.NET From India

My blog supports nofollow

Ok, I did not do anything..:-)

Typepad added support for Goggle's nofollow tag and hopefully that will rid me of any comment spammers. As of now any URL given in the comment posting form, automatically gets a nofollow.

I am not sure if URLs posted inside a comment's body get a nofollow too. I sure would like that to happen, or spammers are just gonna move their URLs into being part of the post itself (I dont have a problem as my blog doesnt support HTML comment;-)).

A machine that can learn a game

A computer that learns to play a 'scissors, paper, stone' by observing and mimicking human players could lead to machines that automatically learn how to spot an intruder or perform vital maintenance work, say UK researchers

Machine learns games 'like a human'

Escape from Comment Spam

Google and other searche engines now are going to support a new feature that offers a means of reducing comment spam. A new "nofollow" attribute, when used, stops search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo(These two search engines have already accepted to handle this attribute) from following the link into the final page.

Quite a few of the blog providers have signed up to implement this, which means it does not make any sense to comment spam.

More information on this is available in this Google Blog post.

IIS 7

I have been looking at IIS 7 and reading up on this. This is the next version of IIS and supposed to ship with the next version of the OS, Longhorn (Not sure if it will ship with the client edition also, or only the server edition).

Major enhancements to the HTTP pipeline means that ASP.NET is integrated much lower into the base. This means you can write the equivalents of an ISAPI filter in Managed code. IIS also now understands web.config. This means your ASP.NET and IIS share a single configuration repository, which is good news for the developers. They also share your authentication and autherization settings. Now you get real xcopy deployments for your web sites.

Also a completely new Management interface is supposed to be in the works, making it easier for you to maintain the new IIS server. Can't wait to get my hands on a Beta. :-)

You can also read about IIS 7 features at Fritz Onion's Blog

More Advice to Students

Sriram wrote a post on some points of disagreement with Joels Advice to CS Students.

Welll Sriram, GPA's or equivalent do make a difference. Yes, it is always not the right way, but look at it from a recruiters point of view. I get 20,000 resumes from freshers, you dont expect me to interview each of them do you.. The first thing people look at when they get a fresher's resume, is his score at college. Yes there are people who get bad marks, but are good programmers. They usually get picked up via friends or someone who knew them etc. For the general student population GPA or Total Percent does matter.

About the Language issue, my advice would be, Learn any language, but understand how things work. I am a VB Zealot, but that does not mean that I have no idea what pointers are. The language does not matter, it is after all a syntatical representation of your intent. Understanding how a computer works is what matters.

Are Computers Fun??

I have been pestering Deepak Gulati to start blogging technical stuff apart from his poems and photos. I even convinced him to co-author this blog for all of 2 posts..

Now atlast he has bitten the bullet and started a new techie blog Because Compters are So Much Fun.

Deepak, your author login for this blog is still enabled and you can jump in whenever you want..:-)

How we learn to use the phone :-)

Sarah Allen points to Dave's post on Can there be affordance or convention in the 2D world, digital world? Very interesting read.

I suppose some of the rules of using the computer will slowly become learning via passive exhibition as we see more and more computers at home. So as the next generation grows up, they grow up looking at thier parents use computers.

Asia Blog Awards - Deadline Extended

The voting time for the Asia Blog awards has been extended till Jan 4th. You can vote for Dotnet from India under India Blogs here.

Currently .NET From India is in second Place..

Advice to CS Students from Joel

Wonderful advice from Joel for CS Students. Holds good for Indian students too.

During the tech boom, CS degrees had record admissions. But when I meet students at UG meets, I find they are not interested in programming but rather choose the degree due to job prospects. When the tech boom burst a lot of them were suddenly without a job. The admissions started coming down. Now that the technology space is improving, the admissions are going up again. But if you are into it for money, you are facing a very difficult life ahead of you...

Free SMS to Tsunami Affected Areas Offer

IPIPI.com is offering free SMS to/from all tsunami affected countries until Jan 5th, 2005. More information is avbl in their blog post.

Note: I have not used this service and have no idea if it works in India. Also, looks like you will have to give your credit card information, even if you are only using the free service as that is part of thier normal registration, according to the post at their site.