Jeeves will leave soon

www.aj.com is one of the cool search engines I have found. The genteel butler [means - friendly, upper class servant] that has been Ask Jeeves Inc.'s face for nearly a decade is getting ousted in a corporate takeover.“Not that I don't like that fat butler," said the new chairman Barry Diller.

Ask Jeeves spent more than $100 million building its brand around the cartoon butler during the dot-com boom. Jeeves is the name of the "gentleman's gentleman" or valet, supposed to be the person who fetches you the answers of any query you ask. The character is based on Jeeves, Bertie Wooster's fictional valet from the works of P. G. Wodehouse. On 23 September the company announced plans to phase out the character

Google Blog Search

Google unveiled http://blogsearch.google.com/ last week, which focuses exclusively on the material contained in blogs.

Since the acquisition of Blogger, Google had been expected to build a blogging-focused search engine -- a mission finally achieved.

"There really has been a need for a world-class search product to expose this dynamic content to a worldwide audience," said Jason Goldman, who came to Google in the Blogger deal and is now the company's product manager for blogging search.

Victory after 19 years

Just returned from CR & FC with a victorious feelings + a mild sore throat (coz of heavy shouting). Thurstanites triumphed the Abdul Jabbar Throphy by knocking their traditional rivals Isipathana nearly after two decades, 19 years at a big match.

Thurstan started scoring and at the half time the score board led by TC 5-3. In the last 10 minutes Pathanians gained a penalty and went for further 3 runs. While the score was at 5-6, Knights gained a penalty and reached 8-6. In the last 2 minutes TC scored an incredible try and converted it which settled the ending score as 15-6.

It was a magnificent entertainment, great effort guys (players, coordinators and the crowd), keep it up.

Once again a time to meet old folks

Thurstan versus Isipathana annual rugby encounter for the Abdul Jabbar Trophy is scheduled for today at CR & FC to be kicked off @ 5.00 p.m.

Management....

How well do you tackle problems that obstruct your way? Observe how one master does it...

Father talks to his son
Father : I want you to marry a girl of my choice
Son : I want to choose my own bride.
Father : But the girl is Bill Gates' daughter.
Son : Well, in that case... I can consider the idea..

Next the father approaches Bill Gates
Father : I have a husband for your daughter.
Bill Gates : But my daughter is too young to marry.
Father : But this young man is a Vice President of the World Bank.
Bill Gates : Ah, in that case...I can give it a thought

Finally father goes to see the President of the World Bank
Father : I have a young man to be recommended as a Vice President.
President : But I already have more Vice Presidents than I need.
Father : But this young man is Bill Gates' son-in-law.
President : Really ? in that case I will certainly think on it...

This is called Real Management .......

Mulder is Back

I was damn happy last night coz Special Agent Fox Mulder returned to the X files after a long absence. Never expected this, coz I believed he is no more in this fabulous drama series. Though I thought its all set for the party since everybody is together again except our funky three of lone gunmen, this is the end of 9th and the last available series of the drama. Comprehensive scripts for all the episodes are available here. Hope they will start the next sequence soon. Anyway one more half to telecast next week.

Some more snaps of this episode

Scoble goes to Google

First get to know who is Scoble, his famous blog.
Then have a look at this pretty article @ Channel 9.

Microsoft's Threat to Adobe

Microsoft is ramping up efforts to take on rival Adobe by relesing on Monday a second beta of Acrylic, a program intended to ease the process of creating graphics for Web pages. Microsoft initially released a preview of Acrylic in June, and since that time the application has been downloaded close to 200,000 times.

Microsoft has described Acrylic as the "codename for an innovative illustration, painting and graphics tool that provides exciting creative capabilities for designers working in print, web, video, and interactive media."

Much of the code in Acrylic is based on a graphics program named Expression, which Microsoft picked up through the acquisition of Creature House in 2003.

Combined with a new printing engine dubbed "Metro," analysts see these recent moves by Microsoft as a direct challenge to Adobe, whose popular Acrobat and Photoshop programs could be direct competitors to Microsoft's new ventures. Acrylic is able to both open and export to Adobe's Photoshop PSD and Acrobat PDF formats, with PowerPoint support added to the latest release.

The updated pre-release of Acrylic, called a Community Technology Preview (CTP), will also have the capability to export designs into Extensible Application Markup Language, or XAML, the new format that will enable developers to take advantage of Windows Vista's new graphics engine known as Avalon.

Microsoft is also ostensibly readying a full graphics software suite dubbed "Expression Studio".



Here is one screen shot from Acrylic, as i think it needs far more developments to touch the Adobe's line.