Bharath's Tech Blog

Labels: ocx, programming, regsvr32, windows, windows 7

Posted by bharath at 4/08/2010 05:29:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Ever since Yahoo groups adopted the box type advertisements on top of email, users are irritated by the advertisements that hover over the email content rather than flowing with the content.
Yahoo groups adds these advertisements to all emails processed by the groups' system.
So, the email that comes via yahoo groups end up obscured,that is,partly hidden behind yahoo's own advertisements.
Every service need advertisement revenue,but ads should not be over the content.
Ads should not mask the content.The

elements are having absolute positioning values and they hover over the content.
This is predatory advertising.


Notice the green arrow,it points the advertisement.
This screenshot taken at 1600x900 resolution with latest Firefox.


This screenshot taken at 1024x768 with latest IE 8


This screenshot taken at 1024x768 with latest Firefox.


In all the screenshots, the ad masks the content of the email.
It masks images as well as text.
Atleast, this box should have a close or hide button.
Else,it should be positioned relative to the content.

I have contacted Y! groups, lets see if they correct this.
Y! ads spoilt the first ever earth rise photo by placing their ad over the image in my mail,
:-(

Update:
Y! has responded to my complaint, here is the response from yahoo.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Bharath,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Groups.

I understand that the box in the upper right-hand corner of messages
from your group is covering text within the message. I apologize for
any inconvenience.

The details you have reported have been passed along to the proper
support group for further testing.

In the meantime, if you switch from "fully featured" emails to
"traditional" the box will not show up when you are viewing messages.
There are 2 ways to change this setting:

Option 1:

- Go to any page in the group

- Click "Edit Membership" towards the top of the page

- In "Step 3" select "Traditional" and click "Save"

Option 2:

- Send an email to groupname-traditional@yahoogroups.com (Replace
"groupname" with the full name of your group).

- You will receive a confirmation email, reply to the confirmation email
and your settings will be changed.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know. We're
always more than happy to help and we appreciate all feedback that helps
us identify ways to constantly maintain and improve our services.

Be sure to check the Official Yahoo! Groups Blog for more information
and the latest updates about Yahoo! Groups.

http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/

Regards,

Naddy

Yahoo! Groups Customer Care

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Comparison between "Fully featured"(left) and "Traditional"(right) mail delivery.

The above mentioned fix suggested by Yahoo groups works.
Change mail delivery to traditional.

Labels: groups, mail, programming, yahoo

Posted by bharath at 7/05/2009 03:33:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

This app takes the screenshot of the current window and saves it to a file.
File location and file name prefix can be changed,date and time stamp will be attached to the file name automatically. The screenshot taken can be opened by clicking on the "view" button.
And, there is no need to worry that your screenshot can get overwritten,since i attached a very unique date,time and millisecond stamp to the file name.



The application is available for download here.
VB.net developers looking to modify it can get the source code here.

Note:
Dont try to take screenshot of empty desktop,will work fine for taking screenshots of any window, i didnt care to fix that bug since there cant be no productive use for taking screenshot of empty desktop.If anyone wants to fix it view above source code.

Labels: programming, software, vb.net, visual basic

Posted by bharath at 2/19/2009 05:47:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Many applications in languages like PHP and frameworks like AJAX require the use of a local webserver to test and debug applications.
IIS can be used in Windows, but, PHP and mySQL needs to be installed separately for IIS.
As an alternative, WampServer can be used.




WAMP = Web server + PHP + mySQL
Wamp can be downloaded from here
WAMP is a one click install web server, just install the software and it will start to run in system tray, click on it and select "Put online".
Your website / web application needs to be placed in "C:\wamp\www" folder, if "C" is your system drive.
Your webserver can be accessed at this location, http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1
Make sure to allow firewall exceptions in order for the server to work.

Labels: programming, server

Posted by bharath at 3/19/2008 05:17:00 AM | Permalink | Comments