I have cleaned up the sidebar; unfortunately, in it’s prior avatar, it was rather bland. Changes were made to the tag cloud and a category cloud has been added.

One of the major changes in the side bar is addition of Duckduckgo as the default search engine for this site. I have been using it extensively over the past few months and I recommend it thoroughly. I have been in touch with it’s developer, who’s put in his own money and has interesting ideas that are being implemented. My only concern about not using other search engines is the opaque policies on privacy and building up an online user profile to track down the individual customer. The technology isn’t perfect but a major impetus on social network has it downsides.

I am a big fan of RSS; I can’t imagine my life without it. Flipboard and other news readers have gained prominence in recent times, are all RSS readers. Unfortunately, a reader is as good as dead; I haven’t seen any major revamp of Google Reader as yet. I do have some ideas panned out about an ideal RSS reader (namely extraction of data and analyzing and categorizing data in real time), but there has been no development of late. (The only example that comes to my mind is Mutt, but it does not have a GUI front end and it’s terminal interface appeals to it’s users so it’s static there). Feed Daemon is a great client for Windows but I don’t use it so it’s disappointment again.

Nevertheless, now you can have RSS feeds for each category listed. The default has been applied after the revamp so you would get to see it more prominently on the cloud.

I haven’t updated “About” page so a cleaning there is also warranted.

The idea is to make it easier to port OUT the content; rather than the people coming on to the main site. Please email me in case you find any problems in accessing the content since I have extensively checked the implementation on my side.

 

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Tags: android, Appeal, Broadband, default search engine, DTH, Google, GUI, iPhone, Media, Microsoft, privacy, search engine, search engines, Site Updates, Social Media, tag, Twitter, Windows

This is “out of context” post but I would like to highlight a kick starter campaign for a journalist, whose work I greatly admire. He’s written about the “grave diggers” of India; a rather quirky issue to write but is one of the dark “underexposed” issues in India.

Scott Carney is out there to raise funds for his planned documentary but prior to that he needs to raise funds for a trailor.

You can read more about this here.

Scott has a web site and the link to his other projects is here. His book on The Red Markets is due soon around June in India (based on communication with the author). His write up appeared in Wired recently.

I appeal to all to donate generously.

You can watch the video below:

 

Tags: Appeal, author, DiggersDiggers, DTH, Entertainment culture, India, journalist, Publishing, Telecommunications India, TRAI, Wired (magazine)

With Hulu essentially a timid extension of the cable industry, Netflix is about as disruptive as you’re currently going to get in the Internet video space. That’s certainly not thanks to Hollywood, which has employed obnoxious licensing restrictions like 30 day new release delays to limit Netflix’s power and supposedly protect DVD sales revenue. CNET notes that Hollywood execs continue to be “spooked” by Netflix, and are worried about a number of things, including Netflix’s impact on in-flight movie purchases and DVD sales, which the studios insist have slowed in the age of digital media despite their new release delay windows (duh). Hollywood’s plan appears to be to simply dump less valuable content to Netflix and home consumers “get bored”:

Incessant whining and trying to disrupt a new delivery route for your content you weren’t innovative enough to create ourself certainly sounds like Hollywood thinking. However, Hollywood isn’t Netflix’s only problem — with Netflix getting more vocal about the anti-competitive impact of metered billing, North America’s largest ISPs are also going to increasingly be taking aim at the company.
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Tags: Appeal, delays, Digital Media, DVD, Internet, Media, Telecommunications India, Windows