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Flash vs HTML 5 in a virtual war (ping pong)

Steve Jobs might feel flash is past, but then for rest of us Flash is more relevant for many more years to come. A group of developers at codecomputerlove.com have come up with a ping pong game with one side of the board coded with Flash and other side with HTML5.

The interactive game shows a example of coexistance both the technologies, most technologists agree that though HTML 5 in the future can replace flash, but at present HTML 5 doesnt have the capability to replace Flash.

Enjoy the game here -http://labs.codecomputerlove.com/flashvshtml5/

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E-book reader – Amazon Kindle 2 review

E-Book readers are really a boon to avid readers. We can carry thousands of books even an entire library in our hand anywhere and we can read them at any time. It has wide display screen suitable for reading books. Many people don’t prefer PC/laptop for reading books as they are not comfortable and not good for eyes/health. EBook readers have overcome this problem. They are very slick and can be used as a book. It is not only a cool gadget but also eco-friendly one. It eliminates the usage of papers and thus saves million acres of trees and protects environment.

We can replace the college/school books/newspapers with e-book reader. School students can carry a single note book and an e-book reader to school, instead of carrying 5kg school bag. Doesn’t it sound great? Newspaper is the main culprit in polluting our environment.  Just think for a second, we buy and read the newspapers just for an hour and for that, we destroy thousand acres of trees.

These eBook readers have come up with an improved Newspaper Experience and we can quickly flip between articles, making it faster and easier to browse and read the morning paper.

Let’s look into the features of one of  popular eBook readers model:

Feature of Amazon Kindle 2:

Kindle 2 is very slick and has a width of pencil. It has 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi and uses 16-level gray scale display. We can zoom into images and photos to the full size of the kindle.

It is light weighted (289.17 gm) and 8″ x 5.3″ x 0.36″ in size.  It has 2GB internal memory (approximately 1.4GB available for user content). So you can store up to 1500 books in kindle 2. Kindle 2 has a text-to-Speech feature and it can read book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud for you. If you want to listen to your favorite book privately, then you can use headset.

Text to speech feature has option to select between male and female voice. It also has the option to adjust the speed of reading. We can adjust the text to 8 different font sizes.

Kindle 2 provide free internet access through its wireless network Whispernet for US users. International users (India and other countries) can access Wikipedia at free of cost. It has good coverage in India and very useful. Amazon site is also enabled for international users to buy, download and browse books

Its battery life is 4 days with wireless turned on and up to 2 weeks with wireless turned off.

Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively.

It supports PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP format through conversion only. Though we can read PDF files without conversion, we cannot use text to speech and text size adjustments in this version. To use this features, we have to convert them to kindle supported formats (unprotected MOBI, PRC).

We can use the mobipocket software for converting doc/html/PDF formats to unprotected MOBI, PRC format. You can download this software for free from the below link.

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/DownloadCreator.asp

Kindle has come up with built-in Dictionary with Instant Lookup – The New Oxford American Dictionary with over 250,000 entries and definitions. In kindle2, searching options is enabled and we can search within a book, across the library, in the Kindle Store, or even the Web.

We can transfer MP3 files from computer to Kindle to play as background music while reading.

In India, it is available for Rs.14,000

Rating: 9/10.

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TCS Bangalore employee Sudarshan Commits suicide

(This post is user contributed , was ripped from a comment for another post )

Today on 20-august-2010 TCS Bangalore at ITPL , Explorer Building 11 floor , One of TCS associate named Sudarshan Committed suicide by jumping from 11th floor. He died on the spot.I worked on the same placed and I know what was going on there.Luckily last month I got release from the project.

I came to know from that project associates that Sudarshan was reprimanded and threatened by the project managers very badly just few minutes back when he did this gruesome act.

So many times I have written to HR about this Threatening mechanism of TCS managers and continuous violation of Tata Code of Conduct (so called) but all in vein. That place have culture and process in which 3 to 5 managers/leads will surrounds one associate in separate room and threaten ,blackmail , and humiliate him like anything . Of course no need to mention that environment and management is highly biased and decremental and favor only on the basis of Region and Mother Tongue.

One of the main reason for this suicide is that HR is highly Incapable and non-sense lady and she doesn’t have any morality.

Autocratic , extortionist and highly biased conduct and work culture is becoming trade for TCS Bangalore.

@ Added from comment
Bangalore: A 22-year-old software engineer employed with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) committed suicide on Friday unable to bear the work pressure.
Sudarshan Guppedar, a native of Belgaum, jumped from the 11-storey Explorer Building, at the ITPB campus, around 5pm. He fell flat on the ground and injured his head severely. He died on the spot.
Sudarshan resided as a paying guest in AESC Layout, Mahadevpura.

The Whitefield police have registered a case. “This is definitely a suicide case as no evidence of foul play has been found,” inspector in charge Gopala Krishna BN said. “We rushed to the spot after being informed by the ITPB authorities about his death. The body of the boy has been kept in the mortuary of Vydegi Hospital. The post-mortem will be done on Saturday morning at the hospital itself,” he said.

A colleague of Sudarshan, who did not want to be named, told DNA that he was planning to quit his job. He had given his resignation and was waiting to be relieved from the company. “But the company did not want to relieve him. It wanted to retain him. There was a verbal spat between some officials at TCS and Sudarshan,” the colleague said.
Sudarshan had joined the company on March 13 and was working as a trainee engineer. He was seen hanging around with his colleagues about 10 minutes before he jumped to death. The incident left all the employees at the tech park shocked.

“We are extremely shocked by the tragic loss and deeply regret the untimely demise of our colleague. We will provide all necessary support and assistance to his family,” a TCS spokesperson said.

ITPB authorities said that Sudarshan committed suicide by jumping from a window of his office. However, his colleagues claimed that ITPB was trying to cover up its security lapse. Sudarhsan had jumped from the terrace of the building, where no one other than the maintenance staff had access to, they said.

They said Sudarshan had followed a security official to the terrace. While the security person was busy attending a phone call, he jumped off the terrace.
“The ITPB authorities are covering this up. Necessary action has to be taken against the security officials for negligence. We will not let this issue die down,” another employee of ITPB said.