Date: 08/13/07     Keywords: no keywords

I recently started exploring a rather alarming phenomenon, which was there all along but has very recently been highlighted to me. Let’s say a person has been attacked by members of a particular community. The normal reaction I would have expected is general condemnation of the attack even from the members of the same community. [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/the-right-to-kill-the-right-to-live/

Date: 08/13/07     Keywords: php, java

Trim is a useful function available in languages like Java & PHP which removes the leading and traling whitespace(s) from a String. Unfortunately Javascript doesn’t natively provide trim functionality to the String object. Fortunately there is a simple solution. Place the following code near the top of your Javascript file (or inline script) to add [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-add-trim-functionality-to-javascript-string/

Date: 08/12/07     Keywords: database, web

One of the main challenges of managing multiple dedicated web / database servers is the ability to centrally monitor and manage them, automate tasks which requires out-of-band access like rebooting the server or find out if the server is dying and arrange for replacement ahead of time etc. Unless you are a very big web [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/need-for-dedicated-server-management-api/

Date: 08/12/07     Keywords: spam

I am seeing a steady and alarming rise of russian comment spams. Often people will not understand a comment in a foreign language and may approve it in a hurry. Such comment spams when translated may cause embarrassment for the blogger and also provide unwanted boost to comment spammers. I have a recommendation. Let’s first [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/rise-of-russian-comment-spam/

Date: 08/12/07     Keywords: spam

Now I have seen it all. I received a nigerian scam as a comment spam on my blog. In case you are wondering Nigerian scam or 419 scam is conducted traditionally using unsolicited emails (spam) where you are promised millions of dollars for participating in a money laundering scheme. Comment spam has become a serious [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/nigerian-scam-419-scam-as-comment-spam/

Date: 08/12/07     Keywords: no keywords

I was watching the finale of the “The Apprentice” show, which features billionaire Donald Trump in a glamorized reality show to choose his next apprentice. The show made me sick. It is an abomination for multiple reasons. All the participants expressed profound love for Mr. Donald Trump. I can somewhat understand their sucking up, but this [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/the-apprentice-show-made-me-sick-to-the-core/

Date: 08/11/07     Keywords: no keywords

I have a Samsung GSM mobile phone SG R220. It has been working fine for last 6 years. Last 3-4 days I was unable to get any signal on the phone. I checked that the SIM card is working by using it on another phone and also verified that there is proper reception in my [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/mobile-phone-hack-how-to-improve-cell-phone-reception/

Date: 08/11/07     Keywords: no keywords

It is a crying shame for India that in Hyderabad, famed internationally acclaimed Bengali writer Taslima Nasreen was attacked, with intention to kill, by muslim fundamentalists from MIM party which includes MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) who stated that he was a muslim first and MLA later. His attempt to kill was derided by a [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/taslima-nasreen-muslim-fundamentalism-rears-its-ugly-head/

Date: 08/10/07     Keywords: no keywords

While an individual DNS request often takes small time to execute, when the primary DNS server is overloaded or unavailable it can take quite sometime to resolve your requests. Now what has that to do with improving Firefox performance? Firefox makes DNS requests to convert host name (like blog.taragana.com) to IP addresses (like 72.36.134.131), which [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/simple-firefox-hacks-to-boost-performance/

Date: 08/08/07     Keywords: no keywords

After much debugging I realized that in creating dialogs using Ext.LayoutDialog class of ExtJS library we must specify the east, west, north south, as required, in the LayoutDialog config. This should be done before you add the content panels to the layout of the dialog. Otherwise you will get some really hard to debug errors. [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/extjs-extlayoutdialog-gotcha/

Date: 08/07/07     Keywords: java

Fedora Core developers make it rather hard to install and properly configure Sun’s JVM. All said and done Sun’s JVM (comes with JDK) is the best JVM implementation out there; not to mention that it is the reference implementation. Here is how you can easily install JDK 6 / Java SE 6 in 5 minutes [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-install-jdk-6-java-se-6-tomcat-in-fedora-core-6-fedora-7-in-5-minutes/

Date: 08/01/07     Keywords: database, sql, java

HSQLDB is a high performance RDBMS written in pure Java. It can be used as a in-memory database or regular file based database. It can also create a read-only database out of any CSV files. HSQLDB is the database used with OpenOffice. The steps to quickly and safely backup HSQLDB Database are: Run the SQL command [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-quickly-backup-hsqldb-database/

Date: 07/31/07     Keywords: no keywords

I have started monitoring my site for uptime statistics at 5 minute interval. Uptime is defined as when the response time for http://blog.taragana.com is 30 seconds or less. In the last 5 days I have an uptime of 99.31%. It was down for 54 minutes and 34 seconds. The DNS server located on the same [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/site-up-time-stats-questions/

Date: 07/31/07     Keywords: browser

This is a sporadic error that I have seen in Firefox browsers while using the Ext JS components. It is not harmful in any way but is annoying. It is filed as a Firefox defect and has been fixed for 3.0a5pre. In the earlier version here is how you can fix it for Firefox. Adding autocomplete=”off” [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/solving-permission-denied-to-get-property-htmldivelementnodetype-when-calling-method-nsidomeventlistenerhandleevent-nsresult-0x8057001e-ns_error_xpc_js_threw_string-location-data-no/

Date: 07/31/07     Keywords: no keywords

Now you really buy a hands-free two way voice translator with capability to translate to and from 9 languages in real-time for 499$ at SkyMall. If the marketing is half as true as the real product I will be amazed. This is the first step in the direction of a truly universal translator which has [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/2-way-9-language-voice-translator-for-499/

Date: 07/31/07     Keywords: no keywords

Nice music video of the fight between Goku & Cell. In case you are wondering Goku (Son Goku) is the main hero of a popular Japanese animation series DragonBall Z. Next is the video featuring Goku & Frieza. BTW: Was the song saying Kabbadi Kabbadi? That is the chant of a popular game in India with [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/goku-versus-cell-dragonball-z-frieza-music-video/

Date: 07/31/07     Keywords: no keywords

What can I say when a giant chicken fights regular family man Peter Griffin? Enjoy this hilarious comic strip in 3 parts. It reminds me of a whole genre of Hollywood films. Thanks James! In case you haven’t had enough here’s more of Peter Griffin:

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/saga-of-giant-fighting-chicken-family-man-peter/

Date: 07/30/07     Keywords: linux

It has been several months that I fully migrated to Linux. The whole company has moved 100% to Linux, all servers, desktop … every machine. The only traces of Windows are in two of my personal laptops, the IBM ThinkPad with Windows 2000 and the Compaq Presario with Windows XP, which I have kept for [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/top-5-regrets-after-migrating-from-windows-to-linux/

Date: 07/30/07     Keywords: browser, java

An Ext JS, a beautiful Javascript Library, ComboBox on a Toolbar fails to display when the browser window is resized or there is another div with 100% width. The problem is most likely related to resizing of the Toolbar which causes the ComboBox to stop displaying. There are several ways in which the defect can be [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/solutions-internet-explorer-6-visibility-bug-with-extjs-combobox-on-toolbar/

Date: 07/30/07     Keywords: no keywords

Broadband service in India is much less reliable than their counterparts in USA. While in USA, I used Pacific Bell 1.5 Mbps connection for 3 years without a single minute of downtime or any other problems. This was back in 1998-2001. In India unlimited (marginally @ 256 Kbps - bits per second) broadband service came [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-get-reliable-affordable-broadband-in-india/