Though I had used somewhat Linux previously, but I had never tried to start a combat with it. Yesterday I installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on my system - I still remember that 1.5 hours long installation, but finally I made it. I had linux installed on my system and that too without errors :)
Though as long as I was checking out its GUI it was fine, but as soon as I tried to find some of my files on my system, I realized that my Windows Vista partitions are not mounted. So I tried to mount them from the shell, but alas i realized red hat don't support ntfs partitions. So I started my Vista (coz so far I was not able to establish internet connection on Linux) and googled the problem. Finally I found out that there a patch available (rpm) to be installed on linux. So i installed that patch in linux and followed the post installation instructions. So that problem is sorted, I can atleast access my ntfs files from linux.
Next biggest challenge was to connect internet over linux. Though connecting internet is very straightforward method in Linux, but as is the case, nothing is simple when I am there. My internet connection uses some bridging method over PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol) . Anyways, so I scanned all types of network connections provided by my linux for it and found one that sounded the same. So I used the wizard to create a new connection and then tried to connect it using the username n pass given to me by isp. Well as in my Windows Vista n XP, it shows a status of "Registering Your Computer" and connects properly. So I expected something of that sort on linux also. So I connected it , it showed the message of registering your computer and the system crashed!!
I never expected Linux to do that, but anyways then I rebooted my system to resume my wrk and bang!! "the file system is corrupt". So again google to the rescue, I found a command to repair the file system, thankfully linux provided me a shell support at that instant. So after a few attempts, i was able to repair my file system though I still am amazed the error that I got was not posted by anyone (i mean I couldn't find a search result with a 'to the point' solution).
So finally I was able to run internet on my system (using the same connection) and have not encountered such a problem again. Today I was trying to port linux file system (ext2) on windows. Though I found 2 drivers for it, but none seem to work on Vista. Lets see, what can be done of it. I am still trying to get over it, and hopefully will do soon. I think that's it for this time, hope to have better dates with Linux in the coming days.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Google Developers Day
On 31st May 2007, Google celebrated their Google Developers day. What a day! Seminars were held at many places all over the world. I wished there were some seminars in Delhi, India too. But anyways, as I had a limited usage internet connection, I could check out only 1 video from YouTube.
It was about developing faster AJAX applications using Google Gears.Google gears are the new API developed by Google, which make available the internet content offline! Surprised, don't be, but yes its true. They have developed a application which include Localserver and SQLite database to store application pages and data on the user's computer. It includes another layer between the internet server and the client browser. This is the localserver that stores the data and makes it available when the user asks for it, but this request is possible offline also. Also they provide a synchronization tool Workerpool that is used to synchronize the offline stored data with the actual content that is available when internet connection is enabled.
This API is made available by installing the bundle into a small installer available at gears.google.com . Basically the API is an JavaScript code that can embedded into the application and this makes it available offline. Well the rest of the details of it, along with it are available at their site as mentioned above. Since I have also come to know about it today itself, so saying much about it would be inappropriate. So i would recommend checking out the site yourself for more details.
Though I was not able to attend the live event, I definitely appreciate this step taken up by Google. I know that this was a way to popularize their products, but it doesn't really matter as long as it can keep up the good work, and add new delicacies in our(developers) lives :)
It was about developing faster AJAX applications using Google Gears.Google gears are the new API developed by Google, which make available the internet content offline! Surprised, don't be, but yes its true. They have developed a application which include Localserver and SQLite database to store application pages and data on the user's computer. It includes another layer between the internet server and the client browser. This is the localserver that stores the data and makes it available when the user asks for it, but this request is possible offline also. Also they provide a synchronization tool Workerpool that is used to synchronize the offline stored data with the actual content that is available when internet connection is enabled.
This API is made available by installing the bundle into a small installer available at gears.google.com . Basically the API is an JavaScript code that can embedded into the application and this makes it available offline. Well the rest of the details of it, along with it are available at their site as mentioned above. Since I have also come to know about it today itself, so saying much about it would be inappropriate. So i would recommend checking out the site yourself for more details.
Though I was not able to attend the live event, I definitely appreciate this step taken up by Google. I know that this was a way to popularize their products, but it doesn't really matter as long as it can keep up the good work, and add new delicacies in our(developers) lives :)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Piracy - really a matter of few $ to a company?
So what do you think? Is piracy really a big problem. Should it be curbed out of the society to help the Software companies grow? Will that really help? Will company start making a huge profit as soon as piracy vanishes from the communities?
Well if the answers to the questions above are "Yes", I would say, Think Again. Do you really think that Microsoft couldn't have create a software or OS that was completely secure on the first place. Consider the scenario if it would have really done so. If Windows 95,98,2000 or XP or any other windows was completely secure and nobody can just break the barriers and install windows for free, then I think that except for the people at the industry, most of the users might not be having a Windows running at their desktop.
Once people were not familiarized with Windows, they might have started hunting for other alternatives to Windows, something like UNIX or Linux. This would have definitely helped the growth of Open Source community at a very fast pace than it is growing today. But on the other hand, Microsoft would not have been able to capture the market on the first place and it would not have become the pioneer of its time.
Similar is the scene for almost every Software giant, so I guess that the people who use pirated softwares are not to be blamed completely, it might be a strategy of the company itself to promote their softwares and it is not a matter of just a few $$s.
So do you really wanna try a Genuine Windows for free, try this trick out, it won't even require you to reinstall the windows:
There is a serial no. provided by Microsoft for Windows XP, which always detect the system as genuine: "V2C47-MK7JD-3R89F-D2KXW-VPK3J". Now you have two methods to go for this serial no. without reinstalling Windows:
Well if the answers to the questions above are "Yes", I would say, Think Again. Do you really think that Microsoft couldn't have create a software or OS that was completely secure on the first place. Consider the scenario if it would have really done so. If Windows 95,98,2000 or XP or any other windows was completely secure and nobody can just break the barriers and install windows for free, then I think that except for the people at the industry, most of the users might not be having a Windows running at their desktop.
Once people were not familiarized with Windows, they might have started hunting for other alternatives to Windows, something like UNIX or Linux. This would have definitely helped the growth of Open Source community at a very fast pace than it is growing today. But on the other hand, Microsoft would not have been able to capture the market on the first place and it would not have become the pioneer of its time.
Similar is the scene for almost every Software giant, so I guess that the people who use pirated softwares are not to be blamed completely, it might be a strategy of the company itself to promote their softwares and it is not a matter of just a few $$s.
So do you really wanna try a Genuine Windows for free, try this trick out, it won't even require you to reinstall the windows:
There is a serial no. provided by Microsoft for Windows XP, which always detect the system as genuine: "V2C47-MK7JD-3R89F-D2KXW-VPK3J". Now you have two methods to go for this serial no. without reinstalling Windows:
- Either change the serial no. from the registry entry and replace it with this one
- Or go to this link: http://www.magicaljellybean
.com/keyfinder.shtml and download the keyfinder. Extract and run the keyfinder, click on options and click "change windows key", now enter this key and you're done.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Firefox - the fiery fox
Hey! finally I am back after a long long time, i think the time between my post is increasing monotonously, so i'll try to be more regular in these holidays. Here I would like to discuss something about Firefox.
Firefox, as most of you might be knowing is an open source web browser application developed by Mozilla. These days it has become very popular and infact many new browsers have come up like opera and safari. Infact every now and then i have a fight with my friend who is a big fan of Opera. Yes, i don't deny that opera is good and it can perform many small things that Opera can do easily but might become a run of 100 yards while using Firefox, but the power that lies with firefox is its open source nature.
Due to this capability, firefox have a cool active community of thousands of people who willingly contribute to it. I am talking about the add-ons that Firefox provides. The best one I've ever seen is Firebug.
Firebug is a add-on of Firefox that was developed by Mozilla itself. Its a quicky and fundu add-on if you deal with websites development, specially for client side scripting. It can tell you exactly where does the error originate from. You can view its Html, Css as well as its imported Javascript files from within the browser. A half an MB of tool that is the destination to all your debugging needs. Not only this, firebug tracks each and every AJAX call along with data sent and received and the time to receive the request(it can also read the content sent and received by POST!).
Firebug also helps you track(inspect) to each and every block, image, para or any element of table and shows its corresponding code and its structure. The best part is, it doesn't occupy much of the system's resources lie some of debugging tools do(which is very crucial for a system config like mine). All these features make this tool a must for every web developer.
Another tool I found was fasterfox, though it doesn't do much work, but it is one of my favorites. It starts a timer and counts the seconds upto 3 decimal places, the time taken by a page to load. That generally helps when you are focusing on the front end of the page.
Though I have mentioned only 2 of them, but the list goes on, the possibilities are endless. Infact if you want, you can also design your own add-ons using the mozilla built system. This is what makes Firefox above all browsers. So hats off for all the developers of Firefox!!
Firefox, as most of you might be knowing is an open source web browser application developed by Mozilla. These days it has become very popular and infact many new browsers have come up like opera and safari. Infact every now and then i have a fight with my friend who is a big fan of Opera. Yes, i don't deny that opera is good and it can perform many small things that Opera can do easily but might become a run of 100 yards while using Firefox, but the power that lies with firefox is its open source nature.
Due to this capability, firefox have a cool active community of thousands of people who willingly contribute to it. I am talking about the add-ons that Firefox provides. The best one I've ever seen is Firebug.
Firebug is a add-on of Firefox that was developed by Mozilla itself. Its a quicky and fundu add-on if you deal with websites development, specially for client side scripting. It can tell you exactly where does the error originate from. You can view its Html, Css as well as its imported Javascript files from within the browser. A half an MB of tool that is the destination to all your debugging needs. Not only this, firebug tracks each and every AJAX call along with data sent and received and the time to receive the request(it can also read the content sent and received by POST!).
Firebug also helps you track(inspect) to each and every block, image, para or any element of table and shows its corresponding code and its structure. The best part is, it doesn't occupy much of the system's resources lie some of debugging tools do(which is very crucial for a system config like mine). All these features make this tool a must for every web developer.
Another tool I found was fasterfox, though it doesn't do much work, but it is one of my favorites. It starts a timer and counts the seconds upto 3 decimal places, the time taken by a page to load. That generally helps when you are focusing on the front end of the page.
Though I have mentioned only 2 of them, but the list goes on, the possibilities are endless. Infact if you want, you can also design your own add-ons using the mozilla built system. This is what makes Firefox above all browsers. So hats off for all the developers of Firefox!!
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Code Name Vista
Hello folks, here I am back to throw some light on new and emerging technologies. This time it is the so long waited Windows Vista(code name longhorn actually). So there are a few things that u need to know once you are upgrading from a previous version of Windows to Vista.
Firstly there are two specifications of Vista namely Vista Capable PCs and Premium Ready PCs. The requirements for each specification are different, for Vista Capable PCs the minimum requirement is:
To be able to run the new Aero user interface you need a lot more graphics card power than you do for the standard interface (this is because Aero uses DirectX and this means that the majority of the work is carried out by the GPU on the graphics card as opposed to the CPU). You can choose to run Windows without Aero also (and business systems need not ever use it).
Before going for Windows Vista make sure to check your system compatibility at the microsoft's site. Follow the link by Clicking Here. Just download the upgrade adviser and check your system's status. And just be aware of all those low-end PCs which were marked Vista Capable, because they might not even support the slick "Aero" user interface or Flip 3D and media center support. In fact Microsoft has been through a bit of trouble due to that, coz Dianne Kelley sued Microsoft for selling PCs with tag "Vista Capable PCs" which can just run the basic version of Vista. In order to be able to fully leverage these features customers will need to have bought a "Premium Ready" PC in order to run Vista Home Premium or higher.
The most important thing is that, due to a lot of vulnerabilities present in the current version of Windows Vista, you need to run update from your vista machine to download and install all the patches and fixes. For instance the recent Cursor flaw. The vulnerability is caused by an unspecified error in the way Windows 2000, XP, and Vista handles animated cursors on a Web site. Successful exploitation can result in memory corruption when processing cursors, animated cursors, and icons. So Microsoft has released a patch for it last week. The vulnerabilities like this are expected to appear for another half a year. So my suggestion is buy a authenticated and genuine version of Windows Vista and don't forget to download updates regularly.
Firstly there are two specifications of Vista namely Vista Capable PCs and Premium Ready PCs. The requirements for each specification are different, for Vista Capable PCs the minimum requirement is:
- A processor with a minimum speed of 800MHz
- 512MB of RAM
- A graphics system capable of supporting DirectX 9 (SVGA 800×600)
- 20GB hard drive (with 15GB free)
- A processor with a minimum speed of 1GHz (x86 or x64)
- 1GB of RAM
- A GPU that supports DirectX 9 and the following:
- WDDM (Windows Vista Display Driver Model) Driver
- 128MB of video RAM
- Hardware support for Pixel Shader 2.0
- 32 bits per pixel - 40GB hard drive (with 15GB free)
To be able to run the new Aero user interface you need a lot more graphics card power than you do for the standard interface (this is because Aero uses DirectX and this means that the majority of the work is carried out by the GPU on the graphics card as opposed to the CPU). You can choose to run Windows without Aero also (and business systems need not ever use it).
Before going for Windows Vista make sure to check your system compatibility at the microsoft's site. Follow the link by Clicking Here. Just download the upgrade adviser and check your system's status. And just be aware of all those low-end PCs which were marked Vista Capable, because they might not even support the slick "Aero" user interface or Flip 3D and media center support. In fact Microsoft has been through a bit of trouble due to that, coz Dianne Kelley sued Microsoft for selling PCs with tag "Vista Capable PCs" which can just run the basic version of Vista. In order to be able to fully leverage these features customers will need to have bought a "Premium Ready" PC in order to run Vista Home Premium or higher.
The most important thing is that, due to a lot of vulnerabilities present in the current version of Windows Vista, you need to run update from your vista machine to download and install all the patches and fixes. For instance the recent Cursor flaw. The vulnerability is caused by an unspecified error in the way Windows 2000, XP, and Vista handles animated cursors on a Web site. Successful exploitation can result in memory corruption when processing cursors, animated cursors, and icons. So Microsoft has released a patch for it last week. The vulnerabilities like this are expected to appear for another half a year. So my suggestion is buy a authenticated and genuine version of Windows Vista and don't forget to download updates regularly.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Something New on SEO
Hey people,
I am back with something in by bag for you. This time I am going to present some good search engine optimization techniques, which are not discussed anywhere. Well these tips and tricks basically are concerned with the way to manage and publicize the content of your site.
Before going with it, I would recommend you to read my previous post of Basic Optimization techniques discussed in a post named 'SEO with Google' (posted on someday of March 07). Here I present you with some advanced tips as follows:
I am back with something in by bag for you. This time I am going to present some good search engine optimization techniques, which are not discussed anywhere. Well these tips and tricks basically are concerned with the way to manage and publicize the content of your site.
Before going with it, I would recommend you to read my previous post of Basic Optimization techniques discussed in a post named 'SEO with Google' (posted on someday of March 07). Here I present you with some advanced tips as follows:
- Write a lot. Try writing articles about your industry and emphasizing your products and services. The search engine bots (crawlers) are hungry for good content on famous sites. Try posting your articles on websites of good rating. Some good sites to post articles are http://goarticles.com , http://ezinearticles.com or maybe even Wikipedia. The links directed to your site will increase traffic as well as improve your search engine ranking because they will act as quality back links.
- Selecting the right keywords is the most important task to be performed while optimizing and submitting to search engines. Adding very specific keywords help generate good business. Getting a good rank at a specific keyword is much more payable than just getting a bad rank at general keywords. Obviously, the person searching for something specific is more likely to bring business to you than the person landing to your site by searching something very general. So try to focus on the keywords and think a lot before submitting your site to the search engine.
- Well if you are looking for global market, then you might be having site in different languages too. If not then you are missing a large amount of visitors because as much as 65% of the people browse and search in language other than English. By becoming a multilingual marketer, you immediately open up a stream of new markets. Google alone crawls web pages in more than 35 different languages.
- Another way of publicizing your content is by taking part in different forums, creating your own blogs and posting links on these forums and blogs. Also you can post the page of your sitemaps instead of just posting the homepage or something. this will help the search engines to directly crawl through your site.
- With increasing number of search engines, each having different layout of a sitemap, it has become difficult for the webmasters to create and manage different sitemaps together. Though not a perfect one but a close approximation of all sitemaps can be made by using ROR sitemap. It uses XML feed to describe the site.These sitemaps are structured feeds that enable search engines to complement text search with structured information to better interpret the meaning of your site, in other words, the search engine can better understand your site. To start with it, follow the link: http://www.rorweb.com/rormap.htm
- To improve the pagerank, try including a no. of internal links. While writing the content for your site, try including links to other articles within your site which are relevant to the keywords described in the articles. These internal links also contribute to a higher ranking because of the anchor(<a href="..">) text that is used.
Microsoft - Tellme wat's up?
Microsoft - the world's leading software technology home and the source of income of the world's richest man and the cofounder of Microsoft Corporation itself. With its headquater at Redmond, Washington, USA, it has crossed the revenue of 45 bn USD. Most of you might be knowing that it started its business with the launch of MS DOS in mid 1980s and after that it has launched a no. of outstanding operating systems and thereby capturing the market and not looking back since then.
The owner of the two most used products in the world - Windows OS and MS Office, Microsoft left its competitors way behind. But for past 4-5 years, things are getting warmed up again. The newest and the biggest dot com company in the race is Google whcich has given 'Web' a new meaning. So to stay in the race Micrsoft is trying a lot to improve its reach on the web. Its new and customised MSN and Hotmail are some of the steps for the same.
Other competitors include Linux, Unix and Mac OS which pose a serious threat to the market dominance of MS in operating systems. Linux - an open source operating system has brought a revolution in the market. In fact now most of the Servers work on Linux due to its less complexity and more reliability which makes it easier to provide higher uptime.
Also the upcoming applications like Open Office and Google docs and spreadsheets, are posing threats to the Microsoft's Office dominance. Still surviving all these stuff, MS is the biggest software company at present.
So the current talk of town - the Tellme deal of Microsoft, is finally confirmed with the annoucement of Microsoft to integrate with Tellme. Tellme networks is a speech recognition company. Its present work include voice recognition on cellphone devices, including fetching of data using it. Jeff Raikes, President of Microsoft Business Division said that this deal would improve the speech technology of MS and would bring immediate and long term value to their customers. Tellme's technology is used by large companies such as FedEx, American Airlines and American Express to power their automated telephone systems.
During the conference call, Raikes and Tellme's CEO McCue noted that half of all directory assistance call are made using Tellme's technology, meaning that one in three Americans use its technology each year.
So probably this might become a way to heat up the competition against its rival companies by providing the services through mobile phones on large scale. It is a huge step towards integration of voice and data and improvement in mobile search technologies all over. Lets hope to get something big coming up from them later by this year.
The owner of the two most used products in the world - Windows OS and MS Office, Microsoft left its competitors way behind. But for past 4-5 years, things are getting warmed up again. The newest and the biggest dot com company in the race is Google whcich has given 'Web' a new meaning. So to stay in the race Micrsoft is trying a lot to improve its reach on the web. Its new and customised MSN and Hotmail are some of the steps for the same.
Other competitors include Linux, Unix and Mac OS which pose a serious threat to the market dominance of MS in operating systems. Linux - an open source operating system has brought a revolution in the market. In fact now most of the Servers work on Linux due to its less complexity and more reliability which makes it easier to provide higher uptime.
Also the upcoming applications like Open Office and Google docs and spreadsheets, are posing threats to the Microsoft's Office dominance. Still surviving all these stuff, MS is the biggest software company at present.
So the current talk of town - the Tellme deal of Microsoft, is finally confirmed with the annoucement of Microsoft to integrate with Tellme. Tellme networks is a speech recognition company. Its present work include voice recognition on cellphone devices, including fetching of data using it. Jeff Raikes, President of Microsoft Business Division said that this deal would improve the speech technology of MS and would bring immediate and long term value to their customers. Tellme's technology is used by large companies such as FedEx, American Airlines and American Express to power their automated telephone systems.
During the conference call, Raikes and Tellme's CEO McCue noted that half of all directory assistance call are made using Tellme's technology, meaning that one in three Americans use its technology each year.
So probably this might become a way to heat up the competition against its rival companies by providing the services through mobile phones on large scale. It is a huge step towards integration of voice and data and improvement in mobile search technologies all over. Lets hope to get something big coming up from them later by this year.
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