Slashdot has some funny ones from time to time. Like this one, where the author contends that AJAX is a new Microsoft technology.
(note: the article he links to about AJAX is worth the read!)

But AJAX isn’t new. It is old – many years old, for all that it didn’t become popular until recently.
And it was the tech darling Google that made it popular, not Microsoft. Sure it is based on technology Microsoft put in the browser many years ago, but until Firefox added support and Google used it broadly it was a sleeper… But on slashdot everything negative must be associated with Microsoft – it’s a rule I guess…

Justin Rogers, a dev on IE’s object model team, posts about his MSDN article on leak patterns in IE.

If you’re doing serious DHTML development for IE, this article is a must read. Says Justin:

let’s look at the following patterns:

Circular References—When mutual references are counted between Internet Explorer’s COM infrastructure and any scripting engine, objects can leak memory. This is the broadest pattern.

Closures—Closures are a specific form of circular reference that pose the largest pattern to existing Web application architectures. Closures are easy to spot because they rely on a specific language keyword and can be searched for generically.

Cross-Page Leaks—Cross-page leaks are often very small leaks of internal book-keeping objects as you move from site to site. We’ll examine the DOM Insertion Order issue, along with a workaround that shows how small changes to your code can prevent the creation of these book-keeping objects.

Pseudo-Leaks—These aren’t really leaks, but can be extremely annoying if you don’t understand where your memory is going. We’ll examine the script element rewriting and how it appears to leak quite a bit of memory, when it is really performing as required.

I have been really busy with work off lately. Hence not been able to keep this place updates. However I’ll try and write something during the weekend. Till then – Merry Christmas to all of you. Enjoy your holidays.

I’ve been SNARFed this sunday. I downloaded the application called SNARF (Social Network and Relationship Finder) from Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research’s Community Technology presents SNARF, the Social Network and Relationship Finder.

SNARF gives the user the freedom to build their own ordering. Each person in their inbox is assigned a set of meta-information: “number of emails sent in the last month,” for example. These metrics can, in turn, be combined to create an ordering across all contacts. For more information, check out the CEAS paper on SNARF.

I have about 6,000 messages in about 1GB worth of PST files. SNARF is examining my social network and as I write this post, it’s still going. Can’t wait to see what it tells me!!!

Its been quite a few days that I have wrote about Windows Live Mail Beta!! I have been a part of the beta program for over a month now.

The Mail Beta guys added two new features (Milestone 4) couple of days ago. Now you can resize the “Columns” and you have a “Auto Spell Check”. Spell Check is the most widly used feature of Outlook in the recent years. Guess I might soon see a “Web-Oulook” interface for my hotmail account.

Read Imran’s blog for more about Windown Live Mail Beta.

A look at Erik Ruker’s blog – tell you about something which is gonna change the feel of Access.
My outside perception is that not a lot has been happening with Access in the past few releases (something that I’m sure is not totally true, but there you are), but it looks like they’re definitely getting a lot of traction in Access 12. Lots of interesting stuff coming up!

Steven Wittens has created a ridiculously cool DHTML HSV colourpicker, which cunningly uses overlaid transparent PNGs to get the SV square in the middle. Not content with that, he also created a way to turn a select box into a discrete-mark slider bar using only CSS. Read his full post for more details.

The website of Sodipodi, the SVG drawing tool, has a complete collection of the flags of the world in SVG. It would be really great if someone were to start a similar collection of political maps of countries… Always have trouble getting good world or country map data, and SVG maps could be rescaled and changed to suit the needs of each user.

Anyone feel like taking this on?

These Windows Live services keeping popping up. The general public can now sign up for the Windows OneCare Live beta. More information about the new beta can be gleaned from the blog post entitled Consumer Beta Goes Live! from the Windows OneCare team blog. For those who are wondering what the service is below, the following brief description may help:

What it is:
An automatically self-updating PC health service that runs quietly in the background. It helps give you persistent protection against viruses, hackers, and other threats, and helps keep your PC tuned up and your important documents backed up.

What it does for you:
• Runs quietly in the background, providing anti-virus and firewall protection
• Updates itself to help you keep ahead of the latest threats
• Runs regular PC tune ups
• Provides one-click solutions to most problems
• Makes back-ups a breeze
• Lets you see the status of your system at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions
What is a beta?
Beta is geekspeak for “not finished yet.” A beta product is something we are still working on and invite regular users to test out. We’re asking you to check out Windows OneCare Live beta and let us know what you really think—good and bad. That way, we can make the final product the best it can be.

Does it cost anything?
Nope. The beta version of Windows OneCare Live is free, though the final service will be a paid subscription.

What if new viruses or other Internet threats come out?
Windows OneCare Live regularly updates itself based on emerging Internet threats. So you can have better peace of mind.

So go ahead and give it a try!!

After the long wait, the list of Original Xbox Games Playable on Xbox 360 is now available. I’m glad to see the following games on the list

Grand Theft Auto 3
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas™
Halo® 2
Ninja Gaiden®
Star Wars® Knights of the Old Republic® II: The Sith Lords™
The Incredible Hulk™: Ultimate Destruction

Check out the list and see if your favorite XBox games will be playable on the XBox 360.