That article opens up a new question how can we determine the best possible DNS server for our network, PC, etc? DNS benchmarkers are for that purpose.

DNS benchmarker will check and tell you the best DNS server(s) for you.

Here are two free tools that you can try

DNSBench/DNS Benchmark
namebench

DNSBench is more faster among the two but both will show you the best possible DNS server resources that is suitable for your purpose.

The primary duty of a DNS server is to convert the domain names (eg: yahoo.com) to its IP address. So you need to use the best DNS server that you can use. So that the DNS lookup can be quick. This will definitely improve the browsing speed especially if you are dealing with hundreds of websites a day.

Two best DNS servers I normally recommend are:

Google
OpenDNS

The IP address of Google DNS servers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

The IP adress of OpenDNS DNS servers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

You can use Google and OpenDNS servers alternatively.

You may find some other resource too but these are the most consistent DNS server I’ve used until now

validate.js is a lightweight JavaScript form validation library inspired by CodeIgniter.

This library supports over a dozen of validation rules on the form fields with provision for customizable messages to the user, provision for setting custom validation rules, etc.

The size of the library comes around 1.3 KB (minified and gzipped) and also there is no noticeable dependency with any popular JavaScript frameworks.

Demo and Documentation of this library can be found here

I have recently stumbled across an interesting Firefox extension called ScrapBook

ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and manage the collection. Key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support.

We can save whatever page that we wish for later reading with this extension. The extension will save it and manage it. We don’t have to worry about other than clicking a menu item for saving the page.

Later you’ll get a list of the saved page (similar that of the bookmark listing) through a menu in the browser menu bar from which you can click on any item that you want to open. Also it supports a search feature through we can search for a particular item(s).

More details about this is available here.

AxCrypt is free and easy to use open source strong file encryption for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/7, integrated with Windows Explorer. Encrypt, compress, decrypt, wipe, view and edit with a few mouse clicks. Cryptographic primitives are AES-128 and SHA-1.

Hope this tool will come handy for someone.

var foo = {
	'name': 'Jayaprakash',
	'job': 'Web Team Lead'
};

console.log(typeof foo); //Outputting it to the browser console

Now consider an example with an Array

var foo = [];
foo.push(1);
foo.push(2);

console.log(typeof foo);

The output would be ‘object‘. Bit confusing you may be expecting array as the output. This is because JavaScript treats arrays as object (most of the items in JavaScript are considered as objects) in it. As a result when you determine the type of it, it will give you a value of object.

The question at this point is, is there any way through one can determine whether a variable is array or not? Yes we have a simple method for doing that

var isArray = function(arr){
	return Object.prototype.toString.call(arr).toLowerCase().indexOf('[object array]') !== -1;
}

This function will return true if the argument is a JavaScript array else it will return false.

Screenpresso is one such application that comes in two flavours: a free and a PRO version.

Some major thing happened in my work, in 2010 I’ve started to develop Lotus Domino applications along with the Front-End/Web part. As a reason I was not getting enough time to post new things in Front-End development (HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript).

I am planning to write my thoughts more in this blog in the new year.

I wish everyone a very happy and prosperous new year 2011.

Now I feel that there were lot of reasons for that kind of thought at that time. At that time I was completely fascinated by JavaScript and various related technologies and want to spend my complete time on it. Still I love JavaScript and the front-end development (I miss it greatly) and trying to spend some time personally with the front-end part of the development.

But now I think I have started to like Lotus development even the platform can be unpredictable at times. There can be things that you’ll never get an explanation, which is completely out of our logic. But once you learn avoid these kind of things and move forward everything will be fine (from my experience).

I wouldn’t have liked this technology without the help of my colleague Denis. He is like a Lotus encyclopedia that can be explored whenever I stuck with something. Be it administration issue, programming issue, connection issues he was there for the help.

I am thinking about a day in which I’ll love the Lotus domino rather than like it. Hope the day will come soon.

Like everyone I thought of depending on Google, but after hearing his requirements I thought of making one myself. The code may seem bit specific as I’ve done this for a very specific requirement.

function generatePassword(type, plen){
	var lwrAlph = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",
		uprAlph = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ",
		nums = "0123456789",
		spl = "~!@#$%^&*()-_=+|<>,.;:[]{}",
		passwd = [],
		maxLen = 32,		
		defLen = 8,
		minLen = 5;		

	/*Parameter Manipulations*/
	type = type || "all";
	type = isNaN(type)?type.toLowerCase():"all";	
	plen = plen || defLen;
	plen = (plen < 0?defLen:(plen <= maxLen? (plen < minLen?defLen:plen): maxLen));
	
	/*Choosing the password source characters*/	
	src = type === "alpha"? [lwrAlph, uprAlph]:type === "alphanum"?[lwrAlph, uprAlph, nums]:[lwrAlph, uprAlph, nums, spl];
	
	/*Password construction*/	    
    for (var i = 0; i < plen; i++) {
        var rnd = Math.floor(Math.random() * src.length),
			charBuild = src[rnd].split("");		     
        rnd = Math.floor(Math.random() * charBuild.length);
        passwd.push(charBuild[rnd]);
    }
    
    return passwd.join("");
}

The function accepts two parameters. The first one denotes type, which tells the routine what kind of characters should be used. This parameter can have 3 possible values: all, alpha and alphanum.

If you use value all the generated password can use alaphabets (lower & upper), numbers and special characters.

If you use alpha the generated password can use alaphabets (lower & upper).

If you use alphanum the generated password can use alaphabets (lower & upper) and numbers.

The second parameter denotes the length of the password going to generate. It has a restriction of 32 characters maximum and 5 characters minimum. If the user do not specify the length the a length would be selected by the code, which is 8. So it might be bit confusing at first but it is straight one once you check the logic.

I have furnished some test function calls that I’ve done earlier during a small testing period.

console.log(generatePassword("", -1));
console.log(generatePassword(""));
console.log(generatePassword());
console.log(generatePassword(null, null));
console.log(generatePassword(undefined, undefined));
console.log(generatePassword("alpha", 8));
console.log(generatePassword("alphanum", 8));
console.log(generatePassword("alphanum", 33));
console.log(generatePassword(-1));
console.log(generatePassword(1));
console.log(generatePassword("alphanum", 3));

I was using my Firebug console for checking the outputs of the function.