Remember my Passwords!

Over the years I must have downloaded and installed/uninstalled quite a few (I cannot remember anymore!) password programs that can help me manage my usernames/passwords combinations. With so many websites out there that requires you to login first before you can use their services it is quite daunting to remember what username/password to use. I don't particularly relish the idea of writing my username/passwords on pieces of paper because it's inherently insecure besides being foolish. I am also wary of 'password managers' that claims they don't have access to all the juicy information I entrusted to it. Then again my memory can only hold so much.

So, this morning, I downloaded the LastPass application from http://www.lastpass.com. According to their website it is "an online password manager and form filler that makes web browsing easier and more secure." Good. Exactly what I need. So, I went ahead and installed it. It was easy and straightforward. No hassles at all. Then the application prompted me if I want to search for insecure information on my computer. I sure got the shock of my life when it easily retrieved all of my passwords that I use for Twitter, Facebook, GMail, etc. It dawned on me, duh! that any malicious application can easily do the same had I inadvertently downloaded one. Whew! That sure would be big trouble.

Right now I'm testing LassPass but it looks very promising.

Another mobile operating system...

Slept late, woke up late. Opened my browser and voila! Another operating system from the two biggest companies in the world. Nokia and Intel. Nokia, the largest cell phone manufacturer and Intel, the biggest chip maker, must be facing enormous pressure from Apple, Research in Motion, Microsoft, and AMD, to force the birth of a new operating system, the so-called MeeGo.

How in the world do they pick OS names?

MeeGo, if you look it up in the Wikipedia, is "a short-lived American science fiction sitcom that aired on CBS in 1997. It's a 9,000-year-old shape-shifting alien from the planet Marmazon 4.0".

How in the universe do they pick planet names?

Anyway, here's a few backgrounder info from different sources regarding MeeGo, the shape-shifting OS that's about to pop-out of the belly of Nokia and Intel.

MeeGo, is a new operating system that can run on advanced smartphones, netbooks, connected TVs, and tablet computers is arriving this second quarter of 2010 courtesy of Nokia and Intel. MeeGo, as it is called, is a merging of Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin. MeeGo will support both Intel's Atom and ARM architectures. System and developer tools are expected to be released in the coming weeks and is based on Qt which will allow developers to build once and run the application on multiple platforms.

Sounds good, doesn't it? But whatever happened to the venerable Symbian? After being acquired by Nokia in 2008 and its software released into Open source world in February 2010, is it going to be the end?

Nope! According to Nokia, Symbian will continue to be the mobile OS of choice for low-end phones and not so smart smartphones. Poor Symbian.

So, here I am, wondering if this will be the operating system that will finally deal the iPhone's OS the death blow. Wondering, wondering, wondering...

Maintaining browser compatibility

In my work, browser compatibility is critical. It's no longer "cool" to just put a link that says: "For optimum use, we recommend " and append "Microsoft's Internet Explorer", "Mozilla's Firefox browser", Opera, and/or Google's Chrome.

A carefully designed website has to work great on all the major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera) and be functional, at least, on the less known ones (see Other Browsers). If your website doesn't, it's either a sign of laziness or just plain incompetency.

Thus, in my web arsenal, I have FF, IE, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. I usually test my website under FireFox first and then move on to the other browsers. True, it can be tedious to test a website's layout and functionality on so many browsers, but it has to be done.

One of the tools that has been available in FireFox has been IE Tab, an add-on that allows the web developer to view how a particular page will look like in IE. I have found this tool to be indispensable since I don't have to open IE itself.

Another add-on that has proven itself to be invaluable to the web developer is Firebug. What is nice about Firebug is that it integrates itself so well with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you develop your web page. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Of course, all the tools I mentioned above can only help so much. You still have to apply the right CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to your webpages so that they will appear correct on every browser you're testing it with.

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS is an entirely huge topic and you might want to read up on it if you're not familiar. Facility with CSS is a must for any web developer and tools and guides abound in the Internet. One of the best sites to learn from is Zen Garden.

At work, we have to contend with some clients who are still using Internet Explorer version 6. I don't have any clue as to why these users don't want to upgrade. According to a Wikipedia entry, as of October 2008, 36.01% are still using IE6. This is a reality that every web developer has to face.

Conditional comments comes to the rescue. They work as follows:

Conditional comments only work in Internet Explorer on Windows, and are thus excellently suited to give special instructions meant only for Internet Explorer on Windows. To learn more about them surf over to: Quirksmode.

Hopefully, this blog post helps you. It's a continuing battle to develop websites that will work and look good on all browsers and versions.

Windows 7 driver problems

Updated my Vaio VGC-RC110G operating system from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 Professional a few days back. The installation itself went smoothly but was disappointed that there were no suitable drivers for my on-board audio and the TV tuner (Conexant) that went with the computer. I searched the Internet for solutions to the sound problem but the suggested fixes didn't work at all. The Vaio support site has a Vista driver but it's packaged in an executable. When ran, the executable checks what OS is running and exits if it's not Windows 7. Sony should immediately update this executable to check for Windows 7 and allow the Vista drivers to be installed. A stand-alone Vista driver available as a download would make it even better.

Anyway, I finally gave up waiting for Sony Support to give me something that will fix the on-board audio driver problem and went ahead and bought a Riviera PCI Sound Card from Turtle Beach. After turning off the on-board audio from the BIOS. I opened the computer case and slid the card right on the only available slot. I then proceeded to install the software that came along including the Vista drivers and was soon listening to awesome music.

I love this sound card.

eBay store doing great...

My first blog posting of the year. I got so busy at work and at home I totally forgot about "my blog".

We started an eBay store last June 2009. It's called MedNurse Uniform Station. The eBay store shows a lot of promise. We've had lots of sales and the feedback is awesome. We're still looking, though, for wholesalers that can provide really good stuff on nursing uniforms (which is what we primarily sell), but we're open to sell almost any stuff. :-)

A few days back we received notice that eBay is lowering fees on fixed-price listing auctions. Now, that's really good news. I hope they don't change the final-listing fees, though, no matter how miniscule it would be.

Twitter...

Around four weeks ago, I signed up for Twitter. I stumbled upon it on my daily forays to the "help-me-out-here" websites. I've never used Twitter and frankly I don't know why all of a sudden it's so popular. It looks like SMS (Short Messaging Service) to me. So, to satisfy my curiosity, I joined in. At first, I didn't quite understand what with the following and the followers. Do they follow me back if I follow them? Eerily, some 'tweeters' or 'tweeps' (that's what they call them right?) have decided that they'll follow me even if I have not followed them. I guess it's an invitation to follow them? So, I did. I now have a modest 24 followers and I'm following a little over 33 tweeters.

Ok, my daughter is whining. She's getting hungry after all the biking she did this morning.

Twenty Dollars

I have nothing to post. My job is taking up much of my time and so... Anyway, I was checking my emails and found this one in my inbox. I thought I'd share the following with everyone...

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TWENTY DOLLARS

On their wedding night, the young bride approached her new husband and asked for $20.00 for their first lovemaking encounter. In his highly aroused state, her husband readily agreed.

This scenario was repeated each time they made love, for more than 30 years, with him thinking that it was a cute way for her to afford new clothes and other incidentals that she needed.

Arriving home around noon one day, she was surprised to find her husband in a very drunken state. During the next few minutes, he explained that his employer was going through a process of corporate downsizing, and he had been let go.

It was unlikely that, at the age of 59, he'd be able to find another position that paid anywhere near what he'd been earning, and therefore, they were financially ruined.

Calmly, his wife handed him a bank book which showed more than thirty years of steady deposits and interest totaling nearly $1 million. Then she showed him certificates of deposits issued by the bank which were worth over $2 million, and informed him that they were one of the largest depositors in the bank.

She explained that for more than three decades she had 'charged' him for sex,
these holdings had multiplied and these were the results of her savings and investments.

Faced with evidence of cash and investments worth over $3 million, her husband was so astounded he could barely speak, but finally he found his voice and blurted out,

'If I'd had any idea what you were doing,
I would have given you all my business!'


That's when she shot him.