Archive for: July, 2008

Against the scroll lock and caps lock keys

Jul 18 2008 Published by under Design, General

The Scroll lock and Caps lock keys are not much used by anyone anymore. (I am not supposed to use these words, it seems). Anyway what I intend to tell is that they are not used by many people regularly.

Keyboard showing the CAPS Lock key

At least we all know what caps lock key is used for. What about the scroll lock key?

The scroll lock key is a remnant from the original IBM PC keyboard. In the original design, scroll lock was intended to modify the behavior of the arrow keys. When the scroll lock mode was on, the arrow keys would scroll the contents of a text window instead of moving the cursor. In this usage, scroll lock is a modifier key like Alt and Shift (which modify the function of other keys) and, more specifically, a toggling lock key like Num Lock or Caps Lock, which have a state that persists after the key is released. Today, this particular use of scroll lock is rare. Only a few modern programs still honor this behavior, such as Microsoft Excel (in the behavior of arrows — when scroll lock is on, the selection does not move), Lotus Notes and Forté Agent. In modern GUI environments, scrolling is usually accomplished using means such as scrollbars or scroll wheels. Therefore scroll lock can be regarded as a defunct feature in almost all modern programs and operating systems; some keyboards lack scroll lock altogether.

Here is the result of an online poll:

Poll result for: The most useless key on my keyboard

Many people are not using scroll lock key any way. Why not save some keyboard real estate by removing this key?

Even though some people with specific applications use caps lock key, usually people use the shift key for the occasional capitalization of letters. Many people are pressing for removing the CAPS Lock Key from the keyboard. There is even a google group for this.
What is the optimum solution? In my opinion, remove the scroll lock key, and move the caps lock key there.

6 responses so far

Standards, ideas and goals

Jul 18 2008 Published by under General

When your standards differ from my standards, we need new standards.

When your perspective differs from my perspective, we can discuss and exchange ideas.

When your goal is different from my goal, it is better we part ways.

2 responses so far

The difference between work and business

Jul 17 2008 Published by under General

Work can be fun.
Business cannot.

If your work is more fun, chances are that you are more productive. If your business is more fun, chances are that you are doomed.

How to do your work best is a subject researched by people for years, and they have thought of many ways to make your work fun and easy. But business can be done only in a single way – the right way – the hard way. It is how it has been done for thousands of years of human history.

Make your work fun and take your business seriously.

3 responses so far

Go green

Jul 16 2008 Published by under General

This is the most important post ever in this blog. Read it and act fast. Do it so that coming generations can see mother earth in the same beautiful way as we were able to see it.

In your home

  1. Turn off equipment like televisions and stereos when you are not using them.
  2. Choose energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.
  3. Save water; some simple steps can go a long way in saving water. E.g.: you should always turn off the tap when you are brushing your teeth. And try to collect the water used to wash vegetables and salad to water your house plants.
  4. Let clothes dry naturally. Avoid dryer.
  5. Keep lids on pans when cooking to prevent your cooker having to work extra hand. Prefer to use gas ovens, Geysers etc in place of the electric ones.
  6. Recycle your paper, glass, plastics and other waste.
  7. Plants emit Oxygen. So take home these earth saving friends to live with you.

While on the road

    1. Less traffic is less pollution and less petrol consumption.
    2. Follow traffic rules and leave left lane, tomorrow we might be the one in ambulance caught in traffic jam
    3. Prefer to share your ride to reduce traffic jams and pollution.
    4. Prefer to use public transport.
    5. Set an example by not littering and cleaning litter.
    6. Keep a litter bag in your car and bring one with on day trips in case no waste bins are available.
    7. Prefer to turn off engine at traffic signals.

      Save wood and paper

        1. Always use both sides of a sheet of paper.
        2. Use email to stay in touch, including cards, rather than faxing or writing
        3. Reuse envelopes. Always reuse paper for making scribbling pads.
        4. Share magazines with friends and pass them on to the doctor, dentist or local hospital for their waiting rooms.
        5. Use recyclable paper to make invitation cards, envelops, letter pads etc.

          Reuse and recycle

            1. Use washable nappies instead of disposables if you can
            2. Give unwanted clothes, toys and books to charity shops or jumble sales.
            3. Use mains electricity rather than batteries if possible. If not, use rechargeable batteries.
            4. Use a solar powered calculator instead of one with a battery.
            5. Instead of a plastic ballpoint, use a fountain pen with bottled ink, not plastic cartridges.
            6. Store food and other products in ceramic containers rather than in plastic wrap.

              At your workplace

                1. Use printers that can print on both sides of the paper; try to loom into this option when replacing old printers.
                2. Use the back of a draft or unwanted printout instead of notebooks. Even with a double sided printer there is likely to be plenty of spare paper to use!
                3. Always buy recycled paper – for your business stationary and to use in your printers.
                4. Switch off computer monitors, printers and other equipment at the end of each day. Though in standby mode they are still using power – and that adds to global warming.
                5. Always turn off your office lights and computer when you go out for lunch or to a meeting.
                6. Prefer green roofs, gardens and natural plants in your office.

                  While shopping

                    1. Prefer carrying your own bags and avoid plastic usage. Prefer paper or jute bags.
                    2. Prefer on-line shopping, bill payments and reservations as this will reduce fuel consumption and pollution by not driving to shops/offices.
                    3. Purchase solar powered products.
                    4. Send e-cards if you can, rather than buy paper cards.

                      Bloggers

                      You can copy this text to your blog to spread this message. No attribution/link-love is needed.

                        17 responses so far

                        Losing in style

                        Jul 08 2008 Published by under General

                        If your career depends on your personal skills, chances are that you will lose to the competition one day or the other. But you can try hard, desperately, with your full heart so that when you lose, you lose in style.

                        That is what the great Roger Federer did when he lost to the impeccable Rafael Nadal in the (grandest ever) Wimbledon championship final last night.

                        I felt like Federer was saying: “All these years I never had a chance to grab a runners up trophy in Wimbledon”. Of course, he was the champion there for the last five years.

                        Being the best in your profession is very, very difficult. Still, it is not impossible. It is worth trying.

                        2 responses so far

                        Who taught who taught you?

                        Jul 04 2008 Published by under General, Programming

                        In one of my undergraduate classes, a lecturer was teaching the C language. Here is how he explained the while loop: “The while loop will continue in the loop as long as we do not provide the exit condition”.
                        Then he showed us basic structure of the while loop:

                        while(1)
                        {
                              if(condition)
                              {
                                    break;
                              }
                              ... ... ... ... ...
                        }

                        I was prompt in asking about a simpler while loop:

                        while(condition)
                        {
                              ... ... ... ... ...
                        }

                        “Oh. That is also fine. You can use it either way” was the response.

                        I still don’t know how he got to teach in the institution. These guys are really dangerous. They make bad software engineers. Generations of them. Atleast now I know where the Daily WTF codes come from.

                        30 responses so far

                        Why you should validate all form fields

                        Jul 02 2008 Published by under Programming, Security

                        Cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection attacks are real and growing threats in the web. Malicious users try to exploit any kind of security vulnerability they find in web applications. That is the reason why every single input field in your web input form must be validated.

                        Many web developers ignore validating the data in drop down lists, option buttons, check boxes etc because these form controls can have only a predefined set of values. Usually these set of values are provided by the server. So the developer assumes that the value returned to the server from the user will also contain any of these pre-defined values, and hence they need not be validated. This is a serious mistake.

                        Intentionally or by mistake, a user can send any data to your server. User can manipulate the data in your web page and return values that were not anticipated and thereby exploit your system.

                        See an example:
                        Below is a drop down list:

                        Select Box

                        The allowed values are 100,200,300 and 400.

                        If you want to add a new value 500 to the list, it is pretty simple. There is a great plug-in for Firefox named Firebug. Using Firebug you can edit virtually any value in the DOM of the webpage.

                        FireBug Edit

                        The result – a malicious user can do cross-site scripting attacks or SQL injections attacks against your website if you are not doing proper validation of input data.

                        No amount of client side validation can substitute for server side validation. Client side validation is used for giving back error messages to the user to notify him of any error before submitting to the server. Once the data is submitted to the server, it must be validated and any potentially dangerous data must be stripped off.

                        The rule of thumb must be:

                        Every piece of data coming from the user must be strictly validated.

                        Simple. Isn’t it?

                        2 responses so far

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