Ever tried learning typing using a Typing Tutor Software? When I was getting my typing lessons, I was told that I shouldn’t look at my keyboard, even if I am doing it all worng.

Well, that doesn’t work easily, unless you have military level of discipline, you are gonna look over and over to find the o’s and the w’s.

The solution? The Ultimate Typing Tutor keyboard:

Learn Typing Faster than you think - You got no choice

(All keys are not photoshop-ped. Some keys were actually losing their imprints and hence the inspiration.)

Wish I could send all my twitter friends this keyboard, so that they can tweet faster

What do you think? Such a keyboard would defenitely help anyone learn typing; Necessity will become the mother of invention… right?

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If you have ever used an Open Source Software, you would have come across the GNU license (usually shown during installation). I have never paid attention to the license, until yesterday when I was installing WordPress 2.7. Suddenly I realized that the license itself was not covered under the GNU license!

For Non Geeks (skip this if you understood the title):A GNU license is a common code issued by the Free Software Foundation, Boston, which covers Free and Open Source Software. Software covered under GNU give the user total freedom over it by providing access to its source code and liberty to modify, adapt or distribute the software. Operation systems like Ubuntu and CMS like WordPress and almost all Open Source Softwares are covered under this license.

A paradox as defined by The Oxford Dictionary on my Desktop is, “An apparently sound statement or proposition which leads to a logically unacceptable conclusion”

Extracts from the GNU General Public License version 2

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed

Another extract that defines Free Software:
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.  Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

The paradox is that, the license is intended to install in a user, the freedom to modify the software but the license that covers the software is not free to modify.

Actually the license protects itself (and all the software it covers) by removing the users rights to edit and modify it. Else, some evil minded user might start editing it and spread own copies of the license, thereby destroying the very meaning of free software. For e.g., he could add a clause that users are not allowed to adapt from his software and that would mean that the license is not free, and then there is no point in a GNU license. But it’s funny, that the license itself is not covered under GNU license.

Sometimes you may find strange clauses in official documents which are normally considered as not-for-human-reading. Once I read the Blogger Terms of Service in full and found this towards the end of the document.

IF YOU HAVE READ THIS FAR THEN YOUR EYES PROBABLY HURT. ALL CAPS, WHAT WERE WE THINKING? HOWEVER, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR THIS OR ANY OTHER OCULAR MALADY.

(This extract is from the Blogger TOS in October 2006, but now Google have updated it and these lines are missing. I had a copy of the old TOS in my archives.)

Have you ever found anything like this? By the way, do you read the license agreements or TOS? Share your findings.

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Don’t ask me “Who the hell is John Chow?” If you don’t know him, you are missing the best of blogosphere. Looking for a clue? Every successful blogger reads John Chow dot com. (Who told me this..? I read John Chow and he told me this). He is the legend who made $371.17 on this first month with Google Adsense (I made $1.7). But legends have limits. Presenting some crazy things that John Chow can’t dream of doing. lol.

John Chow can’t see his Feedburner Count 100. Why is that? Its already 40k, yes that’s 40,000. If he really wants to see his chicklet counting 100, let Photoshop help him. Even God can’t.

John Chow can’t beat me in my Alexa rankings. (Dude, your Alexa ranking is over a million, and he is close to 18k, are you crazy?). Okay, Google Page Rank 6 is better than PR 3, then why is Alexa rank the other way..? (The smaller, the better). I am waiting for the day the whole idea of Alexa rank reverses. John Chow can’t beat me anyway.
(By the way, on 07.11.2008 my Alexa ranked 3,096,579 and its 1,907,040 now, thanks to the traffic)

John Chow can’t take a week’s break. Can he? Its not that he would stop earning, He would loose his authority. John Chow says, ‘be consistent’ and if he starts breaking it and stop posting for a week, he loses his identity. I have never told you to be consistent. I can take breaks, lol.

John Chow can’t write a post here, because this is my blog. (Lol. At least this is some place where I can write without permission.) Even if he thinks of writing here, I am the one who should give him the permission.

John Chow dot com cannot stay silent for an hour. I have times when there are no visitors for a whole hour; I guess that’s not with John Chow. He gets at least 50,000 visits a day. That means 2083 visits per hour, 34 visits a minute and over one visit over 2 seconds, and that’s a minimum guess. So by the time you finish reading this, (I don’t say that you have to, but in case), John Chow dot com will count at least 100, only if you don’t start skipping lines in between.

John Chow can’t see a $100 Google Adsense Check addressed to his name. He is making thousands a month from Google and there is no way that it can go down to $100.

John Chow does not appear on Google Home page. Google for ‘millionclues’ and you will see links to my blog as the first search result. Google ‘john chow’ and you will not see even a single link to John Chow dot com. The first result I got was to Johncow.com (not John Chow, its Cow) (And with a Page Rank of 6, this is embarrassing for John Chow.)

Guys, I started reading John Chow and fell over it. Damn, I wanted to beat him someway (still want to), Couldn’t think of a better idea to do this. Please DO NOT VISIT JOHN CHOW (if you have not already). It’s so crowded that you might find it hard to breathe.

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