Wednesday 25 February 2009

Even Sharks are facing the heat of Recession!

It's not only humans, even sharks are facing the heat of recession! As per the recent statistics released by a researcher in University of Florida, Shark attacks worldwide in 2008 dipped to their lowest level in five years! Read more here.

Wednesday 18 February 2009

View millions of Historic photos

Here is yet another news from Google. Now you can search millions of historic photos which dates back to 1860s and were never published. This has been made possible through joint work of LIFE and Google. Check this out at http://images.google.com/hosted/life

When you try to search for a particular subject, you should always add "source:life". Just to try at it, I gave my search criteria as "Mysore source:life". Stunningly, it retrieved me some old photographs which are tagged under the word "Mysore". Its really cool to look at old photos!

10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills

A nice article for those interested in Photography. Check it out here.

Friday 13 February 2009

I've got a mail from Ex-Vice President of Nigeria!

Yeah! You read it right! I've got an email from former Vice President of Nigeria Mr. Atiku Abubakar. Mr. Ex-Vice President wants to do business in my country and he has contacted me taking a proposal. If you are still clueless why I've been picked by such a VIP person, well, let me first reproduce the email which I got. This is how it reads.

--
Attention,
I am the former Vice President of Nigeria, (Mr Atiku Abubakar). I read business information about your country and I know it will be safe and more profitable to invest there in your country. Am interested to invest some huge amount of money in your country I promise to send you email As soon as you get this mail get back to me immediately. I will like to know more procedures if you are interested about this proposal. Please this is my personal contact details for more discussion.


Homepage http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6292141.stm
Tel: +234-808-572-7994
Tel: +234-807-919-9047

Regards,
Atiku Abubakar.

From email address: Atiku Abubakar [ajensen@ucn.cl]
Subject: RE:

Okay! Let me tell you, this is a spam mail. The person seems to be smart. He/She is using the name of ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Yes, Atiku Abubakar is a former Vice President of Nigeria. To make the email recipients believe that the sender is indeed Atiku Abubakar, the composer has given a link of BBC website. Whenever, you get an email from unknown person and if that email has any link, you should never click on that. There is a possibility that the link might take you to a different website altogether. So, I just opened BBC UK site by typing http://news.bbc.co.uk/ and then I appended rest of the site address and it indeed took me to a profile of Atiku Abubakar.

Now the question is why this person has a sent a mail to me? He has sent this mail to lots of people, not only to me. You can easily guess this as "To" section of the email is blank. If this email was to be sent only to me, the attention in the mail would have had my name. Observe the subject of the mail. It's "RE:", that means it's a reply! Apart from this, why on earth he has to choose me for the business proposal! Why didn't he go to Ambani brothers, Ratan Tata or Azim Premzi?!

This is yet another spam mail. If I respond to this email, he/she will come to know that my email address is active and I'll get another reply asking me to give my personal information. Needless to say, I marked this email as Spam so that the next time, it will get filtered by my mailbox.

Thursday 12 February 2009

Modern day Tarzan!

Can you imagine a man living with Cheetahs and also teach them how to hunt? Uh! Looks like a modern day Tarzan! Check here for more details.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Google lands on Mars!

First it was Earth, then Sky, later it was Ocean and now it is Mars! Yes Google has landed on Mars! Hold on, Google has not fired any spacecraft to the martian soil! Instead Google has created a map of Mars similar to Google Earth.

Map can be seen in three types of Data: Elevation, Visible and Infrared. In Elevation data, map is colored as per the altitude. This view gives you a very good information on the altitude on different plains of the Mars.

Another good feature of this Map is the marked location of various Regions, Spacecrafts, Mountains etc. So, if you click on Spacecraft link, it shows you landing position of various Spacecrafts such as Mars Lander, Viking Lander. The images used in this map are taken from NASA's spacecraft.

Click
Google Mars to view Map. Click here to know more about Google Map.

In addition to Mars Map, Google has also released Google Map 3D, which is included in the latest version of Google Earth. Google Map 3D gives a 3 dimensional view of Martian soil. I'm yet to download the latest version of Google Earth and see for myself this new tool. You can download the latest version of Google Earth from here. If you cannot download and you are still curious to see how it looks like (like me!), just check this link.

Wednesday 4 February 2009

Indian Cricket Team

Oh Boy! I cannot believe myself on the result! India has won the series (against Sri Lanka) in style and it is 8th straight win!

Those were the days when India winning a match was unpredictable. Win was certain only against minnows. Things have changed. They are playing as if winning is their fundamental right!

Will India be the front-runner for next World Cup in 2011? Well, it is too early to predict. Though India has won the series in Australia, it still has to prove outside sub-continent. The series in New Zealand and South Africa will be the real test for Indian team. All the best guys! Keep up the momentum!

Typing in Kannada is made easy!

ಕಂಪ್ಯೂಟರ್ನಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯುವುದು ಇಷ್ಟು ಸುಲಭವೆಂದು ಗೊತ್ತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ! ಇದು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಗಿರುವುದು ಗೂಗಲ್ ಇಂದ. ಈ ತಾಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಭೇಟಿಕೊಟ್ಟು ಒಮ್ಮೆ ನೋಡಿ! (http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic/Kannada)

Madwa Navami

Today (4th Feb 2009) is Madwa Navami. I just thought of giving some links where you can find more information about Shri Madwacharya and his works.
http://www.dvaita.org/madhva/index.shtml
http://www.tatvavada.org/eng/
http://www.madhvacharya.com/

Monday 2 February 2009

Australian Open 2009

It was a memorable Grand Slam for Indians. It was rejoicing to see Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza lifting Mixed Doubles Trophy. Earlier Mahesh had won several Mixed Doubles titles pairing with different partners. This time, his partner was also Indian, so it made special!
On Saturday, Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Mark Knowles of Bahamas secured runners-up trophy in Men's doubles. If they had maintained the momentum of the first set, they could have lifted the winners trophy. Another defining moment for Indians was Yuki Bhambri winning the Junior title.

Congratulations to All and wish them more success in the future.

Coming to Men's Final, as expected, it was a thrilling final between Nadal and Federer. What a match it was! At the end, it was very sad to see Federer crying in the presentation ceremony. It is interesting to see if Federer gets a chance to break Sampras's record!