IT Masala

Google announced on Friday that it will acquire Internet advertising company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash(the largest purchase in Google's history). The deal, which follows Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of video-sharing site YouTube by only six months, is thought by some analysts to have been expedited by the interest rival Microsoft showed in DoubleClick.

Google will integrate its targeted search-ad technology with DoubleClick's graphic display ad technology, allowing it to offer a wider array of options to advertising customers( like Time Warner's AOL and News Corp.'s MySpace) .

What is DoubleClick?

DoubleClick, which connects ad agencies and marketers with website publishers, was bought by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman for $1.1 billion in 2005.

The New York Times is reporting that DoubleClicks revenues are about $300 million/year.

Comments from blogsphere : 

Google watcher Donna Bogatin concludes:

Although Google reigns supreme in the category it catapulted to online advertising fame—PPC text ads—it has not achieved similar success with “image ad” serving.

The acquisition of a dedicated banner ad serving firm such as DoubleClick, with its established clientèle, would complete a virtuous circle of powered by Google online advertising:

Pay For Performance Text Ads,
Pay For Action Referral Ads,
Pay For Delivery Display Ads! 

Michael Arrington @ TechCrunch:

10x revenue for a mature company is a…healthy…valuation. At least part of the acquisition price appears to be due to a desire by Google to keep this asset out of Microsoft’s hands.

Discussions: Screenwerk, John Furrier, GigaOM, Basement.org, Search Engine Land and Leathern

Check out these sites and get to know the ranking of universities.

US News - Best Rankings list..

i20fever — Reliable list- is a site which has put up a good list according to scores . first go on putting the scores for every area, then see the total cumulative score and refer the list of universities respective to your cumulative score.This i20fever is a really very helpful to choose universities ..etc..

Princeton Review - Pretty good list ( but i donna how they come out with some odd ranking list such as 361 best colleges…anyway its a good list..
 

The Center for University Performance Measurement - very good lists ..listed in categories..etc.. 

Webometrics - Fairly good list, also has world rankings..etc..

A major Linux Wi-Fi driver contains a bug that can allow an attacker to take control of a laptop–even when it is not on a Wi-Fi network.There have not been many Linux Wi-Fi device drivers, and this is apparently the first remotely executable Wi-Fi bug.

It Affects : 

It affects the widely used MadWi-Fi Linux kernel device driver for Atheros-based Wi-Fi chipsets, according to Laurent Butti, a researcher from France Telecom Orange.

Whats the threat ? 

The kernel stack-overflow bug lets an attacker run malicious code, and can be used even if the machine is not actively on a Wi-Fi network .

Note : "You may be vulnerable if you do not manually patch your MadWi-Fi driver," said Butti.

via [ pcworld ] 

Give a refreshing look to your desktop. Download the new set of icons from VistaIcons.com. They provide high quality icons in the PNG and ICO formats. Icons have a maximum size of 256 x 256 pixels, making them suitable for high-DPI displays.

Some of the packages :

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You must be fed up sometimes of slow loading of Youtube videos, here is a tool which can accelerate the loading of videos to your pc . The streaming becomes much faster.This software will make your YouTube videos stream faster and play smoother by reducing buffering time and video interruptions.

SpeedBit Video Accelerator for YouTube makes your videos stream faster and play smoother, reducing buffering problems and video "hiccups". The unique video search lets you find the latest and hottest videos around the web, and the "Recently Accelerated" list gives you instant access to the last videos played.SpeedBit Video Accelerator is a product from the creators of Download Accelerator Plus (DAP).

Want to know How SpeedBit Video Accelerator works?

Click here for more info.

System Requirements: 

OS: Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP
Browser: FireFox 1.5, FireFox 2.0, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7

Note : This does not support vista, although it does work fine on XP.

You can check out how Speedbit works and you can download it here. This is a must if you are on a dial up and still want to enjoy watching some wonderful YouTube videos.

via [ speedbit ]