Microsoft PDC 2010 highlights

There were a lot of announcements at the MS Professional Developer’s Conference yesterday. Some interesting facts from PDC from Twitter & a live blog -10 million downloads for IE9 beta - Ballmer .. Biggest beta ever.500,000 downloads of the #WP7 dev tools already - @scottgu  #azure has...

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Hotmail lets you download attachments as a zip file

Did you know, you can download attachments faster in Hotmail as it packs individual files into a single zip?If the attachments are images, there is an option to view them as a slideshow without having to download those images locally. The slideshow runs using a Silverlight viewer...

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Why YQL?

Christian Heilmann who is quitting his job as a full-time developer evangelist at Yahoo has made available a demo chapter from a prospective book on YQL.In case, you haven't heard of YQL, its "a technology that turns the web into a database and allows you to mix...

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Windows 7 is 1 year old, Windows platform soon to be 25

Having sold 240 million copies so far, Windows 7 is Microsoft's fastest selling OS. The Windows platform will be completing 25 years next month. To look back at Windows history, check the Windows 1.0 artifacts that Ray Ozzie has shared at docs.com, which now provides “browser-based PDF...

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Adding new Search Provider easiest with Opera

If you search for items frequently on popular sites (like Amazon), it may be easier to use that site's native search right from the browser. All popular browsers allow adding new Search Providers to the search box but it is fastest to do this in Opera, followed by Chrome.IE8 & Firefox require an...

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Search from browser address bar in IE, Firefox, Opera

I found out by accident that its not just Chrome that has the combined search and address bar (Omnibox) feature - the address bar in IE8, Firefox 3.0 & Opera 9.6 (the version numbers are the ones I've tested on) can also double up as a search box. You can type your search term in the address bar...

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Impact of online reputation on job recruitments

Did you know, while only 7% of U.S. consumers surveyed believed information about them online affected their job search, 70% of responding recruiters and HR professionals have rejected candidates based on information they found online.  86% of human resources professionals surveyed stated that...

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When to use Sleep & Hibernate

Sleep & Hibernate are power-saving options in operating systems like Windows Vista & 7. Sleep preserves whatever you were doing in memory while Hibernate writes your settings and the content of memory to the hard disk (to a hidden system file called Hiberfil.sys located in the root folder of...

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Google Labs Script Converter Bookmarklet

Script Converter is a Google Labs product that allows the user to read a web page in a script of their choice (currently 11 Indian languages, English, Greek, Nepali, Persian, Russian, Serbian are supported). For example, if the user can understand spoken Tamil but cannot read the script, they will be...

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Can NoSQL replace SQL Server?

Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and Rackspace are notable sites using various types of NoSQL implementations.Michael Otey explains why NoSQL isn’t really a viable replacement for SQL Server -The term “NoSQL” was coined back in 1998, and it originally stood for Not Only SQL. So the name NoSQL is a...

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SharePoint in Pictures

The SharePoint Developer Documentation Team has launched a new blog called SharePoint in Pictures with the intention of  providing visual SharePoint developer content on a weekly basis. Illustrations & diagrams make information sticky. This is a great idea that should be extended to other...

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Words that leave Google Instant speechless

2600 Magazine has compiled a list of objectionable words that Google Instant has blacklisted. Several volunteers have submitted blacklisted words or phrases and the current count of such entries stands at 445. If you run a website that allows user submissions, you may face the possibility of visitors...

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Inside: Google on National Geographic channel

Trivia from the "Inside: Google" program that I got to see last week on National Geographic channel in my part of the world (India) -Google has plans for taking the cloud to the sea. It has a patent for a "water-based data center"Their offices have whiteboards everywhere &...

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Thrilled to be renewed as a ASP.NET MVP again

I thank everyone who made it possible for me to win the Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award in the ASP / ASP.NET category again for my community contributions. As I mentioned earlier, the best part of the award is that you get to hobnob with folks passionate...

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Desktop shortcuts for Google Docs document, Outlook New Mail Message

Whether you need a desktop shortcut to a frequently accessed Google Docs document or a quick way to compose a new Outlook mail message, creating one is similar & simple.1. Right-click the desktop and choose New | Shortcut.2. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, enter mailto:...

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Comparison of Microsoft Data Access Technologies

Deciding which data access strategy to choose is not always an easy job. Here's a compilation of articles that discuss this topic -This Infosys whitepaper presents a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of ADO.NET, LINQ, Entity Framework & WCF Data Services. There is also...

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Got tough IE questions? Check EricLaw's blog

Eric Lawrence is a program manager on the Internet Explorer team & best known as the creator of Fiddler. He has also developed several IE addons & browser-related tools.I have found his blog posts to be insightful. His answers to difficult questions asked on forums are...

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Read proxied, mobile-friendly web pages with Google Mobilizer

Google Mobilizer is a free service that can:display stripped down mobile-friendly version of web-pagesbypass corporate firewalls & allow access to blocked sitesoptionally hide images so that pages load faster, especially on a slow connectionTo get started, click on this Google Mobilizer...

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Simulate Modem speeds with Fiddler

In the Pluralsight Silverlight 3 Fundamentals video course, the instructor suggests a tip to test a custom progress bar by mimicking a slow web server on the local computer. This can be done by generating modem speeds with Fiddler, a HTTP proxy, using the menu option Rules > Performance > Simulate...

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