2 Free Scrum ebooks & a Checklist

I came across these free ebooks on the InfoQ website that look like good reading material -Scrum XP From The TrenchesKanban and Scrum - making the most of bothScrum ChecklistsDownloading them requires prior registration.The first book on the list has some good reviews on Amazon...

Read More

IRCTC Alternatives

The IRCTC.co.in website has to be the most trafficked e-commerce site in India as you can book a train ticket online within minutes by paying a few rupees extra rather than buying them from a Railway ticket counter which has perennially long queues. In April 2010, there were over 7 million transactions...

Read More

Book Review: Learning jQuery 1.3

In a brief span of four years, jQuery has become one of the most popular JavaScript Frameworks. Among the many websites & organizations that have adopted it is Microsoft and we are going to see a lot more of jQuery being used in ASP.NET websites than earlier. I've been using jQuery on & off...

Read More

Page Speed or YSlow

There are a bunch of web page performance analysis tools like Page Speed, YSlow, AOL Pagetest, MSFast, VRTA, neXpert  but the first two are probably the most popular among web developers. I have used YSlow in the past & was curious to know how it differs from Page Speed. There are a few articles...

Read More

Google Doodle Pacman game available online/offline

Google has made available the Flash-based Pacman game that it put up as the first-ever playable Google doodle commerating the 30th anniversary of PAC-MAN. It was first intended to be there for only a few days.Expecting the Flash-based Google Pacman game to be taken off, some enterprising Stack Overflow...

Read More

What is the difference between R2 & SP?

Like me, if you have wondered how the R2 in Windows Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2008 R2 differs from a SP (Service Pack), the freely download-able MS Press ebook "Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2" has a good explanation - An R2 release is more than an SP, but less than a full major release. Beginning...

Read More

Twitter For Dummies

I discovered today that you could just type the command "F username" into the What Are You Doing? text box to follow any user on Twitter. I picked this tip from the Cheat Sheet of the book Twitter For Dummies that is excerpted on the Dummies website.Impressed with all the tips I found on the Dummies...

Read More

jQuery is now on W3Schools

Whether you are getting started with Web development or need a good reference, W3Schools is a great online resource you can turn to. In over a decade of it's existence, the Norwegian family-owned company Refsnes Data that runs W3Schools has meticulously created tutorials on close to 50 Web development...

Read More

Free MSPress eBook on VS 2010

Microsoft Press plans to release an ebook "Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010" for free later this year. It has the following parts:Part I, “Moving from Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 to Visual Studio 2010.”Part II, “Moving from Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2010.”Part III, “Moving...

Read More

jQuery, Cloud Computing, Sharepoint 2010 sessions at MUGH Meet

Microsoft User Group, Hyderabad (MUGH) was formed in 2003. It has members from many of the 100+ software companies in Hyderabad. Since being at the very first UG meeting, I've made many friends over the last 7 years at these meets. For long, I've been a member of the audience but last Saturday on May...

Read More

Tips on working with remote development teams

As the software industry gets increasingly globalized, getting along with counterparts in other countries to accomplish team goals is going to be a challenge.Jeff Atwood & more recently, Scott Hanselman have shared their experiences & tips on working with remote development teams. It's essential...

Read More

Google Translate can now SPEAK Hindi

Although Hindi is the national language of India, it is spoken by less than half the population. For those among the other half & non-citizens who want to learn Hindi, Google Translate's text-to-speech functionality can be a good tool. Hindi is currently the only Indian language supported.On clicking...

Read More

HOW to continuously refresh any web-page in IE8 & FF

Have you ever felt hassled by a website that provides continuous updates (like cricket scores or live event updates) but requires you to reload the page manually? While Opera browser has an option to automatically reload a web page at pre-defined intervals, Internet Explorer, Firefox & Safari do...

Read More

Raman Effect can fingerprint the universe

This week's Swaminomics column in the Sunday Times of India, based on an article in The Atlantic Magazine explains how India's Noble prize winning scientist C.V. Raman's discovery has finally become a breakthrough technology.Handheld scanners called Raman scanners, weighing just one-third of a kilo,...

Read More

Web Security Tutorials from Google & MS

Google Code University hosts tutorials on a variety of topics including Web Security. A recently added tutorial is called "Web Application Exploits and Defenses". A blog post announcing this has an interesting statement -The maxim, "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" is only true if the eyeballs...

Read More

Collaborative JavaScript debugging tools - jsFiddle & JS Bin

Stuck with a JavaScript issue & need help debugging it? jsFiddle & JS Bin are online Web editors that save your samples & generate a random URL for it so that you can share it on a forum or with those who can help you with it. Though both are not ready for prime-time, jsFiddle currently...

Read More

Learning Resources on Computers & Programming for School kids

Life is a team sport - Janine Benyus If you have to engage school-going kids constructively, there is nothing like introducing computers to them  through the Tux4Kids line of free & Open Source products -Tux Paint  is a free drawing program for children (ages 3 to 12) TuxTyping is an educational...

Read More