IIS vs Apache

The Microsoft whitepaper (Word document) "Comparing IIS and Apache: Questions and Answers" published in March 2009 has interesting counter arguments on the long raging debate on which of the two is better. It answers the following questions -Does IIS offer the performance and scalability...

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Free C#, XNA, Windows Phone 7 learning resources from Rob Miles

Two books by Microsoft Press author Rob Miles are available for free download -C# Yellow Book (197 pages)Introduction to Programming Through Game Development Using Microsoft XNA Game Studio (400 pages)He co-presented Windows Phone 7 Jump Start sessions. The recorded sessions of 12 hours duration are...

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Aids for comparative analysis of software tools/products

If you are asked to recommend the best software tool or product for a particular requirement, a good way to start researching is to check Wikipedia. There are articles specifically devoted to comparative analysis of products under various categories. These articles typically start with the title "Comparison...

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HOW TO prevent Google from indexing or caching a specific page

Did you know, you can prevent Google from indexing & caching specific pages of your website by just adding a META tag to those pages?As explained on the Google blog.....In addition to the robots.txt file -- which allows you to concisely specify instructions for a large number of files on...

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View clutter-free web pages with TidyRead, Safari Reader

Safari Reader is a great new feature introduced in Safari v5 that removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles. I recently found that there are other bookmarklets & add-ons like TidyRead that can do the same job as Safari Reader in other browsers as well.A typical page...

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HOW TO find why your competitor has better search engine rankings

This question appeared on Webmasters.StackExchange.com, a new Q&A Forum (currently in beta) for pro webmasters from the makers of Stack Overflow. One suggested answer was to study the competitor's backlinks using SEOmoz's Open Site Explorer, a link popularity checker & back-link analysis...

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HOW TO remove thumbnail preview of sites you have visited in Chrome, Safari

Some folks may like the browser feature (called Top Sites in Safari) that lists frequently visited Web addresses as a thumbnail preview or text link for each site. But those who are on a shared computer or are concerned about their privacy may not want others to see their  frequently visited websites...

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CSS Attribute selector input[type="checkbox"] works inconsistently

A web developer posted a question on the ASP.NET Forums wanting to know why a CSS style setting involving the attribute selector input[type="checkbox"] wouldn’t work.As per the Quirksmode browser compatibility table, attribute selectors should work on popular browsers except on IE versions older than...

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Web Metrics from a Google Study

A Google study based on "a sample of several billions of pages" reveals interesting statistics about the size, number of resources and other such metrics of pages on the world wide web.Highlights: The average web page takes up 320 KB on the wire. Only two-thirds of the compressible material on...

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HTML5 features emerging in popular web apps

GMail now supports dragging & dropping attachments & images in HTML5 compatible browsersAll popped out windows from GMail will will continue to work after you close your main window. This includes GMail Tasks - the TO-DO list tool built into GMailIf you are concerned about the security issues...

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Free eBook - jQuery: Novice to Ninja

The SitePoint website has been running a promotion celebrating the Football World Cup. Each country that entered the quarter finals has been assigned a SitePoint book. The price of each book was determined by the outcome of real soccer games. The book mapped to the team winning the Cup is being given...

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Free Web-based TO-DO list tools/Task Managers

If you need a free web-based TO-DO list tool/Task Manager to stay organized, there are a bunch to choose from -Ta-da ListTodoistVoo2doRemember the MilkToodledoProducteev Good Todo Checkvist Paprika Springpad Todo.ly    GMail TasksThe Toodledo site has a nice features comparison chart...

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HOW TO reduce the file size of images

Now that Google slightly rewards lighter web-pages (of course relevance of a page matters most) with a better ranking, it helps to trim down the file size of images within it without reducing their quality so that the  page loads faster.There are numerous ways & tools to reduce the file size...

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Web Applications - Tips & Tricks

Did you know, you can append +any-word to a GMail address & use that word to filter emails or distinctly identify where the mail has come from? For instance, any email sent to the following email address: example+webapps@gmail.com will be recieved by example@gmail.com because gmail ignores the "+"...

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New features of WebPageTest

WebPageTest.org is a free online version of AOL's open source performance analysis & optimization tool PageTest (which you can deploy on your own server).The new features of WebPageTest were demo'ed at Velocity 2010 Lightning Demos session.One distinct feature in PageTest is Visual Performance comparision....

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HTTP Traffic Export options in Fiddler

I've been taking notes from Eric Lawrence's recorded presentation at MIX10 on Fiddler for future reference. This is the fourth part, check the earlier three tips if you haven't already read them - Track HTTP traffic in Firefox with FiddlerHookFiddlerCap makes HTTP Traffic Capture easier6 ways to filter...

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The Joy of Bookmarklets

A Bookmarklet is a small JavaScript program that can be hosted on the browser's bookmarks bar and used to simplify a multi-step or repetitive activity by automating it. For instance, upon clicking the Snipshot bookmarklet, it will extract all the images in a web page that you have opened, display them...

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