Google Word

Few months ago, Google signed an agreement with Sun to contribute jointly in the development of open-source Open Office office productivity suite. Open Office is a fork of Sun’s Star Office and its development is still under control of Sun Microsystems. Now, Google acquired writely, a web 2.0 online word processor. Hmmm, seems like they found another subject to redefine. May be they are on the way to roll out an editor of their own.

With the magic of Web 2.0 technologies, web sites can have some features similar to desktop applications. Gmail, new yahoo and hotmail seem like full fledged email client in a web browser window. Some other online applications, like real time chatting, are also possible by exploiting the power of Ajax. Online word processing is not very new concept. There are several online word processors out there (e.g. writeboard, thinkfree online etc.). By feature comparison, they are yet to go a long way to catch up with Microsoft. But they are gaining popularity for another reason, collaborative work; people sitting at a distance can work together. Not to mention the price tag.

So, Microsoft is going to see new player in the field. Upto now, I welcomed Google's innovations. But if one day, they take over Microsoft’s position, It will be hard to end that dominance...

A cricket match

2 runs to win from 3 balls. Hey! That’s an easy target, just one run away from leveling the score. Wait… but when you have 1 wickets left, and your 11^th batsman is facing his first ball from world’s one of the fastest bowlers? This match can be anyone’s. Well, pretty exciting moment, isn’t it? But still, not very uncommon in cricket history.

At one stage, this was the situation while South Africa was chasing Australia’s BIG total (?) in today’s National Bank series 5th ODI at Johannesburg. But this tells a little about the history making situation. Batting first, top ranked AUSTRALIA SCORED 434 RUNS!!! The highest ever total in cricket history. And now South Africa is about to write their name in this history’s premier position.
The rest of the story is - Ntini managed to get 1 run from the fourth ball of Brat Lee. And Mark Boucher finished rest of the job by hitting a boundary on the next ball, leaving one ball to spare.

I opened the account at blogspot almost three years ago. Since then I was waiting for something extraordinary event to set off writing. The waiting is over… what else can be as exciting as this match of records? Just after the match I called up Arijit (a cricket freak friend of mine) and found Aabir on his other phone. We wanted to be sure he is not fainted. Woooh! I can still feel the excitement.

The records of the match:

• Most runs in first Innings: 434 by Australia against South Africa
• Most runs in an innings: 438 by South Africa against Australia
• Most number of boundaries (fours) in a match: 87 fours
• Most number of over-boundaries (sixes) in a match: 26
• Most expensive bowler: Mick Lewis (Australia) – gave 113 runs in 10 overs.
• Highest ever total runs in ODI (in a day, totaling both teams’ score): 872

South Africa won the series by 3-2. Ricky Ponting (for scoring 161 from 105 balls) and Herschelle Gibbs (for scoring 175 from 111 balls) are jointly declared man of match.