During the recent Live telecast of Opening Ceremony of CommonWealth Games 2010 New Delhi, viewers were annoyed by the Ad breaks between the Spectacular show’s Live telecast. But one of the Ad that caught many viewer’s attention was the Indian Railway Ad. This ad was seen for the first time on Indian Television.
It tries to bring the whole nation together. Based on one of the Hindi Movie songs , sung by Ashok Kumar.
Yesterday I saw the twitter CEO, Evan Williams tweeting about his meeting with Dalai Lama and suggesting him to be on twitter.
And today His Holiness Dalai Lama’s twitter account @DalaiLama was listed and badged with ‘Verified Account’
It says:” Welcome to the official twitter page of the Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.”
Follow him at http://twitter.com/dalailama
So is it time for China to ban twitter also ?
“Cricket lovers can now watch the Indian Premier League (IPL) live on internet portal YouTube. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will partner with Google India to stream live matches of its domestic IPL league in the Twenty20 format.
Google’s video streaming internet portal YouTube will stream live matches of IPL-III, which begins in March. This will include 44 days of IPL, with 59 matches…”
(Source: YouTube to stream IPL-III matches live)
IPL already has an Youtube video channel. Look for everything related to IPL on its official site - http://www.iplt20.com/
Came across a site pressbrief.in from a news item in today’s TOI , which has lots of materials related to Nehru and Gandhis . The site has Press releases in Hindi, English and Urdu, Photos, videos, audios, Speech text etc.The Congress related videos section has even the rare Mahtama Gandhi videos. The site also displays the latest related Newspaper cuttings.
The ‘design’ section of the Priyanka Gandhi has also provided 2010 Calendar for download featuring her month by month. But the size is not suitable for Computer background. Still if one wants one can resize it and use it as backgrounds.
There are very less such sites providing so much information about a Political family , so I decided to blog about it. Those interested can have a look. And I think Priyanka Gandhi on Calendar might be first of its kind also.
Just now, while I was on twitter, I received a tweet saying “Now, This is serious.. online banking fraud! http://bit.ly/W8WD4 ‘, So out of curiosity I followed that link to the blog post. It was, as it said, was about a phishing site. The post was Now this is serious!!! by Arnab Mitra on his blog Intelligent Marketing . In the post the author Arnab Mitra described his experience about Online Bank fraud. He first receives a mail (gmail filters failing )
This mailer did look exactly like an alert from his bank, which needed an urgent attention. So he clicks on the link provided in the mail ( link: https://infinity.icicibank.co.in/BANKAWAY?Action.RetUser.Init.001=Y&AppSignonBankId=ICI&AppType=corporate&abrdPrf=N
This link actually shown is the correct bank link but actually it links to http://www.french-eng.co.uk/tmp/cache/indexx.html )
And if you click this link in FireFox, it allows it and looked exactly like the real banks page-
So curiously I also tried it in Firefox which took me to this and when clicked on Personal Button opened the site as shown above, So Firefox failed to detect this phishing site.
Now I tried in my default Browser- My Internet Explorer 8, Yes IE8 !! And when I clicked on the link it took me to this -
IE8 blocked the site and it clearly warned ‘This Website has been reported as unsafe’ and recommended not to continue to this web site. This is one example of Security feature in IE8.
Any common person who might have received this kind of fraud mail is most likely to fall in this trap. The author Arnab Mitra was attentive enough to have noticed this, though Firefox allowed it. I have heard and had seen screenshots of such sites earlier also, in that case ICICI only but after reading the blog post by Arnab, I also decided to try it. Thanks to Arnab, I’m also carrying his blog post forward and alerting people of such Phishing sites. I request to make use of IE8 which is one of the Safest browser. I always use IE8 for Online Transactions without fail. So this is why one should use IE8 . You can get IE8 from here , and its Free !
Recently I also had come across a post from IE8 team : Real-World Protection With IE8’s SmartScreen Filter™ which said -
“………However, phishing remains a prevalent and important threat to users as well. We’re continuously making improvements to our data sources and intelligence systems that deliver phishing protection. This continuous investment keeps IE in the market-leading position it established with the release of the Phishing Filter in IE7. Since then, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 have blocked over 125 million phishing attacks.
The newest NSS study included a test pass for phishing blocks. NSS Labs reported the following block rate for major browsers:
You can view the full NSS study at http://nsslabs.com/browser-security.
And this was a real world example where one can be easily cheated if he is not using IE8 or is not attentive enough.This is one of the reasons, why one should use IE8. Thanks IE8 !
After that you can also print a certificate of your participation.
Earlier also NASA had come with such things. Become a Martian now!
Received today a Thank-you gift from Windows 7 Starter Team. This was provided to all the participants for their contributions and the effort to help beta test Windows 7 Starter.
Thanks to Starter Team !! Thanks Samer, Wendy, Edson and everyone at Windows 7 Starter team.
Its a Notepad and kind of sticky racket-ball game, both branded with Windows 7 logo.
Earlier I had also received Windows 7 Swag for providing ‘Best Suggestion’ during Live Chat with Windows 7 Team.
But the big one, which I had received from Windows 7 team, a couple of months back is yet to be posted about. Will blog about it soon :)
(* Download Silverlight from http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx)
Check out this cutaway illustration of the new Cadillac One, the armoured limousine which has been custom built to be Barack Obama's Presidential car.
It can withstand rocket impacts and it's perfectly sealed against biochemical attacks
Petrol Tank :Armour plated and foam filled which prevents it from exploding even in case of direct hit
Doors: Eight inches thick,weight of a cabin door of Boeing 757.
Check out other astonishing fact features from the above cutaway illustration.
(Source:Gizmodo)
Check out the the picture of moon's surface taken from lunar orbit by Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft's Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on November 15, 2008. Taken over the polar region of the moon, the picture shows many large and numerous small craters. The bright terrain on the lower left is the rim of 117 km wide Moretus crater.
Also check this short movie made from the images taken by Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) of Chandrayaan-1 as the spacecraft flew over the area near the South polar region of moon. The Terrain Mapping Camera,built by ISRO's Space Applications Centre(SAC) of Ahmedabad, is taking excellent pictures of Moon's surface from Chandrayaan-1's 100 km high orbit from the Lunar surface.
Continuing with my earlier post of ‘Indian Flag on Moon – Mission Chandrayaan-1 Successful’, here are couple of close up pictures of Moon’s surface taken by Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on 14th Nov 2008 as it approached it after separating from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
The Indian flag was painted on the sides of MIP, one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, that successfully hit the lunar surface.
These two are close up pictures of the moon's surface taken by Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on November 14, 2008 as it approached it after separating from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Please note that these pictures are reproduced as received. Image courtesy : ISRO
“MIP’s 25 minute journey to the lunar surface began with its separation from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft at 20:06 hrs (8:06 pm) IST. This was followed by a series of automatic operations that began with the firing of its spin up rockets after achieving a safe distance of separation from Chandrayaan-1. Later, the probe slowed down with the firing of its retro rocket and started its rapid descent towards the moon’s surface. Information from the its instruments was radioed to Chandrayaan-1 by MIP. The spacecraft recorded this in its onboard memory for later readout. Finally, the probe had a hard landing on the lunar surface that terminated its functioning.”
I am posting these on my blog deviating from my regular posts as this is a Big achievement and majority of countries have not achieved this in its first attempt. Well Done India !! Congrats to all Scientists!!
MIP will start sending still and digital video pictures of the Moon to ISRO.
For all the details, please check : http://www.isro.org/Chandrayaan/htmls/pressreleases.htm
The image shows Moon as viewed by Chandrayaan-1 on 4 Nov. 2008, Distance ~ 311200 Km. from Moon (Image courtesy : ISRO)
I came across this interesting slide show from PCWorld (msn tech & gadgets) about the 10 Most Overrated Products against Underrated ones. Check this out.
Apple iPod 3G (© Apple); Microsoft Zune (© Microsoft)
Some of them featured are:
Apple iPhone 3G (© Apple); Sidekick 2008 (© T-Mobile)
Apple iTunes 8.0 (© Apple); Slacker.com (© Slacker)
Apple iPod 3G (© Apple); Microsoft Zune (© Microsoft)
Adobe Photoshop CS4 (© Adobe); Paint.net (© MIT License)
Windows XP (© Microsoft Corp) ;Windows Vista (© Microsoft Corp)
and many more ……………see the link for other comparison.
As you can see many Apple products getting listed in Overhyped products. Indeed its marketing hype that adds them. They are good but other products in their category are also good which may not have got that extra marketing push. For ex. Zune and the Zune Software are less hyped but I think are better. Another is Paint.NET, which many do not know about its potential. Being free does not mean it is not good. It can very well do many basic image editing tasks. Follow the above link for detailed read.
So the Year 2008 has arrived !!
This is a bit off topic, I would say sort of but not totally.
All Command & Conquer Fans, here's an opportunity to download the original Command & Conquer Gold which was released back in 1995, now made compatible with Windows XP.Thanks largely to the efforts of our loyal fans whom continue to sustain and grow the Command & Conquer community, Command & Conquer has become a legendary franchise and it’s time to celebrate its birth once again.In order to give back to the fans for over 12 years of devotion we are putting together a 12th Anniversary celebration during the month of September. However, as any Command & Conquer fan knows, the true party starts today, August 31st, which marks 12 years since Command & Conquer Gold launched way back in 1995.To kick the celebration off, today we have a special surprise which we are certain new and old Command & Conquer fans will enjoy. We are providing the original Command & Conquer Gold as a free download, compatible for Windows XP! This is the same version included with the collectors pack Command & Conquer: The First Decade, and is now available for you to download for free!
Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60
so I switched off and removed the battery and keyed in the 26 digit identification number in the given website.
"Flags of countries fetched from Wikipedia (as of 26th May 2007) are analysed by a custom made python script to calculate the proportions of colours on each of them. That is then translated on to a piechart using another python script. The proportions of colours on all unique flags are used to finally generate a piechart of proportions of colours for all the flags combined"
