Thursday, May 29, 2008

Google has been sued, asked for $77.5 Million

One more 'sue' news. And this time one of the biggest companies caught. Yes, Google has been sued for copyright violation, for posting news from Belgian newspaper on Google news. What is this i mean? If Google is doing this since years, posting news and links to others, no one has complained till now.

What you think? Is this right? Or the newspaper company wants a benefit from Google? What Google will do? Because they just want their hands out of such things ASAP. I think they will pay something appropriate.

A group of Belgian newspaper publishers wants Google to pay up to €49.2 million (US$77.5 million) in damages for violating copyright law by publishing their articles on Google News and caching their web pages.

It made the claim in a court summons served last week, and made public on Wednesday. The Belgian publishers' group Copiepresse first filed suit over the Google News service in April 2006.

Read more @ pcWorld.com

Adobe goes CS4 Beta

After Creative Suite 3 Adobe now is working for CS4 products. From adobe Labs, you can download three beta, Dreamweaver CS4 beta, Fireworks CS4 beta, Soundbooth CS4 beta.

There are paid products so you have to be registered on adobe.com to download trial free to try or no limit for CS3 users.

http://labs.adobe.com/

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Dell engaged in fraudulent case


What you think? what will happen? And what should court do if they find Dell guilty? I think every customer who is affected must get amount or new machines from Dell? :) Whatever, but now even big and reputed companies are also not left from being sued!

A New York State Supreme Court said Tuesday that Dell and its financial services arm misled customers.

he company was accused by the state of New York of offering no-interest or no-payment financing options for its products while Dell Financial Services would fail to honor them.

Dell told Reuters it "disagrees" with the ruling.
"We are confident that when the proceedings are finally completed, the court will determine that only a relatively small number of customers have been affected,"
according to the company's statement.

news.cnet.com

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Via Releases Laptop Design as Open Source

Via Technologies released the hardware design for a low-cost laptop with WiMax support under an open-source license on Tuesday, a move intended to make customization easier and shorten design cycles for system makers. The CAD (computer-assisted design) files for the OpenBook reference design can be downloaded for free and made available to anyone under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license. The terms of this license allow the CAD files to be freely copied, shared and modified.

The only requirements are that use of the design is attributed to Via and changes made to the design can only be distributed under the same license or one that has similar terms.
"We're hoping we'll get some interesting feedback, and look forward to seeing what the community thinks about this concept"
vice president of marketing at Via, Richard Brown said.

PCWorld

Monday, May 26, 2008

Samsung 1 TB HD, Only $199!


Large HD is now a must have thing. Not even corporates and industries, but home users are also using large HDs. See mine,I have 250GB WD 16MB Buffer SATA2 in just 74$!. PC usage is increasing day by day. Now everyone wants big space, Jet speed and less price. And that's what we are getting here.

Samsung has announced a low-cost 1 Terabyte HD, that will be available to consumers in June, at an affordable price of $199. Specs with 5400RPM rotational speeds, and offering the highest capacity per disk for one terabyte hard drives, at 334GB per platter, will keep the size limited and boosted up performace. Also Samsung says the drive uses up to 50 per cent less power than other one TB drives and has technology to keep it quiet through operation.

Media hunger is increasing with HD movies, Gaming and pictures. Also if big thing in less money is available, people will be attracted to it. Let's hope this will give best performance as samsung said.

Music 2.0: Engineers giving MT9 format

Korean computer engineers are introducing a new digital music format that has a six-channel audio equalizer and separate controls on the sound volume for each musical instrument, such as guitar, drum, base and voice. The new format, which has a file extension format of MT9 and a commercial title of "Music 2.0", is poised to replace the popular MP3 file format as the de-facto standard of the digital music source, its inventors say.

The MT9 technology was selected as a candidate item for the new digital music standard at the last regular meeting of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the international body of the digital music and video industry.

Ham says that the music industry should change its attitude to the market as music is becoming a digital service, rather than a physical product. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are both interested in equipping their mobile phones with an MT9 player and their first commercial products are likely to debut early next year, he said.

Unlike other digital formats exclusively used by big companies, Audizen (the venture company behind the development) allows users to copy the MT9 files, making it a more attractive format.
"It's like having a CD or cassette tape. Once you buy it, you can lend it to your friends. We don't want to be too fussy about DRM (digital right management),''
said Ham Seung-chul, chief of Audizen.


Korea Times

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Review - Google Sites

2 days back i received a link from my friend about Google site. I was quick to try it as i was curious to know what was in it. As i landed my steps to the main page i thought its something like Google Pages. I hadn’t much time, so i waited for Sunday.

So today i m tried google sites and found that my interpretation of Google sites was completely wrong. Google Sites is an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. Something like a collaboration service.
Sharing
Just as shown in the image there are 3 types of users.

Owners

* Invite other owners, collaborators, or viewers

* Change site themes, and layout
* Change the site name
* Delete the site
* Export backups and import to restore from backup
* Do everything a collaborator can do

Collaborators
* Create, edit, and delete pages
* Move pages
* Add attachments
* Add comments
* Add/remove pages to the sidebar navigation
* Subscribe to site and page change

Viewers
* Only view pages

Page Types
The strength of google sites is its Page type. There are 5 of them

Web Page
This is where your static content goes. Comes with very good Rich Text Editor. You can insert tables, images, google docs,picasa slide shows,etc.

Dashboard
Allows you to create something similar to iGoogle on a page within the site, useful for a landing page, news, etc. Warning: Something is not right. I get page errors when i add gadgets. The scrollbars seems to getting lost. All i can say is messy.

Announcement
Something like a webpage with a title in it, making it look like a blog.

File Cabinet
A repository. Mind you it only provides 100MB so dont go and overload this repository. One thing i didnt find on help site was what bout individual file size limitation that i can upload? Not mentioned anywhere. So i suppose u can upload 100MB file directly. Too bad will cause problem.

List
Couldnt make out what it is. Something for Collaboration i suppose.
They have got 4 List templates plus u can customize your own.

  1. Action Items : Keep track of action items from a meeting or project
  2. Issue List : Track your project's open issues
  3. Unit Status : Track the status of individual units in your project.
  4. Create your own: Define your own columns for your list
Overall it’s something for collaboration purpose. So, not every user can use it. Yeah if one wants to create a simple site you can try it but it is not what Google site is for.

Out of 5 i would give it 2.5 rating.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Microsoft Office : New file formats opened


This is something of our interest. Cnet has discussed that BECTA (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) has filed complaint against Microsoft for not supporting Open standards. After two days of this complaint, Microsoft declared that they will provide support for ODF (Open Document Format), PDF and XPS. They also mentioned that,
"This is not because of a sue but we have already planned".
Microsoft will support ODF as it is used by many users in governments and schools. They want Office to be compliant with open standards, so users can view such files in Office. Also conversion support for older versions of Office will be provided. Ms also talked that they want to work with Open-source community for the conversion tool.

Now i think Microsoft is on right track. The open-source industry is the reason for this as per my opinion, because open-source is growing very fast and now MS feels a better competition. And we will get benefit of this competition. Its great :)! It seems that MS have to do some new changes in their products and polices as per the new Open-source era.

Let hope something better now :).

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

MessangerGroup - Why it is needed?


I just published the news of MessengerGroup feature. I have tried it, made my own group and invited friends. But what i think is what Microsoft is up to? I mean what is the benefit of this grouping?

As all of us know, we can create a group chat in Windows Live messenger then who wants this so called MessengerGroup?

The only thing unique about it is, who ever adds it in their MSN contact list will be a member of the group automatically. You don't need to invite them all again. Your conference is saved forever in your contact list. You just open it and chat to your friends.

It has some commands to get information about the users and the service itself. You can type '/help' in the input and it will show you all the commands. I will not talk here about all of them, but let's see some important ones.
write '/open' or send a 'nudge' - will show sidebar of user list.
/users - shows all registered users in this chat group.
But i don't think people will use this one if they are comfortable with Messenger conference. This one can be added to your website also, but i am not including it here.

Give your inputs, why this one is released when MSN has conference feature? I mean invite users into some chat is not so irritating. Ya may be if you have a hell lot of contacts in your list, then you can use this so no need t remember things!

3G iPhone To Launch June 9


Gizmodo has got this amazing shaking news. He says, he got news from someone very close to this release ;). It means, its a leak from internals!:)

Ok, jokes apart, it describes that this release will bring some new logics also for sell policies and pricing structure.

And it's also possible that they have some tie-ups with services providers and carriers for marketing structure. Where apple will go? I mean this iPhone will boom the cell market.

Already iPhone has covered a very big share in market, though it was costly in starting. Let's see what happens after the release.

Basic Search Engine Optimization

Well many of my friends both personal and professional are now building up blogs and websites and one thing they complain about is their website is not indexed. Why? Here's something that may be useful to them. Its not overnight work but takes time.

Search engines are the single best source of free website traffic. But getting to the top of the rankings takes alot of time and effort. Starting off on the right foot is important to be successful.
The two single most important factor of basic search engine optimization (SEO) is your TITLE and META Description tags. Now some people will argue that building backlinks and blogging are more important and I do agree with them, but I feel those are more advanced stages of SEO. Your website title tag, which defines the content displayed in a browser's address bar when displaying a Web page, is one of the most important elements in the search engine optimization process for a Web page. Well-composed Title tags should contain clear, concise, coherent, and keyword-rich content. Because space for your title tag is limited do not waste that prime real estate by including your domain name or name of your business. Your Meta Description tag determines what some search engines will show on their search results pages when listing your page. Consequently, the tags content should be descriptive, enticing and brief. Because search engines do scan this tag for keyword usage, Meta Description tags should include all of the keywords for which the Web page is being optimized. However, the main purpose of this tag is to be a description of what content is on your entire web page. By having a precise Meta Description tag can ensure that your website is being seen by the correct audience.

Perfecting the combo or Title and Meta description tags can take some time and research, but it is well worth it. Free target website traffic from search engines starts with basic Search Engine Optimization.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

MessengerGroup (beta) published new features

To prevent annoying from bots or spammers, Messenger Group (Intro) released the blacklist feature last week. And to provide users better services, they put out Membership Verification feature now!


Blacklist
Group owner and admin can delete and remove those spammers to blacklist directly
For those annoying bots, select the option “Setting - Blacklist”, add bots accounts into the blacklist
Users in blacklist will not annoy the group again. Each group’s blacklist can just hold 20 Messenger accounts.

Membership Verification
Group owner and administrator can open the right panel to set membership verification mode.
Currently there are four modes to be set:
1. Allow anybody join the group

2. Approved to join by the group admin (Messenger users must apply and get approved for membership by group owner or admin)

3. Answer a question to join (group owner or admin may set a question and an answer, membership applicants need to answer the question; if the answer is correct, ok, joined; otherwise cannot)
Question:
Answer:

4. Nobody can join the group.

Personal Information
Group users may also find an another new feature, personal information.
Click a group member’s nickname, you will see his or her personal information, which can be set in Setting – My Profile.

Techlads Group: mgroup41284@hotmail.com | Official Website

Javalibs: Controlling Module Dependencies in Eclipse

Jay has written a nice article on Module dependency for J2EE module in Eclipse on Javalib, our java ground.

J2EE Module Dependencies is a critical issue in an enterprise application. You need your one web module to access some resources while prohibiting others. Similar is the case with EJB modules.

The full article shows images of eclipse for configuration.

I am not writing it whole here, so check it on javalibs.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Writing XML - learn some good habits.

You love XML and the flexibility and interoperability that it offers, but you can do some things to make your interaction with XML and the tools that you use to work with it significantly easier. Picking up some basic good habits when you work with XML will ensure that you get the most efficient use out of your XML documentations and applications.

Here are the top 10 good XML habits to adopt:

1. Define your XML and encoding

2. Use a DTD or XSD

3. Remember to validate

4. Validation isn't always the answer

5. XML structure versus attributes

6. Use XPath to find information
7. You don't always need a parser to extract information
8. When to use SAX over DOM parsing

9. When to DOM over SAX parsing

10. Use a good XML editor


For more detail see
here

The Pirate Bay - Now in top 100

Yeah its true folks. Pirate Bay has entered in ring with great giants like Google, Yahoo, Youtube, Facebook and wikipedia.

May be its bcoz of the torrentmania that has recently hit www. It's ranked second after Mininova for the best bittorrent site. And its believed that it has got 25 million unique visitors everymonth.
It is not only the web traffic that got a traffic boost, the number of people using the Pirate Bay tracker has quadrupled compared to the population in December 2006, and is now at 12 million. The number of torrents has grown from 600,000 to 1,200,000 in the same period.

Amazing isn't it?

Read original news here.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Pidgin 2.4.2


This is it! Just yesterday sandy talked about it and they heard him i think :). Though not solved what we wished (broadcast and one logfile), but this is new release. Changelog is here which has not introduced any amazinf change or feature!.

They provided to set 'Escape' key to close IM window instead of 'Ctrl+W'. Which you can easily use even in older versions also by changing ctrl+w in 'accels' file in your application data dir.

;(gtk_accel_path "
/Conversation/Close" "w")
Change the above line to,
(gtk_accel_path "
/Conversation/Close" "Escape")
libpurple
o In MySpaceIM, messages from spambots are discarded (Justin Williams)
o Strip mIRC formatting codes from quit and part messages.
o IRC now displays ban lists in-channel for joined channels.
o Fixed a bug where the list of loaded plugins would get removed when switching between different operating systems.
o Fix reception of IRC PART without a part message on Undernet (fixes a problem with litter in the channel user list).
o IRC no longer crashes on /list on servers which erroneously omit RPL_LISTSTART.
o Update the NetworkManager support to use D-Bus directly, instead of libnm-glib. Hopefully it's stable now. It will now compile by default if you have D-Bus support and NetworkManager.h. (Elliott Sales de Andrade)
o MSN buddy list synchronization is now more forgiving, only asking about buddies who have disappeared completely from the server list and not those that have simply moved groups.
o IRC will now try to append 1-9 to your nick if it is in use, instead of substituting the last character with 1-9 where possible.
o Bonjour buddies will be saved persistently if they're moved out of the "Bonjour" group. (Eion Robb)
Pidgin
o The typing notification in the conversation history can be disabled or customized (font, color etc.) in .gtkrc-2.0.
o Added a plugin (not installed by default) which adds a Send button back to the conversation window. People without physical keyboards have a hard time with the lack of the button.
o Clicking on the buddyicon in the conversation window toggles the size of the icon between small and large.
o The settings of a chat (e.g. Handle in an XMPP chat, or Exchange in an AIM chat) can be edited from its context menu in the buddy list.
o Add a "Present conversation window" preference to the Message Notification plugin; the "Raise conversation window" option does not unminimize windows or draw attention to them when they are on other workspaces--the "Present" option should.
o Add a preference to set Escape as the keyboard shortcut for closing the conversation window.
o Add an option in the context menu to disable smileys in the selected text in the conversation history/log viewer. This should help people who regularly paste code in conversations.
o Add a preference to choose the minimum size of the text input area in lines.
o Moved the "Local alias" field in the Modify Account dialog to be below the "User Options" heading on the "Basic" tab.
o Number of room occupants is now shown in chat tooltips where possible
eneral
o The configure script now dies on more absent dependencies. The --disable-xxx arguments to configure can be used to bypass unneeded dependencies. This will also cause the configure script to die if an --enable-xxx option is used and the dependencies it requires are missing.
o The Evolution integration plugin must now be explicitly enabled. Use the --enable-gevolution argument to configure to enable it.
o The Contact Availability Prediction plugin must now be explicitly enabled. Use the --enable-cap argument to configure to enable it.
Finch
o New default binding ctrl+x to open context menus.
o Menu triggers and other bindings will no longer conflict.
o Middle click pastes the internal clipboard (when mouse support is enabled).
Download: Pidgin 2.4.2

Firefox 3 RC1 is available


Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is available in more than 45 languages as a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback.

More Secure:
* One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to.

* Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware.

* New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown.

* New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate.

* Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

* Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

* Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

* Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

* Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

* Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

For more new features and changes check the releasenotes. Download your favourite version.

ReleaseNotes | Firefox 3.0 RC1 Windows US English (7.15 MB)

Firefox 3.0 RC1 Linux US English (8.65 MB)

HP's Teen Edition


HP's director of future innovations, Ameer Karim, has announced that HP will be launching a fall line of "Teen" PC products. HP has hired a council of teenagers who will help design the products, and even HP's website.

"That's a major transformation for a company like HP, which has been much more focused on an older crowd," said Karim.

Going from business friendly to teen friendly is a big step. Currently the devices that will be designed are unknown, however more details will be available in the future.

Does HP have some new innovations up their sleeves, or will we see new prices for standard PC specs? :)

news.com

Saturday, May 17, 2008

FunPidgin - Is this what you want?

I was just browsing around the web and got my hands to this. FunPidgin its called. Their homepage says that its a fork of the popular open source client Pidgin.
One statement that drew my attention is
What makes us different from the official client, is that we work for you. Unlike the Pidgin developers, we believe the user should have the final say in what goes into the program.
Sounds great doesnt it. Think it will be a great boon to all those pidgin lovers who always wanted broadcasting facility and one log file.

Right now these are the features that FunPidgin provides and Pidgin doesnt.
  • "Entry area manual sizing" a plugin by Artemy Kapitula that allows manual resizing of the entry area.
  • An option to set the size of the buddy icons displayed in the chat window.
  • An option to let the window manager place new windows.
  • Two different ways of seeing that your buddies are typing.
  • An optional send button for Tablet PC users.
I havent downloaded and used it yet but it sounds like 'This is it . This is what i wanted for long'.
Think techlad Parth will do all the R&D for you and will write more about it.

Till then heres the download link and Homepage.

Waiting for your reviews as well.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Java SE Runtime Environment 6 Update 10 Beta

All of you know about java. This is the latest beta updated to Java SE Runtime Environment. You can update this if you want or can wait up to final release.

Changes in this beta version:
* Improved reliability
* Improved javascript communication
* Per-applet control of JRE command-line arguments
* Per-applet control of JRE memory settings, larger maximum heaps
* JNLP support
* Per-applet JRE version selection
* Improved Vista support
Java SE 6 Update 10 Beta | Java SE home page

Pictomio 1.0.11


You can see full details on previous post on pictomio
Here i am only including the latest changes.

New in this build:
* Text rendering shows wrong characters on some systems
* Single Image view sometimes does not show images when indexing
* Optimized application responsiveness while indexing
* Stabilized video playing
* Trying to access Floppy and CD-ROM drives when selecting local drives
* Histogram channels red and blue were inverted
Pictomio home page

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Strong password - Here's how you do it !

It is very a simple question how do you create a strong password to improve security and the answer is very simple. Before choosing a password, you should always remember these terms.

Passwords should
* Never use a common word that you might find in a dictionary.
* Never use a numeric series, either forwards or backwards, i.e., 123456 or 654321.
* Never use a string of all identical letters or numbers, i.e., AAAAAA or 111111.
* Never use a common keyboard shortcut, i.e., ASDFG or QWERTY.
* Never use a word(s) that can be easily associated with you, such as the name of your child, pet, spouse and so on.
* Never use an alphabetic series either forwards or backwards, i.e., ABCDEF or FEDCBA.

Passwords should/must have following terms
* Always combined your password including numbers, characters, special characters i.e @#$%^&*.
* Should have minimum length of 12 character.
* Should be changed in every 30 to 45 day.

The above mentioned points should always be remembered while choosing your password.

For gods sake do not use the same password for all your logins..

Using proxies (the basics for noobs)

1. Introduction:

This is intended as a summary of proxy basics. A reminder as to why its required. Anonymity is needed because there are people who surf the net looking for other people's ip address or url name so they can then publicly malign them by finding their "true" identity and telling the world this person eats spam or likes to watch the grass grow, or in the case of an Advertising Corporation which will sell your identity to some retailer like WalMart. So some basic precautions that you need to take to avoid this are: using a proxy, disabling all cookie options, java, active-x, and all scripting options in your internet browser, print and file sharing in NetBios, and also installing a firewall. The following text attempts to be a summary of those basic methods by which you can anonymously communicate with other like minded persons.

2. Just a number? :
Before you can understand how best to protect your privacy, it's helpful to know just what information you're generating when you connect to the net, and how easy this is to trace.

At the very lowest level, when you connect to a website it will receive a record of your IP address - the unique number that indicates which computer you're using. If you use an ISP like Demon, that gives you a fixed address, that's enough to pinpoint your account. With a dynamic address, it'll pinpoint the modem line you connected to. Finding out which customer was using that line means matching up a time with the records from the computers that handle your login. On a busy system, that could mean finding one from tens of thousands of entries, but it can be done. This is how the police were able to track the source of the Love Bug virus to a dialup account used by a group of students in the Philippines. Some systems, such as AOL, might share an IP address between more than one user. The same is true of some corporate gateways to the net; but even so, there will usually be a way to work back to a specific system, even if it involves trawling through pages of log files. One way of hiding these sites is to go via a proxy, making the address that appears in the web server's logs that of the proxy server. Of course, all that's really doing is adding another link to the chain, since the proxy server will have a record of what you're asking it to do. But with the Proxy Server resident in a foreign country this is time consuming, probably not practicable and faced with proxy chaining, most will just give up. This is also what makes proxy servers a useful tool for those who want to see what you're up to. Even though you may not think your web requests are going through one, many internet service providers (ISPs) use so-called 'forced proxying'. This means that all web requests are routed via a transparent proxy. You don't need to change any settings in your browser, but the effect is the same. For an organization or country that wants to control and monitor what people are seeing on the web, it's ideal.

Thoughts regarding the use of system logs as evidence: Log files make crap evidence, for a start they're easily forged, and you're reliant upon computer generated evidence. What jury will believe a computer over a human? At best log files are supporting evidence, in most cases they only show logins, connections and other impersonal evidence, no log can say BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT that someone did something, they only say this machine number connected at this time, it don't say anything about the identity of the person. If in doubt, deny everything, after all its the job of the prosecution to prove you are guilty of some misdemeanor.

3. What is a proxy server:-
A Proxy Server is a firewall and cache server. It can allow an entire network of computers to access the internet(http or ftp) with a single IP. it can act as a kind of filter for that network. Let's say you have 3 computers in some small network in japan going through a proxy server, schematically it looks like this.

1. ------->|
2. ------->|Proxy Server ----> The Web Site
3. ------->|

If you are at home with internet access through your ISP, this is what your connection looks like :
(PC)------>Your ISP ----> The Web Site
If the proxy server in the network above allows other users to use it we can do this :
(PC)------->Your ISP ---->Proxy Server ----> The Web Site
From the above diagram we can go through the proxy server and hide our real ip address or url name! The Web Site will only see the ip address or url name of the proxy server and NOT that of your isp, thereby making you anonymous!

4. Why Use One:-

* To act as a security firewall or ip filter.
* To reduce the network load by caching commonly requested pages.
* To translate the material into another language.
* To improve access speed for users, achieved by caching.

Our interest lies in the first option i.e. becoming anonymous and Surfing Safe It isn't guaranteed that simply by using a proxy you will be anonymous. Some proxy servers will forward your real ip at random intervals others do it by default, others do by request from the web site that you visit. This makes it necessary to test your proxy for anonymous status at a Proxy Checking site. These sites will allow you to test the information or headers that are passed from the proxy server to the web site, careful inspection of these will allow you to decide just how anonymous you really are. An example header is:
HTTP_USER_AGENT: IE5 WIN2000which tells the site your browser and operating system type. So once you enter a website, and click any one of the files on the webserver, the website owners can find out these items of information about you, and much more:

1. Your IP Address.
2. Your hostname.
3. Your continent.
4. Your country.
5. Your city.
6. Your web browser.
7. Your Operating System.
8. Your screen resolution.
9. Your screen colors.
10. The previous URL you visited.
11. Your ISP.

5. Proxy Types:-
The two most commonly used proxy types are http and socks each uses the common ports 8080, 1080 respectively. http proxies are for use with your browser. Socks which is a valid proxy alternative allows you sockisfy http, ftp, telnet, nntp, and common chat protocols similar to icq, hotline.

For more information visit Proxy Server

Servicemix PollingComponentSupport - stuck if lower period and higher threadPoolSize

Again i got one issue with servicemix Poller components.

We have two FilePoller components here and we kept the period to 10 minutes. Which means the instance of FilePoller will run at every 10 minutes. Now say if I have two instances, each run at 10 minutes, and 5 minutes gap between them. So it means after every five minutes, files will be picked by one of them. And the WorkManager, which is given to FilePoller as property, has threadPoolSize of 30.

All was working fine with this configuration.30 threads in pool, every five minutes any of two pullers will pick files. But now we have to change it. When we changed the period from 10 minutes to 1 minute, we got strange errors. Yes even you won't believe it. While testing concurrency we got, FileNotFound exception even though the file exists there, and many other concurrency issues. We looked into the logs and found that sometimes the load goes only on one server and the other is always idle doing nothing. Because when it comes, the first one is doing task.

Full article @ javalibs

Adobe Flash Player 10 beta


Adobe today rolled out a beta version of its Adobe Flash Player 10 (formerly called Astro) browser plug-in, which adds features to help designers and developers create special effects and cinematic Web experiences.

The new offering adds support for custom filters and effects created using Adobe's Pixel Bender tool kit, Adobe said. The Pixel Bender technology is used in the company's After Effects CS3 tool, which creates motion graphics and visual effects for film and broadcast.
"We're doing things that really change the game of what's possible on the Internet,"
said Tom Barclay, senior product marketing manager of Flash Player.
"The community now has the ability to upgrade the capabilities of the player and create new types of effects and cinematic experiences that are not available with any other browser plug-in."
The beta version of the player also includes native 3-D transformation and animation capabilities, an extensible rich-text layout, and graphics processing unit hardware acceleration, he added.

ComputerWorld

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope


Microsoft WorldWide Telescope is a virtual telescope software that enables you to explore the universe with the help of interactive star charts and high resolution imagery from some of the best land and sky based telescopes. You can manually explore the night sky for your geographical location or enjoy one of the many interactive tours that will take you on an educational journey across the universe, to visit the solar system, black holes, star clusters, nebula, cosmic events and more. WorldWide Telescope also supports the ASCOM platform which allows you to connect and control a compatible telescope directly to the software. Other features include real-time tracking of the night sky in your location, a finder scope to reveal details for any object, multiple sources for imagery, object search and filtering, and morel. WorldWide Telescope provides a user friendly interface, and is well suited for casual night sky explorers as well as more advanced star gazers and hobby astronomers.


Homepage:Download | WorldwiseTelescope



Spammers - new front is social networking sites

Social networking sites have become the new front in the war against spam, according to security watchers.

In the six months leading up to March 2008, social networking sites saw a four-fold growth in the amount of spam on their network. At several major social networking sites, 30 per cent of new accounts created are automated fraudulent 'zombie' accounts, designed to be used for spam and other malicious attacks, according to anti-spam firm Cloudmark.

JF Sullivan, VP of marketing at Cloudmark, said the type of spam advertised through social networks is the same type as that advertised by email spam and punted by much the same people. "There's an implicit trust in social networking. People don't think they're going to be attacked with spam," Sullivan told El Reg. "People don't trust email anymore. Spammers are following peoples' online habits."

Mobile spam, by contrast, is sent by different group of individuals.

Social networking spam can be messages between users or posts to walls or other similar applications. Social network spammers most often hijack accounts using fake log-in pages. Phishing-like tactics, password guessing and the use of Trojans to capture keystrokes are also in play.

Full story @ theRegister

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

10 Alternatives for Microsoft Word on Windows

How many times have you felt that is MS Word the only word processor that I have for Windows. Well can't blame you because most of the times me too have felt the same. So i browsed and browsed and browsed till i can browse no more and have come up with list of 10 alternative. I am sure you will love it.

  1. OpenOffice.org Writer: This is arguably the most commonly used alternative to Microsoft Word. OpenOffice is a complete suite of applications similar to those found in the Microsoft Office suite; Writer is the word processing program in that suite. It is very similar in style to Word and also has functions that allow it to create and edit web pages as well as to export PDF files. The functionality of this program is comparable to Word and its eighteen-year history points to the viability of this product as a true Word alternative. The best part about it is that it's free. Notably, this product can also be used with Linux and with Mac OS X computers that have the X Window System installed on them.
  2. KWord: Although it's fallen out of popularity in recent years due to the proliferation of word processing programs, KWord has historically been a fairly well-established alternative to Microsoft Word. It is based on frames which means that it's convenient for moving and editing large amounts of text as well as for incorporating images into documents. It is designed to be easy-to-use and flexible enough to meet the needs of a diverse group of people (from student to professional).
  3. Microsoft Works: This is the Microsoft Word alternative that most people are familiar with as it comes on many computers as a standard free version of Microsoft Word. It has a lot of the same basic functions but also has some flaws and isn't considered a favoured alternative by most people. For the person who only needs to write basic documents that don't need to be widely shared, it can be a useful program.
  4. StarWriter: This affordable software allows users to have all of the same basic features as Microsoft Word without having to actually use Word. It's great for people who are seeking an alternative primarily on the principle of a dislike of Microsoft or a desire to see this word processing giant face more competition. It is compatible with Word so that collaboration with others who use Word isn't made difficult by using this program. This software is also commonly used by Linux users.
  5. TechDigm Office: This application suite includes a word processing program which is comparable to StarWriter and can be easily used as an alternative-but-compatible Word program.
  6. AbilityWrite: Yet another alternative that is similar to StarWriter and TechDigm is AbilityWrite, the word processing program that is part of the Ability Office application suite. The benefit here is that Ability Office comes in five different versions which each include AbilityWrite along with different combinations of other programs (such as a spreadsheet program) which means you can pick and choose what you need in an application suite.
  7. Atlantis: Take a look at the home page of this Microsoft Word alternative and you'll see that it looks a little messy. That's deterred a lot of people from taking a test run of this product even though it's available for a free 30-day trial before purchase is required. Those who have tried it, though, say that it's an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Word which has many of the advanced features that Word users enjoy at a lower cost than what Word typically runs.
  8. Evermore Integrated Office: This is a useful but complicated alternative to Microsoft Word due to the fact that it's more than just a word processing program. Instead of opening up separate programs (for example, Word and Excel), you open everything up in one place. That makes it a great alternative for people who are seeking a really streamlined system but not so great for those people who are just going to want a word processor without all of the extras.
  9. yWriter: This is a niche word processing program designed specifically for writers who are working on novels or other book-length works. It has features which make it great for these long works include organizational methods that make it easy to move chapters around and tools that allow you to track your progress on the work. It can be used on its own or file can be saved as .rtf files and opened with other word processing programs.
  10. Nota Bene: This is another niche word processing program but this one is designed for academics and researchers. It has specific academic functions such as automatic bibliography and citation assistance. It also has advanced search functions that allow users to find their own quotes and documents using a search engine style method of searching. It's pricey software ($100+ depending on the version you want) but those who regularly write academic papers that need to be in tip top form may find that the cost is worth it.

Google: Publishers Making Adsense Invisible (Please dont do it)

Blogger’s and website publishers are go for Google Adsense because it’s very easy to signup and within few days you will start earning money. Whenever publisher uses the Google Adsense code it uses a JS file that will create an IFrame and that IFrame will display the Google ads on your website. Google uses the IFrame method because it prevents website publisher to create same text and background that matches their website. So in this way Google makes very hard to hide Google Adsense ads, but here is the method that will hide the complete Google Adsense ads in your website or blog.

Google should look this issue really seriously because this can be used by publishers to make any Google Adsense invisible and that ad may look like any image or URL.
Showing you the working example will violate the Google’s TOS and this article is not meant to do that. Here is that code that can be added to your Stylesheet or directly the place where you want to show Google Adsense ad.

#adsense{
Filter:alpha(opacity=00);
-moz-opacity:.00;
Opacity:.00;}

This method works on all browsers. If you are planning to test this code in your blog or website please think that you are violating the Google’s TOS and no matter how much revenue you generate from tricking users into clicking something, once you are reported and your website is investigated your account will be gone forever and so will all the money that you generated fraudulently.

Via ReadersZone

Don’t submit to Google


Just digging around when I found this. Thought this might help you.

A lot of people think that in order to be listed in Google’s search results, you need to first submit your site to them. This is a complete lie. In order for Google to list your site, you need them to find you naturally through links from other websites on the web.

Google actually values sites that you submit to them lower than they value sites that they naturally find.

Google believes that if they have to be told how to find your site that the online visitors also cannot find your site. If other people can’t find your site, why should Google?

Via Getting more visitors

Discuss It: Linux is faster then windows...



I was just surfing net and i found this long but cool article which talks about speeds of Linux and windows.

It talks about how Linux is optimized that it can run on even lower configurations also which win XP can't. Windows applications are good and fast on Linux compared to windows itself! Isn't its strange? Yeah and also windows based games runs faster with wine on Linux. It shows some benchmarks also for results of comparisons.

Main reasons which can be the main cause of windows slowness are,
-Linux use preemptive multitasking which means 'processes are forced to share CPU rather they want to or not'. And windows use Cooperative Multitasking which means 'process currently controlling the CPU must offer control to other processes'.

-windows is based on registry so while booting, it will load registry in memory. This is not the case with Linux.

-Windows has only one desktop which uses more resources and on the other side, Linux has many desktops which are configurable and many new are coming for different distributions.
The best lines said on source,
So, it seems to me the primary reason why Linux runs faster than Windows is because it is better designed to work with hardware, in the context that it handles operations in a more efficient manner than Windows.

In my opinion, I also get the perception, that perhaps the development of Linux is guided by people who seek to maximize performance. It does not appear to be developed predominantly by those who seek to maximize profits.
Full article @ ubuntuLinuxHelp

Blogger: Most visited posts widget script...

This script finds your most visited posts and gives you back theresult in html.I found this from bloggerbuster and it uses pipes.yahoo.com to get the ratings.
So now you don't need to put your features post links.Just put the script in new widget,change the url,change the number of posts you want to show, and done!
<script type="text/javascript">
function pipeCallback(obj) {
document.write('<font ><ol style="text-transform: capitalize;">');
var i;
for (i = 0; i < obj.count ; i++)
{
var href = "'" + obj.value.items[i].link + "'";
var item = "<li>" + "<a href=" + href + ">" + obj.value.items[i].title + "</a> </li>";
document.write(item);
}
document.write('</ol></font>');
}
</script>
<script src="http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_render=json&_callback=pipeCallback
&_id=1cf38ae68efbe859c4ba1ee239cec099&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techlads.com&num=10" type="text/javascript"></script>

In the url, only below part is important. Change the url to your one and change the num param to what you want.I made it only top 10 posts.
url=http://www.techlads.com&num=10

Asustek and Gigabyte - Intel P45 chipset launch

In an attempt to gain an edge in the competitive motherboard market, Asustek Computer and Gigabyte Technology have already unveiled motherboards featuring the new Intel P45 chipset for media review, as they gear up for the official June 2008 launch of the P45.Intel reportedly will officially launch its 4-series chipsets at Computex 2008, while motherboard makers will start shipping products later that month. However, Gigabyte's good sales performance in motherboard equipped with Intel 965 and P35 chipsets have brought significant competitive pressure on Asustek and both companies are circulating P45 boards for media reviews. As the P45 will have a long product life cycle of 18-24 months, the product is expected to be a crucial revenue driver for leading Taiwan-based makers of motherboards, the sources indicated.

via: DigiTimes

Nexuiz 2.4.2 released

The opensource deathmatch game Nexuiz has been updated to version 2.4.2 !

New features include:
* New gamemode Onslaught new available in the menu
* Added map for the onslaught gamemode (ons-reborn)
* Completely new announcer sounds/voices
* Fixed several problems with lagging gameplay/crashes/wrong display of effects
* The teammessage binds are available in the menu (if you do not see them delete or rename your config.cfg)
* New server tools for rcon and an irc gateway, updated server documentation
* Fixed the rotating textures/hud bug on Mac OSX with r_glsl 1
* New crylink primary attack and tweaked some other weapons
* Implemented uint16 element array support, this hopefully improves performance on Radeon 9500-X300 cards and GeForce1/2 cards

Nexuiz is a 3d deathmatch game that has been in development since the summer of 2002. The goal of the project is to create a high quality first person shooter that can be played freely across all platforms in one package: PC, Mac, and can be even included in Linux distributions. The game is entirely open source, with the sources of the engine, gamecode, map files, and compiling tools, all included with the download, all under the GPL license.

The gameplay is deathmatch with the most excessive possible speeds and weapons, giving incredibly intense fast paced action. Along with deathmatch, there are muitple gamemodes such as team deathmatch, capture the flag, domination, and many mutators and weapon options like rocket arena and instagib. The user can fight through the single player campaign, going through over 20 levels, or play online with our server browser.

Nexuiz is based on the Darkplaces engine, built on OpenGL technology. The darkplaces engine is an advanced Quake1 based engine developed mainly by Forest "LordHavoc" Hale, who has been working with the Quake1 engine for many years. A few of Darkplaces main features are Quake3bsp support, realtime lighting and shadowing, new particle effects, advanced menu system, and Md3 model support.

Nexuiz website

Debian and Ubuntu flaw - private SSL/SSH keys guessable


The Debian Security Advisory posted up DSA-1571-1 openssl -- predictable random number generator issue today and strongly advised its users to take steps to avoid possible compromising of any systems running on Debian, such as Ubuntu.

The researcher Luciano Bello discovered a security flaw in Debian's random number generator that allows to predict a random generated number. This is caused by an incorrect Debian change to the openssl package. As a result, cryptographic key material may be guessable.

This problem not only affects Debian, but also all its derivatives, such as Ubuntu.

It is strongly recommended that all cryptographic key material which has been generated by OpenSSL versions starting with 0.9.8c-1 on affected systems is recreated from scratch. Furthermore, all DSA keys ever used on affected systems for signing or authentication purposes should be considered compromised.

Via: debian.org

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Domain names - Everything you wanted to know :)

Now that you have seen techdudes.blogspot.com has been awarded with a domain, thanks to you guys let me share some knowledge about domain names so that it can ease your process of selecting one.There are several important things to consider when deciding on a domain name for your website. Following are a few tips to keep in mind when selecting a new domain name:

If possible, opt for a domain name that is easily recognizable and describes your business. This will be helpful when you promote your site.

Keep your domain name as short, simple and easy to remember as possible. The shorter it is, the easier it will be to remember. Although a good number of the short and simple .com domains are likely already taken, you may have the option to purchase a domain with a different extension, like .net or .us.

Your domain name can be 2-63 characters long (excluding the extension), and can contain the characters a-z, 0-9 and ‘-’ (dash). However, domain names cannot begin or end with ‘-’ (dash).

If your first choice is not available, try to utilize synonyms, rearrange the words, add dashes, or use abbreviations or acronyms to find an alternative.

You now have several options to choose from for extensions as well. Following is some information about some of the extensions you can choose from:

.com denotes the word commercial, and it is an unrestricted global domain name extension. Many businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet. However, the number of available .com domain names is shrinking as more and more businesses go online.

.net represents the word network, and is an unrestricted global domain name extension most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies, or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet web sites.

.org represents the word organization, and is an unrestricted global domain name extension that is primarily used for non-commercial sites. However, many commercial entities register the .org extensions corresponding to their .com domain names in order to protect their brands.

.biz is a restricted-use global domain name extension used for business web sites. As a relatively new type of domain, .biz offers a company the opportunity to get the domain name it really wants and enhance its presence on the Web with a domain name that means business.

.info is an unrestricted domain name extension that creates an opportunity to reach a worldwide audience with information about your business and ideas. .info is growing in popularity, but still has many great names available.

.us is a restricted-use country code that may be used by any individual or organization with residence in the United States or its territories, including foreign organizations that do business in the US.

What about .TV, .WS, .FM and .CC?

Although often marketed as such, .TV does not mean television and .WS does not mean web-site or world-site. .TV is the country code extension for Tuvalu a small island country located in the Western Pacific Ocean with a population of approximately 11,000 that gained independence from the UK in 1978. .WS is the country code extension for Samoa. Samoa, also in the Pacific, gained independence from New Zealand in 1962 and has a population of around 180,000.

.FM masquerades as the TLD (top level domain) for radio stations, but is actually the country code for Federated States of Micronesia. .CC is the Internet country code TLD for Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory, but has been promoted for international registration as the next .com


Who should use Ubuntu?

Since the the release of Ubuntu 8.04 a couple of weeks ago there has been a number of reviews done to show what is good or bad about Ubuntu. Reviews certainly have their place and we all like to know what is going to work and what we will have to tweak. However, I thought that perhaps a better question to asked is who should be using Ubuntu?

So after some serious thought, here is my list of 5 types of users that should be using Ubuntu.

1) The Basic Home Users
These are those people who do nothing more than turn on their computers, open their internet browsers and check email, surf the internet, listen to music and maybe balance the checkbook.

2) The SOHO Users
The Small Office Home Office crowd is really a perfect fit for Ubuntu. This user group generally needs a stable, easy to use, low cost solution to computing.

3) The Cost Conscious User
Let’s face it the economy isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders right now. For those that are looking to save a few bucks, Windows is not going to be your best friend.

4) The Socialist Users
This group can be defined a number of ways, but I like to think of them as the people who are interested in advancing society through common works. These are the people that realize the world can be better if we work together for that purpose.

5) The Blogger/Webmaster Users
This group of users is pretty strait forward. These are users that have a website or blog that is not hosted by WordPress, Blogger or TypePad (or other lesser known hosts). If you are in this group then you probably like to try out changes to your site before you actually go live.

Java optimization and performance

No new Exception if not needed

Many of us do this when we want to throw an error. But if you are throwing exception from another catch, then don't make new exception object. Keep throwing the same exception which you caught if possible. This will be better for performance. And also in new exception usually we change the description only to reflect the perfect error cause, but other ways are there to track it.

Avoid excessive synchronization

Yah threading can be a bit complex situation sometimes in java. And we all use synchronization to avoid dead locks. But it needs a more attention then we give it. Try to make a block of code synchronized rather then making the whole method synched. The whole method will stop all other threads, waiting to go inside it. It will generate more overhead. So keep the design like we need less sync code.

Read Full @ javaLibs