Hardik Shah - Trying to be with Technology

Nokia N96 Review

2008-09-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

I had a chance over the last 10 days to review Nokia’s N96 for the tech section in one of the Indian Publications:

Here are my takes on the phone:

Good things that I like about the phone:
1.       Huge memory
2.       Quick application Install speeds
3.       Much better camera (thanks to the 5MP Sensor and 2 LED flashes)
4.       Ergonomics (two way slide, tactile feel, button placements)
5.       2.8” display
6.       Car Charger – a must have these days for folks on the go
7.       Dual Camera (though VGA) – A secondary camera which is good and is quite handy to take “self portraits”
8.       Personal GPS Device – Attach the Phone to the Deskboard of the car, connect it to the car charger and you have your own personal Navigation device which will guide you, “telling” you to take a left or a right at the next turn (Nokia Maps is really a great app to have)

Things that I dislike about the phone:
1.       Smudges on the screen – It’s a fingerprint magnet
2.       Slow application response once filled with data (I copied a 3 GB movie file on the phone – and it took me 40 seconds to open up the gallery )
3.       Startup time – it took me more than 30 seconds to turn on the phone post the initial configuration – the time increases as you install apps on it
4.       Average sound quality – with such a high price for the phone I would have expected a “premium” headphones along with the box
5.       Battery Life – significantly reduces as you start using the music/video player + camera (it lasted me 3 hours with continuous video/music play).
6.       Value for Money: Not a good value for money as a complete package – can be good if you think of it as a Avg Phone + avg Cam + Avg Music player

Update: Here’s it in the publication – Monday’s HT Cafe.

PS: The views of the phone were as “Hardik Shah, tech enthusiast” and not as a Microsoft guy

Student Partner Boot Camp – August 08

2008-08-09T23:00:00.001-07:00

It’s time of the year again when a few bunch of excited students – who represent Microsoft in their respective colleges – gather for a two day Technical Session on various Microsoft Technologies.

Day one comprised of WinForms; SQL and .NET basic framework along with C# Patterns. A 8 hour training session and at the end of it – this is how the gang appeared

Same Place; Different People

2008-06-27T13:31:00.001-07:00

What is the future of Technology? Where is the age of Internet going to lead us to? Do we think the last mile connectivity is still an issue for the majority of governments of developing countries? Is there something that I can do – to bypass the limited resources of my knowledge and think bigger?

These were some of the questions that I had to ask to myself before I decided to put in my papers with the Regional IT Team. It had been a tough decision for me – I had been around in the team since couple of years, serving in different capacities and roles. Unlike other CompSci / IT Grads, being a part of Field IT was always the first choice for me (not that I hate coding, but I simply do not like the term “Developer” and the abuses it comes along with), throughout my college life and also during the various interviews that I had been though. Being a part of IT, guys who give your company an environment which is not only robust but also scalable and efficient. The guys who every employee runs to for simple queries like “The Printers are not working”; “Is there something wrong with our VoIP Phones?”, “I need 40GB storage space on the server, do you think you can provide that?”, to more complicated ones like “I need more bandwidth on my laptop, can you please pull a pipe for me?”. In fact, the IT guys are interface between the new employees and the older ones, they take responsibility of getting them introduced (albeit during Xbox Gaming Session or TT or Snooker) and then happy live the life of “King of the Jungle”. It defiantly was a journey, which will still be a part of my life – a part – which has given me confidence, courage and most importantly lead a team in true sense.

I move onto doing bigger and more exciting things. I join the Digital Advertising Solutions team – as a Solution Specialist – Brands- being an interface between the sales folks and the technology folks. I would primarily be a blend for the Media Industry with the IT Industry. Which mean, I’ve moved domains, and look forward to an exciting career in the Media Industry.

Until the next update on my job role (which I am trying to analyze / see though) – you guys have a great time surfing the net :)

Windws Live Messenger on Blog

2008-03-17T00:53:00.000-07:00

Finally got this to work - a simply HTML code, embedded in the template, and a simple way of communicating to me over the IM without actually installing it..

Get it for your blog

And now it's Apple in front of the Law

2008-03-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

The recent buzz around - ZapMedia based in Atlanta had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple Inc, for using it'sU.S. Patent Numbers 7,020,704 and 7,343,414, each of which is entitled “System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal synchronized by said user devices." - in iTune and iPod.

iTunes is the famous media player cum online marketplace for songs which gave back Apple it's brand name, image and share in the consumer market. It was because of iPod's and iTunes (and now iPhone) that Apple is called a company which is Digital Media & Consumer centric.

Though the guys back at the Cupertino based company refused to comment on the media reports - Apple has been known as a company which has a loyal fan following.

.... more about the report here

Windows Server Launched

2008-03-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Fianlly, after a wait - Microsoft Launched Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. This was one of the most exciting events that I had been to - and was at a local movie theatre. More about it on this.

.... Will post photos and more about it a little later :)

My MixBook :)

2007-12-30T01:37:00.001-08:00

Am I Legend?

2007-12-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

One more premier to attend yesterday and my bad luck still continues. After Saawariya and Beowulf this was the third bad one I had.

"I'm Legend" - a Will Smith movie, with bang Bang and bullets all around - as everyone would have expected, is not. It's not a typical Will Smith, and sadly disappointed me.

I won't write the plot here - however - a word of advice - it's not worth a 200 bucks on a ticket and about 150 bucks on popcorn and cola. Watch something else - not this one.

"I'm Legend"? Of course not!!!

iPhone - Jail Broken and Activated

2007-12-10T06:15:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday morning, 9th of December 2007, and in comes the call at 0800 hrs of a friend who recently got an iPhone from US. I had promised her to activate and sim break it as a birthday gift (Her birthday was last week). I was wondering - on a Sunday you gotta sleep till 12 noon rather than leaving for Andheri and cracking up the phone :).

I got up - 8:15 was the time and took a public transport to her office, which had WiFi Connectivity. That's the first thing that you will need before you jail break the iPhone. A WiFi connection (non-encrypted, unsecured) is required in the process of jailbreaking and unlocking the iPhone.

So there I was at her office and ready to hack into the iPhone, activate it and give her an awesome birthday gift. We got ready to unlock - a coffee & a coke as our only refreshments - and an awesome WiFi connection. Mind you - the phone was pre-installed with ver 1.1.1 of the firmware and it was upgraded to ver 1.1.2 by the seller. The crack is not possible if you have the newer iPhones which come pre-installed with ver 1.1.2

I stated up my Vista, installed iTunes (yes - you need to download a 51.08 MB of crap) and connected the iPhone to it. The idea was to first downgrade the firmware to 1.1.1 and then jailbreak in. We downloaded the ver 1.1.1 of the firmware on our local machine, got into the Apple Recovery mode (turn off the iPhone, Hold the Power button & the home button, release the power button after 10 seconds and you will enter into the recovery mode). Once in recovery mode, iTunes detected it and asks us to restore it to the latest version of the firmware - in our case it was 1.1.2 - however we did not want to do that. We had to manually select the downloaded firmware by holding the "Shift" key on our machine and then hitting the restore button - where it will displayed a "Windows explorer" type window. The firmware was highlighted - which was just downloaded and the restore process progressed (it just took about 10-15 mins). At the end of the restore we got an error (1015), and just as mentioned on forums, ignored it.

Now came the most crucial part of Jail Breaking into the phone. We had to search for "iPhuc for Windows" to get out of the recovery mode. Once installed on the system, shot three commands to get it out of recovery mode:

cmd setenv auto-boot true
cmd saveenv
cmd fsboot

A wait for 20 seconds and we were able to see the screen which says "Slide for Emergency" We were now ready to JailBreak the iPhone. Then followed the coolest and sexiest part of jailbreaking. We followed the process till Step 9 and the phone restarted - however to our surprise it went automatically into the Recovery mode :(.

After a lot of R&D, and searching onto other forums, upgrading to 1.1.2, and again downgrading it to 1.1.1, we still would get stuck up on the same screen. There was a moment in doing this when the Phone just didn't respond for couple of mins and our heart were in our mouth (I was just praying that I didn't iBrick the phone - it would have been the worst ever birthday gift to anyone then). However - I was lucky and the phone rebooted after a wait of 5 mins.

I later realized the mistake I was doing when downgrading the iPhone to ver 1.1.1. When you downgrade the phone, only the firmware get downgraded. It was also necessary to downgrade the "BaseBand"firmware as well. Hence I followed steps mentioned here under section "Downgrade the baseband firmware". Once the baseband was downgraded, we had to restore the firmware to 1.1.1 and follow the steps of "JailBreaking" mentioned here. This time the screen changed to "Slide to Unlock" rather than "Slide for Emergency" (This is when I said to myself - the phone is about to get SimUnlocked - and the birthday treat would be awesome).

Then followed a series of simple steps right from installing the AnySIM application to doing all the patches. It was all unlocked and activated ready to use in under 15 mins :).

And finally the iPhone springboard came up without any glitches

In all - it was an awesome beginning to a rocking Sunday :)

First's from my EOS

2007-11-28T02:14:00.000-08:00

After a long wait (of over 8 months) - I finally managed to get a D SLR for myself. Being super excited ever since it has come - here are the first few from it :)

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Radio on Google Talk

2007-09-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

Wanna listen to Radio? Internet Radio? On your Google Messenger? Follow the steps:

1. Add service@gtalk2voip.com
2. Then add: 110@radio.gtalk2voip.com
3. Make a Call to 10@radio.gtalk2voip.com
4. Enjoy listening to the radio :)

.... Make sure you have good internet bandwidth before you listen. You do not want the songs to kill in between buffers.

Windows Mobile 6 for HTC S620

2007-09-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

For the past few months - a wide number of SmartPhone users had purchased HTC Codename Excaliber (HTC S620 / T-Mobile Dash / Dopod C720w). This is probaby the best Smartphone that is available as of today - however it came loaded with Windows Mobile 5.0.

T-Mobile was the first one to release a Windows Mobile 6.0 upgrade last month and now its the turn of HTC. The HTC upgrade can be downloaded from here. And for those who did not know - Dopod has merged with HTC and this build can be used on a Dopod phone as well

DevCon 2007 @ Pune

2007-08-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

From the site itself:

DevCon is a Developer Conference from the developers, by the developers and for the developers. Developers may be professionals or students who will represent next generation developers.

DevCon was first held in the year 2003 at Trivandrum. It attracted approximately 200 professionals. After this success at Trivandrum, in year 2004, Mumbai User Group organized “DevCon 2004”, which included two different tracks, one for Professionals and another for Academia, and combined track attracted more than 500 professionals and students.

In year 2005 “DevCon 2005” was organized by Pune User Group in association with the Mumbai User Group and INETA, following with the blueprint of “DevCon 2004” and attracted more than 600 professionals and students. I

n year 2006, Pune User Group, in Association with Microsoft® organized Acad DevCon 2006. This event was the most successful event of all the times with a huge response of 700+ audiences.

NOW, “DevCon 2007” is being held this year at Pune organized by Pune User Group in association with the INETA, following with the pattern of “DevCon”. This year it is also targeting both professionals and academics with two separate tracks of sessions for students and professionals.

... for agenda and speaker details hop onto http://devcon.puneusergroup.org

Microsoft Student Partner Meet - West Zone

2007-07-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

The last three days of my week have been on a roler coster ride, with Microsoft Student Patner Meet on one end and implementing the Exchange UM Project on the other.

Over the last two days, we have talked a lot about User Groups, SQL Server, Windows Server 2008, ISA Server, SMS Server, MOM Server, ForeFront Server, MOSS, and probably all the products under Microsoft's Infrastructure Domain.

Today - we will look upon technologies like AJAX, Katmai, Secure Coding and lastly - we will watch Die Hard 4 :)

Back after long

2007-07-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Due to commitments and a stressful days at work, I was out of the blogging scence for over 6 months.

Now I've made a promise to myself to try and post atleast one everyweek - so I am back to blogging and rocking.

.... things that happened in the last few month

New Job role at Microsoft
Showcase of e-Home at MES
Showing Technology Scenerios at Microsoft TechMela (formely Microsoft Tech.Ed)
Shooting for bit for MTV India on various technologies
POCs on SharePoint Portal Server
POCs on Live Communication Server and Exchange Unified Messaging
6-7 User Group Meets

Cascading Dropdowns in Infopath Forms

2006-10-27T02:34:00.000-07:00

SharePoint and Infopath forms ideally go hand-in-hand. There have been times when doing a POC questions are asked if we can do a "Leave Request requisition". Sometimes the data needs to be populated using other dropdown boxes.

Digging though information - I ended up landing on the Infopath Team's blog. They have a great article on how to design "Cascading Dropdowns in Browser Forms". A great article and must read if you work extensively on Infopath

"Failed On Start" - SPS 2007 Error

2006-09-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

I have been trying all these days to make my hands real dirty with SPS 2007! And I finally suceeded.

I have a machine running Win 2003 R2 and SPS 2007 (Beta 2). The idea was to try and get hooked up with SPS 2007. There are couple of things that need to be done (as pre-requisties) to install SPS 2007. Here are a few of them:

1. .NET Framework 2.0 or later
2. Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 2.

I 'm smart and installed .NET 3.0 RC! (it has released versions of both the components) And bingo - my SPS got installed without any glitch! No additional stuff to be downloaded or installed except for Framework 3.0.

However, couple of days later - I was trying to work on a "Approval" workflow, which is pre-defined in SPS 2007. I give all the parameters, all the options filled up and start the workflow. The workflow on starting says "In Progress" however within moments it changes to "Failed to Start". I tried installing SPS again and the framework as well - but the workflow just couldnt start.

I failed to understand the reason - as all the pre-requisites were installed and the workflow should have run. Infact stuff like Excel services were running great. I failed to get a solution to why this was happening.

Then came a brainwave - I installed Sharepoint again - this time with .NET Framework 2.0 and Windows Workflow foundation 2.2 (Beta). I tried running a workflow on a document library and voila, this time it surely worked! No more errors and the process was as smooth as it can get!

Here is a story behind! SPS 2007 Beta 2 was supposed to work with Windows Workflow Foundation 2.2 Beta! With .NET Framework 3.0 - I got the RC build of WWF. That created the problem. I had hence to download both the components (WWF and .NET Framework 2.0) and reinstall SPS 2007 Beta 2. However, I guess if I had Beta 2 tech Refresh of SPS 2007, .NET 3.0 RC would have work - thats my assumption - though havent tried that out.

Task finally completed - and a Shutdown in process. More about SPS 2007 installation comming up in later posts! Keep blogging :)

Great SharePoint Server Consolidated Links

2006-09-07T01:09:00.000-07:00

I have been getting my hands dirty - and I mean it - real dirty with Sharepoint 2007. There have been times when I am frustrated and just end up banging my head on the desk - cause there are only a handful people whom I know - have an drilled down in-dept knowledge of sharepoint and have answers to most of the question that you can ever have.

One such guy is Mark Krugar, a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) - who runs a Sharepoint blog on http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mkruger/.

This guy is really awesome and wonderful! He has gone ahead, taken pains to consolidate all the link of articles, trainings, weblogs, webcasts, etc on Sharepoint and post it on his blog! A truly awesome community spirit - and probably my only one stop source (his blog) for all my sharepoint problems.

Will Vista stall Net traffic?

2006-09-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

There have been talks going on in forums about Vista doubling the internet traffic because it supports the new IPv6 standard, which will provide a broader and a larger range of IP Addresses.

I tumbled upon a CNET News article, which have interviews from Paul Mockapetris, the guy who invented DNS (Domain Name System). Its a must read article - probably one of few better written.

Dont know if Vista will hamper the network traffic or not - but sooner or later just like China - everyone will move to IPv6 standard and probably an OS which would be (rather it is) ready for IPv6 addressing space would be Vista.

Windows Vista Available to CPP

2006-09-07T00:23:00.000-07:00

Vista RC1 , finally releases to the CPP (Customer Preview Program) participants. And again - its the same build which was released on friday to beta testers (like me).

In Microsoft's words

"Update: Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is now available for Customer
Preview Program (CPP) participants only. If you are not registered but would
like to receive RC1, the CPP will open to new participants in the coming weeks.
Please check back periodically for updates."

Get it from http://download.windowsvista.com

Need Windows Vista for Free?

2006-09-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

Microsoft lately appeared quoting in couple of international media about offering Vista for free! Yes, Microsoft is offering Vista, free upgrade.

However, the free upgrade will be only available for MCE (Media Center Edition) users of Windows XP. For Windows XP Profession users, the upgrade would be around USD 110 for the entry level OS, while for the premium version it would be close to USD 270.

apparently, there is a tentative corporate launch of Vista scheduled around 10th November 2006 - Vista will only be available for Corporate customers - the retail versions are slated to be launched in January 2007

So if you are a retail user, and what a free upgrade to Vista and are looking for buying a new computer, go ahead and buy it with Media Center Edition.

Installing WinFX [.NET 3.0]

2006-08-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Well - after the much pains I look installing WinFX, I found a simple way out. All that I had to do was to browse to http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/downloads/products/getthebeta/ and under Downloads for Running .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly WinFX) Applications - just click the appropriate link.

I was taken to the download page, where after reading though the text, I could go ahead and download the complete runtime which was in .exe format.

Now wasn't that a nice helpful thing done by Microsoft :)

Installing WinFX [ .NET 3.0 ]

2006-07-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Recently I was trying to get my hands dirty on Sharepoint Portal 2003. However for the portal to install correctly, what we need is WinFX.

WinFX is not bundled with the SPS 2007 DVD. Its a additional download. Once you click the download link, a small exe of 1MB is saved on your computer. This "exe" file, when executed, connects to the internet to download additional 24MB files. These files are part of WinFX setup.

However, at India, where bandwidth is still an issue - the "exe" may not be a feasible way to distribute your apps which use WinFX as a platform. The user will have a machine connected to the internet to get the redistributables. An internet connection might not be available at every location, hence it makes all the more sense to "extract" the files and burn them on CD.

Here is what you will have to do, when the exe is installing WinFX, it has temporarily extracted all the files to the "Temp" folder under "Documents and Settings\Local Settings". You should copy the folder names "WinFX" from the "Temp" folder, copy it to another location and you are done.

However this is to be done before the setup is complete, else the setup might delete the files it extracted.

Changing Splash Screens of a Windows Mobile phone

2006-07-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

I was always fascinated by those funky operator logos that used to appear on Nokia phones. You had those dirt bikes, your names, cakes, etc and various not-to-be-mentioned logos. I always wanted something like that on my smartphone.

I realized there is no way to get a operator logo on the smartphone (Rather I just couldn't find a way). And hence nevertheless, I have been trying to find out a way to change the Splash Screen / Shutdown screen to something custom (like my pic ;) ). Something which gave a "personal" feel to my phone. Finally, I was able to achieve that :).

For all you Windows Mobile Freaks, and for all of you who didn't know how to change the splash screens, here are the steps to do it:

Create your jpg /png images with size 176 x 220 (in pixels).
Copy them to some folder in the phone memory (eg \my documents). Make sure its not on the Storage Card.
Open the Registry Editor and add a registry key 'Splash Screen' (or whatever you want it to be) to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft].
Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\splash screen] and add string values 'CarrierBitmap', 'CarrierShutdownBitmap', 'MSBitmap' and 'MSShutdownBitmap'.
Edit added string values, so that they point to the images. Make sure you use full paths to the images even if they are placed in \Windows.
Restart the phone.

BTW this also applies to Pocket PC - however I am not sure of the size for the image. If you can figure that out yourself - its great - else let me just post it here in couple of days.

PS: Thanks to Anando, he pointed out that this would work only with non-QVGA display devices. So there is a different resolution for QVGA and Pocket PC Devices.

Office Live Mail vs Hotmail

2006-04-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

I had recently signed up for Office Live and associated my passport ID with it as a primary email.

I would log onto my Hotmail account using one instance of my browser and using the second instance I would log on to the Office Live account. The moment I do this and refresh my Hotmail browser, the MSN Hotmail logo changes to Microsoft Office Live Mail.

I am sure many of you who have Office Live accounts associated with you passport account you might have faced this problem (you can call it a "bug" though). The problem here is the "cookie" which is shared by Passport and Office Live to associate the accounts.

If I just log out of Office Live, and refresh the Hotmail page, I will get my MSN HOTMAIL logo back, also if I delete my cookies and refresh the Hotmail browser, MSN HOTMAIL logo comes back.

This looks like a bug which the Office Live team might be aware of and will get fixed in future releases of Office Live.

Windows Live Messenger - Public Beta

2006-04-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

For all those who wanted an invite to Windows Live Messenger but couldn't get it; for those who never knew about it and for those who had always wanted to send "offline" messages to buddies - there is a good news.

Windows Live Messenger (thats what MSN messenger will now be called as) has gone as public beta. This means that no invites needed to sign up and no more waiting in "queue" for using it.

All you need to do is point your browser to Windows Live Messenger Homepage and "Sign Up" for the beta. You will be asked to download the new messenger and you are done.

So have fun with the new messenger and let your feedback improve WLM.

Windows Live Messenger Invites

2006-03-12T05:02:00.000-08:00

I received about 80 invites of Windows Live Messenger yesterday. So in case you are looking for one - just leave a reply on this post with your email ID and I shall send you one.

Microsoft Academic Days

2006-01-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

In Microsoft's words

"Microsoft invites you to the power-packed Academic Day event in your city. We bring to you a 10 city tour which is designed to bring some of the latest technology developments closer to the academia.The event is open for both students and faculty members of Information Technology who will get exposed to various academic and competitive opportunities.

And of course, you can walk away with the Software, Tutorials and Curriculum Content based on the tools and technologies discussed during the day.

All sessions are addressed by Microsoft experts and leading industry technologists like Yashavant Kanetkar, Rajat Khare, and many others"

Looks intersting, check Academic Days website for more details

Microsoft Technologies De-Coded

2005-12-30T05:53:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has always had codenames for each of it technologies, be it "Longhorn" or "Whistler"; an OS, an IE and most of the technologies had a codename. Here is a glance at couple of latest ones -

1. Whidbey - Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and/or Visual Studio 2005
2, Burton - Visual Studio Team System suite of tools
3. Yukon - SQL Server 2005
4. ELead - The work item
5. Ocracoke - Team System's Web testing system
6 Currituck - Team System's work-item tracking system
7. Hatteras - Team System's version control system
8. Whitehorse - Team System's distributd system designers
9. F1 - Team System's profiling system
10. BIS - Team Foundation Server's underlying extensibility model
11. PREfast - Static code analyzer for C/C++ code

And finally one big one "Orcas - Microsoft .NET Framework vNEXT" which is scheduled to release in Q3 of 2007

Language Design ?

2005-12-25T03:08:00.000-08:00

Can you call it arrogance if it's true? Paul Graham on how hard it is to design a new Lisp:

The advantage [the inventors of Perl, Python, and Ruby] had over us in the Lisp world was that they started from a lower point. Larry Wall, for example, started out trying to make a better awk. That's not hard. Awk is missing a lot. Whereas we in the Lisp world are bumping up against the asymptote. Among other things, we can't avail ourselves of the one of the richest sources of features for new languages: taking stuff from Lisp. We have to invent genuinely new things.

Of course, he's missing the obvious answer: just take stuff from Smalltalk...
On a more serious note, I'm not sure why "the Lisp world" (to use Paul's sweeping generalization) spends so much time on language implementations. The great thing about languages like Lisp, Scheme and Smalltalk - which, I would agree, are all pretty asymptotic, but on local maxima not the global one - ought to be that the language problem is solved, and you can spend all that energy inventing genuinely new libraries instead. That way, all that genuine newness gets to interoperate, rather than compete.

Well, just a thought.

AJAX: A Microsoft Technology

2005-12-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

Slashdot has some funny ones from time to time. Like this one, where the author contends that AJAX is a new Microsoft technology.
(note: the article he links to about AJAX is worth the read!)

But AJAX isn't new. It is old - many years old, for all that it didn't become popular until recently.
And it was the tech darling Google that made it popular, not Microsoft. Sure it is based on technology Microsoft put in the browser many years ago, but until Firefox added support and Google used it broadly it was a sleeper... But on slashdot everything negative must be associated with Microsoft - it's a rule I guess...

Avoiding memory leak patterns in IE script

2005-12-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

Justin Rogers, a dev on IE's object model team, posts about his MSDN article on leak patterns in IE.

If you're doing serious DHTML development for IE, this article is a must read. Says Justin:

let's look at the following patterns:

Circular References—When mutual references are counted between Internet Explorer's COM infrastructure and any scripting engine, objects can leak memory. This is the broadest pattern.

Closures—Closures are a specific form of circular reference that pose the largest pattern to existing Web application architectures. Closures are easy to spot because they rely on a specific language keyword and can be searched for generically.

Cross-Page Leaks—Cross-page leaks are often very small leaks of internal book-keeping objects as you move from site to site. We'll examine the DOM Insertion Order issue, along with a workaround that shows how small changes to your code can prevent the creation of these book-keeping objects.

Pseudo-Leaks—These aren't really leaks, but can be extremely annoying if you don't understand where your memory is going. We'll examine the script element rewriting and how it appears to leak quite a bit of memory, when it is really performing as required.

Busy with work

2005-12-17T22:29:00.000-08:00

I have been really busy with work off lately. Hence not been able to keep this place updates. However I'll try and write something during the weekend. Till then - Merry Christmas to all of you. Enjoy your holidays.

SNARF, the Social Network and Relationship Finder

2005-12-04T03:14:00.000-08:00

I've been SNARFed this sunday. I downloaded the application called SNARF (Social Network and Relationship Finder) from Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research’s Community Technology presents SNARF, the Social Network and Relationship Finder.

SNARF was built around the notion that social network information that is already available to the computer system can be usefully reflected to the user: a message from a manager might be seen differently than a message from a stranger, for example. SNARF applies this idea to email triage: handling the flow of messages when time is short and mail is long.

The SNARF UI is designed to provide a quick overview of unread mail, organized by its importance. The UI shows a series of different panes with unread mail in them; each pane shows a list of authors of messages. Clicking on a name shows all messages involving that person.

People use a variety of strategies to handle triage; there is no single “best” ordering of email messages to produce an optimal outcome.

SNARF gives the user the freedom to build their own ordering. Each person in their inbox is assigned a set of meta-information: “number of emails sent in the last month,” for example. These metrics can, in turn, be combined to create an ordering across all contacts. For more information, check out the CEAS paper on SNARF.

I have about 6,000 messages in about 1GB worth of PST files. SNARF is examining my social network and as I write this post, it's still going. Can't wait to see what it tells me!!!

Update - Windows Live Mail Beta

2005-12-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

Its been quite a few days that I have wrote about Windows Live Mail Beta!! I have been a part of the beta program for over a month now.

The Mail Beta guys added two new features (Milestone 4) couple of days ago. Now you can resize the "Columns" and you have a "Auto Spell Check". Spell Check is the most widly used feature of Outlook in the recent years. Guess I might soon see a "Web-Oulook" interface for my hotmail account.

Read Imran's blog for more about Windown Live Mail Beta.

Upcoming Features: Access 12

2005-12-01T09:17:00.000-08:00

A look at Erik Ruker’s blog - tell you about something which is gonna change the feel of Access.
My outside perception is that not a lot has been happening with Access in the past few releases (something that I’m sure is not totally true, but there you are), but it looks like they’re definitely getting a lot of traction in Access 12. Lots of interesting stuff coming up!

DHTML Widgetry

2005-12-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Steven Wittens has created a ridiculously cool DHTML HSV colourpicker, which cunningly uses overlaid transparent PNGs to get the SV square in the middle. Not content with that, he also created a way to turn a select box into a discrete-mark slider bar using only CSS. Read his full post for more details.

SVG Maps

2005-12-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

The website of Sodipodi, the SVG drawing tool, has a complete collection of the flags of the world in SVG. It would be really great if someone were to start a similar collection of political maps of countries... Always have trouble getting good world or country map data, and SVG maps could be rescaled and changed to suit the needs of each user.

Anyone feel like taking this on?

Windows OneCare Live beta

2005-12-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

These Windows Live services keeping popping up. The general public can now sign up for the Windows OneCare Live beta. More information about the new beta can be gleaned from the blog post entitled Consumer Beta Goes Live! from the Windows OneCare team blog. For those who are wondering what the service is below, the following brief description may help:

What it is:
An automatically self-updating PC health service that runs quietly in the background. It helps give you persistent protection against viruses, hackers, and other threats, and helps keep your PC tuned up and your important documents backed up.

What it does for you:
• Runs quietly in the background, providing anti-virus and firewall protection
• Updates itself to help you keep ahead of the latest threats
• Runs regular PC tune ups
• Provides one-click solutions to most problems
• Makes back-ups a breeze
• Lets you see the status of your system at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions
What is a beta?
Beta is geekspeak for “not finished yet.” A beta product is something we are still working on and invite regular users to test out. We’re asking you to check out Windows OneCare Live beta and let us know what you really think—good and bad. That way, we can make the final product the best it can be.

Does it cost anything?
Nope. The beta version of Windows OneCare Live is free, though the final service will be a paid subscription.

What if new viruses or other Internet threats come out?
Windows OneCare Live regularly updates itself based on emerging Internet threats. So you can have better peace of mind.

So go ahead and give it a try!!

XBox 360: List of Backwards Compatible XBox Games Released

2005-11-24T02:32:00.000-08:00

After the long wait, the list of Original Xbox Games Playable on Xbox 360 is now available. I'm glad to see the following games on the list

Grand Theft Auto 3
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas™
Halo® 2
Ninja Gaiden®
Star Wars® Knights of the Old Republic® II: The Sith Lords™
The Incredible Hulk™: Ultimate Destruction

Check out the list and see if your favorite XBox games will be playable on the XBox 360.

Understanding Office Build Numbers

2005-11-19T22:36:00.000-08:00

Jensen Harris explains the Office build process. I'm fairly certain that Windows works the same way... hopefully someone on the Windows team can come explain it for me please.

InfoPath: Switch between views

2005-11-19T22:17:00.000-08:00

The ability to have multiple views of information and multiple uses for forms is one of the great features of InfoPath. And yet, any person responsible for supporting the users working with the forms can tell you that it can be a real challenge to users to have to switch views via the menu system. However, it's remarkably easy, once you know how, to add a button to your form that allows your users to quickly switch between views. The button will use a rule with the Action of Switch Views - it's a simple as that.

This will be a learn by doing exercise, so launch InfoPath. Open the sample form called "Meeting Agenda". This form has two views, one for the Agenda and one for the Meeting Minutes. We'll add a button to each view at the top of the form that allows the user to easily switch between the views.

Place your cursor in the space to the right of the words "Meeting Agenda". In the Design Tasks Pane, choose Layout. Under Merge & split cells, click on Split Table Cells Vertically. This will add another table cell in the title row. In the Task Pane click on Controls and drag the Button control into the new cell you just created.

We'll now assign a label to the button and set up a Rule that switches views when the button is clicked. Double click on the Button control. Change the label on the button to "Minutes". Click the Rules button in the properties, and add a new rule. Click on Add action and choose Switch Views. Chose the Minutes View (post meeting) as the view to switch to. There's no need to set a condition, since we want this action to occur when the button is clicked. OK through the dialogs to complete the process.

One view down, one to go. Use the View menu in the Task Pane to switch to the Minutes View (post meeting), and repeat the process, this time labeling the button "Agenda View" and switching to the Agenda View (pre meeting). Test and save the form and voilà, your users now have an easy way to switch between views!

RFID - Do it MAQSoftware way!!!

2005-11-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

Radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify people or objects. There are several methods of identification, but the most common is to store a serial number that identifies a person or object, and perhaps other information, on a microchip that is attached to an antenna (the chip and the antenna together are called an RFID transponder or an RFID tag).

Thought the market for RFID is still niche - there have been loads of money being bet on the technology. MAQSoftware, one of the pioneers in RFID - recently started a forum to help the corporates as well as students to understand and learn the technology. If you are really passionate about RFID, or just like me, who want to learn the new "technology" or simply for your project related work - be sure you keep an eye on http://india.maqsoftware.com/forums

Client Behavior and Feed Characteristics of RSS

2005-11-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

Have you every wondered how RSS works and what makes it work. Here is a whitepaper which will help you understand RSS

Understanding BitTorrent: An Experimental Perspective

2005-11-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

Arnaud Legout, Guillaume Urvoy-Keller, Pietro Michiardi: Understanding BitTorrent: An Experimental Perspective. "To gain a better understanding of the key algorithms of the protocol, we have instrumented a client and run experiments on a large number of real torrents. Our experimental evaluation is peer oriented, instead of tracker oriented, which allows us to get detailed information on all exchanged messages and protocol events. In particular, we have explored the properties of the two key algorithms of BitTorrent: the choke and the rarest first algorithms."
Why this post - cause there have been Torrents of Office12 (yeah - you heard it right) floating on the internet!!!

Registry Explorer - Missing from SmartPhone

2005-11-11T11:01:00.000-08:00

One thing which I really missed in a SmartPhone was a registry editor. I have been thinking of writing an application for "Registry Editor" for a few weeks now. Finally its done.

However I have just given some limited functionality to the explorer. I can edit only a DWORD or a string value - nothing more than these two. Partly cause its not safe to play with the registry and second cause I dont think a person might need to change any other values apart from these two.

Having said that, I was initially trying to hook onto the the CF framework by OpenNETCF.org, but then I moved to using P/Invoke. This was partly cause it was a pain to make a DWORD editor using OpenNETCF.

There was also one thing which caught my eye. The TAB order under .NET CF. Thankfully MSDN had answers to my queries. Baically forms designer creates the Controls collection in reverse order of when the controls were added to the form.

Here's a sample code from the app - will post up a complete code, once i am sure its working fine.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace RegEdit
{
public class DwordEditor : System.Windows.Forms.Form, IValueEditor
{
private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem mnuDone;
private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem mnuCancel;

private System.Windows.Forms.TextBox txtValueName;
private System.Windows.Forms.TextBox txtValueData;
private System.Windows.Forms.Label lblValueName;
private System.Windows.Forms.Label lblValueData;
private System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu mainMenuEditor;
public DwordEditor()
{
InitializeComponent();
bSaveChanges = false;
}

#region Private Variables
// init
private string ERegistryPath;
private string EValueName;
private System.UInt32 EValueData;
private bool ENewValue;
// status
private bool bSaveChanges;
#endregion

protected override void Dispose( bool disposing )
{
base.Dispose( disposing );
}
#region Windows Form Designer generated code
private void InitializeComponent()
{
this.lblValueName = new System.Windows.Forms.Label();
this.txtValueName = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox();
this.txtValueData = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox();
this.lblValueData = new System.Windows.Forms.Label();
this.mainMenuEditor = new System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu();
this.mnuDone = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();
this.mnuCancel = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();

// lblValueName
this.lblValueName.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
this.lblValueName.Text = "Value name:";
//
// txtValueName
//
this.txtValueName.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 24);
this.txtValueName.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(168, 25);
this.txtValueName.Text = "";

// txtValueData

this.txtValueData.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 80);
this.txtValueData.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(168, 25);
this.txtValueData.Text = "";

// lblValueData

this.lblValueData.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 56);
this.lblValueData.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
this.lblValueData.Text = "Value data:";

this.mainMenuEditor.MenuItems.Add(this.mnuDone);
this.mainMenuEditor.MenuItems.Add(this.mnuCancel);

this.mnuDone.Text = "Done";
this.mnuDone.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.mnuDone_Click);

// mnuCancel
this.mnuCancel.Text = "Cancel";
this.mnuCancel.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.mnuCancel_Click);

// DwordEditor
this.Controls.Add(this.lblValueName);
this.Controls.Add(this.txtValueName);
this.Controls.Add(this.lblValueData);
this.Controls.Add(this.txtValueData);
this.Menu = this.mainMenuEditor;
this.Text = "Edit DWORD Value";
this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.StringEditor_Load);
}
#endregion
private void mnuCancel_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
this.Close();
}
private void mnuDone_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
EValueName = txtValueName.Text.Trim();
// change to more elegant: check that only integers are actually entered
try
{
EValueData = UInt32.Parse(txtValueData.Text.Trim());
}
catch
{
MessageBox.Show("The value is not parseable into a valid DWORD",
"Value creation impossible",
MessageBoxButtons.OK,
MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation,
MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1);
return;
}
if (EValueName == "") return;
RegistryEditingService svc = RegistryEditingService.Instance();
if (ENewValue && svc.ValueNameExists(ERegistryPath, EValueName))
{
MessageBox.Show("The value name you have chosen does already exist",
"Value creation impossible",
MessageBoxButtons.OK,
MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation,
MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1);
return;
}
bool bSucceeded = svc.SetValue(ERegistryPath, EValueName, EValueData);
if (!bSucceeded) return;
bSaveChanges = true;
this.Close();
}
private void StringEditor_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
if (!ENewValue)
{
txtValueName.Text = EValueName;
txtValueData.Text = EValueData.ToString();
txtValueName.Enabled = false;
}
else
{
txtValueName.Focus();
}
}
#region IValueEditor Members
public void Initialize(string registryKeyPath, string valueName, object valueData, bool newValue)
{
ERegistryPath = registryKeyPath;
EValueName = valueName;
EValueData = (System.UInt32)valueData;
ENewValue = newValue;
}
public bool ShowEditor()
{
this.ShowDialog();
return bSaveChanges;
}
#endregion
}
}

The best part would be that this would work with Windows Mobile 5.0 based smartphone

Microsoft Technology Adapter Challenge Results

2005-11-07T03:07:00.000-08:00

Well finally after a long wait - the results are out!!! Yeah!! And I am one amongst the winners!!! One more feather in my cap.

Microsoft's Live - A new look at seamless Internet

2005-11-01T23:52:00.000-08:00

Windows Live and Microsoft Office Live - these are the two new software-based services previewed by Microsoft - designed to deliver rich and seamless experiences to individuals and small businesses, they combine the power of software plus services and provide compelling enhancements to Windows and Office products.

Windows Live will be a set of personal Internet services and software designed to bring together in one place all of the relationships, information and interests people care about most, with more safety and security features across their PC, devices and the Web.

Microsoft Office Live offerings will provide small businesses with an affordable set of Internet-based business services hosted by Microsoft to help them establish, manage and grow their business through a professional digital identity as well as collaboration and business management tools that traditionally have required dedicated server and IT resources to operate.

Windows Live will include:

1. Windows Live Mail.
2. Windows Live Messenger.
3. Windows Live Favorites
4. Windows Live for mobile devices
5. Windows Live Safety Center
6. Windows Live Search.
7. Windows OneCare Live

More details about Windows Live are available on its site.

My Hotmail box already reflects the the change of "Mail Beta" to "Windows Live Mail" - which prompted me to have a look at this new offering. Guess there are lots and lots of domains where Microsoft is now putting its feet at. Now wasn't Xbox Live a first step towards this "Live" services? BTW I just finished checking for viruses using "Windows Live Safety Center" - and I must say - it is real good :)

Project Kahuna - Snapshots

2005-10-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

Here are couple of snapshots on what you can expect out of the new Hotmail (codenamed "Kahuna" ):

The first major change you will notice is the Three-Pane view, which is similar to your Outlook. Kahuna gives you a nice new feel with the light-blue theme along with the effect of Outlook which you might use in your day to day life.

Again made on the lines of Outlook, the new spiced up calendar, makes it much more easier for you to share it across your friends. Along with this - it tightly integrates with your subscriptions to "MSN Groups" and keep you dates in sync with any events which are published on them.

Another interesting feature is the Drag-Drop effect. Now you can move messages with just a click of your mouse :)

A new search feature helps you to search in the "Subject" of your emails. This later will be extended to full-text search within the contents of the email

Mail Beta - I'm a part of it now!!

2005-10-23T22:31:00.000-07:00

Well, first thing I do in the morning is pop open my hotmail box!! And guess what came as a surprise today morning - an Invite to be a part of MAIL BETA!!

Yes, I've been signed up Big Kahuna, guess I got lucky here!! If you are looking around for invites and other stories related to Kahuna, keep an eye on Imran's Blog.

BTW here are couple of things that I think I'm gonna tell my friends and ppl about Kahuna:

1. The Reading Pane
2. Protection from "phishing" scams
3. The Info Bar
4. Address AutoComplete
5. Save sent e-mail
6. Multiple select
7. Color, Shading, and Emoticons
8. Navagation
9. SenderID and lots more.

So for all of you who used to say - hotmail is bad cause its not as good as Gmail!! Well - here we have the Kahuna team - who can just prove you wrong. Posting up images of the Beta soon!!! Thanks a lot Kahuna team - for giving me the invite.

A peek at Vista Beta 2 (Build 5219)

2005-10-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

I have been lucky to get hold of Vista Beta 2 build (The one which was given away at PDC 2005). Have been on it for over a week now. There are quite a few improvements over Beta 1. Let me just brief here on some of them:

While loading up (booting) 5219, I could see a number of functional changes compared to Beta 1.
The most noticible one was of the Taskbar which was kinda translucent (heard of the Glass Effect or Aero Effect) - compared to an opaque black color in Beta 1--and more elegant looking.
Along with this - when you have "Similar Items Group'd Together" enabled - and just when you hover your mouse on the taskbar - you can see a small "preview" image of the window. This is one of the coolest features which got me into the grove of Vista

With build 5219, Microsoft reintroduced a complete new stack of Vista Sidebar (Yeah!! Microsoft does listen to its customers). I really had to found out how to enable it - cause it was disabled by default. Well the best part about the sidebar was that it supports RSS feeds - and I actually got all the RSS feeds from my blog on the sidebar (Now isnt this a cool feature!!)

The build (5219) was a of "Ultimate Edition". Hence it came with Media Center Edition and also had Tablet PC platform support with it. The Media center was just rocking with nice sound effects and ability to pan/zoom into the images without coding for it :). I believe Microsoft will not have a separate editions of Tablet PC and MC for Vista. They will probably be a part of Ultimate Edition.

With "Ultimate Edition" came a lot more newer games with a great sleeky look. One of them which caught my eye was Chess aka Chess Titians. This one is a cool 3D version of the popular board game and you can play with various skill levels, using different board and piece designs, and against a computer or human opponent. Other ones included were Shanghai and Purple Place. Also the hot and classic windows games like FreeCell, Solitaire, Hearts and Spider Solitaire are included. The best thing about all of them is that they all come with a new ramped up icons.

One of the best features of 5219 was the ALT+TAB key combination which is used to switch between different tasks which are running on your system. With Vista, its been named as "Flip" and has changed to a more visual presentation, that previews the contents of each application's window as you navigate through the list. 5219 also included a different kind of Task Switching called as "3D Flip" which can be instantiated by hitting Windows Key+Spacebar. When you start this one, task switching opens windows in a stacked, three-dimensional view. Guess this one is lifted wholeheartedly from Sun's Project Looking Glass.

There was one more intersting feature that would catch any mobile user's eyes, its called as "Super Fetch". This feature examines your system on a timely basis, checks which applications you use regularly, and then preloads code from those apps to later speed application launch times and responsiveness. And here is a surprise for all of you who have a USB Stick and use it as their secondary memory. Stick in a 1 GB USB stick and you get 1 GB of super-fast cache RAM (encrypted for security) and an instant speed boost. Now isnt this feature intersting ;)

I couldnt get a chance to work on SafeDocs or UAP (User Account Protection) - will write more on them when I spend more time.

Microsoft and Yahoo IM Interop?

2005-10-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to use just one IM all these years. Jabber has always been around, however the UI of MSN or Yahoo is what keeps me stick to them. Finally two of the major players in the IM industry have heard me. This is what betanews.com says:

Microsoft and Yahoo announced on Wednesday a blockbuster interoperability deal that will reshape the landscape of the fragmented instant messaging market. The companies will connect their IM networks so users on each can communicate with one another using text and voice chat free of charge.

Does this mean that we might have an era where collaboration becomes the most important or is this an idea were advertisements will be put up so as to generate more revenue for the companies?

Microsoft Community Tablet PC Chat

2005-10-11T03:51:00.000-07:00

After a series of sessions on Tablet PC Development for the Academia as well as professionals, I would be doing a Community chat on Tablet PC API tomorrow. More details are available on the community chat website.

The next session will be at Pune on 15th for the UG meet. I'm planning to have session on Pocket PC and Embedded devices in comming months.

30Gigs - Get more email space!!

2005-10-01T03:36:00.000-07:00

Well GMail rocked the email market with its first invite-only kind of 1GB email service. A lot has been changed from that day. Most of the email providers are now offering more space then ever before. And all this is FREE!!

Well here is another feather in such email providers. There is a new one floating called 30Gigs.com. This one offers 30GB of FREE email storage space. Yeah you heard it right 30 Gigs of email space. I dont think you will ever compain now of now having enough storage space.

I've 10 invites left with me - so incase you need an invite - kindly leave a comment on this post with your name and email address - and I'll send you one. Remember its on first come first serve basis only :)

Tablet PC Sessions

2005-09-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

Its been a week now that I've the Tablet PC. This one comes straight from MED group. I will be using this one for the Mumbai MED User Group meets. So if anyone is intersted in trying out the Tablet PC, kindly send an email to me at hardiks[at]msn[dot]com.

I would also be doing a series of sessions on Tablet PC Overview at Mumbai, Pune and Gujrat. The first one in this series is happening as a part of MUG Meet, tomorrow at MAQSoftware. More details about the UserGroup meet can be found here

Google Accounts - Is it going Microsoft way?

2005-09-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

Lately when I was on Orkut, I was greeted by a message saying that all Orkut Logins would be treated as "Google Accounts" and all those who have Orkut login, can link their Google Account to the login on Orkut!!

I have heard people saying Microsoft is the only corporate who wants to monopolize every stuff on the internet. Now I'm afraid that even Google wants to do the same. I wouldn't want to use my Google Account for a simple fact that their privacy policy says that they monitor the no. of clicks, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, etc.

Now, the most obvious question here is - how many of us actually take the pains to read the privacy policy. Have a look at the privacy policy of Microsoft, just to know how strict its privacy terms are!!

Microsoft Vista and Office 12 Screenshots!!

2005-09-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

Well here are some of the screenshots of Vista PDC 2005 and Office 12. Interstingly - the SIDEBAR (one feature which I missed big time in Beta 1) is back. Office 12 is the upcomming version of Microsoft's Office. MS has completely revamped the UI in Office.

Here are the ones of Vista PDC 2005 Edition :)

Moving on to Office 12:

WinFS Debuted!!

2005-09-12T00:10:00.000-07:00

Ever since WinFS Beta was made available to MSDN subscribers, a new WinFS blog has been started by its Product Team.

As far as I know, this WinFS beta will also work on XP ;) - so give it a try :) [Provided you have access to MSDN]

OS Internals - Session at Pune

2005-09-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

It was 2nd of September, a late raining Friday evening when I went to Pune for a session on the next day. I catched up with Tejas Shah, the ADE (Academic Developer Evangelist), at his hotel room. We were to decide on the demo's and the PPT for the next day.

After loads of talks and plans, we finally slept at around 1 am. Next day was a huge one. MS was kind enough to book Nehru auditorium for the PUGStudent meet. The agenda for the meet were three sessions

1. OS Internals - Tejas and myself
2. Windows Mobile Programming and RFID - Shrenik Dedhia, MAQSoftware
3. XML and WebServices - Sarang Datye, MVP

We started of at around 1330 hrs, 30 min behind the schedule. The attendance was decent enough with about 150-175 students across Pune. Tejas started off with all the Techie talks about Operating Systems and made a base for the demos which I was to take. He talked about Process Management, Memory Management, Threads, Objects and Handles, etc. I basically gave demos at intervals during Tejas's sessions. My demos included, making a MultiThreaded app in C#.NET, Services for Unix[SFU] (this was real fun to do - made a C program in Windows, Compiled it using GCC in SFU and executed it on Windows using POSIX Subsystem). I also showed various tools from the MS Official Windows Internal curriculum including Process Monitors, Registry Monitors and AutoRun Monitors.

Over all, the first session was very cool one (not cause me and Tejas were doing it), cause students actually did not know that you can host a Unix Subsystem over a Windows one. Basically they were too interested to know more about SFU.

The next one was by Shrenik, one of the Developer from MAQSoftware, who has quite a bit of experience in developing Mobile App for the company. He spoke on the .NET Compact Framework, and demo'd how to go about building an app both for the SmartPhone form factor as well as for the Pocket PC. He also spoke about various applications available in the market for the PocketPC and the SmartPhone

Lastly it was Sarang's turn to speak (Thank god he was the last one - else he would have taken up our time as well). He started with a big "GOOD MORNING" to all the students. :). He spoke on creating a webservice using XML. This was demo'd by not using the IDE interface but using NOTEPAD. Once shown how a XML file looks like, he spoke about how VS.NET IDE helps to do it much faster and in a more efficient way then he would ideally do with a text editor. By the time Sarang was doing his demo, the audi's warning bell rang and Sarang had to rush off with the demos.

In all it was a nice sessions. Offline - we also spoke about the Student Project Program and about Student Champ Program. Infact we tried and identified couple of students who were interested and briefed them about it. We also distributed ARKs 3.0 along with couple of MSDN India Magazines. Tejas distributed (rather awarded) Extreme Edition CDs (VC++.NET, Platform SDK and a licensed Copy of Windows XP SP2) to some students who were enthu enough to answer some questions asked. MAQSoftware, also distributed CDs of various apps (MathEdge, EnglishEdge, TrafficEdge) which it had made for the mobile phone.

Guess there should be more of such session comming up in the next semester.

Start.com - Microsoft way for RSS Aggregator

2005-09-05T04:30:00.000-07:00

Microsoft recently released the final version on www.start.com. Start.com is like a mix between MyYahoo and the new Google Personalized Homepage. It enables users to subscribe to RSS feeds and it is closely integrated with search.

Start.com is based on the mixture of a few technologies blended into one. Where it sets itself apart is with content. The welcome for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is cool and start.com does this nicely. With autodetecting RSS feeds when an URL is placed and being able to pull those internally to the page, this is something that is enjoyable. One thing that I personally love is are the favicons (on the top of the page), which is a nice touch.

Overall, it's certainly a more impressive effort than Google's, but there's a long way to go before they can compete against 'real' Web-based RSS Aggregators like Bloglines. With no folder support - it would be diffcult for me to add all my friends RSS feeds. But again with the single background image for the search bar this is something that apeals to the eyes yet doesn't change the entire layout of the page. On the fly processing, the other features are pulled to the page - there is no authentication, no referral, no import nothing.

All I can say is that all start.com stole my heart. Well guys, go ahead and add a webservice which I can consume :) Or may be this is a different type of HomePage Aggregator.

Project Kahuna - A rich new mail Experience from Microsoft

2005-09-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

Having read all the rumors over the next, now that MS says is official, here is a small post to know what can you expect out of the new Microsoft Mail (Or shall I call it MMail - sounds fimilar to something with G, right) ;)

Microsoft Mail Beta is Microsoft's brand new web mail service. The product is being built from the ground up based on input and feedback from customers. Microsoft is inviting people from the MSN Messenger beta to join the beta of their brand new web mail service. Testers will be part of the first group outside of the product team to experience the Mail Beta.

A hotmail account is required and is moved over to the new beta automatically. It includes 2GB of space, includes a rich text editor, protection from "phishing" scams and a new easier layout. Reading Pane Cruise through your e-mail with ease, as you go from mail to mail without loading a new page. The Reading Pane lets you preview the text and thumbnails of attached images in your Inbox. Just click the message to display the full content of the e-mail. The Info Bar tells you when the Mail Beta doesn’t recognize a sender, allowing you to block the sender with a single click, and bounce back an e-mail to help prevent a junk mailer from knowing you exist (Remember SenderID that I posted about few months back). The Mail Beta also protects you from criminals trying to obtain ("phish") your personal information by hiding an e-mail’s content when it suspects the sender may be fraudulent.

Address AutoComplete - When you start typing the name of a contact in the address field, Address AutoComplete offers suggestions of matching names from your contact list. Keyboard shortcuts Mail Beta allows you navigate the way you prefer—via your keyboard, mouse, or a combination of the two. These keyboard shortcuts let you easily and quickly navigate through messages and folders. Mail Beta also enables multiple select via a combination of your keyboard’s arrows or mouse and the shift key. Many more keyboard shortcuts to come! Rich text editing Say what you want to say, the way you want to say it! Rich Text Editing lets you add color, shading, and emoticons, control font size, and define formatting.

Best of all, Mail Beta preserves all HTML formatting in the e-mails you receive so you can forward emails and know others will see them the way you do. Storage that grows with you, starting you with 2GB (2 gigabytes) of storage so we can save more e-mail, more photos, more attachments, more of everything. Over time there are plans to develop a system that will grow as you need more space.

Save sent e-mail - No need to cc: yourself on every outgoing e-mail. All the e-mail you send will now be saved in a "sent e-mail" folder—automatically.

Threats and Threat Modelling - MAQSoftware, Mumbai

2005-09-01T03:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did a small 60 minutes session on Threats and Thread Modelling at MAQSoftware. I spoke on three points:

1. SQL Injections
2. XSS Attacks
3. Session Hijacking

SQL injection included the ways in which a programmer makes common mistakes, by not hashing or encrypting a password, and how a hacker would take advantage of this and make SQL Injected attacks. These attacks are basically attacks which are done over a database.

XSS included how a 'script' tag is used to spoof the user to store his cookies over an attackers machines. Also tried and explained how would a Hacker hijack a session with the help of stored cookies.

Overall was a nice expericnce. And for the first time ever, I just did demos - no presentation at all.

After Skype - its Google

2005-08-24T03:27:00.000-07:00

Skype created a revolution in IP telephony when it came up with Skype Messenger. This was followed by MSN adding up Voice to its Messeging service. Next it was time for Yahoo to add IPTelephony to its messenger (which shipped with Yahoo 7 ).

Having said that, its now the turn of Gmail to launch its Messenger Service. Gmail announced: Starting today, Google's new service, Google Talk, will be available to users. The instant-messaging product will allow Internet users to exchange conventional instant text messages, which travel faster than email.The service also will allow users with headsets on their PCs to have conversations with other people who have similar PC setups.

Having installed it - my first chats where with Deepak and Anando, I must say - its really better than Skype. Personally speaking, its also light on system resources. So go ahead and download Google Talk and start "Talking" rather than chatting.

File Explorer for Magneto Smartphone

2005-08-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

Having used a Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone for over three months, it was now the time to use a "flashed" Magneto (Windows Mobile 2005)smartphone. Having done all the testing and R&D on the OS, there was one thing which I terribly missed in Magneto. Rather I missed two things.

1. Magneto doesnt support MMS ( Wondering what with I do with the Cam in the phone now)
2. There is no File Explorer (becomes diffcult to browse though the contents of the storage card).

Going back home, I though I should not wait for anything and write an app for FileExplorer. With very little experience in writing code (I am not a developer, I am more into System Administration), and ofcouse with the help of Andy Wigley's book, ".NET Compact Framework Core Reference" (MS Press), which contains lots of valuable Compact Framework information (it doesn't cover the SmartPhone form factor in depth), I started writing the app. While going through lots of articles, I also came across an article by Wei-Meng Lee, which I must say - helped me a lot in writing the app. Here is the complete code which I have written. Do give me your feedback and comments on how to improve my code and the performance of the Explorer.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Collections;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Data;
using System.IO;
namespace Explorer
{

/// Summary description for Tree.
public class Tree : System.Windows.Forms.Form
{
const int icoOpen = 0;
const int icoClose = 1;
const int icoFile = 2;
bool copy = true; // whether it is a copy operation
string fileName; // filename of file to be copied or cut
string pathName; // full pathname of file to be copied or cut

private TreeView treeView1;
private MenuItem menuItem1;
private MenuItem menuItem2;
private MenuItem menuItem3;
private MenuItem menuItem4;
private MenuItem menuItem5;
private MenuItem mnuPaste;
private ImageList imageList2;

public event EventHandler NotifyParent;

protected void OnNotifyParent()
{
if (NotifyParent != null) NotifyParent(this.pathName , EventArgs.Empty);
}

/// Main menu for the form.
private System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu mainMenu1;

public Tree()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

/// Clean up resources

protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
base.Dispose(disposing);
}

#region Windows Form Designer generated code

/// Required method for Designer support - do not modify the contents of this method with the code editor.

private void InitializeComponent()
{
System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager resources = new System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager(typeof(Tree));
this.mainMenu1 = new System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu();
this.menuItem1 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();
this.menuItem2 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();
this.menuItem3 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();
this.menuItem4 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();
this.menuItem5 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();
this.mnuPaste = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem();
this.treeView1 = new System.Windows.Forms.TreeView();
this.imageList2 = new System.Windows.Forms.ImageList();

// mainMenu1
this.mainMenu1.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem1);
this.mainMenu1.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem2);

// menuItem1
this.menuItem1.Text = "Exit";
this.menuItem1.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuItem1_Click);

// menuItem2
this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem3);
this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem4);
this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem5);
this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.mnuPaste);
this.menuItem2.Text = "File";
this.menuItem2.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuItem2_Click);

// menuItem3
this.menuItem3.Text = "Copy";
this.menuItem3.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.mnuCopy_Click);

// menuItem4
this.menuItem4.Text = "Cut";
this.menuItem4.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuCut_Click);

// menuItem5
this.menuItem5.Text = "Delete";
this.menuItem5.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.mnuDelete_Click);

// mnuPaste
this.mnuPaste.Text = "Paste";
this.mnuPaste.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.mnuPaste_Click);

// treeView1
this.treeView1.ImageIndex = 0;
this.treeView1.ImageList = this.imageList2;
this.treeView1.Indent = 20;
this.treeView1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
this.treeView1.SelectedImageIndex = 0;
this.treeView1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(176, 177);
this.treeView1.BeforeExpand += new System.Windows.Forms.TreeViewCancelEventHandler(this.treeView1_BeforeExpand);
this.treeView1.AfterSelect += new System.Windows.Forms.TreeViewEventHandler(this.treeView1_AfterSelect);
this.imageList2.Images.Clear();
this.imageList2.Images.Add(((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("resource"))));
this.imageList2.Images.Add(((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("resource1"))));
this.imageList2.Images.Add(((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("resource2"))));

// Tree
this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(176, 180);
this.Controls.Add(this.treeView1);
this.Menu = this.mainMenu1;
this.Text = "Explorer";
this.Closing += new System.ComponentModel.CancelEventHandler(this.Tree_Closing);
this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.Tree_Load);

}

#endregion

public string stripExtraSlash(string str)
{
string path =String.Empty;
if ( str.Length > 1 && str.StartsWith(@"\"))
{
path = str.Substring( 2, str.Length - 2);
}
else
{
path = str;
}
return path;
}

private void displayChildNodes (System.Windows.Forms.TreeNode parentNode )
{
DirectoryInfo FS = new DirectoryInfo(stripExtraSlash (parentNode.FullPath));

try {
foreach (DirectoryInfo dirInfo in FS.GetDirectories() )
{
//' ?-create a new node ?-
TreeNode node = new TreeNode();
node.Text = dirInfo.Name;
node.ImageIndex = icoClose;
node.SelectedImageIndex = icoOpen;
parentNode.Nodes.Add(node);
// ?-add the dummy node?-
node.Nodes.Add("");
}
}
catch (Exception err)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(err.Message);
}

try {
foreach (FileInfo fileInfo in FS.GetFiles() )
{
// create a new node to be added
TreeNode node = new TreeNode();
node.Text = fileInfo.Name;
node.ImageIndex = icoFile;
node.SelectedImageIndex = icoFile;
parentNode.Nodes.Add(node);
}
}
catch( Exception err)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(err.Message);
}
}

private void Tree_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

TreeNode node=new TreeNode();
try
{
node.ImageIndex = icoClose;
node.SelectedImageIndex = icoOpen;
node.Text = @"\";
treeView1.Nodes.Add(node);

node.Nodes.Add("");
treeView1.SelectedNode = node;
}
catch (Exception err)
{
}
}

private void treeView1_BeforeExpand(object sender, TreeViewCancelEventArgs e)
{

if( e.Node.ImageIndex == icoFile) return;

// remove the dummy node and display the subdirectories and files
try {
e.Node.Nodes.Clear(); // clears all the nodes and...
displayChildNodes(e.Node); // create the nodes again
}
catch(Exception err )
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(err.Message);
}

if (e.Node.GetNodeCount(false) > 0) {
e.Node.ImageIndex = icoClose;
e.Node.SelectedImageIndex = icoOpen;
}

}

private void menuItem2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

}
private void mnuCopy_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

// copy
pathName = stripExtraSlash(treeView1.SelectedNode.FullPath);
fileName = treeView1.SelectedNode.Text;
copy = true;
mnuPaste.Enabled = true;
}

private void menuCut_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
pathName = stripExtraSlash(treeView1.SelectedNode.FullPath);
fileName = treeView1.SelectedNode.Text;
copy = false;
mnuPaste.Enabled = true;
treeView1.SelectedNode.Remove();
}

private void mnuPaste_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
File.Copy(pathName, stripExtraSlash(treeView1.SelectedNode.FullPath) + @"\" + fileName, true);
System.Windows.Forms.TreeNode node = new System.Windows.Forms.TreeNode();
node.Text = fileName;
node.ImageIndex = icoFile;
node.SelectedImageIndex = icoFile;
treeView1.SelectedNode.Nodes.Add(node);

if (!copy){
File.Delete(pathName);
}
mnuPaste.Enabled = false;
}

private void mnuDelete_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
File.Delete(stripExtraSlash(treeView1.SelectedNode.FullPath));
treeView1.SelectedNode.Remove();
}

private void menuItem1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.Close();
}

private void Tree_Closing(object sender, System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs e)
{
this.OnNotifyParent();
}

private void treeView1_AfterSelect(object sender, TreeViewEventArgs e)
{
this.pathName = stripExtraSlash(treeView1.SelectedNode.FullPath);
}
}
}

private void menuItem2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Explorer.Tree exp = new Explorer.Tree();
exp.NotifyParent += new EventHandler(tree_NotifyParent);
exp.Show();
}

private void tree_NotifyParent(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.textBox1.Text= sender.ToString();
if (this.textBox1.Text != String.Empty)
{
System.Drawing.Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(this.textBox1.Text);
this.pictureBox1.Image = bmp;
this.pictureBox1.Show();
}
}

AudioVox SMT 5600

2005-08-12T00:03:00.000-07:00

Three months since this AudioVox is with me. In between had a iMate as well, but then again a SmartPhone is a SmartPhone.

My impressions within the first 5-minutes of holding the SMT5600 are Wow! It's small, light weight, and has a beautiful large 2.2" color screen. Material quality seems excellent, and speed of navigating through menus and apps is very fast. The sound quality and signal clarity is good but I need to get familiar with the volume and position to my ear as well as the speakerphone levels and proximity.

The Audiovox SMT 5600 weights approx 75 grams and is designed to combine many of the features commonly seen in larger, more expensive devices into a small, compact form factor, making this an ideal device for those customers looking for a powerful wireless experience without the bulk. Looking over the SMT5600 you first notice the slim attractive design and large screen. Even the included leather belt clip carrying case is a very clean design with its magnetic button flap. The screen top is made of a soft material that keys might easily gouge, but for viewing clarity is probably negligible due to brightness and resolution. There is a 2.5 mm headset socket on the bottom edge (a stereo set of ear buds with mic and volume dial are provided), along with a standardized 5-pin mini-USB port for synchronizing AND power/charging. (Also provided) One side holds a small, dedicated camera button and the loudspeaker port, while the other side features a volume rocker.

In terms of feel, the keys are hard silver plastic, domed, with a clicky tactile feedback that's pleasant to use. Then there is the much discussed Joystick/rocker control; I agree with others that the rocker design is awesome for up/down, left/right, but clicking enter (press down) is an exercise in surgery and can lead to selecting choices you didn’t intend.Probably not good for games and might not be easy for big fingers.

There is a user friendly albeit limited VGA camera that encodes JPEG Photos-(640x480 320x240 160x120 up to 4x zoom) also phone size Photo ID-(176x180) as well as 2x Zoom Video and MMS Video-(both 176x144 or 128x96). There is a 'mini' SD Card slot for more storage room. It's hard to miss a photo op as you can press the dedicated camera button on the side to instantly access the camera mode you last used.You can assign different photos and ring tones to individual contacts or whole groups. All you do to add more sounds or pictures is drag and drop the files to the appropriate folders using the Explore program in Windows.

Connecting to a PC couldn’t be easier using the internal Windows Mobile Smartphone software 2nd Edition. No drivers to load no hassle, just plug and play. You can even use it to transfer file to different computers. Connectivity is through mini USB, IR port or Bluetooth(2), which uses less power and the performance with headsets is far more reliable. Wifi is not an option at this time. Though on the sad part - there is no WiFi

The Audiovox SMT5600 includes a portable version of Windows Media Player (WMP) 10.0. The sound quality of mp3 songs is superb when using the headphone jack. The extensive, easy to use menus are very responsive. It took some practice to learn and remember all the procedures to customize and use the phone to meet my needs and expectations. The layout is well thought-out and with so many powerful features in such a small package, the time it takes to learn them all is well spent.

In Short - the key features of SMT 5600 are
Versatile mobility: The Audiovox SMT 5600 is enabled for Bluetooth and infrared support and is a tri-band phone, which also includes a speakerphone.

Advanced (Read: Great) Multimedia features: The new Windows Media Player 10 Mobile provides leading-edge audio and video playback experiences with support for secure content, album art, playlists and more.

Expanded memory capability: With a built in mini-SD slot, users can expand the 32MB RAM to up to 512 MB and store images, video clips, music and other data, all of which can easily be transferred to a PC. (I had a MiniSD card of 256 MB in that)

Windows Mobile 2003 SE: Offering users the familiarity of the traditional Microsoft Windows operating system, including Outlook(R) for email and Internet Explorer for true HTML Inte browsing.

Seamless Communications: The Audiovox SMT 5600 includes pocket versions of Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer and MSN(R) Messenger, and Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync(R) which enables easy wireless email, calendar and contact synchronization.

One point to mention is that this phone has Class 2 GPRS - which means - the GPRS get disconnected the moment you get a call or attend one. Overall - an amazing phone. Give you all the features that you want. I would prefer this phone, anytime over the sleek Nokia ones.

iMate PocketPC Phone Edition Reviewed

2005-08-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've been able to lay my hands on iMate PocketPC Phone Edition for past two weeks. This one came with Win Mobile 2003, however it was flashed with Windows Mobile 2005 Beta codename Magneto. I though it would be nice to put up reviews for both of them :D

The i-mate is designed for mobile professionals; it is a fairly small Pocket PC Phone Edition, which includes SD I/O expansion slot for memory or add-on accessories for the i-mate.
It has wireless Bluetooth capability and features a small and sleek design. The name of the game is wireless control with the i-mate, though it does not come with built-in Wi-Fi. :(

Its powered by 64 of ROM, 128 MB of RAM and a 400 MHz X-Scale PXA263 applications processor. (this is as good as a PIII in older days). The most unique thing that the iMate has is the capability to add on an expansion backpack. It has the ability to handle VGA out; this is due to the ATI video chipset inside the iMate. The supported resolution for LCD displays is XGA 1024x768, VGA 800x600 and 640x480. It also includes extended battery which can charge the main battery on the device, giving users longer run times while using energy draining accessories like wireless networking, or playing movies and music on long plane rides.

You can keep i-mate always connected to GPRS and in the same time receive calls, MMS and SMS messages. Since this is a Class B GPRS device, it will hold the GPRS connection if there is a call, and reactivate it when the call ends. This is not possible in SmartPhones like AudioVox SMT 5600, where the GPRS connection is lost the moment you receive a phone call. Making a phone call can be done from the dialer, contacts, speed dial, call history or the SIM manager. Answer to a call is done by pressing the answer hardware button, or can be rejected by the reject hardware button. At the same time - a call can be accepted by pressing the "accept" key on the touchscreen. You can also take NOTES for a call - which then goes as a attachment with that call. This was the most amazing and useful feature that I found.

The phone keypad can be locked this is a helpful feature to prevent accidental key press. I was listening to MP3 and multitasking with no problems at all, there were no missing frames the sound quality was really good. The good part is that while you are listening to a song or watching video with Windows Media Player 10, if you received a call during that time, iMate will pause WMP, and when you are finished with the phone call, it will resume from where it was paused.

You can snap photos or shoot video clips with accompanying audio simply by pressing the camera hardware button on the side of the device, press once you activate the camera, the second time you press you take a photo. The iMate has all the features to make this equally a phone and a PDA all in one slim device. At the same time - Magneto proved to be power efficient and I would not require to charge it for a day with normal usage. One note of caution though - Magneto had lots of memory problems, which would sometimes hang the device. My advice is to wait till the final release is out.

War of ICONS

2005-07-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

Star Wars is a massive hit across the globe. Well here comes a challenge to it - War of ICONS.

SenderID - Does this sound familiar???

2005-07-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

Shown above is a snapshot of junk email which I recently received in my MSN box. There was this message on the top of "From" about the sender not being verified by SenderID. Not knowing what this was all about, I was curious to get more information about this new Technology.

Bang I went, right to Microsoft's Home page and a simple search led me to the results. So what is this SenderID?

The Sender ID Framework is an e-mail authentication technology protocol
that helps address the problem of spoofing and phishing by verifying the domain
name from which e-mail is sent. Sender ID validates the origin of e-mail by
verifying the IP address of the sender against the purported owner of the
sending domain.

Thats what Microsoft's official page on SenderID had to say. Just wondering if this will save me from all the junk, crap and spam email that have been hovering around my inbox for a long time now.

More fun during TechED

2005-07-12T01:42:00.000-07:00

TechED not only ment technology, but also fun all the while. Having said that, after finishing the Technology part of TechEd, all of us would hop across places at Mumbai to Chill out. The first day of the evening was at Phoneix Mills Compound at Lower Parel. It was Nauzad's idea to have sizzlers. He had an idea of Kobe Sizzlers, being in the compound. So we all were hooked up out there. This is the place where we get delicious sizzlers, a Bombay favorite. Burning hot metal platters piled high with fresh vegetables, fries, chicken or steak, and sauces arrive at your table wafting clouds of steam. The place was simple -- no frills and a bit dark. However the only problem which some had was this place didn't server alcohol, and people had to drink Coke.
So we reach Kobe at around 2100ish and have dinner till 2330ish. Having eaten lots of vegetables (read: sizzler), it was time for some coffee.

So came a idea from all - having a coffee at Barista (Ya!! You heard it right - 2330 hrs we go to have coffee). So we land up at Barista, most of us ordering coffee. All of a sudden, Mahesh and Dhaval come up with a brainwave to pay "Fists of Fury". This seemed a great timepass and fun too - while the coffee was being prepared. The first ones were Abhishek and Nauzad. It was a pretty intersting match which ended up after after about 2 minutes. And yes, it was Nauzad who lost. This is what he said after loosing to Abhishek - "He is my MVP lead, and I've a year-end review comming up in August - so I better lose to him, then screw up my chances of becoming a MVP again". And yes, after that came a huge applause and lots of laughter.

Not to be left behind, Namratha (the lady MVP in the group)said - if Abhishek can do it - so can I. So up came a challenge to Nauzad from Namratha. By this time, the coffees had been server and all of us were "heated up" for cheering them. And what a match it was, with Nauzad loosing to Namratha (ya, Nauzad lost to Namratha). Now here's what he had to say after the second match - "Namratha is new in the community, recently being nominated as a MVP, and I did not want to take away her credits from Abhishek (who is the MVP lead), by winning. I'm always there for the community." So it was all fun time that day and and then even more people got into this. You can view more of the photos from here. In and all it was great fun the first day of TechED.

Technology Time - TechED '05 @ Mumbai

2005-07-05T01:20:00.000-07:00

Finally, after one long month, the TechED leg of India was over on 2nd. I got a chance to be present at TechED Mumbai. It was fun-filled (along with the rains), technology crazy world for three days (still haven't been able to come out of that TechED-lag). So it rained at TechED Mumbai, and it rained like never before. However, the delegates (who love technology) made it a point to be at the venue on time. So huge was the response - that Microsoft provided a transport facility for all the delegates who came from Pune. In and all - TechED was a massive Hit.

For this year, I was looking after two stalls at Mumbai.
1. TabletPC Stall
2. INETA Stall

I would add that out of the two - the max time I spent was on the TabletPC stall. This was because I was more inlined to giving the demos on the various tablets kept for display. Top that with getting a chance to interact with two people from the TabletPC Team at Redmond, Subha Bhattachraya and Manoj Biswas. Both have a huge amount of knowledge as far as development in the Tablet Form Factor are concerned. It was really exciting out at Tablet Stall to demonstrate and prove that a Pen (read: Stylus) is always mightier then a sword.

At INETA stall (what we also called it as "Community Stall"), talked about the evolution of Mumbai User Group and Pune User Group, and how to become a part of the respective UGs. TechED India also saw the Launch of "Community Times", a newspaper for all people who want to know what's happening in the community for them. Along with that, we also had a "DartBoard" for people to play games.

TechED this year, saw over 50 speakers from various backgrounds. This was also the first time TechED had 6 different tracks, including a special track for the Architects. However I personally felt that they did not attend the right kind of delegates. Infact it became all the more difficult to choose which track to attend :). The sessions (which were on for 2 full days), were followed by a day of HOL (Hands-on-Labs) sessions. Not to be left out - I got a opportunity to conduct one of the TabletPC sessions along with Manoj. Here, we just gave the delegates a basic know-how of Tablets, including the use of "Inking", MS OneNote, Journal, Artex, and various other applications. This was the first time ever, that I was speaking at a HUGE Microsoft event.

This was also the year, where TechED launched the "Women in Technology Luncheon" - – a networking luncheon designed to facilitate one-on-one interaction between fellow women professionals from the industry! And what a time it was - all the women at one single place. (Just wondering how would the hotel staff, keep a check on the decibel levels :)). Lets hope to see something like "Men In Technology" in upcomming TechEDs

Overall TechED is usually considered as a time when most of the Evangelists come down to one place and have a gala of time. Having interacted with the likes of Abhishek, Manik, Vineet, Gaurav Khanna, Deepak Gulati, Tejas Shah, Ram, Ravi Sankar, Kevin D'Souza and many more, the memories of TechED are still fresh in my mind.

Waiting for a India leg of PDC.. Anyone listening??

I'm on Microsoft's Academia WebSite

2005-06-30T01:47:00.000-07:00

Well after over a month of getting a bag - the Student Ambassador kit - I finally have my profile on Microsoft's Academic Website. I guess lots of good moments in my life are going on as of now :) Thanks to all of you who have given me a wide array of knowledge.

Hotmail - More reasons to smile

2005-06-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Well, finally I've something to post. This one is related to Hotmail. One of my buddy just told me that hotmail now allows a DOT(.) in a username.

So I just zoomed off to www.hotmail.com and Signed up for a new account. The email id that I created is shah.hardik@hotmail.com - hardik.shah@hotmail.com already existed :(. Just wondering how many people actually new this - that hotmail now allowed DOT(.) in new accounts signed up.

And BTW if you plan to Sign up - make sure you keep your country setting to "United States of America", the state as "Florida" and the Pin as "33332" to get a 250MB deal. Else you will have to be with a 2MB account.

Not keeping this place updated!

2005-06-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry pals, lately I haven't been getting enough time to update my blog. Its just that I am too busy with my work and hence not getting enough time to write. TechED is comming up at Mumbai on 23, so expect a lot of posting.

TechED 2005 @ India Underway

2005-06-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

After US, it was the time for TechED ’05 to be flagged of at India. It was done in the classic Microsoft style. The venue this time was Bangalore.

I will be there at TechED Mumbai, probably handling the MS Community Stall/The TabletPC stall or the Mobile and Embedded Devices stall. Also in line are demos at DeepDive and Hands-On-Labs.

One intersting thing that MS is doing this year is to have a TechED Blogger's Contest. The best 5 entiries from each city will get a prize. So better blog if you are attending TechED.

TechED 2005 - Initiated

2005-06-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

TechED 2005 was flagged off at Orlando (US) - the keynote address being given my Mr. Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft Corp. Some selected sessions at Orlando are available as Webcasts, for all those people who couldnt attend it.

For all those who are in India and want to attent TechED India, can register on the site. TechED India flags off from 14th June at Bangalore.

And before I forget - live RSS feeds for TechED US are avalible from http://techedbloggers.net/

First Hotmail - Now MSN

2005-06-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

Another good news on this list. After Hotmail now its turn for MSN to increase the size of mailbox to 250MB!!! Yes - you heard it right - MSN Email id's are now supposed to be having 250MB with 10MB attachment size.. Isnt this cool news!!

BTW just forgot to mention - my MSN Id is now 250MB.. So double bonus :)

PuneITPro - Finally a part of Culminis

2005-06-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

Few moments ago - a email in my inbox from Sanjay Shetty, the Executive Director for Culminis APAC, saying that Pune IT Pro UserGroup is now a part of Culminis. I believe its the second only after Chennai to be a part of Culminis APAC For all of you - who don't know whats Culminis is all about, this is from its official page:

Culminis is an international organization representing the culmination of ideas, aspirations, and needs of IT Professionals. By building a partnership between IT Pros and information technology solution providers, Culminis strives to improve the skills, abilities and knowledge of our members along with the technologies they depend on.

At the end of this - a special thanks to Vineet Gupta, Vishal Shirodkar, Anand Deodhar, Dhaval Faria, Sarang Datye and Mahesh Mitkari for their support in bringing PuneITPro to this level. Also needless to say, Manik Ahuja - the guy who helped to setup PuneITPro - a big thanks to him as well!!! Not to forget all the members of PuneITPro - without whom this wouldnt have been possible!!

XML - File Format for the Next Version of Microsoft Office

2005-06-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

XML is surely gonna be the next big thing. Not to be left behind, Microsoft said that XML is going to be the default "file format" or extension for the next version of Office. More by, Steven Sinofsky, the Senior Vice President for Office in his interview

Microsoft Offers Longhorn Accessibility Platform for License

2005-05-31T23:36:00.000-07:00

Micrsoft Plans to offer "Windows User Interface Automation" (UI Automation) on Loyalty free, cross-platform basis. UI Automation is slated to debut with Longhorn.

Shared Source for Bluetooth

2005-05-30T00:32:00.000-07:00

Are you doing a project on Embedded/Mobile Platform?? Do you plan to use connectivity in you application with "Bluetooth". If your answers are yes - or just for the sake of it - check out the
BlueTooth Source Library - Windows Embedded Source Tools for Bluetooth Technology

India Security Weeks

2005-05-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

Recently Microsoft India concluded it Security Week tour across India. There was one held at Mumbai. Sadly, due to my exams I wasn't able to attend it.

However, not to be left behind, Vineet Gupta an IT Pro Evangelist from Microsoft India, has blogged his complete experience on the Security Week. Also some interesting replies on some of the commonly asked questions on security. Read the complete post. The presentations have also been now made available - online.

Thanks a lot Vineet for telling how was it at the Security Weeks.

More Fun!!!

2005-05-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

Here are couple of more pics - the other side of all of us!! Had fun - specially during dinner times ;)

WiFi - a lot discussed over it

2005-05-22T22:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 21st May 2005 - was the day!! We had this month's ITPro UG meet. Abhishek had specially come down from Delhi (Gurgaon) for this one. He was speaking on WiFi. There is already a post on the meet, so wont be posting much here.

What's not there on that post are the photos of the meet. Here are a few of them.

Yipeee!! Microsoft Student Ambassador now

2005-05-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was awarded and promoted from being a Microsoft Student Champ to Micrsoft Student Ambassador. As a part of the award, got a new kit from Microsoft. This included a copy of VS.NET 2003, a Student Ambassador starter kit and a cool new Black Microsoft Bag, which has a provision keeping a laptop ( Wish the bag had come with a tablet). BTW below is a pic of the bag.

TechSupport - Dont bet on it.

2005-05-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

Well every wondered what kind of questions might be asked if you were a part of the tech support at some Company. Well Gotta check out the below pics :)

Reason 1 - For not using FireFox

2005-05-19T03:01:00.000-07:00

An intersting post made by Dhaval

Gigabit iSCSI - The Future of Networks??

2005-05-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

Internet SCSI (iSCSI) is a draft standard protocol for encapsulating SCSI command into TCP/IP packets and enabling I/O block data transport over IP networks. iSCSI can be used to build IP-based SANs.

The simple, yet powerful technology can help provide a high-speed, low-cost, long-distance storage solution for Web sites, service providers, enterprises and other organizations.
An iSCSI HBA, or storage NIC, connects storage resources over Ethernet. As a result, core transport layers can be managed using existing network management applications. High-level management activities of the iSCSI protocol – such as permissions, device information and
configuration – can easily be layered over or built into these applications.

For this reason, the deployment of interoperable, robust enterprise management solutions for iSCSI devices is expected to occur quickly. First-generation iSCSI HBA performance is expected to be wellsuited for the workgroup or departmental storage requirements of medium- and large-sized businesses. The expected availability of TCP/IP Offload Engines in 2002 will significantly improve the performance of iSCSI products. Performance comparable to Fibre Channel is expected when vendors begin shipping 10 Gigabit Ethernet iSCSI products in 2003.

Benefits
By combining SCSI, Ethernet and TCP/IP, Gigabit iSCSI delivers these key advantages:

Builds on stable and familiar standards – many IT staffs are familiar with the technologies
Creates a SAN with a reduced TCO – installation and maintenance costs are low since the TCP/IP suite reduces the need for hiring specialized personnel
Provides a high degree of interoperability – reduces disparate networks and cabling, and uses regular Ethernet switches instead of special Fibre Channel switches
Ethernet transmissions can travel over the Global IP Network and therefore have no practical distance limitations
Scales to 10 Gigabit – comparable to OC-192 SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) rates in Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs)

Mozilla releases Firefox security update

2005-05-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

A security update for the Firefox open-source browser has been released by the Mozilla Foundation, a move that follows the public disclosure of exploit code for two "extremely critical" vulnerabilities.

Currently, Mozilla has the update out in 12 languages and anticipates sending it out in another 24 languages in the coming days.

The Update can be downloaded from FireFox's site

World is NOT Enough

2005-05-11T01:29:00.000-07:00

Got this pic while going through a NASA site. If this is true - then you might want to live to the MAX for the next years to come.

Encrypt your MSN Messenger conversations

2005-05-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

Well - comming back to the security issue, how many of us know that messages over IM are transferred over "Simple Text" mode. Well, better encrypt this text :)

A tool for encrypting the messages over IM

- the best part it is free for personal use. Dont miss a chance to use this tool :)

Google mistype security nightmare

2005-05-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

One of its kind - a article on TechWorld :)

Anyone who accidentally types "googkle.com" [do NOT attempt this - Ed], an
easy-to hit misspelling of the domain name, will find themselves on the
receiving end of a nasty cyber-jacking, or "Google-jacking" as perhaps it should
be more accurately termed

Read the complete article

Imagine Cup Zonal Finals Winners!!

2005-05-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

Finally done with the Zonal Finals (West) for Imagine Cup. Had a long day yesterday - managing the complete event. Once again, got a chance to meet the best from the Industry.

It was a fun filled event with 7 teams across the west zone participating. However only two of the teams could make it to the India Finals, which would be held at Bangalore. Read for more details about this event.

MIT will host Microsoft Imagine Cup Zonal Round

2005-05-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

Read the complete story here

Flaws in Mac OS X

2005-05-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

Over the years, every critic has been after Microsoft for its security flaws. For a change, a independent security firm Secunia, has found flaws in the Mac OS X.

Apple Computer has released its second major security update in as many weeks, fixing 20 bugs in the "Jaguar" version of the Mac OS X operating system. The most serious of the flaws could allow remote attacks.

This week's patch was designed for desktop and server versions of OS X 10.3.9, an update released in mid-April as Apple geared up for the launch of OS X 10.4, nicknamed Tiger.

The flaws patched this week are more serious than those addressed by the April patch, with some of the new bugs allowing remote attackers to run malicious code on a user's system. A buffer overflow in Apache's htdigest program could be triggered via a CGI application to allow remote system compromise, as quoted by Apple

Deep Thoughts!!!

2005-05-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

This is something a friend forwarded me. I guess, the words do mean a lot. Personally speaking, it was something that really touched my heart. So never take anyone for GRANTED!!

Is Torvalds really the father of Linux?

2005-05-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

According to the study, it's safe to argue that Tanenbaum, who had years of OS experience and who had seen the Unix source code, could create Minix in three years. "However, it is highly questionable that Linus, still just a student, with virtually no operating systems development experience, could do the same, especially in one-sixth of the time," says the study, which was written by Ken Brown, president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

Read the complete story here

A new look for my blog!!

2005-05-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, after two day of hard work, I have the new template for my blog. Have done quite a few changes on it. Here is a list:

I now have 2 sidebars. The first one being where I have my feeds, my profile and links to the blogs which i read. This also has some information about the books/music which I'm hooked onto currently
The second one has a method to subscribe to my blog, the archive list and the no. of visitors who have so far visited this blog. I have also signed up for Google AdSense
The center of the page, consists of my posts, with a all new white background and different font.
Lastly, the bottom of the page consists a "Google" Search for my blog.

Do, let me know about your comments on this new look. Also there is a chatterbox on the right, so you can just drop in your smilies :)

Network Cable Standards DeMistified!!!

2005-04-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

Moving more towards the networking stuff, here is something which is more essential - something which is always asked in our Orals during exams. Some standards of the Network Cables..

10Base2
An Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standard for implementing 10 megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet over thin coaxial cabling.

Overview
10Base2 is based on the 802.3 specifications of Project 802 developed by the IEEE. It was ratified as an IEEE standard in 1985 and quickly found its way into corporate
networks for small local area networks (LANs) connected to larger 10Base5 backbones.
10Base2 is sometimes referred to as thinnet or thin coax because it uses thin coaxial cabling for connecting stations to form a network (as compared to 10Base5, which uses a thicker form of cabling and hence is called thicknet). The designation 10Base2 is derived from the network’s speed (10 Mbps), the signal transmission method (baseband transmission), and the maximum
segment length (185 meters, rounded off to 200 with the zeros removed). Another popular nickname for this technology was Cheapernet because thinnet cabling was considerably less costly than thicknet cabling.

Implementation
10Base2 networks are wired together using a bus topology, in which individual stations (computers) are connected directly to one long cable. The maximum length of any particular segment of a 10Base2 network is 607 feet (185 meters). If distances longer than this are
required, two or more segments must be connected using repeaters. Altogether, a total of five segments can be connected using four repeaters, as long as only three of the segments have stations (devices) attached to them. This is referred to as the 5-4-3 rule. A 10Base2 segment should have no more than 30 stations wired to it. The minimum distance between these stations is 1.6 feet (0.5 meters). Stations are attached to the cable using BNC (British Naval Connector or Bayonet-Neill-Concelman) connectors, and the ends of the cabling have BNC cable connectors soldered or crimped to them. 10Base2 supports a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 10 Mbps, but in actuality the presence of collisions reduces this to more like 4 to 6 Mbps.

10Base2 networks are not deployed much anymore for two reasons. First, because their speed is limited to 10 Mbps, the networks perform poorly in today’s bandwidth-hungry, Internet-connected world. Second, 10Base2 networks have a single point of failure—the long, linear bus cable used to connect the stations. A single break or loose connection brings down the entire network, thus every cable segment and station connection must be checked to determine the problem. If you are wiring an office for a small LAN with low bandwidth requirements, use 10BaseT instead, which is easier to manage and troubleshoot. For moderate to high bandwidth requirements, try using Fast Ethernet instead. The two ends of a 10Base2 bus must be properly terminated. If they are not, signals will bounce and network communication will come to a halt.

10Base5
An Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standard for implementing 10 megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet over coaxial cabling.

Overview
10Base5 is based on the again on 802.3 specifications of Project 802 developed by the IEEE. It was developed as a standard in the early 1980s (I believe before 10Base2) and became hugely popular in corporate and campus networks. An earlier form of 10Mbps Ethernet developed by the DIX Consortium was superseded by 10Base5 when the IEEE 802.3 standard was created in 1983. 10Base5 is sometimes referred to as Thicknet because it uses thick coaxial cabling for connecting stations to form a network (compared to 10Base2, which uses a thinner form of cable and is hence called thinnet). Another name for 10Base5 is Standard Ethernet because it was the first type of Ethernet to be implemented (it is also sometimes referred to as Original Ethernet, for obvious reasons). The designation 10Base5 is derived from the network’s speed (10 Mbps), the signal transmission method (baseband transmission), and the maximum segment length (500 meters).

Implementation
10Base5 networks are wired together in a bus topology—that is, in a linear fashion using one long cable. The maximum length of any particular segment of a 10Base5 network is 1640 feet (500 meters). If distances longer than this are required, two or more segments must be connected using repeaters. Altogether, there can be a total of five segments connected using four
repeaters, as long as only three of the segments have stations (computers) attached to them. This is referred to as the 5-4-3 rule. A 10Base5 segment should have no more than 100 stations
wired to it. These stations are not connected directly to the cable as in 10Base2 networks.

Instead, a transceiver is attached to the cable, usually using a cable-piercing connector called a vampire tap. From the transceiver, a drop cable is attached, which then connects to the network interface card (NIC) in the computer. The minimum distance between transceivers attached to the cable is 8 feet (2.5 meters), and the maximum length for a drop cable is 164 feet (50 meters). Thicknet cable ends can have N-series connectors soldered or crimped on them for connecting segments together. 10Base5 was often used for backbones for large networks.
In a typical configuration, transceivers on the thicknet backbone would attach to repeaters, which would join smaller thinnet segments to the thicknet backbone. In this way a combination of 10Base5 and 10Base2 standards could support sufficient numbers of stations for the needs of a moderately large company. 10Base5 supports a maximum bandwidth of 10 Mbps, but in actual networks, the presence of collisions reduces this to more like 4 to 6 Mbps.

10Base5 networks are legacy networks that are no longer being deployed, although some companies might choose to maintain existing ones for cost reasons. The complexity and bandwidth limitations of 10Base5 networks render them largely obsolete. If you are wiring an office for a small local area network (LAN) with low bandwidth requirements, use 10BaseT instead. For moderate to high bandwidth requirements, try using Fast Ethernet. If you are implementing a backbone for today’s high-speed enterprise networks, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) is now the preferred technology.

10BaseF
An Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standard for implementing 10 megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet over fiber-optic cabling.

Overview
10BaseF is based on the 802.3 specifications of Project 802 developed by the IEEE and differs from other forms of 10-Mbps Ethernet by using fiber-optic cabling instead of copper unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cabling. The designation 10BaseF is derived from the network’s speed (10 Mbps), the signal transmission method (baseband transmission), and the physical media used (fiber-optic cabling). The 10BaseF standard actually consists of three separate standards describing different media specifications:

10BaseFB: Defines how the synchronous data transmission occurs over the fiber-optic cabling. Using 10BaseFB segments, you can cascade or link synchronous fiber-optic hubs in configurations that are longer than traditional 10BaseT Ethernet networks and contain up to 1024 stations. This standard is more expensive and is not as widely implemented as 10BaseFL.
10BaseFL: Defines the characteristics of the fiber-optic link between the nodes and the hub or concentrator. 10BaseFL replaces the older standard for fiber-optic link segments, Fiber-Optic Inter-Repeater Link (FOIRL) segments, which was developed in the 1980s. 10BaseFL is the most commonly implemented version of 10BaseF.
10BaseFP: Defines the implementation of a star topology that does not use repeaters. 10BaseFP stands for Fiber Passive, and its segments can be only 500 meters (1640 feet) in length with a maximum of 33 stations connected. This standard is rarely used today.

Implementation
10BaseF is similar to 10BaseT in that each station is wired into a hub in a star topology to form the network. The maximum length of any segment of 10BaseF fiber-optic cabling is 6600 feet (2000 meters), compared to the 328 feet (100 meters) supported by 10BaseT, making 10BaseF suitable for long-haul interconnects. The recommended cabling type for 10BaseF networks is 62.5-micron diameter fiber-optic cabling. This cable can be terminated with either ST connectors or SMA connectors, depending on the vendor and the hub configuration. Two-strand multimode fiber-optic cabling is used, with one strand allotted for transmitting data and the other for receiving data.

10BaseF is preferable to 10BaseT in environments that are electrically noisy, such as in industrial areas, near elevator shafts, or around other motors or generators. Fiber-optic cabling is often used for running cables between buildings. Differences in ground potential between the ends of copper cabling can induce voltages that can damage networking equipment if the ends are not grounded properly. Fiber-optic cabling also supports faster speeds than copper UTP cabling and provides a more suitable upgrade option to Fast Ethernet and beyond. The maximum signal loss or attenuation on a given segment should be no more than 12.5 decibels. Using too many connectors in a segment of fiber-optic cabling can cause the attenuation to exceed this figure, which can lead to signal loss.

10BaseT
An Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standard for implementing 10 megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet over twisted-pair cabling.

Overview
10BaseT is based on the 802.3 specifications of Project 802 developed by the IEEE and is the most popular form of 10-Mbps Ethernet. 10BaseT is deployed over structured cabling systems consisting of unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cabling used for connecting end stations to centralized hubs to form a network. (Shielded twisted-pair [STP] cabling can also be used, but it never is.) The designation 10BaseT comes from the network’s speed (10 Mbps), the signal transmission method (baseband transmission), and the physical medium used for transmission (twisted-pair cabling). 10BaseT became widely popular because of the earlier success of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a hierarchical structured-wiring system to which 10BaseT bears many similarities. An advantage of 10BaseT over earlier 10 Mbps Ethernet systems such as 10Base5 and 10Base2 is that it is easier to manage because of the centralization of network traffic in hubs.

Implementation
In10BaseT networks, end stations such as workstations and servers are wired together in a star topology to a central hub. The UTP cabling used for wiring should be Category 3 (Cat3) cabling, Category 4 (Cat4) cabling, or Category 5 (Cat5) cabling, terminated with RJ-45 connectors. Patch panels can be used to organize wiring and provide termination points for cables running to
wall plates in work areas. Patch cables then connect each port on the patch panel to the hub. Usually most of the wiring is hidden in a wiring cabinet and arranged on a rack for easy access.
The maximum length of any particular segment of a 10BaseT network is 328 feet (100 meters). In practice this is not a limitation because a survey by AT&T indicated that about 99 percent of desktops in commercial buildings are located within 328 feet (100 meters) of a wiring closet. If distances longer than that are required, two or more segments may be connected using repeaters. The minimum length of any given segment is restricted to 8 feet (2.5 meters).
By using stackable hubs or by cascading regular hubs into a cascaded star topology, you can network large numbers of computers using 10BaseT cable. Although 10BaseT can support up to 1024 nodes, networks with no more than 200 or 300 nodes will yield the best performance
by keeping collision domains small. Hubs can be hierarchically arranged to a depth of up to three levels in order to accommodate much larger networks, but performance declines significantly as the number of stations exceeds several hundred.

Although 10BaseT theoretically supports a maximum bandwidth of 10 Mbps, in actual networks the presence of collisions reduces throughput to about 4 to 6 Mbps. The maximum length of a 10BaseT cable segment is not a result of the specifications for round-trip communications
on an Ethernet network but rather a limitation caused by the relatively low signal strength of 10BaseT systems. With enhanced Category 5 (Cat5e) cabling, you might be able to sustain network communications effectively with cable lengths up to about 490 feet (150 meters), although this is not normally recommended.

100BaseFX
An Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard for implementing 100 megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet over fiber-optic cabling.

Overview
100BaseFX is based on the 802.3u standard, which is an extension of the 802.3 standard of Project 802 developed by the IEEE. It’s a type of Fast Ethernet that is often used for wiring campus backbones using fiber-optic cabling. The designation 100BaseFX is derived from the network’s speed (100 Mbps), the signal transmission method (baseband transmission), and the physical medium used for transmission (fiber-optic cabling).

Implementation
100BaseFX networks are wired together in a star topology using fiber-optic cabling and 100-Mbps fiber-optic hubs or Ethernet switches. 100BaseFX systems may be interconnected with 100BaseTX, 100BaseT4, and 10BaseT systems using auto negotiating hubs and switches with suitable ports. Two-strand fiber-optic cabling is required, and ST, SC, and MIC connectors are all supported. Signaling is at 125 megahertz (MHz), which when combined with the 80 percent efficiency of the 4B5B line coding mechanism used results in an overall transmission speed of 100 Mbps. The maximum length of any segment of fiber-optic cabling connecting a station (computer) to a hub in 100BaseFX is 1350 feet (412 meters), and not 1480 feet (450 meters) as some sources indicate. The grade of fiber-optic cabling used is usually two-strand multimode fiber-optic cabling, with one strand carrying transmitted data and the other strand receiving data. However, you can also use two-strand single-mode fiber-optic cabling. If multimode fiber-optic cabling is used, the variety used is typically a grade with a 62.5-micron core diameter.
Repeaters can be used to extend the length of cabling and for interfacing between 100BaseFX/TX and 100BaseT4 segments. The maximum allowable distances with repeaters are 2 kilometers using multimode fiber-optic cabling and 10 kilometers using singlemode
fiber-optic cabling. Only one or two repeaters can be used per collision domain, depending on
whether Class I or Class II repeaters are used.

100BaseFX and a related standard, 100BaseTX, are sometimes collectively referred to as 100BaseX. When using 100BaseFX with repeaters for backbone cabling runs, Ethernet switches cannot be more than 1350 feet (412 meters) apart when running in halfduplex mode and 6600 feet (2000 meters) apart when running in full-duplex mode.

100BaseT4
An Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard for implementing 100 megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet over twisted-pair cabling.

Overview
100BaseT4 is based on 802.3u, which is an extension of the 802.3 specifications of Project 802 developed by the IEEE. 100BaseT4 is the most commonly used implementation of Fast Ethernet today. The designation 100BaseT4 is derived from the network’s speed (100 Mbps), the signal transmission method (baseband transmission), and the physical medium used for transmission (all four pairs of wires in standard twisted-pair cabling). 100BaseT4 is now considered legacy technology and has been largely superseded by 100BaseTX.

Implementation
100BaseT4 networks are wired together in a star topology using unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cabling and 100-Mbps hubs or Ethernet switches. The UTP cabling involved may be Category 3 (Cat3), Category 4 (Cat4), or Category 5 (Cat5) cabling—with Cat5 cabling and enhanced Category 5 (Cat5e) cabling being the most commonly used solutions nowadays. 100BaseT4 uses all four pairs of wire in standard UTP cabling, for signaling with signaling rates of 25 megahertz
(MHz) and an 8B6T line coding mechanism. One pair is used exclusively for transmission and a second pair for reception. The other two pairs are bidirectional and can be used either to transmit or to receive data as required. In this way, three of the four wire pairs are used at any given time to provide half-duplex transmission or reception of signals. Sharing three pairs of wires for data transfer allows 100BaseT4 to make use of lower-grade Cat3 cabling already installed in many older buildings. The maximum length of any segment of cabling connecting
a station (computer) to a hub is 328 feet (100 meters). This ensures that round-trip signaling specifications are met, because violating these specifications can produce late collisions that disrupt network communications. The Electronic Industries Alliance/Telecommunications
Industry Association (EIA/TIA)– recommended length of cabling between the station and the wiring closet is only 295 feet (90 meters), allowing up to 32 feet (10 meters) more of cabling for patch cables used to connect patch panels to hubs or switches. The pinning of the RJ-45 connectors used for 100BaseT4 wiring is the same as for 10BaseT wiring.

Make sure all your cabling, connectors, and patch panels are fully Cat5-compliant. For example, ensure that when UTP cabling is connected to patch panels, wall plates, or connectors, the wires are not untwisted more than half an inch at the termination point. 100BaseT4 hubs and switches are typically available in an autosensing 10/100-Mbps variety for interoperability
with older 10BaseT networks and to facilitate an easy upgrade from 10BaseT to 100BaseT.

100BaseTX
An Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard for implementing 100 megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet over twisted-pair cabling.

Overview
100BaseTX is based on 802.3u, which is an extension of the 802.3 specifications of Project 802 developed by the IEEE. The designation 100BaseTX is derived from the network’s speed (100 Mbps), the signal transmission method (baseband transmission), and the physical medium used for transmission (the same two pairs of wires in standard four-wire twisted-pair cabling that are
used for 10BaseT Ethernet).

Implementation
100BaseTX networks are wired together in a star topology using either unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cabling or data-grade shielded twisted-pair (STP) cabling. If UTP cabling is used (which is the most common scenario), it must be Category 5 (Cat5) cabling or enhanced Category 5 (Cat5e) cabling. Stations are connected together using hubs or switches. Unlike 10BaseT hubs, which can be hierarchically connected up to three levels deep, 100BaseTX hubs can only be
connected two layers deep, which imposes additional distance limitations and may necessitate rewiring of existing cabling before upgrading from 10BaseT to 100BaseTX.

100BaseTX uses the two pairs of wires in twistedpair cabling that are used by 10BaseT networks, with one pair of wires used for transmission and the other used for reception. With the appropriate equipment, 100BaseTX is capable of supporting both the familiar half-duplex Ethernet used by 10BaseT and newer full-duplex Ethernet signaling technologies. 100BaseTX employs a signaling rate of 125 megahertz (MHz) for each pair of wires, which, because the 4B5B line coding algorithm used is only 80 percent efficient, translates into a data transmission speed of 100 Mbps. The maximum length of any segment of cabling connecting a station to a hub is 328 feet (100 meters). This ensures that round-trip signaling specifications are met, because violating these specifications can produce late collisions that disrupt network communications. The pinning of the RJ-45 connectors used for 100BaseTX wiring is the same as for 10BaseT wiring with wires 1 and 2 used for transmission and wires 3 and 6 used for reception. This enables 100BaseTX autosensing hubs and switches to operate in mixed 10/100 Mbps Ethernet networks.

The maximum distance between 100BaseTX hubs and bridges or switches is 738 feet (225 meters), further than the maximum hub-station distance of only 328 feet (100 meters).
100BaseTX and a related standard, 100BaseFX, are sometimes collectively referred to as 100BaseX. Although the maximum length of segments joining stations to hubs is 328 feet (100 meters), the Electronic Industries Alliance/Telecommunications Industry Alliance (EIA/TIA) recommends only 295 feet (90 meters) of cabling between the station (computer) and the wiring closet, allowing up to 32 feet (10 meters) more of cabling for patch cables used to connect patch panels to hubs or switches.

Tech.ED 2005 @ India

2005-04-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

One of the most happening events by Microsoft India, Tech.ED is back.

Tech•Ed 2005 is Microsoft's largest technology educational conference. Meet
thousands of your peers. Discuss the challenges you face in the industry.
Explore solutions with the experts behind the technology you use every day. Add
value to your company's IT investments.

However this time its two monts earlier then last year. It kicks off from June 14 at Banglore and by the time its July 2, its already travelled 5 Cities and is at final destination New Delhi.

This year TechED brings 3 more additional tracks than the previous year. The tracks are as follows:

Smart Client & Connected Systems
IT Professionals
Developer Tools
Database
Mobile & Embedded
Architects

The additional ones are Smart Clients & Connected Systems, Mobile & Embedded and the most happening one Architechs.

The complete schedule of TechED is available here. There are also early bird offers which give you a handsome discount upto 1500 bucks :) So get connected and get TechED.

Crimson Skies : Road to Revenge Review

2005-04-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well being hooked onto Xbox for over a week now, I really loved playing Crimson Skies: Road to Revenge.

One of the tabletop stratege game, it stars Nathan Zachary, a rugged and handsome leader of the Fortune Hunters, a Robin Hood--style air pirate gang with hearts of gold, flying the unfriendly skies in 1930s - America. The nation has been split into warring factions, and fighter planes and the zeppelins battle for supremacy on a daily basis. Every character is indeed a real character, and the game flows with bravado and a winking sense of humor---thanks in no small part to the superlative voice acting.

It is Natan's rival, come to collect the spoils of a high stakes card game gone awry, including a Devastator dog fighter and Nathan's zeppelin, the Pandora. Being a man of action, he does what any self-respecting air pirate would do, stealing back his plane in short order thanks to some proficient wing-walking. His teammate Betty helps him retrieve the zeppelin in what amounts to a quick tutorial, leaving only the task of finding Big John, a competent pilot to take the Pandora's helm.

More search finds, scientist named Dr. Fassenbiender. The doctor was being forced to work for the Germans, until his refusal to develop destructive technology for them landed him a spot next to Nathan in a POW camp. The doctor believes it is Von Essen, a mad German scientist who began work on using the technology for use as a weapon. With this in mind, the doctor gives Nathan the blueprints to keep his research safe. What follows is a story of intrigue, betrayal, and exploration, as you attempt to overcome impossible odds to save the world from tyranny.

The fighters are controlled using the left stick to steer, and the right to perform barrel rolls. The cruising speed is dependant on what plane you are in, but is generally constant. If a need arises for speed, you can hit Y for a quick boost, and holding B allows you to brake for quick turns. The right trigger is used to fire primary weapons like machine guns and cannons, while the left launches secondaries including rockets and fireball cannons. The D-pad is used to take a look around, or you can hold the Black button to lock the view onto a nearby enemy. If you're in the mini-gyro or a turret, pressing A zooms the view so you can accurately aim at distant targets.

Flying high was always though, as some missions involved manning anti-aircraft guns to defend a location from swarms of fighters. There are a few different types of gun emplacements, including dual cannons, four rapid-fire machine guns, a rocket launcher, and a guided missile you can arc over mountains. If in a vehicle with multiple turrets, you can press Y and B to cycle through them, allowing you to use an array of weapons from various positions as you see fit.

The main interface was clean as it gets, consisting of Game Demos, Multiplayer, and Single Player selections. Entering the Single Player menu gave a list of active pilots which I could pick to continue my quest and an option to create a new profile. Creating a new pilot required minimal effort: simply entering a name, a few settings, and Woila. Vibration could be turned on/off by inverting the Y-axis, set three sound levels, and pick a difficulty, making for a simple, albeit bare options menu.

In and all, love the game and also the XBox. Sadly I have to return this back to Microsoft today. Wish I could buy one for myself. Lets hope XBox 2 brings on more cheers and smiles on my face.