Monday, April 18, 2011

Fax services on Vista home premium

All the Windows Vista Home Premium users by now must have figured out that they don’t have the basic Windows Fax and Scan services. Too bad Microsoft decided to remove something that basic from an already crappy operating system. The only solution is to look for an alternate and I seem to have found a good alternate – Classic Phone Tools by Avanquest Software

You can get the full version for free if you follow the right links on the page. So far it seems to work great for me! Let me know if anyone of you knows other better Windows Fax software.

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Zinio – Magazines right on your iPad

Of all my experiences with the iPad, the best have been surfing web, reading books, and magazines. The Zinio app has totally redefined the way I get my favorite magazines! Imagine not having to wait weeks to get your PCWorld magazine delivered to your home. Having all your favorite magazines available with you and readable with almost the same or more convenience as the print media has been a dream so far – at least for me. My laptop can’t go everywhere with me but the iPad surely can. My laptop needs a wall socket after 2 hours of use so its not the best for use on airplanes, trains and airports. Its too bulky to handle as well. All of these are not a problem for the iPad.

With Zinio, I got virtually a news stand on my iPad! I can browse and purchase from a HUGE selection of magazines, not just the ones you would otherwise find on stalls. Even the prices appeared relatively cheaper than print media prices. Tell me what kind of Magazine applications are you using? Would love to know!

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Hobby Open Source Projects

As I have written on several occasions about me, I love programming. You can find the software I have written on this blog. Just made a link to a program called CopyFat with its installer and source code. I will mention here the projects I have done in the past and will eventually post them with Source Code and Installers.

  • LECIDE - Learners/Experts Configurable Integrated Development Environment
    • With LECIDE I intended to make something like Eclipse IDE much before it showed up. Obviously my effort was much juvenile and to be honest, I started by creating a Notepad clone in VB6 and ended up creating a very complex IDE with syntax coloring, instant help tooltips, multiple compiler support, and BLADE - a drag and drop GUI designer for creating C++ dialog resources. Unfortunately, the way the code was written was horrible. If I wanted to do something new with it today, I would rather jump off a building than taking a dive back into its code. This was a really big project and I won multiple competitions for it. Source code coming soon!
  • CopyFat 2.0 - File copy program
    • You can read more about it here. It was one of the most useful utilities I ever wrote. It helped me and my friends on several occassions!
  • CyberBrowser - Tabbed IE based browser
    • A pretty simple browser with Tabbed browsing capability back in the days when IE was still a single window browser. A good reference for those wanting to learn how to use the WebBrowser control in VB6. Download the source code here.
  • Winsock Based FTP client
    • While learning socket programming, I implemented my own FTP client. The important thing to note is, I didn’t use any third party components to derive FTP functionalities. The code actually talks to the FTP server by opening ports and opening parallel channels for file downloads etc. Great stuff if you are learning socket programming in VB6! Get the source code right here.