Interesting articles I read during last week

1. Lessons from the house of Lehman
2. State, city layoffs: 45,000 and counting
3. Travelers Shift to Rail as Cost of Fuel Rises
4. Is local food really miles better?
5. Unthinkable Futures
6. Geopolitics of China

Google Reader rocks

I knew about Google Reader for quite some time but came around to using it only recently. I am glad I started using it. It completely changed the way I surf Internet now a days. Earlier, I used to visit a set of blog sites regularly for my daily dose of information and entertainment. I tried using “Newsgator”, but installing it on all machines I use was cumbersome. Further “Reader” provides far more integrated experience in terms of sharing interesting blogs with others. Along with “Friendfeed”, “Reader” is a potent way to share and discover new information. In last 10 days alone I discovered new and interesting blogs. But it would be nice if all the cool features of Google Reader are combined with a native application.

Outlook is the gold standard for network enabled native application. I am looking for something similar to that.

But for now Google Reader will do for me.

American Economy’s downward spiral

The relentless bad news about American Economy makes fascinating study. The sub-prime crisis started off chain reaction which simply does not seem to stop. Many new exotic terms like “Auction Rate Securities” became conversation topics recently. America’s highly market oriented economy thrives on good news. Today I came across one more impending crisis:

The latest hit to the economy could come from state houses and city halls as state and local governments across the nation find themselves in their worst budget crisis in years due to the economic slowdown.

State, City layoffs

This can have further negative impact on the overall economy. American cities are engines of its growth and prosperity. With out sufficient employees, the services in the cities and towns will suffer leading to even more negative sentiment.

 

I think it will take many years before a wave of positive sentiment returns to American Economy. It will be interesting watch the changes in the balance of power in the world.

–raja

Technorati Tags: Economy

Inflation hits double digits

This week, inflation has crossed into double digits. Finance Minister is talking about steps to curb the inflation. Personally I am scared about these steps. Most probably the interest rates will be increased, which will lead to increased EMI of my home loan.

In my opinion, there is a need to take a long term view of this situation. The reason inflation increased so much is supply has not grown at the same pace as the demand. In India, today there is lot of inefficiency in the economy. Steps should be taken to improve efficiency in the system. This will help curb the relentless price increase that is witnessed today.

As regards Oil prices, I think increased efficiency will lead to lesser consumption of oil. This is subject for another post.

–raja

First impressions of Prism

Today, I tried a lot to get Prism to work from behind Proxy at office, but the effort was in vain. The steps mentioned on blogs to get it working did not help. The biggest issue is there is no way to debug the issue. I think Prism has long distance to go before it is usable.

But I tried it from home and it worked fine. I created a “Facebook” app.

There is nothing much at this moment in it. I actually felt the lack of back button a few times. I think we are still at very nascent stage.

 

My wish list for Prism (on Windows):

1. Integration with System Tray. Ability to display notifications like Outlook.
2. Integration with Control Panel. I should be able to configure the Web App from control panel.
3. Integration with Add/Remove Programs. I should be able to uninstall the application from there.
4. I should be able to access same application through browser and get same experience.

 

Microsoft has something up its sleeve to counter Prism. You will get to know about that by end of this year.

–raja

Mozilla Prism

Lately I have been reading about Mozilla Prism and trying to play with it. The concept is very interesting and has dramatic implications in future. Prism tries to encapsulate a Web site into a standalone Desktop Web Application. On the face of it this may look pretty ordinary, but with interesting possibilities. Take following quote:

One of the biggest advantages of integrating a web app more tightly with the desktop is the possibility of providing new and potentially more ergonomic ways of interacting with the app. Dock and tray icon menus are an example of this.

from http://browsing.justdiscourse.com/2008/05/21/mozilla-prism-update/.

This comment sums up essentially what the Prism developers want to achieve. A rich desktop experience combined with ease of use of web applications.

In case you are wondering where you heard this before, Microsoft has been drumming up S+S for last few years. But the approach taken by Prism intends to make the OS irrelevant. A developer only needs to learn HTML, XUL and Jscript to build rich S+S application which leverages internet technologies.

Future is exciting.

I will continue to watch for developments in this space with interest.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post.

Regarding the handle of my blog, this blog represents my identity on web. I like to pour out my thoughts about all the happenings of this world in this blog.

raja