YouTube Redesign Website Structure and UI Update

Google has rolled out all new YouTube design and has introduced more user friendly YouTube UI Redesign, its a part of Google+ project in which Google is changing UI of all its products. The new YouTube design is quite neat and clean as compare to its previous design which contains and focused more on two major colors Blue and White but in its new design YouTube now contains three major colors Grey, Red and Black, which has become signature mark of all new Google.

YouTube has also improved its UI structure of website in which they made changes in Video pages, the homepage and user Channels and also pulling some style features from Google�s other web products. The new YouTube homepage has seen a revamp with social integration and a brand new design. When you will get logged in you will notice all the new videos from your subscriptions in a list, with customization features on the left. You can filter the videos based on the selectors on the left, along with customizing your own channel, connecting with Facebook and Google+ to share videos and viewing suggested channels or popular YouTube videos.

I think the new and improved YouTube design is quite impressive and user friendly to manage all video subscription from homepage login. What guys have to say about new YouTube Design? Please comments.

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2:16 AM | 0 comments

The Jedi Reviews - The Euro 2012 draw + forecast!

So the schedule for Euro 2012 is set.

And in true Manchester United style, England dodged the bullet and was dealt a VERY favorable draw.

How come shit like this only happen to the super overrated England team? Fooken hell!

So here are my first thoughts of the draw. Detailed analysis coming soon.

Group A

Greece, Poland, Russia, Czech Republic

Looks like a hard group to call if it was a few years back, with the Czechs making strong favorites to qualify and Greece slugging it out with Russia for second place. Sadly, this is not 2006 and for that, I'm calling for Greece to win this boring group, with the Ruskies making second spot theirs.

Group B

Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Denmark

The 'Group of Death' and the hardest group to call on paper. Then again, considering how erratic Portugal is, don't be surprised if they flop - it is almost a one man team anyway, relying too much on Cristiano Ronaldo. Nani? He's crap. Expect the Jerries to get through unscathed, with the Dutch close behind. Possibly separated due to goal difference. Mark my words - Denmark will spoil the party for the Portuguese.

Group C

Spain, Italy, Croatia, Ireland

The group I feel, is most interesting to watch, and truly, the group of death, really. Two most recent World Cup winners with two erratic teams in the Croats and the OIRISH. And with Trap coaching them, don't be surprised seeing him biting back at Italy. My call would be Spain to qualify, along with Italy who scrape past Ireland on goal difference or a point.

Group D

England, France, Ukraine, Sweden

I think this favorable draw was given to compensate England missing the World Cup hosting bid. Really. A has-been France, Ukraine and ageing team of furniture makers. England cannot not qualify through this group, and to their advantage, able to preserve their players from any injuries heading into the knock-out stages. A draw with France, an easy win past other two. So it's gonna be the English and the French who gets through.

So recap - The Greeks, Ruskies, Jerries, Dutch, Spanish, Italians, English and the French to make it through to the quarters.

Notice how all teams in debt due to the Euro crisis got through? Heheh!

Next entry I will analyze how these teams pair up with each other come the knock-out stages and possibly call on a winner. =)

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5:10 PM | 0 comments

Plaudits for Tupaia

Best books

First, Tupaia is included in the Listener list of The 100 Top Reads of 2011.

It's in the History category.

Tupaia: the Remarkable Story of Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator:

Tupaia was the go-between who played a major role in placating Tahitians when the first English ship reached the island, and later proved an invaluable asset as James Cook's endeavour sailed to New Zealand and Australia.  He deserved a full biography, and thanks to Druett's meticulous research he now has one that is comprehensive and highly readable.

The Listener did not include the wonderful jacket image in the spread, but never mind, the latest Te Papa newsletter features it in its link to Te Papa store:

TE PAPA STORE READ MORE

<><><><><> <><><><><>

The New Zealand Coast Calendar 2012 $19.99

The Wedding Dress: 300 Years of Bridal Fashions $85

Tupaia: Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator $55

The Margaret Mahy Treasury $45

And at the same time a review came in from Doryanthes, A Periodic Southern Sydney Journal of Art, Heritage, and Natural History 

Tupaia, Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator

We tend to forget that English was probably not the first non-indigenous language to be spoken on the shores of Kurnell in April 1770.  Aboard the Endeavour was a Ra’iatean nobleman and priest named Tupaia.  He had served James Cook well as a navigator, interpreter and cultural intermediary from Tahiti to New Zealand.  Cook hoped that he might again serve him well as an interpreter at Kurnell.  Unfortunately the Tahitian-Ra’iatean branch of the great Polynesian group of languages was no use among the Dharawal-speaking Gweagal.

Tupaia has recently become the subject of a beautifully written biography by New Zealander Joan Druett.  It is the product of a great deal of patient historical research, using sources dating back to the visit of Samuel Wallis to Tahiti in June 1767.  It is also enriched by a wealth of contextual post-contact ethnographic scholarship. I can thoroughly recommend it.  Furthermore, it is a must for our local studies collection. 

Edward Dyker (author of Natures' Argonaut, the definitive biography of Solander)


And, the New Zealand  historian's newsletter 'Phanzine' has listed favourite titles for Christmas.  Margaret Pointer recommends Tupaia.  She says 'Wellington writer Joan Druett provides a different insight into Cook's first great voyage by focusing on Tupaia and the relationship between the European explorers and the Polynesians they took on board.'

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2:14 PM | 0 comments

e-Book sales figures fall

What is one to make of the latest trends?

Back in May 2011, Julie Brosnan wrote in her New York Times, "There is a Wild West quality to the book business these days."

She was talking about her experiences at BookExpo, the annual publishing trade show in Manhattan.

"E-Books have exploded," she said.  For some new releases they were surpassing print sales. "The struggle for many brick-and-mortar bookstores has deepened as their customers began downloading books onto their e-Readers from home, rather than heading to stores."

I can attest to this personally.  The friend for whom I always buy books as presents now has a Kindle.  What the hell am I going to give her for Christmas?

The impressive figures for eBooks encompass romance, thrillers, and mysteries.  They have not yet, thank God, penetrated the children's book market.

And a bit of confusing data has arrived.  According to Publishers Lunch, the American Association of Publishers has just announced that sales of eBooks has gone DOWN.  Last August (2010), the figure was $88.8 million.  This August, the figure was $80.3 million.  E-Book sales are currently just 15.6% of all recorded trade sales.

How to account for it?  We must remember that while here in New Zealand the universities are oases of quiet and peace, the summer vacation having commenced, in the northern hemisphere millions of students are busily buying textbooks.

Significantly, perhaps, two university presses, Stanford and University of Nebraska, have been added to the AAP database.

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11:59 AM | 0 comments

Novak Djokovic - More Important Than The President

HILARIOUS!!



Courtesy:tubak2105

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1:11 AM | 0 comments

Upheaval at the New York Public Library

Construction ahead of collections?

One of my favorite libraries for research looks horribly endangered, according to this story in The Nation.

In July 2010, Hilde Hoogenboom, a professor of Russian literature at Arizona State University, sent an impassioned missive to Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, to protest the closure of the NYPL¹s Slavic and Baltic division. It "was one of the best places to work in the world," she wrote.

Indeed, in the universe of Russian studies, the Slavic division was legendary. "I recall [it] as an agreeably dim sort of place, with a faintly reverential, almost cathedral-like ambience," George Kennan said in 1987.

Among its 750,000 items are the first book printed in Moscow, the "Anonymous" Gospels; a first edition of Tolstoy¹s War and Peace; and John Reed¹s collection of broadsides and posters from the Russian Revolution.

Trotsky and Nabokov toiled in the division¹s reading room. Václav Havel and Mikhail Gorbachev made visits of tribute.

Eleven weeks after Hilde Hoogenboom's letter was sent, a senior NYPL official replied on LeClerc¹s behalf: "If I may put this matter into its sadly grim financial context, in the last two fiscal years our budget has been reduced by $20 million and our workforce by 300 positions. While we recognized and prized the special cultural and scholarly resource that was the Slavic Reading Room, we simply could no longer afford to operate it."

 (It reminds me of the letter I received from Yale when I applied for a minor research grant -- they had lost an uncounted fortune -- in the Madoff scam, I gathered -- and couldn't afford anything like that any more.) 

The New York Public Library, which comprises four research libraries and eighty-seven branch libraries, has seen other cutbacks as well. Since 2008 its workforce has been reduced by 27 percent. In a recent newsletter to library supporters, the institution reported that its acquisitions budget for books, CDs and DVDs had been slashed by 26 percent.

And this is the Believe It or Not moment.

Despite these austerity measures, NYPL executives are pushing ahead with a gargantuan renovation of the Forty-second Street library, the crown jewel of the system. The details of the Central Library Plan (CLP) are closely guarded, but it has already sparked criticism among staff members, who worry that the makeover would not only weaken one of the world¹s great libraries but mar the architectural integrity of the landmark building on Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, renamed the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in 2008, following the Wall Street billionaire¹s gift of $100 million.

Mr. S.A.S. is obviously no Andrew Carnegie.  Can't he have given the money for the preservation of collections, instead of wanting his name plastered all over the iconic building?

I see that (a) he was in the Skull and Bones Society with GWB
(b) he was head of Lehman Brothers

Say no more. 

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9:10 PM | 0 comments

Eavesdropping made easy ...

In view of the News of the World scandal, this is not exactly a surprise

A burgeoning global trade in eavesdropping technology produced largely by U.S. and other Western companies -- and minimally regulated by the U.S. government -- has allowed sophisticated surveillance tools to end up in the hands of repressive regimes in Syria, Iran and elsewhere.

(Not to mention feral journalists.)


Company sales brochures, provided to The Washington Post by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, show that few forms of electronic communication are beyond the reach of the buyers of these powerful products. The industry faces little scrutiny by the U.S. and other governments, and countries banned from buying surveillance products from U.S. companies can obtain them through intermediaries.


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11:04 AM | 0 comments