PLANET APEX

Tata Cars: 1000 US$ Indian Tata Nano Car Possibly Cheapest Car In The World

2008-02-03T03:21:00.005+05:30

The giant Indian bus and lorry manufacturer, the Tata motor company has made a low cost economic mini car which Tata claim to be the cheapest car in the World (Priced at just 1000US$ or 100,000 Indian Rupees it is at least world's cheapest brand new car.) Named as Tata Nano this new Tata cars looks more like a three-wheeler taxi you see a lot in India and South Asia but with doors, more glass and a aerodynamic look added.

Already called as Tata People's car it is priced at 1 lakh Indian Rupees (about 2,500 US$). In other words you can buy 1200 Nano Tata cars for the price of one Bugati Veyron or 7,500 Nano Tata cars instead of the most expensive car in the world.

The Tata Nano car is 3 metres long and seats four people comfortably and does 65mph. It has a aluminium shell and a rear-mounted 33bhp two-cylinder petrol engine. The Nano Tata cars weight is about half a tonne. Tata Nano has a Fuel consumption 50 miles per gallon.

According claims, the Tata Nano car, at its standard version, is roughly half the price of the cheapest car available in the world today. China’s QQ3Y Chery and another Indian car the Maruti 800 are both about US $5000.

The standard version Tata Nano car comes with the vital features: brakes, a four-gear manual transmission, seat belts, locking, wind-down windows and a steering wheel. The small boot could store a duffel bag. It doesn't have a passenger-side mirror and has one windscreen wiper.

This deluxe version Nano Tata car has air-conditioning and extra features such as a radio and an airbag could be added.

Tata Motors has created Tata Nano car after five years of research and input from across the world, including the masters of car designs Italy and Germany. But the car was designed and made in India, defying expectations that Tata motors company best known for its huge buses and lorries could manufacture a cutting-edge passenger car. A team of 500 engineers had worked on the Tata Nano car, and it was made in a plant in West Bengal.

Because of Nano Tata Car's size, it uses less sheet metal, has a smaller and lighter engine than other cars, smaller tube-less tyres and a no-frills interior. Tata motor company has cut costs of the Nano car by minimising components, specially steel, and taking advantage of India’s low production costs. Tata motor company has applied for 34 patents to cover its innovations in Tata Nano.

Tata hopes to produce 250,000 Tata Nano cars for the Indian market annually. Then they expect to make it available in Latin America, SouthEast Asia and Africa though its not likely to be in Europe or the US. There are fears that a car so cheap could not be safe. Tata company says it has passed a full-frontal car crash test in India and is designed to sustain further impact testing under European standards. So the Tata Nano could need many enhancements to meet higher standards of Developed world and that would raise the price considerably.

But for India and other poorer markets where the public mode of traveling is limited to over crowded buses, dangerous trains, flimsy tree-wheeler taxis and even motorcycles with 4 or 5 pillion riders, the Tata Nano car is a vast improvement in safety and traveling.

A news report plagiarised wholesale from a British newspaper and posted with no mention of the newspaper in a forum I frequent had this to say about the Tata Nano and the Nano Tata cars unveiling event. (why don't forum Admin's educate members about how to properly quote a story?)

The “People’s Car” as the Tata Nano car is called, is also the cheapest in the world at 100,000 rupees ($2,500) – the same price as the DVD player in a Lexus.

The Tata Nano, from Tata motor company, the Indian conglomerate bidding for Jaguar and Land Rover, was unveiled at the Delhi Auto Expo yesterday to music from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ratan Tata, the Tata company chairman, harked back to the first flight by the Wright Brothers and the Moon landing as he revealed the cute, snub-nosed hatchback that will allow millions in India’s emerging middle classes to buy a car for the first time.

“I hope this changes the way people travel in rural India. We are a country of a billion and most are denied connectivity,” Ratan Tata said. “This is a car that is affordable and provides all-weather transport for the family.”

But not all are happy with cheap Tata cars becoming available for the general Indian public. The idea of millions of Nano Tata cars on Indian roads has alarmed Indian environmentalists. Indian Rajendra Pachauri, the chief UN climate scientist has claimed he's “having nightmares” with millions of tiny Nano Tata cars.

Image credit to Tata Nano cars and info to that British newspaper I don't know the name.

By the way check out these great truck information resource Old Ford Trucks and Mack Dump Trucks for the best truck brands in the world.

Also retaled posts
TGV Fatest Train World Record,
Nailed Mercades Benz Car

Note: Whether you like it or not Made in India and Made in China is going to dominate the 21st century business world. These two countries are manufacturing all kinds of products from toy cars to aircraft's and war ships and making them available to the world at amazingly cheap prices, uncompetable by the rest of the world. Amongst the latest of this products is this World's Cheapest Car Made in India.

Most Expensive Car In The World - Bugatti Veyron Or Bugatti Royale?

2008-01-22T06:54:00.001+05:30

There is speculation Bugatti Automobiles is developing a second model of the Bugatti Veyron supercar that is estimated to cost a whopping 3 million US Dollars! I even saw some referring this new Bugatti Veyron as the most expensive car in the world. But is it really the most expensive car in the world? If not which car is the world's most expensive car?

The US$ 1.5 million Bugatti Veyron

I remember when it came out some sites and papers were saying the current Bugatti Veyron which is US$1.5 million was the world's most expensive car. At that price Bugatti Veyron is certainly one of the most expensive cars (its the fastest accelerating and most powerful street going car in the world) but it is another Bugatti that seems to be most expensive car ever.

Bugati Veyron Fastest accelerating and most powerful street going car in the world

According to what I could find from a little searching the real most expensive car in the world is this 1930 Bugatti Type 41 Royale!

1930 Bugatti Type 41 Royale

The Interior of the Bugatti Type 41 Royale

The Type 41 Royale was Bugatti's most outrageous car. It was also his most exclusive, as only six were ever manufactured. Each had considerable presence due their massive length, 12 litre engine and huge wheels.

One of the most expensive cars in the world is the Type 41 Coupe de Ville Napoleon. It was the first Royale made, and was Ettore Bugatti's personal transportation. It eventually ended up with the Schlumpf brothers, and still resides in their Mulhouse Museum.

The Kellener-bodied Royale still holds the world record for fetching $8 700 000 USD at Christie's Auction in 1983. When adjusted for inflation, this price would be over 16 million, a price which only other Royales, or the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, could eclipse - Source: supercars.net

Image credit supercars.net ** and Flickr

But I find it difficult to say which is really the most expensive car in the world. Do you judge the cars value by its selling price as a antique item or the off-the-shelf price?

Related Posts: Nailed Mercades Benz

Wheel-Shaped Five Star Hotel Near Dubai Islands

2008-01-21T17:07:00.000+05:30

Here is the latest ultra-luxury mega project from the Emirates of Dubai, the world capital of extreme extravagance. This time it's a luxury virtual peninsula crowned with a five star hotel in the shape of a wheel!

The Dubai property developer Nakheel Group has announced it's building a virtual peninsula along the Dubai shoreline anchored by a five-star wheel-shaped hotel you can see in these pictures.

Named as Dubai Promenade, this project will be a luxury waterfront residential and commercial peninsula overlooking the giant palm-tree shaped Dubai Palm islands.

The Wheel-Shaped hotel will be located between Dubai Marina (another luxury project) and the seafront and will be adjacent to the Dubai palm islands resulting according to reports of awesome views of Palm Jumeirah island.

Reclamation at Dubai Promenade is already being undertaken by Van Oord and due to be completed in the first quarter of 2008. Construction of the wheel shaped hotel and other buildings will begin in mid-2008.

On completion, the development will accommodate approximately 10,000 residents in more than 2,000 residential units. In addition a selection of cafes, restaurants and retail offerings will span the length of the entire waterfront.

Other recent ambitious mega projects in Dubai include the giant palm tree shaped man-made dubai islands, the sail shaped Burj Al-Arab 7 star hotel and the world's tallest building - Burj Dubai Tower.

Source: CasaDubai

World's Thinnest Notebook Computer - Apple Macbook Air

2008-01-16T17:27:00.000+05:30

Apple has introduced MacBook Air, a computer the company has billed as the world's thinnest notebook. It's so thin it fits in a manila envelope.

"The Macbook Air runs from 0.76" to 0.16" (that's not a typo.) The thickest part of the MacBook Air is thinner than the thinnest part of the TZ series (Sony's thinnest laptop). So thin it fits in a manila envelope." - Apple

Below are the pictures of the Macbook Air notebook from macworld.com when Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Air during the Macworld Expo keynote address.

Sporting a silvery finish, the MacBook Air features a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display that has a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. It weighs about 3 pounds, and has a thickness of 0.16-0.76 inches. It's 12.8 inches wide and 8.95 inches deep.

The MacBook Air is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo chip running at 1.6GHz, with 1.8GHz available as an option and includes a 1.8-inch hard disk drive with 80GB of storage capacity. Apple estimates that with wireless networking turned on, the MacBook Air can get about 5 hours of battery life.

According to Steve Jobs with environmental goals behind the MacBook Air, it has a fully recyclable aluminum case, and is "the first" to have a mercury-free display with arsenic-free glass too.

The MacBook Air notebook is priced starting at $1,799.

Mercades Benz Car Nailed To Moscow Airport Ceiling

2008-01-11T00:04:00.001+05:30

If you now go to Moscow airport in Russia you will be able to see a Mercedes Benz car as you have never seen before. This full size Mercedes Benz car be seen nailed to the ceiling in one of Moscow airports now. EnglishRussia.com reports that it attracts a lot of attention from travelers and questions like whether it is safe to walk beneath it or whether it might occasionally fall on your head?

Sign next to car says in Russian, "This isn't a private plane. But the feel is the same."
It's not sure whether or not it is a real Mercedes Benz. However EnglishRussia.com says the car is very accurate down to the smallest details including the brake discs etc. being perfectly visible.

I also hear Mercades Benz had this advertisement at Hamburg airport in Germany and other places too. Anyway, this is a sure sign of Russia's growing prosperity. Maybe we will be hearing this in China or India next!

Pics are from English Russia and don't forget to checkout the archives of English Russia. It's a very interesting blog about Russia with many posts like this Strange Soviet Buildings.

Cloverfield Movie Pics With Next Destruction of New York City

2008-01-09T04:38:00.000+05:30

There seems to be no shortage of movies depicting the destruction of New York. Last month New York Entertainment magazine even had a article up, The Ten Best Movie Destructions of New York City. Continuing the trend into 2008, enter the world of Cloverfield.
"Five young New Yorkers throw their friends a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives" - cloverfieldmovie.com

The graphics of these scenes could have been better. They look a little unreal. Don't know how it will look in the movie though.

But this third poster is realistic enough though it looks like a copy from that hurricane destroyed city they show in Day After Tommorow movie.

The Cloverfield monster that causes all this damage

At any rate without having seen the film, Cloverfield sounds to me like cross between Day After Tomorrow and Godzilla.

Got these posters from the Archidose and wikimedia.org

200 Reasons Why Firefox Is The Best Browser

2008-01-07T19:58:00.000+05:30

The Free Firefox browser is making big shock waves in the Internet. It sent the vintage giant Netscape Navigator into oblivion by grabbing its fans. Now with Google's marketing it is even set to beat Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the World's most used web browser. Today more than 300 million people use it as their web browser and enjoy its faster, safer and state of the art features and Add-ons.

So Ryan over at cybernetnews.com decided he wants to become the world's first to install 200 Firefox Add-on's at once! This is how the Firefox browser looked after installing them all.

It had taken him 6-minutes to just start Firefox with the 200 extensions installed. But it worked! It was even usable with 2-inches of viewable area at the bottom of his 24-inch monitor.

Ryan has posted the whole interesting story of how he did it in this article with more web shots of the browser.

PS. I'm sorry to see most of my visitors to Planet Apex (almost 70%) are still using Internet Explorer. I tell you as a friend, Internet Explorer is antiquated, slow and sometimes even downright dangerous (there are all sorts of security holes that expose you to virus and spyware threats without even clicking a button). For the love of God, get with the program and install the Mozilla Firefox, which is free, and waaaay cooler.

Plus, there are all sorts of really useful, entertaining and time-saving free Firefox add-ons. It's really worth the effort to explore them, as they often allow you to do really neat things (e.g., translating a word from Spanish to English with a single mouse-click or tracking comments you leave anywhere in the Internet be it forums, website or blog's and informing you when somebody replies to them). I'm now use about 20-30 add-on's like these in my home for various tasks. (I'll write a post about them when I have time.)

Firefox is really a small software (only 5MB size), so downloading and start using takes only minutes. There are many websites to download it but I recommend you click the link or banner in my sidebar and get it from Google which is reliable.

If you have anything about Firefox feel free to leave a comment in this post or mail me at zapric(at)yahoo.com. I'll be glad to help you.

3 Amazing Garbage Islands

2008-01-04T04:41:00.000+05:30

Believe it or not, in Japan's Tokyo Bay, there are being made large garbage islands with airports and skyscrapers on them! AND in the Pacific Ocean there is a floating garbage island that's twice the size of Texas!

Garbage Islands with Airport

These photos show the construction of the giant artificial island using garbage in Tokyo for an airport.

There are more pictures of this island at Archibase Architecture News.

Update: I have made a mistake. This island is not in Tokyo Bay but in a bay called Ise in Tokoname City in central Japan. This airport is called Chūbu Centrair International Airport and according to Wikipedia's article on this island it is Japan's 8 busiest airport.

This island airport is Japan's third off-shore airport, after Nagasaki Airport and Kansai International Airport, and second airport on a man-made island. Also according to wikipedia there are currently 5 offshore airports in Japan!

Floating Garbage Island Twice The Size of Texas!

(image credit: mindfully.org)

I came across many articles in various sites about this garbage island that's twice the size of Texas that's floating somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii! However it is not an island in the solid sense. Here is an excerpt about this "island" from a blogger who had got it the Popular Science Blog.

"A heap of trash that's twice the size of Texas is floating somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as it's called, is 80 percent plastic, and weighs in at 3.5 million tons. Trapped in a circular course by winds and currents, it's been around since the 1950s, and has been growing tenfold every decade. It's not a dumping ground in the sense that people are flying or boating by and throwing their refuse into the heap. Instead, it's picking up trash that originates onshore, and has since made its way out into the Pacific."

But who knows, if we keep on polluting we may actually one day make it.

The Beautfiul Garbage Island

This is an island in Maldives (a tiny island nation south west of Sri Lanka). According to a comment in Flickr where I found this photo, this island was a reef before but after reclaiming it with garbage and waste it has now become a big island used for industrial purposes. The smoke you see is the burning of all the waste brought from the capital Male island.

Side note: I was very amused to see a visitor had come to the ultra luxury Dubai palm islands post by searching in Yahoo for "garbage islands in Dubaay." I'm very thankful to whoever it was because a little bit of searching for that term shocked me with these interesting stuff about garbage islands. Who would have thought there is so much amazing things out there for even garbage islands! :-)

Gigantic 150-inch Panasonic Plasma Flat Screen Television

2008-01-02T01:26:00.001+05:30

(Update on Jan 9 2008 with pics of the TV below)

Panasonic corporation is developing a 150-inch Plasma Flat Screen Television that is set to become the world's largest TV.

According a report in Japanese Daily Yomiuri paper this plasma flat screen television set will measure 150 inches diagonally, handsomely beating JVC's 110-inch rear projector for the title of the largest home television regardless of class and Sharp corporation's 108-inches current word's largest plasma flat screen television. The height of the television screen alone will be large enough to stand taller than an adult man and length wise as long as a car!

Not much about the televisions technical details are known though Electronista reports that it should reach a minimum 1080p resolution and may represent the grafting together of four smaller sets to reach its anticipated dimensions.

Panasonic is making this primarily to show the world who has the biggest flat screen manufacturing capability. However production models of this giant flat screen plasma television may reach buyers in 2009.

The above picture from Gizmodo shows a 103-inch plasma flat screen television set that Panasonic recently launched and then discontinued.

Update: Here is a better image of the 103-inch television. Just imagine how the giant 150-inch one will be!

(image credit:softpedia)

Update: (9 Jan 2008)
Ok, finally we've got the 150-inch TV pictures. In these two photos you see the Panasonic 150-Inch Plasma next to that 103-Inch from last year.

Look at this picture of the gigantic Panasonic television screen. You can see the life size image of a Elephant on the screen. Imagine it is the life size elephant inside a TV screen! And see the size of the screen compared to the adult mother and father and kids. They look so miniature.

Image credit: Gizmodo.com

This 150-inch flat screen plasma tv that's dubbed "Life Screen," is now officially the largest in the world. It boasts 2,000-by-4,000 pixel resolution and is 11 feet wide, or the size of nine 50-inch plasma TVs! Panasonic President Toshihiro Sakamoto had said at the launch, "It's capable of an amazing picture that is four times the resolution of our current full HD plasma displays,"

Extraordinary Centaurus Pakistan 7 Star Hotel Pictures

2007-12-25T18:59:00.000+05:30

Pakistan is in the news these days for all the wrong reasons. However the violence and uncertainty in that country seems to have not overwhelmed their creativity and business entrepreneurship. In Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan where just a few months ago the infamous Red Mosque rebellion unfolded, a spectacular architectural masterpiece is currently under construction. The centerpiece of this project is a 37 story tower which looks like a ski jump and when completed in 2010 will be one the handful of 7 STAR hotels in the world.

According to Wikipedia the 7 star hotel is part of The Centaurus mixed development project involving over 6.5 acres of land in Islamabad's arterial corridor, called Blue Area. The whole complex includes the 37 story 7 star hotel, two 21 story residential towers, a 25 story corporate office tower, and a 5 story shopping mall. The complex will also have a parking lot to accommodate over 2,000 vehicles. The Hotel and the complex is designed by the British architect firm WS Atkins PLC and is estimated to cost 350 million dollars. A special feature of the building is its earthquake resilience level. As Islamabad is situated in a earthquake zone the hotel is designed to withstand an earthquake of up to 9.5 magnitude.

The Centaurus 7 star hotel and building complex is built by Pak Gulf Construction (Pvt) Ltd (PGCL) of Islamabad which is a joint venture between Al Tamimi of Saudi Arabia and Sardar Builders of Pakistan. So like many other recent spectacular real estate development projects this also seems to be funded by Arab petrodollars.

Here are some more illustrations of how Pakistan’s Centaurus 7 star hotel will look like.

However some Pakistanis seem to have reservations about this 7 star hotel and the building’s design. Even going through the comments in this post about the hotel in the All Things Pakistan blog you can see many comments about the hotel’s design and it becoming an eyesore in Islamabad's skyline.

Besides serving residential, commercial, and business purposes, the complex is intended to symbolize the growth of Pakistan, and to enable it to host international conferences and seminars in Pakistan's capital city. To wrap up this post, here are some pitchy words from Adil Najam on this from the post in the All Things Pakistan blog I mentioned earlier.

"I am not sure we need any more discussion about whether this hotel is a good idea or not. But what about the design? Is this eye-candy or eye-sore? Will this really take us to the ‘next frontier’ (apologies for the pun)? Does this look more like ‘heaven on earth’ or ‘pie in the sky’?"

For more about the Centaurus 7 star hotel in Pakistan check out the official website of project at TheCentaurus.com.

(Image credit: TheCentaurus.com)

Rare Blue Sun Phenomenon Photographed near Giza Pyramids

2007-12-23T18:45:00.000+05:30

Here is a very rare photograph of a phenomenon known as a 'blue sun,' It is one of only a few ever documented occurrences of a blue sun. This one had occurred near the giant pyramids in Giza, Egypt on December 14th 2006.

According to CoastToCoastam.com, the other most recent widely accepted documentation of a blue sun had occurred way back in September 1950 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Tom Hartlove, a friend of PyramidCam.com, a website that captures a live image of the pyramids every 30 seconds, had luckily saved this one. However, Tom had run across it again in his photo archives only last month and then sent it to an expert in atmospheric physics to examination. The experts reply had been:

"A very rare phenomenon known as a 'blue sun.' These have been observed from time to time around the world. The most recent widely accepted documentation of a blue sun occurred in September 1950 in Edinburgh, Scotland. A discussion of that event appears in Craig Bohren's book, 'Clouds in a Glass of Beer,' on page 91."

But the cause of it turns out to be a rather simple explanation. Smoke in the atmosphere! Smoke from farmers burning brush between the camera location and the pyramids rises to camera level and is captured in the webcam of PyramidCam website, particularly in winter when farmers burn something called stubble in the fields in the Delta and around Cairo.

The Blue Moon Phenomenon
By the way, here is a photograph I found in Nasa website. This time it's a blue moon. Blue moons are also rare, but not as rare as a blue sun. They occur exactly once in a Blue Moon.

According to what I have heard a blue moon phenomenon is also caused by smoke, fumes and dust particles in the atmosphere. Because it happens very rarely it has probably given berth to the English expression 'Once in a Blue Moon.'

Related Posts:

8 Blogging Goals for 2008

2007-12-21T16:42:00.000+05:30

A special event like a New Year or birthday is a good time to set new resolutions and goals. They help you get started and achieve your goals. So as 2008 is just around the corner, you hear a lot these days about new personnel resolutions like to quit smoking and goals like saving x amount of money next year.

Like most people I have also tried keeping these new resolutions before. But the thing is I have never stuck with them. I have tried making new resolutions and usually ended up breaking them a few months later. I have also tried setting goals but they were not set in a meaningful way in the first place. It's damn boring to think and plan them out. So my goals up to now have remained something of a vague idea or day dream.

But now Daniel over at DailyBlogTips is having a project about blogging goals for 2008. Now, I love participating in these kind of projects. They bring in lot of links and prizes. So even reluctantly, I set about defining my blogging goals for the coming year and I came up with the following 8 goals.

I think they are SMART! That’s in the sense that they are something Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely or Time bound. (LOL, incidentally this maybe the first time I have applied something I learnt in my business organization classes.) So hear they are;

1. My first blogging goal for 2008 is I’m going to make tho hosted blogs running on WordPress platform on their own domains. One will be an online magazine blog with quality and informative articles. I have figured out a subject for it, one in which I’m good and very interested in. The second hosted blog will be a personal blog in which I hope to blog about current affairs and post random thoughts and ideas. At the same time, I'll also continue this blog with a occasional posts or two.

2. My second goal is to become a better blog commenter. This is year I was a very poor commenter, mostly due to limited access I had to the net. But in 2008 I’m going to comment in at least 5 blogs each day, including 2 new ones. That's a minimum total of 35 comments a week. If I'm unable to achieve it on weekdays, I'll cover the quota in weekends.

3. Currently my blog monetization is entirely dependant on Google Adsense. I don’t want to put all my egg in one basket and from what I hear there are much better ways for bloggers to make money. So diversifying my blogging income streams is going to be my third goal.

As I said in my first goal, in 2008 I hope to focus mainly on the magazine blog. So the rest of my goals are centered around that blog.

4. I'll post a minimum of two high quality posts a week. That means the magazine blog should have at least 100 high quality and informative articles by the end of the year. In addition I hope to post another two or three post per week, which should make it a medium sized blog with around 400-500 articles by the end of the year.

5. I also hope to have 2000 unique visitors a day and 100 RSS subscribers for that blog.

6. And the magazine blog should have a Google Pagerank of 4-5, a Technorati rank of less than 20,000 and an Alexa rank with in 100,000.

7. Seven is a lucky number and it’s going to be the cream of my blogging. :-) By the end of 2008 I hope to earn an average of 300 Dollars a month from blogging. I know 300 dollars is not much and there are many bloggers who make that much in a day. But my goal has always been to make blogging a hobby for life and a part time income scream along the way. Anyway, 300 dollars a month means a 1000% increase of my current blog income and that’s a lot of money in Sri Lanka. It comes to around 32000 Rupees! I’ll be very happy to earn that much from a part time job and LOL, wont my friends and family look up. (They now think I’m wasting my time online. I think if I achieve the above 6 goals, this shouldn’t be a problem.)

8. The best thing about blogging is the social and educational aspects hidden within it. My final goal for 2008 is to continue making friends from all over the world and learning new things by blogging. Because for me the best thing about blogging is the friends I make along the way and the things I learn.

So these are my goals for 2008. Now that I've figured them, they have got me started. I'm excited about them and I really want to achieve them.

A Perfect Escape from Yahoo Ads

2007-12-11T15:17:00.000+05:30

Those large advertisements in Yahoo Mail annoy me a lot. They are too obtrusive and cluttering. It's really difficult to navigate a yahoo account without clicking on an ad. Coupled to this is that most ads are about things that are irrelevant to me.

But today when I opened my Yahoo Mail there were these two beautiful ads staring at me. They were so pleasing I forgot to be annoyed.

The first a beautiful picture with a Christmas theme

This second a perfect place for vacation by the sea

Like the text in them read, they indeed make perfect escapes from those usual eyesores. Oh, why don't they always serve ads like these!

State of the Blog: November 2007 Recap

2007-12-09T04:14:00.000+05:30

I wrote this post a few days ago but I couldn't post it. But in this few days this blog saw some big changes, so I'll add those as a prefix here.

Firstly, I added this beautiful menu bar you see at the top of the blog. I also did some simple yet important changes to the blog design in terms of features, color, layout and advertisement placement. I wanted the blog to be more user friendly and look more like a conventional website.

According to an opinion poll conducted a few months back, majority of the Internet users don't like or trust blogs. I guess there is good reason for it too and I also used to think like that before I started blogging. So these changes should have an impact on visitor satisfaction and ad performance. So I can't wait to analyze the visitor statistics in a month or so to see how these changes affected visitor trends and ad conversion rates.

Secondly, I got a small traffic tsunami this first week of December. (Oh dear, the Tsunami disaster is going to be 3 years this boxing day isn't it?) Anyway, I got nearly 2000 page views in the last four days alone! It gave me a huge boost. Of course it's not much by Internet standards and a short lived spiked but I was over the moon. The traffic was mainly thanks to uniquedaily.com and limks.com linking to my post about the world's largest puzzle. So the things I've written below about November traffic pales in comparison. Here is the post I wrote.

2nd December...
Today, while thinking what to blog about I realized it is was a long time since I told you about my blogging experience. The last time was the 10 Blogger Blogspot tips post which was over 3 months ago! How soon time passes.

Anyway, the last time I wrote about Google Adsense was this welcome back post after a short blogging break. In it I have said I was happy about getting 20-30 daily visitors and earning 10 to 15 US cents a day! I'm surprised I was happy at that time with those figures. Now I'm not happy if I don't get 100 visitors a day or earn a dollar. (Sign of growing avarice?) Anyway the thing is, thanks to God Planet Apex is growing. Here is a recap of the blog's performance in November.

Planet Apex gets Page Rank 3
Last month, November 2007 was the best month so far for me. First came the news of Google's Page Rank (PR) update. The defacto Internet Judgment Day. It didn't disturb me because with a Google PR of zero I had nothing to loose. But the Google Emperor was kind with me. He bestowed me with a Page Rank of 3.

I was expenting a pagerank update for a long time, but I don't know exactly what pr I wanted. Anyway, a PR of 3 for Planet Apex was not bad. In fact, it maybe fantastic. Just have look at this list of what happened to bigtime bloggers at the October end PR update.

Engadget.com (dropped from PR 7 to 5)
AutoBlog.com (from 6 to 4)
Problogger.net (from 6 to 4)
Copyblogger.com (from 6 to 4)
SearchEngineJournal.com (from 7 to 4)
QuickOnlineTips.com (from 6 to 3)
SearchEngineRoundtable.com (from 7 to 4)
BlogHerald.com (from 6 to 4)
WeblogToolsCollection.com (from 6 to 4)
JohnChow.com (from 6 to 4)

Maybe Google thought they gave too much power to sites with higher PR's, and all the advertising revenue that came with it. So it might have being a day of equalizing. (But really these blogs are excellent blogs. They deserved the high Page Rank they had. If you want to make money on the web you should read them regularly.)

Planet Apex and November Blog Traffic
So November really kicked off with the new PR. Here is the blog traffic chart from sitemeter.com, one of the traffic counters I use. For November I got around 2400 visitors about 3500 page views.

If you look at the chart closely you'll notice from around 12-13th there is increase in traffic. That's due to traffic from Google search engine. I think thats when the new Google PageRank factor became effective for this blog, though the update happened at the end of October.

And also in November the blog shift in blog traffic wise from Kottu traffic to Google traffic. Before November most of my blog visitors came from Kottu, the leading Sri Lankan blog aggregator site. And the traffic use to fluctuate a lot. The days I wrote a blog post, I got 30-50 visitors from Kottu and the other days only 10-20 visitors from search engines or repeat visitors.

Maybe Kottu traffic is down because I haven't written on things like black tigers, foreign invaders or the downfall of Sinhalese or about unusual Tamil men. Topics like these really attract Kottu readers. In fact I have a notion that while the world writes for Digg and Stubleupon, Sri Lankan bloggers write for Kottu.

Another reason for Kottu traffic reduction can be with the recent increase in the number of Sri Lankan bloggers now fresh posts get buried in Kottu sooner. I think Kottu will have to think about categorizing Kottu blogs or using a tagging system like that used in Technorati or a voting system like in Digg or stumbleupon. Something for Kottu admin Indi to think about.

Another thing about my November traffic was I started to get a few Yahoo search visitors everyday. This trend corresponded with the Google traffic increase days. I did hear something about Yahoo! and MSN forming a partnership with Google to adapt their pagerank system. So does this mean Yahoo is now depending on Googles pagerank ranking?

As far as individual posts were concerned, the top posts in the blog are;

I was surprised to see the post about 6 major benefits of intranets getting some Google traffic. For some reason some of my earliest posts got into Google's Supplementary index. (for good reason this index is also known as Google Hell). It was a disappointment because they have very useful information about Intranets. I hope they have now moved to the main index. Anyway I'll list them here. It may help them get into the main index when Google bot comes crawling.

Planet Apex Blog Earnings
No recap of a blog running advertisements is complete without a income statement. As much as people like to make money on the web they also like to read about how much others earn. November was satisfactory for me in that score too. Google Adsense prohibits to to explicitly disclose details, (and I'm not John Chow to Google bomb and get away) so I'll tell you vaguely that I earned a little less 25 US dollars. (in October I got around 15$). Inshallah, I hope to get more than that this month.

Picture: It's Not Who You Are, But What You Think You Are

2007-12-06T01:50:00.000+05:30

Murali sets 12th World Record with Most Wickets in Test Cricket

2007-12-03T23:49:00.000+05:30

Sri Lankan Cricketer, who was named the greatest bowler in history by Wisdon magazine, Muttiah Muralitharan today broke the 708 wicket Test cricket world record set by Australia's Shane Warne. Murali has kept many world records but this certainly will be the crowning glory in a long and illustrious cricket career. To celebrate the occasion the Sri Lanka Postal department also issued a circular stamp for the first time in Sri Lankan history.

Photos show Murali celebrating after taking the record breaking wicket here in Kandy. The wicket was of English batsman Paul Collingwood.

Well done Murali! This is a great achievement. You are the greatest bowler in the history of Cricket.

Here are the other world records set by Murali:

The highest number of international wickets in Tests and ODIs combined (currently 1150+, Shane Warne only other bowler to have taken more than 1000 wickets. Warne has 1001)

The most 10-wicket hauls in a match at Test level (20). He is the only player to take 10 wickets in a match, against every Test playing nation.

The most 5-wicket hauls in an innings at Test level (61).

Fastest to 350, 400, 450, 500, 550, 600, 650 and 700 Test wickets, in terms of matches played.

Only player to take 10 wickets in a Test in four consecutive matches. Murali has achieved this feat twice.

Only player to take 50 or more wickets against every Test playing nation.

Muralitharan and Jim Laker (England), are the only bowlers to have taken 9 wickets in a Test innings twice.

7 wickets in an innings against the most countries (5).

Most Test wickets taken bowled (153), stumped (37) and caught & bowled (30). Bowled by Muralitharan (b Muralitharan) is the most common dismissal in Test cricket (excluding run out).

Most successful bowler/fielder (non-wicket keeper) combination - c Mahela Jayawardene b Muttiah Muralitharan (62).

Most number of Man of the Match awards in test cricket (18), jointly held with Jacques Kallis.

Murali's world records from Muralitharan.com

Update: Here is an interesting link I just found. It some amazing things about Murali you will love to know. 710* Things You Didn`t Know About Muttiah Muralitharan.

Life: The World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle with 24,000 Pieces

2007-11-30T22:34:00.000+05:30

Putting together jigsaw puzzles is a hobby enjoyed by both the young and old. It’s challenging, exciting, educational, and requires a little bit experience and a lot of patience. The more pieces and variety a puzzle has, the more challenging and exciting it becomes. So the jigsaw puzzle manufacturers are constantly trying to produce puzzles that are larger and more exciting with lots of variety and beautiful artwork.

Taking these things into consideration, a leading puzzle manufacturer called Educa has surprised even the most demanding puzzle fans with the launch of the world's largest puzzle. Up to now, the brand's largest puzzle had consisted of only 18,000 puzzle pieces.

This puzzle consists of exactly 24,000 pieces and has rightly been called Vida (Life) - The Great Challenge. Whether it’s by the number of pieces or by the width and height, this puzzle is the World's largest Jigsaw Puzzle. Once completed, the enormous puzzle measures an impressive 428 x 157 cm (or 14.04 feet by 5.15 feet!), enough to decorate a wall of room.

Due to its size the puzzle has been separated into four packets of 6000 pieces, breaking the artwork up into four vertical sections that join together to make the world's largest jigsaw puzzle.

The artwork for the puzzle has been especially designed by a veteran puzzle artist, Royce B. McClure, who has had over a hundred jigsaw puzzles previously published. All the art that makes up 'LIFE: The Great Challenge' has come from paintings he had completed over many years, which had then been scanned and recomposed to best fit this enormous sized puzzle, making each section different enough from the other sections so that the puzzler won't feel they are doing the same puzzle over and over. The end result like life itself, the puzzle is full of variety, color, activity, beauty, drama and above all Life. The puzzle has been priced at $299.99

Annick Oriol from Belgium was the first to complete the puzzle. It had taken her 28 days and 20 hours. Lucky Annick is sitting on the puzzle she completed in this photograph.

For more details about this extraordinary puzzle have a look at the World's largest jigsaw puzzle website.

Dangerous Side Effects from Common Paracetamol Tablets!

2007-11-27T21:58:00.000+05:30

Did you know every paracetamol tablet you take will reside in your body for 5 years or that they can gradually poison your kidney?

Here is an email forward I got last week with some advice our doctors don't give us. It describes some serious dangers and long term side effects we get from the common paracetamol tablets. (Note: I'm not sure whether Blogspot allows to directly attack a brand in its blogs. So I have removed the references it had to a well known international paracetamol brand name. But I reckon you can guess it!)

(Thanks to the lady who shared this useful info.)
My husband was working in a hospital as an IT engineer, as the hospital is planning to set up a database of its patient. And he knows some of the doctor quite well. The doctors used to tell him that whenever they have a headache, they are not willing to take P****** PARACETAMOL.

In fact, they will turn Herbal Medicine or find other alternatives.This is because P****** paracetamol is toxic to the body, and it harms the liver.According to the doctor, P****** paracetamol will reside in the body for at least 5 years. And according to the doctor, there used to be an incident where an air stewardess consumes a lot of P****** paracetamol during her menstrual as she needs to stand all the time. She's now in her early 30's, and she needs to wash her kidney (DIALYSIS) every month.

As said by the doctor that whenever we have a headache, that's because it is due to the electron / Ion imbalance in the brain. As an alternative solution to cope with this matter, they suggested that we buy 1 or 2 cans of isotonic drink (e.g.100PLUS), and mix it with drinking water according to a ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 (simply, it means one cup 100plus, one cup water or 2 cups water).My husband and I have tried this on several occasions, and it seems to work well.

Another method will be to submerge your feet in a basin of warm water so that it brings the blood pressure down from your throbbing head.

As P****** paracetamol is a pain killer, the more P****** paracetamol you take, the lesser would be your threshold for pain (your endurance level for pain). We all will fall ill as we aged, for woman, we would need to go through childbirth. Imagine that we had spent our entire life popping quite a substantial amount of P****** paracetamol (Pain Killer) when you need to have a surgery or operation, you will need a much more amount of general. If you have a very high intake of P****** paracetamol throughout your life (Migraine, Menstrual cramps ) it is very likely that normal general anesthetic will have no effects on you as your body is Pumped full with P****** paracetamol and your body is so used to pain killer that you would need a much stronger pain killer, Morphine????

The thought is scary enough to turn me to Herbal Medicine or other healthier alternative. Value your health, value your life, THINK TWICE before you easily pop that familiar pill into your mouth again.

Please don't always take P****** paracetamol and try send this to people you care about.

I think paracetamol has had it's toll on me too. When I was a teen taking one paracetamol tablet was enough to stop a cold or a bad headache but now I need two!

Actually for most occasions we take paracetamol, we don't really need to. For example like the headaches you get sometimes after a long journey or traffic jam in a hot day etc. I've noticed they just go away if I can forget them.

Tiger in Water

2007-11-25T02:15:00.000+05:30

Some facinating pictures of a ferocious tiger in the water. The tiger in the fourth picture looks very much like the tiger emblem of the LTTE Tigers socalled Tamil Eelam flag.

(Came across these photos in here)

New Airbus A380 Aircraft Becomes A Billionaire's Private Jet

2007-11-19T23:34:00.001+05:30

The France based Airbus company has said it'll fill orders from 14 foreign customers for nearly 200 of the world's largest double-decker commercial jets so far. But number 157 will be reserved for an "undisclosed billionaire", who according to wired.com is going to pay nearly half a billion dollars for this world's largest passenger aircraft.

This undisclosed billionaire will be paying $475 million for the plane - $325 million price tag, plus $150 million in custom upgrades - thereby making it one of the most expensive mobile homes in the world.

Here is an illustration of the $475 million, custom Airbus A380 flying house. For mysterious reasons of his or her own, the Billionaire has christened the aircraft as "Project Trinity!"

New York based industrial designer Ed se Doret has outfitted the personalized aircraft, with everything from a massive formal dining room to a whirlpool tub. So the A380 flying house is ready to takeoff with the mysterious him or her when Airbus gives the clear signal.

[Source: Wired via BLDG Blog].

RAND Corporation's Prediction of the Future Home Computer

2007-11-01T21:31:00.000+05:30

Predicting the future is always a trick business. Yet it's interesting to see what experts think the future holds and also what people in the past thought today will be like.

Here is an illustration of how in 1954, the RAND Corporation thought a home computer will look like in the year 2004. Tim O'Keefe had found it in a 1954 Popular Mechanics Magazine.

The illustration note reads;

"Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible to the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With the teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use."

This computer looks more like a captains cabin in a ship than a computer. What the steering wheel for? And more than that, it's amazing to see that back then they had had such a high opinion about all these tiresome and ancient technologies.

This also makes me wonder what today's state of the art technologies will look like to people of 50 years time. How will the computer be in 2054? Will there even be a need for a separate thing called computer in homes? Will there be Artificial Intelligent houses? or will AI houses also be ancient to 2054 people?

(Click the picture to get a better look)

House Movers - Moving Big House on the Highway

2007-10-30T00:19:00.000+05:30

Russian Chessboard Murderer Who Killed 48 People for PLEASURE

2007-10-29T00:45:00.000+05:30

A Russian man has been convicted for killing 48 people! (possibly more) Why did he do it? Just for PLEASURE!!!

I feel sick just reading it. How can a human being become so insane?

"MOSCOW, Oct 24 (Reuters) - A Russian supermarket worker, dubbed "the chessboard murderer", was convicted on Wednesday of killing 48 people after he confessed in court that the first time he took a life was like falling in love.

Given his nickname by Russian media because he had hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64-square chessboard for each of his victims, Alexander Pichushkin also admitted to killing 11 more people not included in the court case.

The verdict, handed down by a jury in a Moscow courtroom, makes 33-year-old Pichushkin Russia's deadliest serial killer since Andrei Chikatilo, known as the "Rostov Ripper". He was convicted in 1992 of killing more than 50 people and executed.

The accused, sitting in a glass cage, showed no emotion and instead stared at the ground between his feet, frowning occasionally, before being led away in handcuffs.

Wearing a grey V-neck jumper with the sleeves rolled up, Pichushkin wore the same frown throughout the trial.

Prosecutors say he lured most of his victims to secluded parts of Bitsevsky Park, in a suburb of Moscow, where he plied them with vodka and then beat them to death with a hammer or threw them down drains.

Since many of his victims were elderly and had a record of drug and alcohol addiction, police often did not know for months that someone was missing because no relatives came forward.

"A first killing is like your first love. You never forget it," he said earlier in his trial after explaining how he started killing at the age of 18 with the murder of a classmate.

Russia suspended use of the death penalty under a moratorium. Sentencing is expected in the coming days.

Defence lawyer Pavel Ivannikov said he did not believe Pichushkin was guilty on all the counts but said it was hard to argue this when his client had "confessed to everything he was accused of and some things he was not."

Ivannikov said his client had been expecting the guilty verdict. "He regrets nothing, which for me is strange," said the lawyer. "He does not regret what he has done." - Source: Reuters

It's a tragedy that Russia has stopped enforcing the death penalty. It's more than bloody murderers like this deserve.

Make Cup of Tea With A 1.5 Million Rupee Diamond Teabag

2007-10-25T02:29:00.000+05:30

Sri Lanka is famous for Ceylon tea right? But being a Sri Lankan I have never used a teabag to make tea despite drinking several cups of tea everyday. But for the British who introduced tea to us and who also religiously observe table manners, the teabag I believe is a essential part their preparation of a cup of tea.

So anyway, I came across a this story from Britain about a teabag worth more than 1.5 million Sri Lankan Rupees! Imagine spending so much for a thing like that!

"The diamond teabag worth £7,500 has been made by Boodles jewellers to celebrate PG Tips (a British tea firm's) 75th birthday. The tea bag took three months to make has been hand-crafted using 280 diamonds.

"Pete Harbour, spokesman for PG Tips said: "As it's our 75th birthday, we wanted to do something special to remind people just how much they love the great British cup of tea."

"The tea bag will eventually be used as part of a prize draw to raise money for Manchester Children's Hospitals, a charity chosen by workers at the PG Tips factory in Trafford Park, Manchester" - Ananova.com

Fancy dipping this to make your next cup of tea.

Female IT Experts...

2007-10-18T01:03:00.000+05:30