Advantages and disadvantages of flash usage in web design

Flash allows web developers to create interactive content, such as animations, animated menus, movies, games and more. Flash animations can be made rapidly, using a certain type of software which provides the developer with visual tools easy to use and understand.

Flash is based on vector graphics, which means
that flash animations can be rescaled without losing the image quality. Flash animations can be embedded in HTML pages as menus, movies or web site layouts. You will be able to create presentations, short courses, quizzes, Flash being an effective multimedia tool in business marketing and e-learning due to the possibility of easy control and model of the degree of interactivity for a certain animation. Flash movies have a high loading speed, being rendered with controllable quality by all major modern web browsers.

There are also disadvantages of Flash, depending on its implementation in a web site structure. For example, if your website needs the presence of many customers, it’s recommended to avoid the excessive flash usage, especially in web sites intros. Flash is not optimized for search engine indexing, and as a consequence, the content of your Flash animation is not visible for search engine spiders.

If your flash intro will contain unoptimized raster images, the final animation size will determine higher page loading times, which could mean losing many of your visitors or customers. On the other hand, updating the Flash content of a given website could be more expensive than traditional content non-Flash based.

The selection criteria of Flash editing tools is also important, due to performance of optimization options and their cost. In conclusion, as a function of your website destination, you should carefully select the parts where Flash animations will fit in, and never overuse Flash animations.

Top 51 Free & Useful Downloads

Once upon a time you actually had to pay for great software or use illegal cracked versions. The scenario has totally changed today. Luckily we are out of that world now. If you want to make your PC more productive, secure, informative and entertaining, try these softwares listed below. We've compiled a list of the most useful softwares available for download - and they don't cost even a cent!

Tweaking Windows XP

• Fresh UI - Configure and optimize your system, hardware, and Windows application settings.
• Microsoft Power Toys For Windows XP - PowerToys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience. PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released.
• Tweak & Tune - Access hidden Windows system settings.

Tweaking Windows Vista

• Tweak VI Basic - Tweak hundreds of hidden features of Windows Vista.
• VistaBootPRO - Featured in PC Magazine, Microsoft's Tech Net Magazine, and hundreds of online articles worldwide.
• EasyBCD - Modify, back up, and restore configurations of Windows Vista bootloader.

Security Tools

• Ad-Aware SE Personal - Scan your system for ad-supported software components and remove them.
• Avast - Scan your computer for viruses, worms, and Trojan horses.
• ZoneAlarm - Protect your Internet connection from hackers and other security breaches.
• AVG Anti-Virus - Protect your computer from viruses and malicious programs.
• SMAC - View, change, and validate MAC Address.
• Microsoft Windows Defender - Remove spyware from your PC and prevent unwanted software from being installed without your knowledge.
• Spybot Search & Destroy - Search your hard disk and Registry for threats to your security and privacy.

Registry Cleaners

• TweakNow RegCleaner - Remove obsolete entries from your Windows Registry.
• CleanMyRegistry - Clean your Windows Registry.

System Information

• Belarc Advisor - Plug a PC audit into your browser with details on hardware and software.
• SpeedFan - Monitor fan speeds, temperatures, and voltages in computers with hardware monitoring chips.
• M2 Information - Get your system specifications quickly for easy reference when filling in technical-support questionnaires.

E-mail Clients

• Thunderbird -View e-mail and news the way you want it, with intelligent junk controls and personalized themes.
• Eudora - Send e-mail to and receive it from friends and coworkers.
• Spamato - Add-on for Microsoft Outlook, an extension for Thunderbird and Mozilla Mail, and as a stand-alone proxy component.

File Sharing

• AllPeers - Share anything with people you choose
  
• Pando - Bypass e-mail attachment limits when sending big files.
• uTorrent - Manage BitTorrents for Windows with scheduling and other features
• Skype - More than just talk
  
• Yahoo Messenger - Communicate instantly with your friends on YIM and Windows Live using custom avatars, PC-to-PC calling, and lively emoticons.
• Trillian - Chat and share files with all your friends on mIRC, AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo Messenger.
• Google Talk - Talk share with your friends for free.
• Microsoft Windows Live Messenger - Connect and share instantly on the worlds most popular IM network.

Desktop Search

• Google Desktop - Search your hard drive for e-mail, files, and your Web and IM histories.
• Copernic Desktop Search - Search files, e-mails, and popular multimedia formats on your PC's hard drive.
• Windows Desktop Search - Search your computer for virtually any kind of information.

Office Suites & Word Processors

• OpenOffice.org - Take an open-source approach to office productivity.
• Easy To-Do - Manage important tasks at home or in the office.
• NoteTab Light - Edit text and HTML documents of any size.
• Crimson Editor - Edit programs in HTML, C/C++, Perl, Java, and other languages.
• EditPad Lite - Try a general-purpose Notepad-like text editor.

Backup & File Synchronization

• Everyday Auto Backup - Automate your file backup routines.
• Microsoft FolderShare - Find, access, share your files anywhere
  

Video Players

• VLC Media Player - Play audio and video files with this cross-platform media player and streaming server.
• iTunes Foobar2000 - Listen to music with an audio player that supports several popular audio formats.

Image Editing

• Google Picasa - Find, edit, and share pictures faster.
• IrfanView - View and edit most graphics formats available today in a fast and simple way.
• StudioLine Photo Basic - Import, manage, edit, and share your digital images using e-mail, slide shows, and Web galleries.
• Microsoft Photo info - View and change metadata properties for digital photographs in Windows Explorer.
• FastStone MaxView - View, edit, and manipulate your images.
• GIMP - Create and alter photos and graphics manually or via scripting.
• Paint.net - Create and alter photos using layers, effects, and other tools.

Audio Players

• Nullsoft Winamp - Play and organize a variety of audio and video files.
• iTunes - Create MP3 playlists, burn CDs, and download music with this top-rated jukebox.
• Audacity - Edit your digital audio files.

A Visual Explanation of SQL Joins

I thought Ligaya Turmelle's post on SQL joins was a great primer for novice developers. Since SQL joins appear to be set-based, the use of Venn diagrams to explain them seems, at first blush, to be a natural fit. However, like the commenters to her post, I found that the Venn diagrams didn't quite match the SQL join syntax reality in my testing.

I love the concept, though, so let's see if we can make it work. Assume we have the following two tables. Table A is on the left, and Table B is on the right. We'll populate them with four records each.

id name       id  name
-- ----       --  ----
1  Pirate     1   Rutabaga
2  Monkey     2   Pirate
3  Ninja      3   Darth Vader
4  Spaghetti  4   Ninja

Let's join these tables by the name field in a few different ways and see if we can get a conceptual match to those nifty Venn diagrams.

SELECT * FROM TableA INNER JOIN TableB ON TableA.name = TableB.name id name id name -- ---- -- ---- 1 Pirate 2 Pirate 3 Ninja 4 Ninja Inner join produces only the set of records that match in both Table A and Table B.

SELECT * FROM TableA FULL OUTER JOIN TableB ON TableA.name = TableB.name id name id name -- ---- -- ---- 1 Pirate 2 Pirate 2 Monkey null null 3 Ninja 4 Ninja 4 Spaghetti null null null null 1 Rutabaga null null 3 Darth Vader Full outer join produces the set of all records in Table A and Table B, with matching records from both sides where available. If there is no match, the missing side will contain null.

SELECT * FROM TableA LEFT OUTER JOIN TableB ON TableA.name = TableB.name id name id name -- ---- -- ---- 1 Pirate 2 Pirate 2 Monkey null null 3 Ninja 4 Ninja 4 Spaghetti null null Left outer join produces a complete set of records from Table A, with the matching records (where available) in Table B. If there is no match, the right side will contain null.

SELECT * FROM TableA LEFT OUTER JOIN TableB ON TableA.name = TableB.name WHERE TableB.id IS null id name id name -- ---- -- ---- 2 Monkey null null 4 Spaghetti null null To produce the set of records only in Table A, but not in Table B, we perform the same left outer join, then exclude the records we don't want from the right side via a where clause.

SELECT * FROM TableA FULL OUTER JOIN TableB ON TableA.name = TableB.name WHERE TableA.id IS null OR TableB.id IS null id name id name -- ---- -- ---- 2 Monkey null null 4 Spaghetti null null null null 1 Rutabaga null null 3 Darth Vader To produce the set of records unique to Table A and Table B, we perform the same full outer join, then exclude the records we don't want from both sides via a where clause.

There's also a cartesian product or cross join, which as far as I can tell, can't be expressed as a Venn diagram:

SELECT * FROM TableA
CROSS JOIN TableB

This joins "everything to everything", resulting in 4 x 4 = 16 rows, far more than we had in the original sets. If you do the math, you can see why this is a very dangerous join to run against large tables.

Understanding Domain Name System (DNS)

Understanding Domain Name System (DNS)

Domain Name System (DNS) makes it possible to refer to Internet Protocol (IP) based systems (hosts) by human-friendly names (domain names). Name Resolution is the act of determining the IP address (or addresses) of a given host name.

Benefits of DNS

• Domain names can be logical and easily remembered.
• Should the IP address for a host change, the domain name can still resolve transparently to the user or application.
  

The structure of Domain Names

• Domain names are separated by dots, with the topmost element on the right. Eg: www.yahoo.com . IP addresses have topmost element on the left.
• Each element may be up to 63 characters long. The entire name may be atmost 255 characters long.
• The right most element in a domain name is called the Top-Level Domain (TLD). Referring the above example (www.yahoo.com), TLD is 'com'.
• If a domain name is not shortened, it is called the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). For example, briefcase.yahoo.com can be specified by a machine in the yahoo.com domain as either briefcase.yahoo.com (FQDN) or as briefcase.
  

Host names map to IP addresses in a many-to-many relationship. A host name may have one or more IP addresses. Conversely, an IP address may have multiple host names associated with it.

Hosts that are designed to perform email routing are known as mail exchangers. These machines should have special purpose records in DNS called Mail eXchanger (MX) records. When a SMTP server or mail server, needs to send mail to a remote domain, it does a DNS lookup for the Mail Exchanger (MX) of that remote domain. A domain can and should have multiple mail exchangers. Mail that cannot be sent to one mail exchanger, can instead be delivered to an alternative server, thus providing failsafe redundancy.

Different types of Domain Name Servers

1. Root Name server - Each top level domain (such as in,edu,com etc) has one or more root name servers which are responsible for determining where the individual records are held. These servers are fairly static and every machine on the internet has the capability of reaching any of them. A root name server is allocated like just one to three per country. For example, India has only 2 root name servers.
2. Authoritative Name Servers - These are the servers that the Root name servers sent queries to. These servers hold the actual information on an individual domain. This information is stored in a file called a zone file. Zone files are updated versions of the original HOSTS.TXT file.
3. Resolving Name Server - These are the servers that do most of the work when you are trying to get to a machine with a certain host name. Besides being responsible for looking up data, they also temporarily store the data for host names that they have searched out in a cache, which allows them to speed up the resolution for host names that are frequently visited.
   

Zone

A zone keeps the information about the domain database. It does this by maintaining two types of files:

Zone File - It is used to map host names to address, to identify the mail servers, and to provide other domain information.

Reverse Zone File - This file is responsible for mapping IP address to host names, which is exactly the opposite of what the zone file does.

Note: The zone file and the reverse zone file has to be maintained by the user.

Name Server Hierarchy

Master Name Server - Also called primary server. This contains the master copy of data for a zone.

Slave Name Server - Also known as secondary server. This provides a backup to the master name server. All slave servers maintain synchronization with their master name server.

A zone may have multiple slave servers. But there will be only one master name server per zone.

Apache : Name-based Vs IP Based Virtual Hosting

Often when, you attend interviews for network administration related jobs , the one question you may encounter while discussing about web servers is the difference between name-based and IP based virtual hosting. Here I will explain the difference between the two.

In IP-based virtual hosting, you are running more than one web site on the same server machine, but each web site has its own IP address. In order to do this, you have to first tell your operating system about the multiple IP addresses. See here configuring multiple IP addresses on a single NIC . You also need to put each IP in your DNS, so that it will resolve to the names that you want to give those addresses .

In Name-based virtual hosting, you host multiple websites on the same IP address. But for this to succeed, you have to put more than one DNS record for your IP address in the DNS database. This is done using CNAME tag in BIND. You can have as many CNAME(s) as you like pointing to a particular machine. Of course, you also have to uncomment the NameVirtualHost section in httpd.conf file and point it to the IP address of your machine.

#FILE: httpd.conf
...
NameVirtualHost 192.168.0.1
...

Setting up multiple IP addresses on a single NIC

In linux, you can bind multiple IP addresses on a single NIC. This is usually done in case you are using your linux machine as a webserver and is hosting multiple domains and you want to bind each domain to a unique IP address. This is how it is done.

Let us assume that you already have a NIC which is bound with a static IP address. Then you will have a file called /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 .My ifcfg-eth0 file has the following entries:

# File: ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.0.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BROADCAST=192.168.0.255
NETWORK=192.168.0.0
HWADDR=00:80:48:34:C2:84

Now to bind another IP address to the same NIC, I create a copy of the above file ifcfg-eth0 and name it as ifcfg-eth0:1

# cd /etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts
# cp ifcfg-eth0 ifcfg-eth0:1

Now just change the values of the DEVICE and IPADDR in the file as follows:

# File: ifcfg-eth0:1
DEVICE=eth0:1
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.0.5
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BROADCAST=192.168.0.255
NETWORK=192.168.0.0
HWADDR=00:80:48:34:C2:84

And lastly, restart the networking service. If you are using RedHat, then it is as simple as :
# service network restart

How to install a Network card in linux

There are different ways of installing a network card in linux - and that too depending on the linux distribution that you are using. I will explain each one of these methods here.

1) The Manual method

First open the computer case and insert the network card into an empty PCI slot. Then boot up your machine to load linux. In linux login as root and then navigate to the directory /lib/modules/kernel_version_number/net/ . Here you will find the modules supported by your system. Assuming that you have a 3Com ethernet card, in which case, the module name is 3c59x , you have to add this in the /etc/modules.conf file to let the machine detect the card each time the machine boots.

#File: /etc/modules.conf
alias eth0 3c59x

Note: If you have only one network card, it is known by the name eth0, the succeeding network cards in your computer go by the name eth1, eth2 ... and so on.

Now you have to load the module into the kernel.

root# /sbin/insmod -v 3c59x

Next configure an IP address for the network card using ifconfig or netconfig or any other method if your machine gets its IP address from a DHCP server. Eg:

root# ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255

2) The Easy way
RedHat/Fedora distributions of linux ships with Kudzu a device detection program which runs during systems initialization (/etc/rc.d/init.d/kudzu). This can detect a newly installed NIC and load the appropriate driver. Then use the program /usr/sbin/netconfig to configure the IP address and network settings. The configuration will be stored so that it will be utilized upon system boot.

How to Assign an IP address

Computers may be assigned a static IP address or assigned one dynamically (via DHCP). Here I will explain the steps needed to assign an IP address to your NIC.

Choose one of the following methods:

=> Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a protocol used by networked computers (clients) to obtain IP addresses and other parameters such as the default gateway, subnet mask, and IP addresses of DNS servers from a DHCP server.
Command line :

/sbin/ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255

GUI tool : You can use the GUI tool /usr/bin/neat - Gnome GUI network administration tool. It handles all interfaces and configures for both static assignment as well as dynamic assignment using DHCP.

Console tool : /usr/sbin/netconfig (Only seems to work for the first network interface eth0 but not eth1,...)

The ifconfig command does NOT store this information permanently. Upon reboot this information is lost. (Manually add the commands to the end of the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local to execute them upon boot.) The command netconfig and /usr/bin/neat make permanent changes to system network configuration files located in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ , so that this information is retained.

The Red Hat configuration tools store the configuration information in the file /etc/sysconfig/network. They will also allow one to configure routing information.

# File: /etc/sysconfig/network
# Static IP address Configuration:
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=my-hostname # Hostname is defined here and by command hostname
FORWARD_IPV4=true # True for NAT firewall gateways and linux routers. False for
# everyone else - desktops and servers.
GATEWAY="XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY" # Used if your network is connected to another
# network or the internet.

# Gateway not defined here for DHCP.

# Or for DHCP configuration: in the same file /etc/sysconfig/network
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=my-hostname # Hostname is defined here and by command hostname
# Gateway is assigned by DHCP.

# File: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
# Static IP address configuration:
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
BROADCAST=XXX.XXX.XXX.255
IPADDR=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=XXX.XXX.XXX.0
ONBOOT=yes

# OR for DHCP configuration:
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp

Used by script /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup to bring the various network interfaces on-line.

To disable DHCP change BOOTPROTO=dhcp to BOOTPROTO=none
In order for updated information in any of these files to take effect, one must issue the command:
root# service network restart