Yahoo Pipes to rescue

I'm back to blogging after a long silence i was undergoing few very pleasant events, life has to offer. While settling in one of the recent events, i was constantly looking up few items for sale on where else but the friendly old craigslist.com. It was a tiresome and bothersome process to go though the same old keywords for search and to search those items in a specific region of where i live.

We have a saying "If you manually do the same thing twice, automate it" and so i started looking for a mash-up application that i can use to automate my search. Thanks to Yahoo Pipes it was few licks and i was able to automate my search for "Baltimore" region. If your from baltimore region and use craigslist to search, try the pipe that i have published and you can also create a RSS feed so that your search is delivered to your feed reader with the new results or you can email the results also.

Stars, moon & mars covered by Google

Google has launched a new website "Google Sky" where everyone interested in astronomy can be a star gazer under sun light :) armed with a browser and internet connection. If that's not all, you can now follow the Apollo landings sites on the moon and can visit the mars. Google has created a very detailed map of mars in alliance with NASA and Arizona State University.
I will like to thank its development team for doing such an outstanding job in showing me the stars during day time which otherwise was only possible by visiting a planetarium.

Google launches Calendar Sync. with Microsoft Outlook

Thank you Google for providing the sync. tool for Microsoft Outlook. Now i don't have to retype the events in Google Calendar if i had updated or entered few new events in Outlook, while away from internet. Yes, it does happen that i many a time while traveling cannot access internet. Now using this utility i can be more comfortable using Google Calender and Outlook for keeping track of my appointments.

Please, refer to the Getting Started page is full of all the details on how you can setup and remember its the primary calendar only that can be sync. with the outlook at this moment of time.

My wish is now to see when Google will release a sync. tool for Microsoft Outlook Contacts with Gmail contacts also, that will be the next best thing to sliced bread.

Lease a new life into an old laptop

I have a very very old laptop(Compaq Presario 1260) that is designed for Windows 98 and had been very handy until past few years. When the software environment started getting more and more resource hungry. I had to with a heavy heart retire this laptop as its resources where no match to the new softwares requirements. It has just 4.3 GB hard drive and cannot support more then 128 MB RAM. This was my first laptop and i'm still very much attached to it. The good old coding fun i had with it using Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 and then 5.0, PERL and C. I had to shelf this computer as i never would never muster enough zeal to drop it at Salvation Army. For past few years i have tried to infuse life into this laptop by using many different Linux distro's like Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux and Ubuntu 7.0.4 then upgraded to Ubuntu 7.0.10 on this laptop. I was happy with Ubuntu 7.0.10 as i was able to use my ZyXEL Wireless card to connect to internet,but the performance was very slow and so i had to shelf the laptop or quite few months.
Then i saw the gBook laptop at Walmart, which is powered by gOS which is based on Ubuntu linux. I downloaded and installed the gOS on the laptop while i was watching the 1st final one day cricket match between Australia and India on saturday nite.
I liked the gOS's tight integration with Google Apps and i won't mind living out of my browser for this laptop. The interface is very clean with all the program icons on the bottom dock just like OS X. Now i can use a dedicated laptop to handle my blog and also use it for light weight internet app. The further test i want to carry out on this old laptop is if i could use it as temporary wireless coverage booster as gOS is based on Ubuntu.

Time to think Miles per Dollar (miles/$)

I guess with the barrel of oil flirting with $103.00 , i better start amending my driving styles and engage IT(Information Technology) to max out the miles per dollar. I have stopped thinking about miles per gallons few months back when the barrel was going against Newton's third law and i myself started following Newton's second law(Every action has equal and opposite reaction). It seams like just few years back we had the liberty to drive the car with lower prices and be more social then now a days. So for me the higher gas price is taking a toll on my social circle. A change that i made in my driving pattern was to walk to the stores, if they are within one mile radius, no need to burn the gas. This way i have three fold benefits (will keep fit, take care of the environment and keep my wallet happy).

Since 2007 January i have started keeping track(formed a habit) of all my fuel, service and car insurance expenses in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. To get a feel of how much i'm spending per car per month and annually. When Microsoft came out with Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition i created a web based application to streamline the tracking of services, fuel receipts and generating the analysis reports before i get shocked by the credit card statement. Its a good idea at least for me to see my monthly fuel expense as soon as i start the application and when the next service is and what needs to be done in that service. I have attached the screen shots of the application.

If you want to give the application a spin and start tracking the expenses i will be glad to provide you the application and database structure just email me your request.

Free tools bonanza for students from Microsoft

First thing first i would like to apologize for been away from posting any new blogs. Its been hectic for me as i have been trying to squeeze in 25 hours out of 24 hours . I have started my doctoral research studies as i cleared my qualifying exams in late Jan. 2008.

I would like to say a big "Thank You" to Microsoft for providing, students with FREE copies of Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server and Windows Server 2003 thorough Microsoft DreamSpark . If you want to learn the new cutting age technology introduced by Microsoft, i will encourage you to register, roll up the sleeves and start using it. If your school is not listed in the listbox, not to worry they have provided a link to JourneyEd. This company will do the student verification and once your verified you will receive an email within 24 hours with downloading instructions. I got my downloading instruction email in 15 minutes. Its almost 3.3GB to download the VS 2008, so you better leave the downloading for overnite. I have been using VS 2008 Express Edition for almost 2 months now and i liked the LINQ classes, AJAX controls that are provided along with the ease of coding(reducing the loc and errors that might go with it). I'm hoping to see the ASP.NET, VS 2008 and Silverlight to enable the user to develop RIA (Rich Internet Application) with a shorter turn around time.
Microsoft will launch VS 2008 in Baltimore on May 23rd, 2008 and the registration is still open. So if you guys wanna be there, please register soon.