May 31, 2007

The Gears That Power the Tubes: The Google Gears Q&A

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The Gears That Power the Tubes: The Google Gears Q&A

via Planet Intertwingly by sogrady on May 31, 2007




Google Reader, Meet Google Gears

Originally uploaded by sogrady

With apologies to Dave Johnson, but continuing in my fine tradition of being the last to bring you news, I offer you the following commentary on the recent announcement of Google Gears. Given the breadth of coverage you've likely already seen on the announcement, I can't promise anything new, but I'd be remiss if I didn't address the question given my long running interest in offline browser persistence approaches. On to the Q&A.

Q: Before we begin, anything to disclose?
A: Let's see. Well, Google is not a RedMonk client, and I have not been officially briefed on the Gears technology at this time. IBM and Sun, which both currently support versions of the Apache Derby database (originally developed by IBM under the Cloudscape moniker), are RedMonk customers, as is another embedded database supplier, db4objects. Neither Joyent nor Zimbra are RedMonk clients, but they host a personal site of mine and our RedMonk email respectively, gratis. I think that about covers it.

Q: For those that haven't yet seen the news, can you summarize the announcement?
A: Well, David Berlind's already done an excellent job describing the technologies in his post here, so I'd recommend you start there. And definitely listen to the podcast interview with Linus Upson, a director of engineering at Google; I'm not a podcast guy, but it's worth your time.

For the link and/or podcast averse, however, the basic summary is this: Google is introducing in Gears a cross-platform set of technologies that intend to facilitate the construction of Ajax applications that can function in a disconnected - i.e. offline - state.

Q: Any applications enabled yet?
A: Just one, as far as I know, Google Reader - see the inset picture. It's a bit klunky, in that you seem to have to press a button to go offline before you actually go offline, but it's compelling nonetheless.

Q: What is the problem space Gears is aimed at?
A: One most of us know quite well. Try using Gmail, as an example, in the absence of a networking connection. Or Yahoo Mail. Or Hotmail. Or, well, you get the idea. While Software-as-a-Service, as embodied by regular consumer facing apps like Gmail or more enterprised focused packages like Salesforce.com is a massively transformative application delivery paradigm, it's been hamstrung at times by its inability to deal with disconnected or intermittently connected application consumption scenarios. Or, to shelve the consultant speak, the fact that network applications don't work all that well without the network. It's what I've described in years past as the "Offline Problem."

Q: How important is that problem, still, with network availability getting better and more pervasive every day?
A: Perspectives vary. when discussing this problem in the past, Alex once joked that we'd solve the offline problem just in time for it to be made obsolete by ubiquitous connectivity. And Rails' David Heinemeier Hansson apparently is not a big believer in the importance of offline persistence.

With both wifi and EVDO cards built directly into my laptop, I certainly understand the point of view that sahys offline persistence is a lot less important than it used to be. But that's a far cry from saying it's not important. As SaaS applications increasing compete against rich client or Rich Internet Application (RIA) alternatives that offer persistence, it will become a more significant limiting factor to adoption. Further, as ubiquitous as connectivity might eventually become, it's not ubiquitous now. I should know, as I'm spending the summer in a location where the only broadband access is satellite and my best connectivity option is the barely better than dial-up GPRS. Then, of course, there are the planes, the hotels, the office buildings where there is no connectivity. Or, just as often, the convention centers, hotels, airports and so on that do offer wireless - just not wireless that actually, you know, works.

As a result, my personal opinion is that offline persistence for web applications is both laudable and necessary from a strategic competitive perspective. Just because we can endure the pain of not having offline access to web apps, doesn't mean that we should endure it. If you disagree, here's a good acid test for you: would you be comfortable delivering a presentation at a conference, relying solely on an online presentation tool? I certainly would not, but YMMV.

Q: Is that a recent opinion? In other words, have your recent application consumption trends affected that opinon?
A: Not particularly. I am, in fact, spending more and more time in the browser; I've gone from using Evolution daily to monthly - if that. But the issue bugged me as far back as September of 04 (which, you might notice, immediately preceded the magical October of '04), when I was disappointed by the fact that the synchronization of my web reader at the time, Bloglines, was only possible to offline rich clients for the Mac and Windows platforms. As of today, I don't need to worry about that. Took a couple of years, but better late than never and so on.

Suffice it to say that this is in fact a problem that's bugged me for a long, long time. If you're really bored, you can take a gander through some of my older entries related to the subject (earliest first): Turning Dross into Gold: Alchemy and Offline Browser Access, Presentation Tools: Offline, Online and Something in Between, So You Want to be an Office 2.0 Provider?, Zimbra: Derby for Offline Persistence, Grand Desktop Ambitions: The Q&A, Is Google Ring Fencing IBM?, and so on.

Q: Bringing it back to the actual Gears announcement, can we examine that in a little more detail? Starting with the technology?
A: Sure. As the initial announcements didn't specify much in the way of what the individual pieces were - nor did the FAQs appear to - I was curious. But, as they always do, interested parties soon ferretted those out. Here's John Herren's breakdown on the individual components to Google Gears:

Google Gears uses three components:
  • LocalServer- Handles caching of URL resources on the local file system.
  • Database- Gears uses sqlite databases for storage. You can even find the databases on your file system and browse them with any sqlite compatible tool. I did. It works.
  • WorkerPool- A job threading API to perform asynchronous operations so your app stays snappy and doesn't hang. Check out the Fibonacci demo to see it in action.

Gisting this down, you essentially have a local web server (which one, does anyone know?) that serves cached content out of a SQLite database, with a threading mechanism that ensures that abnormally strenuous tasks - say, downloading and caching several thousand email messages - doesn't bring your browser down while it waits. It's pretty straightforward, actually.

Q: Is this the first such instance of this technology?
A: Nope, not at all. We've had building blocks for a while. Dojo, as an example, has leveraged the storage capabilities of Flash to deliver offline persistence for some time. In this post, Ted comments on a demo of Derby, or JavaDB in this case, being used as the persistence mechanism for an offline web application back at ApacheCon 2005. In November of last year, for example, the folks from Zimbra demoed a very similar Derby based solution to persisting Zimbra data offline; a solution that they've since released and that I'm an occasional user of. Not to be left out, two months ago the folks from Joyent announced Slingshot to the world; a framework for allowing Rails applications to persist data in disconnected settings.

In terms of future offerings, the plan for the 3.0 release of Firefox was actually - as I understand it - to include a very similar SQLite based repository for offline persistence.

Google is very much the follower in this space, rather than the first mover.

Q: What's different about the Google offering? What differentiates it?
A: Most obviously, it's from Google. None of the other competing alternatives can compete for reach and breadth.

Technically, it also differs from the Flash or Java based approaches, choosing instead to deploy its own, lightweight cross-platform persistence store in SQLite. Unlike some of the alternatives, it would appear that Google's spent a lot of time on application performance; each application instance has its own sandbox, its own database, and can spawn its own background threads. As a result, according to Google, the performance impact for many applications should be neglible.

The most important differentiator, however, is its ambitions. I didn't fully appreciate them until I listened to Berlind's podcast linked to above, but Google would like for gears to become the de facto standard for offline development, a "single, industry standard" approach for delivering offline Ajax applications. Zimbra's approach was to solve the problem on its own, while the Joyent folks widened the aperture a bit more targeting Rails applications. Google's intention is for Gears to become the platform for offline apps, and has apparently designed and definitely licensed it as such.

Q: How do you mean?
A: well, let's take the technology side first. Upson, in the interview above, was very unambiguous is his desire to have a great many developers use the technology. Start listing around 13:20, and you'll get the picture, as Upson says:

"Clearly we're very interested in offline enabling all of the interesting Google applications, however, we really want this to be a developer focused release, and it's still at the experimental stage and we want to get feedback from the broader community, and we know this is going to evolve and change as we learn. I think we've done some clever things here, we've probably done some things that aren't so clever, and so we want to be able to change how this works and evolve it over time, based on the partners that we work with and the web developer community. We wanted to have a real application, but we didn't want to go beyond the development community at this stage."

From that, it's clear that Google has attempted not to deliver the once and future framework, but something that really is a beta (rather than a label, as it seems to be with so many of Google's other offerings). Something that will draw feedback, and evolve towards real deployment scenarios.

Q: And the licensing? How does that encourage adoption?
A: The Gears technology is permissively licensed under a BSD style license, which is the least restrictive and offers the fewest barriers of entry to potential communities. As we recently put it in an internal report delivered to a RedMonk client:

Platform Licensing:
Of particular interest in this case are the strategies employed by platforms. While the GPL remains the
overwhelming license of choice for applications in general, and is the choice of perhaps the most popular
open source platform in Linux, platform technologies trend towards permissive style licenses as opposed to
reciprocal approaches. The BSD distributions are perhaps the most obvious example, but the licensing for
PHP - perhaps the most ubiquitous dynamic language at the current time - is another.

At one time, PHP was dual licensed under the GPL and the PHP license, but dropped the GPL as of PHP
version 4 because of the reciprocal restrictions. Python's license is similarly permissive, as it employs its
own custom BSD style style license. Mozilla's Firefox, additionally, was as previously mentioned trilicensed
specifically to address the limitations imposed by its original reciprocal-style license.

Generally speaking, the preference for permissive licenses by platform technologies is that they impose the
least restrictions on users and developers, thus offering significant advantages should ubiquity and adoption
be an important goal. These advantages, however, come with a price: permissively licensed technologies can
be easily and legally forked, or incorporated into proprietary code, or repurposed. The lack of restrictions is
both its biggest strength and biggest weakness.

For a commercial entity, then, permissive licensing is best applied to platforms when the vendors wants to
grow the market around the platform, monetizing other parts of the market rather than the core platform. For
example, the platform may be "free" but tools to interact with and create "content" in the resulting ecosystem
may cost.

The decision to apply the BSD style license, then, can be viewed as an attempt by Google to encourage ubiquitous adoption and consumption.

Q: What are the likely impacts to some of the Gears alternatives?
A: From an application provider perspective, I tend to agree with Berlind, who said:

Where companies have committed to an offline architecture as Zimbra has with its Zimbra Desktop (whose offline capability is powered by Java), those companies may be forced to completely reconsider that architecture if Google Gears gets market traction.

If you're Zimbra, and your resources are limited, it would make sense to at least ask the question as to whether or continued investment in a redundant offline infrastructure was justified. It could be, for technical reasons, but it might not be as well.

If you're a Joyent, the question is more complicated. They're targeting a far more specific niche than Google Gears, in Rails apps, so the question will come down to whether or not Slingshot can offer enough differentiating features to Rails devs to justify their usage of it. Compromising their argument is the fact that Slingshot is not, as yet, available on as many platforms as Gears. Still, they appear content to play David.

Interestingly, Adobe seems to be partnering quite closely; willingly aligning their SQLite efforts with Google's. That bodes well for Google's ultimate aims.

Q: Who will be anti-Google Gears?
A: Well, some of the aforementioned alternatives are probably not blissfully happy right now. And there are a variety of players that could ultimately be threatened by the technology. But the least likely to play along, handing Google a de facto standard for offline persistence, would be Microsoft, IMO. I'd be somewhat surprised if we don't see a similar Windows-like technology emerge. The question, as always, will be their cross-platform story, which Google's gotten very right here.

Q: How about Mozilla?
A: I was interested to see how they'd react, given that similar ambitions were on their roadmap for 3.0. But they're apparently partnering with Google on this endeavor, and I actually wonder - pure speculation on my part - whether or not Google's de facto standard could ultimately replace some of the planned work within 3.0. Either way, Mozilla appears to be on board.

Q: Is Google Gears likely to lead to an explosion of offline applications?
A: Explosion's probably a little overambitious. One of the things that's clear as you begin to parse offline application scenarios - and as Upson discusses - is that no two are the same. An offline email client is not the same as an offline feed reader is not the same as an offline CRM system and so on. The application calls, the application storage demands, the application performance implications, even the very utility of offline data access - vary widely. What I expect to see, at least initially, is experimentation. Trials to determine what data needs to be cached, what doesn't, and so on.

My colleague is of the belief that Web 3.0 will be about synchronization, and he's taken to calling Web 3.0 the Synchronized Web. Whether you agree with that or not, or like *.0 designation system, there can be no debate that in increasingly online/offline use cases, synchronization - a difficult task at the best of times - will be one of the most significant challenges to tackle.

Q: Couple of questions coming in from #redmonk - was this a 20% project or is it being developed for a specific product?
A: Good question - don't know the answer. It sounds like the latter, but perhaps one of the Google folks can check in and tell us.

Q: Another set of questions from the #redmonk channel, more technical - "Is WorkerPool positioned against Microsoft's BITs service for asynchronous IO? Is IO from WorkerPool using the browser connections or its own? If WorkerPool does not have DOM access, does that mean that the JavaScript is being executed in the browser's JS interpreter or is Gears providing its own? Will other non-browser applications be able to read/write to the local store thus enhancing the user experience?"
A: Don't have the answers to most of those, but let's see what we can parse. As for BITs, I suspect that WorkerPool is like it, but that they won't compete with each other because of a.) scope and b.) the fact that one's cross-platform and one's not. As for IO, I don't know. I'd guess that WorkerPool is using it's own connections because of the aforementioned issues around multi-threading, but that's all it would be, a guess. On the interpreter question, I'm fairly sure Gears is using the browser's because I haven't heard anything about it incorporating a second, and that would seem to be unnecessarily redundant. Lastly, on the topic of whether non-browser applications can read/write to the local store, I know they can read the DB's - John Herren's said as much above. And Adobe and Google appear to be coordinating their efforts on that front to some degree. Whether or not applications can access the pieces more deeply, however, is a question I don't know the answer to. But would like to, because it has implications for RIA and rich client strategies that could transcend the browser.

Q: Last question from #redmonk: why Gears?
A: Excellent question. I'll leave it to Google to answer that one officially, just noting that the Gears Firefox Add-on's caption is "These are the gears that power the tubes!"

Q: Any last thoughts or conclusions?
A: Just that, like the Joyent guys, I think that offline, persisted information is a legitimate game changer. This is the biggest piece of news I've heard in a long while.



Update: Had some versioning issues, so had to re-merge some content. Sections originally missing were the enabled applications, and a different version of the "what differentiates Gears". Apologies.

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Live Writer beta 2

This is a very very cool tool, I simply love it..

 
 

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My test blog..

See if this gets blogged..
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Google Releases Gears

 
 

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Google Releases Gears

via Channel 9 by anand.t on May 31, 2007

http://gears.google.com/

Plugin to make online apps work offline. Will be made open source and standardised soon. Choice of platform is Adobe apollo


 
 

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First blog from new Blogging Tool

Windows Live writer has got new Beta version.

Would only say, WLW rocks, I love it.. (http://writer.live.com)

Another rocking product from Microsoft.

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 30, 2007

Finally buying Digital Camera..

My closed ones might be knowing, Photography is one of my hobby, which I have not been able to satisfy till now. But now, its time to give some weight there. Buying a digital camera !!

After hours and hours of research and fusion, comparisions, discussion, have completed the selection process.. got this one perfectly OK for me..

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=DSC-W35&site=odw_en_GB&pageType=Overview&category=DCC+Digital+Still+Cameras

Will cost me somewhere around 12000 on hand.

Have already ordered it from ebay, waiting for my little gadget..

So, now, one more cause for blogging.. Photos !!

Stay tuned.. Wave

Microsoft, You simply ROCK!!

This is not because MS promised me to give a good hike Winking, its because.... Just have a look..

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 28, 2007

What can parents do for their child!

Watch whole video! Its all about courage! Who says animals does not have feelings or mind or families? They have it and this video proves it..

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 27, 2007

How would it be if.. "Google talk mail notification window also includes 'Delete Mail' button"..

Feature : I just love the feature of email notification that comes with Google Talk. But something is lacking there, it does not contain the button to "Delete" the shown email from the notification window itself. They should modify the mail notification window so that you get the small buttons to do some common things like,

  • Mark the email as spam
  • Delete the email
  • Star the item for future attention
  • Archive the mail

Isnt it a good feature? I wonder if I would be in Google (the Innovative company!)

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 24, 2007

Sometimes this also happens..

What would you say? Got something damaged in top most part of body? lol..

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 23, 2007

Crossed 10,000 Visitors !!

Greetings!!

Blog has crossed 10,000 visitors today.. I am happy, I have spread good word to people, and in that way contributed to the community for something good.

Its around 11 months in which blog attracted 10,000 visitors!!

If you want to see who all visits the blog, have a look at,
http://www.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s26jigar

Stay tuned.. Wave

How blogs and ping works !!

Found very good information on Vikram's blog at,
http://www.vikramlakhotia.com/post.aspx?postid=167

As we all know the world of the Blogs work on the ping services. Once we update our blog with new posts we need to update the other sources that our blog has been updated. We should ping to the sources whenever we create or update our post.

Pings can be done both manually and programmatically. Many site provide free ping services for with a ping interface like http://ping.in/, http://pingoat.com etc. You enter your URL and and the feed title and they will ping all the ping server listed.

We can also ping programmatically. Programmatic ping is done through XMP-RPC Procedure, through which we send xml over the http request. The XML contains information of your feed and the URL to which you send the request is called the endpoint

Here is an example that I found that uses the xmlRpc Library from the cook computing.

Cool, Isn't it?

Stay tuned.. Wave

How would it be.. If somebody starts IM advertisement !!

Feature/Product : There be a company, which asks you your IM ID (yahoo, gtalk, jabber, liveID, AIM or any other!!) and sends you XX number of daily advertisements that suits your preference, and also if you use those advertisement, you are paid some bonus amount!

These days, we are online almost all the day, and if push method is made for advertisement through IM, I think its going to be a very cool concept. And one can ensure that advertisement was taken into consideration because one would get paid only if they go to the advertisement page (so, we can avoid paying those IM advertisements which are never shown or seen!)

Lets see if somebody gets this idea and implements it!!

BTW, I got one such concept implemented in Mobile (SMS).. They send you SMS and pays you for reading the SMS!! (though, very small amount right now, but I think this is good concept of advertisement!!) Want to become member?? Click here, http://www.mginger.com/index.jsp?inviteId=132896

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 22, 2007

Gmail Maximum attachment size is now 20 MB

Got this fact while reading some blog..

Gmail upgraded the maximum attachment size from 10 MB to 20 MB. Gmail was quite forgiving and you could send more than 10 MB in some cases, but now it's possible to send at least 20 MB in one message.

Of course, few mail providers will accept a such a big message, so it's safe to send messages bigger than 10 MB to other Gmail accounts, to Yahoo Mail Plus or to other premium accounts.

It would be nice if Gmail showed a progress bar for the upload and if uploading files to Gmail was faster and more reliable. But maybe we're asking too much.

Cool, isn't it ?

Stay tuned.. Wave

List of online video sites!!

This guy has compiled a very long list of online video website.
http://www.everybodygoto.com/2007/05/21/the-ultimate-online-video-list/

Cool collection!

Stay tuned.. Wave

How would it be if "Google Reader has a feature of blogging the feed post!"

Feature: Google reader also has a feature of blogging the post (by having the trackback link to the original blog!) with just the click.

Today, I really would like to have many posts blogged on my Blog just to share them with my readers. I know, Google Reader has the feature of "Sharing the posts" but whats wrong in that thing is, if I already have the blog, there would be two locations where my readers would have to go and read what I want them to read!

Hope, google would recognize this need and do something!! What do you think?

Stay tuned.. Wave

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

May 19, 2007

10 points to get along with people..

Reading Alok's blog this morning and found interesting post, thought would share it here,

Again a reminder call and woke up early morning on a weekend. Wondering what to do I had 2 hours of time, thought of checking my mails by the time I open my mailbox, I caught with some nice links and here goes …. the information that I found very interesting. I was tempted to post this on my blog … just moving on.

How to get along with people

1. Keep skid chains on your tongue; always say less than you think. Cultivate a low, persuasive voice. How you say it counts more than what you say.

2. Make promises sparingly, and keep them faithfully, no matter what it costs.

3. Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging word to or about somebody. Praise good work, regardless of who did it. If criticism is needed, criticize helpfully, never spitefully.

4. Be interested in others, their pursuits, their work, their homes and families. Make merry with those who rejoice; with those who weep, mourn. Let everyone you meet, however humble, feel that you regard him as a person of importance.

5. Be cheerful. Don't burden or depress those around you by dwelling on your minor aches and pains and small disappointments. Remember, everyone is carrying some kind of a load.

6. Keep an open mind. Discuss but don't argue. It is a mark of a superior mind to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

7. Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves. Refuse to talk of another's vices. Discourage gossip. It is a waste of valuable time and can be extremely destructive.

8. Be careful of another's feelings. Wit and humor at the other person's expense are rarely worth it and may hurt when least expected.

9. Pay no attention to ill-natured remarks about you. Remember, the person who carried the message may not be the most accurate reporter in the world. Simply live so that nobody will believe them. Disordered nerves and bad digestion are a common cause of backbiting.

10. Don't be too anxious about the credit due you. Do your best, and be patient. Forget about yourself, and let others remember. Success is much sweeter that way.
 
Good one, isn't it?
 
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The best Air Travel Planning helper web-site.

I have used many sites for planning my journey including http://yatra.com, http://rediff.com/faresearch. But have just come across THE BEST site amongst all of them.

Its, ClearTrip (http://cleartrip.com). The best feature I like in ClearTrip is their "Best airfare calendar feature". Its so simple yet so much effective, it just saves your time. The workflow that they have used is pretty streight forward, I really liked this site. They also help in booking hotel, have not yet used their service yet (by actually booking tickets from site) but will surely do for my next travel. They have just caught me as their customer (unless I get very bad service!!)

Visit ClearTrip Calendar at,
http://www.cleartrip.com/calendar

Want to see the preview??

So, the price you see is for Bangalore - Ahmedabad direct flight's best price amongst all the flights on that day (I was just planning my next vacation! Winking)

Thanks cleartrip for giving pretty neat and fast interface (they have also integrated AJAX; my User Experience was pretty cool with site!)

Stay tuned.. Wave

Yahoo messenger at last has come up with IM history feature..

Yes, long awaited feature of saving history at servers has been provided by Yahoo Messenger. So, now, whatever chat you do online will be stored and indexed by Yahoo Servers so that you can search the history anytime no matter where you are! But, I have got First experience as BAD experience. This is what I am getting..

Though, I am not sure if they also saves the history for chat that we do with normal desktop installed Yahoo client! If its also there, it would be cool, isn't it?

Stay tuned.. Wave

Updates on blog..

This weekend, one of the agenda was to add new features to the blog.. So, here is some of the modifications I made for the blog.

  • Advertiser changed. You might have noticed that previously it was showing those textual advertisements from bidvertiser, now I have modified it to ebay's exiting visual advertisements.

  • Who is reading / vising site right now! Community integration..

MyBlogLog is one the community service provider who tracks who all people (who have already registered with it!) are reading the website. So, now, on the right panel, it will be showing the users who are reading / visiting the site along with you!!

  • Social Bookmarking Integration. These days, social bookmarking have become really important and people are using it in real good manner.
  • So, decided to add the social bookmarking feature to the each post. So, now, for each post, you will see a button like, the one on left. Clicking that button will open up new page with almost all bookmarking services..!! So, now, you wont have to search for your favorite post on my blog. It would already be there in your bookmarks and also, you will be able to share them up with your friends.

Employee of the month (2006)

As a part of my typical weekend, just watched another movie, 'Employee of the month'.. Want to watch it online?

part 1
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vbf3_eotm-part-1

part 2
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vc44_eotm-part-2

part 3
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vcr9_eotm-part-3

part 4
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vd02_eotm-part-4

part 5
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vdc2_eotm-part-5

part 6
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vdg8_eotm-part-6

This movie reminds me of my achievement, "Employee of the Year" when I was at Gaytes Information Systems. Though I did not have this kind of fierce competition Happy

Read more about the movie at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424993/

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Silent Hill (2006)

Just found whole movie on Google Video.. Enjoy!!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1379419165092647782&q=silent+hill++2006

More information about movie at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384537/

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 18, 2007

How Image Spam works..

Image Spam—an e-mail solicitation that uses graphical images of text to avoid filters—is not new. Recently, though, it reached an unprecedented level of sophistication and took off. A year ago, fewer than five out of 100 e-mails were image spam, according to Doug Bowers of Symantec. Today, up to 40 percent are. Meanwhile, image spam is the reason spam traffic overall doubled in 2006, according to antispam company Borderware. It is expected to keep rising.

Read more at, (thanks scott for sharing good piece of information), http://csoonline.com/read/040107/fea_spam_by_the_numbers.html

Stay tuned.. Wave

Windows is better than Ubuntu :)

Reading through Coffeehouse at Channel9 and found one of the user's frustration!!

So I spent 3 hours trying the newly released Ubuntu 7.04, and I cant say I like it.

It just sucks and it is buggy.

short and simple.

I think Ubuntu needs another 100 years to become as good as Windows in the desktop.

Honest Opinion.

I want my 3 hours back. :@

Now, do you understand, how Microsoft reached where it is?

Stay tuned.. Wave

Microsoft releases Popfly, a Mashup Tool

Reading Andrew's blog and found interesting news.

Robert Scoble

When I first saw this demoed a few months ago the Microsoftie who showed it to me literally built TwitterVision in two minutes right in front of me without writing code. TwitterVision’s inventor told me he took four hours to do the same thing. Lets someone who isn’t a coder (like me) mashup various Web services easily and quickly.

Source: Microsoft Releases Popfly Mashup Tool | WebProNews

Find out more here:

http://www.popfly.ms/

My favorite bit from the FAQ page:

Q: Why did you call it Popfly?

A: Well, left to our own devices we would have called "Microsoft Visual Mashup Creator Express, May 2007 Community Tech Preview Internet Edition," but instead we asked some folks for help and they suggested some cool names and we all liked Popfly.

Still Popfly is closed beta, you have to tell them that you are interested and they will send you an invitation when your login is ready. I have done that, what are you waiting for!! Do that, at least you will be able to see what Microsoft Silverlight can do !!

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Google Video shows preview in search results..

Reading Google OS blog and found,

If you do a search on Google Video, which now is a video search engine and returns content from YouTube and Google Video, you'll notice an option to watch each video result on the same page, in a small player. This is a good way to preview the content before watching it in full view.

If you have a slow or unreliable Internet connection, you can open more videos at the same time and pause all of them, so that you can watch the videos without interruptions.

Google tested the video PlusBox in the web results, but probably realized that it's more appropriate to use it in Google Video.

Cool, isn't it?

Stay tuned.. Wave

Shortcut commands for windows

Some very useful commands for power users of Microsoft Windows.

Accessibility Controls
access.cpl

Add Hardware Wizard
hdwwiz.cpl

Add/Remove Programs
appwiz.cpl

Administrative Tools
control admintools

Automatic Updates
wuaucpl.cpl

Bluetooth Transfer Wizard
fsquirt

Calculator
calc

Certificate Manager
certmgr.msc

Character Map
charmap

Check Disk Utility
chkdsk

Clipboard Viewer
clipbrd

Command Prompt
cmd

Component Services
dcomcnfg

Computer Management
compmgmt.msc

Date and Time Properties
timedate.cpl

DDE Shares
ddeshare

Device Manager
devmgmt.msc

Direct X Control Panel (If Installed)*
directx.cpl

Direct X Troubleshooter
dxdiag

Disk Cleanup Utility
cleanmgr

Disk Defragment
dfrg.msc

Disk Management
diskmgmt.msc

Disk Partition Manager
diskpart

Display Properties
control desktop

Display Properties
desk.cpl

Display Properties (w/Appearance Tab Preselected)
control color

Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utility
drwtsn32

Driver Verifier Utility
verifier

Event Viewer
eventvwr.msc

File Signature Verification Tool
sigverif

Findfast
findfast.cpl

Folders Properties
control folders

Fonts
control fonts

Fonts Folder
fonts

Free Cell Card Game
freecell

Game Controllers
joy.cpl

Group Policy Editor (XP Prof)
gpedit.msc

Hearts Card Game
mshearts

Iexpress Wizard
iexpress

Indexing Service
ciadv.msc

Internet Properties
inetcpl.cpl
IP Configuration (Display Connection Configuration)
ipconfig /all

IP Configuration (Display DNS Cache Contents)
ipconfig /displaydns

IP Configuration (Delete DNS Cache Contents)
ipconfig /flushdns

IP Configuration (Release All Connections)
ipconfig /release

IP Configuration (Renew All Connections)
ipconfig /renew

IP Configuration (Refreshes DHCP & Re-Registers DNS)
ipconfig /registerdns

IP Configuration (Display DHCP Class ID)
ipconfig /showclassid

IP Configuration (Modifies DHCP Class ID)
ipconfig /setclassid
ava Control Panel (If Installed)
jpicpl32.cpl

Java Control Panel (If Installed)
javaws

Keyboard Properties
control keyboard

Local Security Settings
secpol.msc

Local Users and Groups
lusrmgr.msc

Logs You Out Of Windows
logoff

Mcft Chat
winchat

Minesweeper Game
winmine

Mouse Properties
control mouse

Mouse Properties
main.cpl

Network Connections
control netconnections

Network Connections
ncpa.cpl

Network Setup Wizard
netsetup.cpl

Notepad
notepad

Nview Desktop Manager (If Installed)
nvtuicpl.cpl

Object Packager
packager

ODBC Data Source Administrator
odbccp32.cpl

On Screen Keyboard
osk

Opens AC3 Filter (If Installed)
ac3filter.cpl

Password Properties
password.cpl

Performance Monitor
perfmon.msc

Performance Monitor
perfmon

Phone and Modem Options
telephon.cpl

Power Configuration
powercfg.cpl

Printers and Faxes
control printers

Printers Folder
printers

Private Character Editor
eudcedit

Quicktime (If Installed)
QuickTime.cpl

Regional Settings
intl.cpl

Registry Editor
regedit

Registry Editor
regedit32

Remote Desktop
mstsc

Removable Storage
ntmsmgr.msc

Removable Storage Operator Requests
ntmsoprq.msc

Resultant Set of Policy (XP Prof)
rsop.msc

Scanners and Cameras
sticpl.cpl

Scheduled Tasks
control schedtasks

Security Center
wscui.cpl

Services
services.msc

Shared Folders
fsmgmt.msc

Shuts Down Windows
shutdown

Sounds and Audio
mmsys.cpl

Spider Solitare Card Game
spider

SQL Client Configuration
cliconfg

Startup Booster
msconfig

System Configuration Editor
sysedit

System Configuration Utility
msconfig

System File Checker Utility (Scan Immediately)
sfc /scannow

System File Checker Utility (Scan Once At Next Boot)
sfc /scanonce

System File Checker Utility (Scan On Every Boot)
sfc /scanboot

System File Checker Utility (Return to Default Setting)
sfc /revert

System File Checker Utility (Purge File Cache)
sfc /purgecache

System File Checker Utility (Set Cache Size to size x)
sfc /cachesize=x

System Properties
sysdm.cpl

Task Manager
taskmgr

Telnet Client
telnet

User Account Management
nusrmgr.cpl

Utility Manager
utilman

Windows Firewall
firewall.cpl

Windows Magnifier
magnify

Windows Management Infrastructure
wmimgmt.msc

Windows System Security Tool
syskey

Windows Update Launches
wupdmgr

Windows XP Tour Wizard
tourstart

Wordpad
write

Stay tuned.. Wave

Microsoft acquires aQuantive, Inc.

An answer to Google's acqusition of DoubleClick??

Read more at,
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/may07/05-18Advertising.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

BTW, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash, whereas aQuantive is valued today at around $6 billion.

Stay tuned.. Wave

May 13, 2007

FAQ about Windows Service

Have just posted a technical article on various FAQ about Windows Service on my live space (I generally put my personal research and study related articles on my live space)..

Visit it here,
http://jigarme.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DD7841DFB6968535!153

Stay tuned.. Wave

Where is my time being spent !!

As I said in one of my old post, I dont know why I am so much busy even after so much time behind things. Am I not effective? I decided to find out where is my time going, by measuring minute details of my time spending.

One reason I found out today and blogging about it over here. I am fan of surfing web. I am so mad behind it that, I forget my work sometimes against it. I think sometimes, I will only give 15 minutes for this topic to search more and I end up giving 30 minutes there.

Following would give some idea about it,

Internet and surfing has become addiction for me now.. Someone help me!!

Stay tuned.. Wave

Yahoo mail ! Sometimes I hate it..

Yahoo mails is very nice, but sometimes its annoying.. So much that I feel like, I would stop using it.

One example is,

Now, my tragedy is, even after closing the browser and re-opening, I could not get it to working. I know that I had 22 mails unread in my account but I can not see it. Why in the world would this happen to somebody, just because its in Beta? I switched back to the original grandpa version of Yahoo Mail today and would not come back to this new one until it comes out of Beta!! One should always remember, Customer (or User for that matter) takes 10 good experience to get attracted to the product but one bad experience can make him far-far away from the product. Thats what we at Microsoft remember every second..

Anyways, Stay tuned.. Wave

Tech Support, oh ma god !! Sometimes its...

One of my friend just sent me a forward, but after reading, i felt fresh!! Rolling on the floor

This ought to make you feel better about your computer skills!
Unbelievable, but supposedly all true...!

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Female customer: A white one...

Customer: Hi, this is Celine. I can't get my diskette out.
Tech support: Have you tried pushing the Button?
Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.
Tech support: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.
Customer: No, wait a minute... I hadn't inserted it yet... it's still on my desk... sorry....

Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?

Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?
Male customer: Hello... I can't print.
Tech support: Would you click on "start" for me and...
Customer: Listen pal; don't start getting technical on me! I'm not Bill Gates.

Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'Can't find printer'. I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it...

Customer: I have problems printing in red...
Tech support: Do you have a color printer?
Customer: Aaaah....................thank you.

Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at the 7-11.

Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer:! OK
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah...that one does work...

Tech support: Your password is the small letter "a" as in apple, a capital letter V as n Victor, the number 7.
Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters?

Customer: can't get on the Internet.
Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five stars.

Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer: Netscape.
Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry...Internet Explorer.

Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.

Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first e-mail.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?

A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
Tech support: Are you running it under windows?
Customer: "No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine."

And last but not least...
Tech support: "Okay Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter "P" to bring up the Program Manager."
Customer: I don't have a P.
Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: "P".....on your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!

Funny, isnt it?

Stay tuned.. Wave

Good website for Digital Camera Information..

I was just surfing internet for Digital Camera and which is good pick (want to buy one.. Happy). And came across this site,
http://www.compareindia.com

Its having very good information (comparision also) about almost all digital camera out there in market!! Go start searching, if you are also looking for a good Digital Camera!!

Stay tuned.. Wave

I love this song..

Lyrics of the song is simply super-cool..

Stay tuned.. Wave

Guys who changed the world !!

20030611-microsoft-1978.jpg

Did these guys even have an idea that they are going to change the whole world.. Perhaps they didnt even imagine, they are going to change the life of 6.5 billion people all over the earth, in either direct or indirect way !~!

Way to go guys! Thx for making our life easier.

Stay tuned.. Wave