Captivating Headlines

Surely, you wouldn’t have read these headlines on the Windows Launch Day. Did you?

• President Bush Sends More Troops to Cupertino to Quell Anti-Vista Riots
• Ballmer Defends Decision to Include “Swastika Cursor Pack” in Vista
• Dell Goes Bankrupt after Realizing None of Their Computers Can Run Vista
• Switching from OS X to Vista for Dummies Tops New York Times Best Sellers List
• Ubuntu Users Embrace Vista’s DRM
• Vista WGA Still Uncracked
• Iraqi Insurgents Declare “Day of Peace” for Window Vista Upgrade Party in Baghdad
• Most Popular Name for Boys in 2006? Vista
• Bloggers Eerily Silent on Vista Launch Day
• Federal Government Orders Flags to be Flown at Half Staff in Honor of Windows XP
• Corporate IT Managers Declare New Windows Operating System “Vistastic!”

Now that’s a "Wow"

TOI about Windows Vista:

Welcome to a whole new world in computing. Experience something new, something delightfully unexpected, something for which there’s only one word….Wow! Introducing Windows Vista.

Whatever! But my “Wow” is for India’s terrific innings in the 4th ODI of the Pepsi Cup at Vadodara. This is what we call ‘Cricket’. After a decade I got to see ‘real’ cricket. Unfortunately, it was a Day-and-day match, so I missed the initial 10 overs, was busy sleeping. Unluckily I failed to watch the awesome strike by Robin & Ganguly. But Dravid & Ganguly shared a great rapport out on the field. Ganguly gone for 68. But then, advent of the King – Tendulkar. Truly phenomenal partnership between Dravid & Tendulkar. The balls being delivered, and the scoreboard moving ahead with about a 6 run rate. The game all the while was very well executed. Both even after claiming a 50, couldn’t afford to rest. Though it was a wise decision by Dravid to leave the field by playing a risky shot after making a good 78. Then what, the anticipation terminated, and Dhoni hits the ground. There were about 10 overs left at his arrival. The bout between Tendulkar & Dhoni was also very calculated. The strategy followed was to give strike to Dhoni so that he could get some boundaries, and Tendulkar aiming only for singles. Dhoni made 40 in mere 20 balls, and Sachin couldn’t resist his hardwork go in vain, and so with full enthusiasm he eventually got his 100. I got no words to express the kind of innings it was. India wrapped up at 341-3, pretty laborious for West Indies. Repetition, ‘Real Cricket’ you can ever perceive.

Update (At 1615) : During the Indian innings I stayed glued to the TV, just with the morning newspaper lying before me, reading an article now and then during the short intervals, not ready to miss a ball even. But West Indian innings is really snatching away all the interest. Its quite clear, they’ll lose (they gotta make around 160 runs with just 2 wickets and 10 overs remaining to win.) Feeling sorry for Lara. This was his last ODI, just not West Indies performed poorly, even Lara had to leave the pitch making just 3. Too bad for him.

The Battle Continues…

Just the battlefield observes a slight modification. The warriors are still the OS, and the new battlefield is airport. Here’s some descriptions of airplanes run by various operating systems:

DOS: Everybody pushes it till it glides, then jumps on and lets it coast till it skids, then jumps off, pushes, jumps back on, etc.

Macintosh: All the flight attendants, captains and baggage handlers look the same, act the same and talk the same. Every time you ask a question, you are told you don’t need to know, don’t want to know and everything will be done for you without your knowing, so just shut up.

OS/2: To get on board, you have to have your ticket stamped 10 different times by standing in 10 different lines. Then you fill out a form asking how you want your seating arranged–with the look and feel of an ocean liner, a passenger train or a bus. If you get on board and off the ground, you will have a wonderful trip, except when the rudder and flaps freeze, in which case you have time to say your prayers before you crash.

Windows: Colorful airport terminal, friendly flight attendants, easy access to a plane, uneventful takeoff. Then: BOOM! You blow up without any warning whatsoever.

NT: The terminal and flight attendants all look like those the Windows plane uses, but the process of checking in and going through security is a nightmare. Once aboard, those passengers with first class tickets can go anywhere they want and arrive in half the time, while the vast majority of passengers with coach tickets can’t even get aboard.

Unix: Everyone brings one piece of the plane. Then they go on the runway and piece it together, all the while arguing about what kind of plane they’re building.

CAIRO: The airplane is distributed among 47 different hangars in 13 airports scattered over 8 states, 4 Canadian provinces, and a remote mountain hideaway in Nicaragua. But you don’t need to know where the airplane is or who it belongs to in order to fly it. Actually, you don’t fly the airplane itself; you fly a simulation that behaves just like the real thing except that you don’t go anywhere. But that’s okay, because when the world is at your fingertips you never need to leave home.

Updates : Forgot to mention, eventually iPod shuffle also acquires some vibrant colours. I guess they are the same brought out for Nano.

Geek to Live

All the geeks must be knowing that the Microsoft’s new Operating System, Window Vista is unveiled to the users today. What damn it took them them 5 yrs to bring out the new one? God knows! Can’t really comment on it before using. But Bill Gates certainly can. And for that he was at the Daily Show (hosted by Jon Stewart) yesterday. You can watch the video, but please don’t blame me after that.

It is also being exclaimed that the launch of Windows Vista will create a huge opportunity for Linux vendors to take a larger share of the corporate desktop market.

People will have the choice–they are going to get a major disruption and have to learn a whole new interface and way of working to switch from a previous version of Windows to Vista. “It’s just as much disruption–or as little disruption–to move to a version of Linux So what we will probably see is that a lot of companies now are going to very seriously consider, when they do their next refresh cycle, not switching to Vista but switching to a Linux-based platform instead.”

Now this is another battle between the operating systems, the major contenders being Micrsoft, Linux and not to forget Mac.

Computer ki Gita

This is for all you techno freaks. I’m sure you won’t spare an hour to read Bhagwad Gita or any other epic, so you better read this. It might be useful to you.

Well did you watch the Australian Open Mens’ Final, between Roger Federer & Fernando Gonzalez. It was quite certain that Federer would win the day. But surprisingly, Gonzalez did give a tough match. The match was really worth watching.