Tech Blogger's Cafe

Make Your Twitter, Facebook, Orkut Accounts Look Better

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:14:00 +0000

I hope you have an e-mail account. That's something we all posses nowadays. But is it very significant to you? Do you really care about it? I guess not. Just another id from Google or Yahoo or AOL, after all. But, this id marks your online presence. Apart from e-mailing, you chat with your buddies through this account. You share your blogs & images through it. Most of us are crazy about Twitter or Facebook or Orkut. But do you have a good profile for people to look at? So take care a little of your online account of social networking sites or Google, Yahoo accounts to make your online presence better. How?

Have you ever seen a Facebook or Orkut profile without photo or picture or a tagline or slogan? Did you feel good about it? Such a profile has to be boring & absolutely blunt. We hardly give it a second look. So that i guess, gives you the hint to make your account look better. Mostly people upload a photo of them or an 'avatar' to the account. But Photos & avatars are more a visual personification of yourself. Why don't you create a logo? & to it ,add a tagline or a slogan, that you feel describes you best. Logos are different on this aspect. We not only create logos for companies or clubs ,but also for even & products, just to make the presence different.A twitter account with loads of tweets is not enough to make your presence loud. Often these logos can help you to catch the eyes.

Now, make your move.

Step 1: Make a logo of yours. You can draw one by yourself or can create one from free logo making sites, like Logoease.com. I tried it myself. Don't worry, it's truly free.

Step 2 : Choose your tagline carefully. If you are creating it from logo making sites,no worries, they'll help you to add it.

It'll be better if you keep your logo & your tagline together. Looks better. I made one from logoease.
What do you think? Do post your comments & reviews.

Facebook is Grabbing Most of the Time of U.S Internet Users

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 06:56:00 +0000

Article first published as Facebook is Grabbing Most of it's Time From U.S Users on Technorati.

Facebook is definitely rocking & now we have statistical reports as an evidence on the madness. For last few months especially, Facebook has become 'the place to be' for the internet users from all over the world. In the U.S, it is spreading like wildfire.Renowned global marketing & advertising research giant, The Nielson Company, in it's report has revealed that in June, 2010, Facebook had 127,011 unique visitors. On an average each of them spent above 6 hours on the site in the month of June.

That figure is pretty significant , if we take a look at the similar figures of the other companies like Google , Yahoo, who are miles behind Facebook. In another report Nielson has shown that on average a computer user in the U.S has spent above 56 hours in front of their PCs in June. So, an average Facebook user who spends above 56 hours in front of PC, spends almost 6 hours in Facebook alone. That's above 10% . But make no mistake it's not a one month wonder. This success is continuing for the last couple of months. Here are the figures, that you might like to know :

Month No. of unique users Time per person(hh:mm:ss)

June,2010 127,011 6:02:59
May,2010 125,243 6:18:25
April,2010 122,347 6:43:22
March,2010 117,109 6:59:15
February,2010 118,813 6:27:43
January,2010 116,329 7:01:41

Source: The Nielsen Company

On July 21, 2010,Facebook reached the milestone of 500 million active users. In spite of the recent security concerns, Facebook is continuing to grow. That without any doubt shows, it has not only established itself well, as one of the top web brands in the world, but also, it has become the key to a huge mass of internet users, to stay connected to their buddies.

New features in Google search

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:36:00 +0000

For the last one decade Google has launched numerous web services. But still, the one service, that we all use & has been the numero uno among all the other services, is off course the Google Search. It's importance in our lives is unquestionable. Realizing this, Google has improved it's searching capabilities recently, adding some brand new features.
You'll find all of them in the sidebar of your Google search result page.

Navigation with Wonder Wheel :

We all give our search queries to Google & start browsing the results immediately, if we get it perfectly. But, do we get it all the time? No. Specially in the search queries where you are not looking for a specific websites or not really sure what can be a good term for your search. Google has brought a solution, to resolve this very problem. It's called Wonder Wheel. Like, I tested it with the term 'Jaguar'.It showed me the following result

I intended to look at the Jaguar car. On clicking Wonder Wheel, it gave me some other options.

All these are the probable search terms, I'm looking for. It also might help you to find out some other informations as well. But,remember,wonder wheel doesn't appear as an option unless there are multiple probable results , present on your query.Nevertheless,with a simple wheel like visual interface,this is a true Wonder Wheel to navigate your search.

Have your search result translated :

For the last few years Google has been working, on removing the language barriers from sharing information. This has given birth to projects like Google Translate.Now, this ability of translation has been brought to the search results. You just need to click on the sidebar ,on 'More search tools' & then 'Translated search' at the bottom.

Page preview :

Not sure, if the site has the necessary information for you? Then instead of wasting your time by browsing each & every link, just click on the 'Page preview'. It will provide you a snapshot of the associated webpage & also will give you significant details of the page below the link. Take this as an example. I searched for Jaguar & I was looking for the cars. But this link was also there & off course , I wasn't looking for it.

Timeline :

Students & professors,who are interested to know about the dates & events, Timeline is absolutely meant for them. Once you click 'Timeline' over your search query, it'll show, you all the events, related to it. The result will be accompanied by a timeline bar, sectioned on the basis of a certain time period. You can further click on it & it will provide a refined result related to that time period.

Stay updated with the latest results :

At the top of the search tools, you will find this section, to find results within a proper time period. you can select 'latest' & it will show you everything on that topic, be it a tweet or a news.

Too much help? Or seems complicated to handle? No worries. You can reset the tools easily, by clicking the 'Reset tools' option & it'll be back to normal.
Hope, that'll help you a lot , when you'll be searching next time.So keep on Googling!!

Related Posts:

How to access more than one GMail account in the same browser

Improve your firefox with coolpreview, foxtab, fire.fm, WOT & Qrobe.it

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:00:00 +0000

A big portion of the net surfers use Firefox nowadays. Though the basic versions of the Firefox come with a lot of features, I still think there are few add-ons, that will surely smooth your surfing experience. Here are 5 such add-ons, that you must try.

1. CoolPreviews :

A great utility product by Cooliris team. If you want to browse fast, then this is definitely for you. We often give a search to a search engine & then keep on looking for the information we need in the search results. But, we don't get in the provided links always. So, you have to come out of that page & then keep on looking for it in the other links. Coolpreviews is absolutely meant for this. Once you see any link on any webpage & you are not sure, if it really worths taking a look at that page, just rollover your mouse on the link. Coolpreviews will show you the content of the page in a separate small window within your browser window. Like this,

2. Fox tab :

Fox tab gives you an ultimate power to manage your currently & previously browsed pages, with an impressive interface. It also allows grouping of webpages & makes it easier for you to find out the same.

You can choose some nice themes & can change the layout of 3D display of pages, to make the interface look better.

3. Fire.fm :

I was in a kind of dilemma, before putting this add-on into this list. The sole reason is, it's for the music lovers only. Still, I hope, it's not going to be a bad choice to you. Fire.fm is a add-on for listening to songs from the vast music library of Last.fm. It's a 'must have' add-on for most music addicted net surfers. The add-on helps you to listen to your favorite music, to browse details of the albums & artists. The controls are placed on the toolbars. So in order to access it, you work don't need to be interrupted.

4. WOT - safe browsing tool :

This one is specially recommended to the Windows users. WOT, lets you know about the websites you can trust. It through a kind of traffic light sytem lets you know about the rating of the websites, you are about to visit.

5. Qrobe.it :

The last one in the list. Qrobe.it is the new sensation in the search engine block. It gets the search result from Google , Bing & Ask & presents the best of it in front of you. Firefox doesn't come with this search engine as an option at the search bar right now. You, therefore, only need to install this add-on to put it as an option to your search bar.

ReadyBoost - speed up your Windows Vista or Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:21:00 +0000

For Windows users, it's very common to face a slow response from the OS. Especially, when you open up lots of processes. But most of us need to work in that way. We need to browse the net, check the mails, run the anti-virus, use the MS-Office & we need to do all these together. Naturally, your PC or laptop slows down, unless you have a good amount of RAM working inside your gizmo. So, here is a solution that Microsoft provides you. But , you can avail it only if you have a flash memory card or USB flash drive of 256 Mb memory or more . Own one? Then, let's get started.

1. First, insert it to your computer. An Autoplay dialog box will come up.

2. Click on the Speed up my system option below General option.
3. It'll open up a new Properties dialog box. Go to the ReadyBoost tab.

  4. Now, there are 3 options, as you can see.

   a. check the Do not use this device option, if you don't wish to use the ReadyBoost device.

   b. check the Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost option if you want Windows to utilize the maximum available space on your USB stick or memory card. Don't worry, it won't do anything to the files you have there. The rest of the space will be used only.

   c. check the third option, Use this device, if you want less than the maximum available memory in the device, to be used. Move the slider to decide the amount of memory.

5. Click Ok.

That'll be all. But, remember,

   to speed up you computer effectively, your memory card or USB stick should have atleast 1 Gb of available space.You might be asked to free up a little bit of space in the device, if you don't have so.

   Best results are achieved, when you provide an available memory, double of the RAM of your computer.

Want to test your coding strength? Check out these websites!!

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:54:00 +0000

Hmmmm.....so are you a code champ in your school? A proud code hunk in your class? Well, that might mean you understand a little bit of coding merely, unless you take the real test on the real ground of coding. That's right. In the web nowadays we have numerous websites to test the skills of the coders & trust me they'll make you feel the pain.In this blog we are going to show you few of those.

1. TopCoder.com :

Right at the top of the list & let me put it straight, they deserve it. How can you possibly know whether it's good or not? Off course by the number of people, who participate in it. Guess what ! This is the figure 258129, today on 9 th August , 2010. It's an initiative by the TopCoder Inc., itself. There are various types of competition are available. A kind of variety, I haven't seen anywhere else. Algorithm challenge, Bug tracking, component designing, testing,Rich Internet Application building are only few of it. All consist of real life problems. So, if you compete & accomplish your job, you'll be rewarded, like they reward in real life.

Yup!! A great deal of cash prizes are there. But make no mistake, it's not for newbies. Right now when I'm writing this , there are 79 active competitions with $ 51,865 of cash prizes. TopCoder users are sometimes given opportunities to participate in real life solution development for eminent companies & organizations like Facebook , Nasa. Last month Topcoder declared the success in completing the Nasa TopCoder challenge. Conducted by Harvard Business School & London Business School, the Nasa TopCoder Challenge asked Topcoder members to create improved mathematical algorithms to determine the optimal contents of medical kits for future human exploration missions. The experiment delivered a cost effective set of improvements to a critical NASA Space Life Science Directorate application, which will be used to reduce the risk associated with manned space flight. So, I hope that explains, why TopCoder is the undisputed topper in the list.

2. Codechef.com :

It's non-commercial,multi-platform online coding competition site & a great initiative by Directi. Competition is hold on the first 11 days of every month. Cash prizes are given to the top coders. Six problems are generally given. Don't worry about the language. Unlike other contests, Codechef supports 35 different programming languages !! The problems are categorized in easy, moderate & hard levels. Recently they are coming up with new short period challenges. Besides competing on the challenges, you can practice on the huge number of problems given out in the site. Overall, Codechef is truly a good kitchen to cook your code.

3. ProjectEuler.net :

ProjectEuler is one of the oldest members in the block. It was started by Collins Hughes (a.k.a euler) in October 2001 as a subsection on mathschallenge.net. It's intended audience are mainly people, who are interested in both mathematics & computer programming. A series of mathematical cum computer programming problems , that requires a little more than mathematical insights, are given. You also have to take care of the 'one minute rule' while programming. The rule is that your program should give an output within a minute. Depending on the number of problems you solve, they give you a honorary level. There are six such levels. You have to solve at least 100 problems to become a novice!! :)

4. Sphere Online Judge (www.spoj.pl) :

More popular as Spoj, Sphere Online Judge is a favorite venue to play, for many coders. It supports 40 different programming languages. It consists of a rapidly growing problem set of about 6600 tasks. Other than English, problems are also available in Polish,Vietnamese,Portugese & some other languages. Powered by Spoj online assesment engine by Spoj Research labs, it provides you a good service in terms of evaluation of your program. This is the same engine that Codechef uses for evaluation & it's pretty good.

5. CodeGolf.com :

A moderately good site, I'll say.But only for perl, php, python & ruby developers. Problems are good & standard though.

6. UVA Online Judge :

Well, UVAOJ has a vast collection of problems. They have the collection of problems from different prominent competitions. Some problemsetters are also there. But this site also has limitation in terms of programming languages. Only ANSI C, Java, C++ & Pascal are allowed.

7. You can also check out some other such sites like Code4jobs.com, Devsquare.com.

So, happy coding !!

How to access more than one GMail account in the same browser

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:45:00 +0000

At last !! Google heard you. All this time it was really tough for most of us, who has more than one GMail account. You had to sign out from one account first, in order to sign in to the other one. Now, you can switch between the accounts easily.

1. First go to google.com/accounts & sign in.
2. Click on the 'edit' , beside the 'multiple-sign in'.
3. Select 'on' & check the boxes after reading, how to use multiple sign in.
4. Save it & get back to the dashboard.
5. Look at the top-right corner of the page. You'll come to see an arrow beside your account id. Click it & sign in to your second account.

But remember,

1. multiple sign in doesn't work with all the Google services. If you choose to select a service that doesn't support multiple sign in, then the id you signed in first will be used to provide you that service.

2. This feature can be used in desktop browsers only. So mobile users have to wait a little more.
3. Multiple sign in doesn't work in offline mode.

Hope that helps !!

End of Google Wave

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 07:17:00 +0000

No more wave riding for Google wave users!! Yes, Google has announced the full stop to the 'wave' yesterday. On his statement Mr. Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow, said, "We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects."
Last year Google launched Wave at Google I/O. The response was highly positive. After the launch of products like GTalk, Orkut, the expectations were high from another Google web product. It was meant

for real time communication & collaboration among people. Google wave consisted of some cool sophisticated features like, easy drag n drop of files from desktop or other parts of the web app,live typing, easy mass sharing of files like presentations, pictures, managing schedules etc. It was a all-in-one. It had a blogging sort of feature in it. It got a look of an advanced e-mail.There was something for everyone. Stephanie Hannon, Product Manager of the Google Wave Team wrote on a blog , "Wave has been used in a great many interesting ways. It's clear from the invaluable feedback we've received that Wave is a great place to get work done, in particular for teams working together on projects that involve lots of discussion and close coordination."
Inspite of all this, this project has failed to fascinate the users or Google fans. A probable reason for that is the existence of other projects that perhaps less efficiently do a lot of jobs that wave do in a combined form. Products like Google BuZZ has become more acceptable to the users.
No doubt, the lack of reponse, have compelled Google to take such a decision. But Google CEO, Eric Schimidt put up a positive response on the matter. He said, “Remember, we celebrate our failures. This is a company where it’s absolutely okay to try something that’s very hard, have it not be successful, and take the learning from that,”e celebrate our failures. This is a company where it’s absolutely okay to try something that’s very hard, have it not be successful, and take the learning from that.” He also indicated that in future components & ideas of wave will be implemented in the products Google is yet to launch.

How to install firefox 4 beta in ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Firefox-4.0 is here with the beta versions & some brand new cool features. Try it in your favorite ubuntu.

Follow the given steps to install firefox-4.0.

1. Go to System->Administration->Software sources
2. Open 'other software' tab.
3. Add the following line
http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu

4. Close it.
5. A box will appear,asking you to reload the sources. select 'reload'.
6. Open the terminal. run 'sudo apt-get install firefox-4.0'.
7. Go to Applications->Internet->Mozilla developer preview web browser

This will give you the absolutely latest version of the firefox & it might be beta. Right now it's showing 4.0b3 version.

Another way to do this is:

1. Go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/beta/
2. Download the firefox.
3. Extract it to the home folder.
4. Open terminal. then execute the following in the provided order.

cd ~
~/firefox/firefox

This is showing 4.0b2 right now.
Happy browsing!!

Find your free technical e-books in these websites !!

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:18:00 +0000

E-books are something,which we all need nowadays. But here is a point to note: we not only need it, we need it at free of cost. There is large collection of free book on the Internet & in this blog we are going explore that.Here, I'll talk about top 10 websites,where you will find engineering related e-books, specially on Computer science, IT & electronics. So here we go..

1. Pdfchm.net :

In my opinion, the best site for downloading technical e-books for free. They allow you to download at most 2 books in 48 hours. The colletion they have, is highly rich. You can get standard books on Computer science , IT , Electronics, Management & many more. But to download books, you have to register & Unfortunately,right now when I'm writing this blog, they have stopped allowing users to register to their site. The only few users who have this privilege, are very lucky indeed.

2. O'Reilly's CD Bookself

Here, you will find some good Computer related books, all of which are of O'Reilly publication. If you go to "http://docstore.mik.ua/" you will find some essential articles & books as well. A note to the reader, before you try to acces the website. the site appears in russian, you can easily translate it using Google Translate.

3. Freecomputerbooks.com

This site doesn't provide you e-books. rather, it provides you links to find & download books. It has a good collection of links, that you must check out.

4. Congloi.info

This site is perhaps an upcoming good alternative for those who don't have a pdfchm.com account.It has a moderate collection of e-books.The collection is also well categorized.

5. Freeprogrammingresources.com

If you are learning a programming language & need an ebook, perhaps this site has what you need.Though confined to programming language books, it's collection can not be ignored.

6. Freetechbooks.com

A well organized collection of ebooks.That's what you'll get here.Some ebooks can be downloaded & some can be read online through a link.

7. Freebookspot.in

A good site with good collection of books from standard publications.

8. Techbooksforfree.com

Though categorically the collection is limited, you can find books on linux,java,microsoft products,.net,c/c++,python,perl,database,networking,security.

9. Murach.com

Few books published by murach are available on this site. Murach is well known as a publisher of professional programming books. So, you should take a look into this site.

10. Scribd.com & Issuu.com

This two sites are the web portals,where people around the world, upload documents & ebooks.Therefore the collection is vast. You can search for anything & you can stay assured to get a good result.In addition to that, as this two sites are meant for book readers, both provide a rich interface to have a nice reading experience.

Hope, this will help you guys out there. Happy studying!!

Time for IPv4 is gone. Let's switch to IPv6

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Fri, 14 May 2010 08:14:00 +0000

As of now ,when I'm writing this blog,17th August, 2011, is the day being predicted as the day, when no IPv4 address will be left. Now if you are a student of Computer Science or Information Technology, you know what an IP address is. For those, who don't know , let me explain in short.

IP address is an address that is assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider(ISP) when you connect yourself to the Internet. It's a unique global address. That means, when you are in the Internet, your computer can be identified uniquely by this address at that moment.

Now this addresses are used in the Internet according to some protocol. IPv4 or Internet Protocol version 4 was such first highly deployed Internet protocol. IPv4 is capable of working with 32 bit addresses. The pool of IPv4 addresses contain 2^32 or 4,294,967,296 unique addresses. Since September,1981 when IETF first described IPv4, it has been in use & initially,this pool of IP addresses was taken as adequate to serve the Internet community for long. But, due to poor IP address allocation procedure(classful addressing), IPv4 was facing high depletion of addresses. A huge number of addresses were being wasted. In order to prevent that, several solutions like Network address translation,classless addressing, subnetting,private network were developed. But all these were short term solutions. So Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) , the community reponsible for technical aspects of Internet,started looking for a long term solution & in December 1998, it came up with the big brother of IPv4. A next generation Internet Protocol, called IPv6.

IPv6, is indeed a next generation protocol. It supports 128 bit addresses. In comparison to 32 bit addresses of IPv4, it' pretty large & so is it's address space, which consists of 2^128 unique addresses. Besides that IPv6 has support for modern Internet services like VoIP, moible IP, IP telephony etc. So, after one or one & a half year from now, IPv6 addresses will be distributed among the Internet users. But , will this sudden switch be that easy? Not at all.

IP protocols are the backbones of the Internet. Every system that provides or receives web services, relies on the IP protocol. It's a standard, that has to be followed by everyone. Now a sudden switch to a different protocol, that's why, is not going to be that easy. Let's see why.

Say Alice is a server that supports IPv6 & Bob, who wants to get a service from Alice, supports IPv4 only. In that case, they won't be able to communicate with each other.

Again reversely say, Alice is a server that supports IPv4 & Bob,a new user who wants to get a service from Alice, supports IPv6 only. In that case, they won't be able to communicate with each other either.

We should consider a third case here. What if both Alice & Bob supports IPv6? Will that be enough to satisfy both? No again. Why? Though Alice & Bob supports IPv6, their data packets, technically known as IP datagrams, have to pass through many other servers or routers, who might not support IPv6. So, that again is going to do result nothing.

Now this shows how problematic it will be for the new users. Some won't be able to provide services & some won't be able to get services.So are you afraid? One thing that must be going through your mind is "then what will happen to this new users?" Well, we have remedies for all this problems. But, unfortunately, in spite of knowing about this inevitable exhaustion of IP addresses, large companies & authorities haven't taken proper measures to implement the solutions. So, a warning is being spread to all the service provider, be it Government organization or private companies, that they must support IPv6 within 12 or 18 months. Otherwise, newly registered IPv6 customers will prefer IPv6 supporting contents over their less efficient IPv4 supporting content. As IPv6 deployment is on it's way & is surging day by day, this number of customers is going to be a big figure within few years. Top US companies like Google, Netflix are already providing IPv6 support.

Below, you can see an IPv4 exhaustion counter, which is available at :
http://www.inetcore.com/project/ipv4ec/index_en.html

This is a meter that shows ratio of IPv4 IPv6 web access to this page.

Being a good techie is not enough. Prepare for the job hunt.

noreply@blogger.com (DNil) — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:29:00 +0000

Another academic year is going to end & I'm sure, after this, like many other IT students, you are also aspiring to get a nice job in a multi-national IT company. But are you prepared enough? You might say, "well, I've sound technical knowledge. I know c & an oop language like c++ or Java or have done a project on .Net or J2EE. That's gonna be more than enough as a reason to crack it.What else do I need?" Well, if that's so, you are mistaken like many more. It's true that technical knowledge is important indeed & it has no replacement either. But unfortunately it's not always the foremost factor to consider you as a potential candidate to be selected. You therefore, will often find students with good academic qualifications, rejected from campusing. A very common reason for that is weakness in English or communication skills.

In countries like India, where English is a non-native language, a vast majority of students are found, to be weak in English. Of the remaining, who know it well, a countable portion of them, don't have adequate fluency while speaking. This is a major drawback for any job aspirant who wants to work in a good MNC.

Think rationally. Any IT student, who is familiar with the selection procedure of different companies, will find, that the first round of selection is aptitude test. Here, you have to answer questions on maths, data interpretation & English. If you go through the question papers of different leading IT companies, you will get an idea of the quality of questions. Most of the students find the maths & data interpretation questions easy & that's not because the examinees are engineers,but rather the question are of class 10-12 standard. But only few give the same opinion about the English section. Unfortunately, though ignored by most of the students, this is , in fact is 'the section' that decides the winners of the test often. Few top IT companies don't even have a technical round in their selection procedure. That might explain how important is your technical knowledge for campusing.

So does that mean, all your hard work, all that you have learnt, worth nothing? Not really. Because, remember, hard work always pay off. Though your technical skills may not be the only factor to get a job , it's certainly a prime factor to survive on your job & make no mistake, it's not that easy.

Following the recession period,this year, the recruitment drives has started lately on the final semester,unlike previous years, when the recruitment used to start from the sixth semester of the engineering courses . So this year companies are expected to do a lot of off-campus recruitment, where this sort of traits could be a trump card of yours. So besides sharpening your technical knowledge, do take a good care of your communication skills & have a happy job hunt.