I fond this nice site comparing various cross-platform XML libraries. They have a very good benchmark data with lots of graphs. Very useful for making project decisions:

Feature comparison

Benchmark sheet 1

Benchmark sheet 2

Happy XXLing.//

If you have a small business, running a non-profit org, or a school, you probably have a website with your own registered domain name. You might also have the requirement of setting up email accounts for your domain, like owner@your-domain.com, etc. Normally, you would be looking for a service provider which supports email along with hosting your site. I would strongly recommend that you switch over to Google Apps to support your Email requirements. All you need is ability to update DNS settings for your domain which your service provider generally provides. Your existing website and other stuff just remains the way it is.

Last week, I switched over the Email system of a website to Google Apps and it took just 20 minutes to do everything. The migration was a cake-walk. Once you register your domain with Google Apps, you would get detail instructions on how to do that, but in a nut shell, you just have to update your domains DNS settings. Technically you would be updating your DNS's CNAME and MX records. Click here to know more about configuring MX records.

The main reasons why we switched over were:
1. Our main server was handling around 1000 emails per day and the usage was continuously growing. Moving to Google Apps meant less usage of resources on the server.

2. Google was much better in handling spam than we could do with open-source anti spam engines. Anti-spam engines take a lot of server resources too.

3. You could login into either http://mail.mydomain.com to check emails or even pull it into your personal gmail address through POP access.

4. You can create groups and specially a catchall@mydomain.com email address that will catch emails addressed to users that you havent created manually.

5. Sites like hotmail uses SPF technology and tend to flag emails coming from several servers as either SPAM or they just reject it. With Google Apps, you have a better chance that they will reach hotmail users. It can be quite embrassing for your business to send an email to a hotmail user which never reaches them or lands in their SPAM folder. You can read more about Hotmail and SPF nightmare here.

There are basically two packages in Google Apps. A free Standard package which gives you only 7GB storage space and a $50/user Premium package.

Check them out at Google Apps comparison page.

The best thing about Google Apps email is the hassle free migration process and their system simply works. Their self-help documentation is also properly laid out to answer all your questions.

Google Apps is not just about Email, but a complete solution for small office setup. I am writing about Email only because I am a very satisfied user of the email system.

Helpful links:
Google Apps getting started guide.
Google Apps Email FAQ page

Happy Google Appsing.//

CISSP in 21 Days by M. L. Srinivasan. Yes, thats the name of the new book recently launched. It is a concise revision guide that is supposed to be read just 1 month before the exam to brush up.

Why am I reading this book? First, I have been thinking of taking the exam, but things got delayed not due to project work and lack of time, but due to my own procrastination. But I am now becoming a bit more serious about this CISSP. When I downloaded the official Guide to CISSP, it was around 1000 pages and I never made it. Secondly, I did not have a full picture of the scope of knowledge or study that might be required to be ready for this exam.

This was until, I was offered to go over this newly launched book and give some feedback. This book is just 300 pages and I think I will read this over this month. I just read through Chapter 15 Telecommunications And Network Security in a couple of hours and it was kind of a concise revision of things I have learned at work over the last few years. I think I am going to read this entire book and get some honest feedback to the publishing house, who have been kind to offer me the e-book and also gave me permission to host Chapter 15 in this blog for my readers.

You can read Chapter 15 by downloading it from here and you can get more details about the book and purchase it from packtpub.

Happy Reading.//

On April 5th, 2008 I wrote the following comment at Aminus3 forum:
I used to be using DVDs but soon found that I was not able to keep in sync. What if I edit one of my old pictures from RAW to PSD which I often do. DVD did not work out for me. I thought of having an external USB HDD which I would synchronize often, but for some reason I wanted something more automatic. Nero does a fair good job of backing up to external devices. But I wanted something more automatic. Though not the best solution what I have is a RAID disk -- two 250GB HDD which are mirrored. My main fear was a hard disk failure. Now I have two HDDs which are mirrored -- meaning the OS is responsible to make sure that one is the mirror of the other. What if I loose both HDDs at the same time? I guess the chances are very less and I am banking that in case of a high power surge, my PC's UPS or the fuse would save the disks. But yes, since the two disks are local, there is a certain risk. I have Windows XP and it does not support disk mirroring by default. I wrote a blog article titled Hack : RAID-0 (Mirroring) support on your Windows XP Box . These days however I am spending some time evaluating online backup solutions. There are a bunch of them and they come at around $5 per month. I have been evaluating Mozy which comes with a 2GB free account. This is good for evaluating. I think I will go to online backup sometime this year. Ease of restoration, pricing, ability to provide patterns for files to be backup-ed automatically are my top evaluating criteria.

On Oct 2 2008, I have finally got myself a Mozy Home Unlimited account for backup up my hard-disk. So gone are my days when I used to have a RAID drive or a DVD backup regularly. Its been around a week and the system has so far uploaded around 6GB thanks to my slow internet connection (averaging 250kpbs). But then I am happy that now I can sleep peacefully without having to worry about losing my precious 10000+ photographs and 200+ videos of my kid. With the kind of user-friendly features that it comes with, $54.45 a year is very good value for money.

I also have a slight bit of inclination towards Mozy as its an EMC company, for which I work for. Having said that, I have evaluated other popular backup solutions too and Mozy seemed to meet all my needs more than the others. Usability in restoring, automatic backup, selective file matching, cost and space were the most important evaluation criteria in the order.

You can get a free 2GB free Mozy account for evaluation which was the best part. Play with it for months and see if it makes sense to really go for a paid membership.

Happy Backingup.//

Just downloaded Google Chrome, the new web browser from Google. The name itself carries so much trust and weight and this browser gives you such a light feeling. I am writing this after using it for 10 minutes and these are my first impressions.

Plus:
1. Very lightweight user feeling as you browse. Fast and responsive.

2. When you open a new TAB using Ctrl-T it shows you a list of the most visited sites with thumbnails. Most often you will click one of them.

3. Smart text formatting of the address in the URL box. The site URL is highlighted and the remaining query string grayed out making it more readable. If you are visiting a site with https which has a wrong certificate, the word https is crossed with red font.

4. Most distinguishing feature is that it uses more space by getting rid of the window borders at the top and the bottom. The top window border is used by browser tabs and the status bar only show up when there is something to show.

5. It can get and import your Firefox bookmarks.

6. All common controls like Alt + <- , Ctrl+, Ctrl-T, F5 implemented properly.

7. One text entry box for everything. The URL entry box also serves to be your search box too.


Minus:
1. It creates a new process for every tab you open. So if you have 7 tabs, you would have 8 chrome.exe running, with one being the parent process. For me, the parent process occupied around 50+ MB of memory and each tab, occupies around 10 to 30 MB. So its kind of a memory hogger. With Firefox I have around 80MB usage with 7tabs and many plugns installed. With separate process, one important thing they achieved is that if there is a crash on one site only that tab gets crashed and not the entire browser like Firefox or IE.

2. Saved password not controlled by master password. Atleast I could not find it in my 10-minute review. If I cant find it or it does not come in a Google update, I will definitely not be using this browser. I cant remember all my passwords and I want my browser to save it but protect it by a master password.

3.Ctrl+ only does a text zoom, unlike in Firefox 3 where it does image zoom too. Not a big deal, but just a thing to note.

4. No third party plugin integration. One big factor why people like Firefox.

5. No built it spell check when you type in text in forms' text area.

6. Could not post this blog entry using Chrome as some of the review and edit buttons were not working :-(

Interesting link:
1. Chrome's lead engineer was Firefox's lead engineer once and how Google abandoned Firefox

2. A simple way to make Chrome crash.
Happy Chroming.//