|W|P|Hi
Online web applications is constantly being revolutionized for better user experience. In this process Sify has unveiled its new Mail application which is coined 'Sify IMail' to give new look and feel with a lighting mail client for its users. Its tagged under the 'Beta' Program [Safer way to say that I don't care about you!].
Look and Feel:
IMail web service looks very similar to the thick client of Mozilla, Thunderbird and Outlook. They have a tan gray background spread across all the screen giving a feel of working on your desktop with a thick client. All the design has been made inline and looks decent to their previous version. Icons seems very pale and out dated.
Features:
Features listed include:
1. Quicker Download of Emails: All your mails, irrespective of their size, would download in just a jiffy !
2. More Conent on the Page: Your home page you can view up to hundreds of your mails listed in orders of your preference.
3. OneClick away Features: All functions and operations are very closer to users and get executed much faster than they ever did before. Right click enabled per mail selection/operation. Dropdown 'Move' options in GMail style.
My Take:
The gap existing between the os specific native thick clients and the internet based web thin clients is diminishing with every new application. Computer literates have a common feeling that native client's are much faster to the web client's and to remove this very thought web applications with the look and feel of native client is getting more popular. In general considering the native client most of the time we feel that the data is got from the next cubicle but web application tries to fetch it from the next planet. To remove this opinion applications are now faster in processing using wonderful technology and looking native. Only concern would be answearing this tough question "Whether the new era internet users going to love this?"
Here in Sify IMail the client is missing any innovation and looks very ordinary. Its faster compared to the older version in which every request had to refresh the screen. The client is faster and never needs a refresh for any action what so ever. The web client has only the fundamental features of a Mailing service and has no innovation except the right click per mail operations. I personally found many issues while checking its functionality. Mails got fetched or did not fetech them in order, login fails some times throwing peculiar stylesheet errors, etc. The UI looks very pale and has no choices to impress the user.
Letz all forgive the UI and functionality issues under the 'Beta' law.
PS: Yahoo! has also unveiled its new Mail Client here .
|W|P|112740357285508867|W|P|Sify IMail|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comTips and Tricks to Create Secure Passwords:
- Choose a password with at least 8 characters. This is common sense and will get you on your way to create a strong password. Most services will not let you pick a password with less than 8 characters. As a general rule, the more characters in a passwords, the longer it will take to crack it.
- Use a combination of different types of characters, including uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. It may also be a good idea to include space between strings of characters as most crackers will use brute force attacks to figure out passwords by running a dictionary application which runs through common words, which leads us to…
- Check your password against a password strength checker. These services will look and your password and tell you if they are strong or not. SecurityStats.com has a good one, right here.
- Do NOT use words found in a dictionary. Common words such as animals, names of friends or family, birthdays, the name of your school or company etc. are not good choices for passwords. They can easily be figured out. If it’s personal information that can easily be learned, avoid it.
- If you were given a default username and password, change it! This is especially important with routers which usually use admin (for DLink routers) or linksys (for Linksys routers) as the username, and password as your password. This is bad security!
- Do NOT repeat characters or sequences of characters. This means avoid using combinations such as 111 or 123 in a password. The same goes for letters which appear together on a keyboard like QWERTY.
- Do NOT use the same password on every site. This is a huge security risk, and if someone were to figure out one of your passwords, they’ll be able to access any and all information you’ve made available.
- Encrypt your passwords. This is probably one of the best ways to keep your information secure. Encryption algorithms are a dime a dozen and choosing a good one shouldn’t be too hard. Blowfish is a good choice. There are applications and online services available which will encrypt passwords for you.
- Create your own password encryption algorithm. This is not terribly difficult to do and could make your passwords pretty safe if you use a unique algorithm. You can create an algorithm in which you substitute letters on a web address for numbers or special characters. For example, let’s say my algorithm looks like this: a=3$Av, b=#_|f and e=h03FT^ and I’m substituting letters in a web address for these values. If so, my password for eBay would look something like h03FT^#_|f3$Avy by simply substituting characters. Do not use this as your own algorithm, but it should give you an idea on how to come up with your own protection scheme. For more information on creating your own password algorithms, check out the Security Now Podcast, show #4. Steve Gibson has a nice discussion on there on how to do it.
- If you create your own encryption, do not use simple substitution! Replacing one letter for another will not necessarily make you more secure, particularly if you’re using a web address or name as your base password. Be creative, and make those substitutions complex.
- Try a passphrase. Passphrases are longer, and thereby a bit more difficult to crack. Use the title of your favorite movie, or maybe a line from your favorite song. Got it? Ok, now encrypt it!
- DO write your passwords down. This is a touchy subject and different security experts may have different opinions on the matter. The point is that unless you have superhuman memory, if you create a very strong password, chances are that it will be difficult to remember, but…
- Do NOT keep your passwords in an easy to access place. People will often write passwords down on a post-it note and paste it to their monitor or keep a list of passwords in a text file. If you write a password down, lock the piece of paper in a locked cabinet or keep it somewhere hidden. If you decide to use a piece of software to track your passwords, make sure it is also locked with a secure and unique password to keep it from prying eyes.
- Never give your password out to anyone. Many people receive phishing e-mails from companies pretending to be other companies (particularly eBay, PayPal, or AOL). Companies will never directly ask you for your password so do not give it to them.
- If someone is sitting near you or standing behind you, be sure to cover up the keyboard as you type. You never know what that person may be trying to do.
- Change your password from time to time. While you may not necessarily know if someone has gained access to your password, you can keep yourself safer by changing your password every 3 to 6 months to make sure that if anyone has figured it out, they’ll be locked out of your information after some time.
Blinklist Bookmarks
|W|P|112713924433090975|W|P|BookMarks|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comFortune telling based on palmistry, astrology, numerology, horoscope,etc is very famous in India. Today this has turned to be a profession and a source of income to many people. Since ages immemorial people in this sub-continent are very religious and fortune cautious, so they constantly check their fortune status with the help of these fortune tellers. Just do a Google on 'Fortune Telling + India' to find a torrent of 1,290,000 links.
Today, after a tiring journey from my aunt's home, I was walking back to my flat. It seemed as if someone were following me but I neglected it just reminding myself that I was just one year old in this city and am not hostile to anyone important[hope you recall many movies]. After some time I could not resist and turned back like a hero to see a boy. The boy was about 16 years old and seemed to be very religious with all kunkam and vibudhi spread over his forehead. He had a bag swinging against his shoulder and some books in it. I was pleased and asked him what he was expecting from me and to my surprise he said "I will tell your fortune, please show me your hand". I simply said 'No Thanks' but he was following me like a shadow. I repeatedly tried to convince him that I don't believe in all those but he repeatedly conveyed that he was an expert and everything would happen as he predicts. I was fed up after some time and smiled at him as a sign of willingness. He said me to sit on the pile of sand on the road side but I insisted him to come to my flat and surprisingly he was crazy enough to walk half a kilometer.
I started walking towards my flat accompanied by him. Meanwhile I asked him 'Where do you come from?' and 'Is this your profession?'. He said that he was from Maharashtra and fortune telling was his family profession. Next I asked him 'Did to study?' He conveyed that he didn't study fortune telling and he practiced it from his grandfather since he was young enough. He even said that he never attended a school but knows only to read Tamil but cannot write. He even said that their mother language had no written script but was only used vocally. After a while he got tired and said why don't we finish it here since he has to walk all the way back. I felt it reasonable and sat comfortably on the pavement adjacent to the road.
He starting with 'Please open you palm wide enough that every mark on it would appear.' I did so and he started saying that my hand would take 21/- service charge[I was happy that it was tax included]. I don't believe in all this but anyway thought of helping him. He explained me that the cost was determined with the number of points[both +ve's and -ve's] he was about to convey. His predictions include:
a. My hand represents a 'Lotus Flower'. As lotus flower slides away any water drop, I do not care about what others think and won't face any complaints or hostility from others.
b. In next 21 days something very special is going to happen. :-D
c. He said that I must have got married at 21 otherwise would only get married at 29 :-(
d. Don't believe your friends. People around you are as poisonous as snakes are. Don't stand as a surety for you friends.
e. Just don't declare before an action is done.
f. You are going to fly abroad very soon.
These are some of the positives I remember. Interestingly he explained me that good things and bad things must not be said at the same place. So we shifted our location to the opposite pavement. There he said that something serious was going to happen in your life, so just think of a number below 500. I thought and said 365 and he said that was a very good number and I have to give it to god. He then continued asking me to keep that amount in my hand and close my fist. Fortunately[u will know it further] I didn't have so much and said that I had only 80/- and I closed it in one fist and closed the other fist also. He asked me to think of two god's against each fist and I followed him. He tried to predict the god and fist combination but it failed. To my surprise he said that there is something serious going to happen in you family and I need to do some anna danam[nice idea]. He then shocked me saying that I can even give that amount to him as 'kanuka'[gift] and they would do the relavent puja's[prayers]. I was unmoved and said him that I will take care of anna danam and prayers. He repeatedly tried to convince me and at last even tried to frighten me saying some bull shit predictions.
I candidly said him that I am going to pay only 21/- what I promised. He again tried to frighten me about misfortunes but I remained unmoved. Then he came down to 20/- 'kanuka' in Indian style and even went down to 10/-. I handed him 21/- and I said that if some prediction turned true I would give you the total 365/-. I pointed out my flat and asked him to comeback after 21 days to know if some miracle had happened. He left silently talking to himself[not really].
Waiting for those 21days to complete. Now I understand why 'fortune teller' profession is always at momentum.
This happens to be a very common scene in the sub-continent. Everyone would have at least one such context, just recall!!!!
|W|P|112706302603786148|W|P|[Memories] Fortune Teller!|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.com I had solved many puzzles which appeared in various examinations I attended but never faced a puzzle in my own life. Yesterday we solved a big puzzle which was troubling us since last 6 months.
We live in Pearl Jaya apartments which has 10 flats . The flats had a staircase running through bisecting the apartments. These flats was aligned such that ground floor and first floor had 4 flats and each floor had 2 flats on either side of the staircase while the terrace had 2 apartments one on either side of the staircase. It had 3 empty and 7 occupied flats. Every flat has its own meter and an electricity card corresponding to it.
Don't panic if someone is getting the feel of the puzzles they have solved in their entrance exams, infosys exam, aptitude tests or higher education. I am not trying to test you but just wanted to make the scenario more clear[becoz I don't like cross questions ; ->]. So here continues.......
When we rented Pearl Jaya flats we were provided with a false electricity card with wrong electricity reading. At the initial days we did not bother about the card until we got our first bill which seemed way ahead of our usage. Reporting this to our owners they always sent back the same card saying that it was the only card that was left and surely that must be yours. We lost interest and said we are not going to pay the bill until we got our exact electricity card. The same scene was iterating every 2 months for the past 6 months. In between the card we were holding had the meter number which was not ours so one flat was suffering from current disconnection every now and then. They were claiming to the electricity board that they have already paid the bill and would regain current in next 24 hours. We were never close to those people, never even uttered Hai!, so we were never told about this was happening becoz of us and they also did not know that we were not paying the bills.
Fed up with all the reporting, I was around 7.30pm yesterday when some of the flat owners united together to resolve this issue. Everyone had their problems regarding electricity bill mismatch. We asked the watchman to get all the electricity cards from everyone to cross check the meter readings and card numbers. Meanwhile we were making jokes/comments of the apartment owner and the watchman. He bought back 6 cards and reported that one house was locked up.
We went ahead exploring each meter switching of and on the main again and again to check first which meter belonged to which house. This may sound simple but took more time to switch off and switch on the lights/fans in house to check whether the meter was working properly first. This tedious process took around 45minutes. We concluded the show when we confirmed and marked each meter against their owner.
As the next step we went ahead checking the electricity card. To our surprise all the cards tallied except two cards which had the same meter number of it. Personally I observed that their card has a number scratched and a rewritten number. Now everyone knew why the other flat people suffered from current disconnection regularly. The house were angry on us for a second. I said them there are two things to observe,
a. Two cards having same number.
b. The number was units before 2 months had already exceeded the present reading.
c. Our number was scratched on your card and you put your own number.
They softly admitted that they were given the same card and they have not scratched anything. Later after a long discussion we didn't find any solution except changing the card numbers and informing it to the electricity board. They said they would do all that relevant for the name to be changed. Hence the problem solved.
This is just one among the very common scene's that people living in flats/apartments face. If anyone want to share their experiences, don't hesitate becoz that can make entry into the checklist of people who are newly renting/owning flats/apartments.
Share links/comments about your experiences!
Listen to this article
|W|P|112670298334316855|W|P|[Memories] Unsolved Puzzle till Yesterday!|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comEvery summer vacation our family would visit our 100year old Grandfathers house[bungalow sounds better] at Chennai to make the holidays more exciting. It was my 5th standard summer vacation is when there happened to be ice rain at Chennai which I could still remember as the 8th wonder. It was the vacation where all our cousins united togather to hanky panky. Everyday our enjoyment was filled with games, comments, fightings, crying and our favourite cartoons. Days passed by and it was only a week for everyone of us to depart to their natives, so we thought of having lot more fun. From then on every evening we enjoyed flying kites and betting on kites for choclates, fruits, toys and goli's [famous indian childhood play item]. One afternoon, suddenly out of blue moon, it drizzled for some time and we found no bounds of enjoyment dancing and playing with the rain drops. Since it was hot out at Chennai we spent that night chitchatting and palying at the terrace of the house in the moon light enjoying the chillness that was hugging us from every dimension. Soon everyone were tired playing under twilight and continued to sleep with sweet dreams.
Some of our cousins including me woke up very early that morning listning to birds cherping and vehicles move. We were actually lazy to get up and start the day so quickly. I started recalling many events that happened in my school and everyone continued to have their turn and time passed very quickly. Slowly the sun came stright into our eyes and thought it was time for everyone to get ready and started to wake up everyone. Everyone as an usual tradition playfully started maching one after the other to reach the terrace door. There was one long passage which we need to cross and it was wet but it did not bother us atall.
As we stepped on the wet passage we felt as if our legs were pulled by some external force and everyone ran back to safer dry floor. Finally after lots of pep talk on this we concluded that there was mild currect passing by the floor which was very usual in that old house. We had no escape but to cross the wet passage to get into the house. First I tried to be brave and said that its nothing but mild currect flowing and it does not harm anyone in anyway. I was weak at heart but always liked to show off and this personality of mine got me into trouble. I put my first step on the wet floor and I felt as if something was tickling me and continued with the next step. With my both foot of wet floor I could feel something pulling me into the earth. My heart was very cautious but my mind said me dont panic. After a second could not bare the fear and stepped back. All my cousins were looking curious at me and I said I was just showing you how easy it was. They all said, is it so easy then why dont you cross to the other side. I felt in my heart that it was a nice question but didn't really know the risk involved.
Encouraging myself, I prayed god for a second and started moving towards the wet passage. I closed my eyes and started running ot the other end by stretching my legs as much as I can. I could feel that every foot I laid was influenced by some force pulling to bury me under the earth. Since the passage was only 5meters I managed to cross it in 12steps[approx.] taking around 5 seconds. When I reached the other end I opened my eyes slowly hearing my cousins clap and shout hurray! I suddenly felt that I have succeeded the greatest risk of my life and stood stiff smiling at my cousins. Soon everyone knowing that it had nothing serious crossed the wet passage running one after another reaching the other end safely. Each one after crossing were smiling as if they also have achieved the life's greatest event.
This happened in the last few days of your summer vacation. With all the sweet memories we departed to our home towns leading our usual school life, recalling the deeds among friends. I hope everyone of my cousins still remember those courageous moments.
Have you any experience like this????
|W|P|112661532778756061|W|P|[Memories] Walking on Current|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comWeb is turning out a complex entity that contains a variety of information from variety of source types. Today web is not fixed[static], and is served dynamically "on the fly." In most cases dynamic web pages generated is rendered from the data stored in the database against you. This concludes that significant amount of valuable information on the Web is generated from databases. In fact, it has been estimated that content on the deep Web may be 500 times larger than the fixed Web. Since most of the data lies beneath the Internet 'Deep Web' or 'Invisible Web' was coined.
The static Web is referred to as the "surface Web." Invisible Web is more an search engine centric term so Deep Web is used extensively and I am going to follow that through out. The data stored in the database and the non-textual files are referred to as Deep web. Data from the database over the internet is not accessible without an user query. Since there is an limitation in accessing the most granular data from most of the database's the 'Deep Web' came into existence.
Web technology has developed leaps and bounds proportionally mounting greater amounts of information on the Web. These databases have become the primary source of information funding. Today Google has an answer by making all the non-textual files searchable but mind you this is only a small fraction of the data compared to the actual data that lies in the database. Curious enough I started exploring "Who is playing in this game?".
Searching on the Net I found CompletePlanet [powered by BrightPlanet] which positions itself as Search Engine of Deep Web searching more than 70,000 databases found around the world.
AdventNet has an unique product called SQL One [Beta and 'Search you DataBase' caption] which indexes the configured database regularly and searches seems to have most accurate results. It has a demo and a downloadable product with neat usability. They have a better search options,operators support and people who know SQL can use it more effectively. Organizations which plays more with data residing in the database can extract more value by tooling this for 'Data Troubleshooting','Data Searching' and 'Data Integrity'.
Deep Web has an answer in the form of Google[Seaching the static textual files] and SQL One[searching the data rich database]. Hence looking forward to see these complementary technologies unite to make this whole web [both surface and deep] searchable.
Deep Web FAQ
Article: Albeny
|W|P|112653135509929640|W|P|The Deep Web - Hidden Internet!|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comJust happened to come across this mind boggling personal page start.com. An impressive application/web service where people to create their personal page.
reviews: BetaLift
Read/Write Web
Start.com, has an search box which is a door to the msn search engine. People can personalize their page with various readymade components like weather,time and rss feed aggregator. Personally, it ranks top in terms of user experience and ease of use. The start.com has been released in milestones in terms of different approaches of usability like Start1.com Start2.com
Doesn't these sound like something we already know/used/heard. Yes, you are right its Google Personal. It has all the features of what Google has got for it personal page with a different color and execution. Usability and look/feel is what has given birth to this new kid start.com
Here is the review of Google Personal vs MSN Start.com
My personal Opinion:
I don't find this more useful when I have an Web based aggregator like Bloglines and Bookmarking sites like Blinklist.com which does all that work for me. I have many extraordinary features which makes these web services a must for me. So I really don't find enough values until I can create my own CSS, put in my custom HTML and many other components to make this more usable/flexible adding more meaning to 'personal'.
start.com is impressive with the functionality but whole site simply covers most of their site with text. Surely Internet users today would never like to see only text spread around their homepage.
Some of the features I would like Start.com or any damn personal page to have,
1. Personal Information:
Personal information column, where people can enter all the possible personal information and users can choose whether to expose them to the public or keep it private. This is only optional.
2. Public Home Page:
Everyone should be able to expose their page to public with a simple url unlike existing start.com, their url is close to some Higher engineering mathematics equation. The more simple it is , the more people would like. What we can do is just update everything in a cookie and have a 'Go Live' or 'Publish' option where you store the configuration string[what details you store in a cookie] in the database to expose it to the outside world. If users want to expose it to public then it has to be mandatory to do the above step. Hope this would mean a lot for Personal pages like this.
3. JS Solid Widgets:
You have a Ticking Clock which is not more usable when its text. A JavaScript widget which gives the feeling of real clock would take this site to next level. Similarly a calculator, calendar. Just we can try to come out with cool widget creation api in Java Script mimicking Konfabulator[Yahoo! Widgets]. This is the best way to build a community around you.
4. Notes:
A small note , with 3D effect of a page , where people can write their reminders. This wont be a application which reminds you with some alarms but simply shows what's up for the day. It can be scrollable and can have the +-5 days notes. This would help every Internet user to manage his work.
5. Calender:
B'Days,Anniversaries, many other most important moments can be assigned to the calendars date and it would just display what's special that day. You can try to sync with some standard pre-build database of special days.Today's activities must be non-pop ups but pure JavaScript on user's request. Think this would be handy with simple UI.
6. Dictionary:
Think about the youth you are concentrating on and what else can you give them.
7. YubNub type Intelligent Command line interface for web:
Ya, Command line interface , would be an apt match for WEB2.0 Widget. This can never escape Internet masses applauds. Hope we can make a difference by using it intelligently.
8. Bookmarks:
People can have this as an widget, where people can see all their bookmarks and even have provision to bookmark their links which must be quick add unlike traditional blink bookmark tool. This is nothing but again a RSS aggregator widget with some colors.
9. Colors and Design:
I would love something like Blogger exposing their CSS for people where people can design their own themes. This must be handy but I am still young here to match the necessity. start.com is impressive with the functionality but whole site simply covers most of their site with text. Surely Internet users today would never like to see only text spread around their homepage.
10. Image Widget:
An widget which would help users to upload image/provide image link and add description. Users can sort its position as they like and place according to their preferences.
11. Comments:
Just like your page number trick in BlinkList, people can just click on 'Leave Comment' and ti would turn out to be a text box where people can leave comments. The last five comments would get displayed, otherwise can make it more configurable.
12. Custom HTML Widget:
We can provide with users where they can just provide the HTML what needs to be displayed and we can do it. This would be the real power and differentiates from the competition. This would have more flexibility to create their own custom widgets.
13. Polls:
Can perform pools and the results are shown as bar graph for every click when performed. Don't ask me about secured polling here.
This is for now. Thank you.
|W|P|112637181761821708|W|P|start.com|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comI have been a hard core C programmer for almost one and a half years . Recently I was struck by PHP to give life to my funproject CareerTag. I started searching for PHP articles on net and found php.net most informative for a beginner like me. I found it not more different from C but could find lot of ease and flexibility as I started using it for coding my fun projects, which went on like breeze. The major flexibility and advantages I found in PHP includes:
1. Variables:
PHP does not require variables to be declared and it can directly used in any part of the program. The variables are loosely typed and variable data types can be changed according to the data initialized. Variable manipulation, check for set, check for empty functions remain very handy.
2. Memory Allocation:
There is a concept of pointers in PHP but thank god I am not asked to allocate/free memory for each variable I use during runtime.
3. Compilation:
I need not compile any coded php file for execution. The source file is interpreted and executed during runtime. I don't know whether this sounds good performance but burden on developer is reduced many folds.
4. Error Handling :
Error Handling is a diamond which would pin point your error with line number runtime.
These have been very handy during development and made me learn php in just 2 days. Now that I know php I have done some fun projects,
http://jobsmania.tollfreepage.com/questionbank.php
http://careertag.tollfreepage.com
Hope you liked these, any suggestions/comments are welcome.
|W|P|112636747137059458|W|P|PHP - my experience!|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comHello Friends,
I am Rajesh Segu. In short I value;
In Life:
Character is the crown of life.
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
It is not so important who starts the game but who finishes it.
It is not your aptitude, but your attitude, that determines your altitude.
It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.
At Work:
TeamWork: None of us is as smart as all of us. Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.
Skills: Technical skill is the mastery of Complexity, while Creativity is the mastery of Simplicity.
Ethics: Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.
Hope by now, you would have got an idea of 'What kind I am'.
Personal Details:
|W|P|112592976825336350|W|P|I am!|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.comDob:--------------- Oct 2nd
Qual:-------------- B.Tech., Computer Science
Prof:--------------- Software Engineer
Nati:--------------- Indian
Thank you.
ps: rough copy only!
|W|P|hi this is freshersdream subramaniyam,keep on continuing your great work
Read this article CNet News
"Google has reached the internet masses belonging to the urban areas but now with this initiative I think google would hit every rural home soon." --My World: Rajesh Segu
Please don't stop me let me "fly for sometime" knowing that I am recognized for the second time by the external pioneers. The first was when I wrote an article on 'Tagging' and now when I write on 'Broadband on Current Wires'.
I don't have words to express my joy and satisfaction. I am not that regular blogger but all these are pushing me forward to write very innovative and interesting stuff regularly.
Guys! from today "a blog everyday".
|W|P|112592863299697701|W|P|Again, I am noticed!|W|P|rajesh.segu@gmail.com