kaputnik

Personally I think that it'll be a multiple bunch of technologies that'll change the way technology is viewed and will be radically new technologies in themselves - stuff, that's current fiction. I'm actually doing a bit of research while I'm writing this out. And the insights I have so far make me more curious about where we'll land up in the next 10 years. First and foremost - computing. Where will computers land up? As the size of chips get smaller and smaller, and the circuitary gets all the more cramped, we're going to hit a physical barrier, where we cant get any smaller, and not any faster with the chip technology. That's when we're going to have to look at alternative computing. Enter 'Quantum Computing' A defination of a quantum computer I found goes like this: Basically it is using atoms, to solve problems quicker by utilizing the multiple states that atoms can exist in (unlike regular computing where there's either a 'yes' state or a 'no' state. Quantum computers are slated to make computing a snap, and will relegate most serious computing that we really involve ourselves in, as totally behind the scenes. Medicine The next thing that will seriously affect society as we know it is biotechnology, and more spicifically, bio medicine, where medication as well a cirtain degree of bio engineering will enable humans (and possibly other animals) to regenerate cells, around the body as well as provide a proactive illness fighting system. Imagine getting a large cut, and there in front of your eyes, the body will just go ahead and heal itself. Nano-technology 'The meek will inherit the Earth' - well I don't know about meek, but definately the minute... Nano-tech will enable very many things like the ability to draw water from moisture in the air, since millions of tiny machines embedded in our every day furniture and maybe even our walls will act as distilling units that will absorp and collect water. Or how about unloading a bunch of bluetooth self replicating nano machines, who's only concern is to behave like a hive, make more nano machines from basic raw materials onsite, like dust and grit, and moul themselves into a livable structure. there's a lot of possibilities here. All these things will get the shock effect that one notch higher on the scale. When my dad was a little kid, they'd never dremt of TV's, never imagined that pictures in motion would be telecast across the planet. Tomorrow, we may grow old and wonder about what happened to the lazy old days when we could make only a hundred and fifty phone calls, go to 6 meetings in a day and drive 2 hours to and from work. What with all the excitement that fuure technology holds, we may just be doing all the communicating, by directly connecting to someone else's mind. A great topic to do more research on.

hummmm... All along I've gotten so used to just 'Googling' everything, I've nearly gone into wonderland there. Yahoo I also use very frequently. I've seen a few posts regarding hotbot, but I've actually never come across the search before. Matter of fact, this is the first time I'm hearing of Hotbot... must make sure I give it a go. One of the worst search engines I've ever used is the Altavista engine. Never seem to find the 'kind' of results I'm mooking for. THen again, its probably the way I make out my queries that must be the problem there. Google though I'm quite happy with. Mostly because it loads really quickly, has a clutter free interface and renders the search result (as the canotneese might say) chop-chop quick...!!

mmm.. I got an e-mail stating that my disk usage was critical, when I looked around my CPanel.. things looked pretty all right, but I went ahead and did a bit of deleting my log files which were building up.. but other than that... nothing seems out of the place.. lols.. but I guess its okay to get a scare every once in a while just so you drop in on your account and look around..

The international scenario is pretty much a hotch potch... the primary reason being... for interpol to take any sort of action.. a law broken must be common across borders... for example.. a person who has been observed smoking a joint and is escaping the law (U.S.) by travelling to the Netherlands (where possession of week is legal, but trading is illegal) will not be arrestable, or may not be extridited back to the continental U.S. But, for instance, this smae person decides to take a flight down to India, and entry is recorded at an airport/port, then since both India and the U.S. have common law regarding weed, the person gets busted and is shipped right back Stateside. There's a lot of problems of the same nature with art... across the world, except in a few select countries, the theft of artwork is against the law. However, in Japan, although theft of art is illegal, purchase of stolen art is not illegal as long as the 'purchase of an artwork' is declared - after which, should there be no claim to the artwork as being stolen and therefore a petition to reclaim is made/ or not made.. the art officially becomes the rightful property of the buyer after a full year after the artwork has been bought. Law concerning the internet is another area that is very hotly contested amongst interpol nations. For example, a lot of countries are not very happy with the internet law in India at present. Mostly when it comes to spamming. This is because in India, an e-mail is not considered to be spam if the sender's name is mentioned. Even if the e-mail sent out is unsolicited. India has off late become a hotbed for spammers because of this. The reason for this is democracy. In India, the common person has civil rights far more privlidged than in most countries around the world. The cost for this is that these rights may be taken away from an individual without any recourse by most authorities, by citing any of a verity of laws which allow for an arrest without a warrant, or holding a person without contact. Getting back to P2P law, India considers the piracy of copyrighted material to be illegal, and there is heavy advertising in the country to educate the general public not to involve themselves in piracy. However, the use of P2P software is very strong, and nearly everyone this side of the world utilizes P2P software to search for and download files which may be copyrighted.

I've now been using Redhat for a month... it's pretty stable although I've had problems attaching my external Samsung CDRW. What I'm thinking of doing now is to install the OS again with the CDRW attached so that it is recognised during the installation. Also, there are a bunch of libraries missing which relate to secure communication (such the channels used for MSN).. other than that it is just rock and roll time... I've spent a lot of time getting used to the little quirks that Redhat has, but as soon as one's marginally profecint in Linux (like I like to think I'm getting) everything becomes pretty simple to understand and improve upon. Before Redhat, I tried out Debian & Fedora Core... both excellent, but unfortunately, at that time I had no clue on how to configure my internet to my service providers wireless modem, and they had support ony for Redhat... :lol:Rashid Ahmed

Yeah.. I got the same Error... Also the colours a re really light... I had a bit of a time diffrentiating the test boxes in the shoutbos from the rest of the BG... I'm currently using a hi res LCD monitor... so I actially tilted the screen to make out that there is a diffrence in colour... THe site theme and template are dope... I just loved it... you have some serious artistic talent that you can really utilise out here... overall really fascinating stuff.. All the very best.. Rashid Ahmed

Well the simplest way would of course to be to share the folder... Right click on the folder and go to properties > click on sharing > 'Share this folder" and then if you have bigtime security setup on your network, put in the computers/ users that may access the folder you have shared... All in all it would take you about a minute to set this up... All the best... Rashid Ahmed

Hi... when I started off with PHP.. right up to the present, I've found it a lot easier to go from prewritten scripts which I then study and configure when I need to, to come up with what I require... There are a whole bunch of sites out there that allow you to do this... one of the best I've founf so far is: php.resourceindex.com I actually started using the resources there when I was only doing HTML and using a whole lot of JavaScript... then I noticed that Javascript is interpreted by different machines differently... so I looked out for an alternative to HTML that would offer me greater interaction.. so I did some research.. and came up with PHP and ASP... looking out a bit more.. there seemed to be a whole lot more free PHP hosts than ASP... so I dived right into PHP.. well I haven't really dived in much.. but as a hobby I've spent a good deal of time getting my logic and understanding in place... a few other resource sites you may look at are: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ http://www.phpjunkyard.com/ http://www.scriptdownloads.com/ http://www.hotscripts.com/ (This one's good) All the best with PHP... you'll find it very functional, modular (you can create scripts that you just need to plug in where you need it) Rashid Ahmed

My ancient laptop gives me more juice than my office deskptop.. they were bought at about the same time.. down here in India, you'd get similar configs for both your laptop and your desktop all at about the same cost... in fact, it is soon going to become cheaper and more sensible to use a laptop than a desktop... unless you're a hardcore gamer.. then of course, you'd be better off with a desktop, with a heavy duty graphics and video card.A decent Laptop this side of the world would come in at about INR60000/- which would compute to USD1350/- (would bring in a DVD/CDRW, 512 Ram, 60 GB HDD, appx 2.8 GhZ processor, with Windows Professional, also wireless lan, bluetooth and at least will have an IrDA port)However a similar configuration from any of the major branded vendors would hit the pocket with about INR5000/- (about USD100/-) lesser... so for the convenience that a decent laptop would provide you... I guess it makes a lot of sence to go in for a laptop... also, a desktop will not come in with wireless connectivity or the plethora of inbuilt or plug and play ports that come in with a decent laptop... A desktop is great for upgrading whenever there's new hardware available... then again, this costs a bit of cash... fotunately there is enough of a market for second hand laptops to make it nearly effectively viable to just sell your laptop , put in a similar amount of cash and upgrade your machine...Laptop it is for me... Rashid Ahmed

When you log into your Cpanel, you click on Fantastico... there's a link there which will enable you to install PHP Nuke... If you want to do it the more fun way (and save on a lot of space) you may choose to do a manual install.... First: Go to the PHP Nuke site on Sourceforge and download the latest (free) version... at present it is 7.0 available here Then, unzip the file... go into every folder and delete all the language files that you do not require... if you're going to use only english on your site... delete all the language files except english... then also delete all the language image icons ... these take up quite a chunk of space... Use your database manager to create a database that you want to use (this is available in your cPanel) Configure your config.php so that your connection strings point to the database you have created Then, use your FTP software to upload the entire contents of the unzipped file to your space (maintain the directory structure) <if you don't have an FTP software get WS FTP here > as soon as (and be careful about this) as soon as you have finished uploading all the files, go to your homepage - usually you can get there by just typing in your Xisto subdomain name (unless you have marked out a seperate folder for your installation)... And IMMEDIATELY create a super user - (the guy 'YOU' that gets to mess about with every one elses user privileges), if you do not do this, the first visitor to your site will get to do this... it's a bit of work... but you get a lot of satisfaction from it... any help required... e-mail me... and I'll do my best to see you through... Cheers... Rashid Ahmed

I gave Blender a go for about 5 minutes too... but then I was short on time (well I still am) and sort of lost interest... At present though... really keen on getting all the info about the various 3D modelling software that is out there... Blender is still an option... but as soon as I get my Oomp fixed... it'll be onl linux... so if anyone knows about an easy to learn yet full featured 3D modelling and animation software... I'm all ears... I've heard about 3D Max... it is frightfully expensive... don't know exactly how much though... I'll look out for Milkshape though... and gicve it a shot... Rashid Ahmed

The easiest way to go about making a banner is to hop over to one of the free online banner making websites... these usually offer banners, buttons, and other gifs... some interesting banner making sites are: http://www.animationonline.com// http://www.3dtextmaker.com/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists// http://www.quickbanner.com/ http://cooltext.com/ The next way ofcourse is to design your own banner from scratch... If you're on a windows platform, I'd suggest using Photoshop or Corel Draw; however if you're on a Linux machine.. then use Gimp... Gimp and Photoshop are nearly identical, although Gimp allows you most functions through a right click. At present my own computer is down and I'm going to have to buy a new one... (trying to visit a cyber cafe a much as possible to make my posts..lol... ); otherwise I'd have offered to help you out with you banner.... all the best.. Rashid Ahmed

Well Nakul, I've used Traktor for about 5 years now... I stopped using it last month after I shifted to Linux.. now I'm spending all my time (well when I'm home anyway) figuring out my OS.. :-).. You're absolutely correct in saying that Traktor is a great piece of S/W.. it's got all the basic features required to mix tracks and then some.. I used it while I was in the UK at all my friends' house parties.. All the very best with the DJ career.. :-)

LOL's ... and I'd seriously thought he'd smoked a fist sized joint when he wrote most of the book.. in reality though.. a great many ideas of Adams' make a bit of sense.. more specifically, where travel in space is concerned.. the only limitation is the human brain and it's capacity to fully comprehend or 'manufacture' a thought .. By manufacture thought I mean original ideas.. there's no such thing.. the brain is fed information and produces a mish-mash of gibberish - which it then sorts though to grab onto anything that closely resembles sense.. I'm not saying that we as humans are limited because of the processing power of our brains.. what i'm saying is that the prosessing power of a single brain is only as good as the information that it has recieved and the information that it is capable of processing (the sensable bit) after it is through with all the rubbish.. what happens (and this is something I've jsut conjured up) .. is that the brain tries innumerable combinations of thoughts, shuffling between facts, ideas.. and does so on a continous basis.. it then tries to create new combinations of processed thoughts, to come up with original though.. TRIZ is a system of recording ideas and thoughts and even processess right through the span of all verticals to be able to come up with ideas never thought about .. sooner or later. the concept of utilizing TRIZ for the human mind may just become possibel... all it'll take is some sort of a miniture implant in the brain that communicates with a central node someplace and records the generic and possibly the more specific ideas of an individual.. so when another person has a problem to solve.. say.. how to get to Alpha Centurai.. inside of 20 minutes... the nodal computer kicks to life... searches through related material that may provide a solution.. searching through verticals.. between industries... amongst absolutely urelated fields.. to possibly come up with a group of human brains who have thought about the problem and have come up with viable solutions or part solutions to problems within the larger problem... AND I even have a sneaking feeling that this is what Google is out to do.. It's not going to happen with conventional computing.. but quantum computers are at the stage of development paralell to what our modern day computers were 40 years ago.. so we just may see things like this in the very near future.. As soon as we've solved the problem of getting the right type of information and ideas to the people thinking about specific problems like inter planetary space travel.. and minds capable of thinking at the same platform are connected at the rather slow speed of thought.. then, we'll get there.. we definately will.. and I'd like to see it happen during my lifetime... :-)

Try this website.. http://www.bakhter.com/ Its has a whole bunch of 2D, 3D , sound and video apps.. for both Linux and Windows as well as other platforms.. I'm experimenting with a few.. the only concern is that on Linux.. most apps require a whole bunch of stuff that my dist doesn't have,, and I've only just learnt the very basics of making and installation in Linux... but the windows apps install in a snap.. and most of them are free.. All the best.. hope to see some of your work soon

Well.. you definately require an IRDA device.. something that will transmit and receive Infrared signals.. If you're on Windows.. you;ll want to gheck in your control panel if there;s an infrared device.. since you already have checked hardware devices and you do not have a IRdA device.. I'd suggest you acquire one.. While I was on windows.. I bought a BAFO IrDA USB dongle (a small thumb sized infrared device that fits into your USB port).. Windows automatically ID's it and the device worked quite well with my Sony E mobile phone.. ( Don't forget to align the IrDA port on your phone with the IrDA device.. that means that they have to be facing each other.. about 5 cms apart is good).. Now I've gotten myself Linux.. the dongle is not automatically identified.. my external USB CD writer is not being identified .. my USB flash card reader is not being identified.. so I'm busy doing a bit of investagiting.. :-)hope you get a good infrared device... All the best..

Wow.. this is most interesting.. I've got the spy on the world bug in me now.. will just have to have a look at a few of these cams and see if I recognize any place.. Ahaaa.. I see an empty vehicle showroom full of brand new cars.. this has definately got to be how the guys in 'Gone in 60 Seconds' found most of the vehicles they needed.. https://4'>Here's the link Now to look around a bit... this should be fun...

This is it for me ... RedHat 9.. I've gone through the last 4 weeks without internet access after I installed Debian.. My modem supplier and ISP provided me a Linux driver installation which was supposed to make my life simple.. but unfortunately.. since I was a bit new to Linux.. I guess I goofed up the install.. anyhow.. the internet connection would not go through... Next I installed Fedora Core 2... I got that off a friend of mine who swore by it... all in all it was a great package.. I installed the internet connection package that my ISP provided, but ugh ugh.. nothing seemed to happen... any how.. bu now I'd installed and re-installed Debian and Fedora a few times.. each time checking diffrent solutions I found on various forums for the ISP and Modem I was using, but nothing seemed to work... So.. I got myself a copy of the 'very reliable' Mandrake (mow Minerva) Linux.... great to install.. It actually manages to install in under 25 minutes.. which on the whole I think is pretty good.. Mandrake stayed on my computer for the last week... I had to travel a bit and make a few presentations at my company's annual conference... and the OpenOffice.org Presentation S/W came to the rescue here... got really used to it.. and it did a fantastic job.. Still... no internet... anyhow.. I get back to Bangalore... and talk to a few people who've been using Linux with the same Modem and ISP that I have.. and they told me about having a few problems ... The solution.. I got myself.. RedHat 9... installed it (very quick install)... and the first thing I did (and by now I've become at trying out 7 different solutions to installing an internet connection.. ) was install the ISP provided connection S/W... Lo and behold.. it worked... Wham.. I'm back in business. the world is no longer a dark place.. Installing Modem - LG2030 CDMA with Reliance Connection Now.. for anyone in India who's using 'Reliance' as a provider.. Here's how you install the Modem and ISP connection... 1. Get on to the Reliance Website and https://l'>download the Installation (it's a .tar file); The 'installation guide' is https://l'>available here 2. Burn this file to a CD 3. Install RedHat Linux (the solution only seems to work in it's present state on RedHat); installation is a fairly simple task.. use the GUI and follow the instructions.. Keep a note of your screen size handy 4. After reboot, shut down your system; Plug in your USB cable (one end onto your LG2030 handset - keep it in its charger; and the other end on your USB port); restart your system select KDE as your session and login as 'root' (KDE so you can 'right click' and open a 'terminal' 5. Place your 'Reliance Installation' CD in your CDROM and open the revelant folder (if you're unsure - click on the secons icon from the left bottom of the screen - the one that says 'Mozilla Web Browser' as the tool tip when you hover over it, and type in file:/mnt/ , this should show you your available drives) 6. Copy the .tar file to your user 'home' 7. 'Right click' in the folder (not on the file) and select 'Open Terminal Here' 8. In your Terminal type tar -xvf rconnect-cmdline-1.0.tar (this will unpack the file and create a folder called 'rconnect1.0' in the same folder as your tar file9. Enter the folder 'rconnect1.0' > Right click and open a terminal > type sh install.sh This will run the installation of the dialer... fill in the appropriate details as and when prompted.. remember to put in your username as (STD code without the first '0') and your Reliance Number in the old format eg (for Bangalore 8036XXXXXX) - Call Reliance Customer care to find out what your the old format would have been should you have difficulty with your new format10. the dialer will ask you if you wish to connect.. say 'Y' and the modem will be automatically searched for and connected to... 11. to disconnect type within your terminal 'rdisconnect' (to connect at a later time - just open a terminal and type 'rconnect' and to disconnect 'rdisconnect') Hope this helps anyone who wants to install Linux and use the Reliance Connection wireless modem

Guess what I've got at home.. lols.. my very first computer.. a Sinclair ZX Spectrum+The specs are:3.54 MHz Zilog Z80A CPU16K RAMDisplay: 32 x 22 character text display256 x 192 pixel resolution8 coloursSound: 1 channel, 5 octavesI/O: Z80 bus, tape, RF televisionStorage: External tape recorder This was absolutely fantastic technology when my folks got their hands on it.. Haven't used it for a while though... wonder if it still turns on...lol Then in school we got on to the BBC Micro.. the specs for this were:---2 MHz 6502 processor (quite impressive for a micro at the time)---32 KB ROM (16 KB OS, 16 KB language)---32 KB RAM (16 KB in model A, 64 KB in model B+)---Screen modes (text resolution in parentheses):---mode 0: 640x256 (80x32), 2 colors---mode 1: 320x256 (40x32), 4 colors---mode 2: 160x256 (20x32), 8 colors + 8 "blinking colors"and the fantastic thing about this was that you could program the things in basic.. they used to read both tape as well as the large disks.. exciting times.. really spent a lot of hours at the computer center just to get round to playing a few of the newer games with flashing colours.. absolutely fantastic.. Then, the first computer I was able to afford was a second hand IBM 700 XD Notebook.. it had 32MB Ram and a 4 GB harddrave.. AND a CD player.. now how cool was that.. ran it on Win98 .. got me through my University and I managed to submit all my papers on time.. but all the while I'd dream of getting a better system.. so I began putting in hours doung odd jobs.. then some regular jobs.. and in about two months I managed to save enough to buy the computer I'm still using... a Toshiba Satellite 3000 X11.. its a good computer and has served me well over the last 4 years.. the specs for this are:20GB HDD, 512 MB RAM, 1.2 GHz Celeron, DVD Rom, External CDRW, extra external PCMCIA 8GB HDD.. have been running it on XP pro.. but I've just finished getting hold of and burning my first set of Debian and Mandrake Linux.. which I'll be installing after I've taken a backup of all the data on my comp.. TODAY.. hahaha.. I'm nervous.. Another year or so I'll think about upgrading my system again I suppose.. R.A.

My office uses LCD monitors and I find the resolution, contrast and overall visual feedback the very best... there's not much glare and you can keep sitting in front of an LCD monitor for longer periods. Go in for a 17" LCD monitor and not only will you appreciate the internet better, be able to open more windows and dock them next to each other but you'll also enjoy clearer imaging and graphics when playing videogames or watching movies.. the only drawback as I see it is that when you view the monitor from an angle, there's a slight bit of shadow.. so things don't appear all that clear.. but if you plan to use your monitor with the unit right in front of you.. then an LCD is what you're looking for.. Hope you get a great deal

Now that's nasty.. I've actually gone through a similar experience.. the company I'd worked with previously has a few property events related to sports.. so for every event taking place the firm would get a website up and running.. and outsource this work.. usually to the lowest bidding firm or individual.. Once, it so happened that the fellow who actually executed the work, packed up his bags and upped and dissapeared. .. later we found out that he'd also changed the passwords to the site and left with all the info.. guess we'll all just have to watch out who we let in as admins to websites we cherish.. lols.. R.A.

Yup.. the company just took out a half page ad across all major cities through a prominent national news paper here in India.. I even had friends calling me up to investigate wether I'd seen the ad since I really do like the brand.. but hey.. a pair of shoes that's going to hit me with half a month's salary to invest in it. ummm.. there's a bit of a big think to be thought.. But sooner or later (and it's already possible since a lot of large design houses use the technique); we're all going to have material constructors.. (something like printers that actually construct shapes with set properties) which we will just plug into our computers.. surf online to locate the best free and paid for designes of various articles that may be of use to us.. like maybe parts of a car, a pair of jogging shoes, a swanky new mobile handset, an upgraded RAM for your computer, parts to upgrade your material constructor... or even perhaps it'll be possible some day.. that we may order our favourite burger online and the constructor will just spit it out like a warm printout.. Technology rocks..

Think of all the free sushi that someone disecting one of these will be able to dish up.. lols.. On a more serious note.. we actually know more about our immediate space and the solar system than we know about the oceans and under-sea creatures.. somehow I find that this is due to our being human and having (while talking about the common person) .. a general aversion to being in water.. Also.. constructing machines that can probe deep under water is more of a dunting task than creating a space faring vessle.. but now with new-age materials and high-tech design techniques, its becoming possible to reach deeeper than ever before and for much longer periods.. SAFELY.. Will look out for more squid sushi.. !!!

Yes there are a few apps that do export to Flash. one that I've been using is 'Powerbullet Presenter'. It's pretty handy with a very simple GUI.,, and with a bunch of simple effects.. Although this is way out there in the presentation arena.. I'm looking at the next level.. some thing that will allow virtual environments to be created using drag and drop as well as action commands. .. Like a virtual reality show.. but mindwrentchingly simple to create.. something my old momma could learn perhaps.. I do hope there's somehting out there that somebody's heard about.. am really eager to know.. Rashid

Personally I think all the buyout will do is broaden the spread of Adobe's products. Immediately, this will result in an extension of revenues, to the company, while reducing the cost of competition. Also, this buyout will also bring a mix of technology into both firms, putting in place a lot more technical knowhow and software innovation techneques into both forms.. thus making both Adobe as well as Macromedia software stronger.... As with most mergers and take-overs.. Adobe will direct Macromedia products to grow at the same rate of progress that the brand products have been doing so .. all the while flushing in extra technology.. and vice-a-versa.. back into the Adobe fold.. Result--- better products over both the brands' range.. Another thing, there'll be a bigger pool of 'mind power' for the firm to dig into... bringing about a larger spread of innovation in current and new products.. from the consumer's point.. I do believe that Adobe will actually bring down the pricing model to reflect the highly decreased competition cost.. although not by too much because there are a bunch of other companies out there, waiting on the sidelines to tear a chunk out of the market share.. so... competitive pricing.. great products.. !!