Hogmanay -- Welcoming the New Year

I first came across the quaint word and tradition of Hogmanay in Iain Banks' The Crow Road -- one of my favorite novels, replete with great characters, a lovely location, and a complex story that is excellently told (more on it later).

Hogmanay is the Scottish word for the celebration of the New Year in the traditional Scottish manner. From The Crow Road I gathered that the festivities start on the night of December 31 and go on till the morning of January 1, when the participants, totally sozzled, crawl into bed and get up with hangovers that are cured by drinking skoosh. As apart of the celebrations, you visit as many friends and neighbours as possible, carrying with you drams of whiskey as gifts. Needless to say, since then, I wanted to be a part of Hogmanay celebrations (one day I will).

A quick search on the net throws up a lot of information about Hogmanay. I found that Edinburgh is the venue of the mother of all Hogmanay parties. That the tradition of visiting friends and neighbors is know as first-footing and it involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbor and giving them gifts that are supposed to bring them luck. The customary gifts have now seem to be replaced with drams (one of the reasons why many of the sites also have sections devoted to hangover cures -- the most popular seems to be one called Hair of the Dog).

Hogmanay is a wonderful mixture of traditional practices and partying -- of having fun and wishing the best for those around you. I guess, that inspite of the tsunami and all the loss, life goes on and there will be (subdued?) partying and gaiety even in India. A good many of the people will be fortunate enough to spend the time with family and friends as they usher in the new year -- spare a thought and a wish for the thousands in India and elsewhere who have been affected by the killer waves.

Here's hoping that 2005 "first-foots" into everybody's lives with lots of good luck and happiness. Happy Hogmanay and a good new year to you all.

Igniting the Web -- Firefox 1.0

In an online survey on Desktop Pipeline for "the most important desktop tech event and/or product of 2004?" has "The release of Mozilla's Firefox browser" leading with 95% of the votes (as on December 31, 2004 -- 3.30 pm. IST ). Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, and since then has clocked over 14 million downloads.

I have been using Firefox for over an year now -- since it was a version 0.5. Even when it was under development, I found it to be much better than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It is faster and more efficient than IE and it is definitely safer. In addition, its features like Popup Blocking, Tabbed Browsing, and Live Bookmarks (RSS/Atom feeds) are very user-friendly features that microsoft hasn't been able to even come close to. And you can pack it with more features by simply downloading more extensions. I have virtually given up using IE. If you want to read an excellent review of Firefox and its features -- Firefox 1.0: The New World Wide Web Champ? -- on Desktop Pipeline.

Get yourself a real browser in 2005, download firefox and rediscover the web.

Digital Inheritance

What happens to all the bits of digital information when their owners die? Who inherits the email? More importantly -- what if somebody needs to access financial and other information that is significant, but password protected? Online possessions are not like physical properties and do not have any laws that govern what happens to all the information once their owner has kicked the bucket. Should family members or other inheritors have an access to this information? With more and more of our lives going digital everyday, the issue of digital inheritance is going to be an important one in the near future.

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Relief

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami -- The SEA-EAT blog for short.
This community weblog has been set up bloggers in India and from elsewhere. The blog offers News and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts.

Meanwhile business houses in India have started mobilising relief for the Tsunami victims. Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) (the company I work for) has asked its employees to voluntarily contribute towards the cause. After cumulating the total amount of contribution from all employees on Jan 4th, 2005, a matching amount will be contributed by TIS. All contributions will go to the 'Tata Relief Committee-Tsunami Relief Fund' -- a fund set up by the Tata Group for its relief effort.

Teaching and Learning with Wikis

A wiki ( Hawaiian term for "quick") is an excellent tool for collaboration in an online environment. It is a collaborative site that allows anyone to contribute to it. Wikis being very open, they provide various means to verify the validity of any additions to the body of pages.

Inspite of its openness, the pages are usually balanced and provide comprehensive information -- there is hardly any disorder or confusion. Visit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, to see how a wiki works -- it is one of my favorite resources.

Wikis are now even looked upon as useful tools for facilitating online education. Read this excellent paper Teaching and learning online with wikis by Naomi Augar, Ruth Raitman and Wanlei Zhou. The paper outlines basic wiki functionality and highlights the features that make wikis a valuable technology for teaching and learning online.

Opening my Universe a little more...

I got myself a blog in March 2004...set it up...and then put up a post saying "let me think what will go in here...till then this will remain under construction." And that is how it has been for so many days. All these days, I have been thinking off and on, about what I can blog. Literature...a blog only on whatever "literary" catches my eye or should it talk about "e-learning" -- my profession (at least for the moment). Maybe it should have whatever I keep reading about search engines and search engine optimization, an interest I developed in my previous job. Maybe one that links to all the great stuff that I read on the internet. Maybe I was just being lazy...

Meanwhile, I exhorted and convinced many of my friends to start their own blogs. And smiled whenever they asked me about my blog.

I have finally decided to jump into it. And no, I haven't yet decided what direction my blog will take. What I have decided to do is flag good and interesting pieces that I come across on the Net, add my two bits on whatever I feel like and generally cover all my interests...and see how it goes...

It is just the time to start doing something...open up my universe a bit more for others to see.

--mandar "emmtee"