I know its been a while since I last updated this blog, but this was something I could not resist writing about. There have been several important changes in my professional life, but that can wait.

This is about Yahoo! Mail. Two very important news items (blog posts) have come to my attention. Both related to Yahoo Mail. For one, Yahoo is going UNLIMITED!!! Yes, you heard it correct. This blog post from the VP himself clearly states the same. Unlimited storage space will become a reality at Yahoo pretty soon. Now you can store CDs and DVDs on mail and much more. Of course they will be fragmented, but who cares??

The second, and significantly more important announcement on the Yahoo Mail Updates Blog concerns the Yahoo Mail Web Service. Its official. Yahoo will be providing web service features to all users (limited features to the free users). But what this means is that you dont need to rely on POP3 and SMTP any more to send and receive messages any more. This just might revolutionize email as you know it. I expect a lot of developers adopting Yahoo’s web service APIs in their applications, and the Yahoo Mail Application Gallery providing some crazy apps never seen before.

Has Yahoo left Google far behind now? Has it managed to nail Google at its own game? Wait and watch while Google responds. And hail the KING (read the customer)!!!

My Mac Mini is here…and its here to stay. I ordered it a while back, and it finally arrived just at New Years time. Its a beautiful machine, tiny by PC standards, and a much better bang for lesser hardware, unlike the PC.

Wondering why the Mac? Well just because Windows ceases to impress me any more. I need more simulation. Not just for the eyes, but for the mind too.

What does it look like? Check this out….

Whats it got inside? Well, here’s the config that I ordered:

Intel Dual Core Duo 1.66Ghz
1GB 667Mhz DDRRAM
80GB SATA HDD
Bluetooth
Wifi Enabled
4 USB 2.0 Ports
Mac OS X Tiger

Within 48 hours of getting it up and running, I have managed to connect my laptop to the Wifi adaptor on the Mac in a Computer-to-Computer Adhoc network, share the Internet connection on it, and burn 6 CDs. Everything is so easy to do, it just runs out of the box!!!

Below are some screen shots I caught recently while working on it. And trust me, they have come out better than I thought they would. Just click on the images to view full sized (1024×768) screen shots.

So you want to enjoy the experience as well? Come over….
Btw…this blog post was composed on the Mac. Enjoy!!!

So its been a while since I have been looking for a way to do this. On the DOS command prompt, I need the date formatted as say dd-mm-yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd. How do you accomplish that? Its been a mystery for me for quite a while, till I read this excellent article and said “Thank You” out loud thrice over.

So here’s the logic behind this:
%date:~-2,2%\%date:~0,2%\%date:~3,2%

DOS already stores the %DATE% system variable. So if you do a echo %date% DOS should give you the current date.

Depending upon the format of this output, you can customize the format of the date by using substrings. Lets take a closer look at the command string above. If you notice %date is appended by a colon(:) and a tilde(~). This is the syntax to extract a substring from the specified parameter (in this case the %date% output).

So when we do a echo %date:~3,2%, DOS returns us the substring from the output of %DATE% from character 4(3+1, remember DOS string indexes start from 0), extending for 2 characters, including the 4th character. You can use the negative symbol(-) to start from the end of the output of the date string, as %date:~-2,2 shows. It extracts 2 characters from the end of the output of %DATE%.

You can obviously try this technique out on different command texts like %TIME%, %DIR% and %SYSDIR% etc. to do a lot more than you could ever do.

In case you are wondering how could this possibly be helpful to anyone, ask System Administrators, Database Administrators and Data Warehousing Specialists, who frequently need to rename files based on the current date and time.

Note: I have tested this on 2 machines running Win XP Pro and 1 machine on Win 2000. It works fine on both. Other platforms still require testing

An excellent read on the different ways DBMSs handle sequences and identity columns. While only IBM DB2 supports both, Oracle and SQL Server have their own nooks and crannies which need to be explored in depth. This article does an excellent job at it.

http://www.dbazine.com/db2/db2-disarticles/gulutzan4

If you want to convert an IDENTITY column which is generated by DEFAULT to be generated ALWAYS, you are out of luck. You cant do it using an ALTER statement. The only logical way is to drop and recreate the table as stated here.

How do you retrieve the value of an IDENTITY just inserted into a row? Use the function called IDENTITY_VAL_LOCAL as shown here.

I was looking for a base 64 encoder which would work online and encode text without having to download any software at all.
This is what I found…and it works pretty darn well.

Online base64 encoding

You might ask why would someone need something like that? Well there are reasons and then some. Ask spammers why they cant send spam any more and that might help!!!

Oracle has updated its suite of datawarehousing products (read competition) and now sports the Release 2 tag for the “Warehouse Builder” line of products designed to integrate with Oracle 10g.
This is where you get to read more about it.

Its not quite the industry standard yet, but its got the potential, and if Oracle manages to support it properly, it might well take the podium position soon.

Take a look at the new features and some screenshots here.

The Americans are known to be crazy people. And what the American goverment has done now is even crazier. It is asking the global public on their comments and suggestions on how the Internet should be run.

Read more here.

ICANN, the contracted party to oversee Internet operations (by the American goverment), may now be restructured and its role redefined on the basis of your comments and suggestions. And the best part is the American goverment is trying to be totally open about this with public meetings and open forums.

So what are you waiting for? Send in your two pence’s worth at DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov and you could be a lucky winner (who knows!!!).The contest ends Friday, 7th July 2006.