A search engine from the creator (Jimmy Wales) of online encyclopedia Wikipedia will be made available to the public next week. After just a few weeks of invitation-only testing, Wikia Search/Search Wikia (Not quite sure about the actual name as the logo shows one name but text shows something else) will debut on Monday, 7 January. Co-founder Jimmy Wales said the open source search engine would be released for public viewing in “alpha” so users can complain about flaws and developers can work out …

There is no doubt now, Facebook is the hottest technology now. Why did I said-“Technology”, well Facebook is just more than a social network where people share media’s and get to know each other. It’s working more as tool to build network, presenting an environment/resources to manage, create better communication among networkers. So it’s not surprising a lot of power business users using Facebook now days, and here are three kickass applications that make their life a lot easier- FBlook …

Few days ago Google began giving its Gmail user’s access to IMAP; have to say it’s about God dam time. Google’s free Gmail service has been admired for its massive storage capabilities, streamlined interface, and functionality, but many email power users have never considered using Gmail just for the lack of interpretability. Things are about to be change a lot. IMAP is not a new technology—it’s been around for over a decade, and its …

ASP.NET powered a significant portion of web, especially high-end corporate and industrial sites. Just to jiggle your memory-ASP.NET is a web application framework developed by Microsoft that programmers can use to build dynamic web sites, web applications and XML web services. It is part of Microsoft’s .NET platform and is the heir to Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. ASP.NET is built on the Common Language Runtime, meaning programmers can write ASP.NET code using any Microsoft .NET language (C#, Visual Basic .NET, J#, F#, IronPhython, IronRuby, windows power shell and C++/CLI). To understand ASP.NET first and most of all …

Up until now ICANN, the organization that assigns Internet domain names was busy with different TLDs to make domain name more custom, but always limited within roman characters. It’s been a long time coming. A little over seven years ago, ICANN, committed to the idea of providing support for internationalization of those names. ICANN has now announced that the first sites using fully internationalized domain names will be accessible to Internet users starting Monday (15th Aug 2007). On Monday ICANN will begin testing of whether allowing the character sets of 11 languages to be included …

Just couple of years ago SaaS (Software as a service) was just merely an idea/lab concept of software giants. But hey that scenario has completely changed and turned into a head to toe race that transforming the basic computing completely virtual. T Though Adobe is one of the most admirable software giant, but was completely absent from this race, by virtue of its purchase of a start-up firm (Virtual Ubiquity Inc) that’s been developing an online word processor that’s coincidentally built on Adobe technology now adobe joins the race in full gear. Adobe will announce today …

You better be ready! Since “Dexter”, as in WordPress 2.3 is already launched just a few hours ago (At the time of this posting). I was expecting the release sometime this morning, didn’t expected it almost half day earlier :). So why is this WP 2.3 so special? Cause WordPress 2.3 comes with tons of features that we the users were craving for a long time. Apart from feature richness “Dexter” also took care of over 351 bugs/trouble tickets that were due in Trac. The kick ass features that will rock your blogging- …

Talking about the facts, not all the organization and people run their server under Unix/Linux. In fact a large number of organization/entity prefers windows based server for their hosting solution. Anyway our discussion is not about argument whether to choose Linux/Unix or Windows based server. So what are the blog publishing software/applications for those who seeks windows server based self hosted solution? That’s what we are going to discuss. We all know there are huge arrays of open-source blog publishing application out there, as well as enterprise class self-hosted solutions, but unfortunately very few of them can be hosted on …

ActionScript is a scripting language (Developed by Macromedia,now owned by Adobe ) based on ECMAScript (Also referred as JavaScript or Jscript), used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player platform. The latest ActionScript 3.0 introduced last June (2006) with Adobe Flex 2.0 and Flash player 9.0. This ActionScript is completely different than any of its predecessor since it uses an entirely different virtual machine. ActionScript 3.0 provides significant enhancement in performance, as well as more robust programming model that lends itself to complex Rich Internet Application development. You can say that’s the reason Flex is so kick ass RIA builder. How ActionScript work? The way ActionScript work is very simple like any other scripting you have known. Generally ActionScript is executed by the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM), which is part of Flash Player. ActionScript code is typically compiled into bytecode format by a compiler, such Flex Builder, or that is available in the Flex SDK and the Flex Data Services. The bytecode is embedded in SWF files, which are executed by the Flash Player, the run-time environment. Pretty simple and straight forward isn’t it? Why ActionScript 3.0? As you already know since Flex 2, all flex version use ActionScript 3.0, but what are the advantages of this? This goes beyond the scripting capabilities of previous versions of ActionScript. It is designed to facilitate the creation of highly complex applications (RIAs) with large data sets and object-oriented, reusable code bases. While ActionScript 3.0 is not required for content that runs in Adobe Flash Player 9, it assists to performance improvements that are only available with the AVM2, the new virtual machine. ActionScript 3.0 code can execute up to ten times faster than legacy ActionScript code. You must know Flash Player 9 still do support the older version of ActionScript Virtual Machine, AVM1 for backward compatibility with existing and legacy content. Apart from the above mentioned advantages ActionScript also poses features like- ECMAScript for XML, native support for regular expressions, a method closure for better event handling, sealed classes for improved memory usage and run-time exception for handle errors robustly. Usage There are two methods for using ActionScript in a Flex application- <mx:Script> tag, which lets you insert ActionScript code as if it was typed directly within the <mx:Script> tag.If you want smarter way to organize your code than the best method is always storing your code in an ActionScript file. An ActionScript source file is just a text files with the .as extension, just like CSS file. You can call this in MXML using these methods- Using <mx:Script> tag which lets you specify a source attribute that identifies an external ActionScript file to be loaded at a specific point in the application. For example- <mx:Script source=”example.as” /> In this method you have to use the import statement to specify the full name of the class (Case sensitive), so the ActionScript compiler knows where to find it. For example, if you want to use the FlexExam class in ActionScript, you first need to import that class using its full name, including package and class: import flash.tutor.FlexExam; Through code which specifically refers to the class name. It works very simple, by referring to another class name in ActionScript code; you tell the compiler to load the definition of that class. For example, given an external class called Exx, this statement causes a new instance of the Exx class to be created: var sqr:Exx = new Exx(40,20);

About a decade ago virtual meeting, conferencing was just an idea, now that idea not only came into reality but as well flourishing and expending beyond traditional boundaries. A lot of conferencing application/software you will find now which offers us rich arrays of features and functionality to make virtual meeting almost as realistic as the real one. We even have VR (Virtual Reality) conference in Second Life. Sounds the situation is pretty much cool right? But I am afraid it isn’t. When it comes to cost-effective, organized total conferencing solution that you can rely on, only a handful of them will be in your list of choice. First of all you have to understand we are talking about professional solution that fits the needs of from small business to corporation, not individual/personal. For personal solution I am still happy with my Skype, there are plenty more to choose from. Now days a most business needs not only a tele/web conferencing as well as a collaboration method integrated with the solution. Very few software/application currently poses that, if not costumed tailored. Last month I talked about “Microsoft Office Live Meeting”, which is one of the few solutions that made it to this category. Off course Microsoft’s Unified Communication Portal which is still in beta stage is intended to deliver much more sophisticated solutions. Anyway our discussion today isn’t Microsoft’s solution; instead we want to check out “Acrobat Connect Professional” by Adobe. Acrobat Connect Professional is part of adobe’s Acrobat family product line, which can be either Hosted or self-managed solution. Both presenter and participants need almost similar system requirements, though the presenter’s OS (operating system) has to be either windows or Mac. This solution is packed with some serious features all integrated which actually we can get using several solutions elsewhere. Here is the rundown of the key features of Adobe Acrobat Professional- 24/7/365 Personal meeting space Unlike Office live meeting Acrobat Connect Professional meeting rooms are always available via a steady URL. All personal settings/options are automatically saved since the first use, and automatically loaded there on for saving time and efforts. Even the layouts, previous notes, conversation history are saved for further reference if needed.