Web Development, Programming, Internet, Environment, Life

Yahoo! Mail login Issue

2008-07-09T16:41:00.011+05:30

I use Yahoo! Mail as my primary email account. When Yahoo! launched its Outlook-like, AJAX'ed interface - "New Yahoo! Mail Beta" (codename: Candygram), I got a lot excited about it.

It really rocks! Agreed, for people who don't have a lot of bandwidth or a decent processor, it may look like a bit slow; but if you some decent enough bandwidth, Candygram works beautifully. The kind of efficiency it can provide, cannot be matched by its predecessor. Even from a developer's perspective, its beautiful. There is some really good code running underneath the hood.

Unfortunately. I have been facing a strange login issue for quite some time now ... probably more than an year now. Whenever, I login to Yahoo! Mail from my personal laptop, Candygram starts to load and before it can render anything on the screen, I get two Javascript Errors - something to with a Javascript variable gExtContent. Here are the two screenshots of the Javascript alerts:

After this, on dismissing the alert messages, Candygram doesnt show up. This issue is strange because I can reproduce this issue only with Firefox browser on my personal Laptop. If I use the system at my workplace, I dont get any such errors. I have tried clearing cache, etc.; even reinstalled my browser - but to no avail.

Recently with the grand launch of Firefox3, I was hopeful that I will not face this issue again. I was wrong.... The strangest part is that the issue disappeared few weeks back (on its own!), for a few login episodes, and then reappeared.

I am a techie, and, I have so far been unable to locate the source of the problem. So, I now use a crude workaround (or should I say a hack) for this.

When the first alert message shows up, I start tapping on the Escape Key. I tap it for about 5 seconds. What this does is that it disposes of both the alert messages and then when Candygram decides to show a stupid page for troubleshooting, the Escape Key stops the browser form redirecting away from Candygram.

At this point, the URL in the browser will be something like " ... /dc/launch?.rand=some-random-number".

Now, here is the hack! At the end of this URL, append this string "&npfa=1" (without the quotes). Now press the "Enter" (Return) Key. Thats it! Now Candygram will load beautifully, as usual!

Enjoy!

Google Code Blog: Protocol Buffers, our serialized structured data, released as Open Source

2008-07-08T16:50:00.002+05:30

Google Code Blog: Protocol Buffers, our serialized structured data, released as Open Source

Yesterday, July 7th 2008, Google open-sourced their "Protocol Buffers" - a key component of Google's infrastructure.

This is an interesting and a very promising development. Protocol Buffers are to enterprise messaging, what XML (or JSON) is to web-services.
In fact, it is the "new XML" of messaging for distributed enterprise-level systems; just promises to be a lot better and efficient than XML.

Excited! Dive right in, the water is just right!
Visit Google Code for more details and documentation.

Nokia E61i - Y.A.U.R. (Yet Another User Review!)

2008-07-08T10:57:00.005+05:30

The E61i is one of the handsets that was rolled out under the ambit of the Nokia business phones' series - "E Series". I bought the E61i handset in October 2007 for INR 17,ooo from the Nokia outlet at Brigade Road in Bangalore. I mention the place explicitly because I was simply amazed by their customer service. The Nokia executive there was highly informed. I had made one visit prior to buying the handset and he very patiently spent 45 minutes with me just answering my technical questions about the handset. Pros:

Good overall build quality.
User-friendly interface (as expected from Nokia).
Very nice set of in-built / on-memory-card / download-&-install applications.
Full qwerty keyboard which is very easy on your thumbs.
Satisfactory battery backup.
Wifi is very easy to detect and connect.
Pop email accounts are a breeze to add (I sometimes use gmail, and, I find it very convenient because I have Wifi in Office as well as my home!).
Push email support; but I havent found the opportunity to try it till now.
Very reasonable price; Its July 2008 now and the price is I think around INR 14000 - INR 15000.

Cons:

Handset Speaker is very modest.
Camera is not good - no flash, no auto-focus, performs poorly in low light conditions.
Need to remove the battery cover if the memory card is to be removed.

Now in this era of iPhones, this phone is starting to look dated. But if you are looking for a reliable basic business phone which is easy on your pockets, go ahead check this one out.

Nokia has very recently released E71i, with full qwerty keyboard. I am not sure but this could be the upgrade of E61i.

Hello, World! - from Blogged Voice

2008-07-07T17:04:00.017+05:30

July 7th, 2008 - although just another date - marks a small but significant event of my life. I have started blogging.

Blogged Voice - The blog gets this name (or do we call it the title?) because -

I couldn't think of any better available name (tried a lot others!).
The blog shall remain somewhat anonymous (atleast for the time being!) and I think "Blogged Voice" is a very nice name for it.
I intend to blog about topics as diverse as Humanity, Web Development, Life, Environment, etc. and this name allows me to post all such entries under a common blog.

Why I am being (pseudo-) anonymous? I think because -

I am a little concerned about privacy (perhaps because its my first brush with blogging).
It gives me the freedom to express my thoughts and opinions without my personal / professional life being put under the scanner under the light of the same.

I would love to hear "Welcome" or any other advice/comments from fellow bloggers ...