September 2006

Google Reader till now was one of the most "unusable" applications from Google's stable. Google which re-defined usability with applications like GMail did not extend the same usability aspects to Google Reader. Now after hearing to the constant complaints/suggestions from the users, GReader has introduces a total new look and feel, and to be honest I am kind of liking it. (I will try the new GReader for a few days and hopefully it will end my hunt for a good RSS Reader) So what is new with Google Reader ? Anyone who has used the old user interface will immediately find the difference in the layout. The first thing I did was to delete all the subscriptions within the Reader and import the OPML file. To my surprise, GReader maintained the Folder structure while importing the OPML file.

If you are a Formula1 fan, you should definitely check this link:

BBC MotorSport - Inside a F1 Car

Lots of information about the Aerodynamics, Electronics and Cockpit is covered in this amazing animation !

If you are not a Formula1 fan, it doesn't mean you shouldn't have a look at this link. Only that I would recommend the links in this order:

Formula1 - Wikipedia

BBC MotorSport - Inside a F1 Car

I might be little partial, but I would recommend this link as well

Michael Schumacher - Wikipedia

This is one guy who kept me hooked on the game for 10 years and with Michael announcing his retirement I

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Today I received a mail from Yahoo (my-yahoo-register@yahoo-inc.com) with this content:

Your Yahoo! ID is: somethingsomething

Your password for this account has recently been changed. You don't need to do anything, this message is simply a notification to protect the security of your account.

Please note: your new password may take awhile to activate. If it doesn't work on your first try, please try it again later.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. For further help or to contact support, please see http://help.yahoo.com/help/edit/

Now the problem is I don't remember changing the password of this yahoo account. The question is:why the hell did I get this message ?

One reason might be that

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In response to my previous post on Disk space, Rahul suggested me to try the CCleaner application. Initially I thought that the functionality of CCleaner was similar to that of Windows Disk Cleanup

I was proved wrong ! First I ran Disk Cleanup to clear the temporary files. Later I ran CCleaner and the tool was still able to find 80MB of crap data. And going by the standards I follow to keep out the temporary files, this was huge !

Here is what the CCleaner site has to say about the application:

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system -

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Even with a big hard drive (100GB), I somehow manage to fill it up lots of data and one day I realize that the disk is out of space. I am sure its the same case with many others as well :) To overcome this problem, you are left with 4 options Buy a new additional hard drive. Backup some of the unused files onto a DVD/CD . Upload/Backup data onto a free service such as AMD Live! Media Vault Cleanup your hard drive. Option 1 First option is again a short term solution, since within a short time it will also be filled up and you will be back to the state where you have to again make a choice! Basically it results in an "infinite" loop !! My blogroll friend Shiv has a 250GB hard drive and he says even that is not enough and surprisingly he is contemplating on adding additional drives ! Option 2 The second option is a pretty useful one, but you need to take care of labeling the media and also storing it properly. There should be a proper catalog of the data written on the media (CD/DVD) to avoid duplication. And with "writable" DVD's become cheaper by the day, this solution is definitely recommended. And if you have a dual layer DVD writer, you can write double the amount of data on a single DVD. On the downside, not everyone has a DVD writer and so for a few this solutions is also ruled out.

One of my colleague introduced me to Openlaszlo today and I should say I was amazed by what all you can do using Laszlo.

This is what the Laszlo has to say about OpenLaszlo :

OpenLaszlo is an open source platform for creating zero-install web applications with the user interface capabilities of desktop client software.

OpenLaszlo programs are written in XML and JavaScript and transparently compiled to Flash and soon DHTML. The OpenLaszlo API's provide animation, layout, data binding, server communication, and declarative UI. An OpenLaszlo application can be as short as a single source file, or factored into multiple files that define reusable classes and libraries.

OpenLaszlo is

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Some time back Saarr was released which helped in previewing a summary of a search result. The end result was that it helped in reducing the number of clicks. I was introduced to 2 more tools CoolIris and Browster (via Labnol) which unlike Saarr shows the complete page when you hover over the link. Browster Browster allows you to browse search results more quickly and with fewer clicks. It lets you to preview a web page before you click. When you hover over the link in a search result or a link on any page, a prefetch icon is displayed next to the cursor. When you hover over the prefetch cursor, the Browster window widget opens and shows the contents ...

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.

I use PuTTY for 2 primary reasons

It can save the session information and I can quickly load the session of my choice (i.e. I don't need to remember the IP details etc)

It has support for SSH sessions.

The application is a single executable file and its pretty easy to configure and use. A step by step guide for configuring Putty can be found here. The only drawback is that for every session, I have to open a new window, and especially when you

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Check this screenshot:

This is the memory usage of Yahoo IM when its initially started on my machine ! So with this kind of memory usage, why would anyone want to run multiple instances of Yahoo messenger ?

My first E-Mail ID was with Yahoo and was created 8 years back. I recently created a new yahoo mail ID and I wanted to use this as my primary Yahoo ID (including Yahoo Messenger).

I was faced with the problem of moving my buddies from the old ID to the new one. Unfortunately there was no easy way of exporting and importing your chat buddies in Yahoo IM.

(As I am writing, I think

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If you are planning to upgrade to Windows vista, you should also start planning to upgrade your PC hardware ?

But do you really need to upgrade your hardware ? The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is the right tool to answer this !

It recently had an "upgrade" to RC and the same is available for download here

The tool advises you on which part of the system you need to upgrade in order to support vista. Its also suggests as to which version of vista will be suitable.

My PC seems to have passed the test and hopefully I can upgrade to vista with no issues ! How about yours ?

More on Vista

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