by Sujoy on October 15, 2008
Have you always wanted to get out of a boring situation where there is your boring auntie to meet and all she can talk about is how her son is making a fortune. That’s when you wanted some friend to call you up and say, “Dude you need to be here”. Friendly crank calls are a big need of the day, be it to escape your boring aunt, your boss or a lousy housewarming party. And in case your friends are too busy to co-operate, no worries anymore.
Get hold of this awesome thing available for FREE. Yes, free. It’s called GetMOOH (Get Me Out Of Here). It’s as simple as this. Fill in your name, your country code, your mobile number, select the time and date when you want the call to come to your phone. Select from a range of voice samples, and you could even practice to the given samples with your preplanned replies. [Continue Reading]
Open up today’s Techmeme and you will see this splashed across almost throughout the entire page. Because this is HUGE news. Microsoft has withdrawn its plans for buying out Yahoo, more popularly known as Microhoo in the speculative blogosphere. So what does it mean finally for us?
Does it mean that we can actually breathe a sigh of relief before some other giant (Google) makes the next move? Or has Yahoo got some other plans up its sleeve? Almost 3 months after the initial speculations of Microsoft’s plan of acquisition of Yahoo, and almost a 16 billion $ increase in market value, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer released his statement that it was withdrawing its offer of acquiring Yahoo. And now that the beans have been spilled, speculations are making the rounds.
Of course, most of them surround the Big Goog tying up with Yahoo to do things OpenSource. Also under the radar is the question of how Yahoo’s shares would turn out on Monday when the markets open. And unless there is a huge miracle, the stock-prices are expected to decline drastically. And well, as Techcrunch states in their post here, if Yahoo tanks badly, Microsoft can even be back with a lower bid. Hmm, so we just can’t count out Microsoft out as yet.
Indexed below are the sites which have covered the entire chapter from every possible angle and every possible aspect.
Yahoo Responds: “The distraction of Microsoft’s unsolicited proposal now behind us”
Breaking: Microsoft Corporation Rescinds Offer For Yahoo Inc
Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo!
Yahoo! Issues Statement in Response to Microsoft
Guessing Yahoo’s Opening Stock Price
OK, so what’s Microsoft’s plan B?
Email From Steve Ballmer To All Microsoft Employees
Ballmer to Yang: How stupid are you?
YHOO and MSFT: Jerry Yang should be fired
by Sujoy on April 23, 2008
Awright!!! It is finally here. Facebook IM. It is cool, it is handy and it’s almost non-existent, at least by the looks. It is really cool , coz you don’t have to actually browse away to some other application to chat with your buddies. And this is what you get. On your Facebook page, on the bottom right corner, you’d have noticed a change today. Yes, it is IM integrated into Facebook. See the screenshot below.
Unlike orkut, which just shows who’s online on GTalk, with that green dot beside your profile pic, Facebook IM is what it is!! A simple and functional IM within the social networking giant. It is very easy. You can check who among your buddies are online and well go ahead and strike a conversation. The functionality doesn’t work with IE 6 or below. But then, who’s using that? Works on Firefox and Flock just perfectly. Haven’t checked on Opera or Safari.
If you are facing any problem seeing Facebook Chat, here’s the official help page.
Inside Facebook has the details in their story here.
Check out Nick O Neill’s post as well on the new Facebook IM .
And for those who are still hungry, here’s the Official Facebook Blog Link titled “Now we’re talking“.
So you chat hungry people, enough reasons to throw around those emoticons. Oh did I mention, it is Emoticon READY!!! *wink* *wink* ;D
by Sujoy on April 1, 2008
An early morning dose of 440 volts ran down my spine when I dragged my drowsy eyes on the front page of TimeofIndia. The headline read-CAT to be held online from November 2009: IIM. And I said to myself -nothing. So finally it has happened. At par with the other global examinations for graduates applying for B-Schools, in India CAT is synonymous to GMAT multiplied a million times in terms of difficulty, prestige and desire. I know it because I have appeared for it twice, both attempts failed miserably. However, this year the exam goes ahead to adapt the online format being followed by other well known tests like GRE, GMAT , IELTS and TOEFL.The problem however is the format that is being speculated. Unlike GMAT or GRE, CAT used to be a one day in a year affair (more like a annual festival for veterans like me). But with the current scenario, it will be impossible for CAT to be held on a single date. Primarily because every year hundreds of thousands aspirants appear for it. The numbers speak for themselves. 2007-2.3 lakh (230k)appeared and this year the estimated figure will be almost 3 lakhs (300k).
With that many students hopeful to appear online simultaneously, the immediate pressure is on the infrastructure required to conduct an online test of that proportion. Not only providing enough machines for the examinees spread across different centres in the country, but also the subsequent evaluation process. In case the test has to be made available on the same day, at the same time, the servers have to be robust enough to support the procedure(given the fame that IIM servers hold during the results announcement time that sounds a huge task to do). And as predicted, this procedure is going to be outsourced to a third party vendor, however IIM will have the supreme authority.
Consequently CAT will no longer be a one-day affair and shall now span across a set of dates in a month or months. Yet another addition to the format is the single paper format is now being modified into different papers similar to GMAT( which actually boils down to the same stuff coz there were different sections previously, now it’s papers.) But unlike GMAT, the results here will not be announced instantly. So there’s still the scenario of the almost two months of dreaded wait.
Other issues facing the exam’s new format might be Security. The stringent security policy which has been synonymous with CAT for so long, might face a big question mark now that the test arrangements are being done by a third party vendor. Not only tha, how secure would be the online security is another question. Seems like all coaching classes are soon gonna install computers and start simulating online mock CATs and come November, we might actually get to see the very first online CAT. Meowww!!
Image Source:inthebag.golf
