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Showing posts with label miscellaneous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscellaneous. Show all posts
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Middle-click mouse to open link in new browser tab

It came as a nice surprise to me that clicking the scroll wheel in between the right & left mouse buttons while positioned on a link can open that in a new tab. I found this feature working on all the popular browsers - IE (version 8), Firefox (version 3), Opera (version 9.6), Safari on Windows (version 4) & Chrome (version 5)
Also see:
HOW to continuously refresh any web-page in IE8 & Firefox
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Developer Contests

Happy Coder
At any point of time, there are always some Developer contests running. These are especially good for students & hobbyists who can pit their wits against the best in the class, win goodies and get noticed.

I plan to compile a list of contests that I come across & this will be a work in progress. Be sure to check the end dates of competitions.

* .NET Champions: Submit a story or video on a successful & innovative solution you have developed on the Microsoft .NET Platform. Program is restricted to Technology Professionals and Academicians from India
Prize: 1 Windows Mobile every month
More details: .NET Champions website

* Google Code Jam 2010: Google's annual programming competition, where thousands of coders around the world attack algorithmic problems in several 2.5-hour online rounds.
Important dates: Registration Begins - April 7, 2010, Finals - July 30, 2010
Prize: Top 25 finalists will divide over $10,000 in prize money.
More details: Code Jam site

* Google Gadget Ventures - a pilot program to help developers create richer, more useful gadgets. This program is restricted to people who have developed a Google gadget & submitted to Google Gadgets directory and it should generate at least 250,000 weekly page views.
Prize: Grants of $5,000 & Seed investments of $100,000
More details: Google Gadget Ventures FAQ

* Sony Ericsson Train to Fame - Submit Java, Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile based applications or games. Contest is open only to Indians but others can submit.
Prize: Sony Ericsson Satio every week
More details: Sony Ericsson Train to Fame contest site

* Nokia Calling All Innovators 2010 contest - Build mobile applications under any of these four categories - Eco/Being Green, Entertainment, Productivity, Life Improvement. The competition is open to all mobile and web application developers worldwide
Important dates: Contest starts - 1 February 2010, Submission Deadline - 18 May 2010
Prize: 3 prizes worth 50000 USD for each category & other special prizes
More details: Calling All Innovators 2010 contest FAQ

Dear reader, if you know of any interesting Developer contests, please inform me & I'll put it here.

#550
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Test your backups

Test your backups

The popular bloggers, Jeff Atwood & Phil Haack, lost their respective blog content after their sites went down to a hard drive failure. Interestingly, both of them share the same physical server & host their sites on Virtual Servers on the machine.  The Virtual Hard Drive files (usually referred to as VHD files) which contain the actual data for the virtual machines were always in use and were not being backed up. Haack informs that backing up a live virtual server requires taking advantage of Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).

They have both salvaged major portions of their blog content with help from a community of followers. They have candidly admitted their failure & shared their lessons learnt -
  • An untested backup strategy is no backup strategy at all! Test your backups!
  • Every day is International Backup Awareness Day.
  • Have a backup strategy that’s easy to setup.
  • Even if you have managed hosting, you should have your own local backups of the important content in your site.
  • If you can only back up one thing on your public website, it should be the images.
  • There are few organizations spidering and storing images on the web. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is one of them
Also see:
Tips on ASP.NET Hosting & Deployment
HOW TO get back a missing web page or website
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BigTech offers NGOs software titles at huge discounts

Heard this interesting news from Vinod Unny -

Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in India can get loads of software (& hardware) from Microsoft and other vendors at very low prices. All they need to do is sign up with BiG Tech, the philanthropy program of NASCOMM Foundation and provide details of their NGO status.

Once they are approved, they can choose from a huge list of software and obtain them by simply paying an admin fee. For instance, Windows 7 Professional Upgrade is available under this scheme for Rs.325 while Windows Server 2008 Standard costs Rs.1024.

There are only a few restrictions on the number of times that an order can be placed and number of titles.

Facts about BiG Tech -
* Over 300 registered NGO's
* Number of products donated – 3188
* Value of software donated - over 4.2 crores
* Big Tech covers 138 districts in over 26 states across India

Also see:
Pay It Forward with Wikipedia
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See what Google is suggesting

Google does not seem to keep the secret questions we ask anonymously to itself :-)




... nor does it mind poking fun

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Mobile OS Upgrades

Mobile OS Upgrades

In a mailing list that I'm part of, there was a question on why installing a new OS on a Mobile is difficult. MVP Saurav's response was interesting and I quote him (with permission) -
Mobile Phone ecosystem is not like a PC. On a PC a user can upgrade the hardware as he wants. If he wants a higher megapixel webcam he can simply buy one & install it. However, this isn't possible on a regular mobile phone. A Mobile phone OS isn't like a PC OS. The reason Apple is able to give free upgrade to iPhone 3G is because they control the iPhone ecosystem. They make the hardware so they know the hardware won't change & it is just one hardware configuration. On the other hand, there are many Windows Mobile phone manufacturers with different configuration due to which Microsoft cannot make a "One size Fits all" OS upgrade. This is the reason, its upto the Device manufacturer to provide OS upgrade & not Microsoft.
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Save the Earth
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Save the Earth

Just in case you haven't heard of it yet or seen it, HOME is a documentary movie by Yann Arthus-Bertrand with breathtaking photography on how we can preserve the Earth before it's too late. It is available for free viewing on YouTube.

Synopsis of the documentary:
In 200,000 years on Earth, humanity has upset the balance of the planet, established by nearly four billion years of evolution. The price to pay is high, but it is too late to be a pessimist: humanity has barely ten years to reverse the trend, become aware of the full extent of its spoliation of the Earth's riches and change its patterns of consumption.

If you are concerned about the environment, you should also take a look at the book Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World. It tells the thought-provoking story of the drinking water crisis across the world through 250 photographs by the world’s top photojournalists. You can download the book in PDF format for free from Amazon.
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Fiction to Fact

Fiction to Fact

Just like Jules Verne's ideas on submarine in the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea have turned out to be prophetic, the idea of a gestural interface in the movie Minority Report seems to have inspired many researchers and such a UX technology could be commonplace in the near future.

Scott Hanselman recently interviewed Johnny Chung Lee, a researcher in the Applied Sciences group at Microsoft who works with the Project Natal team. Project Natal is the code name for a hands-free motion-sensing technology by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game platform.

Science is hardly a topic on Indian prime time TV, but last Sunday the channel CNN IBN started a series called Superstars of Science which featured among other innovators, Pranav Mistry, who is working on a wearable gestural interface at MIT Media Lab.
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Humor is dying. Preserve MAD

There is news that after 55 years as a monthly publication, MAD magazine will become a quarterly.

It is, of course, a sign of the times, if ever their were one, a sign that the magazine is continuing to struggle at the hands of newer forms of media, seven years after finally caving and including advertisements in its printed form. It’s also a sign, Jaffee adds, half jokingly, that “humor is dying.”

Reviewing Mad’s 500th issue which has a spoof on Google, Wired magazine has this to say about MAD -
Now well into its emerald anniversary, the spoof-filled magazine founded by William Gaines in 1952 has left an immeasurable stamp on global entertainment. Mad served as a comedy Bible to Monty Python auteur Terry Gilliam, taught Roger Ebert how to write film reviews and peddled parody to the masses. According to Patti Smith, it more or less replaced drugs altogether.

It is a consolation that there is a DVD compilation of over 600 issues of Mad Magazines from 1952 to 2006 - Absolutely MAD Magazine - 50+ Years available for around 30 bucks. I bought my copy a few months ago and being a amateur cartoonist I'm thrilled going through the artwork & creativity of my favorite artists, David Berg and Al Jaffee over the years.

MAD DVD

Related:
Al Jaffee's Mad Fold-Ins in Flash
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The Internet is for Everyone - Vint Cerf

The Internet is for Everyone - Vint Cerf

I came across the transcript of an interesting speech by Vint Cerf, 'the father of the Internet', on his vision & goals for the Internet. I feel the Internet is among the few wonderful inventions that has had the widest impact on the world.

Excerpt from the speech:
The Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if we are not responsible in its use and mindful of the rights of others who share its wealth. Let us dedicate ourselves to the responsible use of this new medium and to the proposition that with the freedoms Internet enables comes a commensurate responsibility to use these powerful enablers with care and consideration. For those who choose to abuse these privileges, let us dedicate ourselves to developing the necessary tools to combat the abuse and punish the abuser.

Related:
A Brief History of the Web
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Top 10 Developer Skills for the Future

Top 10 Developer Skills for the Future

Meghan of Microsoft Jobs Blog recommends TechRepublic's Justin James' advice on the 10 skills developers will need in the next five years:

1. One of the “Big Three” (.NET, Java, PHP)
2. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
3. Web development
4. Web services (REST, SOAP, JSON, XML)
5. Soft skills
6. One dynamic and/or functional programming language
7. Agile methodologies
8. Domain knowledge
9. Development “hygiene” - familiarity with bug tracking systems, version control etc
10. Mobile development

Also see: Building non-technical skills
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New hands-free Twitter interface: Brain-computer

New hands-free Twitter interface: Brain-computer

Adam Wilson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, posted a status update on the social networking website Twitter—just by thinking about it (via Short Sharp Science). It was done using software built upon the BCI2000. The software translates thought-induced changes in a scalp's electrical fields to control an on-screen cursor.

BCI2000 is a general-purpose system for brain-computer interface (BCI) research.

Wilson thus demonstrated how "locked-in" patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools.
People at the other end can be following their thread and never know that the person is disabled. That would really be an enabling type of communication means for those people—and I think it would make them feel, in the online world, that they’re not that much different from everybody else.

Related: Search Innovations
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What Makes a Good Blog?

What Makes a Good Blog?

The answer is no big secret but the following indicators are backed by figures from a survey by Vizu (PDF link)
  • “Quality of writing” counts for a lot driving readers’ choices of which blogs they will read as well as helping them to determine which blogs are credible and high quality
  • Topical focus is a key determinant of regular readership
  • Author reputation is a key driver of perceived credibility
  • Post frequency and, to a lesser extent, site design are key drivers of perceived blog quality
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Scrabble Rules

I recently ran into a web application (with source code!) called Scrabbler that lets you cheat at Scrabble. It triggered a lot of childhood memories.

(Picture courtesy: Wikipedia)

I spent endless hours as a kid playing Scrabble with my cousins. There was a great thrill in finding words and placing them strategically to gain high scores. Unaware of any special rules, the Oxford Dictionary was our only reference and arbitrator. The blank letter was a prized tile. The letters 'Q' and 'Z' were despised. Occasionally there would be quarrels over words and cheating attempts. One fine day the game board mysteriously causing quite a heart-break.

A year ago I played the game online on the defunct website Scrabulous with a stranger. I was quickly defeated by the opponent who constructed weird words claiming they were on the official Scrabble word list. I resigned and never played it again. The rules do not make sense to me as the greater joy of playing Scrabble is in discovering new words, learning how to place words strategically and improving one's vocabulary. I plan to buy the board game soon but will stick to a standard dictionary while playing it with family.

Rleated: Free Programmable & Searchable Dictionaries
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Have you tried GMail Autopilot?

Have you tried GMail Autopilot?

I always lie. My mother told me to - Spotted on a T-shirt

Google continues the tradition of perpetrating April Fools' Day hoaxes.

Considering that most GMail Labs features are unusual, I fell for the Autopilot hoax. After all the Text Stats feature in Amazon and the email analytics feature in Xobni do a somewhat similar job of mining information from text and user behavior. Although I wouldn't want a program to send personal emails (an idea as ludicrous as the "modern" feeding machine in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times or the story writing machine in R K Narayan's "The Vendor of Sweets"), the idea of mining emails to derive practical or psychological results from messages appealed to me.

I've sometimes found the sneaky "There are unused icons on your desktop" popup balloon in Windows XP and AutoArchive feature in Office Outlook useful. I both marvel at similar intelligent features like Spam Filters and fear about any negative consequences bought about by an inhuman automaton in scenarios not imagined by it's creator.

So, what friendly spying software do you find annoying or likable?
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Be a Microsoft MVP

Microsoft MVP Award is a program that recognizes exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their high quality, real world expertise in any Microsoft technology with others. There are no exams to write. MVP nominations are reviewed by a panel of Microsoft personnel and successful nominations are contacted by the Microsoft MVP Award Program team.

If you have been actively contributing to online or offline technical communities over the past year, nominate yourself for this Award (in India) before April 18, 2009 to be eligible during this quarterly cycle. The best part of being an MVP is that you get to meet and network with passionate experts.

There are currently over 130 MVPs in India with different specialties and diverse backgrounds. This includes around a dozen accomplished authors.

Related: Number of Microsoft Certified Professionals Worldwide
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Usability Tips
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Usability Tips

Smashing Magazine offers 8 usability check-points you should be aware of -
  1. Avoid Pop-ups
  2. Don’t change users’ window size.
  3. Don’t use too small font sizes.
  4. Don’t have unclear link text.
  5. Avoid dead links.
  6. Have at most one animation per page.
  7. Make it easy to contact you.
  8. Open internal links in the same window.
The article explains how if your visitors don’t understand how they can get from point A to point B they won’t use your site.
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Reach out for the stars with WWT
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Reach out for the stars with WWT

If you are fond of astronomy, you shouldn't miss Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope (WWT)

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe

There is a Web-based version running on Silverlight and a Windows Client version to choose from.
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