A Web 2.0 App Directory

Stumbled upon this website called Feedmyapp (www.feedmyapp.com) about a month back. Have been a frequent visitor ever since, just to browse through! I must admit, it is very correctly titled as “Your Daily Web 2.0 Sites Dose”. It is nothing but a huge list of Web 2.0 applications. These include, at a broad level:

• Websites
• Frameworks
• Utilities

Websites are a list of sites which are so called Web 2.0 based, frameworks are those which allow a developer to build a Web 2.0 websites and utilities are tiny apps which you can use while building a site. The Feedmyapp website categorizes these under categories like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Chat, E-mail, Frameworks and even Dating! Read the rest of this entry »

Was the Internet down today ?

I was sitting at a client’s place when I could no longer browse websites. After some checking, it became obvious that the Internet link/connection was down. As habitual, I tried browsing from my Mobile (using a Vodfone/Hutch Edge connection). I could not connect using my mobile too!

This happened somewhere between 15:45-16:15 hours IST. Checked with a friend who said he was able to connect. Perhaps the downtime did not happen to all service providers.

When the connection, came back I noticed that I was now able to connect with my mobile too! That is, I was able to reconnect with my laptop (using the client’s Internet connection) and my mobile (through Edge) almost at the same time.

So is this just a coincidence or was there some kind of downtime across ? Checking the news revealed nothing as of this writing.

The de facto operating system

Only a very few people (in the darkest corners of IRC) know that Steve Ballmer (CEO Microsoft), Steve Jobs (CEO Apple) and Linus Torwalds (father of Linux), seldom, give up their practical intellect and turn towards God to get their answers. God does exists and recently, as per a few insiders, had appeared before each of them. Thanks to their equal devotion to God as to their work.

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Microsoft launched a ringtone for Indians

Following is the link to the MP3 file of the ringtone:

condom-a-cappella

I must admit that the post title is just meant to be catchy. The ringtone was launched, day before, by a campaign funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is ex CEO and founder of Microsoft. That’s the one and only connection with Microsoft

http://www.condomcondom.org/ is the website of this campaign. The ringtone can be downloaded from this site too.

The website is meant for Indian masses and aims to create awareness about HIV and AIDS, But note that the website is Flash based and slow to download. Most people in India use slow (slower than broadband) Internet connections, many are on dialups and Flash is not installed by default. Could have been a normal, fast loading, HTML site.

Nevertheless the ringtone idea seems to be a killer idea to spread awareness and kill the condom taboo. The mobile penetration is ever increasing in India. People esp. youngsters always want to do something new with their mobile – which includes setting up an interesting new ringtone.

HOW MUCH is your Website Mobile ready ?

Score it @ http://ready.mobi. On the site type in the URL of your website (for example: www.shekhargovindarajan.com) and hit the GO button. Read the interesting tips on mobile optimization till you see the results – “Page results”.

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What PM wrote to say but couldn’t say

Here is the link to the speech that our honourable prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh could not deliver during the trust vote event today:

http://mutiny.in/2008/07/22/pms-reply-to-the-debate-on-the-motion-of-confidence-in-the-lok-sabha/

Interesting read.

Linkedin Will Be Back Soon

A couple of minutes back, when I browsed to Linkedin (www.linkedin.com) to approve a friend’s invite, I saw the following page saying “Linkedin will be back soon” – around 00:59 IST. It was indeed (as per the SOON in the message) back in the next minute (or less) when I refreshed the page.This was for the first time I saw this!. Click to see the full sized image.