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BSNL has become the first operator in India to launch wireless broadband service. It has launched this service in rural areas with a tariff of Rs. 140 per month, according to PTI.

BSNL wireless broadband services, using WiMAX technology, was launched by Minister of State Sachin Pilot from his constituency Ajmer. The service was launched at a function in Pisangan Telephone Exchange in Ajmer district.

Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's Director of community development, has suggested Firefox users to add Microsoft's Bing to the list of the browser's search engines after Google's CEO downplayed consumers' privacy concerns.

Citing a clip from a CNBC broadcast last Friday, during which Google chief executive Eric Schmidt discussed online privacy, Dotzler provided a link to the Firefox extension that adds Bing to Firefox's search engine list. "Here's how you can easily switch Firefox's search from Google to Bing," said Dotzler in an entry on his personal blog today. The link he included leads to the Bing search add-on, according to Computer World.

During the interview, Schmidt was asked: "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend...should they be?" It was Schmidt's answer that motivated Dotzler to show users how to drop Google, Firefox's default search engine, for rival Bing. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Schmidt told CNBC. "If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities," added Schmidt.

Dotzler fumed over Schmidt's comments on privacy. "That was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, telling you exactly what he thinks about your privacy," said Dotzler on his blog. "There is no ambiguity, no 'out of context' here." Dotzler added that he considers Bing's privacy policy better than Google's.

Dotzler is a 10-year-veteran of Mozilla. What made Dotzler's touting of Bing interesting is that Mozilla, which has a multi-year deal with Google that ends in 2011, derives the vast bulk of its revenue from the arrangement, which sets Google's search as the default in the browser and shunts some revenues from ads that Firefox users click on to Mozilla.

According to Mozilla's most-recently-released financial statement, 97 percent of its revenues came from deals it has with Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and others. The lion's share of its search engine-based income, however, originated from Google.

Below are some frequently used short forms in business communication like e-mails, faxes and letters:

a.k.a . - also known as

On Monday morning, Kay El, a.k.a. The Boss, walked in happily and greeted her assistant, Pee Jay.

approx. - approximately

Checking her e-mail, Pee Jay read, "Today is the boss's birthday. Can everyone please slip off quietly to the cafeteria in approx.. 15 minutes?"

ASAP - as soon as possible

Pee Jay opened up her daily planner and scribbled ASAP next to some of the urgent items on her to-do list.

Attn . - for the attention of

Leafing through the stack of mail to be sent out, Pee Jay asked her boss, "To whom should I address the cheque for the annual report?"

Her boss replied, "Just write 'Attn: Ms. Christine Jalleh'. She'll know what to do with it."

Bcc . - blind carbon copy or blind copy to. In this case, the carbon copy is sent to an e-mail recipient whose e-mail address is not visible to the cc or other bcc recipients.

"By the way, I think it's better if you bcc me in your e-mail to Brown. We wouldn't want him thinking that I'm supervising you for this project."

Cc . - carbon copy, or copy to

"But I would like to be cc-ed on the e-mail to Mr Green as I have not yet introduced the both of you to each other."

c/o - in care of, used when sending a document to A who will receive it on B's behalf because B is away from the office.

"Boss, I think Christine is back in China this week. Would it be all right if I sent the cheque in care of her assistant? I'll still write her name on top with c/o Ah Sis Tern below."

COD - cash on delivery, where a person makes payment for an item purchase after it has been delivered.

"I'm also sending out the cheque for the set of Business English reference books we bought COD on eBay."

e.g . - exempli gratia (for example)

Pee Jay replied to the e-mail, "Hi everyone. Please remember that the boss doesn't like surprises, e.g. everyone shouting 'Surprise!' in the cafeteria."

et al. - et alii (and others). Usually used to list co-authors after the lead author in a bibliography, this form is now popularly used to address the other people other than the recipient in e-mails.

She received a new e-mail, which read, "Dear Pee Jay et al., I was reminded that the boss does NOT like surprises ..."

etc. - et cetera (and so on OR and so forth)

This means that we will not be able to collectively surprise her by springing out of the cafeteria doors as we had planned, etc.

exc. - except

"Can everyone, exc. Pee Jay, be at the cafeteria in 5 minutes? We need to figure out a surprise without the surprise element. Thanks!"

FYI - for your information

Her boss's voice brought the young assistant back to the present, "Pee Jay, I'm forwarding you all these e-mails FYI, okay?"

FYA - for your action

"Note that some of these e-mails are FYA ..."

i.e . - id est (that is)

After acknowledging her supervisor, Pee Jay decided to help her colleagues out and typed, "She's in a good mood today, i.e. we won a new account and completed a major project."

K - thousand, e.g. 450K = 450,000

"Just to give you an idea of her mood, it's a 450K retainer for the first quarter ..."

PA - personal assistant

The immediate reply to Pee Jay's e-mail read, "Thanks for the info, Pee Jay - you're the best PA!"

p.a. - per annum (per year)

Pee Jay smiled and responded, "Haha, there is a reason why I'm paid RM65K p.a."

p.p. - per pro (used when signing a document on someone's behalf)

Looking back at her paperwork, Pee Jay signed some invoices on her boss's behalf, inserting p.p. just before her signature.

Pto. - please turn over, used at the end of a page to indicate that there is a continuity to the text.

"By the way, please remember to type Pto. on the first page of the proposal you're sending. The last time we sent it to him, he forgot to read the subsequent pages," chimed in Kay El.

viz . - videlicet, namely

She got up and left a note on Pee Jay's work station before leaving. Scribbled on it was, "Can I pass you my slice of birthday cake after I cut it? I really don't need a lot of carbo, viz. refined flour, at my age." The note ended with a wink.

Starting today, Google has made some changes to its search engine by "officially" adding support for real-time search results. This new addition comes in the wake of sites like Twitter and Facebook that are updated with posts and tweets, by the second.

The service will be introduced gradually to all Google users and over the next few days, you will be able to see "new" updates that have been posted seconds ago, in Google Search results. The search results will include items from recently updated blogs, news articles and of course tweets and status updates. This is a step up from Google's earlier option where news and articles from only "a few minutes" ago only appeared in search results by default. The new option will work in a way that is similar to Twitter's existing search feature - albeit on a larger and broader scale. Twitter and Facebook, both have confirmed that they have signed a deal with Google to make real time results a reality. Earlier, Twitter had also struck a separate deal with Microsoft to make live updates available in the Bing search engine.

The power of real time search results was observed in emergency situations like the Mumbai Terror attacks last year and during the Obama elections. Real time search results will prove useful during situations when people need updated information constantly, and aggregate them from various sources.

I was recently designing and coding a new website for one of our clients. As always, I was coding it in TextMate and viewing it in Firefox and Safari for testing. I had finally come to the point where I needed to start up Parallels to view the site in Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). This is always a difficult time for me, because ten times out of ten IE6 won’t render something correctly. However, this time I was in for something completely different.

The navigation menu wasn’t displaying correctly, and when I hovered the cursor over the menu options, the browser crashed! I’ve had a lot of strange experiences with IE6 over the years, but I’ve never seen it crash with simple HTML and CSS. I wasn’t using any Javascript or embedded media, just HTML and CSS. At first I thought it was a Parallels issue, so I decided to wipe the dust off of our old IBM ThinkPad and give it a whirl. I pulled up the site, hovered over the menu options, and again, IE6 crashed!

Being the curious person I am, I decided to slowly trim and test my code to see what the culprit might be. Eventually, I whittled my way down to just an unordered list and some simple CSS. After a bunch of testing, I narrowed it down to the essential elements that will cause IE6 to crash. Those elements included:

• DocType
• Commonly Used CSS
• Unordered List

http://sitening.com/blog/crash-ie6-with-only-css/