IE 7 Release Candidate 1

A much awaited (???) IE 7 release candidate is now available for download and install from Microsoft’s website.

If you have IE 7 Beta 3 installed on your machine, you must uninstall it before proceeding to RC1. All of your favourites will be restored back offcourse.

There are few things which needs to be checked by developers in thier applications now. Some of them seems to become complications for your applications as well 🙂

01. you might have observed that many of the sites are not using valid SSL certificates and IE 7 Beta 3 used to report them in red color. It used to allow you to take a decision on whether or not you want to continue. Now in RC1, you dont have that luxury any more.

Verify that your website hasn’t been adversely affected by these Internet Explorer 7 security changes:

1. SSL 2.0 Support has been turned off.
2. Support for HTML scriptlets has been turned off by default.
3. Sites using HTTPS must deliver a valid digital certificate for their DNS name.
4. HTTP content cannot be included in an HTTPS page (see the Internet Explorer Blog article).

02. If you are an Activex developer, you will have to deploy them in a “Disabled” mode. The user will have rights to choose to enable it whenever it is required.

If you develop using ActiveX controls, make sure they are installed in the “disabled” state so users will activate them only when needed and reduce their surface area vulnerable to attack. (See the Exploring Internet Explorer article on ActiveX Security.)

and the best feature which was inherited from FireFox….I love this 🙂

Add search providers to Internet Explorer without writing executable code or mastering the registry, using the window.external.AddSearchProvider(URL) call to prompt the end user. (See the Internet Explorer Blog article for details.)

Unlocked Internet : A New perk for employees?

I can’t imagine working on a computer which does’nt have internet connection/Restricted access to Internet 🙂 Do you?.

It’s funny but very much true in many of the other’s case too. People are too much connected via internet these days and they literally work collaboratively.

Business Analysts, Programmers and Architects are live and breathe on Internet. I have one of my friends who does’nt even think of a job which does’nt offer her internet at workplace. It’s not a funny demand at all. infact it is very much required for any developer/analyst who work in a competitive IT world, where trends are very much dynamic, solutions are inumorous, and colloboration is good food.

In a keynote speech at Tech Ed 2006, a senior executive from Microsoft Corporation, stated as follows…

“These kids are saying: forget it! I don’t want to work with you. I don’t want to work at a place where I can’t be freely online during the day,”

“Companies all over the world are saying, oh, you can’t be on the internet while you’re at work. You can’t be on instant messaging at work…” she said. “These are digital immigrant ideas.”

This is a fair demand infact. I know many of the Indian IT companies restrict internet for no reason or some stupid reasons inherited from clients. Some clients are too much worried about thier internal data and proprietery knowledge and they shutdown all the doors including internet and keep a camera right behind your desk.

Why we are not ready for next generation where computers are really gonna talk to each other rather than people talking over phones and emails? Why most of the IT companies are still digital immigrant ? according to that senior executive, “digital immigrants” are people who were not born into the digital lifestyle and view it as a distraction rather than an integral part of life. She also warns companies that, there is a risk of loosing employees if you restrict them to access things like Internet.

Read the full story here.

Consumer online resource & Empowerment

Good to see such site in action.

http://core.nic.in/

India…and the ingredients

What makes a true “India”? a country that breaths on its rich culture, heritage and diversity in and out…If I ask this question to myself, the answer would be this…”Empowered Villages”, “Empowered Villages”, “Empowered Villages”.

There is a famous saying in Telugu (a regional major language in India)…”Graamale desaaniki pattugommalu”. That means…villages are everything for a country. This statement was made by a famous guy dated way back before independance was posessed.

This statement holds good and very much true even now. The dreams of india are built upon grameena vikas (welfare of villages) long back but never been executed successfully. A country is like a big baniyan tree. The baniyan tree makes it’s roots go across acres and live upon the resources it gets from miliions of small small child roots. These are nothing but villages for any country. A country like India where people & land are core competency requires the empowerment of villages as good as townships and metros.

Today I have visited this cool website called “SmartVillages.org”. The main initiative behind this website is to bring e-goveranance and manage the progress of a village using internet. This brings lot of transperancy and visibility to the village administration.

The first model village which was empowered by this project is “Hansdehar“, a village from Haryana. The website looks pretty cool and neat. My hearty congratulations and best wishes for the website owners and people of Hansdehar.

Make the scratched CDs work…by hook or crrrrook !

One of the biggest problem that we usually get with Optical media is a “Scratch”. The culprit could be your dearest baby, or dog or you yourself…we loose lot of valueable data due these scratches many times.

There are some software tools avaiable to read scratched CDs by filling the gaps with predicted blocks, but those are not very popular..

Find here for one more smart way to make the CDs work …(you should be ready for any kind of disaster :-))

http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3871835947067…
(Adding MSN Search cache link since the site is down due to Slashdot  effect)

Pick up your reason to quit your Org…

via Life Hacker

The Top Ten list of reasons why people do quit thier Orgs (…bosses?)

Very good insight and cool.
http://newsletter.logoworks.com/index.php/top-ten-…