Haven't you Blackled yet?

Blackle is a new Eco-Friendly search engine on the web. If you are thinking that I am asking you guys to bid adieu to our favorite search engine Google, you are wrong. Blackle is Google dressed in black!

So, why should Google dress in black? What difference does in make to the environment? Read on for the answers...

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." For more information on Energy Use and Power Levels in New Monitors and Personal Computers click here.

What made Google to go for Blackle?

In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.

Google believed that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up. Secondly we feel that seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy.

However, for a CRT display, the difference of amount of power used for black and white is much high, but todays modern LCD displays use the same amount of power whether black or white. But technically there is still a difference for most LCD displays, however small.

How can we help?

Let us set Blackle as your home page. This way every time you load our Internet browser you we save a little bit of energy. Remember every bit counts! We will also be reminded about the need to save energy each time we see the Blackle page load.

Help spread the word about Blackle by telling your friends and family to set it as their home page. If you have a blog then give us a mention. Or put the following text in your email signature: "Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time".

Happy Blackling!!!

Taj Mahal in New 7 Wonders of the world...so....what's the deal?

Now that the Taj Mahal made it to the New 7 Wonders of the World, I thought that the media hype it got and the crazy stuff people were doing all these weeks will come to an end. But I felt that my thoughts were gone for a toss. Seeing that the TV Channels and papers ,still talking about the Taj Mahal made me sick. Don't we have better news to hear?

As I mentioned above, all these days we saw people doing various crazy things to promote the Taj and now, they are celebrating the position of Taj in the New 7 Wonders of the World in more crazier ways. People organizing parties, playing with colors, bursting crackers, meetings, setting up hoardings and banners etc. But when I give it a thought, we are the people who built temples for heroes/heroines, do abhishekam's and pujas to heros idols and not to mention celebrate marriage of famous movie personalities (Abhi-Ash) as if the marriage is of someone in our family.

So celebrating the position of Taj Mahal in the New 7 Wonders of the World by us does not come as a shock. But when I think how much valuable time, money and resources are wasted on such things, I cannot accept the fact. Why does the media which created much hype in this scenario hiding the facts? All the Mobile Operators and TV Channels which promoted the campaign not thinking about the facts? Whay are they just thinking about the revenue they get and keeping the facts in the dark?

This is what you will see above the New 7 Wonders of the World list on the so called official website:

"The New7Wonders organization is happy to announce the following 7 candidates have been elected to represent global heritage throughout history."

Here is what he United Nations has to say:

In order to avoid any damaging confusion, UNESCO wishes to reaffirm that there is no link whatsoever between UNESCO’s World Heritage programme, which aims to protect world heritage, and the current campaign concerning “The New 7 Wonders of the World”.

This campaign was launched in 2000 as a private initiative by Bernard Weber, the idea being to encourage citizens around the world to select seven new wonders of the world by popular vote.

Although UNESCO was invited to support this project on several occasions, the Organizaton decided not to collaborate with Mr. Weber.

UNESCO’s objective and mandate is to assist countries in identifying, protecting and preserving World Heritage. Acknowledging the sentimental or emblematic value of sites and inscribing them on a new list is not enough. Scientific criteria must be defined, the quality of candidates evaluated, and legislative and management frameworks set up. The relevant authorities must also demonstrate commitment to these frameworks as well as to permanently monitoring the state of conservation of sites. The task is one of technical conservation and political persuasion. There is also a clear educational role with respect to the sites’ inherent value, the threats they face and what must be done to prevent their loss.

There is no comparison between Mr Weber’s mediatised campaign and the scientific and educational work resulting from the inscription of sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List*. The list of the “7 New Wonders of the World” will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the internet and not the entire world. This initiative cannot, in any significant and sustainable manner, contribute to the preservation of sites elected by this public.

*New sites will be added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List during the 31st session of the World Heritage Committee in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 23 June to 2 July.

So, what do you think after reading the above statement from UN? Are you feeling cheated by a guy who wanted to make big bucks by hitting on National sentiments. I also feel the same as I also did vote.

As of now the New 7 Wonders of the World campaign came to an end but do you think this guy will stop here? no, not at all. Now they are starting "New 7 Wonders of Nature".

Are you going to fall for this, this time? I am not!!

Everyone says vote for Taj Mahal!!

Picture courtesy Kiran Kumar PY, my school buddy

From past few weeks all across India you can hear only one slogan "Vote fot Taj". This is to make Taj Mahal listed in New 7 Wonders of the World. The "Taj" campain hit India by all possible means, be it meetings, advertisements, hoardings, pamphlets, Hot air balloons to body art, exhibitions, stunts and what not. Not to forget emails, Orkut Scrapes and SMS's.

As far as I know there are two ways to vote. One is via Internet and one is via mobile phone. When media and people are giving Patriotic statements to vote for Taj, why is that the mobile phone operators are charging Rs. 3 to Rs 6 for a single SMS to vote for Taj? Where the cost of normal SMS is 50 paisa or 1 rupee.

Isn't this equation supposed to be reverse? i.e., when we are patriotic and want more people to participate in something which will make entire India proud, shouldn’t the cost of voting be less than the normal or at least equal? So who is making profit here on patriotic sentiment? obviously the mobile operators. Also as I know the Government also not doing anything in this part. I cannot blame the Government in this regard because, it itself has lot of problems to be dealt with. At least some initiative would have been good.

Strikingly smaller countries are doing their best to have their name in the New 7 Wonders of the World. Brazil's President Lula de Silva used a radio address to tell people how to vote for Rio's statue of Christ the Redeemer. The government of Peru has opened computer terminals in public plazas to encourage people to vote for the ancient city of Machu Pichu.

According to BBC:

"India has around 170 million mobile phone users and one person in every 50 has access to a personal computer.

But lacklustre voting over the past few months has seen the Taj Mahal get just enough votes to get at the bottom of the top 10 list.

Although some private television channels are now calling upon people to vote, most people are yet to hear about the campaign.

A special composition by ace musician AR Rahman, 'India Unites for the Taj', to drum up support for the monument has come a little too late in the day.

And worst of all, many say, the Indian government remains completely aloof from the campaign."

I am not sure what this means to the country but I am not going to take chances with the National Pride. So, I casted my vote both via internet and mobile phone. So people if you have not voted, vote today by clicking here or send an SMS to 4567 with TAJ in the text.

Do not forget, today is the last date to vote. The New 7 Wonders of the World will be announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 07.07.07.

P.S: If you are voting via internet please check your email and confirm your vote by clicking on the link and providing the information requested. As soon as you do this, your vote will be counted.

Some Interesting Facts about Internet

1991

AUGUST 6 th : www was created by Tim Bernsley.

DEC 12th : First server started in America.

1993

APRIL 23 : Browser mosaic released in market to work on windows operating systems

APRIL 30 : Web was made available to all.

MAY : First magazine on net The Tech was created by Massachussets institute of technology.

JUNE : HTML -Hyper Text Markup Language was released

NOV : Web cam was created

1994

FEB : YAHOO was created by two stanford university students David Filoo and Jerry Yang. first it was called 'Jerrys guide to world wide web'.YAHOO means Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle

OCT 13 : Americal official website http://www.whitehouse.gov/ was started by president Bill Clinton

OCT 25 : Commercial advertisements started on internet.

1995

FEB : First radio station on internet started its 'radioHK'

JULY 1 : Amazon.com ws started for the sale of books online

JULY 4 : Hotmail - Email service started

AUG 24 : Internet Explorer was launched as a part of Windows 95 operating system.

DEC 15 : Multilingual search engine Alta Vista started

1996

AUG : This month world wide websites reached 3,42,081

1997

DEC 17 : Web commentator Jorn Borger created weblog which became Blog later on

1998

SEP : Google was started in a garage in California.

FEB 7 : Eight prominent websites including Yahoo and CNN were closed due to hacking

2001

FEB 15 : Jimmy Wales released online Encyclopedia - Wikipedia.

2003

APR 28 : Apple company 'itunes' started

2004

JUN : Web creator Tim Bernsley was given Britain white hood

NOV 9 : Due to open sourcing revolution, Mozilla Firefox was released

2006

AUG : Total number of websites on net is 9,26,15,362


340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 : can u guess what is this number..................

in next three years there would be this much new websites

What's gone is 60 seconds?

Whenever I ask this question, I get the answer "Nothing" from most of the people. And you and I know that there isn't much we can lose in 60 seconds. Unless we are some Bill Gates or Steve Jobs kind of people. I am talking here about an average man/women in general and I agree that there are always exceptions.

I know you might be thinking where I am leading. Any guesses? hmmmm.........what else than my favorite topic " Hyderabad-Traffic-people" :-).

When ever I am on road the most common sight I get to see is, people jumping traffic signals. What I do not understand is, what is there so important for them to attend, that they cannot wait for 30 or 45 seconds? What they don't understand is they are putting their and some one else's life in danger by doing so.

Some people wait at the signal but they dash off before the light turns green. Can't we wait for 2 or 3 seconds for the light to go from red to orange and to green?

So, all said and done if you are a person who does not jump signals and keep your cool until the light turns to green, there will be some idiot at your back who keeps on honking expecting you to go ahead and jump the signal. Guys please don't let this honking heat you up and make you jump the signal. How much ever noise this idiot makes, stand your ground and do not move until the light turns to green. If need just point him to the red light ahead. Believe me this works!! 'cause I do the same always.

Guys, we all know that life and time are the only things once gone cannot be brought back. So when ever you are in a hurry and feel like rushing in the traffic, ask yourself one question, "What's gone is 60 seconds?". That will take care of all.

One thing that I always follow is, if you have an important appointment and have to make it on time at any cost. Why rush? just start a bit early so that you can reach at your destination on time.

So, when even you are in a hurry and rushing through the traffic ask your self, "What's gone is 60 seconds?". Whenever you see such people or know such people just tell them the same, tell them to ask for themselves one question "What's gone is 60 seconds?".

No power.......No mood....No post

Yesterday morning the Electrical Transformer of my office building broke and from that time the power was from a generator. Yesterday while I was leaving home there was no lights in the corridors, Stairs were dark without lights and the lifts were also not working. One thing I was glad that at least the A/C was working.

Today when I came to work, I realized that the A/C was not working. When I checked on it with security, I found that the Transformer was not fixed yet and they cannot run A/C any longer on Generator as they had brought in additional mobile generator to support the load on standard generator.

It's evening and still the Transformer is in the process of getting fixed and all of us at work are sweating inside as there aren't any windows that can be opened. It's very uneasy so sit in the middle of all the computers and servers which generate lot of heat. Adding to that, today only the sun is bright and strong.

So it was a dull, sweaty day at work today. I hope this power thing is fixed by tomorrow.

Some of the Best Moments in Life:

I got the above click @ Botanical Gardens, Hyderabad

* To fall in love.

* To laugh until it hurts your stomach.

* To find mails by the thousands when you return from a vacation.

* To go for a vacation to some pretty place.

* To listen to your favorite song in the radio.

* To go to bed and to listen while it rains outside.

* To leave the! shower and find that the towel is warm.

* To clear your last exam.

* To find money in a pant that you haven't used since last year .

* To laugh at yourself looking at mirror, making faces.

* Calls at midnight that last for hours.

* To laugh without a reason.

* To accidentally hear somebody say something good about you.

* To wake up and realize it is still possible to sleep for a couple of hours.

* To hear a song that makes you remember a special person.

* To be part of a team.

* To watch the sunset from the hill top.

* To make new friends.

* To feel butterflies! in the stomach every time that you see that person.

* To pass time with your best friends.

* To see people that you like, feeling happy.

* To use a sweater of the person that you like and find that it still smells of their perfume.

* See an old friend again and to feel that the things have not changed.

* To take an evening walk along the beach.

* To have somebody tell you that he/she loves you.

* To laugh .......laugh........and laugh ...... remembering stupid things done with stupid friends.

These are the best moments of life....Let us learn to cherish them.

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be enjoyed"