September 2008

It’s the most outrageous scientific research that the human being has ever been able to plan.

But day after day we begin to forget all the hype about it as we were promised to ‘change our understanding of the Universe’.

The experiment that took place at the CERN’s LHC on September 10′th 2008 was only about accelerating the particles and not about colliding them. All the medias tried to get people into shock with stupid questions like “Will the World survive after colliding the particles?”. Hell, yeah! And you’ll be sucked into a giant black hole.

The collision of particles was planned on 21’st of October and guess what? Delayed again!

Now the problem is the 30 tonnes transformator that broke soon after accelerating particles (few days after September the 10′th). Fixing it will take about 2 months but the CERN ebters energy safe-mode during the winter and that’s why the experiments will continue in later Spring.

So it is 3′rd delay of colliding the particles since the creation of LHC and as it happens again and again it consumes more of fund’s money.

So the question itself is - in the time of World crisis which is the biggest since the Great Depression and make us enter the money safe-mode do we really need to know how the hell the Universe was created 13 billion years ago?

My answer is - hell with the creation of the Universe, I care about how we live today and what happens tomorrow, not what has blown up 13 billion years ago.

Implementing new standarts is always about pain in the ass - the vision of companies are too subjective and everyone does what he/she likes to. As news are shouting Microsoft is already implementing new HTML standarts in it’s child called Internet Explorer 8 (beta still).

As in case with world crisis and taxes, “end-users” or consumers - who is represented by us - are the first ones who suffer. Remember CSS and Javascript cross-browser wars and optimizations? Well, HTML 5 is to come - prepare your armor and all your browser compatibility equipment. Get ready for painful and trying-to-behave-the-same-everywhere code-writing as the new browser war is approaching. But sparing the sentimental talks I’d like to cover some of ass-burning HTML 5 features:

1. Immediate mode 2d drawing.
   This feature will allow you to draw 2d graphics with<canvas> element using the HTML code.
   Cool, ha? If you wanted to draw stuff like this now you’d really should implement a Java applet, where drawing 2d images is a very simple task - HTML 5 is most likely to provide us with the same simplicity.
2. API supporting audio/video files playback
   So you’ll no longer need any flash-based or advanced memory greedy Java player. Your browser will most likely to do the job for them.
3. SQL support.
   For me it’s the the most anticipated feature. Simultaneously, W3C is working on SPARQL standart which will replace standart SQL syntax - and, of course, they should somehow interact with each other. HTML is to support the SPARQL standart, which stands for new SQL syntax and semantic web technologies.
4. Drag-and-drop API.
   Elements which are identified as draggable are movable! So you’ll be able to drag and drop any element which has respective tag
5. Offline data storage.
   Similar to Google Gears service that allows to create a kind of database on your local hard drive to store the information of web-sites and allow you to browse a web page in offline mode. Kind of funny feature to implement while the whole civilization is trying to cover every spot on earth with connection.

It’s too early to talk about more features in upcoming HTML 5 standart just because “standartisizing” something is a very time-consuming process, it may take many years for us to see real implementation of those features and for sure what a positive side is that we are moving towards Web 3.0 which stands for Application in a single browser window - complete and independent network platform that can be fully discovered using browser only.

For example, remember those drag-and-drop elements which were only available using CSS and advanced Javascript techniques? Only a few years ago it required true skills to make this kind of feature on your web page - now you’ll be able to do exactly the same thing using only one descriptor. W3C started the specs in January 2008 (almost the same time their SPARQL specifications was outlined).

More on this:

• HTML 5 differences from HTML 4
• HTML 5 on Wikipedia
• SPARQL specification
• SPARQL on Wikipedia

As I mentioned earlier the Large Hadron Collider’s (the most exciting scientific research project) launch had been postponed until October. Nonetheless, yesterday, September the 9th, all news-services were hit by the news that LHC would be launched on September the 10th, 2008 and the hype began again. The news came strictly from CERN

The first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be made on 10 September. This news comes as the cool down phase of commissioning CERN’s new particle accelerator reaches a successful conclusion.

Short reminder for all the mortals who don’t know about micro black holes and sucking the Earth into 1pixel size particle.

The LHC is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometre tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.

The reason of all the postonings are not clear enough - it’s all linked with the fact that there should be absolutely no leakages on 27km long magnets, so the particles would move with the maximum speed.

As claimed by russian scientists, there is absolutely no danger in launching the LHC, because at this particular moment there are hundred billions particles collide above our heads in the atmosphere and guess what? No black holes 250 million light years away from the Solar System have been noticed.

Fear. Hope. Faith.

Something wrong happened between Google and Mozilla and suddenly friends became competitors - the true reasons why Google is developing it’s own browser are still unclear and very fuzzy. Sergei Brin says we need to re-think our browser experience and move it to the next level - make everything you do on a computer through the browser. Maybe it’s the new Google’s vision on modern internet technology development, who knows.

But in case of browsers war which has already began I stand for Firefox. And here are 8 simple reasons Why.

1. Customization.
   Google Chrome’s comes with a default “skin” without the ability to customize it - what the hell, guys, let me change the default color! Firefox allows to change theme and even modify it with CSS files and I am not talking about the tons of freeware Firefox skins on the net.
2. Add-ons.
   Extending your browser with different add-ons became essential for me as I started blogging. For example, with Digg extension I can easily submit my article. Delicious add-on synchronizes all my bookmarks with my delicious account and PicLens gives me a great opportunity to browse through Youtube videos and Flickr pictures in animated 3-D mode. According to Google, Add-ons are non-efficient because they should be re-written after any major browser’s update.
3. Ads.
   One of the simplest reasons why there would never be AdBlock addon or ability to block ads in Chrome just because 99% of Google’s revenue comes from such services as Adwords and Adsense. That’s why you’ll never be able to bypass tones of internet ad areas with Chrome.
4. Development progress.
   I love to follow the developing progress by using alpha and beta versions of a product. I also enjoy reading the developer’s conversations about how this or that feature should be made and what icon set to use. This is developing transparency. I know what to expect - none of features are hidden from the eye. That’s why I always test Firefox’ nightly builds and enjoy new features the developers have implemented recently. None of this is in Chrome.
5. Bookmarks organizer.
   Google’s Bookmarking mechanism looks exactly like Firefox’ one, but organizing the bookmarks place could have been better and maybe tagging ability will come in next versions, but now I feel like the absence of it is critical for me.
6. Independence.
   What is Mozilla’s major development? A browser. I know the developers can freely join the team and spend their forces on building a better browser. Google has tons of applications and some of them were really forgotten many times ago and deprecated.
7. Default search engine.
   Have you seen searching in Chrome? You type in address bar search engine’s name and then press tab so you can FINALLY type in search term. You can’t manage search engines, only typing.
8. Awesome bar.
   Awesome bar functionality completely lives up it’s name. It’s intelligent, it really does open the website I want as soon as I type 2 letters in and shows me the most relevant results. In Google Chrome we have the most visited websites and no arrow at address bar, that shows the most visited sites or different options for searching and accessing website I want.

May be it’s all the part of Google’s new vision but we can’t see radical changes and improvements so far, maybe they should have waited with their very first beta release. And if we are talking about new features of Google’s Chrome - we can easily Enable Chrome’s Best Features in Firefox.

Which do you think browser is better and why?

And the answer is: there are no age-limits!

Today I would like to introduce to you the youngest successful blogger in the blogosphere I have ever met.
Being only fourteen-year-old he’s already getting a revenue from his web log (Kid Tech Guru) and after only two months of blogging he has got over 13,000 unique visitors, 130 subscribers and still going strong.
His name is Xavier Lur and he is from Singapore. I think being that young and being that successful at something everyone is willing to achieve is very tough and enviable quality. I think he could teach every of us something valuable.

Hi, Xavier. Please introduce yourself shortly and describe how you entered the blogosphere and how long you have been blogging?

I am the guy behind the tech blog – www.KidTechGuru.blogspot.com. As a 14-year-old blogger, I am one of the world’s youngest professional in the world. I am living in Singapore and studying @ Maris Stella High School.
First of all, I would like to thank Alvin Phang of GatherSuccess.com. I stumbled across his newspaper ad few months ago and attended his complimentary workshop. I was inspired by his amazing blogging feat he has achieved and I started blogging too.

How usually people react when they get to know the fact that you are the youngest problogger on the net and what your parents,teachers and friends think about it?

As you can see in my blog, many of the comments are about compliments. Some people praised me and asked me to keep up the good work whereas some don’t believe that I am a 14-year-old. Once, a person even says that someone is helping me out with this blog. The answer is “No!” KidTechGuru is solely done by me.

Let me tell your something surprising. That is neither my friends nor my family members know that I am blogging! I just wanted them to know naturally, which means that they will know KidTechGuru when they Googled my name or maybe when I become famous.

Tell us about your techniques, like when you decided to put ads on your blog and which affiliates you think are the most profitable?

I feel that traffic is the lifeblood of a blog. It is important for one to first achieve a reasonable amount of traffic before putting up ads. I do see some amateur bloggers putting ads everywhere in their blog despite only blogging for a week and with a low visitor count. What I am trying to say is that, you can’t earn money if you don’t have a good traffic source.

I have heard that one can earn at least a five-digit income monthly if he or she joins an affiliate program, provided he or she is good at it. At the moment, I am not attached to any affiliate programs because firstly I am still working on my traffic. Secondly, I am not as money-minded as some bloggers. I just want to share my tech knowledge with people around the world and benefit from this blog.

However, I think that Clickbank is the most profitable affiliates in the Internet arena because most professional bloggers such as John Chow and Alvin Phang use it.

What is the most harmful action blogger can do for his own popularity?

Spamming. Some bloggers do spam on sites whereby the owner does not moderate comments whereas some spam on chat box just to get traffic to their blogs.

Would you be able to live on your own without parents’ support only on money you are making from your blog?

Currently, I don’t think I can live on my own yet without my parents’ support. I have only made about US$100 from blogging, all thanks to Bidvertiser ads and some donations made by some great souls. Maybe a few years later…

When you go to college it’s likely you are making enough money from your blogg to make it your niche - what do you think you are going to study - technologies (as your current obsession is) or advertising and media (as your new way of making money)?

If I were to go to college (which I will most probably go), I would love to study about business. My ambition is to become a financial investor and blogging will be my hobby. Currently, besides studying and blogging, I would read up the latest news in business magazines and checking out the stock indices online such as the Straits Times Index and the Dow Jones. Sometimes I will observe oil prices too.

What are your future plans - you’re going to support your current blog, maybe start a project or open new blogs?

In the coming years, I may probably change my current free blogging platform to a premium hosted blog with the KidTechGuru.com domain name. Unfortunately, a guy who is from the Philippines who claims himself as the “Youngest Pinoy Kid Technology Guru” snatched up the www.KidTechGuru.com domain name. I checked out his Technorati profile and found out that he is actually an adult. Go check out his Technorati profile @ http://technorati.com/people/technorati/juliunizeer Scroll down and you can find his “KidTechGuru” blog.

What would you suggest to amateur bloggers - which aspects to cover at the beginning, which aspects to spare?

When you start a new blog, you must set goals. For example, how many visitors you would want to achieve in a specific time span. It is important to set goals because goals will guide a person to the path of success. Also, blogging tests a person’s determination and proactiveness. In this context, proactiveness means that we must look for traffic ourselves to give our blogs more exposure instead of typing on keyboards, waiting more people to visit our blogs. This means that not only amateur bloggers but every blogger needs to instill this mindset.

Usually people that spend very much time on the internet are divided into two categories: one is always looking for new tools, instruments and features to “tweak” their computer experience and the other is for stability.

I am in the first category and here is why. I love new applications and new stuff even if it’s not ready to be released, that’s why when something is released I’m already introduced into it and know what is hype about.

For example, when Firefox 3 was in the beta I was already a happy user and completely enjoyed my time and there were absolutely no crashes or glitches - everything worked just well, the developing team was playing with icons and so on - just some eye-candy customizations. Nonetheless sometimes I was disappointed even with a final release - we all remember KDE 4 in it’s early so-called “release”.

Today I would like to introduce you 5 beta versions of software you really would be surprised if tried out and maybe if you are a stability lover nothing stops you from testing.

1. The list is opened by OpenOffice 3 mainly because it has native Microsoft Office 2007 file support. The Mac version is about to come simultaneously with Windows and Linux as well as constant updates. A lot of new features and improvements in upcoming version of free office platform. Also OpenOffice includes start-up page where you can easily choose what type of file you want to create.
   

   OpenOffice 3 beta Dashboard

2. Looks like Firefox developing policy is to eliminate amount of Add-Ons and include the most of features by default. So happened with Ctrl+tab add-on that adds fancy way of switching the tabs. Although it’s current state pre-beta Ctrl+tab feature seems to be completely functional.
   

   Ctrl+Tab feature in Firefox 3.1 pre-beta

3. Skype is a widely used application for businesses (why pay when it’s free?) and common users. Developers are currently working on version 4 and it’s in Beta stage now. What differs it from previous version is complete redesign of the application. Peter Parkes on new features:
   

   • Totally new interface, designed to give plenty of space for video calls.

   • Chatting and calling integrated into the same window, so no more playing hunt-the-chat window.
   • Better hardware detection - you can switch headset halfway through a call and Skype deal with it.
   • A single directory screen - find people and businesses all in one place.

   

   Skype sign-in window

   

   Skype beta main window

4. As has been talked recently A LOT about Google’s new child - Chrome. “New era in browsing the Web - meet Google Chrome’s introduction”, “Google Chrome first impressions”. And this one is definitely worth trying.
   
5. What application would you add to the list?

Thanks to Slashdot.org my host died yesterday due to visits and was down until tomorrow’s morning. Now I have moved to a friends’ hosting (thanks to kivisild.net) and online and living.

Thanks for visiting my blog and stay tuned :)

Although I found out about Google Chrome only on 2nd of September many events have occured. In about an hour after the discovery the screenshots got leaked and I posted an article introducing the Google Chrome - a revolutionery web browser. In twelve hours the first beta was released.

First of all - it’s beta, it has to be glitchy. What disturbs me is that I have seen a very few Google’s technologies turning from beta into final release. Most of them are still beta, although developed very well.

The main view of the browser:

Browser's main view

It automatically fills the Quick Access window with the most visited sites, just as Opera does.

Also, you can move tab anywhere you want - even outside the window and make it separate.

Moving the history tab

As I’ve already mentioned in the previous post about Google Chrome, the processes table contains process for each tab of Google Chrome, which means you can kill it without crashing the application. Google Chrome has it’s own processes viewer from which you can kill any tab that bothers you.

Process view

Although nothing stopped me from killing a random process. What I got was…

A view produced by Chrome after killing a random process

Which is really brilliant and clever. Something is wrong, that’s for sure. I hope they will provide a tab name for each process in future releases.

What I liked a lot was a View source function. The highlighting is brilliant and very efficient.

View source function

What I like about the Google applications is that everything is shown into separate window / tab.

Separate tab for downloads and history is a very good decision. So, opening the downloads window shows up with the next screen.

Download window caption

Also some minor features, like highlighting the domain name to prevent phishing and search the site right in the address bar.

Highlighting the domain name

Search this site

The most annoying glitch is that my scroll-up function doesn’t work in the browser. Plus there are some rendering issues while switching between the tabs, crashes after opening e-mails in Gmail.

Chrome is completely open-source project and uses WebKit engine for rendering web pages. And what I have noticed is that rendering is much more faster than in any browser I have tried.

Although it has some bugs and glitches - but overall it’s great for the very first beta version. I think that giants as Mozilla and Opera should be awared - because design is very simple, clever and simply beautiful and outstanding. Chrome has “Incognito” tab option which doesn’t store ANY information on your computer while you’re browsing - not introduced feature before.

Of course the address bar with default search options does not replace the Awesome bar in firefox and Bookmarks organizing feature is far from perfectness - it doesn’t have tags.

Who might have thought that after the boom of Firefox 3 the next one will happen that fast.

Recently I’ve read an article about what is driving people to use Linux and is it really Windows Vista that constraints people to run Linux?

What I think is that it’s not the performance or anything in Vista that anti-PRs itself - it’s the media and rumors. Lack of performance? Well, Vista starting-up takes a little longer than XP, well, it consumes 200 megabytes more than XP, maybe there are a few network bugs and annoying User Account Control notifications unless it’s Service Pack 1. But what I think is that Vista is really bad-rumored.

And these days, you can ask for XP instead of Vista if you wish - as many businesses do.

Let’s throw an example. My boss was getting a brand-new Lenovo X61 - he had a choice between Vista which was 30% more expensive than Windows XP that was the second choice. What he chose was XP because:

1. “XP is faster”
2. It’s more stable (which is true, because it’s supported much longer)
3. It’s cheaper
4. It’s more comfortable

Why is he wrong? Because he never tried it - he hasn’t discovered Start search with which you can easily navigate through your file system, programmes, tags and so on with just one click and typing.

He never tried out the new Virtual Folders technology which dinamically generates folder content depending on search criteria.

And these are only a few advantages of Windows Vista over Windows XP. The fact is that who really cares about extra 200 megabytes of physical memory when it’s about needless gigabytes of memory in nowadays PC’s.

That’s about businesses switching default Vista to native XP.

Even if you did not want Windows on that PC, there is no way that the average retailer would have the skill or the patience to install GNU/Linux on it

Installing Fedora Core or Ubuntu from scratch takes about 30 minutes without updates, installing Vista takes approximately the same time. Anyway with current distributions installing Linux is much more easier than Vista - it really doesn’t require you to be an expert.

…we need some statistics showing that a sizeable number of people are asking their retailers to install the free operating systems on their new PCs in preference to Vista. In the absence of any numbers - and I doubt whether you’ll ever get them - such claims remain just anecdotal claims.

When I was buying my Hewlett-Packard 6910p with Windows Vista on-board I asked if I could buy it without software installed - one reason is that it’s much more expensive and the second one is that I, as a student, have a lot of priveleges from Microsoft (free software)

My request was denied since a lot of hardware shops have an agreement to sell the computers only with OS installed, so even if I ask to remove the OS on it - anyway I pay for it.

If we lived in a world where the better technology won out, then no doubt everybody and their aunt Fanny would be using GNU/Linux.

That’s what I really doubt - I tried tons of different distributions and nothing has fulfilled my expectations except for Vista. Even though consumes more memory and overhelms the CPU - overall it’s very effective and looking towards future OS which is being developed more than any Linux distro because of one simple reason - it gains more investments.