Shashanks Blog

Frostwire VS Bit torrent :

2009-02-10T22:55:00.001+05:30

Recently, I started pitting utorrent, vs other torrent apps and torrent apps in general against frostwire. I noticed a lot of differences in download speeds of the same file on both networks.

Speed:

> The file downloads much more quickly on frostwire.

> Even a well seeded torrent with ports forwarded and what not still leaves something to be

desired in terms of speed.

> Frostwire downloaded a 1 GB file from beggining to end with almost the same speeds.

> Torrent trackers tend to delay completion so that the torrents are seeded longer. Thus

the waning effect in terms of speeds when downloading from bit torrent.

File Diversity:

> Almost the same on both networks. Although, I think MUCH older RARER files are available

on the Gnutella network.

Architecture:

> Bit Torrent Requires a centralised "Tracker" to account and co-ordinate file transfers.

> Frostwire doesn't require any such thing. Direct transfer between two peers.

> Torrents may be public or private depending on which the torrents are posted on servers.

User base:

> Its a proven fact that the Gnutella network has a higher user base than the bit torrent network.

3 damn good reasons to switch over to Linux:

2009-02-02T18:17:00.000+05:30

1. Free as in freedom :
Almost 99.9% of Linux’s source code is released as open source. This means you can modify the code and redistribute it as you see fit. This means lesser lawsuits and lesser hassles in gaining updates.
There was a point in software time when anything free was considered buggy, incomplete or plain pointless. That might be then, but this is now. Linux has grown into one of the most advanced OS out there, and how! The penguin has come a long way indeed.

2. Surf the net without fear:
Yes, you read it right. Linux separates the root user from other users, thus restricting user privileges, and drastically reducing the chances of catching a virus. There are around 40 malwares in circulation, but almost 32 of them do nothing harmful, and are intended to point out security loopholes within Linux’s kernel. 6 of the remaining rest are dangerous and 2 are Trojans. If you’re still worried of catching a Linux virus, why don’t you resort to the age old solution- Go get yourself a free antivirus.

3. No more bloated OS: Linux makes a lot of room for your programs:
In fact, I’ve been using a PCLinuxOS installation on my PC for the past 2 months, and I’ve Installed a lot of software’s for Linux from Unreal Tournament 2004 to NVidia’s latest graphic drivers. Linux leaves a lot of room for your stuff, and doesn’t slow down one bit!!

Emulation on the PSP:

2009-02-01T06:16:00.000+05:30

I haven’t installed a single game on my PC after I brought my PSP. I almost feel as if I should’ve purchased it EONS ago. What really is the point of upgrading your PC< when you can do everything, except programming, on your PSP?? And you can carry the PSP everywhere you go! What was that? Lack of functionality? Not many options when it comes to gaming? Earth calling to .

Have you checked the homebrew community? They have everything from new games to friggin alarm clocks for the PSP. I have also seen some REALLY good programmers put out everything from emulators for the N64 on a PSP to a Linux port that runs on the PSP. Do you have any idea as to the humongous library of games that are available for even one of these consoles? That in itself is a HUGE advantage. Add to that portability.

If you are able to play that classic game of Mario Kart 64 on your flight, isn’t that everything you ever dreamed of ? Add to that watching movies, recording, and camera snaps. Isn’t that what most people use our PC’s for?

And I have also beta tested a bit torrent downloader for the PSP. To me, the PSP is the single most dominant piece of hardware that I have around me at all times. Whatever Sony’s intentions were in making this piece of hardware, I’m sure they hadn’t expected it to be used thus? Laugh on Nintendo and your army of fan boys ?

How badly do you need an antivirus?

2009-01-30T18:14:00.000+05:30

How many times have you wondered which is the best antivirus? Nod? Symantec Norton? Kaspersky? Bit defender?? My answer: None of the above. Why?? Read on.

Recently my curiosity got the best of me and I finally decided to read “The Big black book of virus programming” that I bought a while back. I’m told the book is illegal in most countries, and you could end up in jail for so much as possessing it!! The book details pretty much everything you need to know and also gives you a start by giving off some virus source code on the CD accompanying the book.

I started off writing my first virus and coded it such that it would look for a folder and deleted it. The folder was aptly named “Do Not Delete” and resided on my root drive.

I have a PC with the latest hardware. Thus , running 3 anti viruses is a walk in the park. Just for your info, I was running MacAfee, Symantec Corporate, and Nod 32. Some of the most reputed names in the antivirus industry.

The virus was written in assembler to make it faster than programs which I previously wrote in Java or C#. I fired up my “Virus”, and it promptly did its work. For a moment this really startled me because none of the antivirus programs even warned me that a potentially unsafe operation was being performed by a third party program. I convinced myself thinking that of course they didn’t detect it! It’s just another program that’s occupying memory and manipulating files. As far as other “programs” such as anti-viruses are concerned, there is NO harm being done to your computer!!

Most viruses are offshoots of “virus creation” kits available in shady websites running in third world countries like Nigeria or Kenya. So, the programmers for these “antivirus” programs have to detect a pattern in the viruses and voila, the antivirus detects the threat. But what if people like you and me started writing viruses? Would the antivirus programs have any chance at all in detecting these new “breed” of viruses?? Of course not! This is exactly the reason why the market for “network security” has grown exponentially over the past decade. We need to have fewer OS loopholes (poke at Microsoft) and fewer ways for programs to run in the background without your permission. Of course, if windows (like Symantec internet security 2008) were to ask you each and everything, you would curse your OS while click “ OK” and “Ignore” buttons , endlessly.
Yes, there is a certain tradeoff between OS security and usability, but that’s for novice users. NOT for pros like me. Well, we could probably have 5 modes for the OS, something like:

1. Novice
2. Intermediate
3. Power User
4. Expert User
5. Geek demigod ?

The PSP:A wonderful piece of hardware

2008-12-12T17:00:00.003+05:30

I have always yearned for an up to date PC, with the latest games, and playing them with the best and highest of resolutions. But call it fate, or call it destiny, I had to forsake gaming on the PC completely for the following reasons.

> Gaming is centered around windows. Linux and Mac users don't have those many choices

> There are so many games around that the quality is almost next to nothing. See: NFS Undercover

> I have to sit in office in front of the PC, all day long (Yes, I do work daytime job), and when I get home, if I wanna play my favorite game, I have to sit in front of the PC again, resulting in frequent backaches

> I guess I was never a fan of killer graphics(and no gameplay) , or killer game play(and 0 graphics). I would rather spend my time playing a game having a mix of both

> Portability is a HUGE issue with my desktop

> The electricity bill went through the roof

One fine day, I just decided I had to go out and buy myself a console. I had never owned one. But then all consoles suffer from the same problem as the PC. Portability, and upgradation, and what not. So, I decided I would afford myself a PSP. And I must say its REALLY worth the investment. I do find the occasional blooper, but then the games on the PSP are better than those for the PC by leaps and bounds. And the graphics are really good too. Now, I can take my PSP to the rooftop just to play a game of Burnout Dominator, rather than play Crisis:warhead in front of my PC. The graphics on the PSP are really good. What I don't understand is the reason why game developers for the PC have to make such hefty games which don't compare to squat.
The graphics on burnout:Nominator are almost equivalent to NFS:Most Wanted, and that of God of war: Chains of Olympus surpass the graphics for Prince of Persia:The two thrones. If a 500Mhz CPU with 2MB VRAM can render such excellent graphics, just take a second to wonder what the PC could really do with careful programming. Developing games for the PSP is really a tough task because you cant afford to be careless about memory leaks. There is a lot less RAM than the PC to work with. And, also gamers are much more demanding graphics wise when it comes to playstations. So, each and every frame has to look well polished, and the frame rate shouldn't vary greatly.If it does, it would be downright outrageous.

Got something to say? Comment!

Move over Prince of Persia, God of war is here

2008-12-12T16:52:00.002+05:30

God of war:Chains of Olympus was the first game that was installed on my PSP. As soon as I waded through the first level, I got a sensation of Deja Vu. The graphics looked stunning, and it almost looked as if it employed Prince Of Persia's' graphics engine! How could this be? Perhaps both games are really well polished, and the graphics may look similar. But how can a hand held console even come close to the graphics capabilities of a PC equipped with the latest video card? What baffled me more was the fact that the game loads almost instantly. There are a lot less "Loading" screens on God of war, than there are on Prince of Persia:Two thrones. Even the EPIC setting is not lost until the last boss fight. If you're a serious gamer, then this has got to raise a couple of questions in your mind.

> How can a hand held with 2MB VRAM render graphics equivalent to a game on the PC?

> With careful optimization of games, can game developers squeeze more out of existing hardware?

> Do you really need to upgrade your PC? Cant you buy a cheaper hand held?

To these questions, hardware manufacturers such as NVidia have got to answer, or all gamers would eventually move onto consoles. Got answers? Lets hear them in the comments!

Are we all heading towards an era of cloud computing?

2008-11-27T07:00:00.000+05:30

NO. Heres 8 reasons why:

1. Providing Mario, or for that matter any modern graphic intense game, as a service wont be easy.

2. If you’re NEVER going to use the computing power in your PC, and would rather rely on some server for processing your information, do you think major hardware vendors such as Intel, and AMD, who have spent billions to develop their hardware, would just standby and watch?

3. One MAJOR problem with cloud computing is that if, and when the central server crashes, ALL of your data would be lost, because of the failure. It wouldn’t matter if you have backup servers. They could not take in ALL of the traffic resulting in slower transfers. This would be unacceptable for large companies depending on the central server to provide it with certain programming “services”, and for your 9 year old son who wants to play DOOM 3.

4. 82% of the world is still using dialup connections to connect to the internet. What could possibly compel them to change that? And if they decided to change that, even for some unknown reason, would the costs be the same? Wouldn’t it be higher? Wouldn’t this would compel most of them to stay on the same infrastructure?

5. Programmers are humans too. We aren’t perfect. We couldn’t possibly come up with a mechanism that would go online throughout the world providing “services” to everyone involved, AND expect the system to be robust enough to NEVER crash. Even a primitive system, designed for this purpose would probably end up crashing because of the load involved.

6. If you think Im being a pessisimist, and Im making this up, consider this- Even a complex backend architecture such as server farms, possibly coupled with complex algorithms to optimize performance, do you think the access time would be anywhere near, or comparable to a file stored on your system?

7. If you do everything on a server, then why do you need your PC? Just input devices, and output devices will suffice in such a situation right? Then your PC wouldn’t be a “terminal” it would be a dummy terminal.

8. Finally, the security threat involved is totally unacceptable for any major corporation. As all “services” run on a central server(or on different servers, which ever you deem necessary for the purpose of this discussion) even a small loophole could prove costly for all those involved in such an endeavor.

What makes you think that distributed could ever be stopped? Lets hear them in the comments !

The confusion over chrome

2008-11-26T07:00:00.003+05:30

With the advent of Google’s new applications, the press is abuzz with terminologies such as "cloud computing" and online operating systems. But is this really the future of the web?

Definitely Not!! I read a news article in a major newspaper a few days ago which called Google’s chrome a “revolution” and that it would eventually overtake windows and Linux.. Excuse Me? Is it just me , or can you spot the odd one out of the group too? Heres whats wrong with the article:

Ø First off, chrome is an application, not an OS. To be specific, it’s a browser, just like Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Ø Secondly, Chrome needs an OS to run.

Ø Third, the day when chrome will start up as soon as you switch on your PC is still VERY far away.

The very fact that a major newspaper called chrome an OS shows the amount of computer literacy amongst the press. And to think the article came from the associated Press! God knows how many newspapers all over the world published his and how many people believed it!

Top 10 things to do with dial up internet

2008-11-25T07:51:00.000+05:30

1. Tune into internet radio:

You wouldnt believe how many internet radio stations have popped up over the years. Just tune into a low quality radio service such as Social crime and you will enjoy for hours. There are pop, jazz, rock, funk radio channels available like this too!

2. Join mailing lists:

Have a hobby? There are mailing lists for almost anything on the internet. Join some of these mailing lists and watch your hobby get better. A mailing list consists of everyone replying to a mail thats found in their inbox.

3. Watch videos:

Youtube and Dialy video have managed to provide me with hours and hours of non stop entertainment. The endless library of videos on these sites give you everything from the latest movie trailers, to game strategies, to video songs.

4. Play online:

There are countless sites that are offering free gaming services online. Many of these are fun and addictive games. But beware, even though you require just the flash player installed, these may bring with them unwanted downloads also.

5. Stumble:

Stumbling is the most addictive past time I have right now.

6. Avail the use of online operating systems:

Operating systems are available online too! These are basically built on the web 2.0 architecture. Get aquainted with one of them, and upload all your important files as a backup mechanism. This would ofcourse take time, but its worth it!

7. Read tutorials online:

Dont go out to buy that costly book when you can get the same content for free! There are people like myself all over the web, and they simply enjoy writing about everything. Sometimes you find information in blogs that you wont find even in a commercial publication. Wikihow is an excellent source of such tutorials.

8. Start a blog:

Have ideas that you would like to share with everyone on the net? Start a blog with free services such as blogger or wordpress. These services are free and easy to use!

9. Download updates for windows:

Windows giving you problems? Leave "automatic update" on in windows, and it'll download updates for ya!

10. Chat on yahoo!

I know what you are thinking. Yahoo! is infested with bots. I know, but it still IS one of the best places on the net to chat! Believe me, I do! My Yahoo Id is : shockstreamz.

Does windows get slower with a cluttered desktop?

2008-11-24T07:42:00.000+05:30

I didnt believe in this concept until recently. One of my clients asked me this question, and I told him "No, it doesnt". He continued "I think it does!". I later began thinking that there may be more to this than meets the eye. The following article is based on my analysis of the situation.

> The more number of icons on your desktop, the more time it takes for all the icons to be loaded from the icon cache.

> This might be one of the reasons why windows seems to become slow.

> Whenever you exit a game, and return back to desktop, windows refreshes the desktop thereby refreshing the cache.

> Windows doesn't store all its icons in the memory because considering the depth of these icons, there would be no space in the memory left for running applications.

> This is also apparently the reason why a linux machine runs faster than a windows machine, with the same hardware configuration, apart from of course the OS architecture.

Why windows software installs are slower than uninstalls

2008-11-22T19:36:00.001+05:30

Put the other way, why are uninstalls faster than installs? Windows was built to just incinerate a directory when its deleted. That is, the directory, or files are just removed from the partition table if you pressed Shift+Del (which it seems, everyone these days is very used to!). When installing, the program has to

>Look up the target drive and check if enough space is available or not.

>Unpack the files onto some temporary location (Most probably C:\windows\Downloaded program installations)

> Extract and copy the files onto the desired location on your installation directory

This is the step that possibly takes up a lot of time because the transfer is happening from the hard disk onto the hard disk as opposed to the transfer happening from some other medium to the hard disk which is atleast, a bit faster. Since the source and the destination of the files are on the same disk, the transfer bus is fully used, and thus the OS seems to get stuck. During this process, if you try to , say play your music collection with winamp, your pc would get stuck because the OS (which is quite a heavy resource consumer), your copy process(also a heavy weight) and your music player are all contending for CPU time. As and when the CPU gets more tasks in its queue, the system starts to become slower, as each task has a degenerating effect on the system, leading to the popular deadlock problem of computer science. When your PC gets locked up, you have to remove all your processes from the CPU queue. The easiest way to do which is to RESTART your computer, which I assume, all of us,windows users do from time to time. :)

>Seek a suitable location in the registry

>Enter keys in the registry

>Delete the temporary files

>Possibly do other tasks such as configure the application for first run
This basically involves the installer entering some values into the applications configuration files to tell the application that the next time the application runs would be its first on this machine.

Firebug – The ultimate tool for the web designer

2008-11-20T14:26:00.003+05:30

Many of my friends were saying firebug could do that and firebug could do this. Recently, I decided to see for myself what it could and what it couldn't do. And , I must say I'm very pleased by what I saw. Firebug comes as an add-on with Firefox. Simply visit http://addons.firefox.com and get your firebug add-on. It sits just above your Firefox status bar, making it non – obtrusive and really helpful whenever you need it.

But the area where firebug really shines is its ability to highlight elements of the page you are viewing. Just click the "inspect" button on firebug, and wherever you take your mouse on the HTML page, the corresponding markup will be highlighted. This is really useful and priceless for a web page designer because this would save a lot of time and help you learn how someone else has coded his webpage. If you see a nifty CSS trick that you could use, just take your mouse over the element and its corresponding markup would be shown. You would be amazed to know that this works even with Javascript generated content. For example, if you generated a button at runtime. Now if you go into inspect mode, you can see the code for the Javascript that made the button what it is! This way you can get to debug your pages on the fly.

Is it time microsoft started making antivirus software?

2008-11-19T10:50:00.001+05:30

If you use windows, you would probably have come across hundreds of security loopholes, and viruses trojans, and what not! With all this in mind, you gotta ask yourself, isnt it time microsoft started making antivirus software? I mean, windows is microsofts own creation, so no one else knows windows better than microsoft, right?

Confronted with the above, any microsoft employee would tell you that microsoft doesn't make application software. True, but I still think microsoft is the best company to make antivirus softwares, and it would easily rise to the top in the antivirus market.

With that said, why not build an antivirus along with the OS, so its fully interoperable with the OS? We windows users are anticipating the release of windows 7 in 2010. I would love to see the antivirus feature with that version of windows.

Using VS2005 IDE regular expressions for find and replace

2008-11-18T12:16:00.006+05:30

Suppose you have redundant information such as :

, (11,12,1,5,75,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (11,13,1,6,200,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (11,14,1,7,50,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (11,15,1,8,100,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (11,16,1,9,25,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (11,17,1,10,60,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')

You need to replace the first two integer fields with say 7.

Hit Ctrl + F to bring up the find and replace dialog. click on Regular expressions.

Find : [(]:z:z,:z,

Replace with : (7,

Heres a nice page about VS 2005 IDE's regular expression comparison with other regular expression 'standards':

Coding horrors take on VS IDE regular expressions

Result:
, (7,1,14,75,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (7,1,15,60,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (7,1,16,10,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (7,1,17,25,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (7,1,18,150,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')
, (7,1,19,100,1,1,'2008-10-19 00:00:00')

Net Packets Out Of Order - Expected ( xxx ), Received ( y ) error in Toad:

2008-11-18T10:28:00.000+05:30

Toad is one of the most versatile front ends I have seen for an efficient database such as MySQL. But toad does have its rough edges. The error message "Net Packets Out Of Order - Expected ( xxx ), Received ( y )" pops up whenever the client has been opened for many hours together. There is something about the situation that makes me feel that the toad front end was made to be specifically timed with the number of packets that were recieved after a transaction is complete. That is, it estimates the number of packets that are to be recieved whenever a transaction is completed. If at all the number of packets recieved after a transaction doesnt match up with the ones expected, the above error is seen.

The problem not only arises for specific transactions but also for transactions involving a series of transactions involving a large number of unions. Yes, this is a fact.

The solution:

> The first possible solution is to copy the query and execute it in the mysql command line client. You will be happy to see that it works.

> The second solution is to restart the PC and hope that Toad is back to its helpful self again.

> The third and last solution is to modify your query to involve fewer number of joins, or unions. This would surely solve the problem.

Simple ExtJs Grid Example 2

2008-11-17T16:40:00.000+05:30

var store;
var temp;
Ext.onReady(function()
{

var arr=document.getElementById("hdnField1").value;
var splitter=arr.split("|");
var myData = [[splitter[0],splitter[1]]];
// create the data store
store = new Ext.data.SimpleStore
({
fields: [{name: 'Name'},{name: 'Designation'}]
});
store.loadData(myData);
// create the Grid
var grid = new Ext.grid.GridPanel
({
store: store,
columns: [{header: "Name", sortable: true, dataIndex: 'Name'},{header: "Designation", sortable: true, renderer: 'Designation'}],
stripeRows: true,height:320,width:240,title:'Array Grid'
});
grid.render('grid-example');
});

var clicked=function()
{
var TopicRecord = Ext.data.Record.create(
{name: 'Name', mapping: 'Name'},
{name: 'Designation', mapping: 'Designation'}
);

var myNewRecord = new TopicRecord({
Name: 'Do my job please',
Designation: 'noobie'
});
store.add(myNewRecord);
return false;
}

Basic structure of an ExtJS grid

2008-11-17T13:22:00.002+05:30

Ext.onReady(function()
{
var arr=document.getElementById("hdnField1").value;
var splitter=arr.split("|");
var myData = [[splitter[0],splitter[1]]];
// create the data store
var store = new Ext.data.SimpleStore
({
fields: [{name: 'Name'},{name: 'Designation'}]
});
store.loadData(myData);
// create the Grid
var grid = new Ext.grid.GridPanel
({
store: store,
columns: [{header: "Name", sortable: true, dataIndex: 'Name'},{header: "Designation", sortable: true, renderer: 'Designation'}],
stripeRows: true,height:320,width:240,title:'Array Grid'
});
grid.render('grid-example');
});

Of course, to make this work, you have to have the extJS libraries included first.Include them as follows:

>view your HTML code, and add the Javascript tags .The ExtJS path goes into the src property of the JS tag. I will be posting many more examples of ExtJS forms here. Be on the prowl until then...

Official Gmail Blog: Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat

2008-11-12T12:49:00.000+05:30

Official Gmail Blog: Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat

The peeps at Google just launched video and voice chat from within Gmail. I really am waiting to criticize them for this move. Turns out, the app would be using H.264 encoding so external apps can choose to speak to this service. The implementation would no doubt involve a flash player on the front end. Im yet to really see an implementation of the flash player which can capture both voice and video from the client side at the same time not making the app sluggish (which im sure Googles' newest product WILL be!) .

Rest in peace DVD?

2008-11-10T22:41:00.000+05:30

Do you use DVDs to backup your stuff? How much can you backup in 4.5 GB of media? 4 movies (compressed)? or 2 average games?

Move over DVD, 'cause this is the age of the Blu-ray disc and the flash drives. With hard disk drives getting cheaper by the day, and the advent of the Blu-ray disc's the DVDs are set to do a vanishing act ala the floppies. It is said the Blu-ray discs can hold upto 25 GB in a single layer disc, or 50 GB in a dual layer disc. Whatever the case, all digital storage will be replaced by bigger , better , and faster media in the coming days.

Or, better yet by flash drives. You can get a flash drive these days for as low as $3, or 150 rupees. We are on the cusp of the digital age. This is when the information bubble bursts and all media, information is gonna be exchanged freely.

Better still, why do you need to backup something when its permanently available online?? What with operating systems such as you OS, coming online. You can store your music , movies and games (?) online. With the advent of megabit broadbands, all of us can expect this medium to spill over into the portable device scenario too.

What does Wikipedia want $6 million for??...Simply Outrageous!!!

2008-11-08T18:35:00.000+05:30

I was a fan of wikipedia, and its open mind theology until 3 minutes ago. I saw a banner on the site which said "Wikipedia:Making life easier", with a Donate Now button. It also showed a progress bar marking $2 million and odd, and that its goal was to raise $6 million!!!

Please interrupt me if Im wrong here, but arent all of wikipedias' articles written by commoners like you and me? So, its a collective effort isnt it? They shouldnt be asking for donations unless to pay for server bills!! SO, WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO DO WITH $6 MILLION?? Are you donating to wikipedia? If so please STOP!! Stop this insanity in the name of free knowledge.

Wikipedia has 20 odd workers, all doing what.. building a CMS thats wikipedia. Sure, its a good source of information and all, but do they REALLY deserve $2 Million???

If your answer is YES, please check in to your nearest mental hospital. You are in need of medical attention.

Is Google really a leader in technology?

2008-11-07T11:40:00.000+05:30

Its a common misconception that any company that does things differently is supposed to be leading a certaing segment of technology. This seems to be true in the case of Google. Now, it may be a technology giant, but the products they make are far from perfection. Each and every one of their flagship products except other than their propreitery search engine technology ofcourse, is still in BETA. Do you know what that means? The services may go offline anytime, and may be entirely scrapped if not for Googles' ad based exploits. Most of their products are plagued by inconsistensies, and lack of basic support for their other products.

Take Google Chrome for example. Its supposed to be a a "revolutionary" piece of software, and they havent yet integrated their own Google notebook with Chrome.Google offers better support for IE than for chrome right now. Now, does that say anything about their competancy, and their development practices?Clearly, Google is very farsighted in its business practices and would be outstaged and outplayed in the coming years for sure.

Blogger VS Wordpress

2008-11-06T21:58:00.002+05:30

Last week, I decided to try out wordpress because of all the eye candy. The themes there are pretty good. The sign up page was enticing and a good experience I must say, but after that things started going downwards. The following is a list of things thats wrong with wordpress:

>Wordpress serves its own ads on your blog instead of letting you earn money by blogging. Who runs a blog just to pass time anymore,anyway?

>Doesnt let you edit your CSS unless you pay $26 per month.

>Doesnt stop serving ads until you pay for the hosting, and that too without your own domain. So, basically you'll be stuck with yourname.wordpress.com for the rest of your life!

Things blogger lacks(that wordpress revels in):

> Themes. OOO shiny blog.Me like shiny blogs!

> closeness to the user. The ambience around the site is well maintained, and welcomes the user to try out things out on his own.

Well, thats it! It also allows for importing your "OLD" blogger blog into your wordpres blog, but I wont mention that because of anomolies in the posts when importing them

Are we all ready for multimedia compression?

2008-11-02T18:40:00.000+05:30

If you download pirated games, and warez, youll already be familiar with UWE HERKLOTZs' UHARC. If you arent, look it up on the web. Its the highest ratio compression technology ever! It can compress games of around 1 GB to around 150 MB. Thats why its called multimedia compression in the first place. I havent found songs, and other media compressed with this. I have been using it to compress data that I dont really need right now, and burning such stuff off to DVD's for later use.But you gotta ask, if its such a good compression technology, why wont WinZip or Winrar use this?

>For one, it takes a whole day to bring down 1.5 GB of data to 150 MB, not all of us may be THAT patient.

>It eats up all your processors' bandwidth to do its job.

>Compression sometimes depends on the amount of RAM available. Since Winzip and winrar are used by people who may choose to work on pentium 3's, its not gained importance...yet..

>There is absolutely no guarantee that the output would be the same as the input. Though it works for a majority of the cases, it may fail too.

Calling JavaScript functions from C#

2008-10-27T18:15:00.000+05:30

There is perhaps no way available to do this, nor should there ever be one. This is because your C# code runs in the code behind, a repository of code to handle post backs, while your JavaScript is executing on the client side. If at all client side javascript was let to be executed from C# code, then it would be similar to AJAX RPC's! A better way to call Javascript functions is by using hidden fields. The following logic demonstrates how:

|
|-->set a hidden field

|
|-->check the value of the hidden fields for changes, if any write logic which has to execute.

Reverse the above logic, and put the javascript hidden field check so that it executes when the page gets loaded, and VOILA, you have an answer to your solution.

i = i + 1 : A ridiculous way to say increment I !

2008-10-10T12:06:00.000+05:30

How many of you have coded in C, C#, Java or even JavaScript for that matter? If you have, then you'd probably know i=i+1 as one of your best companion when dealing with loops. Yet, I call the practice ridiculous...Why do you think that is?

For one, any programmer with a basic understanding of math would have puzzled over this question: isnt i->i+1 more meaningful than i=i+1 in a programming context? Why then do all programming languages follow the pattern of variable = variable +1?? I have no clue whatso ever, but I would reckon it is a reminiscent of the age when there were no standardized charecter sets for various programming languages and all vendors defined their own charecter sets, and standards.

And, to add to this mess, every programmer, no matter how experienced uses the counter variable named i, instinctively. Of course, he'd have to use an alternate variable to nest loops within other loops, he'd have to use another variable, and the second variable would instinctively be named j. I do not know if the collective conciousness of all programmers is at play here, for I have seen the same pattern repeating with every coder I have met over the past decade or so.. Even with me ! As we all pave way for new programming languages and techniques, I also hope that this hideous practice will be stopped, for all our sakes.