Champs Trophy...

Two gooooood games!! Pakistan beating Sri Lanka... And W.Indies beating Australia after their humiliating defeat against Sri Lanka in the qualifiers.

With all controversies & the latest being the drug one, with poor bowling line up, Pakistan still managed to win...

Some good batting performances from Morton & Gilchrist. A full 100 over match. The doubts on low scoring Mumbai pitch washed away and goes along with it, the talks of switching the finals from Mumbai... And the first hat-trick for W.Indies... ICC Champions Trophy matches are interesting.

The next match for England & Australia should also be equally good thinking about the up coming Ashes.

Line Drawn...

Advanced Diwali Ramzan Wishes... Thanks To Appalla

Sun @ Google...

I know that heading makes things a bit more interesting & increases curiosity... Anyways, this is nothing to do with Sun Microsystems.

It's all about the new project in Googleplex about installations of some solar panels for energy generation & hence, helping Google with some electric power! This sure is an interesting development because it seems, the project will be capable of generating power for like 1000 homes.

Hmmm... Wouldn't that be sufficient to meet Google's needs? Well, not really. It seems, that is gonna be sufficient only for half of Google's needs!!! Whatever it is, this sure will help them conserve some energy & save some cost, down the line in future. And ofcourse, they'll get some financial incentives too from government.

Madai Thirandu

Thanks To Sathya

G Spreads...

Ahhh... From the time Writely got integrated with Google's spreadsheets, the Google's product performance has depreciated a lot. Not sure why!

• Especially, only half of the sheet actually gets displayed or rather loaded in Firefox if we move on to other tabs or windows when the spreadsheet is actually loading!
• Sometimes, the sheet says only 50% uploaded and it never completes uploading.
• Very often the sheet loses connection to the server and automatically goes for 'Switch to Read only mode'!
• The sharing options has become more distractive rather than a great feature....
  

Gen Sec...

Hmmm... We got our new UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-Moon and the important aspect of (s)election is Ki-Moon is the Finance Minister from... South Korea!

I really wonder if there is something else behind this. Well, obviously we know this comes right at the time when North Korea has conducted their Nuclear tests and UN is in high spirits to impose tough sanctions against them. And who else will be more than willing to do it, than someone from South Korea!

Credit... & Peace

The guy who sells a hot dog on the street is as much an entrepreneur as anyone else.

That is MicroCredit's stand. An interview of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhummad Yunus.

Why Tube?

So, with all the popularity of YouTube getting more day by day, why should they give themselves into Google? On the other hand, is Google not in a great position to compete with YouTube?

Isn't Google moving towards a competition for the phenomenon called Television? I guess that is where this online video community is going to. And no wonder Google wanna take a bite in this apple - A site where like 100 million videos are seen daily & yet, 60000 videos are uploaded daily...

But the issue is why didn't Google's video website gain the same popularity as YouTube. Though they have come late into the market, they still have success written all over their history in similar situations. Why this business decision to buy up for USD1.65 Billion - a largest in the history of Google too?

Confidential? Not @ BPO...

Hmmm, the new claim is that Indian call centers are stealing information about Britishers. The complete report on the same will be published like on Thursday.

Obviously when calls centers are operating for Banks and other similar financial instituitions, people have to provide very sensitive & personal confidential information inorder to access the accounts and other details. I always have had doubts about providing such information to any telephonic customer service representative. Like from US people need to provide Passport numbers, SSN, credit card details & bank account details to get things done over phone. Not good at all.

Like here in this report that is yet to be published it seems the information are more on the credit cards that are used by people for personal purchases and all. And it seems the information is taken by the tech support people in jump drives out of the centers.

So, how to make a good judgement decision on who is reliable?

Google's Bad News Picture...

I have always had a better idea about the Google News website. I do visit it very often. Even otherwise, the Google search site is itself atleast to some extent safe, preventing from pornography or bad search links/images with the 'Safe Search' feature.

But today, the Google News site is a bit different. There is a news link in 'Entertainment' page related to the Ugly Betty TV comedy serial. This show is being produced by Salma Hayek and that is the only relation for her to this news story. But as I see, the small thumbnail display picture against this news story link is a nude picture of Salma Hayek!

Which website will put up such a non-related picture for totally a different news story? Even so, shouldn't Google news website make sure the links and thumbnail pictures are still following the 'Safe Search' rulez?!!

Equalizer...

So, China proved for Mike that he is still on the run for the Championship:) And the deciders are Japan & Brazil.

You sure know what I'm talking about. It was Alonso's run for the title and he couldn't make it. But Schumi took advantage and he equalized the championship points to 116. From 6th pole position to the top, he yet again proves that he is worthy to take his 8th championship.

So, every eye is looking forward to the last 2 races... Is it gonna be a championship retirement?

Quote Redefined!

I was never aware that there has been a controversy on the famous statement which Neil Armstrong made from moon in 1969. The quote read... till date

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

Do you see anything wrong? Well, people have seen that there was no 'a' before 'man'!! So, people have argued or criticized Neil to have actually meant "That's one small step for mankind..."! Did he mean that or not is the question:)

It seems the statement would have been dramatic and grammatically correct if Neil had said 'a'! Hmmm... who cares? Peter Shann Ford has cared about the same, used some audio research softwares and has proved that Neil infact used 'a' before 'man' in his famous quote!

Who knows, this may turn out to be another controversy:)

Rockin' Bucks...

Go Bucks, Go! This year is yet another one after 2003, standing in front of you....

Nittany Lions, LongHorns & Hawkeyes are gone. You guys are now not only the toughest defense team, the best offense too. Our rival, Wolverines is the only other ranked team we are yet to meet. That game is always the last and we stand the best in front of them forever.

Is it Auburn or USC to face us in the National Championship?

Playful Holidays...

The long awaited holiday season for this year is almost here. Two months down the line, we'll have the new set of gadgets and the big ones expected are the Zune & PS3.

PS3 had been on the pipe line for a long time. And the advantage is its 60GB version being compatible with that of Blu-Ray DVDs. PS3 is already one year behind XBox 360 and has already lost a good percentage of the market. Now, the question is can it make a great entrance as their PS2?

Blu-Ray has been in the market more time than its competitor HD-DVD. People who would have bought Blu-Ray DVD players won't really wait for PS3's advantage on the same. Also, if people who have bought HD-DVD may probably go for XBox360 foreseeing some future compatibility.

And now, Microsoft has made the announcement of XBox360's compatibility with HD-DVD discs. This add-on drive for USD 200/- is also coming by mid-november right for the time of holidays. And the conference with Peter Jackson would sure have its own positive impact on HD-DVD & XBox360's new add-on drive.

So, probably HD-DVD will have better chances this holiday & that would probably put down the sales for PS3!! What say, Sony?

More Hours Same Pay...

This sure is an interesting Management strategy - The way Volkswagen have come up to a deal with their manufacturing unions.

So, the deal says that the employees will work for 4 more hours per week increasing from 29 to 33 and will be getting the same pay. This is something that is unimaginable for me from an Union's perspective. Where can you expect the union to sign a deal for the workers to work for more with the same pay? Well, on the other hand the union have made sure that the company will give job security for their employees till 2011.

When most of the car companies are trying to get out of the industry from negative slope, this strategy will atleast help VW to some extent of increasing their profit from their hot-selling Golf brand. What more can you expect? Usually the strategies for reducing the production costs are to make sure the company implement those manufacturing based industry-wide jargons like Kaizen, Lean, Pull, JIT etc. Or atleast increase production with some overtime hours from employees making a trade-off between the extra pay & the profit to be made.

But, with no extra cost for the "documented" excess working hours and at the same time increasing the prodcutivity & production is worth a success for the company.

BTW, whatsup with Ford & GM? Any improvements...?