Google to roll out its own Operating System

Google sounded out earling this morning that its going to take Microsoft head on by launching its own Operating System. Google said, “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. ” Google said that it’s an extension of its web browser Chrome and the reason behind the idea is to work from the scratch because all the OS that’s available in the market were designed before the Internet phenomenon caught on and they were not designed keeping in mind the web. Google believes that it can come up with an OS which is nimble, fast and secure for people to get on the web and do what they want to do - they needn’t wait for minutes before they open their browser and visit a website.

How does this impact Microsoft? You will find your Dells, Sonys and Lenovos shipped with Google OS instead of Microsoft Windows which would mean that Microsoft will not rule your desktop and it will lose its captive audience. But, I’m sure Microsoft will rise up to the challenge and will have its own “Light” edition of Windows but it can’t afford to ignore the threat considering that though Google is starting with the Netbooks, they will slowly aim at the PC market. And Google will definitely get on board a whole lot of Open source providers so that the notebooks (they call it the netbooks) that have Google OS will also come with a lot of Open Source softwares that would replace Word, Excel, etc to lure the end users.

And the Enterprise customers and corporates will not move away from Microsoft very easily. But, on the home front users would love to have choices. Won’t you?

You can read the official announcement from Google at:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

BSNL - Please give us a simple way to complain

My mother called me the other day from a PCO as her BSNL landline phone was not working and she wanted my help to make a complaint. Being at the office, I immediately checked online on how to make a complaint. They had given a couple of numbers to lodge a complaint. One was a 1500 the one stop shop for everything on BSNL and the other was ****1191 (the first 4 digits is the first four digits of your phone number). Both the numbers weren't going through from the Airtel landline phone that I have at the office. Neither did they work from my Airtel mobile. Since, my landline phone at home is also an Airtel one, I didn't have any other option. And none of my colleagues had a BSNL mobile! Then I found on the BSNL chennai website a link to lodge a complaint online. When I tried it, to add to my woes, it didn't work as it was on a 8181 port unlike the default web port. (if it's too technical, almost all organizations allow internet connectivity only through one webport which is port 80 to safeguard against any intrusion into the network. There are other ports like 8181 which less than .1% of the websites use).

Can't BSNL have a simple number which is accessible from all landline and mobile networks to make a complaint?

Yahoo to close down Geocities

Yahoo has sent me a mail saying that they plan to shut down their free webhosting service, Geocities by the end of this year. This has come us a big shock to millions of users who have built their web presence over the years. And that includes me. I don't think any of the other free providers can match the brand of Yahoo. I've had very great experience with Yahoo all through and not sure if any of the free providers can come anywhere close to their credibility. But, I don't have a choice and have to look at other options.

While some have moved to blogs in the past years, I don't think blogs can replace websites especially when the content is not very time specific. I've to look at some paid options and see which comes closer.

I also have another issue in terms of the links to my website. There are hundreds of sites that link to my website and I need to contact each and everyone of them to change their pointers to my new website. And I also need to do the same rigour with the search engines. It's not going to be easy. Any ideas are welcome!