Yanesh Tyagi

Young Businessmen of Ujjain

2011-08-10T14:10:00.001+05:30

During my travel to the city of temples – Ujjain, I cam across these little kids in from of Mahakal temple. Both kids were around 10 years old. They were trying sell holy artifacts to me.

At the age when kids should go school, these kids are making living by selling little stuff. This is the scene at the entrance of world famous Mahakal Temple of Ujjain. Out of pity, I bought all the artifacts in his hand (it was really very cheap) and ask the kid (in red) to go and enjoy his day.

Shatrughna Temple, Rishikesh

2011-08-10T11:59:00.001+05:30

Shatrughna Temple is one on two temples in the world that are dedicated to the youngest brother of Lord Rama – Shartughna. The other temple is at Paymmal in Thrissur district of Kerala.

Shatrughna temple is an ancient temple situated on the banks of holy river Gangesh near Ramjhula. The temple is named as ‘Aadi Badrinarayan and Shri Shatrughan Temple’ as seen in the picture above.

About the deity

Lord Shatrughna (Hindi: शत्रुघ्न) was the youngest of four sons of Dashratha, the king of Ayodhya. He was born to the Sumitra, the third wife of the king. The name Shatrughna means ‘destroyer of enemies’. He was married to Sharutakeerty, cousin of Sita (wife of Lord Rama). Shatrughna killed the great demon Lavanasura, the king of Mathura and nephew of Ravana.

Ramajhula, Rishikesh – The Hanging Bridge of Rama

2011-08-10T11:28:00.001+05:30

Ramjhula, a bridge suspended on iron ropes in the holy land of Rishikesh, is dedicated to Lord Rama. The bridge is built on the sacred river Ganges which flows through Rishikesh. It is here that the river leaves the Shivalik mountains in the Himalayas and flows out into the plains of northern India.

At the height of 372 meter above sea level, the bridge is located at 30.103368°N 78.294754°E. The bridge connects Muni Ki Reti to Geeta Bhawan. Traditionally, the sandy (reti) banks of Ganges River here have been used by munis (sages) and sadhus for tapasya, giving the place name Muni ki Reti, which literally means "sands of the sages"

Chennai Amusement Park

2011-08-06T01:08:00.001+05:30

Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary– Some Clicks

2011-07-22T10:32:00.001+05:30

Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary (also known as Vembanad Bird Sanctuary) is situated at Kumarakom in Kottayam district in the Kerala, on the banks of Vembanad Lake. Set in the Kerala Backwaters the bird sanctuary is an ornithologist's paradise and a favorite haunt of migratory birds.

Geography:

The sanctuary is spread over 14 acres on the southern bank of the Kavanar River. It has well laid out paths for moving around within the sanctuary. Beyond the sanctuary one can take a boat ride in Vembanad Lake or along the Kavanar River.

Kumarakom is 14 km from Kottayam and 60 km from Cochin on State Highway No. 1. Kochi International Airport at Nedumbassery is 106 km from Kumarakom.

Neighbouring areas such as Kaipuzha Muttu, Pathirmanal, Narakathara, Thollairam Kayal, and Poothanpandi Kayal are also good locations for spotting birds.

The main attractions are local birds like the waterfowl, cuckoo, owl, egret, heron, cormorant, moorhen, darter, Brahminy kite and the duck, as well as the migratory Siberian crane. Parrot, teal, lark, flycatcher, and other birds are seen here during their respective migratory seasons. Some of the migratory birds come from the Himalayas, and a few from far away Siberia.

Related Link

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*Some contents are taken from wikipedia.

Lord Krishna–As a student

2011-07-16T15:50:00.001+05:30

The painting, at the Sandipani Ashram, Ujjain depicts Guru Sandipani educating the Lord Krishna (blue body color). Sandipani, which means "Sage of Gods". Left to the Krishna is his best mate – Sudama.

The Sandipani Muni ashram is located 5 km outside Ujjain, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The area near the ashram, known as Ankapata, is popularly believed to have been the place used by Lord Krishna for washing his writing tablets. The numerals 1 to 100 found inscribed on a stone are believed to have been engraved by Guru Sandipani. Near the ashram is the Gomti Kund (see pic at right), a staircased water tank where Lord Krishna supposedly summoned all the holy waters from various centres so that his old Guru, Sandipani Muni would not have to travel other holy places.

Related Links:

Geographic Information:

Altitude: 1610 feet
Latitude: 23.21145
Longitude: 75.78278

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Cheeyappara Waterfall, Munnar, Kerala

2011-07-16T11:03:00.000+05:30

Situated at an altitude of 1000 feet above sea level, Cheeyappara waterfall is one of the most awesome attraction on the way to Munnar. It is around 70 KM from Ernakulum, Cochin on the Cochin-Madurai highway. This is a nation highway – NH49. If you stated off early in the morning, you can be there within two hours.
The major attraction of the Cheeyappara waterfall is it’s falling water (as with all other waterfalls). The water comes down from a height of 1000 feet, falls on 13 rock slabs step by step to fall very very close to NH-49. If you are lucky enough to be there in the morning, you can enjoy another natural beauty – a rainbow upon the spray of water. This happens only in morning sunshine.
Cheeyappara waterfall is one of few waterfall that you can view from the bottom standing so close to the water. Besides, there is an area set apart touching the waterfall. Here you can safely take bath in the shower of water or standing there you can enjoy the spray of cool water.
There is a bridge on the National Highway (NH-49) that crosses the waterfall. Water flows beneath the bridge. This is the only road that cresses a huge waterfall.
Geographical facts:

Latitude: 10.072
Longitude: 76.775
Google Map: Directions from Ernakulum, Cochin - http://goo.gl/2ahMP
Google Map: Satellite view of Cheeyappara waterfall - http://goo.gl/WT9YZ

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Cheyappara waterfall makes its way below the bridge at NH49

2011-07-16T10:47:00.001+05:30

Geographical facts:

Latitude: 10.072
Longitude: 76.775
Google Map: Directions from Ernakulum, Cochin - http://goo.gl/2ahMP
Google Map: Satellite view of Cheeyappara waterfall - http://goo.gl/WT9YZ

Related Links:

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Shops @Cheyappara waterfall

2011-07-16T10:41:00.000+05:30

Shops @Cheyappara waterfall

Geographical facts:

Latitude: 10.072
Longitude: 76.775
Google Map: Directions from Ernakulum, Cochin - http://goo.gl/2ahMP
Google Map: Satellite view of Cheeyappara waterfall - http://goo.gl/WT9YZ

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Cheyappara waterfall–Flowing away water

2011-07-16T10:29:00.001+05:30

Water coming out from beneath the bridge @Cheyappara waterfall

Geographical facts:

Latitude: 10.072
Longitude: 76.775
Google Map: Directions from Ernakulum, Cochin - http://goo.gl/2ahMP
Google Map: Satellite view of Cheeyappara waterfall - http://goo.gl/WT9YZ

Related Links:

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Taking bath at the bottom of Cheeyappara Waterfall

2011-07-16T10:21:00.001+05:30

Cheeyappara waterfall is one of the few waterfalls which you can view from the bottom. Also, there is an area set apart to take bath in the cool shower of natural water.

Geographical facts:

Latitude: 10.072
Longitude: 76.775
Google Map: Directions from Ernakulum, Cochin - http://goo.gl/2ahMP
Google Map: Satellite view of Cheeyappara waterfall - http://goo.gl/WT9YZ

Related Links:

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Cheeyappara waterfall - one of the rare falls which you can see from bottom

2011-07-16T10:11:00.001+05:30

Cheeyappara waterfall - one of the rare falls which you can see from bottom.

In this picture: Yanshi - My lovely kid, dear friend Gopal. Gopal’s Mom is admiring the waterfall.

Click here to read details about the waterfall.

Geographical facts:

Latitude: 10.072
Longitude: 76.775
Google Map: Directions from Ernakulum, Cochin - http://goo.gl/2ahMP
Google Map: Satellite view of Cheeyappara waterfall - http://goo.gl/WT9YZ

Related Links:

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ZKSF8Q2KA9TQ

Goggle Buzz - hot target for spammers

2010-11-09T09:27:00.001+05:30

Spammers found a new way to lure people. They are utilizing the Google Buzz service to fool people. I received the below mail which says that Google is compensating the buzz users in cash...

Note: This is a SPAM mail. I posted it here for the interest of Google Buzz users. If you receive this mail, you are a victim of spammers. Please do not respond or click any link in the mail.

Google rarely contacts Gmail users via email, but we are making an exception to let you know that we've reached a settlement in a lawsuit regarding Google Buzz (http://buzz.google.com), a service we launched within Gmail in February of this year.

Shortly after its launch, we heard from a number of people who were concerned about privacy. In addition, we were sued by a group of Buzz users and recently reached a settlement in this case.

The settlement acknowledges that we quickly changed the service to address users' concerns. In addition, Google has committed $8.5 million to an independent fund, most of which will support organizations promoting privacy education and policy on the web. We will also do more to educate people about privacy controls specific to Buzz. The more people know about privacy online, the better their online experience will be.

Just to be clear, this is not a settlement in which people who use Gmail can file to receive compensation. Everyone in the U.S. who uses Gmail is included in the settlement, unless you personally decide to opt out before December 6, 2010. The Court will consider final approval of the agreement on January 31, 2011. This email is a summary of the settlement, and more detailed information and instructions approved by the court, including instructions about how to opt out, object, or comment, are available at http://www.BuzzClassAction.com (Do not open this link).

Practical Tips For Boosting The Performance Of Windows Forms Apps

2010-06-15T03:54:00.001+05:30

This article discusses:

* Improving application startup time
* Tuning up control creation and population
* Improving painting performance
* Rendering text and images
* Efficient resource management

in reference to: Practical Tips For Boosting The Performance Of Windows Forms Apps (view on Google Sidewiki)

Google's new search index: Caffeine

2010-06-10T13:11:00.001+05:30

With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

in reference to:

"With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published."
- Official Google Blog: Our new search index: Caffeine (view on Google Sidewiki)

History of Hacking

2010-06-01T17:19:00.001+05:30

Interesting one

in reference to:

"EMBED THE IMAGE BELOW ON YOUR SITE"
- History of Hacking - Online MBA (view on Google Sidewiki)

CBSE Class X Result 2010 – How to Calculate Percentage

2010-05-28T10:58:00.001+05:30

Today, CBSE Board, India declared class X result for year 2010. But here is a catch – this year they changed the rating from numbers to grades. Most of the students are apparently confused how to get percentage from their GPA.

How to convert CGPA to Percentage

Here is the simple method to convert GPA into percentage:

Percentage = 9.5 × CGPA

Example:

CGPA = 6.8

Percentage = 9.5 x CGPA = 9.5 x 6.8 = 64.60%

The percentage calculated by this manner is the overall percentage.

How to convert GP to Percentage

Here is the simple method to calculate percentage from GP:

Percentage = 9.5 x GP

Example:

GP = 06

Percentage = 9.5 x 6 = 57.6%.

The percentage calculated in this manner is the percentage in that particular subject.

Technorati Tags: CBSE,CBSE Result,CBSE Result 2010,Percentage from GPA

SUBJECT WISE GRADE POINT:

Marks Range	Grade	Grade Point	Percentage
91-100	A1	10	95%
81-90	A2	9	85.5%
71-80	B1	8	76%
61-70	B2	7	66.5%
51-60	C1	6	57%
41-50	C2	5	47.5%
33-40	D	4	38%
21-32	E1	-	-
20-0	E2	-	-

The magic number 9.5:

The number 9.5 in the percentage calculation is not a magic number. This is derived using following formula:

Percentage = (10 x GP) - (GP/2)

Percentage = GP(10 – 1/2)

Percentage = GP(9.5) = 9.5 x GP.

Hope this will clear students confusion.

Microsoft Office 2020

2010-05-27T21:09:00.001+05:30

Microsoft’s long-term productivity vision explores how we will create and share content; collaborate across teams, organizations and networks; and gain contextually relevant insights based on preferences and intent. Each scene showcases real technologies being explored by Microsoft teams and partners and others in the industry. To see current prototypes we are exploring, go to www.officelabs.com.

in reference to: Microsoft Showcase: Productivity Future Vision (view on Google Sidewiki)

First man to be infected with "computer virus"

2010-05-27T19:18:00.001+05:30

A British scientist says he is the first man in the world to become infected with a computer virus.

in reference to:

"A British scientist says he is the first man in the world to become infected with a computer virus."
- BBC News - First human 'infected with computer virus' (view on Google Sidewiki)

LINQ-to-Entities - The Pain

2010-05-26T17:27:00.001+05:30

So enter LINQ-to-Entities – the ADO.NET team’s “answer” to LINQ-to-SQL. Unfortunately, while LINQ-to-SQL was a wonderful, polished jewel of functionality that was a nice example of IJW (“it just worked”), LINQ-to-Entities seems to be a product of Architecture Astronauts who would rather bamboozle us with their cleverness than actually provide useful solutions.

in reference to:

"So enter LINQ-to-Entities – the ADO.NET team’s “answer” to LINQ-to-SQL. Unfortunately, while LINQ-to-SQL was a wonderful, polished jewel of functionality that was a nice example of IJW (“it just worked”), LINQ-to-Entities seems to be a product of Architecture Astronauts who would rather bamboozle us with their cleverness than actually provide useful solutions."
- hackification.com - Rediscover the Joy of Coding :: LINQ-to-Entities: The Blackberry Storm of ORMs? (view on Google Sidewiki)

Rules Driven UI using WF (Screencast)

2010-05-19T23:29:00.001+05:30

Moustafa has put together this screencast to show off how you can use the Rules Engine capabilities contained in Windows Workflow Foundation outside of a workflow, and leverage it to drive the business logic of a Windows Forms application. Check out the video, and if you're interested in more, then head on over to our community site where you can download the sample.

This is the article that Moustafa mentions that introduces the Rules Engine available at MSDN.

in reference to:

"Moustafa has put together this screencast to show off how you can use the Rules Engine capabilities contained in Windows Workflow Foundation outside of a workflow, and leverage it to drive the business logic of a Windows Forms application. Check out the video, and if you're interested in more, then head on over to our community site where you can download the sample. This is the article that Moustafa mentions that introduces the Rules Engine available at MSDN."
- Rules Driven UI using WF | mwink | Channel 9 (view on Google Sidewiki)

A day is no longer 24 hours long, confirms NASA,

2010-03-12T04:16:00.001+05:30

Recent news reports have focused on Earth's length of day, noting that the Chilean earthquake might have shortened days by as much as 1.26 microseconds out of 24 hours. That's true. Find out more...

in reference to:

"March 11, 2010: Pictures of widespread devastation leave no doubt: Last month's 8.8 magnitude earthquake in coastal Chile was extremely strong. Indeed, say NASA scientists, it might have shifted the axis of Earth itself."
- NASA - Did the Chilean Quake Shift Earth's Axis? (view on Google Sidewiki)

Hack Gmail or Orkut Password

2010-03-11T08:11:00.001+05:30

This video tells you how you can hack anyone's gmail or orkut password. Not sure if it works or not.

in reference to: WFh5VsdY7Dc (application/x-shockwave-flash Object) (view on Google Sidewiki)

Taking Rest One Day in a Week

2010-03-11T07:57:00.001+05:30

Joshua Becker tells about the countless benefit of taking rest... but is that practically possible?

in reference to:

"Unfortunately, this hectic pace is causing damage to our quality of life. We are destroying every sense of our being (body, mind, and soul). There is a reason we run faster and work harder, but only fall farther behind. Our lives have become too full and too out of balance. Somewhere along the way, we lost the essential practice of concentrated rest. We would be wise to reclaim the ancient, lost practice of resting one day each week."
- The Lost Practice of Resting One Day Each Week | Zen Habits (view on Google Sidewiki)

Video: Integrate Facebook and Twitter in your website

2010-03-06T20:37:00.001+05:30

In this video Pandurang Nayak, Technical Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation India (P) Ltd. shows how easy it is to integrate facebook and twitter in web application.

in reference to:

"Pandurang Nayak Technical Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation India (P) Ltd."
- http://www.zeollar.com/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Gmail Killer

2010-02-23T12:49:00.001+05:30

Facebook is creating a messaging and mail product that is expected to be the next generation messaging system just like facebook itself.

in reference to:

"Facebook is completely rewriting their messaging product and is preparing to launch a fully featured webmail product in its place, according to a source with knowledge of the product. Internally it’s known as Project Titan. Or, unofficially and perhaps over-enthusiastically, the Gmail killer"
- Facebook's Project Titan: A Full Featured Webmail Product (view on Google Sidewiki)

How to create Avatar Movie Poster in Photoshop

2010-02-22T22:04:00.001+05:30

Dainis explains in a simple step by step manner:

in reference to:

"This tutorial elaborates how you can create a Navi image of any usual photo as you add impressive text and backgrounds to make an Avatar movie poster. Let us begin to see how you can get this amazing Navi photo effect in just 8 easy steps."
- Create Avatar movie poster in Photoshop | Psdeluxe (view on Google Sidewiki)

What a patience

2010-01-23T00:44:00.001+05:30

You have to remember that I have a day job. Mostly it meant waking up an hour early in the morning and writing - every day, day after day; and sometimes, I wrote at night as well. First draft, second draft and so on until the ninth draft. Some people then said it doesn't work. Back to the drawing board, a complete re-write, first draft, second draft and so on upto sixth draft. Then it worked!

And all these steps are slow, without hope of success in sight, and yes not funny at all. I must thank all those people who helped read various versions and took me through to the end.

in reference to:

"You have to remember that I have a day job. Mostly it meant waking up an hour early in the morning and writing - every day, day after day; and sometimes, I wrote at night as well. First draft, second draft and so on until the ninth draft. Some people then said it doesn't work. Back to the drawing board, a complete re-write, first draft, second draft and so on upto sixth draft. Then it worked! And all these steps are slow, without hope of success in sight, and yes not funny at all. I must thank all those people who helped read various versions and took me through to the end."
- Q & A | About Chetan Bhagat | Official Website (view on Google Sidewiki)

Learn to Self Disclose

2009-08-13T10:12:00.001+05:30

People feel comfortable in the company of a person whom they know. They cannot be comfortable with someone whom they don’t know.

To make your friends at ease with you, it is necessary that you let them enter in heart. You need to open yourself to them. The more you open to yourself, the more they will be comfortable with you.

Discuss about yourself, your thoughts, hobbies, experience etc. Tell them your wins and failures. Sharing your failures is equally important or they will misinterpret your wins into self-praise. Tell them about the projects where you failed. Tell them about the ideas that did not work.

You can share your experiences, values and goals. You can tell them how you are planning to achieve your goals. Sharing helps in reducing the emotional distance. If you are married, you must have felt this. The more you shared with your wife, the more trust she gain in you. And the vice versa is also true. Even to the people whom you meet at the first time, you can disclose yourself.

I was waiting for my turn for the interview of a software company. Sitting with me was a guy busy with his papers. I started talking to him. Soon we both were taking about the equity markets. I told him that I lost money in the options trading. The result of our talk is that now he is a good friend of mine and I receive valuable tips from him.

But you must know your limits. Don’t tell them your secrets. You should tell only your public facts. If somebody is trying to invade you deeper into your personal matters, it never hurts to say that this is personal issue and I don’t want to discuss it.

Dianna Booher said, “Emotional distance create mental illness. To disclose improves your mental health.”

Technorati Tags: Communication Tips

Recovering Job Market In India

2009-06-05T09:13:00.001+05:30

There are all bad news in the market. Sabbatical leaves, layoffs, salary-cut etc. Market is filled up with such news. But amid these news, market trends in Asia and specially in India are positive. The job market is recovering.

Accenture is the company which is known for its no-bench policy. But in this recession, it has

retained its employees. There were no news of layoffs in Accenture this year. And the company is still hiring. My friends are getting calls from Accenture.

IBM is also hiring. IBM has started a special drive for recruitments of women IT professionals.

According to the quarterly report of Antel International, the level of job market in India is at 47%. This was much low in the beginning of 2009. According to the Tony Goodwin, Chairman and Founder of Antal International and one of the most successful people in global recruitment, market is much more prepared than a few months back. According to the Hewitt Associates, more than 60% companies in India are still recruiting people. It said the most of good employers did not cut number of employees in the recent past. And most employers believe that this is the good time to invest in Human Resource.

Non IT companies are also moving towards the positive trends. Tata Moters has taken back its 700 employees who were laid off some months ago. LG is giving special awards to its 350 best performing employees. It will send these employee to London to watch T-20 World Cup.

Pepsico is giving 20-25% stock option to its best performing employees. Tata Moters gave raises to its employees despite the fact that the company is not in a good financial state. LG is giving 14% raise in the salary.

All these facts indicate that the job market is getting improved in India. Companies are hiring people. This is the good time to look for a change.

Technorati Tags: job market,recruitment,recession,india

Humayun's Tomb, Delhi

2009-02-01T22:39:00.002+05:30

Humayun's Tomb is a complex building of Mughal architecture built as the tomb of Mughal Emperor Humayun. Humayun was the son of Babar, who founded the dynasty. The tomb is now one of the best-preserved Mughal monuments in Delhi and is maintained by the Archeological Society of India (ASI). This is also listed under the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Locality

Humayun's Tomd is located in near the Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station. I drove to ITO and then took Mathura Road. At the Lodhi Road crossing, I took left turn and then one more left turn at the next round about took me to the tomb. It was just 20 minute drive.

Locate on Google Map

History

The tomb was built by emperor Akbar according to the wish of his mother, the senior widow of Humayun, Hazi Begum (alias Hamida Banu Begum). The constructions started in 1562 AD and took 8 years to complete. The architect of the monument was Sayyed Muhammad. Muhammed worked in the guidance of his father Mirak Ghiyathuddin. Both of them were persians and came from Herat.

The tomb is surrounded by the gardens from three side. This was the first tomb in India with gardens. These gardens are beautifully maintained by the ASI.

On entering the main entrance, we saw Isa's Tomb at the left hand. After visiting Isa's tomb, we walked towards the main building. The main building is set at the center of gardens. A high wall surrounds the garden on three sides, the fourth side being bounded by what was once the bank of the river Jamuna, which has since been diverted. The garden is divided into four parts by two bisecting water channels with paved walkways (khiyabans), which terminate at two gates: a main one in the southern wall, and a smaller one in the western wall.

A large iwan, a high arch, punctuates the center of each facade, and is set back slightly. Together with the other arches and openings, this effect creates a varied and complex impression of depth at each facade. Detailed ornamentation in three colors of stone adds to the richness to the surfaces. The plan of the main tomb building is intricate. It is a square 'ninefold plan', where eight two-storyed vaulted chambers radiate from the central, double-height domed chamber. The chambers of each level are interconnected by straight and diagonal passages. In Humayun's tomb, each of the main chambers has in turn eight more, smaller chambers radiating from it. The symmetrical ground plan contains 124 vaulted chambers in all.

The sarcophagus of Humayun is found in the central domed chamber, the head pointing south, and facing east according to Islamic practice. The vaulted chambers also contain sarcophagi that were added later. The sex of each occupant is marked by a simple carved symbol: a box of writing instruments indicates a male, and a writing slate indicates a female. The sarcophagi are not otherwise inscribed, but among them are known to be those containing the wives of Humayun, and several later Mughal emperors and princes.

Architecture:

Pink and white stone is used in the construction of the tomb. The dome of the tomb is made of whit stone, which gives it a beautiful look. The architects of the tomb, Sayyed Mohammad and his father were persian. But they were influenced with the Hindu architecture and other buildings in the Delhi. It has hexagonal chattries (domed pavilions) like those found in the Rajput forts. Even at the main entrance of the tomb, they have two-triangular hexagonal (two-triangles placed on one other with one's vertex towards the base of other), which is very common in Hindu culture. The inner side of the dome of main building is beautified with a special pattern of white tiles (See image at the right).

Environmental Development:

Between 2000 and 2003, The Aga Khan Trust for Culture funded and collaborated with the ASI in implementing a project to revitalize the 30-acre garden surrounded the monument. Amongst other conservation work, 3 kms of water channel has been repaired, 3.5 kms of pathway edging restored, 3000 trucks of excess earth manually removed, 4 kms of sandstone hand-chiselled, 2500 plants favored by the Mughals planted, 2500 square meter of pathway restored, an exhaustive rainwater harvesting system introduces, minor structure conserved, historic wells discovered and destilled, wheel chair access and a site interpretation center provided.

Restoration work was going on the roof of the tomb and they had laid sown stairs made of iron pipes and wood to carry the construction material to the top of the building.

Tickets:

At the entrance of the main boundary wall, encountered a ticket counter. Thy charge a very nominal fees towards the maintenance of the tomb.

Children up to 15 years: Free.
Adult Indians: Rs. 10 per person.
Foreigners: Rs. 250 per person.

Timing:

From sunrise to sunset.

Other Buildings:

The Humayun’s Tomb complex also houses many other prominent buildings which are examples of architecture of the period preceding and succeeding Humayun. The prominent among them are:

Barber’s Tomb
The tomb is located at the southeast corner in the garden complex. The tomb is datable to 1590-91, through an inscription found inside. The person interned in this tomb is unknown, the local name of the tomb is Barber’s Tomb (Nai ka Gumbad).

Nila Gumbad
The monument is located outside the eastern enclosure wall, which is locally known as Nila Gumbad, due to the blue coloured dome. It is believed to contain the remains of one Fahim Khan, the attendant of Abdur Rahim Khan, who lived during the reign of Jahangir. The attendant died in 1626 A.D.

Chillah Nizamuddin Aulia
The building is located outside to the northeast corner of the mausoleum and in Tughluq style. The building is believed to be the residence of Shaik Nizamuddin Aulia who died in 1325 A.D.

Afsarwala Mosque
The mosque is located to the southwest of the west gate of the main mausoleum, the building is dated between 1560 and 1567 based on the architectural style.

Afsarwala Tomb
The tomb is located adjacent to the Afsarwala Mosque, and is an unidentified tomb. One of the marble graves inside the tomb has a date of 1566-67 A.D..

Arab-Sarai
The sarai was built by Haji Begum, the widow of Humayun in 1560-61 to house the three hundred Arab priests, who were said to have been brought with her from her pilgrimage to Mecca. Another version is that the building housed the Persian workers and craftsmen who were actually engaged in building the Humayun’s Tomb. The sarai is located adjacent to the Afsarwala mosque.

Garden of Bu Halima
The visitor entering the Humayun Tomb complex first enters into a garden complex, known as the Bu Halima garden. However, the origin of the name is not known and the garden on its style could be datable to the early Mughals.

Tomb and Mosque of Isa Khan
The tomb and mosque of Isa Khan is located to the south of the Bu Halima garden. An inscription on a red sandstone slab indicated that the tomb is of Masnad Ali Isa Khan, son of Niyaz Aghwan, the Chief chamberlain, and was built during the reign of Islam Shah, son of Sher Shah, in 1547-48 A.D.

Related Links:

Map:

A Visit to Humayun's Tomb

2009-02-01T13:23:00.001+05:30

It was winter saturday and a sunny day. I decided to go out with family. Usually we hang out at some mall in Delhi but this time my wife suggested to visit some historical place. After a shoot discussion, we agreed on Humayun's Tomb. We also took children of my brother-in-law, who lives nearby, with us for the company of my daughter, Yanshi. I drove to the site comfortably as the traffic was smooth. There were little issue at the parking as the whole parking was full. But I managed to get place for my car at the VIP parking area.

Humayun was the son of Babar, founnder of the Moughal dynasty in India. Humayun' son, Akbar, was one of the most respected and liberal emperor of the Moughal Seltnate. His tomb is listed under the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Earlier we planned to sit there in the garden, but later decided against it. My daughter argued that this is not a park. Since we came to see a historic monument, we must explore it. So we left our snacks and coffee in the car.

We entered the entrance gate of the complex and welcomed by the well maintained garden. Thanks to ASI, which has the responsibility to maintain the heritage sites in Delhi and in India. After waling a few steps in the pathway between the garden, we encountered another gate. A guard was checking the tickets, so I learn that we must buy tickets. I purchased two tickets for me and my wife for Rs. 10 each. The entry for children below 15 year was free.

We entered the gate and found that people were going in two directions. Straight from the gate was the main entrance of the Humayun's tomb. At the left hand, there was another gate which leads to the Isa's tomb. We decided to see the Isa's tomb first. I will describe the Isa's tomb later in another post.

After we have seen the Isa's tomb and the mosque in its premises, we headed towards the Humayun's tomb. The main entrance of the tomb is guarded by a double story gate, made up of red and white sand stone. One thing that caught my eyes were two stars, one at each side of the of the gate. These stars are printed in white color on the pink sandstone. The look of the gate is almost same from both sides - outer and inner.

On reaching inside the gate, there were large garden, divided in four parts by swallow water channels. In front of the main entrance of the building, there was a small rectangular tank of water. Now they have installed a fountain in it.

The main building is dome shaped and is raised on a large stage. The stage is 17 meter high. There are stairs from all the four sides of the stage to reach on the stage. The stage is made up of many cells (small rooms). These cells are locked now and visitors are not allowed to see inside these cells. The first floor of the gateway has square and oblong rooms. On the outside, the gate is flanked by screen-walls with arched recesses. Immediately to the west of the south gateway is an enclosure measuring 146 meters by 32 metres, built against the exterior face of the enclosure wall. The building is a low-roofed one with 25 arched entrances and was meant to house the attendants of the royal tomb. There were rectangular holes on the roof of the stage, which are now covered with the iron railings, to allow light and air inside the stage.

The main building on the stage is made of the combination of red sandstone and white marble. White marble is used for decoration over the background of red sandstone.

Around the main dome, above the stage, were many graves. Something were written on these graves in Urdu, so I could not know whose graves were these. But I believe that these were the graves of other members of Humayun and Akbar, his son.

Humayun's grave was built in a in a hexagonal cell within the dome on a floor which is decorated by the octagonal and irregular hexagonal white tiles. The roof of the dome is decorated by the beautifully arranged white rectangular, rod-shaped tiles. The arrangement of tiles gives the look of feathers. It looks like the dome was made of bird feathers. The wall of the dome is decorated by the small windows.

There were other graves in other cells as well.

Related Links

My First ASP.Net MVC Appliacation

2008-09-27T22:25:00.001+05:30

While developing my first ASP.Net MVC application, I faced many problems which has no solution on the web. There were problems with ViewData, Primary Key etc. and the solutions I finally found were very simple...
Read More

Technorati Tags: ASP.net,MVC

Scott Guthrie's ASP.net MVC Tutorial Links

2008-09-27T17:35:00.001+05:30

Technorati Tags: MVC,ASP.net

ASP.NET MVC Framework
One of the things that many people have asked for over the years with ASP.NET is built-in support for developing web applications using a model-view-controller (MVC) based architecture. Last weekend at the Alt.NET conference in Austin I gave the first...

ASP.NET MVC Framework (Part 1)
Two weeks ago I blogged about a new MVC (Model View Controller) framework for ASP.NET that we are going to be supporting as an optional feature soon. It provides a structured model that enforces a clear separation of concerns within applications, and...

ASP.NET MVC Framework (Part 2): URL Routing
Last month I blogged the first in a series of posts I'm going to write that cover the new ASP.NET MVC Framework we are working on. The first post in this series built a simple e-commerce product listing/browsing scenario. It covered the high...

ASP.NET MVC Framework (Part 3): Passing ViewData from Controllers to Views
The last few weeks I have been working on a series of blog posts that cover the new ASP.NET MVC Framework we are working on. The ASP.NET MVC Framework is an optional approach you can use to structure your ASP.NET web applications to have a clear...

ASP.NET MVC Framework (Part 4): Handling Form Edit and Post Scenarios
The last few weeks I have been working on a series of blog posts that cover the new ASP.NET MVC Framework we are working on. The ASP.NET MVC Framework is an optional approach you can use to structure your ASP.NET web applications to have a clear...

ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 and Form Posting Scenarios
This past Thursday the ASP.NET MVC feature team published a new "Preview 5" release of the ASP.NET MVC framework. You can download the new release here . This "Preview 5" release works with both .NET 3.5 and the recently...

Microsoft’s New Operating System - Midori

2008-09-25T23:33:00.000+05:30

Microsoft’s New Operating System
"Microsoft is incubating a componentized non-Windows operating system known as Midori, which is being architected from the ground up to tackle challenges that Redmond has determined cannot be met by simply evolving its existing technology.

Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research’s Singularity operating system, the tools and libraries of which are completely managed code. Midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.
According to published reports, Eric Rudder, senior vice president for technical strategy at Microsoft and an alumnus of Bill Gates’ technical staff, is heading up the effort. Rudder served as senior vice president of Microsoft’s Servers and Tools group until 2005."

My Rajasthan Visit

2008-09-25T23:31:00.000+05:30

My Rajasthan Visit

In last winter I visited Rajasthan with my family. It was a unofficial official vacation tour. I planned the trip with my team mates and their family. It was a five day trip in desert. We rented an luxury Tempo Traveler which had a bed at the back side.

Predicting Market Direction Using Put Call Ratio (PCR) « Yanesh Tyagi writes …

2008-09-25T23:28:00.000+05:30

Predicting Market Direction Using Put Call Ratio (PCR)

"Not sure where the market will head tomorrow? Tired of all those technical analysts? Do your technical analysis in seconds. Predict market sentiments yourself using PCR.

Put Call Ratio commonly called PCR is a simple ratio. This is calculated by dividing total number of put traded by the total number of calls traded on a particular day."

Share, Explore and Learn: Future hybrid System

2008-09-06T14:32:00.000+05:30

Share, Explore and Learn: Future hybrid System

The new concept car coming from the automobile giant Peugeot Design Competition is surely a sophisticated design

Programmer Cost Calculator (for Programmers)

2008-09-04T21:03:00.000+05:30

Programmer Cost Calculator (for Programmers): "How much do senior-level software developers really cost? When you consider the hidden costs associated with hiring employees, outsourcing to a services firm becomes an attractive alternative — especially for projects that are outside your company's core competence."

How To Create A Podcast

2008-08-11T23:10:00.001+05:30

Podcasting is a method of giving out media files over the Internet. But how exactly is a podcast created? Read on and this article will tell you all you need to know.

First of all you will need a domain name. This will give your subscribers the location of where they can obtain your media files. If you can, choose a name which is easy to remember and describes the type of podcast you are publishing. Use a domain register such as eNom or GoDaddy to register your domain name.

The next thing you will need is a web host. There are many companies you can use, for example, Host Gator or StartLogic. As you will be storing a large amount of media files it is best to think about getting a big disk space when you are looking for a web host. For instance, a 2-minute mp3 file may be 2 MB in size. Quite a few web hosting companies offer several GB in disk space at an extremely low monthly cost. Apart from the disk space, you should also consider the amount of bandwidth the company is providing. This is the quantity of data that can be moved to and from your host each month. As your data files will be large, even a few subscribers can easily use up all of your bandwidth in a short space of time. Somewhere between ten and one hundred GB of bandwidth may be sufficient, but keep an eye on this and make sure you increase your bandwidth as your subscribers swell in number.

Upon selection of your web hosting company you will be provided with name servers which you will apply to your domain name later on. To finish setting up your site, you will need to input the name servers into the site where your domain name is registered and then your site will be visible on the Internet.

When your site is set up you should search the Internet and download dircaster.php. Arrange this program to show the particulars of your domain and then upload to your site accordingly.

The next step is to record the media file, which is known as an episode, that you are going to podcast. Audacity, from audacity.sourceforge.net is handy software to use and it is a free and open source to record and edit sounds. You can then record your episode from a CD, the computer's sound card, a microphone or even a VOIP conversation and then edit the file by mixing tracks and cutting or adding segments. You also need to be adding tags and descriptions on your episode too.

Upload this media file in the same directory as the dircaster.php. The dircaster will then generate a RSS feed informing your subscribers all about the new file that is available for them to download.

Setting up a podcast is not difficult and the good news is that it does not cost much either. The required software is free and downloadable from the Internet. If you feel you have something to share with others of like minds, then podcasting is a super way to supply your information to the Internet.

VB.net to c# converter

2008-08-10T14:58:00.000+05:30

Many times we need to convert VB.net code to c#. There are many utilities to do this. but none of these is perfect as these have one or other shortcomings. Most of these utilities are the windows apps written in c# language. The draw back of windows app is that you need to upgrade the app at times.

I was looking for an online app for the conversion. And after some googling I found a cool online tool from the Developer Fusion Lab. This conversion tool is quite accurate in conversion and if it could not convert any code then it inserts the error message into the code. So one can easily identify the error message and do the manual conversion.

Link:
Convert VB.NET to C# - A free code conversion tool from Developer Fusion

Microsoft's New Operating System - Midori

2008-07-29T23:39:00.001+05:30

Microsoft is incubating a componentized non-Windows operating system known as Midori, which is being architected from the ground up to tackle challenges that Redmond has determined cannot be met by simply evolving its existing technology.

Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research’s Singularity operating system, the tools and libraries of which are completely managed code. Midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.
According to published reports, Eric Rudder, senior vice president for technical strategy at Microsoft and an alumnus of Bill Gates' technical staff, is heading up the effort. Rudder served as senior vice president of Microsoft’s Servers and Tools group until 2005.

“That sounds possible—I’ve heard rumors to the effect that he [Rudder] had an OS project in place,” said Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft. He noted that it is quite possible that the project is just exploratory, but conceivably a step above what Microsoft Research does.
One of Microsoft’s goals is to provide options for Midori applications to co-exist with and interoperate with existing Windows applications, as well as to provide a migration path.
Building Midori from the ground up to be connected underscores how much computing has changed since Microsoft’s engineers first designed Windows; there was no Internet as we understand it today, the PC was the user’s sole device and concurrency was a research topic.
Today, users move across multiple devices, consume and share resources remotely, and the applications that they use are a composite of local and remote components and services. To that end, Midori will focus on concurrency, both for distributed applications and local ones.
According to the documentation, Midori will be built with an asynchronous-only architecture that is built for task concurrency and parallel use of local and distributed resources, with a distributed component-based and data-driven application model, and dynamic management of power and other resources.
Midori’s design treats concurrency as a core principle, beyond what even the Microsoft Robotics Group is trying to accomplish, said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group.
The Midori documents foresee applications running across a multitude of topologies, ranging from client-server and multi-tier deployments to peer-to-peer at the edge, and in the cloud data center. Those topologies form a heterogeneous mesh where capabilities can exist at separate places.
In order to efficiently distribute applications across nodes, Midori will introduce a higher-level application model that abstracts the details of physical machines and processors. The model will be consistent for both the distributed and local concurrency layers, and it is internally known as Asynchronous Promise Architecture.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system)

43 Things Tags: cloud computing,mobile development,.NET,SOA & SaaS,software development,Windows,Microsoft

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Money Manager Ex - SQL Query

2008-07-02T00:32:00.001+05:30

Money Manager Ex is a personal finance management software. It lets you manage your personal faineance. You can manage your expenses, investments and stocks using Money Manager Ex. The most appealing feature of this software is custom reports. It lets you run custom queries against its Sqlite database.

In my previous post on Money Manager, I explained its different features. In this post, I will explain how you can get category wise report of your expenses. Money manager manages your accounts in categories and sub-categories. It has many pre-defined categories. Each category is further classified into subcategories. Usually these are sufficient for the general use.

However you can create new category or subcategory easily. One lacking feature of this software is that it does not provide category-wise report of your transactions. You can see transactions summed up by sub-categories however.

To overcome this shortcoming, I wrote a simple SQL statement that allowed me to see the amount I spent on different categories.

SQL to view category-wise report:
The SQL statement to see categori-wise report is written below.

select a.categid, categname, round(sum(transamount),0) amount from checkingaccount_v1 a inner join category_v1 b on a.categid = b.categid group by a.categid having transdate >= '2008-06-01' and transdate < '2008-07-01'

The above statement displays amount spent on different categories for the month of June 2008 i.e. between 1st June and 30th June (both inclusive). You may need to replace the dates i.e. '2008-06-01' and '2008-07-01' as per your requirement.

To execute this statement, select 'Custom SQL Report' from the 'Reports' menu on the Money Manager. If you cannot see 'Custom SQL Report' option, you may need to expend the Reports section by clicking on the '+' sign.

Selecting the 'Custom SQL Report' will open a 'Custom SQL Dialog' box that will ask you to type the query. Copy and paste above statement into the white box and click on the Run Query. It will show your desired report.

If you have any problem running the query, please let me know through comments of this post.

If you need any specific query for your requirement, please put your requirement in the comments and I will be happy to help you out.

Note: In future, I will be writing more SQL queries for MME. If you are interested in these queries, please subscribe the RSS.

Related Post:
Money Manager Ex - Described

43 Things Tags: Money Manage Ex,Personal Finance,Personal Fianance Software,Yanesh Tyagi

Phillips Go Gear SA-31 Media Player - Repairing Firmware

2008-06-22T18:43:00.001+05:30

I purchased Phillips Go Gear SX 31 Device on 14th Feb 2008 from the Next's store. This is a beautiful black device with easy interface. This was working fine up to Tuesday last week when it started to misbehave. Any song I tried to play was being played in the fast forward mode. It was producing strange sound in the earphones.
Thinking that any key might not have released, I pressed all the keys. But that doesn't work. I switched the device off and then switched it on again. Hopefully, I tried to play the song. But again it was running like a jet plain - skipping 4 seconds at a time. The seconds count was 1...5...9...13..so on. Being a software professional (Microsoft technology), I thought of giving the device a hard boot. But the device has in-built battery and there is no way to remove its battery.

Today while I was enjoying my Sunday morning (at 11:30 am!), suddenly I remembered that the software that came with the device has an option to repair its firmware. I switched on my PC and tried the option of repairing the device. The device was repaired successfully. Thinking positively, I removed the device from USB connection and tried to play the song. But there was no song. The music folder was empty. With blowing heart, I checked my videos and pictures. All was gone. Even I lost my recorded sounds. The device came loaded with a video, that I like most. And not all was gone.

One thing that irritated me most, in the whole scenario, was that the repair software did not prompt me that my data may be lost. Although, I have the backups of my music, videos and pictures, I can't get back my sound recordings. The lose is non-recoverable.

Steps to Repair:

Open the Phillips SA-31xx device manager.
Connect the player to the computer while pressing and holding the on/off button of the device (the inner round button.). Windows will tell you that a USB device is connected in the repair mode.
The device's screen will look like:

On the device manager, click on the Repair tab.
On Repair tab, click the Repair button. It will show the message that the device is repaired. The device will also show that it's being repaired.

3. After the device has been repaired, below message will be shown.

4. BEWARE ALL DATA WILL BE LOST from the Phillips Go Gear SA-31xx Media Player without any warning.

Related Posts:

PhillipsGoGear SA3115/97 Portable Media Player

43 Things Tags: Philips,GoGear,SA3115/97,Portable Media Player,Philips GoGear SA3115/97 Portable Media Player,Yanesh Tyagi,Music Player,MP3 Player,MP4 Player,Photo Viewer

del.icio.us Tags: Philips,GoGear,SA3115/97,Portable Media Player,Philips GoGear SA3115/97 Portable Media Player,Yanesh Tyagi,Music Player,MP3 Player,MP4 Player,Photo Viewer

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True / False in classic VB

2008-06-03T15:03:00.001+05:30

In classic VB (and classic ASP as well), zero is considered as false and any other non-zero integer is considered as true.

While debugging an asp page, I come across following line:

If Not Request.Form.Count Then
...

Now form count was 2 (true) so the condition should evaluate as false (Not true). But this was always evaluating as true. It took me half an hour to find the catch.

What actually happening here was that Not is a bit-wise operator in VB. It flips the bits. So,

2 is 0000 0010 in binary.
NOT 2 is 1111 1101 in binary.

Considering that the last bit is sign bit, this becomes -3.

Now our condition If NOT (2) becomes If (-3), which always evaluates to true (non-zero integers are always true in VB).

Technorati Tags: ASP,VB,Programming,Classic+ASP

Automatic Formatting of Markup (HTML) in ASP.NET

2008-05-26T10:15:00.001+05:30

Daniel at dimebrain did a really fantastic work writing a plug-in for VS that can format the markup in asp.net. When you build a web page using the VS designer, it auto generates the markup. But the auto generated code so clustered and impossibly hard to read. You have to manually format the markup (HTML) code by hand. This is always very tiresome and boring job. Also this is wastage of time.

Daniel also felt the same. After being inspired by the Joe Stagner, he developed this plug-in. It provides an additional Edit menu item and hotkey (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+Z) to automatically line up attributes in a selection of text, or format the entire document if no text is selected. The meat of the add-in is a handful of regular expressions that parse tags (XAML, HTML, and ASP.NET directives) and a few IDE tools to line them up according to their indent level.

Download Links:

Screen Shots:

Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,WPF,Silverlight,markup,indenting,guidelines

InstallShield Error: 5004 : 0x80070005

2008-04-06T00:51:00.001+05:30

While Installing driver for my Sonix PC camera, I was welcomed with the followng error. I was trying to run setup.exe. It was a setup program created with the InstallShield setup creator.

Error Details

The details of the error were as below:

Error Code: -5004 : 0x80070005
Error Information:
>SetupDLL\SetupDLL.cpp (1924)
pAPP:USB2.0 PC Camera-268
PVENDOR:Sonix
PGUID:75438C0E-9925-412E-AD85-D0E71C6CE2ED
$7.1.100.1248PAK
@Windows XP Service Pack 2 (2600) IE

7.0.6000.16574

Solution

After some Googling, I got a very unusual tip from Gonarth. I have tried other tips but they simply didn't work. I as little bit tired, but finally I decided to check this out. The tip was very simple but strange. I tried it and wow! it worked. Beloow is the step by step description of what I did:

1. Opem command window. Start -> Run -> Type cmd and press enter.

2. At Command window, type following command

at time /interactive cmd.exe

Replace time with the actual time. For example, its 00:38 AM at my computer. So I should type time as 00:40. Press enter.

3. Close the command window.

4. Wait upto the time you entered in step 2. At this time, copmmand window will automatically appear on your screen.

5. Run the setup program from command window. For example, I was running setup from CD ROM so I typed "G:\setup.exe".

6. The installshield will load and run the setup without giving the 5004: 0x80070005 error.

7. Complete the installation as usual or as instructed in your installation guide.

What Happened

The problem with the installshield program seems to be with the permissions. When you opened the command window using the at command, it is opened with some extra permissions. You run setup program with these extra permissions, and it works fine.

Top 20 Programming Books

2008-04-03T21:09:00.001+05:30

1. Code Complete by Steve McConnell - Darn near a bible of software development goodness, Code Complete reminds us of our priorities. It's essential and everyone who writes code should read this book.

2. The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and Dave Thomas - I like to read this book at least every six months or so. It's clean, clever, clear and full of concrete tips you can use to be a better, simpler, pragmatic programmer. A new classic.

3. Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley - This may feel initially like a C book, but it's really an algorithms book at its heart. It's old school with techniques and thought problems that can be applied today, even in language like Ruby and C#.

4. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code -by Fowler, Beck, Brant, Opdyke, Roberts Although the language used is Java, the concepts are universal. This is a very linear, easy to read, learn by example book. If you think you know how to refactor, but you haven't read this book, pick it up and refresh yourself. You'll find names for Refactorings you've used for years and you'll definitely not only pick up new ones, but be better able to spot opportunities to use them.

5. Design of the UNIX Operating System by Maurice J. Bach So few programmers today can answer questions like "explain how virtual memory is managed" or "how are Unix processes different from Windows." How did we get here. Know your history.

6. Design Patterns by Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides - One of the comments on Amazon says it best, "It is expected that any professional developer has read this book front-to-back. Buy it, read it, then put it in your bathroom and read it when convenient. Also, when you're done, spend some time at the Portland Pattern Repository.

7. Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers - The book is highly entertaining and comes across as a conversation with a really sharp, really patient guru developer. Often, it's a chore to slog through code-heavy books. But Feathers manages to keep my attention with interesting stories, loads of examples, and well-written text.

8 .The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff stoll - A sentimental favorite, The Cuckoo's Egg seems to have inspired a whole category of books exploring the quest to capture computer criminals. Still, even several years after its initial publication and after much imitation, the book remains a good read with an engaging story line and a critical outlook, as Clifford Stoll becomes, almost unwillingly, a one-man security force trying to track down faceless criminals who've invaded the university computer lab he stewards. What first appears as a 75-cent accounting error in a computer log is eventually revealed to be a ring of industrial espionage, primarily thanks to Stoll's persistence and intellectual tenacity. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

9. Head First Design Patterns by Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, Kathy Sierra - I just started reading it yesterday and it is a really well written (lots of pictures and examples) and is put in terms even I understand. Even so early on I would recommend it to anyone wanting an introduction into design patterns.You may not want to include it is all the examples are in Java although if you know c# you should understand it and even the VB / C++ shouldn't have to jump to far.

10. From Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software by Gunderloy and Sybex - started very interesting. For someone new to the business it gives a nice overview of what the whole software development process entails and made things a lot clearly for a new graduate like me.

11. Code Reading by Spinellis - is a good read for learning how to quickly and efficiently get to grips with an existing codebase. I'm fortunate enough to have worked on greenfield stuff my last couple of projects, but this is gold when starting at a new company and needing to get up to speed. Also great if you're looking to join an open source project. (http://www.spinellis.gr/codereading/).

12. Writing Secure Code 2 by Michael Howard - This book provides a great overview of what techniques are important when writing secure applications, and what pitfalls to avoid. The book does a good job at making a point through examples and by explaining possible exploits.

13. The Mythical Man Month by Brooks - This is a touchstone book, where by merely mentioning the name, you instantly communicate a body of knowledge on software engineering insight. It's full of truths about Software Engineering that are still relevant. 30 years later.

14. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler - Noted software engineering expert, Martin Fowler, turns his attention to enterprise application development. He helps professionals understand the complex--yet critical--aspects of architecture. Enables the reader to make proper choices when faced with a difficult design decision.

15. TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 1 by W. Tichard Stevens - Even though this book was published in 1994, it still serves as a useful reference and learning tool for the TCP/IP protocol. There are of course changes and additions that have been made to TCP/IP over the last 7 years such as IPv6, but one can still refer to this book as a good source of information about the dynamics of TCP/IP. There are exercises at the end of each chapter, so it can, and has been used as an effective textbook.

16. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug - A practical Web design usability guide, "Don't Make Me Think!" is based on empirical observation not exhaustive statistics. Steve Krug's five years of usability consulting and testing are distilled down to this thin yet gem-filled how-to. Krug observed how people actually use the Web rather than how we *think* they use it, gleaning key usability guidelines.

17. The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper - It's worth reading this book -- even despite the painful tone he often takes -- just to pick up on the ideas of creating concrete personas and how you use them to develop your product. We do that today at Microsoft (at least in Developer Tools), and it's a highly successful way of not only building a good product, but also in helping hundreds of developers understand why a feature is 'in' or 'out', no matter how much they might like it personally.

18. Mastering Reguler Expressions by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl - Regular expressions, a powerful tool for manipulating text and data, are found in scripting languages, editors, programming environments, and specialized tools. In this book, author Jeffrey Friedl leads you through the steps of crafting a regular expression that gets the job done. He examines a variety of tools and uses them in an extensive array of examples, with a major focus on Perl.

19. Test Driven Development by Kent Beck - The book teaches the concepts of TDD by working through two complete sample projects. Along the way, Beck gives the reader valuable insight into the thought process and techniques behind successful test-driven development. When the reader has finished working through these sample projects, he should know enough about TDD to get started working on a TDD project.

20. Head Rush Ajax by Brett McLaughlin - The Head First Labs crew has done it again in this excellent into to Ajax. The book really gives a great overview of Ajax for both programmers and non-programmers alike. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to pick this up. Although the book covers more PHP than I care for, and not enough of XML as I would like to see, it does an excellent job of covering their bases in a way that's easy to understand. I highly recommend this book to anyone with little to no understanding of Ajax. Let's pretty up the web, people!

Technorati Tags: Programming,Books,Programming Books,Code Complete,The Progmatic Programmer,Programming Perls,Refactoring,Design of Unix Operating System,Yanesh Tyagi

Birthday ... or April Fool

2008-04-03T00:56:00.001+05:30

What is the relation between birthday and april fool?

Well, you may call people at a food junction telling them that today (1st of Aptil) is your birthday. Most will believe you and wait for you at the food junctions. but some will be smart enough to figure out that it's the Fool's Day.

But what if somebody actually born on Fool's Day? My boss, Kiran, is one of those rare persons. He was born on the first day of April. There was a great party at our office cafetria (to make us believe!). We brought a very beautiful chocolaty cake for him.

Kiran told us the same story. He used to call people for his b'day and people thought that he would be fooling them. He used to keep waiting at the cake table and nobody turns up. He then had to call them many times and turn all the stones to make them believe that it was a real party.

Kiran will give us an unoffical party on Friday .............................................not to be disclosed.

I have one more friend who has a very unique thing about his b'day. This year he celebrated his 11th birthday. And his daughter is doing Post Graduation at the university (believe me!). I will discuss that later on.

Technorati Tags: Birthday,Cake,Kiran,Yanesh Tyagi,Tecnovate,Party,Fool's Day,April Fool,Unique Birthday

Money Manager EX - The Personal Money Manager

2008-04-03T00:14:00.002+05:30

Since long time, I was wondering where my money goes. I always run out of budget at the end of every month. And I could not track where all my money goes. So I decided to use a personal money manager. After some Googling, I found a wonderful software called Money Manager Ex. This is a lightweight personal money manager software which is available free of cost.

Features

Money Manager provides some nice features. Below is the summary of the features, I like.

Multiple Bank Account: You can manage multiple bank accounts. It supports two type of accounts - saving/checking and investment. Your investment accounts automatically becomes stock accounts. But it would be nice if I could get third account type - credit account, for my credit cards. However, you can manage credit cards by pretending them to be saving account and entering the opening balance (i.e. outstanding amount) in negative.

Transactions: With Monery Manager Ex, you can enter tentative transactions. I enterd tentative transactions for the month in advance. Then you can categorize the transactions as reconciled, void or follow up.

Repeated Transactions: You can enter repeated transactions and set the frequency, date etc. This saves lots of data entry time.

Transaction Splitting: This is a very useful feature of Money Manager. You can split a transaction in multiple transactions. I enter a lum sump amount at the beginning of the month for home needs. Later on I can split this transaction into different categories. This helps me to manage my budget and always provides me a birds eye view of my finance.

Budgeting: This software allows you to enter budget for a year. Later on you can compare budget with the actual expenses.

Reports: Money Manager Ex provides a handful of useful reports. Some of the reports, I use are:

Where The Money Goes
To Whom The Money Goes
Where The Money Comes From
Budget Performance
Income vs Expenses

Custom Reports: If you are not satisfied with the reports provided with the software, you can use custome SQL reports. This allows you to write SQL statement to generate the report. This is a very noice feature for a developer like me.

Database: Money Manager uses SQLlite database. You can do anything with the database using any SQlite tool like SQLite2008 Pro Enterprise Manager or SQLite 3 Explorer.

Carry Your Money Manager With You

The best feature of the Money Manager is that you can carry it with you. The software is very carefully designed not to use any windows dependency like windows registry or any thing else. You don't need to install the software on your machine. Keep the software in a pen drive and use it any where, at home or on your office laptop or in a cyber cafe etc.

Related Posts:
Money Manager Ex - SQL Query: to create category-wise expense report.

Need any help on using money manager? Put a comment and I will be happy to help you out.

Philips GoGear SA3115/97 Portable Media Player

2008-03-12T00:27:00.003+05:30

I planned to gift a portable media player to my wife on this valentine day. After little market search and product analysis, I decided to buy PhillipsGoGear SA3115/97. It has a great look. It has appealing black color with 1.8" color screen.

It has simple interface with keylock feature. keylock feature is very useful when you intend to keep your player into pocket. It locks all the keys except volume keys.
This Philips player has five keys on the front - 4 cursor keys and 1 multifunction key. These keys are placed in a circular keypad with soft touch. The multifuction key at the center of keypad is a dual key for playpause and onoff functionality. Press it once for playpause and press and hold for few seconds for onoff functionality.
There is one key on the lefyhand side with an icon on lock. This is the keylock key. One pair of keys are at right side. These are volume keys - for V+ and V-.
Below is a chart of common features of this media player:
MemoryType : Flash
Capacity: 1GB
Expended Memory: not supported
Display
Coloured display with 1.8 inches screen.
Resolution: 160 x 128
Audio
Supports MP3 and WMA format.
Equalizer: 7 mode (Off Rock Funk Jaaz classic hip-hopp Dance.
Sound Quality: Above average however there is no question of comparing it with Apple iPod. iPod is much better than this. (well, one of the factor in my decision of buying this was money also.)
Video
Supports only WMA format. Additional support for 3gp format would be great.
Radio
Has FM receiver in built. You can set and save 10 channels.
Pictures:
Supports JPEG and BMP format. It comes with an media convertor utility which resizes and convert JPEG images to BMP images. Although the player can display JPEG images, very large images gets distorted. I copied my Siny Digital Camera (12 megapixels) images to the player without convertor utility. It took too longer to display and the displayed image was havily distorted. Then I used convertor utility which reduce the size of images to nearly 57 KB but the display was better.
Battery and ChargingPhillips GoGear has inbuilt lithium ion battery. This can only be charged through USB port of myour laptop or desktop. Or you can use an stand-alone USB charger, if you don't have PC.
Lacking Features:

Support for 3gp video format.
Browse music by location. Currently you can browse music artist album Genere only. You can choose all songs as well but in that case songs are played in alphabatical order.
Support for multiple playlist.
Functionality to play all songs of an artist. Currently you have to choose artist and then its album. Once it has played all songs of that album and artist combination, you can set to repeat or repeat and shuffle within that album. It would be better if the player software automatically jump to next album of the same singer or to next singer.
You can not listen music or viw video or photo while it is connected to computer. This is irritating as it needs to kep connecting for hours for charging.
USB changer should be bundeld with the packet.

Great Features:
You can upgrade the firmware. It comes with a device manager that you install on your computer. Device manager check for the update avaible on Philips website and automatically updates the firmaware.
However, I could not use these feature. My players firmware version is 2.56 and the latest version available on the website is 3.7. When I used device manager to upgrade, it told me that my player has most updated version. I tried several times, but it keeps on giving the same message. finally I got frustrated and gave up.
Any suggestion, how can I upgrade the firmware to latest version?
Related Links:Phillips Go Gear SA-31 Media Player - Repairing Firmware

43 Things Tags: Philips,GoGear,SA3115/97,Portable Media Player,Philips GoGear SA3115/97 Portable Media Player,Yanesh Tyagi,Music Player,MP3 Player,MP4 Player,Photo Viewer

Google Reader - Keyboard Shortcuts

2008-02-25T12:28:00.002+05:30

Google Reader is a great application from Google Labs. This allows you to organize your blogs, manage your subscriptions and share interested posts with your blogs. All this is available online. This means you can access all your settings and blogs from anywhere. You can also access Google reader through mobile device.

Keyboard Shortcuts:

Google reader is popular for its keyboard shortcuts. According to The Official Google Blog "j" key is the most popular key. This is used to move to the next item. You can find a list of popular Google Reader keyboard Shortcut keys here. A complete list of keyboard shortcut is available here. However, the best keystroke is "?". This is "/" key with shift key pressed. This provides help on all other keyboard shortcuts.

Google reader have a very large list of features. I will discuss these features in the next post.
Technorati Tags: Google+Reader,Keyboard+Shortcuts,Google+Reader+Keyboard+Shortcuts,Blog+Management+Tool,Yanesh+Tyagi

Comparison Of Intel Desktop And laptop processors

2008-02-22T12:27:00.001+05:30

Comparison of Intel Processors for Desktop
	Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor	Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9550	Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8500	Pentium® Dual-Core Processor	Pentium® 4 Processor
Processor Number	QX9775	Q9550	E8500	E2200	N/A
Architecture	45 nm technology	45 nm technology	45 nm technology	65 nm technology	90 nm technology
L2 Cache	12 MB	12M	6M	1 MB	1M
L3 Cache	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Clock Speed	3.20 GHz	2.83 GHz	3.16 GHz	2.2 GHz	2.80A GHz
Front Side Bus Speed	1600 MHz	1333 MHz	1333 MHz	800 MHz	533 MHz
Chipset	E5400	G33 Express Chipset	G31 Express Chipset	N/A	865GV / 910GL

Comparison of Intel Processors for Laptop
	------------------------------------ Intel Centrino ----------------------------------------------					Centrino vPro
CPU number sequence	L7000/T7000/U7000	T5000; L7000/T7000/U7000	T2000/U2000	T1000/U1000	U2000	L7000/T7000/U7000
Processor	Intel® Core™2 Duo	Intel® Core™2 Duo	Intel® Core™2 Duo	Intel® Core™ Solo	Intel® Core™ Solo	Intel® Core™2 Duo
Number of cores	2	2	2	1	1	2
Clock speed	up to 2.4 GHz	up to 2.33 GHz	up to 2.33 GHz	up to 1.83 GHz	up to 1.2 GHz	up to 2.6 GHz
L2 cache	up to 4 MB	2/4 MB	2 MB	2 MB	1 MB	up to 4 MB
Front side bus	Up to 800 MHz	533/667 MHz	533/667 MHz	533/667 MHz	533 MHz	800 MHz
Memory support (DDR2)	up to 667 MHz	up to 667 MHz	up to 667 MHz	up to 667 MHz	up to 533 MHz	up to 667 MHz
Chipset	Intel® 965 or 945 Express Chipset	Intel® 945 Express Chipset	Intel® 945 Express Chipset	Intel® 945 Express Chipset	Intel® 945 Express Chipset	Intel® 965 Express Chipset
Wireless communications	Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N or Intel® PRO/Wireless	Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N or Intel® PRO/Wireless	Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N or Intel® PRO/Wireless	Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N or Intel® PRO/Wireless	Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N or Intel® PRO/Wireless	Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N or AG
Wired communications	Intel® 82566MM GB	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Intel® 82566MM GB

Unicode Tool tip

2008-02-18T18:39:00.001+05:30

While using windows XP, I was facing a problem. I was working on a multilingual web site. we were showing tool tips to help user to understand what a particular button will do or where a link points. The tool tips were working fine for language which uses English language characters. But in case of other characters (read unicode) such as Chinese or Arabic, it showed small boxes instead of letters.

I had to do lot of research on the internet (googling is my first habit) and here is what I found:

To set your tooltip font to be able to display Unicode characters:
Right click on the desktop, pick Properties -> Appearance -> Advanced ->Item: ToolTip, then set the font to Arial Unicode MS or other large font.

This will show unicode characters in the tool tip.

Effective Use of Visual Studio 2005 - Keyboard Shortcuts

2007-12-04T16:18:00.000+05:30

As a hardcore developer I found that typing is easy to me then using mouse. Mouse is an obstacle. Taking hands off the keyboard is time consuning. It takes me out of comfort zone. I like to use keyboard where ever possible and efficient. Thanks to the developers of Visual studio 2005, they provided keyboard shortcuts to the most frequest tasks.

Though the use of named commands is always recommended instead of keyboard shortcuts. But I found that these key strokes are most common and no one reassign these to custome actions. Its safe to get used to these shortcuts.

Here is a list of my favourite shortcusts.

Tool Boxes And Windows

CTRL+ALT+L: View Solution Explorer. I use Auto Hide for all of my tool windows to maximize screen real estate. Whenever I need to open the Solution Explorer, it’s just a shortcut away.
CTRL+ALT+X: Toolbox Window
CTRL+ALT+O: Output Window
CTRL+\, E: Error List Window
CTRL+\, T: Task List Window
F7: Toggle between Designer and Source views.
CTRL+PgDn: Toggle between Design and Source View in HTML editor.
SHIFT+ALT+Enter: Toggle full screen mode. This is especially useful if you have a small monitor. Since I upgraded to dual 17? monitors, I no longer needed to use full screen mode.
CTRL+SHIFT+A: Add New Item Window
ALT+F+F: Recent Files List

Building, Running And Debugging

F10: Debug - Step over.
F5: debug - Start
F11: debug - Step into
SHIFT+F11: Debug - step out
CTRL+F10: Debug - run to cursor
F9: Toggle Breakpoint
CTRL+SHIF+B: Build Solution. Related shortcuts:
ALT+B, U: Build selected Project
ALT+B, R: Rebuild Solution

Code Window

CTRL+D or CTRL+/: Find combo
CTRL+M, O: Collapse to Definitions.
CTRL+M, M: Toggle Outline Expension. Collapsed will become expanded and expanded will become collapsed.
CTRL+K, CTRL+C: Comment block.
CTRL+K, CTRL-U: Uncomment selected block
CTRL+-: Go back to the previous location in the navigation history.
CTRL+SHIFT+-: Go to the next location in the navigation history.
CTRL++: Select from last mouse pointer position to current mouse pointer position.
CTRL+ALT+Down Arrow: Show dropdown of currently open files. Type the first few letters of the file you want to select.
CTRL+K, D: Format code.
CTRL+L: Delete entire line.
CTRL+G: Go to line number. This is useful when you are looking at an exception stack trace and want to go to the offending line number.
CTRL+K, X: Insert "surrounds with" code snippet.
CTRL+K, K: Toggle bookmark.
CTRL+K, N: Next bookmark.
CTRL+K, P: Previous bookmark.
CTRL+K, L: Clear bookmark.
CTRL+K, I: Quick Info
F12: Go to definition of a variable, object, or function.
SHIFT+F12: Find all references of a function or variable.

Effective Use of Visual Studio 2005 - Named Commands

2007-11-29T22:43:00.001+05:30

Command Window: Ctrl+Alt+A

Named commands are used to access VS features from Command Window. Visual Studio 2005 provides full intellisense support in the command window. I experienced that using named commands is much faster than accessing these features with mouse.

Named commands allow you to access and use menu commands in the command window. To use named commands, simply type the name of menu. Press '.' and VS will provide intellisense. Type the name of the menu option or select it from intellisense.

Example:

To access Find Results 1 window you have to

1. Click on the 'View' menu and then
2. Click on the 'Find Results' and
3. Finally choose 'Find Results 1'.

Now if you want to use named commands,
1. Press Ctrl+Alt+A to activate command window.
2. Type View.findresults1. You don't need to type full text. Intellisense provides yoy write text. Just press enter.

Some Examples of Named Copmmands:

Window.NewWindow: Open a new window on your code.
Tools.Options: Bring up Options dialog box.
Edit.ViewWhiteSpace: (Ctrl+R, Ctrl+W) Replace white spaces with a dot.
Convert tab to spaces: Ctrl+K, Ctrl+D
Window.ActivateDocumentWindow: Switch to document window.
Window.AutoHide: Hide command window. (Use Ctrl+Alt+A to show command window)
Window.AutoHideAll: Hide all windows except document windows. It will hide even pinned-up windows too.
Window.ShowEzMDIFileList: Show Easy MDI File List.
Window.Split: Split code window into two. Both windows show same files but you can scroll them independently. Issue same command to close splitting.
Window.Windows: Open 'Windows' window. More Info
Edit.ClearAll: Clear Command Window.

Named Command and Keyboard Shortcuts

Usually VS features can be accessed in two ways: using keyboard shortcusts or using named commands. But using named commands is easier than using keyboard shortcuts:

You need to learn keyboard shortcuts. But named commands are not required to learn, as they are based of the menu navigation which is most commanlyt used.
Keyboard shortcuts are customizable. You (or anybody else) can change them. If you are working on some other machine, you may not have same keyboard shortcuts.
There is no help (intellisense) provided for keyboard shortcuts.

Images:

1. Easy MDI File List

2. Split code window

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2005,Effective Use of Visual Studio,.net,ASP.net,Programming,Editors,VS Editor,Named Commands

Effective Use Of Visual Studio 2005 - Handling Open Documents

2007-11-28T17:48:00.000+05:30

Visual Studio 2005 provides some excellent document management capabilities. Most of the we are not aware of these features. One of the feature is open document tab groups. Unlike VS 2003, it shows only as much tabs as fits in the window width. There is no scrolling. Instead, VS 2005 provides dropdown menu to select from all open documents. Inseated of selecting open documents, you can also do some other functions.

I am planning to write a series on useful-but-less-known features of VS 2005. This is second post in the series. (read first post)

In continuation to my previous post on managing open documents, here are some more tricks.

Right click on the open document tab group. A context menu will appear with following options:

Save default.aspx.vb
Close
Close all but this
Copy full path
Open containing folder
New horizontal tab group
New vertical tab group

Save default.aspx.vb

Allows you to save currently selected document. Currently selected document is the one which is open in the window.

Close

Close currently selected document.

Close all but this

Close all open documents except the currently selected document.

Copy full path

Copy full path of the currently selected document to the clipboard.

Open containing folder

Open the folder that contains the currently selected document. The folder is opened in the windows explorer.

New horizontal tab group

Open another document window. The two windows are tiled horizontally. Both window will have document tab group. This is useful when you want to open on two group of documents simultaneously.

New vertical tab group

Same as above option. But this makes the windows tiles vertically instead of horizontally.

Effective Use of Visual Studio 2005 - Closing Selected Window

2007-11-27T15:20:00.000+05:30

To close open documents selectively:

1. Go to Window -> Windows.

2. This will show list of all open windows (not just those which you see on the tabs).

3. Select the windows you want to close. Use shift (or ctrl) key for multiple selection. You can also use ctrl+A to select all windows.

4. Click "Close window(s)" button to close selected windows.

I experienced that the speed of loading a project into visual studio is directly proportional to the number of open documents. Generally, we open the document as we need it. And then we don't close it. Visual studio 2005 displays only a few number of documents on the tabs. Rest remains open but are hidden. You can click on the down arrow near the 'X' button of the document window to select the open document. To keep you project loading fast, always keep minimum number of open documents.

Microsoft Popfly - Share Visual Studio Projects On The Web

2007-11-26T22:38:00.001+05:30

Popfly allows you to build gadgets and web pages. It also allows you to share your creation. Popfly provides online visual tools for creating Web pages and gadgets. You can host, share, rate, comments and even remix creations from other popfly users.
Here are some things you can do with Popfly:
Add some fun to your Facebook page, web site, or Windows Live Spaces page.
You can easily spice up your Web site or blog with Popfly by adding customized games like Whack-a-mole or asteroids with pictures of your friends and family or create custom quizzes or polls that you can easily embed on your Web site.
Build a Home Page:
You can build a custom home page, say for your school’s sports team and choose from over 150 different themes, 10 styles, and 30 unique color themes for a unique visual design. You can then easily add things like team photos, a team schedule from an RSS feed, video from previous games, Virtual Earth maps with directions to game locations and more, all without writing code.
Mix and Re-mix Photos and Videos:
Popfly makes it easy to create and share beautiful slideshows using pictures from Flickr, Windows Live Spaces, Facebook or to embed a podcast or a video player hosting videos from Soapbox or YouTube and share it on your Facebook profile, Windows Live Spaces page, or any Web page.
Unify Your Online Personality:
Popfly enables you to customize and stitch together your online persona in one place. You can create mashups that show what you dug on Digg.com, what you are buying or selling on eBay, you Halo 3 game scores, what Facebook events you’re attending, what your friends are doing on Twitter, and much more.
Share Visual Studio Projects:
Popfly offers a powerful web programming environment to bring in new data sources, create new ways to display information, or even create and share full Visual Studio projects.
Popfly Explorer for Visual Studio and Visual Studio Express:

Popfly Explorer is a plug-in for Visual Studio that lets you:

Effortlessly create and host a Popfly web site
Access your Visual Studio solutions from anywhere
Share Visual Studio solutions with friends
Add mash-ups to your web pages

Links:

Popfly Pasge

Download Popfly Explorer for Visual Studio

Popfly Team Site

Technorati Tags: Popfly , Microsoft , Visual studio , Visual studio express edition , facebook , spaces , .net , webpage creation , share visual studio projects

How To Purchase A Laptop

2007-11-22T22:12:00.001+05:30

Question: How many people are required to purchase a laptop?

Answer: Five.

Question: And what is the flowchart of purchasing a laptop?

Answer: Acquire 100% resources --> Drink beer --> Have lunch --> Go to theatre --> Watch movie --> Then release 60% of resources and utilize 40% resources to buy laptop --> The process is exhausting so re-energize 40% resources with more beer.

Don't believe me? Read the story below (it's real):

Bob is a software professional who is working for a large MNC. Currently he is posted at client side. He has a team of six people who share good chemistry. Today one of his team mate Mr. M decided to buy a laptop. His office is very near to largest electronics market so it was decided that team will go to buy laptop in the lunch time.

Unfortunately, nobody in the team brought their car today. Usually people use company provided cabs for commute from home to office and back. So they decided to hire an auto. Bob and his mates asked many auto driver but all denied. Finally it was decided that they will take bus. After long wait bus stand, finally a bus arrived. Frustrated after waiting long time, they were onboard in fraction of seconds. Things seemed to be on the right path when they discovered that they had boarded wrong bus. After changing the bus at the next stop, they finally went to the market.

While passing through the theatre M proposed for watching the movie. Mr. V proposed for having lunch. Se it was decided that they will watch the movie after lunch and they they will buy laptop. The restaurant was unfortunately close to the beer and wine shop. It allowed carry and drink facility. Mr. D proposed for beer and Mr. G immediately approved. V and M gave silent approval. Bob doesn't take alcohol so his vote was neutral. Since nobody opposed the idea, they decided to have beer first, and than lunch and then movie. Purchasing laptop was last in the list.

Things went well as planned. They had beer and then had lunch. After lunch every body enjoyed movie. D and G want to have more beer. But theatre management didn't allow them to go outside while the show was running. By than, it was evening and almost dark. The office cab would leave in the one hour. So it was decided that first they will go to office and M and D will come back to buy laptop. D wanted to drink more beer. He proposed to drink one more beer and then go to office and then come back to buy laptop. Bob along with G and V opposed it. Going to office after having beer was not appropriate. So finally it was decided that M and D will purchase laptop, have more beer and than went to home. Bob, G and V will go back to the office.

What happened next is that they follow the plan. In the night Bob called M to confirm weather they had purchased the laptop or not. M had purchased it.

Who is Bob? It's a suspense. I will revel it at the appropriate time.

Technorati Tags: real story , fun , shopping , laptop , yanesh

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Released

2007-11-20T11:44:00.000+05:30

Microsoft shipped Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 today. Here are some resources for VS 2008:

1. ScottGu's weblog is the primary and authentic source of information।
२. Somasegar's Weblog
3. Paul Andrew blogged about a downloadable poster of commonly used types and namespace in .NET 3.5 (in pdf format), which is worth checking out.
4. View ASP.NET 3.5-specific videos at Microsoft's official asp.net website.
5. Brad Abrams wrote about Design Guidelines, Managed code and the .NET Framework 3.5 in his blog.
6. Here is a 31 minute video at Channel 9.
7. VS 2008 is not shipped with MSDN. You can Download MSDN Library for VS 2008 from here.
8. The details about VS 2008 express edition (free) are available here.

Benefit of Using Technorati Tags on your blog

2007-11-19T22:38:00.001+05:30

Today, I received a mail from one of my old friend. he happened to visit my blog and was surprised to see Technorati tags there. He called me up to ask what these tags are and why I used them on my blog. In his own words,
"Yaar, your blog seems to be advertising for this web site called Technorati.com. Are you being paid for this?"
I was quite surprised to see the reaction of Technorati tags. Then I told him what Technorati tags are and why I use them on my blog.
Later on I thought that many other people might also be thinking in the same way. So I decided to post a blog entry on this matter.
Tags are keywords or topics which you place at the bottom (or anywhere) of your blog post to catch the attention of Technorati and other search engines. Technorati is a search engine which indexes the blog which uses its tags. Technorati doesn't pay anything to me anybody to place a Technorati tag on his blog. They even don't pay me to write these stuff though I am advocating to use Technorati tags on your blog. (I wish they should pay me for that. Ha ha ha). Instead it helps the blog author in many ways (see below).
A common question arises - why Technorati do all this? The answer is that when you place a link of Technorati tag on your page, you increase the popularity of Technorati. When millions of blogs do the same thing, Technorati gets great page rank and a very very large number of hits on its pages. Technorati puts ads on its pages and the amount one charges to display an ad is directly proportional to number of hits on that page. So Technorati earns money indirectly. But that is not the concern of a blog author. As an author of a blog, I get many free of cost benefits by using Technorati tags.
The benefits of using Technorati Tags on your blog:
1. It gets your page recognized by Technorati and other blogosphere search engines thus increasing the chance of people finding your blog.
2. It gets your blog indexed on search engines like Google, yahoo etc. driving more inward traffic to your blog and increasing popularity and readership.
3. It increase page views per visit because readers can find more on a topic that interests them.

Technorati Tags: Technorati , Tags , Blog , Search Engine , Popularity , Indexing

Putting ASP.net Application In Offline Mode Using app_offline.htm

2007-11-15T22:04:00.001+05:30

Today, I was updating a stored procedure of SQL Server Express Edition 2005 within the Visual Studio 2005. At the same time, I tried to open a page of my application in internet browser using IIS (localhost). And I got the error stating:

'The application is currently offline. Remove app_offline.htm file from applications root directory.'

I never heard of app_offline.htm file before. As a habit I pressed 'F5' to refresh the page and it worked fine. 'What the hell was this?', I thought. I googled about the file in error message and learned some interesting facts. Here is what I found:
app_offlinne.htm

When ASP.Net found a file names app_offlinne.htm in the root of a web application directory, it shut-down the application, unload the application domain from the server, and stop processing any new incoming requests for that application. ASP.NET also then respond to all requests for dynamic pages in the application by sending back the content of the app_offline.htm file (for example: you might want to have a “site under construction” or “down for maintenance” message).
Visual Studio 2005 And app_offline.htm

SQL Server 2005 express edition does not support multiple processes. Only single process can access database at a time. So when a database is accessed through visual studio, ASP.net runtime cannot access the database. This will result into the internal server error. To prevent this, VS 2005 places app_offline.htm file in the application's root directory. The file contain above message. This causes ASP.net to put the application in offline mode. Please note the accessing database means opening any component of the database (I.e. table, view, stored procedure etc.) into the design window. When design window is closed, VS 2005 removes app_offline.htm file.
Using app_offline.htm As A Feature

You may use app_offline.htm feature to put your application in offline mope for any purpose. This provides a convenient way to take down your application while you are making big changes or copying in lots of new page functionality (and you want to avoid the annoying problem of people hitting and activating your site in the middle of a content update). It can also be a useful way to immediately unlock and unload a SQL Express or Access database whose .mdf or .mdb data files are residing in the /app_data directory.
You should keep an eye on a feature of IE6 called "Show Friendly Http Errors". This can be configured in the Tools->Internet Options->Advanced tab within IE, and is on by default with IE6. When this is on, and a server returns a non HTTP-200 status code with less than 512 bytes of content, IE will not show the returned HTML and instead substitutes its own generic status code message (which personally I don't think is super friendly <g>).
So if you use the app_offline.htm feature, you should make sure you have at least 512 bytes of content within it to make sure that your HTML (instead of IE's friendly status message) shows up to your users. If you don't want to have a lot of text show-up on the page, one trick you can use is to just add an html client-side comment with some bogus content to push it over 512 bytes.
Once you remove the app_offline.htm file, the next request into the application will cause ASP.NET to load the application and app-domain again, and life will continue along as normal.
References:

Andy Gray wrote an interesting story on how his application stops working and starts giving error 404 when he killed visual studio process.

Phill Scott writes his experience about suddenly getting error 404 and finding the app_offline.htm file culprit.

Chris Ullman, author of Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 also had similar experience.

Acknowledgement
I must thank ScottGu for providing useful details about this mysterious file. I could not found any official documentation from Microsoft about this. But ScottGu's blog is as authentic and Microsoft's documentation.

Technorati Tags: asp.net , .net , offline mode , app_offline.htm , sql server 2005 , visual studio 2005 , IIS , Error 404 , Yanesh

Cetrification in Ethical Hacking

2007-11-15T00:45:00.001+05:30

Wanna become a hacker?
Now is the chance to hack corporate networks without worrying legal suits. Become a Certified Ethical Hacker. An ethical hacker works to identify vulnerabilities in computer systems so they can be made less susceptible to criminal hackers' malicious attacks. Without breaking laws or stealing data, ethical hackers uncover weaknesses by attacking IT systems using the same under-the-radar techniques criminal hackers employ. A Certified Ethical Hacker is a skilled professional who understands and knows how to look for the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in target systems and uses the same knowledge and tools as a malicious hacker.
"Ethical hackers typically have very strong programming and computer networking skills and have been in the computer and networking business for several years. ... These base skills are augmented with detailed knowledge of the hardware and software provided by the more popular computer and networking hardware vendors." says C.C. Palmer, an IBM technologist.
An ethical hacker's evaluation of a system's security seeks answers to three basic questions:

What can an intruder see on the target systems?
What can an intruder do with that information?
Does anyone at the target notice the intruder's attempts or successes?

While the first and second of these are clearly important, the third is even more important: If the owners or operators of the target systems do not notice when someone is trying to break in, the intruders can, and will, spend weeks or months trying and will usually eventually succeed.
EC-Council (International Council of E-Commerce Consultants) provides certification in ethical hacking (CEH). The CEH Program certifies individuals in the specific network security discipline of Ethical Hacking from a vendor-neutral perspective. The Certified Ethical Hacker certification will fortify the application knowledge of security officers, auditors, security professionals, site administrators, and anyone who is concerned about the integrity of the network infrastructure.
You need to undergo CES training before passing exam. CEH training is typically an intense, five-day course that emphasizes the creative, ever-changing ways hackers gain access to IT systems. "Labs take students through real-world scenarios, which require them to use creativity and demonstrate the ability to solve unusual problems," says Steven DeFino, a course instructor at New Horizons Computer Learning Centers in Salt Lake City.
CEH courses are offered at EC-Council-authorized training centers around the world. Topics covered include:

Perimeter defenses.
Hacking tools.
Session hijacking.
Password cracking.
Firewall evasion.
Intrusion detection.

More Information on CEH
CEH Certification Path
Ethical Hacking Explained

Technorati Tags: Hacking , CEH , Ehical Hacking , Certification , Yanesh , Technology

Microsoft Security Summit 2007

2007-11-13T22:09:00.001+05:30

Microsoft is organizing a one-day workshop on software security in Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai.. The summit is useful for:

Software Developer
Analysts
Architects
Project Managers

Agenda

09.00 - 09.30 hrs :

Registration
09.30 - 11.00 hrs
Microsoft Platform Security – An Overview
Get a detailed view on the different components of the security development lifecycle, latest updates on security challenges, trends and statistics.
11.00 – 11.30 hrs

Tea Break
11.30 – 13.00 hrs

Application Platform Security
As a developer who has written applications for any one of these platforms, you must have noticed similarities in .NET and J2EE. For anyone who has developed applications on both J2EE and .NET, you must have noticed the differences between them that make designing applications for both these platforms way different from each other. In this session we are going to talk about the similarities in the approaches of both .NET and J2EE and how you can cross leverage your skills across these platforms. We will also talk about underlying core differences and how you can make use of these feature differences to write more secure applications. As an added bonus we will show you how you can use a few common tools to detect security holes in your code.
13.00 – 14.00 hrs

Lunch
14.00- 15.30 hrs

Data Platform Security
The Web provides a convenient, cheap, and instantaneous way of publishing data. Now it is extremely easy to disseminate information, it is equally important to ensure that the information is only accessible to those who have the rights to use it. Never before has information security had so many vulnerable points. As the computing industry moves from the mainframe era to the client/server era to the Internet era, a substantially increasing number of points of penetration have opened up. New security procedures and technology are pioneered daily, and this session explains the various security systems involved with solving the current problems via the Server Security, User-authentication security, session security and more. For each layer of security added, the system becomes more protected. Like a chain, however, the entire shield may be broken if there is a weak link. And this session will take a sneak preview of how database security and the various database environments are up for the challenge.
15.30- 16.00 hrs

Tea Break
16.00- 17.30 hrs

Web Platform Security
A security compromise of online web applications could result in huge losses of data and valuable customer information, causing irreversible losses. Popular web platforms such as ASP.NET and Linux/ Apache/ MySQL/ PHP should be designed to minimize security risks occurring due to a bug in the code or a vulnerability in the overall environment. Validating user input, handling user data securely, protecting vital configuration data, blocking common hacks such as injection and cross-site scripting, etc. are some of the basic features required in developing secure web applications. Learn how the LAMP platform and ASP.NET/IIS handle these various security scenarios and why ASP.NET/IIS can provide you with a much safer and secure environment for hosting web applications.

Date Time and Venue

Mumbai

21st Nov 2007. GRAND HYATT. Register Now!
Pune

Friday, 23rd Nov 2007. Taj Blue Diamond. Register Now!
Kolkata

Thursdays, 06th Dec 2007. Taj Bengal. Register Now!
Chennai

Friday, 14th Dec 2007. The Park. Register Now!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Security Summit , India

Microsoft Code Names

2007-11-12T22:15:00.001+05:30

Microsoft Codenames

Microsoft codenames are the codenames given by Microsoft to products it has in development, before these products are given the names by which they appear on store shelves. Many of these products (new versions of Windows in particular) are of major significance to the IT community, and so the terms are often widely used in discussions prior to the official release. Microsoft usually does not announce a final name until shortly before the product is publicly available.

Visual Studio Codenames

Thunder

Visual Basic 1.0. The first version of Visual Basic. The standard dialogs and controls created by the Visual Basic runtime library all have "Thunder" as a prefix of their internal type names (for example, buttons are internally known as ThunderCommandButton).
Zamboni

Microsoft Visual C++ 4.1. After Zamboni, an ice resurfacing machine.
Aspen

Visual Studio 98 (6.0). Ski Resort in Colorado
Cool

C#. Short for: C-based Object Oriented Language

Rainier

Visual Studio .NET 2002. After Rainier, a small town south of Seattle. Mount Rainier is a dormant volcano.
Everett

Visual Studio .NET 2003. After Everett, a large city near Seattle.
Whidbey

Visual Studio 2005. After Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. A little farther from Seattle than Everett.
Orcas

Visual Studio 2008. Named after Orcas Island, located in Puget Sound. Farther still from Seattle.
Rosario

Team System-only release after Visual Studio 2008. Named after a resort located on Orcas Island.
Burton

Visual Studio Team System. Unknown, although it is the name of a North American manufacturer of snowboards.
Hawai

Successor or Orcas. An island 'much further out' than Orcas or Whidbey. Also, where the development team plan to celebrate its completion.
Hatteras

Visual Studio Team System's Source Control System. Named after the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the Outer Banks region of North Carolina.
Ocracoke

Visual Studio Team System load testing suite. Named after the Ocracoke Island Lighthouse on Ocracoke Island, also in North Carolina.
Currituck

Team Foundation Work Item Tracking. Named after the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla, North Carolina.
Bodie

Team Foundation Server SDK. Named after the Bodie Island Lighthouse in North Carolina.
Whitehorse

Visual Studio Team System's designers for architects.
Includes Application Designer, Logical Data Center Designer, System Designer, and Deployment Designer.
Fidalgo

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WinFX. Named after Fidalgo Island, located in Puget Sound in the San Juan Islands.
Tuscany

Online version of Visual Studio. Currently a research project.
Lightning

.Net CLR
Clarity

LINQ. Language Integrated Query Language extensions to expose query syntax natively to languages such as Visual Basic .NET and C#
Milan

Microsoft Surface. Table-top style computer with multi-touch touchscreen interface.
Mira

Windows CE .NET-based technology for smart displays.
Singularity

Experimental operating system based on the Microsoft .NET platform, using software-based type safety as a replacement for hardware-based memory protection. Project homepage.
Avalon

    Windows Presentation Foundation
Hail Storm

    .Net My Services. Project to make MSN-hosted user data available to the same users at non-Microsoft web sites; never released
Indigo

    Windows Communication Foundation
Jolt

    Silverlight 1.0
Paxos

    Silverlight 1.1
Toaster

In Microsoft jargon, the "toaster" is the hardware equivalent of fictional entities, such as the Contoso company or the http://tempuri.org/ URI, used in documentation and sample code as placeholders to be redefined by third-party developers.
Astoria

A framework that takes advantage of Windows Communication Foundation and the Entity Data Model (EDM) to allow developers to expose data in the cloud. Read More...
Rotor

Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure (SSCLI)
Atlas

An implementation for ASP.NET of Ajax native to the .NET Framework 2.0.

Windows Codenames

Whistler

            Windows XP
Springboard

            Windows XP SP2
Longhorn

Windows Vista/ Windows Server 2008 (In Development). Named after the Longhorn Bar in the Whistler-Blackcomb resort
Fiji

Windows Vista Service Pack 1
Polaris

Windows Media Player 11 for XP
Aurora

Windows Media Player 11 for Vista

SQL Server Codenames

Hydra

            SQL 6.5
Sphinx

            SQL 7.0
Shiloh

            SQL 2000
Yukon

            SQL 2005
Katmai/Akadia

            SQL 2008

Windows Live Codenames

Kahuna

    Windows Live Mail
Tornado

    MSN Messenger
Istanbul

    Microsoft Office Communicator 2005

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Code Names , .Net , Technology , Thinder , Zamboni , Aspen , Cool , Rainier , Everett , Whidbey , Orcas , Rosario , Burton , Hawai , Hatteras , Ocracoke , Currituck , Bodie , Whitehorse , Fidalgo , Tuscany , Lightning , Clarity , Milan , Mira , Singularity , Avalon , Hail Storm , Indigo , Jolt , Paxos , Toaster , Astoria , Rotor , Atlas , Hydra , Sphinx , Shiloh , Yokun , Katmai , Akadia , Kahuna , Tornado

Happy Diwali

2007-11-11T11:42:00.000+05:30

Diwali is the celebration of enlightenment. This year, Diwali fulfilled one of my dream. I always fantasized about wearing traditional India dress - dhoti kurta in office. But you are not allowed wearing such dress in office - damn office protocol. On Diwali, our admin department was kind enough to let us wear ethnic wear. I took the opportunity and wear dhoti kurta.

Diwali is a five day celebration. The first day is called dhanteras. Traditionally, utensils are purchased on this day. Second day is chotti Diwali also called Naraka Chaturdashi. This is said to be the Diwali of shopkeepers. People buy sweets, crackers etc, on this day. The third day -Diwali is the main festival. People wear new clothes and distribute sweets. People worship the goddess of wealth - Laxmi along with Ganesha, the son of Lord Shiva. The next day is Govardhan Puja. The go-dhan i.e. cattle especially cow is worshiped this day. The last day is Bhaiduj, the day to express love between brothers a sisters.

Every corner of the city is lighted with candles and diyas. Now-a-days people use electric lights. The city seems like beautiful heaven. People burn crackers and fire works.

But I have some concerns. First, why we celebrate Diwali. Common belief is that Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya on this day after killing Ravana, the king of Lanka. Then why don't we worship Lord Rama? Some people believe this day as the beginning of Hindu financial year. So we worship goddess Laxmi. That's OK. Then why do we waste money in crackers?

We do worse to our environment on this auspicious day. Crackers cause lots of air pollution and noise pollution (report). People suffering with heart disease are prone to attack because of the loud and sudden noise of crackers. The amount of poisonous gases such as sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide in the air increases beyond limits on Diwali. Even you are not able to breath smoothly.

In India, we have less electricity than we need. And we waste thousands of megawatts of electricity on a single day. Does this do any good to us or our country? As a responsible citizen, we must think about these problems.

The true celebration of Diwali, however, means something else. Diwali comes after a chain of festivals. First comes navratras. This is a nine day festival where people keep fasts and pray different goddesses. People prey shakti (The Power) which governs the world. The aim of navratras is to purify our behavior. It is the process of aatm-shuddhi i.e. purification of one's thoughts. After navratra, comes Dussehra. This is celebrated as the victory of good over the evil. This means that by dushhera, we have cleared and purified our thoughts. A pure heart is subject to enlightenment. So now we are on the path of enlightenment. Then came Diwali - the festival of enlightenment. By now, our thoughts are purest and our heart is full of enlightenment.

So Diwali is about the lightning of our inner self and not about wasting electricity and polluting air. I hope, next time before purchasing crackers, we will think about it.

What is KISS?

2007-11-06T21:38:00.001+05:30

The term KISS is an acronym of the phrase "Keep It Simple, Stupid", and the KISS principle states that design simplicity should be a key goal and unnecessary complexity avoided. It serves as a useful and frequent verbal exhortation (or even dedicated policy) in software development, animation, engineering, and in strategic planning (especially military operations). Other versions of the phrase include "Keep It Simple & Stupid" (most recently used in west-European literature), "Keep It Sweet & Simple", "Keep It Short & Simple", "Keep it Simple, Sweetheart", and "Keep it Simple, Sherlock".

The principle roughly corresponds to Occam's razor, and to Albert Einstein's maxim that "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."

Etymology: The acronym KISS is known to have been in use during the U.S. Apollo program in the 1960s.

Technorati Tags: KISS , Architecture , Software Designing

The Bluetooth Story

2007-11-05T22:17:00.001+05:30

Microsoft scripting guys published an interesting story about the origin of Bluetooth at Microsoft TechNet. Here it goes:
The Bluetooth “personal area networking” protocol was named in honor of Harald Bluetooth Gormson, son of King Gorm the Old, the one time King of Jutland. (We’re not sure if Gorm the Old is the name that the King was given at birth; that would be pretty cool, though, wouldn’t it?) We found it interesting that Harald’s middle name was Bluetooth. After all, Scripting Guy Jean Bluetooth Ross has spent her entire life (79 years and counting) thinking she was the only person to have that middle name. Good news, Jean: you’re not the only Bluetooth after all.
At any rate, Harald became King sometime around 958, upon the death of his father. Over time, Harald conquered all of modern-day Denmark and Norway, and, along the way, kind of, sort of converted to Christianity. He had a son named Sweyn Forkbeard who, no doubt in retaliation for being given the name Sweyn Forkbeard, eventually led a revolt that cost his father both his throne and his life.
But Harald got the last laugh; after all, how many Forkbeard-enabled devices do you see these days?
Note. There seems to be some disagreement as to where the name Bluetooth came from. Some scholars insist it comes from the old Norse words for “dark-skinned” and “great man,” meaning that Harald had dark skin and, well, was a great man. Others say it’s because Harald actually had a blue tooth. Fortunately, Peter Costantini, the oldest living Scripting Guy, went to junior high school with Harald, so we’ll ask Peter about that.
Just as soon as he wakes up from his nap.
After we disposed of the question “Where did the name Bluetooth come from?” a second question popped into our heads: how can you tell if a computer is Bluetooth-enabled? That turned out to be a much tougher question to answer; in fact, we never did find anything that could tell us definitively whether or not a computer was Bluetooth-enabled. (Or at least not a definitive way to do this programmatically; it’s easy enough to verify that a computer is Bluetooth-enabled by using the Windows Control Panel.) However, based on the fact that Bluetooth is a network protocol, we managed to come up with the following a script, a script that correctly determined whether a handful of test computers were Bluetooth-enabled:

Biography of Harald Bluetooth Gormson

Technorati Tags: Harald , Bluetooth , Scipting , TechNet , Jutland , Sweyn , Peter , Yanesh

ASP.Net Session

2007-11-01T22:19:00.001+05:30

SESSION
What is Session:
Session is an object at server side which helps in implementing the mechanism to identify a revisiting user over a stateless protocol like HTTP.
What is Session State
The session object stores the information about a session (like session key). It may also store other information in the form of session variables. The collection of values stored in session object is called session state.

State Management
The management of session state is called state management. Different server technologies implement different mechanisms for the state management. ASP.net supports both, client side state management as well as server side state management.
At client side, following techniques are used for state management:
- Cookie
- Hidden Field
- View State
- Control State
- Query String
At server side, following are the techniques, used for state management:
- Application State
- Cache Object
- Session State
- Database
In ASP.net, there are three ways to manage session state:
- In-process session state
- Out-of-process session state
- database
These states are configured in web.config file's session state element.
<SessionState mode="Off | InProc | StateServer | SqlServer | Custome" />
InProc Session State
when session state is InProc, objects are stored as live reference in the HttpRuntime Internal Cache. The session state is held in memory.
- If worker process or application domain recycles, all session data is lost.
- If a web site is maintained on more than one machine, a user may be redirected to any other machine. when the user returns to the original machine, a fresh empty session is created. So InProc session state will not work here.
- If web gardening is used on a multi processor system, where each worker processor has an affinity for a particular CPU, don't use InProc session state.
Accessing Session Object:
the EnableSessionState of @Page directive controls the access to a session object for a page. The different values for EnableSessionState attribute are:
- (i) True: read/write access to session object. Acquires a write lock on the session object. No other page, requested from the same session, can access session object.
- (ii) False: no access to session object.
- (iii) ReadOnly: Only readonly access to session object. Acquires a reader lock on the session object.
Out-of-process Session State
when mode is set to state server in web.config, ASP.net maintains out-of-process session state. Out of process session is maintained by aspnet_state.exe file. It runs as a window service and listenes to TCP port 42424. The port can be changed using the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\aspnet_state\Parameters\Port.
The aspnet_state service is not started by default. It can be started using MMC service or by running following command:
net start aspnet_state.
To use out-of-process, mode is set to StateServer in config.sys file.
<Configurattion>
<System.Web>
<SessionState mode="StateServer" StateConnectionString = "tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424" />
</System.Web>
</Configuration>
Since session state is managed on the local machine, so local host's IP is given. You may use a separate machine as state server. In that case, IP of state server should be given in the StateConnectionString. 42424 is the default port. Any port may be used after changing the registry but it should be open.
Out-of-process session state leaves the worker process (aspnet_wp.exe or w3wp.exe) and enters into the state process (aspnet_state.exe). Therefore out-of-process state can't be stored as reference. The objects are passed between processes in binary serialized form. So any object which is used in out of process session state must be instantiated from a serializable class.
A class can be made serializable in the following way:
VB.NET
<Serializable()> _
Public Class MyClass
...
End Class
C#

[Serializable]
public class MyClass{
...
}
SQL-Backed Session State
skipped for now.
Cookie-less session state
Include cookiless = "UseUri" in web.config file.
<SessionState Mode = "InProc" Cookieless = "UseUri" />
In Cookieless session state session-id is embedded into the URL. it seems to be a directory in the URL path.
- The session key consists of ASCII values and visible to everyone. They can be easily tempered.
- The session is lost, if a relative URL is invoked directly by typing its address. This is because, in this case session key will not be embedded in to the URL.
- To generate URL at server side, HttpResponse.ApplyAppPAthModifier method should be involved. For example
Response.Write(Response.ApplyAppPAthModifier("foo/bar.aspx")
View State
View State is a encrypted hidden field which contains the key-value pair of the values of controls at a page. ViewState can be enabled or disables using the enableViewState attribute of @Page directive. The web server controls also have this attribute.
Objects or variables can be added to view state manually as follows:
ViewState["MyKey"] = myKey
Any object, which is to be added to the view state must be derived from a serializable class.
Since view state is encrypted, a developer cannot look into it. Some tools are available to examine the view state. One such tool called View State Decoder is available at http://www.pluralsight.com. Some tips on using view state are also available at www.hanselman.com/blog/searchview.aspx/q=viewstate. A tool to generate machine key is also available at pluralstate.com/tools.aspx.
Securing View State
The <machinekey> element of web.config is used to assign validation key to view state. A algorithm is used to protect view state.
<machineKey ValidationKey = "AutoGenerate, IsolateApps"
decryptionKey = "AutoGenerate, IsolateApps"
validation = "SHA1" />
ASP.net automatically generate a 128 bit key. IsolateApps tells ASP.net to generate a unique key for each application using application's id. The available validation methods are SHA1, MD5 and 3DES. SHA1 and MD5 are used for temper-proofing while 3DES is used for encryption.
At the page level, in the <pages> configuration, Auto or Always values can be specified to viewStateEncryptionMode attribute. Auto encrypts the view state only when a control requests encryption using Page.RegisterRequiresViewStateEncryption method. Always specifies that the view state should be encrypted always.
Series of Events during The Life of A HTTP Request:
Begin Request
Authenticate Request
determines who the user is
Authorize Request
determine rights of user
Resolve Request Cache
determine weather request can by-pass additional processing
Acquire Request State
session state associated with request is about to be acquired
PreRequest Handler execute
application code of page execute at this point. HTTP handler is called
Post Request Handler Execute
get fired just after HTTP handler is called
Release Request State
session state is stored based on web.config setting
Update Request Cache
resulting output is ready to be added to cache
End request

Technorati Tags: ASP , ASP.net , Session , Session State , ASP.Net Session , Yanesh

Some cool tips on writing good blog entry

2007-10-31T23:40:00.001+05:30

Technorati Tags: Blog , Blogging , Writing , Tips , Revising , Good Writing , Good Blogging , Scott Mitchell , Yanesh

Scott Mitchell (founder, 4 guys from rolla) published a post on his blog about writing good blogs. I read the post and follow the suggested links. After reading through a chain of links, I read lots of material on good blogging. Below is the summary of what I read:
How To Achieve Ultimate Blog Success In One Easy Step(http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000983.html)

My theory is that lead generation derives from Google rank and that the best way to increase Google rank is to be like a professional fighter: neither jabs nor haymakers are enough. You must be always jabbing and you must regularly throw haymakers. Blog continuously to keep your hit-rate and link-traffic high and write longer pieces, containing the high-value words associated with your niche, occasionally.

Fear of Writing (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000516.html)

And that's exactly why people who are afraid they can't write should be blogging. It's like exercise. No matter how out of shape you are, if you exercise a few times a week, you'll inevitably get fitter. And if you write a small blog entry a few times every week, you're bound to become a better writer. If you're not writing because you're intimidated by writing, well, you're likely to stay that way forever.

Users don't care about you (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000536.html)

Unless what you're writing ..

solves their problem
provides useful information
entertains them
makes them feel like they rule

It's irrational to expect users to care about it. Every time you write, ask yourself, "so what?" If you can't answer that question convincingly, reformulate and try again.

Blogging about Blogging (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000297.html)

you have to want to write
you have to believe you have something to say
you have to have an interesting way of saying it
you have to be a decent (not great, but decent) writer
you have to enable blog comments

Rory explains first three of above point in details in his blog post "Why do some blogs succeed?".

Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing (http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004023.html)

0. Speak what you write: If you can't speak it naturally, rewrite it. Simple.
1. Punctuate, damn you:
2. With sentences, shorter is better than longer:
3. Learn to friggin' spell: This is particularly the case with basic spelling errors like using "your" when you're supposed to be using "you're" or "its" for "it's" (or in both cases, vice-versa). For every spelling error you make, your apparent IQ drops by 5 points. For every "there, they're, their" type of mistake you make, your apparent IQ drops by 10 points.
4. Don't use words you don't really know:
5. Grammar matters, but not as much
6. Front-load your point: Now, sometimes people write to find out what their point is; I think that's fine because I do that myself. But most of the time after I've figured out my point, I'll go back and re-write.
7. Try to write well every single time you write: There really is no excuse for writing poorly in one's blog. You'll look stupid for the whole world to see, and it will be archived for as long as humanity remembers how to produce electricity.
8. Read people who write well: Don't just read for entertainment, but also look to see how they do their writing -- how they craft sentences, use punctuation, break their prose into paragraphs, and so on.
9. When in doubt, simplify: Ultimately, people write to be understood (excepting Gertrude Stein and Tristan Tzara, who were intentionally being difficult). Most people are, in fact, capable of understanding. Therefore, if you can't make people understand what you write, most of the time it's not just because the world is filled with morons, it's also because you are not being clear. Downshift. People will be happy to know what you're saying.
10. Speak what you write: If you can't make your writing understandable to you, you can't make it understandable to others.

Hints for revising (http://www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog/2004/11/16)

Read your text aloud. Reading aloud is one way to get some distance, to separate the piece from your memory of writing it.
If a sentence is unclear, split it.
If a paragraph is unclear, split it. Then Write text to head off the problem, then return to adjust the guilty paragraph.
If an idea or procedure is complicated, add an example.
After you change a sentence, leave it aside for a while, then come back and reread at least the whole paragraph that contains it. Then tweak the sentence to make it fit better into its environment.
Can you turn that bullet list into one or more paragraphs? Bullet lists are, on average, easier for writers but harder for readers. They don't provide transition between two ideas.

HTTP Modules' Events and Their Order of Firing

2007-10-22T23:50:00.001+05:30

Below is the list of Events raised by HttpHandlers. These events are in the sequence of firing.
OnBeginRequest
OnAuthenticateRequest
OnPostAuthenticateRequest
OnAuthorizeRequest
OnPostAuthorizeRequest
OnResolveRequestCache
OnPostResolveRequestCache
OnPostMapRequestHandler
OnAcquireRequestState
OnPostAcquireRequestState
OnPreRequestHandlerExecute
Page_Load Event of the Page
OnPostRequestHandlerExecute
OnReleaseRequestState
OnPostReleaseRequestState
OnUpdateRequestCache
OnPostUpdateRequestCache
OnEndRequest
OnPreSendRequestHeaders
I wrote a http handler to check the sequence of execution of event handlers. Below is the program. Two events in the program are commented because these require integration with the IIS pipeline. I used Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition Beta 2 to write this program. So may be express edition does not support integration with IIS. I haven't checked it yet. Here is the program:
using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Xml.Linq;
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for AddSign
/// </summary>
public class AddSign: IHttpModule
{
public delegate void MyEventHandler(Object s, EventArgs e);
private MyEventHandler _eventHandler = null;
public event MyEventHandler MyEvent
{
add { _eventHandler += value; }
remove { _eventHandler -= value; }
}
public AddSign()
{
//
// TODO: Add constructor logic here
//
}
#region IHttpModule Members
void IHttpModule.Dispose()
{
//throw new NotImplementedException();
}
void IHttpModule.Init(HttpApplication context)
{
//throw new NotImplementedException();
context.EndRequest += new EventHandler(OnEndRequest);
context.AcquireRequestState += new EventHandler(OnAcquireRequestState);
context.AuthenticateRequest += new EventHandler(OnAuthenticateRequest);
context.AuthorizeRequest += new EventHandler(OnAuthorizeRequest);
context.BeginRequest += new EventHandler(OnBeginRequest);
context.Disposed += new EventHandler(OnDisposed);
context.Error += new EventHandler(OnError);
//context.LogRequest += new EventHandler(OnLogRequest); //This operation requires IIS integrated pipeline mode.
//context.MapRequestHandler += new EventHandler(OnMapRequestHandler); //This operation requires IIS integrated pipeline mode.
context.PostAcquireRequestState += new EventHandler(OnPostAcquireRequestState);
context.PostAuthenticateRequest += new EventHandler(OnPostAuthenticateRequest);
context.PostAuthorizeRequest += new EventHandler(OnPostAuthorizeRequest);
context.PostMapRequestHandler += new EventHandler(OnPostMapRequestHandler);
context.PostReleaseRequestState += new EventHandler(OnPostReleaseRequestState);
context.PostRequestHandlerExecute += new EventHandler(OnPostRequestHandlerExecute);
context.PostResolveRequestCache += new EventHandler(OnPostResolveRequestCache);
context.PostUpdateRequestCache += new EventHandler(OnPostUpdateRequestCache);
context.PreRequestHandlerExecute += new EventHandler(OnPreRequestHandlerExecute);
context.PreSendRequestContent += new EventHandler(OnPreSendRequestContent);
context.PreSendRequestHeaders += new EventHandler(OnPreSendRequestHeaders);
context.ReleaseRequestState += new EventHandler(OnReleaseRequestState);
context.ResolveRequestCache += new EventHandler(OnResolveRequestCache);
context.UpdateRequestCache += new EventHandler(OnUpdateRequestCache);
}
#endregion
public void OnEndRequest(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnEndRequest ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnAcquireRequestState(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnAcquireRequestState");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnAuthenticateRequest(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnAuthenticateRequest");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnAuthorizeRequest(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnAuthorizeRequest");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnBeginRequest(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnBeginRequest");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnDisposed(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnDisposed");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnError(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnError");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnLogRequest(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnLogRequest");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnMapRequestHandler(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnMapRequestHandler");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostAcquireRequestState(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostAcquireRequestState");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostAuthenticateRequest(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostAuthenticateRequest");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostAuthorizeRequest(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostAuthorizeRequest");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostMapRequestHandler(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostMapRequestHandler");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostReleaseRequestState(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostReleaseRequestState");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostRequestHandlerExecute(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostRequestHandlerExecute");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostResolveRequestCache(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostResolveRequestCache");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPostUpdateRequestCache(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPostUpdateRequestCache");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPreRequestHandlerExecute(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPreRequestHandlerExecute");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPreSendRequestContent(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPreSendRequestContent");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnPreSendRequestHeaders(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnPreSendRequestHeaders");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnReleaseRequestState(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnReleaseRequestState");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnResolveRequestCache(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnResolveRequestCache");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
public void OnUpdateRequestCache(Object s, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = s as HttpApplication;
app.Context.Response.Write("OnUpdateRequestCache");
app.Context.Response.Write(" ");
if (_eventHandler != null)
_eventHandler(this, null);
}
}

Script# - Another Flower in .Net Bouquet

2007-10-18T23:51:00.001+05:30

Script# is a compiler that compiles C# code into JavaScript. This sounds great for ASP.Net developers who program into C#. Most of the time, C# programmers don't have good hand in JavaScript.

With the client machine increasing their processing power constantly, the demand for client side scripting is very high. People talk about a new architecture that would obsolete the server side programming model. Web serve will only server HTML pages with JavaScript. If any server side processing (or database connectivity) is required, web services will fill up the gap. Using JSON, JavaScript will now directly interact with a web service from client side. All UI processing, validations etc. will be done on client side.

C# and VB.net folks have to worry about that. Either they have to switch to web services or their job will not be safe. Nikhil Kothari also thinks same (though he has not expressed it anywhere). So he decided to bring C# developers on the client side. Nikhil is currently working on a project called Script#. In his own words:

"Script# brings the C# developer experience (programming and tooling) to JavaScript/Ajax world."

The project is still in development phase but you can try your hands on it. Download the Script# and read Nikhil's demonstration. You can also watch a video. Nikhil says:

"Essentially the Script# compiler is a C# compiler that generates JavaScript instead of IL. A key driving goal of the design is to produce readable JavaScript that you may have authored yourself, and would be ok deploying into real apps."

Links

Introduction to Script#
Download Script#
Download Script# Video
Nikhil Kothari's Weblog

Technorati : .Net, Client Side Code, JavaScript, Script#, Server Side Code, Tech Review, Technology, c#

A Recipe For killing Internet In India

2007-10-17T23:31:00.000+05:30

A Recipe For Killing Internet In India

2007-10-17T23:20:00.001+05:30

A news published in Times Of India, Oct 17th, 2007 (internet edition)

A Recipe For Killing Internet In India

Standing Committee Goes Against International Norms To Stack Odds Against Net Service Providers, Says Manoj Mitta

There is a clear and present danger to internet in India। If the recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee were to go through, you might as well pull the shutters down on the net in the country, because the committee seeks to raise the liability of internet service providers for any third party content in a manner that it will become difficult to run the service and stay away from jail.

This isn't an exaggeration. Over 85% of internet deals with third party content। This includes search engines, mail services, messengers, blogs, communication and community sites. If they were to be held responsible for the sites searched, mails sent, blogs filed or scraps on community sites then service providers would be hauled up by the police for acts they are not even faintly responsible for.

Why, then, is the committee proposing this insanity? The answer is simple the committee has failed to understand the internet। Frankly, there's no difference between the phone and the postal service and the net it's just that one delivers voice or post and the other data. Both deal with third party content which is impossible to verify.

How would a mail service know, for instance, if two friends exchange copyright material? Or, how would a search engine track if someone accesses sites spreading hatred, or worse, promoting terror? It's all out there the responsibility of who fetches what should be that of the individual, not the service provider।

Therefore, what the standing committee is seeking to do is something like making a postal service responsible for every mischievous mail it delivers perhaps by a drug dealer giving details of a consignment or a student sending photocopies of a book and hence infringing on copyright। Or, something like making a phone service, such as MTNL or BSNL, responsible for every bit of dirty talk or criminal conspiracy over its wires.

Perhaps the committee is confusing internet with media like TV or print. In the latter, content is either self-generated or by designated news or TV agencies. The content goes through several layers of vetting and checks. This is not true of internet sites that provide mail service, aggregation of communities, picture sharing, etc।

This is possibly why in its report last month on the Information Technology (Amendment) Bill 2006, the committee headed by Congress MP Nikhil Kumar has called upon the government to abandon the proposal to reduce the liability of service providers or intermediaries in the wake of industry outrage over the 2004 arrest of Baazee।com's CEO for the auction of a CD containing an infamous student porn MMS.

The bone of contention is Section 79 of the IT Act 2000 which says that no service provider shall be liable for any third party information if he proves that the offence was committed ''without his knowledge or that he had exercised all due diligence'' to prevent the commission of such contravention।

Since the existing safeguard failed to save Baazee.com CEO Avnish Bajaj from being subjected to the ignominy of arrest and detention, the government sought to reduce the liability further in its 2006 Bill. The Bill raises the bar for taking action against ISPs by stipulating that they are not liable unless it is proved that they have conspired or abetted in the commission of the unlawful act.

Service providers under no obligation in US, EU
This is really how the law is in both Europe and in the US। To the industry here, the proposed amendment seemed a fair safeguard। But the standing committee, far from endorsing the change, has recommended that the existing Section 79 should be strengthened by casting ''a definite obligation'' on the service providers to ensure that the third party information was within the parameters of the law especially because ''it is very difficult to establish conspiracy or abetment'' on their part।

The committee also took objection to the Bill's proposal to relieve the service providers of the burden of demonstrating that they had exercised due diligence to prevent the third parties from misusing online market places and auction sites। ''The committee are of the firm opinion that if explicit provisions about blocking of objectionable material through various means are not codified, expecting self-regulation from the intermediaries, who basically work for commercial gains (sic), will just remain a pipedream,'' it said.

For all its efforts to make out a case for increasing the liability of service providers, the committee glossed over the fact that the Bill was in tune with the approach adopted by advanced countries that have given sufficient thought before framing their Internet laws. Take, for instance, the relevant law in the European Union. It says that a service provider storing third party information is liable to criminal action only when he ''by intent is storing illegal information or assisting in illegal activities।''

What is even more contrary to the committee's report is the express clarification in the European law that its provisions ''do not impose a general obligation on service providers to monitor the information, which they transmit, or store on the request of a recipient for the service, nor a general obligation to seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activities.'' Similarly, in the US, both courts and legislation broadly seek to reduce the liability of service providers on charges such as copyright infringement and defamation।

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for instance, spells out the criteria for establishing liability and makes it difficult to sue service providers vicariously for copyright infringement committed by third parties. So, which way should Indian laws go? The way the advanced countries have gone, or in accordance with the wishes of some misinformed MPs that would spell the death of Internet in India

TOI Link: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOI/navigator.asp?Daily=C

Windows Live Mail

2007-10-17T22:41:00.001+05:30

Windows Live Mail is Microsoft's successor to both Outlook Express and Windows Mail, the latter of which ships with Windows Vista. Microsoft describes Windows Live Mail as a superset of both of these consumer-oriented email products, and they will only actively develop Windows Live Mail going forward. Windows Live Mail is dramatically nicer than either Outlook Express or Windows Mail, and it includes a lot more useful functionality, especially if you're a Hotmail user. (This applies equally to msn.com and live.com accounts as well.) But Windows Live Mail isn't limited to just Hotmail accounts: This is a full-fledged Internet communications client, with support for POP3 and IMAP email, RSS feeds, and USENET newsgroups.

Originally envisioned as an ad-supported email client for Hotmail users, Windows Live Mail has evolved over time and is now a much more impressive release as a result. The shipping version of Windows Live Mail--now available in a feature-complete public beta--offers seamless Hotmail/MSN.com/Live.com integration, as expected, POP3 and IMAP email functionality that rivals third party applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird, RSS support, USENET newsgroup support, and integration with various Windows Live services. If you use Hotmail and/or other Windows Live products like Windows Live Messenger, you're going to want to check this one out. Heck, if you use Internet email of any kind, you're going to want to check this one out.

Windows Live Mail sports the new Windows Live look-and-feel, which is heavy on the whites but with high-contrast bluish-green accents. Like newer versions of Outlook, and like the Web-based Windows Live Hotmail, the Windows Live Mail application is visually split into three mail columnar panes, from left to right: Folders, Message list, and Reading pane. Actually, there's an odd fourth pane called Active Search, too, but you can and should turn this off: Active Search is a weird front-end to Microsoft's Live Search service, and its real purpose is to deliver ads and sponsored results.

In many ways, Windows Live Mail works like Windows Live Hotmail, and if you're familiar with the new version of that Web service, or with traditional email clients like Outlook, you'll have no problem getting up to speed. Architecturally, Windows Live Mail is based on Outlook Express and Windows Mail, so some UI bits, like the Options dialog, and the files Windows Live Mail creates, like the .eml email files, might look familiar. What's old is new again.

I am using Windows Live Mail as my primary email client since a few weeks and have absolutely no issues. I like some of the customization bits: You can color-code the folders for each email account you configure and apply a Windows Live color scheme to the entire application so that it matches your other Windows Live applications and services.

Speaking of integration, Windows Live Mail is particularly useful if you're a Windows Live Messenger user. It can be configured to automatically log you onto Messenger whenever you launch the mail client. On the flipside, if you see an email alert in Messenger and click it, Windows Live Mail will launch instead of forcing you to use the Web client. The Contacts portion of Windows Live Mail, which is also a native Windows application, integrates your traditional email contacts with your Windows Live Messenger contacts list, too. A Blog button on the application's toolbar lets you publish the current message to your Windows Live Spaces blog.

As a modern email application, Windows Live Mail supports instant search, which works wonderfully. There's also an Outlook-like search folders feature, though I haven't found a way save email searches as dynamic virtual folders. Instead, stock saved search folders, like Unread email, Unread from contacts, and Unread feeds, are available.

So why would you want to use Windows Live Mail instead of the Windows Live Hotmail Web service? First, and most obviously, Windows Live Mail works offline. So you can sit on an airplane or in some other disconnected location, navigate through and read your email, respond to emails, write new emails, and perform other actions that would be impossible with the Web client while offline. Once you're online again, all the pending email is sent and everything is synched up again, just as with Outlook and other traditional email clients.

Windows Live Mail also features email account aggregation, so that you can easily access email from two or more accounts (be them Hotmail/Live.com accounts or any combination of POP3 and IMAP accounts), all from the same location. With Web-based email services, you might need to have a different browser window open for each service.

From a safety perspective, Windows Live Mail also provides protection against phishing attacks, viruses, and other malware. This works for all account types, so even though your Hotmail account may be protected by server-side AV scanning, your POP3/IMAP accounts might not. And if you're into the Windows Live stuff, the integration pieces are quite interesting as well.

Windows Live Hotmail is free and available for users running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Vista (any version). If you're currently using Outlook Express or Windows Mail, I strongly recommend upgrading to this product immediately. It is nicer looking, works well with non-Hotmail accounts, and offers much more useful functionality than its predecessors. I like it quite a bit.

Technorati : .Net, Tech Review, Technology, Windows Live Mail, e-mail client, yanesh tyagi

Edit in Browser

2007-10-14T23:20:00.001+05:30

Edit any web page in browser without any other software

This is cool!

GO to any web page, clear the address bar, and paste this:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

and hit enter.

Feel free to edit whatever you want on the page!

Salary Negotiation

2007-10-14T23:15:00.001+05:30

OK. that's what we all do it for money… not every one right. This is probably the weakest area for techno savvy guys. They are not good negotiators. Many guys at the first instance smile and say "NEGOTIABLE SIR". So here are some points:-

√ Do a study of what's the salary trend? For instance have some kind of baseline. For example what's the salary trend on number of year of experience? Discuss this with your friends out.

√ Do not mention your expected salary on the resume?

√ Let the employer first make the salary offer. Try to delay the salary discussion till the end.

√ If they say what you expect ? , come with a figure with a little higher end and say negotiable. Remember never say negotiable on something which you have aimed, HR guys will always bring it down. So negotiate on AIMED SALARY + some thing extra.

√ The normal trend is that they look at your current salary and add a little it so that they can pull you in. Do your home work my salary is this much and I expect this much so whatever it is now I will not come below this.

√ Do not be harsh during salary negotiations.

√ It's good to aim high. For instance I want 1 billion dollars / month but at the same time be realistic.

√ Some companies have those hidden cost attached in salary clarify that rather to be surprised at the first salary package.

√ Many of the companies add extra performance compensation in your basic which can be surprising at times. So have a detail break down. Best is to discuss on hand salary rather than NET.

√ Talk with the employer in what frequency does the hike happen.

√ Take everything in writing , go back to your house and have a look once with a cool head is the offer worth it of what your current employer is giving.

√ Do not forget once you have job in hand you can come back to your current employer for negotiation so keep that thing in mind.

√ Remember the worst part is cribbing after joining the company that your colleague is getting this much. So be careful while interview negotiations or be sportive to be a good negotiator in the next interview.

√ One very important thing the best negotiation ground is not the new company where you are going but the old company which you are leaving. So once you have offer on hand get back to your old employee and show them the offer and then make your next move. It's my experience that negotiating with the old employer is easy than with the new one….Frankly if approached properly rarely any one will say no. Just do not be aggressive or egoistic that you have an offer on hand.

Top of all some time some things are worth above money :- JOB SATISFACTION. So whatever you negotiate if you think you can get JOB SATISFACTION aspect on higher grounds go for it. I think its worth more than money.

Redirecting to new window in c#

2007-10-09T23:06:00.002+05:30

As a developer, many time I wished to redirect user to a new URL into a new browser window. I wanted to use response.redirect at server side and open the new web page into a new window. But the way redirection works makes it impossible to open a new window from server side. The common solution to this problem is to use java script's window.open statement at client side and then fetch the new URL into the new window. To me, this is totally unacceptable while I am writing server side code. So I decided to write some code to do this. But before writing, I googled for the same. I found a good solution for the problem. I would like to give proper credit to the author, who chose not to publish his/her name. As they say a code worth one thousand words, here is the code:
ResponseHelper Class:
The ResponseHelper class does all the magic. It adds a client side script to the response which opens the new window. Use this class in place of response class if you want to open new window. You may create a new class in App_Code folder with name ResponseHelper.cs.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;

/// <summary>
/// ResponseHelper Class provides static methos Redirect
/// which opens new browser window.
/// </summary>
public static class ResponseHelper
{
   public static void Redirect(string url, string target, string windowFeatures)
   {
       HttpContext context = HttpContext.Current;

       if ((String.IsNullOrEmpty(target)
               || target.Equals("_self",
                   StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
               && String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))
       {
           context.Response.Redirect(url);
       }
       else
       {
           Page page = (Page)context.Handler;
           if (page == null)
           {
               throw new InvalidOperationException
                   ("Cannot redirect to new window outside Page context.");
           }
           url = page.ResolveClientUrl(url);
           string script;

           if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))
           {
               script = @"window.open(""{0}"", ""{1}"", ""{2}"");";
           }
           else
           {
               script = @"window.open(""{0}"", ""{1}"");";
           }
           script = String.Format(script, url, target, windowFeatures);
           ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(
               page,
               typeof(Page),
               "Redirect",
               script,
               true);
       }
   }
}

Using Response Helper Class:

ResponseHelper class’ static Redirect method is used to redirect into new window.

ResponseHelper.Redirect("default.aspx", "_blank", null);

The Redirect method accepts thee parameters:

Redirection URL: The URl which will be opened into the new window.
Target Frame:
1. Use “_Self”, if you don’t want to open new window. Null means “_Self”.
2. Use “_Blank” to open into new window.
Window Feature: Window features can be added like width, height, scrolling etc. using this parameter.

Example of Using Response Helper Class

I created a page default.aspx. This page has a link button lbtn1. In the OnClick event of this link button, I opened another page Page2.aspx in new window.

Default.aspx

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"  CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
   <title>Redirect to New Window in C# Example</title>
</head>
<body>
   <form id="form1" runat="server">
   <div>
       Click on the button below to open new window.<br />
      
       <asp:LinkButton ID="lbtnRedirect"
               Text="Open New Window"
               OnClick="lbtnRedirect_Click"
               runat="server">
       </asp:LinkButton><br />
   </div>
   </form>
</body>
</html>

Default.aspx.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
   protected void lbtnRedirect_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       ResponseHelper.Redirect("page2.aspx", "blank", null);
   }
}

Notes:

If you use it outside the context of a Page request, you can't redirect to a new window. The reason is the need to call the ResolveClientUrl method on Page, which I can't do if there is no Page. I could have just built my own version of that method, but it's more involved than you might think to do it right. So if you need to use this from an HttpHandler other than a Page, you are on your own.
Beware of popup blockers. New window is a popup. So it will not work if popup is blocked.
Obviously when you are redirecting to a new window, the current window will still be hanging around. Normally redirects abort the current request -- no further processing occurs. But for these redirects, processing continues, since we still have to serve the response for the current window (which also happens to contain the script to open the new window, so it is important that it completes).

Download Source code of this article (5kb in zip format).

Enjoying the power of Gmail

2007-10-08T22:41:00.001+05:30

When Google's free, web-based e-mail service was released in April of 2004, it was heralded as a revolutionary new approach to the web inbox. Indeed, conversation threads, search, tagging, and keyboard shortcuts have changed the way many look at their e-mail. But because it offers a much different experience than a desktop client, Gmail can take some getting used to. Here's our guide to getting the most out of Gmail.

Consolidate Your Accounts

You probably have several e-mail address; work, personal, one for mailing lists and perhaps a throw-away address for various online services. Gmail makes it easy to funnel all your e-mail in a single inbox. Best of all, you can send e-mails from your Gmail account and they will look like they came from your other addresses.

To set up additional accounts:

Head to the Settings tab in the top right corner of the Gmail interface and click on the Accounts tab.

Click Add Another Account in the "Get mail from other accounts" section.

Enter the e-mail address you'd like to integrate into Gmail and click Next.

Fill in all of your e-mail account login info. You can also select a number of other options such as always using a secure connection (if your other mail host provides that feature), leaving a copy on the server and control how Gmail handles the incoming messages. Save your changes.

Gmail will send a message to the new account, and you'll have to click the provided link to verify that it is in fact your account.

If you'd like to set up Gmail so that messages sent from your Gmail account look like they came from your other accounts, return the Accounts tab and repeat the above process in the "Send mail as" section. If you'd like, you can set any of your accounts as Gmail's default account to use when sending mail. Gmail's Compose interface also always gives you the option to select any verified address before you send a new message.

Labels

Gmail doesn't use folders. This is perhaps the most disorienting aspect for new users accustomed to filing mail according to time honored traditions. But Gmail does offer the same functionality you're used to with folders. Instead of filing messages in folders, Gmail lumps all your message in a single archive mailbox (which you can view by clicking the "All Mail" link). But Gmail uses labels (other sites call them "tags") to give you the same functionality as folders.

To get started using labels, click the Settings tab and then click Labels.

Create a new label. Let's say you want a label named "Work" for all your incoming work e-mails. Create the label and any time you get an e-mail that's work related, apply the label and archive the message.

Now click the label Work in Gmail's sidebar and you'll see all your filed messages, just like you would with a folder named "Work."

What makes labels more powerful is that single messages can have multiple labels, something that isn't possible with folders. Also, you can change or add labels at any time and test your searches to see how the labels will be applied.

Filters

Moving and archiving labeled messages by hand is tedious, and that's where filters come in handy. Gmail's filters are pretty similar in feature to those you've used in desktop clients. Define the matching criteria and then define what actions you want applied to those message.

Here's a tip for power filtering: Gmail uses the AND operator by default when combining filter attributes. Thus is want to match messages that come from foo@bar.com or have the subject line "test," we're out of luck. However, there's a way around this limitation because the "Has the words" option in the Filter dialog can accept any search criteria.

Thus in a single line in "Has The Words" we can define the follow rule: (from:(foo@bar.com) OR subject:(test)). This trick can also be used with any of the other Gmail search operators.

Unlimited e-mail accounts

The '+' symbol can be added after your user name and before the '@' symbol in a gmail address. Effectively you can have an unlimited number of gmail accounts by suffixing a word after the '+'. Example: If your e-mail address is bob@gmail.com you could use the address bob+wired@gmail .com when signing up for the wired news letter and then simply setup a filter for any mail sent to bob+wired@gmail.com. This feature is very handy for figuring out where spammers got your address from.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Gmail has some nice keyboard shortcuts you'll want to memorize. These are the essential ones:

j/k to select the next and previous messages in the mail list view

n/p to move between next and previous messages in message view

y to archive a message

c to compose

r/f to reply forward

*#* to delete

There are a host of others available. See the Gmail help pages for a more detailed list.

If you find yourself loving Gmail's simple shortcuts, but prefer a desktop client, have a look at the Thunderbird add-on GmailUI which brings many of Gmail's shortcuts to Thunderbird.

Access Gmail From Your Desktop

Though rumors of an official Google desktop client for Gmail have surfaced recently, you can still add your Gmail inbox to your favorite third-party client easily.

In Gmail, click on Settings, the "Forwarding and POP"

Check one of the two Enable POP boxes. Choose to either download all of your stored mail or only new messages from this point forward.

Select how you want Gmail to handle copies of your messages in your webmail interface. Either leave them untouched, archive them or delete them.

Click "Save Changes"

Configure your desktop e-mail client by following Google's instructions for your software.

Gmail Scripts For Power Users

If you're using a browser that supports Greasemonkey scripts, there are a whole bunch of things you can do to enhance Gmail. Some notable options include Gmail macros, which greatly enhances the keyboard shortcuts in Gmail, and Force encrypted connections which ensures that you always connect to Gmail via a https connection.

To encrypt your messages in Gmail, see our earlier guide: Keep Your E-mail Private, Secret and Secure.

For more options and other ways to improve you Gmail experience with Greasemonkey, have a look at everything tagged Gmail in the scripts archive.

If you're a Firefox user, Lifehacker editor Gina Tripani has put together a very nice little extension called Better Gmail that combines a couple dozen scripts, hacks and other tools and makes it easy to install everything without hunting down the individual scripts. For more details on Better Gmail, see the Lifehacker tutorial and guide.

Use Gmail for Online Storage

Note that these online storage methods may violate Gmail's terms of service, so it's probably best to test them using a non-critical account.

Given that Gmail offers almost 3GB of storage, why not use it backup some files? For easier, FTP-like access check out these options. Windows users have Gmail Drive, while Mac users have gDisk. There's also a Firefox-based option called Gmail File Space.

Beware of Big Names ... (Accenture)

2007-10-07T22:47:00.002+05:30

I was just reading interview of Shivprasad Koirala (author of .Net Interview Question) with Times. He said many interesting things but the thing which caught my thoughts is his experience with Avanade Accenture. In his own words

"when i was working in Avanade Accenture my salary was reduced because of not performing good. But i had actually
performed , atleast i was not worth of negative salary, if not a decent hike. I felt bad because my hard work was not appreciated. I did not feel bad because my salary was reduced or the work was not appreciated. While working in Accenture i used to normally come late hours. When i communicated my negative salary to my family, my wife just said then what where you doing all those late nights in Accenture when your performance is rated so bad and I broke off because i had no answer to hidden politics."

Yes big companies have lots of politics. I always believe that working in a smaller company gave you good exposure and knowledge. In a big company, you have very little responsibility. And the creativity there is most of the time zero. You are bound to the procedures and other things. And now Shiv revels that politics is also a key factor. I have heard that there is no job security with Accenture. Accenture is known to fire people, if its project is finished or it looses a project. And now you see its negative approach for its employees. Instead of promotion and increments, it reduces the salaries. With all the knowledge that Shiv has, I can't believe that he did not perform.

I attended a workshop organized by Avanade Accenture and Microsoft India. I sensed same politics there. One guy was giving some demo about grid computing and his laptop (or software) malfunctioned. His boss, instead of helping him to come out of problem, gave him a strange look. The guy, who was giving presentation, became so scared that sweat came out of his forehead. That time I thought that the guy just got nervous, But now I can figure out that the poor chap was afraid of loosing his salary (or his job).

So guys, always beware if you are planning to join Accenture.

And yes, when you devote late hours in the office, working due to poor project management and you did not receive good hike (mainly due to politics), you don't have any answers to your family. You sacrifice their time to company and get nothing in return. I personally have similar experience but could not share that with you this time. And believe me, if any project fails or a team's performance is poor, this is because of bad management. Workers (developers and leaders) has nothing to do with it. Its either because of the senior management who was not able to understand the requirement or because of the business people was unable to strike the proper deal. But the bad thing is that its developers and leaders who are at the receiving end.

Interview Link: http://computerauthor.blogspot.com/2007/08/my-interview-with-times.html

Visit : My Web Site | My Space

Zoundry Blog Writer

2007-10-05T23:27:00.001+05:30

I was tired of using google's blog writer at blogspot.com. So decided to google about some free blog writing software. And on the top of search results, I found Zoundry Blog Writer. This is a good blog writer. I have yet to explore its all features.

When I started Zoundry for the first time, I had to configure my blog account. I configured blogspot account. It asked for user name and password. Then it fetched all my blogs at blogspot.com. While writing the blog, it asked me on which blog I want to post my entry. I choose yaneshtyagi. It gives a wide choice of fonts that can be used in blog.
For now I am using Lucida sans Unicode.
Now I am using monospace font.
You can change font color from a color palette.
It also has spell checker.
You can apply quoted blocked text also.
You can also apply code formatting. That's really a great feature for me.
You can also insert extended text marker. But its not reflected on the blog.

I tried to configure my MSN Space blog here. But Zoundry was not able to connect to MSN. May be MSN does not provide such API or Zondry does is ot compatible with it. I don't know.

Download Link: http://www.zoundry.com/download.html

Visit : My Web Site | My Space

Microsoft Code Name “Astoria”

2007-09-30T23:21:00.000+05:30

Originally Astoria was known as Hallet's Cove. It is a small city in the neighborhood in the north wastrel corner of the borough of Queens on New York City. But it has no known-to-me connection with the project Astoria, which is released by Microsoft in Sep. 2007 as CTP.

Project "Astoria" (Microsoft codename "Astoria") is developed to enable applications to exposes data as a data service that can be consumed by web clients within a corporate network and across the internet.

Astoria exposes data as web services through an Entity Framework Data Model. The data service is reachable over HTTP, and URIs are used to identify the various pieces of information available through the service. Interactions with the data service happens in terms of HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE, and the data exchanged in those interactions is represented in simple formats such as XML and JSON. The results can be output in a number of formats including JSON and ATOM.

The base service exposes the list of entities in the model (http://mysite/myservice.svc). The payload is just a raw XML representation of the data. There will be payloads for different formats, such as JSON, ATOM and more.

Presently Astoria is available in two experimental elements

1. Microsoft Codename Astoria toolkit and

2. Microsoft Codename Astoria online service

The Astoria toolkit consists of a set of runtime components, documentation, samples and Visual Studio integration elements that allows developers to create and consume Astoria data services in their own ASP.NET web applications.

The Astoria online service is an experimental deployment of the Astoria toolkit plus added infrastructure in the Microsoft Live Labs environment that can be accessed over the internet. The online service includes a number of pre-created sample data-sets exposed as data services. Soon the online service will offer the option of creating custom data services to allow for further experimentation with the technology using custom schemas and custom data.

Astoria data services uses the EDM as the model for the data exposed through its services. Having a high-level data model allows Astoria to provided added semantics to the service, such as having a clear definition of what an “entity” is for a given service or how to navigate from one entity to another associated entity.

The first Astoria CTP is a dual release, making Astoria available in the form of downloadable bits that can be used to build data services that are entirely contained within a single computer or network and as an experimental online service that you can use to create online stores that are hosted by Microsoft and are accessible over the internet.

System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems:

Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2003

Prerequisite:

Visual Studio 2008 (aka. "Orcas") Beta2 running on Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Windows Server 2003 or Windows Vista. SQL Server Express or any other SQL Server 2005 edition, is required in order to run the examples included.
ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 2 release
ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools CTP (optional, but recommended for development)

Resources and Links

Download Link

Project Astoria - Official wseb Site

Overview Document (MS-Word File)

Project Astoria Team Blog

FAQ

Astoria September 2007 CTP for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

Astoria - Hello World Style Walkthrough

India Won Cricket World Cup Twenty20 - Pics

2007-09-25T07:30:00.000+05:30

India Won Twenty20 World Cup

2007-09-24T23:21:00.000+05:30

I never watch cricket match. Instead I am always interested in final results. Last Thursday, we have a party at Pebble Street. In the last hour of party, they broadcasted cricket match showing India batting. I had to watch the match. I really enjoyed excitement of people (I too was very excited) when India hit sixes. On Saturday I was little bit sleepless in the evening. I surf different channels but found nothing interesting. So I decided to watch India vs. Australia Twenty20 match. It was a good time pass. India got an easy victory over Aussies.

Today, in the office, everybody was excited. People were saying that its an history. The fact was that India and Pakistan were face to face in the world cup final first time in the history of cricket. In India, India vs. Pak is always a very exciting phenomenon. And to add spices in it, it was World Cup final. India won last World Cup in 1983. So today history was going to repeat after 24 years. In such excited environment, I decided to watch the match.

It was a thriller. India was batting first. It scrapped hard to get 157 for 5. Though Pak team’s bowling and fielding was at their best, Team India was inspired with the Ball. Yuvraj Singh played well in the last match hitting biggest six (119m). But he was not so lucky today. Gautam Gambhir was the man who stood like a firm wall against Pak bawling. His brilliant 75 held the Indian innings together, and a late 30-run cameo from Rohit Sharma gave Team India their hope.

Pak’s first wicket fall at 3. Later Pak appeared to be well out of contention with 54 needed from 24 balls and just three wickets in hand. R. P. Singh and Irfan Pathan, each scalped three wickets to scupper the chase. The last minutes of the match were terribly exciting. Pakistan needed 13 from the final over. Dhoni tried luck on the inexperienced Joginder Sharma. Misbah pummelled a full toss miles over long-off for six on the very first ball.

Pak needed 6 runs from 4 balls on the last wicket. India looked like loosing the match. One six and the cup would have gone. My eyes were glued on the TV. I pray God for a wicket.

Facing the bowling of Irfan and the Indian voices in the crowd growing louder, Malik broken, dragging a long leap to midwicket.

Finally, India won the match by 5 runs and conquered the inaugural ICC World Twenty20.

Hurrey!

To Sachin Tendulkar: Sachin you are a great player. You are the true son of Mother India. You gave too much to Indian cricket. But Indian cricket is not dependent on a individual. We can win World Cup without a Sachin. Though, I believe that presence of Sachin in the team would have made the task easier.

Sachin, you have played enough cricket. You were the king of your time. Now you should become king maker.

Team India: You have proved that now have got habitual of wining. KEEP IT UP!!!

By the way, I have watched only two matches of cricket in my life so far. And India won both of them. Does this ring bells in anybody’s ear?

Party at Pebble's Street

2007-09-21T22:51:00.000+05:30

Last week our project manager of FlairView, Kelly O'Brian and Tony Reeve flied from Sydney to New Delhi. There were some meetings and discussions in the agenda. They flied back on Friday. We celebrate a party at Pebble's Street, New Friends Colony.

We had team meeting in after noon. In the evening, Rohit drove me and some other team members to Pebble's Street. Thanks Rohit.

Pebble's Street is a great bar and restaurant. The two floors of it are properly decorated. We celebrated at first floor. The whole team of project Advantage was there at party. We drink, eat and dance there. The space was cozy but enjoyable. I don't drink so enjoyed Fruit Punch (mix fruit juice with vanilla) and Pineapple Sunshine. Both drinks were delicious. People were enjoying beer, whisky and vodka.

Tony tried to shake his feet but music was too slow for him. Sometimes they play Hindi sings, which he could not understand. Kelly and other girls didn't dance at all. My team was very energetic. When at 9.15, India vs. South Africa cricket match was about to start, they stopped music. We were listening commentary. Gagan shouted, "Come on yaar, drunkers can dance on anything. They can dance on commentary too." And literally they dance on commentary.

Kelly was enjoying watching people dancing. There were no steps, no rhythm. People were just shaking and throwing hands and legs. But this is the unique way of dancing, Indian youth prefers. Idea is to keep our self as free as possible.

Then the match started. Some people were taking dinners and others were watching match. India was batting first. On every four, they play loud and fast musing, usually bhangra. at that time, we jumped out of our chairs and start dancing.

In the last, we took group photographs.

Devinder to kursi ke pichhe hi pad gaya tha. Dev, hope you remember it. And that "Sahab, ye daru pike ..."

Finally, it was a great party. We enjoyed every moment. Kabhi kabhi Devinder pakane lagta tha (At times, devinder bored me). But that's OK.

Kelly and Tony were sponsors of the party. Thanks Kelly. Thanks Tony. It was a nice party. I hope you would enjoyed it too.

Manish (Sinha), we missed you.
Aman we missed you too.