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You might want to check out Apple’s latest consumer laptop, MacBook.

Just upgraded from Open Office 1.1 to ver 2.0. Worth the upgrade.

BTW, if you didn’t know, you can actually create PDFs from any document, spreadsheet or presentation using Open Office, for free.

Google’s products are like Rahman’s music. They grow on you, atleast for me. Read ahead.

Google Reader has now become a personal choice for me. I was enthusiastic when G Reader was introduced, the excitement was put down when I learnt the Reader wasn’t compatible with Firefox. Though it was resolved in the next few weeks, it’s only for the last month, I’ve started using only G Reader to read blogs and other news feeds.

Bloglines is such a robust app on the net for news feeds while Google’s Reader is slick and has a very intuitive user interface. The G Reader has an option to read the posts both chronologically and blog-wise. Intially I wasn’t comfortable with the chronologically ordered posts from various blogs. It needed a mind-shift, after being used to read posts blog-wise in Bloglines. Now after using it for well over a month, I’ve to say that I’m enjoying this interface which allows for lazy reading. If you wonder how to migrate from Bloglines to Google Reader, see this help text to export you Bloglines subscriptions as OPML file and this help to import that file into G Reader. Just two steps and you would agree with the analogy of Reader to Rahman’s music.

BTW it seems like Rajini & Rahman‘s Sivaji music would be out by March 10. Kamal plans to showcase the h(a)unting music on March 5th. I’m hoping the news on Sivaji music is just a hoax. Whoever wants the music to be out by march and wait until Diwali for the movie. Shankar must be crazy if he is aiming for this. Thanks Radhakrish for the link.

A tipping point has been reached, and going forward, you will need only one kind of database to run both the transactional and BI parts of enterprise systems. There will still be different instances due to performance requirements to support diverging transactional and BI workloads, but they will both operate with the same database. Proprietary systems that operate with special purpose technology stacks and databases are out. Open systems – including de facto standard such as IBM DB2, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server – are in. Open source databases will remain outside the mainstream due to lack of features, functions and experience, but will exert a remorseless flattening influence on the major players in downward pressure on prices.

Just like his other articles on Business Intelligence, in this well conceptualized column, Trends for 2006, Lou Agosta makes a daring thought about the world of Data Warehousing. He throws his views on how companies could derive value from their BI systems by employing open source architecture and low-cost servers. I only wish those corporates who are thinking a zillion times to data warehouse their systems would read this. Build Data Warehouses for cheap and Warehouse the world. For this is what every Data Warehousing guy dreams about.

Bill Gates talks to Channel 9, the Microsoft Video Blog. Unlike the usual interviews where formal keynotes and strategies are discussed, this one is a welcome break.

Gates is very informal in this seventeen minute clip. Though essentially played in Channel 9 as a curtain raiser to Mix 06, there are some interesting questions asked and answered.

Yet again, Yahoo shows its love for Web 2.0 or is it because Google is already a Web 2.0 giant. Whatsoever, the lovely lovely folksonomy site, del.icio.us was bought by Yahoo.

At first it was the photo revloutionary Flickr and now with del.icio.us, yahoo tried to override it’s own respective applications. Yahoo Photos could have developed to the speed of Flickr and its My Web 2.0 was developed on the same lines as of tagging which was a competing application to del.icio.us.

With Google missing to buy Flickr, it was rumored then that del.icio.us was certainly for Google. Another hit and miss for Google. What next ?

I’ve been wondering who was linking this blog from CNET and it turns out to be their blog portal, BLOGMA. In CNet’s words, To help navigate the infinite terrain of the blogosphere, News.com editors, reporters and readers will determine which technology issues are creating the most buzz among bloggers on any given day. These topics will then be summarized on Blogma, which will also include commentaries from various blogs and links to related sites.

I do follow CNET Blogs but didn’t know about the BLOGMA, until they linked their blog post, Trepidation builds around Web 2.0, to the Google RSS Reader blogpost. Atleast I’m happy someone recommended this blog on the technology category. Cool !!

Ev’s Odeo is facing challenges right now. With Apple joining the Podcast fray, few months back, the podcast scene just got hotter. Just today, Yahoo announced it’s share of podcasting service, Yahoo Podcasts which is in beta, as expected.

Ev Head‘s Blogger made a headstart in blogging and its long gone before these big godzillas of internet realised that blogging was a serious business. They don’t want to do the same with Podcasts. So they are gearing up to enter podcasting sooner than ever before. And thats giving podcasting all the hype more than its worth. With whatever I’ve experienced in the last few months, ever since I started subscribing to Podcasts on my mp3 player, I believe, Podcasts will become the next radio. But I’m positive that podcasts may not erupt waves in the internet. They would consolidate soon and would become steady business rather than competitive, just like the blogging market. So podcasts will live but not as grand as blogs. The video revolution has already started and that would be a majot hitch for the podcasts to surge higher.

Now what happens to podcasting services like EV’s ODEO ? With the online giants jumping into the podcasting badnwagon, fresh creative thinkers have very little to do in podcasting space now. The major difference betwen ODEO and other biggies is that they have software to creat and upload podcasts. Apple and Yahoo’s podcast services are mearly a grouping of podcasts in one place whereas ODEO has a USP of creating podcasts. It wouldn’t take much for them to buy this software from some unknown programmer and fix it into their sites. Ev’s Odeo might succumb to the media majors if they don’t take a lead right now. I just don’t want EV to fail like Sabeer Bhatia, after all he was instrumental for a blogging revolution.

[Image - Google Video and Photographic Channel]

No, I’m not blowing my anger here for the hack attempt. Its the name of a tamil movie trailer.

Google Video is already up and googling through it yesterday, when my blog was under siege, I discovered a bunch of Tamil videos uploaded there. From Ah Aha TV trailer to a full song from a recent tamil movie February 14 to UNICEF’s report on Tsunami. I’ve now idea how Google is going to tackle the rights issues of these videos. Most film videos seem to be submitted by individuals and the producing corporations are going to be tad angry on these video releases.

This movie trailer, Poda Un Moonjila En Kaiya Veikka is supposed to be a parody on tamil films. Though it seems like a bunch of college dudes doing some funny-like-stuff on tamil movies, its been mixed and titled so well that it can be called as a parody itself. However amateur it seems, we are going to witness such home videos and amateurish small movies on video offerings the online world offers. As Mani Ratnam quoted in a recent interview, Filmmaking will become a lot more personal. It will become like writing. Anybody will be able to make a film. There are not only Kollywood parodies, Bollywood is no exception. Dont Stop Till You Get To Bollywood is a music video like parody on bollywood dance sequences.

I did bump on finally something gripping and more serious attempt in Google Video. Jonathan Torgovnik’s Bollywood Dreams attempts to document Indian Film Industry as a bunch of picture postcards. The image above is from Bollywood Dreams short film and it somehow went so well with the title of the post.

This short documentary runs a little more than 5 mins and has been produced by the Photographic Channel. It is one man’s observation on the Indian Film industry. Jonathan has travelled around India to capture photographs about India cinema both in the sets and in theatres. He is particularly amazed about the cinema posters. He says South India sports the cut-out culture and he is so fascinated by them. To add why I loved this documentary is that it captures on my interests, the cinema posters. I’ve clicked tons of pictures on posters, cutouts, banners, DVD covers and whatever assosiated with cinema advertisement. Some of them are also on the photoblog. Coming back, the documetary also briefly touches upon the touring talkies and the economics of a touring talkies. Good one. Don’t miss it and keep Googlling for videos.

I am going to enjoy the new yahoo mail. No doubt about it. The new Yahoo mail which has added Ajax technology to make the mail app look like desktop mail application. Many of us who are used to Outlook’s look and feel are going to enjoy the virtual Outlook through Yahoo Mail.

But this review on WSJ by Walter Mossberg is certainly biased to a large extent. From the review -

Similarly, Gmail forces you to view ads alongside your emails. Unlike Yahoo, it offers no paid option to avoid the ads.

I’m sure Gmail will get better and better, and will eventually adopt the new programming techniques that allow desktop-like ease of use. But I’m not sure Google’s arrogance will ever make room for user preferences on things like folders or ads, or how emails are grouped.

Yahoo’s new email program would blow Gmail away if it were widely released today. That’s partly due to its features, but also to its respect for user choice.

GMAIL, when it was introduced last year, it was appreciated for being radical in approach and not following the boring and conventional method of email maintenance. The replacement of folders to labels was similar to Web 2.0‘s tagging. And if someone doesn’t understand what tagging is all about, cribbing about GMAIL changing folders to label doesn’t stand up to the levels of WSJ’s reputation.

I googled, googled and googled throughout the review to see if there was a mention of free POP access that GMAIL give. Yahoo was giving free access and then took it back few years back. I am not sure which user doesn’t want POP access which GMAIL gives. Not everyone might need it but the idea of re-opening POP was done only by GMAIL. And the stingy 4 MB limit of yahoo mail was raised to 1 GB only to counter GMAIL 1 GB storage. This news of yahoo raising its limits after being forced by GMAIL indirectly is comfortably forgotten in the review.

And what an dramatically sweeping statement that is to say Yahoo’s new email program would blow Gmail away. I have to say NO WAY. Yahoo may be the top notch on webmail as of today and may introduce the Oddpost way of email to the online community. But it’s because of GMAIL that the email revolution 2 started and I assume its the first product to be used by millions of people even when its in BETA. So there goes the Yahoo pride !!

Business Week carries a series of articles on Best of New Web aka Web 2.0.

Along with a bunch of Web Picks there are article on Blogs, Taggin’ and ofcourse the very impressive AJAX. If you are a newbie to Web 2.0, they are a must read.

Meebo is the newest addition to the online community using the hot hot Ajax[Asynchronous JavaScript and XML] technology. With Meebo you aren’t contrained of a firewall blocking access to your Instant messaging. It’s the kind of silent browser which were around sometime back where you have a browser inside another one and the sites that are blocked by the firewall can still be accessed. Seems like Meebo is just out of their Dev labs and is still in Alpha. When you login to yahoo client you have a toned-down version of messenger with which you can chat with your IM friends bypassing the firewall.

Meebo uses the Ajax technology to simulate Yahoo or MSN’s IM client as a light-weight tool. I am using it and its truly awesome. I read about Meebo in Om Malik’s blog and someone raised a question of giving away passwords to a start-up firm’s website. I wasn’t thinking about it when I was using it. And now that I’m making a recommendation, I thought I should also be adding the word of caution and leave it to your own judgement. As online world goes through Web 2.0 a.k.a programmable Web, we have to start trusting websites and online community. How else did the net prosper over the years ?

[Image - Walmart]

That red thingy on the right corner of the picture is supposed to be a mp3 player/cube. Also its boasting to be the world’s smallest MP3 player.

Some things loose their charm if they are SMALL. This is one of those.

Larry Ellison is so bullish that his company just took over iFlex as their third biggest acquisition of the year. After PeopleSoft and Profit Logic, CitiBank’s Tech group iFlex will be controlled by Oracle.

Earlier this year when Oracle took over PeopleSoft, I wasn’t sure of their plans. Having been in the PeopleSoft Data Warehousing consulting arena, close to 4 years, I had vested interests in PeopleSoft being taken over by another ERP giant. Not anymore. Because it seems like the consolidation is truly becoming the order of the day. And I’ve matured over the time to think mergers, consolidations and hostile takeovers are all fine until they do good for customers and shareholders. At the end of the day if the customer gets a better software solution, any thing is fine because business these days does not bother too much of ethics.

Having worked in Citibank for a short period of time, I have worked alongwith iFlex people even before, when it was called as CitiCorp. And I have to say, buying out iFlex is only going to do good for Oracle. IFlex has one of the best banking software in India. My buddies keep saying that iFlex’s Flexcube is much powerful than Infosys’ Finacle and Temenos’ Globus. But i’m not taking a guess at it. Whatever be it, banking is one area were software services never stop growing. We have been witnessing the growth of Polaris over the last few years given the fact that most of their client are in the banking industry. Larry Ellison’s this move is certainly startegic and would reap fortunes for Oracle. So the next time iFlex sells a thousand installations of Flexcube, Oracle dB comes along with it. Neat, isn’t it ?.

Despite the growing contention over him, Larry is certainly Oracle’s Oracle. He just made Oracle Inc as India’s largest enterprise vendor. Need say more.