Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

T he business newspaper Economic Times (Hyderabad edition) carried an interesting front-page article yesterday on successful Indian software products coming out of India . Over two-and-a-half million people worldwide, half of them in the US, are using word processors,creating slide-show presentations and doing their sums with the help of an online suite of software products built by technology start-up Zoho, located in Chennai. In Bangalore, InMobi,a company that builds technology for mobile internet advertising,is helping global advertisers and publishers reach 175 million customers every month across Asia,Africa,the UK and the US. ... while it took Infosys Technologies 18 years to record its first $100 million in revenue,product start-ups such as InMobi expect to do so within five years. In Kolkata, FusionCharts,a graphic data visualisation tool created by startup Infosoft Global is used by 1,500 organisations across the globe, including the US government. ..Webaroo’s SMSG...

A lthough I manage to speak decent Telugu (one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of India & spoken by over 74 million native speakers), I have to confess I'm poor at reading it (Why? That's another story). So for long, I wished there was a way to read Eenadu (the largest circulated Telugu news daily in Andhra Pradesh with over 13.5 million readers) in English. My wish has been granted, thanks to a Firefox extension called Padma , a Transformer for Indic Scripts, built by Nagarjuna Venna and Harshita Vani Padma can understand a variety of fonts used in the popular Telugu-based news websites & convert them to RTS (Rice Transliteration Standard for Roman Transliteration of Telugu) Here are the steps to read content from the online version of Eenadu (or Andhra Jyothy, Andhra Prabha, Vaartha newspapers) in transliterated English 1) Install the Padma extension in Firefox & restart the browser 2) On the Eenadu site , select content you wish to read in English ...

I came across a nice article on a Silverlight 4 application that does real-time face detection (without having to spend a dime on commercial licenses to any APIs) on the Coding4Fun site which features unusual but interesting applications built on the .NET platform. It's amazing how today's tools & technologies can provide "eyes" to the computer & process faces in photos, mostly for free. Newer versions of the popular photo organizing & editing software Picasa & Windows Live Photo Gallery now have a face detection & tagging feature which finds the people in your photos so that you can add a name to the face. Once you add the names to faces in one photo, the software matches similar faces automatically in your entire photo collection & organizes photos by the name tags. When Picasa is not sure with the face detection, it provides suggestions that require a manual confirmation.  Also see: Digital Photography Tips & Tricks #551

At any point of time, there are always some Developer contests running. These are especially good for students & hobbyists who can pit their wits against the best in the class, win goodies and get noticed. I plan to compile a list of contests that I come across & this will be a work in progress. Be sure to check the end dates of competitions. * .NET Champions: Submit a story or video on a successful & innovative solution you have developed on the Microsoft .NET Platform. Program is restricted to Technology Professionals and Academicians from India Prize: 1 Windows Mobile every month More details: .NET Champions website * Google Code Jam 2010: Google's annual programming competition, where thousands of coders around the world attack algorithmic problems in several 2.5-hour online rounds. Important dates: Registration Begins - April 7, 2010, Finals - July 30, 2010 Prize: Top 25 finalists will divide over $10,000 in prize money. More details: Code Jam site * G...

Like cycling or swimming, S harepoint is easy but you need help to get started. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step lives up to it's title of being a good step by step guide. It walks you through the maze of options in WSS 3.0 by gently holding your hand & showing the way. The instructions are straight-forward & in plain English, like any good technical book should be. The book is practical & engaging with it's hands-on exercises covering the basic features. The authors highlight important points & offer troubleshooting tips at appropriate places, such as this one - You can save documents directly to a document library by specifying the HTTP location in place of the hard drive, such as http://wideworldimporters/SharedDocuments/. Only saved documents can be attached to list items as attachments. This book answers all the HOWs of WSS but not the WHYs and for that you will need another resource. However, after finishing the 16 chapters of t...

I 've been reading with interest all the Windows Phone 7 news thats relevant for developers. I'll keep jotting down summaries here as I find them - Though Windows Phone 7 supports multi-tasking...developers won't have access to it in the initial release. Native applications are not permitted on Windows Phone 7 devices. Developer access to Microsoft SQL Server Compact, a free SQL Server embedded database, is not part of the initial release..."isolated" local storage based on XML files and cloud-based storage are alternatives Windows Marketplace is intended to be the sole means of finding and downloading phone applications ..fast and open process for certifying Windows Phone applications and deploying them to Windows Phone Marketplace With features like push notification service, WP7 is carefully engineered to minimize battery use (Source: ComputerWorld) Windows Phone 7 mobile OS will not include a clipboard capability for copy-and-paste operations - at leas...

Having just finished watching the movie Eagle Eye in which a malfunctioning super-computer called ARIA controls virtually anything electronic, I wondered how increasingly dependent we are getting on machines & technology. I remembered this funny poem that is a sort of an anthem for Luddites - Remember when........ A computer was something on TV from a science fiction show of note a window was something you hated to clean and ram was the cousin of a goat Meg was the name of my girlfriend and gig was a job for the nights now they all mean different things and that really mega bytes An application was for employment a program was a TV show a cursor used profanity a keyboard was a piano Memory was something that you lost with age a CD was a bank account and if you had a 3 1/2" floppy you hoped nobody found out Compress was something you did to the garbage not something you did to a file and if you unzipped anything in public you'd be in jail for a wh...

I 've been using Google Reader for over three years now . I also use it to store my bookmarks . I learnt about yet another use for Google Reader besides following feeds. Chris Heilmann uses Google Reader to be notified about trackbacks to his blog (& he actually discovered that there was a spam blog running surreptitously from his domain). Trackbacks, just in case you didn't know, are the messages typically displayed in the comments list of your blog whenever another blog links back to one of your posts. Trackbacks are fun because you get to know who is following you as well as in what context they are using your material. Here are the steps to  track trackbacks with Google Reader (or any other feed reader of your choice) - Search for back-links to your blog on Google Blog Search using the link: operator Subscribe to the Atom or RSS feed of the results in Google Reader Now, rather than check manually for trackbacks for each indvidual post or be notified about each ...

Manning's MEAP (Manning Early Access Program) books allow early access to electronic version of the chapters as they are completed. Manning provided me with a review copy of a MEAP version of The Engaging Web by Gabe Zichermann & Christopher Cunningham . Being inquisitive about technologies & ideas related to the Web, I dived into the book intrigued by it's title. Having finished reading it, I'm now sold on the idea that the concepts which make Games popular can be applied to engage users of a website and contribute to achieving the site's goals.  The term Funware is used in the book to describe any application that integrates social game design theories or mechanics with software and services to increase stickiness, user engagement and revenues. The design philosophy of Funware can basically be summarized as “every application and user interaction can be made more fun.” Through the systematic application of game design principles, fun can be embedded even wi...

If you are a developer & kept away from Silverlight, there is no time like now to start playing around with it. There have been a lot of interesting announcements at MIX10, an annual conference for web developers & designers. Silverlight is going to be at the heart of Windows Phone 7 Series development . Silverlight 4 RC ( What's RC? )  is out as well with a host of improvements (including Indic Support!) . The Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP has also been released. It consists of: * Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone * Windows Phone Emulator * Silverlight for Windows Phone * XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP So you now have all tools needed to build an app for Windows Phone 7 (the actual phone though will come later in the year) & prepare to submit an application to the Windows Phone Marketplace. Alongwith the motivation & free tools, there are also some great learning resources .

Unlike a regular Google Map that requires JavaScript to fetch the tiles that make up a map, Google Static Maps returns a single map image, is faster to load and does not need JavaScript. To get started, you can use the Static Maps Wizard or use the Static Maps API to customize the map with markers, lines & shaded areas to highlight a location, route or region. Like Google Charts , Google Static Maps API accepts inputs to generate a map through querystring values. The following URL shows the location of the British Library in Hyderabad as a map image - http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap? center=17.407256,78.472274 &zoom=16 &markers=17.407256,78.472274 &path=color:0x0000FF80|weight:5|17.42340,78.45685 &size=300x300 &sensor=false The URL parameters like maptype (optional), center, zoom, markers, path, size, format (optional), sensor are all well-documented . I learnt about this tool from Christian Heilmann's interesting article on Geo Locat...

Eustace Fernandes is the creator of the famous Amul Moppet that is as well known as R K Laxman's Common Man . In a country where humor is not taken seriously, these icons have managed to tickle the funny bone of millions of Indians. The wildly popular ad campaign for the Amul butter brand featuring the Amul girl started in 1966 and has been running for five decades now, picking whatever is in the news at that point of time, drawing some analogy with butter & delivering witty punchlines mostly in Hinglish . (Courtesy: Amul) Thankfully, the website of Amul has preserved these ads and they make for a interesting visual history of India. Also see: Software industry inspires cartoonists & vice versa Al Jaffee's MAD mag Fold-Ins in Flash

Tips from a recent NY Times article on increasing the battery life of portable devices like BlackBerry, iPhone, smartphones & laptops: Consider using G.S.M. over CDMA for your mobile Turn down the devices' screen brightness. Turn off Bluetooth & Wi-Fi when not required otherwise portable devices will continue to look for Wi-Fi or a Bluetooth headset, using power If you’re in a weak signal area turn off your portable device’s mobile capabilities as your phone must work even harder to find one, decreasing battery life. Set up your phone to check for e-mail and instant messages manually. Put your smartphone into "airplane mode" to cut power to a minimum. Disable Flash when not using wall power; Flash animations are a power hog Get an app to monitor battery life and shut off various functions that cut down on a mobile device’s effective power.

H aving tried out Google Transit two years ago in Seattle, I wished a similar facility was available for India & especially Hyderabad. I was happy to read that Google Transit now covers public transportation options in more than 445 cities across the world including Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai & Kolkata. You can find transit stops in your area & plan a trip with Google Transit using the local trains (not buses yet) in any of these four cities. The Hyderabad Multi Modal Transit System (MMTS) has become popular in a short span of time as it faster than other commuting options and inexpensive. I tried out a search for Public Transit options from Chandanagar to Somajiguda in Hyderabad The search shows the estimated travel time but unlike in the US, the fares are not shown. I wish Google Transit results also cover the state-run APSRTC bus service routes as well soon as thousands of Hyderabadis utilize it daily. Also see: Travel Planning & Reservation Tips using On...

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.-  Eleanor Roosevelt I've been recommending these articles & video to the Twitter uninitiated who ask me about it. A recent NYTimes article lists some ways in which you can make use of Twitter even though you may not choose to post anything: Custom news feed - you can track news on specialized topics that traditional media may not cover by aggregating as a RSS feed the tweets of folks who post on those topics Lists - Compile a list of people or topics you would like to follow Attend a conference, virtually - A lot of people these days tweet about conferences they are attending & provide updates in real-time. If you know the conference hashcode (for instance, #TED), you can catch up on what's happening there & be part of informal "chat rooms" . A hashcode is an informal way to "tag" something to a category or categories. What’s around you right now - You c...

Although I don't find much use for most of the goodies that Giveaway of the Day provides, I like going through the candid comments that the site's loyal & informed users share. The technical discussions about the products are interesting as some folks in that community compare it with other available alternatives including freeware. From such discussions, I've been able to learn about startling & trivial facts about PC utilities. For instance, I got to know that that there are tools to unlock restricted PDF documents & recover passwords of protected PDF files , EXIF cleaners to remove EXIF data from digital photos (EXIF stands for “Exchangeable Image File Format”, practically all digital photo cameras include additional information (metadata) with pictures or audio captured with the camera) - information that is otherwise not easy to find if not for this kind of forum.