microsoft on S Anand

Make backgrounds transparent

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:57:37 +0000

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.

Comments

Vinu 28 Apr 2010 11:21 pm: There is a tool in MS Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to set the transparent color as well, assuming of course that you plan to embed the image in a document…
S Anand 29 Apr 2010 7:19 am: Need to use the image in web pages, mostly. Would this MS Office tool still work?
S Anand 29 Apr 2010 7:20 am: True, Ravi. I need to automate this task, though. Tried ImageMagick at first, but gave up after a while.
Vinu 30 Apr 2010 5:51 pm: Good question. If you use a drag and drop, WYSIWYG web page editor, then perhaps it will translate. I tested it between Powerpoint & Word and it worked. Here’s the location of the control on PowerPoint 2007: on the Picture Tools /Format ribbon> Recolor (in the Adjust group, first from the left) drop down to “Set Transparent Color’. Keyboard accelerator = Alt + J P E S.
Atluri 28 Apr 2010 3:59 pm: This works well only for text and images with strong contrast against their background text as an image is outdated ;) and for images i would use blend->merge->eraser for edges!
Vipul 13 May 2010 5:31 am: Remove background option in MS-PowerPoint 2010 works even better. In love with that feature. :)

The Bing effect

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:14:01 +0000

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.

Timeline of Microsoft Google and Yahoo acquisitions

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:00:00 +0000

A timeline of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo acquisitions.

Shrink a market

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Bill Gates stock transactions

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000

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 2.1

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Folder Size lets you see the size of folders in Windows Explorer. Useful to find out where all the junk is hidden.

Ray Ozzie

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 12:00:00 +0000

An article on NYT about Ray Ozzie: can this man reprogram Microsoft?

Theory of Constraints in software development

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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 Coke ad

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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.”

I spent five days traveling the country with Gates, and he must have talked about IQ a hundred times. Getting the brightest bulbs to work at Microsoft has always been his obsession. It’s paid off. Microsoft does close to $40 billion in sales and has some 60,000 employees. That’s a whopping $650,000-plus of revenue per employee, topping IBM’s sales per employee twofold.

Along comes Google, with its revenue run rate of $6 billion and about 4,000 employees. Google’s sales per employee are $1.5 million, or 2.3 times that of Microsoft. This is like comparing Babe Ruth to Home Run Baker. Google now beats Microsoft in the IQ war.

Comments

Jayant 3 Nov 2005 2:46 am: Just an opinion. I think there is subtle difference between the two talents. Both are sharp but one is more commercially driven. I do think lot of behaviour changes happen due to that orientation

Office 12

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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!

Windows 95 interface

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:00:00 +0000

The story of the Windows 95 user interface.

Perfect shave

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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 :-(.

Please don’t sue us right now, our lawyer is passed out in an alley from too much moonshine, so please atleast wait until he’s found and doesn’t have a huge hangover…

Microsoft not opening more source code

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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?

Microsoft. Is it going to work today

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:00:00 +0000

False advertising. Ads that make fun of famous ads / logos.

Comments

Aditya Chaturvedi 27 Jan 2005 12:00 pm: Really Cool

Lookout

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Search engine features

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 12:00:00 +0000

On the new features of search engines.

Age of Empires mania

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 12:00:00 +0000

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?

64-bit processors

Wed, 01 Jan 2003 12:00:00 +0000

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