Dinesh Soni's Blog » technology

Geek’s workout

Dinno — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:52:15 +0000

My family members ask me about Working out to build health. And this post from Ankur’s Gizmo blog gives me inspiration for the same.

Social Media, Newspaper and Spamming

Dinno — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:49:35 +0000

Today morning while reading TOI, I was wondering there are around 60% news that I am not interested in. And on TV, there are around 80% programs I won’t prefer to watch. The percentage is too high as compared to my mailbox where only 10-15% mails are the ones I would delete before opening.
So why is it that we name these mails as SPAM but we don’t consider the useless news or TV programs as spam? The logic given is “Even if I’m not interested in them, there are some other people who might be interested”. Isn’t it same with the e-mails? Even if I’m not interested in the mail, there can be some other person who may find it interesting. And obviously the person sending out the mails doesn’t know who will find it interesting and who won’t, he will play safe game by forwarding it to all..
So why do we discriminate in social media and mainstream media? Why is it that one thing is called as SPAM in social media and not in mainstream media? Why do we still tend to justify whatever happens in mainstream media and we reject in social media?

Now BigAdda creates fake accounts

Dinno — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:23:21 +0000

Few days back, Manan had put up a blog post about how Jeevansathi.com has created a fake profile by his name. And a Jeevansathi employee had tried to justify how they don’t go for such false tactics.
Now its BigAdda who are creating fake profiles. As I got up today morning to check my mail, I saw an e-mail from BigAdda team welcoming me to their site. Here is a screen shot of the contents.

I remember of having mailed them about the issue of Misuse of name bigadda but that doesn’t imply me being interested in their lousy social networking site. Specially not this way.

Bigadda Team? Listening?

The music you never knew existed

Dinno — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:55:11 +0000

And if you listen to it, you will wonder why I never knew about this.. Something similar is happening to me these days when I listen to songs and music on last.fm. I mean at 6:20 AM in morning when whole world is sleeping {and a part of it is busy following Oscars}, what better thing I can expect from web 2.0 than providing me with some soothing music? And its not just about what music you have heard in the past. The site suggests some music based on your past preferences. And I’ve so far got fantastic recommendations. Now thats something we can call as web 3.0.
Btw, you might like to check out My profile to check out what songs I’m listening to. And if you already there on the site, do add me as friend.

Blog Fractal

Dinno — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 06:52:06 +0000

See if you can make any sense out of it.. I can’t..

A creation of: xkcd

Te unfollow story

Dinno — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:01:46 +0000

How do you know Twitter has gone mainstream in India?

Dinno — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:14:39 +0000

That was one simple question asked by Sampad on twitter. And the question generated more than 100 replies which he was putting up on twitter throughout the day. Here is the list of replies, picked up from his blog {with prior permission }

1. When real @lkadvani uses a smartphone in public to tweet.

2. When autowallah’(auto-rickshaw) tweet a joke you just cracked..

3. When my techtard GF asks me about twitter

4. When my boss fires me through a tweet and later hands a official confirmation letter.

5. When Twitter is used as a source in mainstream media to validate news like Rajdeep Sardesai using twitter as source in media.

6. All early twitter adopters & lovers leave twitter when everyone’s distant uncle also uses it & pesters you on HOWTO use it.

7. When you get DM like “Hi. wanna be friends . I am good in school”

8. When you set twitter as your homepage of your computer.

9. When you hear girls talking about Twitter in #CCD and how they keep a check on their BF’s with it.

10. When a beggar tweets 4 begging; you RT instead of asking him to go ahead, then one user offers him help and reply his tweet!!

11. When newspapers have a separate section called “What’s Hot from Twitterverse”.

12. When agencies coming out with internet usage report have a twitter usage section.

13. When even *lala* companies have a genuine twitter handle.

14. When Amitabh Bachchan or Shahrukh Khan is caught tweeting in public and people start stalking them on twitter and newspapers splashes it.

15. When report suggests that “Mobile sales has gone up because of this unique geek service called Twitter”

16. When a movie called “Kaho na Tweet hain..” releases and its a major blockbuster hit.

17. When people around you uses WTF, #FAIL, ROFL, FTW terminologies to your surprise.

18. SS, MNS start tweeting from the places they are wrecking -> Just broke a shopper’s stops glass door, kaay majja aali [In english - What fun]

19. Twitter releases its service in 18 languages including tamil, telugu, malayalam, hindi and marathi!

20. When *twitter* becomes a noun rather than a verb in official dictionary.

21. When people starts tweeting “your pic is very nice, wanna make frandship”.

22. When a guy asks his future wife about her twitter handle and disqualifies her on grounds of non-twit existence & vice-versa.

23. When government applications ask for twitter names along with email IDs and phone numbers.

24. When a book on Twitter is authored by an Indian and it goes into the best selling list in Crosswords.

25. When you name your child as Twitter instead of Ram, Rahul or Raj.

26. When you start giving gaalis (Slang) in marathi – tujhya aayela… me follow karnar twitter var!

27. When twitter handle replaces CVs when applying for naukris (jobs).

28. When someone slaps you on twitter because you followed a girl that he was “interested” in.

29. When Barkha Dutt chooses to tweet on her BB before going live on NDTV.

30. (Farfetched but who cares!) When the “Ashoka Chakra” is replaced by @india

31. When India adopts the middle name concept. Only that the middle name is your twitter name.

32. When you are considered a registered party follower, if you just follow @congree or @BJP

33. When a minister says at a Press conference “As I tweeted it yesterday morning.. all these allegations are baseless”.

34. When your mother-in-law greets you pleasantly with twitter handle.

35. When Kaamwali bais (house maids) create a hashtag and bitch about their memsaabs.

36. When a major law suit takes twitter reference as evidence. Bwahahah!

37. When you have more twitter friends online than offline.

38. India’s most tech savvy politician starts a new party – Rashtriya Tweeple Sangh (RTS).

39. When BF/Husband organizes food safari/TwEAT up (he has to cook on his own) every weekend for his GF/Wife.

40. When you use twitter friends or some twitter alert app to remind you of all important meetings, dates etc.

41. When your whole family goes for a tweetup in the neighborhood.

42. When Government keep a “special twitter day” and declares it a national holiday.

43. When people use twitter to vote out corrupt a$$holes from even contesting elections.

44. When TRP of Television serials will be based on number of tweet it gets.

45. When parents say ‘Beta vaha pohachte hi Twitter karna’ [Son, tweet as soon as you reach...]

46. When Amitabh, Aamir and SRK have their own Twitter accounts and it becomes the Breaking News on Aaj Tak.

47. When railway stations will announce via twitter rather than by loudspeakers.

48. When ‘Hand’ is replaced by’@Handle‘ as the new logo of Congress.

49. When Abhishek fights with Salman and Vivek for Tweeting Aishwarya too much.

50. When our leaders ask for ‘Tweevotes‘ instead of ‘Votes’ during elections.

51. When visitng cards will have Twitter handles @handle instead of email ids.

52. When people vote with their tweet.

53. When every minute working of PM office and CM office will be tweeted in order to maintain transparency.

54. When the President announces a stamp or a coin with twitter emblem on top of it.

55. When the twitter birdie marries a male twitter birdie and we all attend the ceremony.

56. When guys will get dumped by their girls for not giving them ‘Twitterspace’.

57. When @sampad becomes famous because of this initiative ROFL [nevermind]

58. When mainstream media takes cues from this and prints all the ideas along with original twitter handles.

59. When a minister will tweet his resignation and send a DM to CM with plea not to accept the resignation.

60. When #Reliance will launch a company named BIGtwit.

61. When all the major CXO’s use twitter handle as sign offs in their outgoing emails.

62. When Re-Tweeting (RT) without prior permission will be considered as crime as per copyright law.

63. When parents use Twitter account in their daughter’s name to find a match for her.. and she doesn’t know about it.

64. When Aamir, SRK and Akshay use Twitter to promote their next big budget films.

65. WHen IIM’s ask students to appear for CAT on Twitter.

66. When every official communication will be limited to only 140 chars, including PR communication.

67. When every bollywood movie will have a twit version for those who are short of time.

68. When Indian IT compannies will ban all the sites which use Twitter.

69. When school exams will say ‘Answer in Twitter’ instead of ‘Answer in Brief’.

70. When next corporate scam T(P)ress release happens in twitter.

71. When more people start proposing on twitter.

72. When employess get fired for wasting too much time on Twitter.

73. When the TTE checks tickets and ids via twitter – TweetTickCheck.

74. When Election Commissioner announces Twitter Poll, and your twitpic gets a black twitmark to indicate u have voted.

75. When this blog post gets *fukat (free) footage* across mainstream media.

76. When someone live tweets his/her intimate moments just to get famous.

77. When TM will stand for Twitter Mark instead of Trade Mark.

78. When Indian post will launch T-post seva for those who don’t have access to twitter.

79. When twitterverse will be considered a parallel economy and people outside it will be considered an alien.

80. When Political Manifesto will be ‘Roti, Kapda, Makaan aur Twitter’ for aam aadmi.

81. When twitter team opens a grand new office in India, preferably in #bangalore, #gurgaon or #Hyderabad

82. When texting teens & tweens discover it.

83. When MNS will make it mandatory to type all Tweets in Marathi.

84. When I can order my #Pizza via twitter. And my mom can order her groceries via twitter.

85. When Twitter birdie becomes the next face of a brand like #Vodafone Pug but with permission.

86. When postman knocks at the door and says ‘Aaapka Tweet aaya hai’ [you tweet has come].

87. Twitter opens up a new TV channel with news coming from Hourly tweets.

88. The channel has a reality show called ‘Kaun Banega TwitterPati’.

89. When people join launage courses to learn new langauge – Twittsh.

90. Some time later an award winnig movie is released, called ‘TwitterDog Millionaire‘.

91. When PM addresses a Tweet Conference to the entire nation on Twitter.

92. When India hands over Tweets of terrorists as proof to Pak and Pak accepts it.

93. When people “tweet” instead of “order” food, groceries, DVDs, movie tickets etc.

94. When reality shows ask people to vote using tweet instead of SMS.

95. When Twitter becomes synonymous with social media in India.

96. When twitter is the topic of discussion between Obama & Indian PM in the next meeting.

97. When Ekta Kapoor makes a new serial ‘Kahani Twitter Twitter Ki‘ and will get highest TRPs (Twitter Rating Points).

98. When twitter saves the world from present recessionary gloom. You know how? I’m talking of more #Dell $1 Mn examples.

99. When Mumbai university introduces a new subject in colleges ‘Tweetology‘… and makes it compulsory.

100. When management colleges opens a new elective called “Tweetagement“.

101. … and Nobel prozes would be given for Tweetonomics.

102. When we have an Indian Twitterer like @scobleizer….

103. When a book is released ‘100 Signs of Twitter becoming mainstream in India‘ and becomes a best seller.

104. When twitter gets listed in stock exchange.

105. When self-help books like “You can twit” and “Facebooks from Mars and Twitters from Venus” sort of releases and will fill up in piles.

106. When Walkie-Talkies are replaced by Tweetie-Talkies in the army, with paandus, and other events.

107. When Indian Cricket Team has Twitter logo on their T-shirts and bats.

108. When we get paid for tweeting.

109. Amitabh ‘Mere pass gadi, bunglow hai, paisa hai.. tumhare pass kya hai?‘; Shashi Kapoor ‘Mere Pass TWITTER Hai‘.

110. When Indian advertising community uses Twitter to market products and ideas.

111. When a girl rejects a marriage proposal because the guy does not have too many followers on Twitter.

112. If real @lkadvani wins the elections and proclaims that twitter helped the cause.

113. …and opposition will be blamed for twitbot, cleanin up twitfeed n twit account hack, if election is lost!!

114. When we cross US in terms of Twitter users.

115. When people swear by twitter rather than gods & demi-gods!

116. When people start finding true match in twitter and not matrimonial sites.

New virus being circulated

Dinno — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:46:36 +0000

Update: It looks like it has a Win32:Trojan-gen {Other} according to virus total: Says Dtechie.

A new virus has started floating around through E-mails. It sends out mail with subject line as “Hey” and the text as

"Hey, are these your friends? I ran into them the other day, they said they know you, and wanted me to send you this photo album. Take care"

It also contains an attachment named “Rememberthis.rar” which contains a scr file. If you get a similar mail, do not download the file.

Please spread the word around by tweeting link to this page..

BigAdda is stolen. Is Big Entertainment careless of brand name?

Dinno — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:02:04 +0000

This is a guest post by Raxit Sheth: founder of Mobile 4 Mumbai and MyKavita.com [India's emerging poem website]. He was also one of the winner of Yahoo Open Hackday and planner of various Barcamp across india.

After reading Pluggd.in ‘s post on BigAdda’s traffic decline and similar post by StartupDuniya, we tried to digg it down deeper.

Try When you search BigAdda in google, the the first result is bigadda.in. Is the SEO of bigadda.com going wrong somewhere? Also, seems that the Reliance Entertainment did not take enough precautions to reserve the .in domain too for themselves.

If we look at the logos of the two websites, both of them show the word “BigAdda” as trademark. I think bigadda.in has nothing to do with bigadda.com!

And have a look at the “Terms and Conditions” of bigadda.in. You will find the name of the owner company as “BigAdda Inc.”. I’m doubtful if the company really exists. Cause google does not show any such results when searched for “BigAdda Inc”.

The Whois search for the site bigdda.in reveals name of a person from Walkeshwar. A google search for the mail id from thw whois record displays lot of porn contents as the results.

[Disclaimar: we do not know this is the actual id of owner of bigadda.in or not ! this is just the information we get from the web.]

While writing this post, we are trying to contact BigAdda.com and BigAdda.in for clarification and communication. However, no communication being established as of now.

however i think bigadda.in is Un-Ethical [if they are misusing the bigadda brand !], and may be soon be sued by actual BigAdda !

What is your take ????

a small review of mobile4mumbai

Dinno — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:05:00 +0000

My friend raxit and his friends have developed an application name Mobile for Mumbai that will assist in finding the BEST bus from a particular stop to another stop in Mumbai. I’m among the earlybirds to have tried and tested this app. Here’s a short review from my side about the app.

The application is completely use centered. It makes sure that any info needed will be available with minimum key strokes and within seconds. The usability factor for the user is surely the prime factor considered while designing the application.

The auto search and radio buttons make the task of searching the bus stops very easy. And the result page has very clear and simple interface, which makes the result display soothing.

Best part of the app is it works on mobile without having to send any SMS or having GPRS. So there is no money matter involved. And you can use this app with any Java enabled handset {which are available in market for as low as 2500 bucks and 80% people in Mumbai today own Java enabled handsets}.

If you want to be among the early testers of this app, you can Drop a line at pb@m4mum.com.

PS: Raxit also has another website MyKavita.com

Orkut introduces SMS alert

Dinno — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:32:00 +0000

Did you check out latest feature by orkut? SMS alert for the scraps. I tried it out but did not work out for me. My SMS limit is currently zero. Maybe it will start working from month 2.

Google’s new fevicon

Dinno — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:06:00 +0000

Google has changed its fevicon recently. A small 16X16 change, but its creating big news. Google Blogsearch lists more than ~~400~~ 17000 blogs talking about the google’s new fevicon. And the list excludes the discussion happening on twitter and friendfeed.
Well, whatever small google does, turns into big news. Right..?

Meebo on blocked servers

Dinno — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:17:00 +0000

Is meebo blocked in your organization…? Try putting 208.81.191.133 in the address bar. It should work out..

Wifi at Rs 99 pm

Dinno — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:13:00 +0000

Airtel Broadband and Telephone Services (Airtel B&TS) has launched Wi-Fi service for its customers in South India at a monthly rental rate of Rs 99.

The offer will give Airtel broadband customers wireless access to broadband of upto 2 mbps speed, Airtel said in a statement.

Shamik Dass, COO – South, Airtel B&TS, said, “With the year 2007 being declared as the Year of Broadband and the increasing broadband penetration in the country, on-line life styles have become more prevalent and wireless access more pervasive.”

“Our Wi-Fi service at Rs 99 per month will promote affordable wireless access to a true broadband experience for a new generation that is seamlessly using Wi-Fi networks to exchange files and upload personalized content,” he added.

Radio on Google Talk

Dinno — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 10:39:00 +0000

Wanna listen to Radio? Internet Radio? On your Google Messenger? Follow the steps:

1. Add service@gtalk2voip.com
2. Then add: 110@radio.gtalk2voip.com
3. Make a Call to 10@radio.gtalk2voip.com
4. Enjoy listening to the radio

…. Make sure you have good internet bandwidth before you listen. You do not want the songs to kill in between buffers.

Wiki Books

Dinno — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:09:00 +0000

Ever thought of studying something new and stuck due to lack of books? Ever stuck while studying cause a concept wasn’t clear from the printed book? What do you think of at this moment..? Searching net for pdfs and downloading them?
Wiki has come up with a solution called Wiki Books. Wikibooks is a Wikimedia project that was started on July 10, 2003 with the mission to create a free collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit. Since ts founding, volunteers have written about 26,945 modules in a multitude of textbooks.
My say: Worth a try. If you are a master of a subject, don’t hesitate to go ahead and share your knowledge with the world by writing a wiki book about the topic of your interest.

IT firms to help Delhi tackle cyber crime

Dinno — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:57:00 +0000

Delhi Police have decided to rope in IT firms in the war against increasing cyber crime, Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal said here Wednesday.

“We have decided to rope in the services of IT majors for their expertise for the technological advancement of our sleuths and the cyber cell. They have been asked to hold regular interactions with sleuths investigating cyber crime cases,” Dadwal said on the second anniversary of the women protection programme ‘Parivartan’.

“The step was taken to keep pace with rapid technological advancement,” he said.

“Cyber related crimes are on the rise, but we are fully equipped to meet the challenge. We have a number of experts and engineers working in the cyber cell to catch these new age criminals,” Dadwal added.

The cell is a wing under Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

According to Delhi Police statistics, a total of 17 cases related to hacking, obscenity, e-commerce fraud (online share trading, credit card fraud) and Internet-related crimes, including copyright violation and misrepresentation on the web, were registered last year.

This was against 12 cases registered in 2005, indicating a 42 percent rise.

Earlier this month, the new police chief, in a meeting with senior officials, had directed that all cyber related cases be investigated under the EOW.

“We are planning to introduce a single window mechanism under the EOW, where all cyber crime cases will be investigated by the experts,” Dadwal had told EOW officials.

“The step is being taken as the experts will scrutinize the cases and it will also help in speedy disposal of the pending cases. People will find it convenient to register their complaints,” he added.

Currently, assistant commissioners of police (ACPs) at the district level are responsible for investigating cyber crime cases, besides the EOW.

Yahoo photos closing down

Dinno — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:33:00 +0000

In a highly surprising move, Yahoo has decided to close down its photo sharing service. Here is the message provided by the company.

For some time now we’ve supported your popular and favorite photo sharing service, Yahoo! Photos. But even good things come to an end, and we’ve decided to close Yahoo! Photos.

We will officially close Yahoo! Photos on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 9 p.m. PDT. Until then, we will offer you the opportunity to download your original resolution photos back to your computer or to move to a great photo sharing service, Flickr – the award winning photo sharing community that has even been called “completely addictive.” All you need to do is give us your decision before we close, after which any photos remaining on Yahoo! Photos will be deleted and no longer accessible.

Yahoo has provided an option to shift the photos to other popular services like flickr, photobucket, shutterfly etc. They have also provided an option to order a CD with all the snaps downloaded.

So, if you have a photo account on yahoo and are relaxing with belief in its unlimited storage space, its time to wake up and have some action.

Tourizm Ministry now on YouTube

Dinno — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:27:00 +0000

The tourism ministry Monday launched itself as a Brand Channel on YouTube and its ‘Incredible India’ promotional videos will now be available on the popular video sharing website.

The initiative will help promote tourism by showcasing India’s cultural and heritage wonders to a worldwide audience on the Internet at www.youtube.com/India.

“The Incredible India campaign is well recognized all over the world and efforts are being made to maximize our reach. We have to show the world the progress India has made since its independence 60 years ago. Using YouTube website for promotion of Incredible India campaign is an effort in that direction,” said Shilabhadra Banerjee, secretary, tourism ministry.

This website on YouTube will enable people across the world to experience and engage with the marvels of India through the power of video. Currently there are 18 films/videos uploaded on the site.

YouTube is a leading site where people watch and share videos through the web. It has about 48 million users in the US alone and is the eighth most visited website in the world.

Internet set to help rural farmers

Dinno — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:44:00 +0000

Did you think that internet is only for the urban people? Then you are probably unknown of something called ITC projects.

The most noticeable of the ITC projects in Rural India are e-Choupal, iShakti, and esagu. Today, they lead a silent revolution that empowers farmers with relevant information to make their lives better.

ITC e-Choupal web portal brings real-time information on weather forecasts and customized knowledge on better farming practices to the farmers’ doorstep to improve his crop management. ITC e-Choupal supply chain brings good quality farm inputs at competitive prices to increase his farm yields.

iShakti provides information and services to the farmers through a portal, which has contents pertaining to a variety of rural issues. It enables farmers to have a solution for a pest problem.

Esagu has a three-tier system consists of farmers as end users, coordinators as intermediaries to obtain crop status through digital photographs and text and communicate the advice to the farmers. The agricultural scientists with knowledge system prepare farm advices.

Te E-mail War

Dinno — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 06:32:00 +0000

E-mail service has grown up lot ahead than just E-mail. Now only sending and receiving E-mails won’t solve the purpose of a mail account. This is the time when the consumers are looking ahead of plain E-ails. And the biggest competition is among Gmail and Yahoo. Thought other mail services such as Rediffmail, Zapakmail are trying to enter the competition with the help of aggressive marketing through TV and Radio jingles.
Here is a short description about two of the leading E-mail services.

GMAIL
Experts still say that Gmail is the best webmail service overall, but it has new competition in the redesigned version of Yahoo! Mail. Gmail gets the most press for its 2.65GB of storage space, but Gmail also gets kudos for its intuitive organization features; users can assign labels to individual e-mails for sorting, and to organize chats and IM sessions by subject, just like regular e-mail. Also completely integrated with Gmail is Google’s chat function. Google is the only provider that allows users to keep track of a chat session just like an e-mail session. You can access Gmail through a desktop e-mail client (such as Outlook Express), and Gmail gives infrequent users a lot of latitude, only canceling an account after nine months of inactivity.

YAHOO
Although the revamped version of Yahoo! Mail gives users just 1GB of storage (compared to Gmail’s 2.65GB) reviews say it has a terrific interface that trumps Gmail in some areas. Yahoo! Mail’s three-pane screen looks a lot like Outlook Express, and it’s the only major free e-mail service that lets you read an e-mail while still being able to view your inbox. Tabbed messages let you easily flip between two or more e-mails. One downside is that Yahoo! Mail won’t let you forward mail unless you pay for its Yahoo! Mail Plus service (*est. $20 per year). For those who already have a Yahoo! mail account switching to the new interface is a no-brainer. Others will have to weigh Yahoo!’s intuitive interface against Gmail’s larger storage and integrated chat function. Reviews say that Yahoo!’s graphical ads are more obtrusive than Gmail’s more subtle text ads.

Best Indian Blog Award

Dinno — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 05:39:00 +0000

The “Best Indian Blog Awards” competition has been declared.
“Best Indian Blog Competition” is a pursuit to note the best of Indian blogs and share with the world. Through this competition, we will be felicitating the Best of the Indian blogs and best posts.
There are many websites that arrange similar competition. But the award for the winner is just 15 seconds of fame. In this case, the prize will be surely more than just 15 seconds of fame. Morover, getting links is something you will win if nothing more. I think i do not need to tell you about the importance of incoming links in Search Engine Optimization and Blog Rankings. The serious bloggers should not miss the opportunity.

The competition will run through the month of August.Check out the rules for nominating your blog for the award. And if you think your blog fits in the criteria, then do grab the opportunity. You won’t afford to miss it..

Keep updated with the contents of Blog of the competition for further announcements.

The most visited

Dinno — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:27:00 +0000

I was just wondering which sites are visited maximum in India. Orkut must be the most visited followed by google, yahoo, rediff and blogger. MSN might also feature up somewhere in the top 10. One friend (Google search engine; It is not shorter than a friend these days) told me that Alexa provides the list of most visited sites in a country. So I checked out the list of top 75 sites in India.

Yahoo leads the way, probably because of variety of services it provides like groups, mail, geocities etc. Orkut is on second rank. No surprise with that. This Social networking and discussion site operated by Google is highly popular in India. Google India comes at the third place followed by Google.com. I wonder if counted together, Google India and Google will overtake yahoo at the first place. Indians are searching a lot it seems.. Rediff comes at the fifth place, probably with the TV and radio advertisements last year..
MSN is at 6th place. Followed by the Video sharing service Youtube. It has been one of the easiest ways to share the videos online. Naukri comes to 8th place and first amongst the job sites. The search engine by Microsoft “Windows Live” acquires 9th place. Blogger is on 10th place. I was expecting it to be in first five. Big portion of Indians aren’t much into blogging..

Among other most talked sites, Wikipedia is on 12th rank, indiatimes at 14th, Ebay India at 30th, Santabanta at 39th, Indian Railways as 46th, New7wonders at 57th.
Jeevansathi leads the track of matrimonial sites at 23rd position followed by Shaadi at 36th place.
Among online banking, ICICI leads at 33rd position followed by ICICIdirect at 44th and HDFC at 67th place.

The most surprising entry for me was debonairblog at 16th position. The hyper maniac desis are helping the site grow..

Google Translation Rocks

Dinno — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:53:00 +0000

Google Translation is a tool that has helped a lot in comprehending the documents written in foreign language. But the service behaves in a peculiar manner sometimes. (Just like me). Check out the following example.

Step 1: Go to Google Translation

Step 2: Enter the following line into the translate Textbox:

Aishwarya’s grand mom is nice and cool

Step 3: Translate from English to Spanish.

Step 4: Copy the translated text, and translate it back from Spanish to English – and see what you get.

Doesn’t Google Translation Rock?

Lock with a shortcut

Dinno — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 07:43:00 +0000

Feel hard to press CTRL+ALT+DEL to lock your machine? Try this and create the icon to lock the machine on your desktop.

1. Right click an empty spot on the desktop, point to New and click Shortcut.
2. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, copy the following into the ‘Type the location’ of the item text box:
rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation

3. Click Next.
4. In “Type a name for this shortcut”, type LOCK and Click Finish
5. Now just double click on that icon to lock your computer without pressing Alt+Ctrl+Del.

New feature in orkut

Dinno — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:06:00 +0000

Did you notice any orkut album lately? Whenever you open up an image from orkut album, two new buttons get displayed exactly above the image. The buttons are for viewing previous image, and next image. So now browsing the whole album is a matter of fewer clicks. That definitely saves some bandwidth, few clicks and a lot pain in the neck. And morover, the new facility will provide more ease in browsing.
Those google guys always know what the people want. And they never fail to please us by introducing the feature we want. The features like reply button in scrapbook, facility to upload and display videos have turned out to be very useful and interactive.
Now they should soon introduce a link to download whole album at once. Any google coder around?

Pre-fetching in Firefox

Dinno — Sun, 27 May 2007 21:45:00 +0000

When firefox identifies a website, it automatically starts pre-loading all the links contained in it in the background. Since you seldom surf further in the sites, you prefer to remove this brake and do without the “service”.

This function is supposed to speed up the downloading of a site when you click on a link. However, since you would hardly visit all the links in the site, this function is generally of no use. To top it, pre-fetching brings load on bandwidth, contributes to high data quantities and costs in the volume tariff causing the browser cache to fill quickly and demand high storage requirements in the system RAM. These disadvantages outdo the advantage. Hence deactivating the function is more advisable.

To deactivate this function, Open the configuration page by typing “About:config” in the address bar. Look for “Network:prefetch-next” entry in the list. Then right-click on it and select the context command ‘Switch’. Check whether the Boolean value is set to false. In future, the system will download the websites only when you will click on a link.

Why I suggest Firefox

Dinno — Sun, 27 May 2007 18:07:00 +0000

Here are few of the features of Mozilla Firefox that I like. If you don’t yet have firefox installed, you can download it from the link provided above and check out the features for yourself.

Tabbed Browsing

Firefox opens new web pages in tabs by default. Each of those tabs has its own close button, but don’t worry – if you accidentally close a tab, just go to the History menu to bring it back from the list of “Recently Closed Tabs.” You’ll never be crunched for space anymore, either. When you have too many tabs open to comfortably fit in a single window, scroll arrows will appear on either side and a button on the right side will always show you an easy-to-read list of all your open tabs.

Spell Checking

Sometimes you’re in a rush, and can’t remember if it’s “i” before “e” or the other way around. Firefox 2 has built-in spell checking to keep you from making any mistakes in your blog posts and Web-based email, so you can worry about more important things.

Search Suggestions

Some of the search engines in Firefox 2 can read your mind, and actually suggest search terms for what you’re looking for. Just start typing into the Search bar, and a drop down list of suggestions will appear. (Works for Google, Yahoo! and Answers.com.). And these suggestions aren’t vague guesses. They match almost always.

Session Restore

Losing your place while you’re doing things on the Web is a pain. But, with Session Restore, if Firefox has to restart or closes when it comes back you’ll pick up exactly where you left off. The windows and tabs you were using, the text you typed into forms, and the in-progress downloads you had running will all be restored. You can even set Firefox to always restore your previous session instead of loading a home page, so you’ll never lose your place again.

Live Bookmarks

Firefox Live Bookmarks let you view Web feeds such as news and blog headlines in the bookmarks toolbar or menu. With one glance, quickly review the latest headlines from your favorite sites and click to go directly to the articles that interest you. Also you can keep a watch on what your friends are scribbling in their blog by adding a live bookmark of their blogs. Isn’t this feature amazing? So now onwards, you won’t miss any “Breaking News”

An Add-on for Everyone

You can choose from over 1,000 add-ons at the Firefox Add-ons Web site. A Firefox add-on can help you comparison shop, share bookmarks with your friends, see the weather in a corner of your browser, write to your weblog, get news, listen to music – all from inside the browser you already love. You can even change the appearance of your browser – from buttons to colors and fonts – so that it matches your own personal style.

Phishing Protection

Phishing Protection takes Firefox’s security to a new level, helping to safeguard your financial information and protect you from identity theft. When you encounter a Web site that is a suspected forgery (known as a “phishing” site) Firefox will warn you and offer to take you to a search page so you can find the real Web site you were looking for.

Ubuntu 6.0

Dinno — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 16:49:00 +0000

Today I got second consignment of Ubuntu ~~6.0~~ 10.0 CDs. This time I’ve received 10 CDs of the same. In first consignment, I had 3 CDs.
Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support.
Ubuntu offers you a complete Linux-based operating system, including all the major applications you need to play and work. With a strong focus on a desktop that Just Works, Ubuntu is a great choice for home or the office. The base system and all included software is free, and support is available from the community or by professional support providers.

I’m going to distribute these CDs amongst my friends and students so as to spread linux. This is under a special scheme by Ubuntu. You can also order the free CDs from here. Or alternatively, you can just put me an e-mail for the CD.

Correction: The CDs contain UBUNTU 10.0 I had earlier mentioned it as UBUNTU 6.0

Are You A Safe Cyber Surfer?

Dinno — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:36:00 +0000

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect your computer, your information and your peace of mind from computer creeps who try to slow down a network operation, or worse yet, steal personal information to commit a crime. Here are some tips to help you, from the Mumbai Police

Make sure your passwords have both letters and numbers, and are at least eight characters long. Avoid common words: some hackers use programs that can try every word in the dictionary. Don’t use your personal information, your login name or adjacent keys on the keyboard as passwords-and don’t share your passwords online or over the phone.

Protect yourself from viruses by installing anti-virus software and updating it regularly. You can download anti-virus software from the Web sites of software companies, or buy it in retail stores; the best recognize old and new viruses and update automatically.

Prevent unauthorized access to your computer through firewall software or hardware, especially if you are a high-speed user. A properly configured firewall makes it tougher for hackers to locate your computer. Firewalls are also designed to prevent hackers from getting into your programs and files. Some recently released operating system software and some hardware devices come with a built-in firewall. Some firewalls block outgoing information as well as incoming files. That stops hackers from planting programs called spyware-that cause your computer to send out your personal information without your approval.

Don’t open a file attached to an e-mail unless you are expecting it or know what it contains. If you send an attachment, type a message explaining what it is. Never forward any e-mail warning about a new virus. It may be a hoax and could be used to spread a virus.

When something bad happens-you think you’ve been hacked or infected by a virus-
e-mail a report of the incident to your Internet provider and the hacker’s Internet provider, if you can tell what it is, as well as your software vendor.

Science Flaws

Dinno — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:32:00 +0000

Q: Light slows as it passes through water or glass, causing it to bend, but how can it return to light-speed on its own once it exits?

A: This is impossible in today’s science. No object in nature can speed up of its own accord after being slowed. A bullet doesn’t spontaneously speed up after it is slowed by passing through a wooden block, so how does a photon of light mysteriously return to its original speed once it exits a glass block? Also, continuously shining a light beam through a glass block will heat it, creating the further mystery that the beam actually loses energy as it passes through the glass, yet still manages to accelerate to its original speed upon exit. Today’s science cannot explain this mysterious everyday occurrence.

Here is another related mystery:
Bounce a light-beam between two parallel mirrors at a slight angle so that the beam bounces along the mirrors in a zig-zag pattern. How many bounces will it take before the light beam loses energy and slows down appreciably? 1000 bounces? 10,000? Of course, we know that the light beam will never slow down no matter how many times it bounces back and forth, despite the well-established fact that light imparts a small momentum punch when it bounces off objects (the principle behind solar sails). So, how does a single beam of light impart countless momentum punches as it zig-zags between the mirrors, yet still manage to emerge afterward at the same unchanging speed of light? According to today’s science this is an impossible energy-for-free event.

Any explanations???

Gmail is not best

Dinno — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 05:42:00 +0000

Google doesn’t think Gmail is best and that’s why Gmail has got a pagerank of 9. Above image is proof of the same.

Don’t know what is pagerank? Check out this.

Yahoo Messanger

Dinno — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 12:01:00 +0000

This is for those people who can not access yahoo messanger from their office computers due to firewall or some other reasons.

Accessing Private Members in C++

Dinno — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:50:00 +0000

It had been long since I last wrote something technical. My friends are continuously bugging me for writing something technical. Before my technical image vanishes away in trek and social activites, here is some technical stuff..

This code demonstrates how we can access Private Data Members in C++. This is a major flaw in OOP in C++..

/* CODE BY DINESH SONI
dinesh.soni@gmail.com
9890897198
*/

#include
#include
#include

class person
{
private:

char name[40];
char grade;
int age;

public:

person(char* nam="Default",char gr=’A',int saal=25)
{
strcpy(name,nam);
grade=gr;
age=saal;
}

friend ostream& operator <<(ostream& s,person b);
};

ostream& operator <<(ostream& s,person b)
{
s<<"Name :"< <<"Rating :"< <<"Age :"< return s;
}

struct hack
{
char name[40];
char grade;
char age;
};

void main()
{
clrscr();
person bc;
cout< void* ptr=&bc;
struct hack* person_1=(hack*)ptr;
person_1->grade=’F';
person_1->age=56;
cout< strcpy(person_1->name,"Dinesh Soni");
person_1->age=21;
person_1->grade=’A';
cout< getch();
}

How Fast is your connection

Dinno — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 09:06:00 +0000

Mcafee provides a sppedometer that calculates your interenet speed.

You could be using your network connection at work, or at home using a dial-up modem, ISDN connection, a cable modem, or a digital subscriber line (DSL). Whatever the device or technology you’re using to surf the Web, it will tell you the speed of your Internet connection.

Try it

Here is my connection speed with Airtel GPRS..

File hiding mechanism for Windows XP

Dinno — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 06:13:00 +0000

Do you have some sensitive data which you want to hide from your friends and fellow computer handlers? The basic method used for the same in any operating system is to hide these files, which has now become so common that even children know the trick. Another thing people do is install some file hiding software. No doubt this technique is very useful with the existence of softwares like “Hide files”, “Fake folders”, and many more in the list. But basic problem with this is you have to remember the password. And the existence of softwares can easily be sensed. Also you have to waste up some disk space for these softwares.
Also few people tend to change the extension. Just for example extension of image files is renamed as .DOC or .PDF. These image files won’t open up in Microsoft Word or Acrobat Reader. But there are few ‘smart’ softwares which find out the type of file and prompt the error regarding wrong extension.
Well, there are few more ways with which you can reliably apply security to your files without anyone knowing about it. And yes, you don’t need to remember any passwords.

First method for folder hiding on windows platform is redirecting the path of your folder to control panel. All you have to do is add the hex address of control panel in the end of your folder name. Once you add this string to the folder name, the folder will show control panel icon. And if you try to open it, all that opens up is control panel window. The system won’t show up the string attached to the folder name, so none will know that you have applied any such security. If you want to see the contents of original folder, just rename folder to previous name through DOS.

Here is how the folder will show up in folder view. I’ve applied the technique to the folder “Video_files”. And if you rename the folder to control panel, none will even know what you are hiding under the icon.

This is how the folder will look if you open up it. Check out the path is I:/video_songs, same folder which have been hidden using this technique.

Another way can be applied if you want to hide whole drive. All you have to do is go to drive management utility, select the drive you want to hide, rename the drive letter and remove the letter. Now try opening up the drive through My computer, Run prompt or command prompt. You can’t open it from any of these..

You will notice that drives I and J are missing as I’ve hidden them using this technique.

If anyone interested in knowing more about these techniques, you can just contact me or Dhiraj who taught me these techniques.

–
Dinesh Soni
dinesh.soni@gmail.com
9890897198

5 reasons not to use linux

Dinno — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 06:48:00 +0000

These are five reasons _not_ to use Linux : Here

Windows Firewall for Internet Connection

Dinno — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 07:31:00 +0000

Windows XP comes with a firewall known as the Internet Connection Firewall or ICF. ICF provides only inbound protection-unlike a full-fledged firewall, it only monitors incoming data. To turn on ICF, go to the Control panel and select Network Connections. Right-click on the displayed connection, and click on Properties. Under the Advanced tab, you can enable ICF. While the default settings may work fine, you may want to tweak the settings. Click on the Settings button to access all the ICF features and settings. You can fine tune the network services under the Services tab, set logging details under Security Logging, and details about ICMP under the ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) tab.

Do you need it?
Keep in mind that ICF is for use only with a direct connection to the Internet, such as a dial-up or cable modem connection. This means that computers connected to the Internet through a LAN, or Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), or a hardware router doesn’t need an ICF. Moreover, you may tend to have some trouble with networking other computers on a LAN, as File and Printer Sharing services are blocked. It would make sense to disable the ICF, if you intend to use File and Printer Sharing services that would be essential in a LAN environment. To disable the ICF, go to the Control Panel, and select the Network Connections. Open this and right-click on the desired connection, click on Properties and under the Advanced tab, disable ICF.

How lack of testing can mess up things

Dinno — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 10:17:00 +0000

BOB (Bank of Baroda) recently started new GUI for their ATM.
When you try to withdraw money, you get two options after giving amount. The options are “Correct” and “Incorrect”.
If you click on correct, you won’t get anything. But if you click on incorrwect, the cash comes out of machine…
Now that’s what i call as Lack of proper testing….

Microsoft tells to uninstall Netscape 8

Dinno — Sat, 28 May 2005 10:29:00 +0000

Microsoft has alerted consumers that Netscape’s latest browser appears to break the XML rendering capabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Dave Massy, a senior program manager for IE, warned users in a blog posting that after installing Netscape 8, IE will render XML files as a blank page, including XML files that have an XSLT transformation.

Check out here.

gmail

Dinno — Wed, 25 May 2005 10:43:00 +0000

gmail
Originally uploaded by dinesh soni.

It seems google is giving gmail accounts for free. So, if you wanna a gmail account, just open up your orkut page…..

Is your boss monitoring your e-mail?

Dinno — Wed, 25 May 2005 09:40:00 +0000

If you’re working for a U.S. company, there’s a good chance you’re being watched–and you may get fired for how you use your computer or office phone.

Check out full story here and here.

Google’s Modesty :)

Dinno — Mon, 23 May 2005 09:55:00 +0000

search for “search engines” on google, and google’s rank comes after the lycos, altavista, yahoo search and hotbot search engines.
Should we call it Google’s modesty ??

Check out here

Google introduces personalized home pages

Dinno — Fri, 20 May 2005 11:54:00 +0000

In what appears to be a broadside aimed at MyYahoo, Google rolled out a new feature on Thursday that lets people set up a personalized Google home page.

Read complete story here.

Onscreen Keyboard

Dinno — Sat, 14 May 2005 11:22:00 +0000

Onscreen Keyboard
Originally uploaded by dinesh soni.

An onscreen keyboard is in-built in Windows XP. It can be useful if you are using a tablet PC or if your keyboard goes on the blink. To access the keyboard, go to Start > Run, type OSK and press [Enter]. The keyboard opens up on your computer screen, featuring three typing modes that you can use to type data:
Clicking mode: you click the on-screen keys.
Scanning mode: you press a hot key, or use a switch-input device, to type highlighted characters.
Hovering mode: you use a mouse or joystick to point to a key, which is then typed.

DHCP and TCP/IP

Dinno — Fri, 13 May 2005 11:02:00 +0000

After my blog entry about Networking, I got a mail asking what exactly is DHCP and TCP/IP.
Here is the answer.

DHCP
Every computer system on a TCP/IP network is assigned a unique address known as IP address to identify a computer on the network. As the network grows, the network administrator has to keep track of the addresses given to the systems. This becomes even more complex when systems are added or removed from the network. Hence, DHCP is used to dynamically assign IP addresses to computers on a network. Instead of the network administrator, a DHCP server keeps track of the IP addresses assigned. Hence, a system joining a network is assigned an IP address from an IP pool. That IP address is retrieved back to the pool when the system is removed. The IP address assigned to a system changes every time it boots up and gets connected to the network.

http://www.dhcp.org

TCP/IP

TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. It is the basic set of rules that is used in almost all networks present today. It has a two layer structure in which TCP forms the higher layer and IP forms the lower layer of the protocol. TCP handles the transmission of packets over the network and it makes sure that the original packet is reassembled properly at the destination node. The lower layer, Internet protocol, is closer to the actual network it handles the address part of the packet. This layer checks whether the packet reaches the right destination. TCP/IP communication is primarily point to point, which means that each communication is from one point or node in the network to another point or node. It uses a client/server model of communication. The address given to each node on a TCP/IP network is called an IP address. This address can be given manually to a system, or a network can be configured to give an IP address to a machine when it logs on to the network. When an IP is given manually it is called static IP allocation, and the second method is called dynamic IP allocation. For this a technique known as DHCP or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is used. This method of IP allocation is normally used when your system gets connected to the internet using a dial up modem. A DHCP server used by your ISP assigns an IP to your system dynamically. The address scheme that is presently used is called IPv4. In this method each system is given a unique number separated by four dots. An example is 162.122.111.67. Here each number separated by dots can take a value between 0 and 255. These numbers specify the node address, network address, IP class, etc. of a node on a network. In the future, a new addressing scheme known as IPv6 would be used to overcome some of the limitations of IPv4.

128 MB RAM, don’t worry

Dinno — Thu, 12 May 2005 09:03:00 +0000

If you have only 128 MB RAM, your machine might be a bit sluggish after installing Windows XP. So to achieve optimal performance without buying additional RAM, disable certain visual settings and free up some precious memory. Go to the Control Panel > system > Advanced, and click on the Settings button under Performance. Change various graphical effects, and ensure that the animation and shadow options are unchecked, as they tend to consume a lot of memory. You should get a better response from your operating system, without spending any money on RAM.

Check thy network

Dinno — Tue, 10 May 2005 10:40:00 +0000

In our NL (Networking Laboratory) oral, some of us were asked to type command “ipconfig /all” at command prompt and explain the things visible in the output of the command.
The information displayed on the screen is described below.

Adapter address

This is a hexadecimal address, also called the MAC address, unique to every network adapter. It is hard coded into the card by the manufacturer, and consists of six 8-bit numbers. However remember that modems do not have this address-this is restricted to network adapters-the number for a modem or dial up adapter is set to a meaningless default number.

IP address

This is the current IP networking address. Depending on whether the DHCP is used, this may be static or dynamically allotted. The static value is entered in the TCP/IP network configuration menu.

Subnet Mask

This is used to mask a portion of the IP address, to determine the subnet where the computer is located-within the internal network. All computers running TCP/IP must have the subnet mask defined.

Default Gateway

This is the IP address of the computer that provides the connection to a remote network. The gateway computer is the computer that TCP/IP will use to communicate and route data destined for computers on remote networks.

DHCP Server

This entry indicates the IP address of the DHCP server. The DHCP server, when present, will dynamically assign an IP address to the machine upon connecting to the network. Clicking on the Release button will release the IP address, and the Renew button requests a new IP address from the DHCP server.

Primary and Secondary WINS Server

These settings specify the IP address of the Primary and Secondary WINS Server, if present. The WINS servers translate the NetBIOS names into the corresponding IP addresses.

Lease Obtained and Leased Expired

These values show when the current IP address was obtained and when it is due to expire. You can use the Release and Renew buttons to release and renew your current IP address. In any case, the DHCP client automatically attempts to renew the lease, when 50 per cent of the lease time has expired.

Trek sites reviewed

Dinno — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 11:11:00 +0000

The holidays are on its way and all start planning for some tour. Discussion start and everyone settles down for a trek. But where to go? And how to go? These are basic questions everyone faces.
Open up the World Wide Web and you get dozens of sites giving information about treks. Which one should we believe? Well, you trust me? Then here is the answer.

{I} http://www.trekshitiz.com

Homepage of Kshitiz group, Mumbai.

Ins:
* Detail info about lots of trekking spots along with their history and different
ways to reach.
* Information also available in Marathi.
* Maps of forts is very special feature of this site.
* A user discussion forum is nice place to know more.
* Special section for rock climbing, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
* Forts sorted according to different categories such as district, range, difficulty
level and alphabetically.

Outs:
* Image titles are many times not matching with the image.
* Sometimes fort appearing in one list (eg Districtwise list) does not appear in another list (eg Rangewise list).

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

{II} http://deepabhi.tripod.com

Personal trek-page of Abhijit and Deepak.

Ins:
* Short but accurate information of some important and common trekking places.
* Few but fantastic photographs (Blame it to Abhijit’s photography J )
* Regionwise maps and also the special GPS map of Harishchandragad.
* A list of many forts in Sahyadris can be useful for further trekking on our own.

Outs:
* Very few of the forts have been covered.
* Not updated so frequently.

Overall Rating: 6/10

{III}http://trekdi.tekdi.org

Trek’di group Pune (They call it Trek Encyclopedia).

Ins:
* Good user Interface.
* Announcements for regular treks organized by the group are posted online.
* The guys are always just a phone call away to help you.
* Tekdi Eco Portal is the best place to discuss everything about trekking.

Outs:
* Still under maintainance. So very few of the forts have been covered.
* The trek announcements are many times not updated.

Overall Rating: 4/10

IV} http://www.geocities.com/sta_pune

Sahyadri Treks and Adventures, Pune

Ins:
* Many little known places have been covered.
* Good user interface.

Outs:
* Very few photographs.
* Not updated for long time.
* Insufficient information.

Overall Rating: 5/10

V} http://welcome.to/chakram

Chakram Hikers, Mulund
Ins:
* Basically a site about Chakram hikers rather than general trekking.
* Regular updates about treks by the group are posted.

Outs:
* Not much information about trekking.

Overall rating : 3/10

Powerful UNIX

Dinno — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 11:11:00 +0000

These are some things that many Unix operating systems will print in response to various commands. What the user has typed has a “% ” in front of it:: Enjoy

% cat “food in cans”
cat: can’t open food in cans
% nice man woman
No manual entry for woman.

% rm God
rm: God nonexistent

% ar t God
ar: God does not exist]

% ar r God
ar: creating God

% “How would you rate Quayle’s incompetence?
Unmatched “.

% [Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
Missing ].
>>> >

% ^How did the sex change operation go?
^ Modifier failed.

% If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent, what would I have?
Too many (‘s.

% make love
Make: Don’t know how to make love. Stop.

% sleep with me
bad character

% got a light?
No match.

% man: why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.

% !:say, what is saccharine?
Bad substitute.

% %blow
%blow: No such job.

/* not csh but sh */
$ PATH=pretending!/usr/ucb/which sense
no sense in pretending!

$ drink
bottle: cannot open opener: not found

Security while using Internet

Dinno — Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:38:00 +0000

What can be done to assure a secure internet access??? here it goes..

Deleting cookies

Many Web sites drop little files onto your system that let them keep track of your passwords, and the date and time of your visits. To get rid of these files, delete the contents of the Cookies folder and the Temporary Internet Files folder in your Windows directory (but not the folders themselves). This will remove all traces of your surfing pattern. You could also use a third-party cookie cleaning software such as Cookie Crusher.

If you want to perform this task in Internet Explorer 6, open a new window of Internet Explorer; go to Tools- Internet Options. In the new window that appears, click on Delete Cookies. Once that is done, click on Delete files. You can delete all offline content if you want. That should take care of the temporary files and cookies in Internet Explorer.

Working around cookies

Adjust IE’s security settings to keep random Web sites from sending cookies to your hard drive or uploading ActiveX Controls. To do this, select Internet Options from the Tools menu, and click on the Security tab. Slide the bar under ‘Security level for this zone’ up or down to increase or decrease the security level. Each level-High, Medium, Medium-Low, and Low-lists exactly which actions and applications it allows or blocks. It is better to click Custom Levels, and then select to prompt for cookies that are stored on your computer. This allows you to control which sites’ cookies you want to allow. Remember though, that some sites may not work properly if cookies are disabled. In addition to this, you should also disable ActiveX, since this can pose a serious security hazard.

Disabling Windows Scripting Host for Windows 9x

Internet Explorer installs Windows Scripting Host by default, and this is used to run VB scripts that may contain viruses or Trojans. To remove Windows Scripting Host, go to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Windows Setup. Select Accessories and from there uncheck Windows Scripting Host. You can also go to the Folder Options in Windows Explorer, and select the .vbs file type and remove it

Disabling AutoComplete

The AutoComplete feature may be useful while filling out forms and usernames, but it also allows other users to know your usernames and then guess your passwords. When the AutoComplete function is active, some sites, search engines and entry fields retain the words you’ve entered, so anyone who uses the browser after you and visits that site can see the entries you made. To turn off this feature, go to Tools > Internet Options, and click the Content tab. Next, click the AutoComplete button in the Personal Information section to display the AutoComplete Settings window. Uncheck the ‘Forms’ and ‘Usernames and Passwords on Forms’ boxes.

Deleting History items

The History folder stores a record of all the Web sites you’ve visited. This can be used to spy on your online activities. To get rid of unwanted URL histories, go to Tools > Internet Options, and click on the General tab. You will find the History section, and click the Clear History button. Always repeat this before you close the browser. Set the ‘Days to keep pages in History’ to 1. This will not only keep IE neat and tidy, but will also act as a cushion if you forget to delete the history. If you don’t want to clear your entire History folder, but want to remove single pages, click the History button on your IE toolbar to open the History window frame. This shows up sites, with all the pages you visited there, as files. Right-click on the file you want to get rid of, and select Delete.

Filtering content

Certain sites on the Internet are not appropriate for children. You can use a separate software program for filtering content, but IE also has some built-in filtering tools. To configure these, go to Tools > Internet Options > Content. Under Content Advisor, click the Enable button, and adjust the slider in each of the four categories-Language, Nudity, Sex, and Violence. The Description box at the bottom details what each level allows. Click OK to activate the Advisor.

Disabling Java

Java and JavaScript applets can take control of your browser, and you should exercise caution when surfing unknown and potentially questionable sites. Both Java and JavaScript can be disabled from within the browser, but you will miss out on a lot of cyber experiences. The best course, then, would be to toggle between these settings according to the perceived security threat.Note: Some harmless Web sites using Java may not load properly if you disable Java and JavaScript in Internet Explorer.

Changing setting of restricted zone

The default settings of Internet Explorer enable Active scripts for Restricted Sites. To modify these settings in Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Options > Security and select Restricted Zones. Click on Custom Level and then go to the Active Scripting option and disable it.

Getting started with Web-designing

Dinno — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:24:00 +0000

After my 2 years of experience of web designing, I learned some things about it.

Most important thing about web designing is how to start and how to design a page than will keep the visitor stuck to your web-site. Here are certain tips for the same.

Picture it

Here’s where you actually start designing the site. Don’t rush into making the pages or graphics yet. Use a paper and pencil, or even an imaging tool (MS Paint is good enough for this) and scribble your site layout first. Check out some existing Web sites for ideas. It’s a good practice to keep all navigation links together. If there are too many of them, club them into logical groups. Keep important items, such as navigational links in the top 400 pixels of the page. Visitors to the site see this area first, so that’s where the most important information should appear. Also, ensure that the main body of the page starts within this area, so visitors can start reading the text right away.

The first cut

When you start designing your Web site, do not develop smaller components of the page as individual components but instead start work on the whole page as a single image. Once the main image is ready, you can separate out each element by cropping individual items. This will ensure that all the items are of the appropriate size and the final page will be easier to make.

The sacred scrolls

Keep vertical scrolling to a minimum and avoid any horizontal scrolling. Restrict the vertical scroll to a maximum of two-and-a-half scrolls of an 800 x 600 screen. If you do have a lot of information that must be given on the same page, don’t fill up the entire page with text. One column in the centre, irrespective of the amount of scrolling involved, interspersed with attractive graphics works well. This is one reason why it’s a good idea to dedicate a column on the left to navigational links. Since the links already takes up some space, you have to worry less about the information flow. Avoid gimmicks such as tickers and scrolling text. It slows down the page and is usually quite irritating. It also distracts visitor’s eye from the rest of the page.

Optimization Tips

It’s easier to retain visitors to your site if the pages load fast. A fast-loading site holds attention, so they won’t go clicking around other windows.

Table smart

In browsers, tables do not show up on a page until the content within the tables have been downloaded, making a page seem slow. Avoid nested tables and long vertical tables. Instead, stack tables on top of each other-pages then appear to load faster as each table shows up faster. In this context, it’s better to place your navigational links horizontally, towards the top, as it will show up before most of the rest of the page. Keep the most important links at the top and the rest on the left, or keep top-level sections on the top and subsections on the left.

To make a table stand out on a page, use a border around it rather than an image that is fixed in size. Nest the table within a single-cell table with a cell padding of 1 pixel (or more for a thicker border) and a background of the colour you want for the border.

Re-use images

If an image is repeated throughout the site, use the same file across all pages so that it needs to be downloaded only once-the browser’s cache takes care of this. If you use similar images, break them into static and changing parts so you can reuse the static part of the image.

Smaller images

The size of an image will be smaller if you use a 256-colour palette. GIFs are generally smaller than JPEGs, but JPEGs offer better quality when using lots of colours as on photographs. With smaller images, use distinct edges and crisp colours.

Almost all imaging tools optimise images by saving them with a palette of only those colours used in the image. Some applications let you choose how many colours to use in the image. It then replaces colours not found in the palette with the nearest match, thus reducing the image size.

Avoid too many animated graphics. A lot of them together are unpleasant to the eye and also take longer to download as compared to simple images.

Stylise your site

Use a style sheet for your site to add consistency and to reduce page size. You won’t have to explicitly define many font and paragraph tags. Avoid using inline styles-this is as good as using HTML tags-except for special cases. Use a single CSS file that has all the style definitions. Once a person visits a page, the browser will use the file from the cache for the rest of the pages.

Less jazz, more speed

The lesser jazz on a page, the faster it loads. Animations and rollovers affect the size and number of files the browser has to download. Another aspect usually overlooked is DHTML items such as menus that show and hide themselves. Though hidden away, they add a lot of code to the page, increasing the size considerably. Use these wisely and limit the number of such hidden blocks to a minimum.

What is Bluetooth?

Dinno — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:49:00 +0000

A wireless personal area network (PAN) technology from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (www.bluetooth.com) founded in 1998 by Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba. Bluetooth is an open standard for short-range transmission of digital voice and data between mobile devices (laptops, PDAs, phones) and desktop devices. It supports point-to-point and multipoint applications.

Bluetooth provides up to 720 Kbps data transfer within a range of 10 meters and up to 100 meters with a power boost. Unlike IrDA, which requires that devices be aimed at each other (line of sight), Bluetooth uses omnidirectional radio waves that can transmit through walls and other non-metal barriers. Bluetooth transmits in the unlicensed 2.4GHz band and uses a frequency hopping spread spectrum technique that changes its signal 1600 times per second. If there is interference from other devices, the transmission does not stop, but its speed is downgraded.

The name Bluetooth comes from King Harald Blatan (Bluetooth) of Denmark. In the 10th century, he began to Christianize the country. Ericsson (Scandinavian company) was the first to develop this specification.

What is HTTP?

Dinno — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 17:14:00 +0000

(HyperText Transport Protocol) The communications protocol used to connect to servers on the Web. Its primary function is to establish a connection with a Web server and transmit HTML pages to the client browser or any other files required by an HTTP application. Addresses of Web sites begin with an http:// prefix; however, Web browsers typically default to the HTTP protocol. For example, typing www.dineshsoni.tk is the same as typing http://www.dineshsoni.tk .

HTTP is a “stateless” request/response system. The connection is maintained between client and server only for the immediate request, and the connection is closed. After the HTTP client establishes a TCP connection with the server and sends it a request command, the server sends back its response and closes the connection.

Version 1.0 of HTTP caused considerable overhead to a Web download. Each time a graphic on the same page or another page on the same site was requested, a new protocol connection was established between the browser and the server. In HTTP Version 1.1, a persistent connection allowed multiple downloads with less overhead. It also improved caching and made it easier to create virtual hosts (multiple Web sites on the same server).