Top 10 Gizmos of the Past 50 Years

1. Walkman TPS-L2 (1979)


2. iPod (2001)


3. ReplayTV RTV (2001)


4. TiVo HDR110 (1999)


5. Palmpilot 1000 (1996)


6. Sony CDP-101 CD player (1982)


7. Motorola StarTAC phone (1996)


8. Atari Computer System (1977)


9. Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera (1972)


10. M-Systems Disk-OnKey (2000)

The ratings are based on usefulness, design, innovation, coolness, and influence on subsequent gizmos. [Source: PC World]

Christmas Babies

Happy birthday to Hoang-Anh, Heather, and Natalie.

Happy Holiday

Have a Good One, Everyone!

Javascript window.innerWidth vs. document.body.offsetWidth

var winW = parseInt("630"), winH = parseInt("460");
if (parseInt(navigator.appVersion)>3) {
if (navigator.appName=="Netscape") {
winW = window.innerWidth;
winH = window.innerHeight;
}
if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft")!=-1) {
winW = document.body.offsetWidth;
winH = document.body.offsetHeight;
}
}

The above code returns the width and height of the browser window regardless if it's Netscape or IE. If the browser is Netscape, we use innerWidth and innerHeight properties of the window object to return the width and height respectively of the browser window. If the browser is IE we use the offsetWidth and offsetHeight properties of the body object of the document object to return the width and height respectively of the browser window.

Javascript document.onmouseover

document.onmouseover=GetCoordinates;
function GetCoordinates(e){
if (navigator.appName=="Netscape") {
xVal = parseInt(e.pageX);
yVal = parseInt(e.pageY);
}
if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft")!=-1) {
xVal=parseInt(event.x);
yVal=parseInt(event.y);
}
}

This line of code document.onmouseover=GetCoordinates; causes the onmouseover to be fired and calls function GetCoordinates, which is used to keep track of every single mouse movement. Also, the appName property of the javascript navigator object is used to identify the user's browser. If the browser is Netscape, e.pageX and e.pageY return the (X,Y) coordinates of the mouse pointer. Otherwise, event.x and event.y are used to return the (X,Y) coordinates of the mouse pointer in IE.

Javascript document.onclick

document.onclick=WindowClickEventExplorer;
function WindowClickEventExplorer(e){
if (navigator.appName=="Netscape") {
popIt=0;
}
if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft")!=-1) {
var WinEvent = window.event.srcElement.tagName;
if (WinEvent =='INPUT' || WinEvent =='IMG' || WinEvent =='A' || WinEvent =='B' || WinEvent =='SELECT') popIt=0;
}
}

The above code captures all the click events within the document inside the current browser and calls function WindowClickEventExplorer at the mouse click. Inside function WindowClickEventExplorer, appName property of javascript navigator object is used to identify the user's browser, which in this case is either Netscape or IE. If the browser is IE, we can use the following line of code window.event.srcElement.tageName to identify the tag name of the source that generates the click event.

Now I Can Relax

Just finished my last final tonight. Now I can finally relax.

Did Someone Say School’s Out?

My second and last final for this semester is less than 24 hours away. Wish me luck.

Alexa Web Search Platform Beta

The Alexa Web Search Platform provides public access to the vast web crawl collected by Alexa Internet. Users can search and process billions of documents -- even create their own search engines -- using Alexa's search and publication tools. Alexa provides compute and storage resources that allow users to quickly process and store large amounts of web data. Users can view the results of their processes interactively, transfer the results to their home machine, or publish them as a new web service. Read more. [Source: Alexa.com]

What can you do with the Alexa Web Search Platform Beta?

• Three online web snapshots of up to 100 terabytes each



• Powerful tools to sift through the content to create your own data set



• Upload, compile and run your own programs on a processing cluster across the data set



• Store your output on a storage cluster



• Integrate your data into a search index



• Access your new search via Amazon Web Services

Firefox and Thunderbird

My favorite browser and email programs at the moment are Mozilla Firefox (v. 1.5) and Thunderbird (v. 1.0.7). Both of them are free and very compact in size, so you won't have any problem downloading them at all. Now I can use my Gmail email account with Thunderbird. Pretty cool!One of the coolest extensions for Firefox is the Web Developer Toolbar. It adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock and Mozilla, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. If you are a web developer like myself, you should definitely get it.

Got Visual Studio 2005 Installed

I attended a Microsoft Road Show on December 1, 2005 to learn about the new Visual Studio and MS SQL 2005. I also got myself a free copy of the standard edition for both of these products. The Road Show was in Abingdon, Maryland, and it was the very first Microsoft Road Show that I had ever attended. Really cool presentations! I am really looking forward to go to more of these events in the future.

Local.Live.Com From Microsoft

Microsoft started offering a beta of one of its services called Windows Live Local. It combines elements of Microsoft's Virtual Earth technology, MapPoint driving directions and local classified and business searching. You can check it out at local.live.com. It is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Try putting in your address and see if the Bird's Eye images are availabe. It's awesome!

MS in E-Commerce Program

The degree program requires 36 credits be completed. All students complete an E- commerce core, the breadth requirement, comprised of six courses from four interdisciplinary foundation disciplines totaling 18 credits.
Following completion of these core courses, students take specialized application courses, for a total of 15 credits, in one of six chosen fields of concentration: Information Technology, Management, Health Systems, Public Policy, Enterprise Management, and Law. Students from all concentrations will deepen their theoretical and practical knowledge through courses in the concentration, the depth requirement, building upon a common core of knowledge.

One of the unique features of the degree program is an electronic commerce capstone project course (3 credits), taken by all students at the completion of all their coursework. The capstone project is an interdisciplinary course that reinforces and integrates material covered in core and concentration courses. It allows students to pursue a mixed team- based, practical project related to E-commerce in an identified area of opportunity. This capstone project serves to give students an integrative experience in response to digital age challenges and opportunities. It also allows them to work with other students from a diverse set of backgrounds.

The core is compose of eighteen credits comprising the following three-credit courses:
EC 511 E-commerce Basic IT Infrastructure
EC 512 E-commerce Software Services
EC 521/MBA 603 Managerial Economics and Decisions of the Firm [Completed]
EC 522/MBA 613 Financial Reporting and Decision Making [Next]
EC 531/PUBP 726 Law and Public Policy in E-commerce
EC 541 Integrative Case Studies in Electronic Commerce or MBA 734 Electronic Commerce

Specialization courses:
CS650 Database Engineering or INFS 614 Database Management [Completed]
CS 656 Computer Communications and Networking or ECE 542 Computer Network Architectures and Protocols [Completed, Summer 2005]
ISA 662 Information System Security [Next]

In addition to these three courses, students must take at least one course from Information Technology list and at most one course from the Business, Law and Public Policy, and Health Care and Services Industry lists to complete the five courses required for the Information Technology concentration.

Information Technology Courses
CS 571 Operating Systems (3:3:0).
CS 671 Advanced Operating Systems (3:3:0).
CS 672 Computer System Performance Evaluation (3:3:0).
CS 673 Multimedia Computing and Systems (3:3:0).
CS 707 Distributed Software Systems (3:3:0).
CS 750/INFT 750 Theory and Applications of Data Mining (3:3:0).
CS 755 Advanced Computer Networks (3:3:0).
ECE 646 Cryptography and Computer Network Security (3:3:0).
ECE 741 Wireless Networks (3:3:0).
INFS 601 Operating Systems Theory and Practice (3:3:0).
INFS 623 Information Retrieval (3:3:0).
INFS 755 Decision Support Database Systems (3:3:0).
INFS 760 Advanced Database Management (3:3:0).
INFS 770 Knowledge Management for E-Business (3:3:0).
ISA 765 Database and Distributed Systems Security (3:3:0).
ISA 766 Internet Security Protocols (3:3:0).
ISA 767 Secure Electronic Commerce (3:3:0).
INFT 809 Scaling Technologies for E-Business (3:3:0).
OR 635 Discrete System Simulation (3:3:0).
SWSE 619/CS 619 Software Construction (3:3:0). [Next]
SWSE 620/CS 620 Software Requirements and Prototyping (3:3:0).
SWSE 621/CS 621 Software Design (3:3:0).
SWSE 632/CS 632 User Interface Design and Development (3:3:0).
SWE 642 Software Engineering for the World Wide Web (3:3:0)
SYST 781/INFS 781/STAT 781: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (3:3:0).
Note: CS 571 and INFS 601 are mutually exclusive. Only one of them can be used for the MS in E- commerce program.

EC 600 Group Project in Electronic Commerce (3-6:3-6:0). Prerequisite: Completion of all core courses and at least nine of the credits in the specialization area of the MS in E- commerce program. Group projects in electronic commerce (EC) selected to illustrate special problems and solutions in development, design, and implementation of EC systems. Groups will be inter-disciplinary involving students with background in information technology, business, public policy, law, and health information systems. Faculty from these various specialties will be involved in teaching the course. The final project will be exhibited to a panel of judges composed of faculty members and experts from private and government organizations.

Program description:
The Master of Science in E-Commerce (MS in E-Commerce) is a comprehensive program designed to prepare students for careers in the digital economy. This inter-disciplinary program draws from knowledge areas such as business and management, public policy, legal issues and intellectual property, and information technology. Students will be able to integrate the concepts, tools and techniques learned in their coursework to analyze, design and deploy Internet- and Web-based solutions in areas such e-commerce, management, banking, health care, government, and education. In addition, they will respond to the demand for professionals - in Northern Virginia and beyond - with skills and knowledge to create new business processes, architectures and systems for the emerging digital economy.

The MS in E-Commerce is a University-wide program, managed jointly by the School of Information Technology and Engineering, the School of Management, the School of Public Policy, the School of Law, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the College of Nursing and Health Science. It is housed in the School of Information Technology and Engineering.

Program Director: Prof. Larry Kerschberg, School of Information Technology and Engineering.

Steering Commitee:

Prof. Andres Fortino, School of Management
Prof. Peggy J. Maddox, College of Nursing and Health Science
Prof. Jeff Parker, School of Law
Prof. Pris Regan, College of Arts and Science
Prof. Steve Ruth, School of Public Policy

Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong

Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong is coming out next Wednesday. Can it possibly top 1997's "Titanic" as the highest-grossing movie of all time? We just have to wait and see. This movie is definitely a must-see.

All-Time Worldwide Boxoffice: [Source: www.imdb.com]

1. Titanic (1997) $1,835,300,000



2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) $1,129,219,252



3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) $968,600,000



4. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) $922,379,000



5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) $921,600,000



6. Jurassic Park (1993) $919,700,000



7. Shrek 2 (2004) $880,871,036



8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $866,300,000



9. Finding Nemo (2003) $865,000,000



10. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) $860,700,000

Hot Links

Software Development Web Sites

• ASP.NET



• ASP.NET Pro Magazine



• DotNetJunkies



• 15 Seconds



• AbstractVB



• ASP Alliance



• DotNetBips



• GotDotNet



• WindowsForms.net



• MSDN

Google: Ten Golden Rules

Check out this article on msnbc.msn.com to see how Google has become so successful in what it does.

Google's Ten Golden Rules:

• Hire by committee



• Cater to their every need



• Pack them in



• Make coordination easy



• Eat your own dog food



• Encourage creativity



• Strive to reach consensus



• Don't be evil



• Data drive decisions



• Communicate effectively

First Big Snow Storm of Winter 2006

This picture was taken in New Kent, Richmond on 12/05/2005.
Photographed by Hoang-Anh.

Javascript Location Object

The Javascript location object has 3 important properties: href, host, and protocol and 2 methods: replace() and reload()

location.href - returns the current URL
location.host - returns the current Host
location.protocol - returns the protocol used
window.location.href = "http://www.newurl.com" - sends user to "http://www.newurl.com"
window.location.replace("http://www.newurl.com") - sends user to "http://www.newurl.com"
setTimeout("location.reload()",100000) - refreshes the current page every 100 seconds

string-length()

<xsl :if test="string-length($variable)=0">

You can use the above XSLT IF statement to check whether the length of the $variable is equal to 0.

Microsoft Will Be Offering Fremont

In response to Google Base, Microsoft is in the process of developing Fremont, code name for its online classified listings. Fremont will be enhanced with Microsoft's localized maps and will be available on Live.com.

Canvascape - 3D Walker

Look familiar? No, that is not Counter Strike? This game is being developed by Benjamin Joffe. What you see is written in Javascript. Pretty interesting. You can move around using your arrow keys and jump with your Spacebar key. Good stuff. Thanks to my buddy Jackson for the link.

Live Traffic Cameras for Washington DC Metro Area Residents

If you are a resident in the Washington DC Metro Area like myself, then you would be glad to have these live traffic cameras. Thanks TrafficLand Company.

Firefox 1.5 Available for Download Today

The new version of Firefox will be available for download later today.

Download the latest version of Firefox at www.firefox.com and www.mozilla.com.

Read more on the latest features of Firefox at www.techworld.com

Do You Know MapQuest.com?

Here are some interesting facts about MapQuest Inc. that I read today at news.yahoo.com:

• MapQuest's roots date to 1967, when it was the cartographic division of the publisher R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. before becoming an independent company. In pre-Internet days, the group made the road maps that were distributed free at gas stations as well as the computerized TripTik system for AAA.


• MapQuest.com went live Feb. 5, 1996, and started trading shares publicly three years later.


• Of all people going to mapping sites, 71 percent visited MapQuest.com in September, roughly even from a year ago, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo Inc. drew 32 percent, also about the same as last year, while new arrival Google Inc. had a 25 percent share.


• The number going to mapping sites leaped 33 percent to 51.3 million in the last year.


• MapQuest.com was acquired by America Online Inc. in 2000.

MapQuest.com has been seeing stiff competition from Google Maps, Google Earth, MSN Virtual Earth, Yahoo Maps and Amazon A9. What MapQuest.com needs is innovation to stay ahead of the mapping competition, in which it's already a leader. MapQuest Inc. is heading toward its 10th year anniversary of its website. Go MapQuest.com!

Vietnamese Student Associations Photo Albums

Dear VSA members and alumni:
If you would like to have your existing VSA photo albums added to the following list or want to have an album created for your VSA, please send an email to thekhuc[AT]yahoo[DOT]com. I hope you enjoy the following albums.

Regards,
Webmaster

Maryland:

• Vietnamese Student Assocation at University of Maryland at College Park

Virginia:

• Vietnamese Student Assocation at George Mason University


• Vietnamese Student Assocation at University of Virginia


• Vietnamese Student Assocation at Virginia Tech

Happy Turkey Day

Have a great Thanksgiving, everybody!

Check out this cool Thanksgiving Flash movie clip. Thanks to msn.americangreetings.com. Hope you enjoy it.

aspnet_regiis -i

Use the following commands to either register for the first time or re-register your ASP.NET with IIS.

For ASP.NET version 1.1.4322:
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322>aspnet_regiis -i

For ASP.NET version 2.0.50727:
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727>aspnet_regiis -i

New Moniker for Small Towns

A short while ago, I read about this small town in Texas changing its name to Dish to promote EchoStart Communications Corp.'s Dish Network, and today, another town in Idaho is going to change its name to Secretsanta.com in exchange for cash and a documentary deal. Here are some towns that changed their names in exchange for fame and money:

• Santa, Idaho - Secretsanta.com (115 people) - Year 2005


• Halfway, Oregon - Half.com (brought in $75,000 and 20 computers for its schools) -Year 2000


• Hot Sprints, New Mexico - Truth or Consequences (a radio program that became a TV game show) - Year 1950

You can read more about this at msnbc.msn.com.

inetmgr and iisreset

Internet Information Services or IIS is Microsoft's web server application. It is based on Windows NT Server, and it supports the World Wide Web, FTP, and gopher, a menu-oriented tool used to locate online resources developed at the University of Minnesota.

Two tricks that I use most often with IIS are to open and reset IIS using the Run command line. Here's how:


Typing inetmgr at the Run command line would open up the Internet Information Services GUI.


Typing iisreset at the Run command line would restart the Internet Information Services.

Search Engines Are Second Only To Email

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, search engines have become the second most used Net application after email. On an average day, there are about 41 percent of the Internet using population in the US turn to search engines, up from 31 percent in the middle of 2004. This is about 59 million people. Email remains the number one online service with 52 percent of US population checking mail on any given day.

Google is still the search engine leader with 43.7 percent for local searches, while Yahoo! is number one with 27.6 percent in terms of Internet Yellow Page sites.

Read more about this Project in a memo compiled by Pew Internet Project Director Lee Rainie and comScore Communications Analyst Jeremy Shermak on search engine use in November 2005.

Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine Is Where She Will Be

This is a follow up to my last post about my girlfriend Hoang-Anh going to TUSPM for an interview. She got a phone call from the TUSPM Dean yesterday telling her that SHE GOT ACCEPTED. CONGRATS! They even offered her a scholarship. I knew she could do it all along, and I'm really happy for her too, because I know she has been worried sick throughout this application process.

Now I just need to think of a good place to take her out to dinner. This is NOT an easy task.

Basic Oligopoly Models

Four types of oligopolies:

• Sweezy oligopoly: An industry in which there are few firms serving many customers; (2) firms produce differentiated products; (3) each firm believes rivals will respond to a price reduction but will not follow a price increase; and (4) barriers to entry exist. It may be optimal to continue to produce the same level of output even if marginal cost declines.


• Cournot oligopoly: An industry in which (1) there are few firms serving many consumers; (2) firms produce either differentiated or homogenous products; (3) each firm believes rivals will hold their output constant if it changes its output; and (4) barriers to entry exist. It is optimal to expand output if marginal cost declines.


• Stackelberg oligopoly: An industry in which (1) there are few firms serving many consumers; (2) firms produce either differentiated or homogeneous products; (3) a single firm (the leader) chooses an output before rivals select their outputs; (4) all other firms (the followers) take the leader's output as given and select outputs that maximize profits given the leader's output; and (5) barriers to entry exist.


• Bertrand oligopoly: An industry in which (1) there are few firms serving many consumers; (2) firms produce identical products at a constant marginal cost; (3) firms compete in price and react optimally to competitors' prices; (4) consumers have perfect competition and there are no transaction costs; and (5) barriers to entry exist.

You can read more about these four types of oligopolies in chapter 9 of Michael Baye’s Managerial Economics and Business Strategy.

Google Base is Live!

The beta version of Google Base was launched earlier today. It allows people to post all kind of information such as vehicles, recipes, job listings, and real estate listings, and this information will be freely available to everyone coming to Google Base located at base.google.com. This service is viewed as a potential threat to traditional classified businesses like newspapers and online sites like Ebay and Craigslist.

From Google Base website:

Help the world find your content.
Google Base is a place where you can add all types of information that we'll host and make searchable online.

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.

Read more about Google Base at news.yahoo.com.

Xbox 360 Hits Stores 11/22

The battle for video-game supremacy starts in one week.

Tuesday, Nov. 22, is when Microsoft begins selling its newest -- and highly anticipated -- console, the Xbox 360.

Some information on the new Xbox:

When: Hits stores Nov. 22

Price: $299 for the core system (includes console, wired controller and AV cable). $399 for premium edition (includes console, 20 GB detachable hard drive, wireless controller, headset and HD AV cables)

Games: Sold separately ($59.99 each)

Specs: display of 720p/1080i, 2 USB ports, wi-fi-ready

Read more on the new Xbox 360 at www.suntimes.com.

Google Analytics is Free!

My blog now has Google Analytics installed. Thanks to Google and my fellow colleague, Hardik, for telling me about it. Formerly known as Urchin from Google, Google Analytics is designed to help businesses use performance data to improve their online marketing campaigns and Web sites.

Google Analytics accesses a Javascript function called urchinTracker( ) from this Javascript file http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js to gather data.

Read more about this at www.technewsworld.com.

Check out Google Analytics web site at www.google.com/analytics.

NY Taxis get computer upgrade with credit cards, movie lists, and GPS

I don't remember the last time I rode in a taxi, but it's pretty cool to learn that N.Y. taxis will get computer upgrade with credit cards, movie lists, sports scores, news headlines, and fligh information.

N.Y. taxis will aslo be equipped with GPS that monitors every pick-up and drop-off. As a result, customers will able to retrieve their lost property with less effort.

May be next time when I visit New York City, I will be able to check out these cool technologies.

Read more about N.Y. taxis at Bloomberg.com.

Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine, Here She Comes!

My girlfriend Hoang-Anh is in the process of applying to Podiatry schools, and she's having an interview with Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine today. She's smart and I know she can achieve whatever she puts her mind into. She has my best wishes!

New mapping and local search services from Google

It's only fair that I post an entry about Google, because I have been posting about Microsoft and Yahoo in the past few days.

Today Google introduced new and improved mapping and local search services for mobile phone users. The new services will take advantage of the Global Positioning System or GPS, which eliminates the need for users to enter their location. Google said it doesn't plan to display ads alongside its mobile maps. These new services require Java-enabled mobile phones, and won't work with Verizon Wireless phones, Blackberry devices or Palm devices. Most subscribers with wireless service from Cingular, T-Mobile and Sprint should be able to use these services.

Some facts about Google:

• Google's market value is over $100 billion in just 7 years


• Ads generated most of Google's revenues, which were about $4.2 billion, during the first 9 months of this year. Profits were about $1.1.


• Next targets for Google: telecommunications, television and publishing.

Some interesting facts about Yahoo!

Yahoo has always been a fascinating company to me. Here are some interesting facts about Yahoo that you probably did not know:

• There are over 400 million Yahoo email accounts worldwide.



• Yahoo is a company with a $53 billion market value and weekly revenue of more than $90 million.



• Yahoo sites account for 13 percent of all page views. Thus, Yahoo sites make up the largest single presence on the Internet.



• Just two years ago, Yahoo had no search engine of its own and licensed Google for its searches. It just recently began buildingt its own search engine after acquiring Inktomi, Alta Vista and Overture, and it has become a big rival against its once search provider Google.



• Yahoo Desktop Search is based on the desktop search system created by X1 Technologies company.



• Yahoo recently bought the following services to add to its services offerings: Flickr, a system for storing, sharing and commenting on photographs; Upcoming, a scheduling application; and Oddpost, a mail utility.



• Last but not least, Yahoo sites has more than 200 million active users in more than 20 countries.

Watch out Google! Yahoo still has what it takes to be number one.

Read more about Yahoo! in this article "A Journey to the Center of Yahoo" by James Fallows in the New York Times.

Different measures of market structures

There are different measures of market structures, such as the four-firm concentration ratio and the Herfindfahl-Hirschman index (HHI). The four-firm concentration ratio is the fraction of total industry sales produced by the four largest firms in the industry. If the ratio equals one, the industry is a monopoly or oligopoly; if it is zero, the industry is competitve. The HHI is the sum of the squared market shares of firms in a given industry multiplied by 10,000. It can range from 10,000 for a monopoly to zero for a perfectly competive industry.

Other summary statistics include the Lerner index, the Rothschild index, and the Dansby-Willig index. These indexes provide a manager information about industry cost and demand conditions. For instance, the greater the Lerner index in an industry, the greater the ability of a firm in an industry to charge a high markup on its product.

You can read more about this in chapter 7 of Michael Baye's Managerial Economics and Business Strategy, which is the textbook for my MBA 603 class.

It has been a productive night spent with my silly and half-awake Hoang-Anh.

Cool web applications: Writely, Num Sum, and Yahoo! Local Maps

Check out the following 3 cool web applications.

Writely is a free online word precessing tool. You can check it out at www.writely.com. Here are some ideas on how you can use Writely:

• Pick exactly who can access your documents.


• Upload from Word & save to your desktop.


• Edit your documents anytime, from anywhere.

Num Sum is a free online sharable sociable spreadsheet. You can check it out www.numsum.com. Here are some usage ideas for Num Sum:

• Home Budgeting


• Tracking Search Keywords


• Online Stock Portfolio


• Fantasy Sports

Yahoo! Local Maps Beta @ maps.yahoo.com/beta. I have been waiting for Yahoo! to catch up to Google and Microsoft maps for a while, and now it finally happens.

Windows Live

At the launch of Windows Live on Tuesday, Microsoft showed off eight or so services. Some of them are as follows:

Live.com beta
Windows Live Mail beta
Windows Live Safety Center beta
Windows Live Favorites beta
Windows Live Messenger beta
Windows OneCare Live beta
Windows Live Search beta-mobile

Read more about this at news.com and the official live.com site.

Microsoft to start offering Windows Live and Office Live

Microsoft previewed two new services, Windows Live and Office Live, yesterday. These services will complement and extend the capabilities of its core Windows and Office software. Some Windows Live services are in beta now, while Office Live will be available in early 2006.

It's going to be interesting to see how Google and Yahoo! react to these services offerings by Microsoft. Read more about it at Forbes.com.

Contact

No Homework

I just found out that the homework is not due this Thursday. Yay! This is good news, indeed.

About Me