This competition while similar to a component competition is different in that what TopCoder would normally release as several separate components is being developed as one unit of work.  This competition will not be rated, but will award DR Points.  It will feature extended submission (10 day) and review (4 day) phases.

The work itself contains a Domain Object Model (DOM) of POJO and JPA mapping to a Relational Data store.  It also contains a generic Object factory and 6 individual DAO’s.  This component will be used by future components to provide data access/persistence for a number of web services.

The technologies include Java, JDK 1.5, JPA and EJB 3.0.

Find out more at http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=ViewActiveContests&ph=113

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Anti-Alias Problem

And I found in one of the support forms, says the problem is with the Cleartype text or font settings. Just follow these steps to enable Cleartype for smooth edges for screen fonts:

Go to Desktop -> Right Click -> Display Properties -> Appearance -> Effects

Then enable “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:” choose ClearType as your option and then apply the settings, that’s it you are done. Now the windows, Firefox and IE displays the text or font properly rendered with smooth or soft edges

Check the same in the below screen shot:

ClearType Font Anti-Alias settings

Was wondering why I am not facing the same problem in IE, looks like IE7 uses ClearType by default, but you need to turn it on system-wide for other programs to use it in Windows XP. It’s cool right

Just thought to share this simple trick with you all, might be the minor one but

if you are not aware of it then guess

To know more about ClearType check the following links:
ClearType - Typography settings - Microsoft
ClearType - Wikipedia
How do I turn on Antialiasing in Firefox

Share the same with the techies, if they are facing the same problem…..

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Wittysparks - VideoBuzz Videos

WittySparks is a website which gives an overview about events that create headlines from different walks of life, from sports, entertainment to technology. The site provides free content and a host of services through its links with other sites.

Updated on a regular basis, the site is linked to other prominent and popular sites such as snehaH.com, a popular social networking site, DeveloperSnippets.com and others.

Carrying on these lines of giving free services to WittySparks regular readers, we announce the launch of our new service called VideoBuzz - Watch the world!

This service is integrated under WittySparks and is fully integrated with Wordpress.

The site provides tag related videos for each article which gets published in WittySparks. This means readers get a video directly or indirectly related the piece which they read in Witty Sparks to enhance their overall experience!

It enables and provides the users with an opportunity to search for their own videos by using basic filters and settings which are embedded in the site.

It also provides the user the facility to grab the embed code of the video which can be shared or embedded on your own blog, website and other such source.

And the best part..any guesses, the user get to view millions of videos from thousands of channels available all over the web!!

Truveo Developer Challenge

Since the team at WittySparks has undertaken efforts to make it live, we submitted our WittySparks VideoBuzz section to Truveo TopCoder Contest and our website got listed at “Watch the world on WittySparks with VideoBuzz“ we hope to get all your support to grab the price !

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Apple recently launched its new version of 3g phones in 22 countries which has taken the world by storm. The new phone provides GPS, 3G, recessed earphone jack and a glossy plastic back with chrome buttons on the hardware front. Couple with this its 3.5 inch crystal clear display, a brilliant 480×320 pixel resolution which make colors stand out, some sharp graphics and fluid animations. This makes the new iphone an excellent gaming device too!

The bright icons look stunning on the dark background and the fluid animations are a treat to watch on this phone. The menu of this key less phone is sensitive as well as intuitive with some smart multi touch technology to sense the movement of the fingers of the user in a variety of ways.

The phone has a motion sensor, which enables it to adjust its display orientation automatically based on the way it is flipped by the user.

On the software front, the phone provides Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync which enables access of e-mails, calendars and other features for corporate users. It also brings along with it the 2.0 firmware which enables the AppStore, enabling the user to download apps for the iPhone over the air. The phone has its customary ipod and provides the capability to install hundreds of free ‘apps’ which would be soon available on the internet.

Where the phone could have fared better was its camera. Unfortunately for the buyers, they get a 2 megapixel camera without a flash and can’t shoot videos. Now that is a let off when compared with other smart phones which offer a 3.2 mega pixel camera.

Though these are early days for the phone, it could be said that this new avatar of iphone is slimmer, lighter and and offers features which would suit people on the move, corporates and those who like to carry the ‘fashion’ with them!

For more on the phone, you could visit the following website for reviews, applications and add-ons.

Check out the following links for iPhone Reviews, Apps etc.:

———————
Reviews

3G iPhone first hands on

3G iPhone Review

Apple iPhone

———————-

Turn your iPhone into a wireless drive with datacase

“One feature of many other handheld devices is the ability to use the device as a portable flash drive to move data between a couple of computers. The iPhone doesn’t have that ability now, but will on July 28, 2008.”

Top 10 best iPhone 3G Apps

Apple sells 1 million iPhone 3Gs in first weekend

App Store is Like a Sweet, Sweet Drug: Five IPhone Applications Reviewed

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The New York Times went live last month with 15 million of its files without using even a single byte. No, I am not bluffing! So said an article in Newsweek magazine. They did so by outsourcing and using Amazon’s cloud computing service. The outcome of this initiative is Times Machine, an application that runs on the paper’s website and resides on Amazon’s server.

So, the one question that arises in the mind is, what is cloud computing? To put it in simple terms, a few years back if you wanted to do something with your computer, you needed to install or buy a software. But with the coming of Web 2.0, this practice has been rendered obsolete. Cloud computing is the ability to use a software and data o the internet which symbolizes the cloud instead of your hard drive.

Just imagine, if companies could free their servers of files and software and instead outsource it to another company having expertise in it, the costs and effort which would go for maintenance would be reduced drastically. And this is precisely what New York Times did.

Amazon along with Google, Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Yahoo have just started out cloud computing services. This gives small companies the luxury to run their operations on minimal and basic software made available on the internet by the respective companies.

‘Cloudworks’ is a company which is operating in this field and provides a service that allows customers to access Microsoft Outlook from anywhere.

Other initiatives taken in this regard are Coca Cola’s distribution division subscribing to MS Online, in the process removing e-mail and documents from its own services. Microsoft Online removed e-mail and documents from its own services and floated them on Microsoft’s cloud. A similar initiative was undertaken a while back by google which came up with Google docs.

One of the areas of concern in cloud computing could be security of information stored on the website. The company subscribing to the service might have to trust the company whose cloud it uses and get into some kind of an understanding with the same.

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With ‘Koffee with Karan’ being a decent crowd puller, there’s another addition to host shows and comes as a bit of a surprise to many!

Item girl Rakhi Sawant is all set to feature as a host in a chat show titled ‘Rakhi Ka Phone Aaya Hai‘. The show would deal with topics ranging from politics to ‘controversies’!

Rakhi shot to fame with the item number ‘Pardesiya..’ but her moment of fame came about in the reality show Big Boss.

She also featured as a guest in Koffee with Karan in an episode that was one of the widely viewed.

The format of Koffee with Kaan was refreshing with a great deal of research going into the questions which were asked to the different star guests. With a benchmark already set by ‘Koffee with Karan’, Rakhi would have her work cut out to stand out from her predecessor. The show has garnered enough publicity already with Aamir Khan being a guest for one of the episodes.

One would have to wait and watch if she is able to carry forward her “speak your mind attitude” to the show and announce the show’s arrival with a bang!

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By using this add-on you can perform search for Google Web, Local, Videos, Blogs, News, Books, Images, and Patents. You can even have a control of the results displayed as there are options to restrict some types of Google searches to specific sites!

This extension includes fully customizable keyword system. If you’re familiar with the built-in Firefox keywords understanding how to use these will be second nature for you. And search results can be intermingled with the normal history/bookmarks results that are displayed in the address bar.

The basic features they are providing are:
1. Supports Multiple Google Services
2. Customizable Keywords
3. Restrict Searches to a Site
4. Custom Icons for keywords
5. Change the Appearance (background color for results performed via CyberSearch), so that there will be a clear difference between basic Firefox address bar results and the CyberSearch.
6. Retrieve Multiple Pages of Results
7. Hide Results when Using a Keyword
8. Doesn’t Interfere with Existing Firefox Keywords

And to use this add-on its recommended that you disable/remove the Edit Middle add-on as it includes some functionality from Edit Middle.

Fore more information on installing the plugin, release notes, screenshots, and a video demonstration check out the official site at: http://www.cybernetnews.com/cybersearch

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Being a professional JAVA many developer fail to present their application as desired, am I right? Don’t worry, we have many toolkits to develop an excellent GUI which really sells your application in no time. Among the many, here are the four (Pivot, Thinlet, Swing, SWT) GUI toolkits, which are quick and easy to develop the best GUI for your applications.

1. Pivot, a new GUI toolkit for Java.

Pivot is an open-source framework for building high-quality, cross-platform applications that are easily deployable both via the web and to the desktop. It began as an R&D effort at VMware and is now being made available to the community as an option for developers who want to build rich client applications in Java.

Pivot GUI Toolkit for JAVA References:
Pivot GUI Toolkit

Demo: Run the Pivot Demo application. This is a basic “kitchen sink”-style demo that showcases many of Pivot’s available features.

Stock Tracker Example Application

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/gkbrown/archive/2008/06/introducing_piv.html

Tutorials Pivot.Java Version 1.2

2. Thinlet - GUI toolkit for J2SE and Personal Profile

Thinlet is free and open-source and a complete GUI toolkit for J2SE and Personal Profile. The original Thinlet GUI toolkit is a single Java class, thus it is extremely small (only 39KB) and the hierarchy and properties of the GUI is described by an XML file instead of the usual JavaBean components.

Thinlet GUI Toolkit for J2SE References:
Official Thinlet Site

A very simple Thinlet demo including most of widgets and events.

Thinlet Overview

Building Easy Java GUIs with Thinlet, Part 1

Skinlet project - skin support for Thinlets!

3. Swing GUI Toolkit

Swing is a widget toolkit for Java. It is part of Sun Microsystems’ Java Foundation Classes (JFC) — an API for providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for Java programs.

Project Swing is implemented entirely in the Java programming language, and is based on the JDK Lightweight UI Framework. The pluggable look and feel lets you design a single set of GUI components that can automatically have the look and feel of any OS platform (Microsoft Windows, Solaris, Macintosh). Project Swing components include both 100% Pure Java certified versions of the existing AWT component set (Button, Scrollbar, Label, etc.), plus a rich set of higher-level components (such as tree view, list box, and tabbed panes).

Swing GUI Toolkit References:

Official: Swing is the Dominant GUI Toolkit

JDK 5.0 Swing (Java Foundation Classes (JFC))-related APIs & Developer Guides — from Sun Microsystems

Tutorials - Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing

The Swing Connection

The Swing API documentation

The Swing architecture

The Java Swing Website

Another Swing Tutorial Site

Swing Explorer - tool for debugging and researching Swing applications

Swing Testing and debugging

4. SWT - Standard Widget Toolkit

The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is a graphical widget toolkit for use with the Java platform. It was originally developed by IBM and is now maintained by the Eclipse Foundation in tandem with the Eclipse IDE. It is an alternative to the AWT and Swing Java GUI toolkits provided by Sun Microsystems as part of the Java Platform, Standard Edition. More from Wikipedia - Standard Widget Toolkit

SWT - Standard Widget Toolkit References:

Official Website - SWT

Swing and SWT: A Tale of Two Java GUI Libraries

SWT Javadoc API documented at eclipse.org

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Reports suggest that Democratic party candidate for US President, Barack Obama, carries a tiny Hanuman with him. Along with it he also carries a bracelet belonging to an American soldier deployed in Iraq, a gambler’s lucky chit and Madonna and child. The influence of Hinduism could be traced to Indonesia where he spent his initial days.

He could be seeking the Monkey God’s blessings to win over his Republican candidate John McCain in the race. The instance brings out the fact the faith knows no bounds and transgresses all boundaries and Obama sets the tone for sure.

What do you feel?

For more read

Obama seeks Hanumans blessing for White House race

Watch Videos of Barack Obama

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Batting first the Lankans posted 308 for the loss of eight wickets in the match. It was another 300+ total in the tournament which has witnessed a slew of 300+ scores. The Lankan team was well placed for a score in excess of 300 but were restricted to 307 by the Indian bowlers as they lost steam towards the end of their innings.

Set a 300+ target, the Indian openers made the most of a second string Lankan attack which lacked discipline and sting and took a heavy toll. Sehwag was at his ballistic best as he stroked 11 boundaries and he was able assisted by Gambhir who made a solid 34. It was followed by Raina and Dhoni’s 50+ knocks and the Indian ship looked to sail safely. However the loss of Dhoni’s wicket created a flutter which was laid by to rest by Yuvraj as he steered the Indian team towards victory with less than five overs to spare.

The win saw India qualify for the finals over Pakistan whose hopes were dashed with the victory. A day after the victory, couple of Pakistan commentators have raised their concerns over Sri Lanka underperforming in the match. They felt that the match might have been ‘staged’. From the approach, they felt that Lankans could have been a little more aggressive and the Indian team could have been put under more pressure. In other words, India as an opposition would be a favorable proposition for the Lankans when compared to the Pakistanis, which could have given birth to the theories generated by the two commentators.

So, do you feel that the match was staged or such a possibility could occur? Write in with your side of the story!

Watch the fall of wickets of the Indian side at:

Watch more videos of Asia Cup 2008 India VS Sri Lanka 2nd Wickets India

And Watch More cricket videos at VideoBuzz

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