Purchasing a Projector

Just checked a bit on Projector Prices…sure also checked for prices for laptops, game consoles, headphones, cameras, external HDD drives, and …similar…

Just 2 cents on Projectors and projector prices

Apparently, BENQ is a good and cost-effective brand for general purpose use such as Classroom [k-12], Home Theatre. They also have high price models.

Sony, Sanyo, Optima or similar, Canon, Epson, LG also have projectors….

For general purpose, and classroom use 2500 to 4000 Lumen [brightness] is sufficient actually 2500 to 3000 Lumen should be alright.

16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratios are preferable

Most will have 1024*768 resolutions; sufficient for general use

1280*768 can also be found in the cost-effective solutions

XGA, WXGA are the recent technologies where old technologies such as VGA, and SVGA are also available in the market with low price (VGA/SVGA usually from $300 to $600; whatever I saw)

SUWXGA or something similar may be available recently.

DLP or LCD technologies. Apparently, LCD is described to be better. LCD better for presentation purposes mostly; DLP may have an advantage in video i.e home theatre. DLP has an issue called rainbow effect; this effect can be much distracting that some people will find the video (or presentation may be) unwatchable.

Reference:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/lcd_dlp.htm

 

Amazon.ca seemed to have some sales on projectors

You can get around $500 to $600, the Benq projectors

some under $600 have 3D ready, where with some limited 3D features are available; where in some you can achieve 3D using HDMI

http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B009LIPAN4
http://www.amazon.ca/Benq-MX520-Lumen-SmartEco-Projector/dp/B00A16VFOS/ref=sr_1_48?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1387943199&sr=1-48&keywords=BenQ
http://www.amazon.ca/MS521-SVGA-LUMENS-READY-SMART/dp/B00G87AW3E/ref=sr_1_16?s=office&ie=UTF8&qid=1387943577&sr=1-16&keywords=BenQ
http://www.projectorreviews.com/viewsonic/viewsonic-pjd5533w-dlp-multimedia-projector-review/
http://www.projectorreviews.com/sanyo/sanyo-plc-xd2200-lcd-multimedia-projector-review/

Some with little more prices can have network support, wireless support, and PC less but USB drive operation [presentation document in USB and probably as image files]

  From: http://sitestree.com/?p=635
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-25 04:53:35

.Net CMSes

Looks like DotNetNuke is the most popular. It is around for long…

Umbraco is another one – cloud supported

Orchard is by Microsoft

 

http://webmasterformat.com/blog/top-asp-net-cmss
http://voices.yahoo.com/cms-3-most-popular-aspnet-options-9064531.html?cat=15
http://www.ingeniux.com/web-cms/asp-net-platform
https://sites.google.com/site/cmsdevelopmenthelp/home/dotnetnuke-vs-umbraco-fight-the-more-popular-asp-net-cms-war
http://informationalworld.com/the-top-rated-asp-net-cms-of-2013/ From: http://sitestree.com/?p=632
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-25 00:12:36

Some SEO stuff

Some more SEO

First : Structured Data and Data Highlighter of Google Webmaster Tool

Under Google webmaster tool -> for your site -> on the left menu -> site appearance : there are two options such as Structured Data and Data Highlighter. Using Data Highlighter tool, you can create Structured Data and Tag your web-site content. You can mark your webpages and indicate what are events pages, what are product pages and similar. Within each page type, you can mention attributes for that type; for example for product pages, you can highlight name, product ID, product image, product price, product review and similar.

Google will use this data to render the search result for your page. If it is done right, you hopefully will get more search queries and also your result may be shown especially that users will notice the difference and click on your links.

.htaccess and SEO

Search engines consider http://stepforth.com and http://www.stepforth.com different websites. As a result, if your website has been linked to from other websites using a mix of the two URLs you are effectively splitting the potential benefit of valuable link popularity.
Reference:
http://www.stepforth.com/resources/web-marketing-knowledgebase/non-www-redirect/#apache

Solution:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^justetc.net
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.justetc.net/$1 [R=301,L]

Tool to check if the redirect worked ok or not
http://www.stepforth.com/resources/server-header-checker-tool/#.Urdu7rTDsek

This solution worked for me..

—-
Some Related .htaccess Redirect stuff
# This allows you to redirect your entire website to any other domain
Redirect 301 / http://mt-example.com/

You can utilize this rule for the purpose
so that http://www.justetc.net/tutor
and http://tutor.justetc.net always show up as http://tutor.justetc.net

Example:

Redirect 301 /tutor/ http://tutor.justetc.net/

If you have moved a sub-folder to a new domain; you can also utilize this redirect

Redirect 301 /knowledge/ http://www.salearningschool.com/
——
# This allows you to redirect your entire website to any other domain
Redirect 302 / http://mt-example.com/

# This allows you to redirect index.html to a specific subfolder
Redirect /index.html http://example.com/newdirectory/

# Redirect old file path to new file path
Redirect /olddirectory/oldfile.html http://example.com/newdirectory/newfile.html

# Provide Specific Index Page (Set the default handler)
DirectoryIndex index.html From: http://sitestree.com/?p=624
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-22 23:40:30

Benstalkd Queue and Email Sending in Laravel using SendGrid and Laravel Go Mailer

From: http://sitestree.com/?p=622
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-22 18:43:51

Software Testing, Development, Random Thoughts

Happened to write this for a reason; so just pasting it here

I watched a Talk probably Google Talk..
One developer from Adobe mentioned that they have 20 developers but 30 testers in their group….They must be terrible developers with all the terrible programmers’ taxonomy characteristics….Probably, I am slightly terrible in that way, my understanding is, if you want robust software; you should not fully depend on the testing that developers do/conduct while developing…..[ no matter how well the developer tested/checked the software, for reliability/robustness reasons, you need testing by other than developers ]

Probably a test phase by testers along with user acceptance test phase (by someone who is involved with requirements side) will result better products…But web-sites are not killing ppl; like one of the medical device software that caused to release more xrays or chemicals (do not remember exactly) that caused deaths…….developers are not to decide on what the customers want [they can definitely suggest alternatives, pros, and cons ] ….developers primarily develop on what their understanding about the requirements are….it is the BA or Customer who can decide if the developed stuff meet the needs [i.e requirements] or not. It’s not developers’ call..

[customers/or BA type [or even PM if the PM also did the BA work] people ideally can work on the acceptance tests]

The guy Joel, Owner of StackOverflow says something on Developers and Testers…Probably he is not a big fan of using software developers to test the software they themselves wrote…
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/searchResults.html?cx=partner-pub-7553644598686111%3Abl4i7p-y0o5&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=testing&sa=Search&siteurl=joelonsoftware.com%2F&ref=&ss=1781j561127j7

But Microsoft sees software testing is a complex activity and wants developers as testers….they want to hire developers in software testing positions…

Economics

A study conducted by NIST in 2002 reports that software bugs cost the U.S. economy $59.5 billion annually. More than a third of this cost could be avoided if better software testing was performed.[10]

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing

In many positions, I did not have testers, I had to do all the testing along with development, and write all ends of the software
In couple of positions I wrotes guides on testing [how to test software]: Also, created test cases for the testers…

Books on software testing: I read one; the last one [recommended reading for the interview for Microsoft], hope to read the other two [not to be a software tester [not really my interest] , but to understand it, and probably I do not mind writing software test cases or design software test]

One thing though, I have the experience that when as a developer, I wrote test cases and gave it to the testers, the testers only used my test cases; did not use their own; so they missed what I missed; better ideas could be testers could do all the testing they could think and then they could use my test cases to find out if there is anything they did not test…

http://kaner.com/?page_id=10

Some software testing Terminologies

Software Testing Basics

Note: Different testing strategies are described here. In practice, a detail test plan is helpful that may be formed with a subset of these strategies [and delivered to the testers] according to the need of the customers, and the company policies.

Five Fold Testing System

Any testing can be described in five dimensions:
1. Testers: Who does the testing?
2. Coverage: What needs to be tested? function, domain, extreme value?
3. Potential Problems: Why you are testing?
4. Activities: How you test?
5. Evaluation: How to measure the success of testing?

Some Forms of Testing

1. Function testing: Test all functions
2. Extreme Value Testing: Test for errors when extreme values of the variables are used
3. beta testing: make other people test your product

All testing involve five dimensions. When we tell to do function testing, we can list: who will do the test (programmers, testers, users of the product, internal employees), what needs to be tested like functions, what kind of problems they need to address such as pass by value or pass by reference, test method, evaluate your test

People Based Techniques

1. User Testing: Tests by the real users of the product
2. Alpha testing: By Test team, firendly insiders
3. Beta testing: Not insiders, not clients, but may be part of the target market, volunteers
Design Beta tests: appraise the design
marketing beta tests: to justify will customers buy the product?
compatibility beta tests: test hw/sw platform compatibility
4. bug bashes: in house testing, just before release one full day/half day testing
5. subject matter testing: give an expert on the subject to use and test the product
6. Paired testing: two person together do the tests and shares ideas
7. eat your own dog food: use the software in-house for your own purpose and check reliability

Coverage based testing

1. Function testing: Test each function
White box function testing: testing in respect of code
Black box function testing: test functions in respect of features and commands
2. Function integration testing: test several functions together
3. Menu tour: check all menu items, all available choices
4. Domain testing: Test variable domains and their effect on functions. Find the possible values that a variable can take, classify the value domain, take representative values from each domain, test the variables and related functions
5. Equivalence class analysis: find equivalent domains and tests for one of them
6.Boundary test: Check for smallest and largest values for a variable
7. best representative testing
8. input field test catalogs or matrices
9. Map and test all the ways to edit a field
10. Logic testing: use logics like if then else. cause effect graphing is used for logic based testing
11. state based testing:
12. Path testing: All possible paths to come/go to a state
13. Statement and branch coverage: execute all statements and all branching
14. Configuration coverage: test how many types of printers your software support
15. Specification based testing: Test all claims made in the manual/specification
16. Requirements-based testing: test if all requirements are met
17. combination testing: testing two or more variables in combination with each other

Problems based techniques

1. Input constraints Tests: Check what kinds of input the program can handle. Also check input error protection
2. Output constraints: The inputs are legal but check if they lead to corresponding out value
3. computation constraints : the program may fail while calculating a value
4. Storage constraints: out of memory tests, too big output file to process
5. timing: race condition, ordering of events

Activity based Testing

How you test?
1. Regression Testing: Test the same issue again.
a. Bug fix regression : bug is fixed but do the test again to prove the bug is not fixed
b. old bugs regression: new bug fix has unfixed old bugs. so test again
c. side effect regression/stability regression : the bug fix has created new bugs/side effects
2. Scripted Testing: execute step by step methods written by senior tester
3. smoke testing : kind of side effect regression testing. but test to prove that no side effect has come. show everything is working. assume may be some simple stuffs have caused the problems not the bug fix. if you can not prove then the new bug fix has created new errors
4. exploratory testing: keep the testers known about the project, product, market, risks. So new tests will be stronger than earlier ones as experience is more
5. Guerilla testing: a fast and extensive exploratory test done by senior tester. test whole day a particular part extensively and decide if that area needs much/more testing or can be ignored
6. scenario testing:
a. test what the customer will really do
b. complex feature testing
c. easy to decide success/failure

tests that come from use cases.

7. Installation testing: install in various platform, in different methods, check the files, check if the program works?, check uninstallation
8. Load testing: Test the system at high enough load
9. long sequence testing: run the program for days, weeks. problems like wild pointers, memory leaks, stack overflows, and bad interaction among multiple features are caught by this duration testing
10. Performance testing: test the speed/efficiency of the software. A significant change in speed from time to time is a bad indication and the software need to be optimized

Evaluation based testing

Methods to determine if a test has passed or failed
1. Self verifying data:
2. compare with saved results: if results vary over the week/day, something is wrong
3. compare with specification: mismatch with the specification, failure
4. consistency:
a. with history: software behaviour consistent with past behaviour?
b. with company image: matches with the image that company focuses on?
c. with claims: does what it is supposed to do
d. user’s expectations: meets users expectations
e. within product: consistent with other functions
f. purpose: consistent with it’s purpose?
— From: http://sitestree.com/?p=619
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-21 06:21:42

Learn Math and Check your Math Skills

And if you are from Bangladesh, why don’t you make such or better stuff in Bengali and help the Students in Bangladesh?

You can also check if there is a market for it in Bangladesh, if you want to do it as a business? or can you think of any game idea that can teach such skills? A list of games to teach Math skills can be found at the end of this post

Jr. Kindergarten

Counting, comparing groups, inside and outside, long and shortand more.

 

Kindergarten

Patterns, identifying shapes, skip-counting, sorting objectsand more.

 

Grade 1

Adding doubles, subtraction word problems, estimation and more.

Grade 2

Place-value models, even and odd, reading clocks, fractions and more.

 

Grade 3

Multiplication facts, line graphs, units of measure, propertiesand more.

Grade 4

Adding decimals, calculating probabilities, bar graphs, symmetryand more.

 

Grade 5

Quadrilaterals, adding fractions, converting measurements, areaand more.

 

Grade 6

Percentages, perimeter, variable expressions, exponents, anglesand more.

 

Grade 8

Pythagorean theorem, linear equations, square roots, surface areaand more.

 

Grade 10

Systems of equations, similar figures, cube roots, factoring and more.

 

Grade 11

Quadratic functions, trigonometry, radical expressions, sequencesand more.

 

Grade 9

Solving inequalities, multiplying polynomials, evaluating exponentsand more.

————–

You can find some simple math based games at : http://www.knowledgeadventure.com/subject/

Some math Game at BBC web-site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/maths/games

Some more math based games: http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  From: http://sitestree.com/?p=610
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-15 18:03:35

Make Your Web-site Faster : Make WordPress Faster

Recommended Links and Plugins

Caching is only one part of making a website faster. Here are some other plugins that will help

  1. WPSCMin, a Supercache plugin that minifies cached pages by removing whitespaces and extra characters [the link does not work, did not find any other alternative link]
  2. Yahoo! Yslow is an extension for the Firefox add-on Firebug. It analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. Also try the performance tools online at GTMetrix.
  3. Use Google Libraries allows you to load some commonly used Javascript libraries from Google webservers. Ironically it may reduce your Yslow score.
  4. The CDN Sync Tool plugin will help upload files to Amazon S3/Cloudfront if you would rather not depend on origin pull. See the plugin support forum if you have any queries about this plugin.
  5. Advanced users only: Speed up your site with Caching and cache-control explains how to make your site more cacheable with .htaccess rules.
  6. Advanced users only: Install an object cache. Choose from Memcached, XCache, eAcccelerator and others.
  7. Cron View is a useful plugin to use when trying to debug garbage collection and preload problems.

From: http://sitestree.com/?p=606
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-14 21:27:07

Code Generator for Laravel Framework

JeffreyWay/Laravel-4-Generators is a tool that can generate code for you for Laravel based applications.

You can download it from:
https://github.com/JeffreyWay/Laravel-4-Generators

It needs php >= 5.3.3
You will need to install Composer before you install this generator. Composer is a dependency management tool; it will download and install all the pre-requisite tools/packages for you.

Configuration changes:
You have to update composer.json as comes with Laravel. You have to include this generator as a requirement for Laravel. Then you have to update composer with commands similar to: composer update. In Windows, you can run this command from right/context menu options.

You can find a text tutorial here:
https://medium.com/on-coding/c643022433ad

A video tutorial by the author can be checked at:

So far I can see that generate:resource is pretty useful. Also, generate form also.
From: http://sitestree.com/?p=575
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-12-02 07:44:05

DB Operations for Laravel (a MVC based PHP framework). The Model is also discussed

Different methods of DB operations are discussed.
How to model using the Eloquent ORM is also discussed.
DB operations are shown in Plain SQL, or Using the Query builder, and also using the Model.
In a later document, I will show the details of Laravel configurations and some MVC coding stuff.
You do not need 100 years of experience to be able to use Laravel. If you have experience with similar stuff (one or more) such as CodeIgniter, Symfony, Zend, and/or CakePHP (also in general you are good in programming, and also good in PHP, Database Design and Implementation, DB Modeling, ORM in other languages/frameworks), you will be good to go in matter of days [even if you never heard of Laravel]

From: http://sitestree.com/?p=570
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-11-26 02:10:23

Scraping HTML Content

HTML DOM Parser Works well: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/html-parsing-and-screen-scraping-with-the-simple-html-dom-library/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/simplehtmldom/

PHP XML parsers will work though the HTML needs to be perfect (XHTML) : http://www.php.net/manual/en/refs.xml.php

Example: http://www.php.net/manual/en/simplexml.examples.php

 

To grab HTML from a URL, you can use CURL

        // create a new cURL resource
	$ch = curl_init();

	// set URL and other appropriate options
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "username:password");
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);	

	// grab URL and pass it to the browser
	$result = curl_exec($ch);

	// close cURL resource, and free up system resources
	curl_close($ch);

 

  From: http://sitestree.com/?p=556
Categories:Web Development, Root, By Sayed Ahmed
Tags:
Post Data:2013-11-18 02:03:36