Manipulating Space with CSS (O'Reilly)

I used to play with CSS (cascading style sheets) a long time ago. This article, O'Reilly Network: Manipulating Space with CSS , brought back that old itch for CSS hacks.

I see my old CSS favourite tool - TopStyle from Bradbury Software is still going strong. I used to use the free lite version. Its still avialable on their download page. However, personally to date my favourite CSS sheet (or anything else - ) editor still remains the omnipresent Vim

Dorgem - Open Source Webcam Capture Application

Got a webcam ? Here's a interesting peice of software - Dorgem, that works on Win9x or above. What interesting is that it allows you to hookup one or more digital cameras into it and saves those images to various places like your disk, FTP server, mail and what not. It not only allows unlimited number of camera's, it lets u configure all or each one of them at once.

Another interesting features (its got loads of those) is that it allow you to overlay a bitmap or text on the images it records.

Solaris 10 will be open source

Here's this interesting post from news.com about the next upgrade to Sun Solaris v10 being designed to be open source.

Several posts on Sun employees (like this one) have been hinting at this event for quite sime time now. Sun says that this version of Solaris is aimed at Academics and developers who will be able to, for the first time, make modifications to the source code.

IBM to donate a part of voice recogition software to open source.

This would be the second time IBM has done something like this. The first time it was eclipse, which today has taken the shape of a huge foundation consisting of some of the most prestigious names in the industry. On the second count, the NY Times reports that IBM is out to donate a part of its speech recognition software to open source (see IBM Press Release).

Market analysts see this as a tactical move to add pace the voice-enabled applications. IBM already has a huge investment in the open source scenario with eclipse IDE being one its better known babies. The eclipse consortium has already put together a Voice tools project draft.

Dive Into Python

They've always told me "Some of the best things in life are free". Back then, it didnt make a lot of sense, but over the years i've found this to be true. Though i see internet as the best thing thats free, there are a few little things that fall into that category of "best, but free" as well.

One such thing is the book by Mark Pilgrim Dive Into Python. In short, it is one of the best of its kind book on the programming language - Python. And secondly - its free ! Check out marks blog "Dive into mark" for more details.

The book can be ordered in hard copy or freely downloaded in various formats (html, pdf, word document, text, docbook, etc). from here. Translations in several language exist.

Promoting blogs.

For newbie bloggers like myself who take blogging seriously, here a peice of blogger knowledge about promoting your blog by bizstone (he works at google on blogger). Its one of the most useful articles on blogging that i have read in recent times.

Getting ownership of ebay.de has become childs play !

Here's a bit of news about a 19-year old german hacker who gained control of popular .de domains like amazon.de, ebay.de, google.de, etc. The teen, recently arrested by german authorities says that he found instructions on faking domain transfer on a website and was amazed when it worked with the above sites. The
inquirer reports.

Net calls get their own Area Code.

In a first-ever, the telephone numbers that will be used to make calls from over the internet, will be assigned the fixed area code 056. This decision was made by Office of Communications (Ofcom).

Ofcom, who is the government body that regulates telephone services providers in UK, also announced that it will make it obligatory for online service providers to guarantee access to 999 (UK emergency numbers).

Philadelphia, USA to become the worlds largest Wi-Fi hotspot

Wi-fi is one of the hottest technologies around. In case you are wondering what i am talking about - check out this site for some basics. Wi-Fi (short for Wireless Fidelity) is the technology that allows wireless connections to the network - primarily the internet ! The very fact that there are no wires means that you dont have to be tied to one spot to access the internet, move into your garden or the kitchen or check the news while sitting on the toilet seat - its all possible now !

In what is being hailed as the glory of Wifi, Philadefia city officials are planning to turn all its 345 sq. km into a hotspot. In simpler terms, it means that would mean that Wi-fi access would be avialable city wide - either free of charge or for a small fee. Read more

If you already use Wi-fi with your laptop, palmtop, etc u can find a free hotspot near where you stay at - wififreespot.com/

Why Work at Google?

I came across this fantastic page on google putting across why one should work at google -
labs.google.com - Why Work at Google?. Personally, i havent seen a better way of doing this.

Speaking about google, its time for the annual Google Code Jam 2004. With the first prize of US$10,000 - its a very good reason to participate ! Google also promises "Top 50 finalists will have an all-expense-paid trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA – where the finals will be held on October 15, 2004". For more info visit the code jam page.