Internet

All over news outlets over the last two days is the fact that Microsoft has bid $44.6 billion for Yahoo.

The implications of such an acquisition are far reaching.

The OLPC has started deployment to schools in some countries.

The way the students interact with it, learn how to use it, and interact to each other is already amazing. There are stories of school drop outs coming back to school for the sake of the laptop, aggressive kids who become experts in the OLPC, and help others out using it, and more.

Two recent reviews of the XO One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) are very interesting. The first is by a 12 year old, and the other is by a 9 year old.

Last month, there were reports that Comcast is sending forged RST (reset) packets for BitTorrent file sharing, hence hindering users who use this protocol.

Now, the local newspaper, The Record, has an article about how a local company, Sandvine, supplied Comcast with the technology to do what it is doing.

Sandvine's sales and stock price have been doing well of late.

The Canadian Press had an article on how some members of Facebook are finding it annoying to the degree that they leave Facebook altogether.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is set to announce a set of software and services for mobile phones in the next two months. The service will provide search, Gmail, Maps, and YouTube.

Note that Google already acquired Zingku and Jaiku, two mobility oriented web sites recently.

The auction site eBay has rolled out a social network for shoppers, called Neighborhoods, focusing on several areas, such as Star Trek, food, shoes, knitting, ...etc.

Via CBC.

I have a picture of Salma, my youngest daughter, titled the girl with the curly hair. Cute picture, proud father, normal blog stuff ...

Today, I got this request from someone called Senthil (assuming he is from India), requesting that I link back to his site about hair care tips and hair loss remedies from that page.

Facebook has another milestone today.

Asharq Al Awsat, an Arabic language daily published in Britian targeting Arabic speaking readers in the Middle East has coverage on the Facebook phenomenon.

The article discusses Facebook as a social networking platform as well as an alternative media with user generated content. It quotes several professors and "experts" in the field of alternative media.

Well, for the last month, I have been in Egypt, on a visit to extended family.

I planned to work via my laptop and had an ADSL installed from Link for that month. On the days I am out of the city, I planned to use the dialup modem.

Sounds like a good plan with all the bases covered. Right? No, wrong!

What happened was a series of unpleasant surprises that left me frustrated.