MS partners got Zunk'd

MS announced zune. And what is the response from the blog community??
All the web is resonating with articles and opinions on how the MS partners are zunk'd.

Strange, no body knows for sure what this zune is about. What constitutes zune?
And these kids are already writing swan songs for the microsoft partners and their players.
Saying that Microsoft would stop supporting them.. (MS stop supporting Windows Media Player?? Can any one think about that happening? -play for Sure' is nothing more than a marketing campaign)

Stranger thing is that people claim, MS can gain the market share only from their partners and not from apple. Or at least they say zune would have to step over the MS partner players before it can challenge ipods.

There is not word yet from MS on what kind of players they would be releasing. flash or hard disk?? what is the price range. 100 or 400?? What kind of service they would be providing?

Above all, not even a single partner complained about the Zune yet. So what is the problem for these bloggers? Why do they care so much for the small time mp3 players? Or are they afraid that MS would be a strong competitor for their favourite Ipod. Why is the rush to write off MS. Let's wait for the MS to announce the details of ZUNE.

MS Haters

I see a lot of people don't like Microsoft, for the trouble they had gone through using windows. Windows is a very good OS for sure in terms of functionality and usability. The problem is with the security. With spyware, viruses and popups. It is perfectly alright not to like MS.

But people call MS evil for a lot of things. Which doesn't make sense.
One major complaint every one has is that MS killed Netscape by providing IE for free. That is ridiculous. MS is in business and not in charity. If some one introduces a new application, it doesn't mean MS has no right to build a competitor?
If Netscape is that great, people would still have used Netscape as it is also a free software for most of the users. People simply didn't bother because Netscape doesn't give them any thing great.
What has stopped Microsoft from killing firefox. They couldn't. Simply because firefox is simply a better application and had a better marketing strategy to outfox MS. The same people have introduced thunderbird mail application and a calendar. They didn't take off, since they didn't have much for users to move from their outlook applications. Simply MS has a better product here and is providing what the users wanted.
May be if google comes up with a better online office suite, atleast consumer market would go for it even if MS provides office with Vista for free. If openoffice is as good as they claim it to be, what is stopping the users from using it, at least in the consumer market if not in the corporations. I've used it a while ago, when openoffice is not upto the mark. I cannot comment on th quality now. If they really have a great product rivaling MS, they simply lack proper marketing skills. If they don't have money, they can go viral, just like firefox did. Same with Linux machines. You cannot put the blame on MS, for their own failure.

bigamy illegal

based on indian religious personal laws
a muslim can marry more than one woman. And a Hindu cannot. If a hindu guy marries twice, he would be put in jail.

where in the scriptures that bigamy is prohibited for hindus. most of the gods have atleast 2 wives. so why this discrimination against hindus. marriage is a personal choice and if all the parties agree, a guy should be allowed to marry two woman and vice versa.

genuine doubt.
What say??

EDIT: This is to point out the stupidity of Indian SICKular (i.e. pseudo secular) politics. Even the islamic countries like pak, iraq, turkey etc. are reforming their laws and doing awy with such stupid clauses. But India, cannot dare touch the muslim law.

Why blame Pakistan, when we have people like Mulayam

"I feel that considering the opposition of the local people, the police station should be built in a cosmopolitan area where there is a mix of Hindus and Muslims. The present location has 100 percent Muslim population," - Samazwadi Party MP Abu Azmi

Look at the argument, so now we can't even open up a police station where we want??? Is it a bar or prostitution house?? This statements is given after Two policemen were allegedly lynched by a mob after two persons died in police firing in his textile town during a violent protest against construction of a police station next to a mosque.

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"SIMI is not a terrorist organisation. Some of its members may be involved in terrorist activities and action should be taken against them," Samajwadi Party state general secretary and state PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav


SIMI is a terrorist organization banned for last 5yrs by the central government. Both by BJP led and Congress led governments. SIMI is widely believed to be against secularism, democracy and nationalism, keystones of the Indian Constitution. SIMI maintains that these concepts are antithetical to Islam. Its slogan is "Allah is our Lord, Qur’an is our constitution, Muhammad is our leader, Jihad is our way and Shahadah is our desire". SIMI believes that Osama bin Laden is an outstanding example of a true Mujahid, who has undertaken Jihad on behalf of the 'ummah'. They also blame the 9/11 attacks on Israel's Mossad.

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The Kerala Assembly, meeting at a special session on Holi, passed a unanimous resolution calling for setting free the same Islamist extremist on parole. We are speaking about Abdul Nasser Madani, the alleged mastermind of serial blasts in Coimbatore on February 14, 1998, in which 58 people lost their lives. "Had the Assembly claimed that Madani was innocent and wrongly incarcerated, it would have been understandable. But calling for the parole of a person charged with terrorism is nothing but crass opportunism and amounts to - however leery we may be about the term - minority appeasement."

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Sorry state of Indian politics in the name of secularism

Second Green Revolution in India

60% percent of Indian work force rely on agriculture and related industries.
And yet they contribute to 20% of the Gross Domestic Product.

There is clearly skewed. A lot of Indian farmers are committing suicides unable to pay their debts as the crops are failing. Crops fail not just because of lack of rain, but many other reasons contribute to it. Even the crops are good, they won't get the right price for it as the indian agriculture industry is segmented and unorganised and the sellers (the farmers) have a little say on what they get for their yields.

So there is a definitive need for an organized agriculture sector, putting right crops in right reason in right places, get higher yields with proper use of technology , proper distribution channel. small farmers do not have the knowledge or have enough resources available, even if they have te knowledge, they would ntot be able to affor them. Corporations should come into agriculture.

Increase the productivity and then make fewer people rely on agriculture. Develop alternate industries that require man power and make use of the people displaced from agriculture.

Looks like Mukesh Ambani is stepping in the direction. Hopefully he leads the coutry all the way to successful results.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1740294,0002.htm

Da Vinci Code banned

in Punjab, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and Andhra after being cleared by the Censor board and the union government.

It may hurt religious sentiments of Christians.

Rome doesn't have a problem showing this movie and it became biggest block buster in Italy's history.
But the great secular Indian states with less than 1% Christian population ban the movie.

Way to Go!!!

Apple and Google

IPod and Google Search are great products to start with.
They created these markets and are the leaders.
But now we have other players who offers better products.
But the market share of these products keep growing.
the notion is that their simplicity is the key selling point.
But I say it is all marketing. Free publicity. First mover advantage.

Ipod shuffle is a BULL product, but it sells better than other cheaper flash players with a display, FM transmitters and SD slots to upgrade memory.
Yahoo Music and Napster gives you a better music download plans for the real music buffs.

And coming to search, Yahoo gives you better functionality, fewer clicks, social networking in search, great shortcuts,
and wonderful 'also try' feature and many more. But google is growing bigger and eating up yahoo search's mkt share. (firefox and DELL are also major influencers by bundling ;))

That is because these names have become synonyms for what they do.
People plan to buy IPods, they don't plan to buy 'MP3 Players'
People don't search, they google.

Most of them I believe don't even explore further. They just go straight to them!!!

Greatest Leader of Modern India

Mahatma Gandhi is a great leader and so is Nehru. People say Bose is also a great leader. But after reading few articles on Unification of India post independence, it's got to be Sardar Vallabhai Patel the most important person and the greatest leader of modern India.

Sure, Gandhi has brought the entire nation to fight against the British with the most powerful weapon, non violance that is. Nehru had a great role in building India after hundreds of years under the foreign rule. Bose is a great freedom fighter who wants to settle with nothing but independence. But there were some loose ends, and British might have given us the independence sooner or later with or with out Gandhiji. And many of the freedom fighters might have filled in the place of Nehru with out any problems. Bose anyways couldn't contribute much to Nation in the end.

But Patel, is the one who is responsible for the boundaries of what we call india now. He was the person responsible for the political integration of india from a staggering 565 princely states. Imagine having an independent states of Junagadh, Hyderabad, Travancore (kerala) and having jodhpur indore and jaisalmer as a part of Pakistan. I could imagine what could have happened in such a scenario. Another Africa??
Thanks to the great Iron Man of India. We all are Indians. We are ONE.

Boot Camp

So the fizz is gone - 10% increase in AAPL share price in one session. What were they thinking??

It is easy to get lost in this Apple euphoria and forget the reality.

For the business desktops, the IT guys are not even ready to install a patch fast enough fearing compatibility. Moving to Macs is very very far away.
And as for the business servers, forget it. With Vista looking to provide virtual Linux on their servers, even independent Linux vendors should watch out. Mac Servers, only in dreams.

And for the home users, the reality is simple, Mac is way too expensive. They can increase their mkt share by a couple of percentage points slowly. Nothing more than that. You cannot expect Ipod phenomenon to happen with Mac. Dell offers a lot of value for this market. You can get a Dell PC with large flat screen for just $399. And when it comes to the number of applications available and the things you can do with these systems, it is not even a contest.

Letting people run Win on a Mac is like 1 step. Virtualization with leopard enabling Mac/Win run in parallel would be a leap. But the real stroke would be to let Mac OS run on PCs.

నేను సైతం

తెలుగు తల్లికి సమిఠనొక్కటి ఆహుతిస్తాను

One Laptop Per Child

MIT is working on a laptop that would cost a $100 and it plans to sell it to 3rd world govts in bundles of 1 million., which they expect the govts. to distribute to the poor kids and aid them in learning and being creative. And it charges by a crank shaft. You need to rotate the crank for 1min to get a 10min charge. And they can do everything a regular laptop can do. It doesn't have storage space. And it creates an adhoc wireless n/w with the other machines in the vicinity. If one of them is connected to the internet, every one can access the web.

Hmmm.. They don't know the 1st thing about the "3rd world". Thier intentions might be good, but this is just an expensive idea that is going to fail. The reason, nobody cares. There is nothing that this poor third world kids would learn from the web, that would help them in their lives. In anycase, who is going to teach them, who is going to support the networks, what do they use it for, is there any curriculum that is developed to make use of these new equipment, how long would some one hold to their laptop. there are too many questions.

its making wide publicity that google is supporting this project. They gave a $2 million to the research. that's like pocket money to buy candies for google. It's good, but its not something we can say that google is backing the project. to me it looks like, giving money because you can, not because u believe.

Any day, this top down approach wouldn't work. As google says, we should create solutions to the problems. In this case they are creating a solution and then mapping it to an imaginary problem that do not exist. You need to go into the interiors to know what these kids need, giving them something that don't even care about creates an overtime job for the spiders in the warehouses.

Google buys writely!!

That's a great news. Google bringing more and more stuff to the web. Google seems to have the grandest plans.
It's not just looking to compete with office products.
But they might be work to some extent. If it is doing all this for the online advertising revenue, it would work for sure.
If they are out to kill office, then forget it - it would not happen.

I see a problem in having such grand plans, it takes time. A lot of time. And god only knows what would be the state of the technology in five yrs time. It would work. But it can not become the market leader.

Pity us Indians!!

Andhra Pradesh State legislative body passed a resolution in the state Assembly, condemning the cartoons published on the prophet in Denmark.

And then silence follows when muslim terrorists planted bombs in the holiest of holy hindu city, inside a hindu temple packed with devotees killing more than 15 innocent piligrims and seriously injuring many more.

Does this happen any where in the world, or any time in the history??
Is this Secularism??
How low can politicans stoop??

Damn Minority Appeasement.

Every True Indian should be ashamed, including muslims.

R U excited about Origami??

You bet I am!!

There is definetely scope for another PC form factor. This is going to be huge hit with business users.

It can play music, It can take pictures and above all it runs a full featured OS with all the productivity applications and also your favorite web browser. Exactly what is prescribed for the enterprise customer!! Best solution when you are on the road.

As clearly stated by microsoft, it is not an ipod killer (there are many ipod killers on the way - check with me same time next year), it is not a replacement of the smart phones or the laptops (with a wireless connection it could very well blow them off).

3 things if taken care of would make it a blockbuster.
price tag around $500-$600
seamless connectivity with dummy proof setup (wifi AND wirelesss n/w, aided with bluetooth)
atleast 8 hrs battery life.

Bush Visits India - SO WHAT????

Ok agreed! Bush is a very powerful person. But why the is that so important for everyone India.

Its disgusting to see some of the articles that are being published. He is every where in the newspaper. And even if he farts, that becomes a headline.

Some of the NEWS
>> Bush eager to eat indian mangoes
>> Aishwarya Rai misses the luncheon in honor of Bush
>> 10 people get the rare oppurtuniy to talk to the president bush at ISB
>> Laura Bush distribute pens in a TV show set. (some one said to a newspaper that it is very touching :o)
>> Bush to visit indian village and watch the farmers milking the cows.

It sucks when people in india treats him like he is from another world. He doesn't have respect in his own country. he is no Abdul Kalam. he is just another politician like laloo prasad yadav. he doesn't have a charming personality for the least to admire him. he is not a great leader promoting world peace.

I don't understand why the are making so much about his visit. And I pity those people who refer to him as 'the president' and laura as 'the first lady'. India is a soveriegn country and Bush is not our president. We should show theese people the kind of recpetion Manmohan Singh would get if he goes to USA.

Bird Flu in India

Bird Flu arrived in India. First cases were found in chickens in maharashtra. Looks like govt. has taken the issue seriously and a lot of action is going on and rightfully so. 500000 chicken in 1.5 km radius would be killed immediately.

Bird Flu is not just a regular flu. It is deadly, it can spread to humans and can spread very rapidly. There is no medicene for now.
It is dangerous than AIDS. It has more potential to clear out nations more than any act of terrorism or war. Like plague in the middle ages. If it starts spreading there is no stopping atleast for now.

Hope it wouldn't happen.


UPDATE:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/02/15/birdflu.cost/index.html

Prophet's Cartoons!

The cartoons published by the denmark newspaper offended the muslims all over the world. They are offensive 'TO' muslims and they have every reason to get offended.

But Reaction???
It's ridiculous. Their reaction is wayyy tooo excessive and stupid.

Who drew the cartoons? who published the cartoons?
It's a small time news paper in Denmark.

Who are you blaming??
The entire western community!

Does it make any sense??
Protesting all over the world?? Burning Embassies?? Banning Western Products??
Warning of another holocaust and ethnic cleansing??

Where do we go from here?? THere is so much hatred filled in their minds, NO reason can stand this hatred.

We're DOOMED for sure.

NOTE: There were cases where images of Hindu gods printed on the underwear, sandals, toilets etc.. And we're offended. We got angry. And there were protests against the companies. But what was the response. Indian government moved the concerned companies and made them withdrew the products and made them apologize. Makes sense??

By the way did they ever watch SOUTH PARK?? Did they ever see how Jesus Christ was made fun off? It would start the WWIII in a second, going by this reaction, if it was Prophet in Jesus place.

Sonia Amma

Most disugsting things are happening in Andhra politics, and no one complains.

I am talking about telangana. Whether there is a need for telangana or not is a different issue.
But the way the politicans are behaving, both Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Congress, is really amazing.
Every congress leader with out shame, proudly says that the decision on Telangana is left entirely to their amma SONIA.
WTF, what does she know about telangana. Does she even know any thing about India in the first place. Forget andhra and telangana, can she even tell the difference between andhra and tamil nadu in the firstplace?? Did she ever spoke out a single word on the issue. And the KCR of telangana rashtra samithi has no problems with that. Even they with out shame says that SONIA is great and she would give them Telangana. Again, WTF, who is she to give telangana?? Is there any word called self esteem? He can bad mouth every telugu leader from the current chief minister to the ex chief minister at the drop of the hat. But he doesn't have guts to even raise his voice against Sonia Amma??
If you think you really deserve telangana, be strong, with head high, fight for it and get it. Why the hell do one bow before some one to beg for or wait for a single persons decision on millions of people?

And who is sonia? Not the president, not the prime minister, not even a representative of the state?? I don't blame her. I have my sympathies with her, she might be even trying hard to be an Indian and understand India. We never know because she never speaks. When did she last expressed her opinion on any issue, how ever small it can be. But our *******ing leaders.. hmmm.. don't even go there!!

Intel Inside

Apple is working hard to improve its products. It is trying to increase its market share in the PCs. And it now got a powerful intel processor inside.
So what??? Who buys a Mac machine for speed?? Who is going to move from buying a dell machine to buy these new imacs and macbooks??
I'd say NONE.
People buy Macs, because they are cool. People buy Macs, because they are easy to use. People buy Macs, because they have the money to buy it.
So having an intel processor, does it effect any of these. NO.
Nobody cares if it has an intel inside or powerpc inside. No one bothered when the Mac gets heated up.
The only way to get into the Mass market is to make them inexpensive. Make them compete with PCs in the price.

All the marketing hoopla starting from the announcement in Developer's conference last year on moving from IBM to Intel, right to the release at the Macworld last week, it'd result in nothing. Absolutely Nothing!!!!

Top 10 Telugu Music CDs to own - 2005

Telugu Music seems to be faring much better when compared to the movies. There are atleast 10 more movies which have good songs like Jai Chiranjeeva, Bhadra, Bhageeratha, Athanokkade, Subash Chandra bose, bunny, allari pidugu, chakram, relax, radha gopalam, Andarivadu.

10 Manasu Mata Vinadu (Kalyani Malik)
Kalyani Malik is yet to make his mark. He definetely would. His music is also in the lines of RP. No nonsense. Tunes go with the mood of the lyrics.
Picks: Nuvvu Nijam, Nuvvu Maro Sari Anu

9 Good Boy (Vandemataram Sreenivas)
You got what you asked for. Any one who likes the songs of 6teens and Girlfriend would instantly love this youthful album. Dappu music at its best. Album is funny and silly. And draw smiles when you listen to some of the lines.
Picks: Yellow Maruthi, Namo Namo

8 Naa Alludu (Devi Sri Prasad)
Mass Mass Mass. These songs are what we can call Mass songs. Definetely would have become a rage with the masses had this movie hit the bulls eye. Kandi Chenu Kaada, Pattuko Pattuko Nannu Pattuko are what you need to give NTR to show off his dancing skills. All the songs are catchy. If not for the choice of the subject which makes you feel awkward you'll sure want to have this album.
Picks: Kandi Chenu Kada

7 Sada Mee Sevalo (Vandemataram Sreenivas)
When you think Vandemataram is gone and out, he shows he still has something left in him. May be it's the director's responsibility to get some good tunes out of him. Neelakanta does exactly that. And we got some hummbale songs. Who wouldn't want to say hello hello or sing Em navvulivile to stunningly beautiful Shreya in those sexy sarees.
Picks: Hello Hello, Lub Dub, Em Navvulivile

6 Athadu (Mani Sharma)
How come Mani gives best of the introductory songs to Mahesh. After Takkari Donga, this one is a great introduction song for Mahesh. The song sounds fresh and elevates the hero's character to new hights. Though "fighter" bit is a ripoff and makes you curse for marking the great song with a black spot.
Picks: Pilichina Ranantava, Adharaku

5 Balu (Mani Sharma)
Is it Mani or is it Pawan. How come all the movies of Pawan have absolutely fantastic music. And he definetely has a gift of choosing the right tune and lyrics. If the song is supposed to romantic it would be romantic. Neelo Jarige tantu ne choostune vunna - how romantic is that!! Hut Hut Ja - definetely make you wanna sing it aloud with some kind of aggression.
Picks: Hut Hut Ja, Neelo Jarige Tanthu.

4 Anukokunda Oka Roju (MM Keeravani)
How many kinds of music can Keeravani create. If sounds in one way in the Raghavendra Rao's movies. His music in movies like Okariki Okaru and Anukokunda Oka Roju sounds in a totally different way. Are MM Kreem and Keeravani one and the same. They definetely do not sound same. Without a doubt, he is a Master.
Pick: Needalle Tarumutu Vundi

3 Super (Sandeep Chouta)
Hip and trendy. Sandeep is a gifted music director. I am not sure why he is not being given many chances in the Bollywood. But for telugu he has given some great songs. Who can forget Ninne Pelladatha and Prema Katha. Mudduletti with techno punjabi beat is definetely fresh for telugu music lovers. All songs in the movie are good.
Picks: All songs, Mudduletti in specific.

2 Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana (Devi Sri Prasad)
A flaw less album from Devi. Sirivennela give some extremely beautiful lyrics. How can he write such romantic lyrics at his age?? He is definitely a gift to the telugu films. I am yet to find a song written by him that has bad lyrics. Get me one if you can. Niluvaddamu ninu epudaina, nuvvu evvaru ani adigenaa?? Or Chandrullo vunde kundelu kindikochinda?? Or even Something Something.
Picks: Niluvaddamu, Something

1 Avunanna Kadanna (RP Patnaik)
R. P. Patnaik - Telugu industry misses you. RP is not a path breaking music director. He is not very innovative either. Nor does he brings new sounds to the board. But his Music has soul. You can feel the music. You can sing along. You can play them in your car and you can listen to them while you are busy doing something else with out getting disturbed. I keep going back to his old hits like Nee Sneham once in a while when I am in a romantic mood ;). Avunanna Kadanna falls into the same category. You never geet bored of the music.
Picks: Each and Every Song. Play it again and again.