March 2007
Monthly Archive
Sat 31 Mar 2007
The so-called most secured operating system ever, Windows Vista is seeing increased amount of attacks one day after Microsoft disclosed the security hole withing the the mouse cursor. The newly discovered vulnerability is in the .ani files that change the cursor into animation while loading programs. The hole allows malicious websites to use those files to install their code into visitor’s computer. Worth noting that Windows 2000 SP4, Win XP SP2 and some versions of Windows 2003 Server are also infected with the same flaw. This all comes soon after Microsoft started claiming credits for the world’s most secured system, which they say may not need Anti Virus! Wonder if we can sue them for it. More on the news here.
Popularity: 19% [?]
Loading ...
Sat 31 Mar 2007
Like old people tend to stick to their old habits, there are many computer geeks who love the classical editors. In my last job interview, the interviewer was excited with my performance so far and wanted to know which tools I use for my development. When I said the word Notepad, his face started changing colors and he didn’t know how to comment. So I took the lead and answered the question on his face. From my experience, other editors are designed for specific tasks only and if used other wise might give unpredictable disastrous results. Forte was the first editor I used for Java, and many had the problem of compilation error times and times until we figured out the problem is with the tool it self, and normal command line compilation does work perfectly. Another worse experience is when I opened my ASP page (Old ASP days!) inside some WYSIWYG web editor, I don’t recall it’s name. Suddenly afterwards my lovely code stopped working and started going crazy. I found out the editor have encoded the ASP opening and ending tags, making ASP pcode non-executable! I had tough time fixing it. From then on, I always prefer to stick to simplest stuff that does not interfere with my work, just makes it clearer. There are some real good editors out there which might be very helpful for certain projects though. Eclipse ofcourse is on top of those editors, being an open source with huge plugins library.
Right now, and for over a year I’ve been using Notepad++. An open source editor that is as light as Notepad, but a lot more powerful. What makes this editor the best choice for me is the following:
- Open Source: Just being so means there is continuous improvement and addition to it. Also, availability of plugins gives it a great added value, though I did not utilize it yet.
- Auto-Completion: Through the available plugins, you can activate this feature for auto-completion of current language in use based on the set of available APIs.
- Tabs: That’s right. Open multiple files under tabs. Open new tab with simply Ctrl+N. Browse the tabs with Ctrl+Tab. Boosts development time a lot.
- File Update Alert: Automatically detects if an opened file has been updated or deleted somewhere outside the editor, and gives the option to restore/maintain/close accordingly.
- Search: You can search one file, or all open files. Some nice feature when you don’t know where the lines of code you are looking for.
- Languages: Based on extension type, highlighting is done automatically for variety of languages, including but not limited to: Java, ASP, Perl, PHP, SQL, Ruby, LISP and many others.
- Encoding: Support of different encoding format, with the ability to convert to UNIX or Mac formats as well.
- Settings: Rich setting functionality, like changing the tab size. For example, regular tabs are around 4 whitespaces, while Ruby recommends 2 only. You can make your choice.
- Zoom: Ability to Zoom in and out of the file.
- Recording: I never used that!
- Performance: Never it had failed me during my work. So fast and robust. as I said, just like Notepad. That’s why it is meant to be a Notepad replacement.
Notepad2 is another alternative that is so much simpler with no tab feature. Good thing about it though is it does not need installation. So even with no admin rights you can use it. As far as I’m concerned, Notepad++ is the choice for me that has replaced Notepad literally.
Popularity: 49% [?]
Loading ...
Thu 29 Mar 2007
I was jut talking to a friend of mine yesterday about his new business. He opened a small booth in one of the malls to sell accessories. Notice I only said a booth. Even that required business license, which is fair. But the amount of work and time took him is like he is opening a big factory. Today, thanks to LifeHacker I came across MyNewCompany.com, a website that will handle all the paperwork for you to start up your company in the US, for a fee ofcourse. You just have to fill up a form and send it. People even in the US have this nightmare of paperwork, wonder how they would feel if they try it in Kuwait. The process takes months regardless, and for the simplest of things, you have to visit two or three different locations. It is getting better right now in the sense that physically, they are starting to gather all those locations into one. When do you think starting a business in Kuwait will be just a walk in the park like this?
Popularity: 48% [?]
Loading ...
Wed 28 Mar 2007
I hope this isn’t 1st of April fool or something, but Search Engine Journal is writing about blog post, Yahoo Mail will celebrate it’s 10th anniversary by offering it’s users unlimited mail storage size. A knock-out for Gmail which was the first to start with 1 GB FREE, and one year later stroke out Yahoo with another 1 GB. Recently however, as I was starting to get worried about my inbox size, Gmail announced they will hitting 3.47 GB in 5 years! and there is no jump-ahead. Too slow compared to their starting speed. Now, they have made it an easy lead for Yahoo if the news is true, and if so, the maximum Google can deliver is just a late equalizer. I am still surprised how can Yahoo commit to unlimited size, there must be some restriction in terms of how many bytes per day or something. Otherwise a bunch of hackers will bring the whole service down to it’s knees in no time I believe. There is no such thing as infinite storage in reality you know.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Loading ...
Wed 28 Mar 2007
The FREE to use Google Pack which comes bundled with several useful tools now has added Symantic’s Norton Security Scan to scan and remove viruses and PC Tool’s Spyware Doctor Starter Edition. As a background process tries to show it self more and more, I’ve lost interest in Symantic products recently, they are becoming more and more stupid and bugging. But the fact that both softwares come inside Google Pack with FREE automatic update protection makes it worth considering. I can stop asking my Symantic to remind me about updates 15 days later now. Note that I am assuming you are paying the full license and not a cracked version here in my complement. Otherwise the whole package makes no difference.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Loading ...
Mon 26 Mar 2007
After the Youtube acquisition by Google, Google Video started returning search results from YouTube along the Google Video results. With the massive community of YouTube, finding Google Videos has become a difficult task using ordinary search. If you are a Google Video fan, or for any reason want to filter out YouTube results, you can do so simply by searching Google Video like this:
your keywords -site:youtube.com
Example: monkey island -site:youtube.com
While searching, I came across this Monkey Island 5 movie, from the WoW world :). It’s not awesome really, but the intro was a bit promising.
Popularity: 23% [?]
Loading ...
Sun 25 Mar 2007
Rumors spread last week that there is going to be a Google Phone. Soon after, Google Officials from Spain confirmed the rumors saying employees are sparing some of their time on a Google Phone. Now, a top Google Executive (who definitely didn’t like the previous comments) said there is no work being done for a mobile phone, and rather than entering this large market they prefer to work closely with Motorola and such. A striking comment that collides with it’s successor, but it’s not a surprise to me. The surprise to me was that Google announced early in the game they are spending (some) of their time on a Google phone. The statement seems clear it is still in experimental phase, in which case Google sure would not want to expose their internal experiments to the public. I am not sure how did some Google officials make the statement without permission, I am sure there is some work happening, but Google is not sure how it will end up and do not want to give promises right now.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Loading ...
Next Page »
