IE 8.0 Beta2 is on !!!

Microsoft announced the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta2. Its more of a combination of features of Safari and Firefox, Some of the features which the beta version has is the Inpage search which is more like the safari inpage search. The new explorer has a DOM inspector, a JavaScript profiler, a color picker and ruler, options to outline objects, disable CSS and validate web pages. The New IE is developed on the new standards of the world wide web.

The new IE concentrates on AJAX enhancements,CSS and Support for data URI and one more feature that is added in IE 8 is that we dont need to view the source of the same old notepad software where the syntax are not highlighted, however the new browser has a inliner editor which displays the HTML source code with all the highlights of syntax.

Interms of security where Micorosoft always has a concern the browsing history,cookies,form data,usernam,password can be made not to be stored in the browser, It also blocks adult sites this feature is called Inprivate Browsing This can be set by navigating to Safety -> InPrivate browsing.

Finally Google maps and Gmail works fine in IE,

I'm sure lot of people will start using IE more often now, more of open source features is really drawing people to use IE, All the best to the microsoft team and hope to see IE 8 to be another successful product from Microsoft.

Monkeygrease says now Java's cool too

We have all heard of Greasemonkey but what s Monkeygrease now...(something still evolving not enrolled in wiki).Well Monkeygrease is a proxy-based server-side solution. That means a servlet filter that will allow a web developer to inject JavaScript, CSSor other elements within a web page. It will enable you to move your web application to the Web 2.0 world.

Monkeygrease helps in:

• Changing the look and feel of a web application
• Adding DHTML/AJAX features/effects on your site
• Adding WYSIWYG editing to any textarea field on your site
• Enhance pages by contextually adding content from external providers
• Fix usability issues on any page
  

A typical request from the browser is handled by a web application on a server. Once a request is received by a server, an appropriate response is sent back to the browser. This is how all websites work. Monkeygrease is akin to a proxy. When a web application is enhanced with Monkeygrease, the request is passed through Monkeygrease and if the URL of that request matches a Monkeygrease rule, Monkeygrease applies the rule by modifying the response back to the browser. In the end, you get a page that’s been “enhanced” by Monkeygrease.

How do we get this working...

1. You must have Apache Tomcat 5.x. A web application whose WEB-INF directory is accessible.
2. You can download monkeygrease from here (This will include the jars, monkeygrease.xml file containing rules)
3. Installation

• 1.Extract the monkeygrease_xxx.zip file you downloaded
• 2.Upload the monkeygrease.jar file to your web application’s WEB-INF/lib directory. Depending on your application server, you might be able to do this through an administration console, however, if you have access to the web application’s directory, it’s probably easier to do it manually.
• 3.Upload the monkeygrease.xml file to your web application’s WEB-INF directory.
• 4.Modify your web application’s web.xml file and add the following lines that define rules. Click here to take the snippet of code. mentioned under point 4 in the linked page.

4. Restart your app server in order to enable the filter.
5. Output of a simple html file before and after can be seen as illustrated in view-example

Hope this start will take Monkeygrease much further...

Google Last Login Activity + Google Suggest

One of the features that is been available in Gmail for sometime now which is unnoticed by a lot of gmail users is the gmail last login activity. The gmail last login activity appears in the bottom of the gmail

The above detail shows all the locations where your gmail id is active and the ipaddress of those locations also on clicking the details link you get the following page which summarizes the same.

Now you can signout the various other sessions that are open by clicking on the signout all other sessions.

It is also useful to know if somebody else is accessing your gmail id by validating the location of the ipaddress from where you mail is being accessed.

Be secured by using the feature and make sure you logoff whenever you move out.. Play safe, the bad guy is at the back of you !!!
Google officially announced that Google suggest, a product which has been in the labs for a long time will be available by default in the Google search engine from now on. For those of you who are not aware of the Google suggest here is what Google looks like with Google suggest.



So from now on you can get the best of search experience from Google. Great move Google guys, Kudos to you !!!!

Oracle Tip

There are lot of interesting stuffs that can be done using the data dictionary tables in oracle. There are lot of data dictionary available in oracle. Some of them are

user_tables,
user_tab_cols
user_views

The different data dictionaries that are available in oracle can be viewed by querying ALL_VIEWS

select * from all_views ;

Now one of the data dictionary or one of the most powerful and useful one in oracle is dba_users. This data dictionary gives you the details about the database users that are available for a particular database. Now if suppose you want to access the database using a specific userid and you dont have the password of the user,however have the privilige to do things in the database then you can try to use the following stuff

SQL > select username,password from dba_users where username = 'SCOTT'

USERNAME PASSWORD
---------------------------
SCOTT F894844C34402B677


now alter the user to specify your custom password

SQL > Alter user scott identified by mypassword

Then login to the user scott using the password specified by you now and start working.
Once you have done with the work restore the old password by using the undocumented thing called by value

SQL> Alter user scott identified by values ' F894844C34402B677'

So that the password is restored to its originial value.

Hope the tip is helpful in certain aspects for the database administrators or it might be a way to provide an insight to the ways security breaches can be made if priviliges are available for database users.
SQL> select username,password from dba_users where username='SCOTT';

USERNAME PASSWORD
-------- ----------------
SCOTT F894844C34402B677

Greasemonkey !!!

FireFox - Greasemonkey

Greasmonkey is a firefox extension that allows you to write scripts that alter the webpages you visit

Some of the things which we can make using Greasemonkey is :

1. Make websites more readable.
2. Fix rendering bugs which the owner is not aware of.
3. Alter pages to make them work with other technologies like the speech based.
4. Retrieve data from multiple site and make them interconnected.

How to use Greasemonkey ??

To Use Greasemonkey, You need to install the Greasemonkey add-on unto yout Firefox browser and then we have to install the user script by choosing from the Tools > Install user script. The Greasemonkey is just an add-on and doesnt make any difference until the user scripts are installed. A repository of user scripts available. A user script usually ends with .user.js.

Let see how to use a sample greasemonkey script. As usuall its the Hello World script.
Example

The user script is named as helloworld.user.js

// Hello World! example user script
// version 0.1 BETA!
// 2005−04−22
// Copyright (c) 2005, Mark Pilgrim
// Released under the GPL license
// http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
//
// −−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
//
// This is a Greasemonkey user script.
//
// To install, you need Greasemonkey: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
// Then restart Firefox and revisit this script.
// Under Tools, there will be a new menu item to "Install User Script".
// Accept the default configuration and install.
//
// To uninstall, go to Tools/Manage User Scripts,
// select "Hello World", and click Uninstall.
//
// −−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
//
// ==UserScript==
// @name Hello World
// @namespace http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/download/
// @description example script to alert "Hello world!" on every page
// @include *
// @exclude http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/*
// @exclude http://www.diveintogreasemonkey.org/*
// ==/UserScript==
alert('Hello world!');


As you read the script you might know what the script means, no install this script by using the install user script option and choosing helloworld.user.js

Once installed, whenever you move to a new page an alert will be made saying Hello World.


Greasemonkey can change the way you browse once installed and used. Hope you have got a insight on what greasemonkey is all about.

Happy browsing and cheers to Greasemonkey !!!

Gmail Temporary Error (502)

It seems that Gmail account was down for a part of users and they get the following error when trying to login.

"We're sorry, but your Gmail account is currently experiencing errors. You won't be able to use your account while these errors last, but don't worry, your account data and messages are safe. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue. Please try accessing your account again in a few minutes."



Last time such incident with respect to down of Google services were reported in the year 2004, Is the clustering effect having some bad time at Google. Google engineers seem to be working on the problem and reports say that they have narrowed down to the problem which is actually causing this 502 error. Google has confirmed that it will soon resume the services to the users as it has come up with a fix and will kill out the error in sometime.

The Service was down for more than an hour for the users.

Have you come across any errors like these when accessing any of the Google services ???. post in your comments

What's Happyness ???

Well how many of us have asked this question to ourselves and what is the answer have we got for this. Let me quote one by one

1. Is getting a 1st rank in school fetches happyness to a kid - well then is all 1st rank holders happy (answer is only when they got it and not always)
2. Is getting a riding a bicycle brings happyness to a kid (well when you ask all the kids who ride bicycle they are not happy always)
3. Is everyone who has a beautiful gal friend/boy friend happy(I dont think so :))
4. Is everyone whose child is working in abroad and well settled happy always (I've seen them only feel they could be with their children.

There are lot more examples that can be quoted and we have to agree to the point that there is no human in this world who can be happy always and never be sad, but the question I wanted to raise is , Is happiness associated with some object or thing or is it a feeling.

Is happiness momentary, Does the kid gets happy the moment he gets first rank or gets a bicycle and then his happyness vanishes or is smiling alone represent the sheer meaning of happyness

Therasus defines happyness as "state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy"

But one way or the other I feel that inner happyness is what is permanent, inner happyness is achieved when there is a equilibrium between the external and the internal factors of the human body where mind plays a vital role, when you have a perfect balance between your inner self and the external ,your ought to enjoy happyness to the core, when you reach a state of mind where you are ready to receive both success and failure in the same frequency you are in a state of immortal happyness, this doesnt mean that we should not be aggressive in achieving our goals , but our perception of success and failure should not determine our happyness because success and failure are mutually exclusive,but happyness is not. Everybody says that we should learn from our mistakes when we fail, but we forget that we should also learn from the positive things of our success and use the same to move forward in achieving our goals. Again when you train your mind to get the balance between success and failure you will see the real happyness in your life that is unexplainable.

Be happy as always !!!!

Work, Service, Success

We all work. Some work to get fame, money, enjoy, some to spend time and some to have the highest social status. Has anyone ever thought why should we work or for what are we working. What is the correct way to work.
Since there has been no serious thought on why we work, there are many negative consequences of these. Good food only to see not eat, blessed with a good family to spend no time with.

In early times people used to work, because they wanted to help their people, make a persons life easier. Nowadays, a person will work 24 hrs round the clock to reach the highest position in a short duration which inturn drives others wantedly or unwantedly to rush at the same speed to keep his job secure.

The creativity in people is getting lost day by day. People are becoming machines day by day. No one has time to admire nature, have laughter with thier folks.
Does nature - the greatest teacher of all teach us this. SO called the most intelligent species (humans) are we probably need to turn back to the past to learn. And that we wont, only when nature will strike all of us with destruction we will be forced to learn our basics of living.

Einstein - the greatest scientist of all times had a passion for music, loved children.
Leonardo one of the greatest inventor admired to think ahead of future would represent his thoughts aroused within him as paintings.
Marie Curie - Whom i really admire to the core started her career with the love for Science and to achieve the highest degree at those times, slowly learnt and served her people without any copyright on her invention (radioactive radium whose use all of us know) whose hardwork holds no bound of explanation even at the cost of her comfort living and finally her own life.

Why did these people work so hard on their own interest , its the passion of making their lives worth living.

Nowadays people work for success not for service. We must attain success to serve. Success should be a means for service.
There is a domain of "being" and of "wanting". People are lost in the domain of wanting which imprisons us. In the mechanical life events are controlling us rather than the magnetic life to guide us.

Our success lives in earning inturn used effectively to serve.

Have a happy and successful living !!!

Reading a person by his outfit

In this materialistic world where money dons and people are running like the horses to grab money and fame, how many of us have taken time to read a persons mind. Well If I post this question to the person reading this blog, the answer would be "I Read every person mind" . I feel that is a typical business men accent, the people in business try to guess the pulse and mentality of the person they are appraoching so that they frame a strategy to make that person a prey or rather a client. Well the reading of the mind in business perspective has to be more accurate, you got to look into the nuances of each and every move the person makes, one simple example is if the person who is listening to you is hand folded, it means he will be reluctant to what you say or rather he will be defensive. another example that I would like to quote is if a person sits on the edge of the seat he is very keen and observant to what you are talking (meaning he is a potential customer go grab him). There are humpty number of examples like these that exists, As per psychology there are signals which the brain keeps on sending out to the external world which would convey even those things that a person his hiding(meaning he might talk something but his brain signals might be different which is what is the true intention of the person).

Now the question is how to read these signals. Practice makes a man perfect(though I dont believe it). You got to constantly look out for the brain signals and also understand the behaviour of the person. so that you get to know the true color of humans.

Nobody can be read just by looking at their outfit, A man dressed in a shabby way can be the best intellectual ever known, so never try to read a person by his looks, looks are just for creating respect and nothing else, the truth lies inside the person which his brains sends as signals.

Brain is the most important part of the human body, It can do wonders in a person life, it knows no boundaries and is one of the complex part of the human body which can never be explained in simple terms. It sends millions and millions of signals which when interpreted properly can really make understand a persons intentions and his behaviour.

Keep reading the mind. but never by his outfit rather by the signals from his brain.!!!