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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hybrid Smart Client Article Contest

Hybrid Smart Client Article Contest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A WhitePaper on Cost of Email/Messaging

A WhitePaper on Cost of Email/Messaging

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

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

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

Google Internet Bus Project in Tamil Nadu

Google Internet Bus Project in Tamil Nadu

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Web-Based Colloborative Realtime Editor

Web-Based Colloborative Realtime Editor

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

How to use?

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

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

Plus:

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

Limitations:

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