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The Year is ending soon, new one is going to begin. In '09 I've seen lot of ups & downs in world around me, whether its family, friends or its professional world, nothing was just stable as it should. Lot of bad and good things happened.

Lets have a recap of the Year 2009.

Family & Friends
Some incidents in family drawn my family in a bit trouble. It was the hard time. But as time passed, all got back to normal.

I lost my Nana this year. He got paralysis attack. He was aged. The good thing was, we took the initiative for Eye donation. We donated his eyes to the Eye bank. I wrote about it here earlier: Eye Donation: Our little efforts will give someone new life

Apart from that just few months back I lost one of my close friend, Jatin. He got an heart attack & passed away. Just few months back from that time, we used to go office together on a bike, as his office was at the little distance from mine. We were in contact since we were in primary school. RIP Jatin.

Just after few days I lost him, I heard about the death of one my colleague at my office. She worked at my office, but she left long ago. We were not in contact since long, and all of a sudden, Dhaval, who was the common friend with her, called me & gave the news that Jignisha died in Dubai due to food poisoning.

Health
Beginning of the year was just good. Me and Rahul joined the health club thinking about loosing some some kgs. We joined in the end of 2008, but we were succeed to continue with it in 2009 as well. achievement huh.. :). It lasted till the middle of Feb. You will feel good when number of people tell you that,"Oh Jignesh, you really looking slimmer." And it feels really good when girls say it. I was lucky to get those comments. I lost near 2 inches from the tummy. Satisfactory. But for some reasons we failed to continue it for long.

Only Salad in Lunch for consecutively about 8 months !! Yes, thats true. In those span of 8 months, 90-95% of my lunch Salad only. Having lunch with mates at my work place is always a fun. Those days, when I had salad & others having ordinary food. I had to answer everyone in office, why I am on it. Some of the comments I got from others were very interesting. Some of them were like:
"Are you sick? Has doctor asked not to eat anything else ?"
"Are you going through some Ayurvedic treatment or what ?"
"You are one of healthiest people here. C'mon.. share your food with me. I need it. You take my food."
"I got now, why your skin is so fair, because you take lots of Salad a day. Salad keeps you skin shiny & healthy, keep it up."
But apart from all above, the Truth is, I decided to have salad in Lunch to avoid the sleepiness after heavy lunch and good thing was it really worked.

Magento
Since I joined the current organization, I never worked on the Magento E-Commerce. But this year I got an opportunity to work on it. It was hard, was totally different from the other frameworks I worked earlier. But Hitesh, one of my friends & colleague in my Team helped me a lot to start with. I'm very much thankful to him and the other people who supported me. I bought a domain: jigneshpatel.co.in & I started a blog on Magento: Magento Coder. Based on the statistics my blog was getting good number hits. Getting comments from other developers & replying to them has became part of daily activity.

E63
After a long time, I was able to buy a new Handset. After spending a good amount of money for body and battery still I was not satisfied with the reliability with my old mate Nokia 3230. Finally I handed it over to my Uncle and got the new one. Since I needed a Wifi enabled phone having qwetry or touch keypad, Nokia E63 was the perfect choice for me as the price was also near the budget. Hoping for an iPhone in near future.

Magnet
Magnet, my current work place, I joined it more than two years ago and I've seen lot of things happening in here since beginning, but 2009 was a bit unexpected. Upper level management decided some bigger changes in Management. The upper layer has been changed totally. Company had gone through some tough times. For me, the bad thing was.. some best friends left. At some point of time I felt, I was alone. Gone were the days which will never come back. Because of some reasons I have decided to leave Magnet. Just after few days route to my work place will be changed.

Took a DNS Performance Test with the DPT App. I tried that with the list of around 200 domains. Basically the App is having list of 10000 domains list. I minimized it to 200 & took a test for both Google Public DNS and the Open DNS. The results are as below:

Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8; 8.8.4.4)



Open DNS (208.67.222.222; 208.67.220.220)




Its clear that, Goole Public DNS is the winner here.

Font Smoothing is good on Windows Xp/Vista, but not the best. The font smoothing you can get in Mac OS X is very good. One will love to have OS X like font smoothing on Windows as well (If that buddy want to switch to Windows from OS X, little strange.. huh..).

However from my point of view, Ubuntu 9.04 does provide much better font smoothing. After seeing that Ubuntu, I would like to have the same on the Windows Xp as well.

As a solution I was able to find a library named 'GDI++'. Just google it & you will get the download link easily.





I tried out, not satisfied with default settings. So I did make some changes in ini(s) settings file & it worked. I was able get the satisfactory results after spending around an hour on it. The screenshots are as below for the font smoothing on various Operating Systems. Have look, which one you like?

Windows Xp - Cleartype Fontsmoothing


Windows Xp - GDI++


Ubuntu 9.04


Mac OS X Leopard


Note: This post is for the people who understand the font rendering/smoothing.

This is much needed when you want to force the web browser to show the Save File dialog box. Generally the web browser opens the file which can be read by it.

It all depends on the header which is being sent from the web server to the client browser. By default, the browser can open the images i.e. .gif, j.pg, .png & some other file as well like .swf (for FF especially).

This is how it can be implemented with Content-disposition. For example I want to force to save the .swf file.

The PHP code will be:


<?php
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename=filename.swf');
header('Content-type:application/x-shockwave-flash');
readfile('pathoffile/filename.swf');
exit;
?>

This is what many people waiting for, a laptop from the world's most trusted mobile brand. That is going to be true. Nokia is going to launch the 'Nokia Booklet 3G'.

Nothing so say here. Have a look at the features.



Prices & Date of launch not declared yet. But this one will be the major attraction at the Nokia World to be held in Germany.

If you look at the Google Suggestions, while typing 'Why are indians' & typing the 'Why are americans' in the Google Search box, will get the below.

After looking at that Why people search only negative things for americans?

I was facing the issue: Emails were not getting sent after someone add the comment on the post in my wordpress based blog, http://magentocoder.jigneshpatel.co.in/

The problem was not in the Wordpress, it was on the hosting server. on which the blog is hosted.

After posting Ticket regarding the problem, they replied simple php mail() function won't work on that. As they are having the security concerns. After requesting them, they provide me the sample php code, which can send the email.

Here are the steps to be followed if you want to fix the email not sending problem (it will work if your problem is similar to mine).

1. Download the 'class-phpmailer.php' from here
2. Replace it with the existing file inside the wp-includes directory. (Make sure you have taken the backup of older one)
3. Then open the file 'pluggable.php' from 'wp-includes' directory
Find the line
$phpmailer->IsMail();

Replace it with
$phpmailer->IsSMTP();

You may need to setup the email account on the hosting server. Like 'wordpress@hostname.com'

I did up to these much changes & emails started to be sent successfully.

Its about a year we started an initiative for the Eye Donation. For few days, my team at my work place were involved a bit in this thing. But some how we were not able to continue with the same. We created an online group, got some valuable contacts, those can help us to make the people around us aware about the Eye donation.

After few days, few people were not with us in the team, as they left the organization. The conversation between us became very less & because of that, this thing was almost forgotten.

Let me just give you the few details about the eye donation, especially when a person die because of any reason, how you can give your valuable time for the Eye Donation.

The eyes of a died person can be donated within few hours after the time of death. In case if you are at the place of funeral, you can do something, like I did when my Nana got expired.

Last Sunday, my Nana left this world, due to Paralysis attack before 10 days back. It happened in Mid day time. I reached there at about 12:00 pm. All the related things were going on as usual as per the procedures in Hinduism.

After spending about an hour, I got myself sticked about the 'Eye Donation'. On the other moment, I asked my dad to come aside to talk, who was also sitting there just near to me.
I asked him about eye donation. He just said, "sure we can do, but just confirm a person aged about 75 can donate eyes ?"

So I just called Jaldip, well we used to call him Jaldipbhai. Now this person is so much into thing for this noble cause. He was the only person, because of him I am involved a bit in all this activities. So I called him to get the contacts with whom I can talk for the eye donation of my 'Nana'. I know that, wherever in this world, he could be, he will definitely do something to help me. So after the conversation with him, he took the responsibilities & called the respective authority.

In few minutes, he called me back gave me the contact details & then I called them & provide the necessary information about the died person to the Eye Bank Services, Nagri Hospital, Ahmedabad. They confirmed, they would be there in about 30 minutes.

We waited, they came within about 45 minutes as the distance of the place was far a bit from the hospital. A young lady of about my age & another aged lady as an assistance or something were here now. They came inside the room where the body was kept.

As I expected, everybody was trying to get closer to process, which was going to be stared to take the eyes from the body. They asked to go outside the room except both of them & said it would take about 30 minutes to complete the whole process. So now they started with it & we waited for a while.

As they said, they completed the thing in the given time, they took blood samples as well from the hand of a body. They said about the certificate, which will be provided in one & half month of time from the date. They left the place.Again everything got resumed as usual.

So Eye Donation is really done now. I was feeling great. I can say it was my first major involvement in the eye donation. This donated eyes will make two persons new lives. Another good thing was, nobody opposed in this noble cause. Otherwise I have heard, somebody will always be there in against, because of the wrong believes.

Read this nice story, written by Jaldip only. I would like to thanks him & my friends for his support & everything. This is just a beginning for us. I request you people, please come forward for this noble cause.

Apple WWDC 2009: iPhone 3G got some new features.

  • 3 Megapixel autofocus camera
  • Video recording
  • Voice Control
  • Digital compass
  • Cut, Copy & Paste
  • MMS23
  • Spotlight Search
  • Landscape keyboard
  • Voice Memos
  • Forward messages with text, video, photos, audio, locations, and contact information to others
  • Peer to Peer, Now your iPhone can find the other iPhone in the area & you can play the games with other device having iPhone OS 3 .
The new iPhone is called now iPhone 3G S, will be available from Jun 19.
iPhone 3G (without `S`), is now cheaper by 50% in price.

You will need Picasa installed on your system, if you wanna download the Picasa Web Albums. Perhaps not! You can download the whole album without installing Picasa on the system.

DownThemAll, a Firefox add-on can do it for you. Install the extension on Firefox. Click on the RSS Feed icon in the address bar of Firefox. On the landing page, right click & select DownThenAll from the Menu.

I feel jealous when someone proudly so say it.. "I'm sitting next to ZCE!", because I am not that much lucky. However I am sitting somewhat nearer to ZCE.

Well, The ZCE is Anil, my friend at my life and my TL at my work place. And the person sitting next to him is Hitesh. Anil became the ZCE last week, its proud for me and the same should be for the PHP cum Web Developers from Gujarat. He is just a second person from Gujarat to be a ZCE, his roommate also achieved the same on the same day. So now we have three Gujju ZCE.

I have seen Anil's hard-work and dedication to become the ZCE from last year. He really deserve it. Nothing more I can say. Congrates Dude...

This is one of the coolest thing I seen in Linux. Now converting image formats from and to for the various image/video formats is lot easier. A script is available for the same. Download it.

You will need to place it in "/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts" in your home directory. To use the script right-click any image/video file, navigate to 'Scripts' » 'avconvert'.
However you will need to install 'imagemagick' for image conversion and resizing thing, and 'ffmpeg' for video conversion to get the script working.

$ sudo apt-get install imagemagick
$ sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
Here are some features.
  • Converts between various audio/video formats
  • Converts between various image formats
  • Creates an image of your text file
  • Various conversions between TXT, RTF, HTML, MSOffice and OpenOffice
  • Produce a WAV file from your text.
For more: visit here.
The screenshots shown below can explain all.

About a month has been passed, I installed Ubuntu 8.04. Firefox 3 was the default installed on it.
From starting I faced lot many problems regarding the Flash on FF3. Somehow sometimes it played flash videos, but always got hanged after playing 4-5 seconds of video. After referring lot many google searches, I installed FF3, 'lashplugin-nonfree', 'swfdec-mozilla', 'adobe-flashplugin'.. lot many times. But still the problem was not solved.

Finally, Part of Solution found on Ubuntu forums, got it worked. This is how:

sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common swfdec-mozilla && sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree libflashsupport

That leads to flash working on Opera only, still not in FF3. The problem I got when I launched it from command line. It was not able to initialize shared libraries. So copying all the shared libraries (.so files e.g. libnss3.so, libssl3.so, libplc4.so.. total of 16 files) from FF3 source to '/usr/lib' got it worked.

Congratulations Rahman,
Music maestro A R Rahman has become the first Indian to win an Oscars.
He won the 2 Oscars for music in 'Slumdog Milllionaire'.
First Oscar for 'Best Original Score' - 'Jai Ho..' and second for 'Best Original Song' - 'O saya..' .
After winning Golden Globe and the BAFTA, he was the favoutite to win the Oscar.
Jai Ho....

I got my Adobe Photoshop 7 running very well on Ubuntu 8.04 Linux. Previously I tried to install CS3 version of Photoshop, but after many issues was not able to install it on Ubuntu. Here is how you can get your Photoshop 7 running on Ubuntu 8.04.

Step 1: Install Wine
On Terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install wine
Step 2: Copying Photoshop program files from Windows.
First of all, you will need to install Photoshop 7 on Windows. After installing it on Windows, create a 'Adobe' directory in "/home/YOURNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files".

From windows, copy the Photoshop installed directory from “c:\Program Files\Adobe” to “/home/YOURNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Adobe” in Ubuntu.

Step 3: Importing registry.
In your Windows box, type “regedit” in the command-line and export the whole “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Adobe/” to “adobe.reg.

If your Ubuntu box has as default charset ascii and your Windows box has ucs-2 then on terminal type:
$ sudo recode ucs-2..ascii adobe.reg
After you converted your adobe.reg file, type:
$ sudo wine regedit adobe.reg
Step 4: Create a Launcher to launch Photoshop.
Crete a new launcher on your Desktop and set command to:
wine "c:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Photoshop.exe"

That's it.

Have you noticed the hand-postures which I'm talking about ? Is there any different in that from person to person or any fact behind that? Just notice and think about that. How'z your posture look a like? What I guess is, these postures can tell a little bit about a person, don't know whether any survey has been done for this thing so far.









Well, there is a lot difference between Steve and Bill, their postures are difference as well. What to tell about President Barack Obama, he is having a posture of powerful man. When he does that, he make sure that all fingers of a hand are visible. What Bill is doing? nothing special. Is mine like Steve's? is it? I guess yes :). Don't know what Nirav Mehta's posture is telling. As far as I know him, its difficult to tell about him. His all fingers are closed. Sachin & Obama almost same. One thing is common between all of them, all of them are geek. I would like to collect more photos of a person doing specially this postures. Some of them are Narendra Modi, Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachhan, Sam Pitroda, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Please share such postures with me.

He's my one of the favorite musician. Now he's become the 1st Indian ever to win a Golden Globe Award. He bring the pride for India. He was nominated for the Best Original Music Score for the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

This movie has been emerged as favorite one for the prestigious Oscar. So the next is that only. It won other awards for the Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Motion. Congrats Rahman.. Congrats INDIA.




He's not having charm like SRK in Bollywood and Tom Cruise in Hollywood, not having guls alwayz around & after him like both of mentioned earlier. But he is a Tom Hanks of Bollywood. Yes, the image of Aamir is just like Tom Hanks. The acting & the the way he represents we can compare Aamir with Hanks.

Aamir has also said that he want make a remake of Hollybood blockbuster, 'Forest Gump'. It was the movie in which Tom Hanks played a fantastic role. Let see, What's next Mr. Perfectionist Aamir Khan will do, after the recent blockbuster 'Ghazini', which was the remake of Tamil movie with same title.

me

Hello,
I am Jignesh Patel, a Web Developer based in India.
About Me

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