http://blog.spathare.com Software development, thoughts and rants (of course) Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:32:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Well, it's getting a bit old. Everyone around seems to have thanked Akismet long back. So this isn't really necessary. In fact, its redundant. Yet, it's never too late to thank anyone. (Adapted from V for Vendetta: It's never too late to apologize) Akismet has shown how we do not always require ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/12/yet-another-thanks-akismet-post/ I got a SOS call from a relative while I was on vacation. "My Internet Explorer is not working." No idea why. No one can resolve it. Other browsers are working properly. Long story short, after having spent a few minutes on his PC, I found out that IE was hanging ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/11/software-updates-auto-chaos/ Opacity, Shadow and Rounded-corner control over rendered objects make CSS3 exciting stuff. Imagine creating a beautiful website with all these features, without using an image editing program! (ok, throw in @font-face and you have the font of your choice on the webpage as well. That's it. Image editing is out) Its ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/11/the-best-of-css3-together/ Perhaps the best example of converting an irritating popup into an "unobtrusive", conveniently placed message is the "Remember Password" dialog of FireFox: Upto Version 2.x Version 3.x It was indeed very irritating to decide whether I want to remember the password or not for some xyz website where I had just one minute ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/09/unobtrusive-ui-101/ The focus on usability has increased considerably in the past decade. Firefox, Ubuntu, Wordpress are all great examples of powerful software or systems which strive for ease of use. There is little surprise that they emerge as clear winners or strong contenders for pole position in their respective domains. Some of ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/09/simple-is-in-portable-apps/ After much comic book reading and a geeky satisfaction that not many around me will understand that comic, I downloaded the much hyped browser and played with it for a few minutes. So this post is certainly not another review or "five things you didn't know" or "seventeen things you ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/09/google-chrome-and-the-skeptical-geeks/ The other day, Chirag directed me to this woik comparing the usability and features provided by ICICI bank and HDFC bank. Although I do not agree to the post in its entirety, my main choice for a savings account remains ICICI bank, primarily due to security reasons. ICICI bank's website ensures ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/09/icici-and-hdfc-netbanking-security-comparison/ For those interested in going for Tata Indicom Broadband, do take your time out and check the amazing service provided to me. Below are a series of unedited (literally, no change even in the fonts... exactly as shown by my gmail) mails exchanged between the ever-apologizing customer care and myself. Read ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/08/tata-indicom-broadband-how-much-one-can-suck/ Here. Customizing your GMail box with cool skins. Easier than ever. Thank God (and Mozilla) for GreaseMonkey Thanks to Nishi for the link. http://blog.spathare.com/2008/08/cool-firefox-add-on/ For I/O newbies in Java, the big question comes is which of the methods are to be used for I/O read/write. Anyway, unlike some other languages, Java insists on using the "explicit" way of coding: Code for Python (Write to file) f=open('scratch','wb') for i in xrange(1000000): f.write(str(i)) f.close() Code for Java (Write to file) File f = ... http://blog.spathare.com/2008/07/byte-and-char-differences-in-java/