Month: January 2008

Interesting Find #9

  1. Synergy – one mouse and keyboard to control them all.
  2. 50 Tips, Tweaks and Hacks to make the most of Google Calendar.
  3. Wayback Machine – Browse through 85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. e.g. how Microsoft.com looked 12 years ago. Awww … I had forgotten the IE logo.
  4. Hamachi remote Wake-on-LAN tutorial.
  5. Virtual Wifi – connect to multiple wireless networks at the same time using one wireless card!
  6. Cilk is a language for multithreaded parallel programming based on C and is especially effective for exploiting dynamic, highly asynchronous parallelism, which can be difficult to write in data-parallel or message-passing style
  7. MSDN Code Gallery – need I say more?
  8. Reverse IP Check – see what sites are running on the same web server as your domain. E.g. at the time of writing this there were 305 domains hosted on the same web server as this blog – wow!
  9. Airbus A380 Cockpit in 360.
  10. London Food Hygiene ratings – don't concentrate only on how many Michelin Stars the restaurant has, but focus on how clean is it.

Livelock

I did not know until this week that there was something called "Livelock"; Eh? I heard of Deadlock what the heck is Livelock? Well it is kind of the opposite of Deadlock (in some respects).

A Deadlock as we know is when say Process A is waiting for Process B to finish or release some resource or something before continuing and Process B in turn is waiting for Process A before it continues – end result neither continues.

Livelock is when Process A is running and is constantly changing e.g. stuck in a very long running or infinite loop and quite often causes resources to run out (a.k.a Resource Starvation).

My classic example of this was when I was using Turbo C 2.0, many moons ago and after a point I could not compile anymore because the compiler was running out of stack space – as the program had grown than big in size. I had to move to Turbo C++ compiler as that could address more than 512 KB or memory which the Turbo C compiler could not. All these years and I did not know I was experiencing a Livelock!

Vista, User, Apps and Daddy – a complex relationship

Here is how fellow Avanut Wayne describes the "conversation" between Vista and you (the user) when an app. decides to kick the bucket. I particularly like the last one. Big Smile

User: “This thing’s frozen.”
[Tries to close program using various keyboard and mouse actions.]

U: “Yep, totally wasted.”
[Task Manager displays]

U: “Kill this program.”

Computer: “Hey, uh, did you know that this program isn’t really responding?  I think it might be frozen.”

U: “Uh, yeah.  That’s kind of why I told you to kill it.”

C: “So, what do you want me to do about it?”

U: “Kill it already!”

C: “Wait, wait, I think its not responding…”

U: …

C: “Oh, ok, it stopped responding, lets figure out why.”

U: …

C: “Hmm, dunno.  I'm going to tell daddy.”
[Uploads problem report to Microsoft.]

VMware Fusion – the perfect Mac and Windows marriage?

VMware Fusion is not new and I have been meaning to blog about it for a while but just not got around to it until now. If you only have used VPC (Virtual PC) or it's bigger cousin (Virtual Server) and never used one of the VMware products, wake up and smell the coffee and get ready to get blown away.

VMware Workstation for example is so much better than VPC and is not even in the same league. Looking at cars as an analogy, the VPC is a Ford Ka (who come's up with these names?) and the VMware Workstation is a Aston Martin DBS.

Interesting Find #8

It has been a while since I posted some of the interesting find (been busy for a change).

  1. Slashtop – no more waiting for the OS to boot up; if you want to get online or make a call using skype then this is up and running in an instant; more details here.
  2. Exploits of a Mom – need I say more?
  3. 5 ways to share big files between co-workers or friends – quite handy when you are in those pesky situations when you need to get something across to someone else.
  4. Cellprofile Switcher – you can use the information about the mobile cell your phone uses to do some work for you. For example, your phone can automatically silent itself when you get to work. Of course not too much help when on the tube.
  5. Kudocities – I came across this when trying to find out what happened to there was a decent buritto joint (sadly not in the same league as Chipotle) close to the office which suddenly closed and that was a big deal! Why? Well for all the culture, people, excitement, smoke, crime, tube, etc. that is London there is not a decent Mexican joint. Sad
  6. Crazy about Alarms? Then check out phoneAlarm for your mobile.
  7. Vidabox Lux – is this the most advanced Media Centre? It supports HD-DVD, HDTV, BluRay, etc.
  8. My Mobiler – interact with your Windows Mobile screen from your desktop (including copy/past, drag/drop, capture, etc.). Or maybe it is this one?
  9. Desktop Wallpapers – quite amazing and hundreds and free.
  10. Z Wave Products – of course if you need to "shutdown" then won't work. Err … what the heck is Z Wave?

WCF Throttling Issues with .NET 3.0 SP1

When you install SP1 for .NET 3.0 by default that changes the throttling settings you might be use to. You could get into a situation where a number of calls are processed and then they stop with the client eventually timing out. To get around this you either explicitly close your connection (which is a good practice in most cases) or change the serviceThrottling setting in your WCF config.

Home Server Domain Name Setup

Until recently I was running the RC of WHS (being part of the Beta program); but as that was expiring I coughed up for the OEM version. After installing it when I tried to configure the domain name to mychoice.homeserver.com I got an unknown error. I tried both homeserver.com and livenode.com options but neither of them worked.

It seemed to get these working you need to open IE on your WHS and go to Tools => Security => Trusted Sites => Sites and add the following two sites and try adding it again and all should be OK then.

  • http://208.99.195.35
  • https://208.99.195.35

How to make Tea – from a Hacker

I was reading on something else and came across this and was quite bemused. Simple Nomad is a hacker who loves Tea. For those who did not know, Tea is called "Chai" in Hindi so when you see "Chai Tea" somewhere (like Starsucks) then that means "Tea Tea" which just sounds silly.

If you are a  chai fan then the Indian "Masala Chai" is apparently the way to go (I am not a tea drinker so can't say). Simple Nomad seems to agree and has details on which spices to add and which recipes are the best at what time of the day.

Dell Crystal LCD's

You remember me talking about holding off that Dell? Well the very cool Crystal LCD's are here (and boy are they pricey)!

For $1200 you get a 22" 1680 x 1050 display. I only see these on Dell's US site and don't see them on the UK site yet. Not sure how long before they show up here. I am surprised Dell did not get this out in time for Christmas.

You can't be a geek and not drool on these! Better start saving those pennies.

Point UI

Fellow Avanut David send the link to Point UI; it essentially is a small skin application for your Windows Mobile 5/6 and somewhat emulates the iPhone interface. Before you roll your eyes and think "here is another iPhone-knockoff-wanna-be", I'd suggest you take it for a spin. It is just bloody good!

The interface is just simple and you can use fingers (my fat fingers also worked!); to me it seems a less of the iPhone and more of a combination of the HTC Touch and the new upcoming Windows Mobile 6.1 and 7 (screenshots of v6.1 can be found here). Maybe Microsoft should hire these guys in the team.

Yes it is version 1 and has a few things missing but the community is quite active and a lot of good seems to be coming out. And the best part of it all – it is free. Big Smile