Worst ever cyclone hit Myanmar this weekend. As per the government’s officla death toll list more than 10000 are feared to be dead. Around 3000 people are also missing.

Lenovo has come with up a great ad against Macbook Air. The advertisment contains the same Manilla envelope that Steve Jobs showed to showcase Macbook Air. It ridicules the “incompletness” ( no optical drive ) of Macbook Air in the ad and displays its own product Lenovo X300 in the ad. It’s very funny. People can just search on youtube for “Lenovo X300 Macbook Air” and they will find the online video I am talking about.

Most of the technology blogs are discussing the same thing “Microsoft-Yahoo” merger and how Microsoft withdrew its bid for acquiring Yahoo yesterday. While Yahoo wanted 37$ per share, Microsoft was willing to give max 34$ per share. Personally, I would have loved if both Microsoft and Yahoo merge and give some kind of competition to Google in online advertising. I do love Google Adwords and spend a lot every month for PPC programs, but more competition in the same field would prove beneficial to all. Don’t you think?

I try to ask this question - “Do you use Facebook for Fun or Networking?” often to people with whom I interact. Most of them replied “For Fun”.

While many posts have been written all over the blogosphere emphasizing how one can use Facebook to increase their reach towards potential customers, clients and increase their profits, revenue.. the truth still remains the same. Facebook is very much a “fun” product.

In fact Flowingdata.com has neatly shown detailed breakup of all the popular applications of facebook. The applications which are fun-based are immensely popular.

Do you know that buying/selling computers was illegal in Cuba? The government had imposed severe restrictions on sale of home computers. Though one might argue that how can Cubans afford a desktop computer of 800$ when the average monthly wage of a Cuban is hardly 20$ a month. But, there are few people in Cuba who can very well afford all luxuries including computers, mobile phones etc. thanks to the money they receive from their relatives staying abroad.

President Raul Castro has finally heeded to demands of Cubans. Many restrictions including sale of desktop computers have now been removed. People who can afford desktop computers, can very well buy them now. However internet access is still banned.

The information on Internet is increasing at a very fast pace. Hence, sometimes we look for some software that can help us to organize and manage all the content that we want. Feedburner provides this help. Google Reader and Bloglines are the most commonly used feed burners. Instead of checking your favorite websites everyday for updates, you can use Google Reader or Bloglines to do it for you. Information that matters most to you such as news feeds, blogs, or music are tracked by the feed burners and organized for you in your own personal web news page.

The user interface of both Google Reader and Bloglines includes folders for feeds that track read and unread items on the left side and when you click on the folder, all the information is displayed on the right side. If we compare both, I believe Google reader is much more polished and easier on eyes than Bloglines. Google reader has curves, soft colors and there is transparency for nice reading environment whereas Bloglines is just plain ugly.

When it comes to usability, I believe Google is much better because once the feed reaches 200 unread items, Bloglines don’t add new ones to feed listing. You have to look at all the feeds only then you will be able to check your newest feed. Whereas it is not so in the case of Google Reader, it keeps adding new items at the top and its unread count is 100+. If we speak about speed, in Bloglines if a feed has tons of posts that you haven’t looked at in awhile then it can be a serious drag to load. Whereas Google Reader displays only 20 items at a time and this never slow down your reading session.
At the end, overall we can say that Google Reader takes the lead in organizing and providing your information.

When anyone gets into blogging stuff, the first thing that comes in their mind is which CMS to use? It is the most crucial decision made by every blogger. There are many CMS available and all of them have pros and cons. But today I would be talking about the most happening CMS in the blogging world i.e. Wordpress and Movable type.

Wordpress is always known for its 5 minute installation. You just need an SQL database set up and then download the wordpress zip which is less than 1 MB. Then unzip the wordpress zip and upload it in your server. Now run the install.php file. If we compare it with Movable type, the file size of Movable type is 4 MB which is four times the wordpress file. Even its uploading takes little more time than wordpress.

Once you install wordpress, the initial window is known as the Dashboard where you can find many useful features such as comments, blog stats, last 6 posts or spam count etc. There are many tabs displayed on the top like write, manage, Blogroll, plug-in, options etc. It’s very easy to use while if we move on to Movable type, you will find same dashboard where 5 main groups are there such as Create, Edit, Organize, Design and Config expanded by a drop down menu.

Wordpress has always been on the top for offering free version, active development, affordability and better documentation whereas movable type was not an open source in the past now they provide their personal edition for free. They have paid packages with commercial support that are mainly used by organizations that don’t spend time for technical expertise is something goes wrong.

Therefore, we can say that movable type is a well organized CMS for business people who are willing to pay and wordpress with its great features is used by general users. You should try both and then make a decision which one suits you better.

After close to 50 years of being in power in Cuba, Fidel Castro has finally stepped down as the ever resilient Cuban president. He retired after one year shy of holding power in Cuba in February 2008 due to persistent diseases and old age. His brother Raul Castro who is five years younger has been picked to succeed him. Determined to prioritize the needs of the Russian people and to put adequate food on their tables, the new president vows to enrich the agricultural industries with new technologies. He has also announced desire to cut down on bureaucratic red tape but at the same time, he is also expected to continue to act based on advice from his older sibling.

Facebook has become so popular and commonly used among all types of social groups especially college students. Facebook users are so addicted to it that they spend hours and hours in exploring and using it, like watching Television, listening to radio and surfing the internet. Facebook means basically Social Networking Website.

If you are not aware, let me tell you that you can make some serious money creating Facebook applications. These applications are basically software that can be easily added to any Facebook profile. You need to learn coding to create such applications that can work with Facebook. Once you add these applications, they are simple, fun and easy to use. One of the very popular applications is ‘Compare’. This compare application will randomly select two of your friends and ask them a question such as “Who’s the better kisser?” and then the fun game starts. The best thing is that these applications involve everyone.

You can also sell your product on Facebook, if you have really one-especially if your product or service caters to the 18 to 35 year old group. A lot of people also browse Facebook looking for interesting content like causes to support, photos and funny stuff that are worth looking.

Facebook is a complete Social Networking Website which was launched in the year 2004 and it was founded by Mark Zukerberg, a former Harvard student. However, just like there are two sides of the same coin, there are also disadvantages of Facebook. Firstly, it has lost its exclusivity by overcrowding people from every race and culture. Its biggest drawback is related to privacy issues where the complete user information is published online at the click of a button.

At the end, we can appreciate the popularity which a Facebook has attained in a short span of time including features like connecting, sharing, exchanging etc.

There are many web analytics services available on web such as Opentracker.net, shinystat.com, Google analytics or extreme tracking. These services provide information about visitors, what pages visitors are viewing on your website, what links on your site are getting the most traffic or how long visitors stay on your website. Google analytics and Extreme Tracking are most famous and usable services for tracking visitors.

Extreme tracking has the best user lookup tools and if you are willing to look at visitors and their patterns, then Extreme does it very well. The rest of the applications are very strong but they are not strongest if we compare with other services whereas Google Analytics is very powerful and is generally the best comparison from site to site.

The free account at Extreme tracking is limited and requires you to place a graphic on your website. The Premium account is $4.5 per month. The interface layout of the website can be improved. But with Google analytics, you have the Google’s trust level and it’s easy to use. Overall the most popular analytics is Google. It is free and it offers functionality which can be compared with most expensive visitor tracking solutions. By offering a free and useful website analytics solution, Google has made a very sneaky and awesome calculated move in the cold war for search engine supremacy.