Let's Yahoooooooooo!

I love Yahoo. I use its mail, messenger, search and my.yahoo.com is my homepage. I'm happy that Yahoo is doing a lot of new stuff. All along Google has been getting all the media attention. At last, I found one good article on Yahoo. Please read it at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1914973,00.asp.

Firefox 2.0 is expected to be out in another 4-5 months

I use Firefox. I also use IE. Do I love firefox? Yes.

I'm not going to write about Firefox here. But, the next version of Firefox is expected to be out by June 2006 which should make it an exciting year. IE 7.0 is also expected more or less the same time. It will be interesting how Firefox will handle the IE onslought. Definitely they need to pull their socks up if they want to increase their share.

Read more about the Firefox version 2.0 at http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009607.html. This is a blog posting by Ben Goodger, Firefox's chief engineer.

US Gov asking Google for data

For those who don't know about this, the US government is asking Google for its search data and the links it indexes to support its claim in an ongoing court case on pornography. Google till date has resisted giving the data away citing the privacy concerns of its users and the risk of the competition knowing its trade secrets.

The US says that others have complied with the request and it's only Google which is resisting. I want the other big players Yahoo & MSN to come out in the open on what they have provided to the US government.

A lot of privacy groups have raised their concerns on this account and rightly so. The US govt has become notorious for spying each and everyone and I'm sure they are not going to stop with this request. I hope Google stands firm.

I'm sure that a vast majority of the users outside of the US use Google and if Google gives away the data, it's not just the US people's information that changes hands.

The Internet companies have long complied with the governments and this is the first time I'm learning about a feud in the open. This is going to set a new trend. Let's wait and watch!

Google, I'm with you.

Europe wants to have its own Google - or Google Killer

French president Jacques Chirac yesterday pledged to help fund a new European internet search engine to rival Google and Yahoo as he railed against what he sees as the threat of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism.

Very interesting... I'm not sure if this is going to materialize but everybody is welcome to try new things which will benefit the world. I will be more than happy to try out the new search engine. I learn that due to immediate popularity following President Chirac's message, the people at Quaero, the search engine that Chirac was refering to pulled the link offline as they wanted to avoid the publicity before it really becomes what it is set to be.

More information available at the following links:
http://www.computerworld.com/news/2006/story/0,11280,107729,00.html?source=NLT_PM&nid=107729

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/08/31/cnsearch31.xml

Google Analytics is working - at last

Google analytics is working for me at last. Even after 24 hours of the code addition, I was getting the "Waiting for data" status against each of the profiles I had added. I was upset and thought it's not going to work any time soon. Then I searched the web to look at others who may be having the same problem. Fortunately, one fellow netizen had indicated that even thought the status was saying "waiting for data", he was still able to see the reports by clicking the "Reports" tab, which I did!

I haven't yet studied the reports in detail. I want to give it a week or so so that I can analyze the reports well. For now, I'm happy that I have a powerful reporting tool for my blog. I wish that Google allows users to use this also on free websites like Geocities.

Google Analytics - seems to work for me!

I just logged back to Google Analytics and find the status change to "waiting for data". I'm waiting to see my reports soon.

Google Analytics - Slowly opening up

Google Analytics seems to be working on increasing its capacity and people who have registered with Google are slowly getting invitations to use Google Analytics free. I had registered my blog (this one) even at first but Google was not able to recognize the tracking code that I have copied on the template as suggested. So, I was trying to delete the profile and go through the process again from first. That's when they pulled the plug on new additions and I couldn't add a new profie. So, I had to wait with scores of others for Google to upgrade their capacity.

Now, I'm allowed to have as many as 5 websites tracked using Google Analytics. But unfortunately, still Google is not able to recognize the code in the blogger. Anybody out there who has done this, if you know how to sort this out, Please help me.

Circus artists rule

Jumbo circus is in chennai and I thought I will spend the weekend evening there and it was great entertainment for about 150 minutes. The artists were amazing in their precision and execution of the acrobatics. I was wondering why not the sports ministry of India spend some time identifying some good talent from these people, facilitate professional training for them and make them participate in world competition. I'm sure that there are a few good people there who can make the cut. But, unfortunately our sports ministry doesn't have people who go that extra mile to identify and nurture talent. And a billion people still dream for a single gold in Olympics!

I hope that these artists make enough money to keep themselves happy. With the advent of home entertainment I suspect that a lot of people even get to notice that a Circus is happening in their locality. A circus troup would have atleast 100 people and to feed them and the animals that accompany them is not going to be easy. I always wonder who people with little talent make it to the silver screen just because they are sons or daughters of a popular entity while people with talent languish. It's all part of life.

I hope that with better marketing and creating a better experience will make these circus a success. The seats were very uncomfortable and I was worried that I may not have a good sleep if the show went on further because of my uncomfortable back. I was also worried about the safety of the tent - with all the chairs tied together with a rope, with little space for people to move around any unfortunate event can cause chaos. I hope the authorities take care of this.

I would suggest that people in chennai do make it a point to visit the circus at least once not only to entertain themselves but also to encourage the artists.