Shaileen Shah

Wazaaa....

2011-08-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

Isn't this funny..
I just loved it when i saw it after long time..
The guys expressions are just ausmn..

Well, for those of you who don't know, its from Scary movie..
This is something that everyfriend should do when they meet up!!

Wazaaaaa!!!!!

Mac SHARE GREW AFTER WINDOWS 7 DEBUT..

2009-11-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

If Microsoft (MSFT) was hoping that the launch of Windows 7 would halt the erosion of its operating system market share — and curb further inroads by Apple (AAPL) — there is no evidence that it's working yet.

In fact, preliminary data released overnight Sunday by Net Applications show Mac OS X's Internet share growing by 2.73% in October, from 5.12% to 5.26%.

Windows' Internet presence, meanwhile, fell from 92.77% to 92.54% — its ninth loss in 12 months. Windows 7's share, however, was more than 2% even before its Oct. 22 general release, thanks to widespread use of early release versions. By Oct. 30 the Windows 7 portion was 2.85%, largely at the expense of Windows XP, according to a separate Net Applications report.

Net Applications, it must be noted, is not measuring share of market in the sense of sales revenue or unit sales. Rather it tracks the presence of various operating systems on the Internet by sampling browser data from visits to its clients websites — some 160 million hits per month. It's a methodology that tends to favor devices that make it easy to navigate the Web, which explains the relatively high "market share" of the iPhone in the firm's monthly surveys.

You can see Net Applications' October report here. The results are summarized in the chart below.

Source: Net Applications

WORLD'S LARGEST CRUISE SHIP SETS SAIL...

2009-11-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

Royal Caribbean's record-setting $1.5 billion, 1200-foot-long, 16-deck-high, 220,000-ton, Tower-of-Babel-on-sea luxury cruiser has finally set sail from Finland to Miami.

Royal Caribbean named this affront to god the "Oasis of the Seas," which, yeah, is a super cheesy name, but it's not like there's anything subtle about a god damn 1200-foot-long boat. It'll operate out of Miami and begin offering cruises in December. The Oasis of the Seas has a maximum capacity of around 6,000 people. It's about 50% bigger than the current frontrunner in the "Titanic 2/Icarus" competition, the Queen Mary II, so now you can all feel free to hop on board that ship, since the Oasis of the Seas (really, you guys had to brag about the several seas in which this ship will be an oasis? It's really annoying, grammatically) is sure to be the one to sink in a blaze of indoor amphitheatres and miles of buffet lines. [Oasis of the Sea via BBC via The Awl]

NYC Subways Get LCD Screens Showing Every Train in Real Time...

2009-10-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

As a New Yorker, this gets me very excited: the Bedford Ave L station just got an LCD screen that shows exactly where all the cars on the line are, so you know how long you'll have to wait.

It's part of a test program on the L line, where they installed boards telling people when the next train would arrive last year. This is just the next step. If it goes well, presumably, they'll expand it to other lines as well. Like the Q! Bring it to the Q, MTA!

Google says its navigation will come to iPhone, if Apple approves..

2009-10-29T19:57:00.001-07:00

Google on Wednesday revealed a free online navigation service that will be a part of its forthcoming Android 2.0 mobile operating system. It could also come to the iPhone, the company said, if given the green light by Apple.

A beta of Google Maps Navigation will arrive next week when the Motorola Droid smartphone debuts on Verizon's network. The service will be added to all other Android devices, as well, when they are formally updated to version 2.0.

Google said it would also like to support the iPhone with Maps Navigation.

"Apple is a close partner," a Google spokesperson told AppleInsider Wednesday. "Millions of users experience Google Maps on the iPhone. We will continue to work with Apple to bring innovation, including Latitude and Navigation, to users but you'll have to speak to Apple about availability."

In July, Google released a Web-based version of its Latitude service rather than a native application. Apple allegedly did not allow it to be released as a native application for download on the App Store to avoid confusion with the native, Google-created Maps application.

The biggest iPhone-related dispute between Google and Apple came when the Google Voice application was not accepted into the App Store, prompting an investigation from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Google has claimed that its app was formally rejected, while Apple insists it is still pondering the software.

As Google has continued to encroach on Apple's core businesses, CEO Eric Schmidt was forced to resign from the Apple Board of Directors. Another common link between the two companies' boards, Arthur Levinson, also resigned from Google. Both came in the wake of an investigation from the Federal Trade Commission over anticompetitive concerns.

Despite the appearance of growing tension between the two technology giants, Schmidt recently insisted there is no bad blood between his company and Apple. "We love the iPhone," he said.

Speech-to-Speech Translator Developed For iPhone

2009-10-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

Alex Waibel, professor of computer science and language technologies at Carnegie Mellon University, has developed an iPhone application that turns the iPhone into a translator that converts English speech into Spanish, or vice versa. Users simply speak a sentence or two at a time into the iPhone and the iPhone will respond with an audible translation. 'Jibbigo's software runs on the iPhone itself, so it doesn't need to be connected to the Web to access a distant server,' says Waibel. Waibel is a leader in speech-to-speech translation and multimodal speech interfaces, creating the first real-time, speech-to-speech translator for English, German and Japanese. 'Automated speech translation is an expensive proposition that has been supported primarily by large government grants,' says Waibel. 'But our sponsors are impatient to see this technology become more widely available and we, as researchers, are eager to find new revenues that will help us extend this technology to more of the 6,000 languages now spoken worldwide.'"

Do You Use a Mac Or a PC As Your Personal Home Computer?

2009-10-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

Now that Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are both out in the wild, it is time, once again, to take stock of the state of home computing. That is to say, are you using a Mac or a PC?

Before you Comment, keep this in mind: work machines don't count. Presumably, you made a personal choice between a Mac or a PC for your private computer—and that is the one we want to know about.

12 Things You Need To Know About Apple TV 3.0

2009-10-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

If there's one Apple product that lives outside the Reality Distortion Field, it's Apple TV. But hey wait, 3.0 is out, doesn't that change everything? Well, considering Apple rolled it out on a Thursday afternoon with no fanfare, what do you think?

1. New Home Screen and Tweaked UI

The old home screen had a grid of categories, including Movies, TV, Music, Settings, etc. Now the home screen is horizontal, with all of those same categories running across. Besides mere orientation, the major difference is subtle: Apple TV anticipates what files you're going to want fastest, and puts them above the category in Cover Flow. Click the up arrow to get to the speed rack. The rest of the "new user interface" doesn't seem very new at all. Buffed a bit, shinier in places, but honestly, it's not full revision's worth of new user experience.

2. Genius DJ Playlists

My wife is a huge fan of the Genius option, because she doesn't want to spend an hour making a playlist, but she also doesn't want any of my unexpectedly angsty rock messing up her Beth Orton-fueled revery. Apple TV finally gets what a lot of Apple products have had for a while. Yippee.

3. Movie Extras and LP Compatibility

If you are so devoted to Apple's music and movie retail operation that you care about Extras and LP, visual portals that lead to the main content plus some token extra stuff, then you probably already are excited that Apple TV has this. As much as I am not into it myself, I do admit LP and Extras look much cooler on a TV than they do on a computer.

4. Improved Syncing

iTunes 9 means that, like the iPhone and iPod, there's more refined sync features—you could select particular movies before, but now you can select individual artists, specific TV episodes and iPhoto events as well as albums. This is closer to full manual control, but it's not full manual control.

5. Photos Still Require a Sync

I don't quite understand this quirk of Apple TV: While music and movies I don't sync to the local drive still appear as long as they're in iTunes on my Mac, the photos that live on that same Mac are off limits unless I physically sync them. The alternative is to share them via MobileMe, but that's not the same thing. This highlights an ongoing weirdness between iTunes and iPhoto that may never be resolved.

6. No DivX

"This file was not transferred because it is unable to be played on Apple TV." Steve Jobs once said that only 4% of music on iPods came from iTunes. A lot of movies that would be nice to play on Apple TV simply don't, while H.264 is an option on Handbrake and other personal-use DVD-encoding software, it's not the only game in town.

7. Not NAS Friendly

Assuming I play by the rules and rip all of my personal DVD in H.264 format, I still have to leave them on my laptop, or transfer them to the Apple TV's puny hard drive. Can I stick them on my 1TB NAS, or point the Apple TV to that same NAS to look for other compatible movies? Nope, I cannot.

8. USB Jack Still Unused

Speaking of terabytes, what the hell is that USB 2.0 drive for? It certainly isn't for USB drives, because whenever I connect one, nothing happens. Laptop users don't keep all their movies on their local drives, and many Apple TV drives are too damn small. I don't honestly see how a USB slot could be used for anything evil, and yet three generations of ATV OS have passed without firing it up.

9. Hardware Sluggish and Hot

Even when doing nothing, the Apple TV is still remarkably warm to the touch—the 3.0 update doesn't help that. What I did notice, though, was that the remote was sticky—I'd hear the little "bonk" when I'd push a button, but on many occasions, that was followed by a pause before the thing did anything. This led to several accidental double-taps. And that ain't right.

10. No Netflix or Pandora

Or any other cool third-party services for that matter. YouTube is still there, along with MobileMe and Flickr. And I can understand the conflict of interest in embedding Amazon VOD or CinemaNow or Rhapsody or Napster. But why can't we get some Netflix love? Or Pandora?

11. Too Much Emphasis on Spending Money

I have always felt that Apple TV's insistence on paying for content was crass, given the fact that it is supposed to be the extension of your music and movies on your TV. Don't get me wrong, I actually like that there's a movie rental option on it (and it's my understanding that many people who are drawn to Apple TV are excited because they don't have as much media of their own). But on your computer, you make a deliberate choice to enter the iTunes Store. On Apple TV, you're basically inside the store from the start.

12. Still Best for a 1:1 iTunes-to-TV Connection

As you can see, Apple TV 3.0 isn't some miracle that will suddenly make Apple TV more relevant. It's really a 2.5 if you think about what it does to improve functionality. We asked Apple for a briefing today, in hopes we'd get some idea of what makes this revision special, and no one was available to chat. Guess we'll have to wait for 3.0.1.

Amazon Launches PayPhrase — Will It Be Easy To Game?

2009-10-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

Amazon is launching “PayPhrase” a simple way to verify your account to speed up purchasing – a great move ahead of the holiday season when even more people than ever will be shopping online.
It’s simple stuff. You set up a unique phrase like “Axe Murderer” or “Car Lover” or “Honey I shrunk the kids” and tie it to a 4-digit PIN. This is linked to your Amazon account which, of course, is pre-loaded with your credit card and shipping address.

I do have to wonder what was so hard about entering an email address and password, but clearly Amazon’s psychological research unit thought “Fluffy Bunnies”, or some such, was going to be easier for the average Jane or Joe to remember.
It’s also positioned as a parent/teen solution competing (kind of) with PayPal Student Accounts, because, like the latter, you could give your student son or daughter a PayPhrase which access your account which doesn’t actually access your account controls. PayPhrase lets parents track spending and set account permissions/alerts/etc.
There are other participating websites which will be implementing PayPhrase, including DKNY.com, Jockey.com, and Buy.com that already accept by Amazon’s Checkout service. Of course, earlier this month, eBay came up with its Bill Me Later deferred payment option for both eBay and PayPal which will be carried by Toys R Us, Zappos.com, Petco and Wal-Mart among others.
However, how many people are not going to have a cutesy phrase and default instead to something like “Dad’s Birthday”. All you then need do is type in a plausible month and day like “0820″ for the PIN and… voila! And how many people will just use “1234″ for their PIN? Plenty.
What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

26/7 Black Tuesday For Mumbaikars...

2005-12-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

Hi friends..

Everyone is aware of 26/7,the day when there was highest rainfall in Mumbai in the last 15-20years.I am going to share with you, my experience on that day.

I was in my college doing pracs on my pc in my lab.At about 12.30pm,it started raining.I was not aware of this rain since i was in my lab.When i left my lab, i saw that it was raining heavily.For some time, i enjoyed the rain,since the atmosphere was so catchy and romantic.I and my freinds were standing at the corridor.The floor was full of water since we were on 4th floor and it was open on 2 sides.
My professors were also standing there,looking at the atmosphere and thinking that when the rain will stop!!
Soon after soe time,situation became tense.It started raining more heavily..so we decided to leave the college campus..

It was abt 2.00pm when we came down,all the students were sitting in the quad(Place where students can enjoy bunking lects.)Some were enjoying the atmosphere,some were in tension.When we reached the main gate,the water level was upto the knees.And guess wat?it was mud water!!! we passed through it and started walking towards Andheri station.we were 13 friends in all.Again,we enjoyed,made fun all the way.But as we reached station,the situation became more tensed.Now,the water level was upto the stomach.Anyhow,we passed through it and reached the platform.
what we see on the platform is there is no place to stand,not even to breathe.It was so crowded.Even the trains were no tworking.So we decided to go walking through roadside.when we came out on S.V.Rd. we saw that water level had incerased upto neck.we all were shocked..Now what to do next??

It was 4.00pm by now.We decided to move on to dhavals place in V.Parle (east).we were right now at Andheri(w).We started walking towards Irla..
While walking,i saw many distrous things by which i was shocked, and had never seen in my life.People were running here and there.many people fell down on road,since they were not able to see the potholes.I was one of them.I fell thrice but was not injured.School children were screaming.people left their most expensive cars like the merc.,skoda,lancer,etc in the middle of the road and started searching for their way towards home.One person was carring a guy on his back and finding the way since that guy was feeted.
Many more un-imaginable things happened.We reached Irla at abt 6pm.we were catching each others hands and walking ina chain.
At Irla,the flow of water was the same as that we have it in sea,since there was a slope..As soon as Mihir stteped his right leg to cross the road,he fell down.I had hold Mihirs hand,so i was also dragged.But anyhow we managed to do that and we reached parle station.And then by 7,we reached dhavals place...

What we see at dhavals place is that there is no light,and there was other group(His sisters friends) at his place.So now, we were in all 25people at his place.All were in one room!!His whole room had became wet,his bed,chairs,everything..And above all,we all were wet,hungry and ofcourse tired..Everyone was trying to contact their residence but htere was no network...

After an hour his mom gave all of us to eat..We were so hungry ,that hum log ne 2 min mein sab khatam kar diya... We had to spend the night at his place.Time passed and it continued raining heavily..At night his mom again gave us "Theplas" to eat. We all finished abt 100 theplas in just 2 min..
There was no place to sleep.So we played games,some didnt.By 2.00am,all were so tired, that many of them slept in sitting position.I slept at abt 4.30am.
Then we woke up at abt 8am and the rain was same as the previous day.We(2-3 freinds) went down and asked the rickshaw and taxi-drivers for kandivli and borivali..We were ready to pay 600 per person,but they refused..Now imagine the condition of roads..At abt 12 the rain stopped but there was water eveywhere..so again dhavals mom gave us breakfast and lunch.."Great Great Thanks to his mom,seriously" .No one else can do this..

After lunch, we left his place and decided to go walking on tracks.When we came at parle station,ther were thousands of people,i could see on the tracks coming all the way from town...
we started walking and reached andheri in 45-50 min. We all were tired.There,we saw Virar local(Only mumbaikar knows how is virar local...)anyhow we managed and train reached kandivali in 2hrs(Andheri to kandivli, actually takes just 19 minutes..)
Finally , ireached my residence...

This was something different i experienced with my friends.Though tired, i enjoyed a lot..."Aisa Mauka fir Kahan...."
Again great thanks to dhaval and his mom....

Friends...

2005-11-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.
To find a truly great friend, you have to keep one eye closed - to keep him, two.
True friends are those who are there for you unconditionally. Never do they question, but always offer support no matter what the circumstances are. Best Friends are the people worth living for.
Side by side or miles apart, dear friends are always close to the heart.
A best friend is somebody who knows every last thing about you, yet still manages to like you anyway.
The medicine of life is to have several true faithful friends.
A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your successes.
I do not want a friend who smiles when I smile who weeps when I weep for my shadow in the pool can do better than that.

A true friend cares for you if she says nasty things to your face instead of behind your back.
Real friendship is most notable in those times of trouble. Times of prosperity are full of 'friends'.
True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
No one person can possibly combine all the elements supposed to make up what everyone means by friendship.
Life without friendship is like the sky without sun.
Friendship is a single soul living in two bodies.
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship -- never.
Two people can't wish to be friends long if they can't manage to forgive each other's minor failings.
Life is nothing without friendship.
Love is friendship set on fire.
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
There is no distance too far between best friends, for friendship gives wings to the heart.
There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.