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For people interested, here's a

For people interested, here's a HOWTO on installing Ximian's version of OpenOffice.org in Mandrake 9.1.
I love this version coz of those fantastic alpha-blended icons that they have put into OO.o !
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Here's a screenshot from my Box

Hey ... this one looks

Hey ... this one looks neat ...



Why You Should Switch to the Mozilla Firebird browser ... [Link]

Here comes the very first

Here comes the very first release of the next generation mail client from the Mozilla Project. A couple of months ago, the Mozilla organisation had made an annoucement about their marketing approach wherein they outlined the future browser release as Firebird (formerly known as Phoenix) and the mail client as Thunderbird.

While I'm still to be all that much impressed with Firebird, I'll give Thunderbird a whirl tommorow.

Am still in the market for a permanent browser preference switching all the time between Mozilla, Galeon & Opera. An Ephiphany RPM install today broked & the browser refused to start spewing some Orbit error. Need to checkout the XFT build of Firebird.

Thunderbird Mail Project Page

My blog contains a posting

My blog contains a posting on the Nigerian e-mail spam scam & i had made a rhetorical statement about Liberia & charles taylor being the next protagonist of such spam mails ... & this is what I see today in the Google's AdSense ad on my blog today :

Liberia Information Discover history, economy, culture and child care in Liberia. Tired of E-Mail Scams? Powerful software uses A.I. to stop Spam now! Free Download.

Man, this is something ... these guys @ Google sure do have a good thing going ... talk about targetting !!!

Given the fact that it

Given the fact that it is only a matter of time (if it isnt already so) that the majority of the content on the web would be user contributed in the form of personal home pages, blogs, discussion forums, mailing lists etc etc, I found it rather interesting that Google's AdSense finds its way into many of these user generated / published content.
Wouldn't this mean that Google now would find its way into a majority of the web pages around the word (given that anyone with a decent website can apply for their AdSense text based advertising) ??? ...
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One of the coolest visible

One of the coolest visible features of Xfree86 4.3 for me is those cursor themes (I personally use Jimmac's theme that I got off kde-look.org), there is a thread on currently in Gnome Desktop devel list of this should be included in Gnome 2.4 final release.
Xfree 86 cursor themes are anyways part of Redhat 9 & also Ximian's XD2 ...
The general consensus on the list seems to be that feature list for 2.4 has been *frozen* & that this should wait rill 2.6 (which is atleast another 9 months away) !!! :-(
well ... i guess till then I can pull these themes off any avbl site (why not good old art.gnome.org) & then untar them manually
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Yay ! this thing works

Yay ! this thing works in Opera ! Cool !
& Yup ... am back to blogging after a short beak !
Blog this !!!

AOL recently spun off the

AOL recently spun off the Mozilla browser, turning custodianship for the software over to an independent foundation. Will the independent Mozilla Foundation be better able to challenge the Microsoft monopoly than it was as an arm of AOL?
Check out this poll @ InternetWeek
My safe bet vote says "YES" !!!

Should India send its troops

Should India send its troops to Iraq if there were to be a UN mandate on peace keeping in Iraq. Not exactly a simple question because it would have, hidden behind it numerous uncomfortable questions and snide comments. Things like ...

How neutral would be UN be anyway ? Wouldn't the US be bullying / arm-twisting the UN's mandate into something that suits it ?

In such a case, isnt a UN mandate more of a charade ? an act of legalising an act against humanity ?

even if there were to be a UN mandate under which Indian troops serve in Iraq, what is to prevent the Iraqis from viewing these force as part of an Occupation force and there cause harm to them ?

Who's war are we gonna be fighting anyway ?
I was truly proud of our Government's decision NOT to send in troops into Iraq under an American command. This was, one bold act of courageous diplomacy engaged in by the Indian government. One really feared a repeat of the spineless response to 9/11 in offering all our services and more in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
I would say that India stay away from Iraq till the day when the US finally confides to its massive screw up in Iraq !!!
3 months of Occupation and yet basic facilities are not restored ! Unannounced searches and excesses by the occupying forces !
To George W Bush & his cohort Tony Blair, I have one thing to say ... "Why ?"