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Arun Vishnu — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:05:29 +0000

Hi Friends,

I have started my new technical blog The Web 3.0

Send your names to Mars

Arun Vishnu — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:58:23 +0000

Fill in your information(Name, Country & Zip) and your name will be included with others on a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover heading to Mars in 2011!

You will get your certificate of participation too. I got my certificate

Click here to Send your names to Mars

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Making Online Shopping Safer – You need an extra password

Arun Vishnu — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:40:34 +0000

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has mandated that from 1st Aug 2009 all online credit card transactions require an extra level of verification. Your credit card issuing banks are therefore, implementing a "Verified by VISA" or "MasterCard SecureCode" password.

You will need this password to continue transacting online from 1st Aug 2009.

What is the "Verified by VISA"/"MasterCard SecureCode" password?

This is the password that your credit card issuing Bank provides. For example – ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank, HSBC Bank, Axis Bank, SBI etc. This password is the additional layer of security for all your online transactions.

Benefits of "Verified by VISA"/"MasterCard SecureCode" password.

Even if you lose / misplace your credit card it cannot be misused online as the password is not present on the card.

How do I get this ‘extra password’?

All you have to do is log on to your bank’s website, register your card for Verified by Visa (or MasterCard SecureCode) and get your password. Each bank has its own process for card registration. So, hop on to your bank’s website and register now:

HDFC Bank
ICICI Bank
Citibank
HSBC Bank

Standard Chartered
State Bank of India
Axis Bank
ABN Amro

Deutsche Bank
Karur Vysya Bank

What if my bank does not support Verified by Visa / MasterCard SecureCode?

The RBI notification concerns cards issued within India only. If your card is issued outside India, your online transactions will go through even without this extra authentication step (unless your Card Issuer requires SecureCode/VbV authenrtication). If your card is issued in India, we suggest you look for a new bank!

What about American Express cards?

For Amex cards the ‘extra level of authentication’ will work slightly differently. On the payment step at Cleartrip, you will be asked to enter you billing address, which will be passed on to the bank. This will be checked against your billing address the bank has on its records. If the addresses don’t match your payment will be rejected. This technology is called AVS – Address Verification System. Please check your credit card statement if you don’t remember your exact billing address.

Weekly Digest for December 10th Download Microsoft Project Professional 2010 Beta : http://technet.microsoft.com/hi-in/evalcenter/ee404758(en-us).aspx [#]...

Using Google Maps to plan your journey

Arun Vishnu — Sat, 30 May 2009 06:26:38 +0000

Yesterday I tried Google Maps India to get the directions from one place to another. I tried few routes. It is not very accurate but very helpful to get an idea about the route. Not accurate means, the route is correct but there may be other short routes.

1st I tried to get directions from my home to my office at Technopark, Trivandrum.

From Google map

Other routes

We have 3 main routes to reach there.

Thiruvalla -> Kottarakkara -> Kilimanoor -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is not listed in the map
Podiyadi -> Mavelikkara -> Kayamkulam -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is not listed in the map
Harippad -> Kayamkulam -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is not listed in the map

Only 2 routes are listed in the map.

One is Thiruvalla -> Chaganachery -> Alappy -> Harippad -> Kayamkulam -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is listed in the map.

They are correct but very long. Via NH47 is 177KM if we follow the directions in google maps but we have other route, via NH47 which is less than 120KM. In this route I can directly goto Harippad(14kms from home), but if i follow google’s direction, I have to travel more than 60km to reach Harippad.

So first your search the direction to get a small idea about the routes and then search in between places for another short routes or ask someone else . But I am sure this service is very helpfull to get an initial route and then process the route to get the shortest route.

Dude.. don’t think about Travelling Salesman problem

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Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

Arun Vishnu — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:00:12 +0000

Technorati Profile

Running XP in windows 7 XP mode

Windows XP Mode (formally Virtual XP) is a new feature in Windows 7. It’s a licensed, virtualized copy of Windows XP Service Pack 3 running inside Microsoft’s own Virtual PC framework. Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7. Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC.

When I heard about this feature I thought “what’s new in this? We can install other OS using MS Virtual PC or VM ware”. But now I understand why this is a new feature.

The core of XPM are Virtual PC 7 (VPC) and the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) protocol. All you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7.

Client virtualization software, like Windows Virtual PC is a pre-requisite to use Windows XP Mode. So first I installed a Windows update – Windows Virtual PC (Beta)(KB958559) : Windows Virtual PC (Beta) is the latest Microsoft virtualization technology that allows you to run many productivity applications on a virtual Windows environment, with a single click, directly from a Windows 7-based PC.

After rebooting my system, I installed Windows XP Mode Beta . It’s a single executable file, 445MB of size. Installation was straight forward, need to set only few setting like where you want to install, password etc. If anybody tried installing XP or any other operating system using MS Virtual PC or VMWare or any other virtual achine in any other operating system, you know that that installation is just like normal OS installation, have to set all those settings, need normal installation time etc etc. Also after installationn you need to allocate a good amount of RAM and other system resources for the virtual machine, which degrades overall system performance. But Windows XP Mode surprised me.

Installation took only few minutes and launched XP. It is so fast, and taking only very less system resource, just like a normal medium windows application. Since it uses Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) protocol, the interface is little different from previous Virtual Machine mode, it’s like lognined into an XP machine using Windows Rremote Desktop application.

Now if you want to use XP machine, you can install Windows 7 with Windows XP Mode

Files:

Windows Virtual PC: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=65e1c5eb-df9b-415f-b2d6-27f6ef5dceb9&displaylang=en

Windows Virtual PC Beta: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0E8FA9B3-C236-4B77-BE26-173F032F5159&displaylang=en

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Chromium: Google Chrome for Mac and Linux

Arun Vishnu — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:28:49 +0000

Chromium is an open-source project- for the Mac OS X/Linux versions of Chrome.

I tried Mac OS X version of Chromium. Download the zip file, unzip it and run Chromium.

The first site I tried is google.com. But got the error message “The webpage is not available”. So i thought it is not working and then after some time I tried my site and it loaded without any problem . Then I tried many other sites and all those loaded, probelm is only with google sites, Google, Gmail, orkut.. all showed “The webpage is not available” message.

Downloaded the linux version, want to try it after some time.

For detailed review check: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10237981-2.html

Download Chromium from: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/

Chromium

http://theweb3.net/ Hi Friends, I have started my new technical blog The...

Ubuntu linux in malayalam

Arun Vishnu — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:57:59 +0000

I tried setting my display language and menu language to Malayalam in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. I played around it for some time but then i switched back to English interface. It was fun reading all those terms and all but I faced bit difficulty in the interface. Not all menu or text changed to Malayalam and come text was in Malayalam but English term.

Checkout these screenshoots. .

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Windows 7 RC Review

Arun Vishnu — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:08:44 +0000

Today I installed Windows 7 RC in my desktop PC.

Installation

First thing I noticed is the graphics, a cool installer background image. From windows vista onwards, installation is not a big task, need to set few regional and account information and the partition (and GUI tool for managing partition).

Started installation at 1AM and got my desktop at 1.15. So installation took only 15mnts.

7 GB for windows 7 files

Booting and shutdown

I got my login screen in 32sec and then the desktop in 13sec. So the total booting time is 45sec. But this is without any additional applications. This will change when we install other applications. Shutdown time is around 13sec… Starting windows screen is a new animation screen showing windows and login screen got a new background image.
Other big change is in the taskbar, it can be compare with the dock in mac. It groups items and shows preview of all the items on mouse over. Windows media player can be controlled from the preview itself. We can control the system tray icons from the “Notification area icons” in control panel.

My computer properties

My system rating

Desktop

Design, Graphics & Other Improvements

Design and graphics have a significant change in windows 7. Up to windows vista, the 1st thing i do after installation is disabling all the animations and effects. Even though windows vista have aero theme, it is not much impressive especially in transparency and all. But in windows 7, animations and other screen effects are good. I am not feeling to disable those effects especially its transparency.
We can easily change the aero colour settings; new slide show enabled desktop background with some new background theme sets like Windows 7, Architecture, characters, scenes, nature etc..

Ms paint toolbar

Another change is in the MS paint, it got new ribbon style tool bar and some new additional tools.
I wonder why they are not updated the notepad, it is still the same
They have also added some new sound themes and in that my favorite theme is Raga.

New wallpaper themes

New sound themes

Speed, Stability & Compatibility

I am feeling a lot of speed change in windows 7 compared to Vista. Booting, application loading time are faster in Windows 7.
I have installed only few basic applications in windows 7, so i can’t talk much about Speed, Stability & Compatibility. I installed MS office, winzip, Acrobat reader, multimedia codec and other basic home applications. All those applications are working fine. I tried to install AVG free and Norton internet security 2009, both have known compatibility issues but Norton is running. I want to install and try other development applications when I get time.

Preview in taskbar

Controll panel- All items. Some new features added

Windows-7-RC2 Booting image

This is a basic review of Windows 7 RC or say first look. I didn’t get much time to review in deep so i didn’t get any bugs . I will try the new features and post it when i get time. Please share you experience

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Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is released

Arun Vishnu — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:58:44 +0000

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is released on April 27th, 2009. This is the sixth development milestone and fourth beta release of Firefox 3.5, the upcoming version of the Firefox web browser.

It is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform((Gecko is the second most-popular layout engine on the World Wide Web Written in C++,currently developed by Mozilla Corporation)). Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, performance improvements and user interface.

Features includes:

Available in 70 languages.
Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
Support for the HTML 5 audio and video elements.
Supports HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.
The HTML 5 drag and drop API allows support for dragging and dropping items within and between web sites.
Downloadable fonts support
HTML 5 text API for canvas elements

Itz still beta and have many bugs. If you are ready to help them, download it and report the bugs .

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Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Review

Arun Vishnu — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:18:48 +0000

Today morning downloaded and installed Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope in my Dell XPS M1530. I downloaded the .iso file and burbed it into a cd. 1st burning failedand I lost that cd. I burned again in a new one and it worked.

I loaded the CD in to the drive and booted from the CD. 1st I checked CD for any errors, it took around 2-3mnts. Then I searched for an update option and i couldn’t find any update option in the list. So I decided to go for a clean install. I set my keyboard, timezone and the next step was to select the install location. I choosed manually partition option, I had my previous linux partition(ext3) and the swap space. I choosed those and formated the ext3 with new ext4 file system.

Copying the new files took around 10 mnts and then I restarted my machine. I choosed my username and password and skipped importing users settings from my Windows Vista.

Ubuntu desktop screenshot

All these installation took around 20mnts and I got my desktop .

I had problems for detecting bluetooth, wireles, sound and touchpad with previous releases. This time everything detected automatically and even I connected my mobile via bluetooth and transfered the files.

Only one time i got bluetooth and wireless icons on the system tray. I don’t know where those icons went after a reboot.

Then I connected to the internet and installed few softwares. I installed Wine and then gtalk, yahoo and chome using Wine. None of them is working . Chrome is not loading any pages, signed in gtalk but no text is showing(check the screenshoot). Pidgin is working but I can’t signin with my google apps id.

Uubuntu 9.04 screenshot

Gtalk in Ubuntu with Wine

1) X.Org server 1.6/GNOME 2.26. The first part gives you peppier video performance, while the second gives you a really, nice integrated desktop.

2) Evolution 2.26.1. Evolution is now a complete and total Linux replacement for Outlook.

3) Fast Booting.

4) Ext4 file-system support. Ext4 is simply faster than Ext3 without the stability problems.

5) Linux kernel 2.6.28-11.37. Improved disk performance; better SSD (solid-state drive) support; and superior virtual memory scalability.

Ubuntu 9.4 login session

For me:

Total installation time: Around 30mnts to get the desktop.
Got login menu in 26 seconds and then desktop in 10seconds. So total around 36 seconds booting time.
Shutdown time: 15seconds.

Problems facing

Webcam is not yet detected.
Sound is very very low.

I am playing around it and now no power here. So itz the time to shutdown the system and will write in detail in the coming days.

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