Windows 7 which is the working name of Microsoft’s next Major window release is scheduled to be released some time late 2009 or early 2010. Windows 7 user interface was demonstrated for the first time at the D6 conference. Graphically it looks great .Far better than Vista. Here are some screen shots of the UI from d6 Conference.

CakePHP is a rapid and quick development framework (just like ruby) that helps in quick development and deployment of an application. It follows common design patterns like MVC.

Structure
CakePHP follow MVC architecture so there are three basic layers in CakePHP.

Controllers
A controller is used to manage the logic for a part of your application. Each controller can offer different functionality; controllers retrieve and modify data by accessing database tables through models; and they register variables and objects, which can be used in views. Controller can use different Components to implement the logic.

Models
Models represent data and are used in CakePHP applications for data access. A model usually represents a database table but can be used to access anything that stores data.They can connect to your database, query it (if instructed to do so by a controller) and save data to the database.

Views
The view layer of CakePHP is how you speak to your users. Views should not contain complex business logic; only the elementary control structures necessary to perform particular operations, such as the iteration of collected data through a for each construct, should be contained within a view.

Deployment and Baking
CakePHP comes with baking feature which greatly reduces development time for simple crud based applications>All you have to do is Create a database and Cake will do the rest for you with all the logic and views with links automatically created.

You can follow the examples on Cake Official Website to get started.
If you are already familiar with ruby and MVC architecture getting started on CakePHP would be extremely easy.
For full details about CakePHP visit official site for further details.

Just few days back Pakistan armed forces started there latest offensive against Taliban with aim to push them back away from the provisional capital of Peshawar.

Pakistan armed forces and government are facing a tough dilemma here. Though how hard they try things keep on getting worse and worse. If government reaches a truce or pact with Taliban and Islamic extremists the American lobby starts shouting and every terrorist act in Afghanistan is blamed on Pakistan side of the border. If government goes on offensive against the extremists like Baitullah Mehsud or Mangal Bagh the internal opposition to government increases with increase in extremism and support for people like Baitullah Mehsud or Mangal Bagh in frontier and also a series of suicide bomb blasts across the whole country.

And all the time the American media and watch dogs keep on shouting about the failure of Pakistani armed forces and there inability to protect the borders where the fact of the matter is that it is the failure of American and Nato armed forces that allowed all these extremist and Taliban to cross over into Pakistan which has made situation inside Pakistan extremely fragile.

One must understand that these extremists fight a Gorilla tactic war and if the whole American and Nato armed forces with highly sophisticated technology could not contain the extremist elements in Iraq and Afghanistan then they should think twice before pointing fingers against the Pakistan Army.

This post is a reaction to the article “Pakistan: Negligent on Terror?” , published in TIME on 30^th June.

Inspiration for following few Dangerous knowledge posts is BBC doucumentry known as “DANGEROUS KNOWLEDGE” which is a must see and recommended.

“Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (March 3, 1845 – January 6, 1918 ) was a German mathematician. He is best known as the creator of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are “more numerous” than the natural numbers. In fact, Cantor’s theorem implies the existence of an “infinity of infinities”. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers, and their arithmetic. Cantor’s work is of great philosophical interest, a fact of which he was well aware.The harsh criticism has been matched by international accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer.”

“Cantor was the first to formulate what later came to be known as the continuum hypothesis or CH: there exists no set whose power is greater than that of the naturals and less than that of the reals (or equivalently, the cardinality of the reals is exactly aleph-one, rather than just at least aleph-one). Cantor believed the continuum hypothesis to be true and tried for many years to prove it, in vain. His inability to prove the continuum hypothesis caused him considerable anxiety.”
“The difficulty Cantor had in proving the continuum hypothesis has been underscored by later developments in the field of mathematics: a 1940 result by Gödel and a 1963 one by Paul Cohen together imply that the continuum hypothesis can neither be proved nor disproved.”

Full Article at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor

“It seems our worst fears may come true. For the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole in 2008 itself, giving evidence to the process of global warming.

The disappearance of the Arctic Sea ice, making it possib

le to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic — and worrying — examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.”

Full Article at :

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/An_ice-free_Arctic_this_year/articleshow/3173764.cms

“Construction of the world’s first moving building, a 80-storey tower with revolving floors which give it an ever-shifting shape, is due to begin in Dubai.”

The Dynamic Tower, which will be built in Dubai, will feature 80 pre-fabricated apartments, spinning independently of one another.

 

Full Article and Videos at : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7472722.stm

“The race is part of the Google Lunar X Prize, which will put $20 million into the hands of the first privately funded team that can land a rover on the moon; have it travel on the surface for 500 meters or more; send back data, photos and video; and do it all by December 31, 2012.”

“The prize drops to $15 million after that date and goes away altogether after 2014.”

Full article at http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/06/20/google.lunar.xprize/index.html

Nice article about the early days of Microsoft and Bill’s Business Approach.

here are the few Extracts:

“it wasn’t just what Microsoft did, but what his rivals didn’t do that let Microsoft get ahead”

“They did not understand how to bring in people with business experience and people with engineering experience and put them together. They did not understand how to go around the world.”

“Most of our competitors were one-product wonders. “

“They would do their one product, but never get their engineering sorted out.”

“They did not think about software in this broad way. They did not think about tools or efficiency. They would therefore do one product, but would not renew it to get it to the next generation.”

Full article and bill interview Video at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7464074.stm 

This is an extract from speech by CARLY FIORINA from HP Executive team.

“There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.

One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization’s commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.

And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration.

Its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things.

When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others.

While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.

Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians. Sufi poet-philosophers like Rumi challenged our notions of self and truth. Leaders like Suleiman contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership.

And perhaps we can learn a lesson from his example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population–that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions.

This kind of enlightened leadership — leadership that nurtured culture, sustainability, diversity and courage — led to 800 years of invention and prosperity.

In dark and serious times like this, we must affirm our commitment to building societies and institutions that aspire to this kind of greatness. More than ever, we must focus on the importance of leadership– bold acts of leadership and decidedly personal acts of leadership.“

For Complete Speech visit  http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/speeches/fiorina/minnesota01.html.

Read this article on bbcnews.

A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080. Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050. Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980. By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013. “I think we’re going to beat last year’s record melt, though I’d love to be wrong,” said Dr Stroeve. “If we do, then I don’t think 2013 is far off anymore. If what we think is going to happen does happen, then it’ll be within a decade anyway.”

for Full Article visit : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7461707.stm