Readability: Read Web Sites Better

I spend quite a bit of my online time reading stuff - following news articles, blogs, camera reviews, stuff like that. My preferred way of reading is through RSS feeds in GoogleReader. But there are some sites that do not publish the full article in the feed, and a click through to visit the site is required.

Once you end up on the site, you are typically faced with a page that has the article you are interested in reading squeezed in between multitude of ads and promotions. This is where Readability comes in, an easy to install “Bookmarklet”, clicking on the “Readability” link in your browser bookmarks bar will immediately transform the web page you are reading into an uncluttered page containing only the article of interest. All this, automatically.

I used it with Google Chrome, being a “Bookmarklet” and not a browser plug-in, it should work seamlessly with all browsers without installation -just dragging and dropping a link will do the trick. You can choose the style, font size and margin for the output page.

My initial trials with common web sites were very positive, I just wish there was an automatic way of doing this rather than having me click on the link every time.

The Face of Hope

Yesterday, I watched, along with millions of people around the world (and with estimated two million on the ground) as Barak Obama took oath as the 44th president of the United States of America. This is the first time I ever watched a presidential inaugural ceremony, and I guess probably the first time so many news channels, including local ones, covered the event live in the history of the US presidency.

No doubt a slick presentation, and a wonderful speech from the first African-American president, but I wonder how this will translate to action in the coming months and years. The world, with America at the forefront is facing one of the toughest years in recent history - a financial meltdown that has precipitated a global economic depression of immense scale, ongoing fights against terrorism on multiple fronts in Iraq and Afghanisthan, tensions amongst nations including India-Pakisthan and Israel-Palestine.

If there was one sentiment that was reflected on all the faces looking towards the new president, it was one of hope. Who else but a man who rose up from one of the most oppressed classes in America would be the right choice to lead the bellwether nation out of the crisis arising in no small part due to the misguided polices of the self same nation.

My hope? That the leadership in India would step up and take this nation of a billion potentials to its rightful place in the world arena. And do that by spurring domestic demand and consumption thereby reducing our dependency on external factors, and do this without loosing our value of being a nation of savings oriented people while protecting our identity and national integrity. We need more charismatic, determined leaders, with the foresight and courage to work towards realizing their vision for the nation, working hard even with the knowledge that they will not be acknowledged for their positive efforts till long after they are gone. And to work towards a vision that does not involve their progeny continuing a dynasty, rather, to create a true democracy where people make informed decisions to elect the right leaders for the times.

View a nice Photosynth of the US Presidential Inauguration event here. Microsoft Photosynth is a technology from MS Live Labs that allows multiple photographs to be stitched together to create a multi-dimensional model of the event or location.

Compaq CQ45-106AU Laptop Review

I recently was in the market to buy a laptop for my sister, intended usage was for MS Office including occasional presentations. Cost was one of the primary considerations, so was having a well rounded package with respect to features and a reasonable weight and size. After a bit of research, I narrowed down the HP Compaq CQ45-106AU laptop, which seems to be an India specific model available at less than Rs 40K INR.

Specs:

• AMD Turion X2 Dual Core RM-70 Processor at 2 GHz (1 MB L2 Cache)
• 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz memory (1 DIMM, expandable up to 8 GB)
• 250 GB HDD, 5400 rpm
• 14.1" WXGA Display (1280 * 800)
• ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics (using shared memory)
• 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
• 3 USB (one shared with eSATA), 1 HDMI, 1 VGA, 1 RJ-45, 1 RJ-11, Headphone, Mic
• Integrated Fingerprint Reader
• Altec Lansing speakers
• Compaq webcam with integrated mic
• HP Remote Control
• 56K Modem
• Integrated 802.11b/g WLAN and BT

I just had two days to play around with the laptop before sending it off, so did not get enough time to fully utilize or understand the system. Here are the initial impressions:

• Performance is good (at least on paper), and cheaper than comparable Intel Core 2 Duo processor based system
• Nice display, even though it is a bit too reflective for my taste
• Design and packaging is nice, but the glossy surface shows fingerprints
• Battery life seems to be a concern with the 6 cell battery
• Not a gaming machine (not a requirement for me) due to the absence of advanced graphics card with dedicated memory
• Came with Windows Vista Home Basic (included in price)
• Did not come with recovery CD/DVD, user needs to create one

Overall a neat package with a very well rounded system at a decent price. And I got a nice HP laptop bag free with the laptop.

Assisted global treasure hunt anyone?

Interested in an outdoor hide and seek treasure hunt involving a GPS device in a global arena? Geocaching offers just that, and more. The basic idea is to hide a waterproof container (a "geocache") somewhere and publish the GPS coordinates online so that others can try and locate it. Once you locate a geocache, you can record your success online and in the logbook included in the cache. If you take anything from the cache, protocol dictates that you leave something behind of equal or higher value for others to find.

A google search for Geocaches in India revealed a few, including 8 caches as of 19 Jan 2009 at this site.

The growing popularity of integrated GPS (and assisted GPS) functionality in mobile phones will only add to the popularity of such "location based" activities.

For a beginner's guide to Geocaching, look here.