Technology
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Written by Azeem
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Monday, 04 December 2006 |
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For those who don't know Web 2.0 is different from ww2 (Internet 2). Basically this is what it is: Internet Services taking the Internet experience to the next level. The latest phenomenon of social networking sites like digg, del.icio.us, youtube, flickr, meebo are examples of web 2.0 sites. It's not a technical protocol standardized by the W3C consortium, but its rather a way to seperate old school websites from todays far more useful futuristic web technologies.
I've blogged about RSS feeds before. Surprisingly I see technical people who still haven't caught on! I would suggest making an account at netvibes, a self proclaimed web 2.0 site which can be used to bring all of your internet needs together in one page, within one browser window!. The next step would be adding "feeds" from each of the websites you visit on a daily basis. Just click add feed, then enter the URL of your favorite websites. Most websites which are up to date will have RSS feeds set to be autodiscovered so ittl pick it up right away. You can try major sites like CNN, NPR etc. Another cool thing about netvibes is that it has set module which you can just add on. I can check my gmail, yahoo mail, aolmail, receive my ims on aim, msn, icq, yahoo, jabber (via meebo) all through modules. So I dont have to open up all these websites to access what I need to access.
I like the AJAX based netvibes alot. For the past few months I have been fighting with myself to figure out what the best way is to read my feeds. Because netvibes allows you create tabs, drag and drop I can easily create different tabs for all the different types of feeds I like to read. Google News and Yahoo News Generate feeds based on the searches you run. So I can get the feed for all Google News searches on lets say the words "Azeem Khan". So whenever a news story is released with the name Azeem Khan (use quotes) then my added feeds will automatically update. An even more useful usage of a user generated feed is one for job search sites like hotjobs. So everytime lets say a job in NY with the word "Joomla" is added to the site, I will immediately know about it. You can even use services like RSSfwd.com to have a feed sent to you as soon as its published.
For those who still don't understand what the hell I'm talking about... Listen you will get to see everything that you surf the web to see in one place. It might take you a long while to surf just a few of the sites which you like. If you use feeds properly you can heavily reduce the ammount of time you spend on surfing, and can use that time to read things which you really want to read.
Another very cool web 2.0 site out there is Dapper. Dapper is whats called a screen scraper site. Its a web service which can be used to generate RSS feeds off of existing sites. Watch this excellent demo to see how it works. This can be used on sites which don't currently have any feeds to create them.
Del.icio.us is a cleverly named web service which is used to store bookmarks online. There is an excellent Firefox module which can make bookmarking effective. Having your bookmarks online saves you the hassle of always having to back them up. Sometimes browsers crash and all of your bookmarks are gone! I've had that happen to me once, it's a horrible feeling.
Digg.com is a site you can waste hours and hours on. Its not just a news site. Its a user contribution based news site which revolves around discussion news items and more importantly allowing users to Digg an article if they feel its worthy, or to bury it if they think its garbage. What makes sites like youtube so good is the community element that it creates. Digg I feel does a great job of creating an online environment where people can discuss issues that are most important to them. There are a disproportionate number of geeks to regular people on the site though, therefore tech issues dominate the discourse.
I will blog more about this topic in the upcomming days. I want to create a video demo of how to use netvibes. So you can see how cool this stuff is.
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Written by Azeem
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Monday, 06 November 2006 |
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I recently got OptimumOnline's triple play package and speed booster. OOL has built in HDTV channels, over 22 free HDTV channels for free with its service. To get these channels you have to make sure you have the HDTV cable box and not the regular one. I don't have a HD compatible TV, but I figured why not get a TV Tuner card for my PC which can handle HDTV. Being a ATI fan I started researching the ATI HDTV card. It turned out that this card only supports OTA HDTV, in other words over the air transmissions. It comes with this ugly Antenna which picks up HD signals. These signals are stronger in larger cities. HDTV technology is quickly being adopted in the US and in the future the old TV transmissions will become obsolete and will be replaced by HDTV. So someone can get this TV Tuner and get HDTV for free without ever buying a HDTV. In my case this didn't help me much because I am already paying for OOL and want to take advantage of my built in HDTV service. So then I start looking at other HDTV cards. It turned out that the signal which will be provided by OOL will be a digital signal and most of these HDTV cards can only handle either OTA or Analog Cable.There are two major types of HDTV signals either ATSC or QAM. I asked OOL what type their signal is and they told me that its QAM (the dude was pronouncing it as quam).
 After reading a whole lot of product reviews I found that there are only two TV Tuner cards on the market that can handle a digital HD signal. One card is Called Fusion III QAM HD TV Tuner, and the other is called MyHD PCI HDTV Tuner. The Fusion III is scarcely available while MyHD can be bought on buy.com for about $150. The product description states: "With MyHD you can watch both Digital and Analog TV broadcasts on your PC at an affordable price". In a review of the Fusion III it states that this card can only handle "unencypted QAM signals". When I asked the OOL rep if their HDTV is encrypted or not... he had no clue. I am willing to take the risk and see if this thing works. I will get the MyHD card and give it a shot. If it doesn't work Ill get the ATI HDTV card and settle having to use that ugly antenna for HDTV and analog cable. Someone who reviewed the MyHD card said "Some of the local HDTV channels came in through the QAM tuner, but not much else. The channel numbering system was very confusing, but this could all be due to Time Warner Cable". I wonder if I will have the same results with OOL. Support is also horrendous for these cards.. so its going to be hit or miss. If it doesnt work its being sent back immediately.
In the process of searching for HDTV cards I learned about some cool services/softwares such as WatchHDTV (free download), BeyondTV,and TitanTV Guide. These softwares can be used to watch and schedule recordings of HDTV. It should also be noted that many of these cards don't have great compatability with the Windows Media Center Edition. If you have MCE make sure the card you get supports it and that when you install the card you dont use the CD that comes with it, but rather download the latest drivers from the Manufacturers site (this is advice I read again and again on newegg customer reviews).
 In other geeky news PLUSDECK2C is a Cassette Deck to mp3 recorder that fits in a 5.25 inch drive bay! Anyone who has a crap load of cassettes they dont want to throw out has to get this thing! It only costs $80. Definitely seems worth it.
If you know anything about anything please leave a comment!!
Discuss this article on the forums. (2 posts)
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Written by Azeem
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Tuesday, 10 May 2005 |
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Google has created a [url=http://desktop.google.com]desktop search[/url] application. When Asim first told me about it, he immediately warned me not to install it on my machine. And I asked him "why not". So he told me he ran some searches to see how good it was at revealing information like usernames and passwords. Unfortunately according to him it's really good.
I ran a search on Amazons A9 search engine on "Google Desktop Vulnerabilities" and I came across this article: [url=http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1730748,00.asp?kc=ewnws112904dtx1k0000599Bruce]Desktop Google Finds Holes[/url]. This article tries to disspell the security issues, but I'm not entirely convinced.
If you have documents where you store data like FTP info, client information, Receipts of online transactions (which might expose your credit card info) etc etc etc The list goes on and on. I guess if I knew more about exactly how the search engine indexes data I might be more comfortable with it.
I hate to be a fear mongerer, I don't do things like encrypt files, e-mails and things of that nature. But one has to protect their passwords, especially if they do online banking, or even have a paypal account. Of course common sense will take you a long way...(never e-mail sensitive information- ie passwords, CC info) but if this application is logging key strokes and all text appearing on your screen... then how can you stop it from logging things you dont want it to log?
The only real benefit I see in this application is having a search feature which is superior to the Windows built in search which is slow as hell and crappy as hell. When I am desperate to find a file, that is the only time I use it. But if it was really quick and didn't slow my machine down at all I wouldn't mind using this google application. But logging instant messages you can do that anyway through your chat application.
Any ideas? Any google advocates, employees, or security experts want to comment?
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Written by Azeem
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Sunday, 24 April 2005 |
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If you arent using RSS Feeds, and more specificially Live Bookmarks on Firefox you are really missing out. Check out these images (click to make bigger) to see what Im feeding myself these days. Also drop a comment saying what sites you feed!.
[img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/technology/feeds/01.gif width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/technology/feeds/02.gif width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/technology/feeds/03.gif width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/technology/feeds/04.gif width=100 height=100]
Discuss this article on the forums. (1 posts)
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Written by Azeem
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Monday, 18 April 2005 |
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Just Imagine the possibilities.... Imagine being able to import a PSD file into flash where each layer can be manipulated via action scripting, imagine flash animations embedded within PDF files.. sounds like a contradiction... Or even better think about being able to export a PDF of all the text in a flash file with the click of a button.. (It is usually painfully difficult to to copy and paste from a flash file). Imagine being able to export a very smooth looking video from Primiere directly into flash
I'll leave the rest to your imagination..
It was pretty cool when Macromedia aquired allaire (Which created Cold Fusion). I have always admired the various new products Macromedia has come up with. I.e. Breeze.. that is something that I am looking forward to working with. Adobe will now own one of the most diverse collections of boxed softwares out there. I think the only thing they need now is an operating system of thier own. Maybe they can create one using all the technolgoies they've aquired :) Then they can go up against Microsoft :)
[url=http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/index.php#adobe-to-acquire-macromedia-100030] more Info on the aquisition[/url]
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