In an unbelievable decision Microsoft decided to stop shipping Vista. That makes the end of an OS which was hardly liked by anyone. The reasons for this move are still behind the scene. Meanwhile in another shocking decision, Microsoft decided to prolong support for Windows XP.

I think they realize that the popularity of Windows XP is far beyond Vista. In many reviews around the world there have been negative comments about this OS. It’s hardware requirements are too high and that makes upgrading from XP a costly move.

The other reason is a bit growing popularity of Linux. Especially Ubuntu which is the most preferred Linux distribution nowadays. Later this month Ubuntu will be releasing it’s version 8.04. That version looks very promising and hence Microsoft wants to concentrate on Windows XP which earns most of the revenue.

It is really shocking considering that Vista SP1 was released a month before. That service pack fills up most of the holes and makes it more stable. Though SP3 for XP has also been released. This move of Microsoft will make a lot of faces happy. But those who have moved to vista this is a big blow for them.

Click here for more details about this.

Yesterday between 8pm-9pm all around many countries participated in Earth Hour. This Earth Hour is an initiative  to protect  our Earth from global warming.  I may sound a  crazy man to all you guys as I speak and post much towards environment.  It may be  a little same kind of stuff to you. But believe me, if there was awareness about our environment then I wouldn’t have written such post. And yes I am a crazy person.

So what was done during this Earth Hour?? There was a simple thing done. The countries which participated turned there lights off between 8pm-9pm according to their countries standard time. This really must have saved a lot of energy. Imagine what if this is done every week or may be everyday. Of course you don’t  need to do this in that hour. You can do it according to your convenience.

Turn off everything for 1 hour. Those who were unable to switch their lights off were told to switch off the machines instead of keeping in standby. Keeping machines in standby is useless. I’ve seen in many offices that the PC’s are left standby for hours. Workers come and turned PC on during morning or the time day enter the office and turned it off when they live. They don’t bother if they are using it or not. They just don’t like to sit in front of switched off machine. That’s ridiculous. If all the power from stand by machines is combined it is a considerable amount of energy.

I may be talking nonsense. But it’s a request that don’t take our environment and this global warming as a nonsense.

Visit Earth Hour web page for some more details. Google also took a part in this event and turned its page black. Check here about this. There were many countries and their cities who participated. Just visit the Earth Hour website that info. Just want you guys to make a visit there.

Save Environment.. 

Adobe has released its Photoshop Express web-based imaging application as a public beta. Web based application meaning you dont have to install it on your PC. Just point to the website. Photoshop Express uses much of Adobe’s image editing technology and has been re purposed as a web-based application. Users can store up to 2GB of images online for free, make edits to their photos and share them online. Photoshop Express also allows users to download and upload photos from popular social networking sites like Facebook. The application provides ’standard edits’, such as removing blemishes and red-eye, converting to black and white, cropping and resizing.

Photoshop Express also offers tricks like Pop Color which selects an object in an image, mutes the background color of the photo and allows the user to swap the object’s color so that it “jumps off the page”. Sketch effects make photos look like drawings, and a Distort feature allows users to distort facial features or objects for a comical or artistic effect.

Checkout this software during it’s beta stage.

It’s been 4 days raining heavy here. I haven’t seen rains like this in summer before.

The summer has not yet started and the rains arrived. I feel like I’m in the monsoons. Though monsoons are supposed to start in June. As I’ve said earlier about Ice Age looks like it’s going true. I’ve seen various climatic changes in past 2 years. They all indicate towards a big climatic change on our planet.

Still confused whether it’s natural or man-made. May be Mother nature wants to heal the wounds and is making those changes. We have already hurt her very much and in spite of all troubles we are getting we continue to do so. I don’t know when we will realize the importance and understand the climatic changes.

As said in my earlier post, We can take some precautions. But will they work?? They should be. Though I’m in doubt about the changes being natural or man-made, I’m inclined towards that its being man-made. The pollution, cutting of trees, overuse of resources make me think so. My posts like this may not change the minds of all but I’ll be happy if it changes one.

Save Nature…

This day is remembered as because of three freedom fighters, Bhagatsingh, Sukhdev and Rajguru. They were hang to death for killing a police officer in response to the killing of veteran social activist Lala Lajpat Rai. So far I always remembered this day because of this. I doubt how many Indians know about this and remember them atleast for this day.

But now I got another reason to remember this day. As I said in one of my earlier post Pooja was arranged at our house as my Parents completed their 25th Wedding Anniversary. This was the first time we had Pooja in our house since we started living here. That is of course 20 odd years now. Many relatives came and it turned out to be a good get together. 

It was a memorable occasion and I’ll never forget this day. And now I got some more free time to blog around, write some nonsense out of my head. :)