Funny post from CNET.

CNET posted this lessons learnt from the new Knight Rider. Fun read.

Check it out here.

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord! - 2

Femtocell is no female contraceptive product. Femto, actually is an SI unit - 10^-15. And, Femtocell is a technology. In three words - cell-to-wifi.
This could be revolutionary in days to come, this technology enables a user to seamlessly move from a cell phone network to a home based wi-fi network and vice-versa, and that too without breaking ones yap-yap (read: conversation).
Interestingly enough this is being introduced by cellular carriers, in the US Sprint Nextel branded AIRAVE. The home base is nothing but a modem like device that connects to the Internet. Sprint Nextel offers this for $50 for the device and $15/user/mo. for unlimited voice from wi-fi + cell phone plan cost + broadband cost.
Wonder what a dent Meraki can make?
My prayer - Where are you Skype?

A peppery green Mint.

OK, so I have been wanting to write about this site for a while but did not because I wanted to "check it out" myself first. And, about six months out here I am. If you are as fidgety and control freak about your personal finance as I am and want to know which crevice of your car you dropped your last penny, then this is for you. No no, this is not one of those metal detector for the hobbyists. Mint, allows you to manage and watch your finance from one place.

What you need to do this?
Sign up with minimum information, enter account info (username/password) for your financial account (don't panic yet and continue reading, and do not hesitate to click on the ad on the right).

What Mint does?
If you have successfully completed the above Mint goes out and collects retrieves all transactions from your different accounts and displays:
1. Transactions from all accounts (can be broken down to individual accounts)
2. Show graph for your cash to debt ratio
3. Show graph for spending trends (you can drill down to individual transactions)
4. Information on where you spend money
5. Compares spending habits with US average (basically, tells you how stupid you are)
6. Shows alerts for over budget spending based on patterns
7. Sends weekly reports to your favorite email
8. Sends alerts for upcoming transactions
9. What you can't do is the best security feature, commit a transaction (transfer funds etc)
And more ...

How does it do this?
Before putting any info into this site I did a little sniffing around and this is what I found. Mint uses Yodlee a very well established company that provides the gateway to financial institutions and is proven to be one of the most secure around. My previous employer's 401 K provider (ING) used them for a similar service as Mint's (and more). Mint, by itself holds very little personally indentifiable information and claims to not hold any sensitive info. I have some faith considering this is a very big fish to fry then to steal from somebody like me. Besides, every now and then they expire the financial account info and user has to re-enter this info.

Very nice, what do I pay?
Nothing! Free. So, don't expect an 800 call support. They do have online support via email.

So, how do they make money?
By providing another feature to its users. Ya, they tell you how screwed you are and if you want you can apply to better banks, credit cards etc. and save and make more money.

Over all after using this for over 6 months with real data, I am spanking this 4.5 stars. It keeps me on the toes.

What can be improved?
List of financial instutions. They have most but some are still missing.
I would really want to see some of the stock brokerage account, which they currently don't have. ING used to have it so Yodlee has this provision.

UPDATE: I just got wacked on this post so here I will try to add some more:
I already have the features that I liked and what I missed was user interface:
This is a cool AJAXy site enhancing user experience with ease of use.

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord!

But I know the reason why you keep your silence up, no you don't fool me
The hurt doesn't show; but the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you or me

If you are like me who has a constant urge to flip out a mobile computer to do something on the Internet then you would certainly understand what is in the air tonight. Before you jump into the urban legend around the song, I am talking - Wi-Fi.

Meraki is a SFO based community Wi-Fi provider suffering from same issue as numerous wonderful ideas that failed! If one visits their web site one will lose all hair scratching - WTP?!?! is this?

Meraki, the way I understand, is a very similar service as European Fon (also allows to make money just like SyncOne.net). A free community shared Wi-Fi. Marketted under a geeky "Mesh Network" concept that essentially means people buy a box from Meraki and share it with the community. The bandwidth or the connection speed is separate for the user from the community. Google failed miserably trying to bring Municipal Wi-Fi, I am hoping for Meraki to click. BTW, Google, I believe, has invested in them and will be serving ads to free users.

What I could not figure from their site:

1. How exactly they work?
2. What one gets for their $?

This post has reference to In the air tonight by Phil Collins.

I want my free music.

So much for the RIAA's witch-hunt.

*spit* *spit* I just spat my frustration to revel in this free software. Free Music Zilla check out more here. You can download YouTube movies and pretty much every other knock offs of YouTube and watch them at your liesure. The software pretty much chimes with all your

And, if you are still wondering how you are going to watch a FLV file. Well, here is another open the free player.

Enjoy!

Update:

Just as this was not enough here is what Google Ads displays note the boxed area:

Note: This posting is in no way encouragement to piracy or any illegal activity. RIAA's reference is only to highlight the point that prohibition is not a solution. Apple like evolution is what is needed.

If this is true then this is kick butt!

They just solved my ever-so-dominant pain in the you-know-what. This is kick butt. I hear a lot of "new" Web OS coming and yap yap and more yap. But, these guys are convincing and unlike every other NKOTB who preaches on surviving on ad banners; these guys actually have a revenue clamp.
You try and then buy! Welcome to Windows world (however much people hate M$, the reality is that is the way we get fed.).

What is so great about nivio:
- They have squared the wheel (in their own words), it is a windows system
- You get 5 GB of managed storage (Synched, backed up, spam and virus protected. Now, is that kewl or what)
- You have a suite of free softwares available or can buy other apps. (I loved this idea for $$)
- Funny part, you need browser to access this and for browser you need an OS. The world is round after all and consumers get screwed any ways!!!

What I think we really need now is a real $100 laptop that actually works! And, I have an idea. A simple computer/laptop with Celeron or a low end AMD processor about 1 GB of flash based storage, and has only one app on this masterpiece - a BROWSER does not matter which one and this could be running on any stripped down OS available (and so the need for storage space).
Turning on this baby should be nothing but starting the BROWSER. Bang and "The World is yours"¹.
Say what you?
1. Line was used in Scarface (Michele Pfiffer's debut movie).

I am an addict (but there is hope).

I just found out that I am a 52% addict, irrespective of what it means. I am 52% addict of coffee and this comes for a freaking dating site. Freakin psychos!

I am 52% Addicted to Coffee

Click on the link above go to their site at my cost and take the quiz, you parasite!
Another one of my posts that may interest you, you freak!!
PS: I am still under pain, see previous post.
PPS: You get extra points for hating my blog.

I just died in the arms of most hated blog!

I am college educated, I have been blogging for over a year, I have started several efforts of my own, I have a respectable full time job with a Fortune 500 company.

And, what have I gained -
I drive a 12 year old car that coughs every time I shift gears.
I still don't own a home and pay rent under a curse.
I am done with almost 1/3rd of my life and not sure if Social Security will support me after significantly contributing to it. Screw immigration policy!

After all this I get this in my face - The world's most hated blog. Congratulations! Dude, you're my hero.

Before, it was - The million dollar page.

WTP!?!? How do people get such ideas?!?!? How do I make my blog hated?

Please don't tell me things can be worse, I was my mom's favorite so back off!!

Where we are headed ....

Got this from a friend CS and had to put this here. This is absolute lol.

I had thought I knew it all of voyeurism ...

... till I was sent this, however contradictory this was sent as ode to tea. It gives a new dimension to the obsession (don't ask which obsession we're talking about). I had heard of all kinds of things but a blog!

For other related blogs.
Girls with tea cups (Teabirds)
Babes with books (WARNING: NSWP)
Women with wine

There are numerous other blogs of similar kind linked from the original blog, which may or may not be NSWP. You've been cautioned.

Fabmall acquires Indiaplaza.

Fabmall acquires Indiaplaza to create the world's largest India centeric e-commerce site (www.Indiaplaza.in). Quality will continue to suck and deliveries will be further delayed. (pun intended). But, the variety will remain as vast (that is positive.) and confusing (not so positive).

Answers.com - answers to where I am.

About six years back I had found a tool Babylon. This was an excellent tool to bridge the gap between what I knew and what I did not. Any where on my computer if I clicked with a key combination it would get me the definition of the word in multiple languages and everything related to it. It is like spell checker in Office Word, only better since it works with anything. The catch, it is NOT free.

Enter Answers.com, 1-Click Answers is a similar tool and this is free. It does not provide as much info as Babylon does, but suffices my needs. It can really be addictive.

Alchemy is for real.

Everyday when I leave work I ask myself - What did I achieve today? Despite astronomical number of keystrokes, few million lines of incomprehensible code, packets of voice information exchanged over the phone and billions of bits burned on the Internet along with all work related emails; I tell myself I have achieved NOTHING!
Why, because there are these brat little kids in this world who have not even completed school forget about college and have revolutionized this place where I live called world. I really have achieved nothing when I look at people like www.milliondollarhomepage.com. This is what I call sheer brilliance. Turning dust into gold, the ultimate alchemy.
A KID from somewhere in UK started this site and sold pixels YES PIXELS moron - the little granular dots on your monitor; for advertising on his site. The one pager has nothing but ads millions of them some so small that you can't even make out what it is yet companies from all over have paid thousands and bought PIXELS YES PIXELS AGAIN MORON.
Now to add shame to the injury this kid was blackmailed by a hacker to bring the site down if he did not put his banner. Guess what, the kid negotiated with a security company and got protection for free.
If I see this kid, I promise to perform a tribal dance around him as a mark of respect and sacrifice three desktop mice. FUCK!

More info and history click here.

PS: I had intended never to use any profanity uncensored on this blog, but this finding broke all boundaries of restrain. Pardon me.