Compilers

Here is a nice little post on where to get the most common programming language compilers. As has happened in the past, on the request of a friend..

1. C -  GCC {gcc.gnu.org}

2. C++ – Dev C++ {www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html}

3. Assembly – MASM {www.masm32.com}, FASM {flatassembler.net}, NASM {nasm.sourceforge.net}

4. JAVA – JAVA JDK {java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp}

5. Pascal - Free Pascal {www.freepascal.org}

6. Python – {www.python.org}

7. SML - {www.smlnj.org}

8. Visual Basic.NET, ASP.NET, Visual J#, C# – Microsoft Visual Studio {msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio}

9. HTML - No compiler needed. Simply code in Notepad and save as .HTML.

–

A surprising thing I have noted – most of the compilers are programmed in the language they are used for compiling!

Happy Birthday

A very happy birthday to me. I have turned 18 now.

Since it is a special day, may:

- people stop discriminating on the basis of religion and race.

- you adopt open source software. Get Linux. I don’t say don’t use Windows; but prefer using open source. After all, software is meant to be free. At least the code.

- the Manmohan Singh government wake up and stop living in dreams. Quota based on caste is as obsolete as Windows 98.

- you may finally realize that IE sucks and please don’t ask me why. I am sick of explaining to people this simple fact. I get people calling me after messing up their computers. I ask them one simple question. Do you use IE? And they say yes. I tell them to switch over to Firefox. Then they make me go nuts by asking WHY IS IE not GOOD? Damn it.

- if you do use commerical software, buy it. Don’t use cracks or keygens.

- and please don’t outcast an entire community just cause of a few people.

- wish me happy birthday!

Partitioning HardDisks – A Tutorial

This post is for my friend – Faraz, who called me up and asked me about this. So here it is.

Why Partition?

Let us imagine a scenario in which you only one partition (C:\) on your PC. And you have everything on it – all your Mp3s, movies and other documents.

The problems with a single partition are many – your OS can get corrupted, a virus which can’t be removed (yes!), a root-kit or some other problem which is forcing you to format your hard-disk. In such a case, you will lose your all data or you will be forced to backup folder-by-folder to another media – which is a tidy process itself.

This is where partitioning comes in. You have different partitions for everything. One for the OS, the other for the data and someother for your music collection.

In this way, you can safely reinstall your OS – and preserve your data.

How To?

The most common partitioning tool is Partition Magic by Norton, though it is paid (expensive)

I recommend an open source alternative (as usual) called GParted which is based on the Linux kernel. It is fast, easy and FREE.

Go over to http://gparted.sourceforge.net and download the ISO (30 MB, fits on a biz-CD). Burn it to a CD and then boot your PC from the GParted Live CD. It will allow you to create, move or resize your partitions.

Common filesystems :

Windows – FAT,  FAT32 and NTFS

Linux – ext2, swap

BTW, found a very good blog related to daily health problems. I suggest you go over and read it! Health Blog

Embedding YouTube Videos

This post is specially for F Ahmad {www.punjaban.wordpress.com}, a mysterious Punjabi!

A simple and nice explanation on how to embed videos from Youtube.com on your WordPress blog.

First, head over to youtube.com and browse to the video of your choice. Next, copy the URL (the address) {can be found under the 'About Video' column or the address field of your browser}

{For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ii_ewMk5X8}

Then, in your post editor, simple write:

Taking the above example:

That is all! Enjoy!

Virtualization

I had heard about something called Virtualization: to run multiple Operating Systems simultaneously. I had nothing else to do, so decided to give this a shot.

First, as always I went over to Wikipedia and here is what I found.

I decided to try VMware, downloaded a trial version and then I was raring to go.

The host operating system was Windows XP. I installed Windows 98 SE as guest operating system and here I was! Running two Operating Systems side-by-side! It looked way too cool!

Then I installed Ubuntu. So now I am running 3 Operating Systems: at once.

The good thing about virtualization is that the guest operating systems are isolated from the host operating system. The guest OS can be used for software testing and to run software that you doubt about. (The best example: software cracks)

Screenshots:
1. Windows 98SE on Windows XP.

2. Ubuntu Linux on Windows XP.

Run Multiple Instances of GTalk

If you've got many Gmail accounts and don't want to keep logging on and off them every time you switch, a simple command line parameter in the Google Talk shortcut can solve your problem.

• First, create one copy of the Google Talk shortcut on your desktop – leave the original intact.
• Right click on this shortcut and choose Properties. The Target box will show you the path of the EXE for Google Talk – something like "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe"
• Change this to: "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /nomutex
  and click OK.

{ FOR SCREENSHOT, CLICK HERE }

You will now be able to run multiple instances of Google Talk with different identities for each.

Why Google rocks

1. Search Engine – Google is without doubt the best search engine. No matter how much Microsoft (MSN) or Yahoo! try to match up with it, they will never succeed. What Google can ‘crawl’ and hence display; no search engine can. And never will.

2. Mail – Now this one is easy to understand. Gmail offers 2600MB space (and counting), offers free POP access, has a great interface and now has chat. Yahoo! also has 1000MB space; it fails on other things. I don’t even want to talk about Hotmail. It stinks.

3. Blogging – Blogspot is for me the next best alternative to WordPress. Although both serve their purpose; the coolest thing for me on Blogspot is the feature to include AdSense on the site. This is something that WordPress should really offer. I mean, its almost necessary.

4. Desktop Search – The desktop search is not only confined to searching for files, it includes a host of many other features. Copernic Desktop Search is the next alternative, at least for me.

Make Love, Not War: Peace

: Let there be peace in the world. Don’t discriminate on the basis of religion or race. :

Hey!

Now even Albert Einstein is endorsing for my blog!

Google PageRank

I just noticed that the Google PageRank for my blog has gone up to 4/10! Earlier it was a big zero, but now I think that 4/10 rating is a lot better since even the top blog on WordPress has got 7/10. And I am nowhere even near the fastest growing blogs. How Google PageRank works is of course something that I am not aware about, yet it is good for me!

Microsoft.com has a PageRank of 9/10 while Macromedia.com has got a 10/10. Wow!

What does this PageRank indicate? I am not sure. It is way too much complex.