Snapvine -- Voice Blogging ...

Snapvine -- Voice Blogging ...

I just came across this website called Snapvine, which supports a new innovation in blogging called VoiceBlogging. I just signed up for an account and posted my first voice post too.

Check out my profile here.

Photosynth of Dasavatharam (Sri Vishnu Dashavatharam)

Photosynth of Dasavatharam (Sri Vishnu Dashavatharam)

Microsoft Photosynth is a good inspiring website where you upload your photos and it would automatically make it appear as 3D set. I just thought of giving it a shot. To start with, I have uploaded the photographs of Lord Vishnu (of his ten incarnations, known as Dashavatharam).

 

You can check out the Synth URL here. You need to have the Synth Runtime and ActiveX installed before you can view the same.

Helping Freshers in the IT Field

Helping Freshers in the IT Field

http://www.questpond.com/ has pioneered to bring out a thirty-minute DVD to help out fresh grads out of colleges looking out for opportunities in the IT field to discover themselves, streamline and re-orient them in the direction that the IT field is aspiring them for.

They have given two contact email addresses to whom enquires can be directed regarding the DVD:

1. questpond (at) questpond.com
2. raju_bist (at) questpond.com

P.S.: To enhance security against spammers, the email addresses have been expaneded instead of using the @ symbol.

Learning Design Patterns from QuestPond

Learning Design Patterns from QuestPond

While casually browsing http://www.questpond.com/, I came across a new section that they have launched with the title "Free Design Pattern Videos". Design Patterns are really a very important entities in a good software architecture.

We should really thank QuestPond for taking lot of pains in bringing out this excellent material. The QuestPond URL for DesignPattern videos is here.

Video-based Learning on Securing our Networks from QuestPond

Video-based Learning on Securing our Networks from QuestPond

While casually browsing through http://www.questpond.com/, I found a good collection of Video series that they have prepared which are entitled "501 Attack Patterns by Hackers". The videos are hosted with Google YouTube and they provide a very good learning on a variety of security related techniques.

Let us bookmark the URL, learn about the variety of security techniques and ensure that our networks and web applications are safe.

Free PHP AddOn for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Free PHP AddOn for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

I came across this free software called DevExtraPHP from Top Ten Software which serves as a valuable addon for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 as a syntax highlighter for PHP keywords.

I felt of sharing this URL with other PHP development fraternity with the intent that it would be really a great tool to help in their development efforts.

Thawte Scavenger Hunt 2008

Thawte Scavenger Hunt 2008

While browsing Codeproject casually, I came across a cool contest called Thawte Scavenger Hunt 2008. All we have to do are the following:

1. Download two whitepapers from Thawte website (the URLs are mentioned in the contest page hyperlinked above)
2. Read them.
3. Answer the quiz questions in CodeProject website.

As per the contest page, the contest runs till September 30, 2008 and lucrative Amazon gift cards are being offered as prizes. I hence thought I would share this with other readers for their benefit and information also.

Mentors Program in Dotnetspider.com

Mentors Program in Dotnetspider.com

Dotnetspider.com, which is a premiere .NET technology lookup website in India has brought out an innovative program called 'Mentors', which I came across whilst surfing the website recently.

For Experts, they can register for the program, help others and earn revenue through the Google AdSense API-driven payment scheme of Dotnetspider. For new members, help is available at a nominal cost through simple instant messaging communication tools.

Check out Mentors page over here for more details.

QuestPond brings Free Online Testing

QuestPond brings Free Online Testing

We have been discussing about QuestPond which provides interview and job assistance questions on a variety of topics sometime back. I just visited the website sometime back and found out, they are also offering now free online testing of your skills after a quick and simple registration.

You can register and take your free online examinations over here.

Online Vault -- Bullet Proof Password Manager from Inbox.com

Online Vault -- Bullet Proof Password Manager from Inbox.com

We have been trying out dozens of Password Managers since we have zillions of passwords to remember and at least a million that we are forced use on a daily basis for a variety of purposes. Some of the keynotes with respect to the password management tool are:

1. The tool should be free of spyware and it should not steal your passwords.
2. The tool should be having strong password generating ability.
3. The tool should save the passwords with sufficiently strong fortress on the local disk.
4. The tool should be affordable.
5. The tool should be easy to use.

On quick analysis, I observed that OnlineVault from Inbox.com seems to a befitting tool to answer the above simple requirements and rather exceed our expectations with a friendly GUI and more advanced features like the following too:

1. Spyware Terminator Certified Application which states that OnlineVault is a clean and safe-to-use application.
2. Strong Password generation utility
3. The tool protects the password stored with a master password.
4. The tool is free to use.
5. Flexible and easy to understand GUI.

I hence thought I would share about this tool with other readers for everone's benefit.

System Protect -- Surestop File Guard from Inbox.com

System Protect -- Surestop File Guard from Inbox.com

Today whilst browsing Inbox.com products section, I came across System-Protect freeware, which elicited my interest. I just installed it and tried the same. It seems to be cute and innovative with respect to the following features.

We would be normally having Password Protection, Duplicate Backups etc. This one provides multiple types of protection for operating system and also user files so that the system remains ultra-stable without any type of downtime haunting us.

And as with Inbox.com, for common users, this comes as a free software. Check it out. This tool, I feel, should be like a insurance for our software and desktop.

Spyware Terminator -- The Definitive Terminator for any Spyware under the Sun

Spyware Terminator -- The Definitive Terminator for any Spyware under the Sun

Today, following the dreaded virus attack in the morning, I discovered about the greatness of Spyware Terminator from Inbox.com. It is so lovely that it automates the deletion of spyware on reboot at the OS Splash screen without we needing to bother going into Safe Mode and disturbing the system.

It also has a rich set of features like 'Host File Tamper Protection', bad program launch protection and more. It sits in the system tray and helps with RealTime protection.

Some of the features I came across the tool were:

1. Fast, Full and Custom Spyware scanning
2. Realtime Protection
3. Host File Hijack Protection
4. Antivirus Integration
5. Scheduled Scans
6. Free for Personal and Commercial use

WebSecurityGuard from Inbox.com -- The Invincible Protection Tool

WebSecurityGuard from Inbox.com -- The Invincible Protection Tool

During my previous visit to Irving, TX in Feb - May 2007, I had troubleshoot a virus attack in one of my friend (Tharun Kumar)'s system. I tried to take a quick help of WebSecurityGuard as a preventive tool for him in his system so that he would be warned when navigating to dangerous websites.

WSG comes from the house of Inbox.com, who pioneers in bringing innovative world-class products for the benefit of internet users. I just thought I would share the word about WSG for the benefit of other readers as well:

1. Allows users to rate a website on the safety features.
2. Prevents infection on the computers.
3. Flags the safety of the websites on the search results pages from major search engines itself, so that we can avoid clicking them.
4. Proactive halting of spyware from entering our systems.
5. FREE for all.

I hence thought I would share about this tool with other readers so that they can browse safely.

Parental Guard from Crawler.com (Inbox.com Family)

Parental Guard from Crawler.com (Inbox.com Family)

Sometime about a month back, my colleague (Senguttuvan Haridoss) was asking me regarding some software that can enable his kids to browse the Internet from home but at the same time prevent them from surfing on to malware websites. Whilst, I immediately suggested him Squid NT, today morning my encounter-experience with virus introduced me to Parental Guard from Crawler.com (Inbox.com family)

i just loved this tool for the simply cool features like below:

 

1. Dual Password Protection
1. Startup requires Parent Password
2. Uninstall request Master Password
2. Bad word block
3. Good number of bad sites categorized in its control panel which gets blocked automatically.
4. Configure time spent on computer
5. FREE for personal and commercial use.

Dreaded Virus/Trojan Attacks -- Thwart Defeated!

Dreaded Virus/Trojan Attacks -- Thwart Defeated!

It had been rather painful days of slow connection since most of the Internet bandwidth was being used by mysterious viruses and trojans in my system. This is a fresh new PC and I still surprised how just hooking on to the network can bring in plethora of virus infections in a jiffy. I could recall two devastating viruses that took a significant chunk of time last week. They are:

1. AntiVir XP. This is famous of presenting false positive messages like 'Your system is infected with spyware'. It goes to the extent of setting a wallpaper on the desktop with this nagware alert and popping up a system tray message every two minutes
2. InfoStealer.Banker.C. This collects information from the compromised computer and sends to an unknown Russian domain website.

This sends a flag of warning to us that whenever we have a new system configured, the first and foremost software that needs to go in are the Security and Antispyware software. I recommend the following tools from Inbox.com which helped me in cleaning up my system:

1. Web Security Guard
2. Spyware Terminator

We may think that the system security process is cumbersome and is unnecessary. But if the system is infected the downtime and remedy is still more cumbersome. Prevention is better than cure right?

My Article about 'Sri Krishna Bhavan' in Go-Ergo

My Article about 'Sri Krishna Bhavan' in Go-Ergo

Go-Ergo is a unique tabloid that gets delivered in Chennai to almost all IT companies in the morning. This tabloid comes from the publishing house of 'The Hindu'. Go-Ergo really helps us in staying up to date in what is going on in the society rather than just locked up before the systems, debugging some mundane application/software.

They have an interesting column called 'Namma Chennai' and a section therein for Catering. They try to publish about small eatouts in Chennai in various parts of the city along with the special cuisines over there. They also invite readers to share about various eatouts so that they can feature them in the columns.

During my regular weekly Triplicane temple (Sri Parthasarathy Temple) visits, I knew about a restaurant opposite the temple called 'Sri Krishna Bhavan', which I wrote to them. The section editor called me to get more details and after verification, a small writeup about the eatout along with a cool photograph appeared on Go-Ergo on 23rd Wednesday 2008 (Page 2). You can find a brief online posting about this over here. I also came across an archive of the magazine in Scribd which can be downloaded from here.