Microsoft succeeds in buying Yahoo!

In my last second post about Google Vs Microsoft on July 25th, I had written that Google and Microsoft stepped forward to buy Yahoo but eventually none succeeded. Well, this was 3 days ago :) Today Microsoft has bought Yahoo . From now on Bing (Microsoft's search engine) will be the offiicial search engine that would be found on Yahoo home page as a result of which you will find "powered by Bing".

So now the two Internet giants have joined hands to push back Google... (???!!!!)

The agreement is signed for 10 years during which Microsoft will focuss on search engine and Yahoo on ad sales. Microsoft apart from focussing on operating systems, hardware, browsers had also invested millions in search engine market as a result of which it was able to get Bing to the third place when Yahoo was on second and Google on top of everything. Now a partnership with Yahoo does make a difference.

So no doubt everyone would be eager to know who gets on top in search technology!!!
And Google is now high on developing free OS for PC's the success of which would be a bane for Microsoft Windows (obviously)!

We will only have to wait to know who gets what better (and Id be happy either ways coz Im a die hard fan of both the companies ;) )

Harry Potter and the Half blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half blood Prince is the sixth part of the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling. I thought I would not be interested in fantasy stories until I started reading Harry Potter. How I wish I could do all the things done by just having a wand and using the appropriate spells?!? And thats not it,,wat about the invisibility cloak ,the marauders map and Felix Felicitus??

Movie Review:

Of all the parts of HP that has been shot till now, Half blood Prince would be the most awaited one for all the HP readers. But to be honest the movie as a whole did not satisfy the expectations of HP fans. This part of the book has a heavy subject which features Voldermort's past and Dumbledore's guesses about the Horcruxes. But the movie has very less to say about these two.

Despite considering the fact that the entire book cannot be reproduced I have my own reasonable disappointments which I think would be common for anyone who is so much into HP. Iam satisfied and also happy with certain scenes though:

Satisfactions(or why dont we call it "Exceeds Expectations"):

I kept cursing the movie until the scene where Tom Riddle asks Slughorn what a Horcrux is and how the to have 7 of them since its a magical number. It was made fine and im pretty happy about it.

Then the scene where Dumbledore takes Harry to the cave where the third horcrux is present. I was really happy by the way the scene was shot. Again it Exceeds expectations!!

The next scene where Draco, Bellatrix and Fenrir encounters the defenceless Dumbledore is also made good. Every reader of this book would have been waiting to watch this scene in particular and it has been shot good. A slight change acceptable though- instead of Dumbledore immobilising Harry he commands him to stay aside. And then comes Snape..none wud forget the last words of Dumbledore-"Severus ...please..."
And Snape yells Avada Kedavra.. The scene is so perfect.You cant deny it!!

Doubting Snape would have been common to anyoune until you read the last book. After you did, you cant curse him anymore. Being a fan of Snape, I was waiting for the next scene where Harry yells "Fight back you coward" and uses "Sectumsempra" spell Snape says in return "Dont you dare use my own spell against me Potter..Yes Iam the Half Blood Prince". Hats off to the HP team for making these last two scenes so perfect..Here is the grade for these two scenes-Exceeds Exceeds Exceeds Expectations :D

Disappointments:

As I said they should have focussed more on just 3 people-Voldermort, Albus Dumbledore and Harry (Of course Snape comes into the picture automatically) and not Ron, Lavender and Hermione. Why did they had to shoot the romance scenes between Ron and Lavender when there is so much important to show. And the scene where Ron drinks the Love Potion and talks about Romilda Vane. The team should have forgotten that they are making a movie that is a thriller and not a comedy.

I never thought they will elliminate the memory of Dumbledore where he takes Harry to Marvello Gaunt's house which has so much to tell about Voldermort's parents and grandparents. Weird! 2 minutes of this scene would not have caused much harm. And why the Quidditch match has to be given so much importance?

The story is about how well Dumbledore put things together to know about Voldermort and how he guides Harry through it. And the way he guesses wat the other Horcruxes are?? Those are not shown in the movie which again concludes to the point that they have give least importance to the most important scenes of the book.

And the ring that is supposed to be one of the Horcruxes.When I saw this scene I was like "Does that seem to look like it has a magical history to which Voldermort goes to an extent of making it a Horcrux?" They should have picked up a more artistic ring and not the one which is just simple.(Had Voldermort existed now, the entire team wud have been cursed big time :D)For that matter, the locket seemed to be better.

So tats it for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie.

P.S- They could have made it better

Google Vs Microsoft

We all pretty much know that Google and Microsoft are the two giant companies competing with each other to invade the world. And that day would come before long.

Microsoft founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen began its journey in 1979.This corporation mainly focussed on their operating system called Windows which has become popular in a short period of time because of its user friendliness. Microsoft Office enables people to create smart presentations,docs and calculations using Powerpoint, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel etc. Users dont have to be a genius to work on these environments. All this success let Microsoft to expand its wings from Windows 98 to Windows XP and then to Windows Vista. The latest sensation being the yet to be released Windows 7.



And now we have Google founded on 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin with main focus on their Search engine. Google has been a default option for searching the web for a long time. Google accounts for around 60% of online searches-a record which no other search engine has come near to it. Though these two companies seem to have different focusses they do compete with each other. Like Microsoft Office, Google has its own Google Docs which enable users to create their docs and presentations. When it comes to Google everything is Web based. You dont have to have softwares installed in your PC to do all this work instead you just have to login to Google to get your work done.



But then Microsoft will never let its users down which is why it has its own Office Live Workspace which works similiar to Google Docs. Here you go!If its Microsoft's MSN that provides mail service to people, Google has its own Gmail. And if its Google Chrome its Internet Explorer from Microsoft's side. This competition doesnt stop with computers alone. If Microsoft introduced Windows Mobile operating system for smartphones, so does Google by introducing Google Android which is an open source OS.

Google has various other products too- Blogger, Google Maps, Google Chrome, GTalk, YouTube, Picassa, Orkut, GMail etc. All these have become a part of our lives these days. Thanks to Google!

On the other hand Microsoft's products apart from the operating systems are MSN, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Zune, the incredible XBox series of games,.NET softwares,silverlight, many hardware products and the latest sensation being Bing-Microsoft's search engine. How cool is that!

Both Google and Microsoft keeps buying the potential companies to strengthen their market but both didnt make it up buying Yahoo when it was under financial stress in 2008. And the both the companies have been investing a lot in Cloud Computing which has proved to be a boom these days.And both Google and Microsoft along with more companies have joined hands to make ue of the 'white spaces'(unused bandwidth in the frequency spectrum of television) in future!

As we saw earlier while Google focusses on online services and Microsoft on desktop applications these two companies are now trying to become successfull other way round too-Google on desktop applications and Microsoft on online services!
Sky is the limit for both Google and Microsoft.

Iam a fan of both Google and Microsoft for these are the giants who have made us go digital!

Sivam

Sivam-one of the works of the great writer-Indira Soundarajan who became very famous through "Marma Desam" which was telecasted years ago.I still cant forget how I used to wait to watch this serial every week and it was hard to get this out of my mind. Indira Soundarajan's novels are usually filled with suspense and thrill and one among them is Sivam-my first book of this author.



A battle between people who have fierce faith in God and those who dont. Raj Narayan comes back to his village after finishing his studies abroad. Technically he is an athiest who comes to wed his brahmin cousin who turns out to be a staunch believer in God. Not only her but the whole place is so religious.

And there is a group to steal the precious things that belong to the ancient temple and as per the fate Raj becomes its protector. Everytime he wishes to leave the place he had to face many obstacles and ultimately fail. Like this many weird things happen around him and he ends up knowing the truth which he refuses to accept.This is the outline of the story.

I particularly like the climax of the story where there is a strong answer for Raj Narayan's athiesm.A good book and I want you to give it a try if you are a reader.
Im looking forward to read "kannigal ezhupaer" of Indira Soundarajan in future.

Cheers!

GTalk- becomes informative and entertaining

Most of us use Google products like Blogger, Picassa, iGoogle, GMail, Orkut, Youtube and GTalk extensively. Recently more cool features have been added to some of these products and GTalk tops that list.

GTalk is no longer just used for chat and file transfers. The functions are upgraded so that it can be used irrespective of whether ur chat friends are online or not. If you are a job seeker the latest new feature would serve you best. Naukri has just launched its job search feature in GTalk.


Add jobs@chat.naukri.com as your friend in GTalk and when you see this online type help and you get the necessary information to proceed further. You can enter your location, experience, search for a particular job or even search by giving your Naukri Id.

Apart from this I think there is something more which is worth sharing and has been in use for quite a long time. In you case you dont find any of your friends online and you need to kill time you could go for this- Add games@gtalkbots.com as your friend in GTalk and when it is online start about by typing anagram. You receive a jumbled word and you have to assemble it to get a sensible word. As simple as it sounds. This becomes more interesting when you register yourself in gtalkbots.com after which you get a chance to compete with several other people who are in gtalkbots. In such a case you would tend to beat the other person competing with you to get a high score.



There are many more features in www.gtalkbots.com , Check it out and enjoy exploring the new features of GTalk.

Invisibility Cloak

Ever since I read Harry Potter I wish I own an Invisibility Cloak. Harry just puts this cloak over him and becomes invisible and this no longer belongs to the fictional world alone. It has become a reality already. Thanks to the Tokyo University.

The scientists at the Tokyo University have used Optical Camauflage technology to make this Invisibility Cloak but with a slightly complicated arrangement. A person who wishes to be invisible wears a garment similar to a hooded raincoat and the other person has to see through the cloak which makes the first person invisible.



We still have to wait for the perfect invisibility Cloak to be made(like the one Harry Potter had).Complexities apart, you cant deny the fact that its a cool piece of technology.

Final Destination series

If you are someone who is so interested in watching thriller movies, then you shouldnt miss watching Final Destination series.
I remember watching the first part when I was in school (say 4 yrs back). People who got down the flight which happened to crash minutes later start dying in some sequential order. The deaths of these people are so mysterious and at the end none who was on the plane survives.



A year later this incident, a girl while driving gets an intuition that there would be a terrible road accident and therefore calls a cop and tries to prevent the accident from happening. But it seemed to be too late and the people as she visualized start dying in the order in which they drove their vehicles. Strange sequence though! This is wat Final Destination 2 is all about and i saw this movie recently. Its got more thrill than the first part.




And Final Destination 3 is a movie which I cant stop watching over and over again. Anybody who has seen this movie would give a second thought before going for a roller coaster ride in a theme park. People who escaped from going for a ride get killed and this time its even more worse. Final Destination 3 is 10 times more scarier than the combination of the first 2 parts. I cant deny the fact how i was shaken when I saw the tanning bed scene which is right after the roller coaster ride. And none survives at the end.



If you are a weak minded person dont watch this movie. On the other hand if you are a sport, go for it!