Pakorakorner | A personal portal with a strong Asian Indian flavor on a whole range of topics.

There is little doubt that Google has a virtual monopoly over search and search based advertising. Even the mighty Microsoft is running helter-skelter trying to mount at least a challenge to Google. The WSJ reported today about a bay area startup - Cuil, Inc. Cuil said it won't collect personal information about its users, such as the addresses of their computers and their individual search histories -- although it does track the terms people search for overall. While all major search engines ...

I had read and heard so much about how Linux has improved over the years. I have also been endlessly postponing my plan  to take Linux on a test drive with no help whatsoever. Recently, I came across Linux Mint and decided I was going to take the plunge. Installation I downloaded Linux Mint , then I "burnt" it on a CD (not copy it on to a CD) and went through the installation process on a regular Windows ...

Of late there have been a host of articles about an "overdose of the Internet" in general. I am not sure which of these articles/posts started it all but here is a list of a few that I came across over the last few weeks and snippets from them. Maybe its a sign that many are being gripped by an overdose of the Net? Fundamental questions are starting to be asked about the long term implications of browsing and ...

Firefox 3 has been released recently with a lot of fanfare as usual -- Record breaking downloads , data about increasing market share , the admiration and praise for the open source movement, among other things. I have been an active user of Firefox ever since its launch. IE 6.0 was great but IE 7.0 was awful. Thus my preference for Firefox has been further strengthened over the years. So when Firefox 3.0 was released I promptly downloaded it and ...

Yahoo! is shooting in all directions hoping that something falls from the heavens. First it was Google, then it was News Corp., then it was AOL. In short, anyone but Microsoft. But as the deadlines nears and Microsoft and Yahoo try their best to outsmart each other, the battle lines appear to be re-drawn all of a sudden. The mighty News Corp. appears to have joined hands with Microsoft while Yahoo has teamed up with AOL and simultaneously announced an ...

Singapore Airlines is now flying some new aircrafts in the SFO-Singapore sector. These aircrafts appear to be a a little more spacious and better designed. For instance, the acrobatics needed to shut the bathroom doors has been reduced significantly. At the back of the aircraft the staff has a U-shaped area where they can hang out and chit-chat with their colleagues without having to get in the way of passengers hurrying to the toilet. The passage way and the ...

Here is an innovative use of the Internet. Visit this site to improve your English vocabulary. Thanks to sponsors every time you answer the meaning of word correctly, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the UN. Cool idea!

Google appears to be upgrading its Gmail version behind the scenes. You will notice a link at the top for New Version/Older Version. Unlike Yahoo! which gives you a choice right upfront about whether you would like to upgrade to its new email or not, Google chooses to upgrade users behind the scenes without any prior notice. The good news is that the new version is not dramatically different. The bad news is that the end users automatically becomes a ...

It is amazing how things have changed over the years in the world of home computing. Computers have become ever more powerful. Dell (and other PC vendors) today sells a desktop for about $600 inclusive of a flat panel monitor, 160GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM. Microsoft Vista requires a minimum of 1GB RAM (this means you better make sure you have at least 2GB!). There was a time when you could not buy a monitor for the same ...

Facebook introduced a widely publicized platform for advertisers and businesses the other day. Despite a number of naysayers, I think the Facebook approach to advertising has both merit and novelty. The basic principle that my friends are likely to have an interest in something that appeals to me (and that they wouldn't mind knowing about it when they login to Facebook) is sound in my opinion. Some of the privacy fears expressed are very similar to the early days of ...