Microsoft Windows 7 :

The Lucky 7 bells have already started ringing at the world’s number ONE company and the leading software giant in Operating Systems. With Windows 7 it again intends to steal the show and it seems it’ll succeed probably in a better fashion than at the time of Windows Vista. Virtualization, dynamic UI, robustness in terms of security, speed and much better hardware available this time in contrast to Vista is enough to conclude that Microsoft is all geared up to reign supreme after failing last time. Truth be told Microsoft has played all cards of the game this time very shrewdly cause — The BETA, RC and RTM of Windows 7. And the people loved & relished testing it and won the hearts of all. From marketing point-of-view it’s free Windows 7 upgrade for a part of a crowd and discounts for the underprivileged. Furthermore, propping up Windows 7 are products which are Microsoft’s own creations – Visual Studio 2010, IIS 7.5, .Net Framework 3.5 SP1, Live Messenger and Web Installer. Also if the leading I.T. survey giants like Gartner and IDC are to be believed Windows 7 is just inevitable for all. A very good point to be noted in their report, with every dollar spent on Windows 7 it’ll return a corresponding 8.4 $.

Apple Macintosh Snow Leopard :

One common thing can be easily drawn out between Apple’s CEO Mr. Steve Jobs and Macintosh — Both are CLASS EXTRAORDINAIRE. And who’s there to challenge this wise saying especially when Apple has already proven itself by becoming the best stock performer of 2009 and that too in the times of depression. It’s also a matter of fact that Apple has just not changed the meaning of software with Leopard but has changed the entire way of computing. No doubts Apple’s Macbook and iPhone are an asset of the privileged class and it’s fan followers just hate even thinking about Windows. Also acknowledge the very fact that Apple has a very limited footprint in OS market but a very strong and cent percent footprint in whatever it does, let it be the hardware or software. Add to Apple’s advantage that it has cent percent control over it’s Macbook hardware and hence can choose to cater to only the privileged class and demand a good ransom. But it has done really well till now and with Snow Leopard available as a petty 29$ upgrade it’s set to ROCK ON AGAIN. Personally speaking, I feel so impotent while speaking on the very genetics of Apple’s OS since I myself don’t have an Apple Macbook.

Linux and it’s many variants :

For a majority of PC users, it’s just a handful of users in case of Linux but underestimating it will be the biggest mistake. True with whatever I’ve said the OLD WINE just keeps on getting better and better with refinements, feature additions and a much better hardware to support. So many variants are available in Linux that I’m getting short of time and thoughts as to which DISTRO I should write on. Talking about Ubuntu 9.10 which is one of the most liked versions of Linux is set to be released this 29th October, 2009 it’s a much awaited release since a majority of features are set to be revised. Inherent features like Voice-over-Messenger, Open-Office, latest Mozilla Firefox, etc are a treat for the open-source followers, cost-cutting enthusiasts and those who believe in the very notion that software is our birth right and should be available free. Long live the ideology of Linux developers and it’s followers which are just growing day-by-day. Adding to the Linux party, even Google with it’s Android OS will be seen as a credible and a prominent competitor within a year.

]]> http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/it%e2%80%99s-going-to-be-a-war-of-operating-systems-this-november/feed/ 2 gameboyzone Microsoft Windows 7 Apple Macintosh Snow Leopard Linux Ubuntu 9.10 http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/my-last-blog-on-windows-7-before-it-releases-tomorrow/ http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/my-last-blog-on-windows-7-before-it-releases-tomorrow/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:14:00 +0000 gameboyzone http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/my-last-blog-on-windows-7-before-it-releases-tomorrow ]]> Windows 7, Windows 7, Windows 7 and on & on goes the poem. Sometimes I feel I had enough of it since January(when the BETA released) but the very moment I get my hands on it the learning curve and the experience just keeps on getting better and better. So Windows 7 enthusiasts and it’s bitter critics just watch out this blog coz I’m having stuff for both of you and even who stand out as an exception !!!

Such is this peace of OS and written so well by it’s developers that it has spurned a myriad of threads on all Forums regarding the very granularities of it’s features. Features like Aero, Home Network, Win XP Mode, etc has invoked a sense of curiosity and desperation among application developers and even those on web to replicate the same in their projects. And guess what, to cater to such a vast audience Microsoft has played indeed well – thanks to it’s Windows 7 SDK, Visual Studio 2010 and Web Platform Installer. Propping it side-by-side is another very inherent feature in Windows 7 which most of the audience including the developer community tend to forget – .Net Framework SP1. Yes, you read it well, no need to read that line back but if you still want to, here you go – .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 goes native on Windows 7.

Trust your intuition, prediction and your wildest judgement and they all are going to be true – Microsoft is planning to flood .Net Apps to complement Windows 7 bigtime. Infact, it’s not in the planning stage but the planning has already manifested cause – Microsoft has launched “Windows Market Place” and “CodePlex” for Mobiles and PC’s. So all roads leading to the very inevitable conclusion – “Windows 7 is going to be one of the biggest release in the history of software“. Well cynics still won’t agree … !!! So here’s the official IDC report and the Gartner report to substantiate my claims.

So with Windows 7 set to release tomorrow I enumerate some very obvious and not-so-obvious facts and bits on Windows 7 :

• A majority of audience who’ve tested it has labelled Windows 7 – “It’s Windows Vista made perfect“.
• With Windows 7 Microsoft intends to grab it’s lion’s share in OS market after Vista sapped it. It might sound really surprising but Microsoft considers the fact that Windows 7 will succeed because of the success of Windows Vista.
• Analysts, volume-licensing partners and other major vendors say Windows 7 is the most polished version of Windows ever and that businesses should not wait to deploy it till it’s SP1 get’s released.
• The world’s leading information technology research and advisory firm – Gartner has termed Windows 7 inevitable for all. With every dollar invested in Windows 7 businesses world-wide will earn a corresponding 8.4 $.

The very first time a request is sent for an .aspx page the .Net Framework residing on the computer which physically hosts these files compiles it and generates the corresponding .dll files i.e. assemblies which are the results of JIT(just-in-time) compilation.

In other words, the .aspx page has been serialized in the form of a .dll file. These .dll files are used in subsequent requests by de-serializing them to render the HTML to the user by the .Net Framework.

So the real catch is whether you can avoid the initial compilation and if yes the code i.e. your .aspx page can be hidden or not ?

Now assuming that you have Visual Studio 2005 or higher and IIS configured with your .Net Framework you can follow the below mentioned steps in Command Prompt to get the pre-compilation done :

1] You have to navigate to the right destination of your .Net Framework 2.0 :

cd “C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727″

2] You have to then compile your project/web-site folder with the following command :

aspnet_compiler -v /GuruSample -p “C:\GuruSample” “c:\Output”

where,
-v /GuruSample –> The virtual path to the project/web-site
-p “src” “target” –> The absolute physical path to the project folder and the location of the target files

NOTE:

Giving the “-p” switch means the IIS metabase will *not* be referenced during pre-compilation. Also it means the target path is mandatory.

Once the above command is executed the following files and folders will be generated at the target location :

• PreCompiledApp.config

• Web.Config

• GuruSample.sln

• Default.aspx

• A “bin” folder will also be generated which will be having the pre-compiled .dll file(s).

‘150 points‘ that’s what the ADMIN have asked for and from my experience I can tell you that I had to literally screw my schedules apart to get it. The result – Bad performance in ACADS and a lot of sleepless nights. But that was the story then but I can assure you that you will surely not have to go through this – COURTESY ME.

Following are the list of activities(in the order of less work and more points) which you can pursue to see yourself besides me i.e. a permanent MSP (till you graduate) and then an MSP Alumni. So here I go …

1] Imagine Cup 2010 :

Imagine Cup is a wonderful initiative and a technical competition held every year to promote display of expertise in various fields and learning to get there. Any active student can participate in it. Some of the categories include:

–> I.T. challenge
–> Software design
–> Inter-Operability
–> Software development
–> Game design and many more…

For more information you can check out www.imaginecup.com.

Registering for Imagine Cup in any of the above categories and going past the 1st round can get you a whopping 100 points. EASILY said then DONE but try yourself and see for yourself. Though not many qualify past the 1st round and those who do cannot cope with the 2nd round. A matter of fact, I qualified to the 2nd round of I.T. challenge which clashed with my Exam dates !!!

Coming back, you can also get participants to join this competition(in groups of 40) and win points from it.

You can create your own account with student-partners E-Mail and your ID part of your E-Mail becomes your “Referral code“. For example, in my case “hardikguru“.

I had penned down a blog on the same probably last year to promote it. You can check out Here.

2] Sessions :

A variety of sessions can be conducted to promote the MSP program, initiatives of Microsoft, any particular technologies of Microsoft like .Net/WPF/Silverlight/etc. The target audience can be students or even teachers.

But do keep in mind that if you conduct these activities under your colleges’ Tech-Club than you would be at any added advantage i.e. you can keep your Tech-Club abuzz. Also on having a particular amount of activities in your Tech-Club you are entitled to BENEFITS so keep that in mind. Proofs in the form of PHOTOS, feedback forms, etc are required so check out the ACTIVITES TAB of our student-partners web-site.

Many other forms of sessions are there which include DevCon wherein you’ve got to conduct a day-long session on myriad of topics with a team of speakers and the mass audience should go into hundreds. Assistance in any form can be procured from “studpart@microsoft.com“.

Other forms like Rhythm Sessions, HOL(Hands-On-Lab), etc can be learnt and understood from the ACTIVITES TAB of our student-partners web-site.

3] Microsoft Live@Edu and MSDN-AA campaign :

For Live@Edu you can check out my own blog dating back 10 months(At a time when I was learning to BLOG) Here.

You can also check out videos and any materials for the same Here.

Any questions on ‘How-to‘ and ‘What-to‘ can be forwarded to “livein@microsoft.com“

For MSDN-AA you can check out Here.

You get 140 points for deploying any of them in your own college or any of your peer.

Note :
Any pre-requisites for any activities are mentioned very clearly in the “ACTIVITIES” TAB of our student-partners web-site.

Besides this blog I’ll be coming with another BLOG later on the benefits which you derive being an MSP. But for now don’t even think about it coz that might lead you astray. FOCUS on the points and enjoy all the activities. Grab what you can.

If yes, then just read on and crack the LOGIC behind the BARRIER and harness the same LOGIC to KILL it. Colleges/Organizations usually have a SQUID firewall installed on their Linux Server through which all your HTTP requests get parsed. Such extra-ordinary and powerful is this piece of software that it deserves a blog on it. Here are some of the salient features of SQUID firewall from knowledge point-of-view:

• It can populate all hosts currently on the N/W with their N/W statistics like the last request they made for a particular link and so on.
• Specific permissions can be granted and revoked to hosts on the N/W based on their IP, Subnet Mask, port, etc.
• Basically all HTTP requests are routed through the SQUID firewall so it can censor all URL’s which the hosts demand. Specific keywords like xxx, orkut, game, facebook, s*x can be blacklisted so the URL’s will be blocked.
• File level access-lists can also be defined to block/allow certain formats like ‘.exe’, ‘.avi’, ‘.wmv’, etc.

I’m sure by now you’ve understood why you get the ‘Permission denied‘ or ‘Access denied‘ warning when downloading files with the above mentioned formats or while surfing through URL’s which contain keywords which are banned. Excellent logic right .. ? But do not forget that there is another part of the world who live to challenge this piece of software and the citizens here also have their own band of followers including me.

So now that we’re through with the LOGIC let’s work to reverse-engineer it. At first glance this challenge might look really invincible but that’s the way challenges are supposed to be right … ? Let’s risk an attempt and than we’ll decide our own fate.

1] SQUID firewall like I had emphasized above screen the URL’s of hosts. So the very obvious solution is that we need something to encode them. Let’s move further.

2] Assuming URL’s are encoded than what about my file downloads which I have to download? OK so let’s make an exception in this case or say an ‘if else‘ clause comes into picture if you’re kind of an programming freak. So if files are there in the URL than they should be rendered as they are.

3] Furthermore, there may be more constraints as well which may have been defined at the SQUID firewall by the developers and kept secret, so to escape that you need to route your traffic through a completely different channel than the conventional one.

Now to apply all of the above points either you can use a service provided VIA a web-site or VIA a desktop application. You can also setup your browser to do the above (not all of the above but it may do the trick in some cases).

• There are web-sites available which can come to your rescue like www.avoidr.com, www.123hideip.com, www.forextail.co.cc, www.netbypasser.info, etc. These are proxy web-sites which offer free service to you. Just paste the link in the web-site and OFF YOU GO. You can search for more on Bing for better results.
• You can use desktop Apps. like UltraSurf to so the same. You can download more Apps. of the same subject Here under the ‘Hacking and Sniffing Tools‘ section.
• You can also setup your browser’s N/W configuration to manual with the following settings:

• Apps. and certain web-sites have their own restrictions like files exceeding 20 MB in size cannot be downloaded.
• Beware while searching for results which include keywords like ‘Proxy‘ coz the keywords might themselves be banned by your Admin.
• You can use the same technique of setting up your N/W configuration using a HTTP proxy IP and proxy port with Torrent clients like uTorrent, BitComet, Bear-Share, Limewire, etc. The settings are available beneath any of the menu-items so be patient. You can get more proxy IP’s and ports Here and Here.
• SQUID firewall usually are installed on UNIX/Linux but it’s equivalent on Windows platform also work on the same LOGIC so the above SOLUTION is applicable even there.

• Windows 7 Starter Edition will be having all the essential and core features of Windows 7 like the Jump Lists, Pin, Snap, and Windows Search all make using a small notebook PC simple and easy.
• It’ll be supporting an excellent feature known as Home Networks for PC’s running Windows 7 and comes inherently with support for Wireless-LAN and Internet Explorer 8.

Looking through Microsoft’s eyes, it intends to again steal the Netbook show with it’s meant-to-be-for-netbooks show-stopper Windows 7 Starter Edition but looking through the pragmatic eyes of critics, bloggers and myself it pours a very gloomy picture – cause — the policy, constrains and restrains on Windows 7 Starter Edition. Here I enumerate them as follows:

• Cannot run more than 3 applications (read below for more enlightenment on the same).

• Does not support Aero Glass, meaning you can only use the “Windows Basic” or other opaque themes. It also means you do not get Taskbar Previews or Aero Peek.
• Inability to switch between users without having to log off.
• No Multi-monitor support and DVD playback (in either case I use VLC player).
• No Windows Media Center and Domain Support for Business customers.
• No Windows XP Mode for running XP applications natively.

“So put into simple words it’s Windows 7 ULTIMATE EDITION minus Aero Glass, Win XP Mode, BitLocker, language pack, Media-Center.”

Now getting a bit up, close and personal with the not-more-than-3-application constrain. Apps. like Anti-Virus, startup utilities, windows explorer, control panel, etc live outside the three-app limit, also opening multiple tabs in one browser is not counted as 8 or say 9 but only 1. But if I’m surfing on IE 8, I’m active on Live Messenger and I’m listening to my songs on Windows Media Player(which is a very usual case for everybody) than I’m done … ? Yes and if you still try to surpass the limit of 3-Apps. then the following annoying screen pops-up.

This gambit is really nasty and it hurts me. Microsoft did it round the time of Win XP Starter Edition and now again the same blunder with Windows 7 Starter Edition .. ? Why Microsoft’s got to do this .. ?

I tried searching for the answer and I got one(a very clear and to-the-point answer) on the official blog of ‘The Windows Team’. You can follow it Here. The answer seems very difficult to gulp down the throat previously but I can’t afford to play FOUL with Microsoft and have to contemplate. Microsoft does acknowledge the limitations in Windows 7 Starter Edition and it also confesses that it’s for beginners especially Netbooks users who pre-dominantly are working over the browser. But if the constrains are not acceptable to them then they should better consider going for Windows 7 Home Premium as it offers way forward features than the Starter Edition. Not only this, Microsoft also intends to get the volume-licensing partners acknowledge this and follow suit.

Hmmm, JUSTICE seems to be done for the moment but will the people abide by Microsoft’s terms … ? That remains to be seen.

SIGNING OFF.

Guru says Lolz … !!!

=========================================================

My above blog has invoked a lot of steam and hence it has reflected in the comments as well.

Click Here to read them.

As for readers and my other blog followers who are totally unaware as to what’s going on in the AIR, let me make this matter explicit in the best of my words. With respect to my post on the issues and bugs faced in the latest versions of Pidgin IM I had written a blog on it. You can call it my outburst, something out of desperation. And the key to solving this mystery lay with the developers of Pidgin IM and believe me they have acted promptly. Pidgin IM latest release now has been promoted directly to version 2.6.1 from 2.5.8 with some extra-ordinary feature additions and bug fixes. Also libpurple library, the core engine and heart of Pidgin IM, has also been updated. In short, Pidgin IM is now much more stable and palatable. Apparently, it’s yet to reach the standards of some singular IM’s like Yahoo Messenger, GTalk, Live Messenger etc but it’ll gradually overthrow all the one’s I listed above. Don’t rate my judgement !!!

Coming back to bug fixes, Linux users are the biggest beneficiaries of it since they will experience some more feature additions as compared to Windows users. But as mentioned very distinctly on the web-site of Pidgin IM “2.6.1 adds XMPP Voice and Video support (but not on Windows yet) “. No issues, Windows users will surely get their pie very soon. Now I can surely trust the Pidgin developers.

Myriad of changes have been made in a short span of time. A detailed log on the same can be viewed here. (Link available till the next release)

• For Pidgin enthusiasts on Windows and for novices:

You can download the latest release of Pidgin IM directly from my web-site here. Don’t worry, the link to the download is always updated so you’ll always get the latest release. By any way, if you’re thinking to update it right from the IM then I’m sorry, Pidgin IM doesn’t have the update feature built into it’s engine.

• For Pidgin enthusiasts on Linux Ubuntu distros:

Follow the instruction given here.
]]> http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/my-pidgin-im-cries-get-acknowledged/feed/ 0 gameboyzone http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/recession-the-true-unknown-and-untold-story/ http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/recession-the-true-unknown-and-untold-story/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:51:00 +0000 gameboyzone http://gameboyzone.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/recession-the-true-unknown-and-untold-story ]]> It came, it conquered and everybody noticed, also swept with it some of the best Fortune 500 companies, leaving behind worries and a drought of jobs. Also left some of the best financial analysts and economists in a tizzy in the Silicon Valley, Wall Street, etc and also the Dalal Street back in India. Some of the analysts in leading companies are still mulling as to what drove the recession out of it’s den and what hit them in their back to which they were too late to react. A simple gaze at the progress charts of some of the leading fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, IBM, Dell, HP, Citi financial shows a big dent in their fortune due to recession. Layoffs, massive restructuring plans, salary cuts, etc – they have seen it all. And there are some like Lehmann Bros., American Bank, Meryll Lynch which have faded into total obscurity and now lay in the hands of U.S. government with no clear sight ahead on it’s future. No one would have ever though in their wildest nightmares that companies like these which once offered the best recruitment packages to MBA students would see such a climax.

The U.S. administration still seem to be in a loop and in a fix. Two stimulus monetary injections later, Barack Obama still finds himself under pressure to release a third one into the economy. If that still doesn’t seem enough, add to it Obama’s policy of safeguarding local employment and discouraging outsourcing in companies is already creating a sense of displeasure among his supporters. Do I need to describe the great recession of this century even more ? No, even I’m saturated describing it and falling short of words.

So, a wonderful question pop’s out while I write this. How did it all began ? What drove the Lion out of it’s den? Like all say, a disaster is born out of another blunder or disaster and the question lives up to the proverb. It all began after the 9/11 attacks in U.S. Now nobody can forget what happened on that day even if they want to. Following the event, some rave, careless decisions and policies adopted by the U.S. administration under the pretext of ‘ War on Terrorism ‘ saw the government recklessly spending (rather would call it splurging) billions on it’s spineless pursuit of it’s intent. Other factors include absence of some some much needed policies for the welfare of the public, too much money being borrowed by businesses, corporates and individuals to fund capital expenditure at the same time period, etc. Guess what, the tumult was slowly and narrowly building on the spine of the economy and when it ran out of it’s capacity to bear more, it broke. The money being borrowed by the US. inhabitants was enormous and when there was a sudden stop to it their homes, appliances, vehicles and other assets had to be mortgaged. Money in any form was now a very precious asset to own. Same is the case with companies and businesses. And since a majority of the Fortune 500 companies have their roots in U.S. the reverberations were devastating and businesses world-wide had to face it’s course. Falling stock prices, insecurity, lower GDP growth all followed and all had to witnessed with their hands-folded. Some even worse stories are very much evident even now. But that was the story then. A lot of steam has passed since the bad times and now the times are changing. What’s really good to see is that stock prices have again surged, GDP growth have shown a sharp rise, economies have recuperated really well and that’s a start to a new story altogether. GOOD TIMES FOLLOW THE BAD ONE’s. And it’s indeed true.

Another question pop’s out of my mind when I reach here – How much of an impact did the recession have on our minds ? Interesting, Huh !!

It seems the impact on our minds is much more deep rather than on the economy. For those who believe in introspection would surely go with my judgement. And yes, a lot of counsellors and spiritual gurus would also affirm my judgement for they’ve had the maximum number of patients and devotees in this period. Temples and churches have seen a sudden surge in monetary contributions from their worshippers and are an asset to own. No wonder, all matters of love, heart, mind, soul and money start from a Coffee shop and end up at a Wine shop or a temple. And the kind of character which people show in such periods is also worth a mention. Consider a case, my nearby Vada-Pav wala is also crying foul everyday in this slack period – reason – “Recession, so less spending among the customers”. I would rather blame the guy who inculcated this sentiment of recession in him.

But what I’ve stumbled upon since the last couple of weeks are some bugs which are of utmost concern for users who look at Pidgin as the primary form of correspondence with their online contacts on Windows platform. Also as far as Linux users are concerned, those working on GNOME (i.e. Ubuntu, SUSE) and XFCE (i.e. xUbuntu) distros are also the unfortunate and unknown victims of these bugs on Pidgin. In this case, if the concerned user does not update his list of repositories and update pidgin by downloading the latest package he remains vulnerable to the bugs.

Some of the bugs I’ve spotted with my naked eye on 2.5.8 are as follows:

1] Windows : File-transfers still not 100% successful on Yahoo. Will it ever be … ?

• File-transfer request terminates abruptly.
• Large file size transfer fail.
• File transfers on successful completion do not seem to show the operation as successful.
• A matter of fact, what was really shocking is that file transfers never used to happen completely in version 2.5.3. It was a flawed release I guess. Conditions do apply.
  

2] Windows : Contacts when added in MSN do not get added to the server list. Same issues in all versions till date but no permanent solution found as yet.

3] Ubuntu 9.04 : Yahoo accounts fail to login.

4] Ubuntu 9.04 : Updated the repositories and downloaded the latest packages of Pidgin. Yahoo accounts now do login but contacts who LogOut are still seen as visible in IM.

5] Windows and Ubuntu 9.04 : Yahoo PingBox contacts do seem visible when active but users cannot interact with them in return.

To be frank, Pidgin which has been developed on Gtk+ seems to follow a very slow development process with their developers working at a snail’s pace. In contrast, what’s really worth an applause is that Pidgin over it’s extra-ordinary features has it’s own user survey section over it’s official web-site which users can use to place their feature requests / annoyances / feedback. Users have placed their requests on features they would like to see in the coming releases of Pidgin IM but to their utter dismay the developers seem to be in a loop. The developers seem to be patching some bugs and they seem to arise back again in the future versions. Add to the woes of developers, Pidgin IM has been developed in Gtk+ which hitherto has been unheard of and has very little documentation and developer tools. Pidgin IM uses the libpurple library to connect to the IM networks, manage accounts and preferences, and lots of other helpful little things. With this very unlikely combination, it is very much obvious that the development process is surely going to be very complicated for developers. Also, libpurple library is still under development and is undergoing a revamp.

God help the developers of Pidgin !!!