So, What's in the buzz for a long time from now and not on my blog.
It's the cloud. Before I clear the cloud watch these videos.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Search with attitude says Twitter
Are you a person who only want to see tweets with positive attitude?or are you interested to know the negative impact of something? Here, Twitter search is the right place for you.
You know twitter also includes the number of tweets that came after you got the results of your query.Twitter search is never too late.With the Twitter advanced search you can search tweets that have only positive attitude or only negative attitude or asking a question related to your query.Well,I searched for obama :) and obama :( and found some satisfying results.
When a man's positive can be other's negative and vice versa,I wonder how twitter could make a judjement on these.This attitude filter is something no other search engine has introduced and I am sure will have a positive impact :).
I couldn't resist to test wether its negative or positive tweets that come more.I searched only for :) and :( .ie. any positive attitude and any negative attitude tweet.After a one minute wait I found these results and they kept increasing though.
The positive attitude tweets were growing with a good rate than the negative ones confirming that Twitter is a positive attitude site to dwell in.Good going twitterers!!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Trap the Cat-An addictive Flash game
While following RichardWiseman's tweets on twitter I came across this addictive Flash game.You play it with a clever cat.You and the cat will make equal number of moves.Just trap the cat by blocking its way.
Play the game here.
I could block the cat after a few tries.Try it,Its fun.
Play the game here.
I could block the cat after a few tries.Try it,Its fun.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
RankNet:How Bing Works
Bing is the new search engine by Microsoft replacing its very own Live Search.Bing was launched to the web on June 1st,2009 to increase Microsoft's marketshare in the search market.Bing uses the RankNet technology,as they call it.It is the "Ranking using Neural Net".An Artificial Neural Network(ANN),referred as Neural Net is a model developed on the basis of human neural network.
The ANN consists of processing elements called neurons arranged in different layers- one input layer,one output layer and at least one hidden layers(in between the inner and outer layers).The number of neurons in each layer depends on the application that uses the ANN.Each neuron in the input layer is connected to every neuron in the immediate layer through weights(similar to cable or a wire).The weight of each connection, also called as the connection strength is a value generally normalized to one.The connection strength can also be zero which is equivalent to no connection.
The neuron is a processing element which typically evaluates a(ny) function (Activaton Function) for a given input.Thus when some input is given to a neuron it calculates the value of the function at that value and sends it to all the neurons in the next layer,however the value reaching the next neuron depends on the connection strength.If the connection strength between two neurons is 0.5,then the value reaching the neuron will be half the value of the what the neuron sends.This neuron will calculate again on its function and send the data to the neurons in next layer finally reaching the output layer.The output depends upon the connection strenghts between the neurons and the Activation Function.In the beginning,the output will be far different from what it should be.Now,the weights of the connections will be changed according to the deviation from the expected output.
The ANN is trained with a set of samples of known outputs to inputs.The weights are initialized depending on the algorithm being followed and inputs are given.The deviation from the expected output is updated by changing the weights between the neurons.Thus,the network gives accurate outputs after training the ANN for many samples and the accuracy depends on many factors.The number of samples of input and output after which the problem converges depends on the training algorithm.We can train a neural network from simple equations to very complex realtions.The Neural net technique is a self learning technique because we never derive any mathematical relation between output and input,but simply train the network that learns by itself making the output relavant
This is how the human brain also stores and manipulates the data by modifying the connection strengths between the neurons.So,a complex ANN algorithm might use millions of neurons and hundreds of layers for more accuracy(or relevancy in this case).
The RankNet is the Bing's Neural Network that is trained with thousands of data samples before it was available.It uses very complex algorithms that makes the search engine more adaptive to the users queries.This makes the search engine always learning and helps it produce more relavant results.
Update[09/05/2010] : Please see my extended post on Artificial Neural Networks and How it applies to Bing (I am now blogging at Idiots den.)
The ANN consists of processing elements called neurons arranged in different layers- one input layer,one output layer and at least one hidden layers(in between the inner and outer layers).The number of neurons in each layer depends on the application that uses the ANN.Each neuron in the input layer is connected to every neuron in the immediate layer through weights(similar to cable or a wire).The weight of each connection, also called as the connection strength is a value generally normalized to one.The connection strength can also be zero which is equivalent to no connection.
The neuron is a processing element which typically evaluates a(ny) function (Activaton Function) for a given input.Thus when some input is given to a neuron it calculates the value of the function at that value and sends it to all the neurons in the next layer,however the value reaching the next neuron depends on the connection strength.If the connection strength between two neurons is 0.5,then the value reaching the neuron will be half the value of the what the neuron sends.This neuron will calculate again on its function and send the data to the neurons in next layer finally reaching the output layer.The output depends upon the connection strenghts between the neurons and the Activation Function.In the beginning,the output will be far different from what it should be.Now,the weights of the connections will be changed according to the deviation from the expected output.
The ANN is trained with a set of samples of known outputs to inputs.The weights are initialized depending on the algorithm being followed and inputs are given.The deviation from the expected output is updated by changing the weights between the neurons.Thus,the network gives accurate outputs after training the ANN for many samples and the accuracy depends on many factors.The number of samples of input and output after which the problem converges depends on the training algorithm.We can train a neural network from simple equations to very complex realtions.The Neural net technique is a self learning technique because we never derive any mathematical relation between output and input,but simply train the network that learns by itself making the output relavant
This is how the human brain also stores and manipulates the data by modifying the connection strengths between the neurons.So,a complex ANN algorithm might use millions of neurons and hundreds of layers for more accuracy(or relevancy in this case).
The RankNet is the Bing's Neural Network that is trained with thousands of data samples before it was available.It uses very complex algorithms that makes the search engine more adaptive to the users queries.This makes the search engine always learning and helps it produce more relavant results.
Update[09/05/2010] : Please see my extended post on Artificial Neural Networks and How it applies to Bing (I am now blogging at Idiots den.)
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Twixperiments
With Twitter,you can stay updated about your friends or your favourite people.But there's a lot more Twitter can do.Now,Twitter is going to be used for a scientific experiment for the first time says Richard Wiseman.
This experiment will examine the possible existence of 'remote viewing' - the alleged ability to psychically identify a distant location.Remote viewing refers to the attempt to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or extra-sensory perception or simply the remote viewer is expected to give information about what he has not seen or does not have any idea of.
The experiment goes like this.Every day Richard will travel to a randomly selected location and will send a Tweet to everyone asking to Remote view the location,i.e,send ther thoughts about that location.Exactly after thirty minutes of the first Tweet,he is going to send five photographs of which only one photograph is the actual location.The users vote on the photo which they believe is the location that Richard mentioned.So,if majority of the votes are for the actual location,the conclusion of the experiment will be that there is existence of extrasensory perception.
You can follow Richard Wiseman on Twitter here.
You must be awestruck everytime when the lead role of Final Destination movie will know what is going to happen next.That is by the psychic phenomeon also called as precognition.That sounds like a crap to most of them,but there are evidences for extrasensory perception in the past.It is no joke that US government spent 20 million dollars to determine the potential of extrasensory perception in the Stargate Project which was terminated in 1995 due to the lack of any documented evidence or theory about this.Many people still believe that it is a genuine ability and this experiment is going to test this with a wider audience.
If most of the votes are for the actual location,then it is counted as a hit and it is counted as a miss otherwise.The experiment is going to be conducted on Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday and Friday this week.Test if your instinct has that rare psychic ability of perceiving things.
In case there is ability to predict the things that happen in future,you can't escape your destiny is the theme of 'Final Destination'.But this study might help the human kind to know what is beyond the understanding of Science.
This experiment will examine the possible existence of 'remote viewing' - the alleged ability to psychically identify a distant location.Remote viewing refers to the attempt to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or extra-sensory perception or simply the remote viewer is expected to give information about what he has not seen or does not have any idea of.
The experiment goes like this.Every day Richard will travel to a randomly selected location and will send a Tweet to everyone asking to Remote view the location,i.e,send ther thoughts about that location.Exactly after thirty minutes of the first Tweet,he is going to send five photographs of which only one photograph is the actual location.The users vote on the photo which they believe is the location that Richard mentioned.So,if majority of the votes are for the actual location,the conclusion of the experiment will be that there is existence of extrasensory perception.
You can follow Richard Wiseman on Twitter here.
You must be awestruck everytime when the lead role of Final Destination movie will know what is going to happen next.That is by the psychic phenomeon also called as precognition.That sounds like a crap to most of them,but there are evidences for extrasensory perception in the past.It is no joke that US government spent 20 million dollars to determine the potential of extrasensory perception in the Stargate Project which was terminated in 1995 due to the lack of any documented evidence or theory about this.Many people still believe that it is a genuine ability and this experiment is going to test this with a wider audience.
If most of the votes are for the actual location,then it is counted as a hit and it is counted as a miss otherwise.The experiment is going to be conducted on Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday and Friday this week.Test if your instinct has that rare psychic ability of perceiving things.
In case there is ability to predict the things that happen in future,you can't escape your destiny is the theme of 'Final Destination'.But this study might help the human kind to know what is beyond the understanding of Science.
Twitter Rules
Yes,It does. Twitter is now ruling the web by asking a simple question-"What are you doing?".Twitter believes that constraint inspires creativity.The 140 character constraint has really done that.
Twitter has some rules.Twitter does not allow any kind of html tags in the 140 characters.However,links to other websites are shown in the tweets.There is also a limit on this.The url will be converted to a small url if the link is more than 30 characters in length.The url is shortened by using tinyurl or bit.ly.You are also free to use these great applications for shortening the URL's or to hide the original URL's.
Twitter does not allow you to post pictures directly in the tweets.You can post URL's of the pics uploaded on any website while most of the Twitterers use twitpic.Twitpic is a third party application and is not a part of Twitter.
You can send replies to any Tweet or message by a user by appending your message to @username.For example you can reply to me by telling
"@NeoTracks Thanks for the Twitter post".You can search all the replies to you in your home page once you login into twitter.
You can also send a Direct message to a user by appending the message after D username.For example, you can send a direct message to me by typing "D NeoTracks Are you meeting me today?".Direct messages do not appear in your tweets.This message is sent only to the user you have specified.They get delivered to the users device if any.
Below the Tweets you can see the text like posted from web,posted through text,.etc.After Twitter has become a powerful application,there are many applications developed for using Twitter on many devices.Thus twitter can be posted from the web or by text messaging or by any other application that uses Twitter API.
Twitter has some rules.Twitter does not allow any kind of html tags in the 140 characters.However,links to other websites are shown in the tweets.There is also a limit on this.The url will be converted to a small url if the link is more than 30 characters in length.The url is shortened by using tinyurl or bit.ly.You are also free to use these great applications for shortening the URL's or to hide the original URL's.
Twitter does not allow you to post pictures directly in the tweets.You can post URL's of the pics uploaded on any website while most of the Twitterers use twitpic.Twitpic is a third party application and is not a part of Twitter.
You can send replies to any Tweet or message by a user by appending your message to @username.For example you can reply to me by telling
"@NeoTracks Thanks for the Twitter post".You can search all the replies to you in your home page once you login into twitter.
You can also send a Direct message to a user by appending the message after D username.For example, you can send a direct message to me by typing "D NeoTracks Are you meeting me today?".Direct messages do not appear in your tweets.This message is sent only to the user you have specified.They get delivered to the users device if any.
Below the Tweets you can see the text like posted from web,posted through text,.etc.After Twitter has become a powerful application,there are many applications developed for using Twitter on many devices.Thus twitter can be posted from the web or by text messaging or by any other application that uses Twitter API.
Monday, June 1, 2009
As this is the first post concerning Twitter in my blog,I ask -did u ever Tweet?
Twitter is a social application that allows its users to keep in touch with their friends and fans in a great way. Twitter allows its user to post any number of messages the user wants,but each message should not be more than 140 characters.That may sound a little bit wierd to those who didn't knew about it earlier,but posting such short messages will have the user hit the exact target.While blogging WAS the best way to keep in touch with friends and fans,it is a pretty tedious process in these busy days for celebrities to write big posts and maintain their blogs.Twitter makes it simple,you just publish anything in a simple manner and easy for others to know.Twitter can most of the times be referred to a Micro Blog.
If you haven't started Twitting or Twittering-whatever you call it-go start Twittering and you can also follow me here.With twitter you can follow your favourite people and reply to their Tweets.Go get your username before some one will get the one you desire.
It is not only the basic Idea of Twittering that has made it a very popular and powerful application.It is also the interface of the website.The website is awesomely simple with a good design,the most happiest part being that you don't need to reload the page everytime you or someone else whom you follow Tweets.If you have not tried using Twitter search,you might never know that Twitter also suggests the number of Tweets that have come related to your search after the search result has been displayed.
Just sit back at home and keep tweeting all the time.If you have internet connected to your mobile,you can tweet on the go with many Twitter Applications available.Twitter also sends first 250 updates of the people you follow by SMS if you regsiter your mobile device with twitter.
Twitter was built on an open source web applicaton framework called Ruby on Rails.Ruby on Rails uses the Ruby programming language.
Tweet Tweet.
Twitter is a social application that allows its users to keep in touch with their friends and fans in a great way. Twitter allows its user to post any number of messages the user wants,but each message should not be more than 140 characters.That may sound a little bit wierd to those who didn't knew about it earlier,but posting such short messages will have the user hit the exact target.While blogging WAS the best way to keep in touch with friends and fans,it is a pretty tedious process in these busy days for celebrities to write big posts and maintain their blogs.Twitter makes it simple,you just publish anything in a simple manner and easy for others to know.Twitter can most of the times be referred to a Micro Blog.
If you haven't started Twitting or Twittering-whatever you call it-go start Twittering and you can also follow me here.With twitter you can follow your favourite people and reply to their Tweets.Go get your username before some one will get the one you desire.
It is not only the basic Idea of Twittering that has made it a very popular and powerful application.It is also the interface of the website.The website is awesomely simple with a good design,the most happiest part being that you don't need to reload the page everytime you or someone else whom you follow Tweets.If you have not tried using Twitter search,you might never know that Twitter also suggests the number of Tweets that have come related to your search after the search result has been displayed.
Just sit back at home and keep tweeting all the time.If you have internet connected to your mobile,you can tweet on the go with many Twitter Applications available.Twitter also sends first 250 updates of the people you follow by SMS if you regsiter your mobile device with twitter.
Twitter was built on an open source web applicaton framework called Ruby on Rails.Ruby on Rails uses the Ruby programming language.
Tweet Tweet.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Applications of Flash
Flash is used in making a large variety of applications.Let us investigate in detail.
Flash websites
Most of the Flash animators start with Flash for making flash websites.Flash websites are great compared to the boring HTML websites and offer a lot of interactivity and will be very fun to visit and explore.Flash also allows users to add sound to their animation,which will be great if added to websites.Below are links of few Flash websites you will like.
Newyork
Eco Zoo
Flash Banners
The most popular application that reaches a large audience are flash banners. These banners are mostly used for displaying ads.These ads may also contain small(very small) games. However,banners are also used to display messages.
Flash Games
Online gaming has gained a lot of importance in the recent years and is also a source of revenue for many companies and developers.Most of the online games are made in flash because flash games are less in size and offer a lot of features for the developers.The companies like ivy comptech that offer services for partypoker(an online gambling website famous in countries other than India) also work on Adobe Flash for making games.
If you wish to see the potential of a Flash, Play Governor of Poker by Youda Games
Flash Video
Well,I don't think I have to make a note about Youtube which uses Flash technology for sharing videos world wide.
Glogs
Glogs are similar to blogs.While blogs are popular for text and photo content,glogs are popular for expressive content.A glog is simply a flash application in which you can align images(of your choice),text(many fonts) and also music and videos.If you don't know what a glog is,go and own a glog at Glogster
Apart from glogs,glogster is also a fantastic social networking site.Below is the glog created by some girl.
Flash animation
Flash is also used to create a lot of Fun content on the web.For those who haven't seen the XiaoXiao series,here is an youtube video.
All the animation is created using flash and there is a lot more creation going on.You can also create such matchstick animation on your own if you have Flash.Visit StickPage for more information on match stick animation.
Flash for mobiles
Flash Lite from Adobe, a mobile-optimised version of Flash technology, offers a quick and effective way of building on your existing skills to create mobile content. Flash Lite is supported across all Nokia S60 and most Series 40 devices, and it is widely integrated with Nokia’s mobile WebKit browser.
40 % of the mobile users in the world have access to internet and the number will grow more in future.Mobile applications have a lot of potential to earn revenue.With Flash lite we can create applications that interact with web or Flash games for mobiles.
With Flash lite you can create many mobile applications starting from wallpapers and screensavers to games.If you want to create any mobile application in Flash Lite also have a look at what Nokia says.
Flash websites
Most of the Flash animators start with Flash for making flash websites.Flash websites are great compared to the boring HTML websites and offer a lot of interactivity and will be very fun to visit and explore.Flash also allows users to add sound to their animation,which will be great if added to websites.Below are links of few Flash websites you will like.
Newyork
Eco Zoo
Flash Banners
The most popular application that reaches a large audience are flash banners. These banners are mostly used for displaying ads.These ads may also contain small(very small) games. However,banners are also used to display messages.
Flash Games
Online gaming has gained a lot of importance in the recent years and is also a source of revenue for many companies and developers.Most of the online games are made in flash because flash games are less in size and offer a lot of features for the developers.The companies like ivy comptech that offer services for partypoker(an online gambling website famous in countries other than India) also work on Adobe Flash for making games.
If you wish to see the potential of a Flash, Play Governor of Poker by Youda Games
Flash Video
Well,I don't think I have to make a note about Youtube which uses Flash technology for sharing videos world wide.
Glogs
Glogs are similar to blogs.While blogs are popular for text and photo content,glogs are popular for expressive content.A glog is simply a flash application in which you can align images(of your choice),text(many fonts) and also music and videos.If you don't know what a glog is,go and own a glog at Glogster
Apart from glogs,glogster is also a fantastic social networking site.Below is the glog created by some girl.
Flash animation
Flash is also used to create a lot of Fun content on the web.For those who haven't seen the XiaoXiao series,here is an youtube video.
All the animation is created using flash and there is a lot more creation going on.You can also create such matchstick animation on your own if you have Flash.Visit StickPage for more information on match stick animation.
Flash for mobiles
Flash Lite from Adobe, a mobile-optimised version of Flash technology, offers a quick and effective way of building on your existing skills to create mobile content. Flash Lite is supported across all Nokia S60 and most Series 40 devices, and it is widely integrated with Nokia’s mobile WebKit browser.
40 % of the mobile users in the world have access to internet and the number will grow more in future.Mobile applications have a lot of potential to earn revenue.With Flash lite we can create applications that interact with web or Flash games for mobiles.
With Flash lite you can create many mobile applications starting from wallpapers and screensavers to games.If you want to create any mobile application in Flash Lite also have a look at what Nokia says.
Friday, May 22, 2009
A note about Flash:Introduction
Flash is an authoring tool that designers and developers use to create presentations, applications, and other content that enables user interaction. Flash projects can include simple animations, video content, complex presentations, applications, and everything in between. In general, individual pieces of content made with Flash are called applications, even though they might only be a basic animation. You can make media-rich Flash applications by including pictures, sound, video, and special effects.
You can create a large variety of applications in Flash.However,it is mostly used in internet applications.We can create banners for displaying ads or messages with rich media content and very low size.We can also create flash games using the scripting language of Flash called Actionscript.Strictly speaking we use actionscript for controlling the movie clip in banners also.But actonscript is more than that.There are a lot of features in actionscript,some of which we will be covering through out.Apart from banners and games,we can also create some match stick animation for fun.
Flash Lite from Adobe, a mobile-optimised version of Flash technology, offers a quick and effective way of building on your existing skills to create mobile content. Flash Lite is supported across all Nokia S60 and most Series 40 devices, and it is widely integrated with Nokia’s mobile WebKit browser.
Flash also has the Flash Javascript API which allows users to trigger Javascript while the Flash movie is playing.
Flash was a product of macromedia which was later acquired by Adobe.In order to play the Flash content you need to download Adobe Flash player.Always use the latest flash player for improved performance. After generating a flash file using flash software,we emebed it in a page in the same way we embed a jpeg or png.But this content plays and has user interaction.We derive user interaction using actionscript.
Flash always has more to offer than a user can think of.The latest version of Flash is Flash CS4(Creative Suite 4) which supports Actionscript 3.0 and has many more features-like the bone tool,3D tool-than Flash 8 professional.
You can create a large variety of applications in Flash.However,it is mostly used in internet applications.We can create banners for displaying ads or messages with rich media content and very low size.We can also create flash games using the scripting language of Flash called Actionscript.Strictly speaking we use actionscript for controlling the movie clip in banners also.But actonscript is more than that.There are a lot of features in actionscript,some of which we will be covering through out.Apart from banners and games,we can also create some match stick animation for fun.
Flash Lite from Adobe, a mobile-optimised version of Flash technology, offers a quick and effective way of building on your existing skills to create mobile content. Flash Lite is supported across all Nokia S60 and most Series 40 devices, and it is widely integrated with Nokia’s mobile WebKit browser.
Flash also has the Flash Javascript API which allows users to trigger Javascript while the Flash movie is playing.
Flash was a product of macromedia which was later acquired by Adobe.In order to play the Flash content you need to download Adobe Flash player.Always use the latest flash player for improved performance. After generating a flash file using flash software,we emebed it in a page in the same way we embed a jpeg or png.But this content plays and has user interaction.We derive user interaction using actionscript.
Flash always has more to offer than a user can think of.The latest version of Flash is Flash CS4(Creative Suite 4) which supports Actionscript 3.0 and has many more features-like the bone tool,3D tool-than Flash 8 professional.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Learn Terms:API,SDK,GUI
Its time to learn some frequently used terms.
If you are a software developer or a web programmer or a simple blogger getting some widgets or a google user using google maps you come accross many terms which you don't try to know more.Lets learn about some terms here.
GUI-Graphical User Interface:
The graphical user interface,as the name suggests using graphics or images as the user interface rather than text or commands.For example the icons in the browser for Home,Stop or Reload are the examples of GUI.An expressive GUI always helps in the simplification of the interface to the user.For,exapmle,a website with icons is looks better than a website with plain HTML.
API-Application Program Interface
An application programming interface (API) is a set of routines, data structures, object classes and/or protocols provided by libraries and/or operating system services in order to support the building of applications.
Suppose you want to make use of the Google Maps and display it in your website.You can do it with the help of Google Maps API.They provide you the set of rules you need to display any location of your want.
For Windows applications,you mght develop it with Visual studio,which is an Integrated Development Enviroment that uses the Windows API.The Visual Studio makes the API abstract from the user,i.e.,it provides the user with a set of pre-defined functions that use the API.
API is the set for developers to support and bulid new applications on a platform.
SDK-Software Development Kit
A software development kit (SDK or "devkit") is typically a set of development tools that allows a software engineer to create applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.
It may be something as simple as an application programming interface (API) in the form of some files to interface to a particular programming language or include sophisticated hardware to communicate with a certain embedded system.Many companies provide SDK's for their products to enable people to develop their own applications.
For example,Google provides the Android SDK for its new mobile platform Android.You can develop the application for Google Android.
Similar is the case for Microsoft Windows Mobile.You can download the Windows Mobile SDK and develop windows mobile applications.
If you are a software developer or a web programmer or a simple blogger getting some widgets or a google user using google maps you come accross many terms which you don't try to know more.Lets learn about some terms here.
GUI-Graphical User Interface:
The graphical user interface,as the name suggests using graphics or images as the user interface rather than text or commands.For example the icons in the browser for Home,Stop or Reload are the examples of GUI.An expressive GUI always helps in the simplification of the interface to the user.For,exapmle,a website with icons is looks better than a website with plain HTML.
API-Application Program Interface
An application programming interface (API) is a set of routines, data structures, object classes and/or protocols provided by libraries and/or operating system services in order to support the building of applications.
Suppose you want to make use of the Google Maps and display it in your website.You can do it with the help of Google Maps API.They provide you the set of rules you need to display any location of your want.
For Windows applications,you mght develop it with Visual studio,which is an Integrated Development Enviroment that uses the Windows API.The Visual Studio makes the API abstract from the user,i.e.,it provides the user with a set of pre-defined functions that use the API.
API is the set for developers to support and bulid new applications on a platform.
SDK-Software Development Kit
A software development kit (SDK or "devkit") is typically a set of development tools that allows a software engineer to create applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.
It may be something as simple as an application programming interface (API) in the form of some files to interface to a particular programming language or include sophisticated hardware to communicate with a certain embedded system.Many companies provide SDK's for their products to enable people to develop their own applications.
For example,Google provides the Android SDK for its new mobile platform Android.You can develop the application for Google Android.
Similar is the case for Microsoft Windows Mobile.You can download the Windows Mobile SDK and develop windows mobile applications.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Viruses from Pendrives.A way to stop them.
Everyone using the PC will sometime or the other face this situation.While most of the cautious people don't even dare to use a pen drive for data transfer, most of those who don't like to use flash drives will use them for sure.
The Windows Vista was not effected much by the viruses written for Windows XP, but however, The Vista is also now getting effected by many viruses which spread more through the pen drives.
A virus in the pen drive will start eating your PC as soon as it is plugged in because of the Autorun feature in Windows. You always see an autorun window as soon as the pen drive is plugged in. The pen drive has a root folder which contains all the data required for the autorun.The root folder will not be displayed in the files, but will be run as soon as you plug in the device. This is used as a vulnerability in spreading viruses and all the viruses will get into the root folder of pen drive which will be run automatically without any effort.So, disable the autorun using the following method.
Go to start>run (or press Windows button + R)
In the run dialog box type in gpedit.msc
The group policy of windows will open
navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Turn Off Autoplay
as shown in the figure below.
Now double click the Turn Off Auto play in the menu as shown above.
You will see the turn off autoplay properties as shown below.Enable it and select "all drives" for disabling the autoplay on all drives.
Click Apply and you have successfully turned off the autorun feature on all removable drives.
Don't think that your computer is safe from viruses entering from pen drives. Most of the pen drives will have an Autoplay action as the default for a double-click on the drive from My Computer.This is enough for all the viruses to enter your PC.
So,even after disabling the Autorun feature, do not click on the drive directly.Instead, use the Windows explorer which can be opened by pressing "Folders" in the toolbar above in My Computer or press Windows button + E to directly open it. Open the drive by clicking in the pane towards left in My Computer.
Still, you may fall victim to many viruses which have a folder icon,but are potentially good viruses that can duplicate themselves into all the drives.Before opening any file or folder,check its properties first and open it. A little care might save you from losing all your data to malicious viruses.
The Windows Vista was not effected much by the viruses written for Windows XP, but however, The Vista is also now getting effected by many viruses which spread more through the pen drives.
A virus in the pen drive will start eating your PC as soon as it is plugged in because of the Autorun feature in Windows. You always see an autorun window as soon as the pen drive is plugged in. The pen drive has a root folder which contains all the data required for the autorun.The root folder will not be displayed in the files, but will be run as soon as you plug in the device. This is used as a vulnerability in spreading viruses and all the viruses will get into the root folder of pen drive which will be run automatically without any effort.So, disable the autorun using the following method.
Go to start>run (or press Windows button + R)
In the run dialog box type in gpedit.msc
The group policy of windows will open
navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Turn Off Autoplay
as shown in the figure below.
Now double click the Turn Off Auto play in the menu as shown above.You will see the turn off autoplay properties as shown below.Enable it and select "all drives" for disabling the autoplay on all drives.
Click Apply and you have successfully turned off the autorun feature on all removable drives.Don't think that your computer is safe from viruses entering from pen drives. Most of the pen drives will have an Autoplay action as the default for a double-click on the drive from My Computer.This is enough for all the viruses to enter your PC.
So,even after disabling the Autorun feature, do not click on the drive directly.Instead, use the Windows explorer which can be opened by pressing "Folders" in the toolbar above in My Computer or press Windows button + E to directly open it. Open the drive by clicking in the pane towards left in My Computer.
Still, you may fall victim to many viruses which have a folder icon,but are potentially good viruses that can duplicate themselves into all the drives.Before opening any file or folder,check its properties first and open it. A little care might save you from losing all your data to malicious viruses.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Owning a Domain
The ICANN(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) controls all the domain names over the internet. However, it does not deal with hosting the webpages or the hosting servers. It deals with the domain names and their IP addresses on which they are hosted. A domain name can be registered with any domain name registrar.
A domain name registrar is a company accredited by ICANN to register internet domain names. While you buy a domain with a registrar, you buy it for a certain period after which you have to renew the domain. If you buy a domain say "alltechnix.com" with a registrar for one year, you have to renew the ownership after one year.If you fail to renew a domain name within the stipulated time, the registrar will have full control over the domain name and may or may not sell it to you again.
There were several cases in which the registrars gained control over the expired domain names and threatened the former owners for more money.Once a famous photographer got calls from his friends after some nude pictures started appearing on his expired domain. In order to regain his already popular domain he had to pay a large sum. That is why most of the top domain registering websites say that they notify you or have an expiry alarm.
So,do not buy a domain unless it is a trusted service.Host monster is one of the trusted services.You can also see the Cpanel for managing domain in the demo login.
A domain name registrar is a company accredited by ICANN to register internet domain names. While you buy a domain with a registrar, you buy it for a certain period after which you have to renew the domain. If you buy a domain say "alltechnix.com" with a registrar for one year, you have to renew the ownership after one year.If you fail to renew a domain name within the stipulated time, the registrar will have full control over the domain name and may or may not sell it to you again.
There were several cases in which the registrars gained control over the expired domain names and threatened the former owners for more money.Once a famous photographer got calls from his friends after some nude pictures started appearing on his expired domain. In order to regain his already popular domain he had to pay a large sum. That is why most of the top domain registering websites say that they notify you or have an expiry alarm.
So,do not buy a domain unless it is a trusted service.Host monster is one of the trusted services.You can also see the Cpanel for managing domain in the demo login.
Domains and SubDomains
Surprisingly, my blog is a sub-domain in the toplevel domain "blogspot.com". The webpages are also maintained in the servers similar to the way we maintain files in our hard drives.Suppose I have a jpeg file in the following location
"D:\Zerofactor\Pictures\factor.jpg"
You might have understood that the picture is in a folder named Pictures, wgich inturn is in a folder called Zerofactor located in D drive.
Check the following
http://images.google.co.in/intl/en_ALL/images/images_hp.gif
This google image search image with the name images_hp.gif is in a folder called images which inturn is in en_ALL(english all) in intl(international) folder located in images.google.com
Here google.com is the top level domain, where as "images" is the subdomain.Sub domains are also similar to folders,but they are handled differently. A subdomain in a top level domain must again be redirected to a specific folder in that domain.My blog neotracks is a subdomain like any other blog in blogspot.All the information regarding my blog will be in that folder and any one with the id and password details are given access to the blog.
Whenever you type http://www..blogspot.com it first resolves the domain name and in the blogspot server it redirects to the neotracks subdomain.Each time a user creates a blog, a sub domain is started and if an unused subdomain is sought, it directs to the registration page.
"D:\Zerofactor\Pictures\factor.jpg"
You might have understood that the picture is in a folder named Pictures, wgich inturn is in a folder called Zerofactor located in D drive.
Check the following
http://images.google.co.in/intl/en_ALL/images/images_hp.gif
This google image search image with the name images_hp.gif is in a folder called images which inturn is in en_ALL(english all) in intl(international) folder located in images.google.com
Here google.com is the top level domain, where as "images" is the subdomain.Sub domains are also similar to folders,but they are handled differently. A subdomain in a top level domain must again be redirected to a specific folder in that domain.My blog neotracks is a subdomain like any other blog in blogspot.All the information regarding my blog will be in that folder and any one with the id and password details are given access to the blog.
Whenever you type http://www..blogspot.com it first resolves the domain name and in the blogspot server it redirects to the neotracks subdomain.Each time a user creates a blog, a sub domain is started and if an unused subdomain is sought, it directs to the registration page.
Domain Name System or DNS
According to mathematics a domain is the set of values in wich a function is defined.In practical use a domain is the range in which one can exist.But a domain in the internet is the name of the website.
For example in http://www.google.com "google" is the name of the domain.All the domains that end with a .com are generally referred to as "dot-com" domains. There are several types of domains like .org(for organizations), .net(for network related) , .us,.sg,.ge,.in(location specific) domains while .com are commercial domains. However it is not compulsary that an organization should have a .org domain and similarly for the other types of domains also. But what happens after you type in the domain name in your browser window?
Resolving Host
You often see this message in the browser while the browser is searching for the website. Soon you see the website in the browser. This webpage might be coming from another continent too. These webpages are stored in webservers which can be physically located in any part of the network-Internet. Each webserver has a specific and unique IP address which is used for identifying it in the netrwork. As soon as you type in the domain name, the Domain Name System or DNS translates it into IP address. For example www.google.com translates to 74.125.19.99. You can directly type in this IP address of any domain to get the website. However, domain names are meaningful and easy to remember and that is what they are meant for.
This can be compared to the phone book in mobile phone. You type the name of your friend and hit the call button, your mobile phone dials the number of your friend and the network connects it. Here DNS(Domain Name System) is the mobile phone and the contact book need not be maintained by us and websites are still our friends.
As soon as the webserver or the host gets a request of webpage it sends the webpage to the client. Hence, a unique domain name will always be directed to the same servers and the job of the provider is to serve the requests of all the clients.
For example in http://www.google.com "google" is the name of the domain.All the domains that end with a .com are generally referred to as "dot-com" domains. There are several types of domains like .org(for organizations), .net(for network related) , .us,.sg,.ge,.in(location specific) domains while .com are commercial domains. However it is not compulsary that an organization should have a .org domain and similarly for the other types of domains also. But what happens after you type in the domain name in your browser window?
Resolving Host
You often see this message in the browser while the browser is searching for the website. Soon you see the website in the browser. This webpage might be coming from another continent too. These webpages are stored in webservers which can be physically located in any part of the network-Internet. Each webserver has a specific and unique IP address which is used for identifying it in the netrwork. As soon as you type in the domain name, the Domain Name System or DNS translates it into IP address. For example www.google.com translates to 74.125.19.99. You can directly type in this IP address of any domain to get the website. However, domain names are meaningful and easy to remember and that is what they are meant for.
This can be compared to the phone book in mobile phone. You type the name of your friend and hit the call button, your mobile phone dials the number of your friend and the network connects it. Here DNS(Domain Name System) is the mobile phone and the contact book need not be maintained by us and websites are still our friends.
As soon as the webserver or the host gets a request of webpage it sends the webpage to the client. Hence, a unique domain name will always be directed to the same servers and the job of the provider is to serve the requests of all the clients.
Friday, May 8, 2009
How do websites earn money: Especially Google
The answer for certain websites like amazon.com or ebay.com or playboy.com is very obvious. They provide a service through internet and they charge money for the service done.
But websites like orkut or facebook or google search do not charge for the service they offer, instead they mainatain loads of data (obviously a lot of crap) for free. Do these websites get money from what you pay (The monthly bill you get) to your Internet service provider? The answer is a straight No. Then where do they get money from? The answer is through advertisements.
The actual question is why is google earning more than the remaining advertisement companies.The simple answer is its policies and its eficiency. But, its not as simple as it seems. The clients pay the advertising company(say google adsense) for every landing on their website,i.e., for every click on their ad placed by this company. The number of clicks on the client website increases the publicity of the website. Obviously out of such number of clicks the client may get benifited by few transcations.
The task of the advertising company is to place the ads in such a place where most of the users find it when they want it.Then google started showing ads in the form of sponsored links in the search results.These sponsored results appear at the side bar or at the top of the search in a different colour. However, the remaining result is shown as is. But there are cases where the user is interested in some product only if its shown to him(i.e. he has no need to search for it) , or he is completely unaware that such kind of service exists at all. Then he would not search for it and google wants to display only relavant ads to the user.In other words the user doesn't like to see an ad of shoe polish while searching for toothpaste.
Then came the adsense, in which google pays- a part of what it gets from its clients -a user for displaying ads on his blog, a maximum a user can get for his interests. And here comes the role of efficiency where google has to display the right ad which the user might be interested in. That is adsense words. The ads are displayed according to the content on the blog. Thus the rato of transactions to the number of landings on the webiste of the client raises, giving him a good opportunity to showcase his products to a wide audience and getting returns for the investment he has put on ads.The one displaying ads is also paid(indirectly, google has hired these people) and so he strives a lot to publicize his blog and mainatain it with more interest. Blogging can no more be called a waste of time in any case.
It is the policy of google that makes the client to go for it.The client pays for the number of landings on his website.The user can click on the ads repeatedly and get some bucks.Google is very strict about such people. It also moniters where the clicks are coming from and if more clicks are from the same IP address the user is forbidden from using adsense anymore.
This involves a lot of continuous work by google and they are the leading advertising company with more places to display ads the space is increasing day by day.
The other websites earn money by placing ads on their homepage or other pages.Orkut also displays ads after the user logs in, however it is a service provided by google which might later land you up in using their other service, adsense.
But websites like orkut or facebook or google search do not charge for the service they offer, instead they mainatain loads of data (obviously a lot of crap) for free. Do these websites get money from what you pay (The monthly bill you get) to your Internet service provider? The answer is a straight No. Then where do they get money from? The answer is through advertisements.
The actual question is why is google earning more than the remaining advertisement companies.The simple answer is its policies and its eficiency. But, its not as simple as it seems. The clients pay the advertising company(say google adsense) for every landing on their website,i.e., for every click on their ad placed by this company. The number of clicks on the client website increases the publicity of the website. Obviously out of such number of clicks the client may get benifited by few transcations.
The task of the advertising company is to place the ads in such a place where most of the users find it when they want it.Then google started showing ads in the form of sponsored links in the search results.These sponsored results appear at the side bar or at the top of the search in a different colour. However, the remaining result is shown as is. But there are cases where the user is interested in some product only if its shown to him(i.e. he has no need to search for it) , or he is completely unaware that such kind of service exists at all. Then he would not search for it and google wants to display only relavant ads to the user.In other words the user doesn't like to see an ad of shoe polish while searching for toothpaste.
Then came the adsense, in which google pays- a part of what it gets from its clients -a user for displaying ads on his blog, a maximum a user can get for his interests. And here comes the role of efficiency where google has to display the right ad which the user might be interested in. That is adsense words. The ads are displayed according to the content on the blog. Thus the rato of transactions to the number of landings on the webiste of the client raises, giving him a good opportunity to showcase his products to a wide audience and getting returns for the investment he has put on ads.The one displaying ads is also paid(indirectly, google has hired these people) and so he strives a lot to publicize his blog and mainatain it with more interest. Blogging can no more be called a waste of time in any case.
It is the policy of google that makes the client to go for it.The client pays for the number of landings on his website.The user can click on the ads repeatedly and get some bucks.Google is very strict about such people. It also moniters where the clicks are coming from and if more clicks are from the same IP address the user is forbidden from using adsense anymore.
This involves a lot of continuous work by google and they are the leading advertising company with more places to display ads the space is increasing day by day.
The other websites earn money by placing ads on their homepage or other pages.Orkut also displays ads after the user logs in, however it is a service provided by google which might later land you up in using their other service, adsense.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Blogging a Blog
How did a blog start?
And why are we getting a blog for free??
It was decades ago when there was no internet that the post offices had lot of work and had a lot of reputation everywhere in the world. Once the the network of computers started and has grown into the mammoth internet we are using now, the post offices are no more. The outburst of social networking sites made internet more popular than ever and anything in this world.
People who had a long list of friends used to update their friends through letters in the post office days. Later, on the evolution of internet, such kind of people used to buy webspaces and maintain such updates in their own sites.Such websites were called weblogs.they used to hire people with knowledge in html and used to make weblogs which has also become a fashion among such interested people.
Later the social networking sites also provided space for users, where the user only publishes some writing and the html page design work is taken up by the network administrator similar to the weblogs.As Internet became net the weblogs also became blogs, however we were given sub-domians like allmixfruitjuice in my case where the domain is blogspot.
So,you never worry about the page lay out and the formatting in maintaing a blog.You only publish matter along with any pics(or more) you have.
Well,you get it for free because most of us try to monetize the blogs which is also a source of income for the network administrators.You gain only a part of what they get.
And why are we getting a blog for free??
It was decades ago when there was no internet that the post offices had lot of work and had a lot of reputation everywhere in the world. Once the the network of computers started and has grown into the mammoth internet we are using now, the post offices are no more. The outburst of social networking sites made internet more popular than ever and anything in this world.
People who had a long list of friends used to update their friends through letters in the post office days. Later, on the evolution of internet, such kind of people used to buy webspaces and maintain such updates in their own sites.Such websites were called weblogs.they used to hire people with knowledge in html and used to make weblogs which has also become a fashion among such interested people.
Later the social networking sites also provided space for users, where the user only publishes some writing and the html page design work is taken up by the network administrator similar to the weblogs.As Internet became net the weblogs also became blogs, however we were given sub-domians like allmixfruitjuice in my case where the domain is blogspot.
So,you never worry about the page lay out and the formatting in maintaing a blog.You only publish matter along with any pics(or more) you have.
Well,you get it for free because most of us try to monetize the blogs which is also a source of income for the network administrators.You gain only a part of what they get.
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