google search history

google search history beta in up and running. you need a google account to log into it. It lets you search (again) on your past searches.

at this rate google is expanding into the desktop lives of an average user. sounds like microsoft in early 80's. :-)

dont have much to write on google search tonite. am sleepy, but go ahead and check it out here

vonage experience....

ok, got the vonage package today. as you open the package, you will notice a vonage cap included in the package. now thats a unique way to put more vonage 'engineers' out there on the road.past the cap, you will see the usual paperwork, user guides, and deals. past that layer you will get to the meat of it: the linksys rt31p2 broadband router with 2 phone ports (in my case atleast).

i am on a sbc-yahoo dsl package. off to the dsl modem, which also acts as a wireless access point for me (2wire home portal). switch off the dsl modem and in goes a rj connector from my phone to the phone 1 jack on back of linksys rt31p2. next i connect a ethernet cable from my dsl modem (ethernet port) to the internet port on rt31p2 router. power on the dsl modem, power up the linksys router. next i connect another ethernet cable from the linksys ethernet port 1 to my laptop network port, to access the linksys router at 192.168.15.1. i didnt have to do much there, and i went straight to the status tab to see phone line 1 registered and idle. I pick up the phone and get a dial tone, and dial to my cell phone. the status changes to ringing and i get connected on voip call.

so far so good. next up, i ring up a long distance (chicago-vancouver) call and talk on for around 30 minutes. suddenly i noted i was not able to browse on my laptop while i was oncall via vonage. no sites opening up nothing. time to hit the configurations. i couldnt see much where i can change the settings, except at the QOS setting for voice which i set at 256kbps (for my ~340kbps dsl). next up i browse to my account on vonage and edit the bandwidth saver setting in dashboard. default is 90 (highest). i move the slider to mid (50) and note that these changes dont take effect upto one hour.i make a call again, generating enough noise on the call to keep the circuit flowing with traffic and note that i am able to browse net this time.

i am not sure what helped me out, as my vonage experience is around 4 hours at the moment, so i am gonna play with the settings and tweak to optimal performance in both data and voice. also i remember that i set the mtu at 1492 instead of 1500 (default) in linksys config page.next up, waiting to do some international tests. so look out for that, right here!

windows installer 3.1

windows installer 3.1 was made available by microsoft on april 11. it is now being delivered by windows update. some of the updates and features and fixes that are included in this release are here

one month of free vonage service

......need that? leave a comment here and get a reference from me for your one month free when you sign up at vonage!

vonage update

ok, i ordered the vonage package today. $24.99 unlimited us and canada. ironically i was not able to get rid of my sbc phone line as i need that to piggyback my dsl service (where is naked dsl sbc!!!). i just need to get rid of all the features on my sbc line and just keep it for dsl connectivity. got a number alloted instantly, which i tested by calling into and getting a voicemail. cool part is vonage emails you about incoming voicemails and you can listen to the voicemails online, anywhere,anytime. now that is moving forward.
more updates on setup and qos when i get my package.

java native interface

JNI is a standard way to make native calls from your java applications. this flexibility lets you give freedom from writing code for some native functionalities which your java application wants to use. you leave the native functionality on the native platform underneath your java layer and you concentrate on your application code.
its a small set of programing interfaces, but has a little steep curve to learn, especially getting used to the datatypes made available to you by the interfaces and passing arguments between your java application and the native (c++ dll for example). yes, you can even load up java objects in your c++ code and access its methods. you are provided with an environment pointer that lets you access the vm under which this call was made.
now that is fun; to create & load up java objects in your c++ code and if needed return it back to your java application.
stay tuned for some sample code making native calls from java.

and there it is! the mighty sears tower, high up among other skyscrapers! oh yeah, i have to go down on my knees to get this shot from the boat. but came out good, aint it? 

atlast. sunny days. no more dull gray cold weather.chicago!!!! yeah that was exactly what i thought yesterday (sat) when we ent to downtown chicago. and it was amazing! up here is a cruise ship at navy pier. we were in a seadog.

thats us on a architecture cruise of chicago, along side the chicago river. it is always fun to go on this ride. lots of history and great architecture to see.

ms web data administrator part II

my last post talked about much of my sunday morning spent installing the web data administrator from microsoft and get it working with msde.
now as i am able to log into the web console and connect to my msde instance and a sqlserver 2000 instance on another machine, i can see some web access to my databases.
the ui is a typical web application. one thing that you note is absence of branding from microsoft in this product, naybe because its a beta product or more that that, its a by-product of some weekend code by someone on msde team.
the code itself looks non-production at the moment, as you experience lot of 'application error' pages while doing some basic stuff (like navigating to Logins section) which I was not able to consistently reproduce on different machines.
isnt it an attempt to mock oracle 10g's web enterprise manager? can be. but if it is, then it has a long way to go. oracle web enterprise manager is much faster, neater and functionality rich. best part of oem is the svg powered real time graphs.
i guess i am gonna wait for a much stable version of web data administrator.

ms web data administrator

ok, its a nice sunny sunday today. and i dunno why and how i got involved with the microsoft web data adminsitrator.
so far i have installed/reinstalled the msde 2000 4 times, trying to get the ms wda working with msde 2000.
there should be another post soon about the features of ms web data administrator. look out.

gmail b'day gifts.

gmail turned 1 this week. as a gift to the users, the still beta gmail, offered more storage space to its users. its based on a concept they call as infinity + 1. now when you see the gamil login page, it has a running counter of total storage space for each user. for me its ticking at 2050 mb at the moment and still counting.
another feature was rich text support, which enables a rich text toolbar at the top.
also introduced was full support for non compliant broswers, which do not support the javascript based functionalities on the pages.

when would gmail come out of beta? is google stil pouring in new ideas, and keeping it from a release?