Tips on working with remote development teams

As the software industry gets increasingly globalized, getting along with counterparts in other countries to accomplish team goals is going to be a challenge.

Jeff Atwood & more recently, Scott Hanselman have shared their experiences & tips on working with remote development teams. It's essential reading for geographically distributed teams.

Also see:
Top 10 Developer Skills for the Future
Building non-technical skills

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Google Translate can now SPEAK Hindi

Although Hindi is the national language of India, it is spoken by less than half the population. For those among the other half & non-citizens who want to learn Hindi, Google Translate's text-to-speech functionality can be a good tool. Hindi is currently the only Indian language supported.

On clicking the Speaker icon in front of the translated text, the Hindi words are read out by a female voice. This feature relies on Flash. The translation is not perfect always.

As Google admits...

Clear and accurate speech technology is difficult to perfect, but we will continue to improve the performance and number of languages that are supported.

I hope more Indian languages get supported by Google Translate & it's text-to-speech functionality lets Indians appreciate languages they don't know.

Also see:
Google Script Converter transliterates between Indian languages
Read Telugu news sites in transliterated English

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HOW to continuously refresh any web-page in IE8 & FF

Have you ever felt hassled by a website that provides continuous updates (like cricket scores or live event updates) but requires you to reload the page manually? While Opera browser has an option to automatically reload a web page at pre-defined intervals, Internet Explorer, Firefox & Safari do not have any such feature by default.

I found this code for a browser bookmarklet to automatically refresh any web-page in IE on StackOverlow-

javascript:( function(){ i=0;setInterval("i++;var x=new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');
x.open('GET',location.href+'?'+i,true);x.setRequestHeader('Content-Type',
'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
x.onreadystatechange=function(){if(x.readyState==4)
{document.body.innerHTML=x.responseText;}};
x.send(null);",5000); }() )

I made the following minor change to it by replacing the use of Microsoft.XMLHTTP ActiveXObject with XMLHttpRequest object so that it works in all new browsers -

javascript:( function(){ i=0;setInterval("i++;var x=new XMLHttpRequest();
x.open('GET',location.href+'?'+i,true);x.setRequestHeader('Content-Type',
'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
x.onreadystatechange=function(){if(x.readyState==4)
{document.body.innerHTML=x.responseText;}};
x.send(null);",5000); }() )

Note that in the code snippets I have added newline characters for readability & formatting. Make sure you remove the newline characters so that the whole code is on just one line. The code uses a JavaScript Timer to refresh the page every 5 seconds or 5000 milli-seconds. Change it to set an interval of your choice.

To add the bookmarklet in Firefox, enable the Bookmarks Toolbar (View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar). Right click on the Bookmarks Toolbar & select New Bookmark. In the Add Bookmark dialog box that opens, type "Refresh Page" as the name of the bookmarklet & paste the second code snippet that's above into the Location textbox as shown in the screenshot below.

A good way to share Bookmarklets (like the jQuerify Bookmarklet or these popular Bookmarklets) is to host it on a webpage as hyperlinks. I could not find a way to embed it on a webpage as a hyperlink (because the code involves using nested quotes) nor a clean way to add the above Bookmarklet to the Favorites Bar in IE8. The following steps to add the Bookmarklet though a little clumsy, get the job done -
1. With the Favorites Bar (View > Toolbars > Favorites bar) open, add any webpage from the tabs as a Favorite.
2. Right click on that Favorite in the Favorites Bar & select Properties from the context menu.
3. In the URL text box of the Web document tab, add the Bookmarklet code shown above

4. A warning "The protocol 'javascript' does not have a registered program. Do you want to keep this target anyway?" appears. Click on the "Yes" button
5. Go to the General tab & type the name for the Bookmarklet as "Refresh Page"

Now whenever you need a webpage to be reloaded automatically, click on the Bookmarklet while you have that page open.

I've tested the Bookmarklet for a short while with Google News. Please report if you find any issues with the Bookmarklet or any other feedback that you may have.

Also see:
View Selection Source in IE

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Raman Effect can fingerprint the universe

This week's Swaminomics column in the Sunday Times of India, based on an article in The Atlantic Magazine explains how India's Noble prize winning scientist C.V. Raman's discovery has finally become a breakthrough technology.

Handheld scanners called Raman scanners, weighing just one-third of a kilo, are being used by US narcotics squads and airports to detect drugs.

The scanners work by detecting the molecular structure of the object they are scanning. If you shoot a beam of light on an object, a very small part of it interacts with the atoms of the object and scatters light in a pattern or spectrum unique to that particular molecule.This is the Raman Effect. It is difficult to detect, and typically needs lasers to amplify the signal. Every molecule has a different Raman pattern. This is why Raman scanning has been called the fingerprinting of the universe: it can identify substances as surely as fingerprints can identify humans.

Scanners have a laser, spectroscope and an electronic heart that can recognize Raman patterns. This yields almost instant recognition of target substances.

Scientists aim ultimately to create a database of Raman patterns of every substance for easy identification.

The Atlantic reports other mash-ups of the Raman Effect -

The potential medical applications of Raman technology are perhaps the most exciting. Researchers at Stanford University are experimenting with it as a non-invasive tool to diagnose breast, lung, and other cancers. River Diagnostics, in Rotterdam, is marketing a bacteria-strain analyzer to identify pathogens in real time and combat hospital-acquired infections. Diabetics may someday be able to monitor their glucose without poking themselves to get a drop of blood. Allergy sufferers may be able to instantly detect which pesky pollens are in the air and respond accordingly.

I found it interesting that I read this article by my favorite Indian columnist who probably first read it in an American magazine that carried this feature about an Indian scientist's path-breaking discovery that is finding application outside India scores of years after he first observed it. Goes to show how geographies are irrelevant for ideas & why good ideas should keep flowing.

The funny cover of The Atlantic that features the Raman article

Also see:
Accidental Discoveries
Geniuses

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Web Security Tutorials from Google & MS

Google Code University hosts tutorials on a variety of topics including Web Security. A recently added tutorial is called "Web Application Exploits and Defenses". A blog post announcing this has an interesting statement -
The maxim, "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" is only true if the eyeballs know what to look for.

For web developers interested in security, Microsoft E-Learning offers a two-part course called Microsoft Security Guidance Training for Developers

Also see:
Google Browser Security Handbook
OWASP Development Guide

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Collaborative JavaScript debugging tools - jsFiddle & JS Bin

Stuck with a JavaScript issue & need help debugging it? jsFiddle & JS Bin are online Web editors that save your samples & generate a random URL for it so that you can share it on a forum or with those who can help you with it.

Though both are not ready for prime-time, jsFiddle currently appears to have more options than JS Bin. It can format code to make it more readable. Both of them help you build quick & dirty code samples using Frameworks like jQuery, while you are experimenting or building a prototype. Without having to sign-up, you can save your code & generate a public link for it. You can then send this link to others anywhere across the world to review or seek help with debugging.

(JS Bin - click on the image to view enlarged screen-shot)

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Learning Resources on Computers & Programming for School kids

Life is a team sport - Janine Benyus

If you have to engage school-going kids constructively, there is nothing like introducing computers to them  through the Tux4Kids line of free & Open Source products -

• Tux Paint  is a free drawing program for children (ages 3 to 12)
• TuxTyping is an educational typing tutor
• TuxMath is a fun way for kids to practice their mathematics

Tux the penguin can only catch the fish if you type the right letters in time

If they are ready for programming, there are some good & free options, like -

• Microsoft Small Basic
• Scratch
• C#

Small Basic IDE

(to be continued...)

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