This is an internet era and you must not be unaware of Google, the internet surfing giant.

In mid 1990s many search engines were being developed. Many of them were starting and       then getting folded up. But there were 2 men who were making the ultimate search engine.         They were “Larry Page” and “Sergey Brin” from Stanford University. In 1999 with a starting       capital of $100000, they found it “Google”. Whenever we go for internet the first thing which     comes to our mind is Google. Whatever you want to find you just type in Google page and you get hundreds of thousands of results. Maximum percentage of internet users today use Google. In 2005 Google had a gross turnover of $6.1 billion and a net profit of $1.5 billion. Google makes its money by advertising. Whenever you use Google, you find your search results on the left side of the page and the advertisements related to that search on the right hand side. So Google is giving enough opportunity even for start-ups for competing with renowned firms on advertising platforms. It is trying in every possible way that its users don’t have to read newspapers or even see television or move on to some other search engine so as to remain updated in this fast world. Today Google has made the web search much more convenient for its users, so why should they move on for some other search engine. It is now also providing printed materials and books online from various libraries. In various ways Google is trying to attract more and more users.

But there are various questions which generally don’t come into our mind like Wouldn’t be Google a monopolistic brand over the whole internet market ?

Wouldn’t it lead to the homogeneity among the ideas of people using the same search engine all over the world?

Yes it may because same queries-same results-and then same opinions. That is all which could end up with. So don’t you think that there is a need of some search engine may be better than Google which could not only attract internet users towards it but also lead people to have distinctive views regarding same things?

Only then better would come out of good, because there can’t be a good government without a strong opposition.

]]> http://www.theinfinitio.com/2010/06/30/googles-monopoly/feed/ 0 http://www.theinfinitio.com/2010/06/26/why-me-god/ http://www.theinfinitio.com/2010/06/26/why-me-god/#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:59:54 +0000 amanpreet http://www.theinfinitio.com/?p=1038 Recently, I came across an article which touched me deeply and was truly a master-piece.

It talked about how we people always crib and complain about things, and on being challenged by adversities try to blame God for what all that happens. The author narrates the story of a guy and taking his example explains why we shouldn’t crib and should always thank God for whatever he gives to us.

I was reminded of a quotation, which I heard sometime back; after reading the article. It says :

“Teri Razza Mei Hi Mazza Hai”

i.e. Accept whatever the lord gives you, the pleasure only lies in it !!! Do remember the almighty at all times, in joy or in sorrow and thank him for anything and everything that comes your way.

As per the text of the article, here it is:

P.S. All credit goes to the original writer :)

Pascal’s Wager

It refers to the argument put forward by famous French mathematician Blaise Pascal to help a person arrive at a decision on the existence of God. You’d better believe in God, Pascal argued, because if you are right, you stand to gain eternal bliss and if you are wrong, it won’t make any difference anyway. But if you don’t believe in God, and turn out to be wrong, you are eternally damned, whereas if you are right, it makes no difference.

Pascal’s Wager is basically an argument based on probability theory for why one should live as if God exists, even though this cannot be proved or disproved through reason.

1. If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven; thus an infinite gain.
2. If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever; thus an infinite loss.
3. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded; thus a finite loss.
4. If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life; thus a finite gain.

Mathematically a finite gain or loss is negligible compared to an infinite gain or loss. Therefore, he concluded that it was a much better choice to believe in God rather than to practice atheism.

In Pascal’s own words -

“If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is … you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.”

Source: Wikipedia

But even if we go ahead and agree with ‘Pascal’s wager’ that God does exist, it leaves us with an even bigger question – Which one to choose among the thousands available?

Mundane it may seem, to add a travelogue in the sea of travelogues on the internet, but this one is worth. Each of us is a collection of experiences, and this travel makes the memorable chunk of me.

So read me……….

A typical Bollywood spooky night in Chandigarh, the only sound to be heard is by the roaring and chilling wind. City of hip & buzzing day crowd but in the night it had a mask of darkness. With some apprehensions, our guy was moving towards his destination to the bus stand to catch a bus. There was no sign of anyone anywhere near-by. In a flash came a few hooligans and zipped past him, a narrow escape from their stunts. Different people – Different faces.

Our guy who was nonchalant became a bit pulsated. Thoughts of different intensities started flowing in this mind. He also pondered who these people could be, their way of life, etc. But he kept moving down the empty road; this time to spot a man lying down on the centre of the road. His bike was damaged and was at a distance of few meters from him. The man had met with an accident a few moments back & needed medical support immediately. This was a time to react quickly and fast; so our guy had to make a few decisions:

1. How to help this guy? How to reach out for help?
2. Won’t it be a problematic situation in an unknown city, and getting involved in a police case?
3. Without any means available at 2am in the night, what to do?

But soon he found a car stopping near-by and there were a few travelers who stopped after seeing the man. Similarly, within the span of 3 minutes there stopped a bike-rider and soon

Our guy again moved on but this time thinking of these people who were like angels to support a man in need. Different people – different faces.

Reaching the bus stand, he found that there was no bus available, and he had to move to the other bus stand located in the other end of the city. Only safe mean to travel available was an auto-rickshaw so he got into one. Here comes the 3^rd person of our story, the auto driver who was an opportunist, who on seeing the situation, asked for triple fare money even after negotiations. Different people-Different faces.

Now, our story shifts to the city of Delhi, where there our guy met an old woman who was traveling alone on an airplane for the first time. She was scared, didn’t knew what to do and where to go yet she knew that she had to reach Pune any-how as her husband was not well. Our guy met the woman, and helped her all around the journey. Seeing her, he thought of other strata of humans, the people who have all the will and determination to do the tasks, come whatever may be and God is always there to help these kinds of people. Different people- Different faces.

Pune is an old city, not so-modernized like Delhi, Bangalore and other city hubs yet people are nice, friendly and helpful. Our guy this time in Pune met one such person who made him to think what human emotions are, what our country demands from us and what we should do in our life in our very own way. The guy was a well educated citizen of India, who was very much influential when, came to knowledge and moral standards. At the same time, he was down to earth, respected each and every citizen of our country and was god-fearing. Different people – different faces.

Then there were people who were under the high influence of alcohol, drugs and were completely into a different world altogether. They didn’t want to have any relation with this world as they felt this was not a place to live, or they had got spoilt due to someone; or they have had the worst which one could ever see in his/her life. Different people – different faces.

There are always a lot of different personalities everywhere, and at each corner of the life, we meet such people who either leave a positive or a negative impact on us.

On the same, a few lines hit my mind -

Maine yahan logo ko badalte dekha hai,

Kisi ko haste, kisi ko rote dekha hai.

Koi rulata hai, koi hasaata hai,

Par har insaan hume kuch na kuch zaroor sikhata hai…

We can learn from each one, something or the other; good or bad deeds; which over the years shape up our personality but the choice in the end is always ours. What we want to become?, who to idolize? It not a fight of people, religions, communities, caste, groups, ethnics; but only a fight within us; Fight of our thoughts and our believes.

People should not be adjudged by their work, religion or merely by their looks but we should treat each and everyone alike.

Always remember “Naa ko bairi naai begana” – No one is my enemy nor is a stranger.

:)

Doctor on Emacs

I am recollecting all Easter eggs which I have got through.
Firefox:

• Write about:robots in URL in Mozilla Firefox and you will get a message page from robos with four points they say.

• Write about:mozilla in URL in Firefox and you will get few lines from the book of Mozilla.

Google Earth:

• In Google earth mode try to hit Ctrl+Alt+A to activate fight simulator mode which will give you planes to fly over you house or wherever you want to fly. Controls are bit tricky.

• Just go to sky mode and select Mars and type ‘The face on Mars’ and you will be taken to the Robo on mars who interacts you through chat. Just click on Robo an chat window will open up.

Adobe Photoshop:

• If you have CS4 go to Help and while holing Ctrl key click about photoshop and see the magic.

Emacs:
If you don’t know what is it? It is a text editor on Linux/Unix and Mac. It is very efficient when it comes to coding. It has salient coding features. Switch to Linux terminal and type emacs if this package is not installed first install it. Then type emacs it will shift you into emacs editor.

• Hit Escape+X and type doctor and write anything and doctor will answer your question

• Hit Escape+X and type Tetris an you will get tetris game that too on terminal.

I have tested both on Ubuntu terminal and you can also test.

This is it for this time, there are thousand of Easter eggs which you can discover or you may be knowing. Please share so we all can have a little fun.

Yes it,s true : Triple sim phone.

Olive Telecommunication has launched Olive Wiz with multiple sim cases. This triple sim mobile supports 2 GSM and 1 CDMA connection. It comes with a QWERTY keypad and social networking applications to keep pace with the recent technology in the market. All this and much more comes with a price tag of just Rs 6000.

Olive Wiz has the essential social networking features to ensure that its users stay connected at all times. Its Opera mini application supports Face book and Twitter applications, making them just a touch away. The device is GPRS/WAP/MMS enabled and coupled with Opera Mini to bring the fastest browsing experience would thrill users. Its QWERTY keyboard which is comfortably designed enables one to type faster typing

Yahoo and msn are supported messengers. Although it is coming with low camera quality of 2MP,but it has various other features like Built in FM Radio, Stereo headset, Speaker. Its internal memory is 256 + 64 MB which can be stretched up to 4GB through the memory card slots. The handset also has Java and Bluetooth with A2DP support enabled. The phone comes with three color back panels namely Black, Yellow and Silver which can be customized personally.

This phone has got everything for a general user.

Afterall it is Tripple in single offer.

The words ‘gaming’ are best known to the Gen X these days. Just say ‘game’ and you will get a thesarus opened in front of you. Video games, TV games, online games, computer games, mobile games, … and the list continues till eternity. Racing games, fighting games, educational games,chess … and this too is endless.

‘Animation’ too is making its presence felt. With the first animation movie ‘Hanuman’ and then followed by ‘Bal Ganesha’ and others many have followed and will follow. Young children and kids are the obvious targets. Some of the movies like ‘Hanuman’ and ‘Bal Ganesha’ have used mythological subjects. Not only movies but there are 24/7 hour channels targetting the kids. Some producers are thinking seriously about animation movies.

Speaking about games there are some that make kids and young children use their common sense, arithmatic skills and logical thinking. These games surely help the kids. It gives them the broader view of dealing with virtual situations. Such kids are more sharp in their thinking and decision-making. Some games require you to take split second decisions or else the ‘monster’ ‘eats’ you. Or you fall ‘pray’ to your ‘enemies’. Many  fighting games like ‘Counter Strike’ can be a good example of it.

But some parents are of the view that these ‘nonsense’ games are depriving their kids off their childhood. These kids just prefer to use their brains trying to save Aladin from snakes etc. Some others try and make India win, at least virtually if not really. Still some other feal happy to see that they have sorted out the cards and made meaningful packs. Some others bring tears to their eyes by arranging the 3 coloured bricks or diamonds and take great pleasure in seeing them disappear and hear the dings.

But really how many play games like druggists? ,where words starting from 3 letters are to be created. Nonetheless, it cannot be said that no one plays such games, but probably the number of people playing such games might really be quite less as compared to other games. Because such games involve some linguistic knowledge and there is no glamour in it either.

But gaming has its own hidden traumas too.

Its not only staring at the computer or the mobiles  gives many sour eyes or Back pain .The generation today is going away from yoga and pranayam. And we see them doing this only when its high time.

These games also lead to voilent behaviours of kids  coming  from frustation of not getting what the game is asking for?.

Its better to keep a check on everything; gaming included. And let children go in the great outdoors.

With the increase in popularity of mobile phones, many new mobile handset manufacturers and mobile operators have come up and have also introduced many attractive schemes and offers.

The point of concern, even today, lies in choosing your type of mobile handset, operator and then the connection type.

With the easy availability of prepaid mobiles, most of the people are attracted towards them.

As the technology grows at a fast pace, where we switch from traditional commerce to e-commerce; so does our requirements.

To save the valuable time of subscribers, many mobile service providers have come up with a facility of online recharges like vodaphone, airtel, idea, etc.

Similarly, one could find option to pay bills and recharge mobile phones through internet banking sites also.

To ease off the process further, many websites have come up where one could easily go and get a recharge for any kind of mobile at one place, just at the click of a button.

We conducted a thorough research to bring you the list of TOP 10 ONLINE MOBILE RECHARGE WEBSITES available in INDIA.

Rechargeitnow
This site is for recharging your GSM or CDMA mobile and provides an easy interface.

Fastrecharge
This fast recharge service has most of mobile service providers listed.

Rechargeguru

A website from where you can get online recharges, top ups for your Indian Mobile Numbers

Onestoprecharge
This one also supports almost all mobile service providers.

Mobikwik
This site also supports most of operators and service providers.

Apnabill
This one also for online mobile recharge. You can become a reseller there and earn revenue.

Erecharge
This site surrently support only Airtel, Aircel, and Idea & Vodafone. And they are supporting mobile operators only in Tamil Nadu & Karnataka.

Indiamobilerecharge
Online mobile recharge and various options.

Ezrecharge

ezRecharge.in is the only portal helps their customers to migrate to ’’One Second Billing’’

Easymobilerecharge

EasyMobileRecharge.com is a multi mobile operator, instant pre-paid recharge portal.

Zero Percentile is about a guy who missed the IIT bus and landed up in Russia. The book talks about the experiences, the life and the emotional dilemma which the guy faces over the years. The story is well depicted and one could easily form the picture of the narration in one’s mind.

The story starts from the very early life of Pankaj, who is the central character of the story, revolves around his friends, relationships and family along with his desire to pursue higher education at IIT.

But a tragic turn leads him to a dead end and he feels disheartened, losing all of his confidence and self esteem. After wasting his life’s precious years, he moves on to Russia to pursue Engineering.

The life of Russia is well depicted and the struggles, problems and hardships faced by Pankaj are nicely put in words. The environment of hostel would surely catch the eye of the Hostellers and they would surely be able to relate it to themselves.

In the latter half of the story, Pankaj has to face a few more troubles with tragic incidents at home and in his personal life but he comes out to be a strong character; sets up his own business, plays fair and foul as per the need of the hour.

The character of Sveta, with whom Pankaj falls in love also is depicted quite nicely but later on it also has an hidden twist to it.

As most of the stories end with a happy ending, this one too has one. Though as per my view point, it becomes quite predictable in the end and somewhat reader losses his interest in last few pages in contrast with the whole read which is easily able to hold the reader in a spell and gives a thrust to read on more and more.

Final Review – Overall a good read.

Narration – 4.5/5

Imagery – 4.5/5

Overall – 4/5

There is one thing about Apple products – They are very easy on eyes.

That is one thing ‘The Ipad’ – Apple’s new baby, also inherits. With its perfect finishing, crystal clear resolution and stunningly slim looks, the ipad looks just beautiful.

But that’s about it, eventually its just a screen in hand. An elaborate iphone or a primitive macintosh, can be put either way.

Thumbs Up!

1. Responsiveness

The tablet promises extreme productivity. With a 1GHz Apple custom madeA4 processor, speed will never be a problem.

2. Powerful Battery

The battery is more powerful than ever. The device gives up to 10 hours of usage, and nearly a month of standby time.

3. Luring Looks

Like any other apple product, the ipad carries with it the simplicity and the elegance that would definitely make heads turn.The high resolution LED display is crisp and vivid. The tablet has a charming appeal.

4. iBook

Beware, the ‘Kindle Killer’ is here. The ebook implementation is about as close as one can get to reality, maybe even better. Text looks bright, pages turn with a flick, reading is a joy. Then there is always the ibookstore to rejoice on.

5. Built in Applications

It’s the preloaded applications inside this tablet that define its functionality. From the trademark apple applications like Safari, Mail,iTunes, iWork, etc. to over 150,000applications available on the AppStore, all combine to make the iPad an all-in-one-package device.

Thumbs Down!

1. iPad? Really?

The name sucks to the core and sounds more like an iPod derivative like the device itself. Let the jokes cut loose.

2. No Multitasking

Multitask abilities missing. That’s a huge setback. A device that looks to replace netbooksmust allow simultaneous execution of programs.

3. No Camera

This not only kills the fun but also implies No video conferencing and No video iChat compatibility.

4. No Flash

The web experience is ready to get severely dented. Say goodbye to your streaming videos folks!

5. In a nutshell -

The tablet is not that light after all; over pricing is another issue; and the keyboard is not that great either; not to mention the 4:3 aspect ratio which is pretty annoying.

So the question remains. Was it their creativity? Was it dope? I think both. The creativity was always there, but it were the drugs which liberated it, unleashed the emotions. A short lifetime was sure a repercussion, but there’s no denying the quality of music they were able to achieve!

Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll, thats how the saying goes, isn’t it?

Well, there are lot many ways available on the internet for tracking mobile numbers and STD codes.

Many websites like InformationMaddness, BharatiyaMobile, TP2Location, etc have a good database for various mobile numbers in india which i found quite useful.

But imagine a situation wherein you are not connected to the internet or don’t even have a computer with you but you want to locate the area of a particular number.

This is a nice trick if you want to find out the area/circle of a specific mobile number but do not have internet connectivity on your computer. Using this trick you can also find the location of a specific STD codes or even get the STD code by entering the name of any Indian city/town.

The first four digits of the Mobile number is called MSC code.
MSC stands for Mobile Switching Centre which is the equivalent of a Exchange in Fixedline.
Telecom Authority allocates MSC to each operator according to their requirements.

TRAI releases the MSC codes list which can be downloaded by all from the trai website http://trai.gov.in

Moreover,  i came across a nice excel file which could be downloaded from here.

Just enter first 4 digits of the mobile number that you want to track on the green field and hit ‘enter’ key. Voila.. its done, within milliseconds the area of that mobile number will be located on the next cell.

It can also give you details for the STD and ISD codes in the similar fashion.

All credit goes to the original developer !!!