Skills421

I had spent an hour in the bank with my dad, as he had to transfer some money. I couldn’t resist myself & asked…

”Dad, why don’t we activate your internet banking?” ”Why would I do that?” He asked…

”Well, then you won’t have to spend an hour here for things like transfer.

You can even do your shopping online. Everything will be so easy!”

I was so excited about initiating him into the…

Buffy: Vampire Slayer and Google Trailblazer

According to Charles Arthur in his book Digital Wars, the first use of to google on television appeared in Buffy.

On October 15, 2002, in the fourth episode of the show’s final season, the character Willow turns to the Buffy the vampire slayer and asks, “Have you googled her yet?”

Xander answers: “She’s 17!” 

Willow clarifies: “It’s a search engine.”

Wifi and Network Security

Security when out and about, when using shared wifi and when staying in a hotel is always a major concern.

One useful tool for added protection is a Virtual Private Network.

Here are a few useful links:

Hotspot Shield Reviews

PCMag.com

BestVPN.com

Download.com

Hotspot Shield

VPN for Mac

VPN for Windows

VPN for iPhone

VPN for Android

“If you are thinking about ethical hacking as a career option, you may need to be prepared for a lot of hard/smart work. I hope these free resources will help you speed up on your learning. If you decide you pursue ethical hacking as a career option, you may also want to read some in depth ethical hacking books.”

This article provides a list of resources for the IT developer interested in moving…

Spring Webflow Schema Definition

spring-webflow-config-2.0.xsd

A XML-based DSL for configuring the Spring Web Flow 2.0 system. ]]> Each flow definition registered in this registry is assigned a unique identifier. By default, this identifier is the name of the externalized resource minus its file extension. For example, a registry containing flow definitions built from the files "orderitem-flow.xml" and "shipping-flow.xml" would…

This is a really great article on Static vs Dynamic class loading in Java

Static vs Dynamic Class Loading

Windows Keyboard Drivers for Mac

Recently, I was using Windows in VirtualBox on my Mac and the keyboard was driving me mad – from @ and ” to \ and ~ Ctrl-C to Ctrl-V.

Fortunately, there’s an app for that and Boot Camp to the rescue:

Boot Camp 4 – key assignment for Microsoft Windows

Direct Download for Bootcamp 4

Boot Camp 5

Add a Slide-Out Sidebar Menu in iOS Apps

This is a great little post on how to create a Facebook-like sidebar menu in your iOS app.

http://www.appcoda.com/ios-programming-sidebar-navigation-menu/

CSS3 – Gradients, Colors and other great things

Here are a few great links for some CSS and CSS3 utilities:

CSS3 Gradient Generator

HTML Color Picker

HSL to RGB, RGB to HSL, Color Calculator

Install JavaDoc in Eclipse Use JDK

Window -> Preferences-> Java -> Installed JREs

Add

Select path to JDK instead of JRE

The javadoc is included with the JDK

Download Javadoc

Download Javadoc from the Oracle Site

This does not need to be expanded

Open Eclipse

Window -> Preferences -> Java (expand) -> Installed JREs

Select Jre7 -> Edit

Select all the JRE System libraries -> Javadoc Location

Javadoc…

Social and Networking Sites and Tools

This will be an ever growing list of Social Sites that can be found on the internet.

Blogging

WordPress – a blogging site

Blogger – a blogging site

Buying and Selling

Ebay – online auctions

Face to Face Meetings

Meetup – social and business meetings

Messaging

Whatsapp – a popular free messaging app

Cotap – workplace messaging

Kik – smartphone messaging

Payment and Money Transfer

PayPal– secure…

Business Support and Funding

Looking for Grants, Loans or Investment in your Business or ideas?

Here are a few useful links that may help you get started:

Business Startup

Gov.uk

Grants

How to Apply for a Business Grant

Finance

Gov.uk

Finance and Support for your Business

Business Gateway

Innovate UK

Enterprise and Industry – European Commission

EU – Access to Finance

EU – Definition of SME

East Midlands Early Growth Fund

Bu…

Create a Second Bootable OSX Partition

To create a second bootable OSX Partition on your hard drive, follow the steps below:

Dual Boot

open Disk utility and partition your disk

install OSX on the second partition

in your Start disk preference choose which OS to start as default, or

hold option key on boot to select which OS to run

Start Disk Preference

Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk

Create a Bootable USB to install OSX

Create Bootable USB for OSX pre-Mavericks

Jesus Vigo goes over the steps to create a bootable USB to install OS X 10.7-10.8 and OS X 10.5-10.6, as well as how to put multiple versions on the same USB.

I used the steps here to create a bootable Mountain Lion USB for a second partition on my Macbook Pro and it worked fine

Create a Bootable OSX USB

Create Bootable USB for OSX Mavericks

For…

HTML and CSS Web Templates

Here are a few great links for free and paid HTML and CSS templates for designing your web site:

Design Razzi

Yithemes

Merchant Services with PayPal

Merchant Services through the bank can be very expensive to startup, with initial costs, fees, machines etc before you’ve even taken your first payment.

Paypal may cost slightly more on a  per transaction basis but there are no setup costs and you only pay when you get paid.

Here are some useful links for setting up merchant services with PayPal.

PayPal Developer

PayPal Payments Standard Overview