Jef Raskin, Fater of Macintosh passes away

Macobserver :

Jef Raskin, Apple employee #31 and father of Macintosh, passed away peacefully Friday, February 26, 2005. He was 61.

A professor turned consultant, Mr. Raskin wrote the BASIC manual for the Apple II in 1976 and joined the company on January 3, 1978. Less than two years later, he gained approval from the board for the Macintosh project, despite strong opposition from Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. Mr. Raskin envisioned the Macintosh as a departure from computers of the time. Instead of forcing users to toil with slots and cables, he conceived an all-in-one enclosure. Mr. Raskin also originally wanted to sell the computer for just $500-$1,000, but when Mr. Jobs took over the project it soon ballooned from a research project to a full blown product development that would arrive in 1984 as both a savior to Apple's failed Lisa computer and a $5,000 system.

Feeling squeezed and unhappy by how much of the Macintosh project Mr. Jobs had taken over, Mr. Raskin tendered his resignation from Apple on March 1, 1982.

After his departure, Mr. Raskin founded Information Appliance Inc., where he created the Canon Cat in pursuit of his vision that a computer should be an easy-to-use tool. The device never took off, however.

Look ma I am on Slashdot

After rejecting my dozens of story submission, slashdot.org has finally accepted this interesting story : using air to recharge your cell phones which I had picked up from Rediff. To this interesting article I have recieved very funny, taunting & teasing responses and very few serious ones ;-).

COMMON.net business networking

PR Newswire:

COMMON.net has launched its online business networking application, defining an entirely new approach to the industry. Successful people are good at networking, and they use COMMON.net to turn their Rolodex(R) into a controlled-access intranet to share Contacts with their friends and other members. Members let the COMMON Ground(TM) they share with others connect them to the people they need to reach.

The application introduces novel features to the relationship capital management industry:

-- best mechanism for establishing trust between members in an online environment -- new industry standards for privacy, confidentiality and discretion
-- multi-directional reputation system
-- platform suitable for individuals as well as enterprise employees.....

Times Company to Buy About.com for $410 Million

Dot com are not do gones afterall : TheTimes Company to Buy About.com for $410 Million

43Things.com

43things.com is a new entrant in social networking. I immediately fell in love with their idea, I wish I could come up with this idea. Just register within a sec, write your goal or task you want to do, the system will show you other users with similar goals and now you can network with each other depending on what you want to do and what are your goals.

Suppose you wanted to loose weight and submit it as your goal. 43things will prompt you all other users who share this goal. Now you can share tips, give advice, take advice, motivate each other or simply be friends. As simple as that.

Right from the list it seems to be more of social than business networking. But it can surely become a good tool for business networking also.

Mobile growth in India

India's mobile base has crossed 50 Million and is expected to cross 80 million by the end of this year. In terms of overall teledensity we have touched 8.5pc. This local boost in the telecom is now encouraging "made in india" handset production and very soon India will starting exporting the mobiles.

Indian News Aggregator

IndusNeXus.com (beta) | Free Social & Business Networking | Community Blogging | India has started a new service of news aggregator :

Your Online News Paper : News Aggregated from various sources
Read Online : * India Business | * Indian Blogs | *Indian News Headlines

From Pulp Fiction to BullShit

Pulp Fiction writes about Contemporary Hindi Cinema :

Only mediocrity is worshipped all over the world. This world works on a formula and that is 'escapism' and 'feel-good'. Come what may, meaningful cinema is not going to take over in terms of the numbers. As I quoted Hesse a few posts earlier - "I know it today: Nothing in this world is more repugnant to a man than following the path that leads to himself."

We will always produce more garbage. The point is that instead of mediocrity, we are worshipping trash. The problem is that instead of producing more garbage than meaningful, almost all we are producing is garbage. And the worst part is that its being celebrated too. The 'karva-chauth' genre movies have taken over the box office. Not just that, its also taken over the society with its touch of feel-good. Thats the USP of the karva-chauth cinema.

We actually put so much masala in our movies that it ultimately becomes masala bullshit instead of biryani. I remember my favorite actor Naseeruddin Shah commenting in one of his interviers that after 20 years or so if our kids will ask us to show how we lived and how was india ? We wont have single movie to show the real india and indians.

Samsung Miniket multi-function diskless camcorder

Slashdot reports about the Samsung Miniket, a digital camcorder the size of a pack of cards that also works as a portable MP3 player, webcam, voice recorder, storage device, and more. It will be introduced in US in Feb / March @ $600-$700 approx. The details of the Samsung Miniket are available at the official Miniket Page and Linux Device carries a brief profile