sightseeing with google maps

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/

check it out... lots of cool stuff seen thru satellite images, sometimes an airplane, skiers and even potential UFO's...

The best of the best on the web (and some tips on better surfing)

(posting on office newsletter for may)

Next to Google on finding accurate information comes the excellent Wikipedia, which is a multi-lingual encyclopedia of information created and maintained by everyone. It is coded using wiki technology, which is "a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content". The wonderful aspect of wiki is that it enables everyone to contribute freely and independantly to a topic of interest. It is again monitored by visitors to the site who notify moderators to any omissions or mistakes. Since anyone can contribute, the articles present a rich & exhaustive treasure of information without the usual bias found in corporate media. Check out the links on my hometown & Harry Potter. Another source for information is answers.com, which is the website behind the link if you click for a google definition.

If you are a veritable news reader, you may want to check out the new Customization feature of Google news. It allows a user to add specific sections of news to the main Google News Page. It also allows a user to share their customized news pages.

A very common annoyance on some news sites is a subscription requirement. You can get around it by using bugmenot, which lists logins submitted by users. If you can't find a login here, try pookmail, which is a disposable mail account. Just enter any username@pookmail.com and it is delivered to that mailbox where it is alive for 24 hours... no messy logins to your own email account and no fear of getting spammed

If you love reading comix off the web but don't have the patience to visit each website, try this site. It lists many daily comics. The best thing is that it is open-source so you can add your own comics and view them on your own PHP server

Probably the most pervasive word on the web these days is weblogging which is a website updated by users, or webloggers, daily. There are many blogging sites out there where you can make your own weblog including blogger & livejournal. Blogger is more user-friendly, with a host of useful templates to choose from. One of the most popular blogs is instapundit.com, a political blog. One of the most popular photoblogs is ddoi, updated by an Irani artist living in Toronto. Each picture here is a real gem, and the author gives details on the camera used and its settings, excellent for beginner photographers with a digital camera

What can be better than having access to a repository of sites based on your own interests. Instead of googling for sites, you can view sites recommended by like-minded people with the help of the stumbleupon application or del.icio.us bookmarks site. It is obvious that sites recommended by people are always better than those recommended by search engines, no matter how good they are or by corporate owned websites like msn who have their own preferences. Stumbleupon is installed as a toolbar. Once logged in, enter your interests and click stumble to see sites based on those interests recommended by people, not machines. I have stumbled across many gems stumbling (at home, of course :), including these singing horses, science of cooking, the internet as it was on a past date & flash-based robots, It is recommended that Firefox be used for stumbling, since it has better rogue-site blocking capabilities than IE. de.icio.us lists sites based on tags assigned to them by people and it can help find very relevant sites.

Last but not the least, one web browser that will enhance your browsing like no other is Mozilla Firefox. It helps manage multiple windows by opening each new window in a new tab and blocks ad-popups natively. My favorite feature of the browser is its adblocking capability. Installing this extension allows one to right-click and block the ad itself or even its frame, remove the dangling whitespace. Also, updating the usercontent.css file in the Firefox installation directory with the file listed here blocks websites or links based on url e.g. all urls containg _ad_ or _click_ are blocked, thus eliminating 99% of all ads. Imagine browsing without flashing promos and annoying smiley ads. (You may need a firefox or windows restart to see effects of changing your css file)

21st century in desi-land

a poster somewhere in pakistan blends the best of today and yesterday, desi and par-desi...


Translation: Telenor (then new gsm cell phone service) connections are available, and oh yeah, home-made butter is also available

drop kick the singer

http://www.dropkickthefaint.com/

found on bandbaja.org blog... really cool

firefoxy

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Been stumbling in Firefox..

Firefox works for me 'cause:

. it has pretty good adblocking capability... download and install the adblock extension (firefoxy for plug-in... damn all these abstractions) and right-click and block all the crap from the web.... imagine ad-clean browsing howstuffworks, fileplanet and even hotmail

Also check out the ad-parser/remover file for firefox, dunno if there is something similar for IE... looks and removes all urls which *may* be ads like /ad/ etc.

. I can do a right-click & open in tab in background - makes browsing so much easier

It *does not* work for me 'cause...

. Memory intensive... open a window with 2 tabs after a couple of hours and it takes soooo long to respond

. Tabbed browsing does not work with alt-tab, it takes you to the next tab in order, whereas it should take you to the previous tab, like in windows

. Cannot move the toolbar buttons as easily as in IE, gotta go into "edit toolbar buttons" mode and *then* move the buttons around... cannot resize toolbar as in IE e.g. one row of toolbar on my IE has 3 toolbars are compressed together...

. Seems bulky... IE is much cleaner and lighter.. or mebbe I can make it that....

In conclusion I *really* think IE can get more downloads if it implements tabbed browsing and an adblocker atleast as good as the one for FireFox

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cool links

Fixed some bugs right before a close deadline.. been chilling today, stumbled alot.. found something really useful...

If u wanted to make a new blog interafce but did not have the time/knowledge to make one from scratch, try this one out... makes a nice 2 or 3 coulmn interface for u based on color choice for font, links etc. with the help of a generator..... support for Blogger and MovableType... font choices are limited but u can always change the code for that....just copy the source code and paste it in your blog template setting page... have'nt tried it for mine yet...

Jinnah saved man from gallows?

The story goes like this:

Once upon a time, long time ago (apparently in the early 1900's), Jinnah was a famous practicing lawyer. He took the case of a man about whome everyone said would get the death sentence... Jinnah promised that he *would* be spared no matter what.... As the trial wore on, the evidence kept piling up against him... at last he was convicted and ordered "to be hanged"

The convict and the people around him deplored Jinnah about how he promised the man's life would be saved but now his death was certain... Jinnah kept saying, just wait and see....

The dreaded day arrived and the guiltly man was made to climb the scaffold... the noose was placed around his neck and finally, the trapdoor opened...

As the man struggled against death, Mr Jinnah stood up and said, Release him, 'cause the sentence said "to be hanged" and not "to be hanged to death"...

so they released him and he went to have a long healthy life....

I thought this was some urban fiction passed around by people, but it turns out they all believed it to be true... I don't see how it can be... when you hang a man (and the executioner does it correctly), it is supposed to break the neck, causing instantaneous death; you don't *choke* to death by hanging....

Googling for the story yeilded nothing.... any ideas?

T-Rex's in F-14's

One of my fave C&H comics...

profound poetry

a rat, a bat & a cat
sat on a mat
who thought
that such diverse creatures
hang out together...
forever
like that...
sometimes they converge
on
a hat or a bat (baseball)
just like that...
true to the end
sometimes in the toilet's u-bend
the end was nigh unknown to the trio
as they sat, one night on the patio
listening to music from the jerry macguire remix jhankar...
they were bitten on the mat
by a gnat
three bites...
and they succumbed to the deadly toxins
in the smaller creature's saliva...
nice cool saliva
oozing from the sharp fangs;
it goes to show
there is
more than one way
to break a friendship...