Arbit Scratchpad

Open Source and Feature Comfort (BROWSERS) Somehow I am not satisfied with the open source browsers such as Mozilla and Firebird though IE isn't exactly bug-free far from it its full of high vulnerability bugs but some features I sorely miss on other browsers. I have Opera 6, Mozilla 1.1, and Firebird 0.6.1 installed apart from IE 6.0 ... The one feature that is making me go crazy is the offline viewing capability. If I have visited a webpage and then close down my DUN connection and close the browser, I can come back at a later time and read it offline when I fire up IE (through history or the address bar links) with most websites; this seems to be missing completely with Firebird and in Mozilla it works to some extent, however lately Mozilla keeps on crashing on opening too many tabs and then none of the links will ope even if you make the file -> work offline true. The tabbed browsing is a cool feature but by mistake you tend to close the windows and all youe tabs are ...

BLOGS - A SAFE MEDIUM TO BE PUBLIC ? Do posts convey or mould your character... Have you guys ever had this feeling of 'I should not have posted this particular post I should delete it' - I sometimes have strong feelings like that and feel should immediately delete an earlier posted entry because its not right to make public or is too stupid for me to have done so and will bore people ... Do your posts in some way mould your character in the eyes of the readers - maybe yes; but you can always pretend and stuff - that holds with any medium. Any ways the blog as a public diary seems like a scary thing where you tend to write on and little more restraint would be appropriate. The recent incident wherein a software engineer was expelled from Microsoft comes to mind. Also clicking photos and posting pictures from within the workplace or in and around the organization you work in can be dangerous as I am currently prohibited from doing so in my organization (reasons I will ...

Pixel crunching graphics at the workplace All the PCs in our team (13 members) were loaded with the nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 graphics cards because the application we are developing uses some graphics intensive 2D and 3D GIS rendering and features which the older Matrox cards did not support and this was essential. Earlier, images or icons and symbols didnt load up or where patchy at best (3D features crashed...) - its all gone with the mind-blowing 64 MB VRAM on board. With the GeForce4 MX graphics processing units (GPUs), NVIDIA provides a new level of cost-effective, high-performance graphics to the mainstream PC user. With its incomparable nView(TM) multi-display architecture, Lightspeed Memory Architecture II, and Accuview Antialiasing(TM) engine, the GeForce4 MX series delivers feature-rich, leading-edge graphics technology, performance and flexibility. Though the latest stuff for desktops by nVidia are much more mind-boggling - FIND OUT

Yearning to break free - The Free Spirit There is this mindset that you are inferior to me consequently I am superior to you so I do not care a damn, 'why should I bother about you' attitude that is prevalent in our generation, haughty behavior and a misguided feeling of pride is what follows. Or is it some kind of fear that he is inferior so I should not mingle with him � as a result 'rotten apples will spoil the good ones' phobia? Or does this have something to do with the levels of thinking or wavelength matches that we hear about. People may be good to you and willing to help or be friends but you will not give a second look ignoring and hurting of humiliating them. Muted aggression and contempt dripping in every look. I do not need him or he is of no use to me so I need not even be courteous to him. Strains of autism ? Does it have something to do with the environment we are all bought up in ? Maybe to some extent but its always possible to break free o...

When the Microsoft guys came over to Linux Bangalore 2003 Conference Believe me, unbelievable as it may sound it was true and they had come as usual to promote a proprietary software, something that allows all kinds of Unix/Linux programs to run over Windows (SFU or something...) with support in the windows kernel itself - these guys keenly dissassemble and take a close look into competing technologies. They actually, frankly speaking, did a good job and the supporting 'non-violent' ;-) crowd was a great thing to see. The three days went off very well with non-stop lectures by some of the top open-source developers. Naba Kumar of the feature-rich Anjuta IDE for C/C++ and GTK development on creating projects and maintaining them.The extremely funny antics of Miguel de Icaza (founder of GNOME) on Mono (Open source .Net platform) and and a more sober Nat Friedman on Web-services. Sirtaj Kang on KDE, Jeremy Zawodny, Rasmus Lerdorf (creator of PHP) on PHP optimizations an...