PhaniJ's Blog

Almost everyone who reads this post might have a broadband connection at home. This post aims at securing day to day web access. Internet is filled with useful information and equally harmful threats that can involve stealing your personal information to crashing your personal computer. Earlier it was viruses now they disguise in the form of ads and hide in the form of tracker cookie and start sending information about your browsing habbits to the mothership. I am not personally against ads on the web, but I am against tracking. If I go on google/bing and search for information, I don't mind seeing relavent ads, but I do mind when a tracker installed by doubleclick follows my browsing patterns. So after doing my personal research I found a two pronged approach that can make home browsing experience much more safer.

Disclaimer: Before you try these setting at home, do try to understand what this is for and have a backup plan if something goes wrong. Don't blame me if your configs are messed up.

OpenDNS:

OpenDNS is a domain name resoultion system that is a good alternative for an ISP provided one. Apart from DNS, it gives its users content filtering, phishing protection and misspeled url corrections. 

Optional DD-WRT (with adblock):

DD-WRT is an awesome piece of router firmware that can turn even the oldest routers into superrouters. If you have a DD-WRT and hate ads on the internet, they can be blocked by setting it up in one place. The following blogpost has the information about how to do that [Blocking Ads using dd-wrt].

PS: Both these methods when used together can be quiet effective. Make sure you have sufficient information before jumping on the bandwagon. Ads and cookies can be blocked using browser extensions like AdBlock Plus and NoScript etc.

Adios.

Fall colors are still coming up in New Hampshire, but was still able to capture some nice pictures near Mount Washington. Enjoy one more HDR.

Adios

Adios...

Camera : Nikon D700

Lens: Tamron 28-75mm f2.8

Post Processing using Aperture 3 & Photomatix.

Update: This should be actually called an LDR.

 

Adios..

Finally, I made the switch from the dark side to HTC EVO 4G. I generally consider myself technology agnostic, but I have a special bias towards anything that is open source. I don't think proprietary or closed source is bad or inferior but Open source always gives me thrill up my knee(taken directly from Chirs Mathews). The only reason why I like open source is it can be easily extended and hackers can have a free will on what they do and geeks like me like to try the latest and greatest tricks. I don't need to explain all this but after jumping from verizon ship into the iPhone 3G/ATT bandwagon, the thrill was missing. iPhone 3G was my first smartphone ever. I liked it because there was no other consumer friendly (not business friendly) smart device at that time in the market. With the introduction of Google's Android, Palm's WebOS and the coming Windows Mobile 7, I started to think about alternatives. Finally iPhone/iOS has met its worthy competitors. With iPhone 4 and the hegemony of Apple and Stevie, I decided I have to move away from this fruit cup before I get swarmed to the wormhole of a stupid apple fanboys.  The first thing I hated from Apple labs this year was the iPad which is a very inferior device. It is even weaker than iPhone 4, still iTrolls go and buy it. Starting with my countless argument with friends on facebook on iPhone 4 Antennagate, I wanted to stick to my word and I made the switch. The savior this time is Android. I switched to HTC EVO 4G. I switched because of the rate plan from Sprint and coverage and yes because it is not ATT and iPhone. So far my experience with my new shiny device has been smooth, so smooth that I don't miss iPhone nor do I have to take instructions from Steve on how to hold and use a phone. My Review:

	HTC EVO	iPhone4
OS	Android	iOS
Processor	1Ghz Snapdragon	Apple A4
RAM	512MB	512MB
DiskSpace	8GB – 32 GB (microSD)	16GB or 32GB
Display	OLED	Retina Display (which is good)
Front Camera	Yes	Yes
Rear Camera	8MP	5 MP (takes pics better than EVO)
Video Conf	Free to write an APP and use it on 3G. Comes preloaded with QIK	FaceTime which you can use only on WiFi. Booooooooo big no..
Multi Tasking	True mulititasking	Bull crap multitasking.
GPS	Comes with Sprint navigation and Google maps with voice directions	Naaah
Apps	I use only free apps	iPhone has free apps but I don’t miss them.
Browser	WebKit which is much better with Android. You can download files and even extract zip files	WebKit . No iPhone cannot do that so Fanbois cry.
Tethering	Unlimited .. yep no data limits from sprint	New ATT Plan limits to the Max of 2GB. So good luck with it.
Widgets	Yes a lot and they are great.	Good luck with that, may be fanboys are waiting for Apple to implement in the right way.

I love my EVO, it is much better than iPhone 4 .

Now a days I am little busy with my personal project called TwitChirp an Android based Twitter Client. My goal is to make it the best twitter app for android platform for free. I agree that the app is still buggy, but I am working on it make it the perfect application with all the premium features that others are charging and make it much better based on user feedback. I am working on some updates now. Adios.

I am trying hard to understand OpenGL ES. Probably this is the first time I am hating programming. I need more details on the API before I can move. I would like to port tuxracer game to android mobile platform. It is giving me lot of grief, considering how easily it was ported on the iphone, it sends me endless spirals. I am not the one who says give up on things which I strongly believe I can achieve and one such thing is programming and gaming. I will eventually come out with a victory but it might take some time. Adios.

Happy new year to all my fans. So far this has been a happy start. I am still continuing my android development. I see a lot of progress but end is not in sight. Having a personal hobby is so hard. I will finish it. I will update this post with the latest screenshot. Adios