Today turned out to be quite different from the daily routine. Vikram, Rohan and Vijay came over to spend all day, and we really had a good time watching a movie and several episodes of Family Guy (Stewie's hilarious! :P), having pizza, hanging out at a mall, and getting some Baskin Robbins. Fun stuff! :)

The first couple of days after the quarter ended seemed a bit boring (but relaxing, nonetheless). Now it seems like I have too many things to do before spring quarter begins on Monday. As Stewie would say, "Blast!"

Sorry...too much Family Guy in one day. :P

I saw these two sites the other day while looking through my feeds, and thought it was a really neat trick. Then someone posted the links over on OSNN yesterday, and that tempted me to give it a shot myself.

So here it is - the Inspiron 5100 with a "transparent" screen. :D


(Click the thumbnail for a larger image)

My bro ordered one of these screamers a couple of days ago as a companion to his laptop. It's a fourth-generation Dimension XPS. :)

The Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 640 3.20GHz w/ HyperThreading (800MHz FSB)
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz)
148GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 74GB 10,000rpm SATA HDDs)
300GB External HDD
16x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW drive
256MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (D) Card w/ Dolby 5.1, IEEE 1394
17" Dell E173FP Flat Panel Display

Oh, the sweetness! :)

Well, it's not really an easter egg, but something has changed here. Have you found it yet?

Hint: It's a small addition to the site, and it's not difficult to spot. ;)

Another quarter ends, another break begins. I have some work here later this evening, so I can't go back home until tonight, so I'm sitting here on campus catching up with all my RSS feeds. :)

I have to say - it's a little disturbing to see the campus so deserted today. Almost everyone's gone, and the lecture halls, the labs, the offices, and the restaurants are all closed. I'm so used to seeing the place bursting with life that it just feels strange.

So any plans for spring break? Not really. Just going to take it easy and get plenty of sleep before the new quarter begins next Monday. I bet it's just going to fly by, as it usually does.

More later...

Beginning in 2006, Microsoft says it will ship with its operating system and other software products six brand new typefaces created especially for extended on-screen reading.

The new ClearType Font Collection incorporates improved ClearType and OpenType technologies, and a boatload of research, to improve the structure and the clarity of the letter forms. Basically, that means a story will be easier to read because the letters and words won't be as soft and mushy looking.

The Microsoft collection includes two serif, three sans serif, and a monospaced face for use in programming environments. They are intended to be text typefaces as opposed to display faces that are used in larger sizes for headlines. Some of the new fonts are suitable for print as well as on-screen applications.

Read the full article with more information about each of the fonts. For a preview of the fonts, see this link. They look beautiful! I really want to start using them (especially Consolas) now. :)

And so it begins.

Have my first final in a few hours (yes, on a Saturday); three more on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Be back when it's all over. Spring break is calling my name... :)

Something quite interesting happened yesterday while I was finishing up a networking project - an encrypted file transfer app in C/C++.

Everything was working just fine when I tested the implementation in the afternoon. Then I went up to the SEASnet lab in the evening, and weird things started happening - I started getting junk characters on the screen, rather than the actual messages that were supposed to be printed. I hadn't changed any code, so I was stumped for a moment. The only difference was that I was using gcc's -O2 optimization flag when compiling the project in the afternoon (just for fun), and no optimization flags in the evening.

So I looked through the code and noticed a little oversight with major consequences - a line that read:

memcpy(&peerPubKey, &req.data, sizeof(req.data));

The last argument should have been sizeof(peerPubKey). Without the optimization flag, memory was being overwritten because the size of req.data, the source was much larger than the size of peerPubKey, the destination. Ouch! Surprisingly, with the -O2 flag, everything was automagically taken care of. Of course, with that one line fixed, everything started working without the optimization flag as well.

Lessons learned:
- Don't compile with optimization flags when testing.
- Be extra careful when working directly with memory - small oversights can have BAD effects! :P

According to sources who have so far filed accurate reports on Apple's future hardware plans, the company is feverishly working on a two-button wireless optical mouse that it intends to release.

Apple enthusiasts have longed for an Apple-branded two-button mouse for over a decade, but their requests have gone unanswered. So what has changed? According to sources, 'it's the company."

With Apple now profiting from low-priced consumer electronics as it makes a push to reclaim market share from Windows, a two-button mouse is 'almost an essential,' sources said.

It's unclear when the computer maker plans to introduce the mouse. Insiders warned that anticipation may continue to build for months as the company perfects the product.

[From: AppleInsider]

Wow, a product that's almost as "revolutionary" as the iPod Shuffle!
Now's a great time to buy some AAPL stock! :P

These have been out for the last couple of days. They're still incubation projects (aka prototypes) so they're still quite barebones, but there's some nice use of JavaScript to get really clean and fast-loading pages.

The first one supports Firefox. The second is IE-only for now, but Fx support is coming soon.

http://www.start.com/1/
http://www.start.com/2/

I thought the first one was especially interesting. Once they get authentication in place (so that I can login from anywhere and have all my feeds available) and OPML import/export, I might actually consider moving over from Bloglines to this as my feed-reader. I really like the interface. It's clean and slick (very Google-like). Let's see what else they come up with. :)

Here's an example screenshot of the feed-reader.

GameSpy just posted the specs of the successor to the Xbox, codenamed Xenon. According to the report, the specs are based off of alpha development kits and current projections for the final hardware, and could change before the final release (perhaps later this year):

The Guts of the Next Box

CPU - Xenon's CPU has three 3.0 GHz PowerPC cores. Each core is capable of two instructions per cycle and has an L1 cache with 32 KB for data and 32 KB for instructions. The three cores share 1 MB of L2 cache. Alpha 2 developer kits currently have two cores instead of three.

GPU - Xenon's GPU is a generation beyond the ATI X800. Its clock speed is 500 MHz and it supports Shader 3.0. Developers are currently working with an alpha 2 GPU. Beta GPU units are expected by May and the final GPU is slated for a summer release. The final GPU will be more powerful than anything on the market today; in game terms, it would handle a game like Half-Life 2 with ease.

System Memory - Xenon will have 256 MB of system RAM. Keep in mind that this number should not be equated to typical PC RAM. The Xbox has 64 MB of system RAM and is a very capable machine.

Optical Drive - As many have speculated, Xenon will not use Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Games will come on dual-layer DVD-9 discs. While the media is the same as that of the current Xbox, the usable space on each disc is up to 7 GB. The drive is slated to run at 12X.

Memory Units - Xenon will use 64 MB to 1,024 MB memory cards. 8 MB is reserved for system use, leaving a 56 MB to 1,016 MB for user data.

Hard Drive - As many have speculated, Xenon's hard drive is optional. 2 GB of the drive will be used as game cache. The final drive size is still being determined.

Camera - Xenon will have a USB 2.0 camera. It's capable of 1.2 megapixel still shots and VGA video. Photos can be used in-game and for gamer profiles. The camera can also be used for video chat. It's unknown if the Xenon camera will allow for EyeToy-like gameplay. Developers are currently using a simulated camera driver.

Sound Chip - Xenon does not have an audio chip in the traditional sense. Decompression is handled by hardware, while the rest of the chores are handled by software. DirectSound3D has been dropped in favor of X3DAudio. The former was deemed too inflexible.

Holy crap, that's powerful!

Update: Watch this thread on OSNN for more details as they come in. :)

Saturday evening turned out to be a lot of fun. A group of us from ACM decided to attend the annual California A capella festival on campus as a social event.

For those of you who don't know exactly what a capella music is (and I didn't know either), here's Wikipedia's definition:

A cappella music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way.

It was the first time I've listened to something like this, so that made it all the more interesting and entertaining. Basically, there's a lead singer (there can be more than one), and the rest of the group provides the background "music" vocally, to make up for the lack of instruments. If done properly, it sounds very, very cool, and all the groups (students from various different California universities) at the festival did a fantastic job.

Just a fun event and something interesting to add to my life, which otherwise happens to be rather boring at the moment, with the same schedule day after day, week after week...

...at this point, I should also mention that I'm really waiting for those few days of Spring break. Three weeks still to go.

So here's a follow-up to the earlier GDS post.

I'm not really going to do a full review, mainly because I'm still sticking to MSN Desktop Search which, for me personally, is still a better product overall. But let's just look at the good and the not-so-good that this final release of GDS brings.

The Not-So-Good:
- It still uses a darn browser window to display search results - what a terrible idea! I wasn't expecting this to change between the beta and the final, to be honest, but this still falls into the not-so-good (and possibly even the bad) category nonetheless. MSN DS uses a shell namespace extension (no, it's not IE, people) to display full search results. The great thing about this is that it allows you to use all the nice Explorer-like functionality such as context-menus, drag-and-drop etc which, in my opinion, is a must for an app that works with lots of files. Every other desktop search app does it...why not Google's?
- There's a deskbar now, similar to the one in MSN DS. Unfortunately, it's not quite as functional. It's just a text box that you type the query into, hit enter and get the results in the...yes, you guessed it, browser window. There's no instant find-as-you-type the way MSN DS does it...which is just really cool and very convenient.

The Good:
- The API! Remember Ballmer's words, MSN - "developers, developers, developers!" :) GDS now includes an API that developers can use to integrate its search functionality into their own apps. This is wonderful. MSN can definitely one-up them if they offer something similar soon, especially since MSN DS already has the advantage of having find-as-you-type. Give devs a way to integrate the deskbar into their own apps!
- Support for Thunderbird. MSN DS currently indexes mail only from Outlook and Outlook Express, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, unless a third-party IFilter comes up for it. I personally use Outlook 2003, so I'm more than happy with MSN DS, but GDS is a nice alternative for Thunderbird users, although it doesn't offer a handy "Show Conversation" feature like MSN DS does. (no context-menus, remember?).

So that's that. My verdict - MSN DS wins this round. Power-user features like aliases and application launching through the deskbar have also become indispensable to me (I don't have any shortcut icons lying around anymore). The MSN folks just need to get an API out, and they'll be all set.

If you use Thunderbird for email and you don't mind giving up features like aliases and app launching, I'd personally recommend Copernic Desktop Search rather than GDS. Copernic supports Thunderbird, has a deskbar with find-as-you-type, and brings up the context-menu when you right-click on search results.

Honestly, I was expecting GDS to offer something completely unbeatable with their final product. After all, they did it with their web search engine, didn't they? :)

It's been a while since we've heard anything about LH. Well, Paul Thurrott has some new information and a few screenshots from the latest internal build. :)

Read more at the WinSupersite.
Scroll down to the "Longhorn Investments" section for the good stuff. ;)

Screenshots:
* The Longhorn Explorer features a left-most pane of Lists and AutoLists, a breadcrumb navigation bar, instant filtering with an integrated Search box, and quick file preview at the bottom of the window.
* Fast Search results let you sort by custom metadata ("Reference" in this example).
* Stacks let you dynamically group documents and files so you can view the same data in multiple ways.

Well, it seems like a Google product has finally left the beta stage. ;)
Some interesting developments with the new release. I'll post my thoughts soon.

New ways to organize information, protect your computer, and improve electronic and visual communication were among the highlights of projects shown at Microsoft's annual TechFest last week in Redmond, Washington.

TechFest is Microsoft Research's yearly gathering of its researchers from around the world. This event gives the researchers a chance to show their work to the various product teams at Microsoft, and as such, it's an indication of work that may someday move beyond the research stage and into the hands of businesses and consumers.

I've collected a bunch of links through RSS feeds that highlight just some of the projects that were showcased at this year's TechFest.

SeattlePI - Surface Computing (with videos)
SeattlePI - Machine learning to find a vaccine for AIDS
Microsoft Watch
USA Today
The Seattle Times

Just skim through all of them if you're interested. They're not very long, and they're definitely very cool. I'll add more links as I find them. :)

LONDON (Reuters) - Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates will be awarded an honorary knighthood by Britain's Queen Elizabeth Wednesday for his outstanding contribution to enterprise.

Gates, the world's wealthiest man, will receive the award from the Queen at Buckingham Palace. He will become a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, an honor that dates back to 1917, although monarchs have been creating knights for hundreds of years.

Among the pomp and grandeur of the formal state rooms at the palace, Gates will kneel in front of the sovereign, who will gently tap him on the shoulder with a sword. Britons and citizens of the Commonwealth are entitled to add the title "Sir" in front of their names, but that honor does not extend to other nationalities.

When it was announced last year that Gates was to be knighted, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw paid tribute to him:

"(Gates) is one of the most important business leaders of his age," he said. "Microsoft technology has transformed business practices and his company has had a profound impact on the British economy."

Source: Reuters

Go go, BillG! You definitely deserve the honor and recognition! :)

Thanks to Marc for the heads up.
Yahoo is celebrating its 10th birthday today! Wow, they've been around for a while! If you have a Yahoo account, you can get a free scoop of Baskin Robbins. The offer is only valid today, so find some friends and get some ice-cream! :)