Hundred Threads

Why I started to use Windows and Ubuntu again and dumped mac os x

2011-05-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have been using Windows for many years, and same goes for Ubuntu.

In between, some of my co-workers at different companies have touted about Mac. So when my boss offered to give a Mac Pro desktop, I was excited. But after struggling with Mac for one month, I gave up.

I think Mac, Windows and Ubuntu are great operating systems in their own ways. It just what fits your needs. It's just some people like mangoes, some people like apples, and some people like grapes or strawberry.

I am writing here why Mac didn't fit my needs, so that in future if one of my co-worker tried to brain wash me, I can look at this list and see if situation have improved.

Since the production environment at my company is Linux, for development work, a Linux distribution makes much more sense. Although Mac OS is supposed to be Unix, it is case-insensitive, and if you turn it into case-sensitive by reformatting hard disk, remember many applications on Mac will not work. Moreover, Unix is not Linux; When I work on a Linux, I feel at home, when I work at any Unix variation like FreeBSD and all variations of BSD, HP-UX, Solaris, Mac OS etc, it does not feel home because their is subtle difference in the utilities and their various options. On Windows, Cygwin does come with the same utils which are available on Linux and tried to give same files system as a Red Hat Linux, but somehow I don't feel at home in Cygwin also, because installing application in Cygwin is not as good. And even in Linux distributions, I think Ubuntu is ahead of the crowd. Conclustion - use Ubuntu for work-related development.

Here I will list some of the basic functionality which I couldn't find in Mac os x. Apple has money and has lot of smart people, so obviously these deficiencies (if you call them) are not because they can't do, it is because Apple and its management is arrogant.

1. Fast switching between windows. This is a big deal for me. When I work, most of the time I will be switching between two windows (may be one browser and one editor; or may be a two terminals; or may a browser and a terminal). All modern operating systems except mac os x support this with quick Alt+Tab. In mac os x, Alt+Tab switches between applications (which I found useless), where it will bring all the five windows of an application in the front (and probably the window in which you were interested hidden among those five windows). This is a huge huge blocker. I don't like to use the mouse to switch between windows - that's too slow. In general you can use Alt+Tab to switch to any windows in Ubuntu and Windows. On mac os x, it switches between applications and then u can use Alt+` to switch to the desired window...pretty painful. Thanks to the arrogant Apple!

2. Weird Maximize and Minimize. How do you maximize a window to cover the whole screen in mac os x? You can't. The maximize button is totally unpredictable, and it varies with the application (it is to the application to decide on what it wants to do on clicking maximize button). And when you minimize, it goes off from the Alt+Tab list and you have to use mouse to get it.

3. Keyboard customization - does not allow you to customize keyboard. I want to use keyboard to move window, resize window, maximize window, minimize window. Well good luck with that on mac os x. Apple wants you to use mouse for all of these activities... remember mac os x is about looking beautiful and not about usability or efficiency or productivity.

4. To resize a window, the only way to do that is to use the right bottom corner. I like it that you can resize from all four sides of a window which all modern operating systems except mac os x support. Again it is Apple's arrogant behavior is working.

5. Customization. I want to change the whole theme on Mac OS X, but there are limited choice. The default one looks good, but from productivity point of view it is very inefficient. Since everything is gray and different shades of gray, it takes a bit of time to figure out the boundaries of different windows. In general I like to have contrasting colors for title and border around a window, so it is easy to see which content belong to which window. Again, apple prefers looking good over functionality.

6. In general, I found that if you want to do something on a mac which steve jobs does not do, then you have to really do lot of hacks around. It has been made for steve jobs and if you can live with that, then you are good.

7. Apple hardware comes with its own proprietary ports to work with other apple hardware. If you want to keep a hardware device in the middle of other devices, it will become a pain the ass. A simple example is that it comes with a mini display port which means if you want to connect an extra monitor, you have to get an adapter, if you want to connect it to a projector, you have to carry an adapter.

8. I use visual studio and C#. And really not planning to learn Apple's crap objective C.

I also read about how Microsoft is involved in many programs in fighting poverty and helping in times of natural disasters. While Apple is involved in none. That itself told me to give my money to Microsoft instead of Apple.

Thanks to many of you who use Apple products may be just because it looks nice or may be you want to show off. Because of you, Microsoft gets incentive to be ahead in the game which ultimately improves my life and many other people who like Microsoft and its products.

Currently I use Windows as primary desktop and Ubuntu in a virtual machine. Ubuntu is still lacking when it comes to entertainment. So I use Ubuntu only for work-related development.

Why I don't use Hotmail or Microsoft Windows Live Mail...

2010-08-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

First of all, Microsoft sux big time... instead of calling "Hotmail" or "Live mail" or "Microsoft mail", it is called "Microsoft Windows Live Mail"... sux big time.

I just went to mail.live.com and tried to login...
It does not use HTTPS even for login. It is worst than Yahoo email!!!
There is a small link at the end of the page in tiny fonts "Use enhanced security(SSL)".

In 2010, why login page is not secure????

I replaced HTTP with HTTPS in the inbox screen, and got "connection timeout" message.

Both Microsoft mail and Yahoo mail attach advertisement at the end of each email you send from those accounts, how are you supposed to send professional emails from their account? These companies are just pathetic!

I can't tolerate Yahoo mail or Microsoft mail...
These companies are 10 years behind in terms of security, features, and user experience.

I wish these two companies would have merged together back in 2006 and died together.

Microsoft mail is for absolute fools and totally illiterate people...

Why I no more use Yahoo Mail

2010-08-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

Ten years back, yahoo was best!
I used to use Yahoo for everything...and it had a wide variety of services - email, news, groups, photo, calendar, ...

But with today's standard it is pathetic.

I was using Google for search since 2000, so when I got an opportunity to get a gmail account in 2004, I didn't waste a minute. But it was in 2006 when I finally moved to gmail as primary email account. And after that the gap between gmail and yahoo mail has widened a lot.

As of today, Aug 7, 2010, there is no way to access emails in my yahoo inbox securely. Gmail has been offering this for years. Let me just put the facts...

Yahoo Mail:
1. Secure Login to desktop browser : always - good
2. Secure Access to emails on a desktop browser: not possible - sux big time
3. Secure Login to mobile browser (iphone safari): not possible - sux big time
4. Secure Access to email from mobile browser: not possible - sux big time
5. Iphone mail client secure login: not possible - sux big time
6. Iphone mail client secure access to emails: not possible - sux big time

Gmail:
1. Secure Login to desktop browser : always - good
2. Secure Access to emails on a desktop browser: always - good
3. Secure Login to mobile browser (iphone safari): always - good
4. Secure Access to email from mobile browser: always - good
5. Iphone mail client secure login: always - good
6. Iphone mail client secure access to emails: always - good

Of course, there are more than one hundred reasons other than those listed above why I no more use yahoo mail. Like...

No distracting ads: gmail yes, yahoo sux
No flash ads: gmail ys, yahoo sux
More space for emails: gmail yes, yahoo sux
No ads on email front page: gmail yes, yahoo sux
More space for your emails in the browser: gmail yes, yahoo sux
Fast web client: gmail yes, yahoo sux
No clunky web interface: gmail yes, yahoo sux
Simple interface: gmail yes, yahoo sux
Check email in outlook: gmail yes, yahoo sux
Forward your emails to other account: gmail yes, yahoo sux
Access emails using POP3 and IMAP: gmail yes, yahoo sux
First one to give GBs of space and keep updating UIs: gmail yes, yahoo sux
Does not attach ads at the end of the email: gmail yes, yahoo sux

Yahoo mail is a big time sucker...

Yahoo mail is for fools and illiterate people...

A good post on building web apps for iphone

2010-04-03T11:03:00.001-07:00

http://building-iphone-apps.labs.oreilly.com/ch02.html

C/C++ Debugging in Visual Studio 2010

2010-03-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

This is a great resource:

http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/windev/visualstudio.html

Cygwin/X gvim font problem

2010-03-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

Gvim under cygwin/X was looking weird with tiny font.

I added following line in .gvimrc file and it solved the problem:

set guifont=Lucida\ Sans\ Typewriter\ Semi-Condensed\ 12

Sometimes even that gives ugly text, then try this (which is not that good, but better than others):

set guifont=LucidaTypewriter\ 13

This one looks much better:

set guifont=Bitstream\ Vera\ Sans\ Mono\ 13

Terminals for Cygwin

2010-03-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

Following terminals don't need X server:

1. Cmd - the default where bash, or zsh shell runs in the Windows Command Window. The biggest problem with this is you can't stretch it horizontally without going into options. CTRL+Z does not work.

2. mintty - this is so far best for me. good font size, cut-n-paste, color controls, stretchable in all directions. It is based on putty. CTRL+Z works!

3. puttycyg - I haven't tried.

Terminals which need X server:

1. xterm - no scrollbar, no cut-n-paste, font too small.

2. rxvt - no cut-n-paste, font too small.

3. urxvt - no cut-n-paste, font too big.

Zsh: _main_complete: function definition file not found

2010-03-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

If you get an error similar to this one:

zsh:5: _main_complete: function definition file not found

then check for the value of FPATH or fpath and make sure the paths in those variables are valid.

Cygwin: Unable to remap

2010-03-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

If you try to launch cygwin processes (for example, zsh) and you get this error:

24295 [main] zsh 3104 C:\cygwin\bin\zsh.exe: *** fatal error - unable to remap C:\cygwin\lib\zsh\4.3.2\zsh\zle.dll to same address as parent(0xAB0000) != 0xC10000 12 [main] zsh 2020 fork: child 3104 - died waiting for dll loading, errno 11

Then follow the following steps:
1. Make sure rebase package is installed (use cygwin setup utitlity)
2. Exit all cygwin processes. Verify in Task Manager that there are no cygwin processes running.
3. Run 'cmd' from the run menu (Windows Key + R). Go to the cygwin bin directory and run ".\ash.exe".
4. Run "./rebaseall". This will take some time.

Change default settings of a Microsoft Word document

2010-03-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Word 2007

To change any default settings of a new document, change the default template located here:

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dotm

Open in Microsoft Word and save it back. If it gives error, then save it Normal1.dotm and use Windows Explorer to rename it back to Normal.dotm.

More date and day functions

2010-03-17T05:06:00.000-07:00


#include "stdio.h"
#include "stdlib.h>"
typedef enum DayOfWeek_ {SUNDAY, MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY} DayOfWeek;

// Returns 1 for a leap year, otherwise 0
int isLeap(int year)
{
    int leap = 0;
    if(year % 4 == 0) {
        leap = 1;
        if(year % 100 == 0) {
            leap = 0;
            if(year % 400 == 0) {
                leap = 1;
            }
        }
    }
    return leap;
}

int dateToInt(int year, int month, int dayOfMonth)
{
    static int cumDaysInMonth[12] = {0, 31, 59, 90, 120, 151, 181, 212, 243, 273, 304, 334};
    int num = (year - 1) * 365 + (year - 1) / 4 - (year - 1) / 100 + (year - 1) / 400;
    num += cumDaysInMonth[month-1] + dayOfMonth;
    if(isLeap(year) && month >= 3)
        num++;
    return num;
}

int diffDate(int y1, int m1, int d1, int y2, int m2, int d2)
{
    int num1 = dateToInt(y1, m1, d1);
    int num2 = dateToInt(y2, m2, d2);
    int diff = abs(num2 - num1);
    printf("Diff days (%d, %d, %d) - (%d, %d, %d) : %d\n", y1, m1, d1, y2, m2, d2, diff);
    return diff;
}
   
char *getDayOfWeekName(int dayOfWeek)
{
    switch(dayOfWeek) {
        case 0: return "SUNDAY";
        case 1: return "MONDAY";
        case 2: return "TUEDAY";
        case 3: return "WEDNESDAY";
        case 4: return "THURSDAY";
        case 5: return "FRIDAY";
        case 6: return "SATURDAY";
    }
    // Error condition
    return "ERROR";
}
   
int getDayOfWeek(int year, int month, int dayOfMonth)
{
    int num = dateToInt(year, month, dayOfMonth);
    int dow = num % 7;
    printf("DayOfWeek (%d, %d, %d) : %s\n", year, month, dayOfMonth, getDayOfWeekName(dow));
    return dow;
}

void printMonth(int year, int month)
{
    static int daysInMonth[12] = {31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31};
    static char dayChars[7] = {'N', 'M', 'T', 'W', 'H', 'F', 'S'};
    int firstDow = getDayOfWeek(year, month, 1);
    int i;
    int dm = daysInMonth[month-1];
    if(isLeap(year) && month == 2)
        dm = 29;
    for(i = 0; i < dm; i++)
        printf("%3d", i+1);
    printf("\n");
    for(i = 0; i < dm; i++)
        printf("%3c", dayChars[(firstDow + i) % 7]);
    printf("\n");
}

int main()
{
    printMonth(2010, 3);
    printMonth(2000, 5);
    printMonth(2203, 5);
    getDayOfWeek(2010, 4, 20);
    getDayOfWeek(2000, 8, 19);
    getDayOfWeek(2203, 10, 5);
    diffDate(2203, 11, 13, 1923, 5, 6);
    
    return 0;
}

Converting a date to dayOfWeek

2010-03-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

Here is the full code in C


#include "stdio.h"

typedef enum DayOfWeek_ {SUNDAY, MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY} DayOfWeek;

// month is 1 to 12
int getDayOfWeek(int year, int month, int dayOfMonth)
{
    int m[12] = {4, 0, 0, 3, 5, 1, 3, 6,2, 4, 0, 2};
    int dayOfWeek = ((year-1) * 5 / 4 - 5) + m[month-1] + dayOfMonth;
    int leap = 0;   
    
    if(year % 4 == 0) {
        leap = 1;
        if(year % 100 == 0) {
            leap = 0;
            if(year % 400 == 0) {
                leap = 1;
            }
        }
    }
    if(leap && month >= 3)
        dayOfWeek++;

    return (dayOfWeek % 7);
}   

char *getDayOfWeekName(int dayOfWeek)
{
    switch(dayOfWeek) {
        case 0: return "SUNDAY";
        case 1: return "MONDAY";
        case 2: return "TUEDAY";
        case 3: return "WEDNESDAY";
        case 4: return "THURSDAY";
        case 5: return "FRIDAY";
        case 6: return "SATURDAY";
    }
    //
    return "ERROR";
}

int main()
{
    printf("dayOfWeek(2000, 3, 17)=%s\n", getDayOfWeekName(getDayOfWeek(2000, 3, 17)));
    printf("dayOfWeek(2000, 1, 15)=%s\n", getDayOfWeekName(getDayOfWeek(2000, 1, 15)));   
    printf("dayOfWeek(2010, 3, 17)=%s\n", getDayOfWeekName(getDayOfWeek(2010, 3, 17)));

    return 0;
}

Enjoy

dosbox and qbasic on ubuntu

2010-03-16T20:53:00.000-07:00

sudo apt-get install dosbox

wget http://download.microsoft.com/download/win95upg/tool_s/1.0/w95/en-us/olddos.exe

dosbox

mount c /home/username/QBasic/
C:
QBASIC

1) Go into DosBox, type:

Z:\>config -writeconf dosbox.conf

and hit enter.
2) Exit DosBox, and open the dosbox.conf file that is now in the dos folder you just created.
3) Go to the very end and add:

mount c ~/dos


References:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=608535
http://lovehateubuntu.blogspot.com/2008/04/dosbox-on-ubuntu.html

Gmail Trick: multiple email addresses for the same account

2010-03-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

Did you guys know that your one gmail account has infinite number of equivalent email ids? For example all of the following email addresses represent the same email account:

hundred.........THREADS+second100@gmail.com
hundredthreads@gmail.com

Here are the rules:
1. Dots are ignored.
2. It is case-insensitive.
3. Anything after a + sign is ignored.

Gmail rocks!

zsh completion system broken for subversion/svn

2010-03-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

I get this error:

% svn add
_arguments:comparguments:303: invalid argument: ARG

Here is a fix for this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/zsh/+bug/279545

The solution from the above link is:
The problem is in the subversion function file which I found in /usr/share/zsh/4.3.4/functions on my system. The minimal fix is to replace every occurrence of "/ arg/:arg:" with "/ (arg|ARG)/:arg:" in /usr/share/zsh/4.3.4/functions/Completion/Unix/_subversion; see attached patch.

Copy this file to ~/.zsh/functions and modify the file.

Also in .zshrc add the following line:
fpath=($HOME/.zsh/functions /usr/share/zsh/site-functions /usr/share/zsh/4.3.4/functions)

Cracking Programming Interviews

2010-03-01T15:18:00.000-08:00

Whether you are applying for internship or part time job or full time job, you need to do some practice before you go for phone interview or on-site interviews.

Here are some of the resources for cracking programming interviews:

Basic

Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job (Paperback) ~ John Mongan and Noah Suojanen
Data Strucutres - Linked List (single, double, circular, doubly linked circular etc), Arrays, Trees, Graphs, graph traversals
Abstract Data Structures - Stack, Heap, BST, Hash Table, Queues
Algos - Sorting algos(Quicksort, Mergesort, Heapsort, Binary Sort), BFS, DFS

Intermediate

Programming Pearls ~ Jon Bentley
Puzzles for Programmers and Pros by Dennis Elliott Shasha

Adavanced

- One Object Language - C++, Java or C# and its design patterns

For Java: Effective Java 2nd Edition

- Computer Networks (4th Edition) (Hardcover) ~ Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Distance vector .vs. dijkstra’s algorithm.
Count to infinity problem.
TCP internals: congestion detection, control, sliding window, cumulative acks, etc.
What is IP tunneling?
When you type "www.google.com" on your browser : what all happens under the hood ? What are the various hops and translations that happen?

- Modern Operating Systems (3rd Edition) (Hardcover) ~ Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Scheduling algorithms
Paging algorithms/concepts
Multi-threaded programming: deadlock detection .vs. avoidance.
how to implement semaphore using mutex ?
reader/writer problem
producer/consumer problem

- Computer Architecture:

What is pipelining? RISC architecture.
What are some of the pipelining hazards : data hazard etc. how to get around them?
Pipeline scheduling algorithms: scoreboarding, tomasulo’s algorithm etc. just a high level understanding and some internals.
Shared memory architectures : how to maintain a distributed & shared memory cache?

More Advanced

- Mathematical Prolems - Project Euler - http://projecteuler.net/

References:

I hope this helps you!

Creating a patch and using a patch

2010-02-26T20:51:00.000-08:00

Create a patch:
diff -Naur oldDir newDir > patchfile

Use a patch:
cat patchfile | patch -p1

Delete all unread messages in the inbox of gmail

2010-02-26T09:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=56319

Linux has huge privacy issues

2010-02-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

I knew for long back, but this hit me just now. In Linux, anybody can list processes of any other user. This is a big privacy issue. What is worse is that, you can even see the arguments passed to each of those commands.

iTunes crashed!

2010-02-14T08:14:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be interesting to post a picture of how it looks when iTunes crashes. Here is a picture of it:

Shazam helped me find that music I was looking for all these years

2010-02-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

Shazam is awesome!

My interest in Hip-hop started when I watched the movie "Save the Last Dance". I had listened to hip-hop music earlier, but I didn't like them. But this movie had some really good songs, which I actually liked. I listened to some more hip-hop songs, but none were like the ones in the movies. I tried to get the full songs for the songs in the movie by searching for "Soundtracks of Save the Last Dance", but didn't get anything on Google and I gave up years ago. But that desire was still there to get the original and complete version of these songs.

Here is a clip from the movie with my favorite song (this video might get deleted from youtube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-smmusd9qg

Finally, Shazam helped me track down this song to its original and full version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6auk1TkGtVQ

Shazam rocks!

Why does Apple makes nice looking crippled products

2010-02-12T23:00:00.000-08:00

Mac, iPod, iPhone, and now iPad.

According to Apple, iPad is supposed to be the best device for browsing Internet, watching TV shows, etc.

It can't display any shows from hulu.com, from Amazon Video on Demand, from ABC TV videos, ... the list is endless. Apple has made iPad crippled deliberately so that you buy your videos from Apple's iTunes store.

iPad would have been a great device to use Skype to do video chat. Unfortunately, it does not have a webcam. It does not even have a microphone. Even a $299 netbook will have all these.

How do you send messages on iPad - be it text chat, voice chat, video chat, email, facebook, whatever... no video input, no audio input, and for text input - no keyboard, all there is a on-screen keyboard. There is not even a digital pen or stylus so that you can just write on the screen. All netbooks are equiped with keyboard, mic, and webcam for any kind of input. And all tablet PCs support writing on the screen. Effectively, iPad is not for taking input, and mostly a viewer.

Even as a viewer, its capability is limited. It can display photos, music, and videos only from iTunes software and store. It can't display photos or videos from your SD card, or xD card or whatever card you have. Most netbooks and Windows laptops can read the card from your digital camera or camcorder or cell phone. iPad is useless for online music and videos since it doesn't have flash. For stored music and videos also, it can play only limited formats.

I have to say a $299 netbook is a lot lot lot better than $499 iPad. And that netbook will have 160 GB harddisk intead of 16 GB harddisk, plus software-wise it can do everything a PC can do.

iPad is just one more crippled product from Apple.

Printing on a remote printer through SSH forwarding

2010-02-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

Scenario:
The printer I want to print to is on a subnet and my laptop is connected to a wireless network which is outside of that subnet. The only way to access any machine on the subnet from my laptop is through SSH to the gateway server.

Steps:

Forward ports:

Windows+Putty: Forward local port 9100 to 172.19.0.28:9100 (This is IP address of our pritner, select the IP address of your printer).
Now connect through Putty to the gateway machine.
Linux: ssh -L 9100:172.19.0.28:9100 username@gateway_machine

Laptop with Windows (I have listed the printer which we have, you should select driver for your printer):

Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers
Add a Printer
Add a Local Printer
Create a new port
Type of port: Standard TCP/IP Port
Hostname or IP Address: localhost , Port name=PrintSrv
Select Custom Printer
Select driver for 'Ricoh Aficio SP 8100 DN PCL'

You should be able to print from your Windows laptop.

I don't know how to do the later part of the setup on Linux. If you know, please let me know and I will post here.

Searching for a ruler in this high tech world

2010-02-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

I needed to measure the size of my photos for some government documents. I couldn't find any ruler in my house, no ruler in the office. I checked with office secretary, she had a ruler, but the markings were gone. This is where I found a good ruler:
http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/paper_rulers/

This is the one I used:
http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/paper_rulers/UnstableURL/ruler_foot.pdf

Finally, I was able to find a ruler in this high tech world, but only on Internet.

Google tasks for iPhone completes my workflow

2010-01-31T20:14:00.000-08:00

Four services from Google:

Email
Calendar
Contacts
Tasks

Completes my workflow. All available through any browser on any computer and all are available as apps for iPhone. Email, Calendar and Contacts are native apps on iPhone and they get synced by Direct Push from MS Exchange Server at Google. Tasks is a webapp - hopefully Apple or Google will come with a native app with Direct Push in near future.

iPhone and Google Sync - Sync emails, calendar and contacts over the air

2010-01-31T11:40:00.000-08:00

Syncing over the air should have been directly through iTunes using wi-fi. But it is not. Instead Apple was charging $99 a year with MobileMe service for providing over the air sync for calendar, contacts and emails. Thanks to Google, that I am able to sync my calendar, contacts and emails over the air that too with push technology.

My previous setup was like this:
Email: Google mail through iPhone's mail app (I think it was using IMAP) with 15 min polling.
Contacts: Outlook, syncing via USB+iTunes.
Calendar: Outlook, syncing via USB+iTunes.

Email was OK, Contacts was also OK. But Calendar, every time I changed something in my Laptop, I needed to sync iPhone with USB cable which was a big pain in the ass.

Current setup is as follows:
Email, Contacts, Calendar: Google through MS Exchange server with Direct Push.
Contacts: Outlook, synching via USB+iTunes (I will soon move to Google completely for this)

Now my iPhone syncs with my Google calendar. I already transferred my calendar from outlook to Google calendar. Google calendar is not as sophisticated as Outlook, but it has everything I need for the time. In fact, now I can edit my calendar from any computer, not just my laptop.

Email is also better because of the Direct push.

Google calendar import is screwed up

2010-01-30T23:09:00.000-08:00

Google calendar import is screwed up.

The only way it supports importing events from outlook is through CSV files. I did that and it added more than a thousand events. All the events which were marked repeated, it added individual entries without repetition, instead of a single event with repetition.

That sux!

I had to clear all my events in the calendar and start from scratch.

iPad

2010-01-27T23:14:00.001-08:00

I can have photographs in my email.

You can change the background of the home screen.

It can do slideshow.

You can select a photo.

It has iTunes.

It has a calendar also.
I can look it as a Day view, week view or list view. Very nice calendar.

It has a maps app too. It has got a satellite view.

The only things which it is missing are:

a camera,
16:9 support,
Flash support,
multitasking,
SD card slot,
HDMI or high-res video output support,
USB ports,
GPS

Firefox: bookmark with smart keyword makes searching websites smart

2010-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

Here is what I do:
To look for the word 'mythology' on www.thefreedictionary.com, I type "d mythology" in the url box.
To search 'python tutorial' on google.com, I type "g python tutorial" in the url box.
To go to google.com, I type 'g' in the url box.

Same way I have 'smart keywords' setup for many search websites. Here is the current list:
a - www.amazon.com
b - www.bing.com
d - www.thefreedictionary.com
g - www.google.com
gm - maps.google.com
gn - news.google.com
w - en.wikipedia.org

To add 'smart keywords' for a search website:
1. Go to the search website.
2. Right click on the search box and choose "Add a Keyword for this Search..."
3. In the "New Bookmark" dialog box, enter a name and a keyword. For example for www.google.com, I entered name = "Google", keyword = "g". This keyword will be used as a shortcut to search on the search website.

That's it!

Windows 7: metadata for files should be both outside of the file and inside the file

2010-01-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

Windows Explorer in Windows XP allowed adding metadata like title, keywords, comments, etc to any file including doc, pdf and text files. The metadata added using explorer was stored in the NTFS file system as part of the attributes of the file, not in the file. There were many file types like PDF, DOC, MP3 which had attributes in the file. Windows explorer was able to read these metadata information for many file types like MS office files and audio files.

In Windows 7, Microsoft removed metadata being stored in the NTFS file system. Metadata can be stored only inside files. That means no metadata for TXT or RTF files. The viewer can't add metadata to PDF files since adobe doesn't like viewer editing PDF files.

I liked the Windows XP style.

Microsoft should provide a way for users to add additional information about a file outside of the file name and its contents.

Microsoft didn't get it... again...

2010-01-20T00:39:00.000-08:00

One of the complaints from some geeky people (mostly people with Unix/Linux background) was that Windows asks for lot of confirmations. Personally, confirmations are annoyance most of the time, but some time they save your day. And there should be a balance - too many confirmations is bad and too less confirmations are also bad.

Microsoft removed confirmation from where it should not have removed. And it didn't remove confirmation from where it should have removed.

When you want to delete a file or a folder (basically moving it to recycle bin), then it asks for confirmation. Bad design decision. There is absolutely no need of confirmation here. If you felt that it was a mistake to delete the file, then you can always get it back from the recycle bin.

There is no confirmation for shutdown or restart or logoff. If you click on them accidentally, all your unsaved work and open windows are gone! Bad design decision! It has happened a few times to me. I am always in a rush, so sometimes I do click on the wrong button and moreover with a touch-pad an accidental click is not uncommon. I definitely need a confirmation box here. If Microsoft wanted to woo those tiny user base of geeky people, then Microsoft should have at
least provided an option to enable confirmation for shutdown, restart and logoff.

Microsoft missed the boat again!

Microsoft is the biggest source of bad practices on Windows

2010-01-19T09:14:00.000-08:00

How many Microsoft employees work from Administrator account?

How many Microsoft software require Admin access for installation, even though they don't have to.

How many Microsoft software write in Windows folder?

How many Microsoft software install hidden components and drivers without your knowledge?

Microsoft leads all companies when it comes to bad practices on Windows.

Windows 7: Letting device drivers be installed by a standard user - very bad idea

2010-01-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

I just found that a standard user in Windows 7 can install device drivers. This is really a bad idea. Any malware or unfriendly software can install a bunch of device drivers which can screw your computer.

Somehow Google managed to install two video capture devices on my computer without my knowledge when I was working in a standard account. And I was able to uninstall these video capture devices from the standard account.

Can somebody install a key-logger device from a standard account?
If so, then that will be a real bummer.

Microsoft should implement this as a privilege - "device driver installation privilege" - which can be denied or given to any standard user or there should be a group called "Device Driver Operator" and only users who are member of this group can install device drivers.

I will like to set my standard account so that my standard account can't install any device driver or plugin. So far I haven't found a way to achieve this.

Google is intalling malware and corrupting my system

2010-01-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

Google has been installing couple of drivers and software on my computer without my knowledge.

Google Update plug-in in Firefox
Google Talk Plugin
Google Video Adapter 0 video capture device
Google Video Adapter 1 video capture device

God knows what else Google has installed on my computer.

Here is what I found after some investigation:
The root of all these is that I wanted to try Google Chrome. So I installed Google Chrome. With Google Chrome, Google silently installed a Firefox plug-in called "Google Update". While I was browsing using Firefox, I clicked on some link and "Google Update" plug-in installed "Google Talk Plugin" silently. And with Google Talk Plugin, the two video capture devices also got installed.

I don't know but there could be more hidden drivers and software installed by Google on my computer.

This leads to an interesting conclusion - If Google can install so many software on my computer without my knowledge, then probably anybody can install software on my computer without my knowledge.

Applications and installers should not require admin privilege

2010-01-18T07:34:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have seen new class of applications which make more sense - these applications can be installed and used by a standard user without UAC pop-up. Some of these applications are:

Amazon Kindle for PC - installs in "C:\Users\user1\AppData\Local\Amazon\Kindle For PC\application"
Google Chrome - installs in "C:\Users\user1\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application"
Microsoft Live Mesh - installs in "C:\Users\user1\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Live Mesh"

Any standard user on Windows 7 (and I suppose on Windows Vista and Windows XP too) can install these applications and use them. The installer does not ask for admin password (no UAC pop up). And the application runs smoothly without and UAC pop-up.

Other apps which come to my mind in this category are PortableApps.com apps.

There is no reason why other applications should require admin password unless they are installing a device driver.

VLC Media Player - the best media player

2010-01-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

VLC hotkeys do not work on playlist window.
How to keep vlc always running.
VLC's interface is ugly and its skins do not have the functional interface of the native interface. How to improve vlc interface or make its look cooler while keeping the functionality?
How do you get the menubar in VLC with skin?
When VLC is running with skin, VLC does not appear in the taskbar and also not in ALT+TAB list - a huge problem.

Problem:
Sometimes VLC hotkeys do not work in skins.

Solution:
Currently hotkeys do not work in playlist window. In skins, if the focus is on the playlist, then hotkeys wouldn't work.

VLC's skin mode and skins have many problems and give a frustrating experience. The native interface of VLC is the "least worst option".

Control iTunes on your computer from your iPhone remotely using Remtoe app

2010-01-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

Get this app:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/remote/

How to setup:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1947

Troubleshooting:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1741

The only problem I faced during first time setup was some firewall settings - iTunes was allowed on public network, but not on private network. I just allowed it on both networks and the whole setup worked like a charm.

Once first time setup has been done, next time you want to use iPhone to control the iTunes on your computer, follow following steps (this is the only sequence of steps which has been working for me consistently):

Close iTunes on your computer.
Launch 'Remote' on your iPhone.
Start iTunes on your computer within a few seconds.
'Remote' on the iPhone should show the iTunes library on the computer.
In the Settings of 'Remote' on the iPhone, set "Stay Connected" = ON.

Once 'Remote' gets disconnected from 'iTunes', you need to restart iTunes and Remte app both which is a pain in the ass. Even if you keep Remote app running on iPhone, it will disconnect from iTunes after a some idle time. Even with the setting "Stay Connected" = ON.

This feature look cool, but I am not how much useful this feature will be since I don't have a desktop (I have a laptop) and I play my music by connecting speakers to my iPhone. What I needed was a way to control my iTunes on iPhone from my laptop. There are some solutions out there, but they require jailbreaking, but I have been avoiding jailbreaking because that's a whole new beast - lot of features, apps and security issues.

VMWare Workstation way better than VirtualBox

2010-01-17T06:50:00.000-08:00

I have been using VirtualBox for last few months, but I always felt it was missing the finishing touch. So finally, I decided to try VMware Workstation. I immediately felt at home.

Here is something which I noticed immediately:

VMware Unity is far better than VirtualBox Seamless. Unity actually integrates windows in the guest and host OS pretty well - a single task bar for all windows and alt+tab switches between all the windows. Not with VirtualBox. VirtualBox Seamless seems to be a feature added for the sake of list of features, but is actually useless while VMware's Unity is actually useful.
VMware supports 3D graphics. Aero works in the guest OS. In fact, Windows Experience Index of the host OS and guest OS is very close.
Snapshot and clone management is pretty slick in VMware .
My initial experience is that VMware is much faster than VirtualBox - starting, stopping, running.
Virtual network management is quite good in VMware .
Single window for all VMs in VMware.
VMware stores everything about one VM in a single directory which is very convenient for backing up or copying to another machine.
VMware has a cool feature called "Easy Install" where it will install the guest OS unattended - another very useful feature.

Fedora 10 and Ns2-2.33 compilation problems

2010-01-15T10:20:00.000-08:00

I got the following compilation problem while building ns2-2.33

Conflicts in following files ('const char*' with 'char *'):
common/packet.cc:48 int p_info::addPacket(const char *name)
common/packet.h:248 static int addPacket(char *name);

Solution:
Remove 'const' from packet.cc.

After this it built successfully.

ubuntu 9.10 and NS2 2.33 installation problem - make: *** [tk3d.o] Error 1

2010-01-15T00:18:00.000-08:00

I was getting this mysterious error while installing NS2 2.33 on Ubuntu 9.10:

make: *** [tk3d.o] Error 1
tk8.4.11 make failed! Exiting ...
For problems with Tcl/Tk see http://www.scriptics.com

Here is what worked for me. I installed a few packages, and it fixed the above problem:

sudo apt-get install tcl tk build-essential autoconf automake libxmu-dev libtool

Unfortunately, there are many more problems. Ubuntu 9.10 has lot of problems with backward compatibility. I thought Ubuntu was different from other Linux distributions and would respect the backward compatibility, but it has disappointed me. Some guys have done some hard work on making ns2 work on Ubuntu 9.10, details on this blog - Easiest way to install ns2 on ubuntu 9.10. But I am not comfortable with this one. So I am going to revert back to Ubuntu 9.04 and go with that.

Linux is very good at sucking your precious time.

Missing /etc/initab in Ubuntu? Ubuntu replaces Init with Upstart

2010-01-14T22:32:00.001-08:00

I hate fragmentation in Linux.

Here comes more fragmentation and one more headache to learn in Linux world.

Ubuntu replaced init with upstart. That is why there is no more /etc/initab. More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart .

It is supposed to be a big improvement. Then why not push for it to be part of LSB. In that case, this will be a standard on all Linux distributions and we don't have worry with too many headaches.

Why you should not allow online companies to have control over your contents, data, devices

2010-01-09T04:35:00.000-08:00

I bought a video on Amazon a while back, today when me and my friends wanted to watch this video, this is what I got on Amazon Video:

Video currently unavailable for playback and download. Due to our licensing agreements this video is currently not available for online viewing or downloading. If you have downloaded this video to a PC or TiVo DVR you can continue to watch it from that location.

Amazon sux!
Entertainment Industry sux!
15 dollar down the drain.

Lesson: Don't let online companies have control over your data files, contents, and devices.

These days all companies (offline and online) are trying to

grab as much of your personal information as possible... Facebook, Google...
control as much of your music n video files, contents, devices as possible... majority of Entertainment Industry and Publishing Industry, Google, Apple
separate as much of your money from you as possible... Apple, Sony...

Here are some ways companies control your data files, contents, and devices.

Data files (including books, music, video):

Amazon Kindle controls all the kindle books you bought. They can remove any of the books you bought anytime. This is applicable to to other DRM based digital books too.
Amazon Video and Apple iTunes control all the video you bought.
Apple iTunes controls your music too.

[While I was writing above, the root of all these problems is DRM]

Contents:

Online Email Services - Google, Yahoo, Hotmail
Social networking sites - facebook, myspace
Blogging sites - blogspot, wordpress
Website hosting - Google
Other services like - Calendar, photo

Devices:

iPhone and iPods

There are lot of people who don't use any of these things and they are just fine. But in today's life, many of these services can actually help if you use they judiciously. Everybody has different needs and lifestyle. So decide for yourself how much control you want to give to these online companies.

Windows 7 GodMode is awesome!

2010-01-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

Here is the wiki on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Master_Control_Panel_shortcut

In short:

Create a new folder and name it
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

That's it!!!

Adding lyrics in iPhone using Mp3TagEditor

2010-01-03T22:47:00.000-08:00

These links helped me:

For metals, use darklyrics web script to import lyrics from album at once, for others you have to do one song at a time (Hint: Use keyboard shortcuts to do it fast).

Once lyrcis have been added, remove those songs from iTunes, add them again to iTunes and sync iPhone. (I just removed the artists folder completely and added them again to save myself headache of doing this for individual songs)

iPhone's most ignored flaw

2010-01-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest flaw of iPhone is that it can easily slip from your hand and fall on the ground. It has happened to me a few times. Apple has made it all shiny and rounded and slippery. Is it supposed to be kept in a exhibition hall or museum? The other phones in the market are much more better in this aspect. Apple should do some research and look in the kitchen and fridge and see how the utensils, bottles, cans etc are made so that those items don't slip from your hand.

Like iPhone's unstable OS, this is another flaw which gets ignored because of its features.

Windows 7 bug: no way to edit environment varibale graphically

2010-01-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

When you try to change environment variable by clicking on "Computer\RightClick\Properties\Advanced System Settings", it will ask for "admin" password. Once you enter admin password, go to "System Properties\Advanced\Environment Variables". Here, you get a choice to change environment variable of "Admin" account or the "System".

So, only way to change your environment variable is to directly edit registry. This is a bug, since I was able to do this in Windows XP. On other note, why changing your own environment variable is a "System property"? It should be a user account property.

iPhone's unstability reminds me of Windows 95

2010-01-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

I am running iPhone OS 3.0 on iPhone 3G. It is slow and unstable. It crashes sometimes, hangs sometimes and drops calls sometimes. Out of all the cell phones I have owned and I know of, iPhone is the most unstable. But I like it simply because it meets my requirements best with its user experience and apps.

This reminds of Windows 95 which used to crash often (I think mostly because of buggy drivers and applications), but people used it because it had so many cool things that people didn't mind those tiny nuances of crashes. As a side note, I used Windows 95 mainly for watching videos and playing games, for everything else I used Solaris or Red Hat Linux; I switched my main platform from Red Hat Linux to Windows after the release of Windows XP and me realizing that Windows has finally got kernel protection and is not easy to crash.

iPhone problems which I encounter daily or frequently:
- drops call while talking (never happened with any other cell phones I owned - all on AT&T network)
- sometimes it will just refuse to charge from my laptop, but can do sync. I tried more than ten times today, but it wouldn't charge.
- hangs sometimes - I think some of the apps I have may be buggy
- sometimes very slow and unresponsive
- sometimes screen goes blank and wouldn't come up no matter whatever you try.

iPhone simulator for Windows

2010-01-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

Before I install any new software/app, I like to test it or get a feel of it in a virtual environment. On Windows it is easy. But so far, I have not been able to find a way to run iPhone apps in a virtual environment.

I think iTunes should have been able to test drive iPhone apps, but it doesn't.

The steps to create iPhone simulator are straight-forward:

Have an emulator for ARM processor (the processor in iPhone)
Get a modified version of iPhone OS (either from the apple website, or iPhone and then modify it like http://www.osx86project.org/ )
And design a nice UI to itegrate the iPhone hardware emulator and the OS; also import apps from iTunes, run jail-broken iPhone apps.

Looks like this has not been done.

Here are the closest I could find:

iBBDemo - Blackbaud iPhone Browser Simulator - simulates iPhone's safari web browser.
http://www.genuitec.com/mobile/ - Simulates iPhone's safari web browser.
Desktop iPhone from Ribbit - This is a webapp written using Adobe Air. You need to install Adobe Air to run it. It can simulate some pre-defined apps, you may need to create account with Ribbit. To me this looks like a pretty useless software. Here is a video of someone trying this.

Replacing Adobe PDF Reader

2009-12-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

Adobe Reader has been giving problems for last few months in printing PDF documents. This wasn't any installation issue since it gave problems on multiple computers and multiple OSs. Instead of printing the document, it was printing this:

ERROR: undefined
OFFENDING COMMAND: eexec
STACK:
/quit
-dictionary-
-mark

After searching on net, I found that it is a problem with the newer version of Adobe Reader. So finally, I decided to get rid of this bloated software which Adobe anyway has been abusing to push other things on my computer.

I checked portableApps.com and found Sumatra PDF Portable. I tried this software for a few days. This is not a very slow and processor-intensive software and printing is not good. In fact, when I tried to print a document with 120 pages, it froze my computer for a few hours. Currently, I am back to Adobe Reader.

How to have peace of mind working on a computer?

2009-12-26T10:29:00.001-08:00

With so many scams going on Internet and so many virus/spyware/malware floating around, it's hard to feel safe.

Here are a few things you can do to have peace of mind

Always work in a low privilege account. This will assure that even if you did something terrible by mistake, only your account will get affected and your system will be safe. This will avoid all kinds of rootkit attacks, keyboard logging, and operating system corruption. I create an "Admin" account and a "user" account for myself. "Admin" account has administrative privilege and I do all administrative work like software installation and tweaking the OS from that account. For my day to day working I use "user" account. If something requires administrative privilege and I am working in "user" account, the UAC will pop for "Admin" password.
Keep your operating system and browsers up to date. Automatic update of Windows and automatic update of Firefox both can be irritating. But this little irritation is worth.
Install an antivirus software. Gone are the days when you need to pay for anti-virus software and the anti-virus software were irritating and resource hungry. Get Microsoft Security Essentials - it is free, light, no hassle easy to use, it is fast and well integrated with Windows.

Other tips:

For highly critical sensitive things like banking, use a browser that does not allow add-ons like Google Chrome, Internet Explorer in No-Addons mode.

In Windows XP, working in non-admin account was a pain, but with Windows 7, working in non-admin is expected. With Windows 7, there is no reason, all the above process is totally frictionless.

WinSCP Portable and PuTTYPortable integration is half baked

2009-12-25T14:25:00.001-08:00

WinSCP and PuTTY integration is quite good. WinSCP can launch PuTTY automatically and interactively both. Not so with WinSCPPortable.

WinSCPPortable integration with PuttyPortable is messy. It wouldn't launch putty automatically or interactively and will ask you to manually launch it. Everytime I set the settings in WinSCP to point to the PuttyPortable.exe file, WinSCPPortable.exe overwrites the settings with path to "PortableApps\WinSCPPortable\App\winscp\PuTTYPortableLinker.EXE." There are two ways to fix this:

Change WinSCPPortable.exe
Change PuTTYPortableLinker.exe

I chose option 2 as it was easy. Here are the steps:

Rename "PortableApps\WinSCPPortable\App\winscp\PuTTYPortableLinker.EXE" to "PortableApps\WinSCPPortable\App\winscp\PuTTYPortableLinker1.EXE."
Copy "PortableApps\PuTTYPortable\App\putty\PUTTY.EXE" to "PortableApps\WinSCPPortable\App\winscp\PuTTYPortableLinker.EXE."

This will launch putty right from winSCP automatically.

This does come with a price - the settings for Putty will be stored in the registry. Since I use portable apps on only few computers, this is OK for me, much better than launching putty manually every time. In fact, I renamed "PortableApps\PuTTYPortable\PuTTYPortable.exe" to "PortableApps\PuTTYPortable\PuTTYPortable.exe1" so that I don't have two different set of settings.

Here is something I did more to make my life easier:

After running this setup for first time, launch "PortableApps\WinSCPPortable\App\winscp\PuTTYPortableLinker.EXE" and set the options for "WinSCP Portable Temporary Session"

I hope in the future WinSCPPortable and PuTTYPortable integration will be much better.

Windows Server 2008 / R2

2009-12-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

Windows Server 2008 <=> Windows Vista
Windows Server 2008 R2 <=> Windows 7

I wanted to install Windows Server 2008 R2, but oooops it is available only 64 bits. And I wanted to put a server on my one of the old boxes.

So I have to settle for Windows Server 2008 Standard. Got it from DreamSpark website.

nenasysguard.exe osguard wornv: virus/malware

2009-12-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

This is a malware or virus. Here are some details:

nenasysguard.exe
http://osguard-pro2009.com/purchase?r=57.1
Local Settings\Application Data\wkornv\nenasysguard.exe

"Google Update" firefox plugin: Google's first malware

2009-12-20T17:38:00.000-08:00

I was just looking into options to chat or do more through browser. I didn't want to install anything on my computer. So I went to this website: http://www.google.com/talk/. I clicked on the video chat link thinking if it opens in the browser then awesome or else if it asks for download, I will cancel it. Guess what, it actually started installing on my computer without any download pop-up. Well, I didn't feel immediately threatened as the website was a google website, but it did took me with a big surprise.

How can Firefox download and install something without explicitly showing the download popup? I was puzzled for a few seconds. And then it occurred to me that Extensions and Plugins can change Firefox's behavior. And there it was - "Google Update" plugin. I disabled it and tried the same thing, this time Firefox did show the download dialog popup.

Google sneaked in this plugin without my knowledge!!! I think it did when I installed Google chrome. You never know when this plugin will install application on your machine - clicking on a link could take you to a new page or directly install an application bypassing any Firefox security. Uninstall/Disable this plugin ASAP.

Google - the malware provider!

VLC: best video player || WMP: best music player

2009-12-16T20:58:00.000-08:00

WMP 12 - It is lightweight, fast and has everything for my music and video needs except space bar wouldn't do pause/resume in the "Now Playing" window. How do you pause/resume when you are watching a video - either point to the play/pause button or press CTRL+P. Here is a nice comment - Cntr+P requires two hands, is buried among other keys, and as such probably requires the light on because it cannot be found blindfolded. And are you going to point to that little button when you are watching video? HERE is a shitty explanation for why space bar is not the shortcut for pause/resume. This is a BIG BIG inconvenience for me for watching video, so no no to WMP for video. Space bar does work in the library window which is good for listening for music. Here is the keyboard shortcut for WMP 12:
Keyboard shortcut for Windows Media Player 12

iTunes - This is the worse option on Windows. It can't play most popular formats. It is a bulky shit and it has its own way of doing things and not a flexible application. Before you can play anything you have to add it to its library. It does not even have "Open file" option. Launching takes for ever and it is slower than a hippo. Drag and drop does not work. There is a big bug in iTunes - there is no way to do auto cleanup its library. For managing and playing video, there can't be any worse options. The only good use is if you want to play music which are already in its library. If you don't have an iPod and iPhone, don't bother, this shit will install a bunch of services, unnecssary applications and do its best to corrupt your system.

Quicktime - good for playing online videos. Not good for playing 5 videos in a row. Anyway, it can't play most formats. My recommendation: install it for the codecs, but never use it, its menu is polluted with "Buy Pro." One of the ugliest software on a Windows machine.

Realplayer - I had some pretty bad experiences with it in the past.

iTunes, Quicktime, Realplayer and many of these commercial media players are a kind of malware since they install bunch of other garbage things during installation, and are very irritating because of putting themselves everywhere in the system. They even set the system to automatically start a bunch of junk apps and services.

VLC - plays all audio and video formats I can think of. Space bar is for pause/resume. It beats WMP in other keyboard shortcuts too. All WMP shortcuts require two keys. In VLC, most shortcuts require one key and are very intuitive - F for forward, P for previous, S for stop, etc.
When you are watching a video, last thing you want to do is fumble around the keyboard.

The only thing which I didn't like about is its UI. WMP and iTunes both have got some coolness, but the UI of VLC is very simplistic. I hope going forward these guys will add some shading, transparency and texture in their player.

It's not that uncool actually. There are skins available for VLC which look pretty cool. Here are dozens of skins to chose from:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php

I really didn't want to spend time experimenting with different skins, so I chose the familiar ones:

WMP11 - this seems very promising
iTunes - the familiar itunes
MediaPlayer - like WMP 8 or 9

You can play the audio and video as fast or as slow you want. Nice feature!

Looks like I have finally found my dream media player.

There is a feature called "Customize interface..." where you can customize everything about the interface.

Now all I have to find a way to associate all media formats with VLC.

Actually I tried all three skins mentioned above, but I didn't like them; I used the default skin which sounded better than the above three skins. But right now I am going for the native interface. I will experiment with different skins later, or may be need to tweak one of them.

Here is the keyboard shortuct for VLC:
http://www.jaystech.com/2007/12/vlc-media-players-keyboard-shortcuts.html
http://shortcut-keys.net/vlc-media-player-shortcut-keys-complete-list/

VLC - simple and simply best!!!

Conclusion: VLC for video, WMP for music

Gnome still lacking and probably heading in wrong direction

2009-12-11T23:35:00.000-08:00

Gnome has copied lot of things from KDE and Windows, but in an effort to be different, it has done many wrong things. Many of the changes were unnecessary, many of them create confusion, many of them are annoying, and many of them hampers your productivity and fun.

What is the need for two bars - one up and one down? It's a just waste of costly screen real state.

In the most recent one, the shutdown, restart etc was put in a different menu and put on the right corner. What is the point of doing this? Just to be different? What is the keyboard shortcut for this menu? Can you execute these commands without touching a mouse?

I have found many applications in Gnome which does not have keyboard shortcuts and can't be used without a mouse. That is the beauty of KDE and Windows, you can do everything without a mouse, just by using keyboard shortcuts and it increases your productivity by many folds.

There is a menu for Preferences and many of the items in the list are confusing. You click on an item, explore the application, find that the settings you were looking for is not there, so you close it and repeat the whole thing in the hope that this time you don't have to repeat the whole thing. How irritating!!! There is no reason why all the items in the Preference menu can't be put in a single application like KDE Control Center or Windows Control Panel. Same is applicable to Administration Menu.

Gnome just sux!!!
Nowhere close to KDE!!!

GIMP: Remove background

2009-12-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

This is a nice article on how to use GIMP to remove background from a photo:

http://alaynacreations.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-remove-background-from-your.html

Windows: Symbolic links and mount

2009-12-08T23:26:00.001-08:00

Here is a link on how to create symbolic links and hard links in Windows:

Command: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-symlinks-in-windows-vista/
Concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

Here is an article on how to mount a drive or CD-ROM to a blank directory:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307889

Setting up Subversion Versioning System

2009-12-06T01:07:00.000-08:00

Finally, I was able to setup a subversion system to track the my programs and other files. Now I can go back in different versions of all the files which is great!!!

Setting up a subversion system was easy, must easier than I thought.

[In Progress]

Download YouTube Videos for iPhone, and Computer

2009-12-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Use this website:
http://www.savevid.com/

Download video in mp4 format, that way it can be played on iPhone also in addition to your computer.

I use this one:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/04/download-youtube-videos-as-mp4-files.html

How to install an application on Windows without admin privilege

2009-12-01T15:22:00.000-08:00

How to install an application on Windows without admin privilege?

In a corporate or university or school environment, it will be many times the case that users don't have admin access. And there are lot of application (mostly free and/or open-source) which are "just" applications and don't need admin privilege, but when you click on the setup file (exe or msi), it will pop up UAC dialog. I remember I was able to install these applications in Windows XP without admin privilege.

I noticed that when I try to install Microsoft Live Mesh or Google Chrome Browser, they don't pop-up UAC.

Here is my conclusion based on these observations:
The installer for Microsoft Live Mesh and Google Chrome Browser were updated for Windows 7 (or may be Vista) and the installer for other "non-admin" applications were not. Windows 7 detects that these installers were written for Windows XP and older, so it pops up UAC. Although Microsoft implemented a feature but it is broken. In a nutshell, a user should be able to do non-admin stuffs from non-admin account if she was able to do in Windows XP.

Update:

I found it:

"Local Policies -> Security Options -> User Account Control: Detect application installations and prompt for elevation" -> Disabled

Now it will not prompt UAC for installers. So when installing application if you want to give admin access to an installer, right click and select "Run as administrator."

Mounting a home directory of Linux on Windows through SSH

2009-12-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

You have an account on a remote Linux machine and you work on a Windows machine. How do you mount the remote machine file system on the local machine so that you can access all your files on the remote machine as if they are on the local machine. This is very convenient compared to file transfer if you edit files on the remote machine regularly.

Approach# 1
There are two commercial solutions:

SFTDrive or ExpanDrive
Webdrive

But unfortunately, there are no free solutions for mounting through SSH.

Approach# 2
There is a free (for home use) software which allows for mounting through FTP and WebDAV.

http://www.netdrive.net./

You can install a ftp server or webDAV server in your account, and use this client. You may need to forward some ports. I don't know how hard will it be to configure and run a ftp server or webDAV server from a user account and the security implications of this.

Approach# 3
Install samba server in your account, and use Windows SMB client. You may need to do some port forwarding and probably disable SMB server on the Windows machine. I don't know how hard will it be to configure and run samba server from a user account and the security implications of this.

Approach# 4
Install sshfs in the Ubuntu in virtual box on the local machine, export the file system as SMB share and mount on Windows. This is my preferred approach as I don't have to worry about security and server configurations. The Ubuntu is behind Windows network, so it can connect to outside world, but only my Windows box can connect to it.

Update

I have tried a couple of things from above.

My use case: I edit files on Windows, but run my scripts and experiments on Linux which generate lot of other files and graphs which I open on Windows for viewing.

Approach#1 is easiest. I tried both WebDrive and Expandrive.

Webdrive: It has caching which was a big problem for me because my files get changed on both sides. And if caching is disabled, it is slower than a tortoise. After looking into log file, I discovered that it was running dozens of commands for simple things like saving a file. In one word: Webdrive sux.

Expandrive/Sftpdrive: It has no caching and is superfast. The only problem is that it will change the permissions on the files. When I edited some executable perl script files, it removed the executable bit from the file permission which was kind of irritating. So I have to say good-bye to expandrive, although I might consider this software in future since more or less it is an excellent software.

Approach# 4: This has lot of technologies involved: Virtualbox, Ubuntu, sshfs, samba. This is as fast as Expandrive and it keeps the permissions of the files. So this is my preferred setup. The only problem is I need to keep VirtualBox+Ubuntu running.

In the end, both Expandrive and Approach#4 are good. But I prefer Approach#4.

Update 3/26/2010

I found FUSE and sshfs equivalents for Windows:
http://code.google.com/p/dokan/
http://dokan-dev.net/en/
I haven't tried it, but looks OK.

Math facility in Word 2007

2009-11-30T15:25:00.000-08:00

Microsoft provides free of cost an add-in for Word 2007 which seems useful for writing Math equations and plotting graphs - Word 2007 Add-in: Microsoft Math [download] [MSDN blog].

How to get Equation Tool:
Press in sequence: ALT,N,E,I
Or click: Insert->Equation->Insert New Equation

I have used MathType add-on for MS Word in the past, and it was excellent. I don't know how it compares with Microsoft Math.

For office 2003 and earlier, see here:
http://math-editor.sourceforge.net/

MS Office 2007 SP2

2009-11-29T09:45:00.000-08:00

I upgraded MS Office 2007 to MS Office 2007 SP2. You can download the upgrade from here.

It has some new features. The most of all features which intrigued me was - native support for ODF and PDF file formats.

I use PDFCreator which does an excellent job of generating PDF file from any Windows application. I wish MS would have invested in making a PDF print driver and shipping with Windows instead of making PDF generator only for Office products.

"About Word" Dialog in Word 2007

2009-11-29T09:33:00.001-08:00

"Office button" (top left corner) -> Word options -> Resources -> About

Macro Security Warning in a Word document even when there are no macros

2009-11-29T08:53:00.000-08:00

I was getting Macro Security Warning in a word document everytime I opened it, and there was no macros in the document. After doing some investigation, here is what I found:

The Macro Security Warning can be because of two reasons:

1. Third party components are interfering with MS Word. In this case you should get macro security warning in each of the word document. Try uninstalling some applications which provide add-in support to MS Word like "Microsoft office live add-in" or any add-in which supports printing to PDF.

2. Macros were added and removed from the document. It has been explained here with solutions - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290960 .

I used a variation of Method 3 explained in the KB article mentioned in option 2 above. I saved the ".doc" file in ".docx" format, and the security warning is gone. I again saved ".docx" back to ".doc" and there is no more security warning.

Subversion GUI client for Linux

2009-11-27T19:15:00.000-08:00

After reading for many posts on looking for a GUI subversion client for Linux, I decided to try "rapidsvn" (rapidsvn.tigris.org) because it is from the same domain as of subversion (subversion.tigris.org).

On the website, there is a exe installed for Windows, dmg insaller for Mac, but no installer for Linux - just the source code. How pathetic!!

I downloaded and tried to install.
It asked for APR - I compiled and installed it.
It then asked for APR-util - I compiled and installed this too.
It then asked for subversion headers - after spending a few hours, I gave up on this.

Finally, I gave up on rapidsvn. I wish the scenario in Linux was better, but even after so many years of evolution, it is still pathetic.

Next, I went for kdesvn. Could not compile.

Next, I went for eSVN. Could not compile.

Finally, I gave up on getting a Subversion GUI. What's the use of these software, if they are useless?

After spending many hours, net productivity was 0, a big zero. This is very normal in Linux environment.

All I can say is although Linux core operating system has moved way ahead, but the Linux environment remains pathetic and far from a productive environment.

There are definitely some good applications on Linux, but overall it wastes lot of time. As a rule of thumb - avoid compiling applications on your own unless that is your work or you enjoy it (I used to enjoy it when some how installing software used to give a sense of power).

One way to avoid this kind of waste of time is to use Ubuntu and use its 'agt-get' to get all the apps. Unfortunately, I can't use that because I don't have admin control over these machines where I do most of research work.

The Fox With His Tail Cut Off

2009-11-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

[In Progress]

Once a fox was caught in a trap by his tail. He struggled and struggled and managed to get free, but he left his tail in the trap.

Knowing that he might be laughed at for having no tail, he decided to try to get the other foxes to part with their tails, too. So at the next meeting of the foxes, he made a speech. He said that tails were inconvenient and unattractive, and that he'd never felt so good since giving up his own tail. He finished his speech and sat down.

Windows 7: Open command window in the current directory

2009-11-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

To open command window in the current directory when browsing file system through windows explorer:

Press SHIFT + right click, you will get "Open command window here" in the context menu.

Windows Powershell

2009-11-19T15:12:00.000-08:00

Commands:
ise - launch Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment
man man - see help on help

Laptop Heating Problem

2009-11-18T23:49:00.000-08:00

My laptop shuts down automatically when I run it on 100% cpu for 30 minutes or so. It comes up after I leave it 5 minutes to cool down. Since it is five years old, I guess cooling system is not working properly because of the dust accumulated in these years.

Is there any software to monitor temperature of the CPU and motherboard?

Resources for GIMP

2009-11-18T19:35:00.001-08:00

http://www.tigert.com/gimp/tutorials/

Windows 7 Download directory

2009-11-18T13:40:00.000-08:00

Windows 7 treats %HOME%\Download directory special and Windows Explorer takes ages to load this directory. Created a new directory - %HOME%\Download1. Changed settings in Firefox to point to the new Download1 directory.

Widows error dialog - how to get rid of this

2009-11-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

Inkscape crashed and I got this message:

"Inkscape has stopped working. Windows is checking for a solution to the problem..."

Obviously, Windows could not find any solution and finally it reported this.

While this feature might be useful sometimes, but mostly it is useless and waste of time. In fact this dialog freezes my computer for at least a few minutes.

Here is solution to this:

Open "regedit" and change the value of the following registry key to 1.

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\DontShowUI

If you want, you can disable ErrorReporting completely by setting "Disabled" to 1.

PortableApps.com: Integrating with the Windows System

2009-11-18T06:05:00.000-08:00

I didn't like the idea of having a separate menu for PortableApps. I would like to integrate it with the start menu, so I have everything at one place and I can search through it. I will also like to have these apps accessible through the Quick Launch menu or through a separate menu which has list of all apps without any scrollbar.

Here are the scripts which do that:

createShortcut.pl

use strict;
use Cwd;

mkdir "PortableAppsShortcuts";
my $currDir = getcwd();
my @files = <PortableApps\\*\\*.exe>;
my $file;
foreach $file (@files)
{
    my $program = "none";
    if( $file =~ m/([a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]+)Portable\.exe/ )
    {
        $program = $1;
    }
    elsif ( $file =~ m/([a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]+)\.exe/ )
    {
        $program = $1;
    }
    my $link = "$currDir\\PortableAppsShortcuts\\$program.lnk";
    my $source = "$currDir\\$file";

    &createLink( $link, $source );
    print "Shortcut Created: $program\n";

}

exit 0;

#==============================================================================
# Creates a shortcut for a file
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
use Win32::OLE;
sub createLink
{
    my ($link, $source) = @_;
    my $shell = Win32::OLE->CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
    my $oShellLink = $shell->CreateShortcut("$link" );

    $oShellLink->{TargetPath} = "$source" ;
    $oShellLink->{WindowStyle} = 1;
    $oShellLink->Save;
}

copyShortcuts.cmd

xcopy /E /I /F PortableAppsShortcuts "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PortableAppsShortcuts"

xcopy /E /I /F PortableAppsShortcuts "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\PortableAppsShortcuts"

setEnv.cmd

PATH=%PATH%;%CD%\PortableApps\XAMPP\App\xampp\perl\bin\;%CD%\PortableApps\gVimPortable\App\vim\vim72

PortableApps.com Apps

2009-11-18T06:04:00.000-08:00

These are the apps I downloaded from PortableApps.com:

GIMP
PuTTY
WinSCP
KompoZer
gVim
FileZilla
Skype
Firefox
winWGet
Audacity
SeaMonkey
BonkEnc
PDFTKBuilder
VLCPortable
CommandPrompt
FreeCommander
Google Chrome
InfraRecorder
KeePass
XenonFileManager
WinMerge
XAMPP and XAMPP Launcher

Firefox - the most bloated, memory hogging software

2009-11-18T05:34:00.000-08:00

Firefox is no more the thin and fast browser it used to be.

It is the most memory hogging software on my computer.

It is buggy too - sometimes, even if I close Firefox, it keeps running sometimes at 50% cpu, and sometimes at 100% cpu.

It is annoying too - when you start Firefox, it will show a blinking cursor in the address bar, but when you start typing, you will realize that that's not the cursor and you need to click on the address bar to get the focus there.

Another annoying thing is that it will try to access hard disk randomly and will get stuck there. I think Firefox spends more time accessing hard disk than Internet. And the annoying part is it will not respond while it is doing some crap with the hard disk.

At last, I have to confess Firefox is my primary browser. I use it for everything. I can't browse Internet without 'Flashblock' add-on. 'Dictionary tooltip' and 'Tab Mix Plus' add-ons improve my experience. If it wasn't for these extensions, I would have discarded Firefox long back.

Mozilla Corp. has over 250 employees and has revenue of $75 million dollars. The whole company is devoted towards making Firefox the best browser. The extensions are developed by individual developers. How ironic is this that Firefox's main strength comes from the extensions and not from the browser it is.

Another ironic thing about Firefox is that it was targeted for Linux as main platform, but the Firefox experience on Linux is sub par. The Firefox on Linux is even more slower and does not have many features and coolness of the Firefox on Windows.

Working with Inkscape

2009-11-17T15:43:00.001-08:00

[This is a work in progress]

Here I am going to list some tips and tricks for my reference.

To edit existing text, select it and then press Shift+Ctrl+T. As the dialog is popped up, you can select other existing texts to change their settings.
Horizontal and Vertical lines - The angle of the next node on the path can be constrained, relative to its preceding node, by holding the Ctrl key. This is the method to use for creating straight horizontal and vertical lines. How do I make sure horizontal and vertical lines when editing paths by nodes?

Graphviz and Inkscape for vector drawings

2009-11-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

I have been using xfig for years for drawing vector drawings. Recently, I got interested in two software for my drawing needs - Graphviz and Inkscape.

Graphviz is awesome when it comes to generating graphs from a program. An awesome tool for automation. I found Graphviz also useful when you want a quick graph, you don't have much time and you don't care about the exact layout. Being a lazy person I am, Graphviz adds nicely to my toolkits for lazy person - Perl, Gnuplot, Image Magick, and Graphviz. Write a quick text file describing the graph, run the 'dot' command of Graphviz package and you get a nice graph.

Inkscape looks good, but it is giving me some tough time. When I compare it with xfig, I can say that although xfig is less ambitious, but it is complete and stable. Inkscape is neither complete nor stable. But it is very ambitious and has lot of features. I am still learning my way around in Inkscape. Here are some resources:

Tutorials
A Quick Guide to Inkscape - this is really a very good guide.
Inkscape: A guide to a vector drawing program (html version of the book)

Inkscape seems to be quite popular, so I am going to stick with it for a while and hopefully I don't have to go back to xfig. As I can envision, my main use of Inkscape would be to use it to create technical drawings for publishing, because for everything else GIMP is there. In the worst case, probably I have to edit the SVG file manually if I couldn't find a way to do something in Inkscape.

The reason I like Inkscape over xfig is because

it does not introduce any new format and uses existing SVG format which seems a better choice in long term - more compatibility with other apps.
it has much more updated UI which is easier on eyes.
it has lot of features and many more things can be done.

Windows 7 Tools

2009-11-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some tools and resources which are available from Microsoft for Windows. I am keeping them here for my reference since I forget them when I need them.

Windows SDK
Windows Sysinternals
Debugging Tools for Windows
Windows Driver Kit
Interoperability @ Microsoft
Microsoft Windows Services for Unix, Subsystem for Unix-based Applications
Microsoft DreamSpark
Microsoft Download Center

Windows 7 Internals

2009-11-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

I found following resources on Windows 7 Internals:

Windows Sysinternal Tools

These are great tools to look under the hood.

- Run these tools online from http://live.sysinternals.com/
- Download
- Website

Video Resources

- A video of a presentation explaining Windows Vista Kernel changes [ An article on the same ]
- A video of a presentation explaining Windows Vista UAC Internals [ An article on the same ]

Reading Resources

- Widows Internal Book 5th Edition

- Article: Inside Windows Vista Kernel

PortableApps.com is awesome

2009-11-16T22:54:00.000-08:00

I have been using PortableApps.com on and off for last few years. But now I have decided to use as many apps from PortableApps.com as possible.

With Portable apps, switching machines is so easy.

Sometimes I use my laptop as primary machine, sometimes my desktop in the lab/office. And it is really cumbersome to keep both machines in sync in terms of applications, settings and data. Even if you don't want to use usb flash drive all the time, install Portable Apps on the hard disk.

Recently I decided to make a new Windows 7 machine as my primary desktop, it was a pain installing all the apps, copying files, and setting all the settings. Had it been Portable Apps, all I needed was to copy the folder and done!

For multiple users case: When there are multiple users working on the same computer, then every user has his own copy of Portable Apps and there is no conflict.

Few minutes back I installed GIMP, I am going to uninstall it and get it from PortablApps.com! Done! There are other candidates too for a move to Portable Apps start menu like Gvim, I will do them later.

Installing and uninstalling software can give you a perception of having power and it can be fun. But after a while (actually may be a few years), you get tired. Or, you just don't have time for the stupid computer. PortableApps.com is your friend.

I hope somebody comes with PortableApps for Linux/Ubuntu too.

Opening ".iso" files on Windows 7

2009-11-16T22:32:00.000-08:00

Windows 7 can burn ".iso" file on a disk if there is a disk burner on the computer. But unfortunately, it can't open/mount ".iso" file for browsing. Microsoft missed it again.

In any modern OS today, I would expect out of the box support for ".iso" file format. It is a very popular and non-proprietary format. Strangely, I needed "iso" reader/mounter because when I downloaded Microsoft Expression Studio from Microsoft's DreamSpark website, it came in ".iso" format.

Here is a free software I found which does the job quite nicely - Virtual CloneDrive from SlySoft. So far this has been working well for me.

Just now I found that 7-zip supports reading ISO files. Download it from http://portableapps.com/ or http://www.7-zip.org/.

LatexEditor DVI viewer not working

2009-11-16T21:06:00.000-08:00

I have installed LatexEditor (LEd) on Windows 7 and its in-built DVI viewer does not work. I uninstalled LEd, ghosscript, and MikTex and reinstalled them, but that didn't help.

I tried suggestions from the following links:
http://www.latexeditor.org/download_main.html
http://www.latexeditor.org/how_to_start.html

but couldn't make DVI viewer working. There does not seem to be much information on Internet about LEd.

The cross-jumping between TEX file and the DVI file is the coolest feature of LEd, and it is not working.

I don't have time to do any more investigations, but I might try on my Windows XP box.

Update:
It worked for me!!!

Here is what I did:
After suggestion from ImAn, I went to the LED forum and checked the DVI Viewer section. This post helped me:
LEd 0.52/MikTeX 2.7-I still can't see anything in DVI previe

1. I copied "dvi_miktex27.dll" in "miktex\bin" directory

C:\Program Files>copy LEd\dvi_miktex27.dll "MiKTeX 2.8\miktex\bin"
1 file(s) copied.

2. I put "dvi_miktex27.dll" in "font searching library"