect to mis-managing user data. At least I have never heard any one complaining, except for one black mark. When Yahoo acquired geocities, it tried to enforce the users to agree that all the rights for content published in the home pages will be with Yahoo. Naturally, they had to give up this clause due to heavy protests from the users(Who likes to give away content for free?). Read an instance of how users can face problems during acquisition of internet services.
I have compiled a list of acquisitions that are made by Yahoo in the past. This list may not be complete. I have used a raw technique to form this list - Search Google!!. Here is the list.
1. e-groups
2. geocities
3. broadcast.com
4. Yoyodyne Entertainment
5. hotjobs
6. launch.com
7. Online Everywhere - content management
8. HyperParallel Inc
9. DotBank
10. Four11(owners of rocketmail, now yahoomail)
11. webring
12. viaweb
I was just trying to figure out where all do we use computers in our daily life. I tried putting in some of them; on my own and by consulting some friends. I came with a list from which it is possible to say that computers are becoming essesntial part of our life. At least with respect to us fortunate people who are on the better side of the digital divide. Here is my compilation. They don't include technical and professional use such as DTP, spread sheets, programming and the like, but only those uses that are common to every one. I am concentrating more on uses that have(or had!) a non computer equivalent. For example, everyone uses email irrespective of their profession or background. And the equivalent of email before it existed is the good old snail mail.
1. Games
2. Surfing the internet(seeking information)
3. e-amil
4. watch movies
5. listen to music
6. writing diary. With my experience, writing the diary in a computer is not as nice as writing it on paper.
7. prinintg
8. messaging.
9. Telephone. VOIP or otherwise
10. managing contact list, people directory, telephone numbers and the like.
And here are some uses enabled by the internet. Tasks that are basically done with the help of a browser. This list should be really endless, but these are the common ones that I have listed.
1. Banking
2. Payment of bills and the like
3. shopping
4. Get news
5. entertainment of all sorts, such as audio, videos, jokes, clubs, groups and more
6. references. If you don't know some thing, seek information on the net, no longer in a book.
7. stocks, trading and other financial activities
8. yellow pages/directory and the like
Email me to tell me about any thing that can be added to the list.
It seems General Pervez Musharraf condemned the attack. Oh! Well. Thank you very much!! We needed your support a lot. FYI, general, these are the acts committed by your people. If you have to say some thing, say it with action. You support terrorist camps in your country, you let your army help those people. And when they do the damage, you go ahead and condemn the deed. We don't need your sympathy Mr. general. If you really have to say that, show us by abolishing your terrorist camps, and we will believe you.
And then PM promises firm reply to terrosits. "We have been resolutely countering every new manifestation of terrorism in our country. We shall repulse this one equally firmly". Now, that sounds familiar. Where have I heard these lines before? Was that during the terrorist attack on J & K assembly or was that during one of the massacres in the state? Dear prime minister, we have heard a lot of it. Show us what you can do. Not just sit there and talk. We can't live with this inaction forever.
Incidentally, this has happened in a time when the government is fighting with the opposition for POTO(Prevention Of Terrorism Ordinance). The attack is proof good enough to say why we need this bill passed. Chandrababu Naidu rightly points out that. The Congress party has no justification or right to oppose the bill. The party was responsible for passing a a much toughr law of TADA(Terrorism and Disruptive Activities prevention Act) when in power. Now that it has expired, but the situation is no better than it was at that time. POTO is really needed for the country and the opposition parties better realize that. Or we will be facing problems like this forever.
Now, this is a little too much. I think India had had enough of patience. How long can the government keep watching people being massacred by the Pakisthani terroists? And attack on parliment house is some thing that needs to be taken seriously. We have to learn some lessons from United States. Doesn't our government understand that the lives of people is important? At least in Kashmir, it no longer seems to be so. And the same situation is spreading acros rest of India. It is time for action. Enough of waiting for these terrosists to come down from Pakisthan and then catch them after they do the all damage. Government of India has to go pro-active to get rid of these. Why can't we just get there inside Pakisthan and balst off all those assholes? I don't want to believe in peace and all that nonsense any more. Enough is enough. If we don't act now, one day we will end up in a grave security situation like Sri Lanks is facing today. Wake up prime minister, and show these people their place.
Segway is known to be one of the hottest inventions of the current days. So what is it? Well, the answer does not sound so good, unless you add the hype that comes along with it. In short, it is just another automobile. What is special about it? It has a bit different type of controls. You bend forward to move forward, lean back to reverse, and bend the handle to change direction. And the vehicle is supposed to mimic the balancing of human body. Putting in some complex jargons -
The two-wheeled device uses a complex array of gyroscopes and computers to mimic the human body's sense of balance. Not that I understand much of this jargon. Neither do a lot of people whom I spoke to. So what if it uses some big technology? Ultimately, all that it does is to help you in moving from one place to other, like any other vehicle.
I don't understand why another device that helps you walk has to get so much hype. Afterall this is not the very first. There were more inventions before, such as powered shoes. But no one had this publicity. I can't believe that some thing like this became important enough to get fundings from biggies like Kleiner Perkins and CSFB. But that seems to explain the big price tag of $3000, or approximately 150,000 rupees. Some people even call it a big IT invention. Where is Information Technology in this? I don't see any. See picture and reviews of Segway in Salon. There is still one question that needs to be answered. What does the Segway rider use? Streets or footpaths?
It seems KPMG needed some publicity very badly. So they decided to put themselves in a mess. Or soup or trouble or any thing you like to call it.
It all started when a Chris Raettig happened to put a link to KPMG's website from his personal website. When KPMG found out this from their webserver logs, they shot off a letter to Raettig about their internet strategy. The letter stated that he must remove the link to their website as Raettig had no "Web Link Agreement" with KPMG, and hence, according to company's internet policy, he is not allowed to link to KPMG's webiste!!! Apparently guys at KPMG did not know how ridiculous this was. When Raetting published this letter form KPMG in his website, all the hell broke loose. First thing, every one who heard the story started laughing, aloud. And thousands of webloggers published the story on their weblogs to make things worse for the company. To add some fun to the issue, Raettig shot back a letter to KPMG saying that his own organization's web link policy does not require any such formal agreement. :-) From the weblogs, read the most enjoyable article from Madhu Menon. Read the news from Wired.
How is KPMG trying to defend it's deeds? They are saying "our brand is an asset that deserves protection". Apparently they have a weak brand that gets hurt when someone links up to their website. ;-)
As for me, the best way to to respond to all this is to add a link to KPMG from here. ;-)
I love eating out. And I love going out to good restaurants. Yesterday, I had visited Parivar on residency road. It is a good place. Prices are very reasonable too.
My favourite restaurants and other eateries in Bangalore
1. Mozaic, Taj Residency
2. Nagarjuna Savoy near Symphony theatre.
3. Barista's coffe shops
4. TGI Friday's on Airport road.
5. Rice Bowl on Lavelle road. The one on resideny road is no good.
6. Orange County.
7. Javacity coffee shop
8. Pizza Delight in Koramangala. This is a very small place. Not well known. They have a great salad bar which keeps me going back to them.
9. Tandoor. But I find them a bit expensive.
10. Nilgiri's nest. They have a very nice place. I loved going there for their delicious south Indian preparations. But it seems they have stopped preparing south Indian food these days. :-(
Restaurants that I hate. There aren't many
1. Ebony. Bad food, what if they have a good view.
2. Top Kapy. Have I spelled it correct? What applies to Ebony applies to these people also
3. Coffe Days. They are getting older
It has been some time that I have been wanting to write my own weblogs. I am actually surprised with myself that an avid surfer like me took a really long time to find out about some thing called the internet blogging community. The first ever blog the I got to read was Kamat's Anthoblogy where Vikas Kamat of kamat.com writes about web technologies and Indian culture.(What a contrasting combination). Then it was Madhu menon's weblog, for which I saw a link from Kamat's blog. For a long time, I was always under the impression that these weblog writers must be web professionals who probably have some sophisticated tools and host their own websites so that they are able to present their blogs in a very beautiful way. However, when I saw that kamt's blog and Madhu Menon's weblog had similar interfaces, I decided to take a better peek into this and figured out that there are free blogging softwares in the web which can help you in the presentation part(and even hosting). Google, as usual was always at service and helped me find what I wanted. I am impressed by the tool that people at blogger have built. But I am not sure how long they can sustain their services for free .
