Google has a GoogleTalk gadget web client accessible from it's website at http://www.google.com/talk . It features Group chat but the downside is that it doesn't receive offline messages. As a friend from the old country would say, you've got to pick what suits the moment.
If it's any indicate of what's to come, we should see Group Chat in the GoogleTalk client sometime soon.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
RSS vs Atom
RSS and Atom are both used to publish news feeds (summarized content used by readers to track content changes). Both are quite popular, although RSS has received more attention than Atom. RSS is a specification by the Harvard University, whereas Atom is an RFC by the IETF and IESG.
I read a pretty interesting comparison of the two at:
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/Rss20AndAtom10Compared
I read a pretty interesting comparison of the two at:
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/Rss20AndAtom10Compared
Friday, October 19, 2007
VB 7 vs VB 8: Operator Overloading
When designing .NET as a programming platform, the designers could either leave out operator overloading, as Java does, or they could continue the tradition started off by C and continued by C++ to provide greater control to the programmer. They chose to let the programmer decide which path to take and so added the feature into the framework, but for some reason didn't provide a way to use it through Visual Basic .NET 2003 (VB 7).
In .NET 1.1, VB 7 did not include the concept of operator overloading. You could neither define nor use overloaded operators and the workaround was to create methods, such as a .Add(object) method. C#, however, did include operator overloading even on .NET 1.1.
.NET 2.0 introduced the Operator keyword in Visual Basic, a feature in VB 8, which reduces the amount of code and provides added convenience for the developers.
In .NET 1.1, VB 7 did not include the concept of operator overloading. You could neither define nor use overloaded operators and the workaround was to create methods, such as a .Add(object) method. C#, however, did include operator overloading even on .NET 1.1.
.NET 2.0 introduced the Operator keyword in Visual Basic, a feature in VB 8, which reduces the amount of code and provides added convenience for the developers.
.NET Value Types
Value types in .NET
The following are the built-in value types in .NET. Value types are stored on the stack and can be accessed more efficiently than reference types.
Type: SByte
Alias(es): sbyte
Size (in bytes): 1
Range: -128 to 127
Type: Byte
Alias(es): byte
Size (in bytes): 1
Range: 0 to 255
Type: Int16
Alias(es): Short, short
Size (in bytes): 2
Range: -32768 to 32767
Type: Int32
Alias(es): Integer, int
Size (in bytes): 4
Range: -2147483648 to 2147483647
Type: UInt32
Alias(es): UInteger, uint
Size (in bytes): 4
Range: 0 to 4294967295
Type: Int64
Alias(es): Long, long
Size (in bytes): 8
Range: -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807
Type: Single
Alias(es): float
Size (in bytes): 4
Range: -3.402823E+38 to 3.402823E+38
Type: Double
Alias(es): double
Size (in bytes): 8
Range: -1.79769313486232E+308 to 1.79769313486232E+308
Type: Decimal
Alias(es): decimal
Size (in bytes): 16
Range: -79228162514264337593543950335 to 79228162514264337593543950335
Type: Char
Alias(es): char
Size (in bytes): 2
Range:
Type: Boolean
Alias(es): bool
Size (in bytes): ?
Range: true, false
Type: IntPtr
Alias(es):
Size (in bytes): Platform-specific
Range:
Type: DateTime
Alias(es): Date, date
Size (in bytes): 8
Range: 1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM to 12/31/9999 11:59:59 PM
Operations with Int32, UInt32 and Double types are optimized by the runtime or the hardware.
The following are the built-in value types in .NET. Value types are stored on the stack and can be accessed more efficiently than reference types.
Type: SByte
Alias(es): sbyte
Size (in bytes): 1
Range: -128 to 127
Type: Byte
Alias(es): byte
Size (in bytes): 1
Range: 0 to 255
Type: Int16
Alias(es): Short, short
Size (in bytes): 2
Range: -32768 to 32767
Type: Int32
Alias(es): Integer, int
Size (in bytes): 4
Range: -2147483648 to 2147483647
Type: UInt32
Alias(es): UInteger, uint
Size (in bytes): 4
Range: 0 to 4294967295
Type: Int64
Alias(es): Long, long
Size (in bytes): 8
Range: -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807
Type: Single
Alias(es): float
Size (in bytes): 4
Range: -3.402823E+38 to 3.402823E+38
Type: Double
Alias(es): double
Size (in bytes): 8
Range: -1.79769313486232E+308 to 1.79769313486232E+308
Type: Decimal
Alias(es): decimal
Size (in bytes): 16
Range: -79228162514264337593543950335 to 79228162514264337593543950335
Type: Char
Alias(es): char
Size (in bytes): 2
Range:
Type: Boolean
Alias(es): bool
Size (in bytes): ?
Range: true, false
Type: IntPtr
Alias(es):
Size (in bytes): Platform-specific
Range:
Type: DateTime
Alias(es): Date, date
Size (in bytes): 8
Range: 1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM to 12/31/9999 11:59:59 PM
Operations with Int32, UInt32 and Double types are optimized by the runtime or the hardware.
Browsing the Linux source code
The Linux source code is a pain to go through. There's so much in there that you need to get someone to tell you where to look if you're ever planning to change anything. There are things to make your life easier, though. The LXR C source code to HTML converter adds cross-references and hyperlinks so you can find your way around just any piece of C source code. The folks at Promethos were nice enough to run the LXR on the Linux source code and the resulting HTML is available at: http://www.promethos.org/lxr/http/source
Unlike in real life, most of the good things in the computing world are free!
Unlike in real life, most of the good things in the computing world are free!
The Bionic Woman
Today is my weekend. I've been catching up with the Bionic Woman TV series and it's pretty neat. I've seen most of the episodes of the 1976 series and all the aired episodes of this year's series. I even saw the pre-air version of the first episode - they edited out a whole character! She wasn't all that pretty so who cares? :-P
The 1976 series starts off with Jamie Summers coming out of surgery to fix some of the bugs from her bionic replacement operation (in the 1976 series, Jamie Summers has a parachute-related accident). She returns home to Ojai and becomes a school teacher at an air force base and takes up some missions. Except for the 1st and 2nd episodes, all the others are pretty much disconnected.
In the 2007 series, Jamie Summers is carrying and shortly after meeting up with Will, her boyfriend to tell him about her pregnancy, she has a vehicle accident caused by Sara, the first bionic woman, suffers injuries and the only way to save her is through bionic replacement. Sara meets up with her a couple of times and in the 3rd episode she tells Jamie she is dying and needs her help... Sara took up bionic replacement before the technology was perfected and wants Jamie to go back with her to try some of the 'upgrades' as a fix.
Update: I watched episode 4 today and apparently Jamie has her clock ticking just like Sara does. The project sponsor does promise to work on a cure at the end of the episode.
The 1976 series starts off with Jamie Summers coming out of surgery to fix some of the bugs from her bionic replacement operation (in the 1976 series, Jamie Summers has a parachute-related accident). She returns home to Ojai and becomes a school teacher at an air force base and takes up some missions. Except for the 1st and 2nd episodes, all the others are pretty much disconnected.
In the 2007 series, Jamie Summers is carrying and shortly after meeting up with Will, her boyfriend to tell him about her pregnancy, she has a vehicle accident caused by Sara, the first bionic woman, suffers injuries and the only way to save her is through bionic replacement. Sara meets up with her a couple of times and in the 3rd episode she tells Jamie she is dying and needs her help... Sara took up bionic replacement before the technology was perfected and wants Jamie to go back with her to try some of the 'upgrades' as a fix.
Update: I watched episode 4 today and apparently Jamie has her clock ticking just like Sara does. The project sponsor does promise to work on a cure at the end of the episode.
Symantec blocks email
Symantec Client Firewall prevents me from sending out email from an email client that uses GMail as a server. I ran a system restore and got back all the factory-installed software and the Symantec suite happens to be one of them.
I haven't uninstalled it yet. I'm just sending my email through GMail's web interface for now, but something has got to change soon - either Symantec gives me an update or I move to something else.
I haven't uninstalled it yet. I'm just sending my email through GMail's web interface for now, but something has got to change soon - either Symantec gives me an update or I move to something else.
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