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Friday, October 28, 2005

Million Dollar Pages

Ever since I have been hearing about this site, MillionDollarHomePage.com looks like it has now crossed well above half a million.

Well for those who have not heard about it, here is a brief information.
MillionDollarHomePage is found by a 21 year old student Alex Tew from Wiltshire, England.

His goal is to sell pixels of homepage space to advertisers for a dollar each to fund his university Education. Each pixel is sold at $1 and there are 1,000,000 pixels for sale.
Each grid in the below image is a pixels that will be filled with advertisements

And, an example of some advertised pixels

I should say, he has come up with a good unique idea. Reading his FAQ page, this is what he answers to a question "What will you do with the money?"

First and foremost, if I make enough money, I will pay my way through University. That includes 3 years worth of tuition fees, accomodation fees, textbooks etc, and [god forbid] - having a social life!

After that, I would like to pay for my parents to have some time off because they work so hard and they deserve a break. I would like to return some of the support they have given me over all these years.

Thirdly... socks! I definitely need some new socks. Whenever I buy new ones they seem to disappear, or they disintegrate. So I want to buy some really expensive, long-lasting socks.

Finally... if I reach the $1m target and still have money left over after buying my swanky new socks, then I have a couple of interesting business ideas I would love to invest some money in. So watch this space!

Ok, nice to have such thoughts. Just imagine getting $1 each from 1 Million people. Today a beggar, tomorrow a Millionaire!!!

The slums in Mumbai should come up with such ideas and get their own union website and really help us in making Mumbai as Shanghai. Oh!! looks like an Indian beggar has advertised there and now also hosting their own site by name IndiaPixelPage. The arsehole had no other name arising in his mind other than including India's name in the begging community.

The below banner updates us on the pixel sales count on MillionDollarHomePage. Watch this Half Millionaire growing.

Anyways, I have no much harsh feeling for Alex. It proves, this a Million Dollar idea works in this MAD MAD world.

Ever since this idea came out, these days there are several other clones and losers who have now found an easy way out. Also the stupid advertisers encourage these lazy bones.

Just look at this loser who begs for having an AMAZING CHRISTMAS!!! The site is MakeMyChristmas
Here is an excerpt from the site:

This site differs from other sites in that I am not attempting to make a living off of the income made here, instead I would just like to have one amazing christmas while I cannot provide for my own. Christmas is my favorite day of the year, and I will keep this site updated with my christmas preparations and other christmas related stuff.

Here is a list of few other clone websites that I will just point and not talk much about it. Because it's a SHIT to talk on them and is a pure waste of time.

Pixeltise
PowerOfPixels
OneBuckPixels
TopDollarHomePage
SponsorTheRaceCar
TheRichestBidder

OneMillionPixels
MillionQuarterWebPage

MillionDollarHelpPage
This site is begun to raise $1,000,000 for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and we are doing it by selling advertising space for $1 per pixel

MillionDollarState
Stan Oleynick, a 22 year old, American entrepreneur, aims to make one million dollars - to fund the building of his internet project - by selling 10,000 virtual acres to advertisers for $100 per acre, on his website, MillionDollarState.com, Advertisers, will then be able to decide, how they want to "develop" their property!

OneMillionInternetFaces
Found by Nick Butcher, a 31 year old UK based computer consultant who has challenged to display 1 Million faces on a single webpage within a year. The $1 Million will be raised for charity on achieving. The image upload fee is $4

At the end let me point the last ~~BULL~~ SHIT!
MillionDollarCowPage
That's a COW. You heard it right. If inquisitive on this, its better you check this yourself.

This list continues... Do further research and let me know if you come across such site. Just post a comment.

Read this blog

I recommend you reading this article

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Collection of Old Computer Boot-up Screens

TheOldComputer.com has some nice Boot Up Screens of those very old Operating Systems almost forgotten today. This reminds us of the earlier days of Computers. I can remember of Basic when we used to learn that in our school, then Windows 95 and Select Game ;)
Here is the Collection of Old Computer Boot-up Screens

Some Facts about Bill Gates

Refering to my previous post on 14 things you didn't know about Bill Gates just thought of also posting a few facts about Bill Gates I had earlier. I guess many of you must be knowing about this. May not be exactly but atleast heard a fe wpoints about it. Here it goes:

Bill Gates earns US$250 every SECOND, that's about US$20 Million a DAY and US$7.8 Billion a YEAR!

If he drops a thousand dollar, he won't even bother to pick it up bcoz the 4 seconds he picks it, he would've already earned it back.

The US national debt is about 5.62 trillion, if Bill Gates were to pay the debt by himself; he will finish it in less then 10 years.

He can donate US$15 to everyone on earth but still be left with US$5 Million for his pocket money.

Michael Jordan is the highest paid athlete in US. If he doesn't drink and eat, and keeps up his annual income i.e. US$30 Million, he'll have to wait for 277 years to become as rich as Bill Gates is now.

If Bill Gates was a country, he would be the 37th richest country on earth.

If you change all of Bill Gate's money to US$1 notes, you can make a road from the earth to moon, 14 times back and forth.
But you have to make that road non-stop for 1,400 years, and use a total of 713 BOEING 747 planes to transport all the money.

Bill Gates is 40 this year. If we assume that he will live for another 35 years, he has to spend US$6.78 Million per day to finish all his money before he goes to heaven.

Last but not the least:

If Microsoft Windows' users can claim US$1 for every time their computers hang because of Microsoft Windows, Bill Gates will be bankrupt in 3 years

Recently on Sep. 29, 2005 ; I read this news on InformationWeek, which reads Microsoft's Gates, Ballmer Get Raises. This was soon after Microsoft completed it's 30 years

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, the world's richest man, is worth $51 billion. CEO Ballmer is worth a paltry $14 billion.

Before it becomes a broken link, let me post that here:

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer each earned $1 million last year, an 11 percent raise over the previous fiscal year, Microsoft Corp. reported in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
Gates, the software company's chairman, and Ballmer, its chief executive, each earned a salary of $600,000 and a bonus of $400,000 for the company's 2005 fiscal year ended June 30.
Ballmer also received $6,300 in matching 401(k) contributions and $2,773 in other benefits. Gates received $2,469 in other benefits, the company said.
For the current fiscal year, the company said in a separate filing that the executives will earn base salaries of $620,000 and will be eligible for bonuses of up to 120 percent of their salaries. In its proxy statement, the company also disclosed that Gates owned 9.55 percent of Microsoft shares, while Ballmer owns 3.85 percent.
According to Forbes magazine, Gates is the world's richest man, worth an estimated $51 billion. Ballmer is worth an estimated $14 billion, the magazine said.

So after this, can someone recalculate the facts?

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

14 things you didn't know about Bill Gates

Came across this blog today where the ComputerGeek translates the article from themarker.com. The website is in Hebrew language. He also tells that it is as said by Bill Gates on his visit to Israel, few books and from the web. Sounds good to me so thought of posting it here:

1. Many books have be written about Bill Gates, Amazon brings up 137,632 results.

2. The first company he founded was Traf-O-Data.

3. Microsoft used to be written "Micro-Soft".

4. His great-grandfather was a lawmaker and mayor, his grandfather a national bank's vice president, and his father a successful lawyer.

5. In 1968 when the first computers were installed in the Lakeside Academy, his grades degraded because he would spend days and nights learning the new device.

6. Gates, Pual Allen and their friends caused the computers in Lakeside Academy to crash because of hacking activity.

7. When he was young he used to rock back and fourth. Today he still does it when he's deep in thought.

8. In Harvard he got bored and passed most of his time programming and playing poker.

9. Gates told his teachers in university he would be a millionaire by age 30

10. Gates turned into a billionaire at age 31.

11. One of his teachers said about him "Bill was an amazing programmer, but a disgusting person".

12. The reckless life in Harvard made him sick during summer 1974 and he quit his studies.

13. His first programming job was in high school making a program that organizes an efficient schedule. He used it to sign up to classes that had the hottest girls and have easy fridays.

14. Gates married his wife, Melinda, on January 1994 in an island in Hawaii which he rented for the wedding.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Most Awesomest PC Case Ever Invented

Incredible!!! Have a look at this PC case.

Bow down before your God. He is now known as “Dark Blade”, the most awesomest PC case ever invented by Bit-Tech forum user G69T . This PC case is almost near completion and has taken countless months to produce. It comes with 2 seperate hydraulic pumps for cooling the bastard. The case is lit up in a beautiful blue and green combo that flows through the tubing with a sex-tastic luminosity. In other words, it’s pretty. Custom venting also helps cool this beast down. If you’re wondering where you can get one, don’t hold your breath. This baby is one of a kind. More sexy pics after the jump. Mmm. Case fetish.

Found on Gizmodo

More Images available here:
Image 1 / Image 2 / Image 3 / Image 4 / Image 5 /
Image 6 / Image 7 / Image 8 / Image 9 / Image 10

Here are some Videos:
Short VORTEX STATION ONE 18.2 Mb

Short VORTEX STATION TWO 7.4 Mb

Downloaded from Bit-Tech Forums

Monday, October 24, 2005

Hide My Ass - A free web proxy

Today, this site has launched: HideMyAss
This is a free web proxy where you can browse the web anonymously. Following is what it says in its about page

Hide My Ass is a free online web service which offers users to browse the web anonymously. If you are at work and need to access a filtered web site, simply use our free service to bypass the network filter.

We decided to keep the site simple and easy to use, as well as fast loading. A lot of proxy sites are plastered with ads, 1000 options and load very slowly.

What does the name mean? I basically wanted something fun and easy to remember as the site only has one purpose, I believe the name is easy to remember and stands out from the crowd. Hide My Ass was set up on the 25th of October 2005 by Jack Cator.

The site is powered by PHProxy 0.4

Strange that in few whois site where I checked, replies: No Match Found !!!

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Now 1000 Gigs of Email Storage

Are the email service providers getting crazier. After Gmail offered a 2GB free email service, Yahoo! and Rediff also doubled its webmail capacity. These services are enough for me. More than 1GB freespace is sufficient for personal usage.
But, Vincent Liou, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mailnation.net has different opinion. They think that privacy policies with major companies are weak, reliability remains questioned, and features are lacking. Attachment sizes remain small and restrictive, and ads plague certain email systems.
That’s why he provides a 1 TB (1000 GB) completely free service with an ad-free and simple to use interface. Unlike most free email services, he offers you with an exhaustive list of free features, designed with you and your daily busy life in mind. He offers this to you, completely free of charge, with an impressive uptime, and a very stringent privacy policy.
Apart from 1 TB of space, the attachment limit is 10 MB, which my other providers also give the same amount. Now what do they mean by saying "Is it anything new that it provides by saying "Send your complete gaming CD or that Open source 3-4 CD software or anything like that?" Damn!!!
For me, no 30Gigs, no 1TB, no more nonsence. I'll use my sense and stick to my YAHOO! and GMAIL. If not enough, I already have my account on Rediff that provides 1Gigs and I rarely check them these days as most of them is loaded with spam. No more huge space and no more invitation to spams. Those who feel like kissing spam mails and have a timepass with upload and download of 10 MB attachments, here you go
As far as I can see, their servers are hosted at the netriplex datacenter and the mail server runs on Merak mail server provided by Icewarp software that runs on linux.
Don't know how long will they remain. But I wish them "All the Best."
Here is my previous post on 30 Gigs of Storage Space if you may like to have a look at.

Email turns 34

Happy Birthday Emails...
It's 34 years since e-mailing technology was invented . Paul Buchheit, Gmail's first engineer wrote some interesting thoughts on the anniversary and emails in general on their Google Blog. Also on the reason for building gmail, this is what he says:

I rely on email, a lot, but it just wasn't working for me. My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble; sometimes four different people would all reply to the same message with the same answer because they didn't notice the earlier replies. I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it. With Gmail I got the opportunity to change email – to build something that would work for me, not against me.

The blog is worth reading. Read here

Linux can milk cows!!!

Ever heard ~~Penguin~~ Linux can milk cows?
If your cow wants to get milked when it desires to get milked, here is a procedure for it.
Set up a machine that gives the cow control of its milking schedule. It identifies the cow, then finds the udders, milks the cow, cleans it's undercarriage, and lets it go.
What has Linux to do with it... Sounds strange right? Read here

Saturday, October 22, 2005

How Much is Your Blog Worth?

Check How Much is Your Blog Worth here. Your value is derived on the price AOL paid for WebLogs Inc. ($25m) divided by their % share of Technorati sources - to give a $ price per Technorati link.

My blog is worth Priceless.
How much is your blog worth?

Command Line Text Editors in Linux

There are times in the Linux world when you have to use a command line based text editor. I recommend getting to know which one you have installed on your system and practice using it in case of emergencies. I found an article on three popular editors that gives you some insight on how to use them. This article at Really Linux covers vi, pico, and emac. I have used two out of the three listed and my favorite is pico - and I really like nano, which is a different editor.

vi / pico / emac / text editor linux / nano

Vi:
Vi is often the default editor that pops up when you're ready to write an e-mail message or when you're posting a News message. Vi is complicated and seems difficult to learn at first. However, it is often the default for Unix and Linux systems. This chapter explains the use of the Vi editor.

Pico:
Pico is a fairly simple text editor that provides straight-forward options and easy-to-use commands. Although some programmers have frowned at Pico's simplicity and limited options, most folks find that it provides everything necessary to write long documents with minimal hassles. However, Pico is not very good when manipulating certain types of files such as making changes to .cgi files etc.

Emacs:
Emacs falls somewhere between the straightforward Pico and the complicated Vi. Unlike Vi, you don't need to switch between modes to perform basic text editing functions. Sadly, the vast set of powerful commands themselves are difficult to remember. The Emacs link includes basic information on Emacs for situations where you may encounter it or for those who use it on an occasional basis.

[Read Command Line Text Editors at Really Linux]

Also I would point out Newbie's Top Ten Commands available here for all those starting to learn Linux

Wine Will Go Beta Next Week

After roughly 12 years of work, the Wine Project is about to take its widely used Windows translation layer to a place it has not been in all that time: beta.

Wine Project leader Alexandre Julliard, who has worked on the software nearly since its beginning in 1993 and maintained it since 1994, said interview yesterday that the beta release is “a matter of days away.” He has since updated that forecast and said it would be released on Tuesday, October 25th.

Wine Project / Beta / Linux / Alexandre Julliard / Crossover Office 5 0

"We are currently in code freeze for the release," Julliard said. "It should happen sometime next week."

Wine allows Windows software to run on Linux and other x86-based Unix operating systems by running the Windows application program interface (API) and other Windows dynamic link libraries (DLL).

The beta release of Wine comes a few weeks before the expected release of Crossover Office 5.0, the Wine-based proprietary software from Codeweavers that is marketed to run Windows office suite software but also handles some games and other programs.

Jeremy White, Codeweavers founder and a "big booster" of Wine, said the beta release of the software is a watershed event because in addition to user apprehensiveness toward an alpha release, a lack of consistency in the software's function also turned people off. And while Wine, or some form of it, has become common across the Linux universe, 11 years as an alpha is a long time.

[Read more on Wine Will Go Beta Next Week at NewsForge]

Friday, October 07, 2005

Flock, the New Browser

Another ground-breaking IT development coming from the general vicinity of Stanford University -- and it's being built in a garage, just like HP was.
Here comes a new open source browser called Flock. It's built on the Mozilla Gecko HTML rendering engine, like Firefox. However, Flock's intended user market isn't just anybody -- it's designed for bloggers.

According to BusinessWeek Online:

"Flock hopes to turn the browser into a dashboard for collaborating, blogging, sharing photos, reveling in a raft of other group activities that have recently caught fire online."

Expected to be launched in two weeks, Flock will make it easier for Bloggers to edit, reference and post content to their blogs; allow web surfers to instantly tag sites at del.icio.us; and most importantly, Flock will be easy to customize to enhance the browsing experience of the average Jane. Early testers have apparently given the browser the thumbs up, but it's too early to tell if the initial buzz will be translated to wide adoption.
Flock is "designed from the ground up as a 'social browser' for what its inventors call the 'two-way' Web," says Steve Hamm in his blog at BusinessWeek.com.

30 Gigs of Storage Space

Heard of 30Gigs? Well this is the new web based email service provider that combines personal file storage (30Gb), GD2 signatures and anonymous email all in one service, and is free.
This is what I read about them on their website.

30Gigs.com started off with the idea of creating a "All in one" site for the webmaster and avid computer users. Combining personal file storage, GD2 signatures and anonymous email all in one service, which would be free. Our main goal is to increase our space even further, to 50 gigs, or maybe 100 as time goes on. 30Gigs.com is still in a very heavy beta, and if you are a member, please help us to make it the best mail server there is. We will be offering a section for personal file storage (up to 30 gigs) and a GD2 signature maker to keep your email safe from spam robots. We also offer a unique feature, which allows you to send a email from any address you want. This is very usefull if you have multiple accounts linked to your 30Gigs.com account, and want to send a email from john@otherservice.com so you dont confuse the sender. Any further information can be addressed to support@30gigs.com.

And their Development Blog explains on what they are currently working on. I wonder who saves 30GB of emails or as they mention in future 30gigs hopes to add support for file storage. Theoretically youwill be able to upload a file to your 30gigs account and be able to access it from anywhere you go.
They currently accept sign-ups only through invitations. But before you sign up, I strongly recommend you to read this blog posted by Om Malik
If interested in 30Gigs, get your invites from this invite spooler.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Microsoft Launches "Learning Paths for Security" site

Microsoft has launched a new Security site called "Learning Paths for Security" to provide training resources for you to get good at security. Every month there willl be a new theme. This month it's "Internal Threats: Mitigate the Risks in Your Environment", and included are TechNet Webcasts, Virtual labs, whitepapers, e-learning. Many different ways for you to learn about the latest/greatest ways to get you secure. The content is categorized into 4 stages, Plan, Prevent, Detect, and Respond, to make it easier for you to find what you need. The learning resources are organized by level, from basic to expert.

Start learning here: Learning Paths for Security

Also find this month's topics:
Threat and Vulnerability Mitigation Resources
Regulatory Compliance
Identity and Access Management
System Integrity

You can browse through these pages Technet Security and for those who need less technical information, Security at Home Nice resource having short videos
It's even a reference link to learn the security basics and can also be pointed out to the basic users or family members who need to know...

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Native PDF support in Office "12"

The saved documents will be based on Adobe's Open Specification and can be read using any tool that can view PDFs.
The PDF support will be built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Visio, and InfoPath! I love how well this new functionality will work in combination with the new Open XML formats in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. We've really heard the feedback that sharing documents across multiple platforms and long term archiving are really important. People now have a couple options here, with the existing support for HTML and RTF, and now the new support for Open XML formats and PDF!
This really all comes down to the basic theme of content sharing. We realize that this is a really important scenario, and that's why we're making the move to default XML formats that are fully documented. Now we've moved to the files being in open, redistributable, and archivable formats; and we can focus more of our innovations around ways to act on those formats. This is true on the client and the server.
Read More about Pdf support on Office12 here
Also Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky Discusses Support for the PDF Format in Office “12” on Microsoft PressPass
Update on Oct 4: Nice article posted on PCWorld "Office Improves PDF Support"