This is the simplest way that I’ve found to make the background colour of an image transparent. Download GIMP Open your image. I’ll pick this one: Optional: Select Image – Mode – RGB if it’s not RGB. Select Colors – Colors to Alpha… Click on the white button next to “From” and select the eye-dropper. Pick the green colour on the image, and click OK The anti-aliasing is preserved as well. ...
This graph is the number of referrals Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, sent to my site over the last few days. Looks like the hype is dying out. Though Bing did leapfrog Yahoo briefly, that lasted just one day.
A timeline of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo acquisitions.
Grow by shrinking a market. For every dollar of revenue Microsoft made, it took away six dollars of revenue from their competitors. Every dollar of Microsoft’s gain caused an asymmetrical amount of pain in the marketplace. They made money by shrinking the market.
Stock transactions by Bill Gates. He periodically sells a few million of Microsoft shares. Wonder what he does with the $300 million or so every week.
Folder Size lets you see the size of folders in Windows Explorer. Useful to find out where all the junk is hidden.
An article on NYT about Ray Ozzie: can this man reprogram Microsoft?
Microsoft’s IT department has used the Theory of Constraints in software development. Comments Suresh 17 May 2006 5:39 am: Interesting and informative
Bill Gates in a Coca Cola ad. In August 2005, Bill Gates starred in a Coca Cola commercial. He wanders in the halls of Microsoft late one night looking for someone to loan him change for the Coke machine. “I’ll pay you back,” he promises.
Talent wars. The interesting part was the first three paragraphs. Flying on the Delta Shuttle with Bill Gates 12 years ago, I asked, “What Microsoft competitor worries you most?” “Goldman Sachs.” I gave Gates a startled look. Was Microsoft about to try the investment banking business? “Software,” he said, “is an IQ business. Microsoft must win the IQ war, or we won’t have a future. I don’t worry about Lotus or IBM, because the smartest guys would rather come to work for Microsoft. Our competitors for IQ are investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.” ...
A 40-minute video preview of Office 12. I don’t normally watch videos this long. But it was worth it. Office 12 has a REALLY different user interface (critique). It’s also supposed to have a lot of new features. What struck me the most in the video is how Powerpoint creates diagrams. You type text, and Powerpoint can automatically convert that into value chains, org charts, etc. Julie mentions that a blind user was able to create graphics using this feature, and that this was the first time she has been able to create graphics in all her life!
The story of the Windows 95 user interface.
How to get that perfect shave. Keep your face wet with hot water, use a brush, and a double-edged razor. Comments Jetru 7 Apr 2005 9:18 am: errr.cool!
Pirate Bay has been receiving threats from various firms, like Microsoft, EA, SEGA, etc. Their response has been straightforward. via Dhar Hello and thank you for contacting us. We have shut down the website in question. Oh wait, just kidding. We haven’t, since the site in question is fully legal. Unlike certain other countries, such as the one you’re in, we have sane copyright laws here. But we also have polar bears roaming the streets and attacking people :-(. ...
Why is Microsoft not opening more source code? Apparently inappropriate code comments is one of the reasons according to this story. I wonder what kind of things developers put in comments that would be so bad for the rest of us to see? Comments sathish 10 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: checking if the contact name is coming properly.. Venkat 10 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: GMaP is cool! Better than mappy. Do we have something like this for India?
False advertising. Ads that make fun of famous ads / logos. Comments Aditya Chaturvedi 27 Jan 2005 12:00 pm: Really Cool
Microsoft bought Lookout. Lookout searches for e-mail in Outlook across .pst files. As soon as they did, Microsoft closed downloads of Lookout. In contrast, when Google bought Picasa, they opened it up for free.
On the new features of search engines.
I’ve been playing a bit. (A bit too much.) AoE. Some links. 1 2 Comments Aurelia 19 Oct 2006 1:25 pm: DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE HELL THE CHARACTERS ARE SAYING WHEN YOU CLICK ON THEM?
Article on 64-bit processors. Interesting description of the PC industry pecking order: Microsoft > Intel > HP / Dell. Keeping that in mind does help predict a lot of the PC’s future. via RobotWisdom
Gates beats Stallman in India. via RobotWisdom
Microsoft (2002) vs IBM (1982). An article on whether Microsoft will go the IBM Way. Microsoft’s ability to adapt and prosper hinges on meeting a third main challenge: creating trust.
Nice strategy, Microsoft. Users aren’t upgrading to your new products. So you decide to focus on security and force upgrades. And, in the meantime, sue open-source competitors and spend lots of money to beat Linux.
Sorry. You have to buy Windows 2000 or XP to use Office 11. Microsoft’s next strategy to sell their operating systems. via Google News
Microsoft’s ’true story’ of a Mac-to-PC convert isn’t true. The “convert” works in a Public relations firm hired by Microsoft. And probably didn’t switch in the first place. (The original ad)
The real reason for .NET: taking Windows to UNIX.
Nostalgia. Remember when Microsoft was more evil than Satan himself?
Good summary of what Microsoft is up to at the Economist.
At last, Microsoft will be revealing its Windows source. Parts of it.
Microsoft ended up distributing the Nimda virus. Gee! (Update: They may well do it through Media Player.)
If Microsoft released Linux… but then, they may not need to.
Where do you want to go today?
Several ways of receiving mail on a mobile phone.
Corporate anthems in IT companies. Imagine having to listen to these for motivation. (Or singing along!)
Good and Bad. Mac and PCs. On TV.
So, does Microsoft really have a sense of humour? (Hint: no.)
Microsoft will now focus on security. Thank heavens.
Microsoft is discontinuing support for a whole lot of products.
Windows XP is good at fixing itself. (But don’t upgrade yet!)
They say it is possible. Living without Microsoft.
Microsoft first tries to block MSN access to non-IE browsers, and then surrenders. I still can’t access their photos section through Opera.
Windows XP is OK.
Download StarOffice 6.0b if you’re looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office that’s free (at least the beta is).
IE6 is out with new features. My site has already had quite a few hits with people using IE6! BTW, it doesn’t have Java or Plugin support.
I’d missed this earlier. Microsoft has released its Windows CE source code to the public!
The public preview of IE 6 is out. The revolutionary feature is smart tags. I think the image toolbar is a pretty neat idea too.
50% of all Net surfing is done on the sites of Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and Napster. There’s consolidation of web properties for you!
Windows Media Player 8 lets you convert audio & video files into its new format. It compresses better than MP3, apparantly.
The preview release of Internet Explorer 6 is out.
A sneak preview of MS IE6. What is worrying is that Microsoft may not release IE6 as a standalone application. They’re planning to bundle it with their next OS: Whister.
Microsoft Deathwatch. No, Bill isn’t dead, but his servers were for a while.
Microsoft makes video games – Sony’s domain. Sony moved into PCs – Compaq’s domain. Compaq moves into electronics – Sony’s domain. Intel moves into consumer electronics – Sony’s domain. With growing technology, industry borders become blurred.
The latest browser stats say that 69% of the world uses, Internet Explorer, while only 27% use Netscape. BrowserWatch says 57%-26%. Netscape 6 might do something about it, given that Microsoft’s split.
Microsoft dumps Java. Doesn’t worry me to much. I’ve never had much use for Java as a user. They’ve ‘adopted’ Perl, though. And I was always a Perl fan.
Microsoft has been ruled a monopoly. The findings are a pretty interesting economic analysis. (The US District court site also has a copy.)
Curious that Google should return Microsoft’s home page when you search for “more evil than Satan himself”… When I tried this on 24th June 2000, it didn’t work. Maybe Google got smart. Or was it Microsoft? On 3rd July 2000, it worked again. Comments Anonymous 18 Dec 2006 3:11 am: I tried it, doesn’t work now Max 30 Mar 2009 6:26 pm: It’s been fixed, Microsoft (and also Bush) were pretty mad at Google.