VistaArc

Setting up a Sandbox

First we’ll create a basic installer to setup our sandbox. For this we are going to create a XML manifest file & a PHP file. Those who have a less knowledge about XML (don’t take it anyway ;)) can go to www.w3schools.com.

1. mod_helloworld.xml
2. mod_helloworld.php

Create a XML called mod_helloworld.xml and paste the below code in it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<install type="module" version="1.5.0">
     <name>Hello World</name>
     <author>Your Name Goes Here</author>
     <creationDate>Date</creationDate>
     <copyright>(C) 2XXX-2XXX Company.com - All rights reserved.</copyright>
     <license>http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU/GPL</license>
     <authorEmail>name@domain.com</authorEmail>
     <authorUrl>www.domain.com</authorUrl>
     <version>1.0.0</version>
     <description>
          A Hello World Module for Joomla
     </description>
     <files>
          <filename module="mod_helloworld">mod_helloworld.php</filename>
     </files>
</install>

This XML file contains some basic information & it is very easy to understand. So, I’ll not discuss it.

After that, Create a blank PHP file called mod_helloworld.php.

Now, create a new archive and add above mentioned two files in it. The archive must be a .gz, .tar, .tar.gz, or .zip format. Then install the archive using Joomla! Module installer and you’ll get a blank module for development.

Making it Mature
Now we’ve a blank module in /modules/mod_helloworld/ directory for further development.

I’ll Continue….

IE6 is a HEADACHE for web developers. But, People still use this BUGGY browser, because it comes with Windows XP as the default browser. So, here is a approach towards the solution. Join it -

http://www.savethedevelopers.org/

I found this post quite interesting . So, I think, “why don’t I share this with you?”

I found it from one of my favorite blog writer Amy Hoy via Seattle PI blog post.

—- Original Message —-
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn’t Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn’t use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like “Open” or “Save”. No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

After waiting for couple of days, last week I’ve got this T-Shirt .

Though my Add-ons is still in sandbox , you can check it here - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6292

Yesterday, I’ve moved my blog to a new web hosting service provider - BlueHost. It has all the features I needed. Though, It has some bad reputation but I’m still feeling good. Here is some features of my new web hosting service provider -

• Disk Space - 307200 MB
• Monthly Bandwidth - 3072000 MB
• Email Accounts - 2500
• Subdomains - 999
• Parked Domains - 999
• Addon Domains - 999
• Ftp Accounts - 1000
• SQL Databases - 50
• Mailing Lists - 100
• Apache version - 2 (Unix)
• PHP version - 5
• MySQL version - 5
• Architecture - x86_64
• Operating system - Linux

Oh, It is also SSH & SVN enabled

This is a very old & useful trick. Some of you may know it. But, I think i should share it . Normally, If you want to download Yahoo Messenger. First, you have to download the online installer. Then, It’ll download the actual installer from web. But, I’ve many bad experiences with it. Because, it doesn’t support resume. I hope you are also experiencing same . So, this little tips will help you to download the actual yahoo messenger [not the online installer one] directly. But, for this, first you have to collect the link of the online installer.

For example -

http://us.dl1.yimg.com/download.yahoo.com/dl/msgr8/us/msgr8us.exe

Then add a ‘y’ before the exe name. So, now it’ll look like -

http://us.dl1.yimg.com/download.yahoo.com/dl/msgr8/us/ymsgr8us.exe

You can download any version of yahoo messenger using this trick. Why not try this .

Mozilla Firefox 3 has fixed the display problem with Bangla web pages. Now, you can show your justified texts in Firefox. So, I’ve updated this plugins to make it compatible with Firefox 2 & Firefox 3. Now, It’ll only activate for Firefox 2.

Mozilla Firefox 2 has some specific problems/bugs for displaying Bangla web pages. One of them is, when you align texts as “Justify”, the text become broken (see the image). Webmasters / Bloggers often forget this issue and as a result, they loose a number of visitors who are using Firefox for browsing their site/blog.

BanglaFixer is a plugin for WordPress, that fixes broken Bangla texts in Firefox 2 automatically. And visitors using other browsers also can see your Bangla WordPress blog seamlessly. This plug-in is theme independent, works with any WordPress theme, and doesn’t require any manual editing of the CSS or any other files.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just started making this theme. At first I had decided that it will be in white background but then I’ve changed my mind. Before that, I was using K2 Theme. K2 is still one of the top & most powerful theme for WordPress. But, As some of you know that, I’ve been working with web development. So, I’ve decided to make a theme for my blog.

And I’ve also decided to write some articles / tutorials for web development . Like, how to use some features of prototype js or jquery.

গতকাল মাইক্রোসফট্‌ ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরারের নুতন ভার্সনটা (ভার্সন ৮ বেটা ১) ডাউনলোড করলাম। যদিও আমি ফায়ারফক্স ভক্ত , তারপরেও চিন্তা করলাম নুতন জিনিস দেখিই না কেমন? এবং সবকিছু দেখে আমার মনে হয়েছে যে, যাক মাইক্রোসফট্‌ এতোদিনে বুঝতে পেরেছে যে, তাদের নন-স্ট্যান্ডার্ড ব্রাউজার আসলে এখন আর কেউ পছন্দ করছে না। অবশেষে তারা সিএসএস, ডোম এর স্ট্যান্ডার্ড অনুসরণ করা শুরু করেছে। এছাড়াও আরো বেশ কিছু নুতন ফিচার রয়েছে, কিছু ফিচার এখানে আপনাদের সাথে শেয়ার করছি…

ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরার ৮ -এ সিকিউরিটি বাড়ানোর জন্য এড্রেস বারে ডোমেইন হাইলাইটিং এর ব্যবস্থা করা হয়েছে। এই বুদ্ধিটা আমার কাছে ভালই মনে হয়েছে।

যারা ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরার ৭ ব্যবহার করেন, তারা নির্দিধায় ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরার ৮ ইন্সটল করতে পারেন। কারণ, ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরার ৮ এ আপনি ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরার ৭ ইমুলেট করতে পারবেন (ছবিতে বামে লক্ষ্য করুণ)। এতে আরও রয়েছে ডেভেলোপার টুল (ছবিতে ডানে লক্ষ্য করুণ), যদিও এটাকে ফায়ারফক্সের ডোম ইন্সপেক্টরের কপি বলতে পারেন ।

এই অপশনটা অবশ্য ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরার ৭ -এও আছে, তবে আমার কাছে এটা মজার মনে হয়েছে। তা হলো মাল্টিপল হোমপেজ।

দেখা যাক, মাইক্রোসফট্‌ সামনে ইন্টারনেট এক্সপ্লোরার ৮ এ আর কি কি যুক্ত করে।

This is a simple Firefox Extension to remove advertisements from Yahoo Web Messenger.

1. Start Firefox 2.x or newer.
2. To install click the download link below
3. Firefox will pop-up a warning dialog box, Click ‘Edit Options…’
4. Allow “vistaarc.com” to install the extension
5. Click again on the download link
6. Another pop-up (dialog box) will come, wait a moment then click install
7. After restarting Firefox, goto http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/.

Yahoo Web Messenger Ad Remover 0.1.xpi (7 kilobytes)
downloaded 499 times.

Please vote for https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6292

License Type :: Freeware

Version History
Yahoo Web Messenger Ad Remover Extension 0.1

• First Public Release

Copyright
Copyright © 2005-2008 VistaArc™. All rights reserved.
Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of their respective owners.