MSNBC: The year in pictures

Finance.com has shut down. Desktop.com too. NetZero. And the biggest of all: Pets.com (chart). This is more the trend than exception. People who had accounts on these? Tough luck! That’s one reason to stick to big players like Yahoo or Microsoft.

XHTML is now a standard. It can be used instead of HTML for portable devices.

My guess is, with the US market slowdown, the Fed will reduce interest rates, software stocks will pickup again and live happily ever after. Time to buy IT, not sell!

Wal-Mart is the second largest company in the world in terms of revenues. Only 2 IT companies made to the top 10: IBM and AT&T

Would someone please tell Sushma Swaraj to hurry up the Convergence Bill? Now we have to wait till the budget session!!

Now that SEBI has relaxed the IPO floor from Rs. 250 crores to Rs. 100 crores, we can see a lot more IPOs.

Are credit card transactions on the Net safe? Egghead had their’s stolen.

Some time soon, we’ll be using something like VisorPhone or Stinger – which are like handheld computers with a mobile phone. Forget the keyboard. We’ll be talking to them!

Strong numbers searches through auctions and tells you what the fair price of any product is. Now, that’s market information!

Jain Internet is the first to move from a free ISP to a paid one. How long before the rest follow? LESSONS: It’s NOT okay to sell products for less than what they cost ( USA Today).

TechTarget is a search engine on all kinds of IT topics, likd Linux, EBusiness, SAP, etc.

Cliches. Tells you what cliches like ass backwards mean.

Phone calls through the Net are legal. This is based on the GOT-IT report.

Oxford School of Learning is a free online B-school of sorts. Lots of case studies (with answers), reviews, etc.

Planet-M is online.

A neat Tom & Jerry site. Also has video clips.

ICANN isn’t the only domain-name body. There’s competition for that too, with YouCANN, Open-RSC and others. Wired has the story

Edgar Allen Poe’s 150 year old puzzle has been solved.

Free PCs are dead. Freebies are dying, since online advertising is dying. Now, Altavista’s free ISP died. Is this the beginning of the end for free ISPs in India? For that matter, is this the end of free everything? No. Free software thrives (Opera will be free). Why is that?