TwistedPin

Free Maximum Memory in an Android Phone

2011-07-16T16:55:00.003+10:00

If you are using an Android phone, chances are that your phone feels 'sluggish' after a few days. Basically over time, apps consume more and more memory, making your phone crawl and lagging between screen actions. Use an app called Advanced Task Killer to free maximum memory.

Download Advanced Task Killer from the android market here. Be default the Security Level is set to Medium. I would suggest change it to Low and you would notice considerably more free memory.

On my HTC Incredible S, before using this app my free memory was always below 200MB. But now with the Low setting I usually get 400MB free memory.

Check it out.

HTML5 Logo released

2011-01-19T18:41:00.004+11:00

The good guys at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have released a logo for Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) 5. HTML5 is the newest version of HTML and probably the biggest release since HTML originated. It should be supported by IE9, FF4 and Chrome browsers.

Its highly uncommon for organizations to brand certain versions of their releases, especially programming languages. Perhaps W3C is trying to create a site compatibility awareness around it, just like CSS or XHTML. Check out the logo,

It actually looks like the Superman logo with the 5 looking more like a S.

W3C is also selling HTML5 Tshirts. You can order here. You should see HTML5 compatility logo's sprunging up all over the web as new sites embrace it.

Intel Sandy Bridge line of processors to have built in DRM

2011-01-08T21:08:00.001+11:00

Intel has announced in partnership with Warner Bros, that its new line of Core i series CPU processors 'Sandy Bridge' will have built-in Digital Rights Management (DRM) for digital multimedia content along with faster speeds, integrated graphics support and lower power consumption.

The Sandy Bridge series would provide serious competition to AMD, by providing blazing speeds, support for 3D graphics and the ability to overclock without overheating. The processors are anticipated to be demoed today at CES 2011 in Las Vegas.

Most importantly Intel would also add a new hardware security layer onto the processors to support DRM which would restrict users from copying multimedia content. This is the biggest leap for DRM as the processor is as deep as you can go to embed a unique hardwired DRM key. This would enable consumers to stream videos to their PCs, without the ability to copy or share them. This is till someone finds a workaround it.

Along with general consumers, Blockbuster, Netflix and most major hollywood studios would benefit from this new Intel release. Sandy Bridge should go on sale incrementally starting Q1 2011.

Starbucks downgrades their branding - No text in the logo

2011-01-07T22:07:00.004+11:00

Starbucks have released a new branding logo, without the words Starbucks and Coffee. The new logo looks ok and less in terms of clutter. But surely a piece of history has just been wiped off.

Less is more but I think the old logo conveyed more in terms of a strong branding presence. Most of the other people I have shown the logo to seem to agree. Thankfully the lovely starbucks queen still exists.

I think the Starbucks branding guys have downgraded their branding presence (not the first though) since Starbucks is most known for their Coffee. We wish them best on any new future endeavours with/without the coffee.

100th post!!!! And we are back!!!!

2011-01-05T00:29:00.002+11:00

TPin is back guys. Sorry about the lul, have been busy with other projects. Keep on supporting us with your patronage and feedback. Peace.

Google is 1% Software, 1% Hardware and 98% Maths

2010-08-15T09:43:00.002+10:00

For quite some time I have been researching on Google. How does it work? and most importantly how does on God's green earth does it return accurate results 99% of the time, searching through billions of pages and that too in split seconds. Serious stuff.

The following is my personal opinion and conclusion after reading and understanding Google.

As a software engineer I appreciate and understand that software and programming has its limitations. No matter how sophisticated or juiced up your hardware is, the software can only do so much, with so much speed. So basically hardware and software remain out of sync.

But getting back to Google, the amount of data on the net is just mind bogglings. We have millions of sites, made up of billions of ever updating content. Now finding all this content, indexing it and finding exactly what I need, in the context of what I need, just cannot be accomplished by software. I think its a fact or limitation of software and we have to accept that. But once you start applying mathematical formula's to this content and organizing content accordingly, and then retrieving results mathematically, it doesn't seem all that difficult. Add to this sophisticated hardware which can load balance your bandwidth, and you have a winner.

Have you ever wondered why most of the smart guys behind Google's success are PHDs. They might not know software but they sure know research. It is through research and pure mathematics, Google is what it is today. Its just not possible to create Google using software, we need the backing of some smart formula's, cutting edge research which can solve the most complex problems using numbers and calculations.

From an end users point of view, we assume everything on the net is just pure software. Not in the case of Google. I personally think only its UI is software. From the moment you press the Search button, its maths all the way, till you get results back.

Go Google!

Firefox 3.6 dialog boxes are inconsistent - To Escape or Alt+F4?

2010-08-04T15:21:00.002+10:00

I have been using Firefox 3.6 (FF) for quite some time now and without a doubt love it. But I am also a big fan of the escape (ESC) key and usually 'escape' a pop-up/dialog box whenever I want it shut, whether its withing Windows, my browser or in general on the net. But FF seems to be inconsistent in this behaviour.

In FF 3.6 pop-up dialog boxes don't seem to like to follow a consistent approach. For example;

Tools -> Options - Can escape, Alt+F4
Tools -> Add-ons - Can escape, Alt+F4
Tools -> Downloads - Can escape, Alt+F4
Tools -> Options -> Content -> Block pop up windows -> Exceptions - Only Alt+F4
Tools -> Options -> Content -> Load images automatically -> Exceptions - Only Alt+F4
Tools -> Options -> Content -> Enable Javascript -> Advanced - Can escape, Alt+F4
Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Accept cookies from sites -> Exceptions - Only Alt+F4
Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Show cookies - Only Alt+F4

I think this inconsistency is confusing and time wasting. From a usability point of view, its a good idea to allow a user to 'escape' the pop-ups or dialog boxes rather than Alt+F4'ing them. It also speeds things up and I don't have to us 2 fingers ;-).

Most of the software applications I have been involved in, use this principle and allow a user to close a Window/pop-up/dialog box using an escape key, which basically implies that I don't want to change anything on this screen and just close the pop-up without saving my changes.

What say Mozilla? Peace.

Android now more popular than Apple

2010-08-03T15:20:00.003+10:00

Android is slowly becoming a popular alternative to Symbian, RIM, and Apple based smartphones. According to the BBC, Android shipments increased by 886% for the last year. Thats right, that figure is in three digits.

According to the report, the Android market share is still very small (2.8%) as compared to Symbian (50.3%) and even Apple (13.7%), but its growing quite exponentially. One of the biggest factors for its growth is probably the Android App Market, which is giving Nokia and Apple a good run for their money.

HTC has realized the potential of Android and already has a few great Android phones such as the Desire, with more to come. Not to mention Android is FREE and backed up search king Google.

I think Android is a great OS and will go a long way and its exponential uptake is a testament to this.

Read more about the BBC article here.

Does anyone still use Windows XP?

2010-08-02T15:33:00.002+10:00

I have long migrated to Windows 7 and so has nearly everybody I know. Even at work we have upgraded to Windows 7. But I recently visited a client site and they were still using Windows XP with IE6. Is that still common?

Windows XP came out in 2001 and has been very popular (probably the most popular Windows). Nevertheless Windows 7 came out and I instantly upgraded and so did a lot of individuals and companies. Regardless Windows XP is still a very stable OS, but isn't it a bit outdated. Its nearly 9 years old now.

So does anybody else use Windows XP and I wonder why. Apart from the cost of upgrading, anything else holding you back. Look forward to replies.

HTC hire this guy or at least buy his design...

2010-07-16T15:18:00.000+10:00

If you want to look at the prototype of a true iPhone killer, check out the HTC1 design my Andrew Kim. The only one word which comes to my mind after looking at the design is just, brilliant.

Its not a real phone, just a prototype design by Andrew. But it definitely shows us what a good thoughtout design can look like. We all know that the iPhone is not just about functionality but also about looks. No matter how hard HTC, Blackberry, Nokia, Samsung or even Google try, they just cant match Apple in creating a beauuuuuutttttttttiful device. IMHO the HTC desire and Google Nexus both look bland, blackberry bold is just too chunky and Nokia and Samsung are just too candy.

I would request the HTC executives to have a look at Andrew's design and perhaps hire him to design the next HTC phone. Or if he is too expensive :-), at least purchase his design. I can tell you it looks great and could give the iPhone a run for its money. I can even suggest a name iHTC ;-).

But dont trust me and check it out yourself here and be your own judge. Peace.

Disable favicons in Firefox

2010-07-16T13:10:00.002+10:00

Do you hate it when somebody looks over your shoulder at work, they can make out which sites you are visiting by looking at the favicons in Firefox. Well, thankfully there is a tweak which disables favicons from loading up.

Here are the steps to follow:

Type in about:config within Firefox and press enter
Get past the usual warranty stuff
Enter browser.chrome in the filter field and press enter
Set the following flags as follows:
browser.chrome.favicons - false.
browser.chrome.site_icons - false
Restart firefox

Now everytime you visit any site their favicon will not load up, displaying just the default Firefox favicon. Hereby reducing the chances of your boss saying, "So whats the latest on CNN...?". :-)

Indian Rupee (INR) gets a new universal symbol

2010-07-15T20:39:00.003+10:00

The currency of India, the Indian Rupee (INR) now has a new universal symbol, joining the ranks of US dollar, British pound-sterling, European Euro and Japanese yen. The new symbol, designed by Bombay IIT post-graduate D Udaya Kumar, was approved by the Indian cabinet today.

Its a blend of the Devanagri 'Ra' and Roman 'R' symbols and is now the fifth currency in the world to have a distinct identity. The unique currency symbol reflects the Indian presence on the global stage. For quite some time the Indian Rupee had to share its name and symbol with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Indonesia.

The symbol will be apparently adopted in a span of six months in India. It doesn't have a Unicode character or HTML special character yet for it to be represented in software and on the Internet, but hopefully that will change in the coming few months or years.

For more information click here.

Firefox 4 on the horizon

2010-05-30T22:16:00.002+10:00

I recently read a blog by Mike Beltzner from Mozilla talking about Firefox 4 (FF4). Its still a distant vision/dream but nevertheless the idea is quite exciting. I currently use Firefox 3.6.3 and see no reason to upgrade. IE, Opera, Chrome and Safari are viable alternatives but Firefox is still the King of browsers.

According to Mike's blog which can be read here, FF4 will have support for HTML 5, will be faster (read Javascript engine), powerful (read new standards and technologies) and empowering (read more user control).

The FF4 presentation included some very interesting screen shots with a cleaner, more user friendly interface and more configuration and personlization options. I think FF4 will be a next generation browser, taking web browsing to the next level. Hopefully the guys at Mozilla have listened to their users and avoid the mistakes of Firefox 3.5, especially memory leak issues.

Mozilla is aiming to release FF4 in the 4Q somewhere in Oct, Nov probably before Christmas. Wonder if we will have a new icon for FF4 :-). Stay tuned.

iPad is iGood

2010-05-29T12:01:00.002+10:00

The long awaited iPad got released in Australia on Friday 28th May 2010 8:00am AEST, and after waiting for 4 long hours in a queue I finally managed to get my hands on a brand spanking iPad. And let me tell you its one sweet looking gadget.

I dont care about its features or function, I am most concerned about how it feels in my hand and it looks one hot tamale to me. Its white colour base with silver finish is the best and it looks seriously sweet as. It puts the Amazon Kindle to shame at least in looks, but then Apple has always been about the oomph factor and not function :-).

If you get a chance to try it out, do get one. Get it outright and then put it on prepaid if you can, save you some money on Internet browsing.

Way to go Apple :-).

Flash based forms in Firefox makes tabbing between pages impossible

2010-04-09T23:20:00.004+10:00

If you have ever used a flash based form in Firefox, perhaps you realized that you cannot tab between various opened tabs/pages. Who should we be blaming for this, Mozilla or Adobe?

Seriously guys flash forms are ok, not the best but just ok. But tabbing while using a flash form is just a terrible user experience, given that Ctrl+Tab does not work. Is it just me or there are others like me who cherish the ability to switch between pages using the keyboard shortcuts. But some genius in either Mozilla or Adobe forget to think about this and we are left with the end result.

Maybe Firefox 4 would solve this problem. But till then to all the web developers out there, please do not create Flash based forms and stick to HTML. Peace.

Tip: Enable online bank statements

2010-04-08T20:46:00.003+10:00

Every year I receive at least 20 statements, from some company, bank or the other. And most of the time, I glance at them and then destroy them (unless its a bank or credit card statement). Either way, if you want to do your bit for the environment switch to online statements.

I know that ANZ and Westpac banks both have online statement options, where you receive an email (every month or quarterly depending upon how often you have selected to receive statements), and the bank/credit card statement is available to be viewed or downloaded from your Internet banking account.

Virgin blue and Qantas are some other private companies who issue online statements instead of sending us paper ones (FlyBuys are you listening?).

I have already enabled them and would recommend you do the same. Do the right thing and do your bit for the environment. With every letter not printed, enveloped and posted, you are saving at least 1 tree. Go Green :-)

Tip: Windows 7 shutdown shortcut

2010-04-07T22:55:00.003+10:00

If you are used to shutting down Windows XP using Ctrl+U+U, then you are not alone. I think it was one of my most frequently used shortcuts. But then I migrated to Windows 7 and my life changed forever. However there is a way to do the same thing in Windows 7. Interested?

Follow these steps:

Right click anywhere on the desktop and select New - Shortcut
Then type in, shutdown.exe -s -t 00 -f. Click on Finish. Now you will have a shutdown shortcut on your desktop.
Right click on the shortcut and select Properties. In the shortcut key field, type in whatever shortcut you like. I personally use Ctrl + Alt + U

Now next time you go Ctrl + Alt + U, your PC will shut down automatically. Simple and effective ;-)

Why doesn't iPad support USB3

2010-04-04T18:04:00.002+10:00

iPad is finally here and everybody is raving about it. To me, its a mini apple mac. But why doesnt't it support USB3.

If somebody likes Apple puts it weight behind USB3, then everybody else is likely to follow but alas. Come on Apple, don't just create good looking devices, but also cutting edge ones. Maybe thats where it lacks other companies such as Google and even Microsoft. Peace.

Opinion - Wish there was a 'hide' button on what you see on the net

2010-03-28T22:38:00.004+11:00

I read an article today on the front page of www.news.com.au and felt a bit embarrassed by it. Don't ask why or which one, I just plainly felt embarrassed. And for those troubling 2 hours while it occupied front page news, I hoped that somehow I could hide it from others accessing the site at the same time.

Have you felt this way.

I mean we know that once you put something on the net, it stays there till eternity or for at least our life span (thanks to Google). But say you notice something online which makes you feel bad, embarrassed or even low, could it be possible that you hide that article from the rest of the world till it just passes the world's attention, and it gets lost forever.

I think that there should be a hide or delete button next to articles, which either websites or you can control and hide/unhide articles from current viewers. I guess its upto the websites what they want to display on front page news or not, but as users can't we pick what we want to see. I mean if I do not want to read about somebody else's personal life, surely there are others like me who feel the same.

Everytime we feel so, we should just zapp that article and away it goes into cyberspace, so that nobody can find it and we don't have to force ourselves to read about somebody else's bad day or decision.

Wishful thinking I guess :-). Peace.

Tip: Undo sent email message in GMail

2010-03-25T15:24:00.002+11:00

Have you ever sent an email and then a split second later thought "Bugger! I shouldn't have sent that email?". We all know once you send an email there is no way to "undo" it, its delivered pretty much instantly to the other users inbox. But if you use GMail there is a way to actually "undo" your sent email.

Follow the following steps to undo your sent email,

Login into your GMail account
Click on the Settings on the top right hand side
In the Settings view click on Labs
Scroll to the middle of the page and you will find Undo send. Enable it

That's it you are set. Next time you send an email along with the email confirmation message you will see an "Undo" message. So if you change your mind, then would be the best time to stop that email from being sent. The only issue is that the email message shows up for only 5 seconds, so your window of opportunity is rather small. It would be really good to be able to tweak this time period, but then we can't have everything, can we?

So check it out and make your virtual life a lot easier. Peace.

Create PDF forms using Adobe LiveCycle - Overview

2010-03-23T22:52:00.006+11:00

If you are fed up of filling in paper forms and are looking for a better, quicker and greener alternative, Adobe LiveCycle is your answer. The concept is to fill in PDF forms and submit them electronically, instead of filling in paper forms and then scanning, faxing or posting them. Sounds interesting.

Firstly you need to download a few essential bits of software,

Adobe Acrobat Professional - It comes bundled with Adobe LiveCycle Designer, which you need to design forms. You can download a trial version here.
XML Spy - For generating a XML schema, so that you can save the filled in data in a database. You can download a trial version here.

Now open up Adobe LiveCycle Designer and using the objects library create a form (designing forms is a complete topic by itself which I will cover a bit later). Use XML Spy and create a simple XML Schema (for more help visit here) and 'bind' the schema to your form. Next make the form reader 'enabled' by enabling reader extensions in Adobe Acrobat and voila, your form is ready to be viewed in any Adobe Reader.

You can add much smarts in your forms so that you only capture valid and useful information with minimum user error. Its a brave new world, which would hopefully save us time, money and trees.

If you have any more questions or need a commercial Adobe LiveCycle form created contact me and we can discuss it further.

GoDaddy domain new/renewal Discount code - 30% off - EXPIRED

2010-03-16T22:37:00.004+11:00

If you have a domain name with GoDaddy.com coming up for renewal, use the following code to get a 30% discount.

Register or renew as many .COM, .NET or .ORG domain names as you want and SAVE 30% OFF the current site price with the following code "gda347a".

The code expires on 4 April 2010. Happy registering :-)

Microsoft Security Essentials the best Anti-virus?

2009-11-09T21:56:00.003+11:00

You dont really hear the word 'Microsoft' and 'anti-virus' together, let alone it being the best of its kind. A recent poll on a reputed website showed (at least till 10pm AEST) that Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is the best free anti-virus software for Windows beating AVG, Avast, NOD32 and Avira.

Now Microsoft has some great products but Redmond still has a long way to go when it comes to anti-virus scanners. I've used MSE and its all right but not as good as some other products out on the net. Even the free ones, easily give MSE a good run for its money. My biggest argument is its functionality, I think its not that feature rich yet to be even considered an option. Just coz MS offers it doesnt mean that its upto a certain standard.

So I think the users of the above website might be mom and dad users who use MSE coz it come pre-installed with Windows and the poll is perhaps not a true reflection of its user base. Peace.

Flash Player 10 not backward compatible

2009-11-01T14:16:00.003+11:00

Are you wondering why some online flash videos or live streams are just displaying a blank black screen in your browser. Well don't fret, as I have the solution for it.

I had Flash Player 9 on Firefox 3.5.2 running on my Win XP SP2 machine and of late I wasn't seeing some of the online videos or live streams at sites I regularly visit, I mean I was seeing just a blank black screen. I asked around, spoke to help desks and nobody seemed to know. Anyways on some research I found that if the video or live stream you are watching is encoded in Adobe Flash 10, you wont be able to see it in Flash 9 or back.

Just upgrade your Flash Player to version 10 and you will be up and running. I wonder why Adobe is forcing everybody to upgrade to Flash Player 10. Anyways you can download Flash Player 10 here.

EDS is now "HP Enterprise Services"

2009-09-24T12:20:00.001+10:00

HP has announced that EDS (Electronic Data Systems) a company it acquired in May 2008, will now become HP Enterprise Services. Nearly a year after it acquired EDS, the brand name has been scrapped which has been synonymous with outsourcing since 1962 when it was founded by Ross Perot.

EDS was renowned for its success in winning major private industry and government IT projects. The name change emphasizes EDS business unit’s global role as the enterprise technology services component of the HP portfolio. The move supports a year-long effort to transfer to HP the strong services brand equity that EDS has built over nearly 50 years and to place the global power and recognition of the HP brand behind its robust technology services portfolio.

The EDS.com website now redirects to the HP Enterprise Services page.

As of 2008, EDS employed 139,000 employees in 64 countries, the largest locations being the USA, India and the UK. It is ranked as one of the largest service companies on the Fortune 500 list with around 2,000 clients. EDS also has an active presence in Australia.

RIP EDS.

Change Sunbird 0.9 event background colours

2009-09-23T18:02:00.002+10:00

If you use Mozilla Sunbird to organize your daily schedule, chances are you might be fed-up with the blue look and feel. Unfortunately Sunbird has no flag to change the background colour of an event, so that it stands out a bit more. I reckon a colour coded calendar is much better than just one blue one. Here is the hack to change Sunbird event background colours and in turn organize your already busy life a little bit better.

Here we go,

Go to your Sunbird installation folder, on my PC its C:\Program Files\Sunbird\Data\profile\
Within the profile folder, create a new folder called 'chrome'. Now your folder structure should look like this C:\Program Files\Sunbird\Data\profile\chrome\

In this folder create a new file called 'userChrome.css'. Now open this file in your favourite editor and paste the following code,

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");
.calendar-event-box-container[categories~="Creditcard"]{
 color: red                       !important;
 border-color: red         !important;
 background-color: yellow;
 background-position: center center;
 background-repeat: no-repeat;
 border-width: 2px  !important;
}

Here replace 'Creditcard' with your category name and 'yellow' with the colour of your choice. Save it and exit your editor.
Now open Sunbird and all events which have the category 'Creditcard' will have a yellow background colour.
Now create new categories within Sunbird at Tools -> Options -> Categories. And then edit the userChrome.css file with the respective category names and colours and voila you will have a nice colour coded calendar.

Hint: Use red background colour for anything urgent, so that it catches your attention immediately. Now you won't forget to pay your electricity bill on time and also remember the important date at the restaurant :-).

Firefox 3.5 Download Manager keyboard shortcuts do not work?

2009-09-23T14:30:00.001+10:00

If you are like me, you like to perform most of your Firefox actions using keyboard shortcuts. The mouse is a mere backup for complicated tasks. Anyways I was using Firefox 3.5 Download Manager today and it seems like none of the keyboard shorcuts actually work. Am I dreaming or doing something wrong or is it a genuine (dare to say) bug.

On the Download Manager pop-up window the following keyboard shortcuts work,

Ctrl + F - Find
Alt + C - Clear download list.

But the following shortcuts do not work, but they should because if you right click within the Download Manager the shortcuts have underlined characters hence indicating a keyboard shortcut. The following keyboard shorcuts do not work (at least for me),

Alt + O - Open
Alt + F - Open containing folder
Alt + G - Go to download page
Alt + L - Copy download link
Alt + A - Select all
Alt + E - Remove from list

I also tried using the Ctrl and Shift keys with the above combinations but none of them worked.

So whats wrong here, did Mozilla forget to implement keyboard shortcuts for the Download Manager or I am just not doing something right. What are your thoughts.

Why are Web Designers lazy to change websites default favicon

2009-09-22T23:06:00.004+10:00

These days with the advent of Web 2.0 web sites are pretty slick in look and feel and functionality. Especially global technology powerhouses spend a lot of research, time and resources in developing a very good looking and functional web site. Essentially a web site is a company's best marketing and branding product. But what happens when website developers often overlook some simple and basic details.

I often visit sites where I have noticed that developers do not use a custom 'site specific' favicon. So instead of seeing the company's logo we see the web servers logo such as Tomcat, WebSphere, Solaris etc. By default if you do not change a sites favicon, the web server uses its own. I guess there is nothing wrong in it, but it shows carelessness or laziness on part of the development team. I believe no website is complete with its own favicon.

Here are at least two sites which are global brands and still use the default favicon (incidently both are running Sun servers),

Samsung Mobile - http://au.samsungmobile.com/icon/index.do?cid=au_banner_samsungcomswf_iconrange
Telstra bill payment - https://onlinebilling.telstra.com.au/billing/action/payment/onlinepayment?tR=3ma

A favicon is a 16x16 sized image file. If you want to do the right thing and display a custom favicon for your web application use the following W3C compliant code,
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="MY_ICON.png">

For more information on adding a favicon to your site click here. Till then keep up the good work.

6 ways to relax your mind while programming

2009-09-21T09:58:00.004+10:00

We all live/work in a highly stressful work environment especially software developers. Software projects are always behind schedule and we are nearly always expected to come up with a cutting edge, stable solution in quick time using minimal resources (duh). Such practices always put a strain on people's lifestyle and professional and married life. So if you are developer, follow these 6 techniques to improve your productivity and reduce your stress level.

I know stress is sometimes unavoidable, but try and minimize it by following some handy techniques,

Listen to soft instrumental music - Now I don't mean high volume heavy metal music, just something calm, slow and mild. Something which will make your brain feel like its being loved. I personally prefer instrumental love songs as they make me feel quite relaxed.
Use a dual monitor setup - Having your emails and browser open up side by side your IDE is actually a pretty good habit. You will exercise your neck, take regular breaks to check/reply your emails and most of all your eyes will appreciate the change of scenery :-).
Do not rely completely on Google for your research - Pleassse, Googling does not equate to researching. All these online resources just make you more and more confused and eventually your brain just gets saturated. Instead use forums or mailing lists, as you will do one-on-one communication with people who are pros in their respective fields and actually learn something in the process. Google is your best friend in some ways but also your worst in some.
Write your thoughts on paper before you actually start developing - I don't think people even do this any more. Don't just jump into programming once you have an idea, actually put it on paper first. Draw some diagrams, think it over, debate your decision and most importantly convince yourself that you are doing the best.
Take regular breaks - Eat, drink or take a short walk and do not just sit in your cubicle for 8 straight hours. This will help your body and also your mind. Check out some guys/gals, have tea or just watch the birds, just do anything other than using your brain. Your body will thank you.
Do not have your lunch on your desk - Get away from your PC. Unplug yourself. Get out and take in the sights. Have some sushi or eat something which you have never tried before. I once tried Thai food and loved it. Try some Indian sweets. Explore and you shall find.

I followed these techniques for a week and believe me I am feeling relaxed already. I don't go home stressed and best of all don't dread Mondays any more.

Chrome 3 comes to life

2009-09-16T20:48:00.003+10:00

Google has released a newer stable update to Chrome christened Chrome 3. This new revision boasts quite a lot of improvements both under and above the hood. But on the same token, if you have already being playing with Chrome 4 in the dev channel then this update might be worth ignoring.

Chrome 3 has the following updates/fixes,

HTML 5 - This is the only reason I am updating. Chrome 3 has full support for HTML 5 including audio, video and canvas tags
Speed - It is 'much' faster than any previous Chrome release (aka Chrome 1 or 2) on both the V8 and SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks. Just use the browser and you will notice the speed jump for yourself
New tab page - The new tab page is more customizable, basically you can move around items.
Better search box - Chrome 3 has some visual improvements to its search box
Themes - This is following in the footsteps of Firefox. Chrome has its own customizable look and feel option now. The list of available themes is also growing steadily

Check it out yourself. You can download Chrome 3 here.

Complete list of VLC 1.0.1 shortcuts

2009-09-16T14:21:00.002+10:00

VLC Media Player 1.0.1 is definitely the best, open source, cross platform, free media player, framework and server available at the moment. It supports virtually every available audio/video codec and makes playing media files so much simpler and hassle free. But I think its User Interface (UI) could be better and it has a lot of functions which are sort of complicated to access. So here I present the complete list of keyboard shortcuts which allow you to access a lot of its hidden gems.

Here is the complete list of keyboard shortcuts (in the best possible order),

a – Cycle source aspect ratio
b - Cycle audio track
c – Cycle video crop
d - Cycle de-interlace modes
e - Next frame
f – Switch to full screen
g – Subtitle delay down of -50ms
h – Subtitle delay up of +50ms
i - Show interface
j - Audio delay down of -50ms
k – Audio delay up of +50ms
l - Normal/repeat/loop
m – Mute/un-mute
n – Play next media from the playlist
o - Toggle auto scaling
p – Play the Previous media in the playlist
r - Random
s – Stop playback
t – Position
V – Enable subtitles (if available)
w - Toggle wallpaper mode in video output
z – Zoom

+ – Play faster
- – Play slower
= - Normal rate
] - Play faster (fine)
[ - Play slower (fine)

Ctrl + g – Extend GUI
Ctrl + m – Go to DVD Menu
Ctrl + p – Playlist
Ctrl + q - Quit
Ctrl + r – Record
Ctrl + Arrow Up - Increase volume
Ctrl + Arrow Down – Decrease the volume
Ctrl + Left/Right Arrow – Forward or Rewind the video
Ctrl + Left - Medium backwards jump
Ctrl + Right - Medium forward jump
Ctrl + Alt + Left - Long backwards jump
Ctrl + Alt + Right - Long forward jump
Ctrl + Alt + m - Do not display OSD menu on video output
Ctrl + 1 - 1:4 Quarter screen size
Ctrl + 2 - 1:2 Half screen size
Ctrl + 3 - 1:1 Original screen size
Ctrl + 4 - 2:1 Double screen size
Ctrl + F1 - Set playlist bookmark 1
Ctrl + F2 - Set playlist bookmark 2
Ctrl + F3 - Set playlist bookmark 3
Ctrl + F4 - Set playlist bookmark 4
Ctrl + F5 - Set playlist bookmark 5
Ctrl + F6 - Set playlist bookmark 6
Ctrl + F7 - Set playlist bookmark 7
Ctrl + F8 - Set playlist bookmark 8
Ctrl + F9 - Set playlist bookmark 9
Ctrl + F10 - Set playlist bookmark 10

Shift + Left - Very short backwards jump
Shift + Right - Very short forward jump
Shift + b - Select next DVD title
Shift + d - Dump
Shift + g - Go back in browsing history
Shift + h - Go forward in browsing history
Shift + i - Show interface
Shift + m - Go to DVD menu
Shift + n - Select next DVD chapter
Shift + o - Select previous DVD title
Shift + p - Select previous DVD chapter
Shift + r - Record
Shift + s - Take video snapshot

Alt + o - Increase scale factor
Alt + Shift + o - Decrease scale factor
Alt + Left - Short backwards jump
Alt + Right - Short forward jump

Enter - Activate
Esc - Leave fullscreen
Shift + z - Un-zoom
Space - Play/Pause
Arrow Up - Navigate up
Arrow Down - Navigate down
Arrow Left - Navigate left
Arrow Right - Navigate right

Alt + c - Crop one pixel from bottom of video
Alt + d - Crop one pixel from left of video
Alt + f - Crop one pixel from right of video
Alt + r - Crop one pixel from top of video
Alt + Shift + c - Uncrop one pixel from bottom of video
Alt + Shift + d - Uncrop one pixel from left of video
Alt + Shift + f - Uncrop one pixel from right of video
Alt + Shift + r - Uncrop one pixel from top of video
Alt + Shift + Arrow Right - Highlight widget on the right
Alt + Shift + Arrow Left - Highlight widget on the left
Alt + Shift + Arrow Up - Highlight widget on top
Alt + Shift + Arrow Down - Highlight widget below
Alt + Shift + Enter - Select current widget

F1 - Play plalist bookmark 1
F2 - Play plalist bookmark 2
F3 - Play plalist bookmark 3
F4 - Play plalist bookmark 4
F5 - Play plalist bookmark 5
F6 - Play plalist bookmark 6
F7 - Play plalist bookmark 7
F8 - Play plalist bookmark 8
F9 - Play plalist bookmark 9
F10 - Play plalist bookmark 10

Phew. I would suggest you printout this list for future reference :-).

Google launches online news reader called FastFlip

2009-09-15T12:31:00.000+10:00

Google has unveiled an online news reader called 'Fast Flip' (similar to a picture slideshow) featuring content from the New York Times, Slate, Esquire, Newseek and BBC amongst others. Fast flip presents users thumbnails of various news stories, further allowing them to look at content from a particular news source.

Fast Flip allows readers to browse news stories by topic, publication or by what is most viewed or most popular. It shows only the first page of a story and users who want to read more have to click through to the source website. It also allows users to share content with friends or members of a social network and is also offering a mobile version of the product (great for the business travelers). Like all new Google products, it is still an experimental Google Labs product for now.

Fast Flip displays Adsense ads, hence allowing it to share revenue with its media partners. In this day and age of declining media revenue, perhaps this is another resource stream for companies.

I personally prefer RSS as its light and presents information from various sources in a condensed format. But Fast Flip is nevertheless a good start from Google. Check it out here.

Search Google and Bing together in one click

2009-09-14T23:06:00.002+10:00

With Google and Bing fighting it out in the search market, it seems like the end users are the real winners. Imagine if Google and Bing could merge their results/functionality and present us with condensed results, surely that would be the holy grail of search. But that is a distant dream.

The following sites present Google and Bing search results side by side together, so you can compare and see which results suit your needs,

BingandGoogle.com - Presents Google and Bing search results separated by a vertical bar. Less customizable but does the job.
BingVsGoogle.com - Presents Google and Bing seach results together. More customizable with a better user experience

I am making the habit of using these sites now instead of just Google or Bing, coz it helps to view more results without visiting two different search engines. Check them out.

Google Maps API version3 released

2009-09-14T20:56:00.004+10:00

Google has released version 3 of their Google Map API. And believe me I have been looking forward to this update. The JavaScript API might look similar to version 2 but much has changed under the hood. Version 3 is designed to load much faster, especially on mobile browsers in Windows Mobile based smartphones, Android based devices and Apple iPhone.

The biggest difference (and a reason good enough for me to update to v3) is that v3 no longer needs API keys, so you dont have to worry about getting a new API key everytime you start a new project or change IP addresses. Other than that most of the updates are in the JavaScript code related to speed, performance and stability.

Use the following syntax, if you are developing for web applications,

<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script>

.

Use the following syntax, if you are developing for the portable/phone/PDA platform,

<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=true"></script>

If you want to improve the performance of your Google Map based application then you must upgrade to v3. For more information click here.

Bing upgrade in the pipeline

2009-09-14T11:36:00.002+10:00

Bing has proved to be a worthy competitor to Google Search. I won't get into the comparison, but I usually find what I am looking for in Bing, if I get bored of Google. So rumour has it that Microsoft is readying an upgrade to Bing.

MS is so far tight lipped on what new features would be added but its quite refreshing to see MS taking the initiative and tackling Google head-on. I think MS will release new Bing features gradually instead of making one new version release.

So far the list of new features is pretty scanty but might include an improved search, integration with Bing maps, integration with silverlight, perhaps even Bing coming out of Beta.

Lets see if the new Bing ads more bling or is just a minor tweak. Time will tell.

802.11n Wi-Fi standard approved (finally...)

2009-09-14T11:32:00.001+10:00

The IEEE has finally approved the 802.11n high throughput and quicker wireless LAN (wi-fi) standard. The 'N' standard is capable of delivering throughput speeds of upto 300 Mbps and probably even higher, so its quite a big leap from the current 'G' standard which provides a maximum speed of 54 Mbps.

All these years consumers have been buying products which are 802.11n Draft compatible. But with this approval 'N' is an official standard and all consumer products can be upgraded to the official standard through a firmware upgrade. I use such a wireless router but I doubt I will ever get speeds even remotely close to 300 Mbps even with a firmware upgrade.

The new standard has taken nearly six years from when the first draft version was announced and has been through various draft iterations. The good news is that we have an official standard which should drastically improve data transfer speeds (if your network can support them) and probably reduce time waiting staring at the download progress bar :-)

For more information click here.

Fact or Fiction: IE8 much much faster than Firefox 3.5

2009-09-11T16:12:00.002+10:00

We all love to hate IE and adore Firefox. Historically Firefox has been the coolest internet browser and IE probably the crappiest. But seriously has anybody tried to run IE8 and Firefox 3.5 at the same time on a Windows XP SP2 machine. I think the results at least surprised me.

By default my work PC got updated to IE8 yesterday. And I wasn't happy. I didn't ever bother trying IE, but I had to use it today as I needed to test something in IE. To my astonishment IE8 felt much much quicker than Firefox 3.5 that it wasn't funny. Just using it felt like it being much quicker and more responsive to my actions. I visited my standard sites and they all looked nice and rendered quickly. There was no time lag or the feel of the site looking 'different' than it does in FF.

I had both FF3.5 and IE8 running together for approx 15mins and the following is their memory footprint,
IE 42MB and FF 164MB

FF has extensions and I love it, no doubt. But IE8 is a genuine improvement.

I think people should notice that IE8 performance wise is not that bad. Feature wise its a different story.

Ads in RSS feeds, right or wrong?

2009-09-10T19:09:00.001+10:00

We all see ads everytime we surf the net, they are just about everywhere. But when you start seeing ads in places you dont expect them to, thats when things get kinda wierd. I mean I am all for advertising and its part of the Internet's business model, I figure that. But why show ads in RSS feeds?

If you use Firefox, adBlock does not block ads in RSS feeds. But I think its the wrong place to show ads in the first place. You use RSS to further enhance your site's reachability and not for showing ads at every possible chance. I guess these days its all about revenue and with Adsense you can just about place ads anywhere you like. Personally I use RSS to save bandwidth and I like its condensed feel. But when I see ads even in RSS/Atom feeds it just drives me crazy.

What do you think? Peace.

Complete list of Google Chrome keyboard and mouse shortcuts

2009-09-10T13:24:00.002+10:00

Google Chrome is still a new kid on the block. But its usage and featureset is increasing day by day, given the fast frequency of its updates. I was using it yesterday and couldn't figure out keyboard shortcuts to certain functions. Unlike Firefox I think Chrome still lags in a good user experience. So after some research I present you the complete list of Chrome keyboard and mouse shorcuts.

So here we go, if you want print it out for your reference.

Window and tab shortcuts

Ctrl+N - Opens a new window.
Ctrl+T - Opens a new tab.
Ctrl+Shift+N - Opens a new window in incognito mode.
Press Ctrl+O then select file - Opens a file from your computer in Google Chrome.
Press Ctrl and click a link Or click a link with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel) - Opens the link in a new tab in the background.
Press Ctrl+Shift and click a link Or press Shift and click a link with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel) - Opens the link in a new tab and switches to the newly opened tab.
Press Shift and click a link - Opens the link in a new window.
Ctrl+Shift+T - Reopens the last tab you've closed. Google Chrome remembers the last 10 tabs you've closed.
Drag a link to a tab - Opens the link in the tab.
Drag a link to a blank area on the tab strip - Opens the link in a new tab.
Drag a tab out of the tab strip - Opens the tab in a new window.
Drag a tab out of the tab strip and into an existing window - Opens the tab in the existing window.
Press Esc while dragging a tab - Returns the tab to its orginal position.
Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+8 - Switches to the tab at the specified position number on the tab strip.
Ctrl+9 - Switches to the last tab.
Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+PgDown - Switches to the next tab.
Ctrl+Shift+Tab or Ctrl+PgUp - Switches to the previous tab.
Alt+F4 - Closes the current window.
Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4 - Closes the current tab or pop-up.
Click a tab with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel) - Closes the tab you clicked.
Right-click or click and hold either the Back or Forward arrow in the browser toolbar - Displays your browsing history in the tab.
Press Backspace or Alt and the left arrow together - Goes to the previous page in your browsing history for the tab.
Press Shift+Backspace or Alt and the right arrow together - Goes to the next page in your browsing history for the tab.
Press Ctrl and click either the Back arrow, Forward arrow or Go button in the toolbar Or click either button with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel) - Opens the button destination in a new tab in the background.
Double-click the blank area on the tab strip - Maximizes the window.
Alt+Home - Opens your homepage in your current window.

Google Chrome feature shortcuts

Ctrl+B - Toggles the bookmarks bar on and off.
Ctrl+Shift+B - Opens the Bookmark manager.
Ctrl+H - Opens the History page.
Ctrl+J - Opens the Downloads page.
Shift+Esc - Opens the Task Manager.
Shift+Alt+T - Sets the focus on the browser toolbar. Use right and left arrows on the keyboard to navigate to different buttons on the toolbar.
Ctrl+Shift+J - Opens Developer Tools.
Ctrl+Shift+Delete - Opens the Clear Browsing Data dialog.
F1 - Opens the Help Center in a new tab.

Address bar shortcuts (Use the following shortcuts in the address bar)

Type a search term, then press Enter - Performs a search using your default search engine.
Type a search engine keyword, press Space, then Tab when prompted, type a search term, and press Enter - Performs a search using the search engine associated with the keyword.
Type a search engine URL, press Tab when prompted, type a search term, and press Enter - Performs a search using the search engine associated with the URL.
Type the part of a URL between 'www.' and '.com', then press Ctrl+Enter - Adds www. and .com to your input and open the resulting URL.
Type a URL, then press Alt+Enter - Opens the URL in a new tab.
F6 or Ctrl+L or Alt+D - Highlights the URL.
Ctrl+K or Ctrl+E - Places a '?' in the address bar. Type a search term after the question mark to perform a search using your default search engine.
Click the address bar, then press Ctrl and the left arrow together - Moves your cursor to the preceding key term in the address bar
Click the address bar, then press Ctrl and the right arrow together - Moves your cursor to the next key term in the address bar
Click the address bar, then press Ctrl+Backspace - Deletes the key term that precedes your cursor in the address bar
Select an entry in the address bar drop-down menu with your keyboard arrows, then press Shift+Delete - Deletes the entry from your browsing history, if possible.
Click an entry in the address bar drop-down menu with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel) - Opens the entry in a new tab in the background.
Press Page Up or Page Down when the address bar drop-down menu is visible - Selects the first or last entry in the drop-down menu.

Webpage shortcuts

Ctrl+P - Prints your current page.
Ctrl+S - Saves your current page.
F5 or Ctrl+R - Reloads your current page.
Esc - Stops the loading of your current page.
Ctrl+F - Opens the find bar.
Ctrl+G or F3 - Finds the next match for your input in the find bar.
Ctrl+Shift+G, Shift+F3 or Shift+Enter - Finds the previous match for your input in the find bar.
Click the middle mouse button (or mousewheel) - Activates auto-scrolling. As you move your mouse, the page automatically scrolls according to the direction of the mouse.
Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5 - Reloads your current page, ignoring cached content.
Press Alt and click a link - Downloads the target of the link.
Ctrl+U - Opens the source of your current page.
Drag a link to bookmarks bar - Bookmarks the link.
Ctrl+D - Bookmarks your current webpage.
F11 - Opens your page in full-screen mode. Press F11 again to exit full-screen.
Ctrl and +, or press Ctrl and scroll your mousewheel up - Enlarges everything on the page.
Ctrl and - or press Ctrl and scroll your mousewheel down - Makes everything on the page smaller.
Ctrl+0 - Returns everything on the page to normal size.
Space bar - Scrolls down the web page.
Home - Goes to the top of the page.
End - Goes to the bottom of the page.
Press Shift and scroll your mousewheel - Scrolls horizontally on the page.

Text shortcuts

Highlight content, then press Ctrl+C - Copies content to the clipboard.
Place your cursor in a text field, then press Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert - Pastes content from the clipboard.
Place your cursor in a text field, then press Ctrl+Shift+V - Paste content from the clipboard without formatting.
Highlight content in a text field, then press Ctrl+X or Shift+Delete - Deletes the content and copies it to the clipboard.

Hopefully this list will save you time, energy and some hair tearing ;-).

Qantas outsources to IBM in a deal worth $200m

2009-09-10T12:23:00.001+10:00

Qantas has signed a seven year outsourcing deal with IBM. The deal essentially effects 178 Qantas staff who would be offered to either move to IBM or accept redundancy packages. The work involves managing Qantas's data centre and mainframe services.

The deal is quite big in monetory terms and also employee numbers. Most of the effected staff have been offered IBM positions and have until 30 September to accept or reject offers. Hopefully they will be offered similar renumuration packages. Staff who do not accept and decide to move on, will be offered redundancy packages in accordance with Qantas policies.

Qantas Corporate Services and Technology Executive Manager David Hall said he was confident that IBM will deliver significant benefits to the airline including savings over seven years.

Nothing wrong with giving work to IBM but a bit of bugger that Qantas no longer does anything inhouse.

Extensions coming to Chrome....watchout Firefox

2009-09-10T10:55:00.002+10:00

On a blog post Aaron Boodman, a Software Engineer working on Google Chromium has revealed that extensions are finally coming to Google Chrome. Hurrrayyy. Extensions are small bits of addons which improve the functionality/user experience/productivity of your browser.

As of wednesday extensions have been turned on by default on the dev channel. At the moment there are 3 extensions namely GMail checker, Subscribe to Google Reader and Build bot monitor and you can find them here. I think its terrific news for Chrome and will definitely go a long way increasing its adoptability.

Personally the only thing stopping me from jumping from Firefox to Chrome is extensions and from the looks of it I think the switch might happen very very soon ;).

Pictures of Telstra Global Operations Centre (Melbourne)

2009-08-30T11:35:00.003+10:00

On 27th August Telstra celebrated the 10th anniversary of the consolidation of its network operation management to a single site at Clayton, Melbourne. The site named Global Operations Centre (GOC) is where Telstra monitors the entire country's telecommunication network at a single place.

This place boasts a huge NASA style 30 screen monitor system, which displays information on country's telecommunication, Internet and cable TV network. Its probably one of its kind in Australia, both on the merit of its scale and cutting edge infrastructure.

ITNews.com.au recently had the pleasure of visiting the GOC and you can read more about it here and check out pictures here.

How to find the best online computer deals and save $$$!

2009-08-30T11:15:00.002+10:00

If you are like me, you probably buy all computer parts/products online or at least research them vigorously before finalizing your selection. While you want the best bleeding edge product you also want something which wont break your bank. In order to save you time, energy and most importantly money check out the following sites before finalizing any technology related purchase.

The following sites display specials, promotions or discount codes for computing related products. You are bound to find something which will suit what you are looking for, at the cheapest possible price.

Ozbargain - This site is probably the best place to find the best computer deals. You will find specials, promotions and discount codes for technology related products. You can also discuss what you want or have missed in forums. I never buy anything before checking out this site.
Buckscoop - This is another good site. It also has forums where you can discuss whats the cheapest place for you to buy what you are looking for.
MoneyBackCo - This site offers money back on products from selected companies like Dell, Apple, Lenovo etc. Make a purchase through this site and you will save a further 5-10% of the purchase price.
TopBargains - This site displays various specials, promotions or any discount codes for technology related purchases.

All of these sites are unique and offer different deals, but they will definitely save you money. So check them out.

Java 7 changes finalized

2009-08-30T03:00:00.002+10:00

Java 7 is the next version of our favourite programming language/platform and is expected out in the first quarter of 2010. There has been a lot of debate on what new functionality should go in and what old/redundant stuff should be left out in this new release. Nevertheless, the Sun team have finalized some of the final changes for Java 7.

Some of the new changes accepted for inclusion in Java 7 are:

Strings in switch
Automatic Resource Management
Improved Type Inference for Generic Instance Creation
Simplified Varargs Method Invocation
An omnibus proposal for better integral literals
Language support for Collections
Language support for JSR 292

Some of the changes which were discussed but not accepted for this release are:

Improved Exception Handling for Java
Elvis and Other Null-Safe Operators
Large arrays

The complete list of changes accepted for Java 7 is a completely different topic and I will discuss that later.

Hopefully the new changes will make Java an improved, quicker and more stable platform to program on. For more information read this. Way to go Sun :).

Windows 7 to debut in NY

2009-08-28T12:50:00.002+10:00

It looks like the big apple is still Microsoft's favourite spot for product releases. Microsoft has confirmed that Windows7 (like Vista) will be formally released on 22 October in New York. As always Microsoft will use the occasion to lavishly spend money on publicizing its most awaited Windows ever.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will kick of the festivities with hopefully Bill Gates in the background somewhere. News and media companies have apparently started receiving their invites for the big launch. The theme of this years launch is "new efficiency" and how consumers can, with less, do more, with Windows7 range of products.

I already use Windows7 on my laptop so I wont be rushing to buy my copy on that day, but if you want to, you can join the queues at retail stores throughout the country.

Google Maps to provide traffic updates (USA only)

2009-08-27T12:03:00.002+10:00

Google just never stops to amaze me. Google Maps can now display arterial traffic information on US roads, warning users of slow and fast traffic conditions. This is probably the best use of Google Maps so far. You no longer have to rely on radio or TV updates for congested roads, just switch to Google Maps on your mobile or laptop. I love you Google.

Here in Australia, RACQ offers something similar but its no way close and cutting edge to what Google is offering. Now readers in the US can have a quick look at Google Maps in their area before jumping in their cars, to see which roads to avoid, to get home quicker and spend more time doing what they love rather than sit idle in traffic.

Accumulating such information requires some serious infrastructure but Google is relying on the army of volunteers to provide them with this information. Any user who uses Google Maps on their GPS enabled mobile, can send anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast they are moving. And when Google combines this information with other users using a similar service, suddenly we start seeing traffic patterns and when this information is presented in a real time format, its really powerful.

This is what traffic looks like in down town New York right now,

Wonder when Google will start supporting this in all parts of the world, including here in Australia. Way to go Google!!!

Java official coding convention not updated for the last 10 years?

2009-08-26T21:13:00.002+10:00

I've been programming on the Java platform since 2002 but never actually followed official coding convention. So out of interest, I decided to check out the official Sun Coding Convention for Java programming. Content apart, I was surprised at the last update date for the convention. Can you guess?

The last update date for the coding convention is 20 April 1999. Not 2009, but 1999. Thats 10 years ago. Defies belief, I mean in all my projects I always insist on keeping documentation updated, but if Sun itself does not update official documentation for the 10 years, what does it tell us.

Perhaps with Oracle taking over Sun, things would change for the better. Come on Sun, get your act together I expect more from you.

Am I addicted to Firefox?

2009-08-26T15:48:00.002+10:00

People have various kinds of addictions. Some are addicted to their TV, some to sleep and some to Angelina Jolie. But me my good friends, am addicted to Firefox. At least I think I am. Of all the crazy things in the world, a browser, which in not even tangible and exists only in the virtual world of computing. My friends and family think I am crazy and here's why.

Every morning, I switch on my PC and click on the firefox shortcut on my taskbar.
I check my 12 GMail account's using GMail Manager.
I check the weather using ForecastFox.
I check the World/US/UK/Asia/Australia/Technology/Sports news on my Wizz RSS News reader.
Then I play some music using FoxyTunes.
When surfing the net, I usually have Google open, but I will still type in my search text in the search bar within Firefox (I know sounds crazy).
I like to customize 'my' Firefox to no extent. I want it to be the most beautiful Firefox on this planet. Everyday I play with themes and Personas to make it more prettier.
I constantly tweak its settings, to make it fastest and more stable.
Even when I am not with my laptop, I carry Firefox Portable on my trusted USB key wherever I go.
To my coworkers, family, friends I just cant stop rambling about how IE sucks and Firefox rocks.
When surfing the net, I open up every new link in a new tab, to fill my screen with at least 25 tabs.
Even when I'm programming, I have firefox open on my second monitor. I don't think I ever ever close Firefox unless of course it crashes on me and I have to restart it.
Before I sleep every night, I clean my history to ensure that Firefox is brand spanking clean.

If firefox was a human being, I would positively say that Firefox knows me better than anybody else, coz we spend all our time time together, happily.

Why doesn't Google Chrome have an official version number?

2009-08-24T16:31:00.001+10:00

I visited the Google Chrome home page today and was unable to find any references to a version number anywhere. Only after you download Chrome and see its About box, do you realize its version 2.0.XXX.XX. Also you are unable to download previous older versions of Chrome. Not sure why?

Chrome is different from other browsers in many ways and one being that it constantly updates itself to the latest build, so you will always have the latest version. Its a good thing, but what about browser compatibility. If you are a developer building a web app on one version, you expect your app to be compatible with 'a' version of Chrome and not all future versions. What if you want to roll back to a previous release for whatever reason, what do you do then? Also there should be an official standalone exe for Chrome installation, so that you don't have to download it again everytime.

I think Chrome is a next generational browser, but by taking away control from its users its going the IE way. Peace.

Downloads - Best Free/LightWeight Image Resizer Tool (WIN)

2009-08-24T14:48:00.002+10:00

If you have ever tried to resize pictures, you know what a hassle it is. I mean you don't want anything fancy, just a simple tool to make your pic smaller without loss of resolution. I tried a few programs and every one had its issues from being just too complicated, too big or too memory hungry. But here is a small and free tool which you can use to scale down your images.

Surprisingly this gem comes from Microsoft and is part of the PowerToys suite. Its called Image Resizer and is 521Kb in size :-). It will resize any pics in the PNG, JPG and GIF format. Download it here.

After you have installed it, right click on any image and select 'Resize Pictures', select the size you want and voila! you will have that image in the same folder (with a different name of course).

Simple and time saving. I personally think, its better than any external software. Give it a try.

Top 100 websites to NOT VISIT

2009-08-21T08:48:00.003+10:00

Symantec has released a list of 100 dirty websites which are well 'dirty', in other words are dangerous from a security point of view, display inappropriate content and without your knowledge can steal information from you. Symantec reckons that just visiting these sites is very very bad idea, so please do not.

I have never heard of most of the sites on the list and have never visited them either. So a preview of the list is,

WARNING: Please do not visit any of the below sites unless you have a firewall, antivirus and spyware scanner and ad-blocker running on your computer.

17ebook.com
aladel.net
bpwhamburgorchardpark.org
clicnews.com
dfwdiesel.net
divineenterprises.net
fantasticfilms.ru
gardensrestaurantandcatering.com
ginedis.com
gncr.org
hdvideoforums.org
hihanin.com
kingfamilyphotoalbum.com
likaraoke.com
mactep.org
magic4you.nu
marbling.pe.kr
nacjalneg.info
pronline.ru
purplehoodie.com
qsng.cn
seksburada.net
sportsmansclub.net
stock888.cn
tathli.com
teamclouds.com
texaswhitetailfever.com
wadefamilytree.org
xnescat.info
yt118.com

For the complete list you need to join the Norton Safeweb community here.

Tip: Complete list of Internet Explorer 8 shortcuts

2009-08-20T21:08:00.004+10:00

Without a doubt, Internet Explorer 8 is the best IE ever. Its definitely better than IE7 and much much better than IE6. I still remember the days when IE4 was a revelation, but technology has moved forward so quickly that browsers have had a tough time keeping up. Nevertheless with Windows 7 on the horizon, it helps to familiarize yourself with IE8 shortcuts.

So here I present the complete list of IE8 shorcuts for your reference,

General

Turn Full Screen Mode on or off - F11
Cycle through the Address Bar, Refresh button, Search Box, and items on a web page - TAB
Find a word or phrase on a page - CTRL+F
Open the current webpage in a new window - CTRL+N
Print the page - CTRL+P
Select all items on the page - CTRL+A
Zoom in - CTRL+PLUS
Zoom out - CTRL+MINUS
Zoom to 100% - CTRL+0

Navigation shortcuts

Go to home page - ALT+HOME
Go backward - ALT+LEFT
Go forward - ALT+RIGHT
Refresh page - F5
Refresh page and the cache - CTRL+F5
Stop downloading page - ESC

Favorites Center shortcuts

Open Favorites - CTRL+I
Open Favorites in pinned mode - CTRL+SHIFT+I
Organize Favorites - CTRL+B
Add current page to Favorites - CTRL+D
Open Feeds - CTRL+J
Open Feeds in pinned mode - CTRL+SHIFT+J
Open History - CTRL+H
Open History in pinned mode - CTRL+SHIFT+H

Tab shortcuts

Open link in new background tab - Middle mouse button or CTRL+left mouse button
Open link in new foreground tab - CTRL+SHIFT+left mouse button or CTRL+SHIFT+middle mouse button
Close tab (closes window if only one tab is open) - Middle mouse button on the tab or CTRL+W
Open Quick Tab view - CTRL+Q
Open new tab - CTRL+T
View list of open tabs - CTRL+SHIFT+Q
Switch to next tab - CTRL+TAB
Switch to previous tab - CTRL+SHIFT+TAB

Address Bar shortcuts

Select the Address Bar - ALT+D
Add "http://www." to the beginning and ".com" to the end of text in Address Bar - CTRL+ENTER
Add "http://www." to the beginning and the website address suffix you have specified to the end of text in the Address Bar - CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER
Open the website address that is typed in the Address Bar in new tab - ALT+ENTER
View list of previously typed addresses - F4

Instant Search Box

Select the Instant Search Box - CTRL+E
View list of search providers - CTRL+DOWN
Open search results in new tab - ALT+ENTER

Hopefully these tips will improve your IE8 experience. Check them out yourselves.

Bing Maps missing train stations?

2009-08-20T11:35:00.003+10:00

I was using Bing Maps this morning to find my way around Melbourne CBD and I was shocked to see that Melbourne Central and Parliament train stations did not show up on my Bing map. At first I thought I was looking at the wrong map and then I realised that Bing does not display Train Stations at all 'zoom' levels. What a goof up.

Here is the screenshot of Melbourne CBD without Melbourne Central and Parliament train stations.

If I zoom out I can only see Melbourne Central and not Parliament,

and if I zoom in further I can only see Parliament and not Melbourne Central. Seriously.

I think Microsofts Bing team forgot that Train Stations (or any POIs) should be visible at all zoom levels.

Compare this with Google Maps, which displays Melbourne CBD train stations at all zoom levels.

This just shows that using Bing Maps in your applications could prove risky, as clients might complain of missing POIs. Check it out yourself.

Twitter 'Tweet' patent application rejected.

2009-08-20T10:36:00.003+10:00

It seems the US Patent Office has rejected Twitters claim to the 'Tweet' trademark and I think rightly so. Surely Twitter is a big brand now and we all 'Tweet' 24/7, but that does not mean that Tweet is a Twitter specific term. Whats wrong with all these companies, as soon as they become popular they want to trademark everything from their name to any generic variations of their names.

I remember when I was young, I use to love Tweety my favourite cartoon character and even today you can see the word Tweety on 4WD stickers or tyre covers. Also if you perform a search on Wikipedia you will find that Tweet is a well known bird sound. This proves that Tweet is a generic everyday use common word and not specific to Twitter.

But the point is Twitter does not have the right to 'Tweet' as much as Google does not have the right to 'Googling' and Bing does not have the right to 'Binging'. For more information check out their patent application here.

Google Search results page looks really chaotic.

2009-08-19T14:52:00.003+10:00

I was doing my usual Googling this morning and something stuck me as I stared at my search results. To me at least, the Google search results page looks extremely cluttered. Also if you look at the page for a good 5 seconds, you get the feeling that there is too much text to read and the page looks quite bland (mostly white and blue).

The left, top and right sections are filled up with non-useful information (75%) and the bit which I am interested in, is squished in the middle (25%). Also I noticed considerable wasted white space on the bottom left (below Options) and on the right of Sponsored Links.

And if you look at the page as a whole too, I find it quite boring and too chaotic.

Is this Google paranomia or I have used Google for way too long, that my eyes are just bored of its look and feel. Either way I think its time that Google revamped its look and feel. Agreed less is good, but too less makes it look incompetent. Peace.

Yahoo and Hotmail still giving stiff competition to GMail

2009-08-18T22:22:00.003+10:00

Sounds unbelievable but is true, Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Hotmail are still a force to reckon with in the EMail business and are actually giving Google GMail stiff competition. Recent figures from ComScore suggest that Yahoo is still king of EMail communication.

Its hard to believe that in this day and age, people still use anything other than GMail. I mean I used to live on Hotmail, then jumped to Yahoo and then jumped to GMail, given GMail's ease, simplicity and feature reach functions. Recent figures show that in June 2009 Yahoo had 106.2 million users, Hotmail had 47.1 million users and GMail has 36.9 million users.

(Credit: ComScore Media Metrix)

Wonder what more GMail has to do to increase their customer base. It has cutting edge technology, ease of use and still people don't use it. Wonder why? Food for thought.

SpringSource bought by VMWare.

2009-08-13T10:41:00.000+10:00

The Most popular Enterprise Java framework SpringSource has just been bought by the most popular Virtual Machine software maker VMWare. The deal finalized on Monday was announced by SpringSource CEO Rod Johnson on his blog here. VMware will acquire SpringSource subject to regulatory approval and the merger should be wrapped by Oct 2009. The deal is anticipated to be worth US$420 million, which is I think is quite a lot of dough.

Under the terms of the agreement, VMware will acquire SpringSource for approximately US$362 million in cash and equity plus approximately US$58 million in unvested stock and options. The acquisition has been approved by SpringSource's stockholders and is expected to be approved by US regulators.

I think this merger is good for the Java community, as it will inject a lot of funds into Spring development and innovation and will hopefully help make Spring the best, most reliable, stable and cutting edge Java web framework. Also in this financial climate, its a good boost for the Spring community. Spring+VMWare=Happily ever after.

Judge says RealDVD illegal

2009-08-12T23:53:00.002+10:00

US Federal Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has ruled late on Tuesday (US time) that Real Networks DVD copying software RealDVD violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 that prohibits the circumvention of encryption technology, and is hence illegal. So if you were/are using this software, the use of this software (this time onwards) to make backups of your DVDs is now illegal.

You also cannot download this software any more from the RealDVD website.

Earlier it was 321Studios and then this year Pirate Bay, it seems like the studios are hell bent on prevent any sharing/copying of DVD material.

I am not surprised by this decision, but I think that this question of DVD copying has gone a bit too far. I don't think people even bother to copy DVDs any more, they just purchase them coz they are too damn cheap. Other reason being, why copy when you can buy a personalized DVD edition. What do you think? Peace.

We are back!!!

2009-08-12T23:49:00.001+10:00

Hi everyone. My apologies for the lull period, have been busy with some things in life. But am back now and will be updating the site quite often. I hope you have enjoyed your stay so far and will continue to show us your support. TwistedPin.

Telco to charge customers for paying their bill's (that too on time)

2009-07-21T10:17:00.004+10:00

From 14 September 2009 Telstra (Australia's largest Telecommunication company) will start charging customers AU$2.20 administration fee for paying their bill (on or before the due date) by postal mail, in person at any Telstra Shop or at any Australia Post outlet. This is probably the stupidest way to save money, I've ever heard of.

On top of that Telstra is increasing their credit card payment processing fee to 1% for Visa, MasterCard and American Express users and 2% for Diners card users. Surely a large company like Telstra which processes millions of transactions every day (both for businesses and regular customers) should be able to absorb the cost of credit card fees or other payment charges, but no Telstra is forcing everybody to make online payments using BPay.

This move should be a considerable loss of business to Australia Post and Telstra Shop outlets and I anticipate would lead to further job cuts at Telstra. Credit card companies would also see a decrease in people using their cards. Surely its a loss to Telstra too, everybody who walks into a Telsta Shop outlet is a potential customer for increasing sales and brand awareness.

So what's next?, Coles and Woolworths charging customers to use credit cards at supermarkets. I think Telstra should embrace both online and offline payments as they both have merits.

Make IE8 behave like IE7

2009-07-20T13:59:00.002+10:00

If you are working on an Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) project and the client suddenly decides to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), you will end up wasting countless hours just getting the JavaScript and CSS to work correctly in IE8. Given, IE8 is the latest and greatest but its still a new product both for developers and end users. So check out the following code to save you time and grief.

Put the following code in your HTML inbetween the <head></head> tags,

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7"/>

This will force IE8 to behave like IE7, so essentially your code for IE7 won't break in IE8, making you look like a champ :-). So check it out.

Portableapps.com offline?

2009-07-20T11:34:00.003+10:00

I tried to download some portable applications today and noticed that the website Portableapps.com is offline this morning. For those of you who are not aware of this site, its quite a popular site where you can download portable programs for use, without installing them on your local PC/laptop (a great boon for restrictive work environments).

From the message, it looks like its regular maintenance (I hope so) and not some sort of hack.

Lets hope for the best.

Is Geolocation feature in Firefox 3.5 a serious invasion of privacy

2009-07-13T15:51:00.003+10:00

I was testing Firefox sitting at a free wi-fi hotspot today and tried to try out the Geolocation feature in Firefox 3.5. I couldn't find a way to test it other than through the Firefox Geolocation site here. Anyways the result was pretty accurate and scary at the same time. Accurate because the function showed me exactly where I was sitting on Google maps and scary because I didn't expect something like this in a browser

I know Firefox 3.5 has a lot of new functionality which would improve our productivity and reduce any wastage of time, but I found this feature like a big brother thing. I am sure we can have apps which would show me coffee shops, ATMs, post offices etc. closer to my actual physical location, but seriously its quite scary to see my browser picking up my exact physical location and showing it in Google maps. If its so easy for a browser to display my physical location, just imagine the sort of tools ISPs or law enforcement agencies could (or possibly already) have.

But the pressing issue I think is that a browser should not display my location to anybody (not even to me), coz the first thing I would do is disable it. I use the browser to access the net and not publicize my location (knowingly or unknowingly).

Anyways what are your thoughts on this. Would you actually use a web app which would display your physical location and other Points of Interest (POI) around you. Personally I won't, I would rather type a physical address and perform a search.

Best 6 sites for High resolution and widescreen wallpapers

2009-07-12T11:13:00.005+10:00

There are gazzilion sites out there which claim to provide free wallpapers for your desktop. I tried to find some the other day and I was just jumping from one site to another, but with no real satisfaction in the end. Also I have a big 24 inch monitor so I wanted some extra nice wallpapers with really high resolution. In the end I decided to come up with a list which would satisfy my regular wallpaper cravings.

So if want *really really really nice* high resolution, widescreen, dual monitor wallpapers for your desktop, check out my small but evergreen list of the wallpaper repositories.

InterfaceLift - Seriously this site is the holy grail of wallpapers. It is regularly updated, with some wicked quality of wallpapers. Also they offer an insane resolution list from Mobile to Widescreen 16:10 resolution. Am sure you will find something you like here.
Deviant Art - I remember using this site for Windows blinds to start with, but it has slowly grown to become a central repository for everything Windows related, wallpapers included. They offer wallpapers in only one original resolution, but they are still pretty good.
Graffiti Wallpapers - This site might not look that flash, but don't judge a book by its cover. It has a huge repository of wallpapers organized into various categories which you am sure you would like.
EWallpapers - This site is again a big repository of regularly updated wallpapers with a wide variety of resolutions, which you would like. I especially like its tree menu on the left hand side to help me find my desired category real quick.
Wallcoo - This site is again a huge collection of wallpapers, which is also available in Chinese language. You might find it a tad difficult to navigate around this site, but once you get the knack of it, you will appreciate its quality.
Smashing Magazine - This blog based site, offers some really good wallpapers. You will see a nice collection of graphic material including wallpapers. I particularly like their monthly theme of wallpapers. So check it out.
Webshots (Honorable mention) - I used to swear by this site, but not any more. I used to love its paid high resolution section but I no longer like the idea of installing a desktop wallpaper client. So if you don't mind paying and installing a desktop client, then you will love this site.

If these sites do not satisfy your hungry for kick ass wallpapers, believe me nothing else will. So bookmark these sites and let the fun begin :-).

How to generate a LIKE hibernate query

2009-07-10T16:07:00.002+10:00

I recently tried to implement a LIKE Hibernate query in my Spring web application and had a tough time implementing it. How difficult could it be I thought, but I was so wrong. I tried googling but couldn't find a concrete answer, also asked a few colleagues and they suggested it should be similar to SQL, but nothing worked for me. Eventually after different methods I figured out the solution.

So if you want to add 'like' to your query, don't do it in your actual hibernate query string. So for example in SQL you would do,

SELECT * FROM THIS_TABLE WHERE COLUMN_NAME LIKE '%SOME_STRING%';

The obvious solution in hibernate might look like this, but it doesn't work,

Map params = new HashMap();
params.put("searchstring", searchString);
List<MyList> myList = myBo.search("from THIS_TABLE tt where tt.COLUMN_NAME like '%:searchstring%'", params);

I tried a lot of other combinations but nothing did the trick.

Finally I tried this, which is the solution, so append % to your string rather than doing it in hibernate,

String searchString = "%" + searchString + "%";
Map params = new HashMap();
params.put("searchstring", searchString);
List myList = myBo.search("from THIS_TABLE tt where tt.COLUMN_NAME like :searchstring", params);

Hopefully this solution will save you the headache.

PayPal Australia announces developer program

2009-07-09T23:16:00.004+10:00

PayPal today announced the PayPal Certified Developer (PCD) 2.0 certification program in Australia, making it the first of its kind outside United States. Basically any business looking at developing an e-commerce/shopping cart web application (with PayPal integration) can look for developers with this certification.

The exam would consist of 3 levels, with a certification for each level and would include testing in several knowledge areas around PayPal products, as well as payment card industry standards. Each level exam would cost US$100 and candidates would need to pass all 3 to be PCD certified, bringing the combined cost of the exam to $US300. You can access all related information and sample code at the Developer Central Portal.

PayPal is also organising Developer Days where developers will be able to discuss and learn about the certification. And for a limited time everybody participating in Developer Days 2009 would be given free PCD 2.0 exam vouchers for all the 3 levels. Register here.

At the moment there are only 4 listed PCD's in Australia, so this certification could soon become a niche market in itself. So check it out.

Why is Google hell bent on world domination?

2009-07-09T22:07:00.003+10:00

Google recently announced their plans to develop a new Linux based OS, called Chrome OS to rival Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Mac OS X. My first reaction to this announcement was 'whatever', its just another Linux distro like the hundred's already available. But the main issue was 'why', doesn't Google have enough on its plate already.

I know Google has this big stash of money which they are dying to spend, but still. Google's stable already includes,

A Search engine (Google)
Chatting application (GTalk)
Document Processor (Google Docs)
News aggregator (Google News)
Blogging platform (Blogger)
Online video portal (YouTube)
Time Manager (Calendar)
Photo Manager (Picassa)
RSS aggregator (Reader)
Language Translator (Translate)
Data Library (Books)
Article Repository (Scholar)
Discussion Forum (Groups)
GeoSpatial Application (Maps)
Advertising (Adsense)
Topic Organizer (Directory)
Email Communication (GMail)
Online Community (Orkut)
3D Modeller (Sketchup)
Browser (Chrome)
Desktop Search and Widgets (Desktop)
Satellite Imagery (Google Earth), unless I have forgotten something

All these applications are not bug free and neither undisputed leaders (except their flagship search engine, for now) in their respective markets, so there is ample room for innovation and improvement. What Google is doing is, using their existing brand power to jump into every possible market segment imaginable, in the hope of crushing any other current or future competition. I would have expected a 21st century company like Google to know better, its not about quantity but quality. And please don't tell me that its not about making more and more and more money.

So I think Google should get better at what they do already, instead of putting their hand in every possible market. If not then I guess we are looking at our next Microsoft, innovative but too damn greedy and arrogant. Peace.

GMail, GCalendar, GDocs, GTalk officially out of BETA

2009-07-08T12:32:00.002+10:00

Google has finally decided to take its GMail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk suite of applications out of 'Beta' phase and make them LIVE working applications. I think this was long overdue as Gmail has been in the market for nearly 5 years. Usually a product stays in Beta for maybe 6 months but 5 long years is unheard-off.

I think due to the inherent nature of web applications, there are always new fixes and features which can be added, based on what browser, OS or screen resolution you use. Am sure both free and commercial Google products have millions of users, and this would give them added confidence of using a fully tested product instead of one which is still under 'beta testing'. It would be really ironic if Google fixes a bug now, after it has just come out of beta testing.

Further, so you won't notice the Beta label on the Gmail logo when you login onto your Gmail account.

But there is a way for you to turn the 'Beta' label on if you like :-), go to Settings - Labs - Back to Beta and make it Enabled and presto you will have the 'Beta' label back.

So test away and see if the 'new' GMail is more stable than the 'Beta' one.

Make IE6 behave like IE7 or IE8

2009-07-08T10:51:00.004+10:00

If you do developmental work for government agencies, chances are you have come across the software requirement of developing for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) or Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). I know it sounds dinosaur age’ish, but the fact is that even today a lot of government computers still only run Internet Explorer. So trying to write code compatible with IE6 can be quite a pain, as I recently discovered on my project. But worry not, as there is a solution to this problem.

If you need to make IE6 behave like IE7 insert the following code within your <head></head> tags,

<script src="http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/version/2.0(beta3)/IE7.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

This will make your IE6 browser handle PNG transparency and improve on CSS rendering and JavaScript issues, which were resolved in IE7.

If you need to make IE6 behave like IE8 insert the following code within your <head></head> tags,

<script src="http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/version/2.0(beta3)/IE8.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

This will solve further CSS rendering issues, which were resolved in IE8.

So check it out and see how it makes your life easire when developing for IE6.

Firefox 3.5 memory leak to 859MB

2009-07-07T21:39:00.002+10:00

Today, I noticed a memory leak of up to 859MB on my server box running Firefox 3.5. I had the browser running for the last 48 hours and had just one tab open to display my Spring web application. I found this quite astonishing, considering Firefox 3.5 is meant to be more stable and less prone to memory leaks.

Check out the screenshot,

Now I had the following programs running when this happened,

Now my server has a Xeon processor with 2GB of RAM so its all right in terms of its specs. I think perhaps Geoserver tripped it off, as it was trying to render a layer. Either way, I restarted everything and now everything is running fine. Hopefully won't happen again (fingers crossed).

Complete list of HTML 5 tags

2009-07-07T19:21:00.005+10:00

HTML 5 seems to have gained popularity, with support from browsers like Firefox 3.5 and Chrome 2. However its usage still lags in the IT industry, probably because the HTML 5 specification hasn't been finalized yet and more than likely won't be till 2010. In the meantime it doesn't hurt to familiarize yourself with the new tags and get a heads up on how it works.

So this is the complete list of all HTML 5 tags for your reference,

- Defines a comment
<!DOCTYPE> - Defines the document type
<a> - Defines a hyperlink
<abbr> - Defines an abbreviation
<address> - Defines an address element
<area> - Defines an area inside an image map
<article> - Defines an article
<aside> - Defines content aside from the page content
<audio> - Defines sound content
<b> - Defines bold text
<base> - Defines a base URL for all the links in a page
<bdo> - Defines the direction of text display
<blockquote> - Defines a long quotation
<body> - Defines the body element
<br> - Inserts a single line break
<button> - Defines a push button
<canvas> - Defines graphics
<caption> - Defines a table caption
<cite> - Defines a citation
<code> - Defines computer code text
<col> - Defines attributes for table columns
<colgroup> - Defines groups of table columns
<command> - Defines a command button
<datagrid> - Defines data in a tree-list
<datalist> - Defines a dropdown list
<datatemplate - Defines a data template
<dd> - Defines a definition description
<del> - Defines deleted text
<details> - Defines details of an element
<dialog> - Defines a dialog (conversation)
<div> - Defines a section in a document
<dfn> - Defines a definition term
<dl> - Defines a definition list
<dt> - Defines a definition term
<em> - Defines emphasized text
<embed> - Defines external interactive content or plugin
<eventsource> - Defines a target for events sent by a server
<fieldset> - Defines a fieldset
<figure> - Defines a group of media content, and their caption
<footer> - Defines a footer for a section or page
<form> - Defines a form
<h1> to <h6> - Defines header 1 to header 6
<head> - Defines information about the document
<header> - Defines a header for a section or page
<hr> - Defines a horizontal rule
<html> - Defines an html document
<i> - Defines italic text
<iframe> - Defines an inline sub window (frame)
<img> - Defines an image
<input> - Defines an input field
<ins> - Defines inserted text
<kbd>Defines keyboard text
<label> - Defines a label for a form control
<legend> - Defines a title in a fieldset
<li> - Defines a list item
<link> - Defines a resource reference
<mark> - Defines marked text
<map> - Defines an image map
<menu> - Defines a menu list
<meta> - Defines meta information
<meter> - Defines measurement within a predefined range
<nav> - Defines navigation links
<nest> - Defines a nestingpoint in a datatemplate
<noscript> - Defines a noscript section
<object> - Defines an embedded object
<ol> - Defines an ordered list
<optgroup> - Defines an option group
<option> - Defines an option in a drop-down list
<output> - Defines some types of output
<p> - Defines a paragraph
<param> - Defines a parameter for an object
<pre> - Defines preformatted text
<progress> - Defines progress of a task of any kind
<q> - Defines a short quotation
<rule> - Defines the rules for updating a template
<samp> - Defines sample computer code
<script> - Defines a script
<section> - Defines a section
<select> - Defines a selectable list
<small> - Defines small text
<source> - Defines media resources
<span> - Defines a section in a document
<strong> - Defines strong text
<style> - Defines a style definition
<sub> - Defines subscripted text
<sup> - Defines superscripted text
<table> - Defines a table
<tbody> - Defines a table body
<td> - Defines a table cell
<textarea> - Defines a text area
<tfoot> - Defines a table footer
<th> - Defines a table header
<thead> - Defines a table header
<time> - Defines a date/time
<title> - Defines the document title
<tr> - Defines a table row
<ul> - Defines an unordered list
<var> - Defines a variable
<video> - Defines a video

So give it a try.

Tip: Complete list of Firefox 3.5 keyboard shorcuts

2009-07-07T15:36:00.002+10:00

Hopefully you have already downloaded and installed Firefox 3.5 on your PC, if not check out my review and download link here. Even if you are a regular Firefox user am sure you do not know all keyboard shortcuts for all possible options. So to make your life easier, I present the complete list of all keyboard shorcuts in Firefox 3.5.

Here we go,

Navigation

Back - Alt+Left Arrow, Backspace
Forward - Alt+Right Arrow, Shift+Backspace
Home - Alt+Home
Open File - Ctrl+O
Reload - F5, Ctrl +R
Reload (override cache) - Ctrl+F5, Ctrl+Shift+R
Stop - Esc

Current Page

Go to Bottom of Page - End
Go to Top of Page - Home
Move to Next Frame - F6
Move to Previous Frame - Shift+F6

Page Info

Page Source - Ctrl+U
Print - Ctrl+P
Save Page As - Ctrl+S
Zoom In - Ctrl++
Zoom Out - Ctrl+-
Zoom Reset - Ctrl+0

Editing

Copy - Ctrl+C
Cut - Ctrl+X
Delete - Delete
Paste - Ctrl+V
Redo - Ctrl+Y
Select All - Ctrl+A
Undo - Ctrl+Z

Find - Ctrl+F
Find Again - F3, Ctrl+G
Find As You Type Link - '
Find As You Type Text - /
Find Previous - Shift+F3
Web Search - Ctrl+K, Ctrl+E

Windows & Tabs

Close Tab - Ctrl+W, Ctrl+F4
Close Window - Ctrl+Shift+W, Alt+F4
Move Tab Left (when tab is focused) - Ctrl+Left Arrow, Ctrl+Up Arrow
Move Tab Right (when tab is focused) - Ctrl+Right Arrow, Ctrl+Down Arrow
Move Tab to Beginning (when tab is focused) - Ctrl +Home
Move Tab to End (when tab is focused) - Ctrl+End
New Tab - Ctrl+T
New Window - Ctrl+N
Next Tab - Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Page Down
Open Address in New Tab (from Location Bar or Search Bar) - Alt+Enter
Previous Tab - Ctrl+Shift+Tab, Ctrl+Page Up
Undo Close Tab - Ctrl+Shift+T
Select Tab (1 to 8) - Ctrl+(1 to 8)
Select Last Tab - Ctrl+9

Tools

Bookmark All Tabs - Ctrl+Shift+D
Bookmark This Page - Ctrl+D
Bookmarks - Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I
Caret Browsing - F7
Downloads - Ctrl+J
History - Ctrl+H
Clear Private Data - Ctrl+Shift+Del
Error Console - Ctrl+Shift+J

Miscellaneous

Complete .com Address - Ctrl+Enter
Complete .net Address - Shift+Enter
Complete .org Address - Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Delete Selected Autocomplete Entry - Del
Toggle Full Screen - F11
Help - F1
Select Location Bar - Alt+D, F6, Ctrl+L
Select or Manage Search Engines (when Search Bar is focused) - Alt+Up Arrow, Alt+Down Arrow, F4

Hopefully you know most of these already and have learned a few along the way.

Funny headline of the day

2009-07-05T21:36:00.003+10:00

News.com.au has a news article on their front page titled, "MILF blamed for catholic church attack". From the looks of it, it seems that its a typo or the person who does the headlines at News.com.au does not fully understand what they are typing in :-). Am sure my readers will understand the irony here.

FYI the article is about an incident in Philippines. Anyways check out the heading.

Review - Best Australian mobile broadband provider

2009-07-05T18:13:00.004+10:00

A large section of the Australian population does not have access to affordable broadband Internet like Cable or ADSL. So for these unlucky people mobile wireless broadband is the only option. I recently joined the list of these unfortunate people and so was in the market for a cheap and reliable mobile wireless broadband provider. From what I could see, 3 is the cheapest wireless broadband provider and Pre-paid is the way to go (rather than a 12/24 month contract).

I checked out many wireless providers like Optus, 3, Telstra, Vodafone, Dodo and Virgin and from all these 3 proved to be the cheapest. With 3, on prepaid the wireless stick costs AU$129.00 with top-ups costing AU$15 (500MB, 30 days), AU$29 (2GB, 30 days), AU$49 (4GB, 30 days) and AU$129 (12GB, 365 days). 3 also has many post-paid options but I did not want to get tied down to a contract for 12 or 24 months and with prepaid I have the freedom of controlling my monthly spend.

So if you can't get full-on broadband and are looking for a reliable mobile broadband service, check out 3 Mobile broadband here.

Order your copy of Windows 7

2009-07-04T10:53:00.003+10:00

Microsoft has started taking online orders for Windows 7. US and Canadian users have till Saturday July 11 to pre-order Windows 7 online at a bargain price of US$49.99 for a Home Premium upgrade or US$99.99 for a Professional edition upgrade. Pre-orders in UK, Japan, France and Germany will run from July 15 to August 14. Looks like Australia is going to miss out on the pre-orders but will have a free upgrade from Vista promotion.

Users also have the option of ordering the full versions of Windows 7 with prices US$199.99 for the Home Premium edition, US$299.99 for the Professional and US$319.99 for the Ultimate edition.

So if you are keen on getting your hands on Windows 7 on 22 October 2009 and don't want to wait in a long queue at your local store, order online today. For Australian users, purchase a new desktop or laptop from June 26 2009 through January 31 2010 with Vista on it and MS should offer you a free upgrade.

Order online here (US/Canadian users).

Best 24inch LCD monitor - Dell 2408WFPB

2009-07-03T11:00:00.003+10:00

Yesterday I took the delivery of my brand new spanking Dell 24 inch 2408WFPB monitor and I gotta say its the best out there in its range. It came in great packaging and once I opened it, the first thing which came to my mind was a big 'WOW'. I love its grayish black looks with a nice v-shaped stand which makes my workstation look like Tony Stark material :-).

Once connected, it came to life with a nice vibrant screen giving me a resolution of 1920x1200, one of the major reasons for my selection. And the icing on the cake is that I can tilt it 90 degress to give me a straight vertical screen, if I wanted to try something really really different.

I've been in the market for quite some time for a good LCD monitor and I looked at various vendors including HP, Acer, ViewSonic, LG etc but they all looked seriously ugly. I wanted something which would give me a nice big resolution, come with stunning looks and didn't break my bank. Luckily I stumbled on a colleague who was using this monitor at work. So after playing with it for 10 odd minutes, I knew I had found what I was looking for. It costed me AU$1049 at dell.com.au but its worth every cent. Here are some technical details,

Brightness - 400 cd/m2
Response Time - 6ms
Connectivity -
High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
2 Digital Visual Interface - Digital (DVI-D) with High Definition Content Protection (HDCP)
Display Port
Video Graphics Array (VGA)
Separate Video (S-Video)
Composite Video
Component Video
HDMI 2.1 Audio Out
1 USB 2.0 upstream port
4 USB 2.0 downstream ports
9-in-2 media card reader
DC power connector for Dell Soundbar
Adjustability - Height adjustable stand, tilt, swivel, pivot
Warranty - 3 Years Premium Panel Warranty, Advanced Exchange (Next Business Day)2 which can be extended up to 5 years.

So if you are in the market for the best 24inch monitor, you just cant go past the Dell 2408WFPB. You can check it out here.

ETax Software for 2009 Available for Download

2009-07-02T12:49:00.001+10:00

Australians wishing to file in their tax returns for 2008-2009 can now download the ETax 2009 software from the ATO website. The software hasn’t changed much over the years and is pretty much the same in look and feel. With the job market volatility this financial year, I can expect a lot of people to file in their returns online to save money on tax consultants and also to quicken their returns.

The software is still available only for Windows, so Mac and Linux users will have to wait some more. I would encourage everybody to use the software to file in their tax returns this year as it saves paper, time and you can play with the software to maximize your return too. The ATO claims to process your applications within 14 days and from experience its pretty close to it.

Download it from here.

Extra Extra Read All About It - Pirate Bay SOLD!!!

2009-07-01T23:04:00.002+10:00

Pirate Bay one of the biggest icons of the online torrent community has been sold to a Swedish company Global Gaming Factory (GGF) for a paltry 60 million kronor. GGG plan to make PB a legit downloading site by paying royalties to the movie and recording industry namely RIAA and MPAA. Effective immediately PB has closed its torrent trackers and removed all torrents (if any) from its website.

Earlier this year in April a Swedish court sentenced its founders to one year in prison, finding them guilty of promoting copyright infringement and fining them 30 million kronor. I expected PB founders to pay the fine, serve their term resurrect PB when they get out or somebody else to take over, but this step just follows the likes of Napster and Kazaa (once popular but now obscure) where emerging P2P tools have been downed by the movie industry. I don’t think closing down PB will drive down the popularity of P2P networks or torrents, on the other hand all this publicity would further encourage users to use alternative torrent sites (which are plenty as of now).

I suppose it just shows that, no matter how big a site’s following is, if it isn’t legal then sooner or later it will be bought down. PB RIP.

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 released

2009-07-01T12:07:00.005+10:00

Mozilla have finally released an official update to the ever popular Firefox browser. Firefox 3.5 (released officially 30 June 2009) codenamed ‘Shiretoko’ has a lot of updates and fixes, to make your browsing experience quicker, smoother and safer. I currently use Firefox 3.0.8 and have been using it for the last 6 months, so this new update is a welcome release. The new release also incorporates a new Firefox logo.

Like always some of the features are visible to the end user and some are under the hood, namely,

Updated ‘TraceMonkey’ Javascript engine, so your JS heavy pages (like GMail) should render quicker
Updated ‘Gecko’ layout engine, so websites (especially images) should load quicker
Support for HTML5
Private browsing mode aka WipeMyHistoryTraces mode
Improvements to security, privacy, performance and stability

I have tried 3.5 already and its approximately 20% quicker than 3.0.8. It also has a lot of hidden goodies like geo-location, tab tearing, colour profiles etc. I would anticipate that a lot of add-ons, themes and personas would need updating to accommodate this release and hence would not work immediately. Be patient and you should have an update to your favourite add-on in the next few weeks. You can download it here or here.

Convert tab file to shape file

2009-06-23T00:14:00.003+10:00

If you work in the geospatial side of things, you must be familiar with TAB files. For this who are new to this format, TAB files contain metadata for a particular shape namely line, point or polygon. It’s a MapInfo proprietary format. But if you need to publish a TAB file on a map server like Geoserver you need to convert the TAB file to a SHP file.

FWTools is a free command line utility which allows you to convert from TAB to SHP format. So basically download it from here and install it. Then trigger it from Start – Programs – FWTools – FWTools Shell. You would see a DOS like command prompt. Then using normal DOS commands navigate to the folder which contains your file(s) and type in,

ogr2ogr –f “ESRI Shapefile” TABFILE.TAB SHAPEFILE.SHP

where TABFILE is the name of your tab file and SHAPEFILE is the name of your new shape file.

A thing to remember is that the only drawback of converting from TAB to SHP is that the shape format has a limitation on the length of attributes which is 10 characters. So even though your original TAB file might contain the full attribute name, your shape file attribute name will be truncated to 10 characters.

Download it here.

iPhone 3GS review

2009-06-21T23:40:00.004+10:00

The iPhone 3GS went on sale in the Americas, UK and other parts of the world on Friday. According to reports, it should release in Australia on 26 June 2009 but I have a feeling that we won't see it on sale till the first week of July 2009. Anyways more on the phone, look wise its pretty much the same as iPhone version 1 (if you wanna call it that), but there are some significant internal software and architectural changes.

Firstly I think all the major retailers Optus, Virgin, 3, Vodafone and Telstra won't offer it outright but only on plans to milk users as much as they can (like when version 1 came out). The new iPhone 3GS comes with 3G ofcourse, major internal architectural tweaks which makes it quite quicker and reduces time lag between actions and major software updates to include tweaks like copy/paste along with other long awaited functions. It has a nice camera which allows video recording (which I think is quite good) and comes preloaded with OS 3.0. So all in all its quite a major release from Apple, which recently was facing stiff competition from Palm Pre and Blackberry.

I would suggest wait till end of July 2009 to see what sort of deals retailers offer to intice everyone to jump on the iPhone bandwagon.

What can IT professionals do to reduce their carbon footprint?

2009-06-18T20:01:00.002+10:00

Over the last few years there has been an increased awareness (thanks to Al Gore) on environment topics like global warming, carbon exchange programs and a sustainable way of life. I try and do my bit for the environment by recycling, consuming less electricity and minimizing my car usage. But as IT professionals we can follow some additional simple tips at work and home to further reduce our carbon emissions.

Use a LCD monitor – The biggest electricity chewer is your CRT monitor. Replace it with a LCD screen, it will save you desk space and money on electricity bills at the same time being good for the environment.
Use Standby mode in Windows – Every time you restart your PC, you are chewing more electricity. If you won’t be using it again for the next 2 hours shut down your PC, otherwise put it on Standby mode (Start – Shutdown – Stand by). In this mode your PC is kept running with low power with your data still in memory.
Shutdown your PC after you finish work – When you leave your office in the evenings shut down your PC. It’s the same as locking it so why not save electricity.
Minimize printing – These days all communication and documents are electronic. So if you can avoid printing them, then do so. You save a tree every time you don’t print something.
Go 100% digital – Request your biller to issue you electronic bills instead of paper ones, use eBooks instead of physical books and read magazines online instead of purchasing them from your newsagent. Also view shopping catalogues online instead of stuffing your letter box.
Digitize photographs – After you have taken photographs, organize them on your PC in soft copy instead of printing them. Paper pictures will eventually fade or tear, so why bother.
Use a USB charger for your mobile phone – When you want to recharge your mobile phone, use a USB charger, it uses less electricity then a conventional charger and is also quite convenient.
Use CD-RW/DVD-RW – If you want to store any type of data, just store it on your local, external or network hard drive. If you have to put them on a CD or DVD, use CD-RW or DVD-RW, so that you can override data each time. Software programs gets updated quite often, there is no point in burning them to a CD each time you get a new version.
Buy songs online – Purchase songs online from ITunes or other online music stores instead of purchasing CDs.
Recycle – Most important of all, if you have any old or unused computer parts or accessories, put them in a cardboard box and take them to your nearest computer recycler. You might even be able to get some money. Think twice before purchasing any new hardware, see if you can purchase second hand or just reuse.

So folks, make the above a part of your daily life and you will do your bit as an IT professional for the environment.

Free Rapidshare Download Manager

2009-06-18T19:49:00.003+10:00

Rapidshare Download Accelerator is a free program which allows you to queue your downloads from Rapidshare. So if you have a big list of files you would like to download but can't be bothered to wait for the time restrictions each time you download something, then this program is for you. If you have a huge quota of bandwidth from your ISP, then you will appreciate the convenience of this software even more.

I remember the days when I used to try and find hacks to Rapidshare so that I could do unlimited downloads with no waiting time. But with this software, I can queue all my downloads over day and night and it will download files automatically. What I really do is, each time I find something good to download; I add its Rapidshare URL to a text file and towards the end of the week copy the list of URLs into this program. And then I run this program every night and so while I am sleeping it downloads all my files one by one.

The program has no installer and a very small memory footprint. If you find sorting the list of files a pain, you can edit the *.dat file in the same folder using a text editor. Just a word of caution, I've found that this software is quite buggy and doesn't always shutdown properly and it doesn't support download resuming (which is quite a bugger).

But folks if you download quite a lot from Rapidshare, then you will find this software quite useful. Download it from here.

Windows7 release date. Does it matter to you?

2009-06-03T18:00:00.004+10:00

Everybody on the planet seems to be waiting for Windows7. The initial reviews regarding the OS have been good and having tried it myself I think its a good improvement over Vista. Anyways, there have been conflicting reports on when will Windows7 actually be available for retail purchase. Am sure right now in some factory in Malaysia new Dell laptops and desktops are already being stamped with Windows7 ready to be shipped when needed. But the point is, will you really upgrade so early?

Microsoft is officially saying that Windows7 will come out in 2010 and I think given the financial climate its the right time, 2009 is too stuffed to release anything big. Whereas some other unofficial reports suggest 22 October 2009 as the release date. Personally I like Windows XP SP3 on my working laptop and am too darn scared to play with it. And history tells us that Microsoft never gets it right the first time and only with the subsequent release of a Service Pack do they tighten all loose ends.

So my friends I think the date when Windows7 is released is not important, but when Windows7 SP1 is released coz thats the day I am officially upgrading to Windows7.

10 Essential Utlities for every PC

2009-06-02T19:26:00.005+10:00

I have this really bad habit of keeping my laptop always clean, up-to-date and error free. With this I mean that not only I zealously clean my laptop everyday with a good silk cloth :-) but I also like to keep my Operating System (Windows XP) running smoothly so that I can maximise my productivity. Basically my life revolves around my laptop, so I like to keep it like a well oiled machine. So here I share some essential utilities which everybody ought to have on their computers. They are free (as in zilch), small (take less hard drive space and less memory) and make your life easier.

All applications are Windows based. So here we go,

Firefox 3 [Web browser] - If you want the holy grail of web browsers, check out Firefox. Its cutting edge, secure and very stable and not to mention that there are a gazillion add-ons which will make your Firefox experience better than ever. Once you start using Firefox, you will wonder how you ever lived without out. I personally think that its number 1 feature is multiple tabs. IE and other browsers have this functionality too, but I think Firefox does it the best. Firefox is to Internet what VOIP is to telecommunications i.e. the next generation of communication. Do yourself a favour and get it if you haven't already.
PeerGuardian [Online privacy] - I am quite paranoid when it comes to online privacy and security. I don't want to make my online experience invisible but safe. This is where PeerGuardian comes in. It will block your computer from accessing any of the IP addresses it thinks is evil. People think that PeerGuardian is only for online file sharers, but it will make your experience much safer. If you use PeerGuardian all the time and keep your lists up-to-date your firewall will work less hard. I have used it for a long time and I would definitely recommend it.
7-zip [Compression utility] - 7-zip allows you to zip multiple files into one file for improved data organisation and transport. There are multiple compression formats out there and 7-zip reads all of them, so you should be able to open any zip file out there. Doesn't matter if its RAR, TAR, ZIP, CAB or any other fancy 3 letter compression format, 7-zip can read it. Chances are you will someday get a file which is zipped or compressed, that day you will thank 7-zip. Its one compression utility to rule them all :-).
PDF Creator [PDF generation] - PDF has slowly become the defacto standard for official and un-official documentation. This utility allows you to convert just about any document or image to PDF format, so that you can share it with others, email it, publish it online or print it. I have this habit of converting all documents to PDF before discussing or sharing with anyone as it makes you look professional and you dont have to worry about the consistency of the data format. So install it and start converting *.doc to *.pdf.
VLC Player [Entertainment] - VLC player allows you to play all audio and video formats without having to worry about codecs. Remember the days when you installed KLite codecs, well VLC player comes with everything. It will play mp3, mp4, avi, mpg, mpeg etc. Nothing beats watching it on the big screen, but if you like spending time with your laptop, this tool will make your evenings and weekends go much quicker. It wont play real media or DVDs, but if you have already installed respective applications, you should be able to play it in VLC. Its the swiss knife of entertainment applications.
Foxit Reader [PDF reader] - If you can generate PDFs, surely you would need a way to read the PDF files. Industry heavy weight Adobe Acrobat Reader is frankly quite bloated, memory hungry and takes forever to load. Use this free lightweight reader to view and print PDF documents. It will load your document in no time and allow you to move on to your other tasks. Use it and there is no going back to Adobe reader.
uTorrent [Legit File sharing] - If you want to share files with others, uTorrent is the gold standard. People think that you can download illegal content using uTorrent but what they dont understand is that a lot of people also use it to share legit files. BitTorrent is a file sharing standard which is implemented very well within this application. It will break-up your file and download it from multiple locations at the same time. It also encrypts communication so you can be rest assured about privacy. Use it and you will save on time and effort in sharing files.
Sunbird [Calendar] - I like to keep my day organised and this is where Sunbird is my life saver. I use it jot down my things to do for the day and keep a track on my productivity. Use it properly and it could be a very strong time management tool. It allows you to put tasks against multiple days and also put a reminder against them. If you prefer a digital organizer, then you cant go past Sunbird.
Skype [VOIP telecommunication] - If you like to talk regularly with your friends or relatives who are in the same country or even overseas Skype is the application for you. Skype to Skype calls are free and calls to landlines can be made at a cheaper price than the conventional landlines. Skype has recently upgraded their software to include video chat, so you are also able to chat using a webcam. The audio and video quality is quite good and there is no time lag between messages. I use it to chat with friends who are in the same building and even the same floor. Check it out.
WordWeb [Dictionary] - WordWeb is a desktop dictionary and thesaurus application. It allows you to look-up words from its huge database of words and is quite handy when you are working on a lengthy essay or research topic. It also includes a thesaurus so you can lookup similar meaning words quite quickly. This application has taught me words I never knew they existed. So use it to improve your vocubulary and communication skills.

So guys this is the end of it. I hope you will use the above applications and make your life a little bit more simple.

When will Australia get a Google Datacentre?

2009-06-01T21:30:00.005+10:00

Google certainly is the powerhouse of the Internet and has multiple datacentres throughout the world. Now Google keeps the locations and other details of its datacentres hidden and rightfully so, but its hard to imagine Google not having at least one datacentre in all major parts of the world. But am confident that Google still does not have a datacentre in the Australia and New Zealand region. Perhaps its high time we got one.

For those who don't know what a datacentre is, its a huge server farm where multiple servers run concurrently either fullfilling client requests or performing regular backups. Now the idea is to have different datacentres in different parts of the world at various distances to break-up the traffic flow to respective regions and maintain a working network. If say, the Europe datacentre goes down, data can be re-routed through the American datacentre to maintain a working system.

Given the physical gap between Australia and the rest of the world, it would be an ideal choice for perhaps a backup datacentre. Am sure some other factors could also work in Australia's favour,

Being the largest island on the planet, obtaining water for cooling purposes shouldn't be a problem.
Due to its location, can be an ideal choice to use it as a datacentre for Asia-Pacific region or perhaps even a backup.
Am sure the Australian government would be happy to provide some tax benefits, to encourage employment and innovation in the region.
It will be borderline possible to have a zero carbon footprint implementation.
Large pool of talented and skilled professionals

Google also recently renovated their Sydney HQ at 48 Pirrama Road, Pyrmont, NSW 2009 and maybe listened to us and already have a datacentre there.

Swine Flu and Recession. Worst combination for IT industry.

2009-06-01T19:17:00.002+10:00

As if the recession wasn't bad enough, it seems like Swine flu is also beginning to take its toll on the IT industry. Whats happening to the world, can't we have one day when nothing happens and we all live happily ever after (or this only happens in Shrek movies). Initially governments and organisations were cutting down on new and existing projects and shedding-off staff to curtail spending and hence save money. But now with a spreading disease and possibly an epidemic does it actually encourage spending?

For the last few weeks I handn't heard of any mass lay offs or any other negative economic news, so I was hoping that the market would be recovering. The share market was bouncing back, real estate market was picking up again and business confidence was improving and it seemed like things were looking brighter. I was hoping that governments and organisations would now open up their purses and money would flow into new and existing IT projects both big and small. But with Swine Flu on the horizon it seems like we have another problem to worry about. Even if organisations increase spending now, where is the staff to do the job. Everyday the tally from Swine Flu seems to be increasing. There is an increased panic amongst people and it seems like the safest place is in your home at the moment.

I hope that somebody will come up with a vaccine very quickly so that this disease can be eradicated and we can return to our normal way of life. In the meantime I would request governments and organisations to increase spending on IT projects, so that at least people have a regular livelihood and there is something to cheer about. With so much gloom around, am sure that an increase in number of full time IT jobs would be a welcome relief. In the meantime, guys and gals hang in there, if you have been laid off take it easy, relax at home, do some charity work and accumulate some good karma :-).

ASUS eeePC more reliable than brands like HP, Compaq, IBM, Dell?

2009-05-30T17:47:00.002+10:00

I've been using the Asus eeePC with Windows XP for the past 3 months as my secondary notebook. I bought it for AU$299 and I think its worth every cent. It allows me to surf the Internet, use basic word processing, watch movies, listen to songs and sometimes even do some Java coding on it. Surely I can't run applications like Photoshop or Eclipse, due to screen real estate and also limited RAM but isn't it still good value for money. Why is that the eeePC has suddenly captured a niche market, is it the cost, sturdiness or just the portability factor?

If I am not mistaken I've dropped the eeePC from my desk at least 3 times in the last 3 months and to my utter surprise its still running very well without any issues. I've used notebooks from brands like IBM, HP, Compaq in the past and each brand has its fair share of problems. On each notebook I have noticed screen issues, where due to constant opening and closing of the monitor the connection breaks and the monitor just goes permanently black, the fans make a lot of noise and not to mention the hard drive gets terribly hot, making your palms quite warm while typing for extended periods of time.

Nevertheless I think Notebooks are not losing their market to Netbooks anytime soon. But it would be nice, if we could somehow combine the good features of both Notebooks and Netbooks and come-up with 'Workbooks', which are cheap, long lasting, portable and not to forget gorgeous looking. In the meantime I will stick to Asus for both my notebook and netbook needs.

Would you Google or Bing?

2009-05-29T20:09:00.003+10:00

Microsoft today announced their new search engine named "Bing", to tackle powerhouse Google's domination on the search engine market. Seems like Microsoft is betting big on the search engine platform, both from a market share and financial point of view.

From what I've read, it seems like Bing will have same unique features like providing answers to search queries, rather than displaying links and allowing the user to see a result by mouse over, rather than visiting the site, along with the usual video and images search. And Microsoft is planning on spending US$100million just promoting Bing, thats some serious dough in these rough times. Being a big Microsoft follower, I sincerely hope that Bing will add some 'bling' to Microsoft and provide some healthy competition to Google.

The Australian version of the search engine hasn't gone live yet and should go live on Wednesday (3rd June 2009). My prediction is that Google might have finally found a worthy adversary in Bing, I guess only time will tell. So people starting binging.

Is this the 1990's?...not

2009-05-28T22:45:00.003+10:00

This is year 2009 and technology has advanced leap and bounds. I think governments world wide are understanding the power of Internet and investing in faster and more accessible communication networks. I hope Australia would do the same? Yesterday I read an article about a new network link worth $200m which would increase Australia's communication with the rest of the world.

I sincerely hope that Telstra would update their wiring and cabling within Australia (both metro and regional) to fully gain any benefits of the world wide revolution (WWR). In metro areas of Australia, the telephone wiring of Telstra still incorporates Pair Gain systems. So thousands of general users are unable to get Internet access (ADSL) as they are sharing their wiring with somebody else. How lame is this. In metro areas, where some new houses are being build, the underground cabling is still old and hence all new residents have to put up with expensive wireless plans.

I have only two words for Telstra, PLEASE UPDATE, so that we can access the Internet to its full potential. If am not online, I feel like I am missing something in life, Internet is a neccessity of life, even more important than air, water or food. I hope with the change of guard at Telstra, it might actually happen.

Downloads - uDig

2009-05-28T00:04:00.003+10:00

If you have ever wanted to edit Shape files but didn't feel like paying for a tool like MapInfo, uDig is the tool you've been looking for. Its free, Java based and released under the GNU Lesser General Public License. Its basically a GUI tool to edit shape files, create new vector shapes, change their style (colours, text etc.).

If you want to create a map based web application, you can use uDig to create new shape files, change colours and other look and feel elements like borders etc. I think its quite handy and allows the user to edit the SRS of a shape file without having to worry about coding in XML. Download it here and check it out.

Open Source - OpenLayers 2.7

2009-05-27T23:52:00.003+10:00

OpenLayers 2.7 allows you to create dynamic maps and put them on web applications. You've probably used something like Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth. But wouldn't it be nice if you could display maps but at the same time put layers on them, put markers, customize look and feel etc. Imagine a map of the world, which displays the various country populations in different colours and if the user clicks on the country a pop-up comes up and the user is able to view additional information.

OpenLayers 2.7 is a Open Source JavaScript based project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation which, essentially allows you to put layers (tiles) on maps and view information on them. You can customize the look and feel and create a really good custom solution.

Open Layers is released under the BSD-style License and being JavaScript runs on your browser. Its extremely light and quite powerful. The OpenLayers site displays a bunch of examples which allow anybody to learn quickly. OpenLayers on Geoserver is the perfect combination, as it allows you to publish and customize maps and also introduces additional interactivity and information.

Open Source - Geoserver 1.7.4

2009-05-27T23:39:00.008+10:00

Have you ever wondered if your web application could have customised maps (perhaps something similar to Google Maps). You could display information about users, geographics, stats etc. The solution is Geoserver 1.7.4. Did I mention its Open Source and has a large user community. Curios.

Geoserver allows you to publish maps on a server like Apache Tomcat and view them within your web applications. How you get the maps and edit them is a completely different topic by itself (which I will touch on later). But if you are interested in playing with maps, download a copy of Geoserver 1.7.4 from here and check it out.

Top 10 ways to stay employed in IT during recession

2009-05-16T12:15:00.000+10:00

These days employers seem to be shedding jobs like an old person losing hair. I think most of it is just pure panic and there is no need for the massive retrenches. For the record am still employed and am grateful for that. Hence I've put together some hints/suggestions/tips which I think might help others in this IT environment. Believe me it works. Read on.

1. Be sincere and dedicated towards your job, towards what you do - Be honest and enjoy whatever you do. Your manager will notice this dedication and will give you preference over others who merely 'work', whereas your work comes naturally to you, its in you.

2. Keep yourself abreast with the latest news, trends and happenings - Read online IT news, blogs, forums to keep yourself upto date with whats happening in your field. Read TwistedPin regularly :-).

3. Do not do personal work/activities during business hours - Do not surf the net for other than business related work, make/take personal telephone calls or socialise more than absolutely neccessary.

4. Be open to a pay freeze - At your annual review do not insist on a pay raise or other perks. Let your manager know that you are happy to take a pay freeze for a fixed time, but NOT a pay cut. Sell your capabilities but not undersell yourself.

5. Go out of your way to get the job done - When you get stuck in difficult situations, go out of your way to resolve them, this will show to your manager that you are keen to work and not just thinking of when the clock will strike 5. Also come a bit early and leave a bit late, preferably before your manager comes, you can leave whenever doesn't matter. Usually managers notice you when you are early and not when you stay late.

6. Help your colleagues - If you think your colleagues could use your help, offer it. Do not publicize it or bring attention towards yourself, just be a quite robin hood. Your manager will notice (they have eyes everywhere) and appreciate your attitude towards others.

7. Learn a completely different skill - Try and learn about a competing product in the market, or something which you are not an expert on. Do not worry about getting certified, just be ready to say yes if needed to work on a completely different product. These days organisations would be happy to shuffle staff to a different department, rather than completely fire them.

8. Get in touch with friends/colleagues in other companies and rekindle your friendships with them - Do not sound like you are preparing to get fired and hence need a good reference, be geniune and sound happy to resume communication. These days a lot of companies hire on word of mouth, so you never know, you could get lucky.

9. Do not appy for other jobs or update your CV at work - Keep it for outside business hours.

10. Do not ask your manager to act as your referre - As you might hint to him that your fleeing from a sinking ship, not a good sign if he was planning on keeping you. Showing loyalty matters in this environment.

11. *Bonus* Being prepared is half battle won - If the uneventful happens, start applying the same day. That should minimise your 'downtime'.

The above might sound like typical, everyday rules, but they will definitely help you in keep on getting the next pay check, believe they work for me and could also work for you, no harm in trying. All the best chaps.

Downloads - Split/Merge PDF documents without any hassles

2009-05-15T10:48:00.007+10:00

Check out this Freeware PDFSAM 2.0.0 which allows you to split and merge PDF documents. Its free (no-cost), comes with its source (if you feel like playing with it) and is released under the GPL license. It however does require Java Virtual Machine 1.4.2 or higher to run (as its a Java program :-)). It runs quite well on my Pentium Core Duo notebook with 2GB RAM with no memory/speed issues.

Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Screeshot 3 Screenshot 4 Screenshot 5 Screenshot 6 Screenshot 7

This handy free tool allows you to split PDF documents quite easily which is quite handy when you need to obtain specific pages from a PDF document. It also allows you to merge various PDF files into one, quite useful when you have a lot of individual documents lying around your hard drive and you want to merge them into one big topic. I personally use this a lot to organise my notes by merging them into one big document towards the end of the month.

As of version 2.0.0 the software comes in two versions Basic and Enhanced. The basic version allows you to do basic PDF splitting/merging/extracting/saving while the enhanced version allows you to encrypt/decrypt documents on the fly. I think the basic version is all you need, but feel free to try the enhanced feature.

Download it here.

Review - Microsoft Windows7 OS

2009-05-15T09:42:00.002+10:00

I finally tried my hands on Windows7 RC 1700. And boy how I've been surprised! I think W7 is a step in right direction, but Microsoft has a long way to go to convince at least me, that Windows is the ONLY window in my life.

I won't bother you with the technical details, but now let me see W7 looks different (if not necessarily better), its quicker, with less time lag between actions and has a host of applications (which I might not use regularly) and not to mention comes in a few flavours. The first thing I noticed when I used W7 was that its quite different from WindowsXP and will take some time getting used to, but like all evolutionary products, its a learning curve I need to have. If I was using Vista, I could easily find my way around W7.

I think I will not install W7 initially and will wait for its service pack to be released. In the meantime I might keep on playing with other windows in my life aka ubuntu, mac.

2009 Australian Budget - Is it good for IT?

2009-05-14T15:49:00.006+10:00

So the 2009 Australian Budget has been announced by Wayne Swan. How does it stack-up in terms of spending for Information Technology and Telecommunications (IT&T)?

From what I've read and understood it seems like the biggest news is the National Broadband Network (NBN) - something like AU$ 43Billion over 8 years. A lot of money has been allocated to construction, education and infrastructure and I guess some of it will trickle down to IT organisations. Individual state governments should also start to spend some more money on their respective projects.

Time will tell how this budget effects business decisions, but I think Telstra, Centrelink, ATO and other big organisations (both government and private) will start spending once they see that their cash flow is improving. So people spend more, which should drive retail sales and which should drive up the share market and which should consequently see cash flowing into big organisations.

Future of Sun/Oracle

2009-05-14T15:04:00.003+10:00

Everybody must have heard about the SUN-ORACLE merger and must be wondering why am I talking about old news. My point is that this merger should have some implications not just for Java developers but also for open source advocates. I strongly believe that Oracle will bring some good to Sun, but at the same time I think that Sun should have fought its battles by itself. Sun has a big and dedicated community of professionals, students, academics and volunteers, who must be wondering whats the future of Java? In this financial climate, I guess Sun is responsible to its share holders and from a commercial point of view, the decision makes sense.

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2009-05-14T15:03:00.002+10:00

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2009-05-14T15:03:00.001+10:00

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