Asking on Quora

Vidit Bhargava
I've seen a lot of weird (and frankly stupid) questions on Quora off late. There seems to be a confusion of sorts on what to ask on Quora, given the broad terms in which Quora summarizes itself. Here's a small diagram that might help:

- This is by no means an exhaustive list. There's a lot more that'll yield great answers on Quora.

- Note: Along with Reading a book you can refer to Wikipedia as well. But don't forget to see the citations over there. Wikipedia articles while almost accurate, are easily manipulable and take some time get moderated.

Introducing MVDITTECHBOOK.COM

Vidit Bhargava

This is the one big i have been waiting to announce:

MVDIT TECH BOOK - Upgrade

In July 2007, I was struck by an idea. The idea was fairly simple. Creating a “Magazine” that would give information about all the latest Tech-Happenings, free of cost. The Digit magazine came with a price tag of Rs. 150, at a time where Information was available free to all through the internet. Why then, should we pay that much to seek Information from one place. Why not, just have a free-to-read e-zine(Electronic - Magazine), for all tech happenings. I wrote about Technology every-month, and posted the same on my blog. Later, This would not continue. MVDIT TECH BOOK, Needed a Website from where the visitors would download the PDF. Fairly Simple to task to make a website, but a mammoth task to have visitors. But that will be talked about later. Over the years, my e-zine has grown from a hobby, to a large project, and most recently I expanded it to the waters of tech-Blogging. Today, I am going to announce, an upgrade to my website and e-zine project.

Simplified HTML5 + CSS3.0 Code:
MVDIT TECH BOOK, has always believed in keeping up with Standards. Its no-use having a web-site that doesn’t run on Multiple Device Platforms. Most of them, today are Mobile Phones and iPads. Since, We Believe, IE6 is getting quite non-existent, and Firefox and Chrome and Safari have taken a place in the World of Tech-Savvy Audience (Our Readers), We have made our website fully equipped and running with HTML5 and enhanced CSS in its blood. The Code has also been “Simplified” reducing the hard-work of updating a website every-time an article is written, or a magazine is published, by more than 80%. A Central File in each directory, now Controls the navigations of the Website. So all of the work of updating a Navigation Panel in each page of the website after an article is written, has been cut-down to 1 in each directory. This also increases the efficiency of our Website.

A New Completely Revamped Design:
We also thought, that along with this major HTML update, we should pep-up the Website UI. We did this by adding a cool-new background to our website, and making the home-page more information friendly than before. Now you don’t need to Look Anywhere for the Latest from our Website. It is there, in front of your eyes, all the time.

The News (Earlier known as Announcements), Reviews, and Games Section has also had a UI shift. We’ve Shifted to a completely new UI, that has never been seen before, on any website. The New UI Provides the User an Interactive Experience while reading the articles. It is as many say, Better Looked at, than talked about!

New Navigation Panel
A Simple Tweek, Suggested by Mudit. The Navigation panel is now slicker and much more proportional. We’ve changed the Announcements to News and Added a new Tab for Archives.

MVDIT ROBO CLUB:
A word about the Robo-Club, You will notice that the MVDIT ROBO-CLUB has gone from the navigation pane. The Robo-Club had been non-functional since the past few months. We had already announced an indefinite suspension of the MVDIT ROBO-CLUB from our e-zine. We haven’t Scrapped the Idea completely and we hope to bring it back with better more efficient ways to operate it.

More Efficient Disqus Comment System
The Disqus Comments System, the one which is used for the “News, Reviews and Games” Section has now been upgraded with Mobile Device Compatibility and Image based comments. Also, Now You can login through any email-account or even anonymously post a comment.

YouTube Channel
YouTube has been one of the most Dormant Section of this E-zine. We have done a little work to improve on it. Initially We Will Be Uploading and Displaying the Company Released Videos of the Latest Announcements, and in the near future we plan to upload our own videos and views on the Latest in Technology.

Wallaby Testing
Wallaby is one of the most interesting pieces of project ever introduced by Adobe AIR. While Adobe maintains its love for the Web-Based Flash Content, at the same time it is providing a choice to the developers to change their Flash Files to an HTML5 and CSS equipped HTML page. Although, in its early development stages, we got a chance to test Wallaby, and We are pleased to know that in the later, more stable editions of Adobe Wallaby, the page-curl “will” most certainly be convertible to HTML5 content and hence be allowed to be played on all platforms.

And One More Thing
We Will Soon Be Upgrading our Domain. More Information will be Provided in the Next Post.

Mudit & Vidit Bhargava
MVDIT TECH BOOK

An Evening With JoliCloud

Vidit Bhargava

JoliOS or Jolicloud is one of the rare fascinating Linux Based Operating Systems, that have appealed me. All others, Fedora, Open Suse, and What Not are on the Same Lines as Ubuntu. The Father of those operating system and by far the most widely used, and accepted Linux based operating Systems. All others seem to have gone to the Gallows. JoliCloud is however different. You can see that, in the above Screenshot.

The New Brilliantly and Uniquely Designed UI of the JoliCloud strikes a Chord, amongst the youth. It is funky, it is intuitive and it is the sort of thing you would love to use.

Coming to the important part now, What is essentially different from all other Operating Systems. Just the UI? No of course not. It is the Cloud in the JoliCloud Which makes it so JoliGood To use. Everything is on the cloud. From your Microsoft Office (You heard it right) to Your Music Player (I am currently listening to music over the cloud). Even your desktop loads through the internet. It is a cloud based operating system through and through. It takes "only" 4GB of Disk Space and liv es and works on Web Apps and a Nicely designed Chromium based Webkit Browser.

WebApps: The WebApps are good as well as bad. While WebApps like Office Live, SoundCloud Player and Dropbox make the operating system top-notch. The WebApp Market hasn't evolved much yet. Unlike the Mobile App Market or the Software Industry. The WebApp market hasn't actually had a launch-pad yet. It has potential, yes. In the age of 3G Internet and Broadband Access, The WebApp market 'can' make an impact. However it is growing, and yet to reach a stage where a main-frame operating system can lead. Having said that, JoliCloud has a few notable WebApps:

1. NewsMap: Simple RSS App. Gives an Attractive Metro UI sort of feel to the whole NewsFeed thing. And Makes News Reading an Slightly Easier Experience

2. CloudPlayer by SoundCloud: This one is fun. I have always liked the idea of a web-based music player. And with a sort of library that soundcloud possesses is ideal for CloudMusic. CloudPlayer gets a thumbs up from me!

3. Mougg: It is the Same Music over Cloud idea as SoundCloud, but this time, you have a private cloud to share music. So, You can listen to only your favorite songs.

4. OfficeLive and Google Docs: These aren't actually web-apps, I won't call on them so. While Microsoft Provides the familiar Microsoft Office to all "Computer" Platforms, Google Docs lacks that popularity but extends help to everyone who needs it. So both Mobile devices and Computers are in-sync. Also Google is more simple and hence better if you ask me.

5. Simplenote: One of the most elegant web-apps of the JoliCloud Platform. Simple Note is just Simple. You get a two-column layout. One displaying your list of notes (Synced through web and covering all mobile devices) and the other displaying your current note. By Far my favorite.

JoliCloud also comes pre-installed with a VLC Player which provides the best software for Watching Video. And then you have Youtube to look videos, which play without a problem.

These apps need no-reviewing. They are good, as I mentioned before. But They are less. And Indeed very less. Hence, building an Operating System on it works only to some extent.

The Lack of a Graphics Software, poses serious threat to the usability of the Operating System, all Linux based OS have a GIMP but this doesn't have it.

Games are a big problem, with this cloud-based OS. Unless, you aren't a big fan of web-games you will find, No reason to use this OS for Gaming. It is Horrible at it. Believe me!

Performance wise, there is not much problem, SoundCard Drivers are pre-installed, Multimedia controllers o fmy keyboard work well, There is a little problem with NVIDIA's Graphic Driver, and some sort of glitchy-wild-image with binary digits appears every time the computer goes to sleep, but overall it is at par. Also JoliCloud loads faster than ubuntu. There is also a lack in the number of fonts that come installed with the OS, not many.

I would conclude here, by saying, You can chuck your windows operating system for JoliCloud if you are using a netbook or windows based tablet. But JoliCloud Has A Long Way to Go to Actually Pose a Threat to Windows, or other Linux Platforms. Oh well, on a brighter side it does provide a new option to use linux.

JoliCloud is not for Tech-Savvy it is for the Web-Savvy audience.

-- JoliCloud OS also comes as a Web-app for Chrome.

Transition of Interactive Web-Content - Flash to HTML5

Vidit Bhargava

As I type this article on my iPod Touch which is attached wirelessly to my Apple Keyboard, I wonder, how many of you are actually going to read it on a "big-giant Personal Computer", Which is probably acquiring as much as a Table of your room? It is not Hidden, the fact that today, people either use their mobile phones, their iPads, or other sources of On-the Go Internet. Nobody, wants to start that large machine sitting innocently on the table, taking all the time in the world, just to show up a petty desktop screen, which by the way seems much far from an Interactive User Interface (Touted as being so, in the late 90s). They'd rather wake up their phones from the sleep to browse the internet, check their mails, visit content intensive websites or just take a tour to the App Store.

One of the things these mobile devices generally don't have is Genuine Adobe Flash compatibility. Yes, Android provides it to the users, but it is currently half baked and people generally hate it. The reason, is simple, They don't want it on a touch-screen. Flash just doesn't work, when it comes to touch-screen based content.

On the tablets, its a completely different story, iPad amounts to about 90% of Tablet Sales. It doesn't provide the users with Flash Compatibility, this means that out of millions who are using a tablet, most of them using an iPad, browse the internet without accessing millions of websites with flash content.

All this in-short makes the flash technology, which was at the pinnacle of its power before the arrival of the Post- PC devices, look slump. It is now, widely seen as Stale, premature and of a different world.

The new cool is something else. Something that is tightly integrated with the web, it doesn't require a plug-in to enter your phones, computers, laptops or tablets. HTML5!

Now, Let me make it clear, HTML5 is a programming language version of HTML, certified by W3C. And Flash is a proprietary Software for creating Interactive Web-Content. The main debate is over as to which option is better for displaying media content. Flash or HTML5? However, HTML5 implementation with CSS and Java Scripting has made it more powerful than flash over time, in displaying interactive content. And since, flash is not available for many mobile devices, developers are moving towards the HTML5 implementation of Interactive content.

Today, when you log on to your GMAIL ID, you see a cool new feature, that allows you to drag and drop files to attach them to the email. You don't know the technicalities, of course. For you its something that's coming for free, without the hassles of installing a plugin on your device. What you don't know is that the web is now, shifting its base to HTML5. Adopting the new standard.

However, in a completely opposite scenario, you go to a gaming website, start a game, only to find that flash is not supported on your device. You do not know much about the technicalities, but what you know from then onwards is, that gaming website is awful, It didn't work on your expensive gadget. The user won't wait for flash compatibility on his gadget but he'll look elsewhere, for a better experience, for a better website.

Those two instances, teach us as developers, something. The developer, must keep pace with the new standards, the new tech. So that the user has no problem using his website. It's not the gadget that is going to mould into the website, its the website that has to mould into the gadget.

Developers learnt this lesson very early last year. The result was the staggering boycott of flash content, flash video and flash games.

Major Newsgroups like CNN, BBC, NYTimes shifted their flash-based videos, and picture content to HTML5. An outright boycott of Flash Video, resulted in sites like Vimeo and Youtube adopting standards like the H.264, both the websites increased their compatibility for Mobile Devices. Slowly but eventually they made sure that HTML5 reached the PCs too. Young developers, adopted HTML5 even faster, within months, new games like the Galactic Inbox and Letter Wars came up. They were not flash, yet they were a huge success. Web-Development firms, started providing HTML5 templates. Eventually HTML5 over-shadowed flash, as the new Interactive-Web Standard. And all this was quick, within months.

The bigger challenge was web-browser compatibility. About 70% of users still used the old haggard and ragged Internet Explorer. While, Safari, Crome, Firefox and Opera provided HTML5 compatibility, these browsers have not yet reached to every computer-using soul. But this March, the world marched on to complete HTML5 compatibility, that is IE9 was launched. And Sources reveal that it reached 2.9 Million Downloads within hours.

More, evidence of the Flash demise can be seen from Adobe. Adobe Labs, announced earlier this month, the beta version of Adobe Wallaby. An AIR tool, that allows the developers to convert their Flash Content into usable HTML5 Code. Adobe has accepted defeat. They know, now that if there is any thing left for Flash, it is to be friends with HTML5.

Summary : Flash ain't the Web-Developer's most Pampered kid anymore, They've ever so happily embraced HTML5. For the user, unaware of this standard's war, is quickly getting glued to this new technology in many ways. And the most interesting part, he might not know what HTML5 is but he'll surely know that there is something different on Youtube for his iPad or that some websites just got more interactive.

But who knows in the un-foreseen future, HTML5 might be beaten red and blue with a new Web-Standard which may take over the HTML5 legacy, much faster than HTML5 took over Flash.

Sent from my iPod

Stick Cricket iOS App - Review

Ah! You see, I've been better than my word! Here's a new blog-post, in just no time!

Game : Stick Cricket

Rating : 8.6/10

Price: Free

Vidit Bhargava

You've got a paper toss game to pass your time throwing paper. You've got a game to shoot birds at pigs, you've got a game for everything but you don't have one decent game for Cricket. Well, now you've got one. Its the same one, you play while on the internet. Yes, you heard it Stick Cricket is now on iOS.

Eh Bien! For those of you who have already played it, you'd know, the game is addictive. It is super addictive. You've got no tension of bowling full length 50 overs or getting hit for runs, you just need to sit and hit sixes (with some good timing), that's it. And score as much as you can. Its Cricket, but its far more fun playing on the iPod (the iPad app hasn't arrived yet).

Gameplay: Its snappy. You've got 5 Overs to score as many runs as you can. Or you can chase down a hefty total and dominate the world world with a bunch of oldies (the likes of Jayasurya and Gavaskar).

What hampers the experience is a block! You don't get a full experience for free. After dominating three teams in the domination, you cannot dominate more "Without paying $2.99". More so, the two-player mode is disappointingly also in that $2.99 package. Then there is a whole world cup in front of you which cannot be played before upgrading. All This is free on the internet version of the game by the way.

Graphics: You don't expect great graphics from this game. Its the classic, stick-figure game. So you won't be seeing a next-generation graphic render of the Sachin Tendulkar while playing India in the all-star slog. So you see, graphics is not a forte of the Stick Cricket App.

GameCenter integration : Ok, now you've scored the runs, you paid some money, you've mastered your skills on the App, and won the world cup. Can you have competition? Oh... Yes, its the natural GameCenter integration you've got here. You can challenge your friends on the All-Star Slog to hit the maximum number of runs. You can get some wild achievements too like "Scoring a Century by one batsmen in 5 overs" or "Scoring 36 in an over" . Also, on the world stage you can compete, with the highest run-scorers. (I've not risen above the 725th Rank so far! )

Addictivity Meter: Angry Birds is addictive. Yes. Paper Toss is Addictive. Yes. But can a cricket game have so much power, to be addictive enough? The answer depends on the fact that how-much of a cricket fan "you" are. Well, I am a giant fan, in that matter. So My answer is Yes! It is as addictive than any other app in the app store.

Wrap-Up: Cricket fans will love it. The gamers will crib over the graphics. While the guys, who play for fun, will be playing it for hours until the batteries die.

MVDIT I.T. Person of the Year 2010

Vidit Bhargava

Julian Assange. That was the "Buzz" word all over the globe. From a low profile hacker, only shown in good quizzes as a tough question to a completely household name that was his transition throught the earth. Born on 3 July 1971 The Whistleblower is primarily the owner of WikiLeaks.

Assange was born in Queensland, Australia and served much of his life living on the magnetic island. In 1987, after turning 16, Julian Assange began hacking under the name "Mendax". He and two other hackers joined to form a group which they named the International Subversives.

In response to the hacking, the Australian Federal Police raided his Melbourne home in 1991. He was reported to have accessed computers belonging to an Australian university, the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel, the USAF 7th Command Group in the Pentagon and other organisations.In 1992, he pleaded guilty to 24 charges of hacking and was released on bond for good conduct after being fined a certain 2100 Australian Dollars. Here is what the prosecutor had to say about him:

"There is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to—what's the expression—surf through these various computers".

So you see Assange's Magic had already begun. Later in the 20th Century Assange was involved in various activities but none was too big as What would come in the future. Assange once commented that he was actually proud of the hacking phase of his life, and wasn't in the least embarrased.

Wikileaks

WikiLeaks is easily the most important thing that has happened to Julian Assange. In 2006 Wikileaks.org was born. The site claims to have been "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa". So you see it is a complete misconception that wikileaks is Assange's creation. There is no formal identification of the Wikileaks but is only represented by Julian Assange and others since January 2007. Assange describes himself as the member of the advisory board.

In March 2010, WikiLeaks released a secret 32-page U.S. Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report written in March 2008 discussing the leaking of material by WikiLeaks and how it could be deterred. In April, a classified video of the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike was released, showing two Reuters employees being fired at, after the pilots mistakenly thought the men were carrying weapons, which were in fact cameras. In July, WikiLeaks released 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009 to The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel. The documents detail individual incidents including friendly fire and civilian casualties.

Following on from the leak of information from the Afghan War, in October 2010, around 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War where released in October. The BBC quoted The Pentagon referring to the Iraq War Logs as "the largest leak of classified documents in its history." Media coverage of the leaked documents focused on claims that the U.S. government had ignored reports of torture by the Iraqi authorities during the period after the 2003 war.

In December 2010. The wikileaks.org domain was killed and just 4 hours later Wikileaks was up again with a completely new domain. Wikileaks.ch . Now thats what you call determination.

So er.. This is what Wikileaks has been doing throughout the year. The rapid growth in the visitor levels have been seen throughout 2010. From a mere hacker Julian Assange had turned into a public figure. Launching leaks one after the other. Ripping (or Opening, whichever you might love to call!) the US Government through the largest leaks the world has ever seen. And All this while sitting at home and sipping a coffee in front of his computer. (ER.. That's not actually true, but Hey it really does sound epic. Ain't it?).

For all that Assange did this year. The James Bond of Hacking. The Whistleblower, Julian Assange gets the MVDIT I.T. Person of the Year Award.

Hero of the Year 2010

In a sense, Zuckerberg and Assange are two sides of the same coin. Both express a desire for openness and transparency. While Assange attacks big institutions and governments through involuntary transparency with the goal of disempowering them, Zuckerberg enables individuals to voluntarily share information with the idea of empowering them. Assange sees the world as filled with real and imagined enemies; Zuckerberg sees the world as filled with potential friends. Both have a certain disdain for privacy: in Assange's case because he feels it allows malevolence to flourish; in Zuckerberg's case because he sees it as a cultural anachronism, an impediment to a more efficient and open connection between people.

After reading the extract you won't be surprised at the title. You know now what Time wants to convey through that message. Assange was considered d-villain. Call him the bad guy or Call him James Bond of hacking, its up to you. But the truth is he is the deserving PERSON OF THE YEAR. Even if TIME gives it to the 'Hero', Zuckerberg, who did those supposedly 'good deeds'.

P.S. - Zucker's sure to get on the good kid list of Santa this year :P .

** The post is in no offense to Mark Zuckerberg and intends at causing no harm to the prestigious TIME. These are just the personal views of a blogger.

Hotpot For Hotspots

Vidit Bhargava

Google Hotpot was unveiled today. Here's a video that Explains the Google Hotpot:

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P.S. All content shown in the video was for demonstration purposes. I may not have necessarily visited the place.

Project Titan - Explained in one Video

Vidit Bhargava

Yesterday, Facebook launched a new service which they had been developing for as long as one year. Internally codenamed as Project Titan, the new messaging feature of Facebook is very complex. This post should make it simpler for you!

The Upgrade now page explains a little about what this new thing is about.

But there is still more explanation to be given, so here's a video from Facebook's side to give more information: