Creating Error 404 page

Helping lost visitors? Sometimes a link provided by you may end up as 404 page or viewer might have typed wrong URL that doesn't lead correct page on your site. To help your visitors you can actually use .htaccess file (for Apache servers) to redirect all such links to a special page which will be more useful than plain "404 File Not found" error.

You can add this one line to .htaccess file (create this file if it doesn't exist)

ErrorDocument 404 /web404.html

This will redirect all queries for files not found in that directory and sub directories to web404.html
On that page you can provide user with:

• Link to homepage
• Tell them to check the URL or Go Back
• Search functionality for your website will be very useful.

So yesterday I added a 404 page for my website: Check it out

I have also added similar functionality for my wordpress blog. For setting up 404 Error page on wordpress follow this well compiled article: Creating an Error 404 Page

Interesting read: Creating User Friendly 404 Pages
Related Post:
Web Development Tools

Power of RSS reader

I saw this on Kshitij's blog and later on Amit's blog: How Do You Subscribe to Blog Feeds ?

RSS in plain English: Watch video

You may need a flv player to view it.

Improving interactivity with Javascript

HTML controls other than conventional Push buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, select boxes, and text inputs, can power up forms, webdev using javascript to increase interactivity and easy (for users). List of such controls includes : slider, Date picker, Smart text boxes, Advanced tooltips, Auto validation etc.

Read more friendly bit >> Improving interactivity with Javascript
In addition, I find image maps also very handy when it comes to intereactivity when used properly with tooltips...as i used them in Paint Chat.

Bonus link[ :) ] DailyBlogTips > Web 2.0 Webdesign Tutorials
Related post :

• Play with html using javascript

GPRS on Mobile

Yesterday I activated GPRS on my mobile (nokia 6030) ...its quite cheap( 10paise/10kb)
So I tried different pages which works for mobile

• Yahoo Searh
• Flickr : http://m.flickr.com
• W3schools.com: http://w3scholls.com/wap.wml
• Google Mpas: http://www.google.com/gmm

Some more websites which works on mobile can be found here : Mobile Compatibe Wesites

So I thougth i should have a mobile webpage too.. so i searched for it and found this great tutorial on w3schools: WAP/WML tutorial. It has also got a demo page which works with explorer only but it contains simple and good examples explaining basic features of wml along with preview on how it looks on mobile.

The WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) protocol is the leading standard for information services on wireless terminals like digital mobile phones. WML stands for Wireless Markup Language. It is a mark-up language inherited from HTML, but WML is based on XML, so it is much stricter than HTML.

Tutorial was pretty easy..so i create my own pae which works on mobile. You can access it at:
http://www.aburad.com/m.wml, though it contain my pic, blog address and some content only(I will add some more content). WML supports wbmp(which is black & white) image format,( you can convert image to wbmp using http://www.online-utility.org/. It als o supports jpg format. One more thing while designing your pages for mobile, you can opera to see how it looks as it supports wml files. Or check it at online wap emulator: WapTiger
Some more links : Wap Tutorials(haven't tried yet).

Related Post :Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do

Firebug : web development evolved

I found firebug very useful while developing my Paint Chat (which is not a big code as such but still), so here it goes in admiration of firebug:

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Firebug is firefox addon that helps you in webdevelopment with
its powerful feature such as javascript debugger, Inspect and edit HTML, Tweak CSS to perfection, Monitor network activity, Explore the DOM and many more. Feature I like most is its quickly diagnosing problem, it allows you set break points and checking intermediate values of variable for javascript thus making a great javascript debugger. Many times you are stuck at where did the code went wrong so in way its a lot useful in saving time.



I also like is its inspecting html and modifying html and css on fly and see the results with helpful tooltips. It also help in positioning of divs, images with its nice feature of visuallizing css metrics with ruler and box model coloring(HTML inspecting).

It other great feature is its interface which is comes with browser window split in two halves one for your website and one is extension interface (though it also can be detached from it). I am also a fan of Web developer toolbar extension but what it lacks is a java debugger and this great interface but both are a must of a web developer.

Related Post :

• If you want to develop firefox extension..

Cleaning up a Ubuntu GNU/Linux system

I'm using ubuntu dapper, and i came across this nice ubuntu blog : Ubuntu Tutorials, having post on how to clean your ubuntu system to remove residual config packages, partial packages to free up your disk space. it also provides screen shot to help you follow the process. it also explains how to use localpurge, deborhan and other tools.

Read more >> Cleaning up a ubuntu system

Related post : How to install ANYTHING in Ubuntu!

Ways to hinder your buisness online !

I cam across this great post by Guy Kawasaki, on ways you dont want to follow to stop your buisness growth online. some of points form list :

• Enforced immediate registration.
  
• The unsearchable web site
• The long URL.

Read more : The Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption

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 >>

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 >>

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

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>>

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

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.

• Mozilla Firefox cheat sheet
• Mozilla Thunderbird cheat sheet

Source: Kshitij's Blog

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

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 >>

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

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 :

• TexMaker
  
• LatexWide
  

Getting to grips with Latex
Getting Started with LaTeX
LaTeX Tutorial : some templates here
LaTeX Tips and Tricks

Some SSH tips

First connecting to a remote host : (althoug trivial)
ssh username@remote_host_ip
The first time around it will ask you if you wish to add the remote host to a list of known_hosts, for that you have to say yes . But if case is that it asks such think again than remote server's host key is changed (such as if SSH was upgraded or the server itself was upgraded). But if there is no upgrade n server side than this may be to trick you into logging into their machine instead so that they can sniff your SSH session.

Now Generating Key :
ssh-keygen -t dsa // here -t specifies type of key

Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
93:58:20:56:72:d7:bd:14:86:9f:42:aa:82:3d:f8:e5 localuser@mybox.home.co

The reason why you would generate a keyfile is so that you can increase the security of your SSH session by not using your system password. When you generate a key, you are actually generating two key files. One private key and one public key, which is different from the private key. Whenever you connect via ssh to a host that has your public key loaded in the authorized_keys file, it will use a challenge response type of authentication which uses your private key and public key to determine if you should be granted access to that computer It will ask you for your key passphrase though. Now you need to copy to remote machine as :

scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub username@remote_machine_ip:.ssh/authorized_keys

Now if ssh-agent is running on your machine (Most recent distributions will automatically start ssh-agent) then you can do

ssh-add

Now you can try logging into that remote machine again and this time you will notice that it just logs you right in without prompting you for any password or passphrase.

X11 -Session Forwarding

ssh -X username@remote_machine_ip
now you be able to transmit window and bitmap information over a network connection. So essentially you can login to a remote desktop machine and run some X windows program like Gnumeric, Gimp or even Firefox and the program will run on the remote computer, but will display its graphical output on your local computer. If this doen't work then you may need to change file /etc/ssh/sshd_config change the following

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
X11UseLocalhost yes

TCP Port Forwarding :

you can setup a port forward for your connection from your home machine to arvo.suso.org so that it will take connections to localhost port 3066 and forward them to the remote side mysql.suso.org port 3066. for this you can uses
ssh -L 3066:mysql.suso.org:3066 username@arvo.suso.org
The -L (which means Local port) takes one argument of ::, so you specify what host and port the connection will go to on the other side of the SSH connection. When you make a connection to the port, it sends the data through the SSH connection and then connects to : on the other side. From the point of view of , its as if the connection came from the SSH server that you login to. In the case above, arvo.suso.org.

Another useful one is for when you are away from home and can't send mail through your home ISP's mail server because it only allows local connections to block spam. You can create an SSH tunnel to an SSH server that is local your ISP and then have your GUI mail client like Thunderbird make a connection to localhost port 8025 to send the mail. Here is the command to create the tunnel:
ssh -L 8025:smtp.homeisp.net:25 username@shell.homeisp.net


Running command over ssh

ssh username@remotehost_ip ls -al /
Then you can process the output however you want using the normal shell conventions

Using SCP
if you want to copy a file to a directory relative to the home directory for the remote user specified.
scp filename username@remote.host.net:some_dir/new_filename

To copy the file back from the server, you just reverse the from and to
scp username@remote.host.net:some_dir/new_filename filename

for copying some director
scp -r dir_namel username@remote.host.net:


Updated : http://dag.wieers.com/howto/ssh-http-tunneling/
for more on ssh tunneling

Speed up firefox

HOW TO SPEED UP FIREFOX

Here's something for broadband people that will really speed up Firefox :

1.Type 'about:config' into the address bar and hit enter. Scroll down and look for the following entries: -
network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set 'network.http.pipelining' to 'true' (double click to change)
Set 'network.http.proxy.pipelining' to 'true' (double click to change)
Set 'network.http.pipelining.maxrequests' to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once. (double click to enter number)

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it 'nglayout.initialpaint.delay' and set its value to '0'. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!"
Find more firefox tweaks here

Related Posts:

• Firefox Tips
• Firefox about: pages

Firefox Tips

• Bookmark
  Just drag the URL icon (in location bar) to the bookmark toolbar (and may be then to specific folder) to bookmark that URL.
  

• Setting Homepage
  With firefox you can set two or more pages as Homepage simultaneously. Just Goto to Preferences-> then write two or more Homepage Locations using "|" . Example:
  http://www.google.com | http://yahoo.com | http://www.blogger.com
  you can add a pipe and a new URL after it.
  

• Setting Alias
  If you want to set an alias for a long URL. for example if you want to set alias "gm" for http://mail.google.com then do : Just bookmark the page you want... Than right-clik on the bookmark -> Properties and type the alias for that URL in "Keyword". For example here set alias "gm". Now in location bar if you type "gm" and enter then it wll take you to "http://mail.google.com".
  

• Increasing/Decreasing Font Size ... Use Ctrl + / Ctrl -
  
• Smart Keywords : more details here
  

some more usefull tips can be found here