Geek Philip

LibreOffice completes one year

On 28 September 2010, several members of the OpenOffice.org project formed a new group called “The Document Foundation”. The Document Foundation created LibreOffice from their former project, over concerns that Oracle Corporation would either discontinue OpenOffice.org, or place restrictions on it as an open-source project, as it had on OpenSolaris. It was originally hoped that the LibreOffice name would be provisional, as Oracle was invited to become a member of The Document Foundation. Oracle rejected offers to donate the OpenOffice.org brand to the project, and demanded that all members of the OpenOffice.org Community Council involved with The Document Foundation step down from the OOo Community Council, citing a conflict of interest. The Go-oo project was discontinued in favour of LibreOffice. Improvements made by the project are being merged into LibreOffice. Enhancements made in other forks are also expected to be incorporated into LibreOffice. Also underway is the reduction of Java dependency, with the goal of minimizing security issues and improving application stability.

As of September 2011, The Document Foundation estimates that there are 10 million users worldwide who have obtained LibreOffice via downloads or CDs. Over 90% of those are on Windows, with another 5% on Mac OS X. There are an estimated 15 million Linux users, with most having obtained the software directly from their distribution. This gives a total estimated user base of 25 million people.

Firefox 7 is out

Firefox 7, released on September 27 2011, uses as much as 50% less memory than Firefox 4 as a result of the MemShrink project to reduce Firefox memory usage. Mozilla Firefox 7.0 is currently the latest stable release.

Couple of new features of Firefox 7:
* Vastly improved memory usage (up to 50% better) and increased speed[43]
* Added a new rendering backend to speed up Canvas operations on Windows systems
* Bookmark and password changes now sync almost instantly when using Firefox Sync
* Added support for text-overflow: ellipsis
* Added support for the Web Timing specification
* Added an opt-in system for users to send performance data back to Mozilla to improve future versions of firefox. This can be enabled by installing an add-on
* Fixed several stability issues

Google’s 13th anniversary

Today Google celebrating its 13th anniversary. Since 2002 google has put different doodle each year. Take a look at its new Doodle for the year 2011

Google Wallet Review

Google Wallet is a mobile payment system developed by Google that allows its users to store credit cards, loyalty cards, and gift cards among other things, as well as redeeming sales promotions on their mobile phone. Google Wallet uses near field communication to “make secure payments fast and convenient by simply tapping the phone on any PayPass-enabled terminal at checkout.”

Right now, the only phone supported is Sprint’s Nexus S 4G, but Google plans to produce NFC stickers associated with one credit card each, ostensibly to be affixed to non-NFC-capable phones. Two methods for providing money to the service are advertised, Citi Mastercards and “Google Prepaid Card”, which can be loaded using any major credit card. During Google Wallet’s unveiling at NYC headquarters, Google also touted the openness of their new system. Naturally, someone asked about what this meant for non-Android phones. “In terms of iPhone, RIM, Microsoft — we will partner with everyone,” said Google VP of Commerce Stephanie Tilenius.

A New look for facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of now Facebook has more than 750 million active users. Facebook announced Tuesday that it would be rolling out new site features and designs. Some of the new major features are as follows:

1. New Stylish Album Layout: The new Album look and feel is really eye-catching, Its appear in your newsfeed stack three photos for a more creative viewing experience.

2. News Feed Ticker: The new ticker on the upper right of your homepage condenses real-time posts. By clicking you can expand and view likes and comments.

Top Story

3. Top Story: The top stories are designated by a blue tag in the upper left corner of the post. Its selected based upon importance and relevance.

4. Recent Stories: Categories all the recent stories, in such a way its highly notable.

Visual Image loader using jQuery

There is a excellent jQuery script which creates visual image loading effect, while the image actually loads. When the page is initialized, an animated preloader will take it’s place creating the “image loading” effect. Once the image is ready to be displayed, a script will kick in and image loads with a fade effect.

Step 1. Create a visual image loader image. I prefer www.ajaxLoad.info, once created name it as ‘loader.gif’

Step 2. Create a Div area for the image

  <div id="showloader"
       style="background: transparent url(loader.gif) no-repeat center  center;
              width: 500px;
              height: 500px;
              overflow: hidden;">
  </div>

Step 3. Create an image loading kick-in function.

  function putLoading(imageLink)
  {
     var img = new Image();
     $(img).load(function ()
     {
         $(this).css('display', 'none');
         $(this).hide();
         $('#showloader').removeClass('showloading').append(this);
         $(this).fadeIn();
     }).error(function ()
     {
         // some error message
     }).attr('src', imageLink);
  }

Step 4: Now just call the function putLoading() with Image path.

Full Code:

  <div id="showloader"
       style="background: transparent url(loader.gif) no-repeat center  center;
              width: 500px;
              height: 500px;
              overflow: hidden;">
  </div>
  <script src="js/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
  function putLoading(imageLink)
  {
    var img = new Image();
    $(img).load(function ()
    {
       $(this).css('display', 'none');
       $(this).hide();
       $('#showloader').removeClass('showloading').append(this);
       $(this).fadeIn();
    }).error(function ()
    {
       // some error message
    }).attr('src', imageLink);
  }
  </script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
     putLoading('http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3167/5796343598_3e94a146cc.jpg');
  </script>

Demo: http://worldofmagicians.com/photogallery/photogallery.php?user=MagicianPhilip

International Merlin Award presented to Magician Muthukad

New Delhi: Gopinath Muthukad was presented with the prestigious International Merlin Award, billed as Magic’s Oscar, at a grand ceremony that glowed with magical aura in plenty. Hundreds of leading magicians from across the country, large number of fans, and top political leaders attended the elegant award ceremony, accompanied by the performance by six top award-winning performers in the country.

Magician Gopinath Muthukad receiving award from Tony Hassini, IMS President. Image Courtesy Magic Academy, Kerala

Hon’ble Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs and Civil Aviation, Shri Vayalar Ravi, Hon’ble Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Prof. K V Thomas, Hon’ble Delhi Chief Minister Smt Sheila Dikshit, and Mr T K A Nair, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, led the packed Mavlankar Hall to salute the winner.
The President of International Magicians Society (IMS), Mr Tony Hassini presented the award, comprising a statuette designed in 1968, to Muthukad as hundreds of fellow magicians gave a standing ovation. Instituted by the Society which has over 37,000 professional magicians as members, the award was given for his outstanding contributions to the art.
“I believe that there were several moments in all our lives that could only be regarded as sheer magic. For me, this is the strongest of them all. This is one of those rare moments that compel me to believe in real magic,’’ said Muthukad, who became the second Indian to win the coveted award after P C Sorcar Jr.
“Looking back, I consider myself extremely fortunate for deciding, to lead a life as a magician. For over 37 years, I have been passionately in love with this art form and we have been devoted towards each other ever since. We generally understand that magic is an art of illusion. But the more I learned about illusion, the more it drew me towards the realities of life. It encouraged me to go deeper into the magic and explore the possibility of using magic as a creative tool for mass communication,’’ he said in his acceptance speech.
Mhelly Bhumgara, Zenia, Samir Patel, Aanchal, Ramayashree and Vikas Sharma, all winners of many prestigious national and international awards, put up the unique 45-minute magical sojourn along with function, organised by MAZMA (Society for Uplifting Traditional Magic & Performing Arts).
Presenting the award, Mr Hassini led the world magic fraternity in heaping praises over the winner. “I am congratulating him on behalf of the 37,000 magicians world over,’’ he said.

Article by Magic Academy: http://magicweekly.blogspot.com/2011/06/international-merlin-award-presented-to.html