Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

This Week I Learned: jQAPI.com  provides a quick way to browse jQuery documentation. It is very nice of them that they offer a downloadable copy of the site for offline reference. Local version of jqapi.com needs to run on a web server to work in Chrome or else the   --allow-file-access-from-files flag has to be used to run it within Chrome To edit a date within a cell in a Google Spreadsheet using a date-picker, double click on that cell. Apple relies more on people finding bugs than using automation-testing technology, according to former employees. Apple also relies heavily on outside developers to test early versions of the software to report glitches that can be fixed. Apple has a committee to determine what bugs need to be fixed called the Bug Review Board, known internally as BRB. "...software updates -- are a strength for Apple and something that is easier for them than for almost any other device or operating system maker, because Apple has full control of th...

The Case of the Bonsai Manager offers valuable suggestions on how managers can realize their full potential and avoid becoming stunted like the bonsai. The author, R Gopalakrishnan, is a well-respected Management veteran, well-traveled (during the first 30 years of his careers, he did not live in the same house for more than four years) and well-read (going by the diverse areas of knowledge he draws examples from). This qualifies him to be called a guru. It is fortunate for us that he sat down to write this very insightful book. Drawing on science facts from Nature, business case-studies and anecdotes from his rich personal experience, the author builds powerful examples to reinforce his ideas for self-development. The writing is informal, light-hearted and entertaining. The key learnings of each chapter are neatly summarized at the end. This makes it easier to put the ideas into action. There are also some self-awareness exercises that can be used to help personalize the in...

Let's say someone on a forum you participate in shares a link to a PDF  or Office document available online. It may not always be safe to download it  to your local computer. Even if it was safe, you may not want to download a large file just for some small information that you need. It is for this kind of scenarios that you can use Google Docs Viewer. Append the URL to the online document that you got to the URL of the Google Docs Viewer service, thus - https://docs.google.com/viewer?url= http://example.com/AHugeFile.pdf The pages of the document are presented as images making it easy to jump to a specific page of interest. You can also choose to download the document from Google's server instead of the downloading it directly from the original source, using the File > Print feature of the Google Docs Viewer and save the file as a PDF. Is that downloaded PDF safe to open on your computer? I don't know but because Google processed it, I assume it should be ...

For quite a while now, I've wondered why websites all of a sudden have been bothering to put a prominent notice that reads something like - " This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. " I've learnt that websites HAVE to do so because they are mandated by European and US Internet privacy laws.  The law applies to European companies even if their website is hosted overseas. This explains why google.nl has the cookie usage notification for that domain but not for google.co.in - Indian laws probably don't ask for it. (This kind of differentiation by country exists on other Google properties as well.  For political correctness , Google serves one map of India from its Indian domain & a different one when viewed from Google Map's HK TLD ) Did you know, a visit to a page on the Guardian's website may generate the following types of cookies : - Site performance cookies - Anonymous analytics c...

This Week I Learned: The touch-oriented design of WinJS is its main appeal. Wordament is built entirely on Microsoft Azure Cloud Services with no virtual machines. CEOs and executives in the tech industry share a mindset that's similar to Steve Jobs's - they limit how much technology their kids use at home. Jobs considered Dr Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, one of the great inventors of our time. Dr Land, was asked to leave his own company somewhat like Jobs in later years. While 1.75 billion people around the world already have a smartphone, the vast majority of the world’s population—over five billion more—do not At present, India contributes only a tiny fraction ($330 million) of Google's $55-billion revenue Despite enough production capacity in the India, 40% SIM cards sold in the country are imported, mostly from China. Consequently, all the secret keys used through the SIM card become available to personalised centres located outside judicial boundaries of In...

Google Street View was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expanded to include cities and rural areas worldwide. Maps with areas highlighted in blue support Street View imagery This feature of Google Maps provides a view of actual images of streets and objects as if you were walking there. According to Wikipedia , the option to view Street-level imagery from the past has been introduced in 2014. It is only available where Google has imaged a street more than once. To start viewing Street-level imagery click the Pegman in the bottom right corner. Any roads which have Street View imagery will appear highlighted in blue. Click on a highlighted part of the map to see Street View. If past imagery is available, there is an overlay in the upper-right corner with the address and Street View date which can be changed to view images over time. Street View image showing a Safeway supermarket. Notice a building under construction in the backgro...

This Week I Learned: Twitter determines the people you might enjoy following based on your recent visits to websites in the Twitter ecosystem (sites that have integrated Twitter buttons or widgets). Twitter's tailored suggestions  feature works by suggesting people who are frequently followed by other Twitter users that visit the same websites.  Redis takes underutilized resources on servers and turns them into valuable caching service. Twitter forked Redis 2.4 and added some features to it, so they are stuck at 2.4 (2.8.14 is the latest stable version). Redis drives Timeline, Twitter’s most important service. Timeline is an index of tweets indexed by an id. Chaining tweets together in a list produces the Home Timeline. Memcache didn’t work as well as Redis for the timeline.  - High Scalability According to this answer on SuperUser , it is possible to use an older version of Google Chrome by installing Chrome while offline. The file GoogleUpdate.exe found i...

I doodle, draw cartoons as a hobby and follow comic strips with interest. I enjoyed reading Brian Fairrington's Drawing Cartoons and Comics For Dummies . Though it appears to be written for an American audience, the book discusses tricks of the cartooning trade and numerous ideas that can be useful to aspiring cartoonists anywhere in the world. The author, a professional cartoonist, makes it clear in the beginning that this book is not a complete art course. It has step-by-step examples on how to draw characters and objects commonly used in cartoons and explains topics that make cartoons interesting like Lettering, Perspective and Layout. The author offers valuable tips on packaging and selling your work. There is a good deal of cartoon history that makes the book engaging. While drawing can be taught, I think drawing humorous cartoons is a highly individualistic process that cannot be taught. I feel, studying the work of the masters & drawing from the experience of exper...

Though implementing it requires complexity, risks, and costs it can mean increased security , better referral data (whenever traffic passes from a secure HTTPS site to a non-secure HTTP site, the referral data gets stripped away but if traffic passes to an HTTPS site, the secure referral information is preserved whether it originates from a site using HTTP or HTTPS), and a possible boost in rankings .  Make the switch to HTTPS if doing so is reasonable for your business. Google has announced they would reward sites using HTTPS encryption (though its not a major ranking factor) with a boost in search results. According to statistics from BuiltWith , 1.9% for the top million sites and 4.2% of the top 10,000 websites redirect users to SSL/HTTPS by default. An SSL certificate confirms the identity of the domain name that is operating the web site, encrypts all information between the server and the visitor and ensures the integrity of the transmitted information. ...

I wanted to access a Github Repository through Visual Studio on a machine that had Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. I learn that Visual Studio 2013 comes pre-packaged with Git support  and it is nice that there is a Express edition ( Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 with Update 3 for Web ) that can be downloaded for free. Unfortunately, it needs Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 which is a huge download  so I choose to go with Visual Studio 2012, which I already have. VS 2012 needs  Visual Studio Tools for Git . Visual Studio Tools for Git requires Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 before it can be installed. The download link cannot be copied so I type it out to get Visual Studio 2012 Update 2. That link takes me to a page that will be let me download Visual Studio 2012 Update 4 (not 2) . Fine. I download VS2012.4 which is just 1.3MB and proceed to install it. Before I do that I get this notification that "This installation will update all the Visu...

Some sites disallow pasting values into text boxes within a form. This can be annoying if the content that is to be copied is a very long or is so cryptic that you have to copy it from somewhere else carefully character by character. Some websites implement it using the onpaste event: <input class="yellowtextbox" name="txtCustomerID1" maxlength="10" onpaste="return false;" > Derek Prior has written a bookmarklet that deactivates the functionality that prevents values from being pasted into text fields. Copy the bookmarklet to your browser's bookmarklet bar and click on it while you're on the annoying web page that disables pasting values. His code works for password fields. It can be made to work for input fields like textboxes as well by commenting a couple of lines. var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input'); for (var i=0; i < inputs.length; i++) {  // if (inputs[i].getAttribute('type').toLo...

This Week I Learned: Chrome releases a new version approximately every  six weeks . Chrome DevTools Tip: Drag an image from the Resources Panel to your desktop to save it locally To open command prompt at a specific path, open the related folder in Windows Explorer. Then go to the address bar and type 'cmd'.  Google's Closure Compiler  tool which can minify JavaScript files, is available as an online service In the EU it is required you give some heads up to the user that you are using cookies. All it takes is a small message, a section in the disclamer, or a one-time pop-up (those are rare). Sometimes there is an opt-out possibility The Bing Translator app has a Camera translation feature that can translate signs, menus, newspapers, or any printed text with your device's camera in an instant The mobile version of Outlook.com can work on the desktop browser with the URL http://m.mail.live.com if the browser can emulate a mobile device. There is curre...

jQuery 2.x is a new improved version of the most popular JavaScript library.  Specifically, 2.x does not support legacy browsers such as IE6-8 but works with all modern browsers and in Node, browser extensions (Google Chrome add-ons, Mozilla XUL apps and Firefox extensions), and other non-browser environments (Firefox OS apps, Chrome OS apps, Windows 8 Store apps, BlackBerry 10 WebWorks apps, PhoneGap/Cordova apps, Apple UIWebView class, Microsoft WebBrowser control). jQuery 2.0 took 10 months in the making. The 2.0.0 file is 12 percent smaller than the 1.9.1 file. An app that only uses JSONP for $.ajax() and does not need to calculate offsets or positions of elements can exclude the offset and ajax/xhr modules . Considering all these new features in jQuery 2.x and my interest in the cookbook style of books that usually present key areas of a topic through practical examples or recipes, I was excited when I received a copy of ebook of  jQuery 2.0 Development Cookbook by Le...

".. all you data from “smart” devices could be accessible from internet,which is the  place of  anarchy .." Apple has acknowledged that computer hackers broke into the accounts of several celebrities and advises all users to always use a strong password and enable two-step verification.  It turns out two-factor authentication may have not entirely protected anyone in this case. The criminals apparently used ElcomSoft, a law enforcement tool(!), to expedite the extraction of information from iCloud backups, not protected by two-factor.   Being paranoid is probably a good thing to get used to . As the Internet evolves, there will probably be a security hack for every deterrent that the good guys enforce. Two-step verification can be one of many checks that regular users can make use of to ward off evil hackers. Josh Davis maintains a list of websites that offer 2-Step Verification  that you should check if you don't want to lose critical informat...

If you dynamically serve content (like ads, country specific links etc) to your website visitors based on their IP address, you'll need ways to test if that content is delivered appropriately. While nothing beats having actual people from the targeted locations to test it, there are inexpensive alternatives to verify IP address-based geo-targeted content by inspecting screenshots of rendered pages or directly interact with a web page from a specific IP address. I.  Web performance analysis tools  like WebPageTest.org can provide screen-shots & even a video of a web page as it loads. WebPageTest.org is a free service that allows you to submit a URL to test it on one of the following 35 locations: 1 Dulles, VA USA 2 New York, NY USA 3 Chicago, IL USA 4 Kansas City, MO USA 5 Denver, Colorado 6 Phoenix, AZ 7 Boardman, Oregon 8 Los Angeles, CA USA 9 Montreal, Canada 10 Toronto, Canada 11 Buenos Aires, Argentina 12 São Paulo, Brasil 1...

Sites like  SharedCount and Like Explorer  can fetch the count of "likes" and "shares" for a submitted URL. SharedCount also provides a free and paid API to simplify the process of getting the consolidated count if you wish to implement it on your own. Interestingly, the site has also listed how they fetch the counts from the major social networking services. The following services provide a JSON API for accessing the shared counts for specified URLs: Facebook: https://api.facebook.com/method/links.getStats?urls=%%URL%%&format=json Twitter: http://urls.api.twitter.com/1/urls/count.json?url=%%URL%%&callback=twttr.receiveCount Reddit:http://buttons.reddit.com/button_info.json?url=%%URL%% LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/cws/share-count?url=%%URL%% Digg: http://widgets.digg.com/buttons/count?url=%%URL%% Delicious: http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/json/urlinfo/data?url=%%URL%% StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com/services/1.01/badge.getinfo?url=%%...