Faster Firefox finds it amidst a steady state of bugs too...

Faster Firefox finds it amidst a steady state of bugs too...

No doubt, the most latest version of Mozilla FireFox 3.5 is an excellent web browser with a great number of features like the following:

1. Powerful and fast JavaScript Engine
2. Private Browsing
3. An ability to revive inadvertantly closed tabs
4. Smaller memory footprint

Whilst browsing a news website, I just found out that even within a week, about 55 known bugs have been published in the new version of FireFox. Check out http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KG04Dj01.html

Renewal of Microsoft MVP Award

Renewal of Microsoft MVP Award

It was a pleasant surprise today morning to recieve an email from Microsoft MVPAward on their renewing my MVP for another year.

A few things to recall -- I have been MVP since 2003 respectively in the areas marked thereto:

1. 2003-04: .NET Framework
2. 2004-05: C#
3. 2006-07: ASP/ASP.NET
4. 2007-08: ASP/ASP.NET
5. 2008-09: ASP/ASP.NET
6. 2009-10: ASP/ASP.NET

You can find my MVP Profile being linked to from the right navigation widget of this weblog.

This Week CP Survey -- As Apt to Current Day Chennai (India) IT Environment

This Week CP Survey -- As Apt to Current Day Chennai (India) IT Environment

This week's 'The CodeProject' survey on Have you written a program for a friend or relative, and would you again? with the underlying thought like "Whether you've written something for free to help a mate, or done some consulting work for your significant other's significant other - would you do it again or should friends and work not mix?" seems to be applying perfectly for these Chennai (Tamil Nadu) IT circle environment at least with a number of people that I have met.

At least in this part of India, we can see people trying to derive maximum advantage of you, sucking blood as much they can by paying you peanuts (or even trying to avoid that to the maximum). The interesting part is that they would try visiting you again shamelessly time and again for the same benefit. I just thought I can share a few honorary circles that befit this bill and some of the good treatments/retaliations that either me and/or my friends have given them whenever they confront.

At first I just thought I would try suppressing the names but then I just thought I should narrate it diplomatically so that many other people can be saved from such miscreants trapping them.

1. Problem: There was a guy called 'Syed Albeez' who was trying to bug and pester me and a lot of friends circle harvesting the phone numbers from the job sites. He wanted us to give free software development for his organization. When my friend scheduled a visit to his office about a couple of years back, he was offering full time employment and the salary he was willing to pay was like 84 USD per month.
   
   Workaround: My friend challenged him for a business deal and he just escaped into the wild and no say from him or no email replies from thereon.
2. Problem: One of the person from my previous organization called Francis**, who worked there in the Human Resources department resigned there around 2003. I admit that he was instrumental in me joining during the 2001 recession but at the same time there is a limit to the gratitude and the help he can expect from me.
1. About three years back he was asking me some loan guarantor signature for about ten lakhs because he was starting up a new business. Till then, there was no email communication. A well-wisher strongly objected and he told not to venture such deals with him since he sounds more or less like an esoterically hysteric character and there are more chances of he running away amuck. Without being in touch with so long and contacting some one only for the sake of benefit is kind of sounding a very selfish attitude and sounds to be opportunistic. The person who guided me against helping him was perfectly true in his speculation. He didn't seem to venture into any business.
2. About an year later, he was again calling a number of guys since he was working in some US call center night shift and it to recruit .NET programmers.
   Workaround: Again, when we took the help of the same well-wisher, he just asked us to 'brush him off'.
3. About a week back, he wrote me a big message in the subject of email 'This is Francis. Can you give your contact number?'. When I wrote him back 'Why?', he was replying that he is working in some company called 'Trenchant Financial Technologies' and recruiting .NET developers again. He wanted me to do some free advertising in forums ("crop dusting forums with dirty crap about job posting for his shabby shack).
   Workaround: This time we thought we would have some summer cool fun with him besides to test whether he has some social sense. I asked him whether he can donate funds for philanthropic causes. I am associated with a few animal welfare organizations and Sri Ramakrishna Mutt. I just thought I would try to make him contribute there too. He replied furiously "What donations? I give donations to church. My father gives donations". The interesting part is that his English is so much broken. I am just trying to think, if I can gather all the entire set of conversations into a single PDF with Zoho entitled as 'Fun with Francis' and put it on Scribd so that at least readers can have some fun time reading it besides getting a social enlightenment on such crooked people.
   
   [**Name truncated or might have been changed to preserve the privacy of the person. The purpose of the post is to serve as an eye-opener for the community to be wary of bad apples and not to crib/complaint against any person.]

I hence thought I would share this topic on my technical weblog for the benefit of IT fraternity to be wary of such underworld people spread amongst us.

How easily to remember the different layers in OSI Reference Model?

How easily to remember the different layers in OSI Reference Model?

Whilst posting about "An easy way to remember Rahu Kalam", I just recalled about a simple and a similar sentence that we learnt during college days to remember the different layers in Computer Networks. It was a book titled "Computer Networks" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum that was prescribed for the syllabus.

The simple sentence was 'Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away'. Now we can remember the following layers simply:

1. Physical
2. Data Link
3. Network
4. Transport
5. Session
6. Presentation
7. Application

When I did a quick Internet Search of this statement itself, I just got a few more interesting sentences to make one remember the seven layers. Check it out here from TcpIp guide website.

A Free Online PDF Split/Merge Utilities

A Free Online PDF Split/Merge Utilities

PDF is by far the most common document formats that have been used across the world by everyone. There are cases, when we need to split a PDF document into multiple PDFs and sometimes we may need to merge multiple PDF documents into a single document. Editing such PDF documents stipulate that we Acrobat Reader and related tools, which are rather heavy and cumbersome to install.

I just found out a few quick and easy PDF Split and Merge utilities that help us in this direction. I would like to share them here for the benefit of other readers who might be looking out for a similar solution:

1. PDF Hammer
2. RPTEA Split Merge (supports even zip input)

Perhaps we can bookmark these URLs for our use later too.

A Quick Online Zipping Solution

A Quick Online Zipping Solution

We always have an easy way to zip and unzip files online with quick nifty little utilities like WinZip, UltimateZip and now starting from Windows XP, there is a builtin support to compression and decompression by way of 'Compressed Folders'. However, with all these, there are cases when we felt that if there was a webservice that would support zipping and unzipping online. One such case or situation might be if Compressed Folders does not work properly because of conflict with a bad deinstallation of another archiving software.

I just came across a cool website called NippyZip, which exactly addresses this requirement. It supports upto 5024 KB of input files and after uploading, it compresses them and streams out a zip file. Since the website does not require any registration, you are also not required to hold or give out an active email address to it anymore.

After zipping out the input files, it also provides an option to add more files to the output archive.

I just thought of sharing out this with other readers too. Bookmark this URL so that you can avail the benefits of a cool new online zipping solution on the move.

A Hosted Online Base64 Encoding and Decoding Utility

A Hosted Online Base64 Encoding and Decoding Utility

I just came across an interesting hosted utility for Base64 encoding and decoding of a string. You can check it out here:

http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp

Features:

1. The form supports upto 9 mega bytes of data (10000000 bytes).
2. The input can be either as a file or through a textbox given in the website for this purpose.
3. The output can be obtained either in a designated textbox or it can be opted to be streamed out as a file.
4. The output can be configured to restrict the maximum number of characters per line.
5. There is also a flexible control to control and configure the characterset.

A Downloadable Whitepaper from Dundas on "Best Practices for Digital Dashboards"

A Downloadable Whitepaper from Dundas on "Best Practices for Digital Dashboards"

Taking any website or application for example, designing a homepage or a dashboard is the one where maximum amount of time, effort and energy is expended. The simple reasonsfor the same are as follows:

1. A homepage is the one which first greets the user. A first impression is the best impression and hence no effort is spared and no stone is left unturned to ensure that the user is impressed to the core.
2. A dashboard for an application presents a synopsis or a single click snapshot of the summary of the entire application as his user-privileges allow. He is spared of superflous and involved efforts in navigating deep into every part of the application to find the details with a neatly designed, comprehensive and elegant dashboard.

I found a good whitepaper published on Dundas which emphasizes and explains on the significance and best practices for digital dashboards. You can check out the same from here.

A chance to win dedicated server for life from HostMySite.com

A chance to win dedicated server for life from HostMySite.com

If you are passionated with LAMPS (Linux, Apache, Mysql, Php and Ssl), here is another challenge thrown open by CodeProject. Check it out here. The thing is simple.

1. Build an application that consumes data feed from the World's Fastest Server using LAMPS.
2. Write an article on The CodeProject with the source on the modus operandi that you have used in implementing the application

If your article is accepted, you would be standing to win a dedicated server for life. For the purpose of the contest and demonstration, HostMySite would provide a contest-duration specific free hosting account. The contest ends on March 31, 2009 and you would realy need to rush if you are interested.

Hybrid Smart Client Article Contest

Hybrid Smart Client Article Contest

With the recessionary wave creating turbulence and turmoil everywhere, CodeProject seems to be bringing in some economic stimulus package for the developers. The thing is simple. If you could write a good Hybrid Smart Client article and publish it in CodeProject, it would be queued for selection based on user acceptance and rating.

The article should be able to run as a Windows Client preferably using WPF, Windows 7 or some fancy technology. As the contest page here says, this seems to be a monthly contest and each month contribution ends 2359 hours on the last date of every month. The contest series itself concludes on 30 June 2009.

The prize table on the contest page shows a minimum of USD 250 to a grand prize of USD 5000. I hence thought I would share this with interested readers for their benefit and knowledge sharing.

Java Article Contest and a chance to win a Conference Pass to JavaOne!

Java Article Contest and a chance to win a Conference Pass to JavaOne!

There is some good news for Java developers from CodeProject. Whilst browsing through the 'Competitions' section, I saw the following interesting news:

A good Java Article posted between February 3, 2009 and April 30, 2009 would be chosen and the author can stand to win a free Conference Pass to JavaOne which is planned to be organized at San Francisco between June 2-5, 2009. Whilst the pass one costs about 1995 USD, the contest also seems to cover travel expenses to the tune of 1500 USD.

Check out here for a complete coverage on the contest rules and associated guidelines.

A WhitePaper on Cost of Email/Messaging

A WhitePaper on Cost of Email/Messaging

Whilst casually surfing on CodeProject.com today, I came across an interesting and informative whitepaper on the following topic "Reducing the cost of messaging". These recessionary days, we ought to be very careful regarding every penny that goes out of our wallets. Also, messaging/email is very critical and crucial component of our day-to-day business. Hence it is inevitable to ensure that this section is optimized heavily and taken due care in ensuring that no stone is left unturned to see that there is no malady which is inflicting on it whatsoever.

This Osterman research whitepaper hosted on CodeProject over here has a good analysis on reducing the cost of messaging besides analysing where the cost is incurred from a variety of fronts. It also discusses about the benefits of hosted email solutions against having their own email solutions.

In the same context, Google Apps also has a lucid chart to explain such a savings. Check it out here.

Google Internet Bus Project in Tamil Nadu

Google Internet Bus Project in Tamil Nadu

Google has recently launched an Internet Bus project wherein a completely Internet-enabled bus would take a tour around different towns and villages in South India explaining to the people regarding the following:

1. What is Internet?
2. What are the benefits of Internet to people?
3. How does it affect their lives?

At least till now, seven cities in Tamil Nadu has been covered, as read from the Internet Bus Project webpage. Check out here for the route map of the bus and when it woud be visiting your city/town.

Get Genuine Kit (GGK) to legalize inadvertant piracy and special prizes ...

Get Genuine Kit (GGK) to legalize inadvertant piracy and special prizes ...

Whilst casually browsing through the 'How-To-Tell' India website, I came across two another interesting offers from Microsoft as a valuable remedy to those who have inadvertanty succumbed to software piracy because of unscrupulous resellers and shopkeepers. The two offers are:

1. Purchase of Get Genuine Kit to legalize the software (The web page says that it is applicable between 1 and 4 PCs)
2. The website also showed a small popup advertisement to win prizes for availing this offer. The target URL for the same is here. The lucrative prizes for the same ranges from Wi-Fi router, Laser Printer, Windows Mobile Phone, HTC Touch Dual, Desktop and a Laptop.

We also have discussed about the risks involved with software piracy over here. Hence this is a good opportunity to abstain and keep a large distance from illegal people and keep our systems clean.

A Downloadable Whitepaper from Microsoft on "The Risk of Obtaining and Using Pirated Software"

A Downloadable Whitepaper from Microsoft on "The Risk of Obtaining and Using Pirated Software"

Pirated software and tampered media is a killing menace for software organizations worldwide. For developing nations like India, this is a heightened menace. The more compelling and convincing solution to this problem is to have more awareness to general public. I just came across a comprehensive whitepaper in Microsoft Download Center, which is just about 300Kb in size and it provides a lucid and elegant analysis of the various risks involved with obtaining and using pirated software.

The PDF can be downloaded from here. The whitepaper analyses the risk from the following four perspectives in broader terms:

1. Simple Internet Search for free software, key generator etc.
2. The malicious site also puts in harmful code into the key generator and similar illegal tools.

I hence thought I would share this whitepaper URL over here for the benefit of everyone and in a humble endeavor to put a period to software piracy.

Web-Based Colloborative Realtime Editor

Web-Based Colloborative Realtime Editor

Recently whilst casually surfing, I came across an interesting website called http://collabedit.com/index.html. It defines itself as a Real Time Colloborative Editor.

How to use?

You just need to visit the homepage and start the button 'Click here to create a new document' and it would have a new document with a unique URL for the same. The document that you keep typing is auto-saved and when you share the URL with your peers they can access it at the same time, seeing in realtime any changes.

Even text-indentation is preserved and lines are numbered and shown. The most excellent thing would be we can bookmark the URL and resume composing at a later point of time.

Plus:

1. Auto-saves the content
2. Auto-numbering the lines
3. Web-based
4. Simple Interface
5. Fast-Loading Interface

Limitations:

1. No authentication. There is no logon password to protect the bookmarks and hence please keep the bookmark URL safe.

Now empower your Google Mail with Offline Access capabilities

Now empower your Google Mail with Offline Access capabilities

While recently browsing through today's "The Hindu", I came across an interesting article indicating about offline access capability that Google Mail labs is introducing step-by-step into each of its webmail users' accounts. Check out the news article here. A quick note on the features of this facility are:

1. Supported on IE 7, FF 2.0 and FF 3.0
2. Mail Downloads upto 2 year old only (depending on mail volume)

Check out the 'Labs' link on the right top of your Google Mail account to see if the facility has been introduced for your account.

The CodeProject publishes MVP Winners 2009

The CodeProject publishes MVP Winners 2009

Check out the newest set of CodeProject MVP Winners chosen by CodeProject in the new year 2009 here. Let us use this opportunity to congratulate the winners and wish them more success in the new year.