Web Development

1. US computer and video game software sales grew six percent in 2006 to $7.4 billion – almost tripling industry software sales since 1996.

2. Sixty-nine percent of American heads of households play computer and video games.

3. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

4. The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 40 years old. In 2006, 93 percent of computer game buyers and 83 percent of console game buyers were over the age of 18.

5. Eighty-five percent of all games sold in 2005 were rated “E” for Everyone, “T” for Teen, or “E10+” for Everyone 10+. For more information on ratings, please see www.esrb.org.

6. Eighty-seven percent of game players under the age of 18 report that they get their parents’ permission when renting or buying games, and 89 percent say their parents are present when they buy games.

7. Thirty-five percent of American parents say they play computer and video games. Further, 80 percent of gamer parents say they play video games with their kids. Sixty-six percent feel that playing games has brought their families closer together.

8. Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).

9. In 2005, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.

10. Forty-four percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. In addition, 32 percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device, such as a cell phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.

If any of you believes that Google and Yahoo are just two simple companies that are challenging one another with their products, I’m sorry to tell you that you’re wrong. Google and Yahoo are currently the Internet
giants that are offering the best technologies in their categories but also manage to attract the majority of
customers, making the other firms’ attempts quite useless. Take the example of Ask.com that is somehow made anonymous as Google and Yahoo captured most of the Internet searches. However, a lot of companies announced their intentions to develop similar products and challenge the two Goliaths.

At this time, the most important chapter of the battle is surely represented by the fight between the two mail solutions owned by the companies. Most of the users are describing Gmail as the most efficient mail product on the Internet because it offers a large file storage capacity, efficient spam filters and POP3 support. The same category of users is often criticizing Yahoo Mail for weak filters, bugs and for instability. However, the recent studies revealed that Yahoo Mail managed to beat Gmail, the Google mail product not being even close to the Sunnyvale company’s solution. Hotmail, one of the oldest mail services on the Internet earned the second position, relegating Gmail right on the third place.

However, the most recent battle involves two unexpected products: Google Maps and Yahoo Maps. While the search giant is famous for its service and the high-resolution photos that it offers, Yahoo intends to make its map solution competitive for Google. Recently, Yahoo added a considerable number of detailed pictures for numerous European countries.

You’re probably asking yourself what’s up with the title. Well, Google and Yahoo managed to revolutionize the Internet life because their solutions – the search engine and the Yahoo portal – are currently helping people find their information easier and get whatever they want.

It can be frustrating to find out that the photos you’re trying to share, or the presentations you’re trying to send at the last minute, are too large for your email’s attachment limit. Some of you have pointed out that we recently increased the allowable attachment size in Gmail from 10MB to 20MB. We think the higher limit will help make the storage in your Gmail account a little more useful. So the next time you’ve got to send a PDF that’s a bit on the larger side, relax. You’ve got some more room to spare.

Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007//05/bigger-attachments-in-gmail.html, Posted by Anna-Christina Douglas

By Loren Baker

Google appears to be about to take on Skype and other VoIP services with the addition of a dialpad to Google Talk.

Members of the Google Blogoscoped forums found this image and some basic information on the new application from an internal Google apps resources overview [which has now been taken down].

The new addition would ideally let users dial landlines and cell phones using Google Talk, which is now limited to dialing out only to other users who have Google Talk or compatible VoIP solutions.

eBay’s Skype of course has the ability to dial from PC to phone using VoIP technology, and Skype brings in a hefty amount of revenue via the SkypeOut program, where users purchase minutes via eBay’s PayPal.

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Source: http://www.ahinc.com/linux101/users.htm

Every user who has access to a Linux system needs a login and a password. Each user must belong to a primary group and for security or access purposes can belong to several secondary groups.

In order to create new logins, modify or delete users, you must already be logged in as root.
The root login is the highest level and only certain individuals should have access to the root account.

useradd - Adding a new user

Options:

• -d home directory
• -s starting program (shell)
• -p password
• -g (primary group assigned to the users)
• -G (Other groups the user belongs to)
• -m (Create the user’s home directory

Example:
To add a new user with

• a primary group of users
• a second group mgmt
• starting shell /bin/bash
• password of xxxx
• home directory of roger
• create home directory
• a login name of roger

useradd -gusers -Gmgmt -s/bin/shell -pxxxx -d/home/roger -m roger

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usermod - Modifying existing user

Options:

• -d home directory
• -s starting program (shell)
• -p password
• -g (primary group assigned to the users)
• -G (Other groups the user belongs to)

Example:
To add the group ‘others’ to the user roger

usermod -Gothers roger

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userdel- Deleting a user

Options:

• -r (remove home directory)

Example: To remove the user ‘roger’ and his home directory

userdel -r roger

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passwd - User’s Password

Options:

• user’s name (Only required if you are root and want to change another user’s password)

Example:
To change the password for the account you are currently logged in as…

passwd
Enter existing password
Enter new password
Enter new password again (to validate)

Example:
To change the password for the user ‘roger’ (only you are logged in as root)…

passwd roger
Enter existing password (can be either roger’s password or root’s password)
Enter new password
Enter new password again
(to validate)

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Where user and group information stored

User names and primary groups are stored in /etc/passwd. This file can be directly edited using the ‘vi’ editor, although this is not recommended. Format of the file is…

• User name (normally all lower case)
• Password (encrypted - only contains the letter ‘x’)
• User ID (a unique number of each user)
• Primary Group ID
• Comment (Normally the person’s full name)
• Home directory (normally /home/<user name>
• Default shell (normally /bin/bash)

Each field is separated by a colon.

Passwords for each user are stored in /etc/shadow. This file should only be changed using the passwd command.

Group information is stored in /etc/group. This file can be directly edited using the ‘vi’ editor. Format of the file is…

• Group name
• Group password (hardly ever used)
• Group ID
• User names (separated by commas)

Each field is separated by a colon.

Default files

When a new user is created, the default files and directories that are created are stored in /etc/skel.

This directory can be modified to fit your needs. Modifications only effect new users and does not change anything for existing users.

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su
- Switch User

To switch to another user, use the su command. This is most commonly used to switch to the root account.

Example:
To switch to root account…
su
Enter root’s passwd

Example:
To switch to the user ‘roger’…
su roger
Enter roger’s or root’s passwd

To return
to original user, enter exit

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30 Scripts For Galleries, Slideshows and Lightboxes

Family photos, vacation snapshots or creative artistic works: whatever images you have to present, you can present them in a variety of ways. On a big screen, in slide shows or in a thumbnails gallery. However, to convey the message of presented data effectively, it ’s important to offer it in an attractive and intuitive way.

14 rules for fast web pages

“Steve Souders of Yahoo’s “Exceptional Performance Team” gave an insanely great presentation at Web 2.0 about optimizing website performance by focusing on front end issues. […] the Web 2.0 talks have just been put up and the ppt is fascinating and absolutely a must-read for anyone involved in web products.”

Mmm! I love raisins made with SELECT * FROM [Equipment Table]! (pic)

How come my chocolate covered raisins never come with any SQL?

Top 5 javascript frameworks

A list of the top 5 javascript frameworks and features.

How dumb does Microsoft think we are?

Not only will they not tell us what those patents are hidden in Linux, they also won’t tell us how they found them. Argh!

The Ultimate Linux Reference Guide for Newbies

Very nice and complete linux commands reference.

25 Killer Code Snippets every Good Designer Should See

Round up 25 of the Best CSS, scripts, html, javascript, Ajax and widgets that you can use on on your website or blog (Part 5) ….

5 Techniques for Enhancing Contrast in Digital Photos

Extensive advice for increasing contrast in photos. Very good tips and tricks.

Peter Fleischer, Google Global Privacy Counsel:
“We recently announced a new policy to anonymize our server logs after 18–24 months. We’re the only leading search company to have taken this step publicly. We believe it’s an important part of our commitment to respect user privacy while balancing a number of important factors.

In developing this policy, we spoke with various privacy advocates, regulators and others about how long they think the period should be. There is a wide spectrum of views on this – some think data should be preserved for longer, others think it should be anonymized almost immediately. We spent a great deal of time sorting this out and thought we’d explain some of the things that prompted us to decide on 18-24 months.”

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Everybody’s favorite open-source browser, Firefox, is great right out of the box. And by adding some of the awesome extensions available out there, the browser just gets better and better.

But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser. Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.

1) More screen space. Make your icons small. Go to View - Toolbars - Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.

2) Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box.

3) Keyboard shortcuts. This is where you become a real Jedi. It just takes a little while to learn these, but once you do, your browsing will be super fast. Here are some of the most common (and my personal favs):

• Spacebar (page down)
• Shift-Spacebar (page up)
• Ctrl+F (find)
• Alt-N (find next)
• Ctrl+D (bookmark page)
• Ctrl+T (new tab)
• Ctrl+K (go to search box)
• Ctrl+L (go to address bar)
• Ctrl+= (increase text size)
• Ctrl+- (decrease text size)
• Ctrl-W (close tab)
• F5 (reload)
• Alt-Home (go to home page)

4) Auto-complete. This is another keyboard shortcut, but it’s not commonly known and very useful. Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Let’s say “google”. Then press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there - like magic! For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.

5) Tab navigation. Instead of using the mouse to select different tabs that you have open, use the keyboard. Here are the shortcuts:

• Ctrl+Tab (rotate forward among tabs)
• Ctrl+Shft+Tab (rotate to the previous tab)
• Ctrl+1-9 (choose a number to jump to a specific tab)

6) Mouse shortcuts. Sometimes you’re already using your mouse and it’s easier to use a mouse shortcut than to go back to the keyboard. Master these cool ones:

• Middle click on link (opens in new tab)
• Shift-scroll down (previous page)
• Shift-scroll up (next page)
• Ctrl-scroll up (decrease text size)
• Ctrl-scroll down (increase text size)
• Middle click on a tab (closes tab)

7) Delete items from address bar history. Firefox’s ability to automatically show previous URLs you’ve visited, as you type, in the address bar’s drop-down history menu is very cool. But sometimes you just don’t want those URLs to show up (I won’t ask why). Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited with those letters in them. Use the down-arrow to go down to an address you want to delete, and press the Delete key to make it disappear.

User chrome. If you really want to trick out your Firefox, you’ll want to create a UserChrome.css file and customize your browser. It’s a bit complicated to get into here, but check out this tutorial.

9) Create a user.js file. Another way to customize Firefox, creating a user.js file can really speed up your browsing. You’ll need to create a text file named user.js in your profile folder (see this to find out where the profile folder is) and see this example user.js file that you can modify. Created by techlifeweb.com, this example explains some of the things you can do in its comments.

10) about:config. The true power user’s tool, about.config isn’t something to mess with if you don’t know what a setting does. You can get to the main configuration screen by putting about:config in the browser’s address bar. See Mozillazine’s about:config tips and screenshots.

11) Add a keyword for a bookmark. Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.

12) Speed up Firefox. If you have a broadband connection (and most of us do), you can use pipelining to speed up your page loads. This allows Firefox to load multiple things on a page at once, instead of one at a time (by default, it’s optimized for dialup connections). Here’s how:

• Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them):
• Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
• Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
• Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30. This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.
• Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

13) Limit RAM usage. If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us. Again, go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.

14) Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized. This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.

15) Move or remove the close tab button. Do you accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs? You can move them or remove them, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value:

• 0: Display a close button on the active tab only
• 1:(Default) Display close buttons on all tabs
• 2:Don’t display any close buttons
• 3:Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)

How much did I use Google? Apparently a lot more often than even I could speculate. For the last two weeks, I’ve had google.com blocked at both work and home. The amount of data they’re gathering on me is frightening. Not because of Google, but because I’m positive the government will legislate their way into Google’s database sooner or later and start labeling people as suspicious. Political paranoia aside, let us look at the fact here; Life on the internet without using Google is hard.

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The Javascript Programming Language

“Excellent presentation and great insight on the history and basics. Douglas rocks, yahoo is real lucky to have him!”

The $25,000,000,000 Eigenvector: The Linear Algebra Behind Google

An undergraduate-oriented explanation of the beautiful and simple linear algebra that lies behind an important facet of Google’s PageRank algorithm. The page has some demo code.

Basics of Compiler Design

“I have taught an undergraduate compilers course for over a decade. In the last several years, I have used my own textbook “Basics of Compiler Design”. I have now decided to make this available online.”

Dell’s Ubuntu PCs won’t include Windows emulation

Dell does not plan to include software such as Wine, which lets users run Windows programs on Linux, with its PCs that will soon be preloaded Ubuntu Linux. “I do not want to position Ubuntu and Linux as a cheap alternative to Windows,” Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth told eWEEK.com.

Absolutely HUGE List of Color Related Sites!

Someone put together a list of just about every color related resource (worth mentioning) in the known universe. Designers rejoice!

Vista draining laptop batteries, patience

Some of Microsoft’s most important customers aren’t happy with the battery life offered by notebooks running Windows Vista.

Ubuntu Posters for your wall or office door!

Want to show off your Ubuntu pride? Want to help spread awareness there is such a thing as Ubuntu? Or do you just want to decorate your own room? Perhaps one of these community-produced posters are just what you need. Twice the size of the last run, shipped anywhere around the world. You can throw in a few laptop stickers/case badges as well.

Getting Skewed Perspective Screenshots With Photoshop

Dave Shea has an excellent tutorial over on Mezzoblue that shows how to spice up your screenshots by giving them some perspective and a touch of focal blur.