Coloursalive

This is a day that should go down in history.

The long overdue demise of IE6 has begun in earnest… Google today mailed Google Apps admins stating that they would be phasing out support for legacy browsers, including Internet Explorer 6 in order to provide quicker and more sophisticated services to their users.

Dear Google Apps admin,

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 ​as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.  We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience.  We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

I believe that this is a long-overdue step, and would be thrilled to see other service providers such as hotmail, yahoo and (in India) rediff begin phasing out support for legacy browsers, giving the internet a shove in the right direction.

This would mean that web developers can look forward to implementing more advanced features and styling of their websites without going through all the trouble of creating a scaled down, and bug fixed version for older, more buggy browsers.

If you’re wondering what browser to use instead of IE6, you could try Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari or even Internet Explorer 8.

Go ahead and exercise your right to choose.

Yes… It had to happen…

This would eventually stop expansion in some regions and cause them to start to recollapse. As they were collapsing, the gravitational pull of the collapsing region got smaller, it would spin faster – just as skaters spinning on ice spin faster as they draw in their arms. Eventually, when the region got small enough, it would be spinning fast enough to balance the attraction of gravity, and in this way disklike rotating galaxies are born.

From A Brief History of Time – The updated and expanded tenth anniversary edition by Stephen Hawking.

Why this passage? Because the ‘tag’ mentioned that I have to:

• Grab the nearest book and go to Page 123
• Skip the first 5 sentences
• Post the next 3 sentences
• Tag more people – Which I will gladly skip because the people I know would TArGet me (in a bad way) if I did such things to them…
• And mention the person who inflicted this ‘thing’ upon me…

I must admit… I did not expect the lines to make much sense… but they did. Thankfully so.

Who woulda thunk it? The Vandalur Zoo has a website. Admittedly, a pretty boring one, with limited information about their new features, such as the night safari (which I wanted info about).

If you’re wondering how to navigate the website and understand all that it has to offer, the best way would be to visit the zoo’s sitemap. The best bits about the website are the cryptic url (http://www.aazoopark.gov.in/) and the yahoomail contact address (aazp@yahoo.com).

Really, the Indian Government and it’s agencies should go to advertising / marketing workshops.

Another website by ColoursAlive, the corporate website of Real Image Media Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is now live. You can read about Real Image, and what they do for the Indian and International Cinema industry.

Yes, I’m not going to buy it. Why? Because Amazon is making it ‘optional’ for authors to disable Text-To-Speech functionality on their books.

Yes, authors, shoot yourself in the head… I’d rather buy bootleg or secondhand copies of books off the streets. Much cheaper… And I’ll ask my parrot to do the Text-To-Speech part…

Read more here http://techdirt.com/articles/20090227/1759173928.shtml

I’ve recently become rather interested in the extreme sport – parkour. There’s been a spike in the overall interest in parkour around the globe. However, Parkour in Chennai, India is still in its infancy, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s teaching themselves the basics.

If anyone knows of the guys in Chennai who are gutsy enough to jump of buildings and stuff, call me. or shoot me a mail at susheel[dot]c[at]gmail[dot]com.

Cheers!

I don’t know whether this ruins the engine or not, but when I’m low on fuel, I like to let my motorbike just coast along on it’s own momentum. I just give it a tweak on the throttle and glide down the road.

It’s taught me a couple of things.

1. You don’t really realise how much you’re braking until you consciously stay off the brake lever. Try this; but be careful about how you ride when you do, it could be dangerous.

   When you see the road ahead is clear of any traffic, tweak the throttle until you’ve got a nice cruising speed. Then let go the accelerator, and clamp down on the clutch. Coast until you’re going quite slow. It’s surprising how long a well maintained bike will maintain momentum.

   If you’re cruising down a scenic highway, this is a great tip.

2. It made me realise that I’m not using my motorbike to it’s maximum fuel-efficiency. I don’t need to be at 4,000 RPM all the time. I could let my engine idle at 1,000 RPM and still get where I want to get; though admittedly, it would be slower.
3. I usually get around 47Km to every litre of petrol when I ride in the city. Using this fuel saving technique, I can get up to 60Km per litre if I am not travelling in an area with a lot of traffic and gear shifting.
4. I’ve found that sometimes, I’ll be coasting along, and bikers around me slow down. They slow down while throttling their engines, and braking. I’ve found that coasting alongside them, knowing that they’re burning up more fuel than I am is a comforting thought.
5. It’s taught me the dangers of braking late in traffic. This could become seriously dangerous if you’re not an experienced bike rider. I discourage you from doing it. I, however, will continue to do so.
6. It’s taught me the advantages of braking late in traffic. Sometimes, when I’m moving relatively slowly, I avoid braking until I absolutely have to. This keeps me moving longer, and each second that I’m moving with my engine in idle is a little more petrol saved.

   In terms of plain biking skills, it’s taught me to gauge other driver’s possible actions, and ride based on that. It’s taught me how to be more alert, and to keep moving inspite of drivers ahead of me changing their lanes, directions and speeds.

7. It taught me that I also like to rev my engine and hit high speeds sometimes. And that riding a bike at slow speeds can get boring.

Feel free to mix up your bike-riding techniques from time to time. Try it out sometime, but remember, it may not be good for your bike’s engine. I’m no mechanic. Also, you’ve got to becareful if you try this in traffic. It could get dangerous.

WARNING: This could be dangerous to life and limb. Try it at your own risk, and even then, only if you have at-least two years of frequent bike-riding experience.

So, we finally launched the website. MargazhiRaagam.com is officially live and running. I’m quite happy with the design. The emphasis is on the imagery, because that is what the entire affair is about. High quality video coupled with some popular names in the Carnatic Music Industry, conceptualised and directed by some of the leading names in South-Indian Cinema.

If you’re a big fan of Carnatic Music, this is a must-watch. Check it out when it is released in theatres on the 18th of December this year. Meanwhile, you can have a Preview of Margazhi Raagam in HD right here.

Do leave a comment to let me know what you think of the website.

Just working on the website – Margazhi Raagam.com. Update when the website is up.

You’ve just moved to a Mac from a PC? Looking for a great BitTorrent client that’s like utorrent, for Mac? Not found one yet?

Try Transmission, its a great software that is light, has a very low memory profile, is cross-platform compatible (Mac and GTK+), works perfectly, has no spyware or adware, and even has a web interface… Just like uTorrent.

Here you go:

Transmission Screenshots

Transmission Downloads