AltaVista- You would be missed!

Talking of Internet, what is the first name that comes in your mind?

 “Have a query, want to search something? Google it! “

With development in every field there are things that can never be forgotten like your old pair of jeans, memories of your school, your first pay check. In the same manner, those people who used to work on the Internet in mid 1990’s would certainly remember AltaVista.

Believe it or not before this rage of Google came, there was another search engine which held the supremacy over the Internet. If we are talking about July and loss, then one word comes to our mind- AltaVista. People from this generation probably won’t even remember or recognise it. Launched in December 1995, AltaVista was a decent search engine of that time.

Yahoo! announced AltaVista's fate on its Tumblr page late last month. Search industry expert Danny Sullivan gave a eulogy to AltaVista, depicting it as a bright child neglected by its parents.

The bang came to it in 2001, when Google hit it quite hard and surpassed in terms of searches performed. Although the later story is very familiar to us, still it depicts that AltaVista was the Google of its time.

On July 8^th, 2013, Yahoo! bid farewell to this search engine by permanently shutting it down after acquiring it in 2003. All the hits to this are getting redirected to the Yahoo! search engine now.

Sold five times from Digital to Compaq to CMGI to Overture service, Inc. and then to Yahoo!, this marked as the major reason for its decline. When you try to integrate everything in one, the basic functionality loses its essence. That is what happened to it in its course. In 1999, it was designed to be a web portal having features of email and Internet shopping, which was an unsuccessful operation. The time when it started to gain control over its features- it was too late. A new hero had already captured the market.

A very simple question still lingers- Would it be remembered and if yes then why?

Few reasons are as follows:

 It was one of the best of its time- Today, obviously when we have technology at our disposal, the pages get indexed in billions. But the scene was totally different in 1995. When Alta vista came in the market with indexing 20 million pages, this made the news. The search engines of that time like InfoSeek, Excite and OpenText, they stood staring at this craze.

Provided free services- Speaking of free services like now we have Google translate, there was Babel Fish, which could translate texts and web page is different languages. This service was the most popular of all, this embarked the reign of AltaVista from 1995 to 1998 precisely.

Services exclusive to AltaVista- When we used to type a word to be searched, the website listings with relevant information was displayed to us. In addition to that, on the very left corner, there used to be related searches that may give better result than what we actually typed.

On the whole, this marked as a great loss to us. But with an end a new beginning always sprouts. Salute to AltaVista for its services.

(Article for buyt.in)

NOKIA LUMIA 610-wanna buy it?

This is the time of technology more than anything and we are crazy about it, whether it is an  ipad, laptops, tabs or cell phones, right?

A 12^th class student enters a college, he wants a new phone. Whether it’s a new college to show some tashhan or its a new job to boast in front of others, even some people like to change their cell phone after sometime.

I come in the last category of people. Since I joined my post graduation, there was a plan of me buying it. This birthday my parents gifted me NOKIA LUMIA 610.

As i have some experience about this product so this post is regarding its positive and negative aspects. So if you are planning to buy it or just curious about it, read on.

Price-Rs 12,300 (buy from flipkart, they give best of deals)

Memory- 8 GB, 256 MB RAM

First the positive things:

1. Display- I am an avid reader and wanted a device that would ease my reading spur of PDF. It clearly scores a point in that. I tried sony tipo too, it was too small for my choice.

2. Cool interface- many of have seen windows 8 interface, it is quite similar to it, but it’s based windows 7.5(upgrade on its way).

3. Memory- if comparison is done with Lumia 510, obviously the more memory the merrier.

4. camera- its 5 megapixel camera is much better and come with flash too.

5. Multitasking- yes it came as a surprise to me too.

6. Great battery life- I just charge it for half an hour and literally its battery support is awesome. There is a facility of battery saver options too.

7. Value for money- strong build, Smartphone at this price. All an all a great offer

Now the negative point

1.     

 No Bluetooth usage- I was shocked when I bought this and i got to know its Bluetooth is used for next to nothing. No sending or receiving files anything. You can just transfer contacts using this. I read somewhere in next update may be January they are going to fix this (hoping for it literally).

2.     

 Using skydrive every time- transferring files is one of the tiresome work as first internet connection is needed in the phone for this. The time is wasted first in uploading it then downloading.

 

Zune as a pc suite- remember your last Nokia, how easy it was to connect it and transfer everything. With this new suite it is not.

  

 Can’t mark multiple contacts- if there is a message to be sent to your friends either make a group for them or select them individually.

  

 No expandable memory- it is just you and your 8 GB. Use it wisely.

  

  It Hangs- I encountered this problem just few days back, while playing a game.

  Less number of applications- there are many games that can’t work on it, for that it need at least Lumia 710. And as compare to android, many games are not free.

But after a whole month, i somehow started getting used to it. So, It is all dependents on the person, what he wants, what all specification he needs. For me, at first switching from android to it was very difficult, but now you can say I am adapted to it. It is a  good buy on the whole.