Singularity Cometh...

The charge card is here! A first hand review.

2013-06-11T23:49:00.001-07:00

Alright. In case you don’t know the premise of this insanely useful piece of a gadget, it started as a kick-starter project, led by Noah Dentzel & Adam Miller.

It later debuted at this year's CES.

This wonderful project has given us this little piece of genius -

(*image courtesy the ChargeCard site)

This, my friends is the charge-card - a charging cable which fits in your wallet or purse!

A cable which takes ‘portability’ to the next level, ensuring that the means of charging your super smart device is always available.

The ChargeCard is designed in the shape of a credit card (although, three times the thickness of a credit card). It is available for

As per the site -

“ChargeCard for Micro USB works on Android, Blackberry, Samsung, Nokia, Kindle, Jambox, Jawbone and all devices that charge with a Micro USB cable.”

Also,

“With this form factor, the ChargeCard fits naturally into your wallet, purse or pocket. It's there when you need it, and out of your way when you don't.”

Ingenious I say!

My views -

I got my version in the mail yesterday (yes, I had pledged over at the KS). I had ordered the black micro-USB version. Got is in a good-looking minimalistic package.

(My Micro-USB charge-card. Will post more pictures soon!)

The card is made mostly of rubber and I have successfully been able to charge and sync my smartphone, MP3 player, and so on. The thickness is a bit more like my office access card. So ‘3 times the credit card size’ is quite true.

Tech review sites like Wired, CNET, Engadget, Lifehacker, and Mashable have already reviewed this little genius and the reviews have been pretty good!

The USB plug is enclosed in a flexible rubber, allowing you to twist or bend it in order to plug it in any USB port.

If you own a smartphone or even a device which uses a micro-USB port and can be charged via the standard USB, you will appreciate this nifty gadget. This is what every self-proclaimed GEEK should have in his or her wallet/purse.

My friends, you are but incomplete without it!

Head over now to charge-card-project, and place your order ($25.00 USD* & Free Worldwide Shipping!). You **may** be able to find some discount codes online.

Technorati Tags: charge card,android,iPhone,charger,wallet,cable review

New JS playgrounds!

2013-06-10T02:36:00.001-07:00

The article at Mashable introduces us to some new script based WIP currently at GitHub.

For now, have a look, I will try and research more on the interesting ones and maybe will cover something in the coming issues of JSMag,

JSMag and GroovyMag – May 2013 Issues are here!

2013-05-05T23:54:00.001-07:00

From JSMag.com

What's new in jQuery 2.0 - Chetan Khurana

A major version release of the most popular JavaScript library is here! Learn more about what is new and what has changed.

Go to http://www.jsmag.com, and use the coupone code – 2me7csp

From GroovyMag.com…

Grails Plugins "Inline" - Chetan Khurana

Customizing a grails plugin which is commonly referred to in more than one application can cause many issues. Declaring plugins as inline solves these issues!

Go to https://www.groovymag.com/, and use the coupon code – 21yoc8k.

Steps to follow for getting the issues -

1. Register at the URL – JSMag / GroovyMag

2. Go to the CART option and use the coupon codes given above;

3. Go to your account option to download and access your free copy of MAY 2013 issues!

Feel free to blog, twitter, give to colleagues or otherwise disperse.

Technorati Tags: JSMag,GroovyMag,Free coupon,Issues May 2013,Grails,Inline,Plugins,jQuery 2.0

JavaScript & DOM Reflows

2013-05-03T00:00:00.001-07:00

This article is from the November 2012 issue of the JSMag publication.

In here, we discuss the concept of DOM reflows and why they are expensive (and should be avoided).

I am replicating the article in its entirety as below and not to mention with full input & collaboration-credit to my good friend Chandan Luthra!

Hope it is helpful to my friends out there!

If you use JavaScript for your web development, you need to know about DOM reflows. Here we discuss what reflows are and why they happen. We also go through ways to minimize reflow issues in order to improve java-script performance.

What is a reflow? – an overview

Let us start evaluating a simple HTML or XHTML webpage. This webpage is bound to include references to resources such as CSS, external java scripts (JS) and images etc. and all these collectively contribute to the final look and feel of the webpage UI.

These relative DOM elements are connected in a hierarchical/structural layout, and are encompassed in a logical pattern called a frame. This frame may be a child or a parent of subsequent inner frame element(s). Each of these rectangular frames has specific attributes like width / height and so on.

During the rendering process of the webpage, the entire DOM element model is traversed by the browser. This traversal starts from the absolute parent (i.e. the <html> element) then proceeds or flows through the entire DOM. A reflow refers to the revalidation of page elements for (re)rendering the entire DOM after any DOM updates.

Wait a minute! How is this different from a repaint?

Both DOM reflow and repaint events can happen on an HTML page and reveal any element’s altered state. A repaint occurs when changes are made purely at a superficial or visible level, like changing the color attributes of an element, and which do not affect element layout at all. Examples of this can include modifying table borders, div related visibility or page /element level background color.

A repaint too incurs some expense as the browser engine has to re-process the visibility criteria for the whole DOM tree.

When does a reflow happen?

A reflow is more or less quite a substantial change and is triggered whenever a user or script action makes changes to the DOM tree.

This may be due to changing a style (thereby changing layouts), changing any element’s className property or simply changing browser level properties, like the browser’s window size etc.

As soon as such a change is detected by the browser engine, the actual changed element and its subsequent child elements have to undergo a reflow so as to cascade their parent’s update.

This change is cascaded further down the line and all the dependent elements appearing after the updated DOM element have to be reflowed in order to adjust to the newly calculated layout.

Moreover, the parent or preceding elements will also need a reflow to acknowledge the layout changes of their child elements. And after this reflow is implemented all over, a final repaint request is issued for the DOM.

Reflows can be classified as instant (as in case of a response to user / script processing) or they may be required as a part of page load process, when page elements are loaded in a sequence (for example in stream based rendering).

So why are reflows actually bad?

Sometimes reflows are actually required. An example is using script based animation sequences which is handled via reflows. But an “un-intentional reflow” due to coding issues in scripts and poorly planned style classes is what leads to expensive and performance hampering behavior.

Reflows are bad since they are very expensive and counterintuitive to performance. They can and do lead to slow JavaScript and a poor user experience. The scenario gets even worse for devices with low processing power such as phones and tablets or any other device where processing power is at a premium. A reflow is more or less akin to refreshing or performing a fresh layout for the entire page, which is surely heavy and undesired.

Some common reflow events and how to minimize them

Let us go through some easily avoidable reflow instances which are mainly caused due to coding oversight.

Updating DOM elements in a loop

Assume a scenario where-in we need to modify an element in the DOM tree. For example, suppose we have a DIV parent having some child anchor tags and we need to change the className attribute for these anchor tags within this DIV element.

function updateDivAnchors(divElement, newAnchorClass){
    var anchorObjs = divElement.getElementsByTagName('a');
    var totalAnchorObjs =  anchorObjs.length;
    for (var i = 0; i < totalAnchorObjs; i ++) {
        anchorObjs[i].className = newAnchorClass;  
    }
}

Listing 1: User defined method that replaces/adds a className to the div elements

At a glance, the function in Listing 1 will surely do what is intended, but we have a major reflow issue here. This code fires a DOM reflow for every update to each anchor element (as we have a loop in effect).

Now, if this DIV has 10 child anchor elements, the entire DOM tree would undergo an un-necessary refresh 10 times. This is a lot of undesired reflow activity!

Any better solution should avoid touching the DOM during the DIV update. One way this can be achieved is by using a modified script that would –

1) Remove the DIV (to be updated) from the DOM;
2) Update the anchor elements in that DIV;
3) Re-add the DIV back at its location in the DOM.

This approach can be further refined if we make use of the DocumentFragment object.

As per this definition at Mozilla Developer,

A DocumentFragment is a minimal document object that has no parent. It is used as a light-weight version of document to store well-formed or potentially non-well-formed fragments of XML.

Thus, a DocumentFragment can be created on the fly to create a temporary DIV node as shown in Listing 2.

1 var docFragment = document.createDocumentFragment();

Listing 2: Example to create DocumentFragment object on the fly

After this, we can iterate and populate this fragment, manipulate the anchor elements, and add back (rather replace) the actual DIV with this updated fragment. So basically, the number of reflows which was proportional to the number of anchor tags in the previous example is now limited to just two reflows! This is bound to speed up the action for that page.

Manipulating visibility attribute to update element properties

Another way to reduce reflows is to use hidden elements. In case an element or its children require many separate changes (which cannot be combined into a single repaint), the element’s visibility style can be set as display:none, the changes made, and then the element can be set back to its normal display.

Changing properties or attributes of hidden elements does not trigger the repaint request since it is not being displayed.

Similar to the earlier mentioned fix, in this case too we need only two reflows. One when the element is hidden, and second when it is made to appear again, but the overall effect can be much faster (issues like abrupt UI refresh for dependent elements can be avoided by using a preset offset value)

Changing an element’s style attributes – style vs. class update

If we need to make several style related updates for an element, the same should be done at one go to minimize the number of reflows.

We generally code to set element styles one at a time, as shown in Listing 3.

1 var targetElement = document.getElementById('anyDivId');
2 targetElement.style.background = '#333';
3 targetElement.style.color = '#fff';
4 targetElement.style.border = '1px solid #00f';
5

Listing 3: Code to change/update few cascade styles of an HTML element

Here, for every single style update a new reflow request is invoked which is again an overhead for the DOM. A better and faster approach would be to create a CSS class for the identified style changes and update the same as shown in Listing 4.

1 document.getElementById(' anyDivId ').className = 'newDivClass';

Listing 4: Example of applying CSS class from JavaScript

Note: There are many more ways which can be utilized for further minimizing the nuisance due to reflows. Please refer the links at the end of the article for the same.

Figures to back the impact of reflows

The point of the entire discussion is that it is actually JavaScript which triggers the reflows and repaints. Avoiding the reflows will make the page appear faster not because of a speedier script engine but because the browser is doing less of reflow and repaint activity.

The reflow minimization above may or may not lead to any tangible/actual performance benefits (like JavaScript speed up etc.). But the advantage will be that the browser will now show a faster response time against actual user actions. We will enable the browser in such a manner so that it spends lesser time requesting expensive I/O and processor resources for redundant DOM reflows.

If we use any pure JavaScript profiling tool, the reflow related code optimization will show little or no affect. We are not really bothered about speeding up the JS code; rather, we need to measure the effect it has on the browser rendering for that modified page.

As a reference, the link below shows the reflow in action (Wikipedia’s home page reflow video) –

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5863446593724321515&hl=en

If you want to track the paint events for your webpage, you need Firebug (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/firebug/) and this excellent add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firebug-paint-events/.

This will show the DOM reflow/paint events in the Firebug console.

Conclusion & follow up

The above primer will surely be helpful for you in minimizing un-necessary reflow events. Below are some links for pursuing the reflow discussion further:

· A helpful note on HTML reflow – http://www-archive.mozilla.org/newlayout/doc/reflow.html

· When does JavaScript trigger reflows and rendering? – http://mir.aculo.us/2010/08/17/when-does-javascript-trigger-reflows-and-rendering/

· Page Rendering & Reflow Performance – http://blog.monitor.us/2012/04/page-rendering-reflow-performance/

· CSS solutions for Browser Reflows & Repaints & how do they affect performance –http://ajaxian.com/archives/browser-reflows-how-do-they-affect-performance

Technorati Tags: JSMag,DOM,repaints,reflows,browser,tweaks,JavaScript,Mozilla

JSMAG April 2013!

2013-04-09T11:10:00.001-07:00

So here is the latest edition of JSMag! And you can use the coupon code zx4dr03 to get your copy for free!

Please feel free to blog, twitter, give to colleagues or otherwise disperse.

Find my article about “Modernizr - Detecting HTML5 and CSS3 Features” in this month;s issue!

Go here for the full issue - http://www.jsmag.com/main.issues.description/id=67/

Follow the steps in my earlier post - http://singularitycometh.blogspot.in/2013/02/get-both-jsmag-groovymag-for-feb-2013.html on how to get the issues. But please use the code in this post!

Thanks!

Agile programming – Now in family mode !

2013-03-25T00:22:00.001-07:00

Excellent advice, and all in all a great TED talk.

You can refer this Life hacker article which talks about applying the "agile" philosophy to family life.

Also refer the direct YouTube link for the TED talk - Bruce Feiler: Agile programming -- for your family

S4 Official Specs!

2013-03-14T17:00:00.001-07:00

Cloud based IDEs – Now code anywhere!

2013-03-13T04:24:00.001-07:00

The backbone of any efficient Development Cycle is a versatile and intuitive IDE.

An IDE (or an Integrated Development Environment) provides comprehensive facilities for coding in a software development cycle.

Traditional IDEs are bound to the physical work environment and locally to the development system.

Enter the Cloud based IDEs

Cloud based IDEs are getting popular by the day. All they require is a web browser, where-in the editor can be used to write code which can also be stored in a cloud based repository.

The cloud is slowly getting the popularity and versatility it promised as a concept. It is already facilitating stuff like online backup creation, document sharing & collaboration (via cloud based CMSs) and data-sharing for distributed web channels like social networking.

The main beneficiary of a Cloud based IDE is the Mobile application development front. It truly integrated application development on a distributed level, and different aspects of a mobile application (like native vs. web) can be seamlessly developed, tested and integrated.

For the cloud based IDEs, you are having many choices.

Some of them are -

and so on.

But it is the latest entry which excites me the most!

Yes, it is the Eclipse IDE which has recently launched the Orion IDE. Orion brings the experience and developer ease-of-use (and confidence) of Eclipse to the Cloud IDE arena.

Orion is still in progress, however, and it is limited to client based / front-end web development (i.e. HTML and JavaScript).

It features out-of-box Firebug integration and the usual Eclipse UI with code completions for starters!

One thing is for sure, the coming days are going to be interesting for the development arena.

Now all we need is an in-fallible, always on, (cheap!) broadband connection. Sigh!

Technorati Tags: coding,IDE,development,cloud,eclipse

The countdown for #TheNextBigThing has begun. Who’s ready for the Global Unpacked Event on March 14?

2013-03-12T06:08:00.001-07:00

Go here for the latest on Samsung S4 @ twitter -

https://twitter.com/samsungmobileus/status/311282107135717376

And the internet goes mad. Here and here too.

The Firefox O.S. – Mozilla’s latest thunder!

2013-02-26T06:34:00.001-08:00

The Firefox OS, codenamed Boot to Gecko (aka B2G) has been launched quite recently and is a topic of speculation in tech-circles. This O.S. is uses a Linux kernel and runs HTML5 based apps (which couple up with the Firefox browser)

Firefox O.S. aims at controlling the hardware (integration) using JavaScript (now how cool is that!), and its basic reason for coming to existence is ‘to create a true OSS (open source) O.S. for which apps would freely be available on the Firefox Marketplace’.

The first Firefox O.S. based smartphones should be shipping as early as the the first half of 2013.

From the GSMArena -

Mozilla is officially launching their Firefox OS for mobile phones and are proud to announce that they have deals with 18 carriers, a partnership with Qualcomm to use their Snapdragon chipsets and four manufacturers - ZTE, Alcatel, LG and Huawei. The first two also showcased phones with Firefox OS at the MWC.

Also, as per the latest reports, Sony is planning to launch its own Firefox O.S. based device in early 2014.

This could be a game changer for next year’s mobile technology (imagine the app development scenarios!)

Only thing which remains to be seen is how fast can market penetration actually help Mozilla, and oh, there is the current popularity of iOS and Android to add spice to the ‘market dominance race’ too!

Technorati Tags: Firefox,Mozilla,Linux,kernel,JavaScript,GSMArena,Android,iOS,apps

Samsung Galaxy S4 Final Specs! Everything official about it.

2013-02-13T09:41:00.001-08:00

Just the links here for the while -

Korean site - http://www.ddaily.co.kr/news/news_view.php?uid=101028

Translation URL – HERE

One confirmation is that Home button is there.

Will post when further details become available.

Get both JSMag & GroovyMag for Feb 2013, free!

2013-02-10T23:13:00.001-08:00

That and the latest issues of JSMag and GroovyMag!

Get the latest JSMag issue where yours truly has a “good enough to brag” article on HTML5 and a write-up in the and GroovyMag’s Plugin corner too (both with my good Friend one who cannot be named*)

This is how you get it -

1. Register at the URL - http://www.jsmag.com/ for JSMag

2. Go to the CART option and use the following coupon codes –> rcmm9pb

3. Go to your account option to download and access your free issue of JSMag Feb 2013!

This is how you get it -

1. Register at the URL - http://www.groovymag.com/ for GroovyMag

2. Go to the CART option and use the following coupon code – 7p0d237

3. Go to ‘My Account’ option and select the ‘Review magazine purchases’ to download and access your free issue of GroovyMag Feb 2013!

Simple!

As of writing, this has only 20 uses left! So hurry up and get this while it lasts!

You can thank me in the comments ;-)

Technorati Tags: goovymag,groovy,plugins,JSMag,free coupon,HTML5

Links for fellow QAs… Contd.

2013-02-09T01:31:00.000-08:00

Here is another good collection of QA related tutorials – QATutorial.com

Excerpt from the site itself-

…a website which provides essential Software Testing material for QA and Testing enthusiasts.
Here you would be able to find information on all the different stages and areas of Software Testing.
Some of the Priority Areas being,
* Manual Testing
* Software Test Management
* Software Test Automation
* Interview Questions
* Software Testing Templates.
* A Forum area for discussion.

Do post in your views and links, I will update them here.

So you are a QA? Oh wait, don’t answer that!

2013-02-06T22:46:00.001-08:00

Life may turn on its boring face if you have been a QA analyst (in any software firm) since a while.

Because, well let’s face it, a QA’s job is never easy. He/She is the person without any real (or developer) friends and most of the times, if the poor QA is one of ordinary luck, he handles the repetitive job of manual testing rather than interesting and challenging stuff like automation and scripts and so on.

These poor souls are found going through the same application functionalities day after day (like a zombie), to catch that elusive but obvious bug, which has to rear its ugly head on the staging, and during the client demonstration too!

And yet, it is only a proper QA process which provides that level confidence to both the developers and their customer about the application’s robustness.

So dear QA’s, fear not, as starting today I will make some effort to scout the net and post in or blog here some interesting links on QA fundamentals and topics, which should help some of you get back that spark of self-confidence!

So here we start with the QA section in TheServerSide.

The server side’s QA section titled Software Quality Assurance, contains whitepapers with stress on App-DLC, and the upcoming changes in QA domain WRT the now prevalent mobile and portable platforms too. only caveat is you have to register for access, but this is easy and free too, and completely worth it.

And do get back to me with comments etc. if you want me to mention any specific sites which help you out in your daily QA activities.

Technorati Tags: QA,SQA,testing,whitepapers,SDLC

How To - Find GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) of installed programs!

2013-02-05T04:34:00.001-08:00

Well, this is for something my friend needed @ work.

Fire up either the local command prompt (start –> cmd) or the PowerShell prompt (for O.S. > Windows 7) – start –> Windows PowerShell

and then on the CLI, just this -

wmic product list

This generates a list of all programs on your computer with their “Globally Unique Identifiers” listed as well.

Will take some time, so be patient!

The PowerShell though, will give a better formatted output than the plain cmd one.

For even more, refer -

wmic product get

and better still save it somewhere like -

wmic product get > C:\ProgramGUIDList.txt

Simple!

Technorati Tags: GUID,windows,powershell,howto

Samsung Galaxy S4!

2013-01-22T01:28:00.001-08:00

The rumored specs -

- Exynos 5 Octa (8-Core) CPU,
- Mali-T658 (8-Core) GPU,
- 4.99″ SuperAMOLED Full HD Resolution Display,
- 2GB of RAM,
- 13 Megapixel Rear facing Camera capable of shooting 1080p Full HD Videos at 30FPS,
- 2 Megapixel front facing camera capable of shooting 720p HD Videos
- Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean out of the box.

The launch date -

The preview -

The Benchmark (IDK!) -

And SamMobile says….

THE DISCLAIMER -

**I do not know if the above is real! So ARM your OWN BS meters!**

And it never ends…Samsung Galaxy S4!
Yeah you wish.

UPDATE: It seems something is actually going to happen as GSMArena is covering the same speculations…Maybe it is sooner than we expect.

Technorati Tags: Samsung,Galaxy,S4

Internet’s sad day…

2013-01-14T06:43:00.001-08:00

It is a sad day for progress…a rising star is forever extinguished.

Aaron Swartz was a computer programmer, a writer and a fighter. He co-pioneered the RSS 1.0 specification of RSS at an age when other kids have different interests.

He is responsible for Infogami and also helped make Reddit what it is today. His group Demand Progress was one of the first ones to campaign against SOPA and was also a member of Avaaz. I do not know exactly why he took such a step… but I guess his legacy should bring on the changes he so desired in his lifetime.

Rest well champ, for us toiling hands, you will be remembered forever as the harbinger of progress.

Peace.

What do you want to do with your life?

2013-01-09T03:08:00.001-08:00

Life… if it actually was that easy! If only our day to day choices weren’t governed by that single most important factor…! Yup, money!

But wait. There is some hope, still.

This below, is an info-comic by Zen Pencils…with words and thoughts of Alan Watts.

I hope this helps us all understand the importance and need of self-actualization vs. the artificial stuff which is actually running our lives for us today.

From the Zen pencils site -

Alan Watts (1915-1973) was an English philosopher and writer who played a large part in popularising Zen Buddhism in the west. He gained a wide following after moving to the United States where he published numerous books on Zen and Eastern philosophy. During the 60s and 70s he toured extensively on the college lecture circuit and became a celebrity among the growing youth movement. Watts had over 25 books published and recorded over 400 lectures, many of which have found a new audience on YouTube.

It surely depends on what you want Vs. what you need, but ultimately if what you do makes you happy, it will eventually help you pay your bills and more…

Technorati Tags: actualization,zen,life,money,importance

2012 in passing…

2012-12-28T22:04:00.001-08:00

2012 was a mix bag. Mostly sad with many (good) people passing. Many precious lives cut short.

Many world-changing-events happened, but some heart & faith wrecking actions hit us closer to home (it actually could be the Biggest Tragedy of 2012 in India or The Humankind).

Only thing is that its outcome may have a profound effect on the times to come.

For the other parts of the world, Google has it’s own news.

I for one hope that the humanity works out its internals first rather concentrate on getting achievements on the outer..

Humanity needs to be more humane now more than ever. As someone mentioned it quite aptly, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. And in these changing times, it seems that power comes easier but no one wants any responsibility. We as the current generation have this as our responsibility.

Always remember: No sacrifice should ever go in vain, or we will surely run out of heroes one day. Never forget.

Peace.

2012 in Science–The best in scientific break-through and achievements.

2012-12-28T21:36:00.001-08:00

Everything happened in 2012.

The world not ending was a personal disappointment though (Dam’n you NASA!, better luck next time). Wikipedia gives us many forthcoming calendar dates to mark though. (Happy Happy!)

Ahh! Scientific achievements! Some discussed them in journals and some good Sci-fi movies imagined them correctly, but 2012 is almost gone, and many weird stuff is now real.

io9 covers it here in The Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2012 and WIRED has its Top Scientific Discoveries of 2012.

Technorati Tags: 2012,2013 science,breakthroughs,higgs,DNA,mars,wired,io9,Sci-fi,NASA,end of world

True Awesomeness…taking off to space and beyond…from your own backyard!

2012-12-19T10:45:00.001-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, pure awesomeness has arrived.And it aims for the stars!

Copenhagen Suborbitals is an open source outer space project in Denmark. These two self supporting scientists or should I say entrepreneurs, Kristian von Bengston and Peter Madsen head the Copenhagen Suborbitals.

They, with the help of about 20-plus specialist helpers onboard are in the process of creating the first locally (read homemade) and plan to take this *manned* spacecraft into the orbit.

Doing it is one thing when you are funded by the government, but doing it in the backyard (although not technically) but on a miserly budget of a few hundred thousands dollars is but ballsy!

Hit the below link for checking out their idea and progress.

Homemade spacecraft!

Just purely, awesomely wow…!

Addendum: Check out this link for photos and test launch details! Wow!

Technorati Tags: spacecraft,homemade,awesome,manned denmark

Listen up guys, sitting here and writing this for you…is killing me a little…so please read it standing up!

2012-12-13T02:43:00.001-08:00

(above image courtesy the MedicalBillingandCoding.org)

Exercising in itself is a virtue for health. Everybody knows that, no matter how lazy!

But sitting down, is what actually makes all our exercise earned bonus points just go back to zero.

Contrary to popular belief, in-spite of an active lifestyle, you cannot reverse the negative aspects of sitting!

As per this elaborate article on The New York Times, sitting jobs actually lead to a heart disease, obesity, diabetes, certain cancers and early death, independently of whether you exercise regularly.

Sitting impacts your health in more ways than you know. Present day research has proof that sitting alters our natural body functions, actively leads to obesity, heart related disorders, and is a 100% contributor to decreasing both our health as well as lifespan.

So do yourself (and me) a favour, stand-up, move and herd around, every 20 minutes. Go for that tea-break now, but for God sakes, no fag breaks! As it is now known that Even light smoking may double your risk of sudden death.

Refer the (excellent) links below for further reference -

The The New York Times article referenced above.
Sitting and Standing at Work – Discusses the perils of over-sitting and standing.
An excellent info-graphic at MedicalBillingandCoding.org (from which the above thumbnail is taken) will surely be an eye-opener for my chair loving brethren.
The OSHA factsheet (PDF) which is useful for anyone who has a sedentary (sitting) job.

Technorati Tags: sitting,killing,move,stand,exercise,obesity,sedentary,lifestyle

Awesomely charged up! Learn all about Batteries!

2012-12-07T01:45:00.001-08:00

“Batteries: The Absolute Definitive Guide” is a fresh and charged-up article on the author Andrew Tarantola's insight in the Battery world!

Very well done and thoroughly researched too, if I may add!

One word of advice though, charge your TABs Mobiles and iBoxes before you start reading up ; it’s a looong one!

For the more technically inclined, may I refer you to the excellent Batteryuniversity.com!

Technorati Tags: Battery,comparison,Gizmodo

Do you have Slow loading Windows 7 folders? If yes, then try this!

2012-12-05T05:01:00.001-08:00

Does your Windows 7 (or 8) box suffer from Slow loading folders?

And, do these folders contain content like Word documents, MP3 files, or maybe loads of pictures/photos etc.?

If yes, then try this solution -

Right Click that suffering folder;
Click properties;
Select the Customize tab (commonly, the last tab) in the properties window;
Change the ‘Optimize this folder for:’ option to General Items.
Select the ‘Also apply…’ checkbox to have the same folder properties applied recursively;

Click OK.

Done!

Try checking that folder for sluggish opening in explorer. Should be gone now…

The Cause: Windows 7 (and maybe Windows 8 too) uses something called ‘smart folder optimization’ which changes folder customization as per the contents of those folders, there-by applying certain content friendly settings in the process.

An example would be optimizing a photo-filled folder for thumbnails WRT the view settings.

Follow-up – A Caveat to the above solution is that sometimes, if you try to do any modifications or changes in the folder contents, the settings may be lost, as the optimizations may be re-applied.

This can be set permanently via a registry edit.

WARNING: If you are not familiar with the registry or its purpose and functions, do not mess with it! Any acts of stupidity WRT the Windows registry can and will lead to the entire computer not booting up at all!

With that out of the way, fire-up regedit.exe (Via windows start-menu –> run –> regedit.exe)

Navigate to the location -

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\

Now, in the side right panel -

Right click;
Choose ‘New’ –> String Value as "FolderType";
Double click and set the Data as "NotSpecified";
Re-start your explorer / Windows OS.

Now every folder (new and old) will be optimized for type as ‘General’. Problem solved!
NOTE: Although I haven’t tried this on Windows 8 as of yet, but it *should* work! YMMV though!

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Windows 8,slow folder,optimization,registry hacks

Warp drive….now being developed at warp speed…!!!

2012-11-26T22:40:00.001-08:00

Ahh.. warp drive… Even the term brings back fond memories of Star Trek!

For the un-initiated, or people still living under rocks,

Warp drive is a hypothetical faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion system in the setting of many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at apparent speeds greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude, while circumventing the relativistic problem of time dilation. In contrast to many other fictional FTL technologies, such as a "jump drive" or the Infinite Improbability Drive, the warp drive does not permit instantaneous travel between two points; instead, warp drive technology creates an artificial "bubble" of normal space-time that surrounds the spacecraft (as opposed to entering a separate realm or dimension like hyperspace, as is used in the Star Wars, Stargate franchise, Warhammer 40,000, Babylon 5 and Andromeda universes). Consequently, spacecraft at warp velocity can continue to interact with objects in "normal space". Some of the other fictions in which warp drive technology is featured include: Stars!, Freelancer, EVE Online, Earth and Beyond, StarCraft, Mass Effect, DarkSpace, Starship Troopers, Doctor Who, Halo and Star Ocean.

(*Above courtesy Wikipedia)

Although hypothetical is a pretty speculative term in itself (considering that a 100 years back, majority of current innovations were hypothetical), NASA physicist Harold White has boldly stated that he and his fellow NASA members are developing a faster-than-light warp drive!

Did you hear? Faster than light!

Yeah right! But what about this guy?

Well, Harold has no intention of angering the Relativity Gods as all development and implementation of this Warp speed would be without violating Einstein's law of relativity. So there! Now, all should be well!

Read here the full Sci-Fi inspired real world implementation of the Warp drive!

Technorati Tags: warp drive,NASA,Einstein,Star Trek