Nithin Kamath’s Weblog

I was feeling a bit bored so i opened up my browser and pointed it to my hosting site and though of looking at the stats, here is what i found in the stats (from 1st jan 06 to 22nd April 06) of the blog:-

Hits:-
As per the stats i have had < = 4699 unique visitors to the blog this year, that is cool considering that i have not blog that much this year. Monthwise:-
Jan-1089, Feb-856, March-1760 and April-994.

Countries:-
So far this year people from 93 different countries have visited the blog, which top five being - US, India, Australia, European Union and China.

Operating System:-
Windows Users - 75% (58% Windows XP, 9% Windows 2000, 4.3% from Windows 98)
Linux Users - 12%
MAC - 2%
Unknown - 11%

Browser:-
IE - 54.2%
Firefox - 30.4%
Mozilla - 2.2%
Opera - 1.4%
Safari - 1.0%
Netscape - 0.5%

Search Engine Wars:-
The following are the number of pages visited of my blog through search engines...
Google -> 40.9%
Google(images) -> 40%
Yahoo -> 15%
MSN -> 2.2%

So what do i make of this, i can say one thing, the OS the blog visitors prefer is Windows, browser is getting close between Firefox and IE, whereas Google gets the blog most visitors.For the time being I will not do any much analysis, what i will do is another check in another three months and see how the situtation turns out.

”I would be surprised if Jenson did not win a race. He needs one and I think he would deserve it,”

said Sir Frank Williams, who engineered a $30m deal to let Honda keep their man.
—-
Yeah! Yeah! First ask Button to keep his mouth shut and show results. I believe he is too outspoken to be concentrating on what he is doing in the race. But hey! he may prove me wrong this year, lets see, i would personally like all the top teams to be on equal footing and see some real racing this season.

An affordable computer enabled with multimedia and Internet will soon be available in the Indian market for just Rs.7,500 ($168), a scientist said.

The Nova NetPC has been developed by Chennai-based Novatium Solutions, a consortium of Indian partners, Mumbai-based Netcore Solutions, the Telecom and Networks Group of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras and the US-based Analog Devices.

It would cost much less than the current price of Rs.10,000-Rs.12,000 for a personal computer, said Ashok Jhunjunwala, a professor at IIT-Madras.

read more

Brought to you by pratibha75, quizling and teemus.
Which states in India have you been to?

Source: http://www.ankitmalik.info/
What is Open Source? Here is an FAQ document Ankit Malik wrote last year for a non- techie magazine.

You have seen it on the TV, you have read about it on the Internet. Infact IBM’s latest ad too flaunts it. Open Source- the latest rage on the computing front has taken everyone by surprise by its humble yet surprisingly effective ways.

What follows are a series of FAQs to demystify Open Source.

:: What is Open Source ?

Open Source is the practice of sharing the code which goes on to makes a software. Usually proprietary software makers don’t release the source code for their software, but Open source advocates free sharing of the code.

:: Why would anyone want to do that ?

Simple reasons: Quality. Two is always better than one. No software is perfect. Each has its share of glitches. Now if the code is not distributed, only the developers will have access to it, and only by their efforts will the glitches be removed from the source code. For example, the Windows operating system is proprietary and closed source, and so is frequently subjected to critical flaws, security threats etc.
On the other hand, Open Source ensures that the code is available to thousands of developers around the world. With more than a thousand eyes hovering over the source code, flaws are likely to be identified much faster.
Also, Open Source ensures better quality of software. Any developer can look at its code and post his suggestions to further improve the software. This is not the case with closed source software.

:: What are its benefits to the end user ?

With a more secure software at work, the user has less viruses and bugs to worry upon.

Also the user doesn’t have to rely on proprietary formats to rule his precious documents. By using proprietary formats for the documents, users are trapped into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not.

With Open source, one can see the code and develop a plugin for its format so that the file can be converted into another format.

:: I am interested. I want to know more ?

The following URLs might help you in gaining more knowledge about the world of Open Source and its functioning.
http://opensource.org/
http://sourceforge.net/
http://freshmeat.net
More Reads:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

Giga-byte Technology claims to have discovered a faster way to boot up Windows XP computers.

The company has produced a PC add-in card, called iRam, that comes with four DDR DRAM slots designed to be used as a PC drive. Because the iRam uses DRAM rather than a hard-disk to store information, data can be retrieved from the drive up to 60 times faster than is possible with a hard drive, according to Giga-byte, which showed the board at the Computex exhibition in Taipei this week.

The iRam was originally designed for video and editing applications where users require fast access to very large files, but the company realised it had other potential applications, said marketing manager Tim Handley.

For users who are tired of waiting for their Windows PC to boot up, they can install Windows on the iRam and use that as the drive to start the system more quickly, Handley said. The upshot is a computer that boots in seconds rather than minutes, the company claims.

The iRam can also be used by gamers, who want to reduce the time required to access stored data, he said.

The iRam holds up to 4GB of DRAM in four memory slots. It fits into a standard PCI slot, which provides power, and uses a SATA connection for data transfer.

Unlike DRAM-based main memory, the iRam card doesn’t lose data when the PC is switched off. As long as the PC is plugged into a socket, a very small amount of current continues to run through some parts of the system, including the PCI slots. This provides enough power to make sure that no data is lost. If the PC is unplugged, the iRam has an on-board battery for emergency power that can last up to 12 hours.

The iRam will be available in July, costing $60 without the DRAM.

Source: Rudrapati.com

Yahoo! offers a wide variety of services right from email, messenger, geocities to groups. And you can access all this through one yahoo id. What if one fine day you try to sign in and find that you are not able to log in due to some server related problem. Now you are not able to access your email, nor use messenger or any other related services. You try and contact Yahoo!. Unfortunately, a company as large as Yahoo simply don’t have the resources to deal with millions of customers properly. So what happens when one night you receive an e-mail from Yahoo’s automated servers:

Your password for this account has recently been changed. You don’t need to do anything, this message is simply a notification to protect the security of your account.

Of course, it would make more sense if one had actually asked for the password to be changed. Hm, what does it mean when a password is changed by someone other than the account holder? How do you get back your account, or will you not be able to get your account back.

To find out how this person tried to get back his account, what all did he try and did he finally receive back his account, visit Garfieldtech.com Blog