HOW TO delete an email address from GMail auto-complete list without deleting Contact

Supposedly friendly features like spell-check & auto-completion can be a bane sometimes. Imagine if your boss & best friend share the same name & you excitedly send a very private message to the boss instead of the friend because GMail cleverly fills the email address while you type...

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HOW TO compare HTML5 features supported by versions 8, 9 & 10 of IE

This page on the Browserscope website lets you choose versions of the same or different browsers & see how they stack up in supporting HTML5 features. Click on the "Compare UAs" link on that page, select User Agents you want to compare & then hit the Compare button.I chose versions...

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Scott Allen's 10 favorite C# rules for developing software

From Scott Allen's C# Fundamentals Part 2 course on Pluralsight -Rule #10: Avoid Regions - as they are typically used to hide ugly code or classes that've exploded in size or responsibility. Think if you should break the regions into seperate classesRule #9: Use exceptions for errors..instead of status...

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Thrilled to be among top Pro Webmasters Stack Exchange users to receive swag

I'm a fan of several sites of the Stack Exchange family. I was thrilled to know that I'm among the top Pro Webmasters Stack Exchange users with over 950 reputation to receive cool swag. Thank you, Stack Exchange!The Stack Exchange family currently consists of 65 question and answer...

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Looking for internship or job? Check Microsoft's Students to Business program

Microsoft's Students to Business website connects graduating students with  Microsoft, Microsoft Partners and its customers. This program is open to graduating students in India. The enrollment process is simple and does not require any fees.Microsoft's DreamSpark program gives students...

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Trivia: Smiley & "Frowny" Emoticons

In its Events That Shaped The Wired World section, Wired magazine credits Scott Fahlman with first using the Smiley :-) & "Frowny" :-( emoticons in electronic messages.On Sept. 19th, 1982, he had proposed on the computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University that...

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HOW TO block images/image ads originating from a specific domain in Firefox 4 & above

Firefox 3.x used to have an option to block pesky images that were not part of the context of page that you were viewing - like image ads. You just had to right click on the image, & select "Block images from {domain serving the image}" to never see any images from that domain again. That context...

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Trends & Reference Tables that every Web Developer should track

A web developer's education is never finished. Here is a list of trends & reference tables that, in my opinion, every web developer should track -HTTP Archive - Trends in web technology, interesting stats, repository of web performance informationBrowser Security Handbook - Key security...

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Find Windows System info with Windows key + Pause/Break shortcut

If you need to find hardware details of your Windows PC, like any of the following -Version including Service Pack usedWindow Experience IndexProcessorRAMSystem type (32-bit or 64-bit OS)Computer name, domain & workgroup settingsWindows Product Id & whether Windows is activated... there is a...

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Interesting USB accessories

I follow the Personal Technology page of "Economic Times" with interest for their India-centric coverage of gadgets & IT topics.This week ET listed 10 useful USB accessories. Among them, although a USB-based Hub & Mug Warmer, Cooler, paper shredder, Vaccum Cleaner have some novelty, they didn't...

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Website to track weather in Indian cities - imd.gov.in

Weather isn't a hot topic in India (as it is in the US) & forecasts aren't taken seriously.Possibly to promote awareness, the Indian Meteorological Department has put out an ad in today's Times of India (with a glaring typo -Meteorological is misspelt as Meteorogical right at the beginning)...

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Compare ASP.NET Hosting Providers

Microsoft's Web Hosting Gallery has a neat tool to let you search for hosting providers based on parameters like type of server (shared, dedicated, virtual server) cost, technologies supported (Frameworks, Databases, Publishing protocols), storage, number of SQL Databases, number of e-mail accounts,...

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Types of ASP.NET MVC View Engines

A view engine provides Controllers with the ability to translate views into HTML. There are multiple reasons why you may choose one view engine over another. Here is a list of different types of ASP.NET MVC View Engines, the first two are available with ASP.NET MVC 3 -WebForms /ASPX – classic ASP.NET...

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Search Engine for Comics

A relevant comic strip introduced into an article or presentation can make a topic more appealing & livelier (assuming you have permission to use if it's not your own). Finding the image of a strip on the web that you remember reading in a Sunday newspaper may not be easy. Don't you wish there was...

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DuckDuckGo shows why Google may not be good for you

To show that DuckDuckGo, a search engine site winning rave reviews, doesn't "filter bubble" or track you, they have illustrated guides to demonstrate how Google may not be as saintly or good as it may appear. The facts they present are something to ponder on.On a different note, DuckDuckGo provides a...

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Print stylesheet - Best Practices

Using a Print stylesheet is a more convenient way to generate a printer-friendly page than creating such a page through server-side coding. Tim Connell has a nice CSS tip in his article on things to note while coding a stylesheet meant for printer output.At some point, you have probably found yourself...

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Mobile Web Trends - 2011

Interesting points from BuiltWith.com's Mobile Web Technology Report 2011 -The growth of the mobile web is staggering, with approximately 726 million people having access to a 3G mobile subscriptionThe viewport meta tag was originally designed by Apple to resize the layout viewport of a website, a requirement...

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Summaries of Google Webmaster Central YouTube videos

There are currently close to 400 videos on Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel featuring Matt Cutts who answers questions posted to the Webmaster Help Forum or to the Twitter handle @googlewmc. Occasionally, some Google secrets slip out in these videos. You can also pick up some tips & tricks...

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Cross-Browser Testing Tools

I've used cross-browser testing tools like Adobe BrowserLab, Browsershots & Expression Web SuperPreview but didn't know there were a dozen more.Smashing Magazine has done an exhaustive review of all available cross-browser testing tools with a nice tabular summary at the end for easy comparison....

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Learning with Pluralsight videos gets even better with course assesments

If you are Pluralsight subscriber, you can try out the course assesment beta feature to test yourself on what you've learnt. Pluralsight is currently seeking feedback on the Q & A and intends to make this feature available in the future along with the course with score tracking after community vetting.For...

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Free JavaScript & jQuery learning resources

There is a nice compilation of JavaScript & jQuery learning resources in this community wiki on StackOverflow.com. I picked those which are publicly available online along with my own favorites. Here's the list -Videos:appendTo video tutorials JavaScript from Null: Video SeriesOntwik...

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Learn IIS 7 - IIS 7.x's Configuration System

Notes from Scott Forsyth's session "IIS 7.x's Configuration System" in his 52-week video lesson series  -- IIS 7.x drastically different from IIS 6- IIS 6 - IIS path (Metabase.xml) & .NET path (machine.config, web.config (root, site, app))- Metabase.xml - app pools, site config, mime types,...

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Older ASP.NET Starter Kits

The current ASP.NET Starter Kits page does not show older Starter Kits built on ASP.NET 2.0 & links to them that you may find in old articles may be broken. When I have to refer these useful oldies to folks in need, I keep going back to the search engine. Rather than waste time searching,...

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Why formatting of a ASP.NET page looks different when rendered through VWD & IIS

A puzzled ASP.NET developer asked on the ASP.NET Forums why the formatting of the same ASP.NET page looked different in Internet Explorer when rendered by Visual Web Developer & IIS seperately. When the entire source code is the same, why should they look different?Dave Sussman has this insightful...

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HTML5 at work

I plan to look out for & compile interesting, practical, real-world examples of HTML5 features that popular websites have started implementing. I hope all the browser manufacturers quickly agree on a common minimum set of HTML5 features & get HTML5 rolling.* Google Docs now supports...

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Discover public transport in India with Google Transit

I first tried Google Transit in Seattle in 2008 for help with bus routes and wished it came to India as well. I was happy when it started covering local trains of the Hyderabad Multi Modal Transit System (MMTS) in 2010(it seems to discontinued now) and then wished it worked with bus routes as well....

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Adobe BrowserLab vs Browsershots.org: online services for cross browser testing

Adobe BrowserLab is an online cross browser testing  service (free till April 12, 2012) that has more features than Browsershots.org, the other free online cross browser testing service. However, BrowserLab currently covers a smaller set of browsers & platforms than Browsershots -Chrome...

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Overview of Pluralsight course "A Beginner's Guide to the Microsoft Web Platform"

This video course by Michael Palermo is useful for beginners to ASP.NET and ASP.NET developers who are yet to try MVC & WebPages. The seasoned presenter explains the difference between Web Forms, MVC and WebPages. He demonstrates how to create a new site, a new page, a simple input form,...

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You can now use an actual image as Google Image search argument

There are times when you just have a picture (of a monument, person etc) but can't frame a keyword for Google to search on.The search box on Google Images now sports a camera icon on the text box as an indicator that you can use to either upload an image from your computer (by just dragging &...

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HOW TO check what HTML5 features a browser supports

Now that I'm getting my feet wet in HTML5, I thought I should spend more time with features that are supported by all popular browsers rather than digging into HTML5 features that are implemented by only one or two browsers.Table showing browser support for HTML5 Input types from W3Schools.comI...

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Online database of medicines used in India - MedGuideIndia.com

No matter how big or small your ailment, you should never try to play doctor. However, there may be times when you want to verify details of medicines you are consuming. Typically, Indian doctors scribble names of medicines that are almost illegible but surprisingly understandable by...

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HOW TO see how your web pages are ranking in realtime

Google tells us not to focus on PageRank or “PR”, the famous part of their ranking algorithm, as a metric for success. It acknowledges that PageRank being a number is easier to measure than relevance which is what actually counts. Google removed PageRank distribution data from Webmaster Tools but if...

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Learn IIS7 with Scott Forsyth's 52-week video lesson series

IIS expert Scott Forsyth has been running a video lesson series where he shares best practices, technical processes, tools of the trade, and occasional stories from working in the trenches. 25 of the planned 52 weekly, roughly 10 minute sessions are hosted on YouTube and currently available for free...

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India IT - facts, numbers & trivia

Numbers tell a story. Interesting tidbits about India IT from the newspapers (work in progress) -Tata Consultancy Services has emerged as the largest recruiter over the last year, followed by Infosys and Wipro Technologies. Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. is ranked four in the list,...

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Florida Primary : The billionaire businessman Jeff Greene,

Florida Primary : The billionaire businessman Jeff Greene, who ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate, and multi-millionaire health care executive Rick Scott, who ran the Republican nomination for governor, have positioned as newcomers fresh ready to take on the establishment candidate, Democrat Kendrick...

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Notes from Tech-Ed session "Team Foundation Server for Everyone"

The video recording of Martin Woodward's two sessions at Tech-Ed, NA 2011, Team Foundation Server for Everyone & The Accidental Team Foundation Server Admin provide an overview of TFS 2010 in about 2 hours. Some notes -TFS installation choices - Basic, AdvancedTFS Basic Wizard - most...

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