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Net Gains (Dec 09, 97)
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His first series of sites are computer related news sites -
news.com, pcweek.com, infoworld.com, wired.com, techweb.com. These
sites being updated many times a day, Mr. Mukhi connects to each
of these five sites thrice a day, spending about an hour on an
average. This way he gets most of the latest updates, reports,
and newsbites. Just like some people can't live without those
three pegs a day, Mr. Mukhi finds it difficult to live without
his dose of latest news from around the computer world.
Though a lot of people call him a Microsoft hater, Mr. Mukhi's
day is not complete if he does not make his three-times-a-day
pilgrimage to microsoft.com shrine. He acknowledges Microsoft's
dominance as it boasts of the single largest site of the latest
Net technology. "You can't be on the Net if you don't know
what Microsoft is doing", he adds. Being a teacher reputed
for teaching his students the latest technology, Mr. Mukhi says
that the Microsoft site serves as a guide, helping him keep his
students updated.
After finding perfunctory news about some new technology, Mr.
Mukhi uses search engines to look out for more detailed information
about these advances, things like the hard-core program code.
Although he has no favourite, Altavista (http://altavista.digital.com),
Infoseek (http://www.infoseek.com), Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com),
and Lycos (http://www.lycos.com) are on his list. However, the
unsatisfactory results of search engines turn him off at times.
If this frustration rules, we may end up with a better developed
search engine - Vijay.com maybe? Who knows ?!?
But for most of the latest Net developments, Mr. Mukhi is a
subscriber to technical mailing lists, which provide him with
direct links to homepages of developers of the latest technology.
This cuts the layers of dressing that usually coat the latest
developments and takes interested hard-core tecchie readers to
the low down on how it's actually done.
To provide the occasional light moment during his lectures,
seminars, and writings, Mr. Mukhi continuously collects some of
the better jokes from the Net, and from various mailing lists.
A smile a day, they say … keeps the doctor away - and someone
who spends upto 20 hours a day working needs to keep the doctor
away ! Here's wishing Mr. Mukhi a belated birthday for the 7th,
and the Midas touch for continued success.
Deutsche Telekom AG (http://www.dtag.de/), a German ISP has
been reimbursing its subscribers for unsuccessful attempts to
log on to their T-Online service. Apparently, subscribers to the
service have had difficulties dialing in since some changes at
their ISP end. Its interesting to think of what would happen to
VSNL's increasing net profits if they decided to follow suit…
Is VSNL listening ?