Mac OS X - 10.6 Snow Leopard: Default Wallpapers

I know you love them. Here they are..







Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Snow Leopard, Snow Leopard Wallpapers.

Windows 7 in my PC

Since very long time, I’ve been hearing so many praises about Microsoft Windows 7. So, at-last during last weekend made up my mind to give Windows 7 a shot.

Another motivation behind this was to test the 64 bit capability of Windows 7. Even though Windows 7 predecessors were available in 64 bit versions, they were considered as problematic by many people (including me!). So I wanted to check if 64 bit user experience is greatly improved compared to Windows 7 predecessors.

So, to check all this things, I got myself one copy of Windows 7 Ultimate DVD.

Installation: The installation process was pretty simple and straight forward and it took about 30 minutes to install Windows 7 in my System, which is not bad at-all.

Once the installation was over I was readily greeted with all new Windows 7 Aero theme. Windows 7 desktop looked fresh and neat.

Performance: I feel that system performance is better compared to Windows XP professional 32 bit version for various day to day activities. This may has something to do with 64 bit operation system and/or availability of additional main memory to Windows 7 which XP can’t use.

What all I liked in Windows 7:

1. About the install medium: I am very much impressed!! Packaging both 32 bit & 64 bit versions of Windows7 operating system in a single installation disk is a really good move. At-least this should make many people feel comfortable with 64 bit operation system and make them select 64 bit version of Windows 7 during installation (Like me )
   
   
2. The boot time: The windows 7 boots up within just few seconds. Really good improvement compared to Windows Vista.
   
   
3. The improved task bar: Simply love it! It’s the best of all the changes done in Windows 7. After spending couple of hours with new taskbar, I found myself more productive than with previous versions of task-bar or with Mac OS X dock! The Aero peek added the perfect spice to it! Love them.
   Hats off to Microsoft for thinking differently and coming with such a nice solution (Even though it closely resembles Mac OS X dock, I feel Windows 7 taskbar is way better than Mac OS X dock).
   
   I think, as time progresses all the Operating system start copying from each other, thereby reducing the actual difference between Operating system.
   
   
4. Windows Aero: Really liked it. I feel that the Windows Aero themes look much better now compared to Windows Vista. This may be because of little of polishing from Microsoft or better graphics driver from GPU vendor (which is AMD in my case).
   
   
5. Windows Media Player: If you have more than one playlist in Media Player and you switch between them while a song is playing, Media Player would automatically remember the song and current play position for the given playlist and automatically restore the song playback once you switch back that playlist.
   
   
6. Windows Explorer: It’s a nice experience to use new Windows explorer. It makes file browsing/copying such a pleasant task. Only thing I miss is the tabbed interface for file browsing. I really don’t want to fill my desktop with tens of explorer Windows. I hope that Microsoft would implement this at-least in next version of Windows explorer.
   

What all I didn’t like in Windows 7:

1. Space requirements: Windows 7 - 64 bit version requires minimum 20 GB of free hard disk space. This is way too much. After the fresh installation, my 24 GB hard disk partition had only around 4 GB of free space. I think Microsoft can do much better here, like what Apple did with Snow Leopard.
   
   
2. Partition editor: It’s still crap and error prone. Use paragon partition magic (http://www.paragon-software.com/) instead!
   
   
3. New start menu: I agree that it’s greatly improved since its introduction in Windows Vista. But I still like old XP start menu.
   
   
4. Internet Explorer 8: Slow and just plain slow. Switching to Firefox/Google chrome right after the installation is greatly recommended.
   
   
5. No/Hidden Menu: For most of the applications menu bar is completely replaced with ribbon (eg: MS Paint) and for some its hidden and is shown when you press ‘alt’ key. This is really inconsistent. Menu is one of oldest and greatest GUI concept and I really don’t like the way Microsoft is playing with it!

What I missed in Windows 7:

1. Time Machine: There is no application which comes close to Apple Time Machine. Even though there is old backup & restore application, it’s not easy to use and intuitive as Time Machine.
   
   
2. Unix Shell: I am a unix man, and I can’t live without shell. I guess this is the reason why I feel right in home with Mac OS X or Linux.

Screenshots:

Below are the various screen-shots of Windows 7 in my System.

Yours views are welcome. Use comments to express your views.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Windows 7, Microsoft.

Dark Knight - My Qt Creator Dark Color scheme

Here is my own Dark color scheme for Qt Creator. I have named it as Dark Knight.

See the screenshot below.

To use this color scheme, download this XML file and follow following steps.

How to install:

1. Goto the Qt Creator setting directory, which is
   
Documents and Settings\ <user name> \Application Data\Nokia\qtcreator under Microsoft Windows XP.
   
   In case you are using Windows 7 then
   Users\ <user name> \AppData\Roaming\Nokia\qtcreator\styles
   (replace <user name> with your login name)
   
   and In Linux the path is,
   
~/.config/Nokia\qtcreator
   
2. Goto the directory named styles. (Create one if it does not exists!)
   
3. Place the downloaded XML file in this directory.
   

How to change the color scheme in Qt Creator:

1. Goto Fonts & Colors settings.
   (To open, go through Tools->Options->Text Editor->Font & Colors)
   
2. Scroll down and select the new color scheme named Dark Knight.
   
3. Press OK.
   
4. Enjoy.
   

Note: As Qt Creator is in active development, above mentioned steps may not work with future version of Qt Creator.

I hope you people like it. Suggestions & comments are welcome.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru.org weblog, Qt Creator, Dark Color Scheme.

Awesome Google Ad - Parisian Love

Really simple and straight to the point just like Google website!

Check yourself..



Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Google Ads.

Verified account/name in Google Buzz

When I visited Dan Siroker's profile and I saw a sign saying Verified name in there.

I was surprised, Looks like the Twitter verified account, Google Buzz has also started verified account/name service. Which is good to avoid fake people and profiles.

The speed in which Google Buzz is adding the new features amazes me! At-least I feel that, with Google Buzz, Google is definitely in right track.

Update: Here is how you can get verified name seal in your account profile.

Update2: This Google feature is available only to US visitors. How sad.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Google Buzz.

How To: Compile MICO-CORBA in SUN Solaris

Here are the steps to download, build and install the MICO COBRA under SUN Solaris machine.

1. Download MICO CORBA.
   
2. Open the terminal window in the directory where you kept the downloaded archive file.
   
3. Extract the content of the downloaded archive.
   
gzip -dc mico-*.tar.gz | tar -xf –

   And if you are using GNU tar utility (if not installed already, get it from SUN Freeware website.) then
   
tar -zxvf mico-*.tar.gz

   



4. Run the configure script.
   
   You can set many parameters through the command line arguments to the configure script. Such parameters are, install directory, Qt directory etc. Check INSTALL.txt file for more information on the list of command line arguments.
   
   Here are my arguments to the configure script
   
./configure --with-qt=/sect/package/qt/ --prefix=/sect/package/mico-corba/

   Here I have enabled the support for Qt (which is installed in =/sect/package/qt/ directory) and I have indicated that I am planning to install MICO into /sect/package/mico-corba directory.
   
   Read INSTALL.txt for more information on this.
   
   Note: When I used one of configure script argument named --enable-final switch, I ended with compilation errors under Solaris. If you are also getting compilation errors, Check if you have used this switch. As per document this switch won’t work under HP-UX. I guess this is applicable to all Unices.
   


5. Run the make tool.
   Issue make command for this.
   make
   or if you have GNU make installed (or install it from SUN Freeware website)
   gmake
   


6. Install the MICO CORBA
   Issue the following command in terminal to install MICO to configured directory(if any set while configure script) or to the default directory.
   make install
   or
   gmake install
   


7. Update the environmental variables to include MICO install directory.
   Before you can compile, link and execute your first CORBA application, you need to setup the environmental variables correctly.
   
   Add /sect/package/mico-corba to your PATH environment variable.
   In Bash
   PATH=$pATH:/sect/pckage/mico-corba/bin
   And in csh
   setenv PATH /sect/package/mico-corba/bin:$PATH
   
   Also modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH to properly link with MICO libraries.
   LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PAT:/sect/package/mico-corba/lib
   
   If required modify the Bash Profile file to set these environment variable at start-up.
   
   Or you can run Solaris crle command once and add MICO lib directory in it.(Recommended method)
   
   crle -u -l /sect/package/mico-corba/lib

That's all.

Please leave a comment if this post was useful to you!

Double-Up your Airtel broadband speed for just Rs. 100

I got this information through e-mail from Airtel. According to this e-mail, now you can double your broadband browsing speed by just paying Rs 100/- extra over the current tariff plan. With this you'll also get Rs 100/- worth calling value, making it an awesome deal, if there are no hidden strings somewhere!

Here is the image from advertisement.

To activate this offer on your broadband just send a SMS DELIGHT to 53636 from your mobile number registered with Airtel or Otherwise you can fill-up your broadband details in this web page to activate this offer.

As per the customer care, activation should take at-most 96 Hrs and it should double up both day and night time surfing speeds!

Wait for few more days to know my results..

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Airtel.

Default VLC keyboard shortcut for slow/fast video playback

If somebody is trying to figure out what is the default key combination for slow/fast video playback in Videolan player, then it is Shift -/+ respectively.

You can set this through

--key-faster Faster
--key-slower Slower command line arguments.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru.

Qt: The best way to set the Application version

Whenever we develop any application one of the basic stuff which we need to decide is the application version number. Historically the application version number format is one of the hot topics where many lengthy wars/debates have happened.

This post is NOT about the application version number format to use, instead in this post I would be concentrating how to set and use the application version number information in a Qt project.

If this post is on any use to you, please leave a comment.

First way: Defining the version information within the application source code

The application version can be set as through the string constant or preprocessor Macro defined in some header file.

I have used this method many times before.

Also, here once you create the QApplication object, you can set this application version to QApplication object and ignore this constant/Macro defined from then on. Whenever you need the application version you can directly get it from qApp global QApplication object.

You can use following APIs

• QString applicationVersion()
  
• void setApplicationVersion(const QString & version)
  

Second way: Defining the version information within the Qt project file.

You can use Qt QMake Macro named VERSION to define the Application version.

Eg:

VERSION = 1.0

The good thing with this QMake Macro is that, it automatically creates the .rc file under Microsoft Windows and you can see the application version number from Windows Explorer by right clicking on the executable.

Eg:



What I do is that, I use preprocessor Macro defined through Qt project file to pass application version number to code.

Eg:

# The application version
VERSION = 1.0

# Define the preprocessor macro to get the application version in our application.
DEFINES += APP_VERSION=\\\"$$VERSION\\\"

Note: \\\" is important! Without them, the Macro is taken as a double constant instead of string constant.

Now use the Macro APP_VERSION in your code just like any other preprocessor Macro.

Eg:

    QApplication app(argc, argv);

    // Setting the Application version
    app.setApplicationVersion(APP_VERSION);

Similarly you can set the Application date also.

You can browse the sample Qt project @ My Google code page.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru.org weblog, Qt, Application version.

Airtel Broadband - Night time speeds

Picture says it all..





And the best part of all? Its unlimited!

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Airtel.