The URI schemes in Browsers

You must be very familiar with the page :

about:blank

So what do you think this " about: " is??? A protocol?? A URL?? Nopes... Actually its one of the URI Schemes(Uniform Resource Identifier).

Here are some more about about:

Browser : FIREFOX

about:	See the info about firefox... (Same as clicking on Help>About Mozilla Firefox)
about:blank	A beautiful white backgroung with the fox in pure white ashes... (some people call this as a blank page)
about:mozilla	Verse from The Book Of Mozilla... Read it and you'll see.
about:plugins	See info about all installed plugins
about:about	Lists all the about: addresses. (Not in FF3 as far as I know)
about:logo	See the Firefox Logo
about:cache	One of my favourites... It lists the cache entries on disk and memory... The reason it is my fave is because through this I can Download any song/video from ANY site... (Follow this link to read more)
	DOWNLOAD MUSIC/VIDEOS
about:license/about:licence	See the Official Mozilla Public License (Licence in British English).
about:config	The most useful about:, It lets you configure every inch in firefox... But just don't change anything without thought... It may crash the Browser.
about:blocked	Shows you the page which comes up if FF considers a Web Forgery/ Attack site... But the about:blocked page itselt is harmless...
about:robots	Added in FF3, try it yourself
about:credits	See the FULL credits... See what a big thing this fox is...

Browser : OPERA

Most of the Firefox's URI Schemes are also supported in Opera, but you'll have to replace the about: with opera:

Like :

opera:plugins

One exception is about:blank which is universal.

Browser : IE7

about:tabs shows information about Tabbed browsing (which was MS added in IE7 for the first time)

about:NoAddons displayes list of disabled addons...

There are many more... Try searching for them yourself...

Easter Egg in Firefox

Now you must be already trying out FF3, and yeah I know its pretty intelligent and cool… (slightly buggy though)

Did you ever think where did Isaac Asimov get the inspiration for I Robot?? Maybe he was using a prototype of FF (FF 1 pre-pre-pre-pre.....-pre-Alpha) and he came along this :

But did you find out a bot lurking in the FF3 software? It is actually very friendly and is made of plastic and calls itself ROBOT.

Just type in this in your address bar and interact(!) with the robot.

about:cache

And if you click on the button named "TRY AGAIN" (which you can try only once again!!), the transformation of the label points out that out FFRobot is a bit touchy... See it yourself now in a new tab!

And about the Title : GORT! KLAATU BARADA NIKTO! It actually originates from a science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). The command(?) was used to stop the Goat.. er.. Gort from destroying good ol' Earth. (Wiki the term to read more...)

Technorati Tags: Firefox,Easter Eggs,Robots

The Easier, Funnier Side

Technorati Tags: Linux,Funny,Easter Eggs

Linux, in addition to becoming more reliable than Windows, has become even funnier…

Who said Linux is for the geek minded only? Anyone can, as you’ll see moments later, bring out a good laugh from the penguin…

Here are some very good examples, which I found on www.LinuxHaxor.net

For more reading, please follow this link :

The Funny Side Of Linux

So what you’re waitin for??? Go and have a good laugh, and try to find out more such stuff…

Firefox makes the World Record

The Mozilla team had thought about scaling a cool 5 Million downloads in 1 day (yeah… 5,000,000 downloads in 3600*24 seconds… nearly 58 downloads-per-second) based on the assumption the Firefox was popular…

What they didn’t know was exactly HOW popular was this fiery fox. Nearly TWICE as much… yeah… Our very beloved FIREFOX 3, grandson of the original Firefox, crossed the 8 MILLION mark on the day of its release… and that’s because the site would have been already clogged for late comers… and guess what?? it crossed the 14 MILLION mark in 72 hours of it’s release (which was Tuesday, 13th June)

Reports of some security flaws, and even my own (small?) grouse about FF3 (that it starts typing in reverse after some Java applications run) haven’t stopped people from drooling over this newbie (which actually has grown smarter and securer than even IE7 or FF2.xx)

Now Mozilla are ready to pack up the data and send it to Guinness World Records, which would be a first-of-its-kind record, and a hard one to break (for some time, atleast).

FIREFOX 3 : Innovation in every vein

After more than 2 years of development, Mozilla released the third installment of Firefox on Tuesday… Though the features did not surprise me, as I had already used the 2 Release Candidates for nearly two-and-a-half months, they are very useful and come handy in fast browsing.

Take the navigation bar itself :

The BACK button is intentionally made larger due to the fact that most people use it much more often that the forward button (shows how many people are retrospective!! *wink*). Though the Glassy effect is due to Vista, the buttons look very neat and polished even on XP/Linux.

Next is a very useful button : Most Visited. It lists all the sites you visit most, thus giving you instant access to your faves without requiring you to type in the address in the address bar.

And yeah… even the address bar is renovated :

It shows the URLs containing the string you are currently typing (even if the string is in the middle of the URL). And remember how you had to access the option to view the security certificates of a site earlier?? That has changed too, as FF3 also shows the Site Information just on the click of a button. As Simple As That.

And a change which may have some mouse-only users confused is the disappearance of the GO button… Instead they would encounter a yellow Star… So What’s this all about?? Actually, there was no need of a GO button when you are not using the address bar… Right?? So Mozilla did this : The Address bar shows the Star button (for bookmarking a site) when you are viewing a page, but as soon as you start writing in the address bar, Voilà, the GO button appears as a blue arrow!!!

And never forget the Password Manager… Better and more non-intrusive… Just go onto a site, an the Username-Password will be kept ready in the required fields… You just have to press Enter.

Another great feature is the library. Just press Ctrl+Shift+H/B and you will see a new window open up showing the Library where you can neatly organise your Bookmarks/History and Tags…

Wait, wait… What are TAGS??

Well, they are exactly what they are anywhere else…. Tag the sites you visit with tags like ‘sports’ ,‘news’, etc and organise them. Later if you don’t remember a site’s name… just recall what it was about and search the relevant tag… And there you are…

Added to these superficial innovations are higher levels of security, where you are actually blocked from a phishing site rather than merely being warned about it. (FF replaces the site’s page with its own Warning page). Similarly you are blocked from any site reported to infect your computer…

Get ready for next generation browsing:  Speedier and Safer

Create 'Vista' Wallpapers

A great Tutorial based upon how to recreate, using photoshop, Vista-Looking Wallpaper.And if you are refraining from this task due to fear of complexity, then, take my advice : It is one of the easiest jobs... Give it a try... (And give Microsoft a run for their bucks)


read more | digg story

Making an Age Of Empires III ‘CD’

This thing came in my mind when I was so thoroughly bored by the incessant chatter of the TV and studies, that any idea of escape seemed great. I tried to create the CD Cover+CD of Age of Empires III Icon, which would later serve as the icon for the folder in which AOEIII was installed.

I started by getting a good-quality front cover of AOE III from the net and… yeah… Photoshop is rather quintessential, isn’t it?? (I have not tried GIMP till now)

aNow, open PS, load the pic, and copy the cover to one more layer (this for the ‘CD’), and better make the CD layer invisible (for better manipulation and to avoid confusion… later you can make it visible again)

Now, select the Cover and transform it to a smaller size (so that it looks like a ‘cover’), and skew it a bit for creating a ‘perspective’ or 3D effect via the Free-Transform tool… You are done with the cover… It'll look something like this :

Now for the CD :

Select the Ellipse tool, and select the Paths option from the top toolbar (to make a work path). Now draw a circle to cover the part you want on your CD… It requires some patience and practice…

Now right click and select “Make Selection”, and crop it off… Now make another smaller circle (for the middle transparency in the CD and cut it out too...)

Now for the hole in the middle, draw a circle concentric to the transparent circle, and open the 'Layer Style' dialogue box. Select "Bevel/Emboss" (for the 3D effect, adjust the values to your satisfaction).

Work Done.

And this is the finished product :

A very useful tip : ALWAYS USE GRIDS (unless they hamper your sight)

Also, if you wish to add some more oomph value, you can add 'reflections' of the CD and Cover... But if you transform this image into icon, the reflections may not look much good...

I use 'AveIconifier' for transforming images into icons... Try it... its a very handy product.

Fast Dial in Firefox

Ever used Opera?? It has a cool and mighty useful feature through which you can load “Links” of your favourite sites as thumbnails in the open tab. And now, Firefox has even that feature, thanks to the addon developed by telega called “Fast Dial”.

Here’s the link :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5721

And it does a very neat job. Good thing is that it’s supported by even Firefox 3.0 RC2. See the pic below:

( A screen shot of the Fast Dial add-on. Click to Enlarge)

And it is very customisable too, with custom thumbnails, or even “live” thumbnails.

Try It…

Firefox 3 RC2... One Step Closer

Mozilla has made the Release Candidate 2 of Firefox available to download. This RC sees over 40 bugs fixed which surfaced in RC1 (which was very stable in itself). By doing this, Mozilla further ensure that the end product is a high quality product, which will attract more users.

Firefox is much more faster, secure, reliable... there's malware protection, a web forgery protection page, checks for add-ons and plugins, protection against cross-site attacks, and the ability to see information about a particular web site simply by clicking on its icon in the location bar, and an intelligent "Most Visited" button. Firefox's JavaScript engine has been boosted significantly, and memory leaks are supposed to be tightened up. User data (such as bookmarks, cookies, and preferences) are stored in a more secure database format so that, even if the browser crashes (which is becoming rarer with every update) they'll be protected. Plus, a whole host of features have been added which are supposed to make FF3 easier to use, including better password management, simplified add-on installation, full page zooming, tab scrolling, and better integration with Windows and Mac.

All-in-all, Firefox is much better than IE7, even IE8 beta, which I checked out a month or so ago. And even slightly better than Apple's Safari. It's ease of installation and use, combined with the myriad options provided by add-ons and extensions make it the best choice on the net. I use firefox nearly all the time (unless there's a site which says it just won't work if I don't use IE 5.5 or better... dumb demand), and the memory footprint, though not low, is satisfying, as FF uses a greatly improved memory allocation technique, which makes it's memory footprint stable. Even multiple tabs (10 or above) don't hog too much memory even on my lowly 384 MB RAM-system.

Though FF isn't the most-used browser (in fact many people haven't even heard of it), there is no particular reason for it to stay so. I think Firefox may soon take over the majority of the Browser market.
I still remember when I first used Firefox (maybe it was 1.5 or something), it had an option like Rander the Page as viewed in IE/Opera... And now, in IE8 beta, there was an option to Render the page as viewed in Firefox!!! Changes are in the air...

Windows 7 Next Year?

With falling on its face, and the phenomena seeming to overwhelm even , Microsoft need a very strong and reliable successor to Vista. And what I have gathered from the Web, Windows 7 may turn out to be a LUCKY ONE for MS.

".....Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped....."

Though Vista's Service Pack 1 is launched, the real impact wil take some time in manifesting itself. I think Vista faced much 'bad' publicity and overblown compatibility issues, the MAIN problem which I think was its complexity... (I had read somewhere that Vista's kernel was about 5000 files or so).
But things have stared turning out a bit better of late
Paul Thurrott (http://www.winsupersite.com) had concluded that

"...Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped..."

See : http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_100days.asp

Also, I got Mandriva (A Linux Distro), and guess what the magazine said as an introduction??

".... With Vista-like looks and... blah-blah..Mandriva is a ... good option..."

And also personally, I am fed up of people lynching Vista from its birth via articles such as :

"THREE REASONS WHY VISTA SUNK LIE A ROCK"
"THE ELEVEN PILLARS OF FALIURE"

I think Vista was engulfed by prejudice more than anything else.

Now, going over from Vista to 7, if Microsoft can fulfil all, or atleast, some of the failed promises which it planned to offer with Vista, like WinFS...
And Windows 7 takes a bold step forward by NOT offering Backwasrd Compatibility... That means all you old goodies will not run on Windows 7. But then, there is the Virtualization support in Win7.
Another step forward, though troublesome in some respects, is the Multi-Touch LCD support which may not be mainstream for another 2 years or so. A 19″ touchscreen LCD monitor is not available for less than $699 at Newegg currently.

And also, for Win7 to succeed, it must learn from Vista's mistakes.
I have some words for guys @ MS :

1. Not more than 2 versions
2. Familiarity must be a key point... Just look back on Windows ME II...
3. Increasing usability by decreasing complexity
4. Keeping the OS fast and informative

Well... I'm over... I felt like I was writing Vista's obitu... Nah! Not Now... Maybe Vista is surviving out there...