Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Google is introducing Google Chrome !

Fasten your seat-belts.. Google is coming up with its very-own open-source web-browser named Google Chrome! Tonight!!


"We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries."
- Says Official Google Blog
    on 1st Sept, 2008


By the time you read this, it could have been released. We expect it to be accessible at http://www.google.com/chrome (which is currently giving 'Error 404')


Read this Great Explanation of the features!


As Blogoscoped summarizes it:

  • Google Chrome is Google’s open source browser project.This will be based on the existing rendering engine Webkit. Furthermore, it will include Google’s Gears project.

  • The browser will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8, built from scratch by a team in Denmark, and open-sourced as well so other browsers could include it. One aim of V8 was to speed up JavaScript performance in the browser, as it’s such an important component on the web today. Google also say they’re using a “multi-process design” which they say means “a bit more memory up front” but over time also “less memory bloat.” When web pages or plug-ins do use a lot of memory, you can spot them in Chrome’s task manager, “placing blame where blame belongs.”

  • Google Chrome will use special tabs. Instead of traditional tabs like those seen in Firefox, Chrome puts the tab buttons on the upper side of the window, not below the address bar.



  • The browser has an address bar with auto-completion features. Called ’omnibox’, Google says it offers search suggestions, top pages you’ve visited, pages you didn’t visit but which are popular amd more. The omnibox (“omni” is a prefix meaning “all”, as in “omniscient” – “all-knowing”) also lets you enter e.g. “digital camera” if the title of the page you visited was “Canon Digital Camera”. Additionally, the omnibox lets you search a website of which it captured the search box; you need to type the site’s name into the address bar, like “amazon”, and then hit the tab key and enter your search keywords.

  • As a default homepage Chrome presents you with a kind of “speed dial” feature, similar to the one of Opera. On that page you will see your most visited webpages as 9 screenshot thumbnails. To the side, you will also see a couple of your recent searches and your recently bookmarked pages, as well as recently closed tabs.



  • Chrome has a privacy mode; Google says you can create an “incognito” window “and nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer.” The latest version of Internet Explorer calls this InPrivate. Google’s use-case for when you might want to use the “incognito” feature is e.g. to keep a surprise gift a secret.

  • Web apps can be launched in their own browser window without address bar and toolbar. Mozilla has a project called Prism that aims to do similar (though doing so may train users into accepting non-URL windows as safe or into ignoring the URL, which could increase the effectiveness of phishing attacks).

  • To fight malware and phishing attempts, Chrome is constantly downloading lists of harmful sites. Google also promises that whatever runs in a tab is sandboxed so that it won’t affect your machine and can be safely closed. Plugins the user installed may escape this security model, Google admits.



Screenshot:


So.. Happy Chroming..! :)

Monday, September 1, 2008

Definitions of Terms Commonly Used in Lectures at IITs !!


CLEARLY: I don't want to write down all the in-between steps.

TRIVIAL: If I have to show you how to do this, you're in the wrong class.

OBVIOUSLY: I hope you weren't sleeping when we discussed this earlier, because I refuse to repeat it.

RECALL: I shouldn't have to tell you this, but for those of you who erase your memory tapes after every quiz, here it is again.

WITHOUT LOSS OF GENERALITY: I'm not about to do all the possible cases, so I'll do one and let you figure out the rest.

SIMILARLY: At least one line of the proof of this case is the same as before.

TWO LINE PROOF: I'll leave out everything but the conclusion.

ONE MAY SHOW: One did, his name was Gauss.

IT IS WELL KNOWN: See "Mathematische Zeitschrift'', vol XXXVI, 1892.

CHECK FOR YOURSELF: This is the boring part of the proof, so you can do it on your own time.

SKETCH OF A PROOF: I couldn't verify the details, so I'll break it down into parts I couldn't prove.

HINT: The hardest of several possible ways to do a proof.

BRUTE FORCE: Four special cases, three counting arguments, two long inductions, and a partridge in a pair tree.

SOFT PROOF: One third less filling (of the page) than your regular proof, but it requires two extra years of course work just to understand the terms.

ELEGANT PROOF: Requires no previous knowledge of the subject, and is less than ten lines long.

CANONICAL FORM: 4 out of 5 mathematicians surveyed recommended this as the final form for the answer.

THE FOLLOWING ARE EQUIVALENT: If I say this it means that, and if I say that it means the other thing, and if I say the other thing...

BY A PREVIOUS THEOREM: I don't remember how it goes (come to think of it, I'm not really sure we did this at all), but if I stated it right, then the rest of this follows.

BRIEFLY: I'm running out of time, so I'll just write and talk faster.

LET'S TALK THROUGH IT: I don't want to write it on the board because I'll make a mistake.

PROCEED FORMALLY: Manipulate symbols by the rules without any hint of their true meaning.

QUANTIFY: I can't find anything wrong with your proof except that it won't work if x is 0.

FINALLY: Only ten more steps to go...

Q.E.D. : Thank God !

PROOF OMITTED: Trust me, it's true.