Free Adobe Flex Video Training

Just found about it...

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/?sdid=EGMNU

not been through it yet, but it looks pretty good, combination of pdf ebooks, audio/video stuff and all that...

Lookup Transformations in Informatica

Lookup is a transformation to look up the values from a relational table/view or a flat file. There are two types of Lookups in Powercenter, namely;

1. Connected Lookup 
2. Unconnected Lookup

Caching is an important facet of lookup transformation planning. You need to know what kind of data you are dealing with, how frequently do you call the lookup, how frequently does the data change, what is the size of your lookup table etc. among other things. Once you use cache, the trip to database can be avoided, thereby enhancing performance.

Different types of caches can be used with lookup like static, dynamic, persistent, and shared(The dynamic cache cannot be used while creating an un-connected lookup). Each of these has its own identification. For more details, refer to Informatica Transformation Guide.

Lookup is a passive transformation, and can be used either connected or unconnected.  Typically, connected lookup is used when you want to do the lookup for all rows. When you have selective lookup requirements, its normally better to go for unconnected lookup. Unconnected Lookup can be used as if its a function call.

To read more, here is a good article -
What is lookup transformation in informatica? - IT Community

Ubuntu directory structure...

In the *nix operating systems, the tree style of file systems are there from time immemorial. In fact the idea of a inverted tree directory system or all filesystems originated with Unix.

The root of the tree is called "root directory" here and is the top level directory, and all its subdirectories make up the directory hierarchy. This is different as compared to Windows wherein there are drives. Especially diff since each diff hardware device has its own dir tree with its own root directory. In Unix there is only one root dir. Everything else, falls under that tree...

Here's a summary of the standard directories found on a typical Unix/Linux system. Current reference being Ubuntu.

• /bin - binary applications (most of your executable files)

• /boot - files required to boot (such as the kernel, etc)

• /dev - your devices (everything from drives to displays)

• /etc - just about every configuration file for your system

• /etc/profile.d - contains scripts that are run by /etc/profile upon login.

• /etc/rc.d - contains a number of shell scripts that are run on bootup at different run levels. There is also typically an rc.inet1 script to set up networking (in Slackwar), an rc.modules script to load modular device drivers, and an rc.local script that can be edited to run commands desired by the administrator, along the lines of autoexec.bat in DOS.

• /etc/rc.d/init.d - contains most of the initialization scripts themselves on an rpm-based system.

• /etc/rc.d/rc*.d - where “*'’ is a number corresponding to the default run level. Contains files for services to be started and stopped at that run level. On rpm-based systems, these files are symbolic links to the initialization scripts themselves, which are in /etc/rc.d/init.d.

• /etc/skel - directory containing several example or skeleton initialization shells. Often contains subdirectories and files used to populate a new user’s home directory.

• /etc/X11 - configuration files for the X Window system

• /home - locally stored user files and folders

• /lib - system libraries (similar to Program Files)

• /lost+found - lost and found for lost files

• /media - mounted (or loaded) devices such as cdroms, digital cameras, etc.

• /mnt - mounted file systems

• /opt - location for “optionally” installed programs

• /proc - dynamic directory including information about and listing of processes

• /root - “home” folder for the root user

• /sbin - system-only binaries (see /bin)

• /sys - contains information about the system

• /tmp - temporary files

• /usr - applications mainly for regular users

• /var - mainly logs, databases, etc.

• /usr/local/bin - the place to put your own programs. They will not be overwritten with upgrades.

• /usr/share/doc - documentation.

Some content shamelessly borrowed from this page :Linux or ubuntu Directory structure

Firefox Smart Keywords

A very very useful tip.

In firefox its possible to make shortcuts for your favourite links (especially useful for searches etc).

For example, for a typical google image search, you would normally open images.google.com and then type in your required phrase and press search. That constitutes two trips to google image server to accomplish your search needs.

With this method from firefox, you can achieve this in one trip to server, just by doing a small trick with your favourites configuration.

You add a particular url to your favourites list. And later on, from the organize favourites dialog, assign that url a shortcut, a very small phrase e.g. img or images or something that you like.

Now, after this setup, when you want to search for images on keyword india, you'd just have to say your chosen keyword and india, i.e. just type in

img india

in the address bar and press enter.. your search results should be on the way...

More detailing here... Solutions - 25 Useful Firefox Smart Keywords

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Buying a wireless router for home...

When it comes to buying a wireless router, the acronyms can be misleading and confusing at times.

While I was looking for articles around the net that explain complex terms, I found a few. Here are some -

How To Buy A Wireless Router: Decoding Wi-Fi 802.11 Networking Standards and Protocols

Wireless network buying guide - CNET reviews

Wireless Router FAQ - What is the Range of a Typical Wi-Fi LAN?

Wireless Routers - Best 802.11g Wireless Broadband Router Reviews

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Using Solaris SMF : Initial Steps

Startup article about SMF usage..

O'Reilly Network -- Using Solaris SMF: "In most Unix environments, the startup process consists of a handful of autonomous boot scripts। They act independently of one another; unaware of what scripts have already run or which ones will run after them. When they are invoked, there is no serious error checking and no recourse if the script fails."

Another interesting tutorial from Sun... Solaris Operating System - SMF Manifest How To Guide

Better Cross-Site Request Forging Prevention

Very useful piece of information about the changes from rails 1.x to 2.x.  Since I was following the Agile ... with rails book (which is on rails 1.2.3), I got trapped with this problem.

Few new things for me, the concept of Cross-site request forgery and that rails 2 already handles it in the framework.  I got to this article through www.railsforum.com  and I have to say I am impressed.

What's New in Edge Rails: Better Cross-Site Request Forging Prevention

Providing such useful features built inside the app framework is really intuitive.

Way to go rails... :) 

Linux desktop imitating OSX

Wonderful article .. full of info...

Linux desktop imitating OSX | Lauri Taimila

will report the exeperience..

Free 1 year subscription of McAfree Virus Scan Plus

I dont quite believe this, but havent tried this either.

Free 1 year subscription of McAfree Virus Scan Plus

I have heard about free trial licenses from such companies for a month or two or three, but never for 12 months.

I just tried to register following the link, and it does seem to work. I didnt actually download the software yet, but I would sure do that. Sometime over the weekend.

It sounds really really amazing to me. A 12 month free subscription.. great... :)

An interesting site...

An online document viewing website, you upload your document, the world sees it.

To me, an equivalent of blog, only not in terms of putting up content, rather organized documents. 

Home | Scribd

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Photography on Linux

I myself was thinking about this since a few days..Actually ever since I got my Gutsy freshend up I was wondering if I could move all my daily works stuff from windows to Linux.  Photo management is surely one big area, especially with my interest in photos.

Check my interest here <http://raghavphotos.blogspot.com>

And then today morning, just by luck, I found this page..
Ubuntu Linux graphic software list « Linux Photography

Not read completely through it, but the Ubuntu forum page it refers to is sure useful.

Also interesting is this :

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-219756.html

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Thinking of changing blog host...

I was talking to this friend of mine who moved his website from blogspot to wordpress.  Wordpress have nicer templates, some really cute.

I felt like doing that as well, already last week. But, wordpress has some limitations, e.g. their free account does not allow html template editing. And without editing html, it wont be possible to track site statistics with google Analytics. I would really want to collect that kind of statistics.  Though the wordpress people provide some statistics, I am not sure if they would be comparable to Google Analytics

Also, since my blog's url contains .blogspot.com, its hard for me to switch anyway.  However, there is an easier solution for this url issue. Build a blog in wordpress, and start publishing that url.

To make sure all who come and hit the old url, just enter this line in the <head> tag of the old blog page's html code.

<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://new-blog-url.com"/>

Found this code sample here...  html redirect

thanks google for allowing to find stuff so easily... I knew that it exists, but syntax would have been hard to figure out.  

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Frustration working with computers...

Working with computers can be frustrating...
Nothing has showcased this more than this video...

Bad Day at the Office

I hope never to reach such stage of frustration...

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IDE for working with Rails

For some time now, I was looking for the right kind of IDE to work with ruby on rails. Googling for this helped but not much.

Eventually, I came across this post somewhere which mentioned RadRails. This is a module from Aptana development studio.

In addition to the fact that this is a component of the Aptana dev suite, this component is available separately as a plugin for Eclipse as well.

And installation and configuration come very very simple. In a running version of Eclipse (I have Eclipse 3.2), look for a remote installation site. Few simple questions about which package to install etc. and you have the plug-in installed.

Here's the url to enter in the Eclipse remote update site...

http://update.aptana.com/update/studio/3.2/ => For Aptana tools in general
http://update.aptana.com/update/rails/3.2/ => For RadRails Plugin

And it works like a charm, really. After installation, you can create a new rails project from within Eclipse GUI as well, in addition to your favourite command line methods.

Starting a server, generating components (controller, model etc..), its all possible from the GUI.

I personally like the GUI and the syntax highlighting the most.

New Informatica support forum

Hey... Informatica have launched a brand new set of discussion forums on their website. This url should normally point to the overview .

I have a good feeling about this, the company hosting its own discussion forums. Before this there were some yahoo groups that acted as discussion forums for the company, and some developer network forums.

See how it goes...

An interesting day of RoR programming...

Got hands dirty with quite a few things in and around RoR.

Started with building the demo application with projects and tasks.. and as the iterative model says, kept adding to it. By the time I realized, I covered quite a few basic concepts of Rails.

Got stuck at some places, and hence my first experience of RoR IRC chatroom. Lovely thing, and really helpful people. Cant thank enough. It seemed as if someone could learn a few things just by reading the discussions only... :)

And, I hope to make some progress on my LMS project as well.

Here's my collection of useful URLs from today's session.

Useful Links around the web...

1. Rolling on with Ruby on Rails
   
2. Rolling on with Ruby on Rails (Part 2)
3. On Ruby on Rails dot org
4. Rails Database Validations-1
5. Rails DB Validations-2
6. RESTful Design
   
7. Oracle's tutorial on RoR
8. RoR API Docs
9. www.pastie.org
   
10. On Drop Down Menus
    

Another interesting place to read on ruby on rails...

Another blog on ruby-rails
http://blog.whitet.net/

Interesting site found

I found this interesting site that talks about various topics in IT industry. Browse for few minutes and I liked it...

http://www.ajaxian.com

Adding pages to your rubyforge website

Thanks to Tim Hunter for guiding me to the faq to be able to post pages on the project website.

http://rubyforge.org/docman/view.php/5/460/faq.html

Useful color codes

Found this very useful color code page.

http://www.pitt.edu/%7Enisg/cis/web/cgi/rgb.html

Very useful when you want to manipulate something on your blog's template by yourself.