Gates Sign off!!!!!!!!!

Bill Gates, the Microsoft supreme retires today after a spectacular life contribution to Microsoft. Thanks Bill for MS DOS, Microsoft 95, 98, Me, 2000, xp, vista and a lot of servers and thanks for those helpful patches, without you we might have not witness the Software boom. Farewell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

firefox 3 downloads hit 7million

Firefox 3 was successfully launched yesterday as a free download and right now Mozilla claims that more than 7million copies have been downloaded world wide. Mozilla’s firefox is considered to be the fastest browser. Just after its official launch Mozilla servers have stumbled with the number of request bringing the server down. Even now after 24 hours of its launch, Mozilla home page takes time to load, it obviously state the hotness for the product, its been one of the most awaited browser software for 2 long years.

Firefox address bar is termed as “awesome bar” by the beta testers, as it really helps users with the URL. It shows the most visited sites in the address bar drop down menu and you also find a tab called Most visited webpages, these features are very handy.

Mozilla has claimed that its developing the fastest browser ever for Mac users. So lets wait for the fastest browser ever made. I hope this release to be a eye opener for microsoft’s internet explorer.

Go get the free Mozilla’s Firefox now!!!

The Harsh Truth about india shining

Say hello to double-digit inflation! And to think that it comes at a time when the prime minister of India happens to be someone who was once India's most touted finance minister!

Or is it? At least part of what we are seeing today is directly due to the failure of leadership at the top, of how poor politics made for worse economics. India will be paying the price for a long time to come.

But first things first, I agree that the Indian customer could not be indefinitely shielded from rising global petroleum prices. However, both the timing and the reasoning that is being dished out leave much to be desired.

We all know that oil recently touched an all-time high of $135 per barrel. But, true to form, the Manmohan Singh ministry announced the hike in prices when, on Wednesday the fourth of June, prices had fallen to $123 a barrel. Talk about bad timing!

It gets worse. Even the 10 per cent hike announced by the UPA regime is not enough to offset the losses made by the State-owned oil companies. The total losses were an estimated Rs 245,000 crore. They are still going to be losing money despite the increase in prices and the cut in duties. Now there is talk of floating oil bonds, in other words taking money today to be repaid, with interest, of course, by our children and grandchildren.

It is no secret that the price of crude oil had been rising. Nor was it unknown to our economist prime minister that his government was running out of money to subsidise the oil companies' losses. So why did he wait until June, by which time the chief executives of the oil firms were warning that their cash would run out in four months?

The answer lies in the electoral compulsions of the Congress. Elections were due in Karnataka, to be followed by a slew of assembly polls in winter, and a general election in under twelve months. Under the direction of the Congress president, the prime minister and his finance minister had cooked up what everyone called a populist Budget, offering sops to one and all. (Does anyone remember P Chidambaram explaining how he would find money for the farmers' loan waiver?)

There was simply no way to wave the 'Aam Aadmi' flag yet simultaneously raise fuel prices. (Or, alternatively, cut the subsidies.) Thus, for the sake of winning the Karnataka assembly, the oil companies were forced to incur mounting losses -- until they were in danger of running out of money altogether.

The results of the Karnataka polls demonstrated that the voters weren't falling for the Congress's promises. But the party apparently believed that there were still plenty of people who might be fooled. (There is a general election looming up after all!) The Karnataka results came out on May 25, but it still took ten additional days before the Union Cabinet could raise fuel prices -- and crores were lost on each of those days.

Do the price rises of 4 June signify the end of economic insanity? No, not really!

Did you know that India continues to export diesel even today? India has imposed such an insane web of taxes that the private refiners, Reliance [Get Quote] and Essar, find it impossible to sell diesel inside the country. I am sure the prime minister knows this perfectly well, so why has he done nothing to ameliorate this? Enabling both firms -- possibly others too who come in -- could bring down transport prices. (Most freight firms use diesel, not petrol.)

If the timing of the fuel price increase was poor, the reasons that are being trotted out are nonsense.

The Union finance minister was claiming, shortly after his last Budget, that government revenues are hitting the roof. So why can't he find the money to continue fuel subsidies? Because, so say the Congress spokespersons, there isn't enough to fund both development activity and oil subsidies.

This really is the root of the problem. What development activities are they talking about? Are you getting an assured supply of electricity, without wild fluctuations? Do you get clean water around the clock? Have the potholes in the roads in your town been filled up? Does anyone believe that the local government schools or the primary health centres are functioning adequately? (Or functioning at all!) So where is the money going?

One weak excuse being trotted out is that the funds are being targeted at rural areas, whether in the form of loan waivers or the National Rural Employment Guarantee schemes. This is a joke.

The reaction of the banks to the enforced loan waivers announced in the last Budget was best expressed by the State Bank of India two weeks ago; the bank announced that it would make no more loans to farmers who wanted to buy tractors. State Bank was forced to retract under political pressure but the message is loud and clear -- the waiver does not mean that any fresh funds will be injected into the rural sector.

What of the NREG? Sonia Gandhi's pet ploy to win votes is coming a cropper. On May 14, this year a man named Lalit Kumar Mehta was murdered in Jharkhand. The police tried to pass it off as a case of robbery, but the real facts soon emerged. Lalit Kumar Mehta was an activist in the Vikas Sahyog Kendra, which works for adivasis. At the time of his death, he was carrying out a social audit of the local NREG. scheme, and his father, Jagdish Mehta, insists that he was carrying a CD-ROM with hard proof of misuse of funds.

Please note that this particular social audit was being carried out not by just another unknown non-governmental organisation, but under the direct supervision of Professor Jean Dreze (the Belgian economist associated with Dr Amartya Sen). Media reports confirm the Vikas Sahyog Kendra's suspicions about the daylight robbery passing off as NREG schemes. And this, I am fairly certain, is being replicated all over in India.

Let me sum it up. There is no money for fuel subsidies because it is, supposedly, being used for developmental activities. But nobody can see any effect of these activities. (The highway development schemes started in the days of the Vajpayee ministry, for instance, have practically ground to a halt.) I repeat: Where is the money going?

The simple fact is that neither the prime minister nor his finance minister have the political clout to ram through harsh economic decisions, such as raising fuel prices before a crucial assembly election. Nor can they ensure that all wings of the government run with the same rectitude that they themselves practise.

The Union finance minister boasted in February that the deficit would be in the vicinity of 2.5% but economists privately say it will be at least three times that. Meanwhile, inflation - real inflation, not the official figures - is the highest it has been since 1995. (Guess who the finance minister was back then!)

When the UPA took over the reins in 2004 it introduced a system of dyarchy -- Dr Manmohan Singh to handle the economics and the administration, Sonia Gandhi to tackle the actual politics. With prices going out of control and the party losing a string of polls, would it be fair to say that the system just hasn't worked?

Courtesy : Rediff

 

Proposal to raise petrol price

Petrol price to be up by Rs. 17

 

Crude oil has touched $135 per barrel last week, that’s the highest price ever made by a barrel of crude oil. It is believed that prices could easily be around $200 in no time. President George Bush has urged middle east to increase in the amount of total production of oil, although considering Bush’s request the middle east oil government has promised to increase the production but it doesn’t seem to ease the situation at the earliest. Indian inflation has reached to a 4year high nearing 8% and with raising oil prices the government is compelled to raise the prices of petrol and diesel.

Lets do some maths here

 

1 barrel [US, petroleum] = 158.987 294 93 liter and currently the price of the each barrel is about $135, that means its nearly costing a liter $1 dollar excluding the refining and transportation charges, the Indian government then again levy service charges, custom charges, which makes it more costlier than it is. Given that situation is grim, the government should look forward to lower the fuel charges failing to do so it would be a big burden for the common man. Apart from these charges government also gives subsidiary to LPG. LPG which is a common to find in each and every household of cooking and other heating purposes in Indian household enjoys a subsidiary of about 150-200Rs per cylinder.

 

Its high time to switch over for alternate fuels, or else we would burn our hands, infact its already burning we might lose the buying hand if these prices increase making the common man’s living a debt full life.

 

According to official sources the Indian government has decided to increase the petrol price to a whopping 17 Rs, the ex-hyderabad pertrol price is 49.55 adding an additional 17 rs would make the average petrol price to 66-70 Rs. Considering that petrol prices vary from place to place. The prices of diesel are very nominal about 4-6 Rs per liter, adding the total to 40-42 per liter. Diesel is the most used fuel considering that the public commuting is done by buses, taxis, trains and cars. If the prices of the diesel were to be raised it would be simply mean a blow out in the inflation, which is already on a 4year high.

 

It’s a do or die situation for the government, either it has to lose the income from the sale of petrol and diesel or lose the income and reduce the price or atleast maintain a status quo with the prices.

With the general election in an year, the government’s decision would be an interesting one to see.

Download Free Avast!

Avast Anti-Virus software is one of the best anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware software. This software can be download from avast homepage. Avast anti-virus software is a must recommended software for all the users who fear their computer might get infected. Some of the major features of avast are

v Small downloadable file (around 25MB)

v Even runs on Intel Pentium III 800 MHz, 128 MB RAM (Basic configuration)

v Auto Updates when internet is connected

v New virus database are installed automatically

v Scheduled scanning (background)

v Award winning software

v Free home version

Its best to install a powerful anti-virus than to be a victim of Harmful virus. With phishing sites on the rise, its best to have a trust worthy software. Avast Anti-virus software is a complete solution for your laptop, PC, decktop (supports vista too).

Indian Websites Under Attack

Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In), which handles Computer incidents in the country, have reported that hacking of Indian websites are on the rise. 612 websites were defaced in March compared to 214 websites in February. In order to deface a website, one has to crack into the web server and then replacing the existing home page or the targeted page with some malicious page, which will help the hacker to spread the virus or the malicious Trojan into visitor’s system, thus accessing personal data and financial details.

It’s like a war on the internet to show off who’s got the upper hand in hacking websites and showing off articles such as abusing certain community or a country. Russian were a nightmare for US at the starting of the world wide web, now it’s the China, the Chinese are been suspected to be hacking into US defense server and gaining sensitive data pertaining to Arms, Weapons, National Security. The Chinese are now a big and most clear threat for all countries which run government online.

Hacking into someone’s computer is not big deal with windows lately patching its operating systems, a computer which runs a Windows operating system is more prone to be hacked than a linux running system. Windows system are more vulnerable, thanks to Microsoft for releasing patches to patch its mess called “WINDOWS”.

Very recently Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) website was hacked, DRDO a Indian defense organisation, it is still not known as for what information the hacker might have gained.

These types of hacking are on a raise, even the webhosting server might not detect this fishy thing, after the hacking the hacker replaces the existing website with similar looking site which includes his malicious code, when a user visits the site, he doesn’t see any difference, so he will not see any change, thanks to google search engine, it has now taken some kind of “responsibility” for the surfers, if you happen to search for a website and in the search results if there is a website which is infected or the web server acting in a abnormal way, google alerts the users that he should reconsider his visiting the website. You can do a google for “Prasadz”, you will be surprised to know that google advises with not to visit “prasadz.com” for which google believes visiting the site might harm your computer. I have personally written to “prasadz.com” and I was surprised to know that they have no idea of the warning, I just couldn’t understand how can someone into a business which has a internet booking with credit cards, debit cards, bank details involved be so careless in checking their web server regularly. So thanks to google it just be more safer if we could search first before we trust it.

With more and more organizations going online, things have to be changed and a new task force for handling such issues should be formulated before we become pray for the hackers, for a mere lack of knowledge.