If you want to get to the .NET 2.0 and VS.NET 2005 msdn documentation, the best url for that is msdn2 - check it out.

Not sure if you know, but I am in Amsterdam this week for TechEd Europe as a result, it would be a bit tricky posting here my useless mindless good-4-nothing blabber! I guess, you would need to just survive on caffeine till then. ;)

I don’t know if you knew or not, but as a kid Physics was my favorite subject (yep more than Computers), and I almost went into that line of things, but the idea of controlling a machine at my will (machine being a computer here) was more fun, so here I am many moons later. But, every now and then my old physics roots still pull me to something interesting I read about (its only reading now, no more experiments). One consequence of Einstein’s theory (E=mc²) is that a clock in motion will always appear to run slowly compared with one at rest (and since all motion is relative, the clock at rest will appear to go slowly from the vantage of the one moving). ...

If you think gadgets for the hip-hop world are a good idea, then check out some “samples” … lol …

Although I keep to my geeky side of things, every now and then I do come across a political story that I find intriguing for various reasons which I post here. This is one of them, reported by BBC about Nixon’s dislike of ‘witch’ Indira as he called Indira Gandhi , India’s Prime Minister from 1966 - 77 and then 1980 - 84.

This is very cool! Google now has officially released their API’s for Google Maps; till now there were a few hacks in place such as my where I work , but now its all supported. You would need to get a key, which is associated with a specific url, you can get that here and also read up on all the fun details here . ...

Give it a spin , it sure is intriguing … and now it makes perfect sense too …. :)

Jon has released a crack for google’s video viewer which allows you to view movies from anywhere (as opposed to those hosted only by google.com). Here is the crux of the code which prevents that: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 // Google mods const char\* allowed\_host = \\"video.google.com\\"; char \* host\_found = strstr(p\_sys->url.psz\_host, allowed\_host); if ((host\_found == NULL) || ((host\_found + strlen(allowed\_host)) != (p\_sys->url.psz\_host + strlen(p\_sys->url.psz\_host)))) { msg\_Warn( p\_access, \\"invalid host, only video.google.com is allowed\\" ); goto error; }

TheServerSide.NET has done a performance benchmark specifically around benchmarks comparing the following four configurations against each other: Sun JWSDP 1.5 / Sun HTTP Server 6.1 IBM WebSphere 6.0 / IBM HTTP Server 6.0 .NET 1.1 / IIS 6.0 .NET 2.0 / IIS 6.0 They said, extensive time was taken to tune all the above following each vendor’s best practices and iterative testing to get the best result. For all configurations, tracing, logging, authentication and session state was switched off. Also the Java heap sizes and thread settings were tuned for max. performance. And, all tests were run on the same hardware (in this case a AMD Opteron 1.8 ghz). ...

Brad Adams lists out a few options for Profilers available in the CLR - some of these possibly are familiar to you - but its good to see them listed in one place. (got this via Jon Kale who was responding to something else).

Not sure if this is true or not, but it sure is very funny. This is a letter (in pdf, 112kb) , to Continental Airlines by a passenger complaining about Seat 29E written on the plane during the flight and its hilarious - a must read.

Waaah, I missed the Festival of Speed for this year, did anyone go? How was it? Would you recommend for next year? Sniff… sniff… :’(

I have been asked this a few times and till now I have been shying from posting this, but here it is now, the details of the MCE I build a few months ago (in Feb. 2005). Motherboard: I got a 939 pin MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ RAM: 1 GB, DDR PC3200 (Ballistix) ...

Yahoo’s new blog service called 360 , which till now was not open to the public is now up and open - you should be able to sign in using your yahoo id. You can do a lot of things in addition to the blog such as Photos, Reviews, Links, Blast (which is an online conversation thread - looks quite similar to a chat session), Radio, etc. Check out a sample page provided by Yahoo which shows their vision. I have been waiting for this to go live for a little while, and though Yahoo has come late to the game of blogging, it sure has added a lot of stuff which allows it to catch up. ...

Yep, you read it right, Dell’s new laser printer 1100 sells for $100 in the US or £84 in the UK (including tax and delivery) and does feature some impressive specs (for its price) - such as 600 dpi and 15 ppm. Maybe its time I did not worry about getting a transformer for my HP LaserJet 2100 (which runs on 110v and the wall here in UK has 220v) and just bought this.

If you have time, you can code your way to the PDC for free, how sweet is that? :o)

Back in March I was looking to get a new chair for my home office, but now how about a whole new desk and chair ? I don’t know if that is Chinese or Japanese or some other language, but can anyone find out how much does it cost? ...

In case you have not heard there is a new beta of Yahoo Messenger that adds a load of features. I have been using it for about a month or so and it works well for the most part - remember it is still in Beta. Now you can even make phone calls, read the related story . ...

Off the top of my head I cannot think of any true value for this (also I am not a System Engineer, so maybe its just that). Cisco is ready to release a new device that hands XML traffic and is supposed to bring “advanced XML security and management capabilities”. Cisco has a new new AON (Application-Oriented Networking) group (*groan*, talk about overusing a terminology) and has partnered with leading middle ware vendors such as SAP and IBM. The device is suppose to add new functions such as XML message parsing, schema validation and digital signature validation. ...

An editor’s note warns “Technology, the laws, and limitations imposed by manufacturers and content owners are constantly changing, Thus, some of the projects described may not work, may be inconsistent with current laws or user agreements or may damage or adversely affect some equipment. Your safety is your own responsibility, including proper use of equipment and safety gear, and determining whether you have adequate skill and experience.” How scary. And how refreshing. Make, a new quarterly put out by O’Reilly Media, a publisher of computer and technology books in Sebastopol, California, is a throwback to an earlier time, before personal computers, to the prehistory of geekiness - the age of how-to manuals for clever boys, from the 1920s to the ’50s. ...

If you have not got an MCE yet and are thinking of a small factor (like a laptop), check out Toshiba’s new Qosimo’s - drool! I have seen the old version in the stores and they are an absolute dream, the screen is just awesome and now they have improved it!

Firstly this is not a Java bashing and I don’t preach to say .NET/C++, etc is faster. However, based on what I have seen it sure is slow - slow like a snail. Maybe its the time that takes to load the VM or maybe it Swing - gurk! I like how Andy puts it - “One man’s feature is another man’s bloat”. He has a very objective article on the area which are slow, what Sun is doing to address it and what the main issues (with the developers) are - who don’t know how to use it. He talks about the Memory, JVM, Desktop and Java2D.

Recently there has been a lot of hype and talk about Monad Shell (a.k.a MSH), not sure why, but such are the state of things. What is Monad? Simply it is the new command line interface to the Windows Server OS and is code named Monad Shell. It is fairly powerful and has its roots set in VMS and AS400 environments. I would check out the quick demo (15 mins) thats shows the power of the shell - very exciting and interesting. ...

Well I have been thinking of something like this and stumbled across Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system via /. Has anyone used this? What do they think? What is it? Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and more. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features. ...

If you are worried about repetitive-strain injuries, then check out a few alternative devices that you might find more comfortable.