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Foil the spam robots with SpamPoison
2008-05-30 11:57:00
SpamPoison is a small but useful utility to fight against spammers. It won?t directly help you in bringing down spam in your blog/Inbox but will stop spammers harvesting information which they can use for sending spam emails. Spammers usually get email addresses with the help of Bots. Bots (also known as wanderers, spiders or crawlers) crawls a web page and continually retrieving linked pages for extracting any email like string and store it in a database. Certainly this database is further used for sending spam emails using mass mailer software. Spam poison identifies these spammer?s crawlers and feed them through an infinite loop of dynamically generated fake email addresses. All you have to do is link back this page so that whenever a spammer's robot scans your page, it will be sucked into this one. To link to this page, just use this simple code: <a href="http://english-130430879095.spampoi son.com">Fight Spam! Click Here!</a>
More About: Spam , Robots , Misc

Microsoft Research launched WorldWide Telescope
2008-05-28 17:03:00
Microsoft launched its WorldWide Telescope , bringing the free Web-based program for zooming around the universe to a broad audience. The image above shows how the Earth looks like at night,  taken from this utility. visit here
More About: Microsoft , Research , Microsoft Research , Worldwide

Trip to Central London
2008-04-05 17:29:00
Today is the day when I first visited Central London and also the day when I landed at London Heathrow Airport one month back. It was a strange feeling touching down UK as this is my first time in Great Britain. Here for a business assignment, I received a wonderful experience so far and I am happy having accepted this assignment from my company. Here at workplace in London, there are peoples from about 140 different nations. That?s really excites and never to forget experience to work with so many different people from different culture. Today, In Central London I was able to see Westminster, London Bridge, Parliament and London Eye. I?ve see few monuments here but Big Ben is the one that I really wanted to view in life. One just can't forget the experience of viewing London from London Eye. It is simply spectacular.
More About: Personal , Trip

Gmail CAPTCHA cracked
2008-02-27 08:28:00
Gmail CAPTCHA is cracked by a group of spammers, first reported by a security firm ?Websense?. The firm believes that this attack is carried out by the same group behind the cracking of Windows Live mail CAPTCHA?s earlier this month. Here is full story on blog of this security firm.
More About: Google , Gmail , Captcha , Cracked

Logo: XIX Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010
2008-02-20 17:07:00
I just checked out new logo of Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 that looks much better (see on the left). I didn?t like the logo that was suggested earlier and I have pointed it out in my previous post that India need a better logo. This logo seems decent to me and I personally feel that it is worth being official logo for this Commonwealth games. Here is a nice writing (about logo and what it depicts) on this game?s official website. " The Logo for the XIX Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 is inspired by the Chakra, The National Symbol of Freedom, of Unity and Power. Spiraling Upwards, it depicts the Growth of India into a Proud, vibrant nation, her billion people coming together to fulfill their true destinies. India's journey from tradition to modernity, her economic transformation into a super power ... Reaching out to the world and leading the way, even as she enthusiastically embraces all the 71 CCGA nations and territories of the commonwealth to become one and host the best ever ...
More About: Musings

Few More dasblog Macro
2008-02-09 16:39:00
Completed my next dasBlog macro (LastFm Recent Tracks) and just uploaded a new page dedicated to dasBlog macro. Here are the list of dasblog macros that I have developed so far - List of Last.Fm Recent Tracks This macro will show a list of recent tracks that was listened by you and scrobbled by Last.fm. This macro is for only who have signed up at last.fm. List of Last.Fm Top Artist This macro will show the list of Top Artist that you listened to this week. Again, this macro is for only who have signed up at last.fm. Show a Shoutbox This macro will add a shoutbox to dasBlog. Features included- XML Database - (All entries are stored in XML File. It can be kept under the content directory of blog) Ajax Enabled ? No Iframe or refreshing of whole page. Update shoutbox silently and regularly after specified interval. Customizable CSS ? I tried to make it very customizable. It can gel with any theme perfectly. Visit http://www.aakashjain.com/stuff/dasblog+m acr...
More About: Macro

MTNL Broadband Speed Problem
2008-02-04 18:20:00
Lately, I have upgraded my broadband connection from 590 NU (256 kbps) to 749 NU (2 mbps). I presumed that I?ll be able to access podcasts and watch videos available without having waited for buffering. But I am feeling like being cheated after this decision. I have always praise MTNL for their Broadband Services, low downtime and good connection. But this time they have proven me wrong. Though speed is formally upgraded (in my account) but I don?t see my internet speed going up. Here is the result of speed test on internetfrog.com Download: 214,600 bps Upload: 90,936 bps QOS: 96% Quality Round Trip Time: 2 ms MaxPause (longest pause recorded during the data download): 141 ms I have contacted with MTNL Customer support on 1500 regarding this issue. They show confident that it will be corrected within 24 hrs. Heck! It?s been two days now and I don?t know what to do. To make the matter worst they have closed the registration and migration to my previous plan (590 NU - 256k kbps)...
More About: Personal , Problem , Speed

Busting Spam in My dasBlog
2008-01-30 12:33:00
SPAM. Every one hate it and Why not? No one wish to waste his/her time in searching through all messages for a few legitimate messages. I have been receiving lot of SPAM comments before I find an effective way to stop it. (God knows why they were trying to sell Viagra and what not on my blog) To fight it, I have had enabled CAPTCHA for comments on my blog. Enabling the CAPTCHA discouraged SPAM and amount of SPAM goes down significantly, but the genuine posts were also reduced. I believe that visitors don?t want to bear the pain of entering the security words while posting comments. I can understand this because even I feel discouraged leaving comment where someone has enabled CAPTCHA on their blogs. I really wanted to stop SPAM but not at the cost of comments of my dear readers. Other possible way to spam is to blacklist IPs responsible for SPAM messages. However, you just can?t create a list of black listed IPs and keep adding as you encounter the new one. They are very clever and ...
More About: Spam , Musings , Blog

Free up RAM by Disabling Useless Windows Services
2008-01-28 09:31:00
All windows services under Windows Os run for a specific purpose and are essential. But these services don?t run free of cost. Any service that runs on your computer requires space in memory and some processor time. By default there are some services that run and not required by all users. This is not a good idea having these turned on if you are not using them and especially if you are low at RAM (say 256 or even less). So it?s better to turn off them. Disabling the useless services will free up some amount of RAM for other applications and for security purpose also. Here I have compiled a list of services that can be disabled without affecting your normal working. Please note that these simple tweaks are most suitable for home users. (If you are using your system at office and have all those server and intranet setup, please stop here.) Let?s go to services panel, go to Start -> Run -> and type "services.msc" and hit Enter. Computer Browser What it does: Maint...
More About: Services , Free , Useless , Tweaking

Tweak: Google Talk Multiple Instance
2008-01-07 18:49:00
Default Installation of Google Talk doesn?t allow you to login with two different Ids from a single computer. But you can run two different instance of Google Talk at same time on a single computer after tweaking it a little. Just locate the Google Talk shortcut in Start -> Programs -> Google Talk -> Google Talk. Right click on the shortcut and go to properties. A dialog box will open as shown in the image below. Add ?/nomutex? at the end of Target string, it should look like as shown in the image and click ok. That?s all now every time when you want an extra instance of Google Talk, click on this shortcut. Easy!
More About: Tweak

Drivers: HP Compaq Presario 707TU
2007-12-24 20:42:00
I bought a new HP Compaq Presario 707TU Notebook few days back. To my surprise there was no driver CD comes with it. I installed Windows XP Professional Edition in it and couldn?t find the driver on HP?s website.  They have only provided the drivers for Windows Vista Operation System. Later, I found that there are so many people having the same issue. Now the best part is that, today, I got all drivers for it. Thanks to HP Technical help desk. Here are the links to download the drivers. Please remember that these drivers are for window XP OS. You can find the driver for windows Vista on the HP website. Video driver: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/14388/a08 /win2k_xp14311.exe Chipset driver: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/13799/eng /ChipUtil.exe Realtek RTL8100CL/RTL8110Sb NIC Driver: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp30001-3050 0/sp30156.exe Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC Driver: ftp://210.51.181.211/cn/nic/Driver_5671_X P_0703.zip Intel Pro Wireless: ft...
More About: Personal , Drivers , Misc

Shoutbox: my first macro for dasBlog
2007-12-23 10:01:00
I have just finished modifications in my first dasBlog macro. This macro will add a shout-box to the dasBlog. You can see it on the right side of this blog. I have tested it successfully with Firefox an IE 5.5+. This macro is written for new dasBlog v2.0 (runs on .Net framework 2.0). If you want to add this custom macro to your dasBlog, make sure you are using new version dasBlog 2.0. On the best part of it, macro uses Ajax calls to update the shout-box. You can disable this behavior, if you don?t want to update it silently. To make the configuration easy I didn?t want to use any database to store the shout-box entries. It will store entries in a XML file on web-server. Apart, it is very customizable with the help of a CSS. To add it to your dasBlog, all you need to download macro. Then make some configuration settings given below. 1. Copy aakashjain.dll into the bin directory of your blog. 2. Edit the web.config file to make the following changes.     a) ...
More About: Technical , Macro , Shoutbox , Acro

Open Mind Index
2007-12-22 15:02:00
OMI stands for ?Open mind Index ?, as they said it. Here this utility can actually help you to calculate your openness for the variety of music.  All you need to enter your last.fm username to generate this graphical statistic given below. For this, of course you need to have a profile on last.fm, those who don?t know what last.fm is, it?s a social music site where you send data of about whatever you listen on your computer. This is done with the help of a small plug-in available for download after you sign up for service.  When you enter the username, your music data (most specifically, top artist of last 12 months) is downloaded from the last.fm site and used for calculation. The following table lists the OMI values and there corresponding description. (Mine is 119) Below 20:        an extremely small bandwidth of tags; a faker or fanatic of an artist 20 - 39:          a small bandwidth of tags; a fan...
More About: Personal , Misc , Mind

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Released
2007-11-22 08:25:00
Visual Studio 2008 with .Net 3.5 has been released on November 19, 2007 and available for download at Microsoft ?s Website. It is not an ordinary release with some common updates and extensions. VS2008 comes up with lots of exciting features for developers. Some of the main features are: VS 2008 Multi-Targeting Support. ASP.NET AJAX and JavaScript Support. VS 2008 Web Designer and CSS Support. Language Improvements and LINQ. Data Access Improvements with LINQ to SQL. Browsing the .NET Framework Library Source using Visual Studio. You can find the detail explanation of above features at ScottGu?s Blog.
More About: News , Visual Studio , Visual , Released

dasBlog Shoutbox Macro Testing
2007-11-18 19:57:00
I?ve finished my first dasblog macro that was created by me. It?s an Ajax enabled Shout -box. Still it is under testing and enhancement. Let me tell you it took me two full weekends to get this done. It was quite a good work behind this. But I am happy that I am seeing it running and working perfectly. Initially, I have added it on my blog (see the right navigation) for testing purpose only. Some of the main features are:- a) XML Database (All entries are stored in XML File. It can be kept under the content directory of blog) b) Ajax Enabled ? No Iframe or refreshing of whole page. Update shoutbox silently and regularly after specified interval. c) Customizable CSS ? I tried to make it very customizable. It can gel with any theme perfectly. d) Support New dasBlog version 2.0 (with Asp.net 2.0) I?d appreciate any feedback, comments or error from you. It will be available for download, once I make necessary changes on the basis of feedback received.
More About: Testing , Macro , Shoutbox

My First Dasblog Theme and Macros
2007-11-16 07:39:00
I have created my first dasblog theme. I am using the same at the time of writing this post. Theme : Geeks This theme contains single style-sheet. You can download it here. Apart, I am creating some macros for dasBlog . Few of them are listed below. LastFm Recent Tracks List - This macro will display the last n tracks played by you. LastFm Top Artist - This macro will display a list of top artists played by you in last few days. dasBlog Shoutbox - A AJAX enabled shout-box for dasblog. This will allow the visitors of your web-blog to directly chat with you.
More About: Macros , Acro

Diwali Greetings to all of you
2007-11-08 14:46:00
H a p p y   D i w a l i May the Festival of Lights - Diwali Dispel Darkness, Ignorance and Evil from the World.
More About: Personal , Misc , Ali G

Error: Failed to access IIS metabase
2007-10-30 18:07:00
If you install IIS after .Net 2.0 or Visual studio 2005, you may receive ?Failed to access IIS metabase? error. To resolve this issue either you need to install .Net framework again after IIS or you can do the following... You can use the aspnet_regiis utility comes with .Net framework 2.0. This is an administrator utility to install or uninstall Asp.Net on local server/machine. To run this utility through command prompt move to C:WindowsMicrosoft.NetFrameworkv2.0.50727 and type (without quotes) ?aspnet_regiis -i ? This will install the ASP.Net and update and upgrade the scriptmaps at the IIS metabase root and in below the root. In certain cases, a particular user account doesn?t have access to IIS metabase. Such condition will result the same error. However, in this case you can simply grant access to user account using? ?aspnet_regiis ?ga (user_account_name)"
More About: Access , Error

Resolution: Failed to access IIS metabase
2007-10-30 18:07:00
If you install IIS after .Net 2.0 or Visual studio 2005, you may receive ?Failed to access IIS metabase? error. To resolve this issue either you need to install .Net framework again after IIS or you can do the following... You can use the aspnet_regiis utility comes with .Net framework 2.0. This is an administrator utility to install or uninstall Asp.Net on local server/machine. To run this utility through command prompt move to C:WindowsMicrosoft.NetFrameworkv2.0.50727 and type (without quotes) ?aspnet_regiis -i ? This will install the ASP.Net and update and upgrade the scriptmaps at the IIS metabase root and in below the root. In certain cases, a particular user account doesn?t have access to IIS metabase. Such condition will result the same error. However, in this case you can simply grant access to user account using? ?aspnet_regiis ?ga (user_account_name)"
More About: Access , Resolution

My new Intel DG965WH Motherboard with 8-channel (7.1) audio subsystem
2007-10-27 19:04:00
Few weeks ago, I bought new DG965WH (Media series) Intel Motherboard . It?s an ultimate piece when power, performance and media are taken in account. I?m not listing the full specification but you can find them here. The most tempting is its 7.1 Audio Output support. I?ve been using a number of Intel motherboards, i.e. 810e, 845, 945 GNT, 965 RY. I can comfortably say this have the best audio output quality with Dolby Home Theater certification and based on Intel® Viiv? technology. Intel DG965WH Motherboard (Media Series) Yes, one this to note here is that this motherboard doesn?t support Windows 2003 server Ent. Ed. It?s mean some of driver may fail to install with this OS. Like in my case I am not able to install display driver.
More About: Personal , Channel

Info: View State
2007-10-25 12:41:00
Recently, I have joined NIIT Technologies Ltd, New Delhi (http://www.niit-tech.com/). It?s well known around the world for its remarkable software services in Travel and Transport domain. It?s been few weeks since I have joined but no project allocated to me yet. So I decided to brush up my skills and drill down in State Management Techniques in ASP.Net. I have planned to cover it all gradually. I have started with View State, here are some important points about it. View state is state management technique at the page level. (between the round-trips on same aspx page.) Veiw state save the information by serializing it into base64 encoded strings. View state can be saved in another location such as SQL server database by implementing the cusom PageStatePersister class You can save the information in ViewState (is a dictonary containing key/values pair) between page round trips. View state data is first converted in to XML and then encoded using base64 encoding. View Stat...
More About: Info

Info: How to open a Package
2007-09-17 12:01:00
In .Net Package Class act as a container that holds multiple types of objects in the hierarchical manner. Each object in hierarchy of Package is known as its Part. Essentially, this Class eases the access of a package and its parts in more efficient and useful manner. .Net 3.0 introduced a new assembly named windowsbase.dll which contains the System.IO.Packaging Namespace. This assembly is required for accessing the functionality of Packaging Classes. You may need to reference the assembly in Visual Studio before adding the namespace in your Asp.Net page. The default location is C:Program FilesReference AssembliesMicrosoftFrameworkv3.0 Once reference is added you can use open method of Package class to open a package. Given below is the method to open a XLSX Document using the Package class open method. Public Function Open Package(ByVal XLSXPath As String) As Boolean     Dim oXlPackage As Package     If XLSXPath <> "" Then  &nbs...
More About: Info

Possible Code Injection Hack on my Site
2007-09-09 17:07:00
Recently, my site is put on warning by the Google. What I mean by put on warning is that when people search my site on Google, result lead to a warning page of Google instead of the targeted page of my site. The warning page of Google said that there is a badware/malware on my site. Google also suggest visiting stopbadware.org for more information. As shown in the pictures below I have been experienced some delay in opening the home page, even sometime my I.E crashed. But I never thought that this could be due to some hack that had already taken over my website. It was only just two days, even before I could go deep into the details of error, When finally I got this mail from Google stating that they have identified my site as that one who distribute malware or badware. Now I found that some hack have happened to my site. It is trying to download some plug-in in background that is off course not from my domain. So I decided to redirect the user of my site to a main...
More About: Personal , Hack , Site , Code , Ossi

dasBlog v2.0 is Released
2007-08-16 06:02:00
Finally, much awaited dasBlog v2.0 is released.  I have been waiting this for a long time. The new version can now be hosted on ASP.Net 2.0 with Medium Trust. (download dasblog v2.0) In the past, dasBlog can be hosted on Asp.Net 2.0 but only with Full Trust. This limitation of dasBlog create hosting issues as most of hosting companies doesn?t allowed .Net applications to run with Full Trust for security sake. Those who have faced this trust problem know what this new version mean (figured out in my previous post.) This release completely supports Asp.Net 2.0.  Now I can integrate those application which I wanted to but couldn?t due to the version incompatibility. Umm, I got some work this weekend. :-)
More About: Technical , Misc , Released , Ease

Asp.Net Shared Folder: App_Code
2007-08-14 21:45:00
Points to remember about APP_CODE Directory Asp.net handles the files in bin and app_code folder in a special way. The compiled classes (dll) placed in bin folder are automatically available to all the pages in application. We don?t need to register the assemblies to use them. Asp.net automatically detects the new version of assembly and start using the new one. Assemblies in the bin folder have application scope. They cannot access the resources outside the current web application. The access levels of assemblies are determined by the trust level specified by the local computer. By default code run in full trust under visual studio development environment. We can store and create as many folder and files (class files) in app_code folder. But Asp.net still compile all in a single assembly. As Asp.net compiles all the code (App_code) in a single assembly, all files must be of same programming language. Ex - App_Code folder cannot contain code in both VB.Net and C#. How...
More About: Fold , Folder

dasBlog Theme Contest
2007-07-23 14:18:00
Ben Scheirman is hosting a dasBlog Theme Contest (http://www.flux88.com/dasBlogThem eContest.aspx). Theme should be original and should be created/developed using valid XHTML and CSS. Winner of contest will get A $100 (US) Amazon Gift Card ! I wanted to update the theme of this blog with a better one. I believe this contest would bring up some original creative work of participants. I hope I would be having best theme for this blog.
More About: Personal , Misc

.Net Popular Interview Questions
2007-07-17 17:02:00
This weekend I have added some Technical Interview questions in my site. This part is still in progress. I could have added them much earlier but there was some URL Rewriting problem. Anyway I have published them without using URL Rewrite module. You can checkout that part here - http://www.aakashjain.com/Interview+Quest ions/default.aspx
More About: Personal , Questions , Misc

Altova XMLSpy supports Open XML
2007-06-15 08:20:00
ALTOVA?s XMLSpy is now supporting working with Open XML Formats ?XMLSpy allows you to extract, edit, transform, and process the XML data stored in Office 2007 files (as well as any other zipped archive). These capabilities allow developers to work with the vast amount of data stored as XML in Word 2007 and Excel 2007 documents with full validation, intelligent entry helpers, and other useful features, and develop XSLT and XQuery transformations to publish the data or utilize it in other applications.? ScreenShots of application: Apart from intelligent editing feature it has functionality to add/delete document directly in the zip document. This is really cool. Download the free version of XMLSpy
More About: Ports

Commonwealth Games 2010, India waiting for better Logo
2007-05-29 06:01:00
Given above is the official logo of Commonwealth Games 2010. New Delhi is waiting with pride to host the Commonwealth Games 2010. Right now, Delhities can see the changes in infrastructure to successfully host the upcoming Commonwealth Games 2010. The proposed dates for the Games are 3 - 14 October 2010 inclusive of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. It is only 2nd time when these games are being held in Asia and India is only third developing nation to host the event. Before India, Jamaica (1966) and Malaysia (1998) proudly hosted the games in Asia. This is the time when India could represent itself as a Sporting and cultural nation. Everything seems to be smooth till now. But the above logo disappointed me a bit. It is very simple without any artistic work. I believe this could be more beautiful. A simple text, ?Delhi 2010 Common Wealth Games?, has been written with the CGF (Commonwealth Games Federation) logo with the same old Appu (the lion) we saw in 1982 Asian Games. This s...
More About: Misc , Logo , Bett

Uninstall Windows Vista from Dual Boot.
2007-05-27 16:50:00
If you want to uninstall the windows vista operation system, then you wouldn?t be happy to know that there is no uninstalling option for Windows Vista . Yes, the Windows Vista installation is permanent. You cannot uninstall windows Vista from Add/Remove Programs.  In case of dual boot, most importantly you will have to restore the MBR to what it was before installing Windows Vista. Like in my case, I have windows XP installed on my Desktop PC and I install this Beta Trial version of Windows Vista. (Windows Vista uses different mechanism to boot the system. Earlier OS have been using NLTDR but in the case of Windows Vista it is BOOTMGR.) In any case, if you want to remove the Windows vista from dual boot system, follow the following steps I Performed for the same.  Remember it is not a task for faint hearted. Given below are the steps I performed to remove the Windows Vista from my PC. Boot my computer in to Windows XP. Insert the Windows Vista DVD in the DVD Drive. Go ...
More About: Microsoft , Technical