Watched the video? So you have the Flash plugin in your browser. Now, Firefox 3.5 - which is HTML 5 ready - can play embedded videos without a plugin (e.g. Flash, Quicktime). In fact, Firefox 3.5 treats videos just like any other element of the webpage.

Firefox 3.5 packs elaborate privacy features.  You can choose to surf privately a la Chrome’s Incognito mode. You can also wipe out all instances of one particular website from your history at one go. Then, there is also the option of deleting the most recent history - be it the last 2 hours, 4 hours or the day.

The Among improvements on the tab front, 3.5 allows you to bring back not just recently closed tabs, but windows as well. You can also create a new window by dragging out a tab or drag windows into tabs. The ’session restore’ has also got smarter - you can choose only those tabs that should be restored.

Firefox 3.5 supports location-aware-browsing (based on Google Location Services). By knowing your location, websites can offer content tailored to you.

Firefox 3.5 is set to launch in less than 12 hours. Get ready to grab the fastest browser!

It is an epic tale and the first part of what is going to be a trilogy, called The Ibis trilogy, named after the ship Ibis which has set sail across the Indian Ocean. On board the Ibis are a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman, who soon come to discover that their destinies are strangely tied together.

To read Sea of Poppies was a real treat and as it came to an end, I wished it din’t! It is colonial India brought alive with all its richness and variety. I am eagerly waiting for the next two parts.

The Ibis Trilogy has its own website with all the informations and trivia the reader could ask for. From the reading guide on the site I found this list of further reading -

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Out of these I have read the first two. Plan to read Midnight’s Children some of these days.

There are many feed readers out there. Of note is the Google Reader and Bloglines among web-based feed readers and FeedDemon among the standalone softwares. Out of these two, I have found a comfy factor with FeedDemon.

FeedDemon lets you sync all your feeds to your NewsGator account. FeedDemon’s upcoming version, now in its beta release, will have support for integration with your Google Reader account as well which is really great news!

I have subscribed to a good many feeds from sites of various nature which constantly ‘feed’ me with the latest news, blogs, stories and gossip. I just glance through the headlines and read the full text if something interests me. Not all websites publish the entire article in the feed though, you will get a summary instead and you can click through to the source site to read the whole article.

To start with, you can subscribe to some of the feeds on Rediff site. If humor is what you want, subscribe to the FML RSS feed get your daily dose of FMLs!!

Apart from tweaking existing sites, I will also start a new medical-related site. I am not very sure of the content right now. But once set up, ideas will start flowing for sure! This medical site is the idea of  Anjan sir - Dr. Anjan K Das who blogs at Reflections and some of his posts can be read on Bong Buzz too!

Right now, I am busy with setting up a site for our college students union, a job entrusted by the union on me and my very good friend Pratik. A few months from now, I might start working on the website of a Delhi board school in Siliguri the owner of which is a friend of mine.

The label on the Amul ice-cream reads it’s probiotic! I don’t know if having probiotic stuff is really beneficial as claimed. An article on yesterday’s Daily Mail says it is.

Well, few days back my mood was off for some reason. I was not sure why. A little thinking later I realised what was really bothering me. Well, I had got an XP SP3 disc with upgrade in my mind. During the installation, it aborted midway due to some missing file i.e. some file din’t copy properly during the CD burning. This was enough to depress me because I wasted a fair amount of time for nothing and lost my precious user settings (built over years) which I was ready to lose for the time being only at the cost of SP3.

It appears, the more we get dependent on computers, the more technology surrounds us and the more we grow used to it, we have to learn how not to let technology get the better of us.

This was nothing though. Imagine how Alicia Istanbul felt when one fine morning she found her account removed from Facebook, the social network which has become a big part of our life! Apparently, Facebook is trying to delete fake accounts. More at TOI.

By the way, I also write at Bong Buzz. Do read me there.

In West Bengal it was a completely different story though. As people break out in joyous frenzy after the terrible rout of the ruling party of our state, this is a link worth checking out - Raja Khaye Byang Bhaja.