Error - Twitter

       Everything goes wrong one time or the other. I took this screenshot when Twitter crashed. Click on the pic to view it bigger.

Danish :)

Monthly Make-up - Volume 01 Issue 03

     It is time again for the Third Monthly Make-up of WOW.  Monthly Make-up is a monthly archive of WOW articles posted on my blog. You could download this issue of Monthly Make-up from the link below.

Link: "http://sites.google.com/site/danishthomast/Home/WOWV01I03.pdf"

 

Older versions of WOW Archive can be downloaded from over here

Link: "http://sites.google.com/site/danishthomast/Home/WOWV01I01.pdf"

Link: "http://sites.google.com/site/danishthomast/Home/WOWV01I02.pdf"

Bring in your Suggestions and/or Comments to bring in a better issue in the following months.

Danish :)

No Blogging

      As I got engaged with a few personal activities, I would not be able to spend much time for blogging in the coming days. You can expect to see my blogs early next month by when I will be back from this vacation.

      Also do expect the Monthly Make-up of WOW to be right on time.

Danish :)

Picasa 3.5

WOW 57 - Picasa 3.5

      Today Google had launched a new version of Picasa (v3.5). With this new version, organizing your photos based on Name Tags (A completely automatic feature) and Place Tags (AKA Geo Tags). This tagging feature will be automatically be synced up with your Google account if you are signed in to Picasa when you use it.

      To download the latest version of Picasa from Google point your browser window to "http://picasa.google.com/". You could use the direct link from over here. "Download Picasa 3.5"

      To watch a You Tube video on Picasa 3.5, follow this link. http://tinyurl.com/m44y6q

      Have a great day.

Danish :)

Fast Flip

WOW 56 - Fast Flip

     It is sometime in the previous weeks that Google had come up with a Google Lab feature called Fast Flip.

What Fast Flip Does?

     How many of you read Online Newspapers and Magazines and feel bored because it takes a hell lot of time to scroll through the pages? Well, most of them must feel this way. Google Fast Flip does this really really fast. You just have to visit this site.

     As of now, Google Fast Flip has sources from 39 different News Channels. Check out the list of all of Google's Fast Flip sources here.

     Google just amazes me everyday by giving so many many things. Way to go Google.

Danish :)

Taking a Break

         I'm taking a break today. No WOW articles and most probably no blogging/ tweeting too. Will return again on Monday.

Danish:)

True Education

    Something that I want to share in my blog reg. "True Education". Robert Frost is to be thanked for this.

    Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. - Robert Frost

Danish :)

Captcha

WOW 55 - Captcha

      Today we shall see what is meant by Captcha. If you have seen an image as shown below, it means that you know what a Captcha is.

      The purpose of Captcha is to avoid spam. In the picture above, the words "inget" is a captcha. The official definition of Captcha: "A CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot."

      The term "CAPTCHA" (based upon the word capture) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper (all of Carnegie Mellon University), and John Langford (then of IBM). It is a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." 

      Hope this information helps. To visit CAPTCHA's official site, follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/3pkrd. Here you can learn how to add CAPTCHA to your own site.

Danish :)

Error - Excel 2000

       An error that I found in Excel 2000. Yup, I use it for Excel programming with VB6 DLL's. Damn compatibility issue with higher version of Excel. Check the screenshot which displays '%USERNAME%' instead of the actual username.

Danish :)

How Stuff Works - Sewing Machine

WOW 54 - Sewing Machine

          I had planned to take an official day off from blogging today when I came upon this image which shows how the Sewing Machine works.

           If you are not able to see the Animated Graphics, check this link out.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/ork7je

Danish :)

IM Bots

WOW 53 - IM Bots

         We all know what an IM is and we use them to communicate with our friends and/or colleagues in everyday life either in the way of Office Communicator or by using GTalk, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, etc. IM is the abbreviation for Instant Messaging.

         We come across Bots(Robots) in most of the aspects of life. These days we have Online Chat Programs where we talk to Bots just like we talk to any other person. At times, we fail to notice that we are in fact chatting with a BOT. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) is so perfected that it will be a little hard to find a BOT from a human.

         The purpose of this article is to make aware of the dozens of IM Bots that are available out there. These bots when talked to gives information like:

a) The latest News,

b) Live Cricket Scores,

c) Calculator,

d) Horoscope,

e) Translation from one language to another and many many more.

         I use a huge number of IM Bots in my GTalk and you can too. Check this site to know more and add the ones you require. Link: http://bit.ly/v7JIB

         Also, you could refer this article on how to create an IM Bot yourself. Link: http://bit.ly/UpO2K

Danish :)

True Identity

WOW 52 - True Identity

        I always had this inner feeling which puts me with this question(s);

"What is the True Identity (read "True Face" (or) "Character") of an individual?"

"How/ When do we see the True Identity of the individual?"

        Meditating on this thought, I came up with an answer which I'm providing here as as One Liner:

Don't believe the identity of the person to be true when he/ she says "I Love you" rather believe 'em to be true when they say "I hate you."

Danish :) 

Anagrams

WOW 51 - Anagrams

It's a long time since we have seen some topics regarding the English language. Today I'll be talking about Anagrams. 

An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place. Someone who creates anagrams is called an anagrammatist. The original word or phrase is known as the subject of the anagram.

A few popular ones include:

Dormitory: Dirty Room

Schoolmaster: The classroom

The Country Side: No City Dust Here

Desperation: A Rope Ends It

The Morse Code: Here Come Dots

Conversation: Voices Rant On

Mother-in-law: Woman Hitler

Eleven plus two: Twelve plus one

Princess Diana: End is a car spin

George Bush: Shoe Bugger

I have come up with a few with my own name too: "Danish Thomas"

Had Smash into

Had Main Hosts

Admonish Hats

Hosts Mind, Aha!

No Asthma Dish

You could create one that best suits you. Visit http://wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html, put your thinking caps on and create one.

Thanks,

Danish

Special Mention and Features

WOW 50 - Special Mention and Features

         Let me first thank all of my readers for their continued support. Thank you. Without you, I couldn't have made it to WOW 50. Do wish me the best.

         As for WOW 50, there is no content as such. However, there are a couple of enhancements that I have done to my blog overnight. A few which you could notice explicitly. They include:

1) A SmarterFox widget which will help you get information on the selected text from a few popular sites. Check Screenshot below. This is applicable only for selected browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome and Higher versions of Internet Explorer. I'm really sorry to say that if you are not able to use this, it means that your browser is not compatible.

2) Earlier, I used to burn my feeds using Atom or RSS. Now, I have shifted my feeds to be available through FeedBurner as I am planning to support my blogs only thru FeedBurner in the future. The new feed address is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/danishthomas. People using Google Reader or any other service to read my feeds, do kindly modify the feed address.
  Note: My Old Feed address will automatically redirect to the new feedburner's address.
3) I have made my feeds available thru Email subscription. Screenshot below. What this means is that whenever I post any content on my blog, you'll automatically be receiving an e-mail. Also, you can also subscribe your friends or ask them to subscribe to my blog without the need to ask me.
  Note: I have manually added all of my existing readers so that you don't have to visit the site to subscribe to my blogs via email. However. you have to click on the activation link that you would have received for activating your email subscription. Thanks to those who have already activated the link.

4) Reblog, a feature offered by the assistance of Zemanta so that you could blog my article/ part of my article in your blog with much easiness.

     These are the three major enhancements that I worked on overnight so that you will be having a comfortable read. Other than this, there are a few additional enhancements which I had worked on.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Best Regards,
Danish :)

P.S.: Though I have made Email subscription available, I will take a day or two to completely activate that feature. Do kindly bear with me if you receive a duplicate mail for the next couple of days.

Asatho Maa Sath Gamaya

WOW 49 - Asatho Maa Sath Gamaya


Good Morning Friends,

         Today let me tell you a prayer. Though this prayer has come in "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28", this is known universally and I want all my friends to know this too. This prayer is in Sanskrit.

         The Asatho maa is also sung in the background of "The Matrix Revolutions" after the movie (i.e., during the credits).

Prayer:

Asatho Maa Sath Gamaya;

Thamaso Maa Jyothir Gamaya;

Mrithyor Maa Amirtham Gamaya;

(followed by the recital of) Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Meaning:

Lead me from Untruth to Truth;

Lead me from Darkness to Light;

Lead me from Death to Immortality;

Aum**, Let there be Peace Peace Peace.

** Aum - This is considered as the Universal sound of God. (Check Rakesh Roshan's dialog in searching for Aliens (Jadoo) in the movie "Koi... Mil Gaya")

Thanks,

Danish

Project Euler

WOW 48 - Project Euler

Good Morning Friends,
        Today I'm going to share with you an information that was shared with me by my friend (Harish). Hope this article benefits many of the knowledge hungry and programming ppl out there. Thanks to Harish for this article.

        I am introducing you another interesting site which offers mathematical problems that can be resolved by computer programs. Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems.

        Although we are not mathematicians, it is not required to learn every mathematics concepts to resolve the problem. Program it in a software engineer's way. That is, forget about all the rules of engagements, and try to solve the problem in a round-about way. Every week a new problem will be updated to the existing database there by your ever lasting hunt for solutions continues endlessly. 254 problems as of date.

        You can opt for any language of your choice (be it java, C/C++ etc.). It is not that you have to solve all the problems in a same programming language. The choice is left to you and depends on the nature of the problem also. But I would suggest, if you are working in Java, continue solving them in Java. You will easily solve first 10 problems. However, when you move on with the rest of the problems you will realize that you are not on to something which can be programmed easily. Beware of complex problems when you go on and on.

        It is not required to solve all the problems. Because nobody is getting cash prizes (or prizes of other sort) for resolving each problem. It is your self-enthusiasm and computer programming skill that gets build up when you solve each problem. Here the programmers are rated in five different levels.

        Check out the site from this link: http://projecteuler.net/. You could get answers by googling around. But, take my words; it is not going to help you. Try solving it by yourself!!!

Happy Euler-ing !!!

Danish :)

Error - TwitterFox

Google Easter Eggs

WOW 47 - Google Easter Eggs

Good Morning Friends,

    I had talked so much about Google everything being extremely good. How would you like to see me commenting about a few crazy stuff about Google.

    Developers are great and just for the sake of fun, we create and hide an Easter egg. Well, Google is a software and it has a few Easter Eggs too.

    Check the below links one by one to see the fun. Most of 'em use Google Calculator. Just in case you didn't know Google Search engine could also be used as a calculator. Try key in some Arithmetic, Logarithmic or other Mathematical functions/ formulas to get the answers from the mighty Google.

    The following are a few Easter Eggs:

        1) answer to life the universe and everything

        2) number of horns on a unicorn

        3) once in a blue moon

        4) ascii art

        5) recursion

    Also try this special Easter specific Search page.

Danish :)

Movie Organizers

WOW 46 - Movie Organizers

Good Afternoon Friends,

Let us go to the Entertainment section again. As a few of you already know, I'm a movie freak. I also like to keep things Organized.

Today I came across a few software(s) which is used for Organizing Movies. It connects with the IMDB database (Check WOW03 to catch the WOW on IMDB) to fetch the movie information. The one's that I came across are:

1) EMDB (Link: http://www.emdb.tk/)

2) CoolLector (Link: http://www.coollector.com/)

I'm yet to try it out on my machine. I'm planning to try out EMDB first. Meanwhile, you folks can try that out too and do comment out (in my blog) your views on it.

P.S.: WOW Articles can be seen from this link. The direct link to my blog page is http://danishthomas.blogspot.com/

Thanks,

Danish

Happy B'Day Internet

WOW 45 - Happy B'Day Internet

Good Afternoon Friends,

As I was wondering what to type out for WOW today, I came across this article which told me that the Internet is 40 years old today. Ain't that cool. Read the article which I found in Yahoo! Tech.

The Internet turns 40 (Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/150144)

Forty years ago today, the first two computers on the ARPAnet -- the military-run precursor to the Internet we know today -- were connected to each each other, creating the first link in what would arguably become the most important technological advance in history.

It would be several months before enough computers were added to the network to make it useful and for messages to start flowing among them, but September 2, 1969, is generally considered one of the defining dates in the Internet's protracted birth.

Within a year, the network would expand from a few west coast colleges to the eastern seaboard, and by the mid-'70s the network had gone international, with satellite links to Europe and dozens of computers connected to the new grid. (See the photo above for what things looked like in 1977.) And with email (1971) and file transfer (1973) features added to the system, it actually became useful for getting actual work and communications done.

By 1983, the ARPAnet shifted to a new architecture for data transmission, the one which is still in use today. By 1988, everything made another huge change, as commercial interests were allowed to piggyback on what had formerly been a government- and education-only network. Called "Internet Commercial" for a short time before becoming just "The Internet," I vividly remember my COBOL professor back in the day just gushing over what possibilities would be opened up when that happened, and he was right. Once the World Wide Web got started, along with the Mosaic web browser, the net as you and I know it really got kicking.

But the wild world of Yahoo!, YouTube, Google, and ICanHasCheezburger all started with that humble connection 40 years ago, a wire hooking two computers in different locations together and scientists figuring out a way to make them do something useful together instead of on their own, as had long been the usual way things were done.

Happy birthday, Internet!

Danish :)

Success

WOW 44 - Success

Good Afternoon Friends,

Today I will be sharing with you a few points for Success. Read it on and maybe you will find something worth it. However, as a word of caution, I would like to say that not all who follow these points will be successful and it certainly doesn't mean that those who do not follow these will not succeed.

Danish :)

Tech Support (Funny but True)

WOW 43 - Tech Support (Funny but True)

Good Afternoon Friends,

I feel comfortably good in Tech support (mostly related to PC Issues) and few of my friends recognize me for that. Thank you Guys and Gals.

Let me tell you the secret of my success. I simply have a craving to do/ know stuff. I came across the chart below and I found that apart from my craving for stuff; I had indeed follow the flowchart below to the core. ;) See the chart below to know the reason why I blinked:

WOW Goof-up:

I'm not too sure how many of you may have noticed this goof-up in yesterday's WOW. I caught up with it while I was compiling the second Monthly Make-up of WOW. All hail to my friend Sajeesh alias Stephen Raj for predicting this goof-up earlier.

Danish :)

Monthly Make-up - Volume 01 Issue 02

Good Evening Friends,

It's time for the Second Monthly Make-up of WOW. Alternatively you could download this issue of Monthly Make-up from the link below.

Link: "http://sites.google.com/site/danishthomast/Home/WOWV01I02.pdf"

Had you missed the First issue of Monthly Make-up; Download it from over here:

Link: "http://sites.google.com/site/danishthomast/Home/WOWV01I01.pdf"

Suggestions and Comments expected to bring in a better issue in the following months.

Danish :)

Google Docs Translation

WOW 42 - Google Docs Translation

Good Afternoon Friends,

Today I will be talking about one of the Google's technology which was integrated with another. Without puzzling you any more let me say what I'm talking about. I'm talking about integration of Google Translation with Google Docs.

These two were integrated on 27th August. Below is the text that I have typed out in Google Docs. Also see the translation (not transliteration). There are still a few funny words like "Hi there" translated to "Wahan hai", but this is a developing technology and there is still a large area for improvement.

My Text:

Hi there,

This is a sample document to test the functionality of Google's Automatic Translation which was released as a feature to Google Docs.

Thanks,

Danish

Screenshot of Translated text in Hindi:

Danish :)

Worry

WOW 41 - Worry

Today, I'm going with a one liner again; something I came up with yesterday after something which happened with me yesterday.

Don't bother/ worry about things that happens/ going to happpen. Either step in and make some changes (the +ve part) or stand aside (the -ve side) and let it happen.

Danish :)

Licensing "Copyright and Copyleft"

WOW 40 - Licensing "Copyright and Copyleft"

Good Afternoon Friends,

Today let us discuss about a few licensing terms. Everyone will be well aware of the term "Copyright".

Copyright gives the author of an original work an exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright applies to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete and fixed in a medium. Some jurisdictions also recognize "moral rights" of the creator of a work, such as the right to be credited for the work. Copyright is described under the umbrella term intellectual property along with patents and trademarks.

Copyleft on the other hand is opposite to Copyright. Copyleft removes the restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and requiring that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions.

Copyleft is a form of licensing and can be used to modify copyrights for works such as computer software, documents, music and art. In general, copyright law allows an author to prohibit others from reproducing, adapting, or distributing copies of the author's work. In contrast, an author may, through a copyleft licensing scheme, give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute the work as long as any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same copyleft licensing scheme.

Like Copyleft, there are a few other licenses which supports opensource. Check the following Wikipedia link to follow them and compare the list of available licenses.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licences

Thanks,

Danish

WOW 39

WOW 39 - Ringxiety

Good Afternoon Friends,

In today WOW, we will be learning about Ringxiety. Equivalent terms for Ringxiety include phantom ring effect and fauxcellarm. Below is the article from Wiki on Ringxiety.

Ringxiety is a portmanteau neologism formed from the words "ringtone" and "anxiety." It was first coined by David Laramie, a doctoral student at the California School of Professional Psychology, whose dissertation concerned the effects of cell phones on behavior. Ringxiety is described as the sensation and the false belief that one can hear his or her mobile phone ringing or feel it vibrating, when in fact the telephone is not doing so. Other terms for this concept include phantom ring effect and fauxcellarm. It can also be generalized to describe the sensation of hearing one's phone or doorbell ring while doing such things as taking a shower, watching television, or using a noisy device. The reasoning for this relates partially to the idea that humans are particularly sensitive to auditory tones between 1,000 and 6,000 hertz, and basic mobile phone ringers often fall within this range. This frequency range can generally be more difficult to locate spatially, thus allowing for potential confusion when heard from a distance. False vibrations are less well understood, however, and could have psychological or neurological sources.

The phantom ring is a pop culture term used to define the act of hearing a sound similar to one's cell phone's ringtone and mistakenly believing its one's cell phone ringing. It may occur while a person is listening to the radio or watching television.

Danish :)

WOW 38

WOW 38 - FileSystem

Good Afternoon Friends,

Today I'm going to talk about Filesystems. Many may ask "Filesystem; what is that thing?". Well, heads up; you are reading this message which is stored in a Filesystem.

Filesystem means "A way of organizing files" or the hierarchical arrangement of directories. This applies to a network, a computer, a disk, or a partition (i.e., a logically independent section of a disk). A filesystem in the second sense can contain multiple filesystems in the first sense. Thus, for example, a HDD, computer or network can contain multiple types of filesystems. However, a partition can contain only a single type of filesystem.

There is a huge number of filesystem(s) available throughout. A few popular ones include:

1) Windows:

a) FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT)

b) NTFS

c) WinFS (coming up)

2) Linux:

a) EXT (ext2, ext3, ext4)

b) HPFS

c) GFS

d) XFS

3) Mac:

a) HFS

b) HFS Plus

4) Optical Media:

a) CDFS

b) UDF/ UDFS

5) GMail:

a) GmailFS/ GFS (refer: http://labs.google.com/papers/gfs.html)

Check out this Wiki page to find information about the huge number of file system and their comparison.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems

Danish :)

WOW 37

WOW 37 - Google Insights

Good Afternoon Friends,

Today I'll be talking about Google Insights (still in Beta) which is similar to Google Trends but only better. Before looking into what Google Insights are, I'll give you an overview about Trends. Both Trends and Insights gives us an idea of:

1) What the user searches for?

2) Where do they belong to?

3) What are the hot Searches? and so on.

Using Trends and Insights, we would be able to find the popularity of an item.

Google Trends:

Google Trends shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. In the graphical result, the horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from some time in 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches, globally.

Google Insights:

Google Insights is similar to but more advanced than Google Trends. In Google Insights, in addition to the features offered by Google Trends, we also have:

1) The Categories info.

2) The region info. in the form of a Heat Map.

3) Rising Trends in Search.

4) Download results in Excel.

I have highlighted these areas in the Screenshot. The feature I liked most is the link under the Heat Map named "View change over time". Expand it and press on play to see the change in the search results over time.

Link:

1) Google Insights (http://www.google.com/insights/search/)

2) Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends/)

3) Google Hot Trends (http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends)

Thanks,

Danish