Sachin Tendulkar scored his 42nd Test century and gave Seddon Park a batting masterclass as India established a stranglehold on proceedings on the third day. Having started the day one run in arrears, they piled up 242 in two sessions before dismissing both New Zealand openers and Kyle Mills, the night-watchman, in 31 overs before stumps. With Harbhajan Singh getting sharp turn and Munaf Patel hinting at some reverse swing, New Zealand's prospects of saving the game were decidedly slim.
Tendulkar's hundred took just 168 balls and his positive intent never allowed the bowlers to settle. India lost Yuvraj Singh to an error of judgement but though Mahendra Singh Dhoni was initially subdued, a 115-run partnership gave India an advantage that weren't likely to relinquish.
Over the past few months, there have been several glimpses of the Tendulkar of old, the peerless strokemaker who just came out and played without a thought for the cares of the world. That was in evidence again in the morning, with some magnificent strokes played all around the wicket. The tone for the day was set in the very first over with a lovely cover-drive after Yuvraj had clipped Chris Martin off the pads twice for fours.
In Martin's next over, Tendulkar played a gorgeous back-foot cover-drive, and when Iain O'Brien was glanced and then cut for four, he was into the 90s. The partnership was beginning to look ominous when Martin gave New Zealand some respite. Coming round the wicket, he got the ball to nip back a smidgen off the seam. Yuvraj watched it all the way and just shouldered arms. The ball took off stump.
Dhoni edged the first ball he faced just short of third slip, but all eyes were on Tendulkar. A wonderful stroke through cover off O'Brien took him to 99, and a wristy tuck on to the onside when James Franklin came on to bowl had the crowd on its feet, to acclaim a man whose feats are unlikely ever to be matched.
The punishment was far from over though. Jesse Ryder had been miserly on day two, but 24 hours later, Tendulkar greeted him with an on-drive, a deft swish behind point and a nonchalant clip off the pads. Of the 66 runs scored before drinks, he had made 47.
Dhoni was watchful at the other end, with only a fluent cover-drive off Franklin offering a glimpse of the strokes at his disposal. Daniel Vettori came on and bottled one end up, unlucky perhaps not to get an lbw decision against Tendulkar, but the slumping body language of his team-mates said it all.
It only got worse after lunch. Tendulkar swept Vettori for four and was ruthless in his execution of the cut when Martin dropped short and wide. When he tapped one down to third man, he had his 18th score of 150 or more, and the century partnership came up soon after as Dhoni unleashed a withering off-drive off Martin.
It was the impressive O'Brien that gave his beleaguered team some respite. The third umpire was needed to make sure that Ryder hadn't caught Dhoni at gully after another fierce cut, but India's captain was on his way three balls later after gloving a short-pitched delivery behind. Then, after an immaculate punch down the ground off O'Brien, Tendulkar's 260-ball effort ended with an edge to first slip, after he tried to fend a bouncer down towards fine leg.
By then, the lead was 164 and though Vettori took a smart diving catch at mid-off to end Harbhajan Singh's cameo, there was further punishment from Zaheer Khan, who hit the ball through and over the covers with the ease of a frontline batsman. The hapless Mills went for three fours in an over, and the 500 came up right after Daniel Flynn had put Zaheer down off Franklin's bowling. Zaheer celebrated that chance with two whiplashes through cover, and a risky single soon after gave him 50 from 45 balls and added insult to considerable injury.
Vettori was tidy while O'Brien and Martin toiled hard but the lack of quality from the back-up bowlers was glaring, especially against the tail. There were bound to be changes for Napier, but as they headed for the dressing room after Munaf holed out, all thoughts were on surviving Hamilton.
When New Zealand batted a second time, Tim McIntosh lasted just three balls. There were doubts over whether the edge off Zaheer carried to Tendulkar at first slip and the fielder himself went off with a badly jammed and bleeding finger. Tendulkar later clarified that his finger was sore, but had not been broken. Martin Guptill and Flynn slowly set about building the innings with Guptill playing some glorious strokes through the covers and working the ball neatly off his pads. The shot of his innings was undoubtedly a swivel-pull for six off Ishant Sharma.
All the good work was undone in the final few minutes though. Guptill was just two short of a half-century on debut when he played a lazy drive at Harbhajan for Virender Sehwag to take a tumbling catch at mid-off and Munaf then trapped Mills in front with the last ball of the day. The shouts of celebration reverberated around the ground, and the Indians took their time to walk off after a day when pretty much everything had gone their way.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
6yr-old Indian-American boy's IQ is greater than that of Einstein
Chicago, March 13 (ANI): An Indian-American boy has an IQ greater than that of Albert Einstein at the tender age of six.
Pranav Veera has an IQ of 176, while Einstein's IQ was believed to be about 160.
The little boy can recite the names of the U.S. presidents in the order they served in office, and is able to say the alphabet backward.
Given a date back to 2000, Pranav can even tell which day of the week that was.
He is highly competitive at playing Wii video games, and likes to play outside.
Pranav's parents have revealed that he seemed unusually intelligent while playing with alphabet sets, when the boy was just four-and-a-half years old.
He could even recall which letters were certain colours, they say.
"That kind of puzzled us. You have to have not a normal memorization, but some other means of recall," the Chicago Sun-Times quoted his father Prasad Veera as saying.
The little boy's mother, Suchitra Veera, has revealed that he presently loves all kinds of alphabets.
"He loves to collect them, like different colors, different sizes, different materials," she said.
Pranav's parents decided to have his IQ tested at Powers Educational Services in Hyde Park three months ago
"I said, 'Let's try it out, because he seems to do a lot of stuff kind of not quite normal for his age. He tested 176," his father said.
Pranav's teacher Marci Taylor, at McCormick Elementary in the Milford School District, calls him "an amazing child".
"He knows so much, yet he's probably more excited about learning than any child I've ever seen. He shakes with excitement," she said.
What she finds impressive about Pranav is the fact that he knows so many incredible things at the age of 6.
"He loves to go play at recess and climb on the monkey bars," Taylor said.
When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Pranav says: "An astronaut." (ANI)
source:ANI
Pranav Veera has an IQ of 176, while Einstein's IQ was believed to be about 160.
The little boy can recite the names of the U.S. presidents in the order they served in office, and is able to say the alphabet backward.
Given a date back to 2000, Pranav can even tell which day of the week that was.
He is highly competitive at playing Wii video games, and likes to play outside.
Pranav's parents have revealed that he seemed unusually intelligent while playing with alphabet sets, when the boy was just four-and-a-half years old.
He could even recall which letters were certain colours, they say.
"That kind of puzzled us. You have to have not a normal memorization, but some other means of recall," the Chicago Sun-Times quoted his father Prasad Veera as saying.
The little boy's mother, Suchitra Veera, has revealed that he presently loves all kinds of alphabets.
"He loves to collect them, like different colors, different sizes, different materials," she said.
Pranav's parents decided to have his IQ tested at Powers Educational Services in Hyde Park three months ago
"I said, 'Let's try it out, because he seems to do a lot of stuff kind of not quite normal for his age. He tested 176," his father said.
Pranav's teacher Marci Taylor, at McCormick Elementary in the Milford School District, calls him "an amazing child".
"He knows so much, yet he's probably more excited about learning than any child I've ever seen. He shakes with excitement," she said.
What she finds impressive about Pranav is the fact that he knows so many incredible things at the age of 6.
"He loves to go play at recess and climb on the monkey bars," Taylor said.
When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Pranav says: "An astronaut." (ANI)
source:ANI
Improve Your site performance
Minimize HTTP Requests
tag: content
80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end. Most of this time is tied up in downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc. Reducing the number of components in turn reduces the number of HTTP requests required to render the page. This is the key to faster pages.
One way to reduce the number of components in the page is to simplify the page's design. But is there a way to build pages with richer content while also achieving fast response times? Here are some techniques for reducing the number of HTTP requests, while still supporting rich page designs.
Combined files are a way to reduce the number of HTTP requests by combining all scripts into a single script, and similarly combining all CSS into a single stylesheet. Combining files is more challenging when the scripts and stylesheets vary from page to page, but making this part of your release process improves response times.
CSS Sprites are the preferred method for reducing the number of image requests. Combine your background images into a single image and use the CSS background-image and background-position properties to display the desired image segment.
Image maps combine multiple images into a single image. The overall size is about the same, but reducing the number of HTTP requests speeds up the page. Image maps only work if the images are contiguous in the page, such as a navigation bar. Defining the coordinates of image maps can be tedious and error prone. Using image maps for navigation is not accessible too, so it's not recommended.
Inline images use the data: URL scheme to embed the image data in the actual page. This can increase the size of your HTML document. Combining inline images into your (cached) stylesheets is a way to reduce HTTP requests and avoid increasing the size of your pages. Inline images are not yet supported across all major browsers.
Reducing the number of HTTP requests in your page is the place to start. This is the most important guideline for improving performance for first time visitors. As described in Tenni Theurer's blog post Browser Cache Usage - Exposed!, 40-60% of daily visitors to your site come in with an empty cache. Making your page fast for these first time visitors is key to a better user experience.
Use a Content Delivery Network
tag: server
The user's proximity to your web server has an impact on response times. Deploying your content across multiple, geographically dispersed servers will make your pages load faster from the user's perspective. But where should you start?
As a first step to implementing geographically dispersed content, don't attempt to redesign your web application to work in a distributed architecture. Depending on the application, changing the architecture could include daunting tasks such as synchronizing session state and replicating database transactions across server locations. Attempts to reduce the distance between users and your content could be delayed by, or never pass, this application architecture step.
Remember that 80-90% of the end-user response time is spent downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc. This is the Performance Golden Rule. Rather than starting with the difficult task of redesigning your application architecture, it's better to first disperse your static content. This not only achieves a bigger reduction in response times, but it's easier thanks to content delivery networks.
A content delivery network (CDN) is a collection of web servers distributed across multiple locations to deliver content more efficiently to users. The server selected for delivering content to a specific user is typically based on a measure of network proximity. For example, the server with the fewest network hops or the server with the quickest response time is chosen.
Some large Internet companies own their own CDN, but it's cost-effective to use a CDN service provider, such as Akamai Technologies, Mirror Image Internet, or Limelight Networks. For start-up companies and private web sites, the cost of a CDN service can be prohibitive, but as your target audience grows larger and becomes more global, a CDN is necessary to achieve fast response times. At Yahoo!, properties that moved static content off their application web servers to a CDN improved end-user response times by 20% or more. Switching to a CDN is a relatively easy code change that will dramatically improve the speed of your web site.
Add an Expires or a Cache-Control Header
tag: server
There are two things in this rule:
- For static components: implement "Never expire" policy by setting far future
Expiresheader - For dynamic components: use an appropriate
Cache-Controlheader to help the browser with conditional requests
Web page designs are getting richer and richer, which means more scripts, stylesheets, images, and Flash in the page. A first-time visitor to your page may have to make several HTTP requests, but by using the Expires header you make those components cacheable. This avoids unnecessary HTTP requests on subsequent page views. Expires headers are most often used with images, but they should be used on all components including scripts, stylesheets, and Flash components.
Browsers (and proxies) use a cache to reduce the number and size of HTTP requests, making web pages load faster. A web server uses the Expires header in the HTTP response to tell the client how long a component can be cached. This is a far future Expires header, telling the browser that this response won't be stale until April 15, 2010.
Expires: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT
If your server is Apache, use the ExpiresDefault directive to set an expiration date relative to the current date. This example of the ExpiresDefault directive sets the Expires date 10 years out from the time of the request.
ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 years"
Keep in mind, if you use a far future Expires header you have to change the component's filename whenever the component changes. At Yahoo! we often make this step part of the build process: a version number is embedded in the component's filename, for example, yahoo_2.0.6.js.
Using a far future Expires header affects page views only after a user has already visited your site. It has no effect on the number of HTTP requests when a user visits your site for the first time and the browser's cache is empty. Therefore the impact of this performance improvement depends on how often users hit your pages with a primed cache. (A "primed cache" already contains all of the components in the page.) We measured this at Yahoo! and found the number of page views with a primed cache is 75-85%. By using a far future Expires header, you increase the number of components that are cached by the browser and re-used on subsequent page views without sending a single byte over the user's Internet connection.
Gzip Components
tag: server
The time it takes to transfer an HTTP request and response across the network can be significantly reduced by decisions made by front-end engineers. It's true that the end-user's bandwidth speed, Internet service provider, proximity to peering exchange points, etc. are beyond the control of the development team. But there are other variables that affect response times. Compression reduces response times by reducing the size of the HTTP response.
Starting with HTTP/1.1, web clients indicate support for compression with the Accept-Encoding header in the HTTP request.
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
If the web server sees this header in the request, it may compress the response using one of the methods listed by the client. The web server notifies the web client of this via the Content-Encoding header in the response.
Content-Encoding: gzip
Gzip is the most popular and effective compression method at this time. It was developed by the GNU project and standardized by RFC 1952. The only other compression format you're likely to see is deflate, but it's less effective and less popular.
Gzipping generally reduces the response size by about 70%. Approximately 90% of today's Internet traffic travels through browsers that claim to support gzip. If you use Apache, the module configuring gzip depends on your version: Apache 1.3 uses mod_gzip while Apache 2.x uses mod_deflate.
There are known issues with browsers and proxies that may cause a mismatch in what the browser expects and what it receives with regard to compressed content. Fortunately, these edge cases are dwindling as the use of older browsers drops off. The Apache modules help out by adding appropriate Vary response headers automatically.
Servers choose what to gzip based on file type, but are typically too limited in what they decide to compress. Most web sites gzip their HTML documents. It's also worthwhile to gzip your scripts and stylesheets, but many web sites miss this opportunity. In fact, it's worthwhile to compress any text response including XML and JSON. Image and PDF files should not be gzipped because they are already compressed. Trying to gzip them not only wastes CPU but can potentially increase file sizes.
Gzipping as many file types as possible is an easy way to reduce page weight and accelerate the user experience.
Put Stylesheets at the Top
tag: css
While researching performance at Yahoo!, we discovered that moving stylesheets to the document HEAD makes pages appear to be loading faster. This is because putting stylesheets in the HEAD allows the page to render progressively.
Front-end engineers that care about performance want a page to load progressively; that is, we want the browser to display whatever content it has as soon as possible. This is especially important for pages with a lot of content and for users on slower Internet connections. The importance of giving users visual feedback, such as progress indicators, has been well researched and documented. In our case the HTML page is the progress indicator! When the browser loads the page progressively the header, the navigation bar, the logo at the top, etc. all serve as visual feedback for the user who is waiting for the page. This improves the overall user experience.
The problem with putting stylesheets near the bottom of the document is that it prohibits progressive rendering in many browsers, including Internet Explorer. These browsers block rendering to avoid having to redraw elements of the page if their styles change. The user is stuck viewing a blank white page.
The HTML specification clearly states that stylesheets are to be included in the HEAD of the page: "Unlike A, [LINK] may only appear in the HEAD section of a document, although it may appear any number of times." Neither of the alternatives, the blank white screen or flash of unstyled content, are worth the risk. The optimal solution is to follow the HTML specification and load your stylesheets in the document HEAD.
Put Scripts at the Bottom
tag: javascript
The problem caused by scripts is that they block parallel downloads. The HTTP/1.1 specification suggests that browsers download no more than two components in parallel per hostname. If you serve your images from multiple hostnames, you can get more than two downloads to occur in parallel. While a script is downloading, however, the browser won't start any other downloads, even on different hostnames.
In some situations it's not easy to move scripts to the bottom. If, for example, the script uses document.write to insert part of the page's content, it can't be moved lower in the page. There might also be scoping issues. In many cases, there are ways to workaround these situations.
An alternative suggestion that often comes up is to use deferred scripts. The DEFER attribute indicates that the script does not contain document.write, and is a clue to browsers that they can continue rendering. Unfortunately, Firefox doesn't support the DEFER attribute. In Internet Explorer, the script may be deferred, but not as much as desired. If a script can be deferred, it can also be moved to the bottom of the page. That will make your web pages load faster.
Avoid CSS Expressions
tag: css
CSS expressions are a powerful (and dangerous) way to set CSS properties dynamically. They're supported in Internet Explorer, starting with version 5. As an example, the background color could be set to alternate every hour using CSS expressions.
background-color: expression( (new Date()).getHours()%2 ? "#B8D4FF" : "#F08A00" );
As shown here, the expression method accepts a JavaScript expression. The CSS property is set to the result of evaluating the JavaScript expression. The expression method is ignored by other browsers, so it is useful for setting properties in Internet Explorer needed to create a consistent experience across browsers.
The problem with expressions is that they are evaluated more frequently than most people expect. Not only are they evaluated when the page is rendered and resized, but also when the page is scrolled and even when the user moves the mouse over the page. Adding a counter to the CSS expression allows us to keep track of when and how often a CSS expression is evaluated. Moving the mouse around the page can easily generate more than 10,000 evaluations.
One way to reduce the number of times your CSS expression is evaluated is to use one-time expressions, where the first time the expression is evaluated it sets the style property to an explicit value, which replaces the CSS expression. If the style property must be set dynamically throughout the life of the page, using event handlers instead of CSS expressions is an alternative approach. If you must use CSS expressions, remember that they may be evaluated thousands of times and could affect the performance of your page.
Make JavaScript and CSS External
tag: javascript, css
Many of these performance rules deal with how external components are managed. However, before these considerations arise you should ask a more basic question: Should JavaScript and CSS be contained in external files, or inlined in the page itself?
Using external files in the real world generally produces faster pages because the JavaScript and CSS files are cached by the browser. JavaScript and CSS that are inlined in HTML documents get downloaded every time the HTML document is requested. This reduces the number of HTTP requests that are needed, but increases the size of the HTML document. On the other hand, if the JavaScript and CSS are in external files cached by the browser, the size of the HTML document is reduced without increasing the number of HTTP requests.
The key factor, then, is the frequency with which external JavaScript and CSS components are cached relative to the number of HTML documents requested. This factor, although difficult to quantify, can be gauged using various metrics. If users on your site have multiple page views per session and many of your pages re-use the same scripts and stylesheets, there is a greater potential benefit from cached external files.
Many web sites fall in the middle of these metrics. For these sites, the best solution generally is to deploy the JavaScript and CSS as external files. The only exception where inlining is preferable is with home pages, such as Yahoo!'s front page and My Yahoo!.
Home pages that have few (perhaps only one) page view per session may find that inlining JavaScript and CSS results in faster end-user response times.
For front pages that are typically the first of many page views, there are techniques that leverage the reduction of HTTP requests that inlining provides, as well as the caching benefits achieved through using external files. One such technique is to inline JavaScript and CSS in the front page, but dynamically download the external files after the page has finished loading. Subsequent pages would reference the external files that should already be in the browser's cache.
Reduce DNS Lookups
tag: content
The Domain Name System (DNS) maps hostnames to IP addresses, just as phonebooks map people's names to their phone numbers. When you type www.yahoo.com into your browser, a DNS resolver contacted by the browser returns that server's IP address. DNS has a cost. It typically takes 20-120 milliseconds for DNS to lookup the IP address for a given hostname. The browser can't download anything from this hostname until the DNS lookup is completed.
DNS lookups are cached for better performance. This caching can occur on a special caching server, maintained by the user's ISP or local area network, but there is also caching that occurs on the individual user's computer. The DNS information remains in the operating system's DNS cache (the "DNS Client service" on Microsoft Windows). Most browsers have their own caches, separate from the operating system's cache. As long as the browser keeps a DNS record in its own cache, it doesn't bother the operating system with a request for the record.
Internet Explorer caches DNS lookups for 30 minutes by default, as specified by the DnsCacheTimeout registry setting. Firefox caches DNS lookups for 1 minute, controlled by the network.dnsCacheExpiration configuration setting. (Fasterfox changes this to 1 hour.)
When the client's DNS cache is empty (for both the browser and the operating system), the number of DNS lookups is equal to the number of unique hostnames in the web page. This includes the hostnames used in the page's URL, images, script files, stylesheets, Flash objects, etc. Reducing the number of unique hostnames reduces the number of DNS lookups.
Reducing the number of unique hostnames has the potential to reduce the amount of parallel downloading that takes place in the page. Avoiding DNS lookups cuts response times, but reducing parallel downloads may increase response times. My guideline is to split these components across at least two but no more than four hostnames. This results in a good compromise between reducing DNS lookups and allowing a high degree of parallel downloads.
Minify JavaScript and CSS
tag: javascript, css
Minification is the practice of removing unnecessary characters from code to reduce its size thereby improving load times. When code is minified all comments are removed, as well as unneeded white space characters (space, newline, and tab). In the case of JavaScript, this improves response time performance because the size of the downloaded file is reduced. Two popular tools for minifying JavaScript code are JSMin and YUI Compressor. The YUI compressor can also minify CSS.
Obfuscation is an alternative optimization that can be applied to source code. It's more complex than minification and thus more likely to generate bugs as a result of the obfuscation step itself. In a survey of ten top U.S. web sites, minification achieved a 21% size reduction versus 25% for obfuscation. Although obfuscation has a higher size reduction, minifying JavaScript is less risky.
In addition to minifying external scripts and styles, inlined <script> and <style> blocks can and should also be minified. Even if you gzip your scripts and styles, minifying them will still reduce the size by 5% or more. As the use and size of JavaScript and CSS increases, so will the savings gained by minifying your code.
Avoid Redirects
tag: content
Redirects are accomplished using the 301 and 302 status codes. Here's an example of the HTTP headers in a 301 response:
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://example.com/newuri
Content-Type: text/html
The browser automatically takes the user to the URL specified in the Location field. All the information necessary for a redirect is in the headers. The body of the response is typically empty. Despite their names, neither a 301 nor a 302 response is cached in practice unless additional headers, such as Expires or Cache-Control, indicate it should be. The meta refresh tag and JavaScript are other ways to direct users to a different URL, but if you must do a redirect, the preferred technique is to use the standard 3xx HTTP status codes, primarily to ensure the back button works correctly.
The main thing to remember is that redirects slow down the user experience. Inserting a redirect between the user and the HTML document delays everything in the page since nothing in the page can be rendered and no components can start being downloaded until the HTML document has arrived.
One of the most wasteful redirects happens frequently and web developers are generally not aware of it. It occurs when a trailing slash (/) is missing from a URL that should otherwise have one. For example, going to http://astrology.yahoo.com/astrology results in a 301 response containing a redirect to http://astrology.yahoo.com/astrology/ (notice the added trailing slash). This is fixed in Apache by using Alias or mod_rewrite, or the DirectorySlash directive if you're using Apache handlers.
Connecting an old web site to a new one is another common use for redirects. Others include connecting different parts of a website and directing the user based on certain conditions (type of browser, type of user account, etc.). Using a redirect to connect two web sites is simple and requires little additional coding. Although using redirects in these situations reduces the complexity for developers, it degrades the user experience. Alternatives for this use of redirects include using Alias and mod_rewrite if the two code paths are hosted on the same server. If a domain name change is the cause of using redirects, an alternative is to create a CNAME (a DNS record that creates an alias pointing from one domain name to another) in combination with Alias or mod_rewrite.
Remove Duplicate Scripts
tag: javascript
It hurts performance to include the same JavaScript file twice in one page. This isn't as unusual as you might think. A review of the ten top U.S. web sites shows that two of them contain a duplicated script. Two main factors increase the odds of a script being duplicated in a single web page: team size and number of scripts. When it does happen, duplicate scripts hurt performance by creating unnecessary HTTP requests and wasted JavaScript execution.
Unnecessary HTTP requests happen in Internet Explorer, but not in Firefox. In Internet Explorer, if an external script is included twice and is not cacheable, it generates two HTTP requests during page loading. Even if the script is cacheable, extra HTTP requests occur when the user reloads the page.
In addition to generating wasteful HTTP requests, time is wasted evaluating the script multiple times. This redundant JavaScript execution happens in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, regardless of whether the script is cacheable.
One way to avoid accidentally including the same script twice is to implement a script management module in your templating system. The typical way to include a script is to use the SCRIPT tag in your HTML page.
<script type="text/javascript" src="menu_1.0.17.js"></script>
An alternative in PHP would be to create a function called insertScript.
<?php insertScript("menu.js") ?>In addition to preventing the same script from being inserted multiple times, this function could handle other issues with scripts, such as dependency checking and adding version numbers to script filenames to support far future Expires headers.
Configure ETags
tag: server
Entity tags (ETags) are a mechanism that web servers and browsers use to determine whether the component in the browser's cache matches the one on the origin server. (An "entity" is another word a "component": images, scripts, stylesheets, etc.) ETags were added to provide a mechanism for validating entities that is more flexible than the last-modified date. An ETag is a string that uniquely identifies a specific version of a component. The only format constraints are that the string be quoted. The origin server specifies the component's ETag using the ETag response header.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Last-Modified: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 03:03:59 GMT
ETag: "10c24bc-4ab-457e1c1f"
Content-Length: 12195
Later, if the browser has to validate a component, it uses the If-None-Match header to pass the ETag back to the origin server. If the ETags match, a 304 status code is returned reducing the response by 12195 bytes for this example.
GET /i/yahoo.gif HTTP/1.1
Host: us.yimg.com
If-Modified-Since: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 03:03:59 GMT
If-None-Match: "10c24bc-4ab-457e1c1f"
HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
The problem with ETags is that they typically are constructed using attributes that make them unique to a specific server hosting a site. ETags won't match when a browser gets the original component from one server and later tries to validate that component on a different server, a situation that is all too common on Web sites that use a cluster of servers to handle requests. By default, both Apache and IIS embed data in the ETag that dramatically reduces the odds of the validity test succeeding on web sites with multiple servers.
The ETag format for Apache 1.3 and 2.x is inode-size-timestamp. Although a given file may reside in the same directory across multiple servers, and have the same file size, permissions, timestamp, etc., its inode is different from one server to the next.
IIS 5.0 and 6.0 have a similar issue with ETags. The format for ETags on IIS is Filetimestamp:ChangeNumber. A ChangeNumber is a counter used to track configuration changes to IIS. It's unlikely that the ChangeNumber is the same across all IIS servers behind a web site.
The end result is ETags generated by Apache and IIS for the exact same component won't match from one server to another. If the ETags don't match, the user doesn't receive the small, fast 304 response that ETags were designed for; instead, they'll get a normal 200 response along with all the data for the component. If you host your web site on just one server, this isn't a problem. But if you have multiple servers hosting your web site, and you're using Apache or IIS with the default ETag configuration, your users are getting slower pages, your servers have a higher load, you're consuming greater bandwidth, and proxies aren't caching your content efficiently. Even if your components have a far future Expires header, a conditional GET request is still made whenever the user hits Reload or Refresh.
If you're not taking advantage of the flexible validation model that ETags provide, it's better to just remove the ETag altogether. The Last-Modified header validates based on the component's timestamp. And removing the ETag reduces the size of the HTTP headers in both the response and subsequent requests. This Microsoft Support article describes how to remove ETags. In Apache, this is done by simply adding the following line to your Apache configuration file:
FileETag none
Make Ajax Cacheable
tag: content
One of the cited benefits of Ajax is that it provides instantaneous feedback to the user because it requests information asynchronously from the backend web server. However, using Ajax is no guarantee that the user won't be twiddling his thumbs waiting for those asynchronous JavaScript and XML responses to return. In many applications, whether or not the user is kept waiting depends on how Ajax is used. For example, in a web-based email client the user will be kept waiting for the results of an Ajax request to find all the email messages that match their search criteria. It's important to remember that "asynchronous" does not imply "instantaneous".
To improve performance, it's important to optimize these Ajax responses. The most important way to improve the performance of Ajax is to make the responses cacheable, as discussed in Add an Expires or a Cache-Control Header. Some of the other rules also apply to Ajax:
Let's look at an example. A Web 2.0 email client might use Ajax to download the user's address book for autocompletion. If the user hasn't modified her address book since the last time she used the email web app, the previous address book response could be read from cache if that Ajax response was made cacheable with a future Expires or Cache-Control header. The browser must be informed when to use a previously cached address book response versus requesting a new one. This could be done by adding a timestamp to the address book Ajax URL indicating the last time the user modified her address book, for example, &t=1190241612. If the address book hasn't been modified since the last download, the timestamp will be the same and the address book will be read from the browser's cache eliminating an extra HTTP roundtrip. If the user has modified her address book, the timestamp ensures the new URL doesn't match the cached response, and the browser will request the updated address book entries.
Even though your Ajax responses are created dynamically, and might only be applicable to a single user, they can still be cached. Doing so will make your Web 2.0 apps faster.
Flush the Buffer Early
tag: server
When users request a page, it can take anywhere from 200 to 500ms for the backend server to stitch together the HTML page.
During this time, the browser is idle as it waits for the data to arrive.
In PHP you have the function flush().
It allows you to send your partially ready HTML response to the browser so that
the browser can start fetching components while your backend is busy with the rest of the HTML page.
The benefit is mainly seen on busy backends or light frontends.
A good place to consider flushing is right after the HEAD because the HTML for the head is
usually easier to produce and it allows you to include any CSS and JavaScript
files for the browser to start fetching in parallel while the backend is still processing.
Example:
... <!-- css, js -->
</head>
<?php flush(); ?>
<body>
... <!-- content -->
Yahoo! search pioneered research and real user testing to prove the benefits of using this technique.
Use GET for AJAX Requests
tag: server
The Yahoo! Mail team found that when using XMLHttpRequest, POST is implemented in the browsers as a two-step process:
sending the headers first, then sending data. So it's best to use GET, which only takes one TCP packet to send (unless you have a lot of cookies).
The maximum URL length in IE is 2K, so if you send more than 2K data you might not be able to use GET.
An interesting side affect is that POST without actually posting any data behaves like GET.
Based on the HTTP specs, GET is meant for retrieving information, so it
makes sense (semantically) to use GET when you're only requesting data, as opposed to sending data to be stored server-side.
Post-load Components
tag: content
You can take a closer look at your page and ask yourself: "What's absolutely required in order to render the page initially?".
The rest of the content and components can wait.
JavaScript is an ideal candidate for splitting before and after the onload event. For example
if you have JavaScript code and libraries that do drag and drop and animations, those can wait,
because dragging elements on the page comes after the initial rendering.
Other places to look for candidates for post-loading include hidden content (content that appears after a user action) and images below the fold.
Tools to help you out in your effort: YUI Image Loader allows you to delay images
below the fold and the YUI Get utility is an easy way to include JS and CSS on the fly.
For an example in the wild take a look at Yahoo! Home Page with Firebug's Net Panel turned on.
It's good when the performance goals are inline with other
web development best practices. In this case, the idea of progressive enhancement tells us that JavaScript, when supported, can
improve the user experience but you have to make sure the page works even without JavaScript. So after you've made sure the page
works fine, you can enhance it with some post-loaded scripts that give you more bells and whistles such as drag and drop and animations.
Preload Components
tag: content
Preload may look like the opposite of post-load, but it actually has a different goal.
By preloading components you can take advantage of the time the browser is idle and request components
(like images, styles and scripts) you'll need in the future.
This way when the user visits the next page, you could have most of the components already in
the cache and your page will load much faster for the user.
There are actually several types of preloading:
- Unconditional preload - as soon as onload fires, you go ahead and fetch some extra components.
Check google.com for an example of how a sprite image is requested onload. This sprite image is
not needed on the google.com homepage, but it is needed on the consecutive search result page. - Conditional preload - based on a user action you make an educated guess where the user is headed next and preload accordingly.
On search.yahoo.com you can see how some extra components are requested
after you start typing in the input box. - Anticipated preload - preload in advance before launching a redesign. It often happens after a redesign that you hear:
"The new site is cool, but it's slower than before". Part of the problem could be that the users were visiting your old site with a
full cache, but the new one is always an empty cache experience. You can mitigate this side effect by preloading some
components before you even launched the redesign. Your old site can use the time the browser is idle and request images and scripts
that will be used by the new site
Reduce the Number of DOM Elements
tag: content
A complex page means more bytes to download and it also means slower DOM access in JavaScript. It makes a difference
if you loop through 500 or 5000 DOM elements on the page when you want to add an event handler for example.
A high number of DOM elements can be a symptom that there's something that should be improved with the markup
of the page without necessarily removing content.
Are you using nested tables for layout purposes?
Are you throwing in more <div>s only to fix layout issues?
Maybe there's a better and more semantically correct way to do your markup.
A great help with layouts are the YUI CSS utilities:
grids.css can help you with the overall layout, fonts.css and reset.css
can help you strip away the browser's defaults formatting.
This is a chance to start fresh and think about your markup,
for example use <div>s only when it makes sense semantically, and not because it renders a new line.
The number of DOM elements is easy to test, just type in Firebug's console:
document.getElementsByTagName('*').length
And how many DOM elements are too many? Check other similar pages that have good markup.
For example the Yahoo! Home Page is a pretty busy page and still under 700 elements (HTML tags).
Split Components Across Domains
tag: content
Splitting components allows you to maximize parallel downloads. Make sure you're using
not more than 2-4 domains because of the DNS lookup penalty.
For example, you can host your HTML and dynamic content
on www.example.org
and split static components between static1.example.org and static2.example.org
For more information check
"Maximizing Parallel Downloads in the Carpool Lane" by Tenni Theurer and Patty Chi.
Minimize the Number of iframes
tag: content
Iframes allow an HTML document to be inserted in the parent document.
It's important to understand how iframes work so they can be used effectively.
<iframe> pros:
- Helps with slow third-party content like badges and ads
- Security sandbox
- Download scripts in parallel
<iframe> cons:
- Costly even if blank
- Blocks page onload
- Non-semantic
No 404s
tag: content
HTTP requests are expensive so making an HTTP request and getting a useless response (i.e. 404 Not Found)
is totally unnecessary and will slow down the user experience without any benefit.
Some sites have helpful 404s "Did you mean X?", which is great for the user
experience but also wastes server resources (like database, etc).
Particularly bad is when the link to an external JavaScript is wrong and the result is a 404.
First, this download will block parallel downloads. Next the browser may try to parse
the 404 response body as if it were JavaScript code, trying to find something usable in it.
Reduce Cookie Size
tag: cookie
HTTP cookies are used for a variety of reasons such as authentication and personalization.
Information about cookies is exchanged in the HTTP headers between web servers and browsers.
It's important to keep the size of cookies as low as possible to minimize the impact on the user's response time.
For more information check
"When the Cookie Crumbles" by Tenni Theurer and Patty Chi.
The take-home of this research:
- Eliminate unnecessary cookies
- Keep cookie sizes as low as possible to minimize the impact on the user response time
- Be mindful of setting cookies at the appropriate domain level so other sub-domains are not affected
- Set an Expires date appropriately. An earlier Expires date or none removes the cookie sooner, improving the user response time
Use Cookie-free Domains for Components
tag: cookie
When the browser makes a request for a static image and sends cookies together with the request,
the server doesn't have any use for those cookies. So they only create network traffic for no good
reason. You should make sure static components are requested with cookie-free requests. Create
a subdomain and host all your static components there.
If your domain is www.example.org, you can host your static components
on static.example.org. However, if you've already set cookies on the top-level domain
example.org as opposed to www.example.org, then all the requests to
static.example.org will include those cookies. In this case, you can buy a whole new domain, host your static
components there, and keep this domain cookie-free. Yahoo! uses yimg.com, YouTube uses ytimg.com,
Amazon uses images-amazon.com and so on.
Another benefit of hosting static components on a cookie-free domain is that some proxies might refuse to cache
the components that are requested with cookies.
On a related note, if you wonder if you should use example.org or www.example.org for your home page, consider the cookie impact.
Omitting www leaves you no choice but to write cookies to *.example.org, so for performance reasons it's best to use the
www subdomain and
write the cookies to that subdomain.
Minimize DOM Access
tag: javascript
Accessing DOM elements with JavaScript is slow so in order to have a more responsive page, you should:
- Cache references to accessed elements
- Update nodes "offline" and then add them to the tree
- Avoid fixing layout with JavaScript
For more information check the YUI theatre's
"High Performance Ajax Applications"
by Julien Lecomte.
Develop Smart Event Handlers
tag: javascript
Sometimes pages feel less responsive because of too many event handlers attached to different
elements of the DOM tree which are then executed too often. That's why using event delegation is a good approach.
If you have 10 buttons inside a div, attach only one event handler to the div wrapper, instead of
one handler for each button. Events bubble up so you'll be able to catch the event and figure out which button it originated from.
You also don't need to wait for the onload event in order to start doing something with the DOM tree.
Often all you need is the element you want to access to be available in the tree. You don't have to wait for all images to be downloaded.
DOMContentLoaded is the event you might consider using instead of onload, but until it's available in all browsers, you
can use the YUI Event utility, which has an onAvailable method.
For more information check the YUI theatre's
"High Performance Ajax Applications"
by Julien Lecomte.
Choose <link> over @import
tag: css
One of the previous best practices states that CSS should be at the top in order to allow for
progressive rendering.
In IE @import behaves the same as using <link> at the bottom of the page, so it's best not to use it.
Avoid Filters
tag: css
The IE-proprietary AlphaImageLoader filter aims to fix a problem with semi-transparent true color PNGs in IE versions < 7.
The problem with this filter is that it blocks rendering and freezes the browser while the image is being downloaded.
It also increases memory consumption and is applied per element, not per image, so the problem is multiplied.
The best approach is to avoid AlphaImageLoader completely and use gracefully degrading PNG8 instead, which are fine in IE.
If you absolutely need AlphaImageLoader, use the underscore hack _filter as to not penalize your IE7+ users.
Optimize Images
tag: images
After a designer is done with creating the images for your web page, there are still some things you can try before you
FTP those images to your web server.
- You can check the GIFs and see if they are using a palette size corresponding
to the number of colors in the image. Using imagemagick it's easy to check using
identify -verbose image.gif
When you see an image useing 4 colors and a 256 color "slots" in the palette, there is room for improvement.
Try converting GIFs to PNGs and see if there is a saving. More often than not, there is.
Developers often hesitate to use PNGs due to the limited support in browsers, but this is now a thing of the past.
The only real problem is alpha-transparency in true color PNGs, but then again, GIFs are not true color and don't
support variable transparency either.
So anything a GIF can do, a palette PNG (PNG8) can do too (except for animations).
This simple imagemagick command results in totally safe-to-use
PNGs:
convert image.gif image.png
"All we are saying is: Give PiNG a Chance!"
Run pngcrush (or any other PNG optimizer tool) on all your PNGs. Example:
pngcrush image.png -rem alla -reduce -brute result.png
Run jpegtran on all your JPEGs. This tool does lossless JPEG operations such as rotation and can also be used to optimize
and remove comments and other useless information (such as EXIF information) from your images.
jpegtran -copy none -optimize -perfect src.jpg dest.jpg
Optimize CSS Sprites
tag: images
- Arranging the images in the sprite horizontally as opposed to vertically usually results in a smaller file size.
- Combining similar colors in a sprite helps you keep the color count low, ideally under 256 colors so to fit in a PNG8.
- "Be mobile-friendly" and don't leave big gaps between the images in a sprite. This doesn't affect the file size as much
but requires less memory for the user agent to decompress the image into a pixel map.
100x100 image is 10 thousand pixels, where 1000x1000 is 1 million pixels
Don't Scale Images in HTML
tag: images
Don't use a bigger image than you need just because you can set the width and height in HTML.
If you need
<img width="100" height="100" src="mycat.jpg" alt="My Cat" />
then your image (mycat.jpg) should be 100x100px rather than a scaled down 500x500px image.
Make favicon.ico Small and Cacheable
tag: images
The favicon.ico is an image that stays in the root of your server.
It's a necessary evil because even if you don't care about it the
browser will still request it, so it's better not to respond with a 404 Not Found.
Also since it's on the same server, cookies are sent every time it's requested.
This image also interferes with the download sequence, for example in IE when you request
extra components in the onload, the favicon will be downloaded before these extra components.
So to mitigate the drawbacks of having a favicon.ico make sure:
- It's small, preferably under 1K.
- Set Expires header with what you feel comfortable (since you cannot rename it if you decide to change it).
You can probably safely set the Expires header a few months in the future.
You can check the last modified date of your current favicon.ico to make an informed decision.
Imagemagick can help you create small favicons
Keep Components under 25K
tag: mobile
This restriction is related to the fact that iPhone won't cache components bigger than 25K.
Note that this is the uncompressed size. This is where minification is important
because gzip alone may not be sufficient.
For more information check "Performance Research, Part 5: iPhone Cacheability - Making it Stick" by Wayne Shea and Tenni Theurer.
Pack Components into a Multipart Document
tag: mobile
Packing components into a multipart document is like an email with attachments,
it helps you fetch several components with one HTTP request (remember: HTTP requests are expensive).
When you use this technique, first check if the user agent supports it (iPhone does not).
Power of YAHOO!!!!
USERS GET THEIR NEWS FROM THEIR YAHOO!
Almost three times as many people (41 million) get their news from My Yahoo! than visit the New York Times’ website (15.08 million).
- comScore World Metrix, December 2008
YAHOO! SHOPPING IS A SHOPAHOLIC’S REFUGE
There are 16 million more people on Yahoo! Shopping (29.7 million users) than people who purchased an iPhone in 2008 (13 million).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
USERS ARE GLOBE TROTTING WITH YAHOO! TRAVEL
If all Yahoo! Travel users (7 million) took a trip together, it would take almost 47,000 planes to fly everyone (average A320 aircraft takes 150 passengers).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
MONEY MATTERS ON YAHOO! FINANCE
There are more than twice as many Yahoo! Finance users (20 million) than people that live in the San Francisco Bay area (7.2 million).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
WE’VE GOT MAIL
There are more Yahoo! Mail users (279 million) than there are homes the U.S. Post Office delivers mail to (148 million).
- comScore World Metrix, December 2008
OUR HOMEPAGE IS EVERYONE'S HOME
Yahoo! homepages around the world have more visitors monthly (327 million) than people living in the United States (305.7 million).
- comScore World Metrix, December 2008
NEWS? WE'VE GOT IT COVERED
Yahoo! News has 43 million users in the U.S., over 18 times more readers than USA Today (circulation is 2.3 million).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
Almost three times as many people (41 million) get their news from My Yahoo! than visit the New York Times’ website (15.08 million).
- comScore World Metrix, December 2008
YAHOO! SHOPPING IS A SHOPAHOLIC’S REFUGE
There are 16 million more people on Yahoo! Shopping (29.7 million users) than people who purchased an iPhone in 2008 (13 million).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
USERS ARE GLOBE TROTTING WITH YAHOO! TRAVEL
If all Yahoo! Travel users (7 million) took a trip together, it would take almost 47,000 planes to fly everyone (average A320 aircraft takes 150 passengers).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
MONEY MATTERS ON YAHOO! FINANCE
There are more than twice as many Yahoo! Finance users (20 million) than people that live in the San Francisco Bay area (7.2 million).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
WE’VE GOT MAIL
There are more Yahoo! Mail users (279 million) than there are homes the U.S. Post Office delivers mail to (148 million).
- comScore World Metrix, December 2008
OUR HOMEPAGE IS EVERYONE'S HOME
Yahoo! homepages around the world have more visitors monthly (327 million) than people living in the United States (305.7 million).
- comScore World Metrix, December 2008
NEWS? WE'VE GOT IT COVERED
Yahoo! News has 43 million users in the U.S., over 18 times more readers than USA Today (circulation is 2.3 million).
- comScore Media Metrix, U.S., December 2008
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Yahoo’s Newspaper Consortium Keeps Growing
Even as Google is cancelling its experiment with newspaper advertising, Yahoo is expanding its newspaper consortium. Today, Yahoo is announcing that it is adding two new members: The Boston Globe and the St. Petersburg Times. That brings the consortium up to 38 media companies, representing 793 total newspapers, up from 635 newspaper partners a year ago, and 176 at launch in November, 2006
Yahoo’s newspaper strategy has seen success because, unlike Google, it never tried to get into the business of selling print ads. Instead, Yahoo focused on helping newspapers get more traffic to their Websites. One way it does this is by showing article headlines from partner newspapers across Yahoo-owned properties, including the home page, Yahoo News, and Yahoo Mobile. Over the past year and a half, these links have delivered 200 million clicks or views to the partner newspaper sites, including some that have reached a million views for an individual story, such as this one about puppies saving a three-year old. (Puppies sell newspapers).
HotJobs is being used by 600 of those newspaper Webistes. And Yahoo also helps 120 of the newspapers with online ad management, through its Apt ad management system, which allows the newspapers to tap into Yahoo’s advertising inventory when they cannot sell the the inventory themselves. This won’t save the newspaper industry, but at least it is a bright spot. Or is Yahoo simply taking share in a dying business?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
An Essay by einstein!!
"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
Download Google Earth 5: Explore the Oceans
The latest version of Google Earth 5.0 is released and promises to provide breathtaking views beneath the seas and oceans of the world. Download Google Earth and check out where the deep oceans lead to.
Google Earth provides amazing satellite imagery, maps, terrain, and 3D buildings. From galaxies in outer space, now you can dive beneath the surface and visit the deepest part of the ocean till the Mariana Trench, go exploring the ocean with top marine experts including National Geographic and BBC, learn about ocean observations, climate change, and endangered species and discover new places including surf, dive, and travel hot spots and shipwrecks.
The new Google Earth 5 also features historical imagery from around the globe, which lets you move back and forth in time to reveal imagery from years and even decades past, revealing changes over time. Its also allows simplified touring with audio and voice recording. Here is an introductory video.
Download Google Earth and start by opening the “Ocean” folder in the Layers panel to explore the 20 content layers from over 100 partners. Double click on the “Explore the Ocean” layer and it will fly you to my Ocean Overview video and ten focus areas with National Geographic video clips.
Micro-USB Universal Mobile Chargers for Cell Phones by 2012
Why do you need a different mobile charger for Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola mobile phones? Now GSMA and 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers have agreed to implement a cross-industry standard for a universal charger for new mobile phones by 2012.
They promise the universal charging solution (UCS) will be widely available worldwide and will use Micro-USB as the common universal charging interface. They promise that by January 2012, majority of all new mobile phone models available will support a universal charging connector.
How does a Universal mobile charger benefit you? A universal charger will let you use the same charger for future handsets, and be able to charge your mobile phone anywhere from any available charger!
Universal Chargers have Environmental Impact - UCS chargers will be energy efficient and will come with a 4-star or higher efficiency rating, which will be three times more energy-efficient than an unrated charger. Since it would drastically reduce the number of manufactured chargers by 50 per cent, it will also help to reduce greenhouse gases in manufacturing and transporting replacement chargers.
You can thank GSMA - The GSM Association represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry and unites 750+ world’s mobile operators, and 200+ companies including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers etc. It was with their initiative only that some of the world’s largest mobile operators and manufacturers (3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone) have agreed UCS.
This is great news and will surely simplify mobile phone usage. Till this becomes a reality, I guess we will have to continue with our multiple chargers f0r different cell phones or get a multi-phone adapter.
Download apples Latest Browser
Now you can download the latest Apple Safari 4 web browser. Launching its latest beta version, Apple calls it the world’s fastest web browser for Mac and Windows computers.
Apple Safari 4 powered by the new Nitro JavaScript engine claims to execute JavaScript 30 times faster than IE 7 and 3 times faster than Firefox 3; it loads HTML web pages 3 times faster than IE 7 or Firefox 3.
Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies so web-based applications can store information locally without an Internet connection, and is the first browser to support advanced CSS 3 Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks.
Safari 4 also claims to be the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG web standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.
Some new innovative features in Safari 4 include: Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages; Full History Search; Cover Flow, makes searching web history or bookmarks fun; Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing; Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses; Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest; Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website; built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website; new Windows-native look in Safari for Windows. Here are 150 Safari features to check out.
System requirements - Safari 4 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X Leopard version 10.5.6 and Security Update 2009-001 or Mac OS X Tiger version 10.4.11, 256MB of memory, and is designed to run on any Intel-based Mac or a Mac with a PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor. Safari 4 for Windows requires Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista, 256MB of memory and at least 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor.
Download Apple Safari 4 (beta) for Mac and Windows.
Microsoft MVP Award
It’s an honor to become a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional or MVP, but how can you apply to become a MVP in India. If you are a top blogger, tech expert or outstanding technical community leader, its easy to become a MVP.
Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals or MVPs are well known for their exceptional technical community leadership skills, and selfless sharing of their expertise in offline and online technical communities. These experts share a deep commitment to community and willingness to help others.
Become Microsoft MVP India
Visit the MVP India website to get the latest news and information. MVP candidates are nominated by self, other MVPs, Microsoft employees, and other members of technical communities.
To qualify to become a MVP, you need to be above 18 years of age and your community contribution should be exemplary, regardless of your profession. Your technical knowledge on any Microsoft Product should be good and you should show willingness to help the community with your expertise and passion for technology. Your community participation can extend to blogs, wikis, forums or offline as for book authors, speakers or technical leaders etc., and not necessarily Microsoft hosted communities. For more information, download the MVP program guide (.pdf).
Apply by downloading the MVP nomination form (.doc), fill it and email it to them. MVP applications are reviewed by a panel of Microsoft personnel and only very few make the MVP award based on your past year activities. The MVP awards are given every quarter and they accept nominations throughout the year. However, to maintain the standards, an MVP Award is valid only for a year, after which you need to reapply.
MVP benefits
So why would you want to become a MVP. Here are some exclusive India MVP benefits to motivate you-
- Executive Recognition Letter
- Exclusive MVP “thank you” Gift each year
- MVP Certificate proclaiming your status as an MVP
- $150 voucher to the Microsoft Company Store
- Exclusive Chats/ Webcasts with Product Teams
- Share expert, real world insight and feedback as Tech Reviews
- MVP Academy offers instructor led online training
- Choose an annual subscription to either MSDN or TechNet
- Provided with a copyrighted, official logo to display
- MVP profile shared across the Microsoft.com web properties
- Invited to the MVP summit with sponsorship.
- MVP Lead keeps each MVP plugged in with latest updates
- MVP Private Newsgroups for stronger relationships
- Access to Microsoft Product Alphas and Betas
- Receive early access to product information from Microsoft.
Check out the Indian MVPs and you will find the best tech experts in the country; apply now and you could be one of them.
Google Analytics Test
Are you a Google Analytics expert? Take the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) Test, a new skills qualification program, and test your expertise in interpreting and using Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for comprehensive analysis of web site traffic, and helps you optimize your site to get more traffic. The Google Analytics IQ program is tailored for agencies who want to develop employees who are knowledgeable about Web analytics, and for individuals who seek ways to improve their job prospects.
Visit the Conversion University and take the free Google Analytics Online course. Learn with free analytics tutorials and prepare yourself for the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) test. Help yourself become a expert Google Analytics user.
Google Analytics Individual Qualification is available in US English only. The Google Analytics IQ test costs $50, requires a passing score of 75%, and you need to answer 70 questions in 90 minutes. After passing the test, you will receive a proof of qualification.
Are you ready to take the Google Analytics Challenge?
Friday, March 6, 2009
Koobface, Other Worms Target Facebook Friends (NewsFactor)
As Facebook works to make itself more relevant and timely for its growing member base with a profile page makeover, attackers seem to be working overtime to steal the identities of the friends, fans and brands that connect though the social-networking site.
Indeed, Facebook has seen five different security threats in the past week. According to Trend Micro, four new hoax applications are attempting to trick members into divulging their usernames and passwords. And a new variant of the Koobface worm is running wild on the site, installing malware on the computers of victims who click on a link to a fake YouTube video.
The Koobface worm is dangerous. It can be dropped by other malware and downloaded unknowingly by a user when visiting malicious Web sites, Trend Micro reports. When attackers execute the malware, it searches for cookies created by online social networks. The latest variant is targeting Facebook, but earlier variants have also plagued MySpace.
Koobface's Wicked Agenda
Once Koobface finds the social-networking cookies, it makes a DNS query to check IP addresses that correspond to remote domains. Trend Micro explains that those servers can send and receive information about the affected machine. Once connected, the malicious user can remotely perform commands on the victim's machine.
"Once cookies related to the monitored social-networking Web sites are located, it connects to these Web sites using the user log-in session stored in the cookies. It then navigates through pages to search for the user's friends. If a friend has been located, it sends an HTTP POST request to the server," Trend Micro reports.
Ultimately, the worm's agenda is to transform the victim's computer into a zombie and form botnets for malicious purposes. Koobface attempts to do this by composing a message and sending it to the user's friends. The message contains a link to a Web site where a copy of the worm can be downloaded by unsuspecting friends. And the cycle repeats itself.
An Attractive Face(book)
Malware authors are investing more energy in Facebook and other social-networking sites because that effort pays off, according to Michael Argast, a security analyst at Sophos. Facebook alone has more than 175 million users, which makes it an attractive target.
"Many computer users have been conditioned not to open an attachment from an e-mail or click a link found within, but won't think twice about checking out a hot new video linked to by a trusted friend on Facebook," Argast said.
Argast called the Koobface worm a mix of something old and something new. The new is using social networks as a method to spread malware. The old is using fake codec Trojans linked to a saucy video to induce the user to install the malware.
Argast said people can protect themselves by running up-to-date antivirus software, restricting which Facebook applications they install, thinking twice before clicking on links from friends and never, never installing a codec from some random Web site in the hopes of catching some celebrity in a compromised situation.
"I would expect to see more attacks on Facebook," Argast said. "As long as this is a successful propagation method, the bad guys will double down and invest more. They are entirely motivated by financial gain. If it pays, they'll continue to romp in your social playgrounds."
Indeed, Facebook has seen five different security threats in the past week. According to Trend Micro, four new hoax applications are attempting to trick members into divulging their usernames and passwords. And a new variant of the Koobface worm is running wild on the site, installing malware on the computers of victims who click on a link to a fake YouTube video.
The Koobface worm is dangerous. It can be dropped by other malware and downloaded unknowingly by a user when visiting malicious Web sites, Trend Micro reports. When attackers execute the malware, it searches for cookies created by online social networks. The latest variant is targeting Facebook, but earlier variants have also plagued MySpace.
Koobface's Wicked Agenda
Once Koobface finds the social-networking cookies, it makes a DNS query to check IP addresses that correspond to remote domains. Trend Micro explains that those servers can send and receive information about the affected machine. Once connected, the malicious user can remotely perform commands on the victim's machine.
"Once cookies related to the monitored social-networking Web sites are located, it connects to these Web sites using the user log-in session stored in the cookies. It then navigates through pages to search for the user's friends. If a friend has been located, it sends an HTTP POST request to the server," Trend Micro reports.
Ultimately, the worm's agenda is to transform the victim's computer into a zombie and form botnets for malicious purposes. Koobface attempts to do this by composing a message and sending it to the user's friends. The message contains a link to a Web site where a copy of the worm can be downloaded by unsuspecting friends. And the cycle repeats itself.
An Attractive Face(book)
Malware authors are investing more energy in Facebook and other social-networking sites because that effort pays off, according to Michael Argast, a security analyst at Sophos. Facebook alone has more than 175 million users, which makes it an attractive target.
"Many computer users have been conditioned not to open an attachment from an e-mail or click a link found within, but won't think twice about checking out a hot new video linked to by a trusted friend on Facebook," Argast said.
Argast called the Koobface worm a mix of something old and something new. The new is using social networks as a method to spread malware. The old is using fake codec Trojans linked to a saucy video to induce the user to install the malware.
Argast said people can protect themselves by running up-to-date antivirus software, restricting which Facebook applications they install, thinking twice before clicking on links from friends and never, never installing a codec from some random Web site in the hopes of catching some celebrity in a compromised situation.
"I would expect to see more attacks on Facebook," Argast said. "As long as this is a successful propagation method, the bad guys will double down and invest more. They are entirely motivated by financial gain. If it pays, they'll continue to romp in your social playgrounds."
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
7 decades of wacky dieting trends
They may be called
fad diets, but, man, these weight-loss ideas sure stick around
longer than leggings and platform wedges. The Cookie Diet may have
earned some street cred when Jennifer Hudson was associated with
trying it, but the plan got its start in the ’70s. And that Master
Cleanse Beyoncé reportedly used to slim down? It’s probably older
than your mom. Read on for more ways women have fought fat for the
past century. Note: Some are really bizarre and
unhealthy.
1930s-’40s diet trends: Smoking and the Master
Cleanse Models and celebrities must have gotten the idea
that smoking keeps you thin from somewhere, right? It turns out a
1920s-’30s ad campaign is to blame. Cigarette brand Lucky Strike
used the line “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet.” Ugh! Do we
even need to remind you of all the reasons—infertility, heart
disease, lung cancer—smoking is one of the unhealthiest habits for
you? Women looking for a quicker fix opted for the lemonade diet,
or Master Cleanse. Developed by Stanley Burroughs, the diet allowed
only lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup. Nearly 70 years
later, Beyoncé reportedly used the same program to shed pounds for
her role in 2006’s Dreamgirls. Talk about staying
power!
Don't try these other scary celeb diet tricks!
1950s diet trend: Prayer
Want to drop pounds? Pray for weight loss. The idea may sound nutty
to some, but in the 1950s, the Christian dieting industry exploded.
After losing 100 pounds, Reverend Charlie Shedd wrote the book
Pray Your Weight Away, which was published in 1957. The
best-seller set the trend for future titles such as I Prayed
Myself Slim (1960), Help Lord, The Devil Wants Me
Fat! (1978) and The Weigh Down Diet (1997), which
advised readers not to confuse physical hunger for what was really
spiritual hunger. Think this trend has died? Think again. In 2002,
Don Colbert, M.D., published What Would Jesus Eat? and
The What Would Jesus Eat Cookbook.
1960s diet trend: Support groups and cabbage
soup
The ’60s were all about sharing the love, and the concept even
applied to dieting. Dieters began forming support organizations.
Early in the decade, a group of compulsive eaters formed Overeaters
Anonymous. And in 1961, Jean Nidetch invited friends into her New
York City home to talk about weight loss. Two years later, after
losing 72 pounds, she launched Weight Watchers. But dieting wasn’t
always so friendly. The Cabbage Soup Diet was published in a book
during this time. It promised dieters they would lose 17 pounds,
but users mentioned the gassy side effects—not exactly conducive to
close encounters, huh?
Need to lose weight fast? Try these healthy "crash"
diets.
1970s diet trend: Diet pills The era touted the
miracle of diet pills. Some claimed to stop the body’s absorption
of carbs. In essence, they promised you could stuff your face with
pizza and bread without consequences. After reports of vomiting and
abdominal pain, however, the FDA pulled the pills in 1983 to
investigate the long-term side effects. This turned out to be a
good thing because researchers found that the undigested starch was
going straight to the colon—yikes! Dexatrim was another pill of the
era. The appetite suppressant contained the drug PPA
(phenylpropanolamine), and in 2000, it too was pulled from the
market. The pill was eventually reincarnated as Dexatrim Natural
Ephedrine-Free, though some critics still aren’t convinced it’s
safe. Our take: Unless they’re prescribed by your doctor, pills are
almost never a good idea.
Reasons why men worship your body just the way you
are.
1980s diet trend: Scarsdale Diet The 1980s swung
away from easy fixes and back to hardcore discipline with the
Scarsdale Diet. It was a two-week high-protein, low-carb and
super-low-calorie diet (1,000 calories or fewer per day!). Author
Herman Tarnower, M.D., claimed that by going on and off the diet
every two weeks, followers could lose up to 20 pounds per week
without any long-term deprivation of any vitamins or minerals. But
the food list was restrictive: no butter, no salad dressing (except
lemon and vinegar) and no alcohol. Your snack choices were either
raw carrots or celery—that’s it. If losing 20 pounds a week sounds
too good to be true, it is. For most people, consuming fewer than
1,200 calories a day is considered a starvation diet.
1990s diet trend: Low-carb Atkins Throughout the ’80s,
people became aware of red meat’s association with heart disease,
so they thought carbohydrates were the answer to a longer life,
says Gabriella Petrick, PhD, a food historian at New York
University. “The medical knowledge at any given time gets reflected
in diets prescribed,” she says. “In the ’80s, the popularity of
lean chicken also exploded. And in the ’90s, the Atkins diet was a
reaction against ideas in the 1980s that said you need a high-carb
diet.” People who had ballooned from all the carbs fell in love
with Dr. Atkins. Although he’d been around before the ’90s, his
popularity soared after the book Dr. Atkins’ New Diet
Revolution was released in 1992.
Nice Story
One day a father took his young son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose to show him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night in the farm of a very poor family . when they got back from their the father asked his son ,
"how was the trip?"
"very good , dad!"
"did you see how the poor people ca be ?" the father asked.
"yeah!"
"and what did u learn?"
The son answered ,"I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four.we have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden , they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon."
When the little boy was finishing , his father was speechless.
His son added,"thanks, dad, for showing me how poor we are!"
Isn't it true that it all depends on the way u look at things? If you have love, friends, family, health, good humour and a positive attitude toward life, you�ve got everything!
You can't buy any of these things. You can have all material possessionsyou can imagine, provisions for the future, etc. , but if you are poor of spirit, you have nothing!
"how was the trip?"
"very good , dad!"
"did you see how the poor people ca be ?" the father asked.
"yeah!"
"and what did u learn?"
The son answered ,"I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four.we have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden , they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon."
When the little boy was finishing , his father was speechless.
His son added,"thanks, dad, for showing me how poor we are!"
Isn't it true that it all depends on the way u look at things? If you have love, friends, family, health, good humour and a positive attitude toward life, you�ve got everything!
You can't buy any of these things. You can have all material possessionsyou can imagine, provisions for the future, etc. , but if you are poor of spirit, you have nothing!
Nvidia Launches Its Fastest Laptop GPU (PC World)
- Nvidia has launched a new graphics chip for laptop computers that it says is its fastest to date.
The GeForce GTX 280M gives a 50 percent performance boost over previous Nvidia GPUs, said Brian Burke, an Nvidia spokesman. It includes 128 cores and delivers 562 gigaflops of performance, the company said. It was announced at the CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany.
The performance may have been helped by an improved manufacturing process, said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. The chip is manufactured using a 55-nanometer process, compared to the 65-nanometer process employed for other recent Nvidia chips.
The new process may also help the GPU draw less power, Peddie said. To further extend battery life, the 280M can switch between using a separate graphics card and an integrated graphics processor, Nvidia said.
The GTX 280M is aimed at gaming enthusiasts and those who use demanding multimedia applications. It supports SLI (Scalable Link Interface), which allows two GTX 280M-based cards in a laptop to work together to scale graphics performance, Burke said.
The GPU will be available in laptops through PC makers, Nvidia said. It is designed to work with Windows, Linux and Macintosh systems.
The company also launched the GeForce GTX 260M and GeForce GTS 160M GPUs for laptops, which have fewer cores. All the cards support SLI and Nvidia's PhysX technology. The company did not provide pricing.
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