Windows 7 comes to life

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...7! Finally, the long wait is over! Microsoft's Windows 7 comes to life today after its long beta run. We all know how much Microsoft over hyped Vista and got itself badly burned. Vista was never fast and simply didn't meet our expectations right. But this time, Microsoft has done one thing right - they have listened to their customers! They got feedback from more than 50,000 beta testers, customers and partners. On its launch in New York, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addressed on Windows 7's area of improvement like faster startup and shutdown times, better organization with snap, shake and peek features, simplified home networking, and multi-touch.

Like the world, I also felt like checking out what's new on Windows 7. I went to Microsoft's site and saw many tweet reviews, one went on to write 'Windows 7 is fantastic!' Well, I will post on that once I get a Windows 7 OS for myself. On the website, Microsoft has given a comparison grid to show why Windows 7 is better. The advantages being - quicker access, quick search, use snap to compare two files, homegroup and much more. Microsoft is promoting 'Your PC, simplified' and I hope we all get a great experience.

Choose your web browser

How many times has it happened that you were surfing some site and suddenly your web browser went kaput! The site hung and you got a error notification! This is nothing but a browser crash! If it's happening quiet often, it's time you choose your web browser to surf fast and smooth!

In an interesting study by Google, it came out that only a little more than half of the web users know what web browser they are using. 

This obviously shows the level of confusion in people's understanding about web browsers despite the fact that it one of the most used programs on the computer. If you also don't know then click here to know which web browser (and its version) you are using right now.


Normally people tend to use the web browser their PCs come equipped with, i.e. either the Internet Explorer (IE) or Safari and hence never try the other available browsers and that too for free! Today besides the IE and Safari, you can choose your web browser from many popular names like Opera, Chrome, Firefox, etc or you can simply upgrade your PC's existing web browser for faster speed, security and extensibility.

The IE remains the most popular web browser followed by Firefox. However, it's not a bad idea at all to try out new web browsers like Opera, Firefox and Chrome which offer rich webpage experience. Click here to see a comparison amongst all web browsers. 


My personal favorite is Google Chrome. I've been using it since its launch in Sep, 2008 and boy, I just love it! It takes very less time to load, it's fun'n friendly to use and is super fast. Plus, it never crashes! What more do you want?

Project 10^100 - Vote for the big idea

Last year in September 2008, Google announced Project 10¹⁰⁰  (pronounced 'Project 10 to the 100th') - a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible (watch YouTube video below). The concept was simple - one had to think and submit ideas that could help the world and help the most under eight different categories. Google has committed $10 billion to fund up to five ideas. Click here to know why is Google doing this. I felt really great participating in Project 10¹⁰⁰

Although the submission deadline is over, you can still enjoy by going through each of the 16 shortlisted ideas and cast your vote for the one 'big idea'! All 16 ideas are unique in itself and one can easily relate to them. They may sound common but if Google manages to implement them, it'll really make a big difference. So, read on to know what the 16 ideas are about.

1. Make government more transparent. (Community)
2. Create real-time natural crisis tracking system. (Community)
3. Create real-world issue reporting system. (Community)
4. Create genocide monitoring and alert system. (Community)

5. Collect and organize the world's urban data. (Community)

6. Help social entrepreneurs drive change. (Opportunity)

7. Build better banking tools for everyone. (Opportunity)

8. Drive innovation in public transport. (Energy)

9. Make educational content available online for free. (Education)

10. Provide quality education to African students. (Education) 

11. Enhance science and engineering education. (Education)

12. Work toward socially conscious tax policies. (Environment)

13. Encourage positive media depictions of engineers & scientists.(Environment)

14. Create more efficient landmine removal programs. (Shelter)

13. Promote health monitoring and data analysis. (Health)

14. Build real time, user-reported news service. (Everything Else)

Liked it? Click here to read more on these 16 ideas and as responsible global citizens do cast your vote before October 8, 2009 to take a next step toward building a better world. Google rightly puts it .."Helping helps everybody, helper and helped alike. And may those who help the most win!"

Electric cars will be common

Last week I was standing at a departmental store's entrance when a little car zipped by from nowhere. The people around me looked amused and someone said 'It's a Nano!', then someone immediately added 'No, it's a new Maruti'. The car actually was the smart, fun and trendy Reva! Such little cars will become a common sight in the coming years.

Based in Bangalore, the Reva is one of the most established electric car manufacturers in the world, with a vehicle that initially went on sale in 2001. The Reva is a small 2-door hatchback intended for city trips and commuting, and is definitely useful in the stop-start congested traffic conditions. It claims to give 80km on a 8 hours full charge and that too at a price tag of Rs 3.5 lakhs which means a running cost of just 40 paise/km! Impressive!

With recent reports of GM and Reva Electric Car Company signing an agreement for developing electric vehicles, the electric car today is undoubtedly the auto industry's new darling. There are three main reasons for this:

1. Technology has changed and a lot can be done with batteries in terms of autonomy of the car, size of the battery, longevity of the battery.
2. Today the problem of the environment is not a problem for the specialists alone. The public wants more environmentally friendly car.
3. And finally, the ever increasing price of petrol.

Click here to calculate your savings using a Reva in comparison to your existing vehicle. I can save Rs. 8000 over a year period with Reva! How much can you? No wonder, it is estimated that by 2020, 10-12% of the car market or about 8.5 million people will opt for electric cars. So, let's 'charge' on the road!

Google's fast flipping news

Every day after coming back from work my first choice for scanning the day's news update is Google News. It smartly captures all the latest news and classifies them into different sections like - Top News, India, World, Business, Sci/Tech, Entertainment, Sports, Health and Most Popular. If you find some interesting headline, just click it to read the complete post. This is enough to keep me updated and informed on all the important events of the day.

At times when it came to reading a complete news post, the media rich pages would take some time to load despite a good broadband connection. This was frustating and would make me skip reading the news. Google is very good at not only understanding problems but also providing solutions and look what I found - Google Fast Flip!

It not only sounds interesting but also worked very well. Googleblog writes that Fast Flip is a new reading experience that combines the best of elements of print and online articles. Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets us browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual top publishers.

Leaving no time to waste, I immediately tried out Fast Flip. Boy! it was new, fresh and a unique.It couldn't have been more simpler to read the news post of your choice! Fast Flip's frontpage shows news content thumbnails and clicking them loads a screenshot of the article.

The frontpage content rows can be sorted by topic. The top row - Popular allows us to choose between Recent, Most viewed, Recommended and Headlines, while the second row - Section allows us to choose between Politics, Business, etc. There is also one third row - Sources which allows us to choose from the different publishers.

Right now Fast Flip does not source Indian news content. But I'm hopeful of seeing Indian news posts in the coming months. Till then you can have some fun by flipping through news!

Facebook tweets to go lite

Mark Zuckerbeg created Facemash and later TheFacebook from his dorm room in Harvard University in 2003. On February 4, 2004. Mark dropped the The and launched Facebook.com - a social networking website where you can add friends, send them messages, and update their personal profile pages. Five years later in 2009, Facebook was ranked as the most used social network followed by MySpace in a study by compete.com. Buzzpoint puts Facebook's massive 250 million user number into perspective by saying that if Facebook were a country , it would be the fourth most populous nation on the planet!

It's interesting to note that while Facebook did jump a rank up from last year's number 2 to become the number 1, Twitter jumped 19 ranks to become the number 3 social network. Did this raise an alarm in Facebook's inner circles and are they possibly threatened by the new twid on the weblock? (twitter kid on the web block!) J Owyang says "Facebook absolutely recognizes that Twitter is a threat, and they're doing what they can do to replicate the features before Twitter gets mainstream adoption".

Last week, Facebook launched a lighter version - Facebook Lite in US and India that resembles Twitter's stream of status updates. It offers fewer services and has done away with most of its third party applications or special boxes.

ReadWriteWeb adds on that Facebook Lite turns Facebook into a very Twitter-like experience. However, a Facebook spokeswoman played down the charges and said "We've been making iterations to our product over time to reflect the rapid evolution of how people share information online." Whatever the case be, imitation is a tried and tested strategy for big internet companies (Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL) - copy the best new features from smaller startups and gradually introduce them over time to a mainstream audience.

Personally, I liked Facebook Lite and although they have taken cues from Twitter, they've sticked to what they are best at - connecting me to my friends! All the stories in the news feed about the quizzes people take, Farmville, etc are gone! Facebook lite is simply a user's delight!

Go Webo on 09.09.09

Today is 09.09.09! A unique date which clocks once in every 100 years! I came across many articles on the web stating that 09.09.09 signifies this and that and then suddenly I read somewhere that 09.09.09 is also a mark of creativity! There couldn't had been a better time and at this very moment I decided to launch my new blog - Go Webo (pronounced web-o, in hindi वेबो).

Webo means ..from the web. Everyday million of things are posted on the web and sometimes one stumbles across some really good ones. Through my blog Go Webo, I will post new and interesting stuff from the web. It can be from any field but the bottomline is - it has to be interesting! So, become a Webo follower and let's Go Webo on 09.09.09! Unique, right? (",)
Cheers!