Building applications and web services with Microsoft .NET or Java tools was previously a choice between cross-language and cross-platform development. Limiting applications to run under Windows operating systems was considered one of the major drawbacks of using the .NET framework. On the other hand, Java-based applications can run on any platform, including UNIX and Linux, using a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

With open source implementations of the .NET platform, developers targeting .NET face an extremely welcome challenge - creating applications that run on multiple platforms. The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is the standard defined by ECMA, an industry association dedicated to the standardisation of information and communication technology systems, for describing the core of the .NET framework. It is similar to the JVM and acts as a translator between the .NET infrastructure and other platforms. The Mono Project, Portable .NET, OCL (Intel's CLI implementation), and Microsoft Shared Source CLI (SSCLI) also known as "Rotor", are just some of the open source implementations of the CLI.

View rest of my article in April 2005 issue of Spider Magazine.

This guide is to kick start your work with Microsoft MapPoint.

Download it from here.
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Sometimes, I feel that I shouldn't have tried
When asked about my feelings for her, to that I should've lied
Cheat my heart of its feelings true
Keeping my self, from saying, " Hey, I love you"
They say as time passes by the wounds fade away,
But you cut me so deep that there here to stay
Your warm innocent smile set my heart on fire
Made it beat, like no other desire
I'm grateful to you, for you made me fell
The memories of you, will allow me to heal
I'll keep it locked in my heart, till the ends of time
You may call it a sick dicession but it ain't no time
Was I wrong in opening up to you
Hoping that my fantasy could come true,
I guess not, cuz of someone asked me if I be,
Willing to give everything for one person then that be it who?
I guess the answer to that would be you.

To someone who don't care.
Poet "Aby", a great friend.

For all the newbies, Monoppix is a live Linux distro, based on KNOPPIX means you can run Linux with Mono (Opensource implementation of the CLI) without installing anything on your harddrive. But still wondering how to start MonoDevelop??? MonoDevelop is the Integrated Development Environment for Mono based on SharpDevelop. To start MonoDevelop you need to do the following:

Goto Start Applications, Quick Broweser, Root Directory, KNOPPIX, usr, bin and choose /KNOPPIX/usr/bin and select "Open In Terminal". In the console write "monodevelop" without quotes to start the IDE.

I really like the IDE, still exploring it, but according to me its my Mono VS :). However I am still unable to compile and run applications, but will give it another try sometime later.

Two groups, in Japan and the United States, have reported making see-through circuits out of a new class of semiconductors. Besides holding out the possibility of building displays into the windows of cars and trains, the materials' low cost and low-temperature fabrication may suit them to future applications that don't need transparency, notably roll-up electronic displays.
Standard silicon-based techniques can't compete in this area, because even if they could be made flexible, their processing temperatures, generally around 250 °C, are so high they would melt any plastic substrate holding the silicon in place. To get around the problem, several academic and corporate laboratories are developing pentacene and other organic semiconductors—so called because they consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

But although organic transistors can be processed at low temperatures and even printed like ink, they don't let electrons and other charge carriers move around very quickly; therefore, they perform poorly. Besides, organic materials tend to be thermally and chemically unstable.

It was a great feeling to see my article on "Connected Cars" published by Spider Magazine. I got my free copy today and was hoping to receive my cheque with it too. Unfortunately the cheque was missing so going to make a call to their office. Lets see what happens.

A technology company based in Tokyo, announced face-recognition software for cellular phones equipped with cameras. The company says the Okao Vision sensor is meant to safeguard the contents of a phone's memory should the handset be lost or stolen.

A user registers by using the camera to snap a self-portrait. From that point onward, anyone who wants to gain access to the phone's features must pose for such a picture; in about a second, the phone compares the new image with the reference image. The company says it gets the correct answer 99 percent of the time. Versions of software run on four operating systems—Symbian, Brew, embedded Linux, and Itro.

Security technology for mobile phones is becoming more of a necessity as users apply their growing range of capabilities to ever more sensitive jobs, such s remotely accessing home monitoring systems and car alarms and paying for gasoline and groceries.

Meanwhile, to supply the power these more powerful phones require, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT) last week announced that it had developed a hydrogen fuel cell for them. NTT , formerly the monopoly operator of Japan's telephone system, says it will commercialize the tiny power plant in three years"enough time to shrink it so it will fit the space currently occupied by batteries. The prototype measures 3.8 by 4.3 by 7.9 cm.

In a presentation at NTT's Yokosaka R&D Center, Kazuya Akiyama, a researcher at the company's Energy & Environment Systems Laboratories, said the new fuel can deliver 200 milliwats from each square centimeter of the device's electrodes, a power density higher than in the direct methanol fuel cells under development by other companies. Unlike those cells, which process hydrogen stripped from methanol, the NTT fuel cell creates electricity by directly combining hydrogen and oxygen. NTT engineers say a fuel cell's power density has to be at least 160 mW/cm2 in order to match the performance of lithium-ion batteries. A direct methanol fuel cell developed by NEC last year was rated at 60 mW/cm2.

Source IEEE Spectrum Magazine.

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Finland's Nokia cellular company has indicated to invest $300 million to set up its production plant in Pakistan during 2005. However, informed sources said that Pakistan has been asked by Finland to early finalise a bilateral investment agreement to help Nokia phone company to invest $300 million within this year. Final round of talks between the two countries is expected to be held in Islamabad shortly to sign the agreement. Earlier, both side had met in Finland last year.

View complete article here.