Showing posts with label Tech. Show all posts

Monday, May 31, 2010

Firefox: Essential Add Ons

WOT – We all know about the threats which surfers suffer like viruses, spywares, adware, malicious spam, phishing etc., but here Web of Trust comes to rescue. WOT warns you about risky websites that try to scam surfers before they enter in them using a safety rating of 21 million websites, WOT combines evidence collected from multiple sources. Not only does it help surfers but also sets a protection level for children by blocking inappropriate content.

Ghostery – It keeps an eye on the websites that are keeping an eye on you i.e. it finds out that which web sites which are tracking you and would alert you about the same.

Interclue - Ever wanted to know what was behind the link before you clicked? Interclue tells you everything you need to know before you open yet another tab.

Colorful Tabs – Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appeal of the interface.

Separe – Helps you keeping tabs tidy by introducing a new kind of tab.

Permatabs – turn tabs of your choice into permanent tabs that can’t be closed, and stick around between sessions.

Flashblock – blocks all Flash content from loading on a webpage.

Adblock Plus – is an enhanced version of Adblock. Block ads, applets, flash, embedded-media etc.

Download Youtube Videos+ - Video and audio download toolbar for tube sites and flv movies

Google Toolbar for Firefox

Fastest Search: Text search on page/in all tabs. Contains many features such as search Count/regex/visualize & list result/find-as-you-type.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Tips on Google Search

Google has become very much an indispensable tool for carrying out many of our day to day tasks. But, chances are, unless you are a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form. If your current use of Google is limited to typing a few words in and changing your query until you find what you’re looking for, then here’s a better way – and it’s not hard to learn.

Explicit Phrase:
Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing Shell scripting tutorial into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.

Example: "Shell scripting tutorial"
Exclude Words:
Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the "-" sign in front of the word you want to exclude.

Example Search: internet marketing -advertising
Site Specific Search:
Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the "site:somesite.com" modifier.

Example: "policy document" site:indiapost.gov.in
Similar Words and Synonyms:
Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the "~" in front of the word.

Example: "internet marketing" ~professional
Specific Document Types:
If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier "filetype:". For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.

Example: "internet marketing" filetype:ppt
This OR That:
By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).

Example: internet marketing OR advertising
Phone Listing:
Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know how it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.

Example: phonebook:617-555-1212 (note: the provided number does not work – you’ll have to use a real number to get any results).
Area Code Lookup:
If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.

Example: 411033
Numeric Ranges:
This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods. This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.

Example: president 1940..1950
Stock (Ticker Symbol):
Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.

Example: GOOG
Calculator:
The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.

Example: 48512 * 1.02
Word Definitions:
If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the "define:" command.

Example: define:magnificent

Hope this list of Google search tips proves useful in your future Google searches. If there are any of your favorite Google expert power tips that I’ve missed, please feel free to share them in the comments.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Sample vimrc file

The vimrc file contains optional runtime configuration settings to initialize Vim when it starts. On Unix based systems, the file is named .vimrc

Here is a sample .vimrc file I use.

"set smarttab       " When on, a in front of a line inserts blanks according to shiftwidth
set showmode        " Show the current mode
set showcmd         " display incomplete commands
set showmatch       " show matching braces,
set hlsearch        " highlight searches
"set title          " show title in console title bar
set laststatus=2    " always show status line
set ic              " case insensitive search : use set noic to turn it off

set nocompatible    " This setting prevents vim from emulating the original vi's bugs and limitations.

set autoindent
set smartindent
"   The first setting tells vim to use autoindent (that is, use the current line's indent level to set the indent level of new lines). The second makes vim attempt to intelligently guess the indent level of any new line based on the previous line, assuming the source file is in a C-like language. Combined, they are very useful in writing well-formatted source code.

set tabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
" The first setting sets up 2-space tabs, and the second tells vi to use 2 spaces when text is indented (auto or with the manual indent adjustmenters.)

set showmatch
"    This setting will cause the cursor to very briefly jump to a brace/parenthese/bracket's match whenever you type a closing or opening brace/parenthese/bracket. I've had almost no mismatched-punctuation errors since I started using this setting.

set vb t_vb=
"This setting prevents vi from making its annoying beeps when a command doesn't work. Instead, it briefly flashes the screen -- much less annoying.

set ruler
"    This setting ensures that each window contains a statusline that displays the current cursor position.

set incsearch
"    With this nifty option, vim will search for text as you enter it. For instance, if you type /bob to search for bob, vi will go to the first b after you type the b, to the first bo after you type the o, and so on. It makes searching much faster, since if you pay attention you never have to enter more than the minimum number of characters to find your target location. Make sure that you press Enter to accept the match after vim finds the location you want.

"set virtualedit=all
"    By default, vim doesn't let the cursor stray beyond the defined text. This setting allows the cursor to freely roam anywhere it likes in command mode. It feels weird at first but is quite useful.

set tags=/tags,./tags
set showfulltag         " Get function usage help automatically

""""""""""""" Highlight following in all files """"""""""""""""""""""
hi TODO ctermfg=red ctermbg=blue term=bold
syntax match TODO /TODO/

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"        Use Cscope within Vi                        "
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Refer http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Cscope for more details

if has('cscope')
set cscopetag cscopeverbose

if has('quickfix')
    set cscopequickfix=s-,c-,d-,i-,t-,e-
endif

cnoreabbrev csa cs add
cnoreabbrev csf cs find
cnoreabbrev csk cs kill
cnoreabbrev csr cs reset
cnoreabbrev css cs show
cnoreabbrev csh cs help

command -nargs=0 Cscope cs add $VIMSRC/src/cscope.out $VIMSRC/src
endif""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"               Mappings                 "
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
" Keyboard mappings
map :previous " map F1 to open previous buffer
map :next      " map F2 to open next buffer

map :setl noai nocin nosi inde= " Disabling auto indent for the current file

Monday, February 15, 2010

The Free Lunch is Over

This is an article from Herb Sutter (A software architect at Microsoft, and chair of the ISO C++ standards committee) stating the importance Of multithreaded programming paradigm that has come up to the forefront because of changes in CPU architecture.

You can access it here

97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

Get 97 short and extremely useful tips from some of the most experienced and respected practitioners in the industry.

They encourage you to stretch yourself by learning new languages, looking at problems in new ways, following specific practices, taking responsibility for your work, and becoming as good at the entire craft of programming as you possibly can.

Contributions Appearing in the Book

Here is the link to the home page:

http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/97_Things_Every_Programmer_Should_Know

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Alex Stepenov's Advice To Young Programmers

This is the summary of speech Given by Alex Stepenov (Principal Scientist,Adobe Systems) at Adobe India on 30 Nov 2004.

1. Study , Study and Study
Never ever think that you have acquired all or most of the knowledge which exists in the world. Almost everybody in US at age of 14 and everybody in India at age of 24 starts thinking that he has acquired all the wisdom and knowledge that he needs. This should be strictly avoided.
You should be habituated to studies…exactly in the same way as you are habituated to brushing teeth and taking bath every morning. The habit of study must become a part of your blood. And the study should be from both the areas: CS, since it is your profession, and something from non-CS…Something which does not relate to your work. This would expand your knowledge in other field too. A regular study, everyday, is extremely essential. It does not matter whether you study of 20 minutes of 2 hours,but consistency is a must.

You should always study basics and fundamentals. There is no point in going for advanced topics. When I was at the age of 24, I wanted to do PhD in program verification, though I was not able to understand anything from that. The basic reason was that my fundamental concepts were not clear. Studying Algebraic Geometry is useless if you do not understand basics in Algebra and Geometry. Also, you should always go back and re-read and re-iterate over the fundamental concepts. What is the exact definition of `fundamental’? The stuff which is around for a while and which forms basic part of the concepts can be regarded as more fundamental. Of course, everybody understands what a fundamental means.
Here are few books which I would strongly recommend that every CS professional should read and
understand:

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Albenson and Sussman. I personally do not like the material present in this book and I do have some objections about it but this is the best book I have ever seen which explains all the concepts in programming in a clear and excellent way. This book is available online at “http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/“
Introduction to Computer Architecture by Hennessy and Patterson. How many of you have shipped the programs by writing them in assembly? A very good understanding of basics of how a computer operates is what every CS professional must have. H&P Wrote two books on CA. I am talking about their first book, the introductory text for understanding basic aspects of how a computer works. Even if you feel that you know whatever is written in that book,do not stop reading. It’s good to revise basics again and again.
Fundamentals of Programming by Donald Knuth The core of CS is algorithms and Data structures. Every CS professional must have the 3 volumes of Knuth’s Book on programming. It really does not matter if you take 30 years of your life to understand what Knuth has written, what is more important is that you read at least some part of that book everyday without fail.
Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest. This book should be read daily to keep your concepts fresh. This is the best book for fundamental concepts in algorithms.

2. Learn Professional Ethics
As a CS Professional, you are morally obliged to do a good job. What this means is that you are supposed to do your job not for your manager but for yourself. This is already told in Bhagwatgeeta : Doing duties of your life. The direct implication of this is: never ever write a bad code. You don’t need to be fastest and run after shipping dates; rather you need to write quality code. Never write junk code. Rewrite it till it is good. Thoroughly test every piece of code that you write. Do not write codes which are “sort of alright”. You might not achieve perfection, but at least your code should be of good quality.

Let me quote my own example in this context. You might have heard about STL, The Standard Template Library that ships in with C++ compilers. I wrote it 10 years ago, in 1994. While implementing one of the routines in the STL, namely the “search routine”, I was a bit lazy and instead of writing a good linear order implementation of KMP which was difficult to code, I wrote a best quadratic implementation. I knew that I could make the search faster by writing a linear-order implementation, but I was lazy and I did not do that. And, after 10 years of my writing STL, exactly the same implementation is still used inside STL and STL ships with an inefficient quadratic implementation of search routine even today!! You might ask me: why can’t you rewrite that? Well…I
cannot,because that code is no more my property!! Further, nobody today will be interested in a standalone efficient STL …people would prefer one which automatically ships out with the compiler itself.

Moral is, you should have aesthetic beauty built inside you. You should “feel” uneasy on writing bad code and should be eager to rewrite the code till it becomes upto the quality. And to the judge the quality, you need to develop sense regarding which algorithms to use under what circumstances.

3. Figure out your Goals

Always aspire doing bigger things in life.”Viewing promotion path as your career” is a completely wrong goal. If you are really interested in studying and learning new things, never ever aspire for being a manager. Managers cannot learn and study…they have no time. “Company ladder aspiration” is not what should be important for you.

You might feel that you want to do certain things which you cannot do till you become a manager. When you become a manager, you will soon realize that now you just cannot do anything!
You will have a great experience as programmers. But if you care for people and love people, you will never enjoy being a manager…most good managers are reluctant managers. If you see people as people, you cannot survive at management level.
Always aspire for professional greatness. Our profession is very beautiful because we create abstract models and implement them in reality. There is a big fun in doing that. We have a profession which allows us to do creative things and even gives nice salary for that.

The three biggest mistakes that people usually make are aiming for money,aiming for promotion and aiming for fame. The moment you get some of these, you aspire for some more…and then there is no end. I do not mean that you should not earn money, but you should understand how much money would satisfy your needs. Bill Gates might be the richest person in the world; he is certainly not the happiest. Our lives are far better than his.

Find your goal, and do best in the job that you have. Understand that what is in your pocket does not
matter…what is in your brain finally matters.Money and fame do not matter. Knowledge matters.

4. Follow your culture

I have seen the tradition that whatever junk is created in US, it rapidly spreads up in the rest of the world, and India is not an exception for this. This cultural change creates a very strong impact on everybody’s life. Habits of watching spicy Bollywood or Hollywood movies and listening to pop songs and all such stupid stuff gets very easily cultivated in people of your age…but believe me, there is nothing great in that. This all just makes you run away from your culture. And there is no wisdom in running away from your culture. Indian culture,which has great Vedas and stories like Mahabharata and Bhagwatgeeta is really great and even Donald Knuth enjoys reading that. You should understand that fundamental things in Indian culture teach you a lot and you should never forget them.

Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that it’s your life…do not waste it on stupid things…develop your tests, and start the fight.

This is the summary of speech Given by Alex Stepenov (Principal Scientist,Adobe Systems) at Adobe India on 30 Nov 2004.