Happy Birthday to... Me!

Just got this sent this to me on my birthday, by Eitan (thanks man!).
Listen to the words :)

Username and Password? Who needs them?

How many times have you browsed to a web site, just to read something, or do just that one thing, and were required to create a user, providing name, password (4 letters, 3 digits and no repetition), and an actual email address?

I used to do the Bob thing in the past. You know:
Username: bob
Password: bob123
Email: bob@hotmail.com (and may the real Bob forgive me - he probably got tons of spam...).

But now they got smarter: you can only log in after clicking a link sent to your email. Yes, you can create thousands of fictional emails on GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. But it's a hassle managing them.
So, here's a better solution: go to www.bugmenot.com, where nice users went through a registration process on many such sites and submitted their username/password for general use.

Once in a while the sites will expire that username, so what? There are plenty more.
Submit some of your own, or rate the existing ones. Oh, and no user/pass required to use the site :)

Download This! - Process Explorer

Task Manager? bah! Not only doesn't it show enough information, it doesn't show the right information. Why not switch to Sysinternals' Process Explorer? Not only does it provide the basic information you can find in TM, it also shows you the list of modules loaded with any process, list of open handles, permissions, threads, command line... so much more. It actually deserves several posts.
At Tech Ed '06, I spent a full day listening to Mark Russinovich (Sysinternals founder, recently joined Microsoft - a link to his blog) showing what more you can do with Process Explorer. I was sold (very easy to do when the product is great and the price is 0).
Few capabilities in this multi-featured application that I like the most:

1. The ability to see which service is responsible for an executable.
2. The ability to see which process is holding your file and being able to close the handle (no more "file is in use, cannot delete" error).
3. The ability to suspend and resume a process. Too much resources consumed by an app and you need your CPU now? Suspend it and resume later on. Most applications won't be aware of that (unless they rely on clock synchronization).
4. See the command line that started your application.
5. Find out who's the parent process of the process you're interested in.
6. And finally, replace your Task Manager with PE, so when you click ctrl + shift + esc you'd see PE.

Now is a great time to download this great application, as version 11.0 was released today.
Download it here.

Download This! - Notepad++

One of the best Notepad replacements I've ever used. What can I say?

1. Multiple documents in a tabbed view.
2. Multiple languages support (and you can add more).
3. Function recognition.
4. Plenty of add-ons (such as a Hex Viewer, Text effects etc.).
5. Very easy to extend with more plugins.
6. Free!
   

Download it here.

Google Apps - Resolved?

I promised an update if a reply came from Google, regarding my blog's outage and I just got this cryptic email:

Hello Guy,

Thanks for your message.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. The issue you’ve described should now be resolved.

Sincerely,
-name redacted-
The Google Apps Team

Well, I've already "fixed" it myself, by removing and inserting my domain name to Blogger. How exactly was did Google "resolve" it? I expected at least some kind of explanation...
I think for now I'll avoid activating the Pages option in my Google Apps.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

If you haven't visited the blog site (www.guyvider.com) in a while, now is the time to do so.
I've just completed a weekend of massive changes:

• I now have 3 columns instead of 2.
• Plenty of little improvements.
  
• All icons will be loaded from a single location (speed improvement).

Still to come:

• List of favorite posts.
• Post briefs.
• Calendar.
• Tag cloud instead of archive.

Tools of the trade:

• Notepad++ - the best free text editor with XHTML capabilities out there.
  (A separate "Download This!" post coming soon).
• XML Notepad by Microsoft.
• SourceSafe 2005, so I can keep versions of the templates and revert back.
• FireFox and IE to verify the blog looks well in both.
• WinMerge , to compare versions and schemas.
  

I'd like to thank the following bloggers for their suggestions, hacks and code:

• BlogCrowds for the Blogger template.
  
• Deepa at BetaTemplateTesting for the ratings pointer.
• Tips for New Bloggers.
• Phydeaux3 for the calendar script (still to come!).

Rate This Post

As promised, here's the next template change: ratings. Look for the stars at the footer of every post. Similar to Amazon (or almost every content-driven site), you can now rate each post, based on how much you liked it, based on the following scale:

Here's how the widget works:

• By default, it shows the current rating of the post.
  
• Hover over it, to submit your own rating (by dragging your mouse from left to the right, the star count increases).
• Click the tiny i icon that appears, to get a summary of how many people rated the post and the average rating.

You can now go back and rate posts you've liked, or found useful - rating is now available for ALL posts. Please rate as much as you can. Once enough ratings are in, I'll add a box showcasing the current top 5 rated posts.

Post rating is provided by JS-Kit and Blogger integration is covered by this nice blogger.

Google Flight Simulator

As this blogger found out, the new Google Earth now contains a hidden flight simulator!
Click ctrl+alt+A (if you're running OS X it's command+option+A) and the following dialog pops up and asks you whether you want to fly an F-16 or an SR-72, which airport would you like to start in, and whether you'd like to use a joystick. And off you go!
Since they have the real satellite pictures, this, by far, beats the flight simulator in Excel.

I Need YOUR Help!

Since it looks like I may actually move the more technical stuff to another blog, I need a (sort of) company name. Well, not really a company, I can't really register an "Inc." without having a friendly visit from the IRS and I don't really intend to generate revenue.

But I do need a name for my domain (using my name was a sort of default). And I sold the graphically-creative part of my soul to the devil, in exchange for the ability to read assembler.

So, if there's a creative soul out there, that can suggest a good name and maybe even design a logo, submit it to blog@guyvider.com and I'm sure a reward of some sort can be arranged.

Disclaimer: Must be 18 or older to participate. Must have written note from mommy. Contest is legal in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia, America - but not Antarctica. Void where prohibited. Don't you just hate these stupid disclaimers? :)

Who Is Tan Chade-Meng?

You may not have heard of him, but many politicians, ex-presidents, celebrities and entrepreneurs have. He's a regular engineer (well, not that regular) at Google, who apparently manages to push himself on every VIP visiting the Google campus and have his picture taken with them. Read the full funny story here and look at the full gallery of images here.

We're Up Again! - No Thanks to Google

If you haven't noticed, the blog has been down for close to 72 hours. Anyone who tried accessing www.guyvider.com received a 404 Server Error. I thoroughly apologize for the outage.

The reason was (as I've later discovered) a known issue with the Google DNS:

Last week I've added "Google Apps For Your Domain" to my domain (see banner at bottom of the page).
This enables me to have 25 users on www.guyvider.com, with 3gb mail boxes, Google Docs (Word-like and Excel-like online), a calendar, chat etc. This, for example, enabled me to have the blog@guyvider.com address for comments (and no, I don't fear spam anymore :)). But since the same DNS serves both Google Apps and Blogger (now a Google company) - references got mixed. This I verified immediately by tracing the route to my domain.

And then started my real problem: there's no easy way to get support from Google, on either Google Apps, or Blogger. On both sites, you are supposed to read support article and/or submit questions to user groups. No support@... email available, and a "request help" form buried under layers of obstruction. This is the latest in a trend of avoiding user interaction that I started noticing on the web (good luck trying to get help at eBay or PayPal, for example).

I realize Google is "donating" these apps for "free" (well, not really, they do have a business plan, such as having my content to mine and ads to push) and are therefore not really required to supply a 24/7 multilingual support center. But still, a huge chunk of my life now runs on Google and I've come to expect a certain level of service. Also, if you're trying to get people to pay for these services (the Premier edition costs $50/year/user) - they should encourage them by providing support for the free service.

I did receive some help in the past, after locating the help form (links to both forms here) on an email issue I had, but I guess my blog just drifted into the Labor Day weekend (I'll report if I ever do get anyone to answer me). Be that as it may, I finally found a sort of solution in this user group thread. I found the thread through Google search - so maybe they did help me after all :)

• Here are the support links I've promised:
  Google Apps - https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/request.py
  Blogger - http://help.blogger.com/?page=contact
  
• To trace a route to a URL, open a command window (or a terminal window if you're on Mac or Linux) and type tracert url-you-want-to-trace .
• I still have about 20 users available on my domain. Write an email to blog@guyvider.com and I will add you. While supplies last :)