Windows Vista API Competition

Windows Vista API Competition

The Wow can now help you to win a lot of cool prizes too. While casually browsing through CodeProject, I found they are organizing cool Windows Vista API competition. The contest is simple. Write code which uses Vista API and then register it here.

So good luck for aspiring paricipants!

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Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/marineaquarium

Autorun Manager

Autorun Manager

I came across an elegant tool from SysInternals enlisted in Microsoft website called Autoruns. This enumerates and lists all the programs that are used by Windows Explorer in startup etc.

Check out Autoruns from here.

Heartbeat -- Maintaining the HeartBeat of IIS 6/Windows Server 2003

Heartbeat -- Maintaining the HeartBeat of IIS 6/Windows Server 2003

Lot of times maintaining a Windows Server 2003 shared hosting is an headache. My friend is managing a web host company. One fine day, he started to get complaints from his customers regarding sluggish behavior of thier websites. Eventlog, Profilers and all debugging tools were running down the drain and were giving no clue. Finally a search in Google led us to this HeartBeat.exe which does the work. Resetting the priority of W3WP (ASPNeT_WP in Windows XP /IIS 5.1) to Idle.

Check out HeartBeat from here.

Share Code and Get Paid in DotNetSpider

Share Code and Get Paid in DotNetSpider

Dotnetspider, the premiere .NET technology resource website from India has brought in a novel concept to encourage .NET developers. This they call it as 'Code Factory' Best chosen code are also awarded to the tune of INR 10 to INR 500 besides active contributors are awarded regular monthly surprise gifts and Spider Professional awards in the website.

Get started and share your knowledge in Dotnetspider.

Types of Software Testing

Types of Software Testing

Testing and software and quality assurance of the same is a skilled profession. Yesterday while travelling in the bus, I saw one guy was reading through a document which was a manual for some testing examination, that he is preparing for. The manual was really good and it was enumerating through the various tests with explanations to it. I would try collect and compile the same over here.

For now, I am giving a brief document on the various testing from a different URL, which I searched and found.

Play with a Fly on your Windows Screen

Play with a  Fly on your Windows Screen

A Fly is always infectious and a vector for all viruses similar to mosquitoes. But this little fly from DinitSoftware makes an interesting play for you and making you to try catching it as it moves fast from one location to another on your Windows Screen.

Try catching it by downloading your copy of Windows Fly here.

DeskTools -- Effective DeskController

DeskTools -- Effective DeskController

Very many times we may need to have an application to be always on top but the application might not support it. This and many other features are now available to any application thanks to DeskTools from DinitSoftware.

Download your copy of Desktools from here.

Blog Engines -- Template Resilence

Blog Engines -- Template Resilence

This follows closely our discussion on Blogger Homepage login bug. If you have closely observed Blogger and WordPress blogging engines, there is one distinct difference in the way the templates and the blog posts are rendered. Lengthy texts normally break the template layout and the right hand side gets abnormally disrupted in Blogger. While Wordpress automatically clips the overflowing text and the template sanity is restored.

While blogger emphasizes the content significance over template layouts, the latter seems to be focussing in the reverse order.

Snap Website Preview on my weblogs

Snap Website Preview on my weblogs

Today I got some free time and in this, I just updated my weblog templates to have a simple Snap Website Preview. Now you can find a cool preview on all my weblogs as follows:

1. Personal Gossip
2. Tech Discussions
3. Sri Vaishnava Network

Self-linked pages do not snap preview only external links show up with a preview. Send me your comments, feedback, suggestions and/or criticisms for further enhancements.

Cookie Tester

Cookie Tester

We use cookies and most of the websites use cookies to persist little information from our webpages.  And most of the sites that use cookie carry a link to a webpage that describe cookies in brief. But the downside is that these sites explain cookie in thier own terms that beginners (both users and developers) would get confused.

The purpose of this post is give link to the cookie specification from Netscape and a simple online Cookie Tester from Chami.com, the makers of world-famous HTML-Kit, the best IDE for web development in the planet.

1. Cookie Specification: HttpCookies in Netscape Documentation
2. Online Cookie Tester (You can actually set and get cookies, also see how the web browser erases the old cookie from the domain after the domain limit of 20 is exceeded).

Online Image Splitter

Online Image Splitter

A picture is worth a thousand words. But a heavy picture or an image on the websites choke the Internet pipeline of both the webserver and the site surfer. Sometime back we had the Eight Second rule, which stipulates that a webpage should load within eight seconds to satisfy the user. I have read somewhere that current situation has even halved this further. Read this discussion here.

With such things in place, we ought to seek a good strategy to display and render images. We need images for our website and at the same time ensure that they render quickly giving best user experience. When I was a module lead in my previous organization and during the course of development of a website for SBG India, we learnt this trick of image slicing which is available in Paintshop Pro. But I am sure for personal use, Paintshop Pro is pretty costly.

Fortunately, there are web-based solutions available and one such solution is from Chami.com, the makers of world-famous HTML-Kit, the best IDE for web development in the planet. Check out the Online Image Splitter over here.

Enhancing ALT+TAB of Windows XP

Enhancing ALT+TAB of Windows XP

One of the most highly used key combinations in Windows is ALT+TAB to jump between applications.  While ALT+TABbing or SHIFT+ALT+TABbing, how much seeing a preview of the window instead of just the icon of the application.

ALT+TAB replacement powertoy for Windows XP achieves this and can be downloaded from here.

Windows Virtual Desktops

Windows Virtual Desktops

Our Windows Desktop is the most used view of our systems and we keep all frequently used files and shortcuts there. As time progresses, the desktop gets so cluttered and we really get ourselves tensed. Normally, I experience this problem and sometimes I feel that there should be scroller in desktops like a horizontal or a vertical scroller to view the files. Now, I have minimized the extreme (mis)use of my desktop and keep in internal folders.

However, there is a little good tool, which I found as Windows XP PowerToy, which facilitates us with four desktops. So we can assign each desktop a functionality and keep each one for designated tasks. You can download Virtual desktop PowerToy from Windows XP from here.

Google Blogger Div Opens Only After Two Clicks

Google Blogger Div Opens Only After Two Clicks

Don't know whether my mouse click speed is incorrectly calibrated or it is a problem with Google Blogger. The 'New Blogger'/'Old Blogger' link Google Blogger homepage only opens up the login textboxes after two times I click it. Between the clicks, a white patch of DIV is also displayed.

The migration of Blogger to Google Accounts has brought in several improvements to Google Blogger. I hope, Blogger Team, would also address this user-friendliness issue of the DIV.

Blogging is now a breeze with BlogDesk

Blogging is now a breeze with BlogDesk

Now you can get the comfort of blogging even while your PC is not connected to Internet in an environment that simulates a connected realtime blogging. Once all the topics have been drafted, BlogDesk,  automatically connects to the weblog site and publishes the post.

BlogDesk supports most of the famous weblogs like Wordpress which support MetaWeblogAPI or MovableType interface.

Check out Blogdesk here and download your copy today.

Web-based Unicode Editor

Web-based Unicode Editor

Webpages in regional languages and native dialects are a great welcome step for any service/product website in its region. This post of mine was inspired while searching for a good Unicode Editor for Tamil. I would here compile a list of online Unicode Editors that are available.

Readers If you know a Unicode editor of a language, please feel free to share as comments:

1. Unicode Tamil Editor from TamilAnjal

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Test your Typing Speed

Test your Typing Speed

We are glued to our keyboards all 24 hours right? I found a little nice website that helps us to determine the speed of our typing. Check out this Typing Speed Test website here. Ensure that you start the clock before typing and stopping it immediately after typing finishes.

Quick and Easy FileSplitter

Quick and Easy FileSplitter

Huge files often present the problem of portability from one place to another. Not all emailservices support huge attachments. Even when they support they run into serious transport related problems like lot of time,network congestion etc.

While we can compress and zip these files, there is a limit or percentage and only till that you can compress; the limit being stipulated by the compression algorithm that is being used. The most famous algorithms that are used are PkZip, RAR, TAR, Gunzip, Bunzip.

The other solution, I normally, prefer is to split the file and send the splits by email or sharing them to Rapidshare or other file hosting. Normally the split tool also creates an EXE or a batch file to combine the segments to a single file by the recipient. I prefer DekaByte FileSplitter to be very versatile file split and join tool. Check out the website for details and even there is no installation required. Even the splitter exe you can keep in your inbox and carry with you along with you.

Default Browser Settor Utility

Default Browser Settor Utility

When you install a new web browser or a web browser wrapper like MyIE2 or Avant, it sets itself as the default browser. While restoring the previous one (Internet Explorer) is straight-forward, sometimes, I have experienced an issue that makes the restoration process very difficult.

I came across this nifty little tool called SetBrowser which makes the browser settings selection a breeze. Check out SetBrowser here.

Scheduled Tasks for Web Applications

Scheduled Tasks for Web Applications

Hosted web applications also sometimes need some processing activities which needs to be run periodically at defined time intervals without any user intervention. But Http being stateless in nature, there can not be persistent processes running on the webserver. For example, you can have some thread in ASP.NET which keeps ticking a non-stop timer.

Fortunately, there are a lot of options or workarounds available to address this gap.

1. Windows Scheduled Task or a NT service to be installed which keeps ticking and then invokes appropriate methods in the web application.
2. Commercial components like the ones described in DnZone website.
3. The points (1) and (2) however requires, desktop access and privileges on the webserver. If our hosting account is shared, then most probably, our web host might not allow to run scheduled tasks on the webserver. There is some good news for those underprivileged as well.
   
   Hosted Scheduler Services
1. Web Service Scheduler
2. Web Cron
3. HostedCron

mohanchoti.com -- Definitive Recruitment Portal

mohanchoti.com -- Definitive Recruitment Portal

Shikshaplanet, the leading recruitment IT consultants have recently launched a IT dedicated recruitment website called mohanchoti.com. They have launched it as a very informative and very effective route for job seekers to seek thier opportunities with lesser strain and pain.

Check out the website and do spread the word about the same to your friends too.

Comprehensive Interview Aide for .NET

Comprehensive Interview Aide for .NET

While casually surfing the Internet, I came across a website called SyncFusion and it seems to provide a good collection of Interview questions that would surely help aspiring developers who would like to enter programming careers with .NET.

Here are a few quick links from the website:

1. ASP.NET FAQ
2. Windows Forms FAQ

I am sure this would be a comprehensive resource for any aspiring .NET developer.

Autoformatter -- Tool to convert RTF to HTML

Autoformatter -- Tool to convert RTF to HTML

Recently I came across a nice tool which helps easy conversion of RTF documents into HTML documents. It requires .NET Framework 2.0 to run.

Check out the tool from here.

UltimateZip -- Ultimate Desktop Utility

UltimateZip -- Ultimate Desktop Utility

Recently I needed to help my friend with a quick backup tool. He could'nt afford for heavy backup storage architectures since he was hailing from a very small organizations. After a brief research and recall of using a similar tool in my previous organization, I recalled about UltimateZip. The latest version has increased its features multifold including support for CAB, RAR etc archive types.

We were typically interested in the Backup Script feature which would backup using Windows Scheduled Tasks a particular folder and keep in the selected location. The file also would be named with date and time (timestamp).

Check out and download UltimateZip from here.

Learning Service Oriented Architecture Technologies for the Enterprise from the Legend

Learning Service Oriented Architecture Technologies for the Enterprise from the Legend

I wanted to share the information I recieved from iCMG.They are organizing a one-day workshop on "Service-Oriented Architecture in Action" by Clive Finkelstien, who is being celebrated by iCMG as Father of Information Engineering.

The following are the details:

1. Chennai 12th March 2007
2. Hyderabad 13th March 2007
3. Bangalore 14th March 2007
4. Delhi 16th March 2007

Contact Details:

1. Chennai Ms.Nidhi nidhi (at) icmgworld.com / +919880621207
2. Hyderabad Ms.Satyai satya (at) icmgworld.com / +919901679634
3. Bangalore Ms.Shubha subha (at) icmgworld.com/ _919901679634
4. Delhi Ms.Devika devika (at) icmgworld.com / +919945801008

Course Contents:

1. Learn structure of an SOA, its essential and optional elements in a very compact format
2. Web services technologies and WS-* specifications & how they interrelated
3. Key pragmatic design principles to solve the problems of data and process integrity in an SOA environment
4. Modeling the workflow and effective business process management
5. How a successful SOA implementation tackle issues such as asset consolidation, reusability and governance
6. How application design and integration practices change as architects seek to implement the "agile" enterprise.
7. How to recognize critical success factors for implementing Enterprise

Cleaner and Faster Windows Profiles

Cleaner and Faster Windows Profiles

After using the desktop for a while, we could have observed that our Windows desktop profile became fatter and also this would mean slow response of the system. We normally backup favorites and other important things, login as a different user and then expunge the profile. Then create a new one.

Now, there is an elegant Windows Service from Microsoft called "User Profile Hive Cleanup Service", which attempts to address this issue starting from Windows 2000 and higher.

This download is available for Genuine Windows users and they have to pass through Windows Validation. You can access the download from here.

ObjectConnections RulesEngine

ObjectConnections RulesEngine

The newer version of .NET based RulesEngine has been launched by ObjectConnections. A comprehensive RulesEngine provides a seamless and efficiently architect product providing scalable solutions for the business. This one seems to be new and is downloadable from here.

The other good RulesEngine is from Yasu Technologies. I have been using this in my previous organization and is quite friendly. The tech support is also quite fast.

There are a few good open source rules engines too. A few of them are:

1. NxBRE
2. SRE

Student-Specific Discussion Forum

Student-Specific Discussion Forum

Following up my post on Microsoft Academic Project 2006-07, while I was deep traversing and browsing Microsoft India Students website, I came across an innovative discussion forum dedicated to students from different metropolitan cities of India.

Unlike the other discussion forums which are frequented by eminent developers well-versed in the field, these discussion forums under the name of Samvaad are targetted to serve the students community.

Here is the Samvaad Student-oriented discussion forum URL.

Microsoft India Academic Projects Year 2006-07

Microsoft India Academic Projects Year 2006-07

It is an aspiration beyond any doubt of a computer science or other discipline graduate to work on cutting edge and state of the art technology to get hands on experience on software process methodologies that are being followed in IT industries.

Microsoft India Students has brought in this Microsoft India Academic Projects Year 2006-07, This program would be immensely beneficial for both academic institutions and students to hone and finetune thier skills in software greatly.

Opensource C# Project Management Solution

Opensource C# Project Management Solution

For relatively small SME organizations, the cost of a full-fledged project management and quality control suite like Bug Tracking from a commercial vendor can be at times be prohibitive. Now there is some good news for them. They can now afford easy to install and maintain an opensource project management solution and in C#.

 

I just came across a solution called SharpForge, which attempts to realize the full-fledged comprehensive project management solution vision, mission and dream.

MultiEncoding Convertor for Tamil

MultiEncoding Convertor for Tamil

There has been aplenty of websites in Tamil language including daily news papers, magazines and literary works like Thirukkural. Inspite of Unicode becoming the de facto standard of publishing, there are still handful of sites which use classic fonts technology. Without necessary fonts installed, it would be difficult or rather impossible to view the contents of the said site.

 

Now, Gopalakrishnan has brought in a cool online utility that helps you view the URL or some ad hoc content to be converted from classic font text into Unicode. Check out this online tool (Adhiyaman Convertor) from here.

 

TIP: If you are Mozilla FireFox fan, then you can prefer downloading this FireFox extension of the convertor too.

Indian Language Online and Offline Unicode Convertors

Indian Language Online and Offline Unicode Convertors

For those aspiring bloggers from India, wanting to express thier thoughts right in thier own language, there is some good and great news. Gopalakrishnan has brought in some a great Unicode online and offline editing tool which can be accessed and downloaded from his personal site. Here is the download URL for the same.

 

This should serve as a significant milestone for aspiring Indian bloggers to express themselves in thier own mothertongue or native language.

Project Management Course in Chennai by PMAC

Project Management Course in Chennai by PMAC

I recieved a newsletter from PMAC (Project Management Advanced Center) regarding a four-day workshop on Project Management, in conformance with Project Management Institute (PMI) of USA. I would like to share the details with other interested readers for thier benefit.

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Course Contents:

COURSE CONTENTS DAY-1: Introduction to the 'Guide to PMBOK' Project Management Framework Project Life Cycle and Organization Global Standard for Project Management of a Project         Initiation Process Group Develop Project Charter Develop Preliminary Scope Statement Planning Process Group Scope Planning Scope Definition Create WBS Comprehension Assessment Session (Interactive pattern)   DAY-2 Activity Definition Activity Sequencing Activity Resource Estimating Activity Duration Estimating Schedule Development Quality Planning Human Resource Planning Communications Planning Risk Management planning Risk Identification Qualitative Risk Analysis Quantitative Risk Analysis Risk Response Planning   Develop Project Management Plan DAY-3 Execution Processes Direct and Manage Project Execution Quality Assurance Acquire Project Team Develop Project Team Information Distribution   Monitoring & Controlling Process Group Performance Reporting Manage Stakeholders Monitor & Control Project Integrated Change Control Comprehension Assessment Session (Interactive pattern) DAY-4   Monitoring & Controlling Process Group Scope Verification Scope Control Schedule Control Cost Control Perform Quality Control Manage Project Team Risk Monitoring and Control Contract Administration Closing Process Group Contract Closure Close Project Group Discussion on Course Leanings and Setting up Action Agenda for Future Way of Managing Projects. Comprehension Assessment Session (Interactive pattern)

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The organizers have given the following address in the newsletter for contact and registration:

Mrs.Pranava Latha–Business Manager - PMAC
Flat No: 401,
Sreemaan Vikas Residency,
Plot No.135 A,
Street No1 ,Lane No 2,
Teacher's Colony,
East Marredpally ,
Secunderabad-500 026

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Course fee:

Rs 15,000/- per participant, plus 12.24% service tax effective from 18^th April 2006.

The total course fee amounts to Rs.16,836/-(inclusive of taxes).For the month of February we have a special discount for individual nomination as stated in the beginning of this mail. We have special discount   for corporate nominations ie. for a group of 2,3,4/5  participants.

Group of 2  participants :             5% discount

Group of 3-4       "           :          15% discount

Group of 5 or more    "       : 20% discount

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Date and Time: February 8 to February 11 (0930 to 1730) at Hotel Grand Orient in Chennai (near Anand Theater)

FastCGI for PHP

FastCGI for PHP

PHP is an excellent powerful scripting language that has been around in the Unix Worlds. With its advent to Windows World due to threading implementations, PHP installers recommend running it as CGI process for safety of the webserver. However the downside of CGI is that each request spawns a unique process and hence more memory is consumed thus slowing down the web server.

Fortunately, there are two implementations of FastCGI for PHP, the URLs of which I would like to share with other readers.

1. Caraveo Opensource FastCGI for PHP/Perl
2. Technical Preview of FastCGI for IIS 6.0 from IIS.NET

Quick Online Currency Convertor

Quick Online Currency Convertor

Sometimes our applications might need an automatic currency conversion. It is normally a tedious process to maintain such data within the scope of our application since the values have to be maintained by us and this is a very tedious process.  For one of the application of my friend, while assisting him, I encountered this situation and came across two elegant webservices that solve our problem. I would like to share the URLs with others.

1. 62NDS Online Currency Convertor
2. XE.com Universal Currency Convertor

The latter website also offer currency convertor applet for websites to promote visitors for sites.

Fighting Phishing with Microsoft Tools

Fighting Phishing with Microsoft Tools

Sometime back we were discussing about a freeware called SpoofStick that protects us from phishing attacks. Just recently my friend installed on his home computer Internet Explorer 7. I was fiddling around it for a while. Internet Explorer 7 greatly enhances web browsing experience by bringing in Tabbed Browsing besides elevating the security strength of the web browser.

A tour around the web on Internet Explorer and playing around the installation, there are two antiphishing tools from Microsoft. I would like to share the URL with interested readers.

1. Microsoft Phishing Filter Addin for MSN SearchBar.
2. Phishing Filter in Internet Explorer 7.

Windows Vista Retail Contest

Windows Vista Retail Contest

It was a usual junk advertisement which my Naviscope knocked it down but accidently I observed it. It seemed to be a good advertisement of Windows Vista product headed on a Retail Promo. There is a unique contest on the website and I wanted to share the URL for others to participate too. Check out First In Billion.

A brief investigation through the website revealed that First In Billion is hosted and managed by Quasar Media (advertising company) for Microsoft and hence the reader is advised to use some secondary email id to participate since advertisement companies in Chennai might do some sort of spam harvesting of email addresses too.

Online Test Drive of Microsoft Office 2007

Online Test Drive of Microsoft Office 2007

The most promising office productivity suite (Microsoft Office 2007) is now available for users on a 60 day free trial edition. While casually browsing Microsoft Office website, I found the following link from Microsoft Downloadable Trial webpage.

 

The trial page also features Compatibility tools download which offers conversion and opening of Office 2000 documents in Office 2007.

Microsoft Vista/Exchange Server 2007/Office 2007 Launch in India

Microsoft Vista/Exchange Server 2007/Office 2007 Launch in India

Check out this Microsoft India webpage on the various launch events commomerating Microsoft Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Vista. They have put a large number of venues through out India where the launch event is being held. 

 

You need to register at an earliest to ensure seats.

Running Internet Explorer withing Mozilla FireFox

Running Internet Explorer withing Mozilla FireFox

 

Now you can target Internet Explorer specific applications too to run elegantly in Mozilla FireFox. It just needs a simple IE Tab Plugin, which enables Internet Explorer to run as a tab within FireFox. I guess this would be helpful in case of intranet applications which are tailor made for Internet Explorer but users are glued to FireFox.

 

Also, ActiveX Controls can now seamlessly run within FireFox environment. Of course, it is Internet Explorer running the same. Check out IETAb from here.

Good Online WAP browser

Good Online WAP browser

WAP and mobile-based development is getting hot with mushrooming of handheld devices in every country and every moment. After having Nokia 6030 with GPRS enabled from Airtel, every other day, there would be some service message showing some junk URL. There are some good ones like today I got a URL for downloading Swami Ayyappan ringtones and wallpapers. Here is the WML URL.

This is a multipart post. First I am describing the tricks of some local operators and then I would discuss about the good technical sites which overcomes this problem and also helps WAP-based developments.

But the catch is that Airtel is so tricky that sometimes direct download URL would be given and if you even click it, you would be paying some INR 100 even after you opt canceling the download prompt in your mobile.

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Now coming to a technical solution, here is a simpler approach. Don't retrieve the URL directly. Launch a simpler and faster online WAP browser. The most convenient one is from Wapsilon. It shows all the links first and then if you are genuinely convinced by the push WAP link, you can use it. Furthermore, online WAP browsers like this greatly help in production troubleshooting of our own WAP applications too. They are browser-based and are fast compared to troubleshooting from the device.

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FireFox to protect your browser sessions

FireFox to protect your browser sessions

A web browser session that typically lasts from the time you launch the browser till the final instance of the browser process shutting down, can now be persisted and lengthened selectively, thanks to the SessionSaver plugin for Mozilla FireFox.

This promises to restore browser sessions exactly as it was left before. Check out Mozilla FireFox 1.5 compatible "SessionSaver" addon from here.

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One-click Webmail Access - Easily monitor & access your email accounts!
Visit http://www.inbox.com/notifier and check it out!

Elegant Encryption Routine

Elegant Encryption Routine

Securing information from prying eyes has always been a concern of a project architect. The perils waiting to prey on an unsecured information is aplenty. .NET comes with it a vast amount of rich Cryptography libraries. Now the next problem that confronts an architect is:

1. Which algorithm to choose?
2. What is the strength of encryption to use?
3. In future, if algorithm or strength changes, how easy and flexible is the implementation?

I have been trying out various encryption logic and then I came across a library called XCrypt from CodeProject.  I feel that this is a very good feature-rich wrapper of .NET Cryptography API. Also, there are implementations for algorithms like BlowFish, which does not have API in .NET BCL. It also comes with a rich Windows application that helps us troubleshoot encryption and decryption with specific keys in a easy way. Let us thank pdwolf for the really excellent encryption library.

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Free 3D Marine Aquarium Screensaver - Watch dolphins, sharks & orcas on your desktop!
Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/marineaquarium

Extending the Task Manager

Extending the Task Manager

Most of us are quite familiar with the Task Manager application that helps us to monitor the memory and CPU usage of the programs besides checking the applications to bringing into control from running amuck. There are few things that are dreamt by heavy users like File Handles, Process Handles etc.  The default Task Manager does not give such a granular control. 

For such users, we have an application called 'Process Explorer' and can be downloaded from the same site which weighs about 1.5 MB.

Taking it still further and deeper, there is one article/code from CodeProject, which integrates a plugin into Windows TaskManager. I found this to be very handy and without need of launching another application. Check out TaskManager extension from here. You can download both source and binaries from CodeProject after registering over there.

Google Page of LavanyaDeepak

Google Page of LavanyaDeepak

Google's logo is really very innovative and excellent one. They illustrate all the important festivals and international celebrations by appropriate icon modifications on those days in Google logo. Now Google has brought out an innovative Google MyWay. You can create your own text and that would appear as website logo. You can also set that page as 'Default Homepage of your web browser'.

Check out Google Page of LavanyaDeepak over here.

Also related, if you have a Google Account, you can optionally personalize the normal Google page. You can find 'Personalized Home' and 'Signin' at the top right of every Google page. I guess, they are stored as Cookies in the web browser.

SpoofStick -- To Keep Off Phishing

SpoofStick -- To Keep Off Phishing

There has'nt been a day when our inbox does not meet at least one phishing or spoofing email claiming from some remote UK bank like Barclays PLC or eBay.  Nowadays, even HSBC spoofs have also not become uncommon. I came across a simple browser toolbar, supporting both Internet Explorer and FireFox that shows what website that we are currently navigating in, as a big bold green text.

So in case the link that has been clicked goes to a different website, then we can be sure before entering any of account-confidential information to the website. Download spoofstick for your browser from the following URL: http://www.spoofstick.com/

Spider Alerts from DotnetSpider

Spider Alerts from DotnetSpider

Dotnetspider.com has come out with an innovative desktop companion tool for developers to ask questions and answer technical queries raised by other developers. This tool is called SpiderAlerts and it currently in 2.0 Beta version. Nicknamed as Answering Machine, I am sure this would be a great value-addition for developers to clarify technical queries.

 

Check out and download SpiderAlerts.

Quick Peer to Peer Desktop Communications

Quick Peer to Peer Desktop Communications

For small organizations spanning a floor, I think quick desktop communication means just net send or a simple VB.NET or C# WinForms wrapper to type and send the message to a friend. During my tenure in my previous organization, we have been using this program called RealPopup. This is a very effective tool and has a lot of options. There is also another very simple download and use program called IPMessenger.

 

There has also be commercial ventures into this realm. A few of them are:

 

1. Softros
2. LanTalk.NET
3. LanToucher

Seamless Tab and Rich Edit with Avant Browser

Seamless Tab and Rich Edit with Avant Browser

The latest version of Avant Browser seems to be really very attractive and with elevated levels of user-friendliness. It provides a lucid TAB approach to various websites, plus storage of books in Central Avant Online Storage plus crash recovery.

 

We have discussed in brief about Avant Browser over here. Today I was relatively free over the weekend; so installed and playing around with Avant Browser.

 

Workflow Engines in .NET

Workflow Engines in .NET
I was looking out some sort of workflow architecture in .NET and I came across quite a few very interesting solutions on the same. I would like to share with you a few:

1. K2
2. Windows Workflow Foundation

I would try to cover more in detail as I explore these avenues further. Stay Tuned!

Good Handshake -- Professional and Smooth Relationship Building

Good Handshake -- Professional and Smooth Relationship Building

Be it a congrats giving or a business meet, the professional gesture is to give handshake with the other party. In Chennai, I have encountered people, who resort to handshake in a hurry without even caring a moment for it. Handshake is not just about shaking of hands. It is almost like a rhythmic musical note and needs to be followed religiously and helps the parties to develop good rapport and build evergreen eternal and long-lasting mutually beneficial relationships.

Just thought, I would do a brief research and compile a few tips on what makes a good handshake.

1. Ensure that you have a firm eye contact with the other party. Pictures worth thousands of words and eyes draw millions of pictures per second. Let your eye convey your good intentions and wishes first.
2. Smile comfortably. It makes you and your other party greatly comfortable.
3. Have as much firm grip epicentered from your thumb of your left hand while giving your handshake. But ensure that the the firmness does not cross the line of control of being uncomfortably strong and squeezing.
4. The shaking gesture should be preferably up and down and not swinging back and forth.
5. A few prefer short durations and others long durations. If you have watched national ambassadors meeting, they prefer long durations. Be compatible with other parties' gestures.

Adapted from http://venus.va.com.au/suggestion/hand.html and with the guidance of my friend working for WebHealthCenter.

Winner of Community-Credit in December 2006

Winner of Community-Credit in December 2006

My www.Inbox.com had some very good and glad prize awaiting. I have been chosen as one of the prize winners in Community-Credit.com for the month of December 2006. You can check out the list of prize winners in Community-Credit at this URL for prize winners: http://www.community-credit.com/CommunityCreditPrizePage.aspx (You need to select December 2006 in the dropdown and scroll a bit down to see my listing)

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!)