Info Pioneer

T he most of us have laready heard the story of  how Google got its name. But Google isn’t the only company out there with an odd name. Here’s the list of stories behind the naming of popular tech brands. HP : Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard flipped a coin to decide whether their company would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett. SUN Microsystems : It’s actually an acronym for Stanford University Network, the school where the founders met. Cisco: Actually not an acronym, as often assumed. It’s just San Francisco without the San Fran, which is why the “c” was not capitalized originally. Apple : The company was late in filing for a name and trademark, and Steve Jobs issued an ultimatum: Come up with something better than Apple. No dice. Microsoft : Microsoft made MICROcomputer SOFTware. Get it? Yeah, that’s all there is to it. (During their early history, Microsoft wrote their name “Micro-Soft.”) Sometimes the best answer is the most obvious. Oracle : The company grew out of a...

The European Commission has granted its unconditional approval to Microsoft and Yahoo's search partnership, meaning the long-term deal has cleared its last major regulatory hurdle. Sometimes mega-deals in the technology industry take a long time to sort out…and such has been the case with the long-term search partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo that will see Microsoft’s Bing handling the back end of searches performed via Yahoo properties, with Yahoo continuing to develop its own search features and front end on top of Bing. The companies first announced the 10-year partnership in July 2009, and have been working out details ever since. Now, the European Commission has granted its unconditional approval to the partnership: coupled with previous approval from the U.S. Justice Department, the deal has cleared its last major regulatory hurdle and the companies will finally get down to work. The deal had previously been approved by regulators in Brazil, Canada, and Australia. “Thi...

LAHORE: A strategic partnership agreement was signed between the Punjab government and a computer software company, Microsoft, at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat here on Friday. Under the agreement signed by additional chief secretary Javed Aslam and Microsoft head in Pakistan Kamal Ahmad, the company will extend all-out cooperation for training and development of the local IT industry in Punjab. It will also set up an innovation centre at the Software Technology Park. Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said the three-year agreement would prove to be a milestone in the promotion of information technology in the province. He said the Punjab government had adopted a comprehensive strategy for promoting IT and foundation of a revolution in the education sector had been laid by setting up of IT labs in schools. He said information technology would also be used for evolving a system of accountability for eradication of corruption which was the most serious problem bein...

Microsoft Outlook, the most popular email client around worldwide, includes tons of features that make email easier to use and help us be more productive in our communications. The other great thing about Outlook is that you easily add new features to the software through plug-ins, many of which are available for free on the web. The Outlook Guide has four parts: 1. Essential Add-Ins for Microsoft Outlook – Whether you want to read PDF attachments inside Outlook or want to make phones calls or need to track email messages, chances are that there already exists an Outlook add-in to help you perform that task effortlessly. 2. Social Networking Add-ins for Outlook – Check out some smart add-ins that bring social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter right into your Outlook client. 3. Sync Your Outlook with the Cloud – Whether you want to shift your Outlook data to the online cloud (and vice-versa) or just want to keep your Outlook items in sync with an online service, here are s...