Tool of the Day: TestDisk (Partition Recovery)

This is an excellent utility to recover lost paritions. It is an OpenSource software and is licensed under the GNU Public License. I strongly recommend the newbies to run this utility in log/debug mode and send the output to experts or forum for recovery instructions.

Tip of the Day: Improve your screen readability on XP

Have you ever wondered why you prefer to print and read from papers rather than screen directly?The answer is that the fonts appearing on the screen are not sharp & clear as the printed material. Microsoft has attempted to resolve this pain of customers through ClearType. I think they did really well. See it yourself to believe it. The improvement is very impressive in LCD. I personally don't see much in the CRT. You can enable ClearType on XP using the following web interface.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

Note:
1. Use IE instead of firefox as this enabling is based on ActiveX control.
2. After this, increase your screen resolution and see that now you'll be comfortable with larger resolutions. I use (1400 x 1050) than (1280 x 1024) when ClearType is enabled. Saves lot of scrolling & tabbing.

Topic of the Day: Why functions

Functions are the basic building blocks of programming either be procedural or object oriented.
We all know to write functions possibly in every language we learn (How?) C,C++,Java,C#,PL/SQL,JavaScript,VBScript,Python etc., There are several different opinions/reasons/views on why use functions. A common notion among most developers are that functions improves reusability (technically speaking it is ability to use in multiple programs) but it is not just that.My introspective view reveals the following (for Why?)

1. Readability: Simplifies my program by substituting a complex set of commands (instructions or statements) with English words (call instruction - name of function). Eg: Sum(100,200)
   
2. Reusability: Eliminates repetitive code (redundancy) within the program. Program becomes smaller.
3. Testability: Simplifies unit testing.
   
4. Stability: Well unit tested functions leads to a stable program.
5. Extensibility: Easier to add new features as the program is now smaller,readable,testable & stable. This apart from the fact whether the new extension uses the existing functions or not.
   
6. Maintainability: Stable & extensible programs are easier to maintain.
7. Productivity: Easier maintainable programs increases our (Developer's) productivity.
   
8. Technicality: Information hiding or better execution (say recursive). This is more of When? to write functions.
   

So next time you write a bunch of statements (code) think whether writing them as a function solves even any one of the above top 3 reasons & if so then write them as functions.

May be I'll write samples to substantiate this introspection of mine over this week end.

Tool of the Day: PrintKey2000

A good tool for taking screen shots either entire screen or portion of it. It also allows to save in several different file formats. There are options to edit the picture for size,color,rotation etc., which are very cool of a freeware program. Note: Only PrintKey2000 is free, newer versions are NOT.

Tip of the Day: DOS can also be colorful

Yeah you read it right. For Windows XP & 2000 users, the DOS windows foreground & background colors can be changed. Please note the following special behavoir: When you specify only one color it is meant for foreground. When you specify 2 colors, first is for background & second is for foreground.

Example: Changing the foreground color to Light Aqua (B). This is my favourite
c:>color B


Example:Changing the background color to Red (4) and background color to Light Aqua (B).
C:>color 4B

Work with some color in life...