Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Super Computers.. What You Need To Know!!

Supercomputers at NASA Ames Research Center.

You obviously know what a computer is capable of doing by now, I don't expect you to know it inside out but at least some idea about it..! Computer is now a necessity in every home. It makes our life so simple and with the evolution of internet its now a machine that people can't live without. You basically have a home computer to play games, log into facebook and other social sites, chat with friends neglecting home work, download and watch movies and simply something to do when your plain bored.

So What is a Super Computer anyway..?!  And why were Super Computers made..?! 

Super Computers is a computing machine that has a far greater processing  power than others of its day; typically they use more than one core and are housed in large clean rooms with high air flow to permit rapid cooling of many heated systems and processors. Super computers were made for advanced calculations and forecasts ranging from research to design flaws. But many of Super computers powers are also used for climate modeling, renewable energy, materials science, fusion, combustion, nuclear  simulations  and animations.

The Top Ten Super Computing Super Powers;

1. USA
2. China
3. Germany
4. UK
5. France
6. Japan
7. Russia
8. Sweden
9. Canada
10. Switzerland

So what is the fastest Super Computer Out there..?!

The fastest Super Computer system ever made is called the "Jaguar" which belongs to the "Cray XT" system family. The system model is known as "Cray XT5-HE". Cray Jaguar XT5-HE supercomputer is built by Cray Inc. at Oak Ridge National Laboratory  in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. The Cray XT5 Jaguar system has 224,256 Opteron processor cores, and operates with a version of Linux called Cray Linux Environment.. It has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. It is used by scientists conducting research in astrophysics, climate science and nuclear energy.

Jaguar XT5 Super Computer

The Jaguar supercomputer performs 1,750 trillion calculations a second. So in other words for "1 Second" of calculations made by the Jaguar it will take your PC over 10 hours (time taken for a trans Atlantic flight). Which means for a "Day" of calculations by the Jaguar, it will take your PC over 100 YEARS..!!! Beat that.!!!

Already a new XT-6 is under development. There is a possibility that it could be in use already..!

Simple Facts;
  • No.01 use if Super computers are for research purposes.
  • Most Super computers are based on a Linux based operating system
  • US is the largest manufacturer and user of Super computers.
  • Super computers are widely used to forecast damage and evacuation plans for major natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami's, hurricanes, or tropical storms.
Further reading: 



Thursday, May 13, 2010

The King-Kong battle of File Hosting

Couple of years back and if you were searching for a stable and reliable file hosting service, the most recommended name you would get is "Rapidshare". But that was some time back, with evolving technology and ever decreasing price of hardware many hundreds of online file hosting companies have sprung up. It is now difficult to narrow down the competitors, all have advantage of their own. Ranging from prices, traffic limit, bandwidth offered, services offered and to their self gained reputation. Top five file hosting companies I use are ;- Rapidshare, Hotfile, Netload, Mediafire & Megaupload.

In the end it is wise to choose the right hosting company on the services provided to both premium and free users. And also keep in my mind about the link popularity of the hosting company as well, for example;- there are more Rapidshare & Hotfile links than that of Uploading.com or Stoorage.to so naturally a buyer would be more interested to buy a Rapidshare or Hotfile account than that of the other two. That is mostly how I choose my premium accounts. All networks offer high traffic and bandwidth to their "Premium" users. "Free" users as you would know by now have to wait for certain time before the download link appears, can't download more than one file at once and offers extremely low bandwidth for the download.


The million dollar question;- Rapidshare vs Hotfile: what is better..?! (Premium users perspective)

As I said before each hosting service has their own strengths. Rapidshare and Hotfile are both highly reputed file hosting companies, both offer high bandwidth to their premium users. But traffic limit per day in Rapidshare land is 25GB (quite a lot you would think) where as in Hotfile it is completely "Unlimited".. there's no limit to your downloading usage other than your connection speed (Awesome right.!!). Price wise Rapidshare is slightly expensive the longer your commitment are than that of Hotfile, but fully worth it. There are more links on the internet for files on Rapidshare so the extra you pay is all worth it, I certainly use my Rapidshare premium account more than the Hotfile account.

Final answer:- Rapidshare is better than Hotfile. And no doubt Hotfile is second best. That is why is I have premium accounts from both these file hosting companies..:)

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Opera Mini Web Browser for the iPhone & iPod Touch


It is been seen as a major break through in Opera Mini's browser history, as it becomes the first "alternative" browser to be approved for use on Apple's iPhone and iPad Touch. Many were skeptical of Opera Mini's grand plan to tap into Apple devices.. especially mobile based products that mostly run on Apple designed software. The main software browser currently used on the iPhone and iPod Touch is the Apple trademark browser "Safari".

Opera 5 offers some neat features to mobile browsing, including a much awaited "tabbed browsing". And effortlessly auto-complete web addresses thanks to their sophisticated URL auto-completion process. Backup your bookmarks, Speed Dials, and search engines to My Opera, and keep them synchronized between different phones,or with Opera - on your desktop computers or laptops. And manage your downloads and many more.. read the full list of features here http://www.opera.com/mobile/features/

So what does Opera mini really offer.. or more correctly, how does Opera Mini really work..?? Well Opera Mini doesn't technically request and pull down Web pages through its own native code. Instead, Opera Mini uses what's called a proxy browser, because it sends Web page requests to Opera's servers, which then compress the Web page before sending it back to the phone. The result is not only an often-faster way to distribute Web content, but a legitimate way to bypass Apple's objection to most standalone HTML browsers.

The upside potential for iPhone and iPod Touch users when they use the Opera Mini software is speed. CNET reports that during their internal testing, Opera's Mini browser software "happens to be noticeably faster than Safari." In terms of performance Opera mini is definitely much better than Safari, it uses some pretty neat technology to get the job done.

Being accepted by Apple is one thing but surviving in competitive waters is completely different, it needs to meet the Apple users demands. Whether users will switch totally to the new browser or stick with the old guns or use both, only time will tell. Users will be pretty interested to try it out, you know just to see "what's new in this.??" But by default many application that uses web connection will connect through Safari.. so Safari is never out of the picture, just slightly shaken for the time being.

Take a look at the Video

Friday, April 9, 2010

Google's New Search Engine.. Only for Firefox Users.?!


Recently Google seems to have given a big upgrade to their to their trade mark search engine. It looks and feels great, and it offers great new searching features. All this is good but.. is the new search engine only available to Firefox users..?!?

The new upgrade to Google's search engine is dashing and it kinda looks cool too. Google has brought its search engine to new a level and it makes searching for your related topic quite easy, and this will definitely impress many of its users. Searching for different type of results is very easy with the new engine, local search and site search are very handy if your looking to buy something off the web. Direct explanation of the new features and options available in the new Google search would be a tough job, so I broke it down with a screen shot explanation of the new features. So click on the image below to get a better understanding of the new Google search engine.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge


So with this amazing feature many people will find Google search engine more "attractive" in terms of searching.

But is the new search engine accessible to all..?! Well no..!! Or more correctly not yet..!! I found out myself that the new Google search options are only available to Firefox users at this point in time.. I actively use Google Chrome and Opera 10.5 but in their Google search, all results are displayed in the same old fashioned way, see pic..

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge..

Chrome View -
the old boring view of Google (notice the changes from the previous image)

Yes, it still has the new options and few more other new features here and there, but it is different to the results that are available to Firefox users. May be its just temporarily, or may be Google presents various search options for various browsers..!! Who knows why..?!?!

Bottom line is.. the new Google search officially rocks, and Firefox users get to enjoy it in full for the time being..!! :)

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Is Opera the fastest web browser on earth..??


While claiming to be the "fastest web browser on earth" with Java script engine that loads 7x faster, with new "Opera Turbo" to help increase speed of slow connections and array of other features that came out with the new Opera browser. So is Opera the fastest web browser on earth..?? The answer is both Yes and a No.

I'm delighted that after years opera developers have built the web browser that will match many internet users demands. Earlier versions of the Opera were sluggish in performance coupled with poor user friendliness. I think it would be fair to say that Opera's new Java script engine does load faster in many cases than the others. Flash scripts although takes longer to load initially, after loading the feed back and response time is stunning, you will notice marked improvements on flash games and such (like barnbuddy or farmville which uses flash). Although I don't see much of difference in loading YouTube or flash based videos on Opera compared to Google Chrome, it is how ever a marked improvement from the previous versions. So it could be said that Opera is fast when it comes to loading web pages based on java script and flash.

"Opera Turbo" works well as featured, but I really wouldn't use it every time, because what Opera Turbo does to increase load time is it uses server-side optimization and compression technology that speeds up data transfer and reduces the amount of data that needs to be downloaded in order to view the page by up to 80%. Among other means, the compression is achieved by image down-sampling therefore some level of distortion in graphics may occur. So as they say to improve speed, page and image quality is lost as result. May be it is good for users with internet packages that has limited bandwidth usage per day/month.

But what stops it from being the "fastest browser in the world" as claimed. Their HTML loading is still pretty much the same. I really don't see much progress in the HTML loading features. It is good, but Firefox and Chrome out do Opera's performance in HTML script loading. Another problem I see is with their cache system, for example I used Opera several times to browse facebook and all the time the welcome page alone takes a longer time to load, so their cache system needs to buck up and deliver on smooth browsing.

I believe the new Opera is good in the present day market, and very good compared to other Opera versions that was available. But I would stop short of calling it the "fastest browser on earth", may be the used technology is first in the world but there is still more room for improvement. It is a amazing new browser with tons of new features and offers a lot to users.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

My Predictions Come True


Well as I predicted on my previous blog post about Google's 2010 April Fools pranks and of course joining hands with CNN to trick the world has proved true. Hmm If you'll read my previous blog post then of course even you will find it too obvious to be true especially on April 1st. But this has to be the 1st time I've seen a two major companies joining hands just to prank their users on April 1st. How cheap can these companies get by joining hands in ensuring that their users get pranked to the maximum.. bit too cheap if you ask me. But it is now becoming almost tradition for many companies to prank their customers, staff and users on April fools day.. In then end its all just a laugh..:P

Read CNN's post about their and Google's grand plan that pranked the web users on April Fools day here http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/01/april.fools.tech/index.html?npt=NP1 and of course after or before reading that article you can read mine which I break down the "Grand" scheme of things... lol http://tweakblog-guru.blogspot.com/2010/04/googles-2010-april-fool-joke.html

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Google's 2010 April Fool Joke..;)


Hey guys its 1st of April to the world over and as usual people from all over my neighborhood and friends call me up, come over to my place, sends text messages and even email me some kind of trash to trick me on "April Fools day"..:P Ahhhhhhh little did they know that I will be the last man to fall for these jokes.. (I guard myself up the day before for all these "lame" pranks..[-_-]) ahhh in vain their effort. And not only friends and family trick you'll on April fools day, now its a tradition for major companies to trick the public on the 1st too.. (which is nothing new of course..)

So today after hearing all tricks and falling for none, I came online to see what awaits there.. and of course Google is my homepage, so i logged on to mail, chat and etc.. and as I was browsing along something different caught my eye, it was the "Google" logo on their search page, it was changed to "Topeka". So naturally I went to Google's blog and checked it out, there was a even a CNN news page supporting there claim. And just as I was thinking to myself "what are the odds Google change their name cause a city is changing there name to "Google"
..????" and Yeah then it dawned to me today was April fools day..:P I know pretty convincing story huh.. even with CNN hooked up..

But some what of a give away was that the name "Google" is giant.. and it must be the most known brand name in the "WORLD" and you can't just change names of such mega companies in one day like you change your pet name or something... It will take lots of time and Google will stand to loose "BILLIONS" in revenue just for a name change.. (economy 1-o-1.. its a long story..) Well, what I think (and pretty sure) is that the Google's name change is just a April fools joke..;) lol.. I don't know about the cities name change (which will be nuts to call a city "Google"), but who knows it could be part of the prank.. and at this very moment emails and comments are flying around about Google's name change, little do they know that this very well may be a "April Fool's Joke".. and their getting pranked big time..:P

Have a laugh about it yourself, read the Google's name change blog post here http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html Cheers guys, and keep a eye out for pranks like this yourself..;)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Does YouTube Uploader Work..????

A program that was making some big hype around the internet for some time is about a freeware program called "YouTube Uploader" and it has got the attention of many, especially over its featured use of uploading videos to YouTube "effortlessly" and ofcourse with its price tag being "free", naturally it got everyone's attention. But the question really is.. does it work..?? does it deliver on its promises..?!

The answer quite simply is a big fat "NO". No it simply does not work, and it certainly don't deliver on its promises. This was a complete night mare. I don't know why but in my PC it took more than one time to install all the files properly for the pro
gram to start working. I had high expectations from this software but it disappointed me with its results, after some time I got the program running, logged into YouTube account and got going........ minutes later more problems flooded in. The videos were uploading at really slow speed, and naturally you get frustrated about it. Then the big problem was, the video files never got uploaded over 26%, i tried and tried, and it failed and failed. Then I thought of uploading a another video but the same problem, this time it didn't even go above 12%.. and after 30mins of trying and trying and seeing no result, I gave up the idea and simply came to one conclusion.. It simply does not work.

It seems I'm not the only one finding this software useless.. reading some comments on YouTube and few other sites pointed out that many were having similar problems working with this software. So simply put it, the "YouTube Uploader" does not work.

So have you used
"YouTube Uploader"..?? If Yes or even No, tell me how you feel about this program in the comments below.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Dress Up Your Firefox: Make It Look Bling Bling


By now you might probably know how much I love Firefox, and so naturally I try and improve it in every way I can. The color and look of the browser matter very much to me, so like to change the theme of the Firefox browser to brighten things up. I don't like the theme to be too dark or too light, some where in the middle is how I like it, with the buttons and other navigation bars untouched. But naturally sometimes changing themes mean changing the look and feel of buttons too, which i absolutely hated, because the Firefox default button look and feel is just right for me. And after years using Firefox themes and for much of the time not liking its layout, other than the color.

Then as luck would have it I accidentally bumped on to relatively new add-on called "Persona" at that time. And boy o boy did I simply LOVE that add-on. Its was so cool and amazing. All you have to do to make your Firefox stand out from the rest, is to simply install the add-on from their website or from the Firefox add-on page and then select a "persona" that matches you. And that's it. And it keeps all the buttons, navigation bars and all the rest the way it was, but adding that..... whatever the design you choose over it, and it just blows you away. I think I have been using it for over an year now it was with me ever since Firefox 3.0 was released, but everyday I love this add-on, you can choose from literally millions of persona's and there's no end to it. And it doesn't end there, you can add your OWN pictures as persona's from their website.

And when your selecting persona's its really very simple, all there is to do is go to their website then on a design you like simply hover your mouse over it and the Firefox will immediately turn to show how the browser would look if you choose that particular design. Overall this add-on simply is amazing, and you really really need to try it out. Get it on Firefox add-on page or on the persona website. Try it out for yourself, comment on how it goes out for you.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Internet Download Manager for Free

Download manager is a computer program dedicated to the task of downloading (and sometimes uploading) files over the internet from various sources. It can easily handle downloading of files from multiple sites. So if your a heavy down-loader, then this is must have software for you. Download managers now come in various forms, some come as installers, some in forms of a portable software and now gathering popularity is as a browser add-on. Nowadays all popular browsers have a simple built in download managers as well.

I actually prefer a installer form of download manager to the others, mainly due its stability and more control of the downloads. Many installer download managers are not free, but fortunately with development on the areas of freeware and open source development we are offered a very neat piece of software called Free Download Manager.

It is a great piece of software, you can do everything a paid download manager can do. You can stop, pause, resume broken downloads and many more (see all features here) it does absolutely anything you expect from a download manager and its COMPLETELY FREE. This is terrific piece of software that I have come across. And it supports many browsers. Try it out for yourself.

Screen Shot

Download Free Download Manager Here

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Open Links In a New Tab with One Click of a Button


I love working with tabs. Its so simple, you don't have to minimize any windows to get to the other, you can work on multiple sites with just one browser opened, simply by working with tabs. But the thing is, if you are a heavy tab user like me, then sometimes it gets a bit annoying when out links from sites open in the same tab...:@ It sometimes kills you to go back, then right-click on the link and click--> Open in new tab. Especially if your trying to open multiple links.

But there is a small way around that and it only requires a small piece of inexpensive hardware (you obviously have it with you now itself).. and that is a scroll wheel mouse.. and that's all..!!! What you need to do is simply hover your mouse over the link and click on the scroll wheel, and then your link will automatically open in a new tab. And this method pretty much works on a any browser.

For those who don't have a scroll wheel mouse, i'm sorry but you'll have to do it the old way.. right click on the link---> Open in new tab. Or just throw your old mouse and get a optical scroll mouse, which is inexpensive, easy to use and useful.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Strengthen Google Chrome with Extensions


Google Chrome entered the browser market with a lot of hype and promises, and it did to certain extent grab the attention of the internet community when it first rolled out. Chrome was famous in weeks, it was versatile, easy to use, no mess browser that delivered on its promises. Soon more updates followed and Chrome was on top of many others. Then with the stable release of Google Chrome 4 a new feature was available and that was Chrome extensions (windows only).

The new "Extension" for chrome is very identical to Firefox add-ons. Extensions allowed user to have more control of its browser as the user wanted. Although I had doubts about chrome extensions when it came out, the results so far has proven me otherwise.

Amount of Extensions available for chrome (that is still new) is staggering. There are number of extensions for multiple purposes. Since Chrome and Google are linked the number of "Google" related extensions are high. I certainly find my chrome browser more entertaining with its extensions on. But whether it will be able to challenge Firefox add-ons is anyone guess. Its right up there, but not yet up to Firefox standards.

Extensions are on the way for non-Windows users. "To those using Google Chrome on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel," said Chrome Product Manager Nick Baum in a blog post. "And for those using Google Chrome for Mac, hang tight--we're working on bringing extensions, bookmark sync, and more to the beta soon."

Time will tell what new features will be available. Firefox is moving to a new extensions foundation called Jetpack that, like Chrome's technology, uses Web standards such as HTML and CSS. Firefox will support the current XUL system but hopes Jetpack will offer advantages of easier development, installation, and updates.

I will soon put up Chrome Extensions that will be useful to many. There under trial at the moment. Results should be up by next week. Till then check out Chrome Extension Gallery https://chrome.google.com/extensions

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Revo the Uninstall King


If your like me who is never happy with the default windows uninstaller, then this article is definitely for you. The uninstall job done by the crappy default uninstaller in windows is pretty much useless, there are many leftover files of the un-installation still left in the registry, program files folder and in some cases in the start up menu folder too.

After some painful searching for the right uninstalling software I stumbled across a amazing software named Revo Uninstaller. The freeware version of this software does a very satisfactory job in cleaning up installed files. It gives the user the option of scanning for leftover files on the registry and on start up folders. Not only does this great piece of software remove unwanted softwares but it also has a "Auto-run manager" giving the user option of checking what softwares that should start up when booting. Saving some time during booting. And for it's "Free" price it does a good job and sometimes exceeds those of paid ones. So you guys really need to give this freeware a shot, you'll be blown away by its magic.

Screenshot

Download Revo Uninstaller Here

**Pro version needs to be purchased from Revo. Check there website for more details Here.

Automatically Adjust Web Page Resolution on a Wide Screen Monitor


If you own wide screen monitor browsing web pages may be a little bit annoying now that many websites are in different sizes, many web pages now come in long and narrow configuration to fit majority of screen resolutions, at many times leaving centimeters of dead space along the sides. Which will eventually kill your browser experience and soon will become a nuisance to your eyes when reading. Sure there is the zoom in and zoom out option, but really how many times will you be bothered to keep doing it everyday..?!? Some websites have ridiculous bright/dark backgrounds and very small font.. and at times raising your pressures levels just trying to figure out whats written..!!

But then again if your a Firefox user there is simple solution to all these problems.. a simple add-on. It automatically adjusts the screen resolution of the web page so that it fits in to your wide screen comfortably and offers manual selection of text format and background of web sites to make your browsing more comfortable. The add-on is called NoSquint. NoSquint allows you customize text, zoom and background settings the way you want it per site. This is certainly one add-on that will be worth trying out if you are wide screen owner.

NoSquint can:

* Override the default text-only and full-page (both text and images) zoom levels for all websites
* Enforce your own foreground and background colors
* Remember your zoom levels and color settings per site, automatically applying them when you return.
* Disagree with what NoSquint calls a site? A powerful exceptions mechanism lets you split up or group together sites with URL patterns.

Get it here on Firefox add-on site - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2592
Or get it on the developers website - https://urandom.ca/nosquint/

Watch the Video about NoSquint

Manage Firefox Tabs With FoxTab


we all know firefox is great browser and it has really revolutionized modern day browsing introducing tonnes of new features, supported by multiple O/S platforms, thousands of addons, extra features and bla bla bla..... but if your a heavy Firefox user and work with multiple tabs when browsing then something that will always annoy you is its tab manager user interface.. although the new firefox comes with many modifications to find tabs easily it ain't that useful if you have quite a number of tabs opened, because it will only shows you the heading making the search a bit difficult. And if you cant remember where you opened it, the only way possible for you to find is check all tabs one-by-one until you find what your looking for. A real time killer for me..

But luckly there is simple solution to this, all you have to do is install a very simple but effective addon.

Its called FoxTab.

It converts that boring zero graphic tab manager to a amazing graphical user interface super tab manager. This baby includes a thumbnail of every tab that's opened, enabling you to find the needed webpage in a jiffy even in overcrowded tab situations. All you have to do is first click on the "List all tabs" button found at the far right corner of the browser where the tabs are usually opened and just skip through the images using the "Tab" key in your keyboard and then just select the tab you were looking for, and that's it. There are many more features that come on it, you can read about it on their website at http://www.foxtab.com/features/ This is one piece of add-on that will stay with me for a long time. Give it try and see how it works out for you.. You can get FoxTab here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8879

FoxTab expalined by me..;)

Click on the picture to enlarge