iPhone, iPod, iPad or BlackBerry – what do people prefer for web browsing?

In the article on mobile web usage, I had mentioned that the iPhone is better than the BlackBerry when it comes to browsing the web. Though I supported this with numbers, over the months I received a lot of flax, especially from BlackBerry users, for the supposed offhand statement (?). And now when Google Analytics has started to properly segregate visitors on mobile devices, I present a fresh analysis on the issue. More »

Captcha definition – Why are you asked to type the two words?

It is very difficult to figure out the purpose of the mixed-up wavy letters in the two words. I think I have them right, in fact, I know I do in some cases. Please explain the point to me.
Anne Lawson

Why are the two words one is required to type when registering always so fancy in design? It’s hard to read them.
Maja Novak

What is Captcha? Definition and a super quick intro

Anne and Maja are referring to what is known as Captcha, or more correctly, Text CAPTCHA. Nowadays you find them almost everywhere on the net… both popular and the not-so-famous web sites and blogs. And there is one right on this page – scroll down to check it out.

Captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer (source Wikipedia). In layman’s terms, the aim of the text Captcha is to offer a puzzle which only humans are able to solve. Typically, text Captcha has a set of randomly generated alphanumeric characters that are wavy, battered, crossed with lines and / or close to each other (almost overlapping).
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Updates: May 2010

Been very busy the past month. How? Drinking and building campfires in front of our log cabin in Oklahoma every night (check photographs at the bottom of this post), getting tanned on St. Pete beach in Tampa and accompanying my wife to shopping sprees at the Allen outlets in Dallas.

Finally made it home by “going around the volcanic ash” on a BA flight. Here are updates to some pages that should have been done at the beginning of this month.
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Chrome and Firefox in the Google Pack

It’s been more than a year since the free Chrome web browser was included in the free Google software pack. What I noticed is that the company is still promoting Firefox alongside their own program.
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Huge MSN web site ad – the page background!

I came across this a couple of days ago and found it a novel (at least for me) way to get the message across to the viewer. The huge MSN web site ad is not ‘intrusive’ in the true sense of the word but does change the ‘complexion’ of the page.
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Set Startpage as Chrome search engine

I wanted to add a new search engine – Startpage.com – to Chrome web browser. Though I was able to do this, the “Make Default” button stays gray. Do I need to use the “%s” because I don’t know what it means? Having a new Chrome search engine is unnecessarily complex and Google needs to work on this to make it more user friendly.
Mike J

I tried out the Google’s free web browser, Chrome, a few days after it was launched and it quickly became my favourite. What I really liked from the word ‘go’ was the no-nonsense interface with a single text field in which one can enter both the URL and a search query. Though the default Chrome search engine is Google.com (of course), you can change it to one you like in a few mouse clicks.
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How do I view a deleted web page?

I had bookmarked a web page but it seems unavailable now. I’ve been trying for 2 days and even the main web site does not load. Looks like the entire web site has been removed. Is there a way to view a deleted web page?
Prabir Ghose

The internet is a dynamic medium. Things change very fast – old pages are removed and new ones added. Typically, when pages and sites are modified or moved, the developers make use of redirection methods so that visitors do not find themselves at sea and get to the desired content quickly. But if the entire web site is taken down and has been offline for many days, it’s unlikely that it will come back. So how can you view a deleted web page – one which is no longer available?
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Make space on hard disk – how to clean up my computer

I’ve noticed the available free space on my computer’s hard disk keeps changing each day – even when I haven’t installed a new program or downloaded big files. Why does this happen and how can I make more space on the hard disk?
Becky H.

I had a similar issue on my Vista laptop. The free space on the hard disk used to change by a couple of hundred MBs (sometimes much more) and I know I hadn’t installed new software or saved huge files. I couldn’t pin-point the exact reason why this used to happen but am reasonably sure that it was because of temporary internet files (if I have visited many web sites), offline web pages, or system dump files. Any way, the easiest way to make space on the hard disk is to use a system tool called Disk Cleanup that comes with XP, Vista and Windows 7. And once you’ve run this program and want more space, I suggest reading the article on how to free up disk space on your computer. The Disk Cleanup tool is located under from “All Programs” -> “Accessories” -> “System Tools“.
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MySQL on Windows 7 64 bit – Installation with Apache and PHP

A week back I got a spanking new Sony Vaio laptop running Windows 7 (64 bit). Now its been a sort of tradition with me – the first programs I install on a new computer are Apache web server with PHP and MySQL. I do this even before I setup the email client. Now I have been installing and using Apache+PHP+MySQL on Windows operating system since the late 90s, so I suppose I have been around for some time.

But there was something new to learn this time. This was a 64 bit computer running Windows 7. Nothing usual I though… but was I wrong!
Both Apache and PHP are available only in 32 bit versions. MySQL, on the other hand, is offered in both 32 bit and 64 bit. For the sake of coherency and consistency, I though I’ll install only the 32 bit versions of the three programs.

So was I successful? Oh Yes! But there was one big problem and here is the full story.
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Check typing speed

If you have a couple of minutes to spare and want to check your typing speed, head off to the Speedtest at 10-Fast-fingers.com. The service is free and shows you one sentence at a time that you need to type in the text field. The seconds ticker to the left will begin the minute countdown once you start typing.

Maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be but I didn’t like the nonsensical sentences the service displays… I would have liked real world sentences with meaning. Anyway, who am I to judge when I got a not-so-high-score of 58 words per minute? Though I never “properly” learnt how to type, checking my typing speed at this speed test was quite an eyeopener – I didn’t realize I was not good (read “bad”) at this.
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