Wadiblog

One of the things a lot of us here in Silicon Valley like to do is hike. And we are in Northern California. We do live in a valley. And my favorite time to go hiking is an hour before sunset, so by the time you get to the top of the hill, so to speak, it’s just before or just after sunset. And then the view that you are rewarded with is, quite simply, this:

That photo’s from Ivanomak’s photostream on Flickr, by the way. (Click on the pic for the large size–it’s even more amazing at that size.) We’re going to be adding a bunch of Flickr and other multimedia links on this site…check in on them, early and often, as they say! And please do send in your suggestions, favorites, least favorites, and the like.

Just saw the following on a product page on the Sony site:

Sony Recommends Windows Vista® Home Premium

Given the status of Vista and all available user feedback, that would mean that Sony doesn’t have my best interests at heart, now wouldn’t it?

And I certainly don’t mean to pick on Sony; a lot of other manufacturers are, no doubt, doing the same. And this is not meant as a condemnation; more as a “caveat emptor”–as long as the buyer’s understanding of the basis of the recommendation is right, that’s not an evil thing to say…I think.

One of my pet causes, in relation to our Wadi, is the consequences of what we do in the wider world. I just stumbled into the following article, which makes one case related to that:

How Microsoft will kill Bangladesh (unless Linux saves us)

copyright 2002 by Zeeshan Hasan. First published in Bangladesh in the March 22nd, 2002 issue of Star Weekend Magazine.

One hopes that the Government of Bangladesh has been paying attention to the World Trade Organization negotiations. One of the main demands that Western countries made was that Least Developed Countries recognize their Intellectual Property Rights, by which they meant the copyrights and patents of US and European corporations. So far, pharmaceuticals and agriculture have been the most prominent arena of the Intellectual Property Rights debate, as most LDCs realized very quickly that they would never have the money to pay Western prices for anti-AIDS drugs and unscrupulous American patents of basmati rice. Under the WTO, LDCs will lose the right to use all such intellectual property without proper payment to the copyright owner. Violations of Intellectual Property Rights will result in a country like Bangladesh facing severe consequences in the form of trade restrictions. But a potential Intellectual Property Rights disaster for Bangladesh has remained unresolved: the widespread use of unlicensed Microsoft software…

Read the full article at: http://www.liberalislam.net/linux.html

About friggin’ time, I say!! Been mumbling about the need for this to friends for a while now…

Google buys maker of PowerPoint rival

Matt Marshall - VentureBeat.com
Google has just acquired Zenter, which makes software aimed to be a Web-based PowerPoint-killer. Zenter built the application in just a few months, and the company was one of the more dynamic Y Combinator-backed companies from this past winter. View Full Story

Sunday July 1, Palo Alto: Sitting in the University Cafe on University Avenue in Palo Alto, sipping a hot cup of White Mocha, engaged in a a heated discussion with iFaqeer when all of a sudden we hear sirens. The sirens get loud, before we knew it a line of fire trucks passed by the Cafe.

We, being typical techies didn’t give the events outside much notice and continued with our discussions. However, as time passed I noticed police cordoning off the the sidewalk in front of the Cafe. Then I noticed firemen running up and down University Avenue. With that I decided to get up and check whats happening outside.

To my astonishment the Wallgreens that was less than a block away, at University and Byrant was ablaze. I though “Oh my God, its a fire.” Literally the whole street was shut down, police and fire trucks everywhere.

Immediately I whipped out my i-mate camera phone and took a few snapshots. Unfortunately, the 2.0 Megapixel phone on the i-mate Jamin is quite lousy, so couldn’t get any high-resolution close up. However, next this Wadiwallah will be better equipped.

Following are video clips of the fire posted on YouTube:

Further details on the fire can be found in the Palo Alto Daily, and abc7news,