Google News has an option to pull stories for a given keyword. This really works for me. I have a filter setup, amongst others, to pull up cricket news. Every morning I get all the major cricket news from around the world. Very impressive. I guess other sites have the same option but there is something very elegant and simple about the Google news option that prompts you to actually use it.

The desktop becomes unusable every day. Slower and slower and buggier and buggier. I am not sure what is going on. I have anti-viras, firewall, anti-spyware all going full blaze. I guess I just need anti-windows now. Speaking of which, we were at the short-hills mall yesterday and happened to pass by the Apple store and saw the new iMac which I am supposed to be receiving in the 2nd week of Feb. Well, there wasn't too much to see. It's the same as the old iMac and the apps seem to be running OK on it. However, it didn't feel very fast. In fact, it felt a bit sluggish. I am not sure what kind of Ram they had on the showroom machine but it was a big disappointing. Also, the white space below the screen is a but much. But I just noticed the space below my monitor's screen and it is a bit too much if you consider the fact that the iMac has the whole damn computer in it as well.

Which leads me to the other issue I have. I know I need my windows PC even after I get the iMac but I am not so sure what to do with the monitor. I cost me over $800 and it works great. I don't even know where I am going to keep my CPU at this point. I can presumably access it via remote desktop so technically I don't need this monitor so I guess I can sell it for dirt cheap and use the money to buy RAM for the iMac.

So Google has decided not to do certain things in China in compliance with China's ridiculous dictatorial policies. So what's wrong about that? Google is a software company and social revolution is not what it is after. Leave it alone and stop berating it for having 'sold out'. It is a bit like saying McDonald sold out by removing beef from its fries in India or not even selling beef products in India.

I'm starting to think about what the new format for my home page should be. I basically want something very simple where I can list information about myself, my family and my interests especially photography. I would also like to showcase some technical projects like the timesheet site or software project management tool that I've been thinking of writing for years now.

I am going to be using APIs and RSS for most of my stuff that I will be using other sites to actually update. A good amount of work is still needed but the target date has been set as June 30th, to coincide with my 33rd birthday.

The frenzy over the intel based iMacs is totally uncalled for. It is good that it happened but it does it warrant so much print?

I think Ajax may be getting used too much. I tried Yahoo mail beta that is almost completely built using that and I had to switch back. Couldn't stand some of th esame problems that the desktop apps have -- please wait messages -- hourglass -- sluggish response times -- no page flashes yes but what's the point if your throughput is actually lower.