Slow Loading Pages and Impatient Waiting -- Workaround

Slow Loading Pages and Impatient Waiting -- Workaround

With a typical dialup networking connection in place in our home systems, sometimes, even typing of Google.com, Internet Explorer would take long long while before focussing the textbox into the search textbox.

This would really make us feel impatient and tense as we launch Google only to initiate a spidering of a quick search. There are a bit of quick tidbits to workaround this problem.

1. I think there was some PowerToy from Microsoft to prevent automatic images downloading and selectively displaying the images.
2. Naviscope -- Quick and Personal Desktop Proxy Tool
3. And I strongly feel the ESCape key to abort page loading the moment after the textbox loads and I can initiate the search operations.

Interesting Paradox between IE and FireFox

Interesting Paradox between IE and FireFox

For some reason till last week when I logged onto my Wordpress Administration Control Panel, if the web browser I use is Internet Explorer it used to alert me "This page is redirecting to a non-secure site" warning. If it is Mozilla FireFox, then it used to silently logon without any  demur of any kind.

Quite interesting paradoxical behavior right? There has'nt been any change in behavior in other non-IE browsers like Opera, Konqueror (on Red Hat Linux).

Quick and Simple Scripting Languages for the Web

Quick and Simple Scripting Languages for the Web

Most of the time for small web design companies, they would be confronted with situations in that they may need to provide thier clients some dynamic features like hit counter, site statistics meter, guestbook, feedback form or contact form. However, since both the client and the web design company have initiated the project with a limited budget, both of them would have opted for a web hosting package that only supports plain HTML pages without much of database support or dynamic scripting support.

During my tenure in my previous organization, we were facing this piquant situations and we found a couple of simple and quick scripting languages that helped us. Sometime last week, a blog reader and a CTO of a small organization in Chennai contacted me regarding a similar query. I had suggested him a couple of scripting languages which he came back with the feedback that the client really appreciated for the timely response and solution.

I would like to share a couple of simple scripting languages for the benefit of other readers as well.

1. Miva Scripting Language
2. Escapade Server Pages (ESP) from Squished Mosquito Inc.

Readers: If you know similar scripting languages, feel free to share with other readers as comments.

Attention to AVG Free Antivirus Users

Attention to AVG Free Antivirus Users

AVG Antivirus from GriSoft is really a very excellent and powerful tool to protect your system from a lot number of viruses in realtime protection. Compared to other commercial components, AVG Anvirus is available in a FREE for home and non-commercial use. If you have been using AVG and have been regularly updating it; for the past two weeks, you would be getting an alert stating that the current 7.1 version is being discontinued.

They are releasing a more sophisticated and Windows Vista ready AVG Antivirus 7.5. You need to download the new AVG Antivirus 7.5 (either the free personal and/or the commercial edition) as per the Terms and Conditions in Grisoft website since AVG Antivirus 7.1 is being discontinued as of January 15, 2007.

The download URL of AVG Free Antivirus is here.

Richer Email Application

Richer Email Application

For those regularly using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express and who are afraid of VBScripts wreaking havoc on them in the form of macros, there is some light at the end of tunnel. There is a very good alternative email application called Calypso (now Courier) from RoseCitySoftware. Perhaps in my first organization, 3rdAgenda, this was the default email application that was bieng used. That time the company that was making Calpyso was MCSDallas. I don't think MCSDallas is any more and RoseCity Software has taken control over Calypso and has upgraded its features into more powerful Courier.

As a limited time offer, Courier 3.5 is available for download as a fully free non-expiring registered version.A few of the good features in Calypso/Courier are:

Support for multiple email accounts

Configurable, intuitive interface

Support for POP and IMAP mailboxes

Ability to turn HTML mail viewing on or off in any window with a single mouse click

"Color Markers" to help organize your messages

Automatic mailbox backup

Mailing list support, including "Blind Send" capabilities

Superb mail filtering capabilities, including advanced anti-SPAM tools.

Easily configurable for server and proxy based anti-SPAM programs.

Address auto-completion when composing mail

Multi-language spelling support

Auto-response capability

Mail templates

Mail archiving

Optional password protection for mailboxes

Calypso also a support discussion forum hosted at Yahoogroups -- CalypsoMail.

Simpler Dictionary well within the desktop...

Simpler Dictionary well within the desktop...

The other day, before coming across the  Quick Look Dictionary WebService, I was trying to use Dictionary.com and the website was experiencing some technical issues reaching the same. Desparate to get some quick help in having a document to be drafted, I was researching on other web-based and offline dictionary tools. When I approached Redhy, he used a different trick to find the meaning of the word.

Just launch Microsoft Word. Type the word you want and when you right click the word you would be getting 'Synonyms'. A couple of times you use the word, the synonym that you get would be a familiar word.  This way, you can effectively make use of a dictionary that is already built into the system.

Related Post: Building Lexical Resilence in the Web Applications

Quick Web-Based Readers

Quick Web-Based Readers

With a plethora of favorite blogs and the list growing every moment, it would be a herculean  process to keep tab on the latest content that is being updated in each on them. Fortunately, our favorite email clients, web browser applications and host of webservices does bring to our desktop, quick, easy and flexible readers that help us organize this info.

I would like to summarize a few of them for readers' quick reference. Thanks to Redhy Issac for introducing me to Google Reader.

1. Google Reader
2. Yahoo Mail Beta (RSS Reader can be found in the left navigation pane)
3. Sage -- RSS Reader Extension for FireFox

If you come across more free readers, do share across as comments.

Mozilla Reporter

Mozilla Reporter

If you have carefully watched Mozilla FireFox, there is a very good webservice link embedded in the Help Menu. You can locate it at Help -> Report Broken Web site.  This launched a pop window from the Mozilla Reporter Service.

The introductory paragraph on the Mozilla Reporter tells that the website information is sent to Mozilla Development Evangelism Team for thier analysis and betterment of Mozilla products and for best surfing engine to be built into Mozilla FireFox. This way, collecting patterns of data purely for diagnosis is also observed in Windows as "Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement  Programme"  This would enhance the quality of software for exact realtime usage. Also, I would like to recall about one more Windows website that is oriented towards realtime error reporting in Windows. You can visit the same in Microsoft Online Crash Analysis website.

Microsoft India initiates Law Scholarships

Microsoft India initiates Law Scholarships

Microsoft India opens up the avenue of the nationwide rollout of law scholarship programme for eleven Indian law colleges along with felicitiations for the first top three law scholars. The programme is being instituted as part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Microsoft India and National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University (NALSAR), Hyderabad.

'Fostering innovation and creating a strong IPR environment is even more critical for a country like India to take giant leap to be a knowledge based economy,' said Nancy Anderson, deputy general counsel, Microsoft Corporation.

The top three scholarship winners for this year are:

1. Maheswari S
2. Santosh Krishnan
3. Nandini R

The currently selected beneficiary law institutions of the nation are:

1. National Law Institute,
2. University,Bhopal
3. National Law School of India, Bangalore
4. Gujarat National Law University
5. ILS Law College of Pune
6. Maharishi Dayanand University of Rohtak
7. Himachal Pradesh University
8. Symbiosis International University, Pune
9. Panjab University, Chandigarh
10. Delhi University
11. Banaras Hindu University.

Source Courtesy: ZdNet India

Quick Look Dictionary

Quick Look Dictionary

Having regularly used dictionary.com and M-W.com, I feel that both these websites have increased the amount of advertising that is shown on them. There is no fault on the website. Their operational model has an inevitable component of advertising. After a bit of search, I came across the following Quick Simple Text Dictionary webpage. It also has a Webservice API for your applications.

I would like to share the URL with other readers:

1. Web-based frontend: http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/
2. Webservice: http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx
3. WSDL URL: http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx?wsdl

But before using it commercially in your applications, ensure that you contact the author, regarding copyright, usage restrictions and terms of use.

Keep Internet Highway Clean

Keep Internet Highway Clean

I like Orkut's slogan "Let us keep Orkut clean and beautiful". Similarly I feel a careful usage can ensure that the common Internet too is useful and clean of most sorts of paranoia. Though this is a very high level thing to visualize and almost utopian dream, we can encompass at least our common day-to-day email to embrace this discipline.

A few tidbits to practice:

1. Avoid "Forward Forward Forward Forward" of emails. Often this is called as ChainMail and deemed on par junk mail (aka) spam.
2. Before alerting your recipients on some vital information, ensure that the information is credible. You can be free of hoaxes by checking the most updated Hoax Slayer website
3. Following up from (2) above, you can be free of virus information from a wide variety of websites. A few of them are:
1. Sophos Latest Viruses Notification
2. Symantec Antivirus Research uenter

Sophisticated AJAX for PHP -- SAJAX for PHP

Sophisticated AJAX for PHP -- SAJAX for PHP

Recently, I had to play around with PHP for a while for a website hosted for Exto Solutions. Initially I was trying to use simple JavaScript based AJAX using XmlHttpRequest library. But then I thought if there had been something like Atlas in ASP.NET, it would be still more robust and a cleaner code.

A brief search did get to me the "Simple AJAX ToolKit for PHP", shortly called (SAJAX). That is why, I just captioned this post "Sophisticated AJAX". The name befits and the framework fits the coat perfectly and the PHP application can be AJAXified like a charm with this simple to use open source toolkit.

Addressing the Aspirations of Freshers

Addressing the Aspirations of Freshers

Just about a few days back, we discussed about an informative website that helps freshers and professionals to hone thier technical and soft skills.  Just today, while browsing in an Internet Kiosk from the Internet Explorer History, I came across a very informative career website entirely aimed at the development and growth of freshers. Check out Freshers World.

A quick glimpse through the websites and a few articles also seems to address the problems that we earlier discussed over here.

 

 

Mail-Enabling Applications and Testing with Ease

Mail-Enabling Applications and Testing with Ease

Every web application would have some sort of mailing feature at least as a feedback stuff. The testing of the application would not be complete and we can not comfortably nod our head for a GoAlive unless we find that this feature also is working fine. But in every organization, the system administrators and web developers would fight. While the former would emphasize on security and uptime of the network servers, the latter would demand custom mailing solutions for the robustness and completion of their application.

I came across the following elegant piece of desktop software, which is really useful to test the mailing components in our application. I would like to share the same with you. To an extent they also scale up as small mailservers for small organizations:

1. PostCast SMTP Server (Thanks to Venkateswari Madasamy for pointing out this URL)
2. Lumisoft MailServer
3. Jana Server
4. FTGate (My first organization actually was using this as email server. Really good one.).

Quenching the Quest for a Good Career

Quenching the Quest for a Good Career

For freshers just out of college and looking out on a lucrative opportunities, there are so many difficuties. The first and foremost daunting problem they face is that everywhere they would be expected of experiences.  This post is epicentered to Chennai area. If the reader finds topics that befit this and from his region, please feel free to share the same over as comments. Sometime back, we were also discussing about 'Fate of Freshers' in our View and Reviews.

Sometime back, I came across this website called QuestPond, which is very innovative of its own kind and the webmaster/author has compiled tons and tons of interview material and presented them for free over the website. He also offers a book on the same, which contains more info. But the quantity of information on the website itself is really voluminous. Check out the website and refer it to your friends who are just out of college or aspiring to lookout for good opportunities.

Microsoft Office System

Microsoft Office System

The more elegant desktop productivity enhancement tool, Microsoft Office, in its new avatar as Microsoft Office 2007  is coming to you. Microsoft India is also intending release of FREE CDs and Online Editions of Microsoft Office 2007.

You can order your free trial CD of Microsoft Office 2007 by dropping an email to connect (at) microsoft.com or alternatively calling Microsoft Connect at the Toll Free Number 1 800 11 1100.

You can get more details at this URL.  Get Ready to welcome your sweetheart sweet desk productivity tool.

Quicker PDF Generation in .NET

Quicker PDF Generation in .NET

Generating PDF documents with C# and ASP.NET was never difficult. Till somepoint of time there was ITextSharp (a derivative of Java iText). Now I came across one more elegant tool called Report .NET. It is more simpler to use and comes with a lot of examples.

PDF documents always are preferred everywhere since once generated they seldom have updations and hence free from viruses and tampering issue. We can have precise graphics with the advantage of cross browser and cross platform portability.

If you still want to access a remotely hosted webservices for PDF generation, you can check out the following:

1. BCL Technologies
2. FastPDF

Keeping off Spyware...

Keeping off Spyware...

Sometime back we were discussing about elegant Antispyware downloads. But the problem is that still a percentage of users are on weak fragile dialup connections and these people might have issues downloading huge software.

Trend Antivirus, who were pioneers in launching HouseCall Online Antivirus have again come up with a Free Online Antispyware. It just needs a simple ActiveX Control and required pattern engines are downloaded on the fly. This should help any household to keep thier system free from malwares and spywares.

Microsoft APAC Influencer Award

Microsoft APAC Influencer Award

The previously given awards called "Community Star" for demonstrating enthusiasm in technology discussion forums has been rejuvenated into "Microsoft APAC Influencer Award". The ultimate aim of the award is to recognize demonstrated and passionate technology community contributions and reward them.

Microsoft India recieves nominations for APAC awards every years and reviewed on a quarterly basis. The duration of the award is one year from the date when it is given.  You can either nominate yourself or a friend of yours, who you consider have demonstrated excellence in helping peers in discussion forums. The next level of CommunityStar is MVP with demonstrated leadership capabilities in discussion forums.

Download the APAC Influencer Nomination Form over here.

RAMBoost -- Memory Freeup Tool

RAMBoost -- Memory Freeup Tool

Windows is best user-friendly and is able to run multiple applications. But many applications run amuck by gobbling up memory from the tool and not returning them back to Windows. Perhaps these are quite similar to loan defaulters from banks when banks have to deploy collection agents to run behind them and get their dues back.

Similarly, there is an elegant tool called RAMBoost, which helps to clearup the memory that is locked in deceased applications. To extend further, there is one more tool called Task Manager Extension available with sourcecode in CodeProject.com that also cleans up the files which are locked by other applications including at the file handle level.

Now no crazy memory leaks or stupid applications to lock the file and demanding Windows restarts.

Quick, Small and Free MP3 Multiplexer

Quick, Small and Free MP3 Multiplexer

There are good amount of MP3 songs that we get from various sources. The songs that we listen for casual use, we can conserve a large amount of diskspace by choosing an appropriately lower bit rate. This is critically important for a simple reason that with a large number of songs in collection the disk space be it the volume on the personal computer or the online storage space is put to stake. After a bit of research, I found the following simpler steps to compress the MP3 files.

1. Compress the MP3 file of your choice as found in Angelfire Compress page.
2. Now download the free MP3 Multiplexer and you can combine the split MP3 into a single MP3 file.

Before playing around the MP3 file, please ensure the following:

1. You have full rights over the MP3 file or the MP3 file is available in public domain.
2. Let us not support piracy. The music was created with great efforts and pains by so many people. We ought to respect to individuals' hardworks as we expect our hardwork to be respected by others.

Google Sketchup

Google Sketchup

Now Google facilitates you with a tool to represent your three dimensional innovations that get originated in your mind. They have released a tool called 'Google Sketchup'. It is a freeware download from the website to quickly create, view and modify the three dimensional ideas.

They have both FREE and PRO versions. The PRO version comes with more extensions and support services.

Zend Certification for PHP Professionals

Zend Certification for PHP Professionals

Zend.com brings in certification programmes for PHP professional through Pearson VUE Test Administrators through out the world. Now the PHP developers have one more way of showcasing their expertise and versatility of their PHP knowledge to the world.

Check out the following URLs for more info:

1. Zend PHP Certification
2. Pearson VUE Contact Network (Worldwide)

Inbox-To-Blogger Dates

Inbox-To-Blogger Dates

Sometime back we were discussing about the power and potential of Inbox WYSIWYG editor. I have a few very interesting observations with respect to the same.

1. The HTML Generation of Inbox.com and if copy pasted to Blogger TextArea seems to be losing all the formatting in 'Edit HTML' Tab.
2. I preserve the alignments in 'Compose' Tab but links are getting destroyed.
3. The expected behavior was correction of 1 and hence I personally feel that Mozilla FireFox should be best underlying web browser that elegantly handles this window-to-window communication of rich HTML.

Readers: Do you have any similar observations? Share across?

Web-based Albums

Web-based Albums

Wherever we go, we normally take photographs of the same and with the advent of technology, we can also record video of the tourist places that we visit. We can have them seamlessly presented on our websites with the help of good image album websites.

I just came across a new Album from Google "Picasa Web Album". Other than that the famous album websites are:

1. HP Snapfish
2. Sony ImageStation
3. Kodak Gallery
4. Yahoo Flickr
5. Windows Live Spaces

So what are you waiting for. Click your favorite moments and share it with your near and dear immaterial of whether they are far and near.

PHP Quebec 2007 Conference

PHP Quebec 2007 Conference

Check out PHP Quebec 2007 website and registrations for the 2007 conference have been thrown open. There are very many early bird discounts available too. There are also invitations for speakers on the following topics:

Advanced Techniques: Providing in-depth details of PHP techniques.

Data Availability: Databases, XML, Web Services, VOIP, TOIP, WAP, etc

PHP Beyond theory: Real solutions for real problems related to software development and project management.

Rush and send your registration and proposals for speakers now.

Community Credit Top Honor

Community Credit Top Honor

Just saw the Community-Credit.com website and my name was figuring out in the 'Top Honors' section on the left hand side. Sometime back, if you remember, we have been discussing about Community-Credit and the excellent ideal behind the website in encouraging collaborative development efforts.

I understand that the leading and me and have wide difference of points but humbly I hope it is a recognition for the little assistance that I was able to provide to my peers.

Here is the screenshot of the 'Top Honor':

Tip: For some reason, this image was serving as a Test Image URL from PhotoBlogger but when I embedded it was broken. Thanks to PhotoBucket.com, it is fixed now.

Quick Online Currency Convertor WebService

Quick Online Currency Convertor WebService

Many a times our application would be requiring an automatic currency conversion utility. I understand that there are websites like XE, but these need manual intervention to click and convert between the desired currencies. Recently I needed a webservice that would do this for me.

After a bit of research, I came across this utility from WebServiceX, which offers conversions between different currencies in the world like a charm. It has a comprehensive list of currencies between which it offers conversion and the speed of conversion is also terrific. You can find the WSDL of the WebService at the same page or here.

IM on your Mobile

IM on your Mobile

Do you feel that while you are away from your system that you are missing a lot of Instant Messaging Conversations? Look no further. Windows Live brings Instant Messaging Conversations direct to your desktop via WAP solutions.

Just navigate to http://mobile.live.com/ and IM your buddies even from your handheld phone.

Maximizing the potential of online research

Maximizing the potential of online research

While casually surfing the Internet I came across this tool called NetSnippets, which is easily available as a Maxthon (erstwhile MyIE2 Plugin). The purpose of this tool is basically to facilitate and aide the research assistants in many organizations in their research work on the Internet and help them prepare elegantly designed and well-formatted report in a shortest possible time.

While I was in my previous organization, I would normally be using Maxthon (the then MyIE2) and my colleague (Srinivasan Veeraraghavan (alias) Vasan) wanted to use Maxthon just because it had this elegant tool called NetSnippets. He almost become a fan of this great tool. Check it out for yourself.

Microsoft SecureWars Contest

Microsoft SecureWars Contest

Writing code is not a big thing. We have proficient automated wizards to accomplish the basic skeleton code for anything and everything under the sun. The bottomline of a proficient application (code with life breathed in) is efficiently performing and secure framework.

There is a lot of research going on what is secure code and how to ensure security of the code. The latest initiative comes from Microsoft in organizing a 'SecureWars Contest' for developers and IT professionals. The code must be as secure as possible and should handle any type of exceptions from its known and unknown parameters and environmental factors.

You can find more details regarding the same from Microsoft website over here. There are very attractive prizes that is being promised over there. Let us get started in starting to write secure code. Towards this, I would also like to share a very useful book that I had been reading sometimg back. "Writing Secure Code" by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc (Microsoft Press).

ADODB for PHP

ADODB for PHP

If you have used PHP, you would simply get enthralled by the excellent set of database connectivity libraries that are shipped with the installer itself. The comprehensive documentation that you get and that too from the local country mirror to facilitate a superfast download all add crowning feathers' to the cap of PHP.

I have been using PHP since about for three years and have been recommending it to many. I have also architect a full-fledged value-chain management product for an Ambur-based leather tannery sometime in 2002-03. The only downside is that database connectivity API go like mysql_Connect and hence at the later point of time, if you wish to change the database, this might warrant a code change.

The more elegant approach would be to have a database abstraction layer. Being an opensource development effort, there are a lot of database abstraction libraries for PHP. Some of the applications like Phprojekt have thier own full-fledged database abstraction layers but have customized to the product-line. A few more are generic and have been listed here:

1. ADODB Database Abstraction Library for PHP and Python
2. Pear DB Abstraction Library

I personally feel that ADODB library is very friendly for developers hailing from Windows background since the syntax would be similar to ASP style. It is also part of a huge enterprise application server product line called PhpLens.

File Extension Webservice

File Extension Webservice

One of the most inspiring features of Windows XP and its successors are if they come across an file extension, which it is not configured to handle, you would be presented with an option of 'Choosing Your Application' or 'Launch Default Web Browser To Search a WebService'. The default webservice that Windows choses Windows Shell Extensions. The other most comprehensive database is FileExt.com.

Here are the direct bookmarks that you would feel very useful in your web browser favorites:

1. Windows Shell Extensions (Just append the extension at the trailing end)
2. FileExt.com (Replace 'df' in this URL with the extension of your choice).

Web-based Management of WordProcessing Documents

Web-based Management of WordProcessing Documents

How many times we were confronted with a situation of recieving a word processing document like a StarWriter or Microsoft Word document while we were travelling in an alien country with a classic old laptop which does not have a viewer with it.

I came across good amount of solutions to cope with this problem. Check out the following and I am sure you would be loving the most attractive one to solve yours too:

1. Convert the document to a preferred format using webservices like Media-Convert.
2. Google Docs and Spreadsheets

Regarding the point number (1) discussed above, we have also touched the same in our other post and as discussed those webservices enlisted in the other post help us to convert between a wide variety of file formats.

Flash Save Plugin

Flash Save Plugin

There are very many interesting SWF files which you would like to view it offline in your web browser. But Flash Movies seldom render themselves to be downloaded for offline use since they are rendered via an ActiveX control. Fortunately, I came across an interesting Internet Explorer plugin that helps us in saving the Flash files. It is called 'Flash Save' and I am sure this would be of tremendous help for developers interacting with the Web Designer counterparts in thier team.

If you are using Maxthon (erstwhile MyIE2), then it comes with FlashSave as a default bundled plugin. We have discussed about other tabbed browsing features of Maxthon in our other post.

Check out FlashSave here.

ASP.NET conquers filesize limitations

ASP.NET conquers filesize limitations

Any forum would indicate problems with huge file uploads in ASP.NET. The most probable replies would be to use alternate upload channels or chunked uploads to overcome this. Travelling back, we were able to manage such huge gigs of upload seamlessly with ISAPI filters and extensions. The underlying trick was that the data buffers that flow into the server should be serialized and not accumulating in the memory which is an overhead for the server.

Just came across this elegant article in CodeProject which is promising. Albeit the fact that the code is in Visual Studio 2005, with just a couple of changes in two of its files, I was able to manage the same run on .NET Framework 1.1. Check out this article in CodeProject.com.

The best thing in this article was that it did'nt wanted us to make any change in Web.Config.

Inbox.com WYSIWYG Editor

Inbox.com WYSIWYG Editor

I think there is more to appreciate Inbox.com than just serving as a simple suite of web applications. We would like to recall about our testimony on Inbox.com sometime back. This post should serve as some more internal analysis on Inbox.com.

While writing this blog or an other review or even a friendly (love) letter or a sloka, I feel that Inbox.com Compose Editor (Rich Text) is more versatile and feature rich than anything else. I have seen more number of HTML TextArea editors. Inbox.com has some issues with keyboard shortcuts in the editor. I have even reported them to the helpdesk and they are working on it. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Inbox.com Compose Editor serves more than a plain vanilla editor. I would rather put it as 'WYSIWYG Web-based Notepad'.

Check out Inbox.com for your own email cum organizer account.

Antispam Tools

Antispam Tools

In my personal time research following the mission envisaged here, I found some very interesting and easy to use tools that are effective in combatting spam. We would here enlist a few of them over here:

1. Microsoft Sender ID Framework
2. DomainKeys

These need a bit of configuration on the MX or SPF records on the web or the email server on the domain and then on the domain would be qualified for the participating domains. This effectively reduces the intensity of spam, reduces the acuteness of the phishing effect.

During the course of research, I also found an interesting acronym for Spam. Spam is not actually a word and originated as an acronym 'Simultaneusly Posted Advertising Message'. Perhaps while in the Internet Age, we mostly treat only unsolicited emails as spam, even telemarketing calls fall under the banner of spam.

IIS Diagnostics Tools

IIS Diagnostics Tools

Preparing for a GoLive on a Windows Enviroment? It would be pretty sure that you would be encountering thousands of butterflies in preparing the webservers for robustness, scalability, security, resilence and fault-tolerance.

I have come across a suite of tools that aide a Microsoft Web Administrators to help diagnose and troubleshoot issues with IIS. I would like a share information about a few of them for readers quick reference:

---

Auth Diag

Troubleshoots IIS Authentication issues. Download it.

SSLDiag

Simulates and troubleshoots SSL configurations on the webserver. Download it.

SMTPDiag

Troubleshoots Microsoft Exchange related issues. Download it.

LogParser

A Versatile Log Parser for IIS Logfiles. Download it.

---

Web-Based Password Strength Test Meter

Web-Based Password Strength Test Meter

An online product or an application that is personalized for a particular user is secure as long as the user that is consuming its services take enough care to secure thier password. The password is currently the one and only key that acts as a safeguard for the account. For a website administrator, chosing a password that is weak might open up plethora of security holes for the website leading to vandalism and sabotage of its contents.

We now have a lot of web-based applications from our big brothers who use friendly AJAX to decide and tell you whether the password that you are using are relatively safe and secure are not. I would suggest a few of the webservices for your quick reference.

1. Microsoft Password Checker
2. SecurityStats Password Strength Test
3. Google New Account Page
4. Keepass Desktop Password Safe
   

Stamp out Spam on Blogs

Stamp out Spam on Blogs

Are you developing a weblog and tired of spam comments ravaging through your weblog posts all along? Just came across this Antispam Webservice from Automattic called Akismet. It is a very friendly webservice that can be implemented across our blog applications and stamps out every elusive SPAM in every form.

They have friendly free API for non-profile weblogs and also commercial license for enterprise weblog applications. Check it out today.

Neat Upload

Neat Upload

Looking out for an elegant upload solution like erstwhile ISAPI filter in C# and .NET .Look no further. Just found a very nice open source component called 'Neat Upload'. You can have the component downloaded along with a comprehensive documentation from http://www.brettle.com/neatupload

The website also enlists the bug reports and feature requests in a most lucid and elegant fashion.

A few more heavy weight upload solutions in ASP.NET:

1. SoftArtisans FileUpload -- Commercial Component.

Focus Stealing in Desktop Applications

Focus Stealing in Desktop Applications

Windows is rich and cool in every new aspect. With every new version, it has a good new feature. My preferred version currently is Windows Server 2003, with rich IIS robustness and support. As far as the desktop nature is concerned, the only thing that I feel bad is that when you login to Windows, you are presented with a spurt of 'Startup Applications'. Typically every application that you install during the lifetime of Windows Installation on your hardware is actively vying for its share of startup. The same also applies to a Page_OnLoad in a WebPage.

Even as of typing this weblog, my other window running Dictionary.com keeps running different popups and popunders and they keep dancing across the browser, distracting you from the force of typing the weblog. I am trying to investigate the option of having an application that controls other applications from running amuck in thier behavior.

And interestingly, this post closely forwards its predecessor, "Scripting Hell in WebPages and Optimal solutions".

Quick ScratchPad

Quick ScratchPad

How many times while searching the Internet, you have found some information, noted down somewhere, somewhere and then searching it all along sometime later. It just indicates how we just carefully 'jot' down the points. There are some quick desktop solutions that come to our rescue including one from Google Labs. It is called Google Notebook.

But I personally feel that the following two are more easy for me.

1. Yahoo Notepad
2. Inbox Notes

So, no more searching of information. You can safely have them all in a single place and get your information whenever you want at the right time.

Monitoring Website for Uptime

Monitoring Website for Uptime

When we develop a website for our organization, we showcase it and present it to the audience as a 24x7 staff. It keeps telling about our organization across the world and continuously round the clock without any stop. Our routine offices have closures in our night time but websites do not unless there is a scheduled maintenance.
Even these downtimes are very significant in case where our website has real mission critical business to do. Under these circumstances, we can have mirroring of the website in geographically different locations and as well monitoring of the website from different places and alert us.
I came across a few monitoring websites and a couple of products that help us in our monitoring mission, which I would like to share with the readers. While I was in my previous organization, working as a module lead for a typical onsite-offshore project, I learnt about a few hosted web applications that help us in monitoring and alerting us.

1. InternetSeer
2. BigBrother (They also have an opensource version, which you can compile and install in your own system).
3. Netcraft WebServer Survey.

PhotoSynth Technology Preview

PhotoSynth Technology Preview

Check out the latest from Microsoft Windows Live Labs -- Photosynth Technology Preview. The basic and the very interesting thing is that it just seems to use simple images and try to create a three dimensional model effect as the description goes.

It needs an ActiveX Control which gets installed the first time you visit the website to proceed. And hence the basic web browser that it can run is 'Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0' and/or higher on Windows.

Detecting Memory Leak in Internet Explorer

Detecting Memory Leak in Internet Explorer

While performance tuning and analyzing my JavaScript, I came across an elegant way in which Patrick shows how to diagnose memory effect problem in IE. Typically, he shows a Screencast on his website which indicates a StairCase Effect of a memory leak problem. Check out this StairCase Effect.

In the flash, you can see a program called "Process Explorer". You can download this from SysInternals website. There is also one more program called 'Task Manager Extension', which is available in CodeProject.

Hosted Wiki

Hosted Wiki

Wiki Pages are getting popular nowdays. A WIKI claims a unique place of pride and love among the web users in that they can share the ideas on the website by editing and/or adding a content to the website without even registering them. Wiki applications have a rudimentary source control that helps and good logging-cum-audit trails to preserve the data and content integrity and to safeguard itself from vandalism and sabotage.

I came across a website called PbWiki.com, which supports creating of FREE Wiki applications for ourselves. This weblog is now supported and complimented of its technology efforts by http://lavanyadeepak.pbwiki.com/

More to come... (Stay Tuned!)

Presentation Skills Improvement

Presentation Skills Improvement

Strong and elegant communication skills is very inevitable at least in IT field. SeminarsAcademy from Mumbai is organizing a two day communication skills seminar in  Mumbai towards this. Since I am subscribed to thier news bulletins and weekly newsletters, I have got the following information, which I would like to share with other interested readers.

---

Presentation Skills

Dates: 4th and 5th December, 2006
Time: 0930 hours to 1700 hours Indian Time.
Venue: Hotel Ramada Plaza Palm Grove, Juhu, Mumbai
Event Managers: Seminars Academy. (Can be contacted at seminarsacademy (at) vsnl.net)
Fee per participant: INR 8000 [Statutory Service Tax of 12.2% additional]. The total fee comes to INR 8980.

The fee covers course material, breakfast, lunch, snacks (tea/cofee) on both days. The programme is non-residential. Outstation candidates need to make arrangements for the accomodation themselves.

Course Content

Written

" Proposals
" Memos
" Minutes
" Reports
" Press Releases

Spoken

" Speeches
" Briefing

Audio Visual

" Power Point Presentations
" Film

Corporate

" Meetings
" Business Presentations
" Interviews 

---

Trainer's Profile

Mr Hansel D'Souza

Mr Hansel D'Souza has been involved in all aspects of business and communications since the last two decades. He has been a visiting professor at most of the leading management institutes in the Mumbai.

Hansel D'Souza holds a First Class Master's Degree in Management from the Bombay University through the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, besides being a Gold Medalist in Mass Communications. He conducts training programs and management development workshops internationally.

He is currently, also a Consultant to the USSEC (United States Soybean Export Council).

---

ENROLLMENT

Please send your nominations on your letter head along with the prescribed fee by cheque / DD (for companies outside Mumbai) payable to the Indian Academy of Management and mail it to :

Indian Academy of Management
331, Kaliandas Udyog Bhavan,
Century Bazar Lane,
Worli,
Mumbai - 400 025.
Maharastra. INDIA.

Phone No. +912265886060, +912230403400
Fax: +912224222162
to reach us at least seven days before the seminar.

WebScape -- BBC World's Choice of Best Websites Every Week

WebScape -- BBC World's Choice of Best Websites Every Week

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to watch BBC World and a nice programme called WebScape. This brings to the viewers' attention very informative websites that thier panel visits and shortlists.  This seems to be a weekly programme. BBC World also has a webpage associated with this program in thier website. Check out WebScape page. They also have dedicated a page where you get tips in surfing safely and securely.

Related Programmes:

The Tamil Channel (Sun News) also does telecasts every Sunday programme called IT.COM which showcases the best websites that the panelists select. They also interview experts in IT field and present the interview too.

Exto Solutions Looking out for Web Developers

Exto Solutions Looking out for Web Developers

I was reading through the weekly update email from TambaramOnline from the premiere directory operators, ExtoSolutions.com based from Tambaram, the gateway of Chennai. The weekly update carries top notch opportunities for web developers proficient in cutting edge .NET technologies.

They are looking out for Web Developers proficient in C#, ASP.NET, SQLServer with at least a minimum experience of 1 year. They have a rigourour background verifications and hence in case you are attempting to present fake experiences, please refrain from applying.

Though they are young startups with less than two year old, they have diversified in multiple directory services like TambaramOnline, Chronicle Chennai and similar websites.

Apply to support (at) tambaramonline.com

WinPatrol -- Effective Security Guard for your Windows

WinPatrol -- Effective Security Guard for your Windows

Are you tired of thousands of unknown viruses, trojans, spyware attacking your system. Recently one of a computer assembler in my region (Camp Road) showed me a freeware called WinPatrol. The icon is small 'WatchDog' that sits near the system tray. It effectively monitors whatever programs that adds itself to System Startup, modifies key registry entries etc.

A search revealed the website of WinPatrol to be http://www.winpatrol.com/

I think this should be a sure application these days when everyone has a broadband with dangers lurking around everywhere.

A Quick Tool To Peek at the View State

A Quick Tool To Peek at the View State

The most coveted and valuable feature in ASP.NET is the automatic page state persistence across roundtrips to the same page (what we call as postbacks). This is achieved by storing the required data as encoded base 64 string in the hidden field called __VIEWSTATE. ViewState, technically is a StateBag implementation.

At times we might need to inspect what is stored at that point of time in this Page StateBag (ViewState). The following tools come as quick and effective remedies for us.

1. ViewState Decoder from PluralSight
   
2. Check out the appropriate version since the website has separate decoders for 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 frameworks.
   

Single Window MultiTab Browsing

Single Window MultiTab Browsing

I feel that it is really very much intimidating to see a clutter of Internet Explorer task bar icons in the TaskBar. Even if "Group Similar Icons" is selected, when we select the Icon Group, the really loooong list of URLs makes one feel very uncomfortable.  I feel comfortable in having a web browser that provides intuitive tabs within the application realm itself rather than depending upon external windows. In this way, I personally like Mozilla FireFox for its Tabbed Browsing. I think I missed out this feature in my earlier post. You can include this too.

Perhaps there are more tab-powered browsers coming along the way. Just wanted to share a simple list for web browser's convenience.

1. Avant
   
2. Maxthon (Loaded with a lot of goodies like RoboHelp plugin etc)
3. Internet Explorer 7

So say 'Good Bye' to clutter in the desktop and get dipped in the voyage on the Internet Highway with an elegant superfast tabbed browsers.

Interesting and Useful Features in FireFox

Interesting and Useful Features in FireFox

I am starting to develop a crazy love for Mozilla Firefox. There are many reasons. First and foremost, it streamlines the HTML that we develop, thanks to its inheritance from Netscape. A few of the good things I would like to share are:

1. I personally feel that FireFox brings the best speed of browsing from Internet Explorer along with the strict XHTML compliance of Netscape.
   


2. Furthermore, its isolated mode of install of not getting mixed up with OS so that even non-administrators can install FireFox. The installer does warn that installation might not be complete if the logged on user does not have administrative rights. But a careful folder selection passes through.


3. The very useful web development aide tools that I like in FireFox are:
   




1. JavaScript Console


2. DOM Inspector


3. Page Info


4. I have'nt tried the FireFox 2.0 yet and hence I am refraining from commenting on those features.


4. And today while accidentally clicking a MMS link, it did give me an interesting warning, which elevated my love to FireFox. Had this been the other Internet Explorer, it would have launched Windows Media Player and my bandwidth constrained ADSL modem should be worrying unnecessarily downloading the scrap whose link I created by mistake in half-asleep mode.
   


5. And adding feather to its crown is that 'Launch Application' button is disabled for a couple of seconds so that the user concenterates on what is displayed rather than just clicking the button.
   
   

Web Page Optimization

Web Page Optimization

Even though broadband is getting a quick hype with marketing promos by every individual ISP in each and every country, nevertheless, having a webpage that provides instant response is always a welcome step. Previously, we had the eight second step. Now the users expect the pages to just land in thier desktop at the wink of thier eye.

To start with we would discuss about loading heavy images. A picture is worth thousand words but if we have a thousand MB picture which is going to take three hours to download, the web surfer is going to prefer File -> Close of the web browser and then launch a fresh browser session for your competitor website.

There are a few simple tricks that we can use to make images fast loading to provide a seamless user experience.

1. Use Interlaced GIF compared to normal images. This way, the user gets a chance to preview the image as it downloads rather than waiting for the entire image to download.
2. In case of heavy images, you can opt for having the images splitted and load the split images.
3. For visual image toggling like 'ON' and 'OFF', you can have the alternative images cached on window.onLoad and hence the page delay at the time when the image is required would be avoided.
4. Always specify WIDTH and HEIGHT for the images so that the web browser knows how much space has to be allocated on the webpage for the images. This avoids jump or flickers in the webpage.
5. Always specify ALT tags. This way, in case the image is  broken, the user would know of the purpose of the image. Also image challenged text browsers like Lynx and users who have opted to disable images would get benefitted by knowing the purpose of the images.
6. A Few Free Tools:
1. It is not difficult to edit and fine tune the image. You can have simpler tools like Irfanview to edit the images and export them to a variety of formats and the publish them to your webpage.
2. For splitting too, there is an online webservice from  Chami.com which you can make use of. Check out Online Image Splitter from Chami.com.

Elegant UML IDEs

Elegant UML IDEs

An elegant UML diagram presents a breeze of experience for developers in creating complex software design patterns, architectures in a more comprehendable way. There are a lot of tools that help us in this perspective. The best editor that strikes our mind in this is Microsoft Visio. But for casual developers who are pricked by the price of the same there are some free IDEs available to learn UML.

A few of them are:

1. ProxyDesigner from ProxySource [This has been really valuable tool. Unfortunately, ProxySource website is no longer available and a website hijacker seemed to have taken the domain. I have a version of ProxyDesigner with me. A search revealed an older version hosted with WinSite. Thank you, Winsite. Here is the link of the same.]
   
2. Dia Editor (hosted at SourceForge)

A few more like MetaMill are available in Shareware flavor. If we are intending to purchase it after the desired period, I think these can be used.  For those interested, I would also like to share the UML QuickReference Card over here.

Resilent websites with Resilent Logging Infrastructure

Resilent websites with Resilent Logging Infrastructure

Recently, I had an opportunity to review a small website operated by a reseller of his clients. He had some technical issues and wanted some assistance. He was also developing small-sized websites for regional clients like local chain of supermarkets, stores, pharmacies, mid-sized business houses in Chennai.

One of the most shocking thing that I learnt from them is that they just depend on IIS Logging and do not have a logging infrastructure. They just feel that it is a overkill and their application simply do not need the same. It is really a sad truth and I had to convince him the necessity of judicious logging for more than an hour and I could substantiate that the troubleshooting effort we had been taking along could have been expedited had they implemented logging from thier application. This would have also reduced the amount of downtime that we took the website too.

There are plenty of free logging frameworks available too. A few of them are log4j (for Java), log4net (for .NET) that has configurable channels to which information could be logged like Smtp, File, Database etc and also in different levels like DEBUG, INFO etc. And coming to the point of parsing a logfile, there are a lot of good powerful log parsers too. A few of them are:

1. IIS Logs Lite Version 2.0
2. Microsoft LogParser 2.0

Also ensure that I have used the term 'judicious logging'. Logging too much means the application is slowed down. There should be a balance in the information that is being logged, how long the logged information is maintained, how is the information parsed and when are the information expunged.

Empowering Community Contributions

Empowering Community Contributions

Community contributions has always been encouraged and supported throughout. It provides for healthy development of ideas and innovations. Diversified ideas and feedback from various parts of the world improve the architecture of the application and if applied after a careful feasibility study and analysis would make the application more resilent and robust.

Towards these, to support and aid for community contributions, I came across a website called Community Credit.com, which encourages community contributors by giving them lucrative prizes and displaying thier names on the website. The website also offers webservices for other forums and messageboards so that the contributors there are directly benefitted. It also acts as a great plus for the host website too.

Check out Community Credit website today.

Catching Musical Relaxation in Dos Prompt

Catching Musical Relaxation in Dos Prompt

A few days back we were discussing about download avaiability of valuable MSDOS Utilities. Not just for system administrators but even for casual users, I would say, they are inevitable tool in thier workman's chest. Today I was relatively free and just was surfing through the weblogs and websites. Just fondly recalled about QBasic and its ability to even play musical notes by simple strings. For anyone to start off in IT field, I think QBasic would provide a firm quickstart.

We would here discuss four important and interesting features of QBasic.exe (You can download QBasic from the URL above).

1. Beep
2. Sound
3. Play
4. Games

Beep: As the name indicates, BEEP just produces a simple beep sound from your computer's default speaker.

Sound:Sound is a more extensible and configurable BEEP. It instructs your computer's speaker on the intensity of the BEEP sound and its duration.

Play: Play command is very versatile. It allows you to configure and play complex musical notes from your MSDOS application. ABCDEFG stand for the SA RE GA MA PA DHA NEE and you can increase or decrease the OCTAVE by > and < than symbols. Also you can adjust the tempo too.

Games: You can check out some of the games with QBasic from the following URL. Though a very simple command prompt language, I would say QBasic is very rich and complex programming for standalone PCs could be created.

Peer Performance Appraisal

Peer Performance Appraisal

Periodic assessment one's own progress and introspection forms the most important phase in development of one's own self. Enterprises normally have something called 'Appraisals' in which individuals submit whatever they have accomplished for the quarter and managers review the same.

Even for normal individual use and milestones, appraisals (be it self or peer) forms a very significant part in self-development. I came across this 'Peer Performance Appraisal' from a website called Dotnetspider.com.

I am sure that this would be very useful for everyone and wanted to share the link with the readers.

Inbox.com Launches Antispyware

Inbox.com Launches Antispyware

Sometime back, I was lucky enough to write a small testimonial on (free) web-based organizer-suite of applications like Norada and Junglemate. For those interested, here is the permalink of the post.

It was about Monday night half past nine, when my friend in Camp Road called me. He was at another friends house and they were facing a piquant situation that a unique spyware was harassing his system. He had almost tried every antispyware and other kind of tool but to no avail. I did suggest him over the telephone a few registry tweaks. They did work to an extent but neither it was a complete cure.

Then I just thought of seeing the link of Inbox.com Spyware Terminator. As we have already discussed, Inbox.com is best known for rich UI and also quickest and reliable customer support. He immediately downloaded the same and it was the more fast remedy that our operator of detecting and eliminating all the spyware and trojan horses in the system succeeded in no time. He in fact thanked me for suggesting but I humbly told that the credit goes to Inbox.com and I have duly forwarded a thanks note to Inbox.com.

I wanted to share this URL with other readers too.

Building Lexical Resilence In the Web Applications

Building Lexical Resilence In the Web Applications

The power of a Word processor lies in the rich lexicographical companionship that it lends to the user. With a seamless experience of web platform complimenting desktop experience and sprawling Web 2.0 applications, the demand of a comprehensive desktop on the Web is ever increasing.

Sometime last week, I was looking out for a spell checking stuff. A search in Google revealed using Microsoft Word.  We would now analyse step-by-step in each of the possible solution and problems surrounding the same.

1. Cross Browser Compatibility: Since Microsoft Word requires ActiveX Controls and browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer on Windows can not recognize them.
2. Serverside Automation: The next solution we can try is to automate Microsoft Word on the serverside and use AJAX to communicate between the server and the web browser. Again there are the following issues surrounding the same.
1. Office Web Components License
2. Considerations for server-side Automation of Office
3. Trying out StarOffice, we almost invite the same issues.
   

After a few search, I came across LiteSpellChecker, powered by AJAX and ASpell dictionary. If you have PHP as serverside language, you still have more rapid development with pspell API. Check out LiteSpellChecker examples. It has all cool features like:

1. Open Source
2. Comprehensive Examples in Perl, PHP and C++
3. AJAX
4. Suggestion Dictionary
5. Richer DHTML Interface
   

A Gentle Touch ...

A Gentle Touch ...

Long time my (this) weblog on technical gossips was updated. Being relatively free today, I was trying to update it with a few more brighter and consistent template to my other weblog. The Rounders 3 blogger template seemed to be good. Blogrolling broke down and hence I had to repair the same. I have reimported all the earlier links from a backup text file. The blogroling restoration affects all the weblog since it is an external webservice.

I am trying to verify whether all links are intact. Should you find anything missing, let me know so that I can include the same. So what do you feel regarding the new template?  Let me know.

Quick Online Conversion Tools

Quick Online Conversion Tools

Are you stuck with a Microsoft Word document and need to convert immediately to StarOffice version but do not have the necessary software installed?

Are you stuck with a HTML file whose PDF version is immediately required?

Recently I came across two websites that cater to this quick conversions online without the need of downloading any software and hence thus incurring the risk of virus infections etc. Check these out at:

1. Media Convert
2. ZamZar

Microsoft .NET 3.0

Microsoft .NET 3.0

Find the download of Microsoft .NET 3.0 from Microsoft Download Center over here. Also check out this page for the heirarchy chart and various associated downloads. Just last week, I got a copy of Windows Vista. I was terribly busy last week and hence had to figure out by installing this weekend.

I would keep posted over the discoveries, inventions, tips and snippets shortly. The quickest source of your essential information would be NetFx 3 website.

Scripting Hell in WebPages and Optimal Solution

Scripting Hell in WebPages and Optimal Solution

One pathetic thing I observed in most of the current webpages particularly login websites is the TextBox focus on pageLoad. But the most pathetic thing is an incomplete implementation of just focussing on the textbox regardless of wherever the user is and whatever the user is doing.

Drawback of the current solution: A regular user would be typing his username and started typing password even before the page completes loading. This 'Focus' script starts only on Body Load completes. Now when he is typing the password, the focus shifts and password appears along with the username.

Solution: Have a KeyUp handler and stop onFocus from bieng called if any username type has already begun.

Rich Internet Applications

Rich Internet Applications

Internet applications are getting richer by the day. Gone are the days of having simple HTML and Text markup. Now everything is dynamic and AJAX is the buzzword of the day. Getting along with AJAX is not at all difficult. Your favorite search engine should bring you tons of information on AJAX  and AJAX primers to help you along the learning path.

Also there are websites like Rich Net Apps which can you visit from http://www.richnetapps.com/,
which provide free tools along with source code to make your website feel richer. Check it out today.

Recovering Email Attachments from WinMail.Dat

Recovering Email Attachments from WinMail.Dat

Microsoft Outlook is by far the best and most rich email client on the planet. But there are other email clients also. The problem actually comes when you send an email with attachments to your friends and people and if the message is comprehendible by the email client used by them and if you have sent the email using Microsoft Outlook, they end up getting a simple attachment like winmail.dat.

What happens behind the scenes?

When you receive a message from a user with Microsoft Outlook who has sent you a message in Microsoft Outlook RTF format, you will receive the normal message text along with an attached file named 'winmail.dat'. Strictly speaking it's not a Word rich text file and you can't use Word to read it. The winmail.dat file contains a formatted version of the message (which this program ignores) and any attached files.

But there is some light at the end of tunnel. After searching a while, I came across a small tool called WMDecode, which recovers the email attachments from WinMail.dat and saves them for you individually. Check out WMDecode from this URL. However, the catch is that the software is released as a time-limited download and each time it expires it has to be redownloaded. However there is a non-expiring version which is also available on the website for $10.

An unique Career development post...

An unique Career development post...

Be it a fresher or an experienced professional looking out for a change, it is always the first and foremost to have a preliminary discussion (aka) interview with some of the representatives of the organization.

The success of the discussion remains in the fact how effectively we are able to convince our greatness. Check out this lucid post by Bhuvana Sundaramoorthy over here.

ASP.NET Learner Videos

ASP.NET Learner Videos

Of late I came across a nice Learner Video collections on ASP.NET and Atlas (AJAX for ASP.NET) framework. Check them out here.  This makes the learning of new technology a breeze since it is very much interactive.

PHP meets .NET

PHP meets .NET

The premeire Unix based Scripting language which also has Windows port (PHP -- Hypertext Preprocessor) meets .NET.  A new PHP Language compiler called Phalanger has been developed which converts PHP code into .NET MSIL, thus extending ASP.NET support for PHP

Check out for more details: http://www.php-compiler.net/

Windows Vista -- Test your Knowledge and get a CD

Windows Vista -- Test your Knowledge and get a CD

Test your knowledge in Windows Vista by answering simple questions and get a free Windows CD shipped to you. Check out this URL http://www.microsoft.com/india/offers/vista/quiz.aspx

An AJAX Framework by Matthias Hertel

An AJAX Framework by Matthias Hertel

One more cool AJAX Framework from Matthias Hertel. But this one is more powerpacked with cross browser compatibility, webservices interoperability and multilanguage support.

Also check out the documentation on http://www.mathertel.de/Ajax/AJAXeBook.aspx

Online Code Convertors from DotNetSpider

Online Code Convertors from DotNetSpider

How many times we have been frustrated by encountering a sample code or library but in a different language? I came across the following very useful tool that attempts to resolve the query and aspirations of millions of developer fraternity.

Check out online code convertor tools between C# and VB.NET from Dotnetspider here:

http://www.dotnetspider.com/convert/

Feel free to share any other code conversion tools as comments to this post or to Dotnetspider here.

Golden Jubilee Post

Golden Jubilee Post

It is a pleasurable moment to share with you that your favorite technology weblog, Daffodilnet, has humbly reached its Golden Jubilee Post. There are more milestones to conquer and laurels to win.

Keep visiting and extend your support and patronage. Thank you!

Microsoft Excel -- Quick Reckoner for Financial Calculations

Microsoft Excel -- Quick Reckoner for Financial Calculations

Most of us would have encountered piquant situations while planning to avail personal loans from financial institutions. While the bank gives a full details of the loan, the amortization schedules etc, it would be better that we also have hand-calculate and cross verify the details. The calculation process is not simple and particularly assumes mammoth complexities in the case of long term loans.

Fortunately, there is a simple but generic tool that lies very much within Microsoft Excel to help ease out this situation and greatly help us.

1. Amotization Schedule
1. Launch Microsoft Excel.
2. Right click on the bottom tab 'Sheet 1'.
3. Click on the tab 'Spreadsheet Solutions'.
4. You can now select 'Amortization Schedule'.
5. Fill out the steps and Microsoft Excel would calculate the rest.
2. Principal Component in EMI
1. Launch Microsoft Excel and from Insert -> Function, choose the category 'Financial'
2. Choose 'PPMT' as the function name.
3. Fill out the fields.
4. Instead of PPMT, if you can choose IPMT, you can get the Interest component of the loan.

I hope this would be of tremendous significance to any user before availing a loan from any financial institution.

JavaScript X Library

JavaScript X Library

While searching for some JavaScript functions and implementations, I came across a comprehensive website on JavaScript library, purportedly achieving cross browser compatibility and ease of diversified functions like utility functions, DHTML tips and tricks and more.

Check out X Library here: http://cross-browser.com/

Guidance Explorer

Guidance Explorer

Design of an enteprise application involves a lot of careful study and analysis which does not undermine the necessity of emphasing on the right type of design pattern that needs to be used. But startup developers often tend to curse of the plethora of design patterns, beguile and confusing terms used thereto, while program managers find pleasure in advocating and supporting the pros and cons of each design pattern.

Fortunately, there is a cool tool from GotDotNet Workspaces called GuidanceExplorer which attempts to ease this task for developers and realise the dream potentials of program managers.

Check out GuidanceExplorer from GotDotNet CodeGallery.

Microsoft Office 2007 Beta Delivery

Microsoft Office 2007 Beta Delivery

Check out the free downloads of Microsoft Office 2007 or free shipment of CD from this URL http://www.microsoft.com/india/office/beta/. It takes about two weeks of delivery time.  You may need to login with your Windows Live account to proceed with the order.

JavaScript X Library

JavaScript X Library

While searching for some JavaScript functions and implementations, I came across a comprehensive website on JavaScript library, purportedly achieving cross browser compatibility and ease of diversified functions like utility functions, DHTML tips and tricks and more.

Check out X Library here: http://cross-browser.com/

Online Tamil Keyboard (for Mozilla FireFox)

Online Tamil Keyboard (for Mozilla FireFox)

Check out TamilKey, an elegant solution in all Mozilla-based web browsers like FireFox to instantly toggle between Tamil and English. A JavaScript version of the browser for Internet Explorer is also available in Thamizha.com homepage over here.

Free ASP.NET 2.0 Hosting Accounts

Free ASP.NET 2.0 Hosting Accounts

Developers using .NET Framework 2.0 would be trying to find out some free hosting accounts where they can play around with .NET Framework 2.0 applications. During the initial stages of .NET Framework 1.1, we had the following websites that supported free .NET Framework hosts. Check out the following comprehensive lists:

1. Brinkster Inc.
2. DotNetPlayGround [currently free signups or hosting is unavailable]
3. ASPSpider
4. Maximum ASP Beta [ASP.NET 2.0 with IIS 7 Trial Account]

Comprehensive Guide to Visual Studio Debugger Problems

Comprehensive Guide to Visual Studio Debugger Problems

While searching for some solution regarding an 'Access denied' while attaching debugger to ASP.NET, I found out the following comprehensive document on Visual Studio Debugger issues. I would like to share it with our readers for reference.

This document seems to be maintained by the Visual C# Team in GotDotNet as the URL reads. Check out and download the document from here.

Visual Studio Project Convertor

Visual Studio Project Convertor

It would really be a daunting experience after downloading a Visual Studio .NET project file and your Visual Studio refusing it to open complaining that it has been designed for another version of the product. I came across a tool called VSConvert from CodeProject, which I would like to share the information with my readers and which I hope would greatly help in converting project files across .NET Framework (1.0 and 1.1). Check out this tool from CodeProject VSConvert page.

Currently, conversion of project files to 2.0 framework is possible using Visual Studio 2005 itself as the IDE pops up a wizard. However, the reverse might not be possible since there are a lot of changes from 1.1 to 2.0 version of the framework.

STS 121 Discovery -- Flash Demontration

STS 121 Discovery -- Flash Demontration

Check out the Flash Demonstration Application hosted on NASA website in its STS 121 Discovery Shuttle Mission Page. It is really exciting to even click and view the application and I am sure it is really a life's best experience travelling to outer space, doing research there.

Check it out for yourself.

No spams on Blogs

No spams on Blogs

One of the most dreaded threats that any blogger faces comes in the form of comment spamming.  A lot of people would have confronted with spurious comments posted by automatic bots on pills etc and also from persons sans ethics using others blogs to solicit visits to thier websites.

There have been a diversifed ways of combating this. Till now, the following have been used popularly.

1. Comment Moderation
2. CAPTCHA

Comment moderation enqueues all the comment till the blog owner/administration peruses through the comments that are pending approval and gives a nod. CAPTCHA filters all the comments that are posted by spam robots since it generates a dynamic image which is readable only by human eye and not by spam robots.

I came across this website similar to Email Relay Blacklist services which offers spam blacklisting webservice for blogosphere also. Check it out at Akismet. It is free for personal use too. So, I think, you can start using it as a valuable tool to combat spam and keep your weblogs healthy.

Develop without Borders

Develop without Borders

Check out a Microsoft Office 97 programming contest.  This seems to be a very innovative programming contest where the contest works are going to benefit a lot of charities worldwide. The contest is jointly managed by Microsoft and HP.

For further details, check out Develop without Borders website and/or the Source URL in Chennai .NET Usergroup Message.

Asia Pacific Telecommunity Elecution Competition

Asia Pacific Telecommunity Elecution Competition

The Asia Pacific Telecommunity and ICT development forum is organizing an International Conference in Chennai between 10th and 14th July, 2006. The event is hosted by the Department of Telecommunications and managed by BSNL, Chennai Telephones.

As part of the international conference, an elocution competition for college students is being planned out, in alliance with Anna University.  Students of Anna University and/or its affiliated colleges are eligible for participation in the same. Each college may nominate two UG/PG students for the same. The event is going to be one-of-its-kind in the international arena of telecommunity and would be a most right and an apt platform to showcase the potential and prowess of the students and the institutions.

All participants get a certificate of participation whilst winners stand to get attractive cash prizes besides an invitation to attend the main conference.

1. Enrolment Form: http://chennai.bsnl.co.in/apt/EnrolmentForm.htm
2. Venue and Prizes: http://chennai.bsnl.co.in/apt/VenuePrizes.htm

Source Courtesy: Chennai BSNL

JavaScript Framework Library

JavaScript Framework Library

JavaScript has been an inevitable scripting language that developers worldwide rely on ranging from the simplest forms of form validations through interactive animations on the web browsers. There have been JavaScript applications running from Windows Desktop as well.

Check out this elegant Javascript library called Prototype, which makes development of web applications easy, giving enormous flexibility to maintain as well.

[Imported from Blogdrive]Incessant Flow of Appreciation and Congratulations...

Incessant Flow of Appreciation and Congratulations...
An incessant flow of appreciations and congratulations for the recognition described in my other post ("Selected as Microsoft MVP again"), makes me more happier and merrier than ever. As my colleague, Prathiba, has described in her post, "Need for recognition", the words of appreciation really gave a great boost and energizes ourselves to conquer further peaks of victory.
This post is dedicated to one and all who supported, helped and encouraged me. To requote Prathiba,&nbsp; "It takes more than a good heart to let a person step forward when he took the only first step".
Thanks again...<!--
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        Posted at 02:26 pm by Deepak Kumar Vasudevan
 

 

Deepak Kumar Vasudevan July 5, 2006 &nbsp; 11:55 AM PDT&nbsp;Thank you, AravinthanAravinthan July 5, 2006 &nbsp; 10:04 AM PDT&nbsp;Congrats deepak.. :)

 

  Original BlogDrive Post on Tuesday, July 04, 2006

[Imported from Blogdrive]Selected as Microsoft MVP again...

Selected&nbsp;as Microsoft MVP again...A few moments back, my mailbox was glad to recieve the mail from Microsoft India Community Manager,&nbsp; Abhishek Kant &nbsp;that I have been selected as a MVP (Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional) in ASP.NET category.
A few things to recall -- I have been MVP for two years consecutively from 2003-04 and 2004-05 in .NET framework and then C# categories.&nbsp; I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Microsoft MVP selection team for considering my humble contributions towards this recognition. You can see the MVP logo in the left hand profile of this weblog.
I would like to extend my hearty congratulations to my collegue, Vadivel Mohanakrishnan, who also has been nominated back as MVP in his favorite SQL Server category. <!--
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        Posted at 06:55 pm by Deepak Kumar Vasudevan
 

 

Padmashree November 3, 2006 &nbsp; 12:57 AM PST&nbsp;Congrats for your achievement! I am a final year engineering student and am one of the managers of Maduraidotnet.The link is http://groups.msn.com/maduraidotnet.I would be glad if you could join our group and provide technical assistance.Deepak Kumar Vasudevan July 26, 2006 &nbsp; 01:56 PM PDT&nbsp;Thank you, Ankur!Ankur Raheja July 20, 2006 &nbsp; 12:30 AM PDT&nbsp;Just landed up here through some link... Congrats !

 

  Original BlogDrive Post on Monday, July 03, 2006

[Imported from Blogdrive]Quick Pointer to Archives

Quick Pointer to Archives
Blogdrive is no doubt an excellent weblogging tool. Of late, I needed to quick link an archive from my friends weblog, since I had been discussing on a topic, on which the other blog there was a discussion. But I could'nt directly found what is called a Permalink feature and hence I had to give the straight link to the archives page and then a manual instruction to use CTRL+F to find the text.
Thanks to Blogdrive extensive and comprehensive collection of database, I found the Permalink format. http://username.blogdrive.com/archive/blogid.html For example, the archive URL for this would be http://deepak.blogdrive.com/archive/169.html

fValidate -- A full-fledged form validation Library

fValidate -- A full-fledged form validation Library

JavaScript -- A Scripting Language of excellency. This saves up a lot of time, at least with respect to the client side form validations. Even then, web developers worldwide feel that it is nightmarish to write validation code in JavaScript.

Sometime back, there was a site called PeterBailey.net which gave a validation library in JavaScript called fValidate. The domain is currently unavailable. A Quick Search in Google revealed the new home of fValidate.

It is a good news for JavaScript lovers worldwide to see thier favorite fValidate back after a brief lull.

JavaScript and AJAX to rule the desktops

JavaScript and AJAX to rule the desktops

The power and prowess of JavaScript is invincible. With a humble start as a client side scripting language for webpages, with the mammoth and a large scale support and patronage of millions of developers worldwide, the potential of JavaScript now, as a Windows Scripting language, WebPage animations, Client Scripting Validations and the list goes on and on.

While casually surfing the web, I came across this URL called AJAX Remote Desktop Viewer.

I guess, as the description goes, some OS components or a listening daemon is required on the system serving for the desktop to serve it. Check out AJAX Remote Desktop Viewer here.

Click here to activate and use this Control

Click here to activate and use this Control

Oh My! Right during the website deployment, my team member screamed to me that the flash navigation does not work. It pops up a tooltip saying "Click here to activate and use this Control". Is'nt this your common complaint these days?

It seems to be a latest Windows update security patch that gets delivered from Windows Update website, that has caused this difference in behavior in IE forcing the users acknowledge and confirm that they really want to use the ActiveX Control. Going by the trend these days, Windows is getting stricter with the users in its sense of security making the shell secure for users. Additionally, the ActiveX Control (Flash Movie) appears with a kind of greyish border, indicating that the control is currently unavailable for any user input unless the user opts to activate it and use the same.

Check out this solution from Macromedia for the fix.

ASP.NET and other Web Development Tutorial

ASP.NET and other Web Development Tutorial

Are you looking for some easy web development tutorial in topics like ASP.NET 2.0 or 1.1 or in classic ASP. Check out this website of MaconState College Information Technology Department. I was aware of this website even sometime about 3 y ears ago. That time, if I remember only .NET Framework 1.0 was there.

After that I have changed two companies here in Chennai and this bookmark also I forgot. One of my friend was asking me regarding some online tutorial. I vaguely remembered some edu website and after some search in Google, I got this excellent tutorial, which I would like to share with other readers as well.

Free Online Study Material in .NET

Free Online Study Material in .NET

MSDN is the best and ultimate reference for .NET documentation. Nevertheless, we always have a hardcopy book that we refer at home. How about extending this hardcopy book into Internet realm.  I came across a few websites provided by prolific authors of repute, who have put as a companion website for thier books.

Check them out at:

1. Vijay Mukhi (covers C#, VB.NET, visual Studio Introduction, ASP.NET, MSIL)
2. Programming the .NET Compact Framework in C#

Your User's Geographic Map

Your User's Geographic Map

In a previous post, we were discussing about how to personalize the website and show content that is tailormade for each user that is visiting the website. The more essence of the website would be to make the website as close to his home as possible.

It would be a delightful visit for the user, if we could present a map of the region from where he is actually visiting the website from.

To plot a map of the region, is quite easy. Check out the following tools:

Remotely Hosted:

1. IP2Map. This website provides a map of the region from where the user is visiting.

Source Downloads:

1. IP Atlas: Check out this source download from X-Penguin.com and a demo is available from here.