Shahid Online - Tech Corner

Have you ever noticed those nice pictures with the smooth round corners?  Have you ever contemplated how it's done? Now without the power of Photoshop this is possible with   RoundPic.com . All you have to do is upload your image and specify the corners and the size of the rounding (with other options).  The image is then preview on the web page waiting for you to download it.  And that's it.  In just a few seconds you have a rounded image. 

I know, I know. There's a lot of tools out there to help with editing XML and XSL files and a whole lot of other mess. While creating an XML-based web site system in my current role, I wanted to be able to just test my XSL before plugging it in to my code in case it started causing any difficulties. Basically, all I need was a transformation tool that works like in Altova XMLSpy. I couldn't find many, and when I did, in some cases it wasn't presented in an obvious way where the general interface complicated things. Almost giving up, I decided to hack together a simple tool myself. Since the required system is in ASP.NET and I haven't done application development in a long time, I gave C# a shot. For me the tool worked like a charm and does "exactly what it says on the tin". My colleagues even took a liking to it. So I would like to share it with you. I've simply called it XML Transformer and you can get hold of it from here . Features There's not much...

As everyone would have gathered by now is that I am an open source freak. By the way I'm proud of it. Given this, I have been keenly following an app called Songbird for a while now. It is a cross-platform music player and library, which can handle playback of most music formats (think iTunes). Conveniently enough it is based on the technology that Firefox utilises (Mozilla-based software), giving it the ability of supporting plugins. These plugins range from supporting music from the iTunes store and syncing with your iPod as well as other mainstream portable media players. While I mentioned that it is like iTunes, it actually goes further than being a simple music player and library. Being a Mozilla-based app it comes with a built in web browser allowing you to roam the online music world. As you visit websites the app automatically lists available tunes giving the choice to listen to it (streaming) or to download it. Last but not least it can integrate with Last.fm, you c...