Motivate team to work on legacy products...

In every company, we have situations where some legacy products. Legacy can be in sense of programming language OR platform OR UI OR features OR anything else you think 'legacy'! But still we need to work on it because we have clients using it and we need to provide maintainability/support for them.

Only cash can not make the developers happy. You should provide them good environment so that they can pay attention to their work.

Another thing is no technology is bad OR legacy OR older. Thing is if your company needs to maintain it, then you must keep it going. But keep all standards for designing, coding, testing, code review, interactive sessions etc...

Also you can motivate them to convert your legacy code to some new platform for better performance and maintainability. Every company does that even once. Why?I think, because they want to compete with other market products.

Also provide them some cool sessions for other technologies which are used in your company but they don't know or use. Let them be deeply in the things, give them proper time and support and be problem solving. Main goal is to deliver on time with less rework and bugs.

Provide some rewards towards their work and keep them happy about their work. After all work is what we do together. If the team feels right, they will do right and develop right.

Until your product works fine without any problem and client is happy then you can think to add new feature to it. Today technology is better and we can integrate different applications without any programming language bar. You can do new development in new-age languages and integrate them with your product, which will keep your product ready for today's competition.

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

New Avtar: Logo got revised

We got a new logo, designed by my friend ravish.
Write your comments how it looks or If anyone got any suggestions for logo,template or anything you think can help us doing better here.
After all, its your area. All you like is what we care about.

Also,guest writers are welcome. so please contact if you wish and can write on specific technologies.

Techdudes

Firefox: Tips with Middle Mouse Button

For those who don’t know, the middle mouse can become quite useful too, if one know how to use it properly.

In this post, I will show you 6 tips to supercharge your Mozilla Firefox with the middle mouse button , thus making your web browsing experience better than before.

1- Click on a link with the middle mouse button to quickly open a link in a new tab. No more right click -> “Open Link in new tab”!

2- Press the Control (Ctrl) button and scroll the mouse wheel backward to increase Firefox’s font size. Scroll it forward to decrease the font size.

3- Press the Shift button and scroll the mouse wheel forward to move a page forward and scroll backwards to go the previous page.

Below are Mozilla Firefox’s about:config hack to modify hidden preferences (mouse related). Check out here on how to modify about:config.

4- Change the value of middlemouse.paste to true. This will let you paste a clipboard content to any text field with the middle mouse button.

5- Change the value of middlemouse.scrollbarPosition to true and restart your Firefox. The next time you click on a scrollbar location with the middle mouse button, Firefox will center the screen to that position.

6- Change the value of mousewheel.withaltkey.action to 1. This will enable you to scroll document by one page while pressing the Alt button.

post your tips and hints for other things you found for it. Enjoy!

How to increase your internet connection speed?

If you have Windows XP, try this. Everyone that has tried it says it works, tell us if it works too. You should be logged as Administrator (not even accounts with administrator privileges).

1. Start - Run - type gpedit.msc.
2. Expand the Local Computer Policy / Administrative Templates / Network Branch.
3. Highlight the QoS Packet Scheduler in left panel.
4. In right panel double click the Limit reservable bandwidth setting.
5. On setting tab check the Enabled item.
6. Where it says Bandwidth limit % change it to read 0.

The problem is, XP seems to want to reserve 20% of the bandwidth for itself. Even with QoS disabled, even when this item is disabled. So why not use it to your advantage.

wiresmash.com

Memtest86+ v2.00

Based on the well-known original memtest86 written by Chris Brady, memtest86+ is a port by some members of the x86-secret team. Its goal is to provide an up-to-date and completely reliable version of this software tool aimed at memory failures detection. Memtest86+ is, like the original, released under the terms of the Gnu Public License (GPL). No restrictions for use, private or commercial exist other than the ones mentioned in the Gnu Public License (GPL). Texts about the original version was taken from the original website and written by Chris Brady.

Changelog:
o Major Architectures changes
o Modulo test now use random pattern for better accuracy
o Added Advanced DMI Errors Reporting Mode
o Added support for bus ratio changes on Intel Core CPU
o Added support for non-integer bus ratio on latest Intel CPU
o Added SPD Data Display for all Intel Chipsets (more to come)
o Added serial support as a linux boot parameter (Thanks to Michal S.)
o Added preliminary support for VIA CN Isaiah CPU
o Added preliminary support for Intel Nehalem
o Added support for VIA C7/C7-D/C7-M/Eden on Esther Core
o Added support for AMD K10 (Phenom) CPU w/ timings detection
o Added support for Intel Pentium E w/ 1 MB L2 Cache
o Added support for Intel Core 2 45nm (Penryn)
o Added support for FSB1333/FSB1600 Intel CPU
o Added support for Intel 5400A/5400B w/ timings detection
o Added support for Intel Q35/P35/G33/Q33 w/ timings detection
o Added support for Intel X38/X48 w/ timings detection
o Added preliminary support for Intel 5000P/V/Z
o Removed on-fly memory timings change (unstable)
o Numerous bugfixes

memtest.org

AutoPatcher August 2007

AutoPatcher is a comprehensive collection of patches, addons and registry tweaks that give you peace of mind in the knowledge that your Windows system is up to date, even before you connect it to the Internet. It's designed to quickly patch a system with the most current updates and tweaks available, and requires no user interaction once you have selected what to install.

Two surprises this month:
1) Releases for Microsoft Office XP/2003/2007 are now complete and available.
2) AutoPatcher 5.6 now supports slipstreaming updates into installation media. The x86 releases have slipstream installation instructions added to most general windows patches.

AutoPatcher August 2007
Home page

Flash drive offers keypad PIN security

Corsair Memory Incorporated has launched its new Flash Padlock drive: a USB flash drive secured with a five-button PIN-based "padlock" built into the drive itself. The PIN interface forces the user to hit the unlock button and the chosen code (up to 10 digits) before accessing the drive. The drive requires no special software to operate. Flash Padlock drives also don’t need a separate partition for the security driver, as password-based drives do. To avoid the code being forgotten, users are invited to register their PIN code on Corsair's Web site. If the PIN is forgotten, the code can then be retrieved by supplying a valid e-mail address and password.

Beyond describing the PIN system, Corsair's description of the drives inner security workings, and any use of encryption, is vague. Presumably, the PIN is stored on a physically separate memory location within the drive. Flash padlock costs $29.95 and $39.95 for the 1GB and 2GB capacities on offer, and can be used on Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Apple OS X.

Product Details

7-Zip 4.48 Beta

7-Zip is a file archiver with the high compression ratio. The program supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, LZH, CHM, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB formats. Compression ratio in the new 7z format is 30-50% better than ratio in ZIP format.

The main features of 7-Zip

* High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
* Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
* For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
* Self-extracting capability for 7z format
* Integration with Windows Shell
* Powerful File Manager
* Powerful command line version
* Plugin for FAR Manager
* Localizations for 63 languages
Changes:

- Encryption strength for .7z format was increased.
- Now it uses random initialization vectors.
- Some bugs were fixed.

Home Page

11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance

None of these tips will improve your Mac's performance like more RAM, a faster hard drive, or a CPU upgrade would. They mostly have to do with reducing memory use by limiting the number of active processes and freeing up drive space, since a too full drive (especially past the 90% mark) can slow down your Mac. These are tips for getting the most out of the Mac you currently have without investing in any upgrades.

Full Tips @ loWendMac