Two new releases from Intel

1.

Sept. 8, 2008: It has released a SATA Solid state drives (Intel® X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive (SSD)) based on Multi-level Cell NAND technology for laptops and desktop. Now 80GB is available. It says "The 80GB drive achieves up to 250MB per second read speeds, up to 70MB per second write speeds and 85-microsecond read latency for fast performance. The 80GB version is priced at $595 for quantities up to 1,000." Lets see whats going to be the future of this :)

For more info  : http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20080908comp.htm

2.

It has launched the Fastest Processor on the Planet called Intel® Core™ i7. Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Provides Performance on Demand, Adds 'Turbo Boost' and 'Hyper-Threading' Technologies.

"The Core i7 processor is the first member of a new family of Nehalem processor designs and is the most sophisticated ever built, with new technologies that boost performance on demand and maximize data throughput. The Core i7 processor speeds video editing, immersive games and other popular Internet and computer activities by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption."

For more info : http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20081117comp_sm.htm?iid=pr1_marqsub_corei7#story

How to type in Tamil (Unicode)

Since I am working on localization a lot, many people ask me that how to type in Tamil. I wrote a small passage on that published that on Joomla Tamil forum.
You can find that here : http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=545&t=349037

With that note I also have attached few other document that I have prepared on this.

N.B. The given link will direct u all to a forum in Joomla.org. I am the moderator of that forum :)

Innovative Wedding Invitation

Soooo touchy... :|

She jumped up as soon as she saw the surgeon come out of the operating room.She said: 'How is my little boy? Is he going to be all right? When can I see him?'
The surgeon said, 'I'm sorry. We did all we could, but your boy didn't make it.'
Sally said, 'Why do little children get cancer? Doesn't God care any more? Where were you, God, when my son needed you?'
The surgeon asked, 'Would you like some time alone with your son? One of the nurses will be out in a few minutes, before he's transported to the university.'
Sally asked the nurse to stay with her while she said good bye to son. She ran her fingers lovingly through his thick red curly hair. 'Would you like a lock of his hair?' the nurse asked. Sally nodded yes. The nurse cut a lock of the boy's hair, put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Sally.
The mother said, 'It was Jimmy's idea to donate his body to the University for Study. He said it might help somebody else. 'I said no at first, but Jimmy said, ' Mom , I won't be using it after I die. Maybe it will help some other little boy spend one more day with his Mom .' She went on, 'My Jimmy had a heart of gold. Always thinking of someone else. Always wanting to help others if he could.'
Sally walked out of Children's Mercy Hospital for the last time, after spending most of the last six months there. She put the bag with Jimmy's belongings on the seat beside her in the car.
The drive home was difficult. It was even harder to enter the empty house. She carried Jimmy's belongings, and the plastic bag with the lock of his hair to her son's room.
She started placing the model cars and other personal things back in his room exactly where he had always kept them. She lay down across his bed and, hugging his pillow, cried herself to sleep.
It was around midnight when Sally awoke. Lying beside her on the bed was a folded letter. The letter said:

'Dear Mom ,
I know you're going to miss me; but don't think that I will ever forget you, or stop loving you, just 'cause I'm not around to say 'I Love You'. I will always love you, Mom , even more with each day. Someday we will see each other again. Until then, if you want to adopt a little boy so you won't be so lonely, that's okay with me. He can have my room and old stuff to play with. But, if you decide to get a girl instead, she probably wouldn't like the same things us boys do. You'll have to buy her dolls and stuff girls like, you know.
Don't be sad thinking about me. This really is a neat place. Grandma and Grandpa met me as soon as I got here and showed me around some, but it will take a long time to see everything. The angels are so cool. I love to watch them fly. And, you know what? Jesus doesn't look like any of his pictures. Yet, when I saw Him, I knew it was Him. Jesus himself took me to see GOD! And guess what, Mom ? I got to sit on God's knee and talk to Him, like I was somebody important. That's when I told Him that I wanted to write you a letter, to tell you good bye and everything. But I already knew that wasn't allowed. Well, you know what Mom ? God handed me some paper and His own personal pen to write you this letter I think Gabriel is the name of the angel who is going to drop this letter off to you. God said for me t o give you the answ er to one of the questions you asked Him 'where was He when I needed him?' 'God said He was in the same place with me, as when His son Jesus was on the cross. He was right there, as He always is with all His children.
Oh, by the way, Mom , no one else can see what I've written except you. To everyone else this is just a blank piece of paper. Isn't that cool? I have to give God His pen back now He needs it to write some more names in the Book of Life. Tonight I get to sit at the table with Jesus for supper. I'm sure the food will be great.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I don't hurt anymore the cancer is all gone.. I'm glad because I couldn't stand that pain anymore and God couldn't stand to see me hurt so much, either. That's when He sent The Angel of Mercy to come get me. The Angel said I was a Special Delivery! How about that?
Signed with Love from God, Jesus & Me.

I am copying this from an email with the title ‘This is Beautiful - Try not to cry...’
Thats very true, isn’t it? 

10 tech leaders who could become Obama’s CTO

As a presidential candidate, part of Barack Obama's technology policy platform included hiring the U.S. government's first chief technology officer (CTO). If Obama follows through on this, who is likely to get the job? Here are 10 top candidates.

——————————————————————————————————————-

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama used technology to organize, communicate, and raise funds in innovative ways that gave him an advantage over opponents in both the primaries and the general election. It's clear that Obama views tech as a powerful catalyst, and with the U.S. facing an unprecedented array of economic challenges, Obama will need to use technology to drive efficiency and institutional transformation.

A part of his policy platform, Obama has stated that he plans to hire the nation's first chief technology officer (CTO) to play quarterback in driving these changes. A CTO is typically an organization's top engineer and focuses on outward-facing technologies (see What's the difference between CIO and CTO), but based on Obama's policy statements he wants to use the national CTO position to:

• Build a 21st centrury technology infrastructure
• Unite and lead the CIOs and CTOs of various federal agencies
• Architect innovative tech solutions to help solve big problems

As a result, Obama is going to need a visionary tech leader who can rally both technologists and standard Washington bureacrats around a common purpose. It also wouldn't hurt to bring in a big name — someone who already has a strong reputation that will translate into political capital. Here are top 10 candidates.

10. Shai Agassi

This former technology head of SAP has the business experience and the interest in larger societal issues to do well as America's CTO. However, he's recently founded his own company, Better Place, to create an entirely new business model and power system to run the electric cars of the future. Because of his passion for that project, it's doubtful he would want the U.S. CTO gig.

9. Larry Lessig

Lessig, a Stanford Law professor, is the founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society and has been an outspoken commentator on U.S. technology policy. Although Lessig has a conservative background, he publicly endorsed Obama for president. At times, he has even been rumored as a candidate for numerous political offices himself. He would be an excellent tech policy wonk and a decent visionary, but he does not have a traditional tech background and that would likely hurt him in gaining the respect of the federal tech executives that he would have to lead.

8. Padmasree Warrior

Warrior is one of only two candidates on this list who is currently serving as a CTO. She was previously CTO at Motorola and in 2008 moved over to the CTO job at Cisco, where she is tasked with driving technology strategy and innovation and serving as an evangelist of what's possible in the future. She's also demostrated an interest in politics, having attended the Democratic National Convention in August and expressed enthusiasm for Obama's vision of America.

7. Shane Robison

The other current CTO on this list, Robison is the executive vice president of technology and strategy at Hewlett-Packard. All of the CTOs of the various HP business units report up through Robison, as does the forward-looking HP Labs and the company's corporate marketing department. That kind of breadth of experience would serve Robison very well as U.S. CTO. He's also a visionary who understands the larger context of the current technology revolution and its impact on business and society. It's unclear whether he has any interest in politics or if he could be wooed away from HP.

6. Vint Cerf

Cerf is sometimes called the "Father of the Internet" because he and Bob Kahn designed the TCP/IP architecture that made the Internet possible. Cerf, who currently works as Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1997 by President Clinton and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by President Bush. He has outstanding technical chops and extensive experience working with government technology agencies, but his leadership and management credentials aren't quite as strong as some of the other candidates.

5. John Chambers

One of the technology industry's most passionate characters, Chambers has a will of steel that would help him cut through the bureaucratic stone walls in Washington. The Cisco CEO is a terrific visionary and one of tech's most effective leaders when it comes to getting a team to execute. Chambers has also shown an interest in politics — even being rumored for an eventual run at political office. He endorsed John McCain for president and was a significant donor to the McCain campaign, so that could hurt him in being considered as Obama's CTO.

4. Ed Felten

A Princeton computer science professor, Felton founded Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy and is a leading researcher, commentator, and blogger on technology law and policy. He famously served as the Department of Justice's leading technology witness in its antitrust suit against Microsoft. He would be an excellent policy wonk, but doesn't have as much experience leading technology teams.

3. Bill Gates

The biggest name that nearly everyone is forgetting is Bill Gates, the former Microsoft leader who retired from his full-time gig at Microsoft in June so that he could devote his energies to the Gates Foundation. He obviously has his sight set on larger societal impact. What better way to make that happen than helping define the critical technology policies of the next decade? Melinda can handle the foundation. Gates has the vision, the iron will, and the ability to rally the troops that would make him a successful CTO. The only problem is that he is still technically the chairman of Microsoft and it would be a conflict of interest to continue in that roll while serving as U.S. CTO. Plus, the government uses a lot of open source solutions and Gates has never been an open source fan.

2. Julius Genachowski

Genachowski went to Harvard Law School with Obama and served as an advisor to the Obama campaign on technology issues, even helping to draft Obama's technology platform. He previously served as chief of business operations at InterActive Corp, was an FCC advisor during the Clinton administration, and founded his own company, LaunchBox Digital, to help tech startups. Since the election, Obama has named Genachowski to his transition team. It's likely that he will have a role in the Obama administration, either as the first CTO or, more likely, as head of the FCC.

1. Eric Schmidt

The Google CEO endorsed Obama in October and has served as an unofficial advisor on economic and technology issues throughout the campaign. Since the election, Schmidt has served on Obama's newly-formed economic advisory board. Schmidt is a pragmatic, low-key leader who can successfully work in collaboration with other leaders. He is not as much of a visionary or a bulldog, but his temperament might be the right fit for this position. At the end of last week, Schmidt denied that he is interested in the position, and no one could blame him for not wanting to leave Google, which is at the top of its game and still has an excellent future. Nevertheless, don't rule him out just yet. He remains the most likely candidate for the job.

source : http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=850&tag=nl.e101

Tamil as a Classical Language - By George L. Hart

Statement on the Status of Tamil as a Classical Language

Professor Maraimalai has asked me to write regarding the position of Tamil as a classical language, and I am delighted to respond to his request.

I have been a Professor of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1975 and am currently  holder of the Tamil Chair at that institution.  My degree, which I received in 1970, is in Sanskrit, from Harvard, and my first employment was as a Sanskrit professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1969.  Besides Tamil and Sanskrit, I know the classical languages of Latin and Greek and have read extensively in their literatures in the original.  I am also well-acquainted with comparative linguistics and the literatures of modern Europe (I know Russian, German, and French and have read extensively in those languages) as well as the literatures of modern India, which, with the exception of Tamil and some Malayalam, I have read in translation.  I have spent much time discussing Telugu literature and its tradition with V. Narayanarao, one of the greatest living Telugu scholars, and so I know that tradition especially well.  As a long-standing member of a South Asian Studies department, I have also been exposed to the richness of both Hindi literature, and I have read in detail about Mahadevi Varma, Tulsi, and Kabir.

I have spent many years -- most of my life (since 1963) -- studying Sanskrit.  I have read in the original all of Kalidasa, Magha, and parts of Bharavi and Sri Harsa.  I have also read in the original the fifth book of the Rig Veda as well as many other sections, many of the Upanisads, most of the Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, Adi Sankara's works, and many other works in Sanskrit.

I say this not because I wish to show my erudition, but rather to establish my fitness for judging whether a literature is classical.  Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world.

The reasons for this are many; let me consider them one by one.

First, Tamil is of considerable antiquity.  It predates the literatures of other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years.  Its oldest work, the Tolkappiyam,, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE.  The greatest works of ancient Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first two centuries of the current era.  They are the first great secular body of poetry written in India, predating Kalidasa's works by two hundred years.

Second, Tamil constitutes the only literary tradition indigenous to India that is not derived from Sanskrit.  Indeed, its literature arose before the influence of Sanskrit in the South became strong and so is qualitatively different from anything we have in Sanskrit or other Indian languages.  It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own esthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique.  It shows a sort of Indian sensibility that is quite different from anything in Sanskrit or other Indian languages, and it contains its own extremely rich and vast intellectual tradition.

Third, the quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Persian and Arabic.  The subtlety and profundity of its works, their varied scope (Tamil is the only premodern Indian literature to treat the subaltern extensively), and their universality qualify Tamil to stand as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world.  Everyone knows the Tirukkural, one of the world's greatest works on ethics; but this is merely one of a myriad of major and extremely varied works that comprise the Tamil classical tradition.  There is not a facet of human existence that is not explored and illuminated by this great literature.

Finally, Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian culture and tradition.  I have written extensively on the influence of a Southern tradition on the Sanskrit poetic tradition.  But equally important, the great sacred works of Tamil Hinduism, beginning with the Sangam Anthologies, have undergirded the development of modern Hinduism.  Their ideas were taken into the Bhagavata Purana and other texts (in Telugu and Kannada as well as Sanskrit), whence they spread all over India.  Tamil has its own works that are considered to be as sacred as the Vedas and that are recited alongside Vedic mantras in the great Vaisnava temples of South India (such as Tirupati).  And just as Sanskrit is the source of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, classical Tamil is the source language of modern Tamil and Malayalam.  As Sanskrit is the most conservative and least changed of the Indo-Aryan languages, Tamil is the most conservative of the Dravidian languages, the touchstone that linguists must consult to understand the nature and development of Dravidian.

In trying to discern why Tamil has not been recognized as a classical language, I can see only a political reason: there is a fear that if Tamil is selected as a classical language, other Indian languages may claim similar status.  This is an unnecessary worry.   I am well aware of the richness of the modern Indian languages -- I know that they are among the most fecund and productive languages on earth, each having begotten a modern (and often medieval) literature that can stand with any of the major literatures of the world.  Yet none of them is a classical language.  Like English and the other modern languages of Europe (with the exception of Greek), they rose on preexisting traditions rather late and developed in the second millennium.  The fact that Greek is universally recognized as a classical language in Europe does not lead the French or the English to claim classical status for their languages.

To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature.  Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements.  It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich.

It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the world's great religions.  The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject.  To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture.


(Signed:)
George L. Hart
Professor of Tamil
Chair in Tamil Studies

http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Tamil%20Chair/TamilClassicalLanguage/TamilClassicalLgeLtr.html

New category of languages and New Classical Languages

New category of languages as `Classical Languages' was created by Government of India, and the following criteria were laid down to determine the eligibility of languages to be considered for classification as a `Classical Language':-
i) High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years.
ii) A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.
iii) The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community.
v) The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

Source : http://nganesan.blogspot.com/2008/11/classical-tag-for-dravidian-languages.html

Indian government announced Tamil as a Classical language. Then added Sanskrit. Now, on November 1st 2008 this respect has been given to Telugu and Kannada.

Jail vs Prison

I was thinking that Jail and Prison are same. But today I came a cross this an information 'Jail vs Prison'.

The link that I have given here has many useful 'vs'

Definitions

Jail: A place of detention; a place where a person convicted or suspected of a crime is detained.

Prison: A place of long-term confinement for those convicted of serious crimes.

Difference

The most notable difference is that prison inmates have been tried and convicted of crimes, while those in jail may be awaiting trial. A prison is under the jurisdiction of either federal or state, while the jail holds people accused under federal, state, county and/or city laws. A jail holds inmates from two days to a year.

Source : http://www.diffen.com/difference/Diffen.php

Packt Award Roundup: Joomla! Takes Runner-up

Each year Packt Publishing opens the voting booths for users everywhere to cast votes for the best content management system. There are a number of very qualified contenders in each of the categories including CMS Made Simple, Plone, and Drupal. This year, Joomla took the runner-up prize in the categories of Best Overall Open Source CMS Award and the Best PHP Open Source CMS (tied with CMS Made Simple). This results in a total prize winnings of $3500 to the Joomla Project.

Even though Joomla has taken home several Packt Awards in the past, Joomla Core Team member Andrew Eddie asserted, "This has made me more determined to do better next year."

Also, Joomla developer Johan Janssens was awarded the Open Source MVP 2008 prize, a new category in this year's awards, for his outstanding contributions to Joomla.

We at the Joomla Project would like to thank all of our wonderful users to voting for us and a big congratulations goes to Drupal for taking first place in the Best Overall Open Source CMS Award category. We also want to congratulate all the other winners.

Joomla Core Team member Brad Baker summed it up, "The future is bright for open source content management systems like Drupal and Joomla, whichever you use."

Source : http://www.joomla.org/announcements/general-news/5218-packt-award-roundup-joomla-takes-runner-up.html

Twitter - Microblogging

I have started a Micro blogging using Twitter :) You can find those feeds on right hand side.. Its a cool technology.. I love Web 2.0 technologies :)
Find it here :
http://twitter.com/sarves

IITC - International Information Technology Conference

IITC was held at BMICH, Sri Lanka on 28th and 29th. This time there were few Key note speakers from Australia and Sweden.
This time I also presented a research paper titled "Role Based Competency Modeling for e-Learning Content Development". This falls on E-Learning area.

What I proposed is, how we can model competency using existing standards IMS RDCEO and IMS LIP.

IMS RDCEO - IMS Reusable Definition of Competency and Education Objectives
IMS LIP - IMS Learner Information Profile

www.iitc.lk

How to add Tag could on your blog

You may see that I have added a tag cloud on the left hand side. I was searching for a way to add that and finally found a way in following link. Its not that hard... http://phy3blog.googlepages.com/Beta-Blogger-Label-Cloud.html

Enjoy... :)

hal.dll Problem - ' Windows root\system32\hal.dll '

Sometime after installing GRUB if you start Windows, it may give following error :
"
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.
"

Most of the time I found that, though this error asks us to reinstall hal.dll actually that is not the issue.

What you should try first is :
1. Boot from XP CD ROM
2. Enter to the Recovery Mode. You will be end up with C:\Windows\
3. now go upwards to c:\
4. Rename your Boot.ini. To do this you should type "rename boot.ini boot.ini.bak"
5. type : "bootcfg /rebuild" - This will analyze and rebuild your boot.ini. It may ask for identifier (Give "Windows OS") and the order (give "1")
6. Thats all, recovery is done. Now type exit and reboot your system. Now your Windows should work properly



If above solution doesnt help, you may try this :
1. Boot from XP CD ROM
2. Enter to the Recovery Mode. You will be end up with C:\Windows\
3. Now type : expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll (Here D: - CD ROM Drive and C: is the windows installation directory)
Try this. This didnt work me much. But may help to you guys.

Recover Linux GRUB - In Dual boot (Windows and Linux)

When we have both Windows and Linux in one computer (in dual OS mode)... If you install XP again, the Linux's boot loader will be overwrittn. In those cases you may need to recover the GRUB again.
To recover the GRUB follow these steps (These were helped me, hopefully to you too :) )

1. Put your RedHat CD 1
2. In the linux prompt type "linux rescue"
3. Follow the instructions (You may need to select language and various other things) - It also search for the existing Linux installation and let you know
4. You will end up with ‘sh#’ prompt. There type "chroot /mnt/sysimage/" and enter
5. Then type "grub-install /dev/hda"
6. Type "reboot"

These should work with RedHat family distribution. But it may also work with other distributions too.

Thats all. Now your Linux boot loader should work and you should be able to go to Linux and Windows.

Totally lost

Thought that the post is tooo much...
So deleted...
Sorry...

இனிய தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள் - Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali..

உங்கள் எல்லோருக்கும் உளங்கனிந்த இனிய தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்... வாழ்வில் என்றும் ஒளிவீசட்டும்...

அன்புடன்
சர்வேஸ்

Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby - Not funny

A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.

Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.

Source : http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/online-divorcee-jailed-after-killing-virtual-hubby/1259111

Grid leads sysadmin to 13M-digit prime number

October 6, 2008 (Computerworld) An IT systems administrator used a grid of computers supplied by volunteers at the University of California, Los Angeles, to find the largest known prime number.

The discovery of the 13-million-digit number earns UCLA employee Edson Smith and/or his employer half of a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The other half of the prize goes to charity.

The discovery is part of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a 12-year-old project that uses computers provided by volunteers to find large prime numbers. The EFF prize is for the discovery of the first prime number with more than 10 million digits.

A prime number is a whole number that can be divided only by one and itself. Mersenne prime numbers are a class of primes named after Marin Mersenne, a 17th century French monk who studied the rare numbers.

The newly found prime number is 12,978,189 digits long. If printed out, it would run 30 miles long, Smith noted.

The calculations to find the number were done using time on 75 Windows XP-based Dell desktop PCs donated by 75 students and others on the campus. Each computer ran software that GIMPS created for the task.

Very large prime numbers "are very rare and can only be discovered through computing power," Smith said. "It's really about the power of the grid."

The discovery marks the eighth prime number to be discovered at UCLA. In 1952, UCLA professor Raphael Robinson discovered five Mersenne primes that are said to be the first ones found using computers.

GIMPS is now offering up to $150,000 for the discovery of the first 100-million-digit prime number

Source - http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=327573&source=NLT_NHD&nlid=105

நற்றிணையிலிருந்து... - From Natrinai

362. பாலை

வினை அமை பாவையின் இயலி, நுந்தை
மனை வரை இறந்து வந்தனை; ஆயின்,
தலை நாட்கு எதிரிய தண் பத எழிலி
அணி மிகு கானத்து அகன் புறம் பரந்த
கடுஞ் செம்மூதாய் கண்டும், கொண்டும்,
நீ விளையாடுக சிறிதே; யானே,
மழ களிறு உரிஞ்சிய பராரை வேங்கை
மணல் இடு மருங்கின் இரும் புறம் பொருந்தி,
அமர் வரின், அஞ்சேன், பெயர்க்குவென்;
நுமர் வரின், மறைகுவென்-மாஅயோளே!
உடன்போகாநின்ற தலைமகன், தலைமகட்குச் சொல்லியது.
                               -மதுரை மருதன் இள நாகனார்

(கரிய நிறம் கொண்ட என் காதலியே, உற்சாகம் சிறிதும் இன்றி ஒரு பொம்மையை போல்
உன் தந்தையின் நிலத்தை விட்டு நான் கூறிய வார்த்தைக்காக கடந்து வந்தவள் நீ .
முதல் புயலின் காரணமாக மேகம் பொழியும் குளிர்ச்சியான மழை இந்த பரந்த விரிந்துள்ள  காடுகளுக்கு அழகு சேர்கின்றது, இங்கே இருக்கும் முதையை நோக்கி அவற்றை பிடித்து சிறிது நேரம் விளையாடு….
நான் சிறு யானைகள் உறுஞ்சிய பருத்த அடியை உடைய வேங்கை மரத்தின் மணற் பரப்பினையுடைய, அதன் பெரிய பின்புறத்தில் மறைந்துகொள்கிறேன்… கள்வர்கள் யாரும் போரிட வந்தால் அஞ்சாமல்
 போரிட்டு அவர்களை துரத்தி அடிப்பேன்….. உன் உறவினர் யாரும் உன்னை தேடி வந்தால் நான் மரத்தின் பின் பகுதியில் ஒளிந்துகொள்வேன் !)

English Translation

You walked stiff as a puppet
as you left your father's land.
Now, here on the expanse of the meadow
made lovely by the clouds pouring down their cool rain
in the first strom of the the season,
see the scarlet beetles,
pick them up,
play with them a bit.
I will go to the sandly place behind the great-trunked venkai tree
three
whose bark young elephants have rubbed smooth.
If men come to fight me,
I will not be afrais, I will turn them back.
But if your people come,
I will hide,dark one.

Poet : Maturai Marutan Ilannakanar

Translated by George L Hart

(An interesting poem from Narrinai, here the Talaivan(hero) elopes with  Talaivi(heroine). Talaivi is unhappy leaving her fathers place but on
insistence of the Talaivan , she elopes with him.  The Talaivan says that if anyone tries to come and fight with him for the reason he has
eloped with Talaivi he would stand and fight with them and chase them away. He also says he would prefer to hide rather than fight her
relatives who have now become his relatives. For Talaivan the eloping is equivalent to the marriage, so he considers its a sin to fight off
his own relatives. )

நன்றி : Tamil Heritage Foundation Google Group  -  http://groups.google.com/group/minTamil/browse_thread/thread/48ab86a595c9249b

Google's Chrome: Don't bet your enterprise on it

Think that Google's much-ballyhooed new Web browser, Chrome, is aimed at helping people surf the Web? Think again.

The browser instead takes dead aim at Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange. If Google has its way, your enterprise will use Chrome as a platform for Web-based applications from Google. You'll abandon Office, Outlook and others, and you'll bid Microsoft goodbye.

Any surfing you do with it, from Google's point of view, is pure gravy.

Even though the world has greeted Chrome as a consumer-level browser, Google didn't conceive of it that way. In a blog post on the company's Web site, Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, made no bones about what Google wanted to do when it designed Chrome:

"We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for Web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build."

To that end, Chrome is the first browser built from the ground up for a world in which the browser is an enterprise front end for Web-based applications and services such as Google Docs and Gmail.

Chrome is designed to work mostly with AJAX and Web 2.0 applications. Google built its own JavaScript virtual machine, called V8, for running JavsScript. In addition, each tab in Chrome runs as a separate browser, so that if one tab gets busy, bogs down or crashes, it won't affect the other tabs. And Chrome comes equipped with Google Gears, a kind of glue for binding Web-based applications to your hard disk.

Chrome even includes features that make it appear as if Web-based applications are really software running on your own PC. You can create desktop shortcuts to Web applications that, when double-clicked on, run in a special window that has no browser controls -- no tabs, buttons or address bar. All you see is the application itself, as if it were a desktop application.

Google hopes that once enterprises use Chrome as a platform, they will abandon desktop-based applications for Web-based ones and desert Microsoft Office and Exchange for Google Docs and Gmail.

So it's clear that with Chrome, Google is selling a proposition: Give up Microsoft for Google. But should you buy?

The answer is not yet, not by a long shot.

Chrome itself is still an early beta product. Given Google's tendency to keep its software and services in beta for years -- Gmail is still in beta, and it was launched in 2004 -- don't expect it to come out of beta for a while.

In addition, Google Docs simply isn't up to the standards of Office. It's rudimentary and lacks too many features. And the Web itself still isn't fast or reliable enough for corporations to give up Office. Beyond that, there are training, deployment, stability and management issues. And many enterprises have standardized on Internet Explorer and use ActiveX controls, which Chrome doesn't support. Abandoning all that would take an enormous amount of time and resources.

Microsoft also has a long, proven track record with enterprises. Google, as of yet, doesn't.

Robert Fort, CIO at Virgin Entertainment Group, summed up the problem: "I give Google all the credit in the world for innovative solutions, but to Microsoft's credit, they've got a lot more of an enterprise attitude."

Fort is right. So it's a good idea to give Chrome a test-drive. But as new and shiny as the browser may be, it's not yet time to bet the enterprise on it.

-September 15, 2008 (Computerworld) - http://www.computerworld.com

Hanging stone

In a mid night... when rain drops, wind feathers... I like to be there alone... like to watch the sea from there

My desktop

Thanks for tagging me Saranya. I love black ;-) so my desktop too...
Thinking... Nothing much to tell about my desktop...
If the background is black, then we can read the file names very easily...

Tamil Forum in Joomla!

Now you can discuss about Joomla in Tamil on Joomla platform itself. We have created a forum there.
The link is : http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=545

Google's Chrome

I searched, downloaded and installed the Google's Chrome browsers even before Google publish it in the home page :-)

Seems a very cool browser...
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ - Worth reading. This explains how this Chrome evolved...

It seems that this is going to be my default browser :-)

But of course there are lot of feature lacking compare to the Firefox now. Ofcourse we cant expect all the feature on very first day.

Also another interesting article about Chrome vs IE8 :-)
http://googlevsmicrosoft.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/microsoft-unveils-ie-beta-8-google-launches-chrome-on-2nd-september/

Gnanam's 100th issue - A Special issue on Sri Lankan Tamil Modern Literature

In Sri Lanka there is a Tamil Literature magazine called 'Gnanam'  has been published since 2000 June. This is a monthly magazine and always came on time, within the first week of each month. This month, September 2008, it touches a milestone; 100th issue.
This issue coming as a 'Special issue on Sri Lankan Tamil Modern Literature' and it contains 100 authors' more than 100 articles. All the essays in this issues are represent about Sri Lankan Modern Tamil Literature and efforts. Many Proffessors from all over then Universities in Sri Lanka have written on this.
This issue has 272 A4 pages :-) As far as I know, this is the first issue in Sri Lankan history that comes with this many pages on a context...
Last few days, I was doing proof reading for this issue... Enjoyed.. Yesterday I started to look at it around morning 6.00am and worked on it till today morning 3am... almost continuous 21 hours worked on in it without boring...
Also I am very happy to say that, I have worked for an issue that can not be forgetable in Sri Lankan Tamil Literature.
More than that, I am very proud to say that, one of my essay also included in this 'Gnanam's 100th issue - A Special issue on Sri Lankan Tamil Modern Literature' :-)

www.tamil-it.org

I am hoping to have an comprehensive site for IT related matters in Tamil. The site is www.tamil-it.org and now i am developing the site.
Planning to have separate areas for Joomla!, Mozilla, Moodle, Unicode... becuase these are the main areas that I am dealing in these days. But I will also have other IT related details in Tamil too.
Currently I am doing Joomla help site : joomla.tamil-it.org. Another good thing is, this is the Tamil Community site for Joomla and you can see this site in Joomla.org too.
I need ideas, what are the things I can add, how... But I am planning to maintain the simplicity... So dont expect me to put flashes on the sites ;-)
Please share your ideas...

Joomla 1.5.6 Released - Security Release

Tuesday, 12 August 2008

The Joomla! community is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla! 1.5.6. This is a quick turnaround security release to address a high level security issue and it is recommended all users upgrade immediately.

plz check at : http://joomla.org/

TAGGING

Saranya, thank you for tagging me :-)

1. What is your first name?
My name is Sarveswaran (Sarves)

(Always I have the confusion between Firstname, Lastname and Surname ;-) )

2. What is your favorite food right now?
Rice and very spicy vegetable curry

3. What high school did you go to?
Errm, I went to 5 different schools including St' Anthony's College, Kandy, Sri Lanka and the Jaffna Hindu College, Sri Lanka.

4. What is your favorite color?
BLACK

5. Who is your celebrity crush?
Many ;-)

6. What is your favorite drink?
Milk Coffee – Natural fresh coffee

7. What is your dream vacation?
Himalayas

8. What is your favorite dessert?
Mix fruit with ice cream

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A wanted (?!)  person

10. What do you love most in life?
Need to think…

11. What is one word that describes you?
Imaginative

12. What is your user name?
 One of my username is Sarves

Very soon I will come up with a tight tag ;-) and tag you all..

Joomla! 1.5.5 Released

From Joomla Site :

The Joomla! community is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla! 1.5.5. This is a quick turnaround release to address the Duplicate Title error from 1.5.4 . This release also contains important SEF URL improvements and fixes for com_content in addition to a number of bug fixes and improvements. It has been nearly three weeks since Joomla! 1.5.4 was released on July 8, 2008. The Development Working Group 's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla! community.

SourceForge.net Community awards 2008 winners

At last the SourceForge.net Community awards winners names are released.

Best Project »	OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org
Best Project for the Enterprise »	OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org
Best Project for Educators »	OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org
Most Likely to Be the Next $1B Acquisition »	phpMyAdmin http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin
Best Project for Multimedia »	VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Best Project for Gamers »	XBMC http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc
Most Likely to Change the World »	Linux http://www.linux.org
Best New Project »	Magento http://www.magentocommerce.com/
Most Likely to Be Ambiguously and Baselessly Accused of Patent Violation »	Wine Is Not an Emulator http://sourceforge.net/projects/wine
Most Likely to Get Users Sued by Anachronistic Industry Associations Defending Dead Business Models »	eMule http://sourceforge.net/projects/emule
Best Tool or Utility for SysAdmins »	phpMyAdmin http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin
Best Tool or Utility for Developers »	Notepad++ http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus

Source Forge Community choice awards 2008

The Source Forge Community choice awards 2008  winners names are going to be announced at OSCON 2008 in a while… This time Moodle also a nominee under 2 categories. I would like to see the Moodle also in the Winners list.

Compare to 2007, this time there are more categories and it is good to increase the categories, because now Open Source covers almost all the areas.

Fingers Crossed

Horrible wind

Yesterday was a too windy day… specially in the night, after 3 am… all the windows and the doors were banging… the roof shutters were dancing… the coconut tree leaves almost were touching the land…

My room is close to sea…. The sea also was sooo busy… I was on the shore when Tsunami hit the Sri Lanka in 2004… I saw the Tsunami waves… So that scene came into mind…

The rain drops were strongly hit the roofs… I went outside once; I couldn't even open my eyes… drops were soo hard…

Around 4.30 am… the next door's asbestos roof sheets were starting to fly… altogether 4 sheets were missing when we check in the morning…

After the Tsunami, myself and some medical student went to Batticoloa side to have medical camp. Were there for few days… We saw the effect of the Tsunami in through the naked eyes… Couldn't believe that whether water can do this much damage...

Got the similar feeling yesterday…

Humans can't beat the nature… Nature always wins the humans for sure.

It was a horrible windy day…

Broad knowledge vs Depth knowledge

I was thinking which one is good… broad knowledge or depth knowledge…

 

Last 7 or 8 years... I was trying to learn everything…  Astrology, Astronomy, Cosmology, bit of sociology, Atheism, Philosophy, bit of medicine (I didn’t consult a doctor for last 5 or so year to take medicines for small problems, like fever, cold, pains etc., got into physics lot, Tamil literature, started to write stories, essays and poems, Many areas in Computing, Electrical works, Bit of vehicle mechanics, English language, Sinhala Language, bit of politictics… a long list. Therefore when ever people talk about something, mostly, things  were familiar for me… not much new.

 

This is broad knowledge… But it’s a pain to have a broad knowledge… coz, when ever people say something, something from somewhere will come in to mind. Then mind will start to think all the connected things… and get tired soon…

 

But when u have the depth knowledge in an area, you will face problem only when ppl talk in that area. However in that case you have to assume many things in life. I can’t think of such a way of living. So… can’t do anything… I have to suffer and I am going to suffer K

 

Hectic days

uu… since last Friday… the days were so packed… sleepless days…. almost 24 hrs I was sitting with laptop... You may not believe… After 4 days time, yesterday evening I slept 3hrs… Apart fro the office works, I had to submit an midterm evolution report to GSoC, write a research paper, works on Localization, conducted a lecture on Virtual Communities… etc… But I enjoyed all the works..
Now feel bit relax even though I do have an MSc research progress evaluation tomorrow…. I had a long sleep today morning… Anyhow I have a whole night, so I think that I can do something…

IDNs in Firefox 3

Atlast found a solution for enabling Tamil IDN in Firefox 3. Got to know that by defalut the IDNs are disabled in Firefox 3 for the security purpose.

To enable IDNs in FF3,
- open a Firefox browser
- type 'about:config' on the address bar
- add a respective whitelist and set the boolean value to true.

Eg: if we want to see the www.சர்வேஸ்.blogspot.com, we need add following whitelist -  network.IDN.whitelist.com

Another doc that worth reading is : http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/tld-idn-policy-list.html

தசாவதாரம் - Dasavatharam

Very recently a Tamil film call தசாவதாரம் - Dasavatharam was released. A Mega film... Actor Kamal Hasan has took 10 character in it. It talks about Chaos theory. I wrote an article about it. You can find that article here. http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dpxnhgb_1g8v9qz73

Your Valuable comments are most welcome.

A shocking news

Yesterday I attended a conference which is organized by Dept. of CSE, University of Moratuwa. The theme was, "Mind IT - Balance IT". In that conference there was a talk on Life values...
The speaker said that, in Sri Lankan urban areas... there are 36 % of the newly married couple are divorcing within 5 year :-( That was a shocking news for me... Also he has added that, this is 2nd highest in the World and 1st is somewhere in America.
This denotes that Sri Lanka is going towards the nothing in all the ways... Earlier economy, war, prices, death, politics were going in towards nothing... not cultures also get added :-(

All should think about this and atleast we should preserve the villages from this worse culture. Until this, people were arguing that, in foreign countries' cultures are worse and there are not much interaction between even husband and wife. But I think now they are moving towards positive direction.. now they value the relationships.. I think now it is becoming as a trend... But Sri Lanka is going towards wrong directions.

You know, we are always looking foreign countries and try to follow them... better to say, we tried to follow bit more than foreign countries do... I was thinking this was happening mainly in fashion. Everytime when we try to catch and start to follow their fashions... they forget that and move into new / other one.. Like wise we are always running behind them.

I think thats what happened in this divorcing culture also.. this was a trend in western countries and then we also have started to follow.. following it strongly... result is, now we are the second in it :-|

Will see what is going to happen next.....

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 set a Guinness World Record

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours- 8,002,530 downloads. I also pledge for this and downloaded the Firefox 3.0 on 17th June. For this pledging, Firefox people are issuing a certificate.
I also got a certificate for pledging :-)

A way of Gaining knowledge from Books

We can gain knowledge from books even without opening it. Don't you believe it?
See the picture below, these piled books help me get knowledge in this way ;-) I didn't open many book in the pile yet :-) But still they help me to gain some knowledge...

Firefox 3 and Punycode

I was testing the IDN - Tamil. It was working with IE 7 and also IE 7 redering the punycode as Unicode in the addres bar. But Firefox 3.0, even thought it is released very recently, does not decode punycode back to Unicode and its shows the punycode in the address bar :-(
Becuase of this in Firefox 3.0, when we try a Tamil URL, it looks like our site redirected to somewhere else...
to try : http://சர்வேஸ்.blogspot.com

Any solutions?

Firefox 3’s First 24 Hours

- Jhon Lilly, CEO, Mozilla.

It’s been a very busy 24 hours for Mozilla folks around the world — as our 24 hour initial period draws to a close, I wanted to put a few things into perspective. This is the first post of what will no doubt be many analysis posts, so here are a few things that have happened during the first official day of Firefox 3 life:

• A little more than 8.3 million downloads (this isn’t our official Guinness number — that will be a little lower as we weed out over counts over the next few weeks)
• Firefox 3 market share has grown to about 4% worldwide
• People in around 200 different countries have downloaded, with 16 countries north of 100k copies
• Top 10 countries so far: US, Germany, Japan, Spain, UK, France, Iran, Italy, Canada, Poland
• 757 Parties around the world

And if you’re interested in what our network has been doing over that time period:

• 83 terabytes served in total
• (that works out to nearly 8 1/2 full copies of the US Library of Congress’ print collection or a million copies of the new Coldplay album)
• At the peak, we were serving 17,000 downloads a minute (283 per second!), and saw sustained download rates in excess of 4,000/minute
• Our peak mirror throughput during the period was 20 gigabits/sec (a huge thanks goes to everyone who helped to create our unbelievably great mirror network)

So a good day’s work by everyone involved. Like everything that’s Mozilla, this involved people far beyond Mountain View, and far beyond the borders of any one company or group. More to come…

You don't still use a screen saver, do you?

- By Don Willmott , Forecast Earth Correspondent

I'm happy that at this stage in my career I often find myself writing articles about energy-efficient ways to use computers, peripherals, gadgets, and consumer electronics. It makes me feel so, you know, virtuous.

Whenever I crank out a list of helpful hints, one of the first items I include is this obvious but often overlooked gem of advice: Kill your stupid screen saver. In the good old days of tube monitors, screen savers such as those unforgettable flying toasters were invented to prevent burn-in, a permanent shadow branded into the phosphors of your monitor by a static image of, say, a spreadsheet that you left on your screen all weekend.

Well, flat-screen LCD monitors don't burn in, so if you still have flying toasters or an endlessly looping slide show of your adorable niece and nephew, you're behind the times. When you're not sitting in front of your monitor it should be off off off.

It warmed my heart to read at Green Daily that Telstra, the biggest phone company in Australia, has removed all the corporate screen savers from the 36,000 computers in its offices. What will happen? The change will cut tons of CO₂, which they claim will be the equivalent of taking 140 cars off the road for a year. Good on ya, mate. Follow Telstra's example. Let your flying toasters crash and burn.

-http://green.yahoo.com/blog/forecastearth/49/you-don-t-still-use-a-screen-saver-do-you.html

Translation memory

We have been working on Localization for more than one year. As you all know there are many many step in localization process and there are tools too. But Till today we have done all these manually...
Very recently only I came a cross the translation memory concept :
Its like this : There are lot of words always repeat in many place and each time we also need to translate those words. But using this translation memory idea, we can save time by automatically (at least partially) translating all the similar words found in our localization resource file.
More than this, there are ideas like, fuzzy translation memory. What it does is, it suggest us some words with the % of appropriateness. The tools gathers this knowledge with the existing works that we have done.
So now we also planning to move on to tools :
Some tools that may help on this - All 3 are FOSS :

• OmegaT+ - http://omegatplus.sourceforge.net/
• Open Language Tools - https://open-language-tools.dev.java.net/
• Transolution - http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=132322

Firefox 3.0

I am working with Mozilla in the area of localization. The Firefox 3.0 is going to be released on 17^th. On that day there are many celebrations and parties in all over the world.

Also there is another important effort to make a Guinness record. All are trying to make the Firefox 3.0 as the software which hits the highest downloads in 24 hours. So please participate in it by clicking on this link : http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

Punycode

Very recently I got to know about this.
Punycode is a simple and efficient transfer encoding syntax designed for use with Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA). It uniquely and reversibly transforms a Unicode string into an ASCII string. ASCII characters in the Unicode string are represented literally, and non-ASCII characters are represented by ASCII characters that are allowed in host name labels (letters, digits, and hyphens).
Punycode is an instance of a more general algorithm called Bootstring, which allows strings composed from a small set of "basic" code points to uniquely represent any string of code points drawn from a larger set.  Punycode is Bootstring with particular parameter values appropriate for IDNA.
-http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3492.html

Basically the idea is to have the domain names in local languages. The current naming conventions allow us to have ASCII characters only. But to have the names in Unicode, Unicode should be mapped to ASCII. The punycode does the job.
For example : www.தமிழ்.com, to have this we may need to enter the punycode of this on DNS. This may look like : www.xn--rlcus7b3d.com. You can notice that, Punycode starts with "xn--".
There are converters, using which we can get punycode of out domain names (http://www.nameisp.com/puny.asp).

I think there are conventions to transform the top level domains too. But I didnt study about them yet.

Progress Tracking - GSoC

This time my proposal on Progress tracking has been accepted for GSoC 2008. This is with Moodle and my mentors are Martin Dougiamas, Founder and Lead, Moodle.org and Jonathan Newman, Developer, Catalyst IT.

FOSS Direction is a Good Direction

It is good to note that Sri Lankan IT growth is going towards a healthy directions. Google Summer of Code 2008 is an very good evidence for this. Now, especially the young graduates – Fresh minds working towards FOSS!  Many Universities in Sri Lanka are using open source systems Learning Management Systems. In Sri Lanka we have good development minds, so definitely its good to go towards open source rather spending whole lot of money on proprietary software. It is good for Sri Lankan economy too!

 

 

 

GSoC

 

Google Summer of Code 2008 - From Google Blog

In their words :

We've been running Google Summer of Code™ for four years now, and each year gets better and better. Competition was fierce for 2008, as we received nearly 7,100 applications, almost 1,000 more than last year. We welcomed over 800 more student applicants from over 1,300 colleges and universities. We're also pleased to see that the program is growing geographically; we had participants from 90 countries in 2007, and this year we'll be hacking out with folks from 98 countries around the globe.

Today we're pleased to let you know that we're funding 1125 student developers, almost 25% more students than last year, who will work to improve over 175 Free and Open Source Projects over the next few months. Check out the program website for more details on each participating student and mentoring organization.

For those of you who aren't participating in the program, now is a great time to continue working on your project ideas and learning about Free and Open Source. Each participating project is well placed to provide you with assistance in getting up to speed as a new contributor; take advantage of this opportunity to fix some bugs, hone your skills and, if you'd like, prepare for future instances of the program.

Congratulations to all students whose proposals were accepted, and many thanks to all of our applicants. The community bonding period starts today, and we'd love to hear from all of you how you plan to spend this time getting ready to start coding in six weeks. Feel free to post a comment and share your thoughts.

------------------

I heard there are many students from Sri Lanka too. Congratulations to you all and Good luck! Have a good experience J

 

Google is doing a great Job isn’t it? Handling more than 110 students all over the world is not an easy task…

 

How Chinese multiplie

 

 

 

 

 

வரும் ஆண்டாவது வழிசெய்யட்டும்!

வரும் ஆண்டாவது

புத்தாண்டாக அமையட்டும்!

விதியைநொந்து நொந்து

புரட்டிய நலிய வாழ்க்கை ஒழிய

வரும் ஆண்டாவது

புதிய வழிசெய்யட்டும்!

Happy Tamil / Sinhala New Year

“வரும் ஆண்டு இனியதொன்றாக மலரட்டும்!”

“සු​භ අලුත් අවුරුද්දක් වේවා!”

~சர்வேஸ் - සර්වේස්

BOM

The very recent and Important thing I learnt in CS is about BOM – Byte Order Mark

We have been doing Moodle localization for last 8 months or so. We do not use any special tool for this, mostly use Dreamweaver to do this! As you all expect, we saved our works in UTF8. Until today, we had small problems when we test our language pack with Moodle. But we didn’t much worry about it and suddenly yesterday we got a serious one. When we try to test our pack, the pages start to give ‘header already sent’ error messages. Then only we realized the seriousness and start to dig the problem.

Today we found that till today we have saved our works in UTF8+BOM. But Moodle doesn’t support for BOM. Then we removed that and now everything works fine !

Here is a small FAQ from Unicode site :

Q: What is a BOM?

A: A byte order mark (BOM) consists of the character code U+FEFF at the beginning of a data stream, where it can be used as a signature defining the byte order and encoding form, primarily of unmarked plaintext files. Under some higher level protocols, use of a BOM may be mandatory (or prohibited) in the Unicode data stream defined in that protocol.

Q: Where is a BOM useful?

A: A BOM is useful at the beginning of files that are typed as text, but for which it is not known whether they are in big or little endian format—it can also serve as a hint indicating that the file is in Unicode, as opposed to in a legacy encoding and furthermore, it act as a signature for the specific encoding form used .

Q: When a BOM is used, is it only in 16-bit Unicode text?

A: No, a BOM can be used as a signature no matter how the Unicode text is transformed: UTF-16, UTF-8, UTF-7, etc. The exact bytes comprising the BOM will be whatever the Unicode character FEFF is converted into by that transformation format. In that form, the BOM serves to indicate both that it is a Unicode file, and which of the formats it is in. Examples:

Bytes	Encoding Form
00 00 FE FF	UTF-32, big-endian
FF FE 00 00	UTF-32, little-endian
FE FF	UTF-16, big-endian
FF FE	UTF-16, little-endian
EF BB BF	UTF-8

Q: Can a UTF-8 data stream contain the BOM character (in UTF-8 form)? If yes, then can I still assume the remaining UTF-8 bytes are in big-endian order?

A: Yes, UTF-8 can contain a BOM. However, it makes no difference as to the endianness of the byte stream. UTF-8 always has the same byte order. An initial BOM is only used as a signature — an indication that an otherwise unmarked text file is in UTF-8. Note that some recipients of UTF-8 encoded data do not expect a BOM. Where UTF-8 is used transparently in 8-bit environments, the use of a BOM will interfere with any protocol or file format that expects specific ASCII characters at the beginning, such as the use of "#!" of at the beginning of Unix shell scripts.