Archive for January, 2008
Posted by mikeg on January 11, 2008
Whenever you release a new version of any application that requires login, you need to test account creation functionality. There are a few possible ways:
- Most likely you already have a few accounts with your gmail, yahoo, etc personal emails. You can certainly delete those from your system, but sometimes you have some test data in there that you want to keep
- You can continue creating email addresses at any of the web email providers — that requires a rather significant amount of time as they ask you for a lot of information
This is where Gmail and automatic labels come to to the rescue:
- Let’s say my email is mike@gmail.com
- Gmail has a very useful feature where you can send an email to mike+anythingYouWantHere@gmail.com and that email will end up in your mailbox
- “+” helps mimic “email alias” functionality. You can then apply filters within Gmail
- That pretty much provides you with unlimited number of email addresses without all the hassle of setting them up
This technique is useful to automatically file emails and can also help you figure out which of the million websites that you signed up for actually sold your email address. It will not help you stop spam, but at least you will know who is responsible for it — sign up to websites using some system like this: mike+websiteName@gmail.com.
Here is help page on this subject from Gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12096&topic=13271
Posted in Development, QA, Testing, Web Development | Tagged: gmail | Leave a Comment »
Posted by mikeg on January 11, 2008
Whenever you release a new version of any application that requires login, you need to test account creation functionality. There are a few possible ways:
- Most likely you already have a few accounts with your gmail, yahoo, etc personal emails. You can certainly delete those from your system, but sometimes you have some test data in there that you want to keep
- You can continue creating email addresses at any of the web email providers — that requires a rather significant amount of time as they ask you for a lot of information
This is where Gmail and automatic labels come to to the rescue:
- Let’s say my email is mike@gmail.com
- Gmail has a very useful feature where you can send an email to mike+anythingYouWantHere@gmail.com and that email will end up in your mailbox
- “+” after your real address tells Gmail to “label” that email
- That pretty much provides you with unlimited number of email addresses without all the hassle of setting them up
This technique is useful to automatically file emails and can also help you figure out which of the million websites that you signed up for actually sold your email address. It will not help you stop spam, but at least you will know who is responsible for it — sign up to websites using some system like this: mike+websiteName@gmail.com.
Here is help page on this subject from Gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12096&topic=13271
Posted in Development, QA, Testing, Web Development | Tagged: gmail, labels | Leave a Comment »
Posted by mikeg on January 10, 2008
Having a small child I take a lot of pictures and I do not download them to my computer very frequently. That makes sorting and filing pictures a chore that takes quite a bit of time. I also try to be organized by filing pictures into appropriate folders and giving them meaningful names (I will have a separate post on my current “digital pictures workflow” and tools I use).
Not satisfied with limitations of Windows XP built-in rename functionality, I started searching for a utility that will help me with that task. After trying 4-5 different programs (commercial and free), I purchased the following tool: Better File Rename (v5).
BFR (Better File Rename) has a few nice options:
- Context menu integration which you can invoke on set of files or a folder
- Extensive list of built-in actions
- You can also drag and drop files into it once it is open
- “Droplet” support — see below for screenshot explaining what it does
A few notes:
- The easiest UI/richest set of built-in actions of all the tools I’ve tested
- Took me a minute to find “produce numbered list” — that’s probably the most frequent action I will use when filing my pictures
- Only $20/user — on any number of computers. This is important for me because I have a laptop, desktop and sometimes do this on my wife’s laptop
- Take a look at this page if you are interested in other tools. It also provides links that explain how to perform renames in tools you already use (Photoshop, IrfanView, etc): http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/renamers/Batch_Rename_Picture_Files_Tools_Tips.htm
Here is what UI looks like:
- I really liked the fact that I can “layer” my actions by performing multiple actions in a row
- There is a very impressive set of “actions” (everything from “produce numbered list” to “insert”, “replace”, “regular expressions” and many more)
- For every action you have a number of options that are configurable
- Preview of what the new name will look like
Here is what I would like to see in the next version:
- Preview support for images
- Improvements to “manual rename” — specify prefix, suffix and then allow me to manually rename each file. This only makes sense if preview support for images is implemented
- There is “droplet” functionality, but I would like to be able to load droplet into BFR as preset
- Ability to update EXIF/IPTC info for images
Here is the full list of actions:
Droplet description:
Let me know what tools you use for your file renaming/image processing needs.
Posted in Digital Pictures, Utilities | 2 Comments »
Posted by mikeg on January 9, 2008
I was visiting www.fave.com (I use them for bookmarking) and Norton kicked up the following warning:
Scan type: Auto-Protect Scan
Event: Threat Found!
Threat: Downloader
File: C:\Documents and Settings\Mike\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\DTKTQ6BK\gnida[1].swf
Location: C:\Documents and Settings\Mike\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\DTKTQ6BK
Action taken: Clean failed : Quarantine failed : Delete succeeded : Access denied
Date found: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 9:21:56 PM
I was a bit surprised that Norton found a threat in SWF file, but after a few searches it seems to be a real issue:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/default.aspx
http://seo.mhvt.net/blog/?p=180#more-180
I usually do not download anything sketchy, so it’s good to be reminded that Norton works!
P.S. Judging by the name, it was created, or was intended to imply that it came from Russia. “gnida” is not a very nice word in Russian.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: gnida.swf, spyware, virus | Leave a Comment »
Posted by mikeg on January 6, 2008
Just noticed that Skype allows you to link myspace account. It’s probably one of the newer features. Interesting…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: myspace, skype | Leave a Comment »
Posted by mikeg on January 3, 2008
I took these notes at Learning Annex Wealth Expo which took place on Nov 17-18, 2007. I will have a separate post on my overall impression.
I didn’t expect it, but I really enjoyed listening to him. He didn’t have a clear theme for his speech and jumped around many different topics but was very funny and entertaining. He is in the position where he freely speaks his mind so he talked a lot about his passions: beautiful women, sex, making deals, real estate, golf
- Success reasons do not change (if you look at successful people of different generations)
- Have to have “success” innately
- Entrepreneur needs to have the following 3 qualities
- smart
- imagination
- can handle pressure
- Growing economies, opportunities to make money: China, India, Russia
- US economy will stay at the current level or will go down
- Trump was voted “most competitive business man” by “business week” readers
- You have to know your limits — not everyone can be a successful businessman
- Sleeps 3 hours
- “Love what you do” — (MG: this seems to be a common message across all speakers);
- How to run your business:
- be “paranoid”: think positive, but always think about “negative”
- “keep your left up”
- hire best people and do not trust them (Vs common belief to “hire best and do not macro manage”)
- your employees have to respect you, no friendly discussions of topics not related to work
- a bit stand-offish
- a bit of fear by employees
- “going against tide” can lead to significant success/returns
- Always expect problems and solve them fast
- If somebody goes after you:
- get even
- screw them to the wall
- people watch you — do not let anybody take advantage of you, b/c other people will do the same
- Try to get free publicity
- Real estate
- go back to your bank to renegotiate your mortgage, threat to sue
- 2 years ago his recommendation was NOT to invest
- Now he recommends to invest, but not in NY
- Start looking/learning now
- Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate!!!
- Believes in luck, but “The harder I work, the luckier I get” — quote by a famous golf player
- Huge proponent of prenaps (made fun of McCartney)
- Iraq — meanest guy will take over once our troops leave
- Next season of Apprentice is Celebrity Edition: Lennox Louis, Tito Ortiz, etc
- Made fun of Martha for blaming the failure of her Apprentice on him
- “Does not like stupid people” — MG: i can relate to that…
Posted in Personal, Personal Growth | Tagged: Learning Annex, Trump, Wealth Expo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by mikeg on January 1, 2008
This blog is a result of a New Year resolution: make blogging a part of my daily routine. There are a few reasons why:
- I encounter a lot of interesting information on a daily basis and this will be a place for me to share this information as well as document it for myself
- As our circle of interaction (friends and family) becomes more global, blog seems to make sense as a way to keep everyone updated on what is happening.
- This is also a way to get “your name out”. It becomes standard practice to “google” a future employee/partner/acquaintance and blog is one of the ways to raise the awareness. With that said, it is also important to keep this fact in mind when deciding what content to post.
Look at the about page to find out more about myself.
Thanks and have a health and happy New Year!
Posted in Personal | Leave a Comment »
