For MySQL has published its docs this time in EPUB format, other docs formats are also available. CHM has been the de facto standard file format for help on windows. The CHM technology is getting a bit behind as more formats are available in the market that makes the document available on many different formats. Microsoft introduced a new successor format with windows Vista i.e AP Help but it doesn’t got the popularity, because of this many have started providing the docs in PDF format.

MySQL has been providing the the CHM file format docs but that has its own problems which require time to handle. With the increasing complexity and size of our documentation (the MySQL 5.1 Manual contains more than 1.6 million words now!), providing CHM has become more and more of a pain. MySQL has stopped shipping CHM with the MySQL Server on Windows months ago.

MySQL has started providing EPUB-format docs. EPUB (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB) is an open standard format for screen readers, mobile or not, and is fairly easy (and not resource-intensive!) to compile.

Go to http://dev.mysql.com/doc to grab MySQL documentation in EPUB format. To read EPUB on desktop machines, I use a Firefox add-on & calibre-0.7.17, unsurprisingly called epubreader, which loads EPUB documents fast and renders them nicely. That said, please be aware that EPUB can’t do anything about the fact that the MySQL Reference Manual is huge, so downloading it to a mobile device can take a while. The MySQL 5.1 Manual is currently a whopping 15 MB!

Google came up with a new product in May called Google TV. The main aspect that Google associated with Google TV was the developer ecosystem,  apart from viewing the TV programs you can also Internet TV Application built using Google Mobile OS, Android.

Google is not offering hardware platform like AppleTV or Microsoft Mediaroom, instead, Google has partnered with electronics giant Sony on the hardware side. Google TV launches in the fall inside a new line of Sony TVs, so let’s look at what we can expect to see.

Both Google and Sony has benefited from this deal.

The Google TV is built on the Android platform so it will rely heavily on the Google Chrome browser. With lot more things coming up down the line Google surely wants to take the TV experience to a different level. With Google TV one can watch Photo Slideshow, play games, listen to music and more.

Google will release the Google TV SDK and web APIs for TV. This will enable developers to build applications, which will then be distributed through Android Market.

So wait for the next generation TV and enjoy the new experience.

I have used the css code snippet below in my projects to achieve PNG image transparency. Place it in a css file.

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* <a class="zem_slink" title="HTML" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML">html</a> img,
* html .png{
position:relative;
behavior: expression((this.runtimeStyle.behavior="none")&amp;&amp;(this.pngSet?this.pngSet=true:(this.nodeName == "IMG" &amp;&amp; this.src.toLowerCase().indexOf('.png')&gt;-1?(this.runtimeStyle.backgroundImage = "none",
this.runtimeStyle.filter = "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" + this.src + "', sizingMethod='image')",
this.src = "transparent.gif"):(this.origBg = this.origBg? this.origBg :this.currentStyle.backgroundImage.toString().replace('url("','').replace('")',''),
this.runtimeStyle.filter = "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" + this.origBg + "', sizingMethod='crop')",
this.runtimeStyle.backgroundImage = "none")),this.pngSet=true)
);
}

You can use conditional include for this hack code so that the good browsers do not see this.

Indian version of this popular search engine. Search the whole web or only webpages from India. Interfaces offered in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil.

Yahoo!
Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager.

Google

Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company’s focus is developing search technology.

Orkut.co.in

Rediff.com India Ltd.

Online portal with free e-mail and many other services.

YouTube
YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!

Blogger.com
Free, automated weblog publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP.

Windows Live
Search engine from Microsoft.

Microsoft Network (MSN)
Dialup access and content provider.

Facebook
A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.

Wikipedia
An online collaborative encyclopedia.

Indiatimes
Portal site; includes news stories under subject headings, and links to other information sources.

RapidShare
Users can upload up to 100 meg files for sharing. Provides downloads of 100 megs per hour on the free service. Premium service also available.

Microsoft Corporation
Main site for product information, support, and news.

WordPress.com
Free blogs managed by the developers of the WordPress software. Includes custom design templates, integrated stats, automatic spam protection and many more features.

IN.com
IN.com gives you a short @in.com email address, and lets you find the best of News, Music, Videos and Games, from more than 16,000 websites.

Naukri.com
India’s No. 1 job site.

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation
Offers online rail ticket booking, and checking of ticket reservation status. Includes train schedules, availability of tickets, and a travel planner.

Cricinfo
International cricket news, live scores, photos, columns and player profiles. Provides archive scorecards, statistics database, ratings and email newsletter. Part of ESPN International. UK.

Orkut
Social networking and discussion site operated by Google.