Category Archives: Technology

Google Go

November 11, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

The Go Web site (golang.org) explains the rationale behind creating Go, mostly citing the change of the computer landscape that’s occurred over the past decade or so that’s seen very few (if any) major systems languages spring up: more powerful PCs, many of which use multicore processors; increased dependency management in software that’s not reflected in the “header files” of C-based languages; the growing desire for dynamically typed languages (such as Python and JavaScript) instead of type systems such as Java and C++); and the poor support for concepts such as garbage collection and parallel computation.

Google says that Go takes full advantage of modern, multicore hardware; that it simplifies dependency analysis and avoids the overhead present in C-style languages (such as files and libraries); that Go’s type system has no hierarchy, which saves the programmer from having to define relationships between types; and that Go is fully garbage-collected and naturally supports concurrent execution and communication.

If you’re interested in getting started with Go, or you just want to learn more about its inner workings, Golang.org is loaded with tutorials, manuals, FAQs, and other documentation for easy assimilation . There’s even a section devoted to C++ programmers who want to learn Go. Also there to be found are code samples, such as the traditional beginning to all studies, “Hello, world!”:

05 package main<br>
07 import fmt “fmt” // Package implementing formatted I/O.<br>
09 func main() { 10 fmt.Printf(“Hello, world; or Καλημέρα κόσμε; or こんにちは世界\n”);<br>
11 }

It’s way too early to tell, of course, what the impact of Go on programmers or programming will be. But we have a feeling that in this way, as in so many others, quite a few people will fall behind Google and look at this as a convenient way of writing programs for modern hardware. If it won’t spell the end of the various programming languages in common use, it will undoubtedly represent at least the start of a major C change.

Computers, Technology

Mac OS evolution

November 9, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Witness the evolution through time of Macintosh’s operating system, Mac OS. See where it all began, from System 1.0 (1984) to Mac OS X 10.5 (2007).

System 1.0 (January 1984)

The first version of the Mac OS is easily distinguished between other operating systems from the same period because it does not use a command line interface; it was one of the first operating systems to use an entirely graphical user interface. Additional to the system kernel is the Finder, an application used for file management, which also displays the Desktop.

These releases could only run one application at a time, though special application shells such as Switcher could work around this to some extent. Systems 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 used a flat file system with only one kludged level of folders, called Macintosh File System (MFS); its support for folders (subdirectories) was incomplete. System 2.1 (Finder 5.0) introduced the HFS (Hierarchical File System) which had real directories. System 3.0 was introduced with the Mac Plus, adding support for several new technologies including SCSI and AppleTalk, and introducing Trash “bulging”, i.e., when the Trash contained files, it would gain a bulged appearance. System 4.0 came with the Mac SE and Macintosh II.

The System series included the following versions:

System 1.0, Finder 1.0 (January 1984)
System 1.1, Finder 1.1g (May 1984)
System 2.0, Finder 4.1 (April 1985)
System 2.1, Finder 5.0 (September 1985)
System 3.0, Finder 5.1 (January 1986)
System 3.2, Finder 5.3 (June 1986)
System 3.3, Finder 5.4 (January 1987)
System 3.4, Finder 6.1
System 4.0, Finder 5.4 (March 1987)
System 4.1, Finder 5.5 (April 1987)

System Software 5 (October 1987)

System Software 5 (also referred to as simply System 5) added MultiFinder, an extension which let the system run several programs at once. The system used a co-operative multitasking model, meaning that time was given to the background applications only when the running application yielded control. A clever change in system functions that applications were already calling to handle events made many existing applications share time automatically. Users could also choose to not use MultiFinder, and thus stick with using a single application at a time as in previous releases of the system software.

System Software 5 was also the first Macintosh operating system to be given a unified “Macintosh System Software” version number, as opposed to the numbers used for the System and Finder files.

The System Software 5 series included the following versions:

System Software 5.0 (System 4.2, Finder 6.0, MultiFinder 1.0)
System Software 5.1 (System 4.3, Finder 6.0, MultiFinder 1.0)

System Software 6 (September 1988)

System Software 6 (also referred to as simply System 6) was a consolidation release of the Mac OS, producing a complete, stable, and long-lasting operating system.

The System Software 6 series included the following versions:

System Software 6.0 (System 4.4, Finder 6.1, MultiFinder 1.1 — the version numbers of the System and MultiFinder files were changed to 6.0 just before the public release)
System Software 6.0.1
System Software 6.0.2
System Software 6.0.3
System Software 6.0.4
System Software 6.0.5
System Software 6.0.6 (only released as an embedded part of the ROM of the Macintosh Classic)
System Software 6.0.7
System Software 6.0.8 (identical to System 6.0.7, but configured with System 7.0 printing software for printer sharing with System 7)
System Software 6.0.8L (only for Macintosh Classic, Classic II, PowerBook 100, Macintosh LC, LC II)

System 7 (May 1991)

On May 13, 1991 System 7 was released. It was the second major upgrade to the Mac OS, adding a significant user interface overhaul, new applications, stability improvements and many new features.

The most significant feature of System 7 was probably virtual memory support, which previously had only been available as a third-party add-on. Accompanying this was a move to 32-bit memory addressing, necessary for the ever-increasing amounts of RAM available. Earlier versions of Mac OS had used the lower 24 bits for addressing, and the upper 8 bits for flags. This had been an effective solution for earlier Macintosh models with very limited amounts of RAM, but it became a liability later. Apple described code that assumed the 24 + 8-bit addressing as being “not 32-bit clean”, and most such applications would crash when 32-bit addressing was enabled by the user.

One notable System 7 feature was the built-in co-operative multitasking. In System Software 6, this function was optional through the MultiFinder. System 7 also introduced aliases, similar to shortcuts that were introduced in later versions of Microsoft Windows. System extensions were enhanced, by being moved to their own subfolder; a subfolder in the System Folder was also created for the control panels. In System 7.5, Apple included the Extensions Manager, a previously third-party program which simplified the process of enabling and disabling extensions.

Systems 7.1 and 7.5 introduced a large number of “high level” additions, considered by some to be less well thought-out than they could have been. Some of the most confusing were the reliance on countless System Enablers to support new hardware, and various System update extensions with inconsistent version numbering schemes. Overall stability and performance also gradually worsened during this period, which introduced PowerPC support and 68K emulation.

Stability returned with Mac OS 7.6, which dropped the “System” moniker as a more-trademarkable name was needed in order to license the OS to the growing market of third-party Macintosh clone manufacturers.

The System 7 series included the following versions:

System 7.0 (released in late 1991; integrated MultiFinder always enabled)
System 7.0.1 (introduced with LC II and Quadra series)
System 7 Tuner (update for both 7.0 and 7.0.1)
System 7.1
System 7.1 Pro (version 7.1.1, combined with PowerTalk, Speech Manager & Macintalk, Thread Manager)
System 7.1.2 (first version for Macs equipped with a PowerPC processor)
System 7.1.2 (only for Performa/LC/Quadra 630 series, very quickly replaced by 7.5)
System 7.5
System 7.5.1 (System 7.5 Update 1.0 — the first Macintosh operating system to call itself “Mac OS”)
System 7.5.2 (first version for Power Macs that use PCI expansion cards, usable only on these Power Macs and PowerBooks 5300 and Duo 2300)
System 7.5.3 (System 7.5 Update 2.0)
System 7.5.3L (only for Mac clones)
System 7.5.3 Revision 2
System 7.5.3 Revision 2.1 (only for Performa 6400/180 and 6400/120)
System 7.5.4, never released
System 7.5.5
Mac OS 7.6 (name formally changed because of the experimental clone program, although System 7.5.1 and later used the “Mac OS” name on the splash screen)
Mac OS 7.6.1

Mac OS 8 (July 1997)

Mac OS 8 was released on July 26, 1997, shortly after Steve Jobs returned to the company. It was mainly released to keep the Mac OS moving forward during a difficult time for Apple. Initially planned as Mac OS 7.7, it was renumbered “8″ to exploit a legal loophole to accomplish Jobs’ goal of terminating third-party manufacturers’ licenses to System 7 and shutting down the Macintosh clone market.^{[citation needed]} 8.0 added a number of features from the stillborn Copland project, while leaving the underlying operating system unchanged. A multi-threaded Finder was included, enabling better multi-tasking. The GUI was changed in appearance to a new shaded greyscale look called Platinum, and the ability to change the appearance themes (also known as skins) was added with a new control panel. This capability was provided by a new “appearance” API layer within the OS, one of the few significant changes.

Apple sold 1.2 million copies of Mac OS 8 in its first two weeks of availability and 3 million within six months. Mac OS 8.1 saw the introduction of an updated version of the Hierarchical File System called HFS Plus , which fixed many of the limitations of the earlier system (HFS Plus continues to be used in Mac OS X). There were some other interface changes such as separating network features from printing (the venerable, and rather odd Chooser was at last headed for retirement), and some improvements to application switching. However, in underlying technical respects, Mac OS 8 was not very different from System 7.

The Mac OS 8 series included the following versions:

Mac OS 8.0
Mac OS 8.1 (last version to run on either a 68K or PowerPC processor, added support for USB on the Bondi iMac, added support for HFS+)
Mac OS 8.5 (first version to run only on a PowerPC processor, added built-in support for Firewire on the PowerMac G3)
Mac OS 8.5.1
Mac OS 8.6 (included a new nanokernel for improved performance and Multiprocessing Services 2.0 support, added support for the PowerPC G4 processor)

Mac OS 9 (October 1999)

Mac OS 9 was released on October 23, 1999. It was generally a steady evolution from Mac OS 8. Early development releases of Mac OS 9 were numbered 8.7. MacOS 9 added improved support for AirPort wireless networking. It introduced an early implementation of multi-user support (though not considered a true multi-user operating system by modern standards). An improved find-sherlock engine with several new search plug-ins. Mac OS 9 also provided a much improved memory implementation and management. AppleScript was improved to allow TCP/IP and networking control. Mac OS 9 also made the first use of the centralized Apple Software Update to find and install OS and hardware updates. Some other resplendent and unique features included its on-the-fly file encryption software with code signing and Keychain technologies, Remote Networking and File Server packages and much improved list of USB drivers.

OS 9 also added some transitional technologies to help application developers adopt some OS X features before the introduction of the new OS to the public, again easing the transition. These included new APIs for the file system, and the bundling of the Carbon library that apps could link against instead of the traditional API libraries — apps that were adapted to do this can be run natively on OS X as well. Other changes were made in OS 9 to allow it to be booted in the “classic environment” within OS X. This is a compatibility layer in OS X (in fact an OS X application, known in developer circles as “the blue box”) that runs a complete Mac OS 9 operating system, so allowing applications that have not been ported to Carbon to run on Mac OS X. This is reasonably seamless, though “classic” applications retain their original OS 8/9 appearance and do not gain the OS X “Aqua” appearance.

The Mac OS 9 series included the following versions:

Mac OS 9.0
Mac OS 9.0.2
Mac OS 9.0.3
Mac OS 9.0.4
Mac OS 9.1
Mac OS 9.2
Mac OS 9.2.1
Mac OS 9.2.2

Mac OS X (March 2001)

Mac OS X is the newest of Apple Computer’s Mac OS line of operating systems. Although it is officially designated as simply “version 10″ of the Mac OS, it has a history largely independent of the earlier Mac OS releases.

The Mac OS X series include the following versions:

Mac OS X Public Beta “Kodiak”
Mac OS X v10.0 “Cheetah”
Mac OS X v10.1 “Puma”
Mac OS X v10.2 “Jaguar”
Mac OS X v10.3 “Panther”
Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger”
Mac OS X v10.5 “Leopard”
Mac OS X v 10.6 “Snow leopard”

Technology

We had surround sound now welcome "Surround-sight"

October 6, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Expand your view of gaming, productivity, and entertainment and discover a new realm of panoramic computing with ATI Eyefinity advanced multiple-display technology. With the introduction of new GPUs from AMD which are compliant with next-generation DirectX® 11, ATI Eyefinity technology with DisplayPort connectivity, enables a single GPU to support up to six independent display outputs simultaneously. Boost everyday productivity, and ease multitasking with a vastly expanded visual workspace. Intensify gaming with ultra-immersive playing environments, and expand your entertainment landscape with a breathtaking field-of-view. Offering easy configuration and flexible upgradability, the innovative graphics capabilities of ATI Eyefinity multiple-display technology helps dissolve visual limitations and adds a new “surround-sight” sensation to your PC experience.

ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 Operate up to six high-resolution displays simultaneously and independently, flexibly configured in various combinations of landscape and portrait orientations. Group multiple monitors into a large integrated display surface, enabling windowed and full-screen 3D applications, images, and video to span across multiple displays as one desktop workspace. ATI Eyefinity advanced multiple-display technology supports Duplicated Mode operation (PC desktop cloned on multiple displays) and Extended Mode (PC desktop extended across multiple displays), and offers comprehensive operating system support that includes Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, and Linux.

Gaming

Immerse yourself in game play:

Get a commanding view of the action, and enjoy more control in real-time strategy games.
Detect enemies sooner, react faster, and survive longer in first-person-shooter games.
See enemy aircraft with peripheral vision, and fly with greater spatial awareness in flight combat simulators.
Eliminate blind spots and feel a heightened sense of speed in racing games.

Productivity

Helps you get more done:

Optimize productivity by increasing PC desktop workspace with multiple high-resolution monitors.
Manage multitasking more efficiently, and view more data, applications, and images at once.
Avoid time-wasting application-switching, window-sorting, mouse-clicking, and scrolling.
Improve accuracy, speed workflow, reduce eyestrain, and increase work satisfaction.

Entertainment

Maximize your leisure time:

Group multiple monitors into a large integrated display surface for the ultimate wide-screen home theater display.
View TV sports, movies, or video entertainment on one monitor while viewing online stats, Internet pages, or games on other displays.³
Flexibly configure monitors in various combinations of landscape and portrait orientations for specialized video and audio editing applications.

Using ATI Eyefinity

ATI Eyefinity is defined as two or more display outputs operating simultaneously and independently from each other. Support is available for Duplicated (Clone) and Extended multiple monitor modes, with new support for the capability to group displays into a massive single large surface spanning across multiple displays for use with your desktop workspace, video playback, with support for both windowed and full screen 3D applications.

Below are some of key usage scenarios:


*3×1 Portrait Display Group*		*3×1 Landscape Display Group*


*3×1 Display Group Plus 1 Extended*		*3×2 Landscape Display Group*


3×1 Display Group Plus 3 Extended		*2×2 Display Group Plus 2 Extended*

News, Technology

Google wave

October 2, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Google Wave is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009. It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages, and numerous other extensions. It was announced in Google’s official blog on July 20, 2009, that the preview of Google Wave would be extended to about 100,000 users on September 30, 2009.

Its October 2, 09 and I am still waiting for my wave invitation 🙂

Google Wave is designed as the next generation of Internet communication. It is written in Java using OpenJDK; its web interface uses the Google Web Toolkit. Instead of sending a message and its entire thread of previous messages or requiring all responses to be stored in each user’s inbox for context, objects known as waves contain a complete thread of multimedia messages (blips) and are located on a central server. Waves are shared and collaborators can be added or removed at any point during a wave’s existence.

Waves, described by Google as “equal parts conversation and document”, are hosted XML documents that allow seamless and low latency concurrent modifications. Any participant of a wave can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Users can reply to blips within waves. Recipients are notified of changes/replies in all waves they are active in and then view the changes when they subsequently access a given wave. In addition, waves are live. All replies/edits are seen real-time, letter by letter, as they are typed by the other collaborators. Multiple participants may edit a single wave simultaneously in Google Wave. Thus, waves not only can function as e-mail and threaded conversations but also as an instant messaging service, merging the functions of e-mail and instant messaging. It depends only on whether both users are online at the same time or not, allowing a wave to even shift repeatedly between e-mail and instant messaging depending on the user’s needs. The ability to show messages as they are typed can also be disabled, similar to conventional instant messaging.

The ability to modify a wave at any location lets users create collaborative documents, edited in a manner akin to wikis.

The history of each wave is stored within it. Collaborators may use a playback feature in Google Wave to observe the order which a wave was edited, blips were added, and who was responsible for what in the wave. The history may also be searched by a user to view and/or modify specific changes, such as specific kinds of changes or messages from a single user.

Google Wave is still in active development. It is expected to continue to be so until later in 2009, launching to about 100,000 users on 30th September. Google Wave access can be requested. Developers have been given access to Wave proper, and all wave users invited by Google can invite up to 8 others. Those who receive indirect invitations (were invited by someone who was invited by Google) will not be able to invite others. As of October 1st, Google Wave testers were unable to add extensions because “settings” is under construction.

Reviews

Starwind iSCSI

September 25, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Recently I was looking for a large hard drive to have some massive storage for my media server that I decided to host on my college LAN. The challenge was to get hard drives for storage and connect them in such a manner that all of them showed up as one single device.

I came across Starwind a software from Starwind software that allows the users to create a SAN using a network of computers and it emulates a large storage device which can be accessed on the network.

I am in the process of setting it up and will be trying it out on a Windows 2008 based server later. Currently I am planning to test it on my XPS 1210 which is connected to an XPS 1330 and a couple of Inspiron 1525.

StarWind helps you build a rock-solid, high-performance IP SAN

Synchronous and Asynchronous Data Mirroring and Remote Replication.

No need to allocate storage capacity until it’s needed. Allocates only as much space as is required for data being written on that volume without predicting future capacity need.

Volume cloning and incremental backups with unlimited number of rollback points.

SAN image files stored on NTFS partitions can be encrypted and compressed.

StarWind fully supports iSCSI boot from SAN. This allows you to completely eliminate the need for dedicated hard disk drives installed on client machines.

StarWind is able to use Serial and Parallel ATA and SCSI, Fibre Channel, USB and FireWire storage hardware. Export an entire disk or a single file or partition on the hard disk as an iSCSI virtual disk.

System Requirements

Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 and 2003 (SP2)
2 GHz Intel Xeon class processor
3 GB of RAM
10 GB of disk space for StarWind application data and log files
1 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 Gigabit Ethernet connection

StarWind software is compatible with*:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008

• Small Business Server 2008

• Storage Server 2003 R2

StarWind is tested for compatibility with the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator and it has also been

tested for compatibility with various Linux and UNIX iSCSI initiators, iSCSI HBAs from Adaptec

and QLogic and hardware iSCSI accelerators from Alacritech.

* from the StarWind website

I am keeping my fingers crossed as this is just a test and I am unsure of the outcomes. Hope this would provide us with a 2TB storage for our movie database and we can start off for the time being.

Internet

10 most popular Firefox addons.

July 7, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Adblock Plus by Wladimir Palant

Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them. For a quick overview watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNvb2SjVjjI

FlashGot by Giorgio Maone

Download all the links, movies and audio clips of a page at the maximum speed with a single click, using the most popular, lightweight and reliable external download managers.

Video DownloadHelper by mig

The easy way to download and convert Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. This works also for audio and picture galleries

NoScript by Giorgio Maone

The best security you can get in a web browser! Allow active content to run only from sites you trust, and protect yourself against XSS and Clickjacking attacks.

DownThemAll! by Federico Parodi, Nils Maier, Stefano Verna

The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!

Greasemonkey by Anthony Lieuallen, Aaron Boodman, Johan Sundström

Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. …

Personas for Firefox by Mozilla Labs

Personas are free, easy-to-install “skins” for Firefox that make changing the look of the browser as easy as changing your shirt. With Personas, you can individualize your browser with hundreds of artist-created designs or create …

Firebug by Joe Hewitt, Rob Campbell

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page… Firebug 1.4b1 requires Firefox 3.5b4 or higher.

AnyColor by pavlost

Change Firefox to Any Color and create your own personalized theme.

Download Statusbar by Devon Jensen

View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar – without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.

Adblock Plus by Wladimir Palant

FlashGot by Giorgio Maone

Download all the links, movies and audio clips of a page at the maximum speed with a single click, using the most popular, lightweight and reliable external download managers.

Video DownloadHelper by mig

The easy way to download and convert Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. This works also for audio and picture galleries

NoScript by Giorgio Maone

The best security you can get in a web browser! Allow active content to run only from sites you trust, and protect yourself against XSS and Clickjacking attacks.

DownThemAll! by Federico Parodi, Nils Maier, Stefano Verna

The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!

Greasemonkey by Anthony Lieuallen, Aaron Boodman, Johan Sundström

Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. …

Personas for Firefox by Mozilla Labs

Firebug by Joe Hewitt, Rob Campbell

AnyColor by pavlost

Change Firefox to Any Color and create your own personalized theme.

Download Statusbar by Devon Jensen

View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar – without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.

Internet

50 firefox addons.

July 7, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Adblock Plus – It is one of the important firefox addon that blocks advertisements to appear on any webpage.
Aging Tabs – Makes unused tabs fade with age and highlights the selected tab.
All-in-One Sidebar – Sidebar control with award-winning user experience.
Auto Copy – Copies selected text to the clipboard automatically. Like Linux or mIrc.
AutoPager – AutoPager is a firefox/mozilla extension that autoloads the next page in background.
Better GCal – Enhances Google Calendar with a compilation of user scripts and styles. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.
Better Gmail 2 – Enhances Gmail with a compilation of useful features written by Greasemonkey user script developers. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.
Better YouTube – A compilation of useful Greasemonkey user scripts for YouTube. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.
ColorZilla – Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies
Cooliris – Cooliris (formerly PicLens) transforms your browser into a full-screen 3D Wall for searching, viewing and sharing the Web.
CustomizeGoogle – Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam.
Delicious Bookmarks – Access your bookmarks wherever you go and keep them organized no matter how many you have.
DownloadHelper – Download videos and images from many sites. It is the best tool to download videos from YouTube etc .
FEBE – Backup your Firefox data
Fire.fm – Get your daily music fix from Last.fm.
Firefox Universal Uploader (fireuploader) – Provides an user friendly interface to upload files to various websites eg. Box.net, Flickr, Youtube, Picasa, Facebook
FireFTP – FTP Client for Mozilla Firefox.
FlashGot – Enables single and massive (”all” and “selection”) downloads using the most popular external download managers for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD.
FoxClocks – Displays local times around the world in the statusbar/toolbar. Supports virtually all time zones.
FoxyProxy – FoxyProxy – Premier proxy management for Firefox
FoxyTunes – Control any media player from Firefox and more…
gDocsBar – Perfect companion for Google Docs.
Gmail Manager – Gmail accounts management and new mail notifications.
GmailSpace -Use your Gmail account space for file storage. Enables uploading/downloading of folders.
GooglePreview – Inserts web site previews in Google and Yahoo search results.
Greasemonkey – A User Script Manager for Firefox
IE Tab – Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox.
Master Password Timeout – Locks the master security device after a predefined period of inactivity
NoScript – Extra protection for your Firefox: NoScript allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site).
Password Exporter – Export and import the saved passwords.
PC Sync 2 Synchronisation Extension – Enables PC Sync 2 synchronization support.
PDF Download – Allows you to choose what to do with a PDF file: download it, view it with an external viewer or view it as HTML.
Perspectives – A secure way to verify encrypted websites and bypass security warnings
ProfileSwitcher – Adds profile name to status bar tooltip and options to launch other profiles
Read it Later – Save pages to read later, then bookmark.
ScrapBook – Helps you to save Web pages and organize the collection.
Screen grab! – Saves a web-page as an image.
ScribeFire – A full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
Twitbin – Twitbin is a tool that allows you to interact with your twitter friends and followers right from your browser sidebar.
Yahoo! Mail Notifier – This extension notifies you when new messages arrive in your Yahoo mailbox.
Flashblock – The plugin blocks flash from running. It acts on all sites by default, but lets you set ‘whitelists’ of sites that can use flash, such as youtube. For blocked sites (those not on the whitelise) you get a window of the right size on the screen, and a ‘play’ button you can click if you want to load the animation. Here is an opera version.
Fasterfox – A bunch of tweaks to speed up firefox simply without manually tuning the registry parameters. Can be set to exceed the RFC specs if you want. Also provides a page load timer in the bottom right which is I like. See how much of a change you get after installing flashblock
Autocomplete Manager – When you type into the default firefox location bar, you get ‘autocomplete’ suggestions based on the part of the URL you typed. This plugin enhances that so it automatically searches on bookmarks, and even web page titles from your history. If you keep a long enough history, it could almost render your bookmarks obsolete.
Firebug – Essential for anyone who does web development. Install it, then for a page you want to analyze click Tools/Firebug. Click ‘inspect’ and point your mouse at any part of a web page and it’ll show a breakdown of the HTML in that section only, and let you modify the source ‘live’ to test fixes. Great for showing how web pages are composed, and it’s a much nicer alternative to a full ‘view page source’ option. Firebug and the inspect facility can be added as icons to your toolbar, so it doesn’t clutter up your browser out of the box. There is also a YSlow plugin that you can add after installing firebug to perform performance analysis on web pages.
FoxEar – Essential internal tool that gives you a sidebar to interface into DogEar.
Fast Video Download – It downloads videos from YouTube. You get an icon in the bottom right that you click when you’re on a page with embedded video, and it lets you save it.
Remove It Permanently – (RIP) RIP lets you right click on any section of a web page (Such as a sidebar or advert) and specify that it’s removed from all futuring rendering of the page. By using this carefully you can reclaim a lot of your browser screen area.
PDF Download – helps download the PDF documents
Down Them All! – a download manager for resume / split into parts / etc
Foxsaver – A screensaver for your Firefox.

Reviews

List of Top Hacks…

July 6, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Top 10 Magnet Hacks

By Kevin Purdy,

They were the coolest part of elementary school science, and they’re still one of the neatest way to stick things together and stir up a little homespun magic. Check out our 10 favorite ways bloggers, Lifehacker readers, and other creative types use mother nature to make life better.

Top Twitter Hardware Hacks

http://www.obsessable.com/feature/the-obse…

Top 10 YouTube Hacks

Top 10 PSP Hacks

By johnb

Tom’s Hardware is running a piece on Top 10 PSP hardware hacks. While some of them range on the silly—put a sticker on it!—many of them are pretty interesting. It’s nice to see all of the hacks in one place, including a system for creating an external battery and for installing old game emulators.

Top 10 Hacks on Flickr

News, Reviews

iPhone 3GS

June 9, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Speed
The “S” stands for “SPEED!” And according to Apple, it is faster launching applications or rendering Web pages.

• The iPhone 3GS has a new processor built-in. Apple claims that it is up to two times faster than the previous generation: Launching messages is 2.1 faster, load the NY Times in Safari: 2.9 times faster. It also consumes less, which has an impact on the improved battery life.

Camera
This is one of the strong points of the iPhone 3GS, according to Apple. They increased the resolution to 3 megapixels, which—judging from the shots they showed-seems much better quality under all conditions.

• 3 Megapixels sensor.
• New camera, with auto focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance.
• You can also tap to focus, changing white balance in the process. That is really neat, if you ask me.
• Special macro and low light modes.
• The camera also supports photo and video geotagging.
• Any application can access all the camera functions now.

• It supports video, 30 frames per second VGA with auto focus, auto white balance, and auto exposure.
• You can trim the video shot just using your finger, then share it via MMS, email, MobileMe and YouTube.

Connectivity
The other part of the “S” is the support for the faster 7.2 Mbps 3G standard, which in theory will deliver data faster to your iPhone.

• Three band UMTS/HSDPA.
• Four band GSM/EDGE.
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g.
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

Graphics
• The new iPhone 3GS includes new 3D graphics support in hardware. This means faster and more complicated 3D games.
• Same 3.5-inch widescreen multitouch display, but this time it has a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. I wonder if it will withstand a full frontal Shake Shack burger attack.

Design

• Same design as before, including the glossy finish of the back (so much for all the rumors about the matte back.)
• Same size as the old iPhone 3G: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 inches.
• The weight increases a bit: One ounce to 4.8 ounces (135 grams vs 133 grams).
• Greener materials: Arsenic-free glass, BDF-free, Mercury-free LCD.

New special features

• It has a magnetometer, which works with a Compass application, third parties, and it is integrated into the new Google maps app, showing your orientation with a small semitransparent cone.
• Voice control. You can now talk with your iPhone, Enterprise-style. You can instruct it to play similar songs to the one you are playing, or call people.
• Nike + support built in.
• Supports accessibility features, like zooming on text, inverting video, and voice over when you touch whatever text is on screen.

Battery life
• One of the more important new features is the increased battery life.
• According to Apple, you will get up to 12 hours of talk time on 2G and 5 on 3G, with a up to 300 hour standby time.
• On 3G, it will deliver 5 hours of internet use.
• On Wi-Fi, Internet goes up to 9 hours.
• Video playback is 10 hours vs 30 hours for audio.

Would be available in India in last week of August….

Computers, My Hacks

Mac OS X 10.5.6 on my XPS 1210

May 18, 2009 Utkarsh Leave a comment

I have been fascinated by the Apple’s Mac OS ever since I got to know about it. And when I came to know that I could install it on my laptop, I was delighted. I have been successfull in installing various versions from days of OS X 10.4 [Tiger]. Lately I thought of installing 10.5.6 and upgrading it to 10.5.7 on the same old XPS m1210 which I bought in November 2006.

Mtaram's Daze