The Danesh Project

Google Chrome

Google released it’s own web browser “Google Chrome” yesterday. 

Why the need for a new browser? Google felt that the browser has not evolved too much since the old days and to support today’s web applications browsers will need to be re-engineered.

Google decided to wipe the slate clean and start over with Google Chrome though it’s open source project “Chromium”.

To start, It’s open source under a permissive BSD license. Developers will get the best from the project and vice versa.

Unlike other browsers, Chrome is multi-processed. Each tab runs in it’s own memory space. While one tab is processing other tabs no longer need to wait. If java scripts get too heavy you only need to kill the tab in question. Also, there is a task manager built in to show you the processes running in each tab, allowing you to kill them if needed.

The user interface has also been slimmed down tremendously. No more clutter and no unnecessary information is is visible. The smart address bar does it all.

Currently Google Chrome is only available for Windows. A Linux version is on its way.

Take it for a spin

Source: Chromium || LifeHacker ||

Facebook the movie

Aaron Sorkin creator of West Wing is planning to make a movie about “Facebook” togather with Sony and procuder Scott Rudin.

The one single word that is common amongst every single person I know today is Facebook. What other advertising would they need for the movie?

Source: BBC

Google Linux software repositories

Google has Linux software repositories setup for you to easily stay up to date with their Linux softwares. Their repositories support  APT, YUM, YaST, urpmi and RPM.

However, only Google Desktop and Google Picasa are published on the repositories. Google earth has to be downloaded and installed manually.

I’ll show you how to add the repository in openSUSE but for other distros refer here.

1. As root add the repository.

For 32 bit
pandora:~ # zypper sa -t YUM http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/i386 google

For 64 bit
pandora:~ # zypper sa -t YUM http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/x86_64 google64

2. Test the repository
pandora:~ # zypper se picasa

pandora:~ # zypper in picasa

Done!!

Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim sworn in as MP today

Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in today as an official member of the parliament.The grass is starting to look greener now.

Finally he is back!!

Source: Politickler

How to build a local DNS caching server

Being in Malaysia we are gifted with superior Internet speeds. NOT!!

Services like openDNS are awesome but the lag between us and them often results in sluggish performance anyways.

One way to improve performance is to use local DNS servers. I don’t use Streamyx’s DNS servers because they SUCK!!. TIME’s DNS servers are ok but I still prefer openDNS.

To improve performance, I put together a local DNS caching-only server that forwards to openDNS. Now I have openDNS with lighting fast response.

Let’s walk though the steps to get your own local DNS caching-only server setup. I’m using openSUSE 11 so the steps might vary depending on your distro.

1. Install BIND

pandora:~ # zypper in bind

2. Edit /etc/named.conf

pandora:~ # vi /etc/named..conf

Uncomment the forwarders section. Update the default values with the values below.

forwarders { 208.67.222.222; 208.67.220.220; };

forward only;

Add the line ” forward only; ” This will tell BIND to only forward to the forwarders and not the ROOT servers.

3. Start the service.

To have the service start automatically run ” chkconfig named on ”

pandora:~ # service named start

4. Let’s make sure your caching server is running fine.

pandora:~ # nslookup google.com localhost
Server:         localhost
Address:        127.0.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   google.com
Address: 64.233.167.99
Name:   google.com
Address: 72.14.207.99
Name:   google.com
Address: 64.233.187.99

pandora:~ # nslookup yahoo.com localhost
Server:         localhost
Address:        127.0.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   yahoo.com
Address: 68.180.206.184
Name:   yahoo.com
Address: 206.190.60.37

5. Update your /etc/resolv.conf file.

This will tell your system to use the local DNS server which we just setup instead of the external ones.

Add the lines below to the file.

nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 127.0.0.2

That’s it. You now have local DNS caching. Enjoy!!

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