Wednesday, June 18, 2008

FireFox 3 : The Competitor of IE 8: Usability and some other issues

FireFox 3 claims to be an enhanced version of FireFox 2.However I observed some issues which may annoy you.But it is worth to consider as "competitor to IE 8"
Today being a download day (17 June 2008), I downloaded FireFox 3 as I pledged. No need to say as Mozilla poised to set a Guinness Book of record for its one million downloads in a day, It took me total 15miniutes to download 7.14 MB FireFox setup file on my broadband connection.
I uninstalled the previous version and installed the FireFox 3. The installation was cool. When I launched the FireFox, it gave me some error related to Hindi language add-on pack. As I was in hurry to explore this new version, I just ignored it and went ahead.
The nice, cool interface of FireFox 3 was ahead of me. I started glairing at screen and clicked on various options to find out “what is New”.

As I have yet to explore it fully, so far I have noticed some “uncomfortably things”

1.FireFox 3 importes the bookmarks from Bookmarks Toolbar of IE 7. It arranged in alphabetical order on Bookmarks Toolbar. User not desire it, as user always set their bookmark as per the relevance and importance of websites for them.
I noticed it immediately when I clicked on very first bookmark (which is my this blog begins with Letter “T”) and in returned, it opened some other book marked webpage.
2.
Missing Forms and Dom Inspector feature in Tools menu. I am so used to use these features; the missing of Form feature really annoyed me.
3. I usually visit the Hindi language website http://www.rajasthanpatrika.com/. I download the font from website and installed properly in my XP system. Though I am able to see this site properly in IE 7 without any problem , I could not see the font ( Which is True Type font) properly in FireFox 3. May be some thing need to be set in FireFox 3, which I don’t know at this stage, but it also causing annoyance
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As I have yet to explore it fully, I hope to come back with some more observations. but one thing is sure,Microsoft will soon consider FireFox 3 as its competitor.Tough time ahead for IE-8
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Friday, June 13, 2008

MS SQL 2005 Timeout error, when you try to modify large table.

The default value for time-out is 30 second, which is insufficient for large database/tables. Change it according to your own requirement, using "Tools->Option" menu of MS SQL Server management Studio.
Yesterday, I encountered the MS SQL 2005 error. I transferred the SQL 2005 Express edition database from server to my PC. The database is having 75000 records.
I have a J2EE application, which communicates with MS SQL 2005 database. For testing purpose, I tried to insert some data into database using JSP/HTML form of my J2EE application.
During testing, I got an error by J2EE application indicating that the ID field of database is not accepting the "null". As the application is running file on server, I guessed that something wrong with my PC’s database, which I have just ported.
I open the table design in MS SQL server management Studio. I checked the database of my PC. As ID column of my database's Main table was remained unchecked for "Allow null" it was imperative to give some data to this column. I noticed that the ID column was also not set as "auto- increment" (old terminology) that’s why this problem. So I decided to set it right.
I open the table design in MS SQL server management Studio. I selected the Main table of my database and choose "Modify". In Column Properties of ID, I selected Identity Specification. I changed the value of "IS Identity "from "No" to "yes". I kept identity increment "1".That was sufficient for me. I tried to save these setting in the anticipation so that it will serve the purpose for my J2EE application testing. When I tried to save the changes in Main table structure, I greeted with this message
------------------------------------------------------------- --------------
Unable to modify table.
Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding
.
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Surprised! i have not encountered this error so far. I tried again, 4-5 times and every time I got the same error. I conclude that somewhere there is a time out setting.
I started exploring various option of MS SQL Management Studio Express options. Under tool menu I discovered one option named as "Table and Database designers" in "Designer" option. In this ,there is a option called "Transaction time-out after:".
Eureka!! That’s what I wanted. I noticed that the initial value was 30 sec. without wasting a time; I put on leading zero and made it 300 sec. I tried again the table saving and this time Voila!! It worked. It saved my settings.
Useful information.
Whenever you try to make changes in large table , the MSSQL first create the temporary table and create the schema of table , which includes user's changes. Later it copies all the data from source table to this temporary table. Once MS SQL creates temporary table successfully with data and user's changes, MS SQL drops original table and rename the temporary table to original one's name.
This process is not only takes time but also takes disk space too. Hence if you are trying to make changes in large database table, make sure.
1, There is enough free disk space, ideally 20-25% more than db size
2. Donot forget to change time-out setting in MS SQL Server Management Studio Express
. Keep it double it till it permit saving the changes. Once your job is done, set it back to 30 sec as it is good for most of the operations.
Happy Database Porting

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Sunday, June 1, 2008

Parts inside your printer are at the end of their service life…Epson Printer error

Epson Stylus C41 UX Printer gives this error after printing 8000 pages (As of my experience). No need to throw the printer, you can very well rejuvenate it. Printer manufacturer hide this fact from you.
Few days back I encountered an interesting problem. The problem was with my 3-4 year old Epson stylus C41 UX inkjet printer. The printer had been working fine without any sign of any kind of error. I usually pay enough attention towards its preventive maintenance.

One fine day, after taking two printouts, the red and green lights of Epson C41UX starts flashing and a message on screen
"Parts inside your printer are at the end of their service life. See your printer documentation.”
I was taken aback. I never heard of such problem earlier. After passing of some time of surprises, I started thinking on this problem. The questions, which rose in my mind, were.
* How do printer come to know that it is a time to call a day? Is there any timer or time stamp in printer?
* Is there any counter, which keeps track of number of printing operations? If so how many prints can one take? What is the value of this counter? Is it mentioned in printer manufacturers documentation? If not Why?
* Is this a trick of printer manufacturer to force user to buy a new printer?
As it was my first experience, I hooked to Google. To my surprise lot of documentation is available for this problem.
I read lot of documentations and finally zeroed down on the following URL.
http://www.hm2k.com/posts/parts-inside-your-printer-are-at-the-end-of-their-service-life
It is extremely useful documentation to solve this problem. I followed as mentioned and finally I was able to revive my printer. Entire procedure is laborious, tricky but one can definitely enjoy it.

To solve this problem one has to download and install Epson SSC service utility a freeware (
http://inkjetprinterhelp.us/sscserve.exe ). With this utility you can reset the all the counters, which keeps track of printing count and reset to zero. Once all counters set to zero you will not get this message and no flashing lights. In other words YOUR PRINTER WILL BE A NEW ONE.

In this process I discovered that you could take maximum 8000 (Eight thousands) printouts, before this message greets you. In my case the counter was reached to 8007.

There is another useful link to solve this problem, but it is very comprehensive
Epson printer problem by
Richard (11/15/03 8:26 AM)
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/14116.

Happy Printing
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