Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

In its Events That Shaped The Wired World section, Wired magazine credits Scott Fahlman with first using the Smiley :-) & "Frowny" :-( emoticons in electronic messages . On Sept. 19th, 1982, he had proposed on the computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University that the smiley be used as a joke marker & "frowny" to mark things that are NOT jokes. Scott came up with the idea after reading “lengthy diatribes” from people on the message board who failed to get the joke or the sarcasm in a particular post .

Firefox 3.x used to have an option to block pesky images that were not part of the context of page that you were viewing - like image ads. You just had to right click on the image, & select "Block images from {domain serving the image}" to never see any images from that domain again. That context menu option is missing from Firefox 4  & above. It turns out that it is still there but there are some additional steps to reach it. Right click on the image on the page you are viewing in Firefox & from the context menu, you have to select View Image Info & click on the checkbox "Block images from {site name}". Thanks RalphB Also see: HOW TO block IFRAME based ads

A web developer's education is never finished. Here is a list of trends & reference tables that, in my opinion, every web developer should track - HTTP Archive - Trends in web technology, interesting stats, repository of web performance information Browser Security Handbook - Key security properties of contemporary web browsers  HTML 5 Reference Table HTML 4/ XHTML Reference Table CSS 3 Reference Table CSS 2 Reference Table PPK's Browser Event Compatibility Tables - Desktop , Mobile HTML5 compatibility on mobile and tablet browsers work in progress...

If you need to find hardware details of your Windows PC, like any of the following - Version including Service Pack used Window Experience Index Processor RAM System type (32-bit or 64-bit OS) Computer name, domain & workgroup settings Windows Product Id & whether Windows is activated ... there is a easy keyboard shortcut to reach for this info rather than going for it through Control Panel -  Windows key + Pause/Break I discovered this shortcut in  this Scott Hanselman article that has other great tips for maintaining your PC

I follow the Personal Technology page of "Economic Times" with interest for their India-centric coverage of gadgets & IT topics. This week ET listed 10 useful USB accessories . Among them, although a USB-based Hub & Mug Warmer, Cooler, paper shredder, Vaccum Cleaner have some novelty, they didn't appeal to me as much as these - Jabra Speak 410 - USB powered speakerphone ... with integrated cable managment system. Weighing a mere 250g, this speakerphone also has a headset port where you can plug-in any 3.5mm headphones in case you want the call to be private. (Rs 8,000 from www.jabra.com) USB Display  - This little monitor is completely powered off USB – just one cable is needed for both the video signal and power. The 7-inch 800 x 480 pixel panel is touchscreen enabled too – you can move certain items onto it to clear space from your primary display. The best part is that since the display connects via USB, your regular VGA/HDMI out is unused and can be used

Weather isn't a hot topic in India (as it is in the US) & forecasts aren't taken seriously. Possibly to promote awareness, the Indian Meteorological Department has put out an ad in today's Times of India (with a glaring typo -Meteorological is misspelt as Meteorogical right at the beginning) to publicize the features if its site - IMD.GOV.IN click image to enlarge Besides a host of services & forecasts, the site publishes 3-day city forecast for 100 cities. Unfortunately, neither this nor the information from other weather forecasts are accessible as RSS feeds or through widgets as on the US National Weather Service website . As such, there is no easy means by which other websites or individuals can consume useful weather information. There is a toll free number (1800 180 1717) to get city weather forecasts & observations but the site lacks services that have a "push" mechanism A better designed site with interactive features (better map

Microsoft's Web Hosting Gallery has a neat tool to let you search for hosting providers based on parameters like type of server (shared, dedicated, virtual server) cost, technologies supported (Frameworks, Databases, Publishing protocols), storage, number of SQL Databases, number of e-mail accounts, bandwidth per month, support, uptime. Also see: Tips on ASP.NET Hosting & Deployment