Indika’s Web Log

Here is the newest YouTube sensation — Evian’s roller-skating babies. Check out the full video:

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Ok. So google is working hard developing its new Crome OS. And according to the latest google announcement they will start with a browser based OS for netbooks and likes then expand from there to larger notebooks, desktops and even to servers. They plan to make this a Open source project and relies the souce for developers.The key determinants of this OS is

• It will be designed for speed, simplicity and security.
• The user experience is Web-centric.
• The OS will be based on Linux, with the Google Chrome browser running in a new windowing system.
• Apps will run inside Google Chrome–the Web is the platform.
• It will run on x86 and ARM CPUs.
• Data will live in “the cloud,” so that it’s accessible anywhere.
• Chrome OS will be free, which means advertising.

It’s too early to say what impact this will have on the other well established OS’s. However I’m skeptical about this as googles Android OS targeted towards the mobile devices did not get the broad acceptance I thought that it would  and also I believe Linux has much to offer when it comes to operating systems If the computer manufactures can embed a powerfull brower on the boards frimware (Like Asus Has)  then thats what we really need. However the webservers will still be powered by Linux and Windows Servers.Dont get me wrong. I love google and google has reliesed so many great tools for developers and users. Google Search is simply the best. Microsoft’s bing will have a very very hard time even to come closer to google. (Can’t google with bing can you )But I would go with linux for now.

Also if anyone is interested in starting a Crome OS blog or something the the CromeOS.net is available as of today (07/09/2009).

More on the Subject

• Why we need to chill about ChromeOS

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For all you frustrated web designers out there who are constantly testing and retesting to make sure your site looks perfect across browsers then you know there are lots of options out there for testing. The Launch of Browserlabs from Adobe has prompted Bryon to put together a list of 10 browser testing tools for web designers. 

Adobe Browserlabs launched today making it faster and easier to browser test your client sites. Here are 10 browser testing tools and services for web designers.

Here is the entire article from the original source.

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I found this really cool  javascript code that will enable page editing on most browsers.

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

Firefox users can also try the Firebug firefox extension, a powerful tool that lets you edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page, and is popular among webmasters and web designers. Greasemonkey is another popular firefox extension that modifies the web and allows you to customize the way a webpage displays and functions using small bits of JavaScript.

You now know how easy it is to modify web content and even a kid could do it. Beware of what you see online… it could not be true!

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If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse.

For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321.

The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.

The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.

This information was recently broadcast on CTV by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don’t know about it. Please pass this along to everyone.

This is the kind of information people don’t mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

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I’ve been working on a new Web site for the past few weeks. But instead of doing it alone, I decided to get some help from Firefox extensions. They’ve made my work a lot easier, and they all can be downloaded in just a few seconds.

Aardvark: Aardvark lets you select elements from a Web page and perform various actions on them. I use it to analyze the structure of a page. You can also remove and isolate elements or generate DOM code. I highly recommend it.

Find any code for the color you want.

(Credit: ColorZilla)

ColorZilla: If there’s a color on a Web page that you like, ColorZilla will find the precise code for it and allow you to paste it into your coding program. You can also create custom colors with its built-in palette browser. It saves the most-used colors for easy access later on. It’s powerful, it’s simple, it’s a must-have.

CSS Validator: CSS Validator adds a right-click option in your browser, sending the CSS to the W3C CSS Validator. It opens the results in a new tab. CSS Validator is a nice tool that will come in handy often.

CSSViewer: No Web designer should be working without CSSViewer. The add-on informs you of all the CSS information you’ll need from a site. Simply click on the page you want, open it in the Tools menu, and it will display CSS information. I use it almost every day.

FireBug: Firebug is one of those extensions that you simply can’t be without. It lets you edit, debug, and view CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. Once you make a change to the HTML on the site, Firebug automatically displays it in the same pane. It’s extremely powerful.

FirePHP fills you in on all the issues with your PHP.

(Credit: FirePHP)

FirePHP: FireBug is a fine tool for CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, but FirePHP, which only works when you have the FireBug extension installed, creates a full-featured development experience. With the help of both add-ons, you can view the quality of your PHP and find errors. It’s a great aid.

Font Finder: Font Finder allows you to highlight a font you like on any site, right-click on the selection, and after choosing “Font Finder”, view the full CSS text styling of the selection. You can then paste that into your own Web page.

HTML Validator: HTML Validator is an extremely powerful tool available to Windows users only. The add-on gives you feedback about errors on the page. It also lets you know where problems need to be addressed. But unless you’re an advanced Web designer, stay away from this tool. It’s very complicated.

IE View: As long as you’re running Windows, IE View is a helpful tool. The extension adds an “Open in IE” option in the right-click menu, allowing you to quickly open a site in Internet Explorer. It’s a great way to check how a page looks in both browsers.

Java Console: If you want to see how Java applets are running on Web pages, the Java Console is for you. You can monitor and debug applets, and get a full report on their performance.

LinkChecker lets you know where the dead links are.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

LinkChecker: LinkChecker highlights links on any Web site and tells you if the link will direct you to a live site or if it will return a 404. I use it every day.

Poster: If you want to debug servers and make HTTP requests, Poster is the tool for you. It’s easy to use, you can set a content type, and within minutes, you’ll have all the information you need to inspect the results of your HTTP query. Useful.

Style Sheet Chooser II: Style Sheet Chooser II replaces Firefox’s built-in style sheet switcher and allows you to pick an alternate style that will persist on all pages of a Web site. It’s not something you’ll use often, but when you do need something of the sort, Style Sheet Chooser II is the way to go.

Web Developer: If you install any of the extensions in this roundup, Web Developer should be included. It adds a menu and toolbar to Firefox giving you the option to display a page’s style, view and edit CSS, and much more. No Web developer should be without it.

YSlow: YSlow requires FireBug to be installed for it to work, but it’s a great way to find out why your site is running so slowly. It analyzes Web pages and returns issues that are slowing the site down, based on Yahoo’s rules for high-performance Web sites. I use it often to find out where I can improve the speed of my sites. Try it out.

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PhoneGap is an open source development tool for building fast, easy mobile apps with JavaScript.

If you’re a web developer who wants to build mobile applications in HTML and JavaScript while still taking advantage of the core features in the iPhone, Android and Blackberry SDKs, PhoneGap is for you.

For a quick introduction to PhoneGap, watch this three-minute video AT phonegap.com

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If you’re a web developer, you may have a love-hate relationship with CSS: it’s great stuff, but it’s hard to go from a blank screen to a fully-worked-out design, especially if writing CSS isn’t your everyday activity. To jumpstart your thinking the next time you get stuck on this problem, bookmark Open Source Web Designs: over 2000 web site designs, with the majority of them being XHTML/CSS-based.The site highlights a few hundred of their favorites, and the entire stock is searchable by things like color and number of columns. Even if you don’t want to use someone else’s exact idea, a free design from OSWD can be a good starting point for your own efforts.

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The open source-based VMware View Open Client enables IT managers to host all of their companies’ user desktops in the data center with the ability to provision computing power and storage space as needed. Virtual desktops also bring green IT benefits, since they use far less electrical draw — in some cases nearly half as much — as a typical desktop machine.VMware, which would dearly love to take over as many of the world’s desktop screens as it can, on Feb. 3 unveiled a freely downloadable virtual desktop client for enterprises that allows users to access and use their company machines remotely from any mobile device.The Linux-based VMware View Open Client enables IT managers to host all of their companies’ user desktops in the data center with the ability to provision computing power and storage space as needed.

Thin clients are one kind of device that can be used to connect to a company’s VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). Cell phones, laptops, notebooks and other handheld devices also can connect to the virtual desktop using this new client.

VMware is providing VMware View Open Client to its enterprise partners, so they can use the open source code to optimize their own personalized virtual desktops for users.

A major reason for using an open-source model is that the View Open Client can be more easily optimized to run with numerous operating systems that thin clients use, such as Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, Linux, Solaris and BSD, VMware Senior Director of Desktop Virtualization Jerry Chen told eWEEK.

“Quite frankly, we have no idea what the future devices could look like,” Chen said. “We want to enable our mobile ecosystem to take the software, to customize it for their device, innovate on their timetable, yet have the confidence that it’s going to work with our software and take advantage of our features, such as security and encryption.”

VMware is in the same market with Citrix, which makes the XenDesktop; Wyse, a long-established thin-client producer; Sun Microsystems, with its SunRay thin-client workstations; Dell, which came out last October with its first thin-client desktop; Hewlett-Packard; and nComputing.

IT researcher Gartner has projected that about 50 million user licenses for hosted virtual desktops will be purchased in the next four years, and that the thin-client terminal will account for about 40 percent of user devices for hosted virtual desktop deployment.“As this market continues to emerge, new technology must more adequately address user experience, and provide the ability to scale beyond a few hundred users,” analyst Michael Rose of researcher IDC told eWEEK. “An effective desktop must merge scalability, life cycle management and superior user experience in order to be broadly applicable in the enterprise.”

Virtual Desktops Enable Substantial Capital Savings

Industry estimates say that managing a typical end-user enterprise desktop computer can now cost more than $5,000 a year per employee. In contrast, the cost for licensing virtual desktops running in a central data center can begin as low as $75 per concurrent user per year.

In the current recessionary climate, it is easy to see that this can make a major difference on a company’s bottom line.

Virtual desktop and thin clients are also attractive for their green IT benefits. These use far less electrical draw—in some cases nearly half as much—as a typical desktop machine, since they don’t utilize their own hard drive.

Latency between mouse movement and action on the screen—which often can be several seconds in length—has long been the biggest user issue for server-based workstations. However, all the vendors mentioned above continue to improve their systems regularly to make them act more like regular client-based PCs.

The VMware View Open Client is part of VMware’s vClient Initiative to deliver universal clients—desktops that “follow users to any endpoint while providing a personalized experience that is secure, cost-effective and easy for IT to manage,” the company said.

The VMware View Open Client is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1 (LGPL v 2.1). To download it free of charge, go here.

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If you thought hummer is big THINK AGAIN! Tree huggers please read through before cursing as this can also run on bio fuels.

The eco-conscious drug dealer in your family will be happy to know that the Knight XV is available for purchase at the famous Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event, being held this week in Scottsdale, Arizona. Called the “most secure, luxurious” SUV in the world, the XV is completely covered in armor outside, comfortably seats six inside, and runs on biofuel.

Specialty armored-SUV maker Conquest Vehicles used ballistic hardened steel and ballistic fiberglass fenders and bumpers to make the Knight XV as impenetrable as possible. Windows and windscreens are made from a bulletproof 2.5-inch (64mm) thick transparent material. Armor can be added or subtracted depending on the customer’s need.

Drawing inspiration from the Gurkha military vehicle used by the U.S. Army, the Knight XV is aimed more towards the private sector. The Gurkha, made by Florida company Armet Armored Vehicles, is also used by the Russian Foreign Ministry and various SWAT teams. It is based on a Ford F550 chassis.

Conquest president William Maizlin said, “Since launching the KNIGHT XV at SEMA to the auto industry in November, the demand by auto enthusiasts and media to see and experience this vehicle has been so positively overwhelming that we decided to feature it at Barrett-Jackson so the public could see it in person for the very first time.”

Although built to run on bio-fuel, Maizlin says the car can also run on petrol or diesel. The Knight uses a 6.8-liter V10 getting 400 hp and 498 ft-lb of torque. Like its inspiration, it is also built on a “super duty Ford modified platform chassis.” It is a massive vehicle, at 240-inches long, 98-inches wide, and 100-inches tall. The Knight XV has a 14″ ground clearence, 141″ wheelbase, and weighs in at 12,000 pounds (5,443 kg). Custom designed, 20-inch forged aluminum wheels are wrapped in Mickey Thompson Baja Radial ATZ ballistic run-flat tires.

Inside the Knight you will find six individual six-way powered leather seats, Wilton Wool carpeting, and a sunroof. Each seat gets its own side-mounted lap top tray. Entertaining your passengers is easy, thanks to the Alpine entertainment unit, LCD monitors, and a Playstation 3. LED ambient lighting, and a night-vision capable rear camera are also included. There is plenty of room for everybody in this 283-cubic-foot cabin.

At a paltry $310,000, how can you not afford to protect your family with the Knight XV? Only 100 will be produced in its first run, each being handbuilt.

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