Latest Computer Technology | New Computer Technology

Latest Computer Technology From Microsoft AutoCollage 2008

2008-09-08T03:18:00.000-07:00

AutoCollage 2008 Latest Image Processing Technology

Microsoft remains in news for releasing newer and newer technology whether it be Popfly , LucidTouch or Surface Computing. Microsoft keeps churning out latest computer technology to cope up with the competitors. In this series this technology giant has released yet new technology which makes creating collage of a group of photos a child's play.

AutoCollage 2008 is the name of the latest image processing software from Microsoft which helps anyone create collages. Like we do in Google's Picasa software.Although this latest computer technology will not come free, there is a 30 day trial version ready to be downloaded at company's website.

This latest technology uses automatic face detection mechanism , which is a gargantuan task in itself, to organize photos neatly in a single beautiful collage. So what is so cool about this latest computer technology. The main challenge behind this technology is to devise an automatic procedure through which a software can construct a visually appealing collage using a collection of images as input. And the big deal is the output collage must be so as to represent the main theme of all the photos.

While this may be a simple task for humans with all the common sense built in, a software can go belly up simply analyzing the photos as it just sees binary data and organising the photos and images into collage spells finding the relevant pattern behind those data.

Here is where this new technology from Microsoft shines. It takes your photos and combines them into a beautiful collage in a jiffy. Go and try it out for yourself.

Cloud Computing The Latest Computer Technology

2008-09-05T01:49:00.000-07:00

The Latest Computer Technology Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the latest computer technology which is making waves in the mainstream computing for quite a long time now. Cloud computing is gradually becoming commonplace technology for fulfilling people's computing needs. Most of us use cloud computing in our daily computing. The most common example is Google Docs service in which you do not have to own a word processor software to create and store textual documents. You can simply login into your Google account and create the document, save it and later retrieve when required. So this latest computer technology do not require to install any software on your local machine just a web browser.

This latest technology derives its name from the metaphor we generally use for internet. If you have ever seen the diagram depicting connected machines using internet , the web or internet is depicted by a cloud. So basically this cloud computing technology views software as a service which one can avail of as and when required provided she is connected to the internet. In cloud computing technology the user does not have any control over the kind of infra the technology is hosted on. In fact , this computer technology conceals the actual details from the user and exposes just the needed functionality.

This latest technology forms the base of emerging technologies like Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 and promotes the use of genuine software use saving the companies from losses incurred through piracy. User pays for technology on per use basis. If you think about it , this technology saves the end users as well from the hassles of software installation and maintaining the required infra and in this way promotes smooth uses of computing.

Since this latest technology puts more and more burden on the service provider, a complex infra has to be maintained by them. This includes secure data centres which are quick to respond and capable of storing large amount data. This also includes the use of virtualization technologies to maximize the use of expensive resources.

Google has always on the fore front in promoting the use of this latest computer technology. Google offers Google Apps which allows you to host your application on Google's infra. Many software giants like Microsoft , Sun are also catching up with this phenomenon. Now seasoned players like Amazon are also actively pushing this technology.

Thus we see that cloud computing is the technology which is changing the way we used to see software and bringing some radical changes in the way we use software.

Chrome The Latest Web Browser Technology From Big G

2008-09-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

Chrome : Google's Entry Into Browser Technology

Google has announced that it will release an open-source browser known as Chrome. The beta version of Chrome is available. This browser is built keeping in mind the large user base which spends its online time mostly on Google like chatting , mailing so the motivation behind this latest browser technology was to provide the users the effortless web browsing experience.

This latest technology from Google has some really great features built-in. One of the most useful feature is that the web pages will open in tabs which will be isolated. Isolated in the sense that they will probably have their own memory space. These tabs will operate in an isolated sandboxed environment which will prevent the browser crashes.

This latest browser incorporates a very powerful javascript engine which will make the web browsing smooth less.New features will included "isolated" tabs designed to prevent browser crashes and a more powerful JavaScript engine.

"Why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web," Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, Google engineering director, wrote in a blog post.

"By keeping each tab in an isolated 'sandbox', we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites," Pichai and Upson wrote.

Google has released a comic strip which describes the latest features of this technology. This browser has brought a radical change in tab based browsing.Normally what happens is that in tab based browser technology the tabs keep eating up the memory even when closed. Google Chrome has been crafted in a way that shuts down the whole process and frees the memory the moment you close the tab. This means fewer browser crashes and faster web browser.

This browser has a task manager built in which lets you see which sites are taking up how much memory.Google claims to have devised a powerful more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, which can power the next generation of web applications.Like OpenSocial and Android, Chrome will be an open source initiative.

Latest Microsoft Technology Photosynth

2008-08-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has announced a new ground latest computer technology which can permanently alter the way you see your digital pictures. Photosynth is the technology which is redically new in the way a software processes digital pictures. This latest technology from Microsoft allows you to relive the moments in which photos were taken.

The way this latest technology works is amazingly different from existing technologies. Photosynth has the analyzing ability to go through binary data of photos to create a 3d visual experience from the existing 2 dimensional pictures. This latest technology is based on the similarities of graphical digital photos. This technology first captures the similar elements of digital photos and then uses those elements to create a backdrop to give the sense of three dimensional experience for the viewer.

This latest technology from software giant Microsoft puts the viewer in the shoes of the photo shooter to let him experience the realistic environment in which photos were taken and thus gives more realistic and enjoyable view. Remember a memorable vacation with your kids and family or ever wanted to relive those magical moments with your dear one. Till now there were photos but now you have photos that speak a million words and you can literally live each and every moment with this latest computer technology.

Photosynth gives you a 360 degree view of the environment in which pictures were captured . It gives life to the pictures and brighten the experience.Anybody who sees your synth is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Thus Photosynth is the latest computer technology from Microsoft which can make your digital photos come alive.

OSI Model The Core Of Networking Technology

2008-08-05T00:49:00.000-07:00

The Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model (OSI Reference Model or OSI Model) is an abstract description for layered communications and computer network protocol design. It was developed as part of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) initiative. In its most basic form, it divides network architecture into seven layers which, from top to bottom, are the Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data-Link, and Physical Layers. It is therefore often referred to as the OSI Seven Layer Model.

A layer is a collection of conceptually similar functions that provide services to the layer above it and receives service from the layer below it. For example, a layer that provides error-free communications across a network provides the path needed by applications above it, while it calls the next lower layer to send and receive packets that make up the contents of the path.

Source Wikipedia

The following graphical description will make it easy to understand the model

Google Translation Centre The New Technology To Dismantle Language Barrier

2008-08-05T00:46:00.000-07:00

Google in its latest move to reach out to more and more people , is testing a new technology related to document translation. This is the latest move in technology by a technology giant as large as Google. This service will certainly break down language barriers. With the service, the company will connect people who need documents translated with humans who will be paid to do so, according to the Google Translation Center information page.

"Google Translation Center is the fast and easy way to get translations for your content. Simply upload your document, choose your translation language, and choose from our registry of professional and volunteer translators. If a translator accepts, you should receive your translated content back as soon as it's ready," the site said.

The moment this latest technology by Google becomes mainstream, Google' dominance on search engine arena is going to increase only.

YUIL On The Way Of CUIL

2008-07-31T01:37:00.001-07:00

First it was Cuil which blasted even before it took off. Now it is Yuil which is anew search engine reportedly created by Yahoo Executive. It is based on Yahoo platform and looks almost exactly like Cuil.

The news is that Yuil is dead now. Was it a hoax. These kind of failures only add to the Google's supremacy.

Adobe Lightroom 2

2008-07-29T04:48:00.001-07:00

Adobe Systems recently launched version 2 of its popular Photoshop Lightroom. The company has added a number of new features in the second version of software for sorting, cataloging, and editing photos.

Lightroom 2 has new interface which is built from the scratch and is targeted at the day to day photo editing tasks like smoothing the edges, correction of colors, labeling the photos and their safe storage for later retrieval. Although Lightroom has less features than its big brother Photoshop, it has some nifty features which are not even in Photoshop like multiple photo editing at the same time.

Lightroom is less complex than Photoshop and is meant to be a general purpose image editing software. Dual monitor support, categorization based on camera make , lens and many features make it a good software for photo editing tasks.

Lightroom 2.0 supports 64-bit Windows Vista and Mac OS X. It lets people use more than 4GB of memory for the application. That means Lightroom can easily handle large images such as panoramas, move back and forth among many images, and handle large image catalogs.

All of the above and integration with Photoshop makes Lightroom 2 a very good software.

CUIL Search Engine Technology

2008-07-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

A new search engine is getting famous. The name of search engine is CUIL pronounced cool. This search engine started serving pages on monday. What is different about CUIL is that it serves the results according to the relevance of their content. CUIL directly competes with the most popular and widely used search engine Google. CUIL is touted as Google killer. This may be far fetched statement. Google has years of experience of technology behind it and CUIL is a newborn baby. Their web site claims to search 3 times more web pages than Google and tenfold more pages than Microsoft's search engine. While we may need to look at the search engine technology in a new way CUIL as such can not compete with Google. By the way, Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge. It is reported that Google's engineers are the brains behind this new search engine.

MinWin The Windows Of 25 MB !!

2008-07-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system on the planet earth. This operating system is equipped with the latest computer technologies to make the operating system very pleasant to use. But does it happen ? Windows versions are known to be buggy and bloated. Latest Operating System from Microsoft , Windows Vista , takes up whopping 4GB hard disk space. It demands lots of memory and is slow even on 2 GB ram.

But can you believe that Microsoft has developed a version of Windows which takes a meager 25 MB space on hard disk !! . Sounds incredible. But true. Microsoft has developed a core of windows which is called MinWin and forms the core of all the major releases of future operating system releases including the forthcoming Windows 7.

This baby has no graphical interface and includes a HTTP server. MinWin consists of 100 files only. MinWin may also be a part of Microsoft's overhauling of Windows kernel which is years old and needs an upgrade. Moreover, MinWin may be a part of Microsoft's strategy to modularize the Windows and make it more componentize. Windows technology is good but is plagued by frequent OS failures and library mismatches. This latest technology may improve the operating system which is deployed on the most of the desktops today.

BrowseRank The Latest Technology From Microsoft

2008-07-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Latest Technology For Ranking Pages

Microsoft is working on a new computer technology to determine the rank of pages in its search engine. This latest technology is named BrowserRank. BrowseRank competes directly with the Google's system of ranking web sites, PageRank. Page Rank is determined by the number links on the internet that are pointing to a particular site. The more links that are pointing to the site, the more significant that site becomes in the eyes of Google.

But Microsoft thinks another way. It thinks that there should be more human touch to the search engine rankings. The technology to determine page rank is shoddy.Raw data about a website can not be an indicator of its usefulness. There are other factors too. Like how much time the user spends on the web site. What is the bounce rate.

I think that this is misconception of Microsoft. While links play important in determining page rank from Google, links are not the only factor. Google takes into account hundreds of the factors before giving it a rank on its search results. This technology from Microsoft comes in the wake of its failed attempts to buy Yahoo as after Google, Yahoo is the only competitor of Microsoft in search engine arena. I do not think that Microsoft's arguments hold weight as Google has the best algorithm to search the relevant pages. And the technology behind Google's algorithm is constantly evolving. Google is still the best or why else do we rely on it to find the information we want from the vast ocean of websites.

Knol The Latest Blogging Technology From Google

2008-07-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

When it comes to innovation in technology, Google has always been on the forefront. Google has provided us with a popular blogging platform blogger which is used by millions of bloggers today. The latest technology from Google stable is Knol.

Knol is a blogging platform like blogger. There a some basic differences though. Knol is suitable for the single page authoritative content. The page may be a small page or a giant one. Knol was released recently by Google. In fact when I logged in to the blogger one day to publish new post for my this blog about latest computer technology I saw the Google post right in my dashboard.

Knol seems to be inspired by other one page blogging services like Hubpages. Knol has all the features of good old blogger like text formatting, image upload. You can also insert Adsense easily in the Knol.

With Google's dominance in the search engine arena and popularity of blogger Knol is poised to become popular very fast.

Garbage Collection The Technology To Avoid Memory Leaks

2008-07-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

As computer technology evolves, the technology to program the computer also takes new forms. There are many companies in the field of programming languages. There is Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Apple to name a few. There are many challenges that a programmer faces while programming an application which is easy to use and so robust that it does not breaks down under demanding conditions. Previously when the technology behind the design of programming language was in nascent stage, it was very hard to program a computer. Mainly the arcane assembly language was used. But programming assembly meant you had the ability to learn a new language syntax which resembled sanskrit or latin!! Due to technological complexity , it was not an average programmer who programmed for the clunky machine called computer. In those tough times , you had to deal with the hardware directly. Whether it was primary memory storage or secondary storage device operation like saving on floppy or hard disk, one had to deal with the hardware directly in language and the language itself was very terse to comprehend and write code into. Then came the so called mother of all language C. With advances in the computing technology the programming languages also started to take on a new form in which one could program in english like language. But the scenario was more or less the same. Specially , dealing with memory was largely an uncharted territory for an average programmer. Memory leaks were very common in softwares and a real killer.

Memory leaks refers to the situation when an executing program claims a patch of memory but forgets to free it. As a result there is a large amount of unclaimed memory in the primary memory area. This makes less and less resources available to an executing program. Obviously this was a very serious problem as the softwares behaved erratically. Many programming guru suggested that in place of depending on latest technology to solve these type of problems , we should tackle these problems by adopting good programming practices. Like if you have claimed a memory from computer , you should free it too, use memory with caution and use it as and when really required. Not many heeded to the advice as a group of programming folks were of view that going too far in adopting these practices will result in a bloated code. Thus something new in computer technology was again expected to solve these perennial problems. Newer and more sophisticated programming languages came into being and with each advance there was something new , something improvised but the problem of memory leaks was more or less the same. Many languages did not introduce any radically new thing but these languages introduced new syntactical sugar which allowed improved structure of code. But again these technological advances could not solve the problem associated with memory leaks.

Then a miracle happened in latest computer technology world. The most popular language Java was invented and this technology changed the programming paradigms forever. The language even today has a cult following and is perhaps the most advanced programming technology. Java solved the problem of memory leaks for good. Java employs the garbage collection technology for this. Garbage collection technology employs an algorithm in which a lightweight process runs in the background when the program is executing. The moment there is a patch of memory which is unused the garbage collector reclaims it. And thus avoids memory leak. This technology is being used by many latest computer language like C# from Microsoft. Thus we see that Java technology has changed the programming world for good.

Google Poised To Get Bigger With Digg

2008-07-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

Rumours are that the popular social networking site Digg is in talks with the search engine giant Google for acquisition. The talks are supposed to be in final stage and the Google valuing the Digg at a whopping $200 million . If those talks materialize , Google will become stronger with a mammoth social networking site on its side. Orkut is already incuded in the Google group. It shows the Big G's interest in social networking phenomenon. Although people from Digg deny that . Listen to what Digg CEO Jay Adelson has to say,

"Normally our policy is to not comment about things like this," Adelson wrote, "but this morning's rumors about a bidding war involving Google and Microsoft have created such a stir we feel compelled to tell you all directly that they are completely inaccurate."

Does this indicate , that Microsoft is involved too ??

Microsoft Surface Computing

2008-07-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

Imagine a coffee table which is a computer screen too. On the top of that it responds to your touch. You can put your camera on it and without attaching a cord it is able to transfer photos from your digital camera to the secondary storage which is s USB drive and which is also kept on the same table. No hooks, no wires and no clumsy setup. Sounds like a hitech script of an unbelievable scientific movie. But that is what Microsoft Surface Computing technology is all about.

Emerging technologies have changed our outlook of the world and the way we interact with our millieu for good. Life will never be tha same. Latest technologies keep coming in almost every day but every one in a while a latest technology changes your thinking radically. This technology is so out of the box that it make you think in a new way. Microsoft Surface computing is just that fundamentally new technology that may alter the computing technology once and forever.

The possibilities are unlimited. You can transfer music , design a template over the coffee or crack a new code. Technology is very magical and this technology from Microsoft is miraculous. Surface computing may not have made its way into the mainstream life but it may soon.

Mobile Platform

2008-07-18T07:13:00.000-07:00

Mobile Platform An Introduction

What is mobile platform and why is it required? We are all familiar with the software. Software is the soul of computer hardware. Without software a piece of hardware is just that , a dead piece of hardware with a chip with circuits among other things. Whether it is a desktop computer running windows or a mainframe, software is required. Now every piece of hardware has its own characteristics. It has its own capabilities and limitations. Mobile platform is a term used to denote the framework which is primarily concerned with mobile computing.

Mobile computing has become very popular with more and more people using mobiles for banking and playing games and even shopping. That is why mobile platform is buzzing with developer activity and more and better latest technologies keep coming in.

But there is an inherent limitation of mobile devices. Whether it is a mobile phone or a personal digital assistant there is a limit to how much memory it has. And how responsive it is when it come to user interaction is the critical part of developing mobile software on a mobile platform.

There are many technologies which are competing to make their space in mobile platform. Sun Microsystems offers J2ME which is a Java Technology based mobile platform and is platform independent. J2ME is used to create games and other software for mobile phones. Microsoft offers Windows Mobile which has been for years in mobile platform space. Android from Google is the latest entry in the field of mobile platform.

Thus mobile platform is an exciting field and there are many technologies competing for making their presence felt in this space.

What Is Netbeans?

2008-07-18T03:04:00.000-07:00

Netbeans is a popular Java integrated development environment which is in its version 6.5 right now. Java is a very popular language known for its security and platform independence. But developing in Java can be an arduous process. The syntax of Java is simple but very verbose. You have to write code for everything from designing a GUI to accessing a database. The large software development companies with large software projects can not afford to develop software a a slow pace. These companies have deadlines to meet. The software has to be sleek and maintainable.

In such a scenario there is a requirement for a good IDE which is easy to use and suitable for large applications. Netbeans is the answer to above and more questions. Netbeans makes it easy to develop software in Java Technology. Whether you are developing a desktop application or a web application or even mobile applications , Netbeans provides ease of development to every kind of software project.

For desktop applications Netbeans provides graphical user interface designer which does not require to write a single line of code. You can easily design a complex and sober looking GUI with Netbeans. Moreover, Netbeans makes it easy to connect your front end applications to back end database right from within the IDE. For enterprise applications , Netbeans facilitates designing web forms with all the GUI designing features. Moreover , the boilerplate code generated from the IDE also follows the complex J2EE standards. Same for mobile applications.

While Netbeans offers all of the above features , it is free to download from the site www.netbeans.org. You can order a free DVD on the web site too. Netbeans can be a boon to developers developing applications in Java technology.

Framework Versus Javascript

2008-07-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

It has become a very serious debate whether the developers should use a framework which provides ready to use functionality and robustness of a tested system or whether they should use bare bones javascript and CSS to accomplish their tasks.

Using framework has its own merits. You get a runtime which includes tons of functionality and ready made APIs which can be used with the preferred programming language and moreover, these runtimes are professionally developed and are tried and tested and thus can be used right out of the box without breaking the existing code. There are many runtimes available which are suitable for different kinds of functionalities. The most popular runtime is from Sun Microsystems for Java Technology also known as Java Virtual Machine. JVM has the largest installed base and is around for 10 to 12 years. Microsoft's .Net framework is another popular framework if you want to go for Microsoft camp. .Net is relatively new but gaining ground fast. Adobe has launched yet another framework known as Adobe Integrated Runtime or AIR which is used to create rich internet applications. Sun Microsystems also has a runtime for Mobile platform known as KVM . This is just the tip of iceberg. Google has released its own framework for mobile known as Android. Likewise, there Ruby On Rails web framework.

These technologies do a lot to ease the life of a software developer. But there are limitations too. The framework itself is a necessity. It has to be on the machine on which application executes. The framework is very bulky and takes long to download. The developers become limited by the functionalities provided by the framework.

While frameworks are popular , there are many companies who prefer to work on the browser technologies with no framework. This way they do not depend on the framework or platform. Using ubiquitous Javascript and CSS from developing rich and interactive applications has many merits. That is why, Google itself has taken that route. All of the Google Applicatons like GMail, Google Spreadsheets are built on the Javascript and CSS and work marvelous.

It is not easy to decide whether to go for framework technology or javascript technology, but one can take decision based on the circumstances and the nature of applications being developed.

Greenfoot An Easy Way To Learn Java Technology

2008-07-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

Java is considered a very robust object oriented programming language. Java is so popular that many universities have made it a part of their curriculum. Learning Java technology can be very tough for those starting on their programming career. There is a need for a method which can make Learning Java easy and fun. The best part is that Greenfoot is free. It is based on the BlueJ development environment.

Greenfoot is an interactive Java development environment developed primarily for educational purposes. It facilitates easy development of two-dimensional graphical applications, such as simulations and interactive games which make learning fun. It is mainly aimed at programming education (object-oriented programming with Java) at high school and early university level.

Greenfoot allows implemention of and interaction with objects in the context of "scenarios". Scenarios can differ widely. Those included with the software download include many games like a lunar lander game, an ants simulation, and turtle graphics. Also available are a lift simulation, Conway's game of life, and an on-screen piano.

Once objects are under development, they can interactively be placed into a Greenfoot 'scenarios', and developers can directly interact with these objects to invoke methods.

Sun microsystems itself is involved in this project.Greenfoot is currently being developed at the University of Kent and Deakin University.

Java Server Pages The Java Technology

2008-07-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

Java Server Pages aka JSP is a very popular Java technology for server side programming. JSP technology makes it easy for software developers to create server side programs and mingle those pages with the static html pages.

Previously , it was very tough to maintain two sets of pages together. On one side, web page designers used to design the static web pages using technologies like html,flash,dreamweaver. On other hand web developers used to program the web sites using technologies like ASP,Cold Fusion.

The problem was that when these two types of pages were combined to form a single running system , many complex problems used to crop up. For instance , there were multiple files to be maintained and this led to confusion. Moreover, maintaining the software or web application became cumbersome. This led to the research for technologies that could eliminate the above problems.

Java camp invented JSP technology which ran on the top of its application server and was compatible with the popular servlet technology. In JSP every thing can be done using html like tags. Some tags are in built and some are third party tags. You can create your own custom tags. These tags are intermingled with the html tags used on static pages. JSP allows developers and designers to work together without any confusion which plagues most of the server side programming languages today.

Campatibility with the servlets, which is a popular server side technology , is a major plus point of Java Server Pages Technology. When JSP pages are deployed on a J2EE application server , and first accessed ,the whole JSP file is parsed and gets converted into a servlet file. From then on, it resides and executes on the server as good old servlet. All the security and scalability features of servlets are available to JSP pages.

Due to above reasons JSP has become a platform and technology of choice for many developers writing code for server side web applications.

Belenix Operating System

2008-07-16T02:22:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to try out the features of Solaris Operating System and found the OS to be too bulky to be installed on your machine. Or have you found the OS too geeky. Or have you ever aspired for an OS which could be booted right off a live CD? Belenix is the technology to go for if you experienced any or all of the above.

Belenix is a flavour of open source Solaris operating system developed by engineers at Banglore , which is so small that it can reside on a single CD. And the most interesting part is that it can be booted from CD itself without any hassle of installation. If you have a Belenix CD this flavour Solaris can be up and running in a minute or too. Belenix can also be booted from thumb drive !! It seems we are reaching the age of operating systems where one can carry the whole OS installed in your pocket.

Big things come in small packages. The small size of Belenix does not compromises on features. Belenix operating system uses ZFS , the most secure file storage system. For desktop GUI display this operating system uses KDE. Many shells used in Solaris are available in Belenix too.

Belenix operating systems can be a beginning of new era in operating system technology where operating systems are more portable inspite of being full of features and security.

Microsoft ASP.NET Technology

2008-07-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

ASP.NET is the .Net version of the popular Microsoft server side technology known as Active Server Pages. On server side the demand for a secure and reliable acripting is very high which can deliver fast applications with ease of use and maximum developer productivity. ASP.NET is a highly used server side technology which is very secure and can deliver highly configurable web applications.

There was a time when desktop applications ruled the development field. This is not true anymore. The reason being , it was very clumsy to maintain and configure applications when there were multiple clients accessing the same applications. Moreover, security was a major issue. You had to configure security for each and every system that application was installed on. As the number of clients increased , the security configration became more complex. This led to the popularity of server side programming.

With Server side programming paradigm, one need not care about the multiple clients accessing the application. The security of these kind of web applications is also easy to configure because one has to take care of just a server or two. No installation hassles as applications are delivered right from the server to the web browser of client. Client just needs a web browser to access. There are many server side scripting languages in the software development field today like PHP,JSP, ASP .

What sets ASP.NET technology from Microsoft is the ease of use and low turnaround time of a web application software. While JSP and PHP are a good choice too, they do not provide that kind of ease offered by ASP.NET. Microsoft is making more and more web controls available to the development environment Visual Studio 2005. Web Controls are nothing but small components which are ready to be used in a large software product. Microsoft Visual Studio supports intellisense , which is of immense value to a developer.

Many popular web applications are built on the top of Microsoft ASP.NET technology. The most prominent example that comes to my mind is Orkut, the popular social networking site. Today thousands of users access Orkut and it fulfills their requests without going down. This demonstrates the power of Microsoft ASP.NET technology.

Microsoft Popfly

2008-07-15T00:23:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has always been famous from making latest technology more accessible through innovations. This time , Microsoft has released a new online software Popfly using which one can create webpages, mashups and even games without writing a single line of code. Or so they claim.

Playing games is fun and the most immersive experience. And creating games is even more exciting. But creating game was always considered very tough and a art reserved for chosen few. With Popfly this is not the case any more. Popfly lets you create the games using pre-built templates even if you do not know C++. Mashups is a kind of gadget which can be placed on a website and it gathers information from different sources. For instances, you can create a mashup which displays latest technology news from different websites and place it on a corner of your website. It adds variety to your web site content. Popfly can be used to create these kind of mashups easily.

Popfly also provides tools to create full fledged webpages using easy to use tools. Moreover , it can be integrated in to the popular Microsoft IDE Visual Studio and thus it is very good solutions for hardcore developers too.

Microsoft Popfly integrates well with the very popular social networking site Facebook. You can use your online creations directly in your Facebook Account. Mapping information is yet another goodie offered by this Microsoft Latest offering.

Thus Microsoft Popfly is a very good online tool from Microsoft which offers a number of easy to use tools you can use to create many interesting things. Best of all this technology can be used free of cost.

SEO Technology

2008-07-03T04:04:00.000-07:00

What is SEO Technology ?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of creating and altering of webpages in such a way that search engines recognize the content of those webpages and when a person search for a particular term , the search engine brings up your pages as high as possible.

There are billions of websites on the web and these web sites deal with various subjects like latest technology, computers, news, careers and many more. Now when people search for the information on the web they type that term into the search engine. The search regularly crawls the world wide web for new and updated content so that it may bring up the most results to the person searching for information. If you have a site dealing with latest computer technology, how the hell are the people going to discover it? Obviously through search engines. But how the search engines like Google , Yahoo are going to discover your website and how can you make those bots of search engines to realize that the content on your site is the most relevant one ? Here comes the search engine optimization aka SEO.

SEO Technology Brings Visitors To Your Website

So SEO technology basically deals with making your webpages important for search engines so that your site gets the best page rank. By the way, page rank refers to the place of a particulars site which is assigned to it by a search engine bot. Higher the page rank the more significant the site is to search engine and morel likely is the possibility that people will turn up on your site when they search for a thing on the web.

So how can the SEO technology be applied to your existing web sites to improve their visibility and web traffic.This is the crucial question because the visibility means everything to the website. If there is no none to visit the website you created , what is the purpose of creating. With SEO technology your website may lie stranded on some lonely island on the vast ocean of world wide web. Web traffic is the reason web sites exist in the first place. Without web traffic a web site is like a flop movie that no one watched. The more web traffic there is to your website the more famous it will be and people wil keep turning up. And how do you bring traffic to your website? Through SEO technology.

SEO Technology Applied

To apply the search engine technology to your web site and to reap the benefits it endows there are certain things to be kept in mind. First you have to know how search engine works. What is the algorithm behind the working of search engine which allows it to retrieve the most relevant information searched according to the keyword. the bad news is that you may never know the exact workings of the top search engines like Google. These giants keep their secrets to themselves. They are never going to divulge the information about what goes on behind the scenes when a search engine crawls the ocean of web pages. Moreover, the search engine algorithm is constantly evolving. Search engines like Yahoo , MSN keep refining their searching softwares aka bot to make them more and more sophisticated. You just can make your best guess in this regard through deep observation of how a particular keyword brings up different pages over time.

The best thing you can do to optimize your webpage for search engines is to try to find out what is the keyword that people use to find the information that is contained in your webpage. First, decide your target audience. Try to think like them. For example, the person looking for the latest technologies in computer field will probably enter any of the keyword

latest computer technology
latest technology in computer
latest computer news
latest news in computers
latest technology trends
technology trends in computers
latest technical trends
trends in technology

Above are some of the keywords which a layman will enter in the Google Search box. So first you know the audience and then you try to find out the keywords they will use to find out the information which is the topic of your web site. Now what ? Next you have to write the content in such a way that it contains your keywords.

If you do this correctly you have mastered the art of optimizing the web pages or search engine technology. You do not have to go for any paid promotion of your site and you do not have to use any softwares which submit links to your website. You just keep sitting and search engines will come and notice your site and rank it high. As the saying goes in Zen Buddhism "The Spring Comes And Grass Grows By Itself".

But the sad truth is that the the spring which , in our case, is a crawler of search engine does not come. Well, not always. So , SEO technology is not just about optimizing your pages but it is a very vast term which involves many things beyond that . More on this later, for now just know that search engine optimization can do miracles to the web traffic you get. Search engine is the biggest tool at your disposal if you want to make your identity on the web and if you want to make your website visible. Its working are hidden and the intricacies of its algorithm is not anybody's guess. But if you can just sense even 10% , the way the search engines work, you can be in control of how your web sites turn up and where. SEO technology is becoming more and more complex by each passing minutes but by applying it effectively you can learn the art of web promotion. The art of making your presence felt on the intricate universe of world wide web.

How To Choose Latest Database Technology

2008-07-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

The database technology is getting complex by every passing day due to the increasing requirements of industry. And that is understandable. Database is the base and backbone of any organization large or small. A sizable percentage of the softwares available today deal with back end database as they require some place or repository to store data into. When it comes to implementing a database technology into some software that is being developed one is confronted with a very tough choice of whether to buy a very costly database from a database technology vendor which can cost you a bomb or to go for an free database technology which is free and open source. The choice of technology you use for database can affect the whole lifetime and maintenance of software. While it may seem that using an open source technology costs less nothing especially if one in not required to pay anything, it may prove to be a bad decision afterwards when the software vendor refuses to provide any technical support or the support provided is not up to the mark. On other side, if you decide to go for a proprietary software as your company has got deep pockets and is ready to spend money required, you may find out that technical support for that product is excellent but still does not justify the hefty cost that was incurred for buying latest database technology. So somewhere you have to chose your side. Today more and more developers are switching to the open source and free software technology whether it be a database or programming language or an integrated development environment which makes developing a software easy and also which makes it easy to grasp the new technology with in minimum time frame.

As far as databases are concerned, there are many choice for anyone who wants to use a database technology for his development purposes. Take for instance Oracle, the database giant. Oracle database technology is no doubt a clear leader in the field of storage online or offline. But this technology is not for company with a low budget. Only companies which are able to spend huge amount of money can afford Oracle and its technical support. Then, there is Microsoft. With the weak beginnings in the field of database technology through SQL Server , the Microsoft SQL Server today has developed in an industry strength database technology which is the driving force behind many high traffic websites today.

If you look towards open source and free database technology there is MySql . MySQL is perhaps the most preferred database technology today because of its strength, reliability and quick responsiveness. MySql is the permanent companion of the websites which are developed on PHP technology. Today millions of sites are powered by the raw strength of MySQL and the web masters are happy to have chosen the technology which is free , open source and reliable with the technical support and expertise of none other than Sun Microsystems. PostgreSQL is another one of the most advanced databases available today. PostgreSQL is an open source database and it is considered a very strong database among the web masters and applications developers alike.PostgreSQL is often compared to the closed source and very costly databases like Microsoft SQL Server which are based on proprietary code.

Only four of the database technologies are mentioned here . But this is in no way a comprehensive list. There are many more database technologies which are budding and are in their incubation period but very promising. Sun Microsystems offers a very well known database with the name JavaDB which requires very low memory footprint. And I have not mentioned the legendary Foxpro which has been a favorite of many for years and some organizations still store their legacy databases on Foxpro.

So here we are, perhaps a more enlightened about database technology or maybe more confused about which latest technology to use when making a choice of technology. The options are endless and the most suitable depends sole on your budget and the technical support you require from the technology vendor.

Windows Server 2008 New Server OS Technology From Microsoft

2008-06-26T00:12:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Microsoft has released the latest operating system catering to Microsoft centric networking environment , Windows Server 2008.

This latest server technology operating system from Microsoft is considered as the major upgrade from its predecessor Windows Server 2003. There a heck lot of new features which are introduced in this new operating system from Microsoft.

The most hyped and perhaps the most wanted feature in a network operating system is the support for virtualization . Virtualization technology allows you to run multiple instances of different operating systems and thus promotes maximum utilization of server resources like network bandwidth, memory, secondary storage and most significantly CPU processing cycles. Windows Server 2008 introduces a new technology called Hyper-V which allows virtualization features to be built in. There is no need for a separate virtualization software like VMware. Hyper-V technology allows to run simultaneously many OS like Linux, different versions of Windows on a single machine.

Moreover, a new feature called remote terminal server allows you to run and access an application remotely instead of installing it on local client machine. There are significant security enhancements in this latest server from the Redmond Giant. Security is of utmost importance in today's connected environment. And for a network operating system this requirement doubles, tripples and even quadruples. A feature called network access protection (NAP) allows only the authorized persons to access the network connections. For this this OS uses the security policy which determines the operating system wide security rules which are applied when anyone tries to access the resources of the hosting system.

The latest version of Microsoft Windows Server uses the IIS 7.0 which is a powerful and fast web server and is used to host web applications developed in Microsoft ASP.NET technology. IIS server 7.0 combined with Microsoft .Net 3.0 provide a fantastic platform for web applications. IIS 7.0 technology can be used to host large websites requiring high security and scalability features. IIS 7.0 integrates well with the new Microsoft technologies like Windows Communication Foundation Web services, and Windows SharePoint Services.

Windows Server 2008 provides an improved Windows Powershell which is technology to automate the routine system administration tasks through simple scripts and even command line. Configuration and management of operating system is a breeze with Microsoft Management Controls (MMC) snap in.

This latest server operating system from Microsoft is available in many editions like Windows Server 2008 Standard which is suitable for small business networking needs. For large enterprises with costly infrastructure there i Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition. Windows Server 2008 Datacenter caters to the enterprise class virtualization. Windows Web Server 2008 edition enables the easy and fast deployment of web applications. If you need large scale databases with high high scalability Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems is the right choice. Windows HPC Server 2008 edition is the High Performance Computing platform for machines utilizing the raw power of 64 bit computing.

The most significant change about this new OS technology is that unlike it predecessors this version is available in a very bare bones form. That is, there is also an option to install just the essential components which has the vital features of this OS for low end machines.

Thus we see latest Server from Microsoft has great potential to emerge as a reliable and scalable network OS technology.

New Computer Technology From Microsoft LucidTouch

2008-06-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

LucidTouch A New Technology

Microsoft is working a new computer technology called LucidTouch which can radically change the way you interact with a hand held device.

The main idea behind this new technology is that there is a big real estate on every hand held device which is not utilized. That is its behind. What if the controls of the hand held device are on the backside and what if there is a way to interact with the hand held device from behind. The main challenge for doing this is how you sense where are your fingers moving when you are looking at the screen of the device. LucidTouch may be the answer.

Microsoft is still experimenting with this new technology. It is a well known fact that touch is the most common way to interact with the hand held device. Whether that device is a mobile phone or a personal digital assistant. Or it maybe a portable games player like Sony playstation portable device. LucidTouch builds on this very fact and if things turn out in favor , this new technology may well be poised to change the way we interact with devices.

Many latest devices are already utilizing this fact the most valid and popular example being Apple iPhone. iPhone dispenses with buttons and employs touch as the only contact point with device. But still there are some hitches. Like when you are interacting with the phone , your fingers come in way of your eyes and the graphics displayed on the phone.

This new technology , LucidTouch , takes care of that. In this technology , while you are interacting with the device a silhouette of your finger or a colored pixel shows where exactly youe fingers are. Once this technology comes to mainstream market this can change the definition of interaction with devices. Imagine having eight mouse cursors at your disposal !!

This new technology can have impact on many applications areas like LucidTouch will make interacting with navigational maps very easy. Moreover it will become very easy to draw images with fingers and lastly it will add more excitement to gaming experience especially in strategy based games.

LucidTouch is a new technology from Microsoft which is all set to change our outlook towards the interaction with devices.

Blinkweb A New Technology To Create Websites

2008-06-16T03:50:00.000-07:00

Blinkweb is a new technology to create websites in the blink of an eye. Or so its developer Brad and Matt Callen claim.

Who does not want to have his website today? Having a website ensures your presence on the world wide web. Most of the companies have websites which display their products and services. Professionals have websites to advertise their services. Website is like an online identity which uniquely identifies someone.

But website creation is considered a task more suited to the techie persons with knowledge of a vst array of technologies like html, php, jsp, flash among others. A layman still requires a tool which can make website creation a flash. Blinkweb technology is that tool . It is still in development phase and not ready yet but on Blinkweb website one can subscribe to a mail list which will provide you a reminder when this piece of fantastic software is ready to be released.

If the website is to be believed , Blinkweb will make the task of website creation a breeze. One will be able to conjure up a professional looking without knowing anything about hyper text markup language or any scripting language like JSP.

Much details are not available on the internet about what this software will be like but this software has already started getting its share of attention. According to Brad and Matt Callen this software took 8 months to reach near completion and it is almost ready to be released.

Brad Callen is the same person who was behind the creation of highly successful softwares Affiliate Elite and SEO Elite. Blinkweb will be perhaps a free software and if you watch the video , you will be impressed by the simplicity of the software. You can create a very catchy website in a jiffy.

So if you are a layman and want to have a website of your own without knowing the complex technology stuff Blinkweb may well be your best bet.

New Technology In Web services Metro

2008-06-16T02:20:00.000-07:00

Metro is a new web services stack technology developed for Glassfish Application Server which enables the delivery of secure and reliable web services on J2EE platform.

Enterprise applications are getting more and more complex with the new technology requirements cropping every day. Moreover the need for integration mechanism is even higher. The service oriented architecture (SOA) is the most preferable technology which allows to view the software applications more as a service rather than a product. Metro is a very high-performance web services stack technology which can handle high load common in enterprise applications. This web services stack can be extended by another new technologies.Best of all it is a very easy-to-use web service stack.

From the simplest web service to highly complex web services which are reliable, secured, and transacted web service that involves .NET services interoperability the Metro is an answer to most of the requirements for web services.

For seamless connectivity among web services developed on different platform this new technology uses protocols like http, soap among others. Moreover, the support for various transport protocols is open to be extended in this technology. In today's complex architecture of enterprise applications it is of utmost importance that messages transported are reliable. In other words , it is required that the messages that are communicated are securely transferred and are not lost over the wire in transit. The underlying technology has to be so much reliable that without user intervention this feature should be able to be implemented. Metro technology provides all of this and more.

Support for transactions is a prominent feature in this new technology. Transaction support ensures that the atomicity of the whole transaction is maintained. Although J2EE technology provides transaction support , this technology provides support for web services transactions. Metro web services stack provides security by using a new technology WS-security. WS-security is a technology specification which enables platform independent security model to be implemented.

Thus we see that Metro web services technology provides a secure, reliable stack to develop web services.

I found some good information

Metro with GlassFish v3 TP2 and NetBeans
Web Services Security in Metro video interview
Metro and GlassFish on the road to yet better interop with Microsoft's Web Services stack
Metro Web Services .NET 3.5 Plugfest 3/08 Results

Latest Technology For Mobile Applications Adobe Flash Lite

2008-06-13T02:53:00.000-07:00

Flash Lite is a latest technology from Adobe which makes it easy to develop interactive and rich user interface applications developed in Flash for mobile devices. This technology directly competes with J2ME which is a technology from Java to develop mobile and personal device applications.

Flash Lite is currently in version 3 and it provides a runtime environment which is used to host the Flash mobile applications. This technology allows software developers to develop software for mobile devices and bring the rich user experience to the mobile users.

Flash Lite technology is not an operating system . Rather, this technology is more about client side development. Flash Lite allows you to develop and prototype the applications rapidly and there by improves developer productivity and reduces the turnaround time of the product to market.

This technology is more like Java mobile technology in that is requires that Flash Lite runtime environment be installed on the mobile device just like Java kilobyte virtual machine is required to run J2ME platform applications. The most attractive thing about this mobile technology is that the graphics system used in the Flash Lite is vector based. Vector based graphics are lossless meaning whether you rotate vector images or stretch or transform in any way , there is no quality loss for the picture.

Moreover , this technology also allows you to convert desktop based Flash content to mobile compatible content and vice versa.

There is a downside too for this technology. Since this technology is relatively new , there are not many mobile handsets offering Flash Lite runtime system which required to run applications developed in this technology. Although this scene is all set to change as Sony Ericsson and Nokia have started manufacturing handsets with this technology enabled. Thus we see that Flash Lite technology enables manufacturers to provide customers with complete web browsing experiences, video, and compelling interactive content.

Some relevant links

Flash Lite 3.0 application: StreamMobile Tv
Flash Lite free content site: Flash Stock site is been updated
Flash Lite Game Review: Magic Beans from Pixelthis Mobile
Flash Integration with the BREW Mobile Platform

Glassfish Application Server Introduction

2008-06-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

Glassfish is a popular open source application server that hosts J2EE applications like servlets, java server pages ,enterprise java beans.

Glassfish includes the latest features of J2EE 5.0. and this application server includes some of the latest versions J2EE technologies like Java Server Faces,Java API for Web Services. J2EE 5.0 is a comparatively new specification from Sun Microsystems regarding enterprise applications. And to date very few applications are available which comply with those complex specifications and Glassfish application server is one of them.

Glassfish is based on the source code for Sun Java System Application Server PE 9 which was donated by Sun Microsystems and it is a result of the buzzing community which advocates open source software and wants to contribute to the next generation of Sun Java Application Server.

Although Glassfish is open-source , it does not mean that this server lacks feature. In fact, this application server is of production quality meaning the industry strength applications and the fully functional enterprise applications can be developed for this server right away. Enterprise applications are supposed to face high traffic loads which may bog down the applications. The scalability is built right into the architecture of glassfish. This server can take loads of traffic without any hiccups.

Glassfish installation comes with many helpful softwares like high performance database JavaDB and many ready to use samples which makes it easy to see Glassfish application server in action. Large corporations require complex enterprise applications which are secure and easy to administrate. This application server includes a very comprehensive administration console which makes the task very easy. Moreover, one can easily configure security features like role based authentication right from within the console which can be accessed from remote systems too.

Java persistence API (JPA) is latest technology in the field of Java persistence and glassfish offers all the features that makes it compatible with JPA. Web services are getting more and more popular in Java world and it is considered very fruitful to write web services in Java. These web services require an efficient web services stack to work. The Web service stack is a group of computer networking protocols that are used to define, locate, implement, and make Web services interact with each other. The more efficient this stack is , the more efficient is web service. Glassfish boasts of a very good web services stack. Moreover the latest version of this application server supports Ajax and scripting.

The glassfish server community is rapidly snowballing and Sun and Oracle engineers themselves are contributing to this fantastic application server. Glassfish is bound to become the application server of choice due to its robustness and latest technology features.

I found a very good blog on Sun

GlassFish Solution GlassFish is a product, GlassFish is a community, but GlassFish is also a solution. A solution is something where software, hardware, and support ... More

Open ESB V2 Review

2008-06-02T01:44:00.000-07:00

Software plays a big role in giant enterprises today. And large corporations use very complex softwares which may not belong to same vendors. So there is a need of a platform which provides and facilitates the inter-communication between different modules. Open ESB V2 and Open ESB V3 provide just that service.

Open ESB is an open source platform which provides services which allow you to host different modules of software in containers and facilitates the communication among them. In other words, Open ESB is a software which facilitates collaboration of services . Furthermore, it is a set of technologies which allows us to integrate heterogenous softwares to work as a single functioning system.

Open ESB is currently in version 3 but Open ESB version 2 is practically used in enterprises. It will take a while before industry accepts the latest version of this technology. As an alternative to closed source ESB and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) softwares Open ESB shines by providing equivalent and sometimes better performance.

Open ESB provides the runtime environment in form of containers which host separate module to facilitate global service collaborations. These collaborations take place in form of communication in form XML. Since XML is platform independent , the collaboration takes place effortlessly.

Open ESB extends the Java Business Integration (JBI) to create a fast , reliable and scalable enterprise service bus which allows us to integrate various software modules. JMS architecture is used for communication.

Open ESB has its own complex architecture. The first thing that is required is an application server on which ESB components are hosted.Open ESB is fully integrated with Sun Application Server Glassfish which allows you to leverage the reliability, scalability,deployment, and management capabilities of GlassFish.

The second concept that is very crucial while implementing Open ESB is the composite application. As the name says these are the self contained entities which may consist of sub entities. Due to its inter operable nature Open ESB can combine the existing ERP solutions and modules to work with the new modules.The Open ESB provides a Web Administration Console to enable the administration of various components.

There are many open source ESB implementations available today. Mule is one of the Open ESB product which has the Ingres and MuleSource behind it. Celtix, the open-source ESB from ObjectWeb. JBoss has its own ESB which is ESB 4.0. ServiceMix is a ESB solution from Apache.

Today Open ESB is a buzzing community with Sun Microsystems involved in it. Sun has expanded Project GlassFish with the creation of the GlassFish Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) community. This community will help enable the development and collaboration of global services using Java Business Integration (JBI)-based technologies for integration of new and existing services.

In today's scenario more and more software developers are adopting SOA which requies composite applications. There is a need of integrating application components and various application services. JBI provides a standard to address these challenges. And Open ESB integrates well with JBI.

Some good links for Open ESB

OpenESB - (New) Beginnings...

OpenESB or Java CAPS ... or Fuji or GlassFish ESB

Innotek VirtualBox The Latest Virtualization Technology

2008-06-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

VirtualBox is a very powerful virtualization technology developed by Sun Microsystems.

VirtualBox is opensource and free software targeted at almost all the popular operating systems. VirtualBox is can be run on Windows, Linux , Macintosh. There is a host operating systems. As is true with most of the open source projects , VirtualBox is a community project. What is more Sun Microsystems itself is involved in this project so this software is bound to be a quality product.

In fact , VirtualBox has already become very popular more than 5 million copies have already been downloaded. VirtualBox installs itself in a meagre 30 mb disk space and the memory requirement is around 512 mb. This virtualization technology is based on virtual machines so the actual size will depend on the OS you want to host on VirtualBox. In fact, most of the operating systems are several mb in size today so a typical VirtualBox solution will cost around 500MB-2GB in disk space.

VirtualBox runs on many Windows flavours like Windows Vista, Windows XP etc. Since VirtualBox is open source you can download binaries from the site and rebuild it to suit your software platform. What is more exciting is that VirtualBox can be translated to other languages.This technology is really amazing. Being free does not mean that it lacks the features found on the professional virtualization softwares like Microsoft Virtual PC. VirtualBox boasts of some of the features found only on its closed source cousins like Remote Display Protocol (RDP) Server which allows you to connect to a remote machine using RDP client. VirtualBox also includes a virtual USB controller which allows you to access physical USB devices on the virtual machine.

Considering the features found on the VirtualBox one can easily conclude that it can revolutionize the way we see virtualization.

Sun xVM VirtualBox Breaks Five Million Download Mark; First Free ...
Sun Introduces Free Virtualization System, Includes Mac
Sun’s xVM VirtualBox: Free Virtualization
Sun VirtualBox virtual machine software hits 5 million downloads
Sun VirtualBox virtual machine software hits 5 million downloads

Building Blocks Of Android : Latest Technology For Mobile

2008-05-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

Android Mobile Platform consists of four things Activity,Intent Receiver,Service,Content Provider.

The whole application development in this mobile platform revolves around these four building blocks. If you want to master this mobile platform, you have to be very clear about these four things. What is the idea behind these building blocks, what do they do and how do they fit and work together in an application developed on this mobile platform.

Activity is first and foremost of all the aforesaid four components in the Android mobile platform. Simply put, Activity represents a screen which can be used to carry out an activity. For example , suppose you want to play a song on your mobile device. What do you do? First you go to a screen that lists the songs from which you can choose the song. Second there will be anew screen which consists of an UI for playing songs. So there are two Activities.

Intent is how you tell the application what to do. Like view, pick, cancel etc. Intent receiver is the component through which an mobile application developed on Android mobile platform reacts to the outer stimulus like call receiving, message receiving.

Service is basically a process which may run in back ground and require no UI. For example one you start the music player , you do not require its interface. The music simply runs in back ground and you surf the web.

Content Provider is responsible for the content that appears in your application while executing like data from a database or other information from web.

Thus you see, Android mobile platform is quite straightforward and very simple in structure.

Android : Latest Technology For Mobiles From Google

2008-05-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

Android Latest Technology

Android is getting popular day by day. Android is a platform developed by Google for developing mobile applications easily and efficiently.

Android apllications are to be written in Java Programming language. But these applications will not be run on traditional JVM. Rather android applications will be run on Dalvik. Dalvik is virtual machine highly optimized for mobile devices. The reason of using Dalvik is that application developed for mobile platform are supposed to be able to execute on minimum memory.

Most of the applications for mobile platform use a database technology which requires low memory and storage. For database storage Android uses SQLite. To help developers aspiring to develop the mobile applications in Android, the latest technology from Google provides device emulators and a rich development environment. Android platform consists of an operating system, and middleware and some tools to start with.

Android was developed with a purpose of developing applications which require minimum memory footprint, applications which fast, mobile applications which are quick to response and mobile applications which fit seamlessly with the operating system and other running programs and processes. Android is open source and its SDK is available to download from the Google.

With so many features and ease built-in , Android is poised to become the mobile technology of choice for development of mobile applications.

More information

Solaris 10 Operating System

2008-05-30T00:55:00.000-07:00

Introduction to Solaris 10

Solaris 10 is operating system from Sun Microsystems known for its stability and security features. Many have declared it as the most advanced operating system on the planet.

Solaris 10 has some unique features which are not found on any operating systems or if they are they exist in a very primitive stage. What I found the most notable, about Solaris 10 in particular and Sun in general is that the source code of Solaris 10 is available to be downloaded free of cost . So it is perfectly possible to customize and extend the operating system. Some engineers at Bangalore, India did just that. They took the Solaris kernel and molded it so that it could live on a LIVE CD and could be booted off that cd. What resulted was an open source implementation of Solaris poplarly known as Belenix.

The world at Sun is full of such marvelous stories where everyone is ready to customize the software according to his own needs. This is the true power of opensource software. Opensource software gives the power in your hands and not to some Software Giant which creates only proprietary software. Solaris is just that. Solaris has its origin in Unix operating system. And it incorporates many features of the Unix operating system. Most notable are the shells like bash shell, korn shell etc. And there are many features which Solaris 10 shares with Linux and Unix.

Solaris 10 is gaining popularity day by day. Opensolaris is another derivative of Solaris which has a buzzing developer community of its own.

Solaris 10 has some of the most competitive features found in the operating systems and it is an inspiration to other companies in the field of development of operating systems. For example, there a feature Solaris Container in this operating system which natively supports virtualization. This is terrific. The reason being Microsoft is going to have the same feature only in its next release of operating system called Windows 7.

DTrace also known as dynamic tracing is another feature that helps system administrators to identify the causes of performance degradation of system if there is any.

Platform dependency is the most limiting factor in deciding upon the right operating systems. Solaris 10 is supported on hundreds of x86 and SPARC platforms. Thousands of applications are built for this operating system. One of the most useful application I find is OpenOffice which is a very decent office suite and competes with Microsoft Office.

Security is the feature which Solaris 10 can boast of. This is the reason why the whole infrastructure of some big banks and online retail stores is based on this monster. It is estimated that Sun invested more than 500 million US Dollars into development the development of this fantastic operating system.

One last word , Solaris operating system is free. Can you believe it ? World's most advanced operating system is free. You can download it from Sun's site.

Windows 7 : Latest Operating System From Microsoft

2008-05-30T00:54:00.001-07:00

What Is Windows 7 ?

Windows 7 in next major upgrade to the windows class of operating systems from Microsoft. This will be the next major version of Windows after Vista.

Windows 7 will be having two flavors namely client ( 32 bit and 64 bit) and server. Although the exact launch date is still not available, it has already become a news in technical circles. Among other things, Windows 7 is quite different from other Windows versions in that , it is not backward compatible. All the previous versions were backward compatible, meaning you could run the software which was programmed for Windows XP on Windows Vista too. This latest version breaks that tradition.

Bill Gates talks of many improvements in Windows 7 like it is ligh on memory, it is more efficient in execution and it scores up well as a gaming platform. One most notable thing about this version is that Microsoft is keeping a comparatively low-profile about this latest offering. From its launch date to its features nothing much is revealed from Microsoft yet.

There are rumors that Windows 7 will come in different building blocks which will be configurable separately . If this is really true this will be a milestone in the history of Windows class operating system. We will not have to face the bloated windows that eats up your hard disk space like termite. Windows 7 will take on the virtualization in a big way by giving native support to this exciting technology.

Ease, security and connectivity are the keywords behind the development of Windows 7. Though Microsoft is tight-lipped about its salient features , the latest version of Windows will be a landmark in the history of Microsoft. Microsoft is making every effort to make this OS easy to use, efficient in operation and better connected. There will be new versions of Paint and Wordpad.

For now we can not do much but keep our fingers crossed about what Windows 7 will bring in its wake, but one thing is sure Microsoft has to finalize its release date otherwise it may loose some time opportunity as its competitors are already offering very features in their own operating system.

I found some very definite information from internet about Windows 7.

CNET has a very long interview with Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky, the guy in charge of the Windows 7 project. More..

Google Sites Technology

2008-05-30T00:53:00.001-07:00

Google Sites is a very easy to create websites. With Google Sites anyone can create rich content websites. There is almost no technical knowledge required.

Google Sites is a very good tool to for those who are just beginners and do not know even basic html but want to have their websites. You can add content from all over the web to the website. You can also add your favorite videos from YouTube to the site created through Google Sites. You can start by using predefined templates which are nothing but predefined layout for your sites. Moreover , you can give shape to your websites through many gadgets available when you are in edit mode. Like you can add calendar,announcements , sitemap to your site.

Google Sites allow you to enrich your website by allowing you to embed contents like presentations, documents, spreadsheets, slideshows etc. Moreover, Google Sites is an evolving software which includes many type of pages you can include in your websites like home page, file cabinet, announcements etc.

What is more, if you know a bit of html , you can customize the website. Google Sites allow you to edit html code directly. For Adsense it has full support. If you want to track the visitors of your websites , Google Analytics is built right into your websites.

I found Google Sites to be very user friendly software not just for beginners but for professionals too. Here is the information I found enlightening on the web..

Google Sites now open to everyone
Google Sites Now Open to Non-Google Apps Users
Google Sites - An Interesting Collaborative Tool For Entrepreneurs?
Hands-On With Google Sites

Minix Operating System

2008-05-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

What if I say that there is an operating system which is just 4,000 lines long in code. Anybody will be surprised . I was awestruck. But Minix claims to be just that.

I recently learned Visual Studio 2005 which is a very fantastic IDE. You can cook up a full fledged application in minutes . But what I noticed was the code bloat . The IDE generated around 500 lines of code for a simple database application. Contrast that with the Minix .

Minix is an open source operating system which is as reliable and secure as its grand pa Linux. Although Minix 1 and Minix 2 were supposed to be used mainly for teaching purpose, with version 3 Minix has become a full-fledged operating system. Well, the entire operating system is bigger than 4,000 lines, its kernel which is the core part of the OS is. Which is not a small accomplishment in itself.

Minix operating system has a unique feature that allows you to update the device drivers without requiring a reboot. The operating system is written in C and the full source code is down loadable from the site. Minix OS is primarily targeted at embedded systems and systems with low resources. Minix can be run off a live CD and is available for virtualization softwares like Microsoft Virtual PC and VMWare.

More Information

What is Linux?
Funny Side of Linux
History of Linux

MySQL Database Technology

2008-05-30T00:49:00.001-07:00

MySQL database was in news recently , when Sun Microsystems acquired it and declared its support for this database technology.

The popularity of MySQL can be assessed by the following facts:
-Wikipedia which is a very famous sites uses MySQL database to store its enormous data.
-About 1 million visitors visit Booking.com which is a website.This website is using MySQL as database.
-iStockPhoto uses MySQL database.

MySQL is a free database which is used on desktop applications as well as industry strength applications.MySQL finds favours with the database professionals and developers alike because of its high-end features.MySQL can be used in deeply embedded applications with a small footprint of unimaginable 1 MB to high-end industry applications containing tera bytes of data.

MySQL provides developers and users with features available only with paid softwares like Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle.These features include fast loading of data and full text search facility.Moreover MySQL provides distributed transaction support and complete ACID(Atomicity,Consistency,Isolation,Durability) support.

MySQL is the first choice of developers for web applications for its fast insert capability and fast query engine.MySQL provides high security of data through its support for Secure Socket Layers.

MySQL is available for most of the widely used operating systems like Windows,Linux,Solaris to mention a few.

MySQL is most widely used in combination with Linux as operating system and PHP as server side programming language.But this is slowly changing as Sun Microsystems has acquired this database. In spite of all these features MySQL is very fast to download and install.Since it is free database and opensource all of the benefits of opensource software apply to MySQL database technology.

I found following links useful

Java MySQL - Mass Update Using Batch Updating
Restoring MySQL Databases
MySQL Error Code 17?
How to backup a MySQL database
MySQL Workbench - Visual Database Deign Tool

Videos Of MySQL

Disclaimer : All the logos are the property of their respective owners.

Adobe Photoshop Express Technology

2008-05-30T00:47:00.000-07:00

Adobe is known for its graphic products and photoshop has always been at the forefront.Adobe has bedazzled us by its different multimedia products.And Adobe does it again.

Adode launched the beta version of photoshop for the web named photoshop express.What is the most amazing thing is that you do not have to require the photoshop installed on your desktop.Everything works on the web.You just go to their website and upload your photos.You can retouch them ,crop tthe pictures, rotate the pixes , morph them resize them and what not.You can even upload up to 2 GB of your photos on their site if you signup.You can create your gallery and display in a variety of ways like in grid , 3d circle etc.

Before joining you can take the test drive and inspect the features it offers.You can see a live demo how your photos will be organized.If you want to exerience it then goto

Experience Photoshop Express

The site is graphic intensive so it may take a while to load so have patience.But it is sure you will be dumbstruck after seeing the graphics they display on the home page itself.That is all for this post look out for more technology updates and do remember to post your comments.

Some very useful links

Adobe Photoshop Express
Adobe Photo Express launches
Photoshop Express now supports Flickr
ONLINE PHOTOSHOP

Adobe Photoshop Express Videos

Google Picasa

2008-05-30T00:46:00.000-07:00

Most of us have digital cameras or have mobile phones which enable us to take digital photos.So once you shoot that perfect picture or scene what do you do .You may want to display it on your orkut account or you may want to create a online gallery.

But before that you may want to give it an extra professional touch like you may want to enhance its color , resize it or even rotate it.Previously more often than not people had to use Photoshop or similar software to retouch their photos.But the problem was Photoshop is too complex a software to be handled by most of us .Moreover it is very costly.Here is where Google Picasa fits in.

Picasa is a free photo editing and photo organizing software from Google.Picasa is a freeware but it does not mean it lacks features.Picasa has some very nifty features which can make organizing pictures a breeze.

One of the very interesting features is that you can directly import your pictures folders into your Picasa Albums.Double Click a Photo and you can edit it by simple non techie tools.Some of the tools include crop tool ,Straighten , Red Eye Reduction etc.You can select multiple photos by ctrl + clicking and create collage for pictures.

I found Google Picasa to be very helpful tool for my day to day picture editing tasks.You can also try it out by going to following link

Google Picasa

That is all for this post watch out for more interesting technologies soon. And do remember to post your comments.

Intersting Google PicassaVideos

Adobe Integrated Runtime Technology

2008-05-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

What Is AIR Technology?

Adobe Integrated Runtime is a runtime environment that works across the platforms on
various operating systems.It enables software developers to use their existing web development skills, existing code and ready-made tools to build, execute and deploy rich internet applications or rich web applications and content to the desktop.

Adobe AIR has a rich set of features, which support building applications using myriad technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, Adobe Flex and Adobe Flash.

Adobe Integrated Runtime is a very efficient and versatile runtime environment, as it allows existing Flash or HTML and JavaScript code to be re-used to create a more common desktop-like program. Adobe poses it as a runtime for rich internet applications (RIAs) that does not require the use of web browsers like Internet Explorer , Mozilla Firefox and applications can be deployed onto the desktop, unlike a fully-fledged application framework. The differences between each deployment mode provides both upsides and downsides over each other.

For example a RIA (Rich Internet Application) deployed in a browser runs without any installation.

On the other hand the AIR application requires three steps :-
a). AIR Application has to be packaged
b). AIR Application digitally signed
c). AIR Application installed to the users local file system.

But the upside with the AIR Application is that it is provided unlimited local storage as well as unlimited file system access.While applications which are deployed and accessed through browser are dependant on the permissions provided by the browser.Moreover data is usually periodically deleted.

However, in most cases, rich internet applications store users' data on their own servers, but the ability to consume and work with data on a user's local file system allows for greater flexibility when an application is working offline.

AIR applications can operate offline, and then activate further functionality or upload data when an active internet connection becomes available.

Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is exciting new technology by Adobe which is poised to change
the way the applications are developed and the way a layman views the application.

Adobe Air
Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) 1.0.1 - Build and deploy rich web apps on your desktop
Implications of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) on Flash Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
Some Interesting Videos

Web 2.0 Technology

2008-05-30T00:43:00.000-07:00

Around the year 2004 a new internet revolution swept the world wide web. This new wave resulted in new kind of web applications and web technology with enhanced look and feel and increased interactivity. Social Networking sites like Orkut, Facebook , Myspace sprouted out of nowhere. What was more prominent fact was almost all email websites like Google , Yahoo , Rediff and many more began to revamp their interfaces to confirm to the Web 2.0 standards.

This era witnessed a surge in everyone's interest in social networking sites and web 2.0 technology. Even those who were beginners in this field started participating in technological evolution in some way or another.

The basic idea behind this new version of web technology was to increase the usability of web application. And also to deepen the penetration of technology among the people who were not so technically aware or they were beginners in the field of new emerging technologies.

Previously web applications were more or less static in their response and with little affinity with desktop applications. At that time desktop application were very popular because of their customisability and their response time. But there were some hitches here and there. Like to use a desktop application you had to install it locally on the computer system. Now if you are beginner , you may not know how to do it. Moreover , each desktop software demanded its own configuration and execution to be set up. Again a difficult task for beginners. This led to low penetration of technology among general people. Software were primarily considered for geeks or semi-techies and not for beginners.

On the other hand , when web 2.0 began to take over , web applications were easily accessible to all, even to novice. You just need a modern browser like Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. There is no need of installation of software making it easy to use for beginners.

The main reason behind the success of these social networking Web 2.0 enabled websites was the human need to create a community of like minded people. As a result these kind of sites like myspace gained in popularity. Moreover there was a new breed of websites which enabled people to share photos. Previously, there were only social networking sites that were popular. Later , more targeted community sites evolved like technical communities, spiritual communities. Gradually , having a blog or a website became commonplace and the best part of all this was most of the sites were free and could be used by non-techies or the beginners. So here we are , in a world of vast array of technologies which are enabling more and more people to participate in the technology. This trend is breaking boundaries of cast , color and creed. Nowadays , you may have an account on Orkut where you may be having a person from another country as your friend.

But all this is not without its dangers. Today any person may pose as another person and you may never know. Hackers target these social sites for their own ends. So you have to be more aware while you are on the web traversing the maze of technology.

More Information

Web 2.0 Style
Privacy rules for a Web 2.0 world

Virtualization Technology

2008-05-30T00:41:00.000-07:00

What Is Virtualization?

Virtualization is the technology through which a single computer system is made to work like multiple machines.In other words there may several operating systems working at the same time on a single machine.For example , you may have installed Windows XP as your primary operating system but there may requirement of running a server class operating system on the same system.There are two ways to do that.The first one is obvious that is to install that server operating system on separate machine.But this is a bit costly it terms of resources because you have to use separate computer to do that.

The latest technology to prevent this is the virtualization technique.In virtualization we use a software specially created for this purpose.This software works as a thin layer between your primary operating system and the other n number of operating systems which can be installed on that special software.Many virtualization software are available in the market.So virtualization is a technology which divides the hardware of a system into multiple execution environments.So you may have solaris running on Windows XP.

Microsoft Virtual PC is microsoft's offering in the field of virtualization.VMware is another software widely used for virtualization.In large enterprises the importance of virtualization is even greater so that resources can be efficiently utilized.The reason being that the IT Infrastructure used in big companies is very costly.

Virtualization is not only used to simulate the hardware but it can also be used to simulate a network of computers.

Another use of virtualization may be when you need to run legacy applications on a computer.These applications may not be able to utilize the resources.In that case it is better to use virtualization technology.From the security point view virtualization can be used to securely execute the untrusted applications in a separate environment.Virtualizaton can also be used to put extra workload on underutilised servers.Thus we can see now that virtualization is a very good technology to utilize IT infrastructure.

More Info

VirtualBox from Sun Microsystems
Virtualization – Before Disaster Strikes
The Future of Virtual Desktops: Turning Rich Desktops into a Ubiquitous Service
Beta version of VMware Fusion 2.0

Privacy Policy And Disclaimer

2008-05-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

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Contact Information
If you have any questions or concerns please contact me at to. This privacy policy updated May 2009.

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All trademarks and logos belong to their respective owners.