Nikhil Dev

This news is something that really is a good move by some company to put an end to the iTunes Music Store domination. I was reading this news article today that Universal is teaming up with Google to release a service called gBox which is a music store just like iTMS but will sell DRM-free music for much lesser price. iTMS charges about $1.29 for a single track and these are DRM protected. DRM protected means that you cannot play them on any other music player other than iPod. Not even using another software on your computer. Now that is what sucks. When the DRM protection is removed, the track can be played on any other music player or using a media playing software. gBox will make this more easy by offering the tracks at only $0.99 which almost 30 cents cheaper to iTMS.

Google’s involvement with gBox and UMG’s DRM-free experiment looks sinister enough many observers believe gBox will pose a direct threat to the iTMS. But when you get down to it, Google’s participation may simply be what it does best: search and making oodles of money from AdSense.

Now how does gBox fit into the Google model? Simple search and make money out of text ads. Its as simple as that. Its not that we are pissing off Steve Jobs, just that we are grabbing a portion of the market which is still a virgin.

Looks like a lot of people(including me have tried to switch over to Vista and in the end ended up reverting back to Xp as it seems to be a lot more bug free now and have a lot of application support. Microsoft claims that its Xp sales are still on with profit and its planning to release a new SP2c as its running out of product keys. Was reading an article from digg and this is what it has to say

“Microsoft Corp. has had to create a new build of Windows XP Professional for computer makers because the six-year-old operating system’s continued popularity has nearly exhausted the supply of product activation keys.

“Other signs of the not-dead-yet operating system’s vigor have included retreats by manufacturers like Dell Inc. from earlier Vista-only policies. In April, for example, Dell again began offering Windows XP as an option to consumers. It had already done the same thing for small business customers.”

I am proud of myself. I have dont quite some research on how to get that perfect Mac like look for your computer with the minimum CPU and memory usage. I am creating a detailed document on how to do it along with a download of a free Zip package that will have all the free software that you would need to transform your computer. So sit tight and download when its up.

Some of the facts that make me feel. This is called having a great image of yourself within you.

* There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures I allowed to live.
* Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet with me.
* I counted to infinity - twice.
* When do a  pushup, I am not lifting myself up, I am pushing the Earth down.
* I am  is so fast, I can run around the world and punch myself in the back of the head.
* I  don’t wear a watch, I decide what time it is. (LOL)
* I  gave Mona Lisa that smile.
* I  can slam a revolving door.
* There are no races, only countries of people I have beaten to different shades of black and blue.
* My house has no doors, only walls that I walks through.
* I can divide by zero.
* Newton’s Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,
there is no force equal in reaction to my turnaround kick.
* When taking the GRE, write “Nikhil” for every answer. You will score over 1600.
* I  have 12 moons. One of those moons is the Earth.
* I grind my coffee with my teeth and boil the water with my rage.
* Archeologists unearthed an old English dictionary dating back to the year 1236. It defined “victim” as “one who has encountered Nikhil Dev”
* If you Google search “Nikhil Dev getting kicked” you will generate zero results. It just doesn’t happen.
* I  can drink an entire gallon of milk in thirty-seven seconds.
* I  don’t bowl strikes, I just knock down one pin and the other nine faint.
* It takes me 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.
* The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until I  kicked one of the corners off.
* There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I live in Hyderabad.
* I once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made me blink.
* James Cameron wanted Me to play the Terminator. However, upon reflection, he realized that would have turned his movie into a documentary, so he went with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
* Thousands of years ago I  came across a bear. It was so terrified that it fled north into the arctic. It was also so terrified that all of its decedents now have white hair.

When I started working on Linux(Ubuntu) for the very first time, I had no idea of how powerful the terminal was and above all what to type in there. But over the years, I have learnt quite some with the help of friends and resources. I thought if there was some doc which would give people a good idea of all the necessary commands, it would be great. So did some searching on Google and found this really nice PDF from fosswire.com which shows the mostly used ones on Unix. Its a must download –> Unix Reference.

Do let me know if anyone wants other such resources as I do have quite a few of them which are available for free and they are a great source of learning.