Thoughts of a coder

It’s how I think! It’s how I code!

Archive for March, 2006

Live.com, Google and Sinhala

Mar 20

Posted by Sandaruwan Gunathilake in Hacks, Internet, Sinhala | 2 Comments

Since the beginning of this year, the most prestigious IT companies in the world focused their attention to one profitable large business, SEARCHING. A lot of companies were trying to be the best, but there was no clue, Google was the best. Few years ago, Microsoft was trying to overcome Google by their MSN searching but wasn’t able to make it success. Live.com

So, now they are trying to start over using the popular AJAX technology. Around two weeks ago Microsoft launched their AJAX based search engine, live.com which is a bit of threaten to google. Live.com isn’t only doing searching, but a web portal such as MSN and the most important thing is that you can customize your interface, and everything is AJAX based which means it’s really fast. Even though, it’s a portal, the interface is not overloaded with too much of information as in MSN. With the power of AJAX they have made it really descent and professional. The most amazing thing is that it is not only for IE, it is working fine in firefox under linux :-)

But when we look at the search content and the quality of the search, Google is still ahead. As most people think, the search content might be a matter of time, but we have to remember that Microsoft is a large IT company which mainly focuses at their software, not in search, but the heart of google is searching and they are the first guys who launched a popular AJAX based service, GMAIL. So, their experience is, of course better than Microsoft. Even though most of the people don’t use, Google itself support customizable interface(Google News, etc).

Google Sinhala As Sri Lankans, we saw a big step in google, they launched google.lk and their interface using Unicode. Earlier it was using English letters.But still google doesn’t support searching inside sinhala Unicode range. When we look at the live.com, there is no sinhala interface but the important thing is you can search using the sinhala Unicode characters.

I wonder why google doesn’t support sinhala Unicode characters, whenever it is not hard to implement. They are supporting almost every other Unicode character sets.

But still, no one of those giants don’t support ASCII sinhala searching using Unicode, so, still sinhalasearch.com rocks!!!

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What is the best hosting plan for you?

Mar 9

Posted by Sandaruwan Gunathilake in Internet | No Comments

Ever wanted to have your own site? Then you might have a nice experience with thousands of hosting packages…… There are lot of them, and not sure what to choose? Then read this.

When we consider about hosting, there are several major facts you have to consider: storage, transfer rate and of course **cost**. Let’s look at them one by one.

Storage -

Most of the personal sites are smaller than 5 MB. And if your site is larger than this, the best option would be optimizing your graphics. There are several advantages on that. The major advantage would be, your site loads fast and it is cost effective. So, in that case there is no need to go for a big storage plan. Take only much as you want!

Monthly Transfer Rate-

This is a major fact that most people mess around. There are some hosting plans which provide you about 600 MB storage and 1GB monthly transfer rate. What it means is, your web site only allows you to do transactions up to 1 GB. For example, you have a big file about 500 MB, it is completely useless because once after two people downloaded the file, your monthly transfer rate is exceeded. You site will be down for the rest of the month. So, you have to think about the monthly transfer rate twice.

Cost -

There is no point of even talking about it. But when you are going to buy a new hosting plan make sure you compare the price with other hosting companies.

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Linux or Windows

Mar 8

Posted by Sandaruwan Gunathilake in General, Open Source | 5 Comments

It is true that most people in the world are using Windows. But there is a doubt: “Is it the best OS for PCs?”. Here is a brief description regarding Linux vs. Windows.

GUI (Graphical User Interfaces) -

Both Windows and Linux provide GUIs and both are seem to be fairly ok. But there is an advantage in Linux; many GUIs (Gnome, KDE, etc) are available. Windows only comes with its own one and only GUI. There are some external software to change the look of the theme. But those are third party products and take up too much memory and slow down your computer.

Shell / Dos prompt -

The shell in Linux is very powerful. You can do almost everything in the shell. But the Dos prompt’s scope is limited to a small area (Almost only file handling!).

Cost –

Linux is almost free and Windows is around $200 – $300. But when you consider running Linux on a business environment, you may have to hire some Linux technicians, who might be more costly than the Windows techno craps.

Live CDs –

Windows doesn’t support a live booting while there are many live linux distros.

Software -

This is the main disadvantage of Linux. There are only few 3rd party software for Linux. You might have some kind of alternatives but those might not good as windows products. For example macromedia products are the ideal tools for the web publishing; there is no good alternative for those in Linux. And most of the games are only for Windows. So, regarding the software Microsoft is in the lead.

Security -

There is no point of even talking about this. Linux is much more secure than Windows. There are thousand of security holes in Windows and very few in Linux. And the Linux bugs are always quickly fixed by the community.

So, as you guys can see Linux is much better than Windows? But why the people are still using Windows? That’s a topic to discuss and gateway to improve linux. Get back to you in another article.

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