Running Commentary

Really. Honestly. Truly. I feel blessed! After all, The God of All Things (Big and Small), the great Google allowed me to access its service! And I was 'invited' to do so! So ladies and gentlemen, I was given an 'invitation' (after I requested one by signing up on their site) from Google to try another new offering from Google stable, Google PageCreator. PageCreator is a WYSIWYG ('What You See Is What You Get') tool that enables you to create a web page, using available templates and FrontPage like controls (e.g. inserting image or formatting text). Your pages are saved automatically and you can publish them on a 100 MB server space provided by Google, accessible by domain name: <\your-gmail-domain'>.googlepages.com(e.g. my homepage URL is http://iabhishek.googlepages.com ). What is so special about PageCreator? The controls are very elementary in nature. You can't access or edit the source-code of the page being generated. There are a number of pa

I like the way Google presents its new services to world. There is just the right amount of buzz about the service which gets magnified 100 times due to the air of exclusivity which surrounds its availability! So either you will need to have an 'invitation' (in case of GMail or new Joga.com) or the launch news will be heard so softly that you will think yourself lucky to even know about it (and when you come to know of it, you will definitely scramble to get a taste of it!). So when almost all my news feeds were telling me that Google is to launch their Calendar service ‘soon', Google Calendar was happily up there. (Thanks to CNetNews.com for informing me) So what is so special about Google Calendar? Honestly speaking nothing much! If you have used Microsoft Outlook Calendar, you will find the interface very similar. Your calendar can be viewed according to Day, Week, Month and next four days (in Outlook it is 'Work Week', which I think is more sensible). Adding an

I was waiting something of this sort from Microsoft Mandarins from quite some time now! The battle-field of personal and customizable web-sites, which give the users facility to put up all their favorite online-content at one place, should now get a bit hotter with entry of Windows Live (still in beta, available at http://live.com ). Windows Live is pitching against Yahoo! 360 and Google Personalized Homepages . And apart from the tough competition on hand, the initial reactions from users should be a cause of worry for MS. Live gives us first glimpse of the new web-search that will be integrated with Windows Vista, and will replace MSN search gradually in coming months. Apart from a new search algorithm (perhaps, because the search results differ for MSN search and Live search), Live team has tried to float a new and innovative interface as well. However it remains to be seen that how much it is appreciated (or rejected) by our Google-fed generation. The search results are presented