28 Feb 2005

Editing with gVim

For fellow Vi enthusiasts, in case you have been unconscious of the fact, there's a Vi for Windows - GVim. And for those who already know this (good for you!), here's a nice and brief document called "Editing with gVim", to get you started. Do make it a point to read the help (its the *best* place to start, here's a online copy) and once you are done - do head over to the Scripts and Tips sections to flex your newly developed (or seasoned) Vim muscles ;)

Open source XML editors

I have been playing with XML/XSL for a little while now. I am always on the lookout for good tools. I ran into this article about Open source XML editors on newsforge. Do take a look.

16 Feb 2005

Firefox Help, Tips and Tricks

Heres a nice page on Firefox Help, Tips and Tricks. Although i knew a good part of whats already given in there, i found some of the tips most intruiging! Do take a look - worth the time.

14 Feb 2005

Blogging Tools - w.bloggar

Here's a great blogging tool that i have been using for quite some time - w.bloggar. It supports a wide variety of blogs. Do check it out. I highly recommend it.

After note:
It seems that the software is having problems operating from behind firewalls. So, i havent managed to post with w.bloggar. If you have please let me know (drop a comment here). For more developments, check out the support forums.

9 Feb 2005

Open Source powers Flickr

copyright: flickr.comI have been using Flickr to keep my photos for quite some time now. I have been so impressed by their service that i have opted for a paid membership. I have been putting up photos there ever since. Here's an interesting article on how the open source technologies are helping Flickr work.

Also, here's a link to an interview with Stewart Butterfield (CEO, Flickr.com) on how flickr went from being a small startup to the 270,000 users + 4 million plus company it is today.

Google does Maps now.

Google featured its ability to do maps (Google Maps (Beta)) today. Here's a link to a tour.

Later note:
For those technically inclined (like me), here's a detailed dissection of what goes under the hood. I also ran into a link a similiar dissection of the google suggest service (also in beta stage).

8 Feb 2005

Java peeps into the world of online bidding with JBidWatcher.

Here's an extremely innovative software that helps you win your ebay auctions. If you have used ebay before and waited hours for an auction to end, only to lose at the last second by a extremely negligible margin ? Well, thats 'sniping' for you :)


AndJBidWatcher will let you do that (among the other things). Requires Java to run. (screenshots here)

NewsForge | Enterprise instant messaging using Jabber

Here's an interesting article on how to use Jabber for Enterprise instant messaging. Its amazing how easy it is to quickly setup instant messaging with some easily avialable softwares on the internet.

Some cool Firefox Tips and Tricks

Ran into this cool page on Firefox Help, Tips and Tricks. If you are using Firefox then this is a must-see.

7 Feb 2005

Pains of switching to a mac.

With Apple trying to get people to switch from using a PC to a Mac, heres an interesting blog entry that describes someones efforts to do so at work. The author gives up saying "After four days of trying to make it work, I found myself less productive because I couldnt do things the way I had been.".

3 Feb 2005

Search Engine Comparison.

Microsoft recently went live with its MSN Search. Others like Yahoo! and Google have also been steadingly improving their search engines.


The entry of Microsoft in the search engine market has prompted a lot of excitement and several people have already posted comparisons between these three. Here's one by Gaurav Sharma. Prompted by Gaurav's trials, i conducted a few of my own (sort of to find out for myself). The only difference was that i looked for Madonna and Sharon Stone instead of Britney Spears ;).And here are my results: (note: All the results are for black and white images with Safe Search on, however be warned, some of the results might contain nudity)


Now read Gaurav's article and compare them yourself :)


My verdict ? As usual Google came out tops when it came to number of results with Yahoo! and then MSN (for Madonna: 16200, 8600 and 1366 resp). Even though thats attributed to number of sites indexed - ideally Yahoo! should have come out on top (its older). As for explicity content filtering (also called "Safe Search") - MSN came out top, then google and then Yahoo!.



To add to this search comparison - i also tried searching the three for news on "shankaracharya" (in the light of recent events). Here's what i found.
, MSN with 480 , and Yahoo with 425. Searching Google News (which is currently in Beta) and Google News with India selected turned up the same number of results. MSN Search allows , but changing that did not affect the search results much. Yahoo! on the the hand shows dramatic change in number of results when search on Yahoo!, Yahoo! India and Yahoo! UK. All in all i would give Google News top marks for its comprehensiveness. I also found other features like "All 99 related >>" link below each search, a news thumbnails next to it and lastly its news alerts (something i use heavily). I also noticed that MSN and Google show result retrieval times (0.26 and 0.13 seconds respectively), but Yahoo! doesnt. Also MSN search counters Google alerts by adding a RSS link for the searches (nice !). I didnt notice anything similiar for Yahoo! (i am leaving out My Yahoo! purposely).



On an after thought i also tried searching on all the three sites using Unicode Indic Input method (see BhashaIndia and Baraha) for more details) for the devanagari word "Mandir" (मंदीर). And here's what happened - (in descending order of my ranking) - Google (5 results), MSN (2 results) and Yahoo! (1 result). Now hows that ? (For the curious, see: How do i write in my Native Language)

2 Feb 2005

Extension Room - Firefox extensions galore !

I have been using the Firefox browser for several months now and have quickly come to love it. Since then my copy of IE gets fired up for only those sites which were specifically written for it (bad sites! bad sites!). One of my favourites features of Firefox is its abilities to have add-ons or extensions. And today i ran into this site - Extension Room which seems to have extensions for anything i ever wanted to do with a browser.

Some of my favourites (because they are most useful) are: