Know about Light Peak

Light Peak is often termed as "USB3 replacement" or USB 3 Killer. A recent announcement by Intel about early arrival of Light peak interface in mid 2011 raises the hopes of its take-off.

Some facts about Light peak

What is Light peak?

Over a period of time, many types of interfaces like Serial, parallel, SATA, SCSI , USB etc got evolved. These interfaces or buses have many limitation mainly speed and compatibility. Now time has reached where all these interfaces can be replaced with some new generation interfaces. Light peak is one of such intended candidate.

Light peak is an interface based on optical technology, developed and promoted by Intel/Apple, capable to carry data at the rate of 10gigabits/second in both directions.

Why light peak termed as USB 3.0 killer ?
It’s all because of Intel’s stand on USB 3.0 and Light Peak, as of now.

Though USB 3.0 (speed 4.8Gbits/s or 3.2 MB/sec) is almost 10 times faster than USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s & USb 1.0 is 1.5 Mbit/s ) , Intel has yet to implement it in its various chipset family of motherboards. That’s why majority of modern PCs which are based on Intel chipsets and even Apple’s Macbook has not equipped with USB 3.0 directly.(Though , using PCIe cards one can add USB 3.0 using add-on card). Also many peripherals like External HDD, tape devices, Printers do not get much benefit out of USB 3.0 due to their own technological reasons. Intel is already serving the need of higher speed by providing e-SATA interface hence eclipsing the demand of USB 3.0.Now Light peak is going to see light sooner which is 3 times faster than USB3.0 and capable to be 300 times faster in next decade , hence it is termed as USB 3.0 killer.(Details on USB 3.0: http://goo.gl/VV5Q )

The shining part of USB 3.0 is universally adoptability across the platforms ranging from PC to media players, its backward compatibility with USB 2.0 and 1.0 ,and its simplicity . USB interface is able to fulfill the most of the user’s need.

Point to note that Light peak and USB are not compatible with each other.

How fast Light peak is ?

If one has to express how fast light peak is , one may refer Intel which says " At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds." http://goo.gl/MIUG

Salient features of Light peak

1. Light Peak is based on fiber optic technology hence faster. Data delivery and transmission in fiber optics cable is much better, almost twice as compared to copper wire. The throughput of data is determined by the frequency which cable carries. More the frequency, more the throughput. Fiber optics supports much higher frequencies for data transfer. Additionally, by polarizing the light signals, more data can be sent using fiber optics.(Refer: http://goo.gl/YhOVf )
2. Light peak supports cable lengths of up to 100 meters. Note that USB 3.0 support up 3 meters, USB 2.0 up to 5 meters, and USB 1 up to 3 meters.
3. On performance parameter, Light Peak eclipses every other interface available in market as of now. It is as high as 10 Gbps, it is capable to upscale up 100 Gbps.USB 3.0 supports up to 4.8 Gbps, USB 2.0 , 480 Mbps and USB 1.0 is 1.5 Mbit/s.
4. Light Peak is bi directional and hot pluggable. Support for Multiple protocols is another characteristic.
5. Light peak is perceived as a single universal replacement for available buses like USB/SATA/e-SATA/Firewire/SCSI/HDMI etc.These buses posses limited transfer capabilities & requires multiple connectors which creates compatibility problems.

Questions with Light peak

1. Can Light peak be single replacement of all interfaces or add one more in plethora of interfaces and cables?
2. Is it going to be as simple as USB when comes to implementation?
3. Optical cables are fragile and complex in handling, how nicely light peak will implement it?
4. How would it affect the cost of PC, total cost of ownership etc?
5. And last but not least why cannot both USB 3.0 and Light peak co-exist in user space?

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Simple Solution: Extract text from Protected PDF document

Just two stages : First convert PDF page in to TIFF image format and then run OCR software (Optical character recognition) over it to get a Text. Here is step by step guide by using freeware tools.

One of the common hurdles which many users face is “How to copy text from protected PDF file”?

When PDF file gets protected, the feature which permits to copy selected text and later paste it gets disabled.

One can get the text easily from protect PDF file . To achieve it, following two freeware required

1. IrfanView from http://www.irfanview.com : Free for non-commercial use, 32-Bit graphic viewer
2. SimpleOCR from http://www.simpleocr.com : Freeware OCR software

How to Do ?

Step 1: Open PDF document, open desired page and perform Screen Capturing. You can use print Screen key (Prt Scr) of keyboard. This key is situated in the same section where Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys lies.

Step2: Open IrfanView , and press Control-V to paste the screen shot of PDF page. Alternatively, one may also click on "Edit" menu and choose "Paste" form it

Step 3: This step is optional but better if get performed. Select that area of image which contains the desired Text by dragging a box with the help of mouse.

Step 4. Again optional step: If box is drawn as mentioned in step 3, then click on "Edit" menu and choose “Crop selection”. It will remove unwanted stuff.

Note: Even If you have not perform steps 3 and 4, you can directly go to step 5

Step5: It is an important step: Press Ctrl + G here or click on "Image" menu and select “convert to Grayscale “. This operation will remove the color information from image and it will make it grayscale (similar to black and white)

Step 6: Now it’s time to save file. Click on "File" menu and select “Save as”. Here select “Save as” type as “TIFF”. Save it to desired path.

So up to this stage we have saved the image of entire page of Protected PDF file or Image from protected PDF file (from Step 3 and Step 4) into Grayscale TIFF file format, a must required input to “ SimpleOCR “ software.

How to grab text ?

Step 1: Download and Install SimpleOCR from http:// www.simpleocr.com

Step 2 : Run the SimpleOCR Program. During the start up of SimpleOCR, select "Machine Print option".

As program gets open, click on "Add page", it will ask you for select Source. Choose File option, navigate through the desired path and select the TIFF file of Protected PDF .

Step 3 : Now Software will show you a Preview Screen . Just skip it and click on Continue button. Now one can see TIFF image in software. A new button Convert to text will appear.

Step 4 : Here lies the actual magic. Click on Convert to text button”. This process will run OCR operation on TIFF Image, try to recognize the text and display the text.

(There are some options available here with captured text like one can correct the spelling mistakes from text or skip it.)

Step 5: As text is captured, it can be saved too. Click on File menu, select “Save as” option. This option let you save in either as "MS Doc" document or plain text format. Better select plain text format instead of MS doc and save it to desired location.

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Simple Solution: How to identify CMYK JPG and RGB JPG ?

CMYK JPEG Images could not be displayed properly across the various versions of Internet Explorer. Also it becomes necessary sometimes to identify the type of JPG image.

Yes, JPEG or JPG images are of two types. RGB JPG meant for display of Computer screen and CMYK JPG, primarily meant for printing purpose.

Through naked human eyes it is not possible to detect and identify the type of JPG file. There are various ways which can be used to detect the type of JPG. You can use PHP, ASP, Java to read the Exif Metadata of image to identify the Image. However, it requires you to write a program and understanding of the other basics of image handling tasks.

I did face the need to detect the type of JPG as I started getting Red Mark in IE using java program. If JPG is of CMYK, then you may get Red mark in Internet explorer in place of image. (As image file is missing). Also the thumbnail of CMYK JPG would be a solid blue or black color (or Inverted color) , instead of real image.

How to detect the CMYK JPG image?

Here ImageMagick will help you .

As you know ImageMagick provides is a set of API, libraries for Graphics handling which can be used with various programming language. ImageMagick also comes as a standalone suite for MS windows. The best part is , it comes as portable hence you need not to install it.

As a first step , download the ImageMagick suite from "http://www.imagemagick.org/download/binaries/ImageMagick-6.6.4-Q16-windows.zip "

Extract this zip file.It comes with various command line tools . The tool which matter for us here is “identify.exe” See what its documentation says

The identify program describes the format and characteristics of one or more image files. It also reports if an image is incomplete or corrupt. The information returned includes the image number, the file name, the width and height of the image, whether the image is colormapped or not, the number of colors in the image, the number of bytes in the image, the format of the image (JPEG, PNM, etc.), and finally the number of seconds it took to read and process the image.

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Now we will se how this tool will serve our purpose. Take any RGB JPG image , and copy it to location where “identify.exe" is placed. Now run the following command

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verbose Imagefile.jpg

The Identify command display whole lot of information about image . To get pinpoint information about the type of Image you can Pipe and then filter results by using "Findstr" , a PowerShell command available in windows XP/vista/7. Use this command in following way for image named as "IndiaMap1.jpg".

RGB Colorspace image

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verbose IndiaMap1.jpg |findstr /L “colorspace”

The result would be

Colorspace: RGB

If image is of CMYK type then the value of Colorspace will be “CMYK".

CMYK Colorspace Image

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verboseIndiaMap2.jpg |findstr /L “colorspace”

The result would be

Colorspace: CMYK

You can use this command in following way to get info about multiple image files

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verbose IndiaMap1. jpg IndiaMap2.jpg |findstr /L “colorspace”

Output would be

Colorspace: RGB

Colorspace: CMYK

So with the help of "Identify" command utility of ImageMagick Suite , you can identify the JPG type RGb or CMYK!

Happy identification !

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Bulk SMS, MMS ban in India

A verdict in the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit case is expected soon in India. As a precautionary measures and to curb rumors, the Indian government has imposed ban on bulk SMS and MMS services till September 29,2010.It is temporary measure.Though India is strongly democratic country , no one take this action of Govt as unusual.

I just tried to see whather it is in force or not. I logged in to my http://www.160by2.com/ website, a free bulk sms sending website. I noticed that they have implemnted Govt order strictly. when I tried to send a message , It showed following screen.

The Same I tried with another site http://www.smsgupshup.com/ . This site let me post the messages , but SMS was not deliverd. I am sure due to ban they wouldnot not deliver too.

I daily recives many SMSes from Google SMS channels. It has also stopped since morning.

Good job done by India's Ministry of Communications & Information Technology.
Peace is the need of the hour... Technology may come later.

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A workaround to Run IE 9 Beta and IE 8 simultaneously on same PC!

Run IE 9 or any other browser without installing it. May be , you don’t want to take a risk to install beta version / platform preview of IE or any browser on your existing windows having stable web browser.

After launching platform preview, Microsoft has recently launched Beta of Internet Explorer ver. 9. It has yet to release a final stable version.
If you want to try IE 9 you need to install it on your system. Being Beta version, chances are that it would affect the stability of your system. And if you are in between the web application development activities, it would be advised not to install at all any beta version. I did also come across the same situation, but fortunately I found what it called “Browser Sand boxing” methods.
Browser sand boxing can be achieved by various ways. However there are many popular ways.
1. Use Sandboxie , a standalone installable software
2. Use online Sandboxing methods
3. Use virtualization

The first method i.e. use of Sandboxie software (http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie) requires driver to be install on your system. If you don’t have sufficient privileges on your system to disable firewalls or you don’t want to install that driver, you will be refrain from using it. Also Sandboxie is not a freeware , it comes with 30 day evaluation license.

The web based online Sandboxing methods seems to be pretty cool. One such solution provider is http://www.spoon.net/browsers/. Here you will find whole lot of web browsers available. The use of these services also requires plug-in to be installed. Once plug-in is installed you can run many web browser having different version from single desktop. Take a case, you may see the Six different version of IE , Six different versions of Firefox etc on this site. Just click on desired version of browser and it will run in new window.

In fact it is extremely helpful to test your web application in different browsers. You can also test websites’ web pages look and feel across various browsers. The crux is , no need to install any of browser , but you can use it seamlessly.

The only limitation so far is it works with Microsoft Windows, not with Ubuntu or any other Linux. Hope so that it will be available on other platform too.

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