Nano-Scale Memory Fits A Terabit On A Square Inch

"San Jose Business Journal talks about Nanochip, a company that's developing molecular-scale memory: "Nanochip has developed prototype arrays of atomic-force probes, tiny instruments used to read and write information at the molecular level. These arrays can record up to one trillion bits of data -- known as a terabit -- in a single square inch. That's the storage density that magnetic hard disk drive makers hope to achieve by 2010. It's roughly equivalent to putting the contents of 25 DVDs on a chip the size of a postage stamp." The story also mentions Millipede project from IBM, where scientists are trying to build nano-scale memory that relies on micromechanical components."

(via Slashdot)

Firefox 1.0.1

Firefox 1.0.1 is out with some security fixes. Internationalized domain names like www.bär.de or www.bücher.de – the German words for “bear” and “books” – will work, but are instantly rewritten to “Punycode”. This means www.bär.de turns to “http://www.xn--br-via.de/” in the browser address bar. The reason behind this apparently is to prevent phishing attacks, which could fool users by leading them to URLs which look like “paypal.com” but actually contain a cyrillic “a.” (Google, by the way, does understand special characters in domains, which you can see by entering “site:www.bär.de”.)

(via Blogoscoped)

Please don't do it! [The Google Login]

Well Google is said to introduce some "premium" links in the search results, and to access a "premium" link one hs to provide a user-name and passoword.

"Google is likely to require its users to begin providing personal information to use some of its products and services, said CEO Eric Schmidt.

Requiring people to provide their identity and a password to gain service access is common at many Web sites, but would be new for Google. Having more personal information would enable Google to offer more useful improvements, Schmidt said."

Liked the idea?? I don't .

(via addict3d)

HP's CEO walks away ...!

Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina, one of the most powerful women in corporate America, is leaving the troubled computer maker after being forced out by the company's board.

On a conference call with reporters, executives said Fiorina was not terminated for cause and that she would receive severance pay -- and a company spokesman said she'll get a payout of approximately $21 million.

more ... at CNN

Want a PhD in Game Dev???

University of Southern California, introduced a chair for the study of interactive entertainment. The chair is endowed by EA, the game dev giant.

Bing Gordon, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Electronic Arts (Research), was named the first holder of the Electronic Arts endowed faculty chair at the USC School of Cinema-Television, according to a statement from the company, the biggest video game publisher.

"A leader in the game industry for more than 20 years, Bing once again is making history as the inaugural holder of the first-ever endowed chair at a university for the study of electronic gaming and interactive entertainment," USC Dean Elizabeth Daley said in the statement.

more.. at CNN

(via Slashdot)

Einstein

This time, its a parrot!

It can be bore, it can produce the sound of more than 10 animals, it considers itself a super-star, and a lot more. Its cool!

BTW Its streaming media, so better try with a good connection.

(courtesy Asim Ajmal)

hummm, some more maps around

Well this is another map availble on the web, and seems even better than Google's version. Isn't it?
And though, they might haven't got as much bandwidth as Google enjoys.

(Thanks Ali)

How Google Maps works?

Joel Webber analyzed the DHTML behind the new Google Maps. It's nice to see a clean XHTML + CSS approach with absolute positioning and "console game" style, tile-based scrolling. Instead of using XMLHttp requests like in Google Suggest, there's a hidden Iframe which fires the parent's "load" function.

(via Blogoscoped)

Google Maps

MAPS.GOOGLE.COM

Yet another Google thing! and as always Its Cool!

Currently its only for Americas, lets wait when it will include our cities ...

Pupna Fetch Engine

"This one goes to the Humor Department: Pupna is a new search engine puppy that retrieves exactly what you are searching for... and nothing else."

(via Blogoscoped)

OrganicHTML

"I'm not exactly sure how the Flash-based OrganicHTML works, but it grows a flower based on any URL you provide it."

Hummmmmm, its seems cool!

(via Blogoscoped)

About.com up for sale

Primedia, the publishing company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., has put the Web site About.com on the block, and five companies plan to bid on it, according to executives close to the auction.

Final bids are due today, and the asking price is $350 million to $500 million, they said.

The bidders that plan to submit final offers Tuesday are Google, Yahoo, The New York Times Company, the AOL unit of Time Warner and Ask Jeeves, the executives said. The auction process has been under way for at least a month and is being managed by Goldman Sachs, the executives said.

(via CNET)

Microsoft: Longhorn beta will arrive by June

The company has said publicly that Beta 1 of Longhorn would arrive by the end of 2005, though internally, the company has been aiming for a release by midyear. The final version of Longhorn is slated for the second half of next year.

Beta 1 will be the first look at Longhorn in its current form. Microsoft released a developer preview version of Windows at the Professional Developers Conference in the fall of 2003 and updated that early code last spring.

more... ar CNET

What is a "Bug"?

An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece of hardware, esp. one that causes it to malfunction. Antonym of feature. Examples: “There's a bug in the editor: it writes things out backwards.” “The system crashed because of a hardware bug.” “Fred is a winner, but he has a few bugs” (i.e., Fred is a good guy, but he has a few personality problems).

read more bug history, how the word evolved to be used in CompLang.

0wn any domain, no defense exists

"Shmoocon ended today. And just to prove The Shmoo Group wasn't sitting idle for the entire time while planning the con - A new exploit was demo'd by EricJ that left all jaws our on the floor. Want to own ANY domain? Want a trusted SSL cert for it? Check it out here. We 0wnz0rd PayPal, but left the rest for you. We have no idea how to fix this and neither do the browser developers. Official advisory here. Phishing attacks of doom coming soon."

(via BoingBoing)

Cell phone's for you...it's the judge

According to several British papers, 44-year-old Aftab Ahmed was handed a groundbreaking sentence from the Ipswich Crown Court. But it's not the sentence itself that's been making headlines. It's the way the sentence was delivered: over Ahmed's mobile phone.

more ... at CNET

How to Take Over a Train Station?

"Everyone knows that home wireless networks are insecure, but who would expect a major transportation hub to be vulnerable to the same problems? Well, waiting for my friend's train at South Station in Boston, MA, I happened to notice that it was possible to take control of the entire station's wireless network, including its home page and authorization method (free wireless, anyone?)--and those of thirty other businesses throughout Massachusetts, thanks to a few coding errors on the part of the wireless company with which South Station contracted."

(via Slashdot)

Gizoogle

Gizoogle is a "Gangsta" search engine, not unlike Google but using street slang... take a look at the results for your own name.

You can go to Translation Page by following Translizzle Some Text at Gizoogle Home page.

(via Blogoscoped)

Microsoft Roadshow - Part I

This Wednesday, I happened to attend the Microsoft Roadshow in Lahore. Event was good, well organized and had a lot of MS touch :)

First session was about the buzz-word: Security. I played TicTacToe with my peer throughout the session, a lot of the security being discussed was a network-admin sort of thing.

Second session: Yup! Impressive. SQL Server 2005 Rocks!

They have got a lot of things added. Yukon, codename for SQL Server 2005, supports User Defined Types. Develop a class of your own in .NET say with the name "Employee", deploy it as User Defined Type, and Boom! You can add a column of type "Employee" to your SQL Server Table. Cool! Isn't it?

Thought sometime, that if you could have some instrumentation added to your Stored Procedures (SP onwards), the life would have been somewhat easier. But writing to local file system from within a SP, ahem ahem ... ! Well now you can! You can develop your SPs in
any of the .NET languages, publish it as SP, and again BOOM!, you have got your assembly listed in SQL Server 2005, under the node, "Stored Procedures", you can call it from any other pure SQL SP. And yes you can publish your SQL SPs as Web Service! No DB connection needed, just add a web-reference to your project and Enjoy!

The next big thing in Yukon is support for XML Documents. You can now define a column, in a table, of type XML, and that column will be able to accommodate a complete XML Doc. You can event insert XML through T-SQL inline, like: INSERT INTO Table1 VALUES('some-valid-xml'). You can even provide a schema while defining the column, so that each time somebody inserts XML into the column, SQL Server would be able to validate it against the schema. Appreciated!

You can query the XML Doc stored in SQL Server, with XPath/XQuery, so that you can get to some individual attribute.

Yes! You are right. The Performance???? Is still a question.

Yahoo Testing YQ "Search By Example" Tool

"Yahoo is launching a new tool that lets you submit all or part of a web page that you're viewing as a search query, rather than the traditional method of typing words into a search box. The tool, called Y!Q, analyzes the content you've submitted and extracts the most relevant terms from the page, and presents results accordingly."

"Today's SearchDay article, Yahoo Offers New Contextual Search Tool, describes this cool new utility, available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers."

(via SEW)

Interns are precious!

"By the way, it's because of this phenomenon—the fact that many of the great people are never on the job market—that we are so aggressive about hiring summer interns. This may be the last time these kids ever show up on the open market. In fact we hunt down the smart CS students and individually beg them to apply for an internship with us, because if you wait around to see who sends you a resume, you're already missing out."

"Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1%."

Joel on hiring stuff.

Sun: Patent use OK beyond Solaris project

Sun Microsystems has begun fending off concerns that there are severe limits on how programmers may use 1,600 patents it's unfettering in conjunction with its open-source Solaris plan.

The company said last week that it would permit open-source programmers to use the patents when working on the OpenSolaris project. What several influential observers found unclear is whether programmers in other areas--most notably in Solaris competitor Linux--would have to fear legal action from Sun.

The server and software company clarified its position somewhat on Monday. "Clearly we have no intention of suing open-source developers," said Tom Goguen, head of Solaris marketing. However, he added, "We haven't put together a fancy pledge on our Web site" to that effect.

more ...

(via CNET)

U.S. Army Guide to Code Breaking

"From the introduction of this document, the U.S. Army's field manual guide to Cryptanalysis: 'This manual presents the basic principles and techniques of cryptanalysts and their relation to cryptography. Cryptanalytics is the art and science of solving unknown codes and ciphers.'"

I have read this document quite a little , but I assume it would be an interesting read. I'll continue with it, when time permits.

(via Slashdot)

Google Eyes Domain Registration Market

"Google is now an ICANN-approved domain name registrar, an intriguing move that could be tied to its blog hosting service, Blogger. Yahoo recently dropped its domain prices to $4.98, as hosting companies use domains as a cheap way to lure customers. Registrar status could allow Google to compete aggressively on price. Bloggers seem to resist paying for hosting, so cheap domains might help Google's plans for world domination."

(via Slashdot)

MSN Search Switches Engines

Two years after saying it would create its own search engine from scratch, MSN Search has officially released its new technology on its main sites around the world. Today's SearchDay article, MSN Search Officially Switches To Its Own Technology, looks at what's new since the beta came out last year and what may come.

(via SEW)

Google's Top Brass Talk "Search"

Google's VP of Engineering Adam Bosworth, spoke to The Gillmor Gang (you can listen online) about future search engine architecture, personalization, and RSS. Findory's Greg Linden responds to some of Bosworth's comments with his take on the value of personalization.

(via SEW)

What powers your university, Solaris or Linux?

"University semester-end examinations over, I have quite a lot of time in my hands till the next semester begins. Time for some research of my own! I decided to check the type of operating system (OS) and web-server software being used at the Times 100 Top Universities in the World. So, I downloaded the TIMES World University Rankings, dated November 5th 2004, tracked down the universities in NetCraft and analyzed the data that I have carefully collected. This is the breakdown of the resultant info:"

more ...

(via #RootPrompt)

Hope for the Future

"Fast Company has reported on its list of top 25 jobs for 2005, and number three on that list is computer software engineer. I particularly liked the rationale for why this job is considered hot: " It looks like computers are here to stay and that they might have a significant role in the future."

I'm SO relieved to hear that! I was convinced that computers were just a passing fancy and that I should start looking for a real job."

(via Grady Booch)

Gates says security is priority

"In the second part of a two-part interview, Stephen Cole of the BBC's technology show Click Online talks to Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates about the pros and cons of being at the forefront of the PC industry."

Well this is quite a not-interesting interview, but still if you are interested , check it here.

(via CNET)

Yet another "Open" thingie

Yup, "Open" is quite IN in the news nowadays. Now folks are talking about The OpenDocument Format.

Daniel Carrera writes "I've written an article for Groklaw describing the OpenDocument format: 'I asked Daniel Carrera, an OpenOffice.org volunteer, if he'd please explain the OpenDocument format. How does a format get chosen? And is OpenDocument on the list of acceptable formats for governments like the State of Massachusetts? We are all concerned about proprietary formats and standards, and more and more governments are adopting policies requiring open standards, it's a very important subject.' It's currently being considered by the EU Commission as a candidate for an official format."

(via Slashdot)

The Hundred Buck PC

"MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte has a plan to build a $100 PC for the developing world, which is supposedly going to have a 14-inch color screen and run on Linux, has the backing of AMD, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp. Apparently they're all getting mixed up in a joint-venture to produce the PC, which will be sold directly to governments only."

(via Slahdot)

The laws of physics do not apply to me

In order for the admissions staff of our college to get to know you, the applicant, better, we ask that you answer the following question:
Are there any significant experiences you have had, or accomplishments you have realized, that have helped to define you as a person?

Ans:
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets. I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four-course meals using only a Mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

This essay is indeed exemplary.

Visual Studio 2005 Nears Second Beta, 'Go Live' Status

"Microsoft Corp. is expected to roll out the much-anticipated second beta release of its Visual Studio 2005 development platform at the end of March or early April, sources close to the company said."

more at eWeek

Into the minds of strangers

"Ever wonder what that guy standing in front of you at Starbucks is thinking as he grabs his grande double mocha java latte and dashes out the door? Or that girl on the subway with the faraway stare--what's floating through her mind as she gazes out the window?"

"Over a period of three months, the 28-year-old Danish photographer stopped random passersby on the streets of Copenhagen and New York City and asked them what they were thinking just before he intercepted them."

"He labeled his endeavor "The Thought Project: Life-Snaps by Simon Hoegsberg," and posted 55 of the 150 portraits and thoughts he collected on his Web site. He labels his subjects by number only--no name, age, no location, just random musings ranging from the mundane to the poetic and philosophical."

(via CNET)

Bagle virus makes a return

"Antivirus companies are reporting the spread of a new variant of the mass-mailing PC virus known as "Bagle."

"The latest version of the malicious software, which some experts refer to as an e-mail worm, is rearing its head worldwide. By Thursday morning, virus trackers in China, Japan, the United States and parts of Europe had reported instances of the threat."

(via CNET)

Picasa::A free software download from Google

"Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized."

Yup, its simple and userfriendly, and quite rich in functionality. Version 2 is out.

What is Interop-Debugging? [.NET]

A nice document giving a brief introduction to both "Native Debugging" and "Managed Debugging", and then advancing towards "Interop-Debugging".

" When a process is being debugged, it generates debug-events which a debugger can listen and respond to. These events include things like CreateProcess, LoadModule, Exception, ExitThread, Breakpoint, etc. "

"When a debug event is dispatched, the debuggee is stopped until the debugger continues the debug event. The debugger can inspect the debuggee during the window while the debuggee is stopped. Once the debuggee is continued, it runs free until the next debug event."

Mike Stall's .NET Debugging Blog

Coding Standards

Brad Abrams has published a nice article on Microsoft internal coding standards.

How To Become A Hacker

Read this article sometime back in past. I was just browsing through my "Favorites" folder and cam across it. Thought to share it with you people. A nice read!

Another Mozilla Developer Joins Google

If it wasn't there already, Google browser has now been kicked into overdrive.

The other day we blogged (as did may others) that Mozilla's lead engineer, Ben Goodger, was now on the Google payroll. In the last few hours, BetaNews is reporting that another Mozilla engineer is now part of the Google team. New Google employee, Darin Fisher, is is "in charge of cookies and permissions, as well as Mozilla's networking library." Fisher writes on his blog, "Like Ben, I will still be very much involved with the Mozilla project and community."

(via SEW)

OpenSolaris

"Today, Sun announced that the source code for the Solaris
operating system --the most advanced operating system in
the industry--will be made available through its OpenSolaris
program. This milestone opens significant new opportunities
for students, faculty and education software developers.
Open source Solaris means that the world will have full,
free of cost access to the Solaris source code. Sun
believes that the open source model is the right one because
it benefits our customers. Open source means that our partners
and customers will be able to more easily customize Solaris to
fit their needs. It means developers ouside of Sun will be able
to collaborate with our Solaris developers at Sun to make this
great operating system even better.

OpenSolaris

Yahoo!'s version of "Add to Favorites"

Think about searching from a bulk of links you have added to your "Favorites" folder. Its a nightmare at times.

My Yahoo! Search makes it fun!

You are anywhere on the web, and you want the page you are currently looking into to be added to your favorites, just press the Save to Y! My Search button, and boom! The link has been added to your online favorites folders, or as Yahoo! calls it, "My Web". Now you can search "My Web", for ANYTHING!

Appreciated!


Update: A friend of mine just pointed me to Furl, and Yahoo! should admit that Idea is not original. Furl exist since long, and has quite an established community as well.

Yahoo! Search

Well, being so much addicted to Google, I came across Yahoo! Search homepage (and not the Yahoo! homepage :)for the first time today, and was amazed. Doesn't it seem to be a UI copy of Google???

Google Debuts Video Search (BETA)

"Hot on the heels of Yahoo's video search announcement, Google is launching Google Video, a new experimental service that allows you to search across the full-text transcripts of San Francisco bay area television programs from 10 channels, as well as the programming from CSPAN 1 and CSPAN 2. Google Video functions by pulling down television signals through antennas and satellite dishes on the roof of the Googleplex and indexing the closed-caption information that's transmitted along with each broadcast."

"It's similar to Google print that's trying to take something that's not online and put it online," said John Piscitello, product manager for Google Video.


Though for most of its results, it shows "Video is currently not available" :(
So lets wait ...

(via SEW)

10 x 10

10x10™ ('ten by ten') is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time.

The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

10x10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live. It records our wars and crises, our triumphs and tragedies, our mistakes and milestones. When we make history, or at least the headlines, 10x10 takes note and remembers.

hummmmm, GBrowser ??

As of January 10, 2005, my source of income changed from The Mozilla Foundation to Google, Inc. of Mountain View, California.

Ben Goodger, Lead Engineer at Mozilla Firefox blogs while talking about himself.

Should we expect the GBrowser to come out then ???

Microsoft's AntiSpyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer

Many Microsoft Windows users who downloaded the recently released AntiSpyware program from Microsoft, or had it installed through an automatic Windows update, woke up to a surprise. Unintentionally, the heuristics of the software detected Internet Explorer as spyware, and removed the program from their systems.

Microsoft technical support was advising customers to reinstall Windows to regain Internet access and to disable automatic updates.

read more ...

Google Phone

Ohhh my my!

You will be able to use phone just as you do [E/G]mail???

Well this seems to be the case, as Google is said to be planning.

Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT

Image to ASCII

Yeah, today was a busy day, so I was hardly able to browse through blogoscoped even. Anyway !

This is a nice image-to-ASCII converter.

(via Blogoscoped)

IT Conversations

ItConversations.com brings "new ideas through your headphones.

(via Blogoscoped)

Google Raises Word Limit to 32

Yup, I'm back !

Google greatly advances its web search by raising the word limit to 32 words. Previously, only up to 10 words were allowed. While some may never have wanted to cross the 10-word limit, it can be crucial to different tasks:

• When you automate search tasks using the Google API, you often find yourself hitting the 10-word limit.
• When you search for quotes from a text, you would hit the 10-word limit very fast.

(via Blogoscoped)

Eid Mubarik

Whille writing this, I have just taken a break from a heavy debugging session. Still I have no clue as to where the bug lies :(, Anyway Best of Luck to me !

I'm going on Eid Holidays, so see you after that.

Eid Mubarik to all of you!

Brian Hook on the ActiveX Experience

"Brian Hook of id software fame got around to developing on ActiveX and found some minor grievances, particularly in the security department. To quote: "I've been doing some ActiveX coding on the side for a couple days, stuff I'm not familiar with, and I'm just flat out _appalled_ at how bad that entire API and design is. I can make an OCX that basically formats your hard drive, stick it on a Web page with a tag, and if your security settings are set low enough, you'll start formatting your hard drive the minute you visit my Web page."

[via Slashdot]

Linux Getting Harder To Crack

AlanS2002 points out today's article from Iain Thomson on vnu.net, which says that "Linux systems are getting tougher for hackers to crack, security experts have reported today," summarizing "A study conducted by the Honeynet Project has found that it takes about 3 months before a unpatched Linux machine will be owned, compared with about 72 hours in the past. According to a report on the study default installations are now more secure with less services enabled by default, added to this is newer versions of software such as OpenSSH being more secure. Interestingly Solaris 8 and 9 did not fair so well."

[via Slashdot]

Killing time

For those who stare at the clock, waiting for the 5 o'clock whistle to blow, there is a Web site that makes watching the minutes tick by much more enjoyable.

The Human Clock shows a different photograph representing each minute of the day. While many photos come from the site operator's hometown of Portland, Ore., the majority appear to be submissions made by fans from all corners of Earth.

(via CNET)

He's got the virus-writing bug

For five years, Czech student Marek Strihavka programmed computer viruses as part of the underground group 29A.

About a year after leaving 29A, which takes its name from the base-16 representation of 666, the 22-year-old resident of Brno in the Czech Republic became the main developer of Zoner Software's antivirus system.

read more ...

Oracle Dumps PeopleSoft Employees

"The first move in Oracle's dismantling of PeopleSoft has begun. The cuts will affect about 9% of the 55,000 staff of the combined companies. From the article: "We're mourning the passing of a great company," Peoplesoft worker David Ogden as saying. Other employees said they would rather be sacked than work for Oracle."

(via Slashdot)

Yahoo & MSN Closing the Google Gap

While Big G continues to maintain its leadership position in the eyes of web searchers, a new study finds that Yahoo, MSN Search and Ask Jeeves have all made significant improvements over the past year and are narrowing Google's mindshare advantage.

read more ...

IMO – New MSN Search is NOW LIVE!

SEW forum moderator Nacho Hernandez has an interesting theory about how they might be releasing the New MSN Search. Will they be flipping a switch on a single (unknown) day or have they already started to make it LIVE? Come and find out!

(via SEW)

Google Domains For 10 More Countries Now Available

A note on Google Blog points out that 10 new Google's are now online for ten more top-level domains. Now available are:
+ Indonesia
+ South Africa
+ Tonga
+ Bolivia
+ Krgyszstan
+ Jamaica
+ Belize (English)
Spanish version also available.
+ Seychelles
French version also available
+ the Virgin Islands
+ and the Cook Islands

(via SEW)

Badesi Mizzah

Yes you are right! This is Urdu, and not English.

Badesi Mizzah by Col. Muhammad Khan.

A translation of some calassic English Fun, which I would never have beleived to be one if col. himself would not have mentioned it to be a transaltion in the preface of the book, as it seems so real. Its not a phrase-wise translation, rather translation of the soul of the stories, as the col. says in preface, it makes the reader feel comfortable to read about thingz he knows off. So, rather than talking about John and Tom, he talks about Salman & Zulfiqar, he talks about Peshawar More instead of mentioning Squares of London. And the style has proven itself. A great read!

Froogle/GMail Vulnerability

"An Israeli hacker has uncovered a flaw in Froogle, Google's price-comparison service, which could allow access to users' Gmail accounts. Nir Goldshlager, who discovered the flaw, warned that URL-embedded Javascript could end up causing personal information to be revealed.If users execute the script by clicking a link, they would be redireted to a malicious website. From there, hackers can read a user's cookie. It may contain personal information, such as purchase histories, or the username and password used to access Google services - such as Gmail."-- David Bennett, Froogle/Gmail Hack Warning,

(via BlogoScoped)

Firefox Whois Extension

As you probably know a Whois lookup reveals the owner of a domain (e.g. Google Inc. is the owner of Google.com) – but did you know there's a nice Firefox Whois search extension? [Via Chris Sherman.]

MSN Search To Gain New Technology Feb. 1

SEW forum moderator AussieWebmaster passes along news that he's heard from an high level MSN contact the new MSN search engine currently being beta tested will move to the main MSN Search site on Feb. 1

(via SEW)

Audio Compression Primer

Hack Jandy writes "For those of you with a little extra time this afternoon, check out Sudhian's primer to all things concerning audio compression. The article details everything from DRM to CRC matrixes (with a healthy dosage of Ogg)."

(via Slashdot)

KDE 3.4 goes Beta

"KDE 3.4 has reached its beta testing phase. The KDE 3.4beta1 is codenamed 'Krokodile' and pre-compiled packages are already available for Slackware, but if you need to compile it by yourself first check its compilation requirements.

(via Slashdot)

An evening with Googles Marissa Mayer

Some interesting notes by Alan

Hyperlinking the World

"While most of us snap silly candids with our cameraphones, computer vision researcher Hartmut Neven is leveraging the ubiquity of digital cameras to google the world."

"Neven: You take a picture of something, send it to our servers, and we either provide you with more information or link you to the place that will. Let's say you're standing in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. You take a snapshot with your cameraphone and instantly receive an audio-visual narrative about the painting. Then you step out of the Louvre and see a cafe. Should you go in? Take a shot from the other side of the street and a restaurant guide will appear on your phone. You sit down inside, but perhaps your French is a little rusty. You take a picture of the menu and a dictionary comes up to translate. There is a huge variety of people in these kinds of situations, from stamp collectors, to people who want to check their skin melanoma, to police officers who need to identify the person in front of them."

This seems amazing as well as a revolutionary trend in Marketing.

Site Mirrors

Heard about WebSite Mirrors???
Have ever seeen an actual mirror???
If yes, then you probably don't know what a Mirror is :)

See Mirror1 for Gardish.
See Mirror1 for Yahoo.

And yes an actual mirror for Google.

I am unable to comprehend how people find enough time to do such thingz, though , no doubt, its innovative.

Yes you can type in any URL, and get its Mirror. Its like http://yourdomain.mirror.sytes.org
and Booom !

You can’t attach 2 debuggers to 1 process. [.NET]

When reading this, I was like, why would somebody attach 2 debuggers with single App?? Coz, at times, a single debugger is enough to convince you to "boom your head into the monitor" (especially when u r debugging a multi-threaded app, aaaaaugh! ).

But in the end, Mike very convincingly justifies the scenario.

How can I debug Just My Code? [.NET]

"Sometimes developers want to debug just the code they wrote and not the 3^rd-party code (such as framework and libraries) that’s also inside their app. This becomes particularly useful when user and non-user code call back and forth between each other. The v2.0 CLR debugging services have a host of new features to support this, which we call “Just-My-Code” (JMC) debugging."

Yup, seems quite useful. Have the complete story here.

Debugger Goodies in VS 2005 Beta 1

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 is announced at last! Previously known as Whidbey (and internally it will forever known as Whidbey, as 7.1 is forever Everett, as 7.0 is, er, 7.0) this beta is going to be available to MSDN Universal subscribers, and some other ways too (see later).

Debugger Goodies

Bionic Office

Joel discusses the ideal office environment a s/w development company should have if it wants to have/retain the gurus at campus.

As he writes:

Architects use the term "brief" for what we software developers call "system requirements." Here was the brief I gave Roy.

1. Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation.
2. Programmers need lots of power outlets. They should be able to plug new gizmos in at desk height without crawling on the floor.
3. We need to be able to rewire any data lines (phone, LAN, cable TV, alarms, etc.) easily without opening any walls, ever.
4. It should be possible to do pair programming.
5. When you're working with a monitor all day, you need to rest your eyes by looking at something far away, so monitors should not be up against walls.
6. The office should be a hang out: a pleasant place to spend time. If you're meeting your friends for dinner after work you should want to meet at the office. As Philip Greenspun bluntly puts it: "Your business success will depend on the extent to which programmers essentially live at your office. For this to be a common choice, your office had better be nicer than the average programmer's home. There are two ways to achieve this result. One is to hire programmers who live in extremely shabby apartments. The other is to create a nice office."

Appreciated !

By the way, I have forwarded the same to my manager, and he was like .... ...

Chris Bailey

Well a lot of people have passion for being a classical photographer, so do I :P, but you know, It Takes Guts To Be Up There.

A very classi collection managed so decently that you can't but appreciate.

A Proposal in C#

Wish if it could have been just writing few lines of code ;) as Eric Maino puts it in Proposal in C#.

ORISINAL

Hummmmm, if u r freee, got some time to kill around, have a look at ORISINAL, a nice collection of tiny games.

Samsung Introduces 3D Movement Recognition Phone

Samsung have launched the world's first phone equipped with a continuous 3D movement sensor. Movement sensors in mobile phones to date have been limited to slope calculations and applied to some games and bio-related features. The potential is there to do away with the need for complex keypads on mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras and other handheld products. Many functions will be controlled by movement instead of buttons.

Scroogle

Scroogle
is Google without Ads.

Its a proxy to Google, which scans the HTML produced by Google, removes the ads, and displays (top 100) search results. (by Google Watch)

Possible GMail Vulnerability

HBX Networks has discovered a problem in GMail. The problem rests in the fact that if an email leaves out the ">" at the end of the reply address, Gmail forgets to stop and keeps printing HTML code, revealing all sorts of sensitive information.
(via Google Blogoscoped)

Google Watch

A look at Google's monopoly, algorithms, and privacy policies by the renowned critic of Google, Daniel Brandt at Google Watch

A Simple RSS feed reader

Wizz RSS News Reader

Version:

0.4.5

Released:

2005-01-03

Size:

14KB

For:

Firefox 0.7 - 1.0

Microsoft AntiSpyware Available For Download

Microsoft has put Microsoft AntiSpyware beta online.

(via Michael Swanson’s MSDN blog)

Windows 3D

Heard about 3D Desktops ???

Well if not, you can now see 3D Desktops !!!

The SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such as icons and applications. Check the videos and screenshots to get the idea.

Just Letters

A nice time-pass

Taggle

It seems to be Google's cousin, have a look at BrianStorms

The New Keyboard

After 130 years since inception of QWERTY, a new contender finally steps forward. The new keyboard from New Standard, whose keys are arranged alphabetically, has the first 13 alphabet keys from A to M sitting the left side and the rest on the right hand side. Besides this radical change, the cursors and the function keys are relocated to the middle and bottom of the keyboard respectively. Suffice to say, everything is changed down to the physical size.

53-Key Alphabetical Keyboard Takes on QWERTY

Nielsen's Advanced Hypertext

"To manage a huge, worldwide information space, users need proven features like fat links, typed links, integrated search and browsing, overview maps, big-screen designs, and physical hypertext."
-- Jakob Nielsen, Reviving Advanced Hypertext, January 3, 2005