Sunday, November 05, 2006

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Great Amul Ads !

Best of Amul Ads
These ads are simply great and hilarious and are related the current events. Too good.

image
image
image

Amul is an Indian Milk products company.

Also at Amul Ads

Online Music

I came across Dhingana which provides you free streaming Indian music online. It alows you to create a playlist of your favorite songs. It has have all the latest Bollywood music lined up, along with oldies, pop albums, ghazals, bhajans with regional music in Marathi.

From Quickonlinetips: I searched through many Indian music sites, but I think Indian music lovers should definitely tune in to Dhingana to listen to free streaming Indian music online. and i agree with that too.

for english songs you can go to Pandora: Internet Radio, where you can listen to free music for your choice of artist, genre. this is also a great project.

Web 2.0: How High-Volume eBay Manages Its Storage

The ultrapopular auction/sales Web site continues its exponential growth and finds itself adding 10 terabytes of new storage every week. That's a lot of data.

  • The site averages more than 1 billion page views per day.
  • Users trade about $1,700 worth of goods on the site every second.
  • A vehicle sells every minute.
  • A motor part or accessory sells every second.
  • Diamond jewelry sells every 2 minutes.
  • The site currently has about 600 million listings and about 204 million registered users.

  • Read More >>
    Also read : Interesting Facts About Ebay Website
    Digg Story

    Tuesday, October 31, 2006

    My Del.icio.us Toolbar

    Update: Noticed some changes made by mozilla in extesnion's page
    I developed this toolbar that provides you all functionality of del.icio.us website with a quick access right in your toolbar. It helps you in searching bookmarks and tagging new websites and lot more functionalities. Try it :)
    Download it from here : My Del.icio.us

    Related Post : Del.icio.us Bookmark Search

    Saturday, October 21, 2006

    Happy Diwali !!

    Happy Diwali to all !! Enjoy !

    Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights and is an important festival not only to Hindus but pretty much all Indian nationals.
    so I am going home for 4-5 days...till then Diwali Break

    Enjoy the Festival of colours!! Happy Diwali

    Tuesday, October 17, 2006

    Indian Farmers Go Hi-tech

    When an Indian state government wanted to acquire the land of farmers for building a Special Economic Zone, the farmers used satellite pictures from Google Earth to prove their land is fertile.
    Watch the video @ http://labnol.blogspot.com/
    Read more >>
    Also at Google Earth aid for Maha farmers@ IBN Live

    Monday, October 16, 2006

    How to hide files in JPEG's

    Create the rar file:
    rar a secret.rar <your secret file>
    cat img.jpg secret.rar > newimg.jpg

    Now this newimage looks identical to img.jpg, but it has secret.rar contained in it :)
    Pull the file back out with this command: unrar x newimg.jpg

    In windows :How to hide files in JPEG's

    Related Post :

    Sunday, October 15, 2006

    Block Writing with Unicode

    █████ █░█ ░ █▀█ █░░ ███ █▀▀
    █░█░█ ▀█▀ ░ █▀█ █░░ █░█ █░█
    ▀░▀░▀ ░▀░ ░ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀

    My Name in Hindi: अजीत

    Unicode characters.
    The character encoding can be specified in the charset parameter of a meta tag in the of an HTML document, for example:

    <meta equiv="content-type" content="text-html; charset=utf-8">
    Complete set of unicode characters
    To write unicode characters in html file, first you will need to add above meta tag in your "<head>" of html. Then write charater as :

    add a '&#' at the beginning and a ';' at the end
    so, take out the spaces in this:
    &# 9619 ; // 9619 is unicode corresponding to ▓
    and you get this: ▓

    If you want to develop firefox extension..

    It will be helpful to have :

    For creating toolbar extensions: Toolbar tutorial
    Roachfield : how to create firefox extensions

    Related Posts :
    Firefox tips
    Speed Up Firefox
    Creating firefox extension

    Saturday, October 14, 2006

    Making LaTeX Beamer Presentations

    I came across this nicely compiled page on :
    how to make Latex Beamer Presentations

    If you want to create overhead presentations (รก la Powerpoint) with LaTeX, you can do so by using Beamer class, which creates surprisingly professional and sophisticated documents that you can then display using any pdf viewer (e.g., such as Adobe Acrobat). The advantage of using LaTeX over a program like Powerpoint is that it doesn't require expensive software for either creating or displaying your presentation; it thus makes the presentation truly "portable".

    Read More >>
    Related Links :

    Thursday, October 12, 2006

    You want to stop smoking ?

    What Happens to Your body if you stop smoking Right now?

    Its not the stuff i usually write about, but kinda like the post.

  • In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.
  • In 8 hours the carbon monoxide (a toxic gas) levels in your blood stream will drop by half, and oxygen levels will return to normal.
  • In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.
  • In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.


  • Read More >>

    Wednesday, October 11, 2006

    Using Telnet to send mail (By SMTP)

    You : telnet 25
    Server : Trying ???.???.???.???...
    Connected to
    Escape character is '^]'.
    220 ESMTP Sendmail ?version-number?;
    You : Helo
    Server : 250 mail.domain.ext
    You : mail from
    Server : 250 ok
    You : rcpt to:
    Server : 250 ok

    To start composing the message issue the command data
    You: data
    You : Subject:-type subject here-
    then press enter twice
    You may now proceed to type the body of your message
    To tell the mail server that you have completed the message enter a single "." on a line on it's own.
    Server : 250 ok ???????? Message accepted for delivery
    You can close the connection by issuing the QUIT command.
    You : QUIT

    Sunday, October 08, 2006

    funky javascript

    Just paste the JavaScript given in you address bar after visiting any website.
    Copy this to location bar & press enter.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This is what you get when you try it on search result from google images:














    Related Links : http://burad.blogspot.com/2006/03/little-tweaks-with-javascript_23.html

    Source : Digg.com

    Friday, October 06, 2006

    Greasemonkey script to Replace URLs in webpage

    Yesterday night i made this script which replaces urls with their alternatives in a webpage. What r its usage :

    • Ad blocking (Replacing such URLs with blank so that clicking them will result in nothing.
    • Unblocking some sites :) . At many places sites are just blocked by url names so it replaces them with ip.(for example i did same for youtube as its blocked in my college). you can modify script to include more such urls.
    You will need firefox with Greasemonkey extension installed to use this script.
    Here is the script : Right Click to install

    Resources : Dive into Greasemokey

    Thursday, October 05, 2006

    Google : The Literacy Project

    A resource for teachers, literacy organisations and anyone interested in reading and education, created in collaboration with LitCam, Google, and UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning. Some of the resources available on the site include:
    Books, Video, Blogs, Academic texts, Groups, Maps.
    Literacy
    Links : Google Blog
    Google Launches Literacy Project

    Wednesday, October 04, 2006

    Dilbert & Linux

    Dilbert_linux1

    Dilbert_linux2


    Also Check : Dilbert & IITs

    Java JRE/JDK installation

    To verify that the installation was successful, execute

    java -version

    The output should look something like this if everything is well

    java version "1.5.0_05"
    Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_05-b05)
    Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_05-b05, mixed mode)

    If the version does not match what you just installed then you might have JRE/JDK installed previously

    Multiple JRE/JDK installed

    If you have multiple JRE or JDK installed (e.g. 1.5.0 and 1.4.2) and want/need to switch between them, you can use update-alternatives to do so.

    Example: Choosing which java executable to use:

    update-alternatives --config java

    Example: Choosing which javac executable to use:

    update-alternatives --config javac

    And so on in that fashion for the remaining executables related to Java. You can look in /etc/alternatives to see what one can configure with update-alternatives.
    Links : Download

    Linux Network Basic

    Display all the interfaces you have on your server:
    ifconfig

    Display all interfaces as well as inactive interfaces you may have:
    ifconfig -a

    Assign the eth0 interface the IP-address 192.168.1.100 with netmask 255.255.255.0:
    ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.100 netmask 255.255.255.0

    Assign the default gateway for eth0 to 192.168.1.1 (for example your router):
    route add default gw 192.168.1.1 eth0

    Verify that you can reach your router (192.168.1.1):
    ping 192.168.1.1

    Display the routing information with the command route to see if routing entry is correct:
    route -n

    Check the status of the interfaces quickly:
    netstat -i

    Show all active connections:
    netstat

    Show all active TCP connections:
    netstat -t

    DNS lookups (3 different ways) and displays the answers that are returned from the name server (To troubleshoot DNS problems):
    dig ubuntulinux.org
    nslookup ubuntulinux.org
    host ubuntulinux.org

    Determine the network route from your computer to some other computer:
    traceroute www.ubuntulinux.org

    View your ARP (used by a networked machine to resolve the hardware location/address of another machine on the same local network) Cache:
    arp

    Remove any entry from the ARP cache for the specified host (for example 192.168.1.103):
    arp -d 192.168.1.103

    Check traffic in network :
    tcpdump -n arp

    Send out unsolicited ARP messages so as to update remote arp caches (for example 192.168.1.103):
    arping 192.168.1.103

    Shutdown a specific interface (for example eth0):
    ifconfig eth0 down

    Activate a specific interfrace (for example eth0):
    ifconfig eth0 up

    Stop all network devices manually on your system (Debian specific):
    /etc/init.d/networking stop

    Start all network devices manually on your system (Debian specific):
    /etc/init.d/networking start

    Restart all network devices manually on your system (Debian specific):
    /etc/init.d/networking restart

    Networking configuration is stored in the following file:
    /etc/network/interfaces

    Resource:
    Ubuntu Linux Blog by Ralph
    http://www.linuxhelp.net/guides/networkbasics/

    Thursday, September 28, 2006

    It's not too late to be a genius

    Nice article from creating passionate users :

    In the web/tech world (and many other domains), it seems the Big Ideas belong to the Young. Barely 27, David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Ruby on Rails framework, has changed the world and given the Ruby language a reason to live. Then there's Caterina and Stewart, creators of Flickr. Then there's Larry and Sergey, the "boys" behind Google, and Jeff Bezos was just 30 when he founded Amazon.


    It's never too late to make a difference. Just...keep...trying s***. And remember the quote from the 90-something woman who, when asked about her regrets said, "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken up the violin at 60. I'd have been playing for almost 40 years by now..."
    Read More >>

    Wednesday, September 27, 2006

    The Story Behind These Company Names

    Here are some interesting encounter how these companies got their name :...

    Apache - It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA’s httpd daemon. The result was ‘A PAtCHy’ server -– thus, the name Apache.

    CISCO - Its not an acronym but the short for San Francisco.

    Hewlett-Packard (HP) - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett, and the winner was NOT Bill…the winner was Dave.

    Apple Computers - Steve Jobs was three months late in
    filing a name for the business because he didn’t get any better
    name for his new company. So one day he told to the staff: “If
    I’ll not get better name by 5 o’clock today, our
    company’s name will be anything he likes…” So at 5
    o’clcok nobody come up with better name, and he was eating Apple
    that time… so he keep the name of the company ‘Apple Computers’.

    Read More >>

    Tuesday, September 26, 2006

    Del.icio.us Bookmark search..

    Yesterday i made this del.icio.us bookmark search page. It takes xml file as input and search for bookmarks according to tags and title. It start searching as you type.
    here is link : Del.icio.us SearchER

    Any suggestion are welcome... :)

    Updated URL !
    Related Link: My Del.icio.us Toolbar

    Monday, September 25, 2006

    Enabling and disabling services during start up in GNU/Linux

    In any Linux distribution, some services are enabled to start at boot up by default. For example, on my machine, I have pcmcia, cron daemon, postfix mail transport agent ... just to name a few, which start during boot up. Usually, it is prudent to disable all services that are not needed as they are potential security risks and also they unnecessarily waste hardware resources.

    The start-up scripts are stored in the '/etc/init.d/' directory. So if you want to say, enable apache webserver in different run levels, then you should have a script related to the apache webserver in the /etc/init.d/ directory. It is usually created at the time of installing the software.
    This article describes how can we enable or disable different services during boot in different kind of distros like Redhat, Debian, Gentoo
    Read More >>

    Thursday, September 21, 2006

    Repair a Corrupt MBR and boot into Linux

    There are times when you inadvertently overwrite your Master Boot Record. The end result being that you are unable to boot into Linux. This is especially true when you are dual booting between windows and Linux OSes.
    This is what you do to restore the GRUB boot loader when faced with the above problem. First you need aLinux distribution CD. If you are using Fedora (RedHat) then the first CD is sufficient. But you may also use any of the live CDs like Knoppix, Ubuntu Live CD and so on.
    Read More >>

    A visual walk through of a couple of the new features in Vim 7.0

    This informative article gives the readers a visual walk through of some of the new features found in the latest version of Vim 7.0. It gives a detailed explanation of some of the commands which allow one to use the new features to ones advantage.

    read more | digg story

    Tuesday, September 12, 2006

    New Supercars of 2007

    It's the beginning of the new model season for supercars. And as they do nearly every year the hottest completely redefine the top end. The offerings for 2007 from Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, and other ultra brands.

    read more | digg story

    Sunday, September 10, 2006

    The Best Places To Launch A Career

    The top 50 employers for new college grads

    It's now clear, for instance, that to attract the best and the brightest, companies are no longer competing only with others in their industry. More open to career experimentation than previous generations, college grads are applying across a swath of industries. The result: No. 4-ranked Goldman Sachs (GS ) could just as easily be vying with No. 43 Teach for America and No. 13 Google (GOOG ) as with No. 9 JPMorgan (JPM ) and No. 22 Lehman Brothers (LEH ) for the very same applicant. The intensely competitive market for top young talent means companies have to fine-tune their game.
    From : http://www.businessweek.com/index.html
    Read More >>

    Monday, September 04, 2006

    Monday, August 28, 2006

    25 things you must know before buying digital camera

    very-very important things that u might forgot when you buying your new digital camera

    read more

    Sunday, August 27, 2006

    Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do

    There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a lifesaver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it.

    Source : Blogcritics.org

    Kerala (Indian State) to go 100% Linux

    After the cola ban it is now the turn of Microsoft to log out of Kerala. Children in 12500 high schools in the state will not be taught Windows. Instead instructors are lining up Linux for them. Kerala has 99.9% Literacy.


    read more | digg story

    Friday, August 18, 2006

    Why doesn't Linux need defragmenting?

    An article that explains simply why Linux users don't regularly defrag their filesystems. It compares how a harddisk patition one with FAT and one with linux behaves on file creation and appending to file. How does fragmentation increases in FAT..
    Read More >>

    Tuesday, August 15, 2006

    Blogger in beta


    Try it at : beta.blogger.com
    With the beta you can:

    Read more : Techcrunch
    buzz.blogger
    Source : Techcrunch

    Monday, August 14, 2006

    25 Sites We Can't Live Without

    from TIME

    Here we honor some '50 Coolest' finalists from years past, sites that continue to impress us with new content and features and deserve a spot on anyone's must-click list
    see complete list

    50 Coolest Websites : from TIME

    How do we select our finalists? We evaluate hundreds of candidates—some suggested by readers, colleagues and friends, others discovered during countless hours of surfing. Many of this year's choices are shining examples of Web 2.0: next-generation sites offering dynamic new ways to inform and entertain, sites with cutting-edge tools to create, consume, share or discuss all manners of media, from blog posts to video clips.
    Read more >>

    Friday, August 11, 2006

    Pesti-Cola Scandal: Pesticide Claims Shake Up Coke and Pepsi

    After allegations of high levels of toxic chemicals in their subcontinental sodas, the companies face bans amid a media uproar. Welcome to the India installment of the fabled cola wars. Global soft-drink heavies Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are actually on the same side. In short, this is shaping up to be a public-relations calamity of the first order.

    read more | digg story

    Monday, July 31, 2006

    Knock Some Commands Into Your Laptop

    from slashdot:

    "For the first time, you can smack your computer and get a meaningful response! An article at IBM Devworks show you how to rap on the laptop case with your knuckles and have commands run on those knocks. Enterprising hackers have developed modules for the Linux kernel to take advantage of laptop integrated accelerometer sensors; with them the possibilities are endless."
    Read More>>

    Get the raw knockAge demonstration video.

    Friday, July 28, 2006

    Steganography app hides a messages in plain sight

    BlackBox is an application that makes use of steganography. You have the ability to hide messages within Bitmap (BMP) files with no changes to the image or even the any of its properties, such as its file size. Useful for people who would like to send anonymous messages.

    Related Post : http://burad.blogspot.com/2006/03/steganography.html
    Link : http://www.spammimic.com/index.shtml

    read more | digg story

    Monday, July 24, 2006

    Stiff asks, great programmers answer

    "I asked 10 questions to a bunch of programmers that I consider very interesting people and I respect them for various things they created." Interesting interview with Linus Torvalds, Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson, Steve Yegge, Peter Norvig, Guido Van Rossum, James Gosling and Tim Bray.

    read more | digg story

    Saturday, July 22, 2006

    India's biggest life insurer opts for Linux

    All of LIC's 2,048 branches, 100 divisional offices, seven zonal offices, head office and subsidiary offices will be covered by the deployment. Along with this all of LICรข��s desktops will also simultaneously be converted to Linux. Approximately 60,000 users and five to six thousand servers will migrate to RHEL.

    read more | digg story

    Top 10 Tallest Buildings in the World

    This overview is the most accurate compilation of its kind and uses in-depth research results and reliable building information. It is based on data standards as outlined by the Emporis Data Committee (EDC). The ranking is based entirely on the buildings' structural height. TV towers, masts, and other building types are not included.
    Read more >>

    Architecture, design, architectural design, architectural competition, architectural awards, 3d, modelling and visualization. Architectural project modelling and visualization.3d graphics. Private house. Presentation rendering. 3d interior and exterior design, modelling and visualization. Architecture, design, architectural design, architectural competition, architectural awards, 3d, modelling and visualization. Architectural project modelling and visualization.3d graphics. Private house. Presentation rendering. 3d interior and exterior design, modelling and visualization. Architecture, design, architectural design, architectural competition, architectural awards, 3d, modelling and visualization. Architectural project modelling and visualization.3d graphics. Private house. Presentation rendering. 3d interior and exterior design, modelling and visualization.

    Friday, July 21, 2006

    Blogs are back !!

    the ban by indian govt on blogs has been lifted !!

    Thursday, July 20, 2006

    Top 10 free and cheap productivity tools

    From Gina Trapani @ Lifehacker

    Getting organized, focused and productive doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. We've reviewed thousands of time-saving applications and gadgets here at Lifehacker over the past year and a half, but a handful of really shine when it comes down to getting your stuff done, and most of them are simple, widely available, free or almost free. Here are my top 10 picks for best free and cheap productivity tools, in no particular order.
    • Pen and Paper
    • Plain text : todo.txt
    • Google Desktop
    • ....
    Read more>>

    Noob's guide to manual photography

    Some might ask why you would want or need to modify camera settings manually when the camera can do it for you รข��just fine.รข�� If you really want to end up with expressive photographs instead of mere snapshots, this beginner's guide is a must-read. I personally didn't really get into photography until I learned the manual controls. Check it out.

    read more | digg story

    Go ahead, get a little crazy

    Sometimes the smart way to make money is to be a little dumb. That is if dumb means listening to yourself when others might scoff at your idea. Hey you’ll probably go down the tubes, but just maybe you’ll hit big like the folks on this list: Top 10 Dumbest Online Business Ideas That Made It Big Time.
    source : http://make-money.booksbypeopleiknow.com/blog/
    1. Million Dollar Homepage, 2. SantaMail, 3. Doggles, and so on.

    read more | digg story

    Wednesday, July 19, 2006

    An Introduction to AJAX

    AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is the latest boom in the Web development world. AJAX helps developers narrow the gap between desktop and web applications — Google Earth, Flicker and MS Outlook Express Web Version are some of the applications powered by AJAX.

    Asynchronous means that you can make a request to a server and perform other actions while the server is processing your request -- and on the arrival of the response required actions can be performed -- as opposed to conventional web applications, in which the user has to sit back and stare at the blank screen while the server is processing the request.

    AJAX Architecture :
    Figure 2

    Read More >>
    Source : Topcoder

    Tuesday, July 18, 2006

    India Joins China in Censoring Websites

    "On the directions of the government of India, Indian ISPs have started censoring and blocking web properties. This was first noticed by Indian bloggers and upon inquiring with their respective ISPs, the actions are confirmed. Unfortunately, Blogspot and TypePad are the targets till now."
    There's an ongoing discussion of the censorship on GoogleGroups. The rediff.com coverage linked above indicates that the blocking is based on a list issued by India's Department of Telecommunications.
    This is a list of ISPs already known to be blocking these domains.
    India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) passed an order to ISPs Friday to block several websites. The list is confidential. Indian ISPs have been slowly coming into compliance. SpectraNet, MTNL, Reliance, and as of Monday afternoon, Airtel. State-backed BSNL and VSNL have not started yet but likely will soon.
    The known list of blocked domains is *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com and geocities.com

    Source : Slashdot
    Related stories : http://www.indianexpress.com/story/8719.html
    http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/17/report_indian_gov_bl.html
    http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/07/17/blocking-blogger/

    Monday, July 17, 2006

    Dual Processor vs Dual Core

    It has always been a frequent question "Will I benefit from multiple processors?" With the growing popularity of dual core processors, the topic is more important than ever! Will multiple processors or a dual core processor be beneficial, and what are the differences between them? These are the questions this article will attempt to lay to rest.

    A major question for some people getting ready to buy a high-end system is whether they want or need to have two processors available to them. For anyone doing video editing, multi-threaded applications, or a lot of multitasking the answer is a very clear 'yes'. Then the question becomes whether two separate processors (as in a dual Xeon or Opteron system) is the way to go, or whether a single dual-core CPU (like a Pentium D or Athlon64 X2) will do just as well. Dual CPU vs dual core -- which is better?!
    Read More>>

    source : digg.com

    Saturday, July 15, 2006

    Hardware Abuse

    Some of the things people do to computers is downright painful.
    Read this funny doc to go through how people mess up with their comp
    [...]

    • Tech Support: "Sir, your computer has no AGP slots, and this is an AGP video card."
    • Customer: "Yeah, but the card fit perfectly into the little white slot."
    • Tech Support: "Which white slot?"
    • Customer: "There's five of them -- little white ones. There's a spare one."
    • Tech Support: "The PCI slot? Uhh...it shouldn't...let me check."


    • Tech Support : "Sir, wait a second. Let me see if I just heard you
      correctly. Did you just say you were inserting and removing the modem
      while the system was up and running?"
    • Customer: "Well, yeah, I did it both ways."
    • Tech Support: "Sir, I recommend that you do NOT do that. You could seriously
      damage your hardware."
    • Customer: "Well, that's what I thought Plug and Play meant!"
    http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_abuse.shtml

    Wednesday, July 12, 2006

    It's 2025. Where Do Most People Live?

    It's 2025. Where Do Most People Live? from PhysOrg.com

    Researchers at the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), a part of The Earth Institute, have developed a high-resolution map of projected population change for the year 2025.

    [...]

    It's 2025. Where Do Most People Live?

    The map indicates that the greatest increases in population density through 2025 are likely to occur in areas of developing countries that are already quite densely populated. In addition, the number of people living within 60 miles of a coastline is expected to increase by 35 percent over 1995 population levels, exposing 2.75 billion people worldwide to the effects of sea level rise and other coastal threats posed by Global warming

    Digital Dirt: How to Clean Up Your On-line Profile

    According to a 2005 survey of 102 executive recruiters, an executive job-search and networking organization, 75% of recruiters use search engines to uncover information about candidates, and 26% of recruiters have eliminated candidates because of information found on-line. Search engines aren't going away, so here are some tips to help you.

    read more | digg story

    Tuesday, July 11, 2006

    How to create a patch

    Generating patches, files containing the difference between files, is the domain of diff programs.
    Creating Patch :

    diff -Naur olddir newdir > new-patch


    Note: the symbol > will redirect the output to the file new-patch.

    To apply the patch
    go to olddir and do :

    patch -p1 <new-patch

    And if you want some files to be excluded from doing a diff use -x option like

    diff -Naur -x *.o olddir newdir > new-patch
    this will exclude .o files when doing a diff

    Read More here :
    http://drupal.org/diffandpatch
    http://www.ss64.com/bash/diff.html
    http://www.cpqlinux.com/patch.html
    http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1237

    Searching with find

    The find command is one of the darkest and least understood areas of Linux, but it is also one of the most powerful. The biggest problem with find is that it has more options than most people can remember -- it truly is capable of doing most things you could want.

    The most basic usage is this:

    find -name "*.txt"

    That query searches the current directory and all subdirectories for files that end in .txt.

    Source : Linux.com

    Read more >>

    High-profile India satellite launch ends in disaster

    An Indian rocket veered off course after takeoff Monday, scuttling the launch of an Indian satellite that was to be used for broadcasting television signals and transmitting data, media reported.
    "Things have gone wrong at the separation stage. We have to analyze the data (to know) why it went wrong," the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, G. Madhavan Nair, was quoted as saying by Press Trust of India news agency.

    Rocket veers out of control during satellite launch
    High-profile India satellite launch ends in disaster

    Monday, July 10, 2006

    E-mail: Be Less Annoying

    Steve Bass: writes about annoying email behaviours.

    I've come to the conclusion that everyone needs to take a test before being able to use e-mail. No, I'm serious.

    Read More >>
    E-mail: Be Less Annoying, Part II
    E-mail: Be Less Annoying, Part III

    Sunday, July 09, 2006

    The Myth of the New India

    "An NYT op-ed on The Myth of the New India reports that only 1.3M Indians are participating in the so-called new economy of BPO, leaving 400M have-nots without a piece of the pie. Despite recent gains, nearly 380M Indians still live on less $1 a day, setting the stage for rural and urban conflict."

    From the article: "No labor-intensive manufacturing boom of the kind that powered the economic growth of almost every developed and developing country in the world has yet occurred in India. Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports. This means that as 70 million more people enter the work force in the next five years, most of them without the skills required for the new economy, unemployment and inequality could provoke even more social instability than they have already."


    Few Comments :
    A Dollar fetches a lot of things in India, and i'm surprised that a lot has been assumed and written about without checking the facts. as of today, a dollar equals about Ruppees 45.84 (that was yesterday's rates). a Dollar fetches a lot of stuff, in fact i will give 2 examples - one for the metropolitan poor man with a dollar and the poor man in the rural india
    Source : Slashdot

    Thursday, July 06, 2006

    Choose (and remember) great passwords

    Great tips on how to choose password from lifehacker

    A secure, memorable password is easy for you to remember, and hard for others to guess.

    Everywhere you turn you've got to come up with a password to register for something or another. Whether it's the dozens of web sites that require you log in to use them, or your ATM card PIN, or your wireless network login, how do you decide on a new password? More importantly, how do you remember it?

    Read More >>
    Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diceware   Interesting

    Wednesday, July 05, 2006

    Firefox and Thunderbird cheat sheets

    A nice cheat sheet of shortcuts can be just what the doctor ordered
    when you're looking to adopt a new program and get straight to
    productive use.



    Source: Kshitij's Blog

    Monday, July 03, 2006

    After Intern goofs..its interview time..

    Preparing For a Software Engineering Interview

    You've used your killer resume to land an interview with a great company. Now how should you go about preparing?
    Read More >>

    Also How to Write a Killer Resume, for Software Engineers.
    by Niniane Wang, June 2006

    Updated :
    Also : 10 Ways to Tweak Your Tech Resume
    from [Geeks are Sexy] technology news

    Related Post : 10 Top Goofs Interns Make

    Friday, June 30, 2006

    The American Scientist: An endangered species?

    Politicians are freaking out about competition from China and India, especially when the drastic drop in American scientists and engineers being produced by the nation's universities is considered. But is the situation quite as bleak as everyone seems to think? Re-analyzed data paints a much prettier picture...

    read more | digg story

    Wikipedia 3.0: The End of Google?

    Semantic Web + Wikipedia’s Ontoworld = Ultimate Answer Machine

    Here is an intereseting article

    The Semantic Web (or Web 3.0) promises to “organize the world’s information” in a dramatically more logical way than Google can ever achieve with their current engine design. This is specially true from the point of view of machine comprehension as opposed to human comprehension.The Semantic Web requires the use of a declarative ontological language like OWL to produce domain-specific ontologies that machines can use to reason about information and make new conclusions, not simply match keywords.
                                         However, the Semantic Web, which is still in a development phase where researchers are trying to define the best and most usable design models, would require the participation of thousands of knowledgeable people over time to produce those domain-specific ontologies necessary for its functioning.
    Read more >>

    Living with web-based software

    Lifehacker explains how new web-based aplications are becoming more part of day-to-day life..

    More and more web applications offer the features and functionality of desktop software every day. Over the past several months, I've been moving my work to Web-based software applications as much as possible. My favorites include Google Calendar, Writely, Bloglines, Blinksale, Delicious, Ta-Da Lists and Flickr. While many users may balk at leaving their familiar world of desktop software, the benefits of secure storage, sharing files and accessibility make managing your data with hosted web apps a smart move for a lot of people.
    writely.jpg

    read more >>

    Wednesday, June 28, 2006

    The Next Gen Of Cars



    The GM Hy-wire, appropriately named for its technology, incorporates the features first envisioned in the AUTOnomy concept vehicle at the 2002 North American International Auto Show in Detroit and the Geneva Motor Show. Hy-wire was introduced to the public at the Paris Motor Show last year.
    “ The fact that we developed Hy-wire as a driveable concept vehicle in just eight months (from its introduction in Detroit) shows our commitment to this technology and the speed at which we are progressing,” said Rick Wagoner, GM’s president and CEO.
    via : http://www.sagags.com/

    Tuesday, June 27, 2006

    Todo.txt

    todo.sh is a powerful shell script that adds to, edits, sorts and searches your todo.txt file from the command line. Mark items as complete and archive them into a done.txt file with todo.sh as well.


    http://todotxt.com/


    See todo.sh in action here:

    Friday, June 23, 2006

    Million Dollar Stuff...

    Million Dollar Building : http://www.sandberg.nl:16080/artvertising/
    This a project inspired from Million Dollar Homepage.



    About Million Dollar Homepage :
    The Washington Post has a feature on Alex Tew, the twenty-one-year-old creator of the Million Dollar Homepage. Tew sold 10-by-10 pixel advertising tiles on the page for $100 each. When the eBay auction for the last of the page's real estate ends tomorrow at 1:42 pm EST, Tew will have earned much more than $1 million.

    The phenomenon he created has been hailed by some as a genre-changing concept in online marketing -- otherwise an advertising badlands of spam, banner ads and pop-ups. Others say it's a brilliant, one-time marketing aberration that will never be replicated.

    Tuesday, June 20, 2006

    10 Top Goofs Interns Make

    Internships are becoming more important as an entrypoint to the working world. Here are the top mistakes interns make, and how to avoid them.

    Think working late makes you look dedicated? Your boss might just be wondering why you can't get your work done on time. Or is your air of confidence coming off as cockiness instead? We asked top recruiters and former interns for the low-down on the top intern mistakes -- and got their advice on how to avoid them.


    Read More >>



    Monday, June 19, 2006

    India Awakens

    Fueled by high-octane growth, the world's largest democracy is becoming a global power. Why the world will never be the same
    Even if you have never gone to India--never wrapped your food in a piping-hot naan or had your eyeballs singed by a Bollywood spectacular--there is a good chance you encounter some piece of it every day of your life. It might be the place you call (although you don't know it) if your luggage is lost on a connecting flight, or the guys to whom your company has outsourced its data processing. Every night, young radiologists in Bangalore read CT scans e-mailed to them by emergency-room doctors in the U.S. Few modern Americans are surprised to find that their dentist or lawyer is of Indian origin, or are shocked to hear how vital Indians have been to California's high-tech industry. In ways big and small, Indians are changing the world.

    Read More >>

    Source :

    Wednesday, June 14, 2006

    Rendr : CSS-HTML rendering tool

    Rendr is a live CSS and HTML rendering tool. It displays what the page would look like as you type, making it great for rapid testing of page designs .
    You can also install it as firefox extension using greasemonkey . Here is the script.
    Read More here : http://gregtaff.com/rendar2.html

    Thursday, June 08, 2006

    The Best Google How-TO Ever

    Complete guide to all the most advanced features of Google search. It demonstrates how to easily find & download mp3s and complete albums too.. heh, when will the RIAA be suing Google?

    read more | digg story

    Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO

    This book provides a set of design and implementation guidelines for writing secure programs for Linux and Unix systems. Such programs include application programs used as viewers of remote data, web applications (including CGI scripts), network servers, and setuid/setgid programs.

    read more | digg story

    Wednesday, June 07, 2006

    Google Spreadsheet

    Another week, another Google product launches. Or almost launches in this case. Google hasn’t opened up Google Spreadsheets, an Ajax spreadsheet, to the general public yet but they have published a tour of what the product will look like once it actually does launch, and you can request an invitation to try it out.

    Files can be imported in CSV or XLS formats, so excel documents and other spreadsheet files should work in Google Spreadsheets. Files can be saved in CSV, XLS and HTML formats.

    Read More >>

    Source : http:/techcunch.com

    Tuesday, June 06, 2006

    howto: Photograph Sunrises and Sunsets

    While sometimes wonderful sunrise and sunset shots can be taken spontaneously without any forethought itรข��s often the case that the best ones come out of planning. Scope out places that might be good for sunsets in the day or two before your shoot.

    read more | digg story

    Inside the Linux Boot Process

    This article explores the Linux boot process from the initial bootstrap to the start of the first user-space application. Along the way, you'll learn about various other boot-related topics such as the boot loaders, kernel decompression, the initial RAM disk, and other elements of Linux boot.

    When a system is first booted, or is reset, the processor executes code at a well-known location. In a personal computer (PC), this location is in the basic input/output system (BIOS), which is stored in flash memory on the motherboard. The central processing unit (CPU) in an embedded system invokes the reset vector to start a program at a known address in flash/ROM. In either case, the result is the same. Because PCs offer so much flexibility, the BIOS must determine which devices are candidates for boot. We'll look at this in more detail later.

    When a boot device is found, the first-stage boot loader is loaded into RAM and executed. This boot loader is less than 512 bytes in length (a single sector), and its job is to load the second-stage boot loader.

    When the second-stage boot loader is in RAM and executing, a splash screen is commonly displayed, and Linux and an optional initial RAM disk (temporary root file system) are loaded into memory. When the images are loaded, the second-stage boot loader passes control to the kernel image and the kernel is decompressed and initialized. At this stage, the second-stage boot loader checks the system hardware, enumerates the attached hardware devices, mounts the root device, and then loads the necessary kernel modules. When complete, the first user-space program (init) starts, and high-level system initialization is performed.

    read more

    Monday, June 05, 2006

    Creating Firefox Extension

    Learn by example

    Everyone has a good idea at one time or another to implement a new feature in a web browser. Well, with the goodness that is Mozilla Firefox, now you can do just that. You need to have a vague understanding of XUL and Javascript, but you certainly don't need to be a master of either.
    The author explains how the extensions break down in a nutshell, using BugMeNot as an example

    read more >>

    Related Post : If you want to develop firefox extension

    Friday, June 02, 2006

    Stupid Engineering Mistakes

    "Wired has bestowed on us a list of the ten worst engineering mistakes of all time. We have the St. Francis Dam designed by 'self-taught' enginner William Mulholland, which burst and wiped out several towns near LA; the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse; the DC-10, and more, but my favorite is the one I'd never heard of: a giant tank of molasses that ruptured in 1919 and sent 'waves of molasses up to 15 feet high' through Boston, killing 21."

    Source :

    Thursday, June 01, 2006

    Vim tips: Using viewports

    A really useful feature in Vim is the ability to split the viewable area between one or more files, or just to split the window to view two bits of the same file more easily. The Vim documentation refers to this as a viewport or window, interchangeably.
    You may already be familiar with this feature if you've ever used Vim's help feature by using :help topic or pressing the F1 key. When you enter help, Vim splits the viewport and opens the help documentation in the top viewport, leaving your document open in the bottom viewport.
    Read More

    Article By: Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
    Also Emacs Tips : Buffer & windows

    Sunday, May 28, 2006

    Learn how to comment

    This wikipedia tells about different commenting styles and how they can be helpful while programming.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comment#Summary

    Comments could summarise code or explain the programmer's intent. This is called the why rather than how approach. The two are often close, but not always. According to this school of thought, restating the code in plain English may be a waste of time; the need to explain the code may be a sign that it is too complex and should be rewritten.

    "Don't document bad code – rewrite it" (The Elements of Programming Style, Kernighan & Plauger).
    "Good comments don't repeat the code or explain it. They clarify its intent. Comments should explain, at a higher level of abstraction than the code, what you're trying to do." (Code Complete, McConnell)
    Happy Coding !!
    Link from : Kshitij's Blog

    vi survival guide

    A comprehensive guide to a famous text editor "vi", written in vi itself.

    read more | digg story

    Installing and using Linux for the total newbie

    So you've heard about Linux and you want to try it out, but you're scared you may screw up Windows or that it's too hard to install. Well fear no longer, here is a guide for the total newbie.

    read more

    I'm Back...

    Now i'm back here after enjoying holidays at home...

    Sunday, April 23, 2006

    Endsems..

    I had been not able to post here as my semester end exams are going on....
    So will be back when these are over.....

    Wednesday, April 19, 2006

    State of the Blogosphere

    David Sifry posted Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth at technorati weblog:

    The State of the Blogosphere is strong. The blogosphere is over 60 times bigger than it was only 3 years ago.
    The Facts:

    • Technorati now tracks over 35.3 Million blogs
    • The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
    • It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
    • On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
    • 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
    • Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour
    The blogosphere tracked by technorati is doubling about every 6 months, as the chart below shows:


    read more

    Wednesday, April 12, 2006

    graph plotting with gnuplot

    Gnuplot is a free, command-driven, interactive, function and data plotting program.
    Here i' m providing a quick reference guide for plotting graphs (as many of us don't bother to go in detailed documentation).
    On Unix/Linux systems start Gnuplot by simply typing:
    gnuplot

    first the formal syntax :

    plot {[ranges]}
    {[function] | {"[datafile]" {datafile-modifiers}}}
    {axes [axes] } { [title-spec] } {with [style] }
    {, {definitions,} [function] ...}

    To plot functions simply type: plot [function] at the gnuplot> prompt
    gnuplot> plot sin(x)
    gnuplot> splot sin(x*y/20)
    gnuplot> plot sin(x) title 'Sine Function', tan(x) title 'Tangent'


    Now for plotting data points firstly data points should be written in text file with axis ranges as columns.Data files should have the data arranged in columns of numbers. Columns should be separated by white space (tabs or spaces) only, (no commas). Lines beginning with a # character are treated as comments and are ignored by Gnuplot. A blank line in the data file results in a break in the line connecting data points. '
    Plotting a graph from data file "plot.data" , do
    gnuplot>plot "plot.data"

    Now customizing the plot :



    set xlabel "x-axis data"

    # will set a label "x-axis data" in graph
    set ylabel "y-axis data"

    set title "x vs y"
    # will set title for graph
    set xrange [0.001:0.005]
    # Change the x-axis range:
    set yrange [20:500]
    # Change the y-axis range:
    set logscale
    # plot using log scale
    set autoscale
    #let gnuplot determine ranges
    plot "file.data" with lines
    #will join data points with lines
    plot "file.data" smooth csplines with lines
    #will join plot graph using smooth curves
    Gnuplot can mathematically modify your data column by column:
    to plot sin( col.3 + col.1 ) vs. 3 * col.2 type:

    plot 'force.dat' using (3*$2):(sin($3+$1))

    To print graph (this will store graph in post script(.ps) file do this before plotting graph:

    set output "graphs.ps"
    set terminal postscript
    plot "file.data" using lines


    This will save the graph in graph.ps
    For more help type 'help' in gnuplot mode :
    gnuplot>help


    somelinks
    www.duke.edu/~hpgavin/gnuplot.html
    A simple guide to GNU plot
    Introduction to GNU plot

    Friday, April 07, 2006

    Useful Windows XP DOS Commands & Tricks

    Typing DOS commands on the Windows Command Line prompt is a most efficient and faster way of doing things in Windows XP. Here's a run-down of the most useful DOS commands available in Windows XP. Some of these DOS commands even do not have an visual alternative. Digital Inspiration has a nice roundup of 10 very useful commands and tricks that can help you get things done quickly from the command line.
    Useful Windows XP DOS Commands & Tricks [Digital Inspiration]

    Related resources on Microsoft Website:
    List of DOS Commands with Examples

    Phishing

    Now a days, phishing cases had increased so here is brief writeup to give insight a about phishing . Read Wikipedia to know about phising examples.
    Phishing is a technique used to gain personal information for purposes of identity theft, using fraudulent e-mail, instant messages that appear to come from legitimate site. These authentic-looking messages are designed to fool recipients into divulging personal data such as account numbers and passwords, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers.

    why phishing works :

    • Lack of knowledge
    • Visulal deception : Phishers use visual deception tricks to mimic legitimate text, images and windows.
      • Visually deceptive text.: Users may be fooled by the syntax of a domain name in “typejacking” attacks, which substitute letters that may go unnoticed (e.g. www.paypai.com uses a lowercase “i” which looks similar to the letter “l”, and www.paypa1.com substitutes the number “1” for the letter “l”). Phishers have also taken advantage of non-printing characters [25] and non-ASCII Unicode characters [26] in domain names.
      • Images masking underlying text. One common technique used by phishers is to use an image of a legitimate hyperlink. The image itself serves as a hyperlink to a different, rogue site.
    • Bounded attention
      • Lack of attention to security indicators: When users are focused on their
        primary tasks, they may not notice security indicators or read warning messages. The image-hyperlink spoof would ve thwarted if user noticed the URL in the status bar did not match the hyperlink image, but this requires a high degree of attention.

    Techniques used within Phishing emails:
    • Official looking and sounding emails
    • Copies of legitimate corporate emails with minor URL changes
    • HTML based email used to obfuscate target URL information
    • Standard virus/worm attachments to emails
    • A plethora of anti spam-detection inclusions
    • Crafting of “personalised” or unique email messages
    • Fake postings to popular message boards and mailing lists
    Preventing Phising :
    • If you get an email that warns you, with little or no notice, that an account of yours will be shut down unless you reconfirm billing information, do not reply or click on the link in the email. Instead, contact the company cited in the email using a telephone number or Web site address you know to be genuine.
    • Never respond to HTML email with embedded submission forms. Any information submitted via the email (even if it is legitimate) will be sent in clear text and could be observed.
    • Avoid emailing personal and financial information. Before submitting financial information through a Web site, look for the "lock" icon on the browser's status bar. It signals that your information is secure during transmission.
    • Before signing to a page check for URL(make sure it is valid page, there may be some deceptive text there,like i in place of l). Or yo can try first enteing wrong password so a nonvalid page (if it is accessing information and is redirecting to legimate page to avoid being caught) will redirect you to correct page.
    • Switc your browser: use one with anti-phising agent (like firefox)

    Tuesday, April 04, 2006

    Some Latex tips & Links

    Here are some quick tips and links which you can find useful when writing some report, article in latex.

    Firstly here is an nice article explaining why latex is good .
    Here are some editors available for latex:
    For Linux :

    • Kile : KDE Integrated LaTeX Environment
    • Lyx
    • Emacs : It's available for a couple of operating systems like Linux, Unix and MS Windows. For LaTeX you should use the quite ingenious modes AUCTeX and RefTeX. You may refer my Emacs-page for further hints.
    For windows :
    Getting to grips with Latex
    Getting Started with LaTeX
    LaTeX Tutorial : some templates here
    LaTeX Tips and Tricks

    Thursday, March 30, 2006

    Web2.0

    Here is an nice article regarding web2.0 :
    The term Web 2.0 shows up a lot in the on-line and in-print press when discussing some of the new web sites on the Internet. Places like Flickr, Blogspot, Wikipedia, 37Signals, and AjAXWrite are just a few web sites that embody the Web 2।0 paradigm.
    Read More>> SciTech Watch - Web 2.0

    Update:

    Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.
    Another good explanatory article What is Web 2.0? Really.

    Wednesday, March 29, 2006

    Why Ruby on Rails Will Ultimately Dominate Software Development

    The new 1.1 version of Ruby on Rails almost seems to drive the final nail into the coffin of .NET and J2EE. Enterprises will take their time but everyone else will start turning out great software. Includes rare video interview with Rails creator and detailed overview of Rails 1.1.

    read more | digg story

    Tuesday, March 28, 2006

    Life without mouse

    For those who think that life without a mouse reminds you of the 80's or MS Dos, I've got a message for you, it really isn't that bad. Infact whatever you do with the mouse you can do without it and you can easily learn to use some really great keyboard shortcuts to make your work fast even with a mouse later.
    via Lifehacker

    Life Without Mouse >> Tips & Tricks [Chrono Tron]

    Monday, March 27, 2006

    Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India

    FLOSS is behind an Indian Web site that brings together farmers and agricultural experts to exchange ideas and information.

    Thanks to work done by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Bombay) and its partners, IT-savvy and knowledge-hungry people across rural India now can find relevant, demand-driven farming knowledge on the aAqua.org Web site. So far, the site has been a great way to bring together people such as Prasad Kaledhonkar, who has a clue about what the white patterns emerging on tomato plant leaves are; farmer's daughter Niyatee Nilesh, who wants advice on buying agricultural land; and Shirish, from rural Maharashtra, who wants to learn about using waste water from the school kitchen to irrigate gardens and crops. Read More>>

    Thursday, March 23, 2006

    Little tweaks with javascript : Bookmarklets.

    A bookmarklet is a snippet of Javascript that can be bookmarked (or saved as a favorite) inside your web browser. Bookmarklets can enhance web pages, add special functionality using javascript which is supported by most browsers today and make your browsing experience a lot more efficient by offering one-click access. I will first start with basics.
    Consider a simple javascript :

    • javascript:alert('You clicked on the page');
    When you type this in browsers location bar then it will show a message box with "you clicked on the page" message. Now change this slightly :
    • javascript:function ab(){alert("hello") ;};void(setInterval(ab,1));
    Now this will repeatedly pop-up the message box in every 1-sec interval. Though this is of no use i'm just telling this to explain basics of javascript.

    Now filling form with javascript :
    • javascript:function ab() {document.forms[0].login_username.value="someText" ; } ab() ;
    Now this javascript will fill the value "someText" in field login_username of form in html page.
    And lets try to take some user-input :

    • javascript:function ab() {q=document.getSelection(); if(!q) {void(q=prompt('Text :',''))} else alert(q)} ab();
    Now this javascript will first check if some text is selected on page. If no text is selected it will prompt user for text else will show an message box with selected text. Now we can put this script to some good use : like

    • javascript:function ab(){q=document.getSelection(); if(!q){void(q=prompt('Search Text at My Blog: ',''))} location.href="http://www.technorati.com/search/ "+q+" linux?from=http://burad.blogspot.com "; }; ab();
    Now this will search the selected text on my blog or if text is not selected than prompt user for text.

    An equivalent script for searching on wikipedia is :
    • javascript:(function(){q=document.getSelection(); if(!q){void(q=prompt('Wikipedia keywords:',''))}; if(q) location.href= 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search='+escape(q)})()
    Now you can bookmark this script in toolbar so every tim you click on button in toolbar it will execute javascript. For example Drag this to your firefox bookmark toolbar :


    Search Burad's Blog
    Or for wikipedia
    Search Wikipedia

    Some more bookmarklets :
    Scale Images

    Sort Table

    Transpose Table

    Show Password

    So in a way they are different from bookmarks and provides extra functionality through power of javascript. Here are some more javascript bookmarklet
    You can view source for each bookmarklet by viewing page source .
    You can find more bookmarklets at : http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/

    See this helpful screencast on bookmarklets.

    Some More Example at Wisdombay

    Updated : For changing documenet backgrounds :
    Change to Red
    Change to green
    Change to blue
    This may not work with pages using css

    Tuesday, March 21, 2006

    Rubiks Cube Timer

    This is a javascript timer made by me as i needed it some timer application on linux specific to Cubing. It also calculates average of your timings. Will try to add more features.
    http://www.aburad.com/cubing/timer.html

    here is an screenshot:

    Happy Cubing !!

    Monday, March 20, 2006

    Splash image in GRUB

    The splash image is the image shown in the background when GRUB (the GRand Unified Bootloader) is displaying the list of operating systems you can boot.

    Creating image

    1. Start the GIMP.
    2. Click on File->New or type Ctrl+N
    3. In the new image dialog, change Width to 640 pixels and Height to 480 pixels. (The image should be of size 640x480 pixels.) Now click OK.
    4. Create the image which you would like to be the splash image. It's quite fun to experiment with the various tools of the GIMP!
    5. After you have finished creating the image, hit Alt+i or right click on the image and click on Image->Mode->Indexed...
    6. In the Indexed Color Conversion dialog that appears, click on the radio button "Generate optimal Palette" and in "# of colors" enter 14. Click OK.(The image should be of only 14 colors)
    7. Now right-click on the image and click on File->Save As...Save the file as ImageName.xpm in a directory of your choice.
    You can also pickup an image and convert to required format by ImageMagik:
    convert -resize 640x480 -colors 14 picture.jpg ImageName.xpm

    Installing the Image

    • gzip ImageName.xpm
    • mount /boot
    • mv ImageName.xpm.gz /boot/grub/
    In the /boot/grub/grub.conf you have to point splashimage to newly created image i.e

    # Splash Image
    splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/ImageName.xpm.gz

    Now you just need to reboot !!

    Here is my boot splash screen: I just added my name and Gentoo logo :

    This is converted to jpeg. As blogger doesn't support xpm images.




    And some others :Some splash images


    UPdated
    For LILO you can refer to Lilo Boot splash

    Saturday, March 18, 2006

    Web2.0 Applications

    This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.