Display Microsoft Word’s Special Characters through Apache

Recently, I carried out a Linux server upgrade for a client where I did a clean install of the latest operating system/distribution. Since it was a clean install I had to backup and note down the earlier configuration (of mail server, web server, database) and redo those changes. Mostly I preferred not to simply overwrite with the backed up configuration files. I rather documented and edited the configuration manually.

It all seemed to have gone smoothly and the new server has been up and running. But one not-so-fine day, the client started complaining that some HTML pages are not displaying properly. These were showing question marks (?) and some other weird characters. I figured out that these HTML pages were generated using Microsoft Word and had those special characters (closing quotes, double hyphens etc.). I discussed with the client that this could be a web browser problem because it is not able to use the correct character set. Read the rest of this entry »

Android to India: A Shipping FAQ

Writing this post with an Android Dev Phone 1 (ADP1) lying besides me. Refer to my earlier post for more on ADP1. I bought it through Android Market and it was shipped to New Delhi, India to my residence in about 3 days. While ordering the phone I had doubts and apprehensions, about its cost and shipping to India, which are now quenched – after all I have a working and ringing phone in my hand

I thought it would be a good idea to share the ordering and shipping experience with others – especially those who are wanting to get hold of an ADP1 in India. Instead of writing the entire experience chronologically, I thought I would  jot it as a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). Following were a few questions that bothered me while ordering the phone, while the phone was being shipped and when I got to unbox it: Read the rest of this entry »

A Web 2.0 App Directory

Stumbled upon this website called Feedmyapp (www.feedmyapp.com) about a month back. Have been a frequent visitor ever since, just to browse through! I must admit, it is very correctly titled as “Your Daily Web 2.0 Sites Dose”. It is nothing but a huge list of Web 2.0 applications. These include, at a broad level:

• Websites
• Frameworks
• Utilities

Websites are a list of sites which are so called Web 2.0 based, frameworks are those which allow a developer to build a Web 2.0 websites and utilities are tiny apps which you can use while building a site. The Feedmyapp website categorizes these under categories like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Chat, E-mail, Frameworks and even Dating! Read the rest of this entry »