I recently upgraded my Ubuntu 12.04 virtual machine to version 12.10 on a VMware workstation. This upgrade made the Ubuntu machine  too slow and sluggish.

After some analysis I found that the slowness was not due to heavy system resource usage but because of Unity.

Unity is a shell interface for the GNOME desktop environment developed by Canonical Ltd and is the default desktop environment that comes with Ubuntu installation.

Starting with Ubuntu version 12.10, support for Unity 2D is dropped and your machine is trying to use Unity 3D, which makes your system act slightly restrained, or even refuse to run Unity.

I tried a few things like Accelerating 3D graphics support in the VMware Workstation display settings and using dconf-editor to update the window minimizing animation settings (instructions can be found here) but all of that didn’t really help.

Finally I decided not to use Unity as my Ubuntu desktop environment and instead use LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment).

LXDE is an extremely light desktop environment that focuses on high performance and low resource usage. Now not only my Ubuntu virtual machine is faster then before but I am actually liking the user interface as compared with Unity.

I would really recommend switching from Unity to some other desktop environment if its slowing down the window animations. There are a few available desktop environments, entire list can be found here.

Here are step by step instructions on installing LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment):

1. If you have regular Ubuntu installed, you can also install it from the Software Center, just look for lubuntu-desktop.
2. You can also install it from command-line:

   sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop

3. Restart your computer or virtual machine.
4. When logging in just click on the existing desktop environment (upper right hand side corner of login screen) and system will give you a list of all installed desktop environments.
5. Select Lubuntu and login.

Did your Ubuntu 12.10 upgrade made the system too slow? simply switch to another ubuntu desktop environment is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. For me its is the application development environment of choice for Java, PHP and Android Mobile development (though it can do a lot more). I also use Eclipse extensively for developing and maintaining my PHP wordpress blog.

JD-Eclipse is a plug-in for the Eclipse platform. It allows you to display all the Java sources during your debugging process, even if you do not have them all.

Today I am going to go through a quick set of instructions on adding JD-Eclipse decompiler to Eclipse Juno.

1. Open Eclipse and click Help on the main menu.
2. Click on Install New Software. This will bring a new Install window.
3. Click on ADD to add a new repository with URL: http://jd.benow.ca/jd-eclipse/update
4. Make sure you check both Java De-compiler Eclipse Plug-in and JD-Eclipse Plug-in
5. Click Next and Finish.

There is one more important step pending:

1. In your eclipse application go to Windows > Preferences
2. General > Editors > File Associations
3. Click Add for Associated Editors
4. Select *.class and add Class File Editor and make it default.
5. Select *.class without source and add Class File Editor and make it default.

Now you can open your code and you should be able to decompile any of your jar files by either Ctrl + Clicking on the code base or via your Package Explorer. Happy coding!!

How to add JD-Eclipse plugin (Java decompiler) to Eclipse Juno is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

Code Project is one of the leading online resource for developers. It’s an online space where developers from all around the world exchange ideas on the latest and greatest on the web and other existing and upcoming technologies. And one of the great guys running Code Project is one of our fellow Canadian: Chris Maunder

Quite recently I added my own self hosted wordpress blog to Code Project and have seen a lot of traffic and link backs from the site. This gave additional exposure to my wordpress blog and not to mention the additional traffic. This also gave me the opportunity to network with some great technical minds.

Once you add your blog successfully, your blog gets included in article searches, search engine indexing, discussions, ratings, competitions and all features of regular articles on Code project.

Here I am providing step by step instructions on how you can add your blog to codeproject.

Before we begin if you are not already a member you can register by visiting: https://www.codeproject.com

Here’s how Code Project adds your blog articles to their site:

Code Project parser picks up your blog feed and uses only those posts/articles where category name is CodeProject.

1. Our first step will be to add a new category named CodeProject to your wordpress blog.
2. Next step is to add CodeProject category to all the articles you want to bring over to Code Project.
   • Verify your blog feed by visiting the following URL: (replace _____ with your blog name)
   • http://www.______.com/category/codeproject/feed/
   • e.g. http://www.coolwebdeveloper.com/category/codeproject/feed/
3. Now login to your code project account and select My Settings from the drop down in the upper right corner of the page.
4. Select Technical Blogs from the left hand navigation and select My Blogs. Add a new blog and you will be asked to enter your feed URL.
5. Click to Add New Blog.
6. Add the above mentioned feed URL.

Code Project will start parsing your feed and articles will start appearing on Code Project within a day. Please note here that articles need to be reviewed and approved by Code Project before they actually show up on the site.

Now if you write a great technical article, you just need to add it to the CodeProject category. Code Project will automatically bring this over to their articles repository.

How to add self hosted wordpress blog to Code Project is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

If you are looking for a free antivirus solution for your Windows Home Server then one of the options you have is WHSClamAV.

Its a free open source Add-In for Windows Home Server which is using the ClamWin Anti-Virus package. ClamWin is a port of ClamAV to windows. (ClamAV was originally written for the Linux based operating systems. You can get more info on the ClamWin Anti-Virus here)

WHSClamAV and Clam AV Anti-Virus together make a perfect Anti-Virus solution. I am personally using it for my HP MediaSmart Windows Home server for a while. Its really easy to install and update using the Windows Home Server console.

On 6 September 2011 cNet gave ClamWin a rating of excellent, 4 of 5 stars.

WHSClamAV Features:

• Window Home Server Console Add-In
• Uses Open Source Based Anti Virus Scanning Engine
• ClamWin from ClamAV
• Now Supports International Installations on Windows Home Server
• Automatic Virus Database Updates
• Windows Scanning and Virus Database Update Services
• Ability to scan backup drives

You can download the executable and read the install instructions here on the WHSClamAV website. Though it has not been updated for sometime the developer of WHSClamAV has made it totally clear that this is a work in progress and we should see an updated version soon.

WHSClamAV may not have all the bells and whistles of a paid anti virus solution but its a pretty good option with no extra costs involved and it has been working well for me so far, meeting all my needs.

Free Anti-Virus for your Windows Home Server is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

As per wikipedia Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform with over 60 million websites and blogs worldwide. One technology that has played an important role in making WordPress platform a huge success is PHP.

PHP is the reason we all run our fantastic BLOGs at such low costs. It is the underlying technology that has helped WordPress to be created as a plug-in based, template driven architecture.

Zend is the company behind PHP. Zend helped establish and drive usage of the PHP language around the world. Today, over 200 million apps and web sites run on PHP, which is used by an estimated 5 million developers. Zend has helped us to create this amazing PHP and WordPress community.

Zend is holding 9th Annual Zend Conference in Santa Clara from Oct 7-10, 2013. It’s the renowned PHP Conference where developers and IT managers share PHP best practices, learn about emerging PHP technologies, and network with their peers.

Session proposals for the conference are now open. This will be a great opportunity to showcase your mobile application or website. Hopefully I will see you there at the conference and will learn from one of your sessions.

ZendCon 2013, the premier PHP Conference is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

Consumers spent $733 million on Cyber Monday in 2008, 2009 was a bit slow due to sluggish economy but as the economy is making a round turn Cyber Monday is expected to be bigger this year. According to a survey by online shopping site Shopzilla, nearly 84 percent of online retailers plan to have a Cyber Monday promotion on December 1.

What is Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Whereas Black Friday is associated with traditional brick-and-mortar stores, “Cyber Monday” symbolizes a busy day for online retailers. The premise was that consumers would return to their offices after the Black Friday weekend, making purchases online that they were not able to make in stores.

Although that idea has not survived the test of time, Cyber Monday has evolved into a significant marketing event.

Tired of the long lineups for holiday shopping?

A lot of people will be getting up early and fighting the crowds at the mall for that special deal on Black Friday. But with everything you know now (Cyber Monday), you can spend Friday at home finishing off the turkey, and do your gadget shopping at work on Cyber Monday morning.

People see items in the shopping malls over the weekend and wait until Monday to buy them online, where they can compare prices, avoid lines and/or take advantage of free shipping or other offers.

Fact Sheet-

Though it sounds like slick marketing, Cyber Monday, it turns out, is a legitimate trend. According to Shop.org, a trade group, 77 percent of online retailers reported a substantial sales increase on the Monday after Thanksgiving last year.

This year, online retailers plan to help drive Cyber Monday shopping with special promotions and discounts, with deals ranging from free shipping to gifts with purchase to percentages off, according to an eHoliday Mood Study.

For retailers, it seems, the Internet is becoming an incredibly powerful way to market and sell their products. Companies have come to understand that, even for those individuals who prefer to purchase their gifts in stores, the Internet can still be a great tool.

Online retailers generally offer a great deal of information along with high-resolution images of their products for Cyber Monday 2009 Online Deals, so that consumers can research them and make purchasing decisions before heading out to shop. While many of the shoppers who browse online shops during Cyber Monday may not purchase their gifts online, the research that they do on this second Christmas kickoff day may lead to in-store purchases a few days later.

Everyone here with CoolWebDeveloper team has also been busy building there list of gadgets they would like to buy this year on Cyber Monday. Happy Holidays!!

Are you ready for Cyber Monday? is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

Microsoft Tagging is a way to tag your product with a unique barcode, and than using your mobile device, you just have to aim the device camera at the Tag and it instantly recognizes the product and you are directed directly to the linked content on the Internet.

What is the technology behind Microsoft Tagging?

As per Microsoft –

The sophisticated technology powering Microsoft Tag, High Capacity Color Barcodes (HCCBs), was invented by Microsoft Research. It was designed from the ground up for maximum performance with the limited cameras on most mobile phones. Advanced image-processing techniques decode even out-of-focus barcode images, which means Microsoft Tag works with the fixed-focus camera lenses common in most mobile devices.

Microsoft Tags don’t actually store the information. All it stores is a unique ID which it then sends to Microsoft’s servers. This way, you can include much more information and more variety of information, then if it was just on the tag itself. A nice side-effect of this is also the ability for publishers to gather reporting data on how many times it was seen.

To read these tags, Microsoft has made available a downloadable application to a handful of mobile platforms including Windows Mobile, J2ME, iPhone, Blackberry, and Symbian S60 phones. A camera and internet connection is obviously required. To get the application, point your phone’s browser to http://gettag.mobi.

The advanced computer imaging of HCCBs employs different symbol shapes in geometric patterns and multiple colors to provide more information in less space.

As Microsoft tag is just like an image, bar code can be incorporated within your companies branding. And printing the code in black and white works equally well as color. So no, you don’t have to print Microsoft’s tags in color to have them work.

Here are a few examples -

Here is a comparison between Microsoft tagging and other bar coding technologies like QRCode and Datamatrix Code.

Is this another addition to Microsoft’s monopolistic approach?

Yes we think so. This is not a free technology, it is about a profit stream for Microsoft. You see, all it stores is a unique ID for each barcode, which it then sends to Microsoft’s servers. So, Microsoft gets to track all accesses to all tags and traffic.

The barcode is a ‘protected’ design and the system requires that you use Microsoft’s servers, as a publisher you will have to pay for the usage.

Well, we really hope Microsoft can open up the technology or at least open up the API for small business users so they can manage there own tags and traffic on one of there own servers. Do you think this will happen though? Please leave your comments.

Is Microsoft’s Tagging technology another step towards Microsoft monopoly? is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

On May 2009 Google released this new wonderful feature called Google Wonder Wheel . And rightly named it is truly a wonder.

Wonder Wheel became a favorable feature to many due to the layout and result display which basically get the work done for the user as far as relevant and related search results go.

So what is Wonder Wheel?

Google Wonder Wheel is a tool which shows related search terms to the current searched query. It is like a magic wand for website and blog owners who are looking for the right keywords (related to there niche) to use in there web articles/content.

Wonder wheel enables you to explore relevant search terms in a very intuitive and user friendly way.

How to use Wonder Wheel?

To try Google’s Wonder Wheel you need to go to Google’s search page. Wonder Wheel option is hidden by default. You will see a Show Options link at the upper left hand side (as shown in the image) after you search for the keyword.

To show Wonder Wheel – Click on the Show Options link and you will see Wonder Wheel in the list of options. Click on Wonder wheel and there you go, you have opened the magic door to the keywords land.

To demonstrate the usage lets take an example.

Lets assume you are a blog owner and your niche is web hosting. You are writing an article on  – Full Trust Hosting. Now everyone wants to be ranked number ONE on Google for the targeted keywords and or niche, and to do that you must be looking for the right keywords to use in this article.

As the following image shows, I went to Google and searched for Full Trust Hosting. Than I clicked on Wonder Wheel option and I got a screen similar to the image below.

Now you will see all the related keywords for Full Trust Hosting as child nodes of the wheel. These are the related keywords for Full trust Hosting that Google Users are using to reach the web sites related to Full Trust Hosting.

You can further drill down the wheel by clicking on related keywords. I clicked on asp net hosting full trust and the wheel expanded the network to create another connected wheel for asp net hosting full trust. You can drill down as much you want to check all the keywords Google Users are using for related search terms.

This gives you a fool proof way of finding the right keywords and now its really up to you to use those keywords effectively in your web articles. Google’s Wonder Wheel is a perfect tool for exposing your small business website or blog to the right user base.

Video Demonstration of Google’s Wonder Wheel -

Hopefully this article will help you in choosing the right keywords for your blog.

How to use Google’s Wonder Wheel to choose the right keywords for your Website? is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

Social media describes websites that allow users to share content, media, etc. and allow users to interact with the information (either submitted by them or others).

Common examples are the popular social networking sites like Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, etc. Social media also includes YouTube, Photobucket, Flickr, and other sites aimed at photo and video sharing. News aggregation and online reference sources, examples of which are Digg and Wikipedia, are also counted in the social media bucket.

Using social media to market your business is a good idea. But most small business users think of social media as an easy tool to build there reach. Using social media is an effective tool if done right. Social Media is not only about tweeting yourself 100 times a day or creating Facebook pages and updating your comments / articles 10 times a day.

Its a lot more than that and needs proper strategy. Most small business users plan on getting there whiz-kid nephew to do social media for free. And this is clearly not the way to go as we will see that in the following bullet points.

Myths and Facts

Mark Evans had described it really well -

1. Social media tools are free
   While the tools themselves are free, their use inevitably will cost money. It will require human resources to monitor online discussions about your brand; strategy to respond to consumer cynicism; investment in multimedia to post online; and training to get staff up to speed
2. It’s easy!
   Social media might be easy surfing to the end user, but it’s far from breezy when it comes to engaging those end users. It involves being ever present and ready to respond to both positive and negative comments about your brand, which takes time, money and strategy.
3. Social media is about the tools
   Not necessarily. Though social media tools are important and abundant, they cannot be used effectively without a clear strategy for how they should be used and what you want to accomplish. And remember, just because there are many tools out there, doesn’t mean they are all relevant to you.
4. ROI is immeasurable
   ROI is measurable with social media. There are numerous agencies available to monitor and breakdown your use of social media and to correlate it directly to the impact on your bottom line. Organizations such as Radian6 and Sysomos monitor, evaluate and measure online conversations about brands, gauging impact and allowing companies to determine which conversations are worth engaging in and which are not.
5. Social media is a standalone strategy
   Social media should be incorporated into your strategic outlook and the overall objective you want to achieve. It is one tool of many and should be used as such.

Please leave your comments if you agree or disagree or have anything to add to this article.

Social Media and Small Business. Myths and Facts. is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com

Engadget reported about Microsoft Poland’s embarrassing Photoshop hack-job on an ad featuring three business people sitting at a conference table. The Photoshop fiasco was immediately met with heated criticism, specifically because the photo manipulators replaced the head of the black man, who appeared whole in the U.S. ad, with the head of a white man.

In the photo on the company’s US Web site, three businesspeople – one black, one white and one Asian are shown as part of a pitch for Microsoft’s business productivity software. In the same photo on the site of Microsoft’s Polish subsidiary, a white head is placed over the black person’s body, with the hand of the black man still showing.

The move sparked controversy after it was noticed, quickly blowing up Twitter and various blog sites.

“We are looking into the details of this situation,” a Microsoft representative told CNET News. Microsoft also apologized on its corporate Twitter feed.

Microsoft named Offensive Ad as Marketing Mistake is a post from: CoolWebDeveloper.com