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Thursday, March 29, 2007

Sponsors show the door to Dravid & Dhoni

Rahul Dravid and Mahendra Singh Dhoni have got the axe from their sponsors Sansui and Videocon respectively. Financial Express has quoted Sansui marketing director Anil Khera saying "We have lost Rs 6 crore on our Rahul Dravid ad campaign”. Videocon has spent Rs 15 crore on its ad campaigns on the World Cup. Just before the World Cup, Sachin had lost the lucrative Airtel contract. I have a strange feeling Reebok is next in line!

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Yahoo Mail offers unlimited storage

John Kremer, Vice President, Yahoo Mail has announced that Yahoo Mail will be offering its users unlimited storage from May 2007.

Now that Yahoo has gone the Rediff way (which started giving unlimited storage since the first week of March, 2007), we only have to wait and watch to see if GMail and Hotmail follow suit.

T-Series files lawsuit against Google

Music and entertainment major T-Series has filed a lawsuit alleging losses to the tune of Rs. 100 Crore against Google, accusing the internet major of showcasing T-Series’ copyrighted videos on its video sharing site YouTube.com.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

THE YEAR'S BEST [ACTUAL] HEADLINES OF 2003

Crack Found on Governor's Daughter [imagine that!]

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says [no, really?]

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers [now that's taking things a a bit too far!]

Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus? [not if I wipe thoroughly!]

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over [ what a guy!]

Miners Refuse to Work after Death [good-for-nothing lazy so-and-sos!]

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant [might work better than a fair trial!]

War Dims Hope for Peace [I can see where it might have that effect!]

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile [you think?!]

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures [who would have thought!]

Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide [they may be on to something!]

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges [you mean there's something stronger than duct tape?!]

Man Struck By Lightning Faces Battery Charge [he probably IS the battery charge!]

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group [weren't they fat enough?!]

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft [That's what comes from eating all those beans!]

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks [Taste like chicken!]

Chef Throws His Heart into Helping Feed Needy [That was really giving of himself!]

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half [Texas Chainsaw Massacre all over again!]

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors [Boy, are they tall!]

And the winner is...

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead [I certainly hope so!]

Sunday, March 4, 2007

A Microsoft Vista Upgrade Experience

Below is an experience of a person who has had his share of troubles with Microsoft Vista. Read On!


"Let me begin this by stating that I am writing this on an un-Activated/No CD-Key/Activation-Cracked copy of Windows Vista Home Premium... at the express recommendation of, and instructed by: Microsoft Technical Support.

Like many others, I purchased Vista the day it was released. According to the box my laptop had plenty of juice to run it (Turion64 1.6, 1280 MB RAM, 80 GB HD, Mobility Express 200M) and since I had a spare $178, I figured "Why not?" I get home and open the package (how many others out there spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to open the package ??), put the disk in my XP Pro laptop (I've already downloaded the Upgrade Advisor and verified that you can upgrade from XP Pro to Home Premium) and proceed to "Upgrade" my laptop.

Two hours later (!) I've got a fully functional Windows Vista laptop... sort of; it seems kinda sluggish... actually, it's performance just sucks to be honest.

I live with the Vista "upgrade" for about two weeks before I decide that a fresh install is in order to hopefully allow Vista to perform up to its promises. I reboot with the Vista DVD in the drive, go through the beginning of the install process again until I reach the spot where you choose "Upgrade" or "Fresh Install". I chose "Fresh Install" instead of "Upgrade" this time, entering my CD Key and proceed to wait 45 minutes or so for the install to complete. Hooray !!! I have a Vista laptop that actually performs... sorta better than before, but it's still not as fast as XP Pro was, but it's OK.

Now...here comes the fun part:

I click on the taskbar icon to "Activate Vista", I follow the prompts, click the Activate button and Vista promptly kicks back an error that the CD Key I have provided is for an upgrade of Vista ONLY. As I have installed this as a "Fresh Install", my CD Key was not valid !! (Just wait...this gets better).

I decide for the first time in my life I'll call Microsoft Customer Service - I figured that this has probably happened hundreds of times already and I'll be on the phone 10 minutes at most. After 45 minutes of wading through various Tier 1 techs that have all asked me the same questions 10 times each, I get transferred to a customer service manager who seems to speak slightly better English and may have a clue as to how to help me.

I explain (for the fifth time) what I've done to reach this point - he promptly tells me that you cannot upgrade to Vista Home Premium from Windows XP - that the installer will not let you do so (!?!?!?!?) and that the upgrade DVD will not let you complete a fresh install (!?!?!?!?). At this point I ask him how I have managed to reach this point if neither of those possibilities are able to occur (even though it is their software that has allowed me to do so); he replies that the only fix I have for my predicament is to reinstall XP Home and then reupgrade.

I politely tell him that since I have recently moved I do not have the foggiest idea as to the location of said XP disk and inquire as to whether there is ANY other way to fix this. The forthcoming reply rather shocked me I must say - The Customer Service Manager told me that I could either borrow an XP Home disk from a friend (isn't that software piracy ??) or look online for one of the many Vista Activation cracks to bypass Vista Activation completely, and specifically mentioned "TimerLock" (um... hey, HE told me to do it !!). Well, I followed his instructions.

I did a little bit of searching on Google and came up with information on the "Timerlock" crack. I downloaded and installed TimerLock and now have a quasi-legal fully functional version of Vista Home Premium (I HAVE a legal CD-Key - even if Vista doesn't like it).

I would like to make it very clear that I tried to do this the right way before I resorted to the guerilla method, I DID stay with the correct version of Vista that I had purchased (the DVD will allow you to install ANY version of Vista) and I do not advocate the use or distribution of pirated software.

It truly surprised me that not only was Microsoft Technical Support not able to help me with my problem correctly, but actually suggested an illegal method to do so. I'm extremely disappointed not only in Vista, but in Microsoft as a company for allowing such behavior to occur.

Al Menard"

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Free Keyword Research Tools

Over the past few weeks I have been testing out a few keyword research tools to try and find out which ones are the best. During these trials I looked at the ease of use, features, speed, and the overall interface of the tool.

DigitalPoint Keyword Suggestion Tool

DigitalPoint’s keyword suggestion tool is fairly simple yet powerful. It searches through both the WordTracker and Overture data, and displays the results side by side for easy comparison. The only major thing that I disliked about it was its sluggishness, but then again it is probably a major resource hog.

Ratings:
Ease of use: 9/10
Features: 7/10
Speed: 6/10
Overall: 8/10

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

I would have to say Google’s AdWords keyword tool is one of the best tools for finding profitable niches. You can either type in a keyword, or search a dynamic page for keywords. For example, you could put in yahoo.com, set the maximum bid price to $60, and figure out which niche is high paying. You can also view search trends and keyword popularity.

Ratings:
Ease of use: 8/10
Features: 10/10
Speed: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Free WordTracker Keyword Tool:

The WordTracker tool is pretty basic, it simply displays the number of searches for a specific keyword. It is extremely quick and really simple.

Ratings:
Ease of use: 10/10
Features: 6/10
Speed: 10/10
Overall: 9/10

If you know of any more free keyword tools, feel free to post them in a comment with a quick review of it :)

Friday, March 2, 2007

Longest & Shortest Scheduled Flights!

The world's longest scheduled flight from Newark to Singapore is 18 hrs 40 min long. The shortest?? About 2 min! The latter is a flight operated by Loganair for British Airways, is between the Scottish islands of Westray and Papa Westray. The Pilatus Islander prop plane takes off from Westray at 8.49 A. M. and arrives at Papa Westray at 8.51 A. M. The 14.5 km route has been once done in 58 seconds due to a strong tail wind. And since coffee takes three minutes to brew, no beverages are served on board!