Tech Aspiration

Liquid Cooling for your Computer

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:50:00 +0000

To run a computer smoothly processor should be in good condition and well maintained. Liquid cooling is the answer to cool the hot CPU. It is much more efficient because of its two advantages, one is it allows higher clock speeds in the processor, second it reduces noise.

But, what is Liquid Cooling?
Liquid cooling is mainly a radiator for the Central Processing Unit inside the computer. The liquid cooling system circulates a liquid through a heat sink attached to the processor. As the liquid passes through the sink, heat is transferred from the hot processor to the cooler liquid. The hot liquid then moves out to a radiator and the heat is expelled to the air outside and the cooled liquid is sent back to the CPU through the liquid cooling system.

Advantages of Liquid Cooling
1. As the temperatures are within the permissible limits of the manufacturer's specifications, the PC clocks speeds are higher.
2. Liquid Cooling Solution gives much less noise than the heat sink and fan combination type.

Disadvantages of Liquid Cooling
There are a large no. of disadvantages in liquid cooling mainly because of size and technical skills needed to install it.

It requires a large space. Enough space must be there for the fluid reservoir, the impeller, the tubing, fan and power supplies.

Opt for Liquid Cooling or Not
Since it is relatively a new technology to PC, high technical knowledge to install is required and requires large space, presently it is not suitable for general computers.

But if CPU speed continues to increase and new heat control systems are discovered with regard to processors, liquid cooling may become a standard computer system construction. Also people are more sensitive towards noise these days and slowly may look for the lesser noise option.

Spend just 15 minutes a day in Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:58:00 +0000

Social Networking Sites are the latest path to link your website or blog and get visitors. But these sites are mushrooming and keeping a track of all the social networking sites daily is becoming difficult. Facebook is a popular social site. Daily you get loads of friend requests and new events and you soon realize that reading and responding messages have taken you hours and hours. This task can be done in just 15 minutes.

Read the steps below

1. Update your status. After log in, instead of updating your status which is the first section in Facebook, use Ping.fm. A free service I use to update my Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Twitter status. To know more about ping.fm check my post Update Social Networks with Ping.fm.

2. Review your news feeds. Click the first tab, check the reviews, and comment on reviews that are of industry and category of your interest. Show your expertise by giving your informative comments.

3. Review news feeds of your friends. View the feeds of your friends lists. Create private groupings of your friends into various categories as per the industry. Pick these lists and comment on the feeds.

If you do not have any friends list and want to create then click Friends at the top of the Facebook page. Click make a new list on the left. Then give a name to the list and add friends in the list. You can select multiple friends too. Then save the list.

4. Review status updates. Look into the status updates of your friends. some people add blog posts to their status. This is a good way to comment on the blogs of others without searching for blog posts of your interest and topic.

5. Review Friend Requests. Add friend if fits your interest. Some people are of the opinion that there should be a set of guidelines for friend requests.

6. Respond to event invitations. You may get invitations to various events from your friends. Look if anything interests you.

7. Respond to group invitations. I generally do not give much importance to groups. But if anything of my choice I show interest.

8. Add Friends. While adding friends it is always better to send a personalized message that how you came to know about him/her or why you want to be friend? I add friends if anybody requests me "Want to be my friend".

9. Review Notifications. Check accepts, notes on your wall and to respond to requests or posts, post on your friends wall.

10. Check your profile. Check regularly that your profile is looking as you want.

So devote just 15 minutes a day or at least thrice a week updating your Facebook account and you will soon see results.

I read this article on SiteProNews. The article tells how to spend just 15 minutes a day when these days webmasters spend the whole day on social bookmarking sites to make their website popular.

I liked this article, agree to Donna, the author with the points she has covered. In fact I follow most of the steps she has mentioned and so here is my post.

Add a Favicon to your Blogger ( Blogspot ) Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:25:00 +0000

I have always liked the little icons in front of websites in the browser address bar. When one adds a site as a bookmark or favorite, these icons make the site URL appear prominently in the favorites list. These icons are known as "favorite icons" or "favicons".

I have recently added one to my blog. The main advantage is that it gives the site a new identity and people who bookmark your site can easily look for your site in their favorites list.

To add favicon to your site you need to create one first or use a pre-existing icon. The most opted size of favicon is 16*16 pixel but you can also use 32*32 pixel size with .ico format. Some people use gif or png images. But I prefer a favicon with 16*16 pixel size and .ico format because this is standard supported by most browsers.

Steps to create/save a favicon
1. There are a number of sites for pre-existing icons. Download your favicon and save as image in jpg/gif/png format.

2. If you want to create your own favicon, you can create using any of the following sites.

favicon.ico generator In this site you can create dynamic and animated favicon using pixels.
FavIcon from Pics This site creates favicons from images. You can edit your images using an image editing software. Save your favicon.

3. Once your favicon is created you need to upload the .ico file to a hosting account. If you are domain site owner hosting on a server, upload the file in the root directory of your server. For blogspot blogs, you cannot upload the file to blogger root directory. It will simply reject. Other option is to look for free image hosting accounts. Google Page Creator is good but now google has stopped creating new google page accounts. If you already have a google page account then it is okay. Yahoo geocities does not support .ico files.

Other image hosting sites for .ico files are Ripway and MyFavatar (reference taken from BloggerBuster).

Add code to your template
1. First of all save your template.
2. Search for tag in your template. Place the code below just above the tag. Do not forget to change the code in red with your .ico file location and .ico file name.

Some copy the code after the title tag. See below.

Don't do this. Make sure that the code is placed just before the tag. Otherwise when your blog is loaded in the browser, the blogger favicon will overwrite your favicon and the blogger icon will be displayed in the browser. You can check this by seeing view source of your site after it is loaded in the browser. You will see two favicons loaded one of blogger and the other is your favicon. I faced this problem in firefox.

No other problem should come. Create a favicon and create identity and branding for your blogspot blog today.

Android for mobile devices

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:56:00 +0000

The term "Android" is the hot topic of the tech world since its launch of by Google. But, what is Android? How useful it is?

Android:
Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices, based on the linux kernel first developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance. It is the first, complete, open and free mobile platform and includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.

It allows mobile software developers to create new applications using Android SDK. Applications are written using the Java programming language and run on a custom virtual machine which runs on top of a Linux kernel.

Features of Android Software:
Android includes an Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components, Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices, Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine, SQLite, Media support, GSM Telephony, Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, Camera, GPS, compass, accelerometer.

Features of Applications using Android:
# Applications will have no borders. Through standard APIs, these applications can enter core mobile device functionality and also transfer capabilities for other applications to use.

# Any application can be replaced or extended.

# Applications can easily embed common web design codes like HTML, javascript and style sheets.

# Applications can run in parallel, one side running in the background and giving notifications in the front. Android's multitasking environment reminds me of JAVA's multiplatform environment feature.

Android is designed for the everyman. So teenagers might use the social networking applications and built-in GPS to stay connected to friends onm mobile and housewives may use its barcode-scanning and price-comparison features to save money on their weekly shop.

In all, Google has helped develop a software that handset manufacturers can install in their devices.

The first phone running Google Android is the T-Mobile G1. The phone was demonstrated in September, 2008, and went on sale on October 22.

The G1 runs Google's Android and is designed to bring the desktop computing experience to mobile devices. Scores of mobile phones in coming time will be launched that run Android - the G1 being the first in a long line of "Google phones".

Google had already lined up a series of hardware component and software partners.

Samsung, LG Electronics and Motorola are ready to produce phones that run on Android.

Apple has announced a similar inititiave which allows developers to create software for the iPhone.

If Google can bring out a perfect mobile device software through its Android platform, then it will not only be first in the line for online domination, but it also has the potential to gather mass audience all over the world. Also, Android has to find place in different forms, especially in developing nations where no. of mobile users is increasing exponentially.

Panasonic wants to transform us green

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:54:00 +0000

Recycling, that too recycling electroncis is a big problem. Panasonic, on thursday announced that is creating a nationwide program in US to provide their consumers easy recycling of TV and other consumer electronics with a simple goal of safe recycling of used electronics.

Lack of greenery is the major contributor to environmental pollution. Therefore going green should be the mantra for every citizen of planet earth and this is the idea to start are a "Tech Green" category in my blog "GREEN WORLD".
Want to read articles in this category go to GREEN WORLD.

It is easy to discard computer, laptop, accessories, unused and obsolete gadgets and throw into the garbage bin. More and more companies have started to give support to their consumers for safe disposal of their old electronics

.As per this recycling program of used electronic products, consumers can drop of their Panasonic products free of charge. Initially this program will roll out in 10 states and over 3 years will cover 50 states.

The Panasonic program will begin on November 1, 2008. A list of participating sites is available at http://www.mrmrecycling.com/.

The Panasonic program will help to move end-of-life consumer electronics out of the common waste stream and into a separate and environmentally responsible recycling stream.

Over the last two years, Panasonic has worked to test various product recycling mechanisms in several states and localities, through dozens of voluntary recycling events, and with a number of established recyclers.

By 2010, Panasonic wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and introduce products that are energy efficient and can be easily recycled.

Google Docs for users and developers via Gadgets

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:48:00 +0000

Google Docs for users and developers via Gadgets

Amazon launched Site Stripe feature

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:11:00 +0000

Amazon rolled out the new "site stripe" feature for the newly redisigned Associates Central website. The Site Stripe feature will allow to create links to the favorite products and pages on the Amazon.com site so one can update their website more frequently and with fewer clicks. So, now I can see my Associates Site Stripe to link to any page on Amazon.

This feature lets you build your associates links right from any Amazon.com page. The Site Stripe will appear at the top of every Amazon page as "Link to this page". Amazon has provided quick and easy access for building links, adding products to your aStore, adding discussion board, earnings summary, what's new and even seeing your reports.

It is compatible with Product Links. To use the Site Stripe feature, sign in your Amazon Associates account first. Then look at the top of the Amazon.com page.

The linking tools that will help you build links to pages on Amazon are :

Link to favourite destinations

Link to search results

Link to any page at Amazon.com

Link checker

This feature is a time saver for amazon affiliates who link to a lot of product pages. So login and enable this feature and have fast selllings !!

Update social networks with Ping.fm

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 11:15:00 +0000

Joining numerous social networks and making friends is a way of getting visitors to your blog. But, after starting my blog, updating these never ending social bookmarking/media sites, pinging to each of my social network aggregating sites got me real headache. Like many pinging services, I found Ping.fm.

Although I use twitterfeed (signup can be done with yahoo openid also) to update only twitter, with Ping.fm I can simultaneously submit my status and posts to Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Blogger.com, Wordpress, LiveJournal and many more.

But first what is Ping.fm ?

Ping.fm is a simple service created to post status updates and blog posts once to multiple sites by incorporating the APIs for all the social network sites. It integrates dozens of blogging and social websites. If you want to follow them at twitter go to http://twitter.com/pingfm.

I have added ping.fm for my twitter, facebook and friendfeed accounts. Ping.fm is facing some problem while authenticating some MySpace accounts. I could not add my MySpace account.

Twitter network can be added by simply signing in your Twitter account.

For Facebook, after signing in, you will be asked for application key that Ping.fm provides to you.

To add Friendfeed network,the frienfeed site itself provides a remote key as a ticket to use third party application Ping.fm Friendfeed application.

When you update/edit/add social services to your account, you are presented with very simple options as seen below from the twitter update page.

By selecting "Micro-blogging" and/or "Status updates", you are can classify Twitter (and all other services) into groups so that you don't have to post to them all at once..... I have selected Twitter only for Status updates, while Facebook and Friendfeed for both.

It is also possible to post updates to ping.fm using services Google Talk, like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Messenger, from a gadget from your iGoogle custom page, and many more!

In all, it is a great service that has become a massive hit among bloggers and social network users.

How to convert cassettes into digital MP3

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:32:00 +0000

Music has not changed but technology has. You do not need to be a tech expert or buy expensive devices but can easily convert your golden melodies to the digital mp3 format at home that can be heard in portable audio gadgets. All you need is your cassette player, computer and a stereo in/out cable.

Technology has made possible almost everything. I changed all my old audio cassettes to mp3 in the method below. Have a look and try it.

1. Connect one end of normal stereo in/out cable to your computer's line-in terminal with a 1/8" mini-jack and the other end to player's stereo out (headphone socket).

2. Change the recording control of your PC to Rear input/Line in. You can do this by going to "Sounds and audio device properties" in the Control Panel. Then you have to click the audio tab and volume button in Sound Recording as shown in picture below.

In Sound and Audio Properties, change recording control to "Rear input/Line In".

Set audio format at 44.1 kHz in Windows by going to Program/Accessories/Entertainment/Sound Recorder.

3. Now play the music on your cassette player and start recording via the sound recorder, or other free sound recorders/encoders like Jet Audio Basic, Media Jukebox or Audacity.

Windows sound recorder will record the music only in WAV format. You can change it to MP3 later by using any free encoders available online.

You can listen to music simultaneously while it's recording through your computer speakers or headphones.

If you have to record multiple songs, split your recording into seperate files.

If you are using Audacity (see picture below), a free downloadable digital audio editor application, recording should be set for 2 channels (stereo) and the playback and recording devices set to built-in audio controller. Keep audio format for recording at 44.1 kHz, 16 bit stereo. This is the standard format for CD audio quality.

Do not change the volume of your cassettes during recording. Avoid playing it at full volume.

You can download some of the encoders.

Audacity, the free cross-platform sound editor

Download Audacity 1.2.6

Download Media JukeBox

Most popular Jukebox downloads

Adobe Flash Player version 10 released

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:06:00 +0000

Adobe has just released version 10 of the free flash player. Adobe Flash Player version 10.0.12.36 has unprecedented creative control with expressive new features and visual performance improvements. The software is a cross-platform browser plug-in that delivers breakthrough web experiences and is installed on more than 98% of Internet-connected desktops.

Top features which are new than the older version are 3D effects, real-time effects for cinematic experiences, flexible text layout, enhanced sound APIs, hardware processing power, new typed array class for better performance, enhanced file uploads and download APIs. The new Pixel Bender just-in- time (JIT) compiler can also process sound or mathematical functions, asynchronously in a separate thread.

But, most important, Flash Player 10, includes a fix for the "clickjacking vulnerability", the process that gives an attacker the ability to trick a user into clicking on something only barely or momentarily noticeable. The Flash Player 10 update also helps prevent a clickjacking attack on a user's Webcam and microphone. Clickjacking was a vulnerabillity in flash player version 9.0.124.0 as well as vulnerabilities in browsers such as Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, and Safari.

Newer version has many improved features and fixes for previous flaws and hence everybody should upgrade to version 10.

Have a look at the Flash Player in action.

Download at http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash

Grid @CERN - Ultra IT solutions for mankind

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:02:00 +0000

CERN GRID openlab: a partnership for tomorrow's technologies
CERN has always been in forefront of today's internet technologies - the foremost being the concept of WWW (World Wide Web) , the term coined by Tim Berners Lee , a CERN scientist.

CERN again is as usual into new ultra IT concepts like OPENLAB - This is an exciting partnership between research and industry that allows CERN researchers to assess the impact of ultra-new IT technologies on the LHC Computing Grid.

Grid computing is a form of distributed computing whereby a "super and virtual computer" is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely-coupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks. This technology has been applied to computationally-intensive scientific, mathematical, and academic problems through volunteer computing, and it is used in commercial enterprises for such diverse applications as drug discovery, economic forecasting, seismic analysis, and back-office data processing in support of e-commerce and web services.

CERN openlab was launched in 2003 with partners Enterasys, HP, IBM, Intel and Oracle.
In 2008, the CERN openlab partners are HP, Intel, Oracle and EDS.

The LHC Computing Grid : a global grid for high energy physics
The LHC Computing Grid (LCG) was launched in 2002 and integrates thousands of computers worldwide into a global computing resource that will be used to store and analyze the huge amounts of data that will soon be produced by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

When the LHC begins operations in 2008, it will produce roughly 15 Petabytes (15 million Gigabytes) of data every year. Thousands of scientists all over the world already want to access and analyze these data! But the LCG must do more than just store this huge amount of data: it must also analyze the data, a task that will require around 100 000 PC processors. Also, the data should be made available to thousands of scientists across the world, in a completely seamless fashion.

The LCG already involves more than 200 sites in over 30 countries.

Dress rehearsals!
Scientists are currently performing "LCG dress rehearsals", sending simulated data between CERN and major computing centres worldwide to prepare for the LHC startup.

Related Posts:
CERN works on Project - GRID

Related Links:
Place for everyone to learn about the grid
What is Grid computing?
Distributed Computing

Yahoo and OpenID 2.0 Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:06:00 +0000

Yahoo has embraced the OpenID open technology. The Yahoo! OpenID ^(beta) service lets you take your account beyond Yahoo!. Plus, the free Yahoo! Sign-In Seal will help protect you from password theft, also known as phishing. Get rid of password scams with personalised sign-in seals.

One can use Yahoo! account on various websites. To know how to make use of this service, go to YDN - Yahoo OpenID.

Yahoo! will continue to devote resources to helping to improve the OpenID user experience and to educating its users. In addition, Yahoo! intends to expand its support of OpenID by adopting other elements of the program as the service evolves.

Y! OpenID service for various applications can be found at http://gallery.yahoo.com/openid

Plaxo, wishlistr, twitterfeed and Velog are some of the applications. I use yahoo openid to log in my twitterfeed account.

More information and updates can be found at http://openid.yahoo.com

More user information can be found at Open ID FAQ page.

Google launches Adsense for Video Games

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:53:00 +0000

Google Inc. on Wednesday launched adsense for Web-based video games. The software is still in beta testing and allows video, image or text advertisements to be placed at the start, end or change of level in an online game.

The advertising industry has got a huge boost with Google's entry into video advertising.

AdSense for Games will deliver video ads based on intended placements, as well as image or text ads based on contextual targeting with keywords and tags supplied by developers and publishers.

Advertisers are charged on a cost-per-impression or cost-per-click basis, and ad revenue is split between Google and game developers or publishers.

Google is working with game makers including Konami Corp and Demand Media, run by former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt, as well as advertisers like Sprint Nextel Corp and Sony Corp's Sony Pictures.

Among the initial advertisers participating in the program are eSurance, Sprint, and Sony Pictures Entertainment and the in-game advertising field already has several well-established players, including Microsoft's Massive, DoubleFusion, and IGA.

On Google Adsense Blog, a post mentions that as a beta user of AdSense for Games, one can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within your online games to earn revenue.

There seems a big future success for Google and if that were the case, Goggle will surely add this service to mobile games and then finally to console.
Related Links:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/adsense_games.html

http://www.google.com/ads/games

http://snipurl.com/46uts (YouTube example of AdSense for Games)

Google In-Game Advertising

Technorati Tagging on Blogger with Firefox and Greasemonkey

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:13:00 +0000

Bloggers whether wordpress or blogger, using tags to insert keywords is common. But, keywords in technorati tags has become a ritual for successful blogging, technorati being a real time search engine that tracks 24 million sites keeping a track of what is going in the blogosphere.

Now creating technorati tags for your blog is even more easier with greasemonkey userscript "Technorati Multiple Word Tags for Blogger version 1.0 beta" adding as Add-on for Firefox. This greasemonkeyFirefox Add-on works for Firefox only.

Steps for Technorati Tagging on Blogger :

1. If you do not have Firefox browser, download it.

2. Greasemonkey, a Firefox extension allows to customize the way webpages look and function. Greasemonkey 0.8.2. works with Firefox 1.5 - 3.0. To add Technorati Multiple Word Tags for Blogger version 1.0 beta javascript add-on download it.

After installing, you will see greasemonkey image in the status bar.

3. Open browser Firefox 3.0. Go to Greasemonkey Repository - Userscripts.org. Download Technorati Tag Firefox Add-on. Right-click the greasemonkey image at the bottom of the status bar or go to Tools >> Greasemonkey >> Manage User Scripts. You will see the the Technorati Tag Generator Add-on showing message "Changes the Edit Post Blogger form to include a tags field" as shown in the image below.

4. Open your blogger account and new post page. You will see the technorati tags box below the post editor box where you write the post. Actually, the script you have installed has created a text box to create technorati tags below the post box.

To add technorati tags just type the tags in the box sepearting each tag with a ','(comma) and press the Append Tags button and your tags will be added at the bottom of your post.

So tags for technorati, tags and technorati tags will appear as

Tags: technorati, tag, technorati tags

Default heading is Tags:. If you want, you can change the heading from Tags: to Technorati Tags: in the Tag Settings and Options below the Technorati Tag Box as seen in the image below.

I first read about this useful addon at Improbulus blog, A Consuming Experience. In his article Technorati: Tagging on Blogger with Firefox and Greasemonkey written in 2005, he has mentioned that tags in the box should be typed with space in between, but now typing ',' will serve the purpose. Morever leaving space between two tags, the end result will show a single link for all the tags together.

He has also written that the tool only works when you're in the "Edit HTML" view, not the "Compose" view of Blogger. But now, the tool works in both views. So in three years a lot many features of greasemonkey and scripting have improved. But I got very useful information from
his blog. Thanx Improbulus for the information and the script.

But this tool works only with www.blogger.com and not draft.blogger.com. Maybe, in coming days that will be seen. Blogger draft is more dynamic and easy to use.

So, what I do is write all my post in Blogger Draft, save it and then come to www.blogger.com and add technorati tags to my articles using this tool.

I hope this information will be useful to Blogger bloggers.

Related Links:

Greasemonkey Technorati Tag Generator for Wordpress

Technorati Tag Generator for Livejournal and Myspace bloggers

Silverlight 2.0 trumps Flash

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:09:00 +0000

Silverlight 2.0, which is due in the next few weeks, fixes the flaws of the initial release and gives developers a viable alternative to Flash.

With the imminent release of Silverlight 2.0, developers and Web designers, particularly those already working in Microsoft IT environments, will have the first viable alternative technology to Adobe Flash for building rich Internet applications.

Microsoft first released Silverlight, a cross-browser runtime for Web-based multimedia and 3D applications, about a year ago. However, the development of the 1.0 version, like many new Microsoft products, was rushed, and not even close to the vision the company had for the product.

"[Silverlight] 1.0 was a stop-gap measure -- they were late to market and wanted to get something out there early after Adobe had done an amazing success [with Flash]," said Al Hilwa, an application development software program director for research firm IDC. But Silverlight 2.0 "is the real deal -- they've put out architecturally what they've always wanted to do," he said.

Silverlight 2.0's final release is imminent. Insiders said it could be available in a few weeks. The first release candidate for developers is already available on the Web.

It may be fair to say that Microsoft moved faster with Silverlight than it ever has to get a product in shape as a viable competitor to already-established technology. In this case, that's obviously Flash, which has enjoyed great success for years as the predominant technology for adding high-impact multimedia applications and graphics to Web sites.

It was this early trend that spurred the current development of more complex Web-based and business applications that make the user experience as important as stability, security, or general performance.

Though it's no match across the board for the more mature Flash technology yet, people who have used early versions of Silverlight 2.0 said Microsoft indeed has made great strides with the technology.

However, developers should not be misled into thinking that Silverlight is meant to be a "Flash killer," warned Christopher Smith, president of Aquent Graphics Institute, a Boston training and staffing firm that works with developers and designers using Adobe and Microsoft development software.

"I don't think Microsoft is trying to go after the hard-core Flash people," he said. Instead, Microsoft is "offering an option for designers and developers who want to build an interactive front end that will tie into their existing Microsoft infrastructure and platform," Smith said.

For that goal, developers said that Silverlight 2.0 and its companion tools -- the Expression toolset, and in particular, Expression Blend -- actually have an advantage or two over Flash for companies and developers that already use Microsoft infrastructure.

Fred Gerantabee, a training manager and instructor at Aquent who has used Flash for 11 years and also is now using Silverlight, said that because of this tie-in, Silverlight is a better runtime than Flash for data-intensive applications.

Technorati Tags:
silverlight microsoft flash multimedia applications

Google Chrome fades as users return to IE, Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:15:00 +0000

Google Chrome's share of the browser market is fading as users who abandoned Internet Explorer and Firefox start to return, an Internet measurement company said today.

At the end of its third week of availability, Google Inc.'s Chrome accounted for 0.77% of the browsers that visited the 40,000 sites tracked by Net Applications, down from a 0.85% share the week before.

"The trend line on Chrome still has a slight downward angle, and these weekly numbers reflect that," said Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing. Although Chrome popped above 1% within hours of its release, the new browser now reaches that mark only in the middle of the night, U.S. time, Vizzaccaro added.

Chrome's numbers, like those of Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox and Apple Inc.'s Safari, typically climb after work hours and then fall as work resumes the next day. Many businesses standardize on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) and don't allow employees to use alternate browsers.

IE and Firefox still showed share erosion compared to the period immediately before Chrome's Sept. 2 debut, but both browsers regained users last week, Vizzaccaro said. IE picked up 0.24 percentage points last week, while Firefox regained 0.06 points. Both, however, remained down for the month, as was Opera Software ASA's Opera and AOL LLC's now-defunct Netscape.

Safari, the only browser to escape Chrome's impact, was still on the plus side for September, ending last week up 0.45 percentage points before Chrome, although that was down from the prior week's 0.68-point net gain.

Last week, Vizzaccaro said Safari's immunity could be traced to the lack of Chrome competition. Although Google has promised a native Mac OS X edition, its browser is currently only available for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Computerworld's site metrics echoed Net Applications' trend for Chrome. The percentage of visitors to Computerworld.com who used Google's browser dropped to 4.01 points last week, down from 4.96 points.

Chrome's slow slide may be because of Google's low-key promotion, Vizzaccaro said. "The only marketing effort I've seen from Google is in sponsored links on search results for 'browser' or 'browsers' search terms," he said. "On Google, Chrome is naturally the top sponsored link.

On Yahoo, it was second. And on Windows Live, I couldn't even find it in the first five pages of organic results."

Week starting Aug. 24 Aug. 31 Sept. 7 Sept. 15 Net Change

Week starting	Aug. 24	Aug. 31	Sept. 7	Sept. 15	Net Change
IE	72.39%	71.03%	71.24%	71.48%	-0.91%
Firefox	19.54%	19.78%	19.35%	19.42%	-0.13%
Safari	6.27%	6.67%	6.95%	6.73%	0.45%
Chrome	-----	0.67%	0.85%	0.77%	0.77%
Opera	0.74%	0.75%	0.70%	0.68%	-0.06%
Netscape	0.77%	0.83%	0.67%	0.66%	-0.11%

Source: Net Applications

Technorati Tags:
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!Quick Screen Capture - Free Screen Capture Software

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:23:00 +0000

Quick Screen Capture is a powerful screen capture and image editing software. Can take and print screenshot from any part of the screen in 10 ways, save file in bmp/jpg/gif format and also can add some annotation. It supports auto saving, copying image to the clipboard. Version 3.0.1 is available for free download

Main Features

Can capture any part of your screen in as many as 10 ways. Details
Supports mini operations to capture an exact area.
Supports hotkey. Define your own hotkeys.
Can automatically save captured images.
Can Save images in 3 popular formats: BMP/JPG/GIF
Copy image to clipboard manually or automatically.
Runs in the system tray area. Supports start minimized.
Auto saving history records.

It has general editing function and one can edit while capture itself. Capturing, editing and saving images for your blogs and websites is very easy. ENJOY !

Steps to Use

1. Download and Install on your PC.

Download from site 1 shown with a round in the image above for which download security is ok by webroot.

2. From the menu select capture.

3. You can take a full screen picture including menu and title bar also as below.

Images of windows, buttons, various shapes like rectangle, circle, square and polygon can be taken.

4. To capture hotkeys can be created. Default hotkey is F11. To create your own hotkey go to menu settings > configure dialog box. Now set focus to the hotkey edit box. Click on the edit box and show the cursor in it and press down the keys you want to set as hotkey. Click "OK" button to enable the setting. If you still see a "Register hotkey error" popup, you can set it again until the popup doesn't appear.

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Dual Mode (CDMA + GSM) BlackBerry 8830 smartphone in India

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 01:24:00 +0000

TATA Tele Services Ltd and Canada-based Research in Motion (RIM), a global leader in wireless technology announced the launch of the dual mode (CDMA + GSM) BlackBerry smartphone in India. The stylish BlackBerry 8830 world edition smartphone will soon be available countrywide.

Together with a 'One World-One Number' R-UIM (removable user identity module) card powered by Tata Indicom, users can access email and data as well as make and receive domestic and international calls nationwide on the Tata Indicom CDMA network in India and around the world on GSM/GPRS networks.

Design : It employs the thicker, wider PDA form factor found in the GSM-only BlackBerry 8800. At 4.4 x 2.6 x 0.5 inches and 4.7 ounces, it has a nice heft and feels solid in your hand.

Features : It has a sleek and stylish design with a full QWERTY keyboard, intuitive trackball navigation system and large bright display, high speed email and messaging capabilities, the CDMA-based BlackBerry® 8830 World Edition offers international roaming capability on GSM/GPRS networks.

Some of the powerful features include email, built in GPS, WI-FI support, maps, browser, instant messaging, organizer, media player, and much more.

The BlackBerry 8830 is enterprise friendly. Options like the Browser, organizer, corporate data access, BlackBerry maps and GPS allow you to find the information you need. BlackBerry 8830 also features a Bluetooth and speaker-independent voice dialing.

Tata Indicom has come up with 3 Data Tariff Plans for BlackBerry 8830

(1) Plan Name:GOLD 250
Rental:Rs250/month
Free Data Usage(in KB):Nil
Additional Data Usage:50paise/KB
(2) Plan Name:GOLD 500
Rental:Rs500/month
Free Data Usage(in KB): 500
Additional Data Usage:15paise/KB
(3) Plan Name:GOLD 900
Rental:Rs900/month
Free Data Usage(in KB):Unlimited
Additional Data Usage:NA

The above Gold Plans need to be topped up with any Voice Plan.
International Roaming Ussage in CDMA/GSM countries Rs5/10 KB.

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A Green Challenge: Environmentally Friendly IT

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:22:00 +0000

A few years back, being Green meant you participated in recycling programs, commuted to work on your bike when the mood struck, and considered purchasing a hybrid but balked after filling up your SUV for a mere $50.

Now, in 2008, Green, once a buzzword, is a member of the world’s lexicon where the environmental impact of an activity is hugely important. Too, with rising fuel and energy costs, going Green is not only an environmental choice but also a sound fiscal choice.

While the benefits, both environmental and fiscal, are quite lucid, public apathy for going Green has always been a problem, but, with the advent of Web 2.0, social networks have suddenly emerged driving participation in Green activities for thousands of users. An extremely compelling website I stumbled upon recently, bringing together thousands of environmental web users, is CarbonRally.com.

CarbonRally, a web-based activism platform, offers individuals and groups a fun, simple, and social way of creating measurable environmental change. However, unlike many environmental websites out there, CarbonRally.com provides users the opportunity to create “environmental challenges” where teams or individuals can compete against each other to maximize their carbon savings.

While CarbonRally certainly brings more fun into being environmental, the social network contained within the site is an environmental idea engine where user created challenges drive innovative ways to be Green. Who would have realized replacing just three of your light bulbs at home with Compact Fluorescent Bulbs would result in a reduction in carbon emissions by 2.1 lbs per day!

As I navigated the site, my thoughts drifted towards Green IT and how the Green movement has been embraced by global organizations. Many organizations are on the forefront of Green IT where PC virtualization, eco-friendly data centers, and power management techniques all have been implemented on the enterprise level. But, not much has been done to challenge large organizations to be Green.

While CarbonRally.com introduces the concept of communal responsibility of being Green on a very small scale, I believe organizations need to work together and challenge each other to become better global citizens in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. Like the users of CarbonRally.com, organizations need to take a cue from their customers and shareholders and actively change their usage habits and work towards being Green.

As more ideas are generated and energy usage and carbon emissions benchmarks are mandated by, not a governing body, but rather a community of environmentally responsible organizations, being Green will not be the exception but the norm.

For more information on Green IT and Green Computing, check out Wikipedia.

If you want to learn more about Green IT check out this story from ComputerWorld Magazine.

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CERN works on Project - GRID

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:31:00 +0000

Apparently, when CERN isn't colliding particles (and ripping massive holes in the space-time continuum), it's busy working on a new "internet" which will be 10,000 times faster than our current version. The project -- known as "the grid" -- is built atop completely fiber optic networks, and utilizes modern routing centers.

By keeping traffic out of our current phone and data systems, the researchers have been able to achieve speeds heretofore unseen on previous networks. The system connects from CERN to 11 centers around the globe, and will be switched on when the Large Hadron Collider is activated, on what the group is calling "Red Button Day."

Project heads believe a network with this speed will lead to all sorts of futuristic innovations -- like true cloud computing, holographic video conferencing, and really, really fast pirating of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series.

THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.

he power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button” day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.

Cern, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realised the LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs - enough to make a stack 40 miles high.

This meant that scientists at Cern - where Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989 - would no longer be able to use his creation for fear of causing a global collapse.

This is because the internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.

By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.

Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of the grid project, said: “We need so much processing power, there would even be an issue about getting enough electricity to run the computers if they were all at Cern. The only answer was a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centres in other countries.”

That network, in effect a parallel internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe and around the world.

One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

From each centre, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed academic networks.

It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.

Ian Bird, project leader for Cern’s high-speed computing project, said grid technology could make the internet so fast that people would stop using desktop computers to store information and entrust it all to the internet.

“It will lead to what’s known as cloud computing, where people keep all their information online and access it from anywhere,” he said.

Computers on the grid can also transmit data at lightning speed. This will allow researchers facing heavy processing tasks to call on the assistance of thousands of other computers around the world. The aim is to eliminate the dreaded “frozen screen” experienced by internet users who ask their machine to handle too much information.

The real goal of the grid is, however, to work with the LHC in tracking down nature’s most elusive particle, the Higgs boson. Predicted in theory but never yet found, the Higgs is supposed to be what gives matter mass.

The LHC has been designed to hunt out this particle - but even at optimum performance it will generate only a few thousand of the particles a year. Analysing the mountain of data will be such a large task that it will keep even the grid’s huge capacity busy for years to come.

Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so.

Additionally, the grid is being made available to dozens of other academic researchers including astronomers and molecular biologists.

It has already been used to help design new drugs against malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills 1m people worldwide each year. Researchers used the grid to analyse 140m compounds - a task that would have taken a standard internet-linked PC 420 years.

“Projects like the grid will bring huge changes in business and society as well as science,” Doyle said.

“Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate.

“The history of the internet shows you cannot predict its real impacts but we know they will be huge.”

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The Future of Photography : Re-designed cameras

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:40:00 +0000

The resulting wave of technical innovation has put cameras everywhere, from satellites to cellphones. But bigger changes in the technology are yet to come.

Thanks to continued advances in software and processing power, research labs are continually exploring new ideas about what cameras and photographs can do.

Freezing motion

Cameras use short exposures, software or even moving sensors to correct for camera shake. But they can't remove motion blur – the fuzzy impressions created by objects moving during the exposure.

Prevention: During the exposure their camera moves quickly to the left before gradually coming to a halt and then accelerating in the opposite direction.The movement ensures that, regardless of its speed, any object moving to either the left or the right is perfectly captured by the camera for a fraction of the exposure.

The object is out of focus at other times during the exposure, and so, in the final photograph, all objects appear as a blurry mess. Crucially, though, all objects – whether moving or static during the exposure – are blurred to the same degree, so the final image can be "de-blurred" quickly and easily.

Goodbye to glare

Although glare caused by bright light sources can be used artistically, it ruins many more photos than it enhances.Glare happens because not all light that hits a lens is focused onto a camera's sensor. A small fraction is reflected inside the lens, emerging in unpredictable places. If a light source is bright enough, this effect can bleach out parts of an image.although rogue light can emerge from any part of a lens, it is always tightly confined to one direction, rather like a laser beam. If light from that direction can be filtered out, glare disappears.

Prevention: A mask is designed that fits between a camera's lens and image sensor, peppered with rows of small holes that each act like a pinhole camera. Each hole captures a tiny circular chunk of the camera lens's output and focuses it on the sensor.

The image on the camera sensor is composed of hundreds of small dots, a bit like a Pointillist painting.

Because glare emerging from the lens is confined to a well defined beam, it only shows up in some of those pinholes, as a tiny bright spot in some of those dots, producing a "salt and pepper" effect across the area that would normally be bleached out entirely.

Software can fill these bright spots in using colour from the rest of the pinhole, producing a glare-free image. This method currently limits the final resolution to the number of holes in the mask, but researchers hope to improve that.

Pared-down pixels

Digital cameras have been marketed for years using the number of pixels or megapixels on the sensor as a gauge of how much detail they can capture.Rice University fellows have developed a one-pixel camera that produces surprisingly good results and think megapixel sensors are wasteful.The pair points out that most of the millions of pixels a camera records are discarded when the final compressed image is produced. But a mathematical technique makes it possible to work backwards, starting with a small sample of information and essentially expanding it into a higher quality image.

The one-pixel camera contains an array of tiny mirrors where the sensor would usually be, each capable of directing light onto the single pixel sensor. At any one time, the camera directs a randomly selected half of the mirrors onto the sensor, capturing just half the image one pixel at a time. That process is repeated up to 200,000 times in just a few seconds to produce a dataset that can be extrapolated into a final image with more pixels than were actually captured.The mathematics behind the technique has improved enough over recent years to make the single-pixel camera "practical and not just a mathematical curiosity" say the researchers. That could help improve battery performance, because standard image compression is very power intensive, they add, although the process still needs to become faster.

Shooting the invisible

Satellite views of the Earth are often obscured by cloud. But a camera that exploits quantum physics to photograph images it can't directly see would have no such problems.University of Maryland fellows have built a prototype of just such a camera that exploits quantum effects that can link pairs of photons.

A 'splitter' divides photons from a single light source into two beams, one headed towards the camera sensor and the other towards the object to be photographed.

When a photon bounces off the toy, it is recorded by a photon detector beside it. Occasionally the photon detector and camera record a photon at exactly the same time. Those two photons are linked by a quantum effect called "two-photon interference", and both occupy a similar position in their respective beams.

Whenever a photon reaches the camera at exactly the same time that its linked partner is detected bouncing off the toy and onto the photon detector's surface, a point is recorded in the image at the corresponding position. After 1000 or more linked photons reach the camera sensor, an image of object becomes clear, even though the camera itself has no view of it.

For further details go to the page Future of Photography.

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noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:11:00 +0000

About

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:35:00 +0000

About Blog Author - Madhusudan Tata

I am an Engg. grad. of REC-Rourkela and an EPBM grad of IIM-Calcutta. I am in Indian Steel Industry since yr 1990 and still continuing. Pursuing blogging since Sep'08.

I am a fun loving, jovial person with loads of positive energies and attitude. Believe in leading a life of discipline and truthfulness. I am a straight forward personality and expect the same from others. Above all I am a CANCERIAN - which will further explain my personality.

I am tech savvy and keep looking now and then about the latest tech gizmos, gadgets, web tools, google, yahoo, firefox, softwares. I will be adding these tech tips and tricks frequently on this blog. In the process of bringing this blog I have learnt some blogger hacks to alter my blog look and features. I will be posting them too.

December, 2008 is the third month after starting this blog. This month I will be writing posts more in Computer, Software, Gadgets, Tech News and Tech Tips. Keep coming to my blog, read and comment and bookmark them.