Dave and John discuss various aspects of the .NET Compact Framework (CF) where in addition to the list belowthey cover things like the fastest way to splat text onto the screen? ExtTextOut using which you can draw text based on the currently selected font, background color, and text color. You can optionally provide dimensions to be used for clipping, opaquing, or both. It can also draw with a transparent background, which labels in the .NET Compact Framework do not support (just try to put a label over a PictureBox and you’ll see). ...

Sweet, now that Vonage has launched in the UK , I am thinking of getting it. My US one worked out pretty good for me and have been using it more than a year and a half. But, since I am still very new in the UK, for the old timers here, what do you think of their rates ? For £9.99 per month I can make unlimited local and national calls anywhere in the UK and Ireland and the rates for mobile are 15p (day), 10p (evening) and 5p (weekend). Plus the international calling rates are pretty cheap (or so I think). Thoughts? ...

I have my own favorite extensions, but Luke discusses more on his post here . Interestingly with Firefox being safer and all that (compared to IE) Spoofstick is missing from most lists. [Listening to: Chapter 2 - Unknown - (01:52:32)]

A century after Einstein’s miracle year, most people still do not understand exactly what it was he did; Economist.com attempt to elucidate . [Listening to: Tabba (Techno) - Musafir [Club Mix - CD1] - Musafir (05:49)]

As per Seattle Times, the next version of IE will ship in 2006 , but isn’t that too late already? Already Firefox is my primary browser and I love it - not to mention the millions others who are seening the light. My bigger concern is the millions of other people who don’t realize the issues with IE and all the spyware, etc and causing themselves harm. ...

Well, the idea of assembling a computer and making it dual boot and trying out both Media Center and Myth TV does have me tickled, and if you have been following my useless blabbering here you know I have done a fair amount of research and also swayed in the past , but after reading this excellent review by Brian , I am now not very sure. If something is wrong, sure I am quite comfortable mucking around and getting it working, but I am not sure if everyone else who comes visiting is as comfortable. Bottom line, if most people cannot use it (because you get dumped in Windows-la-la-land or some Linux shell), is it really worth it? As Brian says, “Media Center could be this stable if it started out using NT Embedded, but that would make it an appliance and not a PC”. Tells you I am still confused…. ...

As of December 2004, the Mac share as measured by online activity is 2.7 percent (Linux is 3.1), with all the rest going to various flavors of Windows, is it truely the death of Macs? John Dvorak disccuses the Grim Macintosh Market Share Forebodes Crisis . The crux of the matter he says is, the ease-of-use and simplicity of the platform is killing it, because people cannot perceive that simplicity is ever worth MORE than complexity. Simpler should be cheaper. An example that John takes, say you have two identical products on the market—word processors, for example. For the sake of argument, let’s make these two, X and Y, almost exactly the same. But product X is written in tight assembly language, fits on a floppy disk, and takes up 30K of memory. Product Y is written in some high-level language, comes on a CD-ROM, and takes up 500 megabytes on your hard drive. Which will outsell the other? I argue that the packed CD-ROM always will, because the public will perceive it as a greater value. You’re getting more for your money. ...

Here is a very chilling series of satellite images from CNN that provide a before and an after view of some of the damaged areas: ...

After a lot of research and more reading and talking to Karan and having thought I had a handle of this thing I come across this article on slashdot where the folks at Snapstream have configured a PC PVR with six tuners (yep you read it right, six)! *sigh* seems like we are back to square one. ...

Not sure if it can get any better, but this post is the perfect example of an Idiot! And please like someone else pointed out, don’t generalize on one person’s folly! [Listening to: 10 - Track - (04:54)]

The beta 5 version of VMWare adds some interesting features, especially where you create multiple snapshots by allowing the user to take an unlimited number of point-in-time, saved-to-disk snapshots of running virtual machines. This makes it easier to capture and switch between multiple configurations and accelerates testing and debugging. The Snapshot Manager displays thumbnails of all the snapshots on a single screen and makes it easy for users to track all their snapshots and revert to a previously saved snapshot. Also, when reverting to a previously saved snapshot, a new branch is automatically created so other snapshots continue to be available. You can check out the screenshots here and download the beta . ...

There is a list of aid groups which are accepting donations for the victims; which is a good one to pick? Though, all of them are doing a job that helps humanity and I am not questioning their dedication or anything, but I do want to pick one where most of the money I donate goes to the victim and as less as possible towards the overheard or administration fees (though I understand this is getting into a catch-22), what do you think? ...

If you have not done your part yet, then you can do so from both Amazon and Google , who now have links on how to contribute to the Tsunami relief on their homepages ( here and here respectively). I am not sure what kind of service would be the right one, but I am sure any kind would surely be helpful! I would be doing my bit for sure. ...

CNN is reporting that the death toll now is over 67K :(. Everyone I know is OK, but there are thousands of families who are not! Events like these does make one think, how easily we forget mother nature and take everything for granted. Does make me think even more on the delicate balance nature has for us to survive in this harsh universe. ...

With over 23,000 people dead, and so many more suffering the Magnitude 9.0 off the west coast of Northern Sumatra was a 9.0 magnitude Earthquake on Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:49 UTC. Having live for almost 7 years in the Bay Area, which as most people know is a very earthquake active area I have made it a hobby (of sorts) to go read up more on such events. Here are the details as reported by the USGS: ...

Well, I have been thinking for a long time (for those who know me, know that is quite unusual, mostly my poor brain just gives up and packs up due to overload - but that’s a story for another day) of getting a Media Centre at home of some sorts. Being a Microsoft geek it was obvious of the choice of going with the Media Centre 2005, but being a geek, and not to mention the consistent and persistent push of my dear friend Karan , who is a huge proponent of OpenSource (and no he is not the sort of a guy who bashes MS just because of them being MS), I realised, I could not just take it at face value and decided to read up a little more - after all at the end of the day this would be sitting next to the TV and is something that needs to look half-decent and not something that would live in the study so who cares what it looks like. It also needs to be usable (whats the point otherwise), and of course can integrate with the TV, etc. ...

I think, this is the ultimate geek story about two guys who got fired from their jobs at Apple but still kept working (to finish the Graphic Calculator ) - oh how I wish I was there!! BTW, you can download the free versions even today (and no they are not from 1993). ...

Well, I stumbled upon this link showing the photos of Google’s spanking new campus and celebrating their 6th birthday. But not long ago, when I was stomping around in Mountain View and Palo Alto, the same building use to be Silicon Graphic’s , very funky, very cool and very geeky kick-ass campus . Its a shame, Google did not keep the funky colours, IMHO it would fit right in with their personality! ...

I have been using Feedreader for a bit, and though it is decent, lately it takes an awful long time to load including 100% CPU usage and the load time is measured in minutes and not seconds - its that bad. So, the question is, what readers do you use and recommend? I do have the online ones like Bloglines , but I prefer the ones where I can download and read it offline - as opposed to being online. Any hidden gems you can recommend? ...

Picked this story up on slashdot , so you might have already seen it there. Well I can speak of this first hand, though the write-up is intriguing, this is something I would get and read up and only then provide my perspective. Have any of you read this, if so what are your thoughts? ...

Infoworld talks about a security hole that Researchers at Rice University found in Google’s desktop search engine, that could allow third parties to access users’ search result summaries thus providing a sneak peek at part of the content of personal files. Google it seems has already fixed the issue at hand. To check make sure you are running the new version (number 121004, indicating Dec. 10 2004, or later). ...

MIT Technology Review is running an article that states that U.S. President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using GPS technology. Bush also instructed the Defence Department to develop plans to disable, in certain areas, an enemy’s access to the U.S. navigational satellites and to similar systems operated by others. The European Union is developing a $4.8 billion (euro3.59 billion) program, called Galileo. ...

Finally I got the high-speed up and running at home last night - yippee - its good to be back in civilization! This is only 2 mb dsl line - a little slower than the 3.0 megs I had back in the US, but certainly much better than the dial up we were on for the last 2-3 days (and no internet connectivity before that from home)! Well, now you will have the pleasure of more of my meaningless babble - ah the festive season - rejoice *grin*. ...

Lapdeep pointed this one my way. BBC has a very funny report on the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and how they are coping with the fighting! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Before you start reading this story , if you have a serious laughter problem, then please stop! ...