Expression Web Beta 1 is currently available for download here. This is Microsoft's new standards compliant web designer tool.

Along with this, Microsoft has also announced September CTP release of its Graphics Designer and Interactive Designer (for doing WPF applications).

I am doing this post using Windows Live Writer. The latest build had a built in support for dasBlog (blogging software I use in my blog).

If you need more information on customization WLW for dasblog, read this post from Scott and this post from dasblog.Info.

Update Posted on 2/Oct/2006: When I first using WLW I was using dasBlog 1.8.x, which didn't support image uploading. I had to FTP images and for some firewall issues with my ISP, FTP from WLW was not working. Since I upgraded my blog software to dasBlog 1.9.x the image upload problem was solved. I am now able to upload images to my blog using WLW itself. Thanks to dasBlog & WLW authors.

One of the challenges of web development is the plethora of web browsers & OS combinations and the differences in rendering between them. Normally you need to test in atleast 3 to 4 "Level 1" browsers your work before releasing wide. Beyond this number, it becomes expensive to maintain all the different hardware/os/browsers available. There has been commercial sites available for some years now offering screenshots taken in different browsers. Now you have a free version at use Browsershots.org. Check out here for the various versions it has for Vishwak.com website.

The way it works, is it queues you job requests and processes them in multiple machines (shotfactories). The best part is the entire source-code that makes this work is available - so you can go check out how they made this whole thing work across platforms.

Update (15/Nov/06): A new site that offers limited (only till viewport) for IE 6 & 7 a similar service is IE Web Renderer.

TV Antenna's were a common thing on every building top in Chennai City till about a decade back. With the advent of Cable connections it has become a thing of the past and virtually not to be seen anywhere. I realized how scarce this technology has become only today - when my 3 year old son while playing in the terrace asked "What are those Rods in the nearby house?". It took few seconds to understand what he meant - I had a good laugh while explaining him about it!

(A Lone TV Antenna in my neighbourhood)

In my childhood Antenna's where very special, especially for me. I have spent hours working on installing multi-band antennas with boosters and then tuning our TV for hours to days - just to catch up signal of Sri Lanka's Tamil channel (if I remember right it was called Rupavahini) transmissions. The best I could manage (being in Chennai) has been few disturbed screens with audio

Coinciding with the release of Windows Vista RC1 this week, Microsoft has released (finally!) the Release Candidate for .NET Framework 3.0 also. One of the problems with .NET Framework 3.0 (a.k.a WinFX) has been the confusion associated with the plethora of different download bits and CTP versions. Here is the official page to download all pieces of .NET framework 3.0 needed to start developing WCF, WPF or WWF.

I have tried to simplify it below:

1. At the bare minimum you need .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime components from here if you are in Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003. For Windows Vista RC1 these bits are automatically installed. [filename: dotnetfx3setup.msi]
2. Visual Studio "Orcas" bits - this you need if you want to use Visual Studio 2005 to develop WPF (Avalon) or WCF (Indigo) applications. [filename: vsextwfx.msi]
3. Visual Studio WWF Extensions - this you need if you want to use Visual Studio 2005 to develop WWF (Workflow) applications. [filename: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation RC5(EN).exe]
4. Windows SDK - Don't get fooled by the small download for this, the full SDK is about 1GB in size. You get the entire SDK for .NET 3.0 plus previously released Windows SDK (Native code) components as well. The best way to download this will be to download the DVD image here. [filename: 6.0.5536.0.2.WindowsSDK_Vista_RC1.DVD.Rel.img]

Hope this helps a little bit!

When it comes to backup, I make it easy with my laptop. All my data files (Documents, Emails, PowerPoints, SourceCode, Music, Photos etc.) are stored in a seperate partition (It has grown into a compulsion for me over the years to ensure this partition is always D-Drive (D:\) and name it Data). So I normally XCopy (or Robocopy) the entire D-Drive to my external USB Drive or to my Office Network Share periodically.

But when it comes to the OS Partitions, it is not so easy. You cannot simply copy the OS partition files, you need to do what is called as "Imaging" or "Ghosting". When you take an image of a partition or an entire hard-drive, a copy of it (sector by sector) is written into an image file, which you can restore back to get your partition/HDD back exactly as it was before. Though writing a program to do this is not technically so difficult especially if you can boot into DOS and you are able to write decent C & DOS Interrupt programs, but most of the commercial products in the name of simpler UI and running from within Windows GUI have made it very complex and pricey.

Anyways for several years the only popular product to do this was Norton Ghost (still available) - the number of machines/OS setup that Ghost has saved for me is not small. Nowadays, I prefer Acronis True Image. I recently bought a copy of their Home Edition and tried it in my laptop, it took less than 20 minutes to backup my C-Drive (Windows XP 20GB - 11GB used space) to my external USB Seagage 100GB drive. It did pretty a good compression to get the image file size down to about 5.68 GB.

If you are new to imaging check this Audio Visual Introduction at Acronis website to learn more about Disk Imaging.

If you are one who is involved in working/creating/viewing a lot of XML files and XSLT transforms - you need something more than Notepad & IE. You need a professional XML Editor like Altova XMLSPY or Visual Studio 2005, but they can tend to be very expensive for simple XML tasks. Microsoft after 8 years has reintroduced a new version of its free XML Editor called "XML Notepad". Give it a try.

References:

1. Microsoft XML Team blog post about XML Notepad
2. MSDN Documentation on XML Notepad
3. Download XML Notepad Installation Package - Size: 3.29MB (Requires .NET Framework 2.0 Runtime)

I am posting this from Connect 2006 event which was inaugurated by Hon'ble Chief Minister for Tamilnadu Mr.Karunanidhi along with Hon'ble Central Cabinet Minister Mr.Dayanidhi Maran. Connect is happening in the city for several years and though it is not a spectacular extravaganza event; it does generate good industry interest. Today's event was attended by industry stalwarts from TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and others. At Vishwak we had exhibited in Connect 2004, but this year they don't have any exhibition floor and it is only a confence and networking setup.

CM inaugurated by a e-switch HP’s new outsourcing facility in Olympia Park, Guindy and he also proposed for a new upcoming IT Park “Tidel” in Coimbatore (Kovai). Kovai was also named a mode Tier-II for IT in the state and the CM assured the audience that all support including IT parks will be done to other Tier-II cities including Trichy, Madurai, Salem and Tirunelveli.

I personally see no reasons why Outsourcing can’t be done from Tier-II cities; It definitely is going to succeed and is going to be the trend. When IT Outsourcing can work across continents and thousands of miles why the work can’t move from Bangalore, Chennai to Kovai and Madurai?. All you need is availability of good people, power & connectivity. Out of this People are mobile (if you can give them good offers they can be made available now anywhere), Power & Infrastructure is where you need the local governments to help and have a vision, Connectivity will automatically follow where there is demand.

Being my home state, I wish the event all success

As a side note, Tamil Virtual University (TVU) Chairman Dr.V.C.Kuzhaindaiswamy today presented the strategic paper on alternate 16-bit Tamil Encoding to Hon’ble CM, which was discussed last week. 

(Image Courtesy: Amazon)

I don't have formal learning in any music, nor understand the basic and intricacies of it (Ragas and so on) - but I enjoy listening to good (that I can relate to). I mostly listen to Classical Carnatic Music, Tamil Film Songs, Tamil Folk Songs & Instrumentals. I am definitely not into jarring loud music.

6 to 7 years back one of my good friends "Asokan P" introduced me to Chieftains (Irish Folk Songs), after one of his trips to USA. I immediately liked it and started buying 2 to 3 more of their CDs. In recent years Irish Folks Songs became very well known due to "Titanic" movie - it is the same music that the couple in Titanic dance for in the lower levels with the common men.

Today while going through my CD collections, I realized in the last 2 years I haven't heard Chieftains. Following which, I have been hearing to it for last few hours and I still love their music just as much as I did few years back. Hence this blog post!

Though I am in my early 30's, just like millions of other sedentary lifestyle folks (especially those in IT jobs) I have started to get concerned about my Weight and lack of Exercise.

In my case I have been doing Yoga twice a week for almost 5 years now, which has helped me to control my stress and to a large extend bring in flexibility in my back and joints. But Yoga has to be practised every day along with proper diet for weight control. That not being the case for me I have started gaining weight in recent years, especially due to working late and disturbed sleep. I have tried walking, but didn't suit my timings, so decided to exercise in my own timings and indoors, I finally bought a treadmill yesterday. The machine (2.5HP) got delivered today and I have started my first work out. Hopefully I should do it every day.  

The purchase was an interesting experience y'day in the shop (ACME, K.N.K. Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai). The machine costed about Rs.45K but the sales tax in Tamilnadu was 21% or so. It seems in neighbouring Karnataka (Bangalore) it is half of this and I can end up saving say about Rs.3-4K if I give a Bangalore address. I strongly declined the offer (the guy looked at me pretty strange and surprised though) and instead requested for a Chennai billing for two reasons: One, of course doing this is the right thing (by law); Second, I don't believe these sales guys when they say you can save money - I have burned my fingers enough over the years and become wise (I suppose) to know there to be hidden costs and trouble to pay. Especially when it comes to service, they will certainly take you circles just because you have done an out-station billing.  

I am delighted today – Hon’ble Minister Mr.Dayanidhi Maran (Govt. Of India, IT & Communication) mentioned my name in his speech today in Tamil New Encoding Conference (a.k.a TUNE).

The context is this - a conference that is happening currently today by Govt. Of India (Information Technology) and Tamilnadu Govt. to discuss about an Alternate 16-bit encoding for Tamil. I wrote about this alternate encoding a year back (TUNE) and my views on the same in my blog.

Since I came to know this conference earlier, this Monday (28th Aug) I wrote to Hon’ble Minister and IT Secy (TN Govt) to let them know about a common man views on this. When I sent it I had no expectations that this will be read by them (or) acknowledged by them due to the overwhelming responses they will be getting from different quarters.  Surprisingly on Wednesday, I got a call from Mr.Maran’s office (New Delhi) and minister spoke to me directly for a minute and acknowledged my letter – and he even summarized the issue I have raised precisely. He invited me to attend the event today. My honest appreciations to him for his amazing energy levels.

Today in the inauguration of the conference Hon’ble Minister while talking about the issue in question – both pro and cons and he mentioned my name. Saying that “Mr.Venkatarangan” has written to me with his views and I have invited him to say his views here. Thanks Sir!

Technical Committee's Report
Here is an update to the day's event published in "The Hindu" by Prof.Anandakrishnan who chaired the Technical Committee.

தமிழில் வெளிவரும் வார இதழ்களில் நான் அநேகமாகப் படிப்பதும், எனக்கு பிடித்ததும் வாசகர்களால் ஆவி (a.k.a Ghost) என்று அன்பாக சொல்லப்படும் - "ஆனந்த விகடன்" பத்திரிகை.

27/08/06 தேதியிட்ட ஆவியில், சத்குரு ஜக்கி வாசுதேவ் ஒரு வேண்டுகொள் விடுத்திருக்கிறார். 15/10/2006 அன்று அவரின் ஈஷா அமைப்பு 7லட்சம் மரக்கன்றுகளை ஒரே நாளில் நடும் பணியில் ஈடுபடுகின்றனர். இது நடந்தால் இது ஒரு கின்னஸ் சாதனையாகும். உங்களுக்கு நேரமில்லை/இடமில்லை என்றால், உங்கள் பெயரால் மரக்கன்றுகளை "ஈஷா" நட்டுப் பராம்ரித்து வளாக்க நிங்கள் கன்று ஒன்றுக்கு ரூ.10 வீதம் "Isha Foundation", 55 Moosa Street, T.Nagar, Chennai 600 017 என்ற முகவரிக்கு, உங்கள் பெயர்/முகவரியுடன் ஒரு வங்கி காசேலை (DD) அனுப்பலாம். என் பங்களிப்பு வரும் திங்கள் காலை அனுப்பி வைக்கப்படும்.

இது ஒரு நல்லப் பணி, இப்பொழுது உலகிற்க்கு தேவையான நல்ல முயற்சி. வாழ்த்துக்கள்.       

Virtualization is a very handy arsenal in an IT Pro toolkit, especially if you are managing large number of servers with different software combinations for development/testing (or) if you are like me trying out various OS and softwares.

Business and Dev Environment - Keep them seperate
Nowadays, I use a vanilla Windows XP/Windows 2003 VPC image and use it to try out new softwares. In fact, in my laptop I have only basic softwares to do my daily job (Business Environment: Windows XP, Office 2003, Antivirus, Windows Live Messenger, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Nero Burner, WinRAR,PDF Printer/Reader); everything else runs out of Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 (or Virtual Server 2005 R2). So my development environment (Windows Server 2003, IIS 6.0, VS 2005, SQL Server 2005, EasyStruct 4.5, etc) is itself an image - I run the VPC image only when I want to development. I also have VPC images for doing Beta Development, like MOSS 2007, WinFX (.NET 3.0), etc. This way my business environment is always simple, clean and always working - I don't get into a broken/slow PC while doing a client presentation/deal document.

Virtual PC and Virtual Server - Free!
The good news is that both Virtual PC and Virtual Server 2005 R2 are now free from Microsoft. Recently MS has finally announced the successor to Virtual PC 2004 - Virtual PC 2007 and have even committed to provide the new version too free. The new version will support Vista OS both as Host and Guest; and also x64 hardware.

Support Windows Vista
Until Virtual PC 2007, you can download VPC 2004 VMAdditions for Windows Vista if you are in MS Connect Program. If you have tried to run Virtual Server 2005 R2 in Windows Vista HOST OS, you would have realized it is not possible to run the Virtual Server Administration website - here is a solution for that.

References:
If you are using Virtual PC/Virtual Server, then a great reference is Microsoft's Virtual PC Guy Blog. Also if you have built a VPC image and then clone it to multiple PCs then this blog entry from Microsoft David Wang is useful. Today we ran into a problem that was addressed in this blog entry - we installed a new VPC image, copied it to another machine, ran both the images, but we were unable to ping from one Guest OS to another; though we are able to ping individually each of Guest OS from any HOST PC; it turned out that the two Guest OS had the same MAC address and we had to change it in the .VMC file - it can't get simpler than this!

Everytime I visit flash based webpages with audio content I wonder why there is no mute button in the right-click options of a flash file?. Why you may ask - I am listening to music in Windows Media Player like I am now and so I don't want to mute my entire machine; I keep browsing and to my annoyance a webpage starts playing loud audio and I can't mute that webpage alone.  

Since I haven't heard any one else raising this, I kept saying to myself I should be crazy. Thank God, I am not alone (or crazy) - I recently came across this same ask in an Adobe Employee's blog, scroll down to the third comment section.

Adobe doesn't seem to be listening (may be they have muted themself out to user comments ) as I don't see this feature even in their new Adobe Flash Player "9" version released several months after this post.