Friday, December 28, 2012

2012 in passing…

2012 was a mix bag. Mostly sad with many (good) people passing. Many precious lives cut short.

Many world-changing-events happened, but some heart & faith wrecking actions hit us closer to home (it actually could be the Biggest Tragedy of 2012 in India or The Humankind).

Only thing is that its outcome may have a profound effect on the times to come.

For the other parts of the world, Google has it’s own news.

I for one hope that the humanity works out its internals first rather concentrate on getting achievements on the outer..

Humanity needs to be more humane now more than ever. As someone mentioned it quite aptly, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. And in these changing times, it seems that power comes easier but no one wants any responsibility. We as the current generation have this as our responsibility.

Always remember: No sacrifice should ever go in vain, or we will surely run out of heroes one day. Never forget.

Peace.

2012 in Science–The best in scientific break-through and achievements.

 

Everything happened in 2012.

The world not ending was a personal disappointment though (Dam’n you NASA!, better luck next time). Wikipedia gives us many forthcoming calendar dates to mark though. (Happy Happy!)

Ahh! Scientific achievements! Some discussed them in journals and some good Sci-fi movies imagined them correctly, but 2012 is almost gone, and many weird stuff is now real.

io9 covers it here in The Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2012 and WIRED has its Top Scientific Discoveries of 2012.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

True Awesomeness…taking off to space and beyond…from your own backyard!

Ladies and gentlemen, pure awesomeness has arrived.And it aims for the stars!

Copenhagen Suborbitals is an open source outer space project in Denmark. These two self supporting scientists or should I say entrepreneurs, Kristian von Bengston and Peter Madsen head the Copenhagen Suborbitals.

They, with the help of about 20-plus specialist helpers onboard are in the process of creating the first locally (read homemade) and plan to take this *manned* spacecraft into the orbit.

Doing it is one thing when you are funded by the government, but doing it in the backyard (although  not technically) but on a miserly budget of a few hundred thousands dollars is but ballsy!

Hit the below link for checking out their idea and progress.

Homemade spacecraft!

Just purely, awesomely wow…!

Addendum: Check out this link for photos and test launch details! Wow!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Listen up guys, sitting here and writing this for you…is killing me a little…so please read it standing up!

image
(above image courtesy the MedicalBillingandCoding.org)

Exercising in itself is a virtue for health. Everybody knows that, no matter how lazy!

But sitting down, is what actually makes all our exercise earned bonus points just go back to zero.

Contrary to popular belief, in-spite of an active lifestyle, you cannot reverse the negative aspects of sitting!

As per this elaborate article on The New York Times, sitting jobs actually lead to a heart disease, obesity, diabetes, certain cancers and early death, independently of whether you exercise regularly.

Sitting impacts your health in more ways than you know. Present day research has proof that sitting alters our natural body functions, actively leads to obesity, heart related disorders, and is a 100% contributor to decreasing both our health as well as lifespan.

So do yourself (and me) a favour, stand-up, move and herd around, every 20 minutes. Go for that tea-break now, but for God sakes, no fag breaks! As it is now known that Even light smoking may double your risk of sudden death.

Refer the (excellent) links below for further reference -

Friday, December 7, 2012

Awesomely charged up! Learn all about Batteries!

Batteries: The Absolute Definitive Guide” is a fresh and charged-up article on the author Andrew Tarantola's insight in the Battery world!

Very well done and thoroughly researched too, if I may add!

One word of advice though, charge your TABs Mobiles and iBoxes before you start reading up ; it’s a looong one!

For the more technically inclined, may I refer you to the excellent Batteryuniversity.com!

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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Do you have Slow loading Windows 7 folders? If yes, then try this!

 

imageDoes your Windows 7 (or 8) box suffer from Slow loading folders?

And, do these folders contain content like Word documents, MP3 files, or maybe loads of pictures/photos etc.?


If yes, then try this solution -

  • Right Click that suffering folder;
  • Click properties;
  • Select the Customize tab (commonly, the last tab) in the properties window;
  • Change the ‘Optimize this folder for:’ option to General Items. image
  • Select the ‘Also apply…’ checkbox to have the same folder properties applied recursively;

image

  • Click OK.
  • Done!

Try checking that folder for sluggish opening in explorer. Should be gone now…

The Cause: Windows 7 (and maybe Windows 8 too) uses something called ‘smart folder optimization’ which changes folder customization as per the contents of those folders, there-by applying certain content friendly settings in the process.

An example would be optimizing a photo-filled folder for thumbnails WRT the view settings.

Follow-up – A Caveat to the above solution is that sometimes, if you try to do any modifications or changes in the folder contents, the settings may be lost, as the optimizations may be re-applied.

This can be set permanently via a registry edit.

WARNING: If you are not familiar with the registry or its purpose and functions, do not mess with it! Any acts of stupidity WRT the Windows registry can and will lead to the entire computer not booting up at all!

 

With that out of the way, fire-up regedit.exe (Via windows start-menu –> run –> regedit.exe)

Navigate to the location -

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\

Now, in the side right panel -

  1. Right click;
  2. Choose ‘New’ –> String Value as "FolderType";
  3. Double click and set the Data as "NotSpecified";
  4. Re-start your explorer / Windows OS.

Now every folder (new and old) will be optimized for type as ‘General’. Problem solved!
NOTE: Although I haven’t tried this on Windows 8 as of yet, but it *should* work! YMMV though!

Monday, November 26, 2012

Warp drive….now being developed at warp speed…!!!

Ahh.. warp drive… Even the term brings back fond memories of Star Trek!

For the un-initiated, or people still living under rocks,

Warp drive is a hypothetical faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion system in the setting of many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at apparent speeds greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude, while circumventing the relativistic problem of time dilation. In contrast to many other fictional FTL technologies, such as a "jump drive" or the Infinite Improbability Drive, the warp drive does not permit instantaneous travel between two points; instead, warp drive technology creates an artificial "bubble" of normal space-time that surrounds the spacecraft (as opposed to entering a separate realm or dimension like hyperspace, as is used in the Star Wars, Stargate franchise, Warhammer 40,000, Babylon 5 and Andromeda universes). Consequently, spacecraft at warp velocity can continue to interact with objects in "normal space". Some of the other fictions in which warp drive technology is featured include: Stars!, Freelancer, EVE Online, Earth and Beyond, StarCraft, Mass Effect, DarkSpace, Starship Troopers, Doctor Who, Halo and Star Ocean.

(*Above courtesy Wikipedia)

Although hypothetical is a pretty speculative term in itself (considering that a 100 years back, majority of current innovations were hypothetical), NASA physicist Harold White has boldly stated that he and his fellow NASA members are developing a faster-than-light warp drive!

Did you hear? Faster than light!

Yeah right! But what about this guy?

Well, Harold has no intention of angering the Relativity Gods as all development and implementation of this Warp speed would be without violating Einstein's law of relativity. So there! Now, all should be well!

Read here the full Sci-Fi inspired real world implementation of the Warp drive!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

What I am reading - John Dies at the End

File:John Dies at the End.jpg

I am currently creating highly excited neurons in my head with stuff out of…

“John Dies at the End”

From the W’pedia -

John Dies at the End is a comedic horror novel written by Jason Pargin (published under the pseudonym David Wong) that was first published online as a webserial beginning in 2001, then as an edited manuscript in 2004 and printed paperback in 2007 via Permuted Press. An estimated 70,000 people read the free online versions before they were removed in September 2008. Thomas Dunne Books published the story with additional material as a hardcover on September 29, 2009.[1]

Personally, I genuinely feel that this book kicks some serious ass!

A sample quote…

“Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don't know what it is. Well I do. It's apathy. That's the truth of it; pile together everything we know and care about in the universe and it will still be nothing more than a tiny speck in the middle of a vast black ocean of Who Gives a F*ck.”

About the author -

David Wong is the pseudonym of Jason Pargin, online humorist, National Lampoon contributor, and editor in chief of Cracked.com. He is the author of John Dies at the End.

Get this, you won’t regret it one bit… I promise. You can scourge the web if you want a copy of the same in epub or .mobi version.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

This is just plain awesome! 25 Years Of Cell Phones In A Single Image

A Single Image!

Can you imagine!?!

Don’t stress, just check this out!

Courtesy NTT docomo, who is celebrating its 20th anniversary with an exhibition showcasing the evolution of mobile phone handset technology. Check it out…NOW!

UPDATE: Check the video too – (direct link for Vimeo non-lovers)

evolution of the mobile phone by docomo from designboom on Vimeo.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Need your (official) windows laptop/desktop to stay awake? Try Caffeine!

 

       +  

If your company’s group policy has necessitated “system in-activity auto lock”, and you need to do otherwise, caffeine will keep it awake.

The application is having a very small footprint, and works by simulating a key-press once every 59 seconds. So, your diligent machine thinks that you're still working at the keyboard. Hence, no locking the screen!

Just download and add the executable to the (Windows 7 –> Start Menu –> All Programs –> StartUp). You are done!

Get it now (caffeine.zip (14k)), and thank me later!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

We are in JSMAG! The JavaScript Magazine!

November 2012

After having ourselves in our own 2-megawatt spotlight in October’s GroovyMag, we are now having a nice reflowing write-up in JSMag

Below excerpt From the JSMag site -

JavaScript & DOM Reflows - Why Reflow Is Expensive And How To Minimize It - Chetan Khurana & Chandan Luthra

If you use JavaScript for your web development, you need to know about DOM reflows. Here we discuss what reflows are and why they happen. We also go through ways to minimize reflow issues in order to improve java-script performance.

I suggest all my JS inclined friends to go ahead and check it out!

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Friday, November 2, 2012

JAVA ALERT! - A Busy Developer's Guide to RESTful Services in Java

image 

I came across this good DZone article today (A Busy Developer's Guide to RESTful Services in Java)

A very good read describing the important aspects of Restful basics; for people who want to know the nuances of REST based Web Services; also provides a great comparison with the traditional Web Services (SOAP/WSDL)!

Nicely done and should be helpful!

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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

How to get rid of the uninstalled Antivirus product completely (for re-installation)?

I have recently upped an article on Experts Exchange titled as ‘How to get rid of the uninstalled Antivirus product completely

Avira Screenshot

This is something I faced personally and had a really fun (read hard) time resolving. Hope it helps out someone out there!

Friday, October 19, 2012

“Please Don't Learn to Code!“ says Jeff Atwood, and I think he is right!


image

For someone who has been in the industry for 30 strong years, a statement like “Please Don't Learn to Code” would sound absolutely far-fetched, right?

Nevertheless, when you do go through the logic behind the statement, you will understand.

Though an old one, but this article does it nicely and tells you why people “those-who-don’t-know-how-to-code-and-don’t-need-to-know-it-either” should, yes, stay away from coding.

Moreover, experience and maturity in this industry will teach you the absolute fact "The Best Code is No Code At All"!

I have been a fan of Jeff Attwood for long, and he has done his lot by bringing the websites Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange Network in conception, for the code community.

Follow Jeff @ http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/

Out.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

LEAKED! Galaxy S III mini specs

Ok, let me be honest. This was totally expected as mini versions are fast becoming a rage amongst stiff smartphone competitors (cough..cough..you know who)

image
(Image courtesy androidegis)

The S3 mini follows in the wake of the Madly successful mammoth S3, the elder sibling.

Following are the almost final specifications of the S3 mini--- this is getting unveiled in Germany today (11th Oct 2012)

Specs follow -

Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini -

- 4" Samsung Galaxy S III mini device;
- Super AMOLED with WVGA resolution;
- ST-Ericsson U8420 chipset (dual-core CPU @ 1GHz / 1GB RAM)
- Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out-of-box
- Main snapper - 5MP unit with LED flash+ front VGA camera;
- MAY even support 720p/1080p recording!!

Ah.. this will be interesting.. People going after the iPhone only because of the size factor will surely be tempted to jump the Android bandwagon now (more lawsuits anyone?).

Good going Samsung! Let’s hope you DON’T release the S4 any soon or it could be the proverbial ‘biting your own A$$’!

Update - Latest on GSMArene

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

We are in GroovyMag! Buy it now and read the article!

GroovyMag - the magazine for Groovy and Grails developers about Groovy programming and Grails development

Me and a buddy of mine have had a groovy piece published in GroovyMag (http://www.groovymag.com/)

This is in the October Issue of the popular Grails and Groovy magazine – http://www.groovymag.com/main.issues.description/id=50/

The article deals with “Internationalizing JavaScript in Grails” and describes how to achieve dynamic internationalization in JavaScript files (in a Grails based setup).

Hope it helps someone out there!

(Let me know in the comments if you read it and it helped you!)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Are Philosophical Explanations the only hope for the hopeless, un-answered science?

DO you believe what you see around you? Do you really Think that you actually are here for a purpose?

And while you are answering that, do you even know for sure that ‘here’ actually exists?

Being human is a real sorry affair, as ‘Man’ is the only intelligent life form (AFAIK) who has to carry the burden of thought. Only man has the ability to doubt his very existence and reality.

Existence is something defined and more importantly perceived best by the one who is experiencing it.

If I say and support what I believe is right, it is only because ‘I believe it is right’ and my belief is but my own personal limited perception.

So what actually is perception? And how can I be sure that my perception is actually right when I have the ability to doubt my own existence in the first place?

Although Metaphysics tries to answer what lies beyond the scope and domain of hard-core physics and conventional science, there are still burning questions which are left un-answered.

In ‘8 Great Philosophical Questions That We’ll Never Solve’ on io9, the author lists some questions which every sane and intellectually-able human thinks at-least once in his active life-time, and which successfully and elusively remain un-answered as yet.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Google Maps (turn-by-turn? am not sure!) Navigation comes to India!

Yay!

Google has finally launched voice navigation for Android in India!

PR Video follows as under!

Voice-guided GPS Navigation in Google Maps for Android in India

The actual release details are here.

Google Blog updates are here.

And, we also get to know the traffic congestion details, to avoid the rush!

* Update -  Yes, am sure now, It is Turn by turn! Oh Yeah!

Monday, September 3, 2012

Windows 7… The new Windows XP!

Admit it, you have never found Windows more easier, fun, configurable, fun, faster, fun, customizable and fun to use, than MS-Windows 7 (oh, and did I mention fun?)

So yes,  Windows 7 is officially the new Windows XP for the i-Generation processor.
(And oh please don’t sue me Apple, I meant i-3, i-5 etc. !!)

Here is a Mashable write-up, which says it best, 'Windows 7 Overtakes Windows XP As the Most Popular Desktop OS'

Have fun while you use it. And going along you will find many articles here on my blog, for helping you out on your journey!


Above picture totally not related, I HATED YOU VISTA (DAMN’ YOU!)

Thanks Bill, your team finally made something which hits the sweet spot (best of luck with the 8 though! Meh!)

Monday, August 20, 2012

Cleaning that Laptop NOW!

Many issues related to a software or application’s slow performance, extraordinary overheating when gaming etc. is due to the dust bunnies.

If you have a Laptop, this is even more so. Check this excellent write-up on life-hacker, which should motivate you enough to take care of that dust build-up.

For people who do not get respite from plain cleaning, a re-paste job (replacing the heat-sink thermal compound) would do that extra thingy.

Have fun!

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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Technology Trends – It is always Back to the future!

Goes to Amazon
*Picture related :-) if you know what I mean!

Do you remember the first ever available PCs and computers, which YOU used in your schools or colleges?

Have you ever stopped to think if there has actually been a radical techno-evolution in all these years?

And, has the technology really changed that fast?

On a personal level, I feel that the popularization of technology and standards not only helps establish techno-standards, but enables them to undergo the crucial survival-of-the-fittest routine.

This in turn ultimately ends up giving better services to the user, i.e. you and me.

This article at Gizmodo, sums it up really nicely.

It tries to guess the prevalence of current technology 15-20 years into the future.

I feel most of them would still be going strong in the 20 year timeline.

Monday, August 13, 2012

The Windows Portable Apps Arsenal !

If you have been a Windows user as have been all these years, you surely must have realized the absence of power tools in Windows which are so freely accessible in a Linux BOX.

Although Windows 7 is a breath of fresh air, the power features still leave a lot to be desired.

Enter the excellent utilities like Sysinternals and Nirsoft.

The SYSINTERNALS Suite

The Sysinternals Suite is a collection of excellent tools (which are quite mature and well known in IT circles).

These were initially created in 1996 by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell and contain a host of advanced system utilities. These guys even had a site dedicated to these tools and their usage, which now are a part of the Microsoft’s technical network.

The entire suite can be downloaded in full here as a zipped version, or you can refer to this catalogued index for searching what you want.

As an introduction to this suite, I am linking here to one of the most popular utilities of this suite, the Process Explorer.

The NIRSOFT Utilities

Coming to the Nirsoft arsenal, this site (http://www.nirsoft.net/) is dedicated to individual utilities for specific troubleshooting and feature handling for making day-today windows maintenance easier and transparent.

It is a single man operation run by Nir Sofer, and goes way back to 2001 when it was first conceived.

I can personally vouch for some of the utilities offered by this smart guy; they actually help in solving out small *pain in the ass* type issues, which plague generations of Windows box setups!

Now both these are OK to use occasionally for your own system housekeeping.

But what if you are the IT guy or one-stop-tech-help-guide for your circle of family and friends?

UTILITY LAUNCHER!

This would be a software-Swiss-knife combining the utilities of these two above packages in one convenient place of access!

I can refer using either the Windows System Control Center OR the NirLauncher.

image
Windows System Control Center

WSCC is a free, portable program that allows you to install, update, execute and organize the utilities from various system utility suites. WSCC can install and update the supported utilities automatically. Alternatively, WSCC can use the http protocol to download and run the programs. WSCC is portable, installation is not required. Extract the content of the downloaded zip archive to any directory on your computer.\

WSCC supports the following utility suites:

  • Windows Sysinternals Suite (including support for Sysinternals Live service)
  • NirSoft Utilities

Having used both, I can say that the although WSCC is better at getting updates and presents a cleaner, easy to navigate interface, NirLauncher is also a very interesting option, as you can couple up some other great utilities (like those offered by Piriform, creators of CCleaner).

Try these out, and maybe you can just convert that old 1 GB USB to the most weapon in your troubleshooting arsenal!

I have these on my pen-drive and regularly update them! These are an excellent add-on along with the USB bootable system repair ISO, which I would be covering later on in coming days.

Best of luck getting the best out of these!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Save your digital life, yours can be hacked too!


This is a story of how someone can easily loose all their life’s digital worth in a day.

Poor Mat Honan is now without his data, family memories and a year’s worth of his digital existence.

image

Mat, is a journalist and a regular columnist at the Wired.

Read the Wired article on how the event progressed, and what all should be taken care of, if you don’t want this to happen to you and all those related to your digital life.

Monday, August 6, 2012

The hunt for the best (non-SSD) Hard disk…in India…Contd…


Continuing the hunt of my next super fast laptop (internal) HDD the other day, I went to the local IT Hardware paradise…

And after much hunting and calling here and there, I was confirmed no 750 GB only 500 GB WD Black Scorpio 500 GB.

But this is supposed to be good enough. So I take the leap.

image

I come home, party out my tiredness. Mid Sunday, the hangover subsides and I remember to start the HDD data transfer (from the old into the new)

I use the old HDD SATA enclosure (Transcend, the best!) but no love…I find that the new HDD does nothing but click.

Click and click and click it goes, pulling me under the HDD woes…

This, I realize is no ordinary click, but the the click of death!

God! My new HDD is a DOA!

Such a cold hard whammy!

I become desperate, maybe it’s a power issue (black is a volt gulper). So I try out the actual SATA HDD bay in the laptop… no luck…depression sets in. I try my wife’s DELL Vostro 1500, no luck…

Even the BIOS refuses to acknowledge it! All this running around goes waste.

So what next? Wait for a ‘new’ ‘replacement’.

Life is such a killjoy….sigh.

Friday, August 3, 2012

My DELL HELL…

http://francisgouillart.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/dellhell.jpg 
I use a DELL XPS 15 system (1st generation, L501x) as my main system (work/play/blog).

A recent bad sector episode forced me to use my extended warranty service… and here is what I went through….

My DELL HELL starts with a call with DELL REPS on 7/12/2012 for which I was issued a valid Complaint No. – 860218617.

Following which I was issued a replacement HDD (a TOSHIBA). My original (faulty HDD) is a Seagate. This replacement HDD was entrusted with me in physical form and NOT INSTALLED on the LAPTOP.

This was because I had requested the DELL rep to let me do the O.S. installation etc. as a 500 GB backup is not instantaneous (from the faulty SEAGATE) and my DELL REP was considerate enough to trust my IT experience.

Also, as asked, I was given a 5 days, no questions asked, grace period for taking my backups!

Now comes the twist. As mentioned, this replacement was a TOSHIBA (MK5061GSYN), which is already a very bad personal experience (as my earlier DELL Vostro 1500 had this POS, and heaven knows what I used to go through).

God only knows what obligations are forcing DELL to go ahead with them!

Anyways, I called up DELL and told them about my preference and apprehensions. I was advised that I would be provided a NON-TOSHIBA HDD ASAP and I should return the replacement TOSHIBA to the logistics/faulty recovery dept.

So I called up again (on 7/18/2012) and was told to wait a few more days and the same would be arranged. The rep said that he would be updating the case history and I should call back in 10-15 days.

I did that and subsequently had a word with another DELL rep (Number 4) and was told I would be getting a call from DELL escalations team on Friday.

As expected, got no calls and thus I called them instead on Monday and thus got a call-back from escalations on Tuesday. Now, I was strongly being advised by this escalation DELL exec. to get the earlier offered Toshiba as a replacement and that a non-Toshiba HDD is not possible (and also that the DELL REPS do not have the power of arranging a specific replacement model).

Also, I was told that I should not be changing the HDD myself as I am not allowed to do so.

“A DELL tech will do it” he said, and I would not be allowed to keep the original / faulty HDD and it is my job to arrange a backup before the faulty HDD is replaced!!

Now what I cannot understand here is that why the DELL GUYS, while belonging to the same corporation, give out different advice and thus create different problems for an end customer in the process?

I think all of them understood the main issue differently!

For all its worth, it may seem trivial but if I need to explain myself to each and every DELL REP about the whole case history then it is actually adding up to my day’s ordeals with the world!

And, how is it that the case history is not in sync with actual happenings? Can this DELL REP#5 not refer his case record to know how things were done for the previous DELL tech visit?

I want to say this to Dear Mr. Michael Dell

I have been associated with Dell since last 8 years now. I have somewhere around 6 Dell Notebook Systems in my household, 2 of which I myself own, and I am a staunch DELL advising person among my family and friends.

It has been a decade of tinkering, upgrading and cleaning for me during all my DELL years.

So, if I am saying that I am capable of changing the DELL HDD myself, why is it being believed otherwise?

The kind of relaxation that comes as a gentle recognition / acknowledgement for a loyal customer, and which I have had with DELL all this while, is not there anymore, it seems.

I would gladly go on record to say that dealing with DELL has been a really sorry experience for me. A simple process for getting a HDD replacement from a global brand and service specialist like DELL could become so complicated, is but anyone's guess!

Wake up DELL, have some faith in your customers!

And if you really want me to spell it out, here it is –

To whomsoever it may concern, I state that I am capable of changing my XPS 15’s Hard disk on my own. Thank you very much.

Yours truly pi**ed off,
A DELL HELL Survivor.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

The YouTube Face-Blurring Tool - Protect the messenger…

 

An excerpt from the Google blog post

YouTube is proud to be a place where citizens and activists come to tell their stories -- stories that may otherwise go unnoticed. A study released this week by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that YouTube is a top destination for news and that “citizens play a substantial role in supplying and producing footage.”
But this level of exposure can be risky to the citizens shooting the footage and the people who appear in their videos.
Today, we announced a new face blurring tool that represents a first step toward providing visual anonymity in video.

Read the rest at Google Blog.

This is explained from YouTube's POV at the YouTube blog.

Excerpt here -

Blurring faces on YouTube is simple. Once you’ve chosen the video that you’d like to edit within our Video Enhancements tool, go to Additional Features and click the “Apply” button below Blur All Faces. Before you publish, you will see a preview of what your video will look like with faces blurred. When you save the changes to your video, a new copy is created with the blurred faces. You will then be given the option to delete the original video.

I can only say this is a two edged sword. It could be protecting the innocent, but it could also prevent the guilty from deserving punishment.

To each his own…,

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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The hunt for the best (non-SSD) Hard disk…in India…

 

Sometimes, being a part of the 3rd world sucks big-time.

A major conversion-cost-hitter is the Info-tech related sector, IT Hardware stuff. Things and innovations taken for granted in the west, are quite successful in burning out holes in the Asian IT aficionado’s pockets (if at all it is available in their homeland).

Be it Smart-phones, Hardware accessories, or novelty stuff (games etc.), these things can easily set some of us back by our monthly pay-cheque!

But as they say, technology is best embraced when it is needed badly the most.

Coming back to the story, my (still) decent DELL XPS 15 (the 1st generation L501x) is raising the need for expanding the primary storage section.

The seagate stock HDD is slowly on its way out, and although I am having the extended warranty (which again left some burn marks on my pockets !) I am on the lookout for a perfect (non-SSD) 750 GB HDD.

I have just started scouting the web for the same, and am zeroing in on some options…

One of the most interesting one is the Western Digital's Scorpio Black 750GB notebook hard-drive.

image

Checkout the comprehensively excellent review here.

I have had some experience with the earlier WD Scorpio 500 GB HDD, but am yet to try out the 750 GB beast.

Also, one other contender which is quite popular is the Seagate 2nd Generation Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive 750 GB.

Seagate Momentus XT - Hybrid hard drive

As the name suggests, this Seagate has the traditional platter storage coupled with a 8GB NAND (SSD technology) which supposedly should help boost boot up and app access speeds much beyond the normal HDD. So basically that is what makes it hybrid.

AnandTech has an exhaustive review for the same.

The only thing I am actually apprehensive about is the finite NAND read/write cycles. And that the price is killing (amazon retails for $150, the INR rate would be anybody’s guess!).

So I am looking for the Scorpio black… Would be touring the local Hardware shrine this week probably… Let’s see how lucrative the hunt turns out.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Bit down.. but not quite out!

I am in-between stuff…lots of it.

And, am finding it difficult to do justice to the blog… but.. should be back in about … 2 more days…hopefully..

Hang on to the dear Boson till then!

NOOB ALERT - What Higgs Boson Discovery Really Means

CIAO

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

IPv6! Now what the #$%! is that?

Well, for all those who just woke up, we are ushering in that era of the much awaited/debated version of ….

 IPv6!

Technically, the IPv6 or Internet Protocol version 6 is nothing but ….

“a version of the Internet Protocol (IP) intended to succeed IPv4, which is the communications protocol currently used to direct almost all Internet traffic. IPv6 will allow the Internet to support many more devices by greatly increasing the number of possible addresses.

 

Now, if you are a tech-nerd, this is easy to understand.

BUT for the common day to day user, it may be news that if you are on the internet using any computer or other access device, you ARE assigned an IP address in order to communicate.

The below should help multilevel users of the internet, understand the IPv6 need factor and the transition intricacies better -

Why IPv6?

<…That ladies and gentlemen was Vint Cerf, who is the ‘Chief Internet Evangelist at Google’, and …. a founding father of the Internet.

In there, he discussed the next version of the Internet, IPv6. Now that’s what I call straight from the horse’s mouth! >

Until recently, IPv4 has been scaling smartly WRT the expanding Internet and networked devices.

IPv4 “allows 32 bits for an IP address, and therefore has 232 (4 294 967 296) possible addresses. IPv6, which was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with this long-anticipated IPv4 address exhaustion, uses 128-bit addresses, allowing 2128 (approximately 3.4×1038) addresses. This expansion can accommodate vastly more devices and users on the internet as well as providing greater flexibility in allocating addresses and efficiency for routing traffic. It also eliminates the primary need for network address translation (NAT), which has gained widespread deployment as an effort to alleviate IPv4 address exhaustion.

IPv6 is everything IPv4 is and more. In addition to the increase in addresses, IPv6 also

“…simplifies aspects of address assignment (stateless address auto-configuration), network renumbering and router announcements when changing network connectivity providers. The IPv6 subnet size has been standardized by fixing the size of the host identifier portion of an address to 64 bits to facilitate an automatic mechanism for forming the host identifier from link-layer media addressing information (MAC address). Network security is also integrated into the design of the IPv6 architecture, including the option of IPsec.

Now, in order to switch or gracefully merge in IPv6, everything connected to the Internet need to update to the IPv6 protocol.

If you want to get an idea about the update in address techniques, which IPv6 will necessitate, head over to the Wikipedia link for the same.

Technorati Tags: ,,,,,

Addendum – Head here for the Google Tech-Know on IPv6

Thursday, May 24, 2012

HowTo - Lock system while playing video (aka. make Windows toddler proof!)

image 

Necessity is, quite rightly, the mother of all inventions (and… discoveries!).

Before my son came along, I never felt the need to even search or test for this kind of software!

But now, searching for something which could protect my Laptop and let him carry on watching Shaun the sheep, led me on to KeyFreeze.

This is a great application which..

“blocks your keyboard and mouse without "locking" the screen. So your kids can safely watch a cartoon or have a videochat with their grandparents and bang the keyboard all they want.”

And not only children, this can be used for pesky pets too (who love toeing on your keyboard) !

Moreover, like all good things, this is Free!

(Note: Needs .net framework to run!)

Checkout KeyFreeze at http://keyfreeze.com/

(If you need something with more options, like blocking selective keys etc.. consider Toddler Keys and Kid-Key-Lock, although I haven't tested them though!)

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

If you actually want to bring it to notice…

Yes, the Blog Never Seconds actually teaches you how to bring that much needed change, no matter how trivial or how major it could actually be!

This is a blog of a 9-year-old girl, Martha Payne's, where-in she describes how her school serves up some exotic hair laden dishes (yuck!)

Martha provides a full categorized ranking of her daily diet too, which is sampled as under


Pol Elia's ratings are,
Food-o-meter- 7/10
Health Rating- 5/10
Price- €2.06, which is £1.64
Pices of hair- 1

And as expected, the school has taken steps to reduce the hair amount and increase the health value of their food!

I wish her edible hair-free food times ahead!

(Images courtesy: NeverSeconds)

Friday, May 18, 2012

How-to - Hacking flash game high-scores!

 

Before I begin, a gentle piece of advice:

Use the below for you education only, and not for any personal gains (except maybe to inflate your own ego!)

Anyways what-ever you do, I am not responsible for the outcomes (viz. if your deeds get you caught/banned online) !

Well here goes –

1. Get Firefox! (yes, only Firefox is supported in the current solution!);

2. Install tamper-data add-on – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tamper-data/

3. Start Tamper-Data from Firefox –

Tools –> Tamper-data

Tamper Data-main screen

4. Try to open a new session in Firefox (or only the desired flash URL in your browser or you will have a hell of a time tackling submit requests in Tamper!)

5. Fire up your flash game. (this can be done after the above step too)

6. Play and loose, or die or what-ever, just finish the DARN thing!

7. Wait till you reach the high-score window/dialog in the game;

8. Hold it, don’t submit yet!

9. Ok, now just start your Tamper process by choosing start Tamper in Tamper window.

10. Now click submit, and wait till Tamper data takes over.

11. The dialog appears asking you to tamper the current server post values;

Tamper Data-popup

12. Pay attention now!

a. Remember, first Un-select the checkbox of continue tampering;

b. Then choose the Tamper button.

13. In the new ‘Tamper Popup’ window which opens, check the parameters in the right panel;

Tamper popup

14. You will find the parameters user name (whatever you types as user name) and the ‘not so high’ score you managed to get!

15. Manipulate both, and select submit/ok.

Check your score now in high scores!

Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Know Java? Know primitives!

Java logo.svg

Well, this may not be news for the most of you java gurus out there, but many a times, the primitives DO need a revisit.

Primitives refer to the base types offered ‘out-of-the-box’ by the Java programming gamut.

The base need of primitives arose due to the advertising and popularity of Java as a compile once – run anywhere paradigm.

Anyways, the below table should be a harmless refresher for that primitive coder in you ;-)

Data Type 
Size (in bits) Default Value (for fields)
byte 8 0
short 16 0
int 32 0
long 64 0L
float 32 0.0f
double 64 (yes, same as long :-) ) 0.0d
char 16 '\u0000'
boolean 1 FALSE

Hope this gives some quick help to someone out there!