20050430

Google Search History

Google has a cool feature called Google Search History. This is really cool where the user can sign up with their email address and log in using that email ID. Then all the searches that they do with that account will be recorded. This will help Google to enhance the search experience of the users by refining the seach results. But using this history, Google can maintain what every user is doing on the net. Every search that I do will be recorded and Google can use this database to create other services like Yahoo. Also if I search for any illegal things like cracks, warez, etc., I can face the wrath of the law.

See this link for an article on Google Search History http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6914

Firefox reaches 50 Million

Firefox the most talked about browser has rolled over the 50,000,000 downloads line at 8:58 AM PST on 29th April. This is a huge achievement for an open-source browser. Keep it up Mozilla.org

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/fifty.html

AI Exam

Today was the AI exam and I wasted too much time getting my duplicate ID card. In the exam, I missed the 11th question altogether. I could have got atleast 5-6 marks in that question even if I had attended something in that.

20050425

Free Linux magazine

There is a new online magazine for GNU/Linux called TUX. I have subscribed for it and they even have the option to directly send me the PDF file via Email, so that I dont have to check their website every month.

20050424

Imola Grand Prix

In yesterday's F1 race at Imola, Fernanda Alonsa won the first place with Michael Schumacher coming in as the second adn Jenson Button at third. Alonsa is making waves at the F1 with 3 straight wins. Narain Karthikeyan came in as the 14th with his team mate Tiago Monterio coming in as the 15th. The Minardis failed to finish, though they had a new car.

Dual Core Processors

Today's Hindu had an article about dual core processors. That is two processor cores in a single chip. There would be a 65% improvement in the performance of the computer. This is useful for the hard-core gamers and graphics designers. Intel's hyperthreading will make the OS to think that there are 2 virtual processors. Thus in a dual core processor, you get the advantage of 4 processors.
A major problem when it comes to dual core processors, is that should the customer pay the license for 2 cores?
Major application vendors say 'yes' on the argument that you pay or two pieces of the cake - even if they are served on the same plate. This is the plight of the customers who are accustomed to proprietory software. The best possible solution is the switch over to free software like GNU/Linux.

20050422

Adobe Buys Macromedia

Adobe Systems has announced that an agreement has been made to buy Macromedia for $3.4 billion.

By acquiring rival software maker Macromedia Inc. in a deal originally valued at $3.4 billion, Systems Inc. is positioning itself to do battle with Microsoft Corp over the tools to create, distribute and manage content online.

The deal, announced Monday, would put Adobe's ubiquitous Acrobat document-sharing program under the same roof as Macromedia's Flash software for creating and viewing interactive content on Web sites independent of operating systems or devices.

Adobe, which also makes the Photoshop image-editing line and a host of other programs for creative professionals and consumers, also gets the Web site-building application Dreamweaver as well as software for enabling real-time collaboration among business users.

Two software giants join together. My favourite applications include Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver.

20050421

Linux for distributed computing is here

Linux for distributed computing is here by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- It's called CHAOS, and it takes unused cycles from any PC on your network, then harnesses them for use by an application which needs them.It's a good example of a point made by several readers here the last few days, that adding new features to Linux simply makes Linux better, not more unwieldy. CHAOS uses [...]

Is Linux becoming Windows?

Is Linux becoming Windows? by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- Is Linux becoming like Windows, so overwhelmed with features that it's bloated?Some people are starting to think so. There is support for so many features in the Linux 2.6 kernel that it may be getting so fat as to be unstable. (Just add one more feature. It's wafer-thin.) Andrew Morton of OSDL, who currently maintains [...]

20050420

Building a search engine

Building a search engine was my dream after reading about Google and its linux farm and the search algorithm. A team had tried to build a search engine called Mozdex. Mozdex is a open search engine where they show us how the search process is going on and how they rank their page.

They have released their source code as open source at SourceForge.
Some people may say that providing the insight into the results will offer cheaters a better way to get higher ranks, but our view is it allows us to openly discover and communicate new methods and algorithms that give a better view and representation that is less Fallible to cheaters.
It is built using Open Source Softwares. Mozdex is based on the Nutch Search technology.

Currently the search engine is in beta and it has very small index. Many popular websites are not shown in the result as it is based on the DMOZ.org directory.

Really interesting search engine. I gotta go see how it is implemented but it is based on Java.

20050419

Microsoft's Coding4fun

Microsoft has started a new project called Coding4fun similar to Google Code. It is based on the .NET framework and it has projects related to assembly, web coding, game development, XML based applications and other cool applications.
"Coding4Fun is all about giving something back to the hobbyist developer community," said Brian Keller, product manager for Visual Studio. "Coding4Fun is for the millions of hobbyist developers worldwide who write very cool software applications for fun – on the nights, on the weekends, in their spare time, whenever. We're excited to have the opportunity to bring new content and ideas to this audience, and it’s a two-way street where we can be inspired by their ideas as well!"
Microsoft has also released Express products which is a light weight version of Microsoft Visual Studio, which has easy-to-use and easy-to-learn tools for hobbyists, students and novice developers. The beta2 of this range of products were recently launched and it is available for free download.

There are some articles about game development using .NET framework and DirectX, and about how to create an assembly program that can be used to control a LED display panel and interface it with Windows Media Player ot iTunes to show the currently playing song. There are more cool articles about personal web site starter kit, and system monitors, etc.

This is a good thing started by Microsoft, but as it uses the Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET framework, I am not at all interested in that. I don't have the time to study a new, difficult language like C# or ASP.NET. I am more into easier and faster-to-develop languages like Python. I gotta learn Python during the semester holidays. I would also like to learn PHP/MySQL. I think Google Code is far better as it has projects which are written in C++. But in Google Code, we can develop over the already existing 4 projects. But I think in Microsoft's Coding4fun developers can submit their projects. There are already websites which do the same for many years and they were successful - Sourceforge.

20050418

Gotta learn for exams

Exams are nearing and I gotta go learn for it. Sudarsan, Raju and Pratheema are busy studying for it. I gotta learn Probability and Queueing theory from wednesday to friday as Badri and Murali have agreed to teach it.
I think I will see something in AI today.

We will we will rock you - Lyrics

I like this song We will we will rock you by Queen. Pratheema teased me that I don't know the lyrics of the song. So I googled and found it.

Buddy you’re a boy make a big noise
Playin’ in the street gonna be a big man some day
You got mud on yo’ face
You big disgrace
Kickin’ your can all over the place

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

Buddy you’re a young man hard man
Shoutin’ in the street gonna take on the world some day
You got blood on yo’ face
You big disgrace
Wavin’ your banner all over the place

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

Buddy you’re an old man poor man
Pleadin’ with your eyes gonna make you some peace some day

You got mud on your face
You big disgrace
Somebody better put you back in your place

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you