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It can be safely assumed that an average home computer user uses his computer mostly to send/receive mails, browse the net, access online applications, watch movies, listen to music, use some desktop applications and work on documents or spreadsheets, in that order of decreasing frequency of use. But for the avid gamers, most would play some sort of simple computer games like card games, puzzles, chess etc. A very small percentage of the population would use a home computer for programming.

One of the most common questions we hear from potential customers who come to buy PC's or Laptop's is whether we will be installing Windows XP on the computers we assemble. Our answer has been the same - "Yes we will, if you pay for it". We would like to clarify our policy regarding piracy. We understand that piracy is illegal and we will not be doing anything to promote piracy.

Toshiba has segmented their laptops into two different ranges - one for the retail segment and another for the enterprise segment. The prices and specifications overlap a bit but they have some exceptionally good high end laptops. The prices for Toshiba Laptops is attached below. Toshiba Laptop Retail Segment

Hewlett Packard is focusing on the entry level laptop market with the Compaq Presario series and the premium segment with the HP Pavilion Series. The laptops seem a little too pricey but they come with all the goodies that a premium customer needs. The pricelist for HP Pavilion series is attached below.

A new computer could cost anywhere from Rs. 13500/- where as you could get a reasonably good used computer in the range of Rs. 4000 to Rs. 7000 depending on the age and the configuration of the system. The obvious attractiveness in the option of buying a used computer is the price. Buying a certified used system is an excellent way to familiarize you and your family to the exciting world of computers and internet at perhaps 1/3 the cost of a new system.

Compaq has some very well priced laptops in the Presario series. The models cost between 26000 and 49000. The series include entry level models with Celeron + 256MB RAM and have higher end models with Intel Dual Core and Intel Core 2 Duo and upto 1GB RAM. All of the entry level models come with atleast a CD/DVD Combo while the higher end models come with a DVD Writer. WiFi is standard on all the models and blue tooth is supported in the upper end of the spectrum. To summarize HP has provided good value-for-money through the Presario series.

When retrieving large number of records from a database table it becomes essential to do some kind of pagination while presenting the data to the end user. There are two ways of doing this. One is a server side implementation and another is a client side implementation. Here we are presenting a completely dynamic server side pagination implementation where the client only has to tell the server the number of records the server has to return and the starting record number.

We were working on an online billing application for a small charity firm when we came upon this problem. The application was developed and tested under Firefox. However we got the error when we tested it on Internet Explorer 6 (6.0.2900.2180). There was a simple window.open javascript call to open a popup window. The window was opening fine but it remained blank and the parent window showed the javascript error Error: Class not registered.

A majority of people still look at Linux as something where you have to type everything in consoles, where view documents in consoles and runs applications from consoles. This was the case several years ago. Not anymore. Desktop Linux has arrived. Almost all the major distros(distributions) come with at least one of the many window managers (the graphical user interface you see as the desktop) available in the OSS marketplace. Each distribution differs from others in one way or other; some for the better while some for the worse.

BSNL is one of the leading broadband providers in India. They have managed to provide blazing fast internet connections at rates affordable to an average middle class Indian. Although they provide top quality connection speeds with very little down time, their technical support leaves a lot to be desired. More so when it comes to configuring connections in Linux. They just mention Linux as "other operating systems" in their help guides. This article covers the configuration of the BSNL Dataone broadband connection over a Dare Global DB108 modem-router on Ubuntu.

Linux has been growing in leaps and bounds in terms of internationalization. Setting up a Linux box for Reading and Writing in Malayalam has become pretty straightforward, thanks to passionate promoters like Peringodan, Cibu and Suresh and the countless others who have contributed through their efforts.

Freelance projects fall into a separate category of projects in that they target independent developers and are inherently smaller in size. The company/person giving the project, might not require to engage a larger company for the project because of the size of the project or, might be doing it just to cut costs. In either case the likelyhood that the project is based on a popular open source solution is very high. This likelihood is confirmed from the high percentage of OSS applications related freelancing projects available in all the freelancing sites.

Linux is the epitome of the FLOSS model. For a developing country like India, the FLOSS paradigm works out to be an optimal solution. This is not just because FLOSS philosophy means free software, although it is one of the crucial factors. We at Zyxware would like to offer our services for free for people interested in trying out Linux. Currently we will be providing this service only to people in Trivandrum. If you would like to install Linux on your PC we will be more than happy to send one of our service engineers and install it on your PC. Dont worry about trying it out - your old operating system will be maintained as it is. All you would need is around 5GB of free hard disk space and you are ready. If you would like to know more about linux or, to see how it works or, to try it out on your PC, give us a call at 0471-2437711 or drop by our office.

The project aims to open up the freelancing market for the Student Community and thereby give tremendous exposure and technologically empower the students. Ultimately this aims to create a vibrant technical forum or even a company owned by students among the students that can nurture innovation and entrepreneurship among the students and promote open ideas, technologies and products. Background and Motivation