Which Technology to Learn?

It is one of those often recurring phases in your career when you pause and ask yourself. Right, now what is the next big thing? What should you be equipping yourself for the upcoming assignments? Answering the question is getting tougher each time. Years back things were much simpler. You want to be a kernel programmer or a network geek? C++ is your choice. Web? Java/.NET and thick client programmers had their own choices and legacy programmers? Well, lets leave them out. Seems to me (and I could be wrong) that they seldom...

Technology Obsession

Back in the nineties when I was a rookie in the business, we used to be asked by our managers "Which technology are good at?" "C++" I would reply "Ok, good. I'm going to assign you to a mainframe project" he would say and we used to nod our heads, dive headlong into mainframe sink only to surface and become adept at this new field in a short span of time. Call it the manager's immense trust in our ability and flexibility or just plain stupidity for taking what now appears to be a gargantuan risk. However, those were very different...

iPad style devices will eventually replace netbooks

Everyone is right about their views on iPad."I would not touch it with a barge pole" said one" Who would want to lug this thing around?" asked the other"It will redefine computing devices even it flops" quipped an analyst.I believe all of them are right. I believe iPad kind of devices will eventually catch the fancy of those who use netbooks. Time and again we have maintained that netbooks are suitable only for those who wish to use a device for just browsing and light tasks. Its intended target market are those people who...

Google the Skynet in making

Alright, skynet is a wee bit old. Lets say Matrix in making.I started thinking about it (finally) when I heard that Google was doing away with local storage and promoting cloud only storage for their new OS Chrome OS!Now, for those who woke up after a late night slosh fest, Google has announced a spanking new OS (well its actually a smartly repackaged Ubuntu) that has only the browser for an interface. Blazing fast, highly interactive and the other usual Googly stuff.Now, coming back to the case in point. Cloud storage. I just...

ChromeFrame Offline Install

I had a tough time installing Chromeframe behind my proxy as downloading exes were banned. Even if you managed to get the 500kb setup, it again tries to download another installer. So, i pulled some favours and managed to work through the firewall restrictions and fiddle the URL.Here is a link that allows you to get the offline installerhttp://tiny.cc/chromefrm_offl...

Trapped with Internet Explorer 6.

Working on a product for three long years building a web2.0 software with all the bells and whistles that an any sane human would care for is taking its toll on me.With so many browsers IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera its quite an ask to just ensure everything works the way it should on all platforms!Now, after all the efforts we connect to our customers to roll the new platform out. We demo the product and they like it all and looks like the only thing to do was sign the contract and cash the cheque.When things could not...

Multicasting in c#

This has been one topic that had me going around in circles for quite some time. Not that it was difficult to find sources that helped me. But it was the sheer difference in approaches that really frustrated me.I'm writing this hoping that it saves someone a lot of head ache when they try multicasting. I'm going to refrain from explaining what is multicasting et al. There are excellent resources available on the internet...