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