Archive for January, 2009

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Fri 9 Jan 2009

Gmail changed its favicon, How to add one to yours ?

Posted by cyriac under Tips & Tricks
[13] Comments

After a long stretch of work time in front of my laptop, I was about to call for a time-up. Then I checked my email once again, which is then I found out, Gmail changed their favicon!!! Earlier it was a simple G ,but now they have added some colors to it.

I like the change anyway, its about time.

First of all let me tell clarify what a favicon is, to the ones who don’t know what am talking about. Favicon is a small graphic associated with every website (page). It is essentially the icon in internet, similar to that in your computers.

So Gmail has changed their favicon, have you ?

Here’s how to add a favicon to your site.

Step 1: Create your favicon.

You can either download from the tens of thousands available from internet.

You can create one yourself. Make sure the image size is exactly 16X16, not a pixel more.

Tip: While creating you can use larger sizes such as 32X32 and then resize it.

Make sure your the file type extension is .ico (windows icon).

Step 2: Upload it to your root folder using any FTP client.

Step 3: If you had named the file with “favicon.ico”, then the favicon should automatically show up. Most browsers will automatically pick the icon up.

If its not comming, dont panic. Clear your cache then you re-try, even try another browser or try after some time, it should work.

Step 4: Add the following code to your <head> section.

<head>
  <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="http://www.mydomain.com/myicon.ico"/>
  <title>My Title</title>
</head>

Actually the standards set in internet recommends that you use Step 4 not Step 3.
Thats how you add favicons. Try adding a favicon for your site now itself. Did you succeed or failed ? Did you resolve the problem ? Share your experience to others here as comments.

 

Tue 6 Jan 2009

My office caught fire!

Posted by cyriac under Controversies
[3] Comments

Last week there was havoc in ITES Habitat Center. It was caused due to a (false) fire alarm triggered. Me along with my friends were sitting in our office and two of my friends, Jojo and John went out to have a coffee. After some time we heard a smoke alarm beeping. We thought it might be some error in the system, but then one after another smoke alarms tripped.

Security people where running all over and in 10 seconds we lost power. I went outside to investigate whats going on. When i reached the lobby what i saw was somewhat shocking.

Thick smoke was coming from the North wing and people where running outside. I rushed to my office and told people there, Lijo, Charles, Sajeesh to go outside, there is a fire outside. Within few seconds they cleared the office. Then i phoned Jojo and yelled on the loud speaker, “Come to office, there is a F.I.R.E. in our office”. He didn’t believed me at first, I had to tell couple of times to convince him.

We all cleared our offices and went outside. Just after 30 seconds (roughly after 5 minutes the beginning) a fire truck came to the scene.

After staying there for some time, we found out that it was a false fire trigger. All of us except me went to home, while i stayed in the office (devoted to work :D ). Then I had a chat with our security officer, and he said what caused all this. First we thought something (electrical) burned in the A/C room and smoke spread through the centralized A/C vent. But later it was found that some people (workers in the stadium) outside office burned some stuff and the smoke was sucked in by the A/C air intake system. They said it was due to a thrown away cigarette bud.

Again after further investigation, they found that these people outside burned waste thermocol and it produced the foul smelling smoke, which everybody misunderstood as a fire caused by electrical failure. Later when these people found the mess they had created, they poured water on the fire and then put a cigarette bud so that they can say it was an accident.

Since no damage was caused to anyone, none of the workers had any trouble.

Story time is over. Now lets get to something serious. Do you know what to do when your office/house caught a fire ? Click here to read a detailed guidelines on what to do. I think everyone should read it atleast once, because you dont know when….

Did you like the story ? Have your experienced something similar ? Please share it below through comments.