FireFTP - FTP Extension for Firefox

FireFTP is a firefox extension for free, secure cross-platform FTP client which provides easy access to FTP servers. It's a easy add-on so that, you can transfer files to and fro without leaving the browser. FireFTP offers many features that a normal FTP client provides. Some of the features are

• Quick and efficient
• Multiple login accounts
• Directory comparison
• Synchronizing directories
• SSL encryption
• File hashing
• Resume downloads
• Import/Export list of FTP sites
• Logging

Install FireFTP extension

After installing this extension you can access FireFTP by clicking on Tools menu and selecting FireFTP. Also, FireFTP toolbar extension is also available and can be installed from mozilla site.

Screenshots of FireFTP

Transferring Data quickly and efficiently

Accessing FTP servers made simple

Managing files makes it easy with FireFTP

New Compatibility Feature in Visual Studio 2008

Recently, Microsoft has released it's new version of Visual Studio i.e., Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.  This new version is named as "Orcas". One of the new feature of Visual Studio 2008 is the ability to target multiple versions of .NET framework with your application. One of the problems with Visual Studio 2005 is that it only allows you to develop applications in .NET framework 2.0. It is not compatible to its earlier version of .NET 1.0.

Here comes the nice feature in Orcas. So, if you have an application which is built on .NET framework 2.0, and if you have installed visual studio 2008, you can continue to work on the application built on .NET 2.0. If you want to upgrade your project from .NET 2.0 to 3.0 and .NET 3.5, you can achieve this by simply changing the target framework version in the project properties. This doesn't mean that there wont be upgrade issues to think about, but at least you don't have to change tools and upgrade your projects to see what happens when you upgrade to the latest framework - which should make the upgrade process significantly easier.

Group Chat in Google Talk

Google has integrated Group chatting feature in it's IM Google Talk. Already Google Talk popularity is growing. This IM is also integrated in Google IM as a gadget. It enables us to add Google Talk in our personalized home page.

To start using Group Chat, Logon Google Talk with your gmail account. Start your conversation with a contact, then click on the drop down menu at the top and select Group chat. Add as many contacts to you want. You can launch Google Talk Gadget here. This feature is available only with the Google Talk gadget and hope this would be integrated into the desktop client in future.

Source via [LifeHacker]

Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Silverlight

The current buzz around technology today is Microsoft Silverlight. See my previous article on Moonlight is Linux's Microsoft Silverlight who are unfamiliar with Silverlight. Silverlight has the power of programming animations. Now it goes beyond the simple animations. It has provided to work and integrate with any application and now it has grouped up with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team has developed this application and the demo was presented at TechEd 2007.

What is Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution developed by Microsoft. It is a solution that provides the tools and capabilities needed to create and easily maintain a clear picture of customers, from first contact through to purchase and post-sales. It is a part of the Microsoft Dynamics family of business tools. It offers

• Tight integration with Microsoft Office and Outlook
• Quick and easy access to Data
• Customized workspaces
• Powerful reporting and analysis tools
• Mobile support

You can know further information at Microsoft Dynamics CRM site.

More about the Demo

The above picture shows the demo application. The authors details and his/her related books, pictures and other information are shown in nice animation. Dragging and dropping the pictures gives you detailed information which makes the application more lively. This information is brought from CRM records. This site has the information on the components used in the demo. The source code is also distributed and can be downloaded. Also has a readme file which describes the installation process and steps to run the demo. Download the Source code.

Microsoft Acropolis online Video Tutorials

Microsoft Acropolis is a set of components and tools that make it easier for developers to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. One great thing about Acropolis is that separation of concerns between presentation and business logic. You can look at the Features of Microsoft Acropolis on my recent articles. Here are some of the videos about Acropolis.

Introduction to Acropolis

Using Acropolis PartPanes

Using the Acropolis Designer

Using Transitions in Acropolis

Acropolis was announced publicly at TechEd 2007. Here are some of the videos about Acropolis at TechEd 2007.

David's talk: Introducing the "Acropolis" Client Application Framework

Kathy's talk: Building Rich Client UI with the "Acropolis" Framework

Moonlight is Linux's Microsoft Silverlight

We know that the Microsoft Silverlight is now the hottest technology in the current market. It is getting more popular nowadays. Currently, Silverlight supports only Microsoft Vista and Windows XP SP2. In order to cater the silverlight features to the common open source user, the open source crowd has plans to come up with what is called "Moonlight". Mono has started building up the Silverlight's version for Linux and open source systems, i.e., Moonlight.

What is Mono?

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows and Unix. The Mono Open source project is sponsored by Novell. Mono is currently being used by a number of commercial software vendors and corporate enterprises to provide a rich environment for developing cross-platform applications. OTEE Implements Award-Winning 3D Game Development System Using Mono.

Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft describes Silverlight as “a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications.”

Moonlight

It's simply a Mono based implementation of Silverlight, project temporarily named as Monolight. Moonlight is written with a combination of C++ and C# code. Moonlight uses version 1.1 of Silverlight, a browser plug-in for displaying interactive Web applications, which is due in the fall. Once completed, Moonlight will allow Linux users to see Silverlight content on the Web, such as videos, and run rich Internet applications.

Moonlight Screenshots

Some of the examples of Moonlight can be seen on this site. Some progress has been done on Moonlight and here are some of the screenshots of some of the examples made using Moonlight. Currently, Moonlight is in alpha. To get Moonlight for Linux, access Mono Moonlight site and it has a step by step process to get Moonlight.

Source Via Webware

Download SEO page rank tool

Looking for a good software to check your page rank in popular search engines like google, Yahoo and Live Search. SERPs Finder is a free SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool which exactly does this for you. It allows you to check your page rank for a given search query. It is very easy to use and its size is around 40Kb.

Download SERPs Finder

It's a simple exe file which has two inputs. One is your site/blog url and the other the search query string. It has the options of querying in different search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Live Search. Once upon clicking OK, it searches for the search string in the search engines and then pops a message box showing your page rank position. It also opens the default web browser and browses the page of the selected search engine and shows where your page positions in the search engine site. I have downloaded and tested the tool. Here are my findings.

This tool is incredibly fast and depends on your network connection. It analyzes the first 1000 pages of the search results and if your page doesn't show within 1000 pages it shows a message that your page is not within that 1000 page result. Overall, it is a good SEO tool to try it out.

Download SERPs Finder