Why ask questions in public????

Good one!!!

http://www.eyrie.org./~eagle/faqs/questions.html

Java ,J2EE useful links

http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/tags/syntaxref.fm8.html

http://www.devdaily.com/java/java_oo/java_oo.shtml

http://www.pageresource.com/jscript/jbasics.htm

http://www.apl.jhu.edu/~hall/java/Servlet-Tutorial/

http://www.mindprod.com/jgloss/octal.html

http://www.jspinsider.com/showsource.jsp

http://www.javascripter.net/faq/openinga.htm

http://java.sun.com/j2ee/1.4/docs/tutorial/doc/

http://husted.com/struts/tips/

http://javaalmanac.com/

http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-lang/java/programmers/faq/

http://www.sahiti.org/converter/index.jsp

New conferencing tool

An attempt to conduct on-line meetings in a participatory environment

A NEW informal method of organising/conducting conferences, using Net technologies, is getting acceptance among a section of the tech community. This edition of NetSpeak takes a look at BarCamp, yet another fascinating phenomenon triggered by the Net.

The distinct feature of open-source software development lies in its provision to keep the production process public and to allow the beneficiaries to be a part of it. As mentioned in the past, the concept is being tried out in many other areas as well. We have seen the application of open source concepts in a variety of ventures that include open source radio (http://www. hindu.com/biz/2005/05/30/stories/2005053000251600. htm) and open source books. The latest segment hit by the open source culture/philosophy is conference management. In this context, you may check out the piece `Open-Sourcing Conferences' (http://www.linuxjour nal.com/article /8392).

In a conventional sense, a conference means a meet planned by a small group where a select few present papers and the others silently listen.

BarCamp (http://barcamp. org/) is an attempt to conduct a conference in an open-informal and participatory-environment. Here, no one is barred from attending the conference or making a presentation. Complete planning is done through Net based communication tools (blog, IM, e-mail, Wiki and the like) and word of mouth. As the BarCamp kind of conference is conducted in a totally unconventional fashion, it is also known as `Unconference.'

Unlike an invite-only traditional conference, here, the conference schedules are not pre-planned by the organisers. Anyone with something to say can post the topic on to the BarCamp Wiki or grab a vacant slot in the presentation board and the schedules evolve in an organic fashion. You are free to attend/present and also leave anytime you want.

The organisers provide a good Net connection (generally with Wi-Fi support) and other minimum facilities. Attendees come equipped with laptops and other materials. Live blogging of the presentations, hosting of conference materials on the Net for sharing with the public and active interactions by participants are the hallmarks of a BarCamp.

The BarCamp unconference fever, started in California (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcamp), is catching up like wildfire worldwide. BarCampDelhi (http://barcamp.org/BarCampDelhi) is the first of its kind held in India. Many more such camps have been scheduled. This author had the opportunity to attend a recent BarCamp at Chennai (barcamp.org/BarCampChennai) for a day and was really moved by the love, commitment and collaborative spirit shown by the young IT professionals/entrepreneurs. Though the concept is popular mainly among IT enthusiasts and experts, it has the potential to be adopted by professionals in other fields as well.

On-line database

We have come across several on-line applications meant for data analysis, document creation and the like (Irows and Writely). Recently NetSpeak stumbled on a web-based application for creating/sharing on-line databases.

Many netizens store details of favourite web sites for future use. Some keep them in the browser's bookmarks area, some others on an on-line bookmark service and the more tech savvy ones keep them on personal blogs under different categories.

An alternative tool for storing such information will be a database that offers multiple ways to retrieve the content. And if we can create a site database on-line with relevant/customised fields such as URL, subject and description information management can be easier. Also, if a site's data can be fed to the database directly from the browser while we are on it, we can populate the database with ease.

The on-line database creation service, Lazybase (http://lazybase.com/) may come handy in dealing with such problems.

The free service Lazybase lets you create/share a database on your browser with a few mouse clicks. To create a database, just provide your e-mail address and database name and push the `create' button. The service will send you two links: one for administering your database and the other for public viewing of it. You can create several tables (here items) in a database. An excellent feature of this service is the facility to generate a bookmarklet for entering the data directly from the browser. You can create a data entry bookmarklet that automatically fills up some fields using the information from the page (like selected text, page URL and page title) being viewed.

On-line repositories for videos

Even ordinary netizens can store videos, keep them private or share them with others

---

The free on-line service 'Scratch list' helps you store a bookmark on its server and keep it there for a month.

A PLETHORA of video hosting services meant for storing/sharing videos created by ordinary netizens have emerged on the Net. This edition of NetSpeak profiles the features of a few of them.

Thanks to the widespread availability of video creation gadgets/tools such as web cam and video-enabled cell phones, even ordinary people can create short movies. If you want to demonstrate the features of a product, or share the antics of your newborn child with your close relatives/friends or take a small lecture, the best solution is to shoot a video and post it on to the Web.

In the past, to upload such materials on to the Net, you needed a web site or access to an on-line storage service. Now, thanks to several feature-packed free video-hosting services, hosting/sharing/viewing videos can be done with a few mouse clicks.

Video storage services let you store videos, keep them private or share with others and provide tools for accessing them in multiple ways. Also, most such services offer facilities for embedding the videos found on them to your site or blog.

YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/), one of the most popular video hosting-services, allows any registered user to upload/share any number of videos. The duration and size of the video are limited to ten minutes and 100 MB respectively. While posting a video, for easy access, you can tag it with an appropriate label and assign it to one or more subject-specific channels provided by the service. The service allows you to organise/search videos under diverse categories or channels such as sciencet/technology, education, news, games and sports. Videos shared by other users can be searched through tags or channels. Also, the service allows you to embed videos from it on to your blog if desired.

Besides YouTube, a multitude of such services are available in the fast growing video hosting service segment.

Among them, Google Video (http://video.google.com/) is worth a look. PhotoBucket (http://photobucket.com/) is another video/picture hosting service, gaining popularity. A notable feature of this service lies in its support for a wide range of video formats that include avi, mov, mpeg, mp4, and 3gp. Free video hosting service, VidiLife (http://www.vidilife. com), which accommodates a variety of video formats, has no restriction on the video length.

If you want to post a video on the Net but are not keen to go through a host's registration process, you can use a service like Zippyvideos (http://www. zippyvideos.com/). Here, when you submit a video, you will get a link to it for sharing it with others or posting it on to your blog.

Though you can view all the shared videos on the services mentioned above for free, you need a high-speed link for smooth viewing. However, you can download them on to the local storage and watch them comfortably. You can use the free download service, Keepvid (http://keepvid.com/) to download videos from various video-hosting services. To download the video from a service, just paste its link on to the Keepvid's input box and click on the 'Download' button. The service will immediately display a direct link to the video file, which can be used to download it. Keepvid supports several video hosting services that include Google Video, YouTube, Vsocial,VidiLife, Zippyvideos and so on.

An offshoot of the popularity gained by the free video-hosting phenomenon is the proliferation of innumerable user-created video content. Tens of hundreds of videos are being launched on to such services daily. This offers immense opportunities for a netizen, who can watch selected videos anytime from anywhere. It is almost like having multiple personalised TV channels at your disposal for free.

To access a site at a later stage, we use the browser's bookmark feature or enlist the service of an on-line bookmark application. But you may not always be keen to bookmark all the sites visited and still may need to revisit a non-bookmarked site.

For this, you can note down the links in a scratch pad for a short period. The free on-line service `Scratch list' (http://www.scratchlist.com) meets this need. It helps you store a bookmark on its server and keep it there for a month. If you wish, the storage period can be extended. To use the service, you do not need to go through any registration process. By clicking on the 'Set me Up' button you get a unique ID and the bookmarklet `scratch this!' for storing the link details on the scratch pad directly from the browser.

Intelligent Thesaurus

If you enter a word, say, wonderful, on a usual Thesaurus service, it lists out several related words such as marvellous, great or fantastic. But, what about an intelligent Thesaurus service that can learn from a couple of terms and produce a list of related terms? For instance, if you enter two words "Kerala, Karnataka" and get a list of several Indian States from the Thesaurus service, it will certainly be useful. The Artificial Intelligence based Thesaurus service Questsin.net (http://www.quest sin.net/) provides such information. Besides giving you related words/terms, it even produces the next term in a number sequence if you enter the first number.

Zoka: Del.icio.us live

Scanning the front page of the social bookmarking service, del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) helps you discover new web links encountered by netizens worldwide.

In the past, NetSpeak featured the application, Livemarks (http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com /livemarks/), created for continuously displaying the links being posted on del.icio.us. However, Livemarks, though an awesome tool, can become unwieldy as it funnels everything posted on to del.icio.us without any filtering. Rather than viewing all the links being posted on to the service, you may like to watch only the ones related to your interests. The new on-line service Zoka (http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com /zoka/) is an attempt to incorporate this feature while showing you the del.icio.us links in real-time. You can join the channels already available or create new ones. The service allows you to create channels based on specified tags.

Search tools: new developments

SEARCH TOOLS form one of the most active segments in the on-line arena. NetSpeak readers have been introduced to several search products in the past. A few of the new additions are discussed here.

A distinct feature of the rapidly growing search solutions space is the numerous search services that let users create/store lists of sites pertaining to a specific subject or area. In such services you can find several site-lists on diverse subjects. Before initiating a general search service, a preliminary scan of such services may help in accessing relevant resources with minimum effort.

For instance, a netizen who intends to start a blog on a free blogging site requires information on various free blog-hosting services. Directly hitting on the appropriate ones with the help of a general search engine, though possible, may take time. But on a web site list creation service, someone might already have created/hosted a list of free blog hosts.

We have already seen list generation services (such as Squidoo (http://www.squidoo.com/) and Rollyo (http://rollyo.com/). Listible is the latest of this kind encountered by this author.

Listible (http://www.listible. com/) provides tools for creating web link lists on any topic of your choice. Besides helping you start a list, the service allows other users to view it as well. In addition, they can comment/vote/add new content on to it. Also, the service provides web feeds for each of the lists. Top free anti-virus software (http://www.listible.com/list/top-free-anti-virus-software), "Best PC security sources'' (http://www. listible.com/list/best-pc-security-sources) and "Free Blogging hosts'' (http://www.listible.com /list/free-blog-hosts) are useful lists available here.

When we invoke a search engine for a specific query, the output comes from different types of web sites. It may contain pages of diverse kinds such as journal articles, web pages of research institutions, subject-specific journals and so on. If we can get the output clubbed on the basis of web page sources, it will be more valuable.

The newly launched search service Kosmix (http://www. kosmix.com/) seems to fulfill this requirement. Here, together with normal output, the service displays source-specific clusters alongside. If you access its Health search engine for information on `breast cancer,' Kosmix will display results under categories such as medical organisations, blogs, message boards and so on. This vertical search service currently deals with three subjects — health, travel and politics.

DumbFind

DumbFind (http://www. dumbfind.com/) is another search engine trying to gain some foothold in the highly competitive search tool market. The salient feature of this search service is the `related tag' input box, provided for refining the search query. That is, if you are looking for tutorials on `google search,' you may get better output by entering the tag `tutorial.'

Another search service worth a try is the multimedia search engine Tveyes (http://www. tveyes.com/), created for finding TV news clips (from MSNBC, CNN and the like). And those of you who prefer to read search results in big fonts may find the search service Big.com (http://big.com) rather amusing.

Free audio books

Books in the public domain are copyright free and can be used by anyone without restrictions. Tens of hundreds of such books are now available. As discussed earlier, the famous project `Project Gutenberg' (http://www.gutenberg.org/) is an effort to digitise and distribute such books in text format.

The availability of such books in digital format is quite useful as we can read them anytime with our computer or an e-book reader. But, if such a book is available in audio format, we can enhance its reach. Thus, if the famous Aesop's Fables is available in audio format, we may enjoy listening to them while travelling or doing some mundane task. Here lies the significance of the free audio book creation project LibriVox (http://www.librivox. org/). LibriVox offers free audio version of books available in the public domain. The books are provided in both MP3 and OGG formats. Audio version of several famous works such as Pride and Prejudice, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Aesop's Fables and The Communist Manifesto are available.

Ajaxwrite

In the past this column has featured several web-based word processors (such as Goffice Writely). Google's recent acquisition of Writely (http://writely.com/) underlines the importance of this product segment. The latest entrant in this fast changing area is Ajaxwrite (http://ajaxwrite.com/), an MS-Word compatible web based word processor. This platform-independent product can be used to create Word documents with your browser (Firefox 1.5+) from any computer. Though it has some basic word-processing features, the current version of the product lacks facilities (such as spell check) commonly found in mainstream word-processors.

You can open a Word document from your machine and save the document on to your local storage in Word, RTF, Text and PDF formats. However, when this author tried to save a document as PDF it failed. An additional feature worth a mention relates to opening multiple documents in the same window on separate tabs.

New on-line worksheet

An on-line worksheet lets you create a worksheet with your browser and allows you to invite others for collaboratively working on it. NetSpeak has featured a few (like Irows) in the past. Numbler (http://numbler.com/), the latest one intercepted by this author, though not a full-fledged Worksheet package, contains some basic features.

When you click on a PDF link, generally the document gets loaded on to the default PDF viewer. But, if you want to control the PDF document loading process, check out the PDF download extension available here: http://tinyurl.com/bfkpy. With this Firefox extension you can either download the document on to your machine or get it loaded on to your browser. If you do not want either of these, you can convert the PDF into an HTML file.

Idiomsite

Idioms and proverbs are quite important in any language and a good understanding of them will enhance your communication skills. Here is a good site (http://www.idiomsite.com/) with several idioms in the English language.

On-line applications expanded

MANY DESKTOP applications are getting enabled on the Web. In the past this column featured several such applications (like on-line word processors). This edition of NetSpeak brings to light new developments in this front.

On-line data analysis

As observed in the past, worksheet is a popular desktop application, used in many computing tasks such as budget analysis, simple payrolls and data analysis. Some of the tasks mentioned above may sometimes involve the participation of several people. If the participants are geographically distant, we need to exchange data through e-mails or some other means. Naturally, in such instances a web-based worksheet would be a preferred alternative. The on-line social worksheet service, NumSum, discussed in the past (http://www. hindu.com/biz/2005/04/ 11/stories/2005041100161600. htm) is an example of such a product.

However, in terms of features, Numsum pales in comparison with the popular desktop worksheet packages (like MS-Excel). This does not help you do beyond some basic stuff. JotSpot Tracker (http://tracker.jot. com/) is another product in this genre. One notable feature of this application is the facility for copying data from an Excel worksheet stored in your machine.

Though the products mentioned above help in doing simple computations, to solve real life problems we need a better alternative. Such a service should allow us import normal worksheet files, provide different mathematical/financial functions normally seen in the mainstream desktop worksheet packages and support tools for drawing graphs.

The newly launched on-line worksheet service, Irows (http://www.irows.com), has almost all these features.

Irows, a free service, helps you create a worksheet with your browser and store it on-line. The distinct aspect of this on-line application is the numerous features it provides- for manipulating worksheets and analysing data. You can import/copy data from Excel sheets and draw charts.

Also, Irows provides several mathematical/financial functions such as average, log, max, min, sum and so on. Besides all these advantages, Irows lets you share and collaboratively edit/analyse the data with your remote colleagues.

Presentation service

The web based presentation software, Thumbstacks (http://www.thumbstacks.com/), meant for preparing presentations with your browser is yet another on-line application tested by this author. This service lets you create simple presentations and store them on-line to access it anytime from anywhere on the Web. For a demo check out: http://tinyurl.com/ghqfm.

InstaColl: Instant collaboration

In response to an earlier column on `collaboration tools,' Mr. Narain, a reader of this column, pointed out InstaColl (http://instacoll.com), an innovative web based application, developed for collaboratively editing MS-Office documents.

To use this free product just register with the service and download/install the set-up software.

Once the software is installed, you will find a button labelled `Collaborate' on your Word/Excel/PowerPoint menu-bar. Now, if you want to edit a document together with your geographically dispersed clients, click on the `Collaborate' button. The InstaColl client starts a session using your account details and generates a session link, which can be e-mailed to your clients.

Based on the details from this e-mail, your clients can join the session. On their joining the session, you will get the notification.

Anyone connected to the session will be able to view/edit the document in real-time. If a participant wishes to add/edit the document, she should seek the permission to do it.

Once she completes the editing, click on the `Publish' button to make the newly typed matter available to all other participants. A highlight of this service is its `Made-in-India' tag.

Nation Master

There cannot be two opinions on the relevance of statistics in the modern information age. For instance, if you want to gauge the performance of your country on various fronts, you need to know how it compares with other countries.

For this you need country-wise statistics on various parameters such as agriculture, economy, health and the like. If you are one of those interested in statistical data, jump over to the site NationMaster (http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php), which makes available more than 5,700 different statistics across various countries on your fingertips. Using this site, you can easily find Net penetration across countries, country-wise distribution of ISPs, countries with broadband access and so on.

We have come across different types of search engines that include general search services (Google, Yahoo), blog search tools (like Daypop, Technorati), reference services (like Wikipedia, Answers), news sites (like CNN, YahooNews) and so on. Generally, depending on the requirements, we make use of an appropriate service. However, remembering the multitude of search services available on the Net is not that easy.

The search interface Trovando (http://www.trovando.it/) may come handy in dealing with such situations. From its interface you can easily select the appropriate search service, before initiating a search process

A shortening service

Lengthy web addresses are difficult to handle and to shorten them we enlist the service of a URL shortening tool like TinyURL (http://tinyurl.com/).

If you are a Firefox user, you can use the TinyURL service directly from the browser by installing the extension `TinyURL creator' (http://www.roundtwo.com/ product/tinyurl)

Though TinyURL is a good service, the short link produced by TinyURL is very cryptic- from it we get little clue on the page it represents.

If you want to get a short and meaningful URL, try out the service Thnlnk (http://thnlnk. com/), which provides you links like this: http://thnlnk.com/hindu/ netspeak/jf9.

GNU/Linux books... from O'Reilleys....

Great collection of international books, mostly reprinted in India.
Some from O'Reilleys. International quality at Indian prices. This is
available with Shroff Publishers spdorders@shroffpublishers.com at Navi
Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata.
www.shroffpublishers.com --FN

----------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOKS ON GNU/Linux
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

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o MySQL in a Nutshell Rs 325.00
o MySQL Pocket Reference Rs 100.00
--

Subject-specific news trackers

A NEW breed of news-tracking services for monitoring the latest hot ideas/products is evolving. NetSpeak profiles a few of them.

News from a multitude of sources flows through the length and breadth of cyberspace. Among the several news dissemination tools on the Net, blogs have a prominent place. Millions of bloggers post links of the latest information found by them on their blog and make the blogosphere always live.

As discussed in an earlier column (http://www.hindu.com/biz/2006/01/09/stories/20060 10900831600.htm), news trackers (like Memeorandum — http://memeorandum.com/) help us aggregate the important and popular ideas in the blog contents using automated tools.

Tailrank (tailrank.com/) is another news tracking service worth a try. For each of the threads listed on its home page, Tailrank displays several comments made on it by different bloggers. This helps the reader easily navigate/read diverse viewpoints on the item being viewed.

Chuquet (chuquet.com/) is yet another blog links aggregator worth a mention.

However, simply aggregating blog content entirely with a program may not be sufficient to fetch genuine or popular ideas/news/products being floated on the Net. To allow human interface into this news-tracking arena, the latest trend is to initiate services, where users can submit links to news articles and vote for/or against links being posted by others. Based on this voting data, the service ranks each of the postings and displays the most popular ones on its front page. Digg (http://www.digg.com/ ), the famous technology news aggregation/ranking site, is one such news aggregation service.

Of late, a plethora of such services is surfacing on the Net. The news tracking service Newsvine (http://www.newsvine.com) meant for displaying latest news stories on a range of subjects such as business, politics, science and technology is a popular product in this genre.

Reddit (http://reddit.com/) is another service of this kind worth exploring. New services enable aggregation of blog comments on specific subjects

The popularity of this kind of collaborative news tracking — combining readers' perception with software — is giving rise to subject-specific news trackers. New services for aggregating blog comments on specific subjects are being built.

The news aggregation service, Postgenomic (http://postgeno mic.com/), developed for aggregating posts "from life science blogs" is an example of this trend.

StockDiggers (http://stockdigg.com/), created for aggregating financial news, will be a useful place for anyone engaged in financial matters.

You may also note that all the services mentioned above provide webfeeds for helping you read the latest content on them with your newsreader. Also, if you want to read the contents of a few popular news tracking services together from a single web page, check out: http://popurls.com/

Open access journals

The concept of open source publishing (http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/biz/2002/07/15/stories/2002071500060200.htm) has gained considerable prominence and tens of hundreds of open-access, free journals on a variety of subjects are available. A tool for accessing these journals easily is very much essential. As mentioned earlier, Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj. org/) is an attempt in this direction. On this count, the recently launched open access journal portal Openj-gate (http://www.openj-gate.com/), a laudable Indian initiative, assumes significance. The service indexes more than 3,000 open access journals and helps you access millions of articles rather easily. The portal database can be searched with keyword, author, title, and institutions.

Graph creation tool

Many of us use different types of graphs for effectively conveying information. People from varied professions such as politicians, planners, scientists and businessmen make frequent use of this tool. The availability of simple graph creation tools facilitates this process. Now, if you are away from your machine and need to draw a graph, an on-line solution will be ideal. On such situations, take advantage of the on-line graph creation application available here: http://tinyurl.com/phub5

The `Create a Graph' service helps you draw five types of charts (XY, line, pie, bar and Area graph) with your browser. Besides generating a graph for your data, the service allows you to save or get it printed in your local printer. It also supports the feature for e-mailing the graph output to your clients.

Cheat sheet collection

A cheat sheet for a service or software is a web page with almost all important commands/tips available with the service/software embedded on it. A cheat sheet for a product serves as a handy reference for its users. Google cheat sheet mentioned in an earlier column (http://www.hindu.com/2004/11/15/stories/2004111500771 700.htm) is an example. Recently this author stumbled on a `Cheat Sheet Round-up' web page (http://www.petefreitag. com/item/455.cfm) with links to cheat sheets for about thirty services/programs. The list includes cheat sheets for HTML, JavaScript, MySQL, Java, PERL and so on.

Freeware list

The distinct feature of the Net as we all know is the availability of free programs for almost all conceivable problems. We have free anti-virus tools (like Antivir/Avast), free audio tools (like Audacity), free graphics tools (like Gimp), free office tools (like OpenOffice), free PDF programs (like PDFCreator) and free HTML editors (like NVU). For an exhaustive list of such free programs, check out: http://tinyurl.com/ayzan

E-mail encoder

An e-mail id listed on a web page has a fair chance of reaching a spammer's hand. However, if the e-mail address can be accommodated in an encrypted form, no spammer will be able to grab it. In this context, the simple on-line application `e-mail riddler' (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/emailriddler/) will come very handy. For an e-mail address, the service offers a short JavaScript program for encrypting it. Paste this code on to your web page, where you want your e-mail address to be displayed.

Open access publishing

Let us have a look at the various twists and turns of the `open access publishing' movement that aims to make research publications available for free on the Net and allow anybody to read, copy and print them without any restrictions.

Open-source is one of the fascinating movements that originated on the Net and regular readers of this column need no introduction to this method of software development (http://www.opensource.org). Another movement, which shares some of the ethos of open-source philosophy that is slowly gaining prominence and attention is open access publishing, which attempts to free the research reports from the grip of established professional journals.

Issue

Literature that originates in research labs gets disseminated through major scientific journals, which are read by individuals who subscribe to them or have access to libraries that subscribe to them. Though numerous original research articles are being published in established multiple journals regularly, only a selected few in prestigious institutions can afford to access all of them.

Many thinkers feel that the exorbitant cost of professional journals prevents many gifted researchers from gaining the latest scientific knowledge and thereby hinders the smooth development of knowledge. The spectacular growth of web technology and transformation of the Net into a major publishing medium has persuaded some members of the scientific community to think of developing a different model for research publications.

Public Library of Science

This has led to the formation of a non-profit organisation, the Public Library of Science, PloS, (http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/). One of the objectives of PLoS is to make `the world's scientific and medical literature freely accessible to scientists and to the public around the world'. PLoS took the initiative to circulate an open letter asking publishers to allow research reports published in their journals to be published on-line free by interested service providers. According to the PLoS' web site, this open letter has now been signed by more than 30,000 scientists in 179 countries.

Though the PLoS initiative has not fully succeeded in its endeavour to free research output from traditional publishers, the concept of open publishing — publishing content that can be accessed on-line for free — has gained enough popularity and attention.

Many on-line scientific-report repository creation projects that intend to bring together scientific literature available in various journals and store them in a common format, with the necessary interface that lets people easily access the content, are under way. The free digital archive, PubMed Central, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/, is a prominent example of a repository that contains archives of many established life science journals.

Another movement that has to be mentioned in this regard is the Budapest Open Access Initiative, BOAI, (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/)

created by the Open Society Institute. Though BOAI and PLoS have similar objectives and are formed to facilitate open access to research papers, they differ in one aspect. PLoS mainly aims to bring scientific literature into the open access format, whereas BOAI aims to bring all research publications into the open access sphere.

Apart from the non-profit open access publishing initiatives, a commercial venture is also in place. BioMedical Central, http://www. biomedcentral.com/, is a publishing house created for "providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research".

The publishers believe that free on-line access to research reports is a must for the advancement of knowledge and to sustain the open access method of publishing they are trying out innovative business models. Apart from using the usual revenue models like advertising, the publishing company charges the author or his/her sponsor. The company believes that free open access will result in the author benefiting more than anybody else, as more people will read his/her research work. So, instead of the readers of the article, the author of the article has to bear the cost of publishing.

It would be appropriate to mention another important development in this movement — the publication of a free journal by the publishing company BioMedical Central. It has started the publication of `Journal Biology' that publishes high-quality biological research articles. Papers accepted for publication will be published on the web within two weeks. The journal is available on the web at: http://jbiol.com/ and to access the content you just need to go through a simple one-time free registration process.

Web form filler

Generally, to access any web-based service you need to go through a registration process that involves filling up lengthy on-line forms. Though we hate this monotonous task, we have no alternative to accept this necessary evil. To prevent netizens from regularly going through the form filling drudgery, many programs capable of filling up forms automatically have been developed. In all these programs, one needs to create a master form with all the common fields that generally appear in a typical form. Once the form filler program is installed and set-up with the necessary data, it automatically gets fired whenever a form is accessed on the web. To get all the form fields filled up with appropriate data, you just need to click at the `Fill' button. Anyone interested in a form filler software can try out `Roboform', which is available for free at: http://www.roboform.com. After installing the software, you can create a master form, or an identity, with numerous fields that include your name, address, e-mail, phone number, bank account and username.

PDF file creation via e-mail

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format that is quite popular among net content providers. This week NetSpeak presents a few tools and services that facilitate easy conversion of documents to PDF files.

Portable Document Format

The need of people who work on different kinds of computers that run on different operating systems — Windows, Linux, DOS and the like — to communicate and exchange documents led to the creation of platform independent file formats. The portable document format (PDF) is one such standard and a file created in this format can be read in any machine running any OS — you just need the Acrobat reader, which is available for free.

What prevents people from creating their files in this format? To create a PDF file, you need the Acrobat PDF writer, which is not free and is a bit of a costly proposition for an ordinary Net user. There is an interesting free software — Ghostscript — that helps us create PDF files from files of different formats,Before that a discussion of the `PostScript' file.

PostScript file

Net users who frequently download document files might have come across postscript files that generally come with the extension `. PS'. These files are created in the PostScript languageand can be printed on a PostScript printer the HP LaserJet 2100 that can interpret PostScript commands. If you have a PostScript file named `jm.ps' and want to print it out through a PS printer connected to your machine's printer port, go to the DOS prompt, then type in the command: `copy jm.ps lpt1:'.

If your printer does not have the PostScript feature, the file would print with some junk pages.To avoid this, you need to use a software that can read and interpret PostScript files. The program Ghostscript — mentioned earlier — is capable of doing this. This means you can print or view a PostScript file even if you don't have a PS printer. PS file creation

It is quite easy to convert a document into a PostScript file. You need to install a PS printer — though for this you do not need any printer connected to your machine. The installation process is just like installing a printer.

If you are a Windows user, click at the Start/ Settings/Printers, then double-click at the `Add Printer' option. Now, select a postscript printer from the list of printers displayed — for example you may select the printer named `HP LaserJet 4/4M PostScript'. After making the selection, the installer will ask you to specify the port to be used with this printer. At this point select the `FILE' option (to create the file on your disk) and finish the installation process.

Once, a postscript printer is installed, you will have one more printer option whenever you try to print a document from any application.

To create a PS version of a file, (a Word file) give the necessary instructions to print it and before pressing the OK button, change the printer name to the postscript printer that has been installed At this point you will have to provide a name to the postscript file to be created and you will than have a postscript version of your file.

Ghostscript

Ghostscript (GS) is a free open source software that can read a postscript file and convert it into any file format that include PDF and JPG. Download Ghostscript and install the program with the link: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/doc/AFPL/new 704.htm. Now, let us convert a Word file named, say, NetSpeak.doc, into a PDF file using this program.

First create a PostScript version of the file using the procedure already described. Then invoke the GS program with a few options. Since the Ghostscript is a command line program — it does not have any graphic interface, go to the DOS prompt, move to the directory where GS is stored and type in the following command:

Gswin32c — sDEVICE= pdfwrite — sutputFile=netspeak.pdf — dnopause netspeak.prn

Here `netspeak.prn' is the PS file created from your application and the `netspeak.pdf' is the name given to the PDF file to be created through GS.

An ordinary user may find it difficult to use the GS software. And to simplify the use of the program, some front-ends with good user interfaces have been developed.

One such front-end is Gsview, which is available for free at: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/

ghost/gsview/index.htm After installing this program, you will not have to worry about the GS command and its numerous options. Simply load the GSview and use its friendly user interface.

PDF conversion through e-mail

Some brilliant people have automated the entire process for conversion of a document file into a PDF file. and have introduced some ingenious value-added services. One such service is PDF conversion through e-mail. Here, if you want the PDF version of a Word file and don't want to go through any of the steps mentioned above, just send an e-mail attaching this file to the address: doc2pdf@hotpop.com.

After a few minutes, look at your mailbox again; you will find a reply mail with the PDF version of the file attached. This innovative service has been made available for free.

To implement this service in your Intranet, you can download the program doc2pdf, available at the link: http://doc2pdf.sourceforge.net/. More details of the program are available at the site.

Google Suggest: a keyword refinement tool

This week NetSpeak features a couple of services created for helping us refine our search queries to get more focused results from search services.

A major deficiency of current search engines is that many irrelevant sites creep into their output list. Of course, the real problem lies more with the user than with the search engine. Savvy netizens know well that for obtaining web pages with relevant content a searcher should be able to provide appropriate search string. The ability to arrive at keywords that neatly fit into one's requirements is an invaluable skill, which can be achieved by constant practice and intelligent use of the search refinement features available with a search engine.

Refining the search query through trial and error process is obviously a laborious exercise. That is, availability of a service, which can throw some light on the possible search terms specific to one's subject will certainly be useful. Let us have a look at some services that can be used for this purpose.

As Google churns out one service after another with amazing regularity, of late, NetSpeak finds it "difficult" to pass even one week without a reference to it. Recently, Google has rolled out another service for helping its users utilise its search service a little more efficiently.

Google Suggest (http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en), the latest issue from Google labs, displays several string options as you start entering the search string into the search box.

For example, if you enter the string `Cancer', Google Suggest senses it and immediately suggests various related strings from its database such as `Cancer research", `Cancer bracelets' `Cancer statistics', `Cancer treatment', `Cancer council' and the like.

Likewise, for the string NetSpeak, it offered refinements that include `NetSpeak Dictionary', `NetSpeak translator', `NetSpeak hindu', `NetSpeak thehindu' and so on. These strings are not just some words mechanically produced by Google, they are popular queries already used by many Google users.

That is, as mentioned in this blog entry (http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/12/ive-got-suggestion.html) by the author of this tool, Google Suggest "gives you a playground to explore what others are searching about, and learn about things you haven't dreamt of." Alongside each of the suggested strings, the service also displays the number of results available for it.

As this tool enables us to easily identify a popular search term, it may turn out to be a handy tool for a web master who would like to optimise his web page. For more details: http://labs.google.com/suggest/faq. html.

If you are a Firefox user and want to add `Google Suggest' to the Firefox's search bar, so that it can be invoked directly from the browser, install the extension available at: http://www. loconet.ca/.

Based on Google Suggest, an enthusiast has created an on-line service that lists out the most popular keywords for each letter of the alphabet.

Each time you access the service, it queries Google Suggest, collects the data on the fly and builds the current popular `search words' for all the letters in the English alphabet.

Check out: http://labs.patrickgaskill.com/googlealphabet/.

When this author checked, surprisingly, the most popular query word for the alphabet `F' was `Firefox'.

KwMap (http://kwmap.com/) is another on-line tool that can be used to find new keyword alternatives. To get the output, enter the keyword to be refined into the input box and click on the `View' button. Immediately the service will display a keyword chart with two axes. On one axis you will find keywords that are different (but related to the input string) while on the other axis it displays keywords that also contain the entered string.

For example, if you type the word `innovation', you will find query alternatives such as `technological innovation', `innovation management', `business innovation', `creativity' and so on.

We have seen the emergence of several new search engines with different product positioning strategies. The search tool, Acoona, which has got a Chinese partnership (http://www. accoona.com/partners.html), is the latest product that has hit the search engine market. As per its site, Acoona has a query refinement feature, based on its artificial intelligence technology that can comprehend `the meaning of search terms'. Using its `Super target' feature a user "can highlight specific terms in a query". Check out: http://www.accoona.com/super target. html.

A `phishing' site detector

It is likely that many of you have received junk e-mails from people claiming to be authorities of organisations such as CitiBank, E-bay and so on. The objective of such fraud e-mails is to trick the user to disclose her personal details.

Such e-mails direct the naïve user to a bogus web site, which collects the user' personal information while he logs on to the service. This act of sending e-mails for collecting private information from netizens is known as phishing (http://www. webopedia.com/TERM/p/phishing. html).

One possible solution to prevent a netizen from falling prey to such frauds is to introduce a feature into the browser that can warn the visitor while he attempts to access a fraud site of this kind.

The latest edition of the free IE-compatible browser, Deepnet Explorer (featured in an earlier edition of NetSpeak), has been released with a `phishing' prevention feature.

Once the `Deepnet Explorer's `Phishing Alarm' feature is enabled, , whenever you visit a phishing site (whose details are stored in the browser's database) with this browser, it pops up a message window that alerts you of the impending danger. For more details: http://deepnetexplorer.com/support.asp. You may also check out this link at Secunia ( http://secunia.com/multiple_browsers_window_injection_vulnerability_test/) that hosts a `browser vulnerability' test, which can be used to check whether your browser is vulnerable to certain on-line attacks.

WordWeb

To get the meaning of a word or phrase, nowadays many netizens use one of the many on-line dictionary services. Obviously, to use such a service you need to be on-line.

However, if you are travelling or the Net link is down, you will naturally find it difficult to access your favourite on-line dictionary service. The best solution to get around such difficulties is to install a dictionary software on your desktop so that you can get the meaning of any word off-line with a couple of mouse clicks.

The free software WordWeb (http://wordweb.info/free/), which has features such as English thesaurus and dictionary, is worth a test.

A9: A versatile search tool

A FEATURE packed search portal developed using different search services such as Google, IMDB and Amazon is featured in this week's column.

There are many general search engines like Google to spot resources on the web. There are besides services that host specialised databases and provide the necessary tools for accessing them with ease. The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/) is an example of a popular specialised search service.

To make use of such services, you need to access each of them separately. That is, you need a search tool that automatically looks into various search services and lists out the results on a single web interface. The search service, A9 (http://a9.com), recently floated by the famous on-line book dealer Amazon, is an innovative endeavour in this direction. Rather than building a new search service from scratch, it tries to assemble a product that leverages on the services already in place. In this regard, it is almost like the search comparison tool jux2 (http://jux2.com/) (discussed in this column a couple of weeks ago), which also builds its service using search results from other search engines. Creating new services using output from popular search services seems to be an emerging trend on the Net.

A9.com

Once you invoke a search on A9, it passes the query on to such services as Google, Amazon, Internet Movie Database and the reference tool GuruNet (http://a9.com/-/company/whatsCool.jsp). A9 collects the output from these services and places them on a single web page with a "customized multi-column interface.'' The service provides the required tools for viewing the results in multiple ways. For example, if you want to see only the results from Google, you can expand the column that holds the Google's search output (click on the `Full' option). Another feature of A9 is that it provides a `Site Info' button along with each output entry. If you move the mouse over this button, you will find a window that pops up with a brief explanation about the listed site.

A notable highlight of this service is its ability to remember the searches made by you in the past. All the searches invoked by you are "stored and organised by time.'' That is, A9's `search history' feature allows you to view the old searches made by you from anywhere on the Net any time. To get this personalised experience, you need to register with the system.

Of course, this `personalisation' feature enables the service to track the web pages you visit and in this context the service may draw some criticism from privacy conscious people.

A9 provides a tool bar that lets you invoke many of its features directly from your browser. It also features a diary tool that can be used to keep notes/annotation about sites. Unfortunately the toolbar feature is available only to IE users

IceRocket

IceRocket (http://icerocket.com/) is another search tool that culls information from popular search engines that include Wisenut, Yahoo, MSN and Alltheweb. A notable aspect of the tool is that it displays thumbnail photos of the `results' homepages. This enables you to get a glimpse of a site's home page without having to visit it. There is also the `Quick View' feature that lets you view the top 40 per cent of a page without leaving the results page.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) that helps authors publish their works in the "public domain or license them to the public on generous terms'' is one of the revolutionary movements fostered by the Net.

Products published under Creative Commons licence generally come with less restrictive copyright terms. On the Net, hundreds of such products/services are already in place and several of them are being rolled out. To help you easily locate products under Creative Commons, the service has floated a search tool called Creative Commons Search. The service, powered by the open source search engine, Nutch (http://www.nutch.org/docs/en/about. html), can be accessed at: http://search.creativecommons. org/index.jsp.

Firefox saga continues

Regular readers of this column need no introduction to the brilliance of the free open source browser, Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/), which is being fast adopted by netizens worldwide. The latest version of this browser (Firefox 1.0 Preview Release) has some notable features. The `RSS integration' or `Live Bookmark' feature that automatically displays an `RSS' icon whenever you visit a site with RSS feed is going to be much appreciated by regular readers of news feeds. It helps you subscribe to news feeds and read them directly from the browser. Another feature worth a remark is the enhanced `Find' tool that finds as you type. When you type in a string in the Find toolbar (press `Ctrl- F' to invoke the `Find' toolbar), the first result gets automatically highlighted in green.

Deepnet Explorer

If you are an IE user, take a look at the IE based browser, Deepnet Explorer, that has many useful features that IE lacks. One such feature is the tabbed browsing capability that lets you open multiple pages in separate tabs inside a single window. Tabbed browsing means no need to open new windows that clutter your display and consume more resources. Apart from being a feature packed IE compatible browser, Deepnet can be used as a news feed aggregator and as a P2P client for downloading/sharing files on P2P networks.

For more details: http://www. deepnetexplorer. com/.

SE on-line

If you are a software engineering student or practitioner, check out the software engineering on-line site hosted at: http://billing.computer.org/ portal/site/seportal/.