Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft has unveiled its Surface Computer Technology, a project that has been kept under wraps for five years. They have launched its first commercially available Surface Computer , that provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural hand gestures, touch and physical objects.

How does Surface Work?

Surface is essentially a Windows Vista PC tucked inside a shiny black table base, topped with a 30-inch touchscreen in a clear acrylic frame. Five Infra red cameras that can sense nearby objects, hand gestures and touch are mounted beneath the screen. Users can interact with the Surface by touching or dragging their fingertips, with their hands and gestures and by putting real world objects taged with speical bar-code labels on the surface. Unlike most touchscreens, Surface can respond to more than one touch at a time.

Surface key Features

• Users can interact with the digital content and information without the use of a mouse and keyboard. From digital finger painting to a virtual concierge, Surface brings natural interaction to the digital world in a new and exciting way.

• Unlike typical touch screen that responsds to a single touch at a time, Surface Computing recognizes many points of contact simultaneously. The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather around surface computers together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.

• Surface Computer recognizes Object. Users can place physical objects on the surface to trigger different types of digital responses, including the transfer of digital content.

Surface Use

Microsoft is opening up an entirely new category of sharing information. The mutli-touch, mulit-user approach is something that will certainly open some new avenues for interaction with their data in the future. With a price tag between $5,000 and $10,000 per unit, Microsoft is saying that, by the end of this year, consumers will be able to interact with Surface in hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues.

Surface Video

Google got Gears

Introduction

Google has launched Google Gears (BETA) which is an open source Browser Extension that can be used by developers to create Web Application that can run offline. Google Gears is cross-platform, cross-browser and will work with all major browsers (currently Firefox 1.5+ & IE 6+) and is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

How Gears will Work?

Google Gears' APIs will allow you to store and cache application data (HTML, JavaScript, images etc) locally on your desktop, store and access data from within the browser in a database. There will be a worker thread pool module for performing operations in background making web applications more responsive. The first program created with the Gears API is the Google Reader feed-reading application, which is available as of now.

Is it Useful?

One of the biggest drawback of an online applications like Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail, Google Reader etc is that you need a fast and reliable Internet connection to use them. No Connection, No Data. With Google Gears APIs, any developer can can make their own online web applications to work offline. For Users, it would be seamless whether they are connected to the internet or not.

Jaiku.com

What is it?

Jaiku.com is an online social networking service that allows users to share their presence by broadcasting short messages called jaikus about what they are up to, how they are feeling, where they are going etc to a group of friends via Web and mobile. The messages are delivered instantly via Instant Messanging, RSS feeds, Mobile SMS etc to the users who have signed up to receive them. Jaiku gives you your own personal page at http://username.jaiku.com and you can customize your design, add icons, setup your location, share your web feeds.

Social Networking

Internet has turned into one of the social medias ever invented. Social Networking also known as Moblogging or microblogging has emerged as the next big thing on Internet. It has enabled communicating with lot of people from different parts of world all at once with the click of your mouse. It's all about you staying connected 24 hours. There are number of other social networking sites, such as hi5, dodgeball, twitter.

Is it Free?

Everyone can use Jaiku for free. In future they plan to offer pay-for features but the basic service will be free. But remember that if you choose to send or receive Mobile SMS messages, standard Operator SMS rates apply for using Jaiku Mobile. It all depends on your Mobile Plan.

Is it useful?

Anti-Bloggers may think that its for birds but It all depends on how you use it. After all, What most people want today is convergence.

PermGen OutOfMemory

If you are frustrated with Tomcat, JBoss, any other Java Application Server dying with an OutOfMemory Error every few times you redeploy your Java application code or if you have recently installed a new application in your Stable Java Environment and your Tomcat, JBoss is giving you hiccups by intermittently Crashing with OutOfMemory Errors , then keep on reading as I would like to share my thoughts with you as I have experienced the same issue.

You have checked that your Server has lot of Physical RAM, even JVM Heap Memory has been allocated a significant amount of Physical Memory, your Garbage Collection (GC) is tuned properly but you are still getting OutOfMemory error. I am not going to discuss about Java Virtual Machine (JVM) Memory model and Garbage Collection (GC) as this is out of the scope of this article. But you can read the details here

Introduction

SUN Java has a Generational garbage collector. Permanent Generation holds reflective data (meta-data) of the JVM itself, such as class and method objects. These reflective objects are allocated directly into the permanent generation, and it is sized independently from the other generations.[Ref: SUN Java website ]

The Error

SUN Java website says that the default size of PermGen (64 MB for Server) is adequate in most cases but programs that load many classes may need a larger permanent generation. When you hot deploy/redeploy your web application, the WAR file is unpacked and its class definition are loaded into the JVM. These classes are never unloaded and they end up in the Permanent Generation. Now, if you hot deploy your application few times or install a new web application with large code base that loads up lot of class files, the default PermGen space get quickly filled and is never Garbage Collected (by standard GC) causing java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen.

But I have large JVM Heap

It doesn't matter how high is your overall -Xmx heap setting and how much memory you have on the machine. PermGen size i.e. PermSize is additional to the -Xmx value on the JVM Options.

The FIX

There is no garbage collection by standard garbage collection in Permanent Generation. Although concurrent garbage collector can collect in PermGen but this is beyond the scope of this article. I would be rather focussing on increasing the PermGen size.

1. Make sure your Server has enough Physical RAM (considering the allocation to JVM Heap -Xmx).
2. Use larger PermGen size using the Options -XX:PermSize= and -XX:MaxPermSize=
3. e.g. Set the maximum permanent generation size using -XX:MaxPermSize=164m Option.
   

MaxPermSize allows for the JVM to be able to grow the PermSize to the amount specified. Initially when the JVM is loaded, the MaxPermSize will still be the default value (64mb for Server) but will not actually take up that amount until it is needed. But, if you want to Set a new initial perm size on Sun JVM, you can use -XX:PermSize=164m Option when starting the JVM.

Conclusion

• The PermGen default size can be a bottleneck in your Web Applications that dynamically generate and load many classes.
• The PermGen parameters discussed above when applied to the JVM that runs your application server, considerably reduces the chances of running into a PermGen OutOfMemoryError.
  

Free Anti Virus Software

Earlier, there were Viruses but Now a days there are plethora of malicious programs like Trojan Horses, Worms, Spywares, Adwares, Root kits etc that can infect your computer and compromise Confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive information and data on your machine. If you are on an "always-on" Internet connection, You need to have a Security Software that offers REAL TIME PROTECTION. If you want complete protection against Malware, You need at least the following type of Software Applications.

1. Anti-Virus - To protect against Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses.
2. Anti-Spyware - To protect against Spywares, adwares, malicious scripts, unwanted pop ups etc.
3. Firewall - To protect against Network based Attacks (DoS, DDoS), unauthorized Access, restrict Access etc.

I will discuss about the Anti-Virus Softwares for Home Users & Non Commercial Use focusing on the ones which are available for FREE. The following are the important features you must look at an Anti Virus software (whether free or commercial).

• Real Time Protection - AV Software should Always be ON and monitor the system in real time for suspicious activity.
• On Demand Scanner - User should be able to Scan for inactive viruses and malicious programs whenever required.
• Auto Updates - AV Software should be able to download Automatic Updates of Virus Definitions on a frequent basis.
• Heuristics - AV Software should be able to detect and quarantine previously unknown viruses.
• Detection Rate - AV Software should be able to detect almost all known threats with a fast speed.
• Additional features if available like Email Protection, P2P & IM Protection, Scheduler, Reporting/Logs etc.
  

There are lot of commercial AV Softwares that includes all of the above features and much more. But if you are looking for a FREE AV Software for Windows Operating System, then I have compiled a List of the Top Free AV Softwares.

A free Anti-Virus Software by AOL (No, You don't need to Subscribe to AOL), powered by “Kaspersky Antivirus” which is the best AntiVirus on the market and offers excellent detection rates and update frequency that can be expected from Kaspersky. Features includes:

• Real time protection from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spywares, adwares and other potentially dangerous malware
• Email Protection for all E-mail Clients
• On Demand Scanner File/Mail Scanner
• Scheduler, Automatic Hourly Updates
• Variable Scan Speed and hence very little impact on your System Performance
• Easy to Install and Friendly User Interface
• Laptop power saving and HT technology support & Support for 64 bit Windows.
  

Click here to go to Active Virus Shield website.

Grisoft has been offering AVG Free Anti-Virus Solutions to home and non-commercial use for a long time. The Software is very configurable and includes the following features:

• Real Time Protection & E-mail real time protection
• On Demand Scanner & Heuristic Scanning
  
• Auto Updater for both Virus Definitions and Program
• Rescue Disk, Very Configurable easy to Use GUI
• Virus Vault for Quarantined Files, Multilingual support
  

There is No Support, downloads are bit slow and you have to manually move the Quarantined and Infected files to Virus Vault. The Software doesn't scan for spyware and adware. In fact, the have a separate product called AVG Anti-Spyware Free for that purpose.

Click here to go to AVG's Website

Avast! 4 Home Edition is a very feature rich Anti Virus package FREE for home users and non commercial use. The software feature includes

• Real time Resident Protection for Operating System, File System and E-Mail Clients
• Automatic Updates, P2P and Instant Messaging (IM) Shields
• Network Shield that analyzes Network Traffic for Malicious content
• Web Shield that analyzes HTTP Traffic for malicious content
• Heuristic Analysis, Integration with Windows Explorer, Simple Skin based User Interface
  
• Virus Chest for Quarantined files, Boot Time Scanner
  
• Support for 64 Bit Windows, Multiple Language Support.

The Software requires Registration.
Click here to go the website of Avast! 4 Home Edition.

Avira offers FREE of Charge Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic that also comes with new root kit detection. The Software is quick to install and includes following features:

• Real time protection against viruses, worms, Trojan horses
• Protection against expensive dialers and phishing
• On Demand Scanner, Scheduler
• Automatic Updates, Heuristic Scanning
• Detects and deletes root kits
• Friendly GUI with easy to configure options

There is no Email scanner for Email Clients and support is limited. The Software doesn't scan for Spywares and Adwares. The Automatic Updates are slow for the free version.

Click here to go to Avira's Website.

ClamWin is an open source (GPL) Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. The software comes with the following features:

• Standalone virus scanner
  
• Scanning Scheduler, Automatic updates
• Integration with right click menu of Windows Explorer,
  
• Addin for scanning MS Outlook attachments.
  

ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an On-Access Real-Time Scanner. You would need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware. Also, it doesn't scan for Spywares and Adwares.

Click here to go to Clamwin's website.