Windows XP users cannot upgrade to Windows 7

Microsoft revealed the upgrade path of Windows 7 operating system

Windows XP and below users are out of luck. You must have Windows Vista SP1 or newer to upgrade to Windows 7.

You can't upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows Vista Starter Edition.

If you're upgrading from Windows Vista, you must upgrade to one of the standard Windows 7 SKUs (meaning you can't upgrade to Windows N, Windows K, Windows KN, or Windows E.)

Windows Vista's "Business" SKU is now called "Professional" in Windows 7. Don't be alarmed when you can't find Windows 7 "Business" on the shelves.

Also Microsfot revealed minimum requirement details

• 1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Below is the table showing how windows growing on its requirements from version to version

Firefox 4.0 mockup just looks like Chrome

Mozilla released firefox 4.0 at first glance I felt it exactly looks the way google chrome looks. Below are the few images given in Mozilla wiki. The other feature mentioned in the WIKI is about combo stop/refresh/go button which comes at the end of the address bar.

 

Audio file formats explained

Recently I found this very nice article in MakeUseOf.com, I am pasting the same below

Almost everyone is familiar with the most commonly used file formats – for music, mp3 and wmv, for video, avi and mpeg, and for images, jpeg and gif. Unfortunately, these common formats are not the only ones we run into on a daily basis. On any given day, we are likely to also see .flv on Youtube or .pdf while opening documents.

It seems as though there is an unending list of file formats that accomplish the same task – saving a bunch of data. What is the purpose of the existence of these seperate formats, and why do they extend the list of available formats to “Save As…“? Is there any real difference between which extension a particular file is saved as, as long as it’s appropriate for the media being saved? Why, why, why do they plague me with their endless resistance to conversion?

The list of questions could go on, pretty much for the length of this article, but I believe I should provide some answers, since the questions are probably what led you here in the first place. So here goes nothing – a guide to the inner workings of the common, but still unusual file formats.

Technical Jargon:

File Format: a specific way to encode data that is to be saved as a file. Please note that the file format does no encoding on its own – the encoding is left up to the codecs.Codec: a program/algorithm that encodes/decodes data to convert a file between different formats. The popular media codecs are generally for shrinking file size. Laurence did a post on codecs last year.

Lossy Codec: refers to a codec that sacrifices file quality for the sake of compression.

Lossless Codec: does not destroy any data, regardless of whether or not the data is necessary for the file’s integrity.

Metadata: information about the file that is stored within the file itself – for example, when a picture was taken and what type of camera it was taken with, or the artist of an audio track. Karl has done a post on how to remove metadata from photos.

Container: a file format that concerns itself more with how data is stored, and not necessarily coded.

Bitrate: the number of bits processed per second. To put things into perspective, mp3’s generally have a bitrate of 128 kbit/s, while CD’s generally have bitrates of around 1.4 Mbit/s.

VBR/CBR: the difference between variable bitrate and constant bit rate is just that – VBR uses a higher bitrate to encode (and thus, allocates more space to)  more complex parts of the audio file.

Audio File Formats Explained

.aiff /.wav

.aiff /.wav – These are both uncompressed, lossless formats, which means it takes about 10MB to save a minute’s worth of music. aiff was developed for Apple’s OSX, and wav for PCs, although both formats are compatible with both operating systems.

Since wav is the native file format for store bought audio CD’s, it is also the format preferred by PC wielding audiophiles; mac users generally rip CD’s into the aiff file format. There are codecs like FLAC and WavPack that will compress .aiff and .wav files, although the resulting file will still be huge compared to the ubiquitous mp3 format. Simple Help has a great tutorial about playing .flac files in iTunes here; it is for Mac OSX users only.

.aac

.aac – Apple’s default audio format, AAC is a lossy compression scheme that was developed to replace mp3, but never achieved the prominence that mp3 has with listeners. Some argue that AAC produces the same quality audio at 96 kbits/s as a mp3 does at 128 kbit/s, but with the recent developments in mp3 codecs (particularly LAME), mp3s have performed far better in listening tests against AAC than in previous years. Nevertheless, when it comes to a sound quality to file size ratio, AAC beats MP3.

.ogg

.ogg – Vorbis, which is the name of Ogg’s audio format, is an open source lossy compression format that is favored by developers of free software for its patent-free nature. Despite its claims of being able to produce better sounding music at smaller file sizes, Vorbis is not widely used because of its slow encoding time and the lack of native support from popular music players such as iTunes and Winamp.

However, many video game makers and programmers have begun using Vorbis because it is open source, and thus does not demand licensing fees like mp3 and aac do. If you are interested in testing the sound quality of Vorbis yourself, try the aoTuV modification of Vorbis and install the XiphQT plugin for iTunes.

Conclusion :

If you’re willing to sacrifice the storage space, and have ears sensitive enough to tell the difference between a CD and a ripped track, go with .wav or .aiff. Otherwise, .aac and .mp3 encoded at bitrates above 256 kbit/s are indistinguishable from CDs for the average person.

Vorbis performs the best at low bitrates around 64 kbit/s, whereas the LAME encoder for MP3 performs better at higher bitrates. Regarding VBR and CBR, the general rule of thumb is that VBR will produce better sound quality at a lower file size than CBR can.

Ultimately, it is up to your own ear to determine which codec to use, and which format is best for you. Perhaps you’d like to perform your own listening test, to determine how picky your ear is. If so, try WinABX, which is a program that performs double blind listening tests. When you finally decide which format and bitrate is optimal for you, get yourself a codec pack, and convert your music with the multitude of audio converters that are out there.

Not to ignite a flame war, but which format/codec/bitrate do you use? Do you think AAC or Vorbis will ever gain the type of popularity that MP3 has right now? Leave your opinion in the comments, and stay tuned for Part 2: Video!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

Apple.. we want a E-book reader

First it was mac then IPod and then iPhone. With every new product Apple revolutionized the entire industry. May be now its time to bring Apple Electronic book reader. Existing products like Amazon Kindle, and Sony Digital reader. Recently there was some news about the same. Hope we will soon see a apple e-book reader soon.

Firefox 3.5.1 is out

I just updated my firefox version from 3.5 to 3.5.1 hope fully this fixes the crashes I am seeing.

Firefox 3.5.1 fixes the following issues:

• Several security issues.
• Several stability issues.
• An issue that was making Firefox take a long time to load on some Windows systems.

Solution for firefox 3.5 crashes

The suggested solution is creating a new profile. Because while updating firefox to 3.5 there is a possibility of corrupting the existing profiles. If your next question is how create a new firefox profile please read on.

Execute to this command in run box firefox –P.

The command will show you a box like this here you can create a new profile. After creating new profile you can migrate configuration from old profile to new profile. 

Google going to launch Chrome OS

Today google officially declared that its going to launch and new light weight and open source operating system with the name Chrome OS. First they are targeting this OS for notebooks.  The code is going to be available to all in the later part of this year and you can buy a notebook with chrome OS in the second part of 2010. As per the Google official blog, they redesigned and reinvented the OS concepts with this and they are providing minimal functionality and lots of security with this OS. The goal of this OS is just provide a platform to run your machine and connect to internet, everything else you can do it on web. So lets wait and see :)

Gmail exits beta

Good news is that gmail, google docs and calendar are no more betas, today google remove beta tag from the logo. Though we don’t get something new because of this. Just something to feel happy.

Open Web Tools Directory

Via: Mozilla Labs

There are an immense number of tools that have been created to help web developers. Unfortunately, you might never know this; there’s no central index of these tools. It turns out that keeping up with all the development in this space is really difficult–even for folks like us who have been tracking it every day for years.

As we’ve explored different tools we could create here as part of the Developer Tools Lab, we’ve come to the opinion that in addition to creating new tools, one of the best things we could do is help developers understand the broad universe of tools that already exist and expose some of the fantastic and amazing work that’s being done.

We’re launching today a first step in this direction: an Open Web Tools Directory.

(Note: a modern browser with canvas is required to view this, like Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome 2, or Opera 9).

We went with a “space” theme to emphasize the sheer size of the tool ecosystem (though at the moment we only have a small fraction of the tools available listed). And, frankly, we just couldn’t do another table-based master/detail database application; we wanted a directory that would be fun to use (and perhaps a bit of fun to create as well).

So where do we go from here?

First, we’re putting out a call for folks to tell us about their tools. We’ve prepared a data entry form for you to use to submit a tool; please, help us fill up the directory with the hundreds or thousands of items we’ve missed! Your entries won’t go live immediately, but we’ll review them on a regular basis and get them added.

Second, let us know what features you’d most like in the directory. We’re exploring a few different concepts for how to display the entries in the directory. Here’s one of our ideas to add more detail to what we display about each entry:

We’re also exploring concepts for adding social participation features, like ranking the tools and commenting on them (though we’d like to have a good solution to astroturfing in place before rolling them out).

We also want to make searching the tools better. Right now, the search box at the bottom of the screen searches over all text fields and you can limit the directory to broad categories of tools, like “Debug”-related tools:

Finally, we’d like to make an accessible version of the directory, both for browsers without canvas support and for screen reader support. What should this accessible version be like?

We’re looking forward to evolving the directory and working with the web community to make it a vibrant resource for discovering and tracking the web’s amazing tools universe.

What do you think?

– Ben Galbraith, on behalf of the Developer Tools team

Sorry firefox I am leaving you for Chrome

I am a big big fan of firefox and I learned to write add-ons and created few of them. I was very very happy with you and every time you come-up with something new I tried be first in line to have it on my home and office machines. I used to hate IE and mock people who uses it. But after updating my firefox to 3.5, everything changed at the first look I loved you 3.5 as usual but after few hours I realized that I made a huge mistake by upgrading you to 3.5. The only reason you crashed so often and badly that I started feeling like why I am using you anymore. So I choose chrome and at times IE 8 at my work and home instead of you. I hate to say but I am sorry firfox I am leaving you.

Search Result Categorizer

I am creating a java swing based application, which categorizes the search results based on the user requirement and input. Check the screenshots below

In the below given screenshot the search string is java and I wanted get the first 200 results from google. In the second panel I have given java.com and sun.com,  also selected Only in domain. The meaning of this is I am searching google for java and getting 200 results and want to categorize these results bases on strings given that too only when when the given strings are in domain of the search results.

In the below given screen the search results are categorized based on the string values we have given in the above screen.

This application is still under development and I am hoping to finish it next few weeks and make available to you all. Any suggestions or feedback is most welcome.

Firefox 3.5 crashes

Today I have updated my firefox to 3.5 and was very happy with the new look and the page rendering speed. But to my surprise it crashed couple of time when I tried to open some web page embedded java applets. In the recent past I have not had any crashes with the last stable version of firefox. Not sure if these crashes are something to do with my machine or some issues with firefox new version.

Best Firefox add-on to take webpage screenshots

Today found this very interesting firefox add-on, which allows you to take the screenshots of the webpage just by clicking on a firefox menu item. Not only that you can also edit the screenshot with in firefox, this is the very good part of this add-on. Below is the sample I have created using this add-on. You can get this add-on by going to http://aviary.com/install/firefox. 

Its must have firefox add-on.