Google

If you need to use a work on the Internet, you need to be aware (and careful) about its copyright. After all, copyright restrictions are becoming more and encompassing by the day. But what if you want to use content which is specifically in the public domain? How do you find out if the work you are thinking of using has passed into the public domain? For work created in US, the following applies:

I was quite irritated to find out recently that if you have a Google hosted domain and use that to login to Gtalk, you cannot communicate with Twitter without jumping through a few hoops, and even then, only under certain conditions. My first thought was that “these sort of things” should just work ™. Turns out I was really wrong … Kavinda explains in detail how to get this setup the right way.

Here is what a search for KFC India brings up on Google. I can understand that KFC is very bad in Google SEO and that is why there are no links to KFC homepage in the first page. But why does Google add an uncharacteristic link to mac donalds and suggest me about it in the middle of the result page? Giving me tips is an add on benefit, but the search engine has to primarily do its job - give me a link to what I want instead of other websites that has misused pagerank to shine.

According to this Gmail FAQ, Gmail doesn’t recognize dots (.) as characters within a username. This way, you can add and remove dots to your username for desired address variations. … If you created your account with a dot in your username and you wish you hadn’t, you can change your ‘Reply-to address.’ … Please note that to log in to Gmail, you must enter any dots that were originally defined as part of your Gmail username.

A great article on the online tussle between Microsoft and Google. For anyone who has been watching Gates over the years, the idea that an upstart like Google could so flummox him and his fierce company takes getting used to. But Google is a rival unlike any he has faced in a long time. In previous battles, Microsoft always had a powerful trump card: It controlled the Windows operating system.

WTF? This is from my Firefox 1.0.2 on FC3. UPDATE: Hmm. I read this post and it seems that others have found this problem too couple of months back. This got to do with some anti-virus search filter used in Google to prevent the Santy worm. But I wonder what is triggering this web page for me. I am not searching for anything remotely connected to php or phpbb.

This cartoon strip of Rudy Park today, in some way brings out the revolution in TV watching that TiVo has pioneered. Yes, we have all been pissed out with watching too much TV ads throughout the day. In India, there is still no no-ads subscription based cable TV service - even HBO. Star Movies is one of the nice guys, showing non-stop movies after midnight - no ads at all! Some channels like Sony AXN show more frequent, shorter durations ads, while others do the opposite.