K. Ansar and P.P. Ismail, final year computer science students at an engineering college in Kerala India, have set up www.bloxtr.com, the prototype of a virtual computer in which you can store all your important documents, favorite music, colorful pictures and even videos.

The idea is that no one needs to carry a laptop or pen drive around. You can upload any files to the website and access it from any corner of the world. What you need is just an interface to access the internet.

But, is the idea implemented earlier?? I mean in the form of eyeOS. From the site I get:

“eyeOS is an Open Source Platform designed to hold a wide variety of Web Applications over it. eyeOS was thought as a new definition of Operating System, where everything inside it can be accessed from everywhere in a Network. All you need to do is to login into your eyeOS server with a normal Internet Browser, and access your personal desktop, with your applications, documents, music, movies… just like you left it last time.”

With the base system you can find a full suite of applications bundled, some for private use, like the file manager, a word processor, a music player, calendar, and notepad or contacts manager. There are also some groupware applications, such as a group manager, a file sharing application, a group board and many more.

Or is it like the GMail drive??

GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium. (Google has nothing to do with this !)

GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag’n'drop files to.

Ever since Google started to offer users a Gmail e-mail account, which includes storage space of 4000 megabytes, you have had plenty of storage space but not a lot to fill it up with. With GMail Drive you can easily copy files to your Google Mail account and retrieve them again.

When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account. The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the Gmail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures. But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.

You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag’n'drop like you’re used to with the normal Explorer folders.

Whatever it is I think it is novel idea, if implemented well. They are trying to convert this into a mobile application when 3G services become operational in India. The guys (Ismail and Ansar), along with three other classmates, have already won a project from a local software company on behalf of a Gulf-based airline to develop a system to make flight schedule information available on mobile phones. I wish them all best for their projects and of course bloxtr.

Amazing isn’t it ?? Icebergs in the Antarctic area sometimes have stripes, formed by layers of snow that react to different conditions. Most of those in the Antarctic were formed from snow falling on the giant ice sheet that covers the continent. Over time, the snow is compressed to form more ice, which slides slowly towards the sea.

There it either breaks off into the water, or forms an ice shelf. Most appear white as a result of the tiny bubbles trapped within them which scatter light in every direction. However, if the bubbles are squeezed out, or if part of the iceberg melts and quickly refreezes, it can appear blue.

Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with melt water and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form. When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe.

Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.

Only one-tenth of an iceberg lies above the water. The biggest known iceberg towered 551ft above sea level - the height of a 55-storey building.

Three decades ago James Bond (then enacted by British star Roger Moore) wowed the world with a car that could ‘fly’ under water in the movie The Spy Who Loved Me. Only, it was animation and not an actual scene.

But Frank M Rinderknecht, the 52-year-old automobile visionary and boss of Swiss automaker Rinspeed, has turned a dream into reality with his ’sQuba.’

Rinspeed sQuba is the most exciting thing at this year’s Geneva Motor Show and is creating many a ripple.

sQuba is the world’s first real submersible car that can ‘move like a fish underwater’.

It can dive up to 32.8 feet (10 mt) below the surface of the water and can move at a sedate 1.8 miles per hour.

The sQuba has an open cockpit for ’safety reasons’ (so that people can get out easily anytime in case of an emergency). The occupants of the car have to breathe compressed air through built-in scuba masks.

sQuba is an electric car that uses rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and 3 electric motors for propulsion. It is a zero-emission car as documented by the rotating license plate in the rear. It produces no exhaust emissions.

The ’sQuba’s’ filling station is the water reservoir.? It is no surprise that the vehicle features powerful yet energy-saving LED lighting technology.

The first car that could drive underwater was Quandt’s Amphibicar, built in 1968. Only 3,878 were produced but many are still being driven on roads.

Then Gibbs Technologies came up with Gibbs Aquada in 2004 which Virgin boss Richard Branson used to break the speed record for crossing the English Channel.
However, the sQuba seems to be the most exciting of them all.

To drive on the roads, the sQuba ‘relies on a stainless coil-over suspension from KW automotive and large Pirelli tires mounted on custom-made forged light-weight wheels from AEZ with 17- and 18-inch diameters.’

Technical data

Scriptaculous allows you to easily add powerful AJAX-based user interface features to Web 2.0 applications. Web developer Tony Patton explains why you should use it and describes how to use it.

Scriptaculous is a framework for building dynamic Web 2.0 interfaces. It utilizes another freely available framework called prototype. Scriptaculous simplifies the ins and outs of implementing an AJAX-based Web interface. It allows you to easily add animation and custom data controls, as well as utilities for working with the DOM and JavaScript testing.

Why use it?
AJAX is a great marriage of technologies, but it can be confusing and time-consuming to build AJAX-powered applications from scratch. The scriptaculous framework makes it easy to include AJAX-based features in your applications, plus all of the development and testing has been done, so you can devote your time to more important tasks.

Getting started

The first step in utilizing the scriptaculous framework is downloading and installation. The download is basically a zip file with JavaScript files along with various HTML files for testing and demonstration. The JavaScript source files are the most important. The following list contains an overview:

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• lib\prototype.js: The source for the prototype JavaScript framework.
• scr\bulder.js: Allows you to easily create DOM elements dynamically.
• src\controls.js; Includes the core components for working with the custom data controls.
• src\dragdrop.js: Provides the code for utilizing the custom data controls for drag-and-drop related functions.
• src\effects.js: The Visual Effects library includes all you need to add advanced JavaScript animation to your Web application.
• src\scriptaculous.js: The base code library for utilizing the scriptaculous framework.
• src\slider.js: Provides the code for utilizing the slider data control.

The previous list includes the default directory where each file is installed. You can place these JavaScript files anywhere on the Web server, but using the default directories makes it easier to work with the examples.

You may be wondering about the overhead of including these files in a Web page. The complete library (all files in the list) consumes approximately 150KB. The two core files—prototype.js and scriptaculous.js—add up to 50KB. So, all other combinations will be between 50 and 150KB depending on the files used.

By default, scriptaculous.js loads all of the other JavaScript files necessary for effects, drag-and-drop, sliders, and all of the other scriptaculous features. You can limit the additional scripts that get loaded by specifying them in a comma-separated list (via the load command) when loading the scriptaculous JavaScript file.

Once you have downloaded and installed the framework, it is easy to use it within a Web page. The first step is linking to the JavaScript source files within the head portion of the Web page. See Listing A.

The various functions available are accessed via HTML script tags. You can gain a better understanding by examining one of the test files installed with the framework (or an online example). As an example, I loaded the slider_test.html file located in the test\functional directory of a default installation. The complete contents of the file are too much to list here, but I can examine one portion that loads the first slider control on the page—a standard horizontal slider:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
// <![CDATA[
new Control.Slider(’handle1′,’track1′,{
sliderValue:0.5,

onSlide:function(v){$(’debug1′).innerHTML=’slide: ‘+v},

onChange:function(v){$(’debug1′).innerHTML=’changed! ‘+v}});

// ]]>

</script>

Using the CDATA section sidesteps issues encountered when using characters like < and > in your JavaScript. The code creates a new Slider control (via the Control class) and sets its initial position to the middle of the control (0.5) and adds handlers for the slide and change events. Also, framework functionality is easily used via onClick events.

A drawback of many freely available (and some commercial) tools is a lack of documentation and examples. The scriptaculous framework includes extensive example code and basic documentation via its Wiki. In addition, a quick Google search yields more help. A good example is the various cheat sheets available that provide a quick reference sheet for using the framework.

The framework includes an extensive set of examples that are included in the functional subdirectory of the test directory. You can dive into the test files to get a good idea of how to use framework functions within your application. In addition, the demos section of the scriptaculous Web site provides great examples.

Head First SQL book, from O’Reilly, by the Head First team. It simplifies the learning of SQL and teaches the language in the easy way.

Download the book from the link below.

Head First SQL

A nebula (from Latin: “mist” [1]; pl. nebulae or nebulæ, with ligature or nebulas) is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas and plasma. It is the first stage of a star’s cycle. Originally nebula was a general name for any extended astronomical object, including galaxies beyond the Milky Way (some examples of the older usage survive; for example, the Andromeda Galaxy was referred to as the Andromeda Nebula before galaxies were discovered by Edwin Hubble). Nebulae often form star-forming regions, such as in the Eagle Nebula. This nebula is depicted in one of NASA’s most famous images, the “Pillars of Creation“. In these regions the formations of gas, dust and other materials ‘clump’ together to form larger masses, which attract further matter, and eventually will become big enough to form stars. The remaining materials are then believed to form planets, and other planetary system objects.

References:

^ The Messier Catalog: Diffuse Nebulae. University of Illinois SEDS. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.

The Wikipedia