Author Archives: Ethan Hall

SenseCam: Is it sensible?

Recently, I came across the SenseCam Research Project by Microsoft. Although it looks cool, it surely looks like another way to invade your privacy.
Microsoft defines SenseCam as a wearable digital camera that is designed to take photographs passively, without user intervention, while it is being worn.
The next logical question is where to store these photographs [...]

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A SVN Branching Strategy that works

Version control systems play a vital role in the success of a software development team. This blog aims to provide a simple branching and merging strategy to manage the code in a fast paced team development environment.
When do you need branching?
You may need to adopt branching in many different scenarios. Let us assume that on [...]

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A brief comparison of Internet Payment Options

Recently,  I had to research different online payment options. Out of the box options such as Paypal, Google and Amazon compared to be same except for some minor differences. However, there were some significant differences especially in the fee structure when we analyzed an independent Online merchant account.

 

Paypal

Google

Amazon

Merchant Account1

Transaction Fees Per Transaction

Monthly sales
under $3,000           2.9% + [...]

Posted in Finance | 1 Comment

Announcing Tonido Search: Search your computer from anywhere

Tonido Search is a simple, easy-to-use Tonido application that enables to search your computer for files and folders from anywhere through a web browser.

To start a search, simply enter a keyword and click search. The default search is performed against your “My Documents” folder.

Advanced Search:
Use advanced search option to

Search in a specific location.
Search [...]

Posted in Tonido | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Betting on Cloud Services? Think again.

“Microsoft confirmed on Monday that Azure users suffered an overnight outage over the weekend during which their applications weren’t available. “
ComputerWorld Mar 19, 2009
“Business and personal users of Gmail suffered an outage starting about 1:30 a.m. PST Tuesday”
CNet News Feb, 24 2009
“Amazon storage ‘cloud’ service goes dark, ruffles Web 2.0 feathers”
CNet News Feb 15, 2009
“Salesforce.com [...]

Posted in Privacy, Software, Tonido | 3 Comments

Save your personal data before it is too late.

Do you store and share your photos online? Watch out.
“As of February 1st, 2008 the ImageStation online service is permanently closed.”
Sony ImageStation, Feb 1, 2008
“Photo site Digital Railroad derailed completely.” CNet News Oct 29, 2008
“The AOL Pictures online photo service is now closed.” AOL July 14th 2008
“Yahoo Photos going dark as Flickr shines on.” USA [...]

Posted in Networking, Privacy, Tonido | 2 Comments

Generate PDF from C#.NET

Generating PDF files from .NET has always been a cumbersome task. There are a couple of different ways by which a PDF can be created from Microsoft.NET.

Crystal Reports.NET that comes with the Visual Studio.NET
Free Utilities like NFop and Open source systems Report.NET, PDFSharp etc.
Commercial software such as ABC Pdf, Aspose Pdf, etc

NFOP has always been [...]

Posted in Software | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Spyware – No longer a threat?

In the days long gone by, if a company wants to collect your personal information through your PC it has to follow the illegal route. Spyware is secretly bundled in software that you want to install on your PC and the company hopes and prays we (people) download and install them. On top of that, [...]

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Overtime – Smart Programmers know better…

Andrew crept into bed silently at 3 AM in the morning after a 18 hour work day. In the morning he said to himself this is not going to happen again. 2 days later he returned home at 2 AM in the morning 2 days later it happened again…
When you are logging 60-70 [...]

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Some data is better left on your desktop

15 years ago, we bought less hardware for more money. This was a time when we shelled out $2000 for a 486 with 64MB RAM and the Internet was getting popular with the advent of email over dialup.
During that time, personal money management systems like Quicken or Microsoft Money only had a desktop version. Microsoft [...]

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