Firefox, The Browser Reloaded

Okay, thats a bit loaded statement, but check it out your-self at Mozilla, Firefox. Recently installed this Mozilla offering on my PC and found it a very good option beside MS IE. Yes I mean it. I have made it my default browser too and use IE only for sites which are still very MS centric in their design.
It seems to me that IE has long back stopped evolving (Check out what Joel has to say on this - How Microsoft Lost the API War) and options like Firefox can provide with many nice to use features for easy-browsing.

Some of the features that I like about Firefox:
> Tabbed Browsing: So you can view multiple pages/sites in a single window. Thats cool!
> Popup Blocking: Now this would be bit of anonyance to lots of Advertisers.
> Themes, Themes and more Themes: You got that.
> Google Search: So if you been using Google Toolbar, don't worry they have for FireFox too.

Cons: - I have found this to crash a couple of time, but even my earlier IE used to crash quite often.
- I am having some problem with my drop-down menu. Not able to get the position correct. But also havn't spend much time to check that out yet.

Do comment on your experience with FireFox. I would really like to hear from you.

IBM Portal V5 Live Demonstration

IBM has hosted a self-explanatory Scenario based demo at http://wp50.dfw.ibm.com The demo portal site shows most of the key features of a Portal server. And its good to see them in action. Do check out for you-self. Also follow the demo viewlet guide. This way you will be able to follow this well-prepared scenarios and check out the features throughly.

Reference Links
Portal site
Demo Guides

Rumi's Food for Thought

Tell me, is sugar sweeter
Or He who makes sugar cane?
Beauty of the moon is better
Or He who makes it wax and wane?

Leave all the moons behind
Put sugar out of your mind
In Him another you’ll find
He makes another kind of grain.

O mind you may be wise
In knowledge and insight may rise
Or is it better to prize
He who makes the mind insane?

Body, soul, mind and heart
With power will make a start
Yet in a drop, with art
A hundred eyes will entertain.

Ad-wares, Malwares, Spywares

Google had always provided me with the best and accurate search results (Okay... nothing new to that). But recently I noticed that the top ranking search results were not I would expect Google to display to me for my search queries. It was then I realized that my machine was hacked by some ad-ware/spyware and this was tampering my Google search results. So if I searched for "IBM Workplace Client Technology" in my search result the top entry would be links saying search for "IBM Workplace Technology" at eBay or some other stuff. The link was managed by searchbrowser.com which then redirects the users to their patrons/advertisers.

I used an anti-spyware tool to scan my machine and oh-la I had dozen different types of such worms on my m/c. I could remember reading some statistics about 60 (or was that 70) percent PCs are infected by such programs. Still I removed these from my m/c. (I used XoftSpy for the clean-up). This got rid of many other annoyances but not the one that tampered my Google Search Result page. For this I found that this was using a BHO (Browser Helper Object) 2_0_1browserhelper2.dll which gets loaded with your IE. I got rid of this by disabling it through BHODemon.

So this was another clever (but unethical) way of increasing the web traffic to one's site. Or should I say the extent to which Advertisements can be pushed to the Internet Users. The good old days of banners and pop-ups are over. Now we have light-weight spies on PC's that monitors user activities and tampers with their search results and other such utilities.

Powering Managed Client Solutions

Powering Managed Client Solutions is the presentation by Richard Wilson, Architect IBM Lotus Workpace Development, at Eclipse CON 2004. The presentation provides details about the IBM Workplace Client Technology which is based on the Eclipse framework.

The Presentations section at eclipsecon.org contains the complete list of presentations that were given at this conference.

Office, Beware -- Here Comes Workplace

Found this very interesting article @ ittoolbox.com while Googling for IBM Workplace Review. Office, Beware -- Here Comes Workplace provides a brief review on the IBM Workplace portfolio vis-a-vis Microsoft's Desktop Offering. IBM Workplace product group consists of Lotus Workplace, Lotus Notes & Domino, Websphere Portal and Websphere Everyplace product offerings.

The stuff to look out for is the IBM Workplace Client Technology. This is a very promising strategy/offering which will provide a mix-match of web-browser and Client-Server architectures. So the users can have a Rich experience with the advantage of central administration of the infrastructure which has become a defacto with the Web.

Also check out this news article, IBM Workplace: evolutionary technology, revolutionary benefits, in which Ambuj Goyal, IBM Lotus General Manager provides lots of insights on the IBM Workplace strategy and roadmap.

Some changes to the drop-down menus...

I had added 3 drop downs on top right corner. TechLogs - for blogs about collaborative technologies. I have added some interesting logs. Do check out Ed Brill's. SnapLogs - contains links to some really breath taking images. And blog is for personall logs.
You may suggest if you have some goods for these drop-down menu

Domino 5 Web Programming with XML, Java, and JavaScript

If you are a die-hard Lotus/Domino Developer, this is a must read book. It explores various methods/options available in creating web-based Domino Applications. Its also a good point to get yourself familarize with XML and using it in Domino.

Domino 5 Web Programming with XML, Java, and JavaScript provides the latest information about the newest technologies in the Domino Designer. Learn how to program client interfaces with the Domino Designer. Use JavaScript to enhance your Web user experience and access back-end database systems with Domino Java servlets or agents. Each of the Domino Object classes is described, making this a handy reference for Domino Java programmers. You'll learn advanced techniques such as how Notes and Domino interact with Java threads and how to create Java Server Pages by integrating the IBM WebSphere Application server with Domino. You'll learn secrets of component programming with Java Applets and JavaBeans. Each chapter ends with a set of questions that can be used to test your understanding.

Robert Frost - Sand Dunes

Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.

They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.

She may know cove and cape, But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape, She hopes to cut off mind.

Men left her a ship to sink: They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think, For the one more cast-off shell.