Warning: This article is a bit Not-Safe-For-Work!

The sordid relationship between the internet and pornography is a storied one. It’s a kinship that inpires thoughts of locked doors and closed blinds, the secret fulfillment of shameful lusts. That, and it makes a hell of a lot of money. – Good Magazine

This weekend Techcrunch, a site that reports mostly about Startups with main emphasis to the ones in Silicon Valley, startled its reader with some raunchy statistics of the Internet Pornography Industry.
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Couple of days back, news was that “Reliance Communications (Reliance Communications)”:http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in/ was interested in “Hutch-Essar (Hutch-Essar)”:http://hutch.in/. Being a _Gold Member_ of Hutch (erstwhile Orange in Mumbai) since 2000, I was not really happy to hear the news and wish that “Reliance Communications (Reliance Communications)”:http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in/ do not take it up on their stride.

Now, the news is of Vodafone’s interest and their talks for acquiring Hutchison Telecom’s stake in Hutch-Essar which is a much better news than the Reliance-Hutch one. It is also a good news to know that initial talks with Vodafone and equity funds led by TPG have advanced, while the discussion with others are still preliminary in nature. The Indian media is also abuzz with reports and speculation that Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited (HTIL) has received 5 bids – from “Reliance Communications (Reliance Communications)”:http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in/, Vodafone, Malaysia’s Maxis, Egypt’s Orascom and even Essar that holds 33% stake in the venture. HTIL has mandated Goldman Sachs for the sale of its stake in the India venture, whose enterprise value is being estimated about $18 billion.

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Mr. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of “Infosys Technologies Limited (Infosys Technologies Limited)”:http://www.infy.com/, is known not just for building the biggest IT empire in India but also for his simplicity. He founded Infosys in 1981 along with six other software professionals. He is incidentally, one of the top 50 Influential people of Asia according to an “Asiaweek (Asiaweek)”:http://www.asiaweek.com/ publication and also the new IT Advisor to the Thailand Prime Minister.

_Below is an excerpt from an interesting speech he delivered during an employee session with another IT company in India._

I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put in these hours for years. I don’t know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace.

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I was reading “Avoid These 10 Interview Bloopers (Avoid These 10 Interview Bloopers)”:http://www.quintcareers.com/interview_mistakes.html and I really liked most of the points. The special points that I want to emphasize are –

* Do not talk too much
* Do not talk bad about anybody
* Make good enough eye contact

However, if you were to totally avoid this and “Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye (How to Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye)”:http://www.pearsonified.com/2006/04/how_to_kiss_corporate.php, then start your own business.
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Man, I did think of this idea long back and if you ask my colleagues, friends, they will tell you that I did tell them about this idea. I saw Mashable’s article- “Recruiting.com Becomes Digg for Jobs (Recruiting.com Becomes Digg for Jobs)”:http://mashable.com/2006/09/14/recruitingcom-becomes-digg-for-jobs/ and realized that it is something somewhere else that I wished to do myself long back. I’m not sure how long “Recruiting.com (Recruiting.com)”:http://www.recruiting.com/ but with the success of “Digg (Digg)”:http://www.digg.com/ and other social networking sites, I knew I wanted to do something where the recruiting process is easy, transparent. I wanted a place where one can get the right candidate for the job. Nonetheless, their idea is still a bit different from mine and I can still do it..

The popular desktop customization program, “WindowBlinds has been acquired by Yahoo (WindowBlinds acquired by Yahoo!)”:http://www.wincustomize.com/articles.aspx?aid=110984&c=1. Yahoo, which recently bought “Konfabulator (Konfabulator)”:http://www.konfabulator.com/, a popular widget engine, said that adding WindowBlinds to the mix was a natural next step.

WindowBlinds 5.1, originally expected to be released late summer 2006, will be rebranded as Yahoo Skins. It will include a simple SDK in which skinners can incorporate “widget-like” content into title bars, borders, the Start Bar or anywhere else the skinner can imagine.

For new users, the best news will be that Yahoo Skins will be free. Existing customers of WindowBlinds, who paid $19.95 won’t be receiving their money back. Yahoo Skins should be available for download by early Summer.