Mansoor's Blog

Rogers

APN: internet.com

Username: (blank)

Password: (blank)

Setup a new dial up connection in windows. Using the following details:

Dial string or phone number:  *99#

Username: wapuser1

Password: wap

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3mzqth1SjhbQvSffPO8HLVg3pIA

Sun Microsystems Inc. will begin building servers with Windows preinstalled.

The agreement announced Wednesday is the latest twist in a truce the companies, once bitter rivals, hammered out in 2004, when Sun pocketed $1.95 billion in a settlement payout from Microsoft over antitrust and patent allegations, and both companies vowed to make their products work better together.

Sun will begin incorporating Microsoft’s Windows Server 2003 software into its so-called x64 servers, which are corporate computers that run on 64-bit microprocessors from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Servers are the computers in corporate data centers that process large amounts of data such as Internet traffic or financial calculations.

The companies said in a joint statement that Sun’s machines with Windows pre-installed will be available within 90 days.

Although Sun customers have been able to run Microsoft’s operating system on Sun servers for several years, Sun would not install it in the factory. That left customers who wanted Windows in the lurch unless they wanted to install in on their own or already had licensing contracts with Microsoft, in which case Sun would install it.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, stands to gain from the agreement because of Sun’s reach in the server world. Sun is the world’s No. 3 server seller with 13 percent of the worldwide market, behind IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co., according to the latest data from market researcher IDC.

The agreement includes a nod from Sun and Microsoft to the momentum surrounding so-called virtualization technology, which allows computers to run more than one operating system, saving hardware and electricity costs while boosting the performance of giant, energy-sapping machines.

Sun and Microsoft vowed to make sure their respective operating systems worked well with one another’s virtualization technologies, a commitment that could help both companies prosper from the trend toward data center consolidation and urgent efforts by technology managers to reduce energy costs.

The further embrace of Microsoft highlights Sun’s attempts to shed its image as that of a quarrelsome startup that in the late 1990s was eager to pick public fights with big rivals. Instead, Sun is becoming a more restrained and inclusive company willing to forge alliances, including the announcement last month of a partnership with longtime rival IBM Corp. that will allow Sun’s Solaris operating system to run on IBM servers.

It’s a crucial element of Sun’s turnaround strategy, and a formula that Sun management said is necessary to ensure the company’s long-term financial success.

Two things to note in this posting, Google is hosting the content from the news source. The other is Virtualization of Solaris on Windows and vice versa. This is great. Anyone who has tried running any form of linux or unix in Windows Virtual Server or Virtual PC knows that it is far from ideal.

I had made a page consisting of 3 frames to display the time in 3 countries on one page.

http://mnathani.com/time/

This was really easy to do, using google’s time search operator. This feature has now been removed without word from Google as to why or if it will be coming back.

 

Ryerson Library News

Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Library and Facebook

Search the Ryerson Library from your Facebook account. The Ryerson Library has developed a Facebook application that allows you to search the Library catalogue and view Library web pages from within Facebook. To do this check the Ryerson U Facebook application instructions.

Really cool, the instructions provided actually promote the use of Firefox and Greasemonkey (a scripts tool which provides additional functionality to websites) in order to integrate it with Google Scholar.

This blog has gone through a much delayed upgrade to Wordpress 2.22 from 2.21 not a big deal, except that now there are widgets, which are a really neat way to arrange items in the sidebars on the right and left of the main content.

Another major change is the removal of adsense. This might have had something to do with Darren Rowse at Problogger.net removing them from his blog. I have however included a single Amazon referral link on the top right corner and hope that it generates some revenue.

Something else that has changed is I have stopped del.icio.us daily blog posts from submitting the links that I bookmark everyday to this blog. Instead, I created a separate blog here. The primary reason for having them here is so I could keep a ‘backup’ in the even that del.icio.us was unavailable.

The theme being used right now is one from Semiologic. Their themes are really great and allow a lot of customizations.

I would be interested in your thoughts about the changes and what you feel would help me improve this blog’s image.

Virtual Credit Card from Paypal. A great concept where you are assigned a one time use credit card only authorized for a specific amount and a short period of time. For use on those shady internet e commerce sites that don’t accept Paypal directly.

Essentially you get a new credit card number each time you want to buy something at a semi trustworthy site.

Very cool.

 Check out this verbage for Stormweb WebHosting. They advertise on Google as being cheaper than Godaddy. (Like thats a good thing). We all know that Godaddy has rock bottom prices and the best value for money considering how little they charge. So anyway heres a comparison of the different deals from both providers:

Read more..

Google recently introduced this really cool Lookup Function which allows you to enter in data without having to look it up yourself. A simple example could be the birth date of a famous person which would be easy to find online, but you could do it automatically within the spreadsheet. Really useful when you have a list of people you want to compile data on.

Google does restrict this function to being used 1000 times per spreadsheet. Rightly so in my opinion to reduce load on their servers.

An example query to get the birth date of president Bush:

=googlelookup(“George W Bush”,”date of birth”)

Godaddy is a leader in Domain Name providers on the Internet today. They provide probably the cheapest Domain Name Registration Services out there. Also provided with Domain name registration is DNS hosting. This means that you do not have to pay extra to go in and change say an MX record or your websites A record.

The bad thing about using Godaddy to find domains you might be interested in is that if you don’t buy the domain that is availble right away, Godaddy might snap it up, register it for themselves and put it for sale at a huge premium.

Case in point: I wanted to register a new domain name for doing some consulting work here in Toronto. I checked out a bunch of domains similar to : TorontoITconsult.com which I ended  up registering. Another domain I was considering was TorontoITconsulting.com . That domain is no longer availible. Was registered 1 day after I registered my domain and is on sale now for $850. (By Godaddy nonetheless)

Lesson to learn: Don’t use Godaddy to search for avalible domain names if you dont want to purchase them right away.