Twitter has just redesigned its homepage and added "search.twitter.com" and "trends" to the menu bar. Even search page looks good now with new features like matching users, featured users. It also looks like featured users is something which can be monetized in the future if not already. As this new redesign is available to only select users right now, there is a video showing the new twitter interface to the people who are interested.
 

This is my first screencast (I promise future screencasts would be better with sound and other effects). This screencast shows the installation of twitter client "Twitux" on Ubuntu(via packaging tool apt-get). Most of the softwares on Ubuntu can be installed the same way.
 

If you are like me, a huge fan of Half-Life, have you wondered while playing the game that what if this is real and what if you are a resistance force in a world ruled by Combines ( aka Palestinian in an Israeli occupied territory). Half-Life is by far one of the best game i have played along with Deus Ex, it was not just about the game-play and graphics, it was actually something more than that. After the Doom movie, i always wondered if the movie on Half-Life would be announced but still there is no news from Valve.

This video is made by Purchase Brothers , i heard it in some comments they made this video with just $500.  They have done a great job with special effects and have instilled the feel of City 17 and Half-Life environments in this video. I am looking forward to the other parts of this series.

I first read Hacker Manifesto back in 98 or 99 when i was still 12 or 13.  I  still remember one of the first things i looked up when i first had access to internet was for the word "Hacker", some of the articles i came across was "How to be a Hacker" by Eric S Raymond and Hacker Manifesto by Mentor. One of the first things i learned about Hackers was they were extremely smart people who loved technology and most of the innovation in technology comes from Hackers. They are pretty much the Architects of the future and they are building the future by experimenting with the technology (by making things work which were not meant to work that way). Here is the Hacker Manifesto by Mentor written back in 1986.

The Hacker Manifesto

by
+++The Mentor+++
Written January 8, 1986

Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...

Damn kids. They're all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?

I am a hacker, enter my world...

Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...

Damn underachiever. They're all alike.

I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."

Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...

Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.

And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...

Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...

You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

Well the name says it all, it is a story of Liz Murray and her journey from being homeless to studying at Harvard. Liz Murray was born to poor, drug-addict parents who were also suffering from AIDS. She had a bad childhood which included eating from dumpsters, mentally unstable parents at home and school where she was unwanted or untouchable. She faces many hurdles until finally she makes up her mind to go back to school after her mothers death. Liz says" I knew at that moment I had to make a choice. I could submit to everything that was happening and live a life of excuses... or I could push myself. I could push myself and make my life good". It is a rags to riches story like many other stories but it is a real story. What I really loved about the movie was the human spirit where a girl goes achieves what she wants against all odds. After watching this movie, one thing i realized was our life is always in our own hands, how we make it depends on us. We can either shape it beautifully or find excuses to hide behind. All in all a beautiful movie, a must watch if you like me believe in tremendous human-spirit. Last bit of the movie was really great, even after a bad childhood, she still loved her family. "I'd give it back, all of it, if I could have my family back. "

* A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
 
* I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
 
* In the business world, the rear view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
 
* It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.
 
* Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
 
* Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.
 
* Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.
 
* Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.
 
* Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.
 
* Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
 
* Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
 
* The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.
 
* The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities — that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future — will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.
 
* The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body.
 
* There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don’t understand, but that doesn’t cause us to stay up at night. It just means we go on to the next one, and that’s what the individual investor should do.
 
* There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
 
* Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.
 
* You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.
 
* Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business
 
 
-- Azharuddin. A
Blog: http://geeyk.com