Month: January 2006

Here�s an interesting read. Looks like Microsoft�s Sleeping with the Enemy !

ââ?¬Å?An investigative report into the Linux lab at Microsoft has revealed some interesting twists to Microsoftââ?¬â?¢s often stormy relation ship with the world of Open Source Software (OSS).

The lab, which opened last September, is run by Bill Hilf, a former programmer for IBM. Originally, it was set up to ââ?¬Å?help Microsoft understand the phenomenon of open source software and improve our products because of that.ââ?¬? But over time, the role of the lab has changed, from merely wanting to understand the ââ?¬Å?enemyââ?¬? towards a tentative effort to working with them.ââ?¬?
Link: Microsoft�s Linux lab works on Open-Source interoperability

Yahoo Inc. on Thursday acknowledged handing over search data requested in a subpoena from the Bush administration, which is hoping to use the information to revive an anti-porn law.

Microsoft loves using code names. If you can remember what the monikers Longhorn, Orcas, Whidbey, Whistler, Janus, Hydra, Bobcat, and Thunder represented within Microsoft at one time, then my hat’s off to you. If that’s the case and you are a Microsoft code name fanatic, then you also probably know that the successor to Windows Vista is code-named Blackcomb, or so it was. The next, next generation Windows operating system is now being called Vienna, as confirmed by Robert Scoble via Channel 9.

This tutorial describes how to set up database replication in MySQL. MySQL replication allows you to have an exact copy of a database from a master server on another server (slave), and all updates to the database on the master server are immediately replicated to the database on the slave server so that both databases are in sync. This is not a backup policy because an accidentally issued DELETE command will also be carried out on the slave; but replication can help protect against hardware failures though.

Some commercial outfits are painting giant ads on their roofs for the benefit of the aerial/satellite photos used by services like Google Earth/Google Maps. Link (via Digg)

The government of India has already announced plans for a lunar space mission — and after that, it’s aiming for Mars.

Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair said the United States and Europe appear to favour a global partnership in this context, and India would be more than willing to be a partner in this huge exercise. “For mankind, the next interesting thing (after moon) is Mars,” Nair told PTI in Bangalore.”To reach there and make an investigation is a big challenge. After the moon, Mars could be logical step,” he said. India has proposed an unmanned scientific mission to moon (Chandrayaan-I) in early 2008, in a Rs 380 crore project. The 525 kg satellite is planned to be launched on board India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and placed in 100 km polar orbit around the moon.

Link to item on Bruce Sterling’s blog.

http://www.ifizzle.com/ifizzle.html

A great website and shows how much can be done with flash

Soon we will be carrying paperthin laptop�s which will be used just as an input/output device with actual ( or major) processing & storing happening at remote servers. Thanks to internet, providing a stable communication pipe .

There are already few commonly used desktop applications out there one can use online such as NumSum (Spreadsheet), Writely(WordProcessor) which uses AJAX as its core. This somehow recalls my early days of computing when I worked on novell networked system which worked on local network. Now we have a BIG network out their courtesy internet and so many software companies builing applications on top of it.

Another interesting online application is YubNub which claims to be a ââ?¬Ë?command line for webââ?¬Ë? having Linux kinda flavour.

Things will continue moving in the above direction and we may soon be seeing more of similar applications� just need to think what they can be.

Good news for web-experts, good days ahead !!!

In the midst of re-designing SEOmoz I decided I really needed a change of pace. I’ve only lightly used AJAX, so I decided to build an AJAX powered tool that looks up the geographic location of an IP address. It seemed simple enough to build and I figured it’d be good practice for some upcoming SEO tools we’ve got in the works. The database I used to look up the location of the IP addresses provides the latitude and longitude of the targeted IP, so I threw google maps in the mix as well (GG maps accepts latitude and longitude for designation locations). The coordinates provided for each IP can be a bit weird (apparently the IP at my residence is in the middle of the mountains near north bend), but it’s at least good for narrowing down the city, state, and country of the IP you’re targeting.

Check it out if you have a chance: AJAX Powered IP Location Lookup.

Here�s a cool Ajax based file upload implemented in PHP. Source code is also available at the site
Link: Asynchronous image file upload without Ajax