Maxthon over Firefox or IE7 – for watching video.

I use Maxthon almost exclusively when I am watching videos online on Youtube/Metacafe/Google, because it pops up a nice log window, in which it presents the URL to the FLV file, which promptly goes into my download manager if I wanted the video offline.

Click on the "Options" link in the corner to open a log window, that has the complete URL to copy.

Nice !!

Way better having this available as a feature, than having to install browser extensions to download videos offline.

Synergy goodness

Recently at work, I installed Synergy and am loving it. It is great to be able to share the same keyboard and mouse between two different computers. I am sharing my keyboard and mouse between a desktop and laptop. Apart from sharing the keyboard and mouse, the other thing I really like is the ability to copy and paste across screens, which is proving to be extremely useful.

Read about it the first time at Lifehacker, and I have been wanting to try it since then. Lifehacker has instructions on how to get started with Synergy.

Synergy

Ubuntu – not yet !

Not switching to Ubuntu, my Dad’s machine, until I can get a version of Yahoo Messenger, with webcam support on this. They need to use the webcam to chat with relatives on a daily basis.

But otherwise, a decent operating system, but not good enough for me to switch from Windows XP yet.

Back after a break !

Took a break (rather long one). Many things happened during the break – Got married, Got promoted at work, trying out Ubuntu (I still prefer Windows), learning Scrum, ……

I will be blogging again on a more regular basis.

Launchy/Slickrun and environment variable troubles

I love Launchy and Slickrun. Don’t remember the last time, I actually opened the Windows Start Menu, after I started using these tools. But recently I had a really harrowing time when working on some of my development stuff.

I noticed that the command shells, editors and other applications (IntelliJ IDEA/MS Visual Studio etc..) that were launched using Launchy Slickrun weren’t reading the environment variable changes that were made.

It was dumb of me to not have restarted Launchy or Slickrun after I had made these changes, because the applications read the environment variables when they start up, and don’t seem to be pick up changes unless forced to or restarted. I restart my workstation once a month, and so I never realized the risks of launching applications using launchers, that are running all the time.

So after spending 20 minutes or so, I realized my mistake.

I wish launchers like Launchy and Slickrun were able to detect changes to the environment. I am planning to write my own Win32 program that will send a message to these applications to re-read the environment (someone told the Win32 function SendWindowMessage() should do the trick)

YUI Theater

 

YUI Theater Some very useful videos from the Yahoo UI Library ! YUI Theater. Google TechTalks, InfoQ, ShowMedo, and YUI – wow, why would you have wanted to attend a computer training class anymore with so much stuff available online. It is a nice break from static HTML/PPT slideshows, and having a voice speaking to you is always better when learning something.

Yahoo Messenger for Vista – video explaining features

Yahoo seems to rebuilt the Messenger for Vista from the scratch, and seems to use the new WPE subsystem in Windows Vista. Click on the “Video Preview” button to launch a video explaining the new features.

http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php

Link: New Hyderabad International Airport

GMR has put up a pretty good website for the upcoming Hyderabad International Airport at Shamshabad.

Hyderabad International Airport

Photo gallery (Impressions really)

Presentation video

Link: Andhra Pradesh Land Records online

This website setup as part of the Andhra Pradesh Land Records Computerization, and lets people search for land records.

Link : AP Land Records Online

Link: Search AP Land Records

One will need to download the Telugu fonts, which can be done by the following the instructions on the home page. I did that, and worked just fine.

Desktop Managers – How do you use them ?

In my old Unix programming days, I loved the concept of Workspaces on Solaris CDE. The fact that I could move all related work to a workspace was appealing. So typically, my workspaces would usually be - Support, Admin, Dev, Mail.

When I was done with Solaris, and was on Windows XP, I tried out the Virtual Desktop Manager Power Toy. It was decent, and allowed me to create multiple desktops, but for some reason I could never get used to it quite well, and ended up uninstalling it.

Recently after reading a Lifehacker post on Dexpot, I was tempted to give desktop managers a chance again. Only difference is that by this time, I had discovered Lifehacker, GTD and 43Folders.

Taking advice from some gurus on those sites, I had turned off all email notifications and even got down to checking my emails once every hour. But somehow that minimized email client was always a distraction, and sometimes the curiosity(anxiety) got the better of me. With a desktop manager, now I can safely move the email clients (both Outlook and Thunderbird) to a desktop, and not close them. Now I have them running, and downloading emails all the time, and doing everything that they are designed to do, only now that I won’t see them unless I switch to that desktop. Same goes with my RSS reader, which goes into another desktop, and reducing the temptation now to keep checking for new posts all the time. Oh ! by the way, I am currently using Dexpot, which I like because it provides a quick way to check what windows are open on each desktop.

So now I have got 4 desktops -

• Mail    | My Outlook and Thunderbird email clients
• News  | Internet Explorer 7 – Bloglines, Digg, Flickr, Youtube,….
• Work  | This is where I work on my tasks and assignments
• Ideas  | This is where I keep a running log of everything that comes to mind. Blog thoughts, someday maybe things,…

I would love to see how others are using their Desktop Managers.