xAbhishek

Google PageRank

2007-03-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

xAbhishek.com, I always thought has not been a great destination for web traffic. When I looked at my Google Analytics account, I saw a significant rise in the number of unique views since December. From an average of 20 unique views in December, it has risen to a great 130 unique views per day. In December when I had checked my PageRank, it showed me a disappointing zero. Now a check brought it up to 2. Whoah!

That’s a significant rise, and the subdomain blog.xabhishek.com continues to have a zero PageRank, which is why I have decided to relocate my blog to the root of my domain, xabhishek.com.

It is my view that these constant changes in my blog’s URL has been a big pain in the neck for regular visitors but on a brighter note visitors will no longer have to type as long a URL to reach my blog. I would recommend people who have subscribed to my Blog’s RSS Feed to change the link to the new one on the sidebar(on the left).

Thanks for Visiting

Skype - Still the best?

2007-03-14T01:43:00.000-07:00

I suddenly felt like having a chat with a few relatives abroad. So starting with Yahoo Messenger, I share my experience.

Yahoo MSGR talk has been displaying a silly error: Network Unreachable.

When I try using MSN, I can either hear my family on the other side of the globe speak or can they hear me. It's only either of the two.

With Google Talk, I get a good voice connection but no video. Good to see that their products' features do the job they are supposed to be. The power of Beta- making the world test their software without taking any responsibility if anything goes wrong.

With Skype, I am able to speak with a dialup connection and video-chat with broadband. Featuring no signal breaks, and no MTNL-Noise™. Skype doesn't display errors like: The person at the other end may be using another version of Yahoo "never inter-compatible" Messenger.

Doesn't Yahoo know well that people are not going to waste time to look at their new highly sophisticated messenger when the existing messenger is as highly sophisticated.

Wirefly- Awesome Phone Deals

2007-03-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Wirefly.com is the leading independent retailer of cell phones, mobile phones and cellular service on the Internet, featuring award-winning comparison tools, 100% satisfaction guarantee on any purchase or money back, free FedEx shipping throughout the United States, free return shipping, and offering post-paid and pre-paid wireless services plus free and discounted phones from carriers such as Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, T-Mobile To Go, Sprint, Nextel, Cingular, Cingular GoPhone, Liberty Wireless, Alltel, U.S. Cellular, Disney Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Amp’d Mobile. Almost all brand of phones in the market can be found at Wirefly, including Amp’d Mobile, Audiovox, Blackberry, Firefly, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Novatel Wireless, Palm, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson and UT Starcom.

Wirefly claims to be the number 1 seller of cell Phones and wireless plans in United States. A check with Alexa Traffic Ranking shows that Wirefly’s traffic rank consistently hover as top 10,000 websites, which may prove its claim. WireflyMobile allows users to search by phone brand, carrier or service plan, including family plan.

The best strength of Wirefly is availability of all information you need to make a purchase of handphone and mobile plan in one place with easy of use and simple accessibility. Once you open up Wirefly homepage, you will see great and special deals or promotions on new cell phones from every mobile service providers in US. Beside, to the left, you have a list of top ten free phones, allowing you to select and get a popular free phone instantly. Beside, you can also get the best available prices sorted by price for phone that you interested in by simply entering you ZIP code to verify offer availability.

Even if you’re not planning to shop for a phone, visit Wirefly for resources related to mobile wireless technology may be fruitful. Wirefly has prepared a resource section which features shopping resources such as wireless basics, how to keep your numbers, and device protection, cell phone etiquette and cell phone manuals.

If you’re have ordered a cellphone from Wireless, you will be able to track your order and check your Wirefly rebate status. Other than phone and mobile plan, Wirefly also sells accessories for the cell phone and offers ringtones download.

As usual, Wirefly is only available in US। It’s a great one stop website that offers a glance and comparison on almost every available mobile phone and carriers’ mobile service or wireless plan in US. Price wise, it can go cheaper than a lot of free phones that been giveaway for free.

Check out their cell phone plans and deals.

Google AJAX Search API

2007-03-10T03:23:00.000-08:00

I've finally got the Google AJAX Search API working as I always wanted it to. The problem I was facing was that Google wasn't indexing my pages properly because I had submitted an incorrect sitemap using Google webmaster tools. I changed the sitemap recently but still saw that it had no effect on the quality of search results.

When I visited blogsearch.google.com, I saw that it had indexed my blog perfectly. Every page was linked and ready for the world to see. It still isn't clear as to why these results aren't included in Google search and restricted to a Google sub-domain that is obviously not visited by everyone as frequently.

Anyway, I changed the search function from GwebSearch() to GblogSearch() and that did the trick। Awesome results.

I recommend that you clearing your cache if hitting the refresh button does not help you see the results I see. I am just feeling a whole lot happier than I did this morning giving the most boring English paper ever.

I Google, Therefore I Am!

अन्ग्रेज़ी exam over

2007-03-10T00:57:00.000-08:00

Why does English mean boring for the CBSE?

And don't they understand that too much of everything makes things malicious.

Even Gandhigiri!

Relief from Tension

2007-03-08T02:18:00.000-08:00

If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out.
Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
It ain't the jeans that make your butt look fat.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.
If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
A conscience is what hurts when all of your other parts feel so good.
Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.
Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.
No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes.
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.
Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.
Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.
There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.
Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator.
Someone who thinks logically, provides a nice contrast to the real world.
If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.

Chemistry 'Bored' Exam over

2007-03-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

Just to say that the Chemistry board exam was so friggin easy that all of us had completed it in 2 hours, and hence it was a 'Bored' exam. Physics was good too.

English here I come!

Update: I would like to thank Prateek Rungta(linked on fotogrAbhishek) for all the help with AJAX search API.

Nike Ad

2007-03-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

Ankit 's Life And Technology Reviews: Nike Cricket Ad, WOW

Check out the awesome Nike video.

Boards Start Today

2007-02-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

Ah! Now the easy part. Giving the exams.

Thanks for all the greetings and wishes for the boards. I didn't know so many people read my blog. Thanks again.

Spam, Spam and more Spam!

2007-02-22T01:25:00.000-08:00

My blog, my email inbox, and just about every service I have subscribed to that involves posting comments has spam and plenty of it. The only preventive measure is CAPTCHA which generates word-verification images which are so difficult to decipher that I have almost finally decided a new spam-prevention measure, like the one currently implemented in revieware but only better after I am done with the board exams. That is March 22nd, my Maths exam. The next exam is Computer Science so I can give myself a lot of time on the computer during the 12 days of study leave.

I don't want to sound like Ankur Banerjee(aka the Great Quizzard) but of lately, Google hasn't been giving me results like Yahoo has been. Precision has certainly reduced, and the time taken to index a site is also way too much. When I added my blog to Yahoo search it had indexed it the next moment, and I was able to search throughout my archives. Google is certainly faster than Yahoo but hey in the broadband generation who cares anyway?
Yahoo has also introduced a service which I took note of only today. It's called Yahoo! Site Explorer which is rather good as it lets us track any website we like, with a list of any page-specific changes made to that particular website. Well organised display. Awesome, I should say.

Manipal University Virus

2007-02-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

Shocking! On downloading the Mock Test for the test formerly known as MAHE, I got this.

Flip3D for Windows XP

2007-02-19T01:49:00.000-08:00

While browsing digg today, I discovered a tiny app called TopDesk that enables Flip3D (the feature Microsoft has flaunted Vista with) on computers with Windows XP and 2000. By tiny I mean 826KB, something I could have downloaded even during the bad days of dialup.
As an alternate option, you can even switch to Exposé mode, that is you choose to can tile all open windows to choose the one you require like in Mac OS X:The app costs $14.95. Download here. The app looks pretty neat to me and therefore is another reason not to buy Vista. The one thing that's missing is transparent windows, but you can achieve that easily with Glass2K.

Usage: Alt+Tab once for flip mode, tab to flip windows, alt+tab to return.

Saying farewell to my alma mater

2007-02-17T01:39:00.000-08:00

Interesting(and funny) speeches by XII students, memento distribution, admit card collection and whole lot of fun(including the most important thing we're born for, eating). It's weird as even today I feel just as though I entered the school yesterday even though my association with the school has been since mid 1995, when I got admission into the school where many of my relatives had already studied. One more batch of Marians(what students of MSM call themselves) have left the school.

Bunking classes, interesting conversations with teachers and doing all the things-you-are-not-supposed-to do was fun in MSM, because breaking rules cannot be fun when you don't have them.

Today's another day, tomorrow's another one and memories are all that matter in life.
Now all we can think of is making college life as memorable, that is if and when we get in to college.

I've uploaded a couple of Farewell snaps to Yahoo! Flickr.

Canon Rock

2007-02-15T01:36:00.000-08:00

Jeong-Hyun Lim cover of Canon Rock had garnered over twelve and a half million views, over twenty eight thousand comments and favorited eighty-four thousand times, as of January 7, 2007. It is the fourth most viewed, most discussed, and second most favorited video on YouTube.

Lim stated to The New York Times that he recorded the audio and video independently and then matched them inexactly.

This song is absolutely awesome. Here's the mp3 for those of you who'd like to download it.

CompSc Board Practical Exam

2007-02-07T01:30:00.000-08:00

Our Computer Science HOD had warned us about practical exams earlier. He had said it is quite possible that our external examiner(as in the teacher who comes from another school to examine our potential in the subject's practical application) may be one who may not give marks so easily, unlike the usual teachers.

If he was being serious, it meant that we had to be prepared for the worst. So there I was being serious all day yesterday, studying Physics and occasionally opening my copy of Sumita Arora when my parents came in to my room to question my level of seriousness.

I was expecting our external examiner being some really-old-frustrated-wants-to-look-cool kind of guy. And when I faced him during my viva it really turned out to be the other way round. He was naturally cool and had immense knowledge about the subject he was teaching.

So here's how it went.

EE(External Examiner): What's the topic in CompSc on which I should question you?
Me: How about arrays, file handling, linked lists or structures?
EE: How about one?
Aseem(whispering in my ear): SQL bol yaar!
Me: Let's say SQL.
EE: Sure. Lock kardoon?
Me: Sure.
EE: Given a table with Son, Father as 2 columns. How will you make a selection from the table so that you can display the name of the Son and Grand Father.
Me: Okie...
EE(to Aseem): What is the difference between an equijoin and natural join?
Aseem: I think...
Me: Please could I answer Aseem's question please.
EE: I'm fine by that.
Me(after creating 2 tables of Bank details): When we select the name from first table and bankname from the second table, that would result in a natural join. With the same selection, if we put a condition like where table1.banknam=table2.bankname, it would result in an equijoin.
EE: Fine
EE: Why have you used BIOS.H in your project.
Me: Well...I think for sounds....oh no...bioskey..yeah...bioskey.
EE: Why?
Me: So that I can get the ASCII value of a keyboard character.
EE: Why is your ASCII value going in thousands when there are only 256 ASCII codes.
Me: Hmm...
EE: Ok..Call the next two people...

I was happy. Really happy. And my wasting time on revieware has actually done me good. Just recently, I was creating joins through MySQL and hoping the syntax would be similar here, I attempted the question. I confirmed that my answer was correct from my CompSc teacher. I was stunned, so was my teacher. He didn't expect me to know that since he hadn't taught us about joins. He said it was only in the Informatics Practices Syllabus.

Now that I'm over with the exam, one less tension with a full 30 in my practical exam from the computer teacher of Ramjas RKP(presumably) where Siddharth Razdan, Ayush Gupta and Shashank Shekhar have studied.

Activate Windows Vista

2007-02-02T21:57:00.000-08:00

Note: Using this method, Vista can be activated till June 2007.

1. Install Vista - WHen prompted for the Registration key, leave it blank.

Choose Vista Ultimate

2. After you have installed Vista, obtain the following two files from a Pre RTM Build:

A) pkeyconfig.xrm-ms

B) tokens.dat

3. Using MS File Explorer, navigate to c:\Windows\System32\Licensing\pkeyconfig

Right click on pkeyconfig.xrm-ms (may not show .xrm-ms if you left view as default to hide

known OS extensions)

4. Click on Properties, Security, Advanced, - Then click on the Owner Tab, then click

on Edit, press Administrator, then click OK, and close the properties.

5. Right click on pkeyconfig.xrm-ms again, and this time click on security, advanced,

edit, Select Administrators, then click on "full control". Save/Close the properties.

6. Click start, then in the search bar, type services.msc - look for a service called Software Licensing, press

the square on the title bar to stop this service (keep this screen open though)

7. Go back to file explorer, and copy the cracked version of pkeyconfig.xrm-ms into the

c:\Windows\System32\Licensing\pkeyconfig folder.

8. Navigate then to c:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareLicensing

You will be prompted along the way to supply admin rights to access this protected area.

9. Copy the cracked version of tokens.dat in this folder, you will be prompted for admin rights again.

10. Go back to the services.msc and press the triangle to start the Software Licensing services.

11. Goto the control panel, and click on System and Maintenace, then system, then in the upper right hand

corner, click on the Show more details, scroll to the bottom and change your registration key to your

RC1/RC2/Beta Key - and then activate Windows.

12. You are now done - have a nice day.

Board Exam starts tomorrow

2007-01-30T02:02:00.000-08:00

Oh yes. The practical exam.

Wish me luck!

A&$holes

2007-01-28T01:53:00.000-08:00

1. The guy living at F-32 Green Park for telling me not to park my car outside my house as that is his parking slot.
2. Mr. Taneja(frigging politician who gave an interview for the OpenSource column in a leading newspaper) for saying "iPods suck because people who have brains don't need to stick microphones into their ears" and also talking about how bad camera phones are and claims to be the only one on earth to use a camera phone wisely by using it for no more than making calls.
3. The guy at Google who disabled my AdSense account claiming I was making money on invalid clicks.
4. 126hits.com administrators for running the website which generates invalid clicks 24x7 without me registering with them.
5. Shambhu Kumar for spamming my inbox with emails to generate publicity for Jasubhai Media. For heaven's sake, I don't want to see cricketers dancing.
6. Bob Parsons. I didn't buy a domain to see your face in an email everyday.
7. Steve Ballmer for telling his kids to use MSN Search "since that's what pays for their meals".
8. Airtel Broadband Customer Service representatives for telling me to switch to a "faster" 512kbps plan when I am already using 1mbps.

In an unrelated incident, James Kim - one of the editors at CNet.com passed away in 2006. I had forgotten to blog this earlier. He was awesome, his reviews were even cooler. Handled the portable device segment at CNet. May his soul R.I.P.

Windows Vista Premium Computer

2007-01-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

Since I have this 24" Mac lying at home for a week, I decided to download Windows Vista and review it. The iMac passed the Windows Vista test on Microsoft.com and what better time than now to test Windows Vista, when many businesses have started conversions. I even got a key for the Ultimate edition from a friend closely linked to someone at Microsoft.

He couldn't give me the DVD because he is currently sitting thousands of miles away right now. So I am just forced to download the RTM from Demonoid. Even though I got a 1Mbps corporate connection, its of no use to me:

OSX86: The Final Moments

2007-01-20T08:27:00.000-08:00

In December, I got this DVD from a friend of mine whom I had given a lot of work before he could burn the DVD to my specifications. And since he is such a good friend of mine, he followed my instructions correctly and gave me the DVD as I needed it. Installed on my computer(using the same DVD) is OS X 10.4.5, but this is quite different from the one I had earlier. This custom compiled DVD incorporates all SSE2 patches the Maxxuss released to let me run OS X on my good old PC(not that it's really good) with least compatibility issues.

I have done a lot of things in the past one month with OS X and am almost done with it too. Downloads on Azureus, Designs on Photoshop and Sites on Dreamweaver and what not...

Made me go for a Mac! The big one too! What about u?

The only little problem I faced was my wireless card not functioning with OS X. That is the real reason I am disposing off the partition on which OS X is installed. In case you're wondering how I downloaded stuff on Azureus without a Wireless, then I should tell you a Wireless Access Point need not be the only way to connect to the internet.

Another reason of course, is that I don't have enough space to install Zod on my PC. The stupid thing needs 4 GB. The only way I can do anything is to say goodbye to the HFS Partition "MacHD".

Then why am I having trouble now?
Since my board exams are nearer than I had thought, my PC has been shifted to a place where only my Wireless card can work. Grrr...(Something I picked up from Varun Mishra, and before he could patent it too)

So what's up (other than studies)?
A lot. To let you in on a little secret, revieware is going to become big, very actually. And how am I doing it? That's the interesting part. I'm not doing anything. Then who is? You'll get to know soon. Also coming up soon is what I dub "The N Project". What's N? Let's say Nothing. Nothing that can be revealed yet.

This is something that should go into the hall-of-fame of funny internet photographs. The only real problem is that it isn't that famous. But if I found it on Manas Gautam's blog, that makes it famous.
Short About: Manas Gautam is this dude (not geeky dude) you may have seen at these computer quizzes which DPS RK Puram won. His blog goes into my BlogConnect and remains there as long as he continues posting those extremely cool posts there. Also added to my BlogConnect is Dhruv Kumar's blog. He is the one who won the quiz at my school. Equally Ubercool is his blog linked on the right.

Going through the archives of this blog, I have seen that the content of this blog has not evolved over time. That's good and bad. Good because it can be understood by anyone(in my generation). Bad because the search engines wont pay any attention to this blog and will treat it as just about any other blog on the web.

Skipping Captcha

2007-01-12T21:48:00.000-08:00

I haven't gone and searched on Google about this but here is how I think it is possible.

I printed out a series of Yahoo and Google account creation captcha images and scanned them with a 5 year old trial version of Caere OmniPage(don't know whether it still exists) on this new 24-inch iMac I have at home. Surprisingly the OCR converter, converted 6/10 of these images into text that matched accurately. I was to a certain extent happy with the results. Trying the same piece of software on Windows, I got only 2/10 converted to text(Why do Macs have to be so good?). Now it wouldn't be at all difficult to skip captcha at these millions of websites which use word verification by writing a script which uses a virtual scanner passing an image of an already existing word document into caere omnipage which could give the text output into the word verification form box through a plugin developed for Safari/Firefox. Sorry for the long sentences.

Difficult, but implementable.

Exams are nice

2007-01-09T04:19:00.000-08:00

I'm having fun studying these days. Don't know what's got into me. Macworld Conference today. I took the advice of a few people and that made me decide that I better not get a Windows computer. So I'll see whether there are any new computers released today and then finalize my buy.

Class Field Trip

2006-12-21T04:59:00.000-08:00

The last "official" day of our school was today. It was a day to remember. For the first time this year, Class 12 behaved like Class 12 should have. In every 5 minutes of the annual boring Christmas assembly at school, an "atom" bomb was going off. The coordinators were furious, but what could they do anyway. The people responsible were standing like just another bunch of innocent people. That showed the amount of practice that went into the process(timing the bombs to go off at regular time intervals).

So after the assembly we assembled near the bus-stand to get ready for our two-hour trip to Dam Dama lake. It's in Rajasthan(as airtel told me after adding 50 bucks to my bill as roaming charges) and we had many rounds of Truth or Dare on the way to keep our brilliant minds occupied. We even played this amazingly simple game called Bluff with a regular pack of 52 playing cards(Sometimes the IQ of science students can be compared to that of truck drivers in India).

When we reached the "Dream Island" Dam Dama between a lake void of water, we only then started realising that Rs.150(+ Rs.200 from our pockets) is an exorbitant amount that the school had spent only to see something much smaller than the usual Nehru Park we goto without spending anything. We couldn't do anything much but still we did our best to get our money's worth by losing as many footballs and volleyballs as we could.

We didn't get pizzas for lunch but the food was definitely better than what we got last year at last year's class field trip. After lunch we had this long photography session, and girls from TAFS being part of our photographs became a big issue and also a reason why their(TAFS) teachers started shouting(more like elephants screaming) at us. Now we angels of MSM were completely unaware of how they became part of our photographs and told them that we had deleted the photographs which had already been backed up via bluetooth on a dozen phones. Hmm...interesting day, I should say.

In another session of Truth or Dare while returning to school in the semi-deluxe bus(a revamped DTC-like bus with a couple of fans which didn't work), we had people doing strange things in front of our new chemistry(and class) teacher because of some strange mental illness that we had acquired after eating lunch. The toppers of the class were having a more complicated session of Truth or Dare, doing things they would do at the colleges(that they have already assumed they have got admission into).

Coming back home was also a roller coaster ride, with 10 boys other than me in my car and the trunk open throughout the ride. I was just hoping that this small WagonR of mine wont break down on it's way back home. And since it didn't I'm able to blog this long post about what we did on the last day of our schooling lives.

Right now I'm deciding on whether to get a MacBook Pro or Dell XPS ML 1710.

Untitled

2006-12-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

revieware is back.

I told you it would be short an sweet from now.

Shifted to xAbhishek.com

2006-12-08T23:40:00.000-08:00

From now, you've got to type in blog.xabhishek.com to access this blog. And you've probably done just that.

ThinkQuest 06

2006-11-26T23:20:00.000-08:00

We submitted our entries long back. The result came and we had lost. Our website: The Virtual Clinic was to generate awareness about technology and the way it can help developing countries in various fields. Siddharth Jha(USA), Abhay Rao(DPS Noida) and I were just hoping we'd win something.

This was sometime back and Siddharth dropped in an email recently telling me about how Google's PigeonRank has brought us to the top 10 results on the search query "100 Dollar Laptop Internet". Cool!

Exun 2006

2006-11-21T00:42:00.000-08:00

Yes, we went this time. And without our school's permission. Our school found out. And we still didn't get into any trouble, mainly because we came 2nd in Swat the Bug (and I take no credit for it). It was this certain Rahul Bhatnagar who really racked up his brains and helped us get what we did and I still haven't given him a treat for it. The organisers were presumably ex-Exunites and organisation is what we should learn from them.

The EXUN video, I thought, was pretty good. Others think otherwise.

Tried participating in the HardwareOC event, and all we could do was try. Didn't win anything. Quizzing is what I am really bad at. When you're at the PC it is different. If one option doesn't work, try the next one. And given no option, I just don't know what they expect me to write in a technical quiz.

Thankfully the quiz we had in the Matrix Challenge was not a preliminary round. If I had kept it like that, no one would have qualified into the real event.

revieware.net is up again after certain server problems that have been rectified only recently.

Movie downloads from MS

2006-11-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

From Engadget,
" Microsoft is announcing something fairly momentus, not for the gaming community, but for the CE industry. The Xbox 360, along with Akimbo, will be among the first mass-market devices able to download high def television programs -- and the first we know of in the states able to download HD movies. "

It wont be long till Zune and Urge have a service such as this to compete with iTunes. The one main reason everyone thought Microsoft wont do well was that they didn't have a movie download service. Once they do have something, we might see some good competition.

Bro. Bergins Music Meet

2006-11-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Our school organised the Bro. Bergins Music Meet yesterday. 10 schools participated in the Indian Music competition and 12 in the Western. The above clip is a RAW capture from the video I took during the western music competition. Mater Dei won the Overall trophy and also the trophy for being the best in Indian Music. St. Columba's was judged the best in Western Music. DPS RKP won the best instrumental award.

Video of the DPS RKP instrumental and St. Columba's solo in the clip above.

Playstation 3 Preview

2006-11-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you've got broadband access, I recommend you visit www.playb3yond.com instead of watching this video here. It is an ad campaign which even Ankur Banerjee will approve of. Are the game critics wrong? Heard of the rumor of PS3 consoles already being sold out at a couple of places? It isn't a rumor, it's truth. Wii have the future of gaming with us, and it ain't with Nintendo or Microsoft.

iPod: Back from the dead

2006-10-29T04:36:00.000-08:00

Not exactly. Close. It hurts to see no Apple logo at the push of the round button in middle of the click wheel. I had thought it finished charging last night. And now it wouldn't turn on. I began to think that Apple products could be as bad as Sony's products(They work for only a few more months after their warranties lapse). But still me being me, didn't believe that was the case even when I didn't see any sign of it waking up on it's dock.

And then I got this strange idea to turn on that stupid laptop which died earlier, and connect the dock to it's USB port. Seems like this iPod is going to do it's job for a much longer time than the newspapers say. And I haven't become deaf yet.

Custom Search Engine

2006-10-26T04:52:00.000-07:00

Google has released yet another service. This one, is going to be useful for all us web designers. I am not incorporating it into my blog right now, but will do so in the near future because of the amount of time it takes.

Also, when I do that I'll most probably use the AJAX Google Search API from the Summer of Code.

Regular blogging shall resume only in May 2007 when I'm done giving all my CBSE exams.

Better Results

2006-10-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

Looking forward to exams

2006-10-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

Oh, you're surprised. Even I am. From the end of one unit test, I am just waiting for the next one. Just like I was counting the days till Matrix-Ecomm 2006 began, I am now counting the number of days left for the last examination I need to write in my final year of schooling. And to my most approximate calculation, 137 is the number right now.

According to my classmates, IIT is the be all and end all of everything. And since that isn't the case for me, I have a little less pressure from my surroundings. In fact, it was class 10 where I found my parents' putting pressure on me most painful. That obviously doesn't mean the pressure is any less now. It only means I am better at managing it.

So finally I did get to assemble that computer I was talking about for my cousins. But the configuration has changed completely from what I had posted earlier. It turned out that I once again went with an Intel processor instead of AMD. So here is the config:

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 Ghz
Intel 946GX Chipset with Shader 2.0 and Intel Premium Audio
Microsoft Basic Input Set (Keyboard + Basic Optical Mouse)
Samsung 17" CRT
Corsair 1GB DDRII

This whole configuration itself costed a big Rs.35000. As you notice, I have not opted for any external GPU. That, because the 946GX has pretty good graphics for a motherboard and also because it would have gone beyond that certain budget set by my aunt. My cousins have never seen Ronaldinho's face on Fifa 06 before. One, because they didnt have a computer which was capable of rendering everything all at once. Two, the computer restarted before the Kick Off stage.

This computer has already been tested with Windows Vista Ultimate edition. According to me, ultimate is what it is rightly named and Windows is on top of my list of best operating systems. But for how long is a big question? The leopard is yet to rise...

Oh, and Happy Diwali to all!

revieware 2.0 beta

2006-10-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Just started testing revieware on it's own domain now. It is based on drupal because of the popular demand of revieware becoming cms-based. Everyone visiting my blog is requested to visit revieware.net and register. You'll automatically be able to post reviews on revieware.net without the need of invites.

Help the community grow.

I won...

2006-09-27T01:53:00.000-07:00

Today we had the inter-house Symposium. The topic as usual was a not-so-interesting one: The Relevance of Gandhi Today. So in order to make my presentation, I quickly compiled a couple of videos (stolen from Google obviously) and placed them on my Flash MX workspace. The result was pretty good (at least what I thought). But surprisingly today, Price House (mine) got the third position for the visual aid. I was pretty stunned and I wasn't the only one. I had heard the whole audience shouting "Price House" when our chief-coordinator asked them, "Any guesses for the first prize?". It doesn't make much of a difference for me now, since the audience loved my presentation. I can't comment much about judging since I have never actually seen how a symposium is judged but if I do compare it to Run 2005 in St. Columbas (where I got the first position) then *&%^#curses#$*!@ was how it was today.

Mr. Karan Bhola did an excellent job with his speech. The only big mistake he did was to stare at the podium when he was nervous to make it look like he read the speech out. He in fact didn't do that and was staring at this dumb wooden box held upright for no reason which made him lose all his points. It's a start for him and a good one.

We also had the quiz today and the people whom I thought would win once again didn't, but this time it was only luck that didn't take their side. Poor Suraj and Amlan.

As I had promised my friends before the symposium, the videos which I used in my visual aidhave been published on my website and available for download.

Galaxy 42

2006-09-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

How important do you think you are when you see that you are only one among the googol (and counting) number of species in this universe that may or may not be ape-descended like we are?

You are eligible to ask such questions only after having the satisfaction of finishing the best book you've ever read at 11:30 PM. I've just revised the answer to life, the universe, and everything for the second time.

It's most probably only a coincidence that I finished watching the movie based on the best book you've ever (or never) read, today at 11:30 PM. But the reason may also be the answer to the question that was never asked, the question whose answer is already known to us.

Unusual is not a good word to describe a situation where a person like me begins to love a book only exactly a year after I read it because, well, I'm an Earthling. The movie, I must say, is much better than any Harry Potter movie or Hindi blockbuster that you've seen recently. It is also one of the few movies where people are fully dressed, if you wanted to know whether you can watch it with your parents. If watching the movie wasn't enough, I found a 12 year old D0S-based computer game that is astonishingly simple to play, but at the same time very difficult for menschlich(like us) to interpret.

If you're using a fairly decent computer, and are browsing the internet using a good browser, then it shouldn't be difficult for you to download the movie or look for the book I'm talking about in some decent library on this very small planet of ours. Douglas Adams is a good man.

Wireless Routers

2006-09-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

Buying Routers
Choosing a wireless router for home networking can be quite a task. If you had buy a car and had to choose between a WagonR and a Benz, and you're on a tight budget then the decision to be made can be quite simple and obvious! But choosing wireless routers isn't that simple because almost every company prices it's router at the same price as the competition does. And since I always think about quality first; price second, most vendors at Nehru Place find it quite frustrating while trying handle my dozens of questions. It's not that I try to make fun of them, I only expect them to know as much(the bare minimal) as the GeekS quad does.

Even with so many shops and so many different people to consult, I find that I get no help because the person either thinks he is too big for his boots or he thinks that he'd better not show me his foolishness. After long discussions, I ended up buying the Netgear WGR614 which is the cheapest G-Wireless LAN Compliant Router Netgear manufactures. There is one thing I've learnt being an Indian in India. You've got to buy sasta-kam-tikao(cheap but enough to get your work done) stuff because of the dust-heat-humidity problem which causes most household appliances to last only 1 month more than their respective warranties. So I didn't have much of an option but to go for this one as it was the most popular one in the market and also close to the smallest too.

Setting up routers
I have setup 3 routers successfully and surprisingly all three didn't work when I used the manual bundled with their packages. Instead, when I plugged in the Ethernet cable from the ISPs' Routers into the ethernet socket of the different routers, I saw Bon Echo welcoming me instantly.

Setting up routers is easy but only if you know what you're doing. If you don't, like I didn't the first time I tried setting up one(failed 4 times, succeeded the 5th time), then you'll feel like returning the router you've just purchased for a new one that isn't so buggy. But me being the way I am, I Googled and Googled till I found an answer in one link on some wierd forum on some 20th page of Google's search results. Google's search snippets are so cool, that I never had to click on any link in the first 19 pages of search results as I know what I'm reading.

I haven't yet done too much of research on how these routers work, but since I know all of them work fine when I plug the internet cable into their ethernet ports instead of the internet ports, am happy I made this discovery which I am sharing with you. Most probably, it is something that a million others have already blogged about, but I need to have this on record.

NDTV doesn't know shit about Wireless Routers
When the NDTV guys gave an explanation on their Gadget Guru Show about how to setup Wireless Routers they were actually reading the introductory paragraph you'd see on any routers product manual. This way people will obviously get false impressions since these introductions are meant to make you feel you've made the right choice and nothing more. It is in the following pages that you see how dumb you were to think it is as easy as the NDTV guys had said.

Moral of the story:
If you ever need advice about hardware, installation, etc. you'll have to use Google like I do. It gives you precise results, and since it is not human-controlled it leaves out all the content that isn't important.

The science of buying a router would still be unclear to me, if I were to buy another one tomorrow. But this is something that wouldn't make me as nervous as my Chemistry unit test in two weeks will. Plus, we've got places like CNET.com to give us moral support when we go gadget-shopping.

Touch screen iPod? Not quite.

2006-09-13T02:07:00.000-07:00

We haven't got the iPod we've been waiting for. We didn't see any big changes in the iPod. What we got was pretty much what we expected. The iTunes Music Store has now become the iTunes Store. This means you finally get to see full feature films that you can purchase from iTS.

Well we did see that the 5.5G iPod(60 GB and 80 GB) that they released yesterday has search capabilities, so that you may listen to the track you want not only by browsing the whole library but by simple text-searching. This is of course the only new feature the iPod or any other mp4/mp3 player has never had before.
Update: This feature is seen even with the 5G iPods with a firmware update.

The not-so-interesting iPod shuffle has had a very-interesting cosmetic change. Not only has it become smaller, it has also become cheaper. Seeing Apple's web cast I noticed that it is indeed the smallest mp3 player in the world and also a gadget that could get lost so very easily.

iPod nano. This is the iPod everyone loves. It is also the most popular iPod, after the mini it replaced a year back. The iPod nano replaced this battery-efficient multi-colour iPod mini (I own one) last year. I along with many others didn't like their idea of having the iPod nano only in black and white. That is something I no longer care about.

iPod Shuffe | iPod nano | iPod | iTunes

iTV is the new media streaming device to be launched next year. It looks like a smaller mac mini and can really lighten up our living rooms, because it's made by...Apple! I cant explain it better than engadget can. So, click here.

I love Mac OS...

2006-09-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

...but not on my Mac. I have this PowerBook that is astonishingly slow. Well, it isn't slower than Windows XP which takes a whole lot of time to start no matter how expensive your hardware is. So, on my 2.0 GHz P4 comp with only a mere 256MB of RAM clocked at 400 MHz I am greeted by OS X Shell(Finder) just 13 seconds after I push the oval power button on my CPU. Since I have multiple operating systems on this single 400 GB hard disk of mine, configuring Grub for each OS has been quite a pain. 13 seconds is simply awesome since Windows XP takes 43 seconds(makes me feel like screaming). The PowerBook G4 takes a little above 35 seconds before I notice iChat bouncing on the dock.

Though it is most probably not going to happen, I feel Apple should release Mac OS X Leopard so that it may run natively on PCs. It would be good for Apple's software division but may be like murdering their iMacs, Mac Minis and MacBooks. If that ever happens, I do not see much of a future for Windows.

But even if it doesn't happen, I don't see Windows Vista going anywhere just like they do.

I've never assembled an AMD PC before an I'm going to do just that in a few weeks for my aunt who has said she needs a comp that can fulfill my cousins' gaming needs.
The configuration is going to be pretty basic:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Graphic Card: nvidia 7300 GT
HDD: Western Digital/Seagate 250 GB 7200 RPM
RAM/Memory: Corsair 512X2 DDR 400 Dual Channel
Optical Drive: Sony/LG DVD +-RW
Monitor: Syncmaster 740N
Speakers: Logitech X-230
PSU: PowerSafe 400
Case: Gigabyte Triton

Cost: N/A

Operating System: Since they have a laptop that needs Rs.32000 worth of repairing done, I'm going to use the OEM Serial Number for Windows XP Home Edition from the Presario 2100 so that we may have a PC with the "Windows Genuine Advantage". And this is legal as we will be discarding the laptop and using Windows only on one hard disk.

I was thinking of getting a 7600GT earlier but it's way too expensive with any motherboard combination. The total cost would be somewhere near the cost of the Mac Mini but what we get here is a computer that will work with most of the games released in the next 2 years(hopefully!). Once the assembly is over, I get to have a first look at the XNA Game Studio.
Note: I don't think I've used many technical terms here but in case I have, Google will be more than happy to help you.

Ossum Ad!

2006-09-08T23:35:00.000-07:00


The latest film from hp. Go inside Cuban's laptop and find some things you might not know about him. Groundbreaking visual effects in this one. JayZ and Shaun White came first - and even more to come. Watch others films at hp.com/Personal

Surprise Event, no longer a surprise

2006-09-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

I'm darn sure that Apple's upcoming surprise event is going to be one that is going to shake the companies manufacturing their so-called "iPod killers". I found out that Apple may be embedding nVidia chips into their next-gen iPods. One would wonder: Why?

The ultimate portable gaming rig? Probably not. But you never know, their holding their "Surprise Event" may not be surprising but I'm waiting for some surprising...Apple stuff. Their Mac Pros have an interesting design, yes...but they are just beginning to look boring and the most probable reason as many have already said would be their focusing too much on the iPod. If this reason is true, then...let's just wait for their Surprise Event.

Update: Just 2 minutes after writing this post I found out that Apple has release these beauties which made me cancel my existing amazon.com order:

In addition to this, Apple has also updated their line of Mac Minis. Was waiting for a surprise and I got one immediately. Wow!

xAbhishek.com and revieware.net are now mine

2006-09-03T04:10:00.000-07:00

It pains to see that GoDaddy adbar each time I open xAbhishek.com. But I'm still happy since I'm getting 5GB of free space along with the domains I bought for a little less than $20. If I chose to disable the hosting and simply forward the domain to my blog, then those ads would obviously go whoosh! But since I may like to use that small amount of space they're providing us, I'm going to leave it as it is for the time being.

I even have this php script that hides that ad bar, but since it would violate their T&C, I would prefer not to use it. Also, please note the change in my email address through my profile.

You may wonder why I bought this domain so suddenly. Well, I realized that a year from now I may not get even half the domains I search for with the increasing number of domain registrations everyday and since revieware is still a bright idea that needs to be implemented properly, I dont want my efforts to go waste because of some lunatic who tries to copy the idea. I wanted a domain for myself and since I couldn't get abhishek.com or abhishekn.com, I got xabhishek.com. x in xAbhishek as x in x86. And since x is a variable it may tend from 0 to infinity and still look confusing.

Here is this amazing firefox ad which I uploaded when I was feeling a bit bored:

MINET 2006

2006-09-01T03:03:00.000-07:00

It's only the second time today that I have been to The Mothers International School. The last time I went there, I was seeking for an admission into the school when I was five. As far as I can recollect the school looks pretty much the same way as it used to look to me at that age(except that PCs now have more RAM). And it looked bad to be honest.

Well, I am not saying this because we didn't win anything. I am only saying this looking at how I would feel if I were in place of those poor students organising the whole thing. From the looks of the faces of their teachers, I could see that they were least interested. And when the teachers show no interest, how can students' work be recognised. Now that MSM has had it's symposium, I can rate every other symposium in comparison to ours(MATRIX 2006). Talking about MINET 2006, PALE is the word.

The web designing event was pretty good, even though we lost. I could see that I have a unique version of Windows XP at home which supports XMLhttprequest(ajax) as it surely didnt work over there. So the result was that we couldn't make the site we had planned to make as quickly as we otherwise would have. If I had known about this ajax issue, I would have spent that amount of time we had lost doing something more productive at home, sleeping! Lesson learnt, make simple websites with lots of images no matter what judges may say. Because they still give the prize to the guy who's site would take 5 minutes to open up on dial-up.

As we worked for two hours on those 2ghz PCs with such an unfair amount of RAM, we were recieving a dozen smses about the events we won at this year's Economm at DPS RK Puram today. Someone also tells me, DPS has become even more of a factory this year after he went there for Fireball yesterday. Anyway, I am only looking forward to going for 3 more symposiums this year where I hope the judges will have more knowledge than us so that we may finally get some non-controversial results!

Matrix- Ecomm 2006 - The End

2006-08-26T06:11:00.000-07:00

It's the event I had been waiting for since Jan 2006. It's right to say at this time that the beginning always had to have an end. Unfortunately that end was today. The end of Matrix - Ecomm 2006 will always be engraved in our memory as we have messages permanently engraved on our iPods. The end of this symposium begins another race, one that I have been waiting for quite long.

Working for the symposium has brought down my academic result considerably. And now is the time to fix that. 11 events, 2 days and 14 hours of time has surely been quite a lot of time. It was fun to see that I know more than a whole lot of people. Others not knowing what Pyra.com created is very sad. It's the service we have been using so religiously, and the one service that requires us to think even in front of the computer.

Today my blog has been promoted to Class 12. Which means fewer posts and lesser time.

Countdown 9, 8, 7, ...5 days remaining

2006-08-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

Just a month ago, all of us at school thought there was lots of time to prepare everything for the symposium. But now, most of us think otherwise. Now, no matter how much work we do, it certainly doesn't seem to be enough. At one end we are doing our best to get things right and at the other end, people are just procrastinating. I only hope these certain people I am talking about wake up soon, because there isn't any time left for napping!

MINET 2006 has thankfully been postponed to 1st and 2nd September and is no longer clashing with our symposium. It would have been foolish anyway to have the symposium on the same day as ours and sending the invitation just 6 days earlier. Thankfully in some places, unlike most, brains are used for the good.

I was really surprised to hear that our rule of allowing a student to participate in only in event would become so scandalous. It clearly shows the lack of talent and interest in technology in today's world. It is quite evident even in our school, where people are more interested in studying(or saying that they're interested) and wouldn't spare any free time for something new, something that they already don't know. Oh, why would they? They'd prefer to switch on the idiot box instead.

Anything new?

Other than the symposium there are not many things(new) happening. Oh well, Google has done some new things with Blogger and Google Talk, but they are features that should have always been there which is why my brain finds it difficult to be processed as "new". Why can't domain names be free like email addresses are ? I could do so many more things rather than wasting my free time searching for cheap ways to get them done.

Good Night...umm...Good Morning!

10 Days and Counting...

2006-08-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

It's August 15th and there are just 10 days left for you-know-what. I was planning to use Windows Live Writer to write this post, but after starting it's installation Microsoft told me to download a 24MB .NET Framework so that it may work. The connection I am using has download limits, as my WiFi laptop has been pronounced dead.

So the legit version of Leopard is already out on the bay. Most PC users are already happy with Windows XP and Windows 2000 and like I said earlier the transition to the next version will take place only a year after it's release, as always. "The most secure version of windows yet" has already been attacked at the BlackHat, which is only bad news for Microsoft. I have never hated Microsoft. I, in fact, love it. But for Windows, I don't know how many of us would have PCs and how many of us would actually be browsing the internet like this. Microsoft is awesome, no matter how many people have criticized it for taking monopoly and not letting other competitors survive. That is an ideal business strategy: Kill the competition.

Though Apple has not been successful in this field, they have been successful by having the biggest market share of digital music players. And if they ever let us install Mac OS on non-apple hardware, that would be the only time Microsoft should be scared. Why should they be scared, you may ask. Well, go and visit Apple.com to see how powerful Mac OS Tiger(greater than or equal to Vista) already is and how much more powerful Leopard is. As for now, Microsoft can just enjoy having monopoly.

Firefox - The People's Browser

2006-08-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Let Google Analytics do the talking on my blog today.

Am I lucky or what?

2006-08-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Today has been a good day. Finished with my computer practical exam and I have finally mastered linked lists. Getting back to techtalk, yesterday(and today) I got to compare two amazing laptops and review them for my uncle at Price Waterhouse Coopers:
1. Dell XPS M1210 Intel Core Duo T2500E (2.0GHz) Notebook
2. Apple MA255LL/A 2.0GHz MacBook

The best part I got to take them out from their retail packages and could set them up myself. When I compared them the results were pretty awesome, and since I wanted revieware to get some attention I put the results up there.

Lucky me, Lucky me!

What I want to see in Flash 10

2006-08-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

Why the hell can't I use the smudge tool and gradients as easily as I used to in Flash 7. Oops I forgot, that ain't even a feature in Flash. It's photoshop I should be talking about. But then again, why not have the complete Photoshop toolbar built into a Flash itself. I would love to do a motion blur in some of my animations and therefore would like to have all Photoshop filters in flash too. Wouldn't it be great if you could see the history of what you've done like in Photoshop so that with the click of a button I may restore those keyframes I deleted like a fool. Is it just me or is it that Powerpoint 2007 looks more stunning than Flash 8. Yep, both are applications that one wouldn't usually compare. I always thought Flash was superior to PPT and more amazing too. But as times change, I have found that it may turn out that Microsoft is getting better at visual tours and presentations. They only use flash on their website because it has become very common and comes as a built-in plugin on most browsers(except IE, of course).

Some other things that matter are speed: No matter how many different versions you make and no matter how many useless features you put into them, Adobe Flash is not good if it takes 10 seconds to let you get started with that keynote presentation you've been trying to make. Your application wont sell, for god's sake, if you need users to upgrade their computers to use it and they certainly wont spend a $500 on buying the software and an additional 1000 on upgrades. Nope, certainly not.

Isn't it time enough for Adobe to let us render 3D content on Flash or are you, like Microsoft, going to make us wait till something better comes up? DirectX or even OpenGL will do fine but I want to create stunning presentations. Flash needs to be easier. I would give Flash 6 a 5 star rating, as it is the only version I would be still willing to buy(sounds stupid doesn't it, I was collecting dough for the iMac).

New UI: Man! Is the UI in Flash 8 the best Macromedia(now Adobe) can give us? Obviously, not. I want an option for allowing us to switch to full-screen mode so that I dont see anything but Flash when I'm working. It takes time to get those animations to look the way you want them to and it takes even more time because of those unnecessary spaces you've introduced, to make it look good(supposedly), in Flash 7 and 8 that takes up all the workspace.

Also, dont get rid of ScriptAssist. I saw that Flash 7 became completely unusable. It's not difficult to type code ourselves but in an application like Flash, you should be able to use the mouse to get all your work done. Please dont suggest using the on-screen keyboard, I've always found it lame and it's more like a toy.

If you're wondering why the title talks of Flash 10 and not Flash 9, it's because I think Flash 9 has already come close to completion and only certain minor changes will come as Adobe takes over from Macromedia as per my predictions(which mind you, are least accurate)

That's it, that's all I want. A little here, a little there.

Peace!
Update: I forgot to talk about cross-compatibility between different versions. I think you already understood me.

The PC is not becoming personal

2006-08-08T02:14:00.000-07:00

But Macs sure are. In case you didn't know Apple showed us the future in their WWDC 2006 which started yesterday. It is the future in terms of speed, the future in terms of reliability, the future of computing and obviously the future which all of us would love to have(if we had the money).

Mac OS X Leopard, is the operating system which advances the world's most advanced operating system. If you don't believe me, click on the PC guy on the left, so that he may tell you himself(as a message from Microsoft).

A whole new Dashboard, a new iChat, snazzy Core Animation, Spotlight and Mail are just a few of the features bundled with this OS. Here's how Apple introduces us to it's new born baby:

What do you do when you reach enlightenment? Keep going. Mac OS X Tiger was ahead of its time in 2005. But that didn’t stop Apple engineers from moving forward. Get a glimpse of the not-so-distant future. Introducing Mac OS X Leopard.

If you're interested in knowing more about Leopard and it's features, visit Apple's Homepage or click on the image below:

How dumb can you be?

2006-08-07T01:19:00.002-07:00

I have just come back from school after a 3-hour long mathematics examination which I did unusually well. I thought I should celebrate, but seeing that my %tage would still remain the same as last time thanks to my physics and chemistry teachers, I controlled myself. And since I still have my CompSc. exam left I felt I should devote more time to C++ and therefore NFSUG2(that's all my PC supports).

Our school has only a very little problem(mostly good, partly bad) now and that would be the absence of our chemistry teacher who ran off to DU to do her pHD in Chemistry. The reason she gave is obviously one we hear very often and one which I consider no better than lousy. Her last words at MSM: "It was my father's dream!"(no mistakes, exclamation mark included). That was the good news. The bad news is she will be checking our papers and sending them across to school. This obviously means that we will continue getting the same pathetic marks we've been getting in Class XI.

//Thanks to Skaran for showing me that Mac OS Spotlight styled search bar. A little searching on Google and I found that he has sourced it from here, if you are eager to know. Very easy to customize to your needs.

The title of my post has no relevance to all that I have written above this but is just to remind of the guy who tried copying my blog's theme and obviously couldn't. He probably thought copying and pasting the text by viewing my blog's source will make his blog look as good or as bad. He thought wrong. To top his stupidity, he used the find and replace option on Notepad and renamed xAbhishek to xChaitanya and my name to Chaitanya Marwah(whoever thought I would be talking of this person whom I dont even know on my blog).

Here is a screenshot of his dumb-ness which I would like to see even after he gets rid of his blog.

Buh-Bye Network Solutions!

2006-08-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Finally we(msmschool.com) are moving from Network Solutions to another Indian domain registrar after we've faced so many millions of problems because of them. msmschool.com will be running till the symposium is over as it is the url we have given on the invite to the sympo. It's sad that a company as big as Verisign(owns NetworkSolutions) has such poor service. A simple request to transfer our existing domain was rejected. And since our school is a non-profit organisation like many others, we do not have money to hire lawyers and get back our domain. We would have had to make this shift to msmschool.net sometime or the other because paying $35 a year for the domain is more like robbery(pardon me for not putting it better).

So now you'll be able to access matrix.msmschool.com and all other parts of the site as you used earlier. And in case we shift to .net earlier we'll redirect you automatically. So, no worries. We have done a lot of work in this year's invitation and I hope all the schools receive it.

Happy Birthday to Me-self!

2006-07-31T05:05:00.000-07:00

I don't need reminders and I certainly dont need 4 of them. And again, certainly not for my own Birthday. Yes, Today's my Birthday(31st)! And I'm celebrating it by going to school and and flunking my Chemistry exam. What fun!

Our symposium's invite should have gone earlier, but for some mis-administration. My school's website has expired though it actually HASN'T! Everyday is a "Friday-the-13th" these days where something has to go wrong.

But the internet as usual always keeps me happy. And again, thanks to Google. Orkut(another Google product) is a very good service, I have finally found half the people(Ex-Marians) I have been searching for. Another interesting service that I noticed is the Image Cruncher. It basically compresses images for you. And this has to be one of the best sites I've seen. Go see for yourself!

And before I forget, the email I received:

Dear Abhishek,
It's Abhishek Nandakumar's (~) birthday on Monday July 31st. Abhishek will be 17 years old.

Choose any eCard below and we will send it on Abhishek's birthday.

Matrix - Ecomm 2006

2006-07-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

I am posting this here because Verisign's Network Solutions has created some unnecessary complications and blocked our domain from access, saying it has expired. We hope to resolve this problem soon. But until then you may use http://www.computersymposiums.com/ to discuss the symposium and contact me at abhishekn@gmail.com for any queries.

Also, I have successfully setup Apache(With PHP & MySQL) on Mac and Windows with a little help from Skaran, FrankzzsworD(listed on the right) and last but not the least, my favorite companion: Google. You may access it at http://abhisheknk.blogdns.com/ between 12AM and 6AM IST.

Zune vs. iPod

2006-07-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

The battle has started. Microsoft is all out to tackle Apple and make people forget iPod. Zune a threatening name as it looks right now, seems to be a device with which Microsoft wants to take market share of portable entertainment, the share which sony lost to Apple in 2001. It may be cool and it may be priced well, but I wouldn't buy one till a million others already have, since I dont want a message saying "Error 4203:Program terminated incorrectly." when I'm streaming videos on my Microsoft-iPod-Killer-Device. Microsoft has finally realized, probably for the good that, OSes aren't money-makers. They may become popular among a group of few geeks but no more than that.

Talking about killing the iPod, most of us iPod-owners know what quality Apple gives us and that has turned us from Customers to Fanboys and real loyal ones too. I for one, wont go and buy the Zune unless the iPod at that time has been beaten by the competition (which it never has, if I should remind you). I would much rather replace an existing iPod with another one. If Apple decides to release their ultimate OS X Leopard later this year for PCs, Microsoft will be the one company that will be left in the dust. Even now I am using OS X because I cannot stand Windows for more than 2 hours actually and the last time I used Windows was 5 days back. I think Microsoft should start focusing more on the XBox gaming platform, as they have done a good job with the 360 this time. People have stopped reporting problems of heating, etc long back. They would also certainly have a bigger collection of HD games when the PS3 releases and a much better one too. The Wiimote has been fascinating on Nintendo's website. And for me, Nintendo Wiimote+ XBox 360= UberGaming!

As you can guess, I have come back from Blogger Hibernation and am posting more regularly. It turns out that everyone on BlogConnect has gone on hibernation since the govt decided to Ban and Unban Blogger.com. Damn! For writing so much about Apple, I think I deserve a free iMac from their side. Here it costs 1.2 lacs(including custom upgrades necessary for me). It looks as though Dell can do a better job with my money than Apple at this time with those stunning XPS Laptops they have updated on the Dell India website.

~xAbhishek
PS. fotogrAbhishek has been updated.

Installing Linux Safely

2006-07-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

I know many people who use Linux on secondary hard disks, and most of them have had problems using both Windows and Linux. The problem arises only when you don't install it properly. Grub is one of the best boot-loaders available. It is also the most customizable. But what may seem easy to some people may look like climbing the Mt. Everest for others.

So here's how you should install Linux(if you have a second HDD attached):
1. Switch on computer.
2. Press delete.
3. Change the "First Boot Device" in the Boot Settings or Advanced Settings to "HDD1" from "HDD0".
4. Insert your Linux CD/DVD and start the installation.
5. When you are prompted by messages asking you about how your system should be partitioned, you would generally also see "Boot Options" or something similar. Click on Boot Options, and setup the Bootloader in such a way so that your MBR(Master Boot Record) on your primary hard disk is not touched. It's to change the destination where you'd like the Bootloader to be installed.
6. Once you've completed step 5, you may install Linux with all the features you'd like to see in your desktop OS and finish your installation.

This is almost always the only problem-free solution for installing Linux for testing or development. You may find this on a million other forums, but I just had to talk about Linux today because of the two calls I got from a couple of friends on how to fix their MBR.

Blogizen India: Return of the Blog

2006-07-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

We couldn't stopped visiting blogs. I consider the government's decision to block blogger.com's blogs rather stupid, as most of us who Google would have certainly found a way to access our blogs through some external proxy. But what was even more stupid was to cut off water supply in a city, just because terrorists survive on water. Now that the Govt has woken up and has once again allowed complete access to blogspots, we are once again able to live in a more civilized world(the internet, of course!).

School Life:
Due to some inconsequential reasons, our symposium's invitation hasn't been sent even a week after when it was supposed to be sent, that is today. But it has got printed properly and is ready to be mailed on Monday. Let's hope the Indian snail mail will do a better job than it did last year.

Organic chemistry seems unbelievably interesting. Quite a miracle, as only last year it looked like what French or German would look like to me. IUPAC naming for Carbon Tetrachloride requires more thinking than a much longer hydrocarbon chain would require. See for yourself.

Maths has always been the best subject in all my 13 years of schooling. This year again, Calculus(going specific) is one topic that you can really fall in love with. But at times you wish you never had to do all what we have to get only 80% of what you deserve in school.

Things that I forgot to blog about in the recent past:
I got a T-Shirt from a person I know, which read: "I survived India!" Damn! I am not against India. I was shocked to see that people would actually go and buy a T-Shirt which symbolizes hatred towards India. My T-Shirt should have actually read: "I survived India's politicians!". That would have made more sense to me. Even though I would love to spend half my life in California, it wouldn't stop me from loving the country where I was born.

The govt. strikes again

2006-07-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

This is message is meant for bloggers. After our anti-quota campaigns, seems to be taking revenge with an anti-blogger campaign. Yes, you heard me right. The government has given a directive which ask ISPs (Internet Service Provider) to block all *.blogspot.com(replace * with blog name) addresses. Click here.

This may have been a good April Fool's Joke but now I cant access my own blog when I'm using MTNL Triband. Apart from me, many people are facing this problem as you will be able to see in this Google Group.

With all this the only thing I could do was to access blogs though a proxy. You may try pkblogs.com or look at the tutorial at frankzzsword.com

I hope MTNL fixes this problem.

CSS and me can never be good friends

2006-07-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

This summer, I've been trying to master CSS but have been no more successful than in my attempt to try to finish the Physics syllabus for this year. But what I have done successfully is installed Fedora Core 5, Suse 10.1, Ubuntu 6.06, Xubuntu 6.06 and Mac OS X 10.4.7 on the same PC which I had pronounced "dead" in one of my earlier posts on this blog. I figured that Xubuntu and Ubuntu(in correct order) are by far the fastest operating systems based on the new Linux Kernel. Talking about speed, Xubuntu takes an amazing 7 seconds to start on my computer. Windows takes 35 seconds without anything on startup and completely free of spyware. The beauty of Xubuntu is of course the Xfce desktop environment which is quite different from how Gnome or KDE work.

User-friendliness: SuSe is absolutely the most user-friendly Linux distro out there. THe partition manager at the time of the installation is very intuitive and let's you do anything to your hard disk. With this, you can forget about those problems where you lose all the data you normally shouldn't have. Following SuSe are Fedora Core 5 and Ubuntu Dapper Drake. The Dapper Drake CD was delivered home today, but I didnt ask for it. It just came!

All those of you who have broadband and have faced problems with using the internet on Linux will have that problem again. But this time there's a solution. I assume you are using ADSL which is the main reason that this problem usually arises. All you've got to do is set your connection to DHCP and create a new DSL connection with the username and password that your ISP originally provided you. That solves the problem. Then for browsing the internet you've got to change the connection preferences in Firefox to "Directly connect to the internet" instead of "System setting". Now you can do all that you did on Windows and probably a bit more.

I've used Linux for a week and haven't missed Windows for a second. And please stop spamming me with requests for cracks for WGA. Buy the OS, use Linux or get back to the good old Win 98.

I watched Superman Returns the-day-before-yesterday and I seem to have liked the movie more than the others who watched it with me. Otherwise that day and yesterday were quite pathetic with Argentina losing to Germany and France not playing well at all. But I must say, I never expected Ricardo to save all those goals. Unfortunately neither Ghana nor England are going to win the WC06, as Tarun(on BlogConnect) had expected. Going back to the Argentines, I am clueless as to why they didnt play Messi and why they made those unnecessary substitutions at the time when they really needed players like Crespo. Sad...

But yes, as per my expectations Brazil didn't do well at all in the world cup and failed to come even close to reaching the semi-finals as I had said in my previous post. Oh yeah, I know I could have had a better title for this post but my post was originally only on CSS but my mind has once again lost concentration.

I would also be grateful to anyone who would send me a good tutorial to learn how to use Linked Lists on C++. I simply hate Linked Lists, actually even more than CSS and it is the one topic that has made my score in my monthly test(at school) in Computer Science come down like hell.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Screen shots

2006-06-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

I just had to post these screenshots of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the next version of Mac OS, which have further convinced me to buy a Mac, if these were not enough. They were surely enough to make me smile, which usually most people cannot achieve.

Internet Explorer 6 for Mac OS X Leopard:

This is the new Exposé (Flip 3D in Vista has now been left in the dust):

Mac now like Windows? They finally added an address bar to OS X Finder.

Old is still Gold

2006-06-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

Photoshop 7 takes 3 seconds to start on my computer. Photoshop CS takes 10 and CS2 takes a bit more. And since I've been using all three of them to test them together the previous week I figured that Photoshop 7 has all the features I would ever need packed in a brilliant way.

Right now it is the trend of all companies to put style before quality. Oh you've probably heard this a hundred times, but you can hear it again, "It's not the outer look that matters, but it's inner look". Photoshop CS has a nice features and I can see a noticable change in the quality of objects while editing. Even though the end result is same with all versions of photoshop, what you get is always better than what you see while you're editing an image or working with vectors. And people who have switched from Photoshop CS to Photoshop CS2, as in actually bought them, have been looted like shit. Oh yeah, Photoshop CS2 is an example which shows the near of the end of Adobe, because it just gives new names to features that have already existed in the past and made things look better. I would have certainly felt ripped off if I had purchased CS2, but thank Adobe for trial versions. Hopefully with the acquisition of Macromedia, things will become better.

And wouldn't it be great to have Flash, Dreamweaver and Photoshop integrated into one application. If that happens, I will be more than happy to spend $400 on software that I would usually download from the bay or the spy.

Internet Connections in India

2006-06-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Wake up people, you've got to do something about this. How can we proudly tell anyone that we're using broadband when we are still stuck with something as bad as dial-up. 256kbps is one of the worst speeds you can get anywhere on the planet. I could see a streaming video up in the air in United Airlines a year ago. I'm sure we should be able to watch something like that here, sitting with wired connections specially. Oh yes, airlines have had WiFi for a long time and with speeds going upto 1mbps.

I cant upload a 6.1 mega-pixel digital image onto Flickr, because guess what? MTNL has server timeouts! There you have it, that's broadband in India. So I have to resize the image on photoshop to reduce the size to 1 mb for it to even actually follow the passage from my PC-->MTNL network-->Satellite(god knows where it is)-->Yahoo Network-->Flickr Account. It takes a stupid 60 seconds to upload a 1 mb image. Thats ridiculous. I could have watched a highlight of the world cup match which Brazil won yesterday and come back to see the progress bar still stuck at 50% or 49% or wherever MTNL may deem fit.

And I managed to redesign my template from scratch in 5 hours, with a little help from blogger-templates.blogspot.com and mjsabby.com. The source of mjsabby wasnt very helpful as I couldnt make head or tail of it. The only thing I could do was edit the travel template. This giving due credit where it is deserved and also saying that it's a pain in the ass even editing a template. It was a pain but surely an achievement. It is the only summer-vacation-project-of-mine that has actually gone to completion. I havent done any debugging, so be warned of browser crashes and windows behaving normally(that's right, what's abnormal is usually normal for Microsoft).

A little about Blogger Support, they are amazingly efficient. Because they infact aren't there. I've faced quite a few problems publishing blogs on to websites, and their auto-generated email has solved all of the problems before I could ever notice. Yahoo! 360 stinks because you cant make any changes to the code, you cant customize anything to your own needs and is sufficient for those kind of people who are scared to look at computer screens and could waste more time wondering which is the mouse button that they need to click.

I may never be able to complete that review on Windows Vista as I have not yet seen the real juice. Hey, its been 3 years(long time I must say) and I havent upgraded my computer. Still stuck with 256MB of RAM and still not able to do the heavy-duty stuff. I'm waiting for AMD to show up with their own Core Duos, so that I can get them at half the price I would if I went with Intel. Actually only the XPS ML1710 would probably suit me fine, but it's DVD-rewriter is supposed to suck.

As I noticed while I was going through the archives, I have a habit of completing my posts very abruptly and when you should least expect it...

Bill Gates, Argentina and Ronaldinho

2006-06-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

In sequential order, we start with Sir Bill Gates. It's a smart move by him as he would probably have realised over the past decade that he has no longer got much control on the Microsoft as a software company. And Steve Ballmer taking over from him, is probably the saddest thing I have ever heard. It probably worse than hearing Nirvana's extended version of the unreleased song "I hate myself and want to die". Thankfully, it is still only 2008 that Bill Gates completely stops day-to-day activity in and around the Redmond company. By then, even Steve might get some wit and leave Microsoft and avoid KillBallmersBrowser.com, which I may create if he continues.

Now, Argentina. Well. 24 is a number which should scare even the hmm..(maybe you should fill this up). Note that I am not mentioning the Brazilians as I have no hope of them even reaching the semi-finals. In case you dont know what I am talking about let's hope YouTube can enlighten you with this video that has been published on over 4000 blogs.

Ronaldinho was supposed to be better than that. Doing what he does best is certainly not what he did in their match against Australia. I watched that match to see how Ronaldinho can entertain us as he has done in the past. I could only see Kaka and Ze Roberto even trying to make an effort in helping Brazil keep it's World Champions title, which I hope Argentina rips off.

Breath of Fresh Air™

2006-06-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick look at Windows Vista Ultimate edition minus the Ultimate(because of graphics restrictions). It is not as bad as Mac Hooligans say so, but it could have been better. A complete review soon to be posted on revieware(Let's see who's first). Aero doesn't work with 64MB of VRAM while OS X which does everything that Aero does, does!

As you can see in the screenshot below, I have activated Windows Vista. Microsoft was kind enough this time to send me a unique product key which lets me install and activate Windows Vista Ultimate on 10 PCs along with access to download the Release Candidate 1(RC1)* when it is released.

For those who think Microsoft would have done a good job with IE7, I would tell them to think again. And a warning for all bloggers: Blogger on IE7 is like the Hindi font on Mozilla for Mac. What I mean is that Blogger and IE7 have not been built to support each other.

*RC1 is a version of any software whose development stage is over, after which only bugs will be fixed.

Quality vs Quantity

2006-05-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

My first CD-Writer lasted me 7 years with very high usage(25CDs a month at least). My second one 3 years. And now I am using an LG-ReWriter which I hope will last me till college. And the prices of the 3 CD-Writers are Rs.10500, Rs.5000 and Rs.2500. As you read here, you will notice that the price of CD-Writers have become a fourth of what they were 10 years ago. And along with it, the quality too has decreased by about 80%. Who cares about whether your CD-Writer burns at 52X or 12X. I have found all my writers to be equally fast and all of them have turned down on me when I really needed them.

Recently I also got a DVD-Writer for $20 from the US. It SuXoR (in new internet language). Bought a pack of 50 Moserbaer DVDs and only 15 of them have successfully been burnt(You know what I mean).

My first computer costed my Rs.40000. All I got was a 300Mhz Celeron with my first pirated operating system Windows 95. Yes, I loved it. My obsession for computers started then when I saw I could draw on something other than paper(Pbrush.exe on Windows XP). That computer worked without a problem for 7 long years. I have used Photoshop 6 on it. I have installed Windows XP on it. I have done pretty much everything on it. That first computer of mine(believe it or not) never crashed, had never given me any problems until it's motherboard died one day. Figuring that it would do me no good to continue using the same piece of machinery, I pleaded for a new PC. Then came in a brand new P4 with 256MB RAM(really great 4 years ago) and Windows XP preloaded. What is interesting is that since then my computer has crashed about a 100 times(little blame goes to me, but my tactics weren't that great either). So I freaked out at most of these occasions and probably know the introduction to Windows XP by heart.

With all this I come to say that these days we often look only at the quantity and not at all at the quality. Now here comes the iMac into the picture. We would consider all Macs very expensive and can hardly find any repair centres. Why are they expensive is an interesting question to ask? I wouldn't be surprised if a PC I buy along with an iMac died out faster(with a gap of 5 years between them). This is simply because Apple has always considered quality before quantity. And since they too need to follow trends they have given people the equivalent or better quantity without any decrease in their quality. That's why iMacs are preffered by designers. And most users of Macs dont like PCs. This is because they always stay ahead. They can foresee the trends of tomorrow and convert their own products into futuristic trends. I thought the iPod was not good until I got one. The problem with most of us that we dont try to shift. Even we who call ourselves nerds, havent understood that knowing how to use Windows doesn't mean we know how to use a computer.

So now I need to collect enough money to buy a shiny new iMac(after the release of OS X Leopard). For all those who haven't used the iMac, go visit the Apple Store at Ansal Plaza while it's there. I went there today and found it pretty big for a shop where you can only buy iPods, iMacs, MacBooks and MacBook Pros. But yes, it would be more interesting to see a 20-floor Apple Store like at the 5th Avenue in New York. And speaking about quality, my P4 died yesterday. May it's soul rest in peace...and the rest of the bullshit.

Business Ideas

2006-05-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you have nothing to do? What do you do when you have nothing to stare at? What do you think about? I think about a lot of stuff. After reading a few brilliant books about innovation, I often think of technologies that may never exist. It would be so nice to see your prophecies come true right in front of your eyes. Gone are those days in which people think about new ideas. The idea of blogging was started to share good ideas. This idea of course is nowhere to be seen amongst any of the blogs I read often(which may not be necessarily listed on the sidebar) when I have nothing to do or stare at.

Though I don't stick to set schedules, I will be alloting 30 minutes of my precious time in it for a brainstorming session, if I can call it that. So what ideas have I got today? As a keen web designer and an equally keen time-waster, I plan on improving my programming skills to an extent where I may start creating a new concept of my own which I would call OSExt. Basically it would be an extension for an existing operating system, a third-party patch in many cases, that can be downloaded completely free of charge. It isn't opensource as I wont give you the source code. It would be like creating an Operating Environment inside an existing one. Like in server-side languages, the base of OSExt will be various modules which can be edited by anyone to their specific needs. Windows XP isn't optimised to run visual and 3d content on a high-dpi range. OSExt will enable that without you needing to upgrade to Windows Vista. This is just an example of what I think it would be, as I don't have any time these days nor the energy to go forward on the path set by my very motivating dreams. Why should Windows crash? Why do you need AntiVirus apps? Cure instead of prevention? Shit, I think a lot. Guess that's what being an Internetholic means, or a plain form of egotism.

Post 61 of an Internetholic

2006-05-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

Sitting on a stool and staring at a computer screen for an hour a day, can either worsen your condition of the IAD (Internet Addiction Disorder), or get you some freaky ideas to try at school the next day. Sure this may seem funny, but which other place can you find a thesis on "A prank a day, keeps the doc away". Some members of Wikipedia identify themselves as "Wikipediholics." This label obviously is not applied seriously in all cases, but these individuals should not be dismissed as using it exclusively in a comedic sense either.

Notice anything in the football? TorrentSpy rocks!

After getting a 91 in 11th, getting less than 30/50 in a Computer Science Unit Test can be stressful at times. But I wouldn't be that bothered. Our teacher thinks we are geeks enough to handle questions related to topics that haven't even been taught. Unlike other schools, we do not care much about programming and stick to the CBSE course. But it may at the same time seem odd that the president of a computer club doesn't know how to create nested linked lists. But nevertheless we still have toppers, we still have guys who get 50/50. We still have guys who cope with CBSE after getting 120/180 in VMC phase tests. That is either pure brilliance or pure luck.

As you would have noticed, blogging has become more of a passtime over last few days. There is nothing interesting to read here, but as a Wikipediholic there is always something to read somewhere else. Till I get you something more interesting to read...zzzzzz

April (27-17)th (2005+0001)

2006-04-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

"No goalkeeper in the world would have stopped that!"

"Look at that! Oh, look at THAT!"

"Great Goal!" If you've ever played the Electronic Arts' Fifa 2005, that would be exactly what you would have heard, if you played well. It sure got monotonous playing Fifa 2005 on WiFi, but what wouldn't after 5 hours of continuous play. It becomes boring even for the guys who kick butt! April 10th 2005 was a really nice day, one of the few days you can be proud of being a couch potato. With 5 friends and a lot of pasta, the day didn't seem to wait till we could say goodbye. So is that what Class 12 is like? Dunno about others, but Class 12 has made me feel better from the beginning. The course is nothing compared to what we had last year. NCERT rocks!

Though I talk like this right now, I will be cursing the same books four months from now(wanna bet?). Differentiation is pretty much the most interesting part of the Maths syllabus, till where I have studied. But some things don't change, do they? Yes, Chemistry! It's still there. It's still boring. We've still gotta study it. Believe it or not, but I can improve my concentration by dreaming(about the iMac I could afford to buy, if I burn my ass off in the process of reaching stars). And as far as I have seen my concentration is quantized. Talking about the Quantum theory, I personally feel it is just a kind of explanation for something that doesn't exist. If you see Wiki articles by professors at various foreign institutes, we would think alike.

This post was a draft till now. I have no clue as to why blogger wouldn't let me publish it. I may be switching to WordPress soon on my own domain, if blogger's services continue to disappoint me.

Mac OS X.4.1 on your Intel

2006-04-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

Mac OS X(pronounced 10) is one of the most powerful operating systems present today. Windows Vista(Microsoft's over-hyped and over-rated operating system) which no longer includes WinFS (Window File System) will be considered my most developers as very poor replica of Mac OS for PCs. Considering the fact that it is going to release in early 2007, we would have certainly expected much more.

So I would suggest you continue using the bland Windows XP with it's limited features and also it's pathetic interface. You have three other interesting options too:
1. Buy a Mac
2. Switch to Linux
3. Install Mac on your PC.

Option 3 is the most difficult to achieve as it would test your patience to a certain extent. To make the process simpler, you may follow the guide below. I have tried to make things as simple as possible.

**This guide is meant only for Apple testers and I, in no way, want to infringe any Copyrights. You will have to own a copy of Mac OS Tiger before you proceed.**

Before we proceed, there are some basic requirements for installing Mac OS X on your PC.

Requirements:
1. Processor/Chip- Intel Pentium 4/Pentium D/Core Duo.
2. Windows pre-installed
3. The OS X pheNIX disk image - Marklar-Tiger.dmg or Marklar-Tiger.iso. (Google: pheNIX torrent)
4. Generic_OSx86_Install_DVD_Patcher_Release1.rar from some torrent site.
5. FastSum & WinRAR archiver.
6. DVD-Burner.
Note: You will need to download UltraISO if you are downloading or have downloaded the .dmg file.

Make sure you follow the "Procedure" step-by-step in order to avoid any mistakes because of which there may be data loss.

Procedure:

*procedure for Marklar-Tiger.dmg:
1. Install UltraISO.
2. Click on the Tools menu.
3. Click on Convert and locate Marklar-Tiger.dmg. Select ISO as the format and hit the Convert/Go button.

General Procedure:
1. Using FastSum, check the MD5 Hash of the Marklar-Tiger.iso or the ISO you just created. (Use the FastSum Help to see how.) The Hash should be E78FE52E30A1F8C5B29D4B7932A16C5E. This confirms that the iso file you're working with is the one required to continue using this guide.
2. If the MD5 Hash matches the one given above, you've done well till now.
3. Open Generic_OSx86_Install_DVD_Patcher_Release1.rar using WinRAR and extract all files and folders. For convenience, you may extract it into the folder containing Marklar- Tiger.iso.
4. By now you may already be knowing what to do next. If you don't, here goes. Run PPF-O-Matic, select Marklar-Tiger.iso as the file to be patched and Marklar-Tiger-patch-release1.ppf as the patch. All you've got to do now is to patch it.
5.Perform step 1 again. Only this time, the Hash should be 9A5270E693B2148BA685638F05EA76C2. Do not proceed if this doesn't work out properly.
6. Relax a bit. 60% of the job is done.
7. Burn the ISO onto any DVD-type media(using Nero, Roxio, etc.)
8. Restart your PC and set your boot priorities: DVD Drive, HDD.

Note 2: In this guide we will be using a complete Hard Disk to install Mac. You may use either one of the Hard Disks connected to your computer. I would recommend you use a secondary Hard Disk for installation.

Terms & Conditions: Whatever you do, you must make sure you have a backup of all your data as I would like to make it very clear that: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA AND YOU IN NO WAY CAN SUE ME.

9. Insert the DVD into your DVD Drive and restart your PC.
10. Your computer boots from the DVD when you see the Darwin/x86 boot menu. When you see the menu. Hit ENTER/RETURN.
11. Wait for the OS X Installer to load. When loading is done you will be Welcomed by the Installer. Start the Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Use the Disk Utility to erase your Hard Drive and format it as a Mac OS Extended partition. If you're comfortable with Partitioning, you may select the size of your Mac partition. Else, use the complete HDD.
12. Ignore any warning and proceed further. When partitioning is done, quit the Disk Util.
13. 80% of the job is now done.
14. You may blindly go on clicking Continue till you can't go any further. Now as always the installation will take more time than the computer's estimate.
15. The progress bar shows 100%, but it should actually be 90%. After the 30 second countdown your PC restarts. You will have to act quickly and remove the DVD from your drive. You will now be greeted by the Darwin Boot Menu again. To save time, hit Enter twice.
16. Since you've well till now, I'll allow you to finish the rest of the Mac setup yourself, which only includes setting up an account and registering with Apple.com. To skip registration:Alt+Q.
17. 100% done. The latest version of OS X is 10.4.6. The one you're using here is 10.4.1. Software update wont help you here. (Hint: Maxxuss)
18. Nothing to do. Just for Luck. :)

Some of you are using OS X without buying it. Don't be pirates. Go buy a Mac.

Mac=Impossible is impossible.

The Mac experience, this time on my Pentium 4

2006-04-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Mac users swear by their computers. PC users swear at their computers. Not me, not anymore, since I have OS X(~TEN) installed on my PC. After having used a PowerBook for quite sometime now, I knew how to use the OS and was familiar with it's features. But man! The thing works great with Intel processors. Safari and Microsoft Office(2 bounces) open surprisingly fast on OS X86. So now here's another reason for Microsoft to join hands with Apple. When I first tried installing OS X using Maxxuss's patch 5 months back, I tried and tried...only to succeed (fully) today.

Enlarge to see some proof. Click on the image to see my PC MacTel's current config.

Who the hell said that we need an SSE3 CPU for PowerPC apps to work seamlessly? iTunes keeps singing and iPhoto is jumping with joy. I am on 1.92Ghz CPU with with an SSE2 architecture and OS X is up and running in 41.37 seconds. That's about the same time it takes to start on Apple's own hardware. I take back all my previous posts against Apple's beautiful operating system that has convinced me to start saving some money, as it will definitely be one of my future aqcuisitions. Safari is a great browser, but like IE it gets stuck up sometimes Firefox is a winner even on the Mac, except when you're browsing websites written on the pure devnagri script(also known as Hindi). Now I also now why Apple switched to Intel. If you've used a G4/G5, I've got to tell you that this thing is rock solid on Intel.

Anyone so generous as to buy me an iMac? Just joking, though I just know that Apple's computers will definitely be one of my desktop/notebook PCs in the future.

Reading is(or can be) Fun

2006-04-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

Illuminati and Anti-Matter
The two are neither synonymous, and neither of the same origin. If you read the second book(published in 2000) Dan Brown wrote you'll understand how these two words form the complete story of a book you cannot put down, when you start reading it. What's great about Dan Brown is that he seems to have a lot of knowledge about what he writes. This book enlightened me and upgraded the knowledge I already had, making the book seem really interesting. You move through the 600 pages as if you had to catch a train. This is probably the best book I have ever read, certainly better than the HP series which becomes plain and repetitive, and the LotR which can never be called un-put-down-able.

Illuminati-A beautiful ambigram that is almost impossible to
create using any programing language existent today.

Apart from Hassasins and Anti-Matter, life has been the same way it is supposed to be. Flipping pages of "Mathematics by RD Sharma" and "Gogia's Physics" has suddenly brought a long lost interest back, an interest which I hope I am able to sustain till this time next year(2007). One amazing thing I've noticed is, after mentioning Anna in my previous post my blog has recieved 5-6 new visitors daily. That's what is meant by adwords, I guess. Yesterday I had a Y! Chat with this person I have never met before. He argued saying that google's email service does not come even half as close to what Y! or Hotmail provides. It was my turn then. As a fan of Google, I would never stop using its services as they have always helped me where others couldn't. Now virtually almost all free webmail providers have upgraded their per-user storage limit from single MBs to 100s of them. Again credit to You-Know-Who. Not Voldemort but Google. All those who opened that little mail of mine yesterday would have enjoyed seeing the best portrayal of Superman yet. Now you've got to see this one before it is removed. Though the usual disclaimer holds good. Exactly a month left for our 1.5 months of study leave, because by chance or by purpose I along with my buddies have been promoted to 12th grade. Cool huh! Let me also tell you that this is a great achievement because people like me who have no more knowledge than what they had in Class 10 find it really tough to cope with the usual regular work and last-minute studies. So that is what I am trying to change.

I wish we had people like Langdon alive. He is a good example of "Using power without strength." We need people like him to improve the most-corrupt goverment in existence. All you poor guys who are going to write the IIT exam in 2008 will have a really tough time because people who are worse than you will get through into the best institute for engineering in India and soon the world. Oh well, that does not bother me much because I had already decided that I wouldn't waste money on coaching for an exam I knew I had no chance of cracking. Look at those guys who do well at VMC and Narayana and flunk in school exams. Here I would like to ask, "What's the point guys, what is it?"

The Future as I see it..

2006-04-04T10:56:00.001-07:00

10 years from now, Firefox pops up from nowhere and alerts me about messages I have just recieved. What's great is that there are no wires, and that technology would have advanced so much that you or I would not have to carry mobile phones to communicate while commuting as it would be the age of earplug-sized Skype phones. This would certainly pose a threat to cellular companies which try to fool customers who avoid reading the fine print during subscription. And Anna Kournikova wont look so appealing as well. So she cant help you market your products.

Many of Isaac Asimov's theories which were once thought to be supernatural, are now considered amazingly accurate. I, Robot which is an excellent movie based on his theories, talks about Robots controlling Humans who tend to accept defeat very fast. That stage, according to me is not very from now. As computers become more advanced, the Artificial Intelligence also becomes advanced. It is like a perfect example of proportions.

Microsoft and Apple which would probably have merged by then, would be begging people to buy their products, which may never be of as much use to us then, as it is now. One service that would still be doing well would be eBay, where buying and selling is much simpler with voice recognition(a technology that Microsoft promised to include in 2000, Me and XP, but failed to do so) over that 1GBps connection where you stream television and other services simultaneously and effectively. All this is the crap I wrote in an English performance test where the topic of debate was "The supernatural is an irrefutable part of our lives".

As technology advances, I think it makes it more difficult for people to make big changes and re quires you to follow a completely new pattern to achieve something that you could have achieved 20 minutes faster using what you already have. So it is still too early and difficult to judge what role technology will play in our lives.

Here are stills from some old but interesting ads(Has no relation with what I've written above):

(iTunes Pepsi- Free Songs)

(Windows Vista- Clarity?)

Fools' Blah..

2006-04-01T08:33:00.001-08:00

Looks like the Google servers are overloaded these days. Today, it was the first time I saw Google saying:"Your search took 3 seconds" instead of the usual .03 seconds. Is that bad or what? I hadn't been able to login through to blogger and gmail yesterday, the reason for which are the server outage errors, which I have started noticing (not before February).

In case you forgot, today is GMail's 2nd Birthday and Apple's 30th one. Both the companies(Google and Apple), have been very silent for the past one month. This of course has not stopped the speculation of the rumours about new iPods, Macs and an Office Suite integrated with Google's mail service. The same day, 1 year ago Google started offering infinity+1 amount of storage, with the following representation:

Today I have been trying to see whether there is any news about GMail since the time I came from school, but have found nothing but websites which were originally created as anti-GMail where most of the discussions were about Microsoft(against them, of course).

At school: Loads of fun. Chemistry Teacher had fractured her arm. Maths teacher(/senior school coordinator) went out for work. Physics teacher has been chosen(by mistake) for correction of XII Board papers. The result, 5 free periods where we created chaos in the school, played football in the corridoor, and of course enjoyed ourselves.

Tomorrow is Sunday: Tomorrow is the day we try to study what we haven't been studying the past week. Tomorrow is also the day I will design the cover for our annual school magazine. So basically, lots of work that is going to keep me busy.

Happy April Fools' Day,
~!xAbhishek

Back to the Future

2006-03-24T01:27:00.000-08:00

The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time. But what's bad is that it comes when you least expect it. School has started again just like every year, the only difference being that I have to walk 10 yards more to reach my class room. The only subjects I actually find interesting in school are Maths and Computers(in the correct order). I dont want to boast about myself, but I know more than everyone who squints their eyes every now and then, in both the subjects, till now. Chemistry is just to pass time as most often I only recollect about 1/10000th of what we are taught, close to nil. Physics is something you cant understand the first time anyway, so note down anything you see or hear(even the pauses). In other not-so-uninteresting news, we have our school's computer symposium in August. 28th and 29th will be the tentative dates.

So here is what I have been doing till today. They have not helped in my score in 11th in any way, which of course I am least proud of. So is it that I just stop studying and start banging my head on any metallic object I find in the house? Of course, not. What I'm going to do is something that may not be surprising, because every other guy is already doing it. Starting today, I'm going to sit at my desk, read my books aloud and write down the stuff, for a change. What I will gain, is what you'll find out between August 15th and September, between which I will get my results.

And what I'm not going to do is Vipassana: the shitty meditation technique that is supposed to boost memory and concentration, because the only time I did it, I ended up getting the least marks in the subject I loved most last year.

You can expect a Fedora Core 5 review soon, instead of that Vista review I was going to write.

Here is a shot of the installation, more later.

Microsoft is on war..

2006-03-15T03:41:00.000-08:00

If you have ever used Microsoft Office Live then you'll probably know that MS is now on war with Firefox. Howcome? They have encrypted their live services to make them least compatible with Firefox, and they work perfectly well only on Internet Explorer. But what will you do if you were a person like me, who deleted IExplore.exe from its folder and redirected it to Firefox.exe instead..You'll be dead, because it is not compatible even with Internet Explorer 7 Beta, which is the only upgrade you can perform on an existing fully updated system running Windows XP. Now this is crap, because I will stop using Microsoft's few products I've installed or have been using. Microsoft always tries to do something amazing, but fails to somehow, because the competition is just much better. So here clearly Google Pages is the winner...

Other than that, life is really not as boring as I thought it would be, after the exams, when we have nothing much to do, but wait for the results. I can really see a lot of initiative being taken for REVIEWARE growth. If you've been having problems with LimeWire recently, make sure you update your windows before starting it again. There have been lots of cross-link malfunctions reported recently between windows system files and LimeWire.

Junkyard Visited

2006-03-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

I've been really enjoying myself, lately. I watched Rang De... yesterday, went to Nehru Place today and saw that the people shouting "Laptop, Lenovo, IBM, Free CDs and CHAI" were doing their jobs better than ever..Nehru Place is indeed a Junkyard.. but an interesting one, with probably the cheapest dhaba food in the city. Rajinder Da Dhaba(Safdarjung), if you ever noticed is no less than a proper fast food joint with exorbitant prices, now. Having a lassi at NP for Rs.15 was a delight. The same thing at Green Park would have cost Rs.50 and a little guilt from my side to top it.

I(and my uncle) went there to buy laptop, and I noticed that the salesmen were not at all as helpful as I had thought they would be..It would have been helpful just by their knowing the difference between DDR & SD, but the Compaq and Lenovo guys alike, seemed to have no clue. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera to take a snap or two of that unique hub of computers I visited today.
So what did I think about the place? Really brilliant. There is lot of competition between even the smallest of PANWALAS for selling that bottle of mineral water a little cheaper. Everything said, the place does need to be revamped, and also needs to adopt a system like that followed by malls(Ansal, Metropolitan, etc) in Delhi, with better parking facilities. Though the one thing that I enjoyed the most truly, was making fun of those so-called geeks of NP on their faces at the knowledge of theirs, which was no more than my 4-year-old cousin.
Right now the starters, were CHAPATTIS and curry. The real dinner was at Chokola at Vasant Vihar, where there was a huge selection of exquisite items to choose from, all made from/of chocolate..I am not going to write a review on this one but it is worth a visit on a special day, maybe. If you like my tastes, start with Cappuccino.
Phew...I've been out for a while today,
Time to get back home and sleep

What's next?

2006-03-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

Wierd title, isn't it? Of course, not! There are a lot of things I plan(with lot's of hope) to do till 18th March, and here a short list:

Making backups of 300GB as I have run out of HDD space.
Giving you a beautiful "first-i" of Vista
Planning out a strategy to promote revieware
Watch Rang De Basanti.
Capturing some good video and photographs.
Downloading music of the following bands:

The All American Rejects(iTunes ChartBuster)
Fall Out Boy(The usual)
Weezer(Newcomer, captured my attention)
David Gilmour(Ever heard of Pink Floyd?)
Daniel Powter(Slow rock, but good rock)
James Blunt(added to my list of crappy songs that sometimes work like sleeping pills)
FUEL(The gas isn't leaking.)
The Goo Goo Dolls(Get them coming)
The Fray(you're on a high)
Saving Jane( Think before you comment on this one)
Bo Bice(The Real Thing, Finalist of the American Idol)

Disclaimer: The music above may not be suitable for those who vaporize listening to slang, etc..
Note: Downloading without buying is piracy, make sure you make a friend buy it.

Listening to James Blunt,
Good Night...zzzz

Enjoying yourselves?

2006-03-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

I've enjoyed myself a lot, studying for my exams, and not studying anything today is like gaining no knowledge in a civilization much down-trodden than ours. Here was Tuesday, and my exams end, adding Maths to my list of worries(about the result). Yes, my friends, even I, who waste too much time doing other things, want to pass in an annual examination that might pose a threat to your promotion to a higher grade.
Rough Sketch of the Origami

Maths being the only subject where I was confident to score above 90%, has not given me as much love as I have given it, which is sad and disheartening after a 10 month long timetable of studies both at school and outside(home, maybe).

Outside studies, let's talk about the Origami for a while. Microsoft has seemed to have got it right finally, by bringing attention to products that don't already exist. I think, as people keep guessing what their new Alexandria and Origami are, they collect all ideas possible to give you a great device that can possibly kick Apple's ass. This time, I do mean it, and do know that there is a lot going on with Intel's UMPC and Microsoft's Origami.

Apache is a new kind of headache

2006-03-03T00:09:00.000-08:00

Every computer geek knows about Apache. Even if they didn't know about it, they've surely heard about it. So I knew about it, after having heard about it long back. Yesterday was a pathetically useless day, with 5 and a 1/2 hours wasted, and (almost) nothing achieved, when I could have studied instead(Am I joking?). Installation of any piece of software is as easy as it can be today. The same with Apache.org Web Server. Took 1 minute to install and 30 minutes to configure. End result:

Warning: mysql_connect(): Access denied for user 'username'@'localhost' (using password: YES) in C:\Apache2\Apache2\htdocs\includes\database.mysql.inc on line 31
Access denied for user 'username'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

The only good news is that Windows did not crash in the process.

Tomorrow I have my Comp Science paper and then the Maths paper on Tuesday..

Till Tuesday,
~!Abhishek

Bad Days..

2006-02-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

Right now it is exam time. I am having a bad time because the chemistry paper today was a big flop for me(practical marks, please save me). When you are not able to get any clue to the answer for the first 5 questions, it is really disappointing and you immediately lose interest. I have a day off tomorrow and then the physics paper which I presume will be something more interesting.

The title of my post, by which you could make out, shows that things are bad, not just for me. In the past one week there have been 3 different attacks by malicious code on the Apple's feline OS. It isn't surprising to me, as Apple would certainly have had to face the heat, sometime or the other.

Apple has also got lots of competition, as soon we might have PVPs which are more intuitive than the iPod, as Mercer who created the original design for the iPod has created the latest model of the Samsung mp3+video+photo player(pic on the left). The only thing I think Apple can do now is to drop its current prices and also start thinking of a completely new iPod design, that will give its look of freshness. I like the one given here.

I will soon get my hands on the latest Vista CTP which I have been downloading in the past few days and will post a revieware first-i on the same. This interesting link which I recieved by email let's you disfigure Bush's face as you like. I hope to create one like that of someone in India, say Shah Rukh!

Happy Studying,
~xAbhishek

Exams and Beyond...

2006-02-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

A couple of friends told me to stop wasting my time on the PC and start studying for a change. During my physics practical yesterday, me teacher's first viva question was: "अर,े पढता क्युन नही यार ?". Brrr..These days, I try. But what's really overwhelming is my physics and chemistry textbooks work like sleeping pills, and I have not been able to finish even 300 of those 1000 pages till now. This is interesting, what is ∞ - ∞ or tan90 - tan90. It is not zero, that's for sure.

Other stuff to look at if you've got time like me..

The Ubuntu review on revieware.

The 2005 Exun Video was pretty good. But I think this one's even better. It's the trailer of the video taken at our school. Watch the vid and tell us how good it is. All credit goes to Uday Yadav(VP of the Matrix), Karan Bhalla(Head-Boy) and Tanay Kumar(Class X).

Also, look at this interesting presentation on how to draw.

Cable TV is as bad as ever. We switched to Siti Cable from Hathway, for better services. Many channels look as if a comic strip were talking to you. That is, no animation and only sound.

Unlucky Day

2006-02-17T02:09:00.001-08:00

My eyesight is really poor. Nor am I very patient. And because of that I've just lost 54GB of DivX movies(AP series, South Park complete, Simpsons Seasons 16, 17) and music videos. Tried all means of recovering data, was of no use. All this was just because, I felt like trying out the latest Ubuntu release and reviewing it.

Damn me!

So now I've got to get back whatever I've lost from the internet, spend the next 30 days doing that. Why me? And I've been happy for the last few days, for not losing data or having my hard disk crash for 1 whole year, which is like achieving a Guinness Record.

What I've learnt from this incident is to never trust or try making changes to your partitions using the [Computer Management] listing in the Windows XP's control panel.

Got to go and make backups(sob sob),
xAbhishek

A dream or reality?

2006-02-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

Life is busy and not boring these days. And I have to contradict myself, don't I? So this time it's about studies being interesting for a change. Reading aloud! That's the trick.

Other than studies, I've started a project along with friends (good ones, till now) whom I've never actually met (Vibhas Jain, Siddharth Razdan and Varun Misra) and it's started going faster than the other internet blogs/sites i've created in the past. This one is called revieware. Check out the site here, to find out what it's about. This one, I assure will be better than the previous ones. revieware is like a dream becoming a reality.

Today's cricket match was really interesting, though I saw only 15 mins of it. Yuvraj and Dhoni were simply great..Tendulkar of course, hit a few shots to show he's still in the game of cricket...then a few cramps..then POW!

Being a Jerk!

2006-02-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

Most idiots are called jerks, these days. But today I found the biggest jerk on the planet who wants to get a Guinness Record for the same thing..being a JERK! I won't mention the name of his blog, but it's really easy to spot it on Blogger's so-called 'Blogs of Note'. He talks about how great he feels being a jerk, but never mentions how. He's got a few hundred comments, and 10000 profile views..

All this while I've been trying to increase the traffic on my blog, and all I get to see is 400 hits a month..So I've created another blog powered both by Y! Flickr and G Blogger..(There's no relation b/w the 2 statements, so stop thinking)..Now I don't beg anyone to leave comments* on my blog as much as I did earlier, as I have a counter hidden in the code, to see the number of unique visitors, which is decent enough.

Nero 7 is a really good burning application, as I have seen and tested during the last week. And I can easily say that it will be downloaded more than the others, as it has become the application with the most number of cracks till date(forget MS, that's usual).

For all those who think Windows is crap, stop thinking! That's probably what Bill will say in his next Vista conference, after facing so much criticism already..Use linux. Even if you don't, make sure you read TUX mag every month. You can get a free subscription from their website.

K...scroll a little..not so much...back up....here it is....http://fotogrAbhishek.blogspot.com/

The link above, if you guessed right is the link to my new fotolog. And the little text before that is a little humour from my side and also the spam my contacts send me..

*PS.Leave some comments.

Vistalicious!

2006-01-30T17:36:00.000-08:00

One of the resolutions I was planning to have was to post something on my blog everyday, no matter what! But....due to unavoidable circumstances, I have left a gap of more than 24 hours many times already.

So today's post is all about Windows Vista, and the kind of PC, I think, you'll need to use it effectively..I have sent this post as an answer to the following question on CNet.com.

Q I'm currently getting ready to either buy or build a new home computer. However, in anticipation of Windows' new operating system, Vista, to be released later this year--what is the best hardware to have inside the case that will prepare me for this? I'm wondering about not only the CPU, but motherboard, graphics board, fans, cases, power supply, single or dual hard drives (RAID), monitors, and so on. Or would it be wise to wait until the release of this new OS before getting this
new system?

A As I have always seen after upgrading to a new version of windows, the performance of my old pc hardware, go down terribly. If you love windows like me, there's no question about you switching to Windows Vista. It's always going to be a yes.. Luckily I have tested Windows Vista 5270 on my computer, and can probably give you a good opinion on what kind of hardware you'll be needing.

Let's start first, with the processor: With changing times, we need our computers to be able to give us better performance, without requiring us to constantly upgrading our PCs and Notebooks. The processor is one of the most important parts of computer, and having more RAM and less processor power, won't be very practical. So here's what I suggest. Buy an Intel Dual Core processor, Intel Pentium D or any AMD 64-bit processor. Seeing that most of the new features on Vista give extra performance on 64-bit processors, I would never suggest the Pentium 4 series of processors.

The motherboard: We have many options for the motherboard these days and for Vista it would be best if you could get one of the motherboards that have nVidia
GeForce Graphic Cards bundled with them as a package. I tested Vista on a 6200GT(256MB), and found the performance was decent enough for home usage. If cost is not the problem, go in for a 6800GT(256MB) or 7800GTX(512MB). DirectX rendered objects look real on these. Any ATI-radeon with 256MB of memory would be as good. Also look out for motherboards with more than 1 AGP slot.

Hard Drives: The hard drive is the component where you save all your data, and wan't them to stay there for a long long time. Most hard disks that you get on clearance are the ones that don't perform as well the others. So I should tell you not to compromise on your HDD. Get a hard disk with a 2-year warranty(minimum), and at least 250GB of space. Having dual hard disks is a very good idea and a very good way to create backups with the RAID functionality, with which any data copied on the 1st HDD is also copied on to the 2nd one. I think a couple of Seagate Barracuda(s) should do the trick.

RAM/Memory: The temporary memory which acts as medium between the HDD and processor is the RAM or internal memory, which also determines how fast you can access data on your computer. Memory is becoming cheaper than ever these days, and Vista's requirement of 512MB of RAM is not enough. How much RAM you get depends on affordability. The more, the better. Anything between 1GB - 4GB will be good.

Display: Vista looks really good on High-Definition TVs. You should try using something of the size of Apple's Cinema Display, gives you a good pixels-per-inch output, without any distortion. Otherwise any CRT-monitor would do fine. Most times we find that Old is Gold, and if you compare the CRT to an LCD, it even lasts more usually.

This will be the configuration of my Vista PC..You may wan't to look at the Microsoft Website, to get any details I have missed.

Another suggestion would be to go in for an iMac or MacBook Pro, they're all a breeze to use with Tiger installed on each of them. They usually do everything you wan't them to do, though PCs still win the competition because of a wider set of applications and games.

Gnutella and Studies...

2006-01-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

Why do torrents rock more than Gnutella?
--Because you never get the same quality of downloads.
--Because you have to share if you want to download.
--Files never get corrupted in the process of download
--There are a million more seeders than downloaders.
--The fact that it has lasted even though it's original concept was considered a flop.

Today's post is about my recent experience of downloading via BitComet(Torrents) and LimeWire(Gnutella).

A shot of LimeWire, one of the most popular Gnutella apps
Here's what's good about Gnutella: When downloading a file, you'll feel on top of the world for seeing the best transfer rate you ever have, and the fact that, it is cross-compatible with all OSes. What's even better is that it is the biggest network of users sharing files today.

What's Bad: Your transfer rate is never higher than what it was when you began your download, and usually upsets you when you expect your download to be completed...only to see it hasn't. You search for a file, and download it because you have no other option, and you don't know what it's actual contents are until you complete your download.

Here's what's good about Torrents: BitTorrent, the beginning of the network of torrents is an application which not many use today. But that does not mean torrents are extinct as there are new applications which are competing to take the place of BitTorrent. Some are BitComet, Azureus and BitLord. When you search for a download on any TorrentSite like PirateBay or TorrentSpy, you get a decent number of results, along with the status and quality of download.
When you click on something, you'll make out whether it is worth it, from the thousands of users' comments and ratings. That's one thing you might never find on Gnutella searches.

I will point out anything bad I find in the Torrent concept once I have fully got used to it...That's probably after I am promoted to 12th Class/Grade this March. Surprising! Every year the academic session is starting earlier than the previous ones.

Did you know that Napster version 1.0 can still be used to download music for free? I installed a copy from a CHIP CD: July, 1999. Most of us have forgotten about it. Surprising, isn't it?

iY currently looks extinct. But if it works out as I have dreamed, it will look more than just a funny name on the internet, still doing what we it has been doing in the recent past. Right now I have only one friend who is actually interested in doing something for iY, but times are such that interests also cannot be given enough time. I hope you can make something out of that, 'coz i sure can't.

Phew!! Got to get back to studies, exams starting 24th Feb. 11th is very tough, and it is a very wrong to call it easier than 11th. 'All work and no play?' is definitely the question to ask today!

Coming Sooo...

2006-01-26T02:14:00.000-08:00

Weighlifting Hurts!

2006-01-23T10:44:00.000-08:00

Most of us in Class 11, whether in Commerce or Science, have started lifting weights without realizing it..It's funny, I weighed my Modern ABC of Chemistry and it weighs 760 gms. All these so called 'reference' books are never reffered to me or for that matter, anyone who has the slightest brains and can figure out that the NCERT is more than enough for Class 11 studies. Additional books, will be required, but only for questions and numericals... So why go and spend a 1000 bucks(rupees) on books you're not gonna use.

So I figured yesterday, that taking a copy of Pradeep's Physics from a guy(Shivaas) who has passed out(from Class 12) is much better, than actually buying it. The book still looks new(bought 3 years back), because neither him nor I have ever touched it..Yes it is underlined! But actually whatever is underlined is what is given in NCERT too. Compare those 2000 pages to the 300pages of NCERT.

So finally(better late, than...) I have a New Year Resolution. The resolution is I will do my own work and won't take advice from any Tommy or Hari, to cope with studies, as it only brings more tension..

I'm quite happy with my decision of not taking IIT Coaching, as I am seeing my friends at school suffer(6 hr classes, and 5 minutes of extra moral lectures).

I noticed this sometime back. People have got the lyrics of "One Last Breath" by Creed all wrong. Specially in one place where he actually says "I'm so f#@*ed up" and not "I'm so far off". The latter makes less sense anyway.

Gmailing and more...

2006-01-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

I just discovered a new feature in Gmail, and am quite happy with myself, as probably that's the only thing I've done since morn. And guess what it is?? Look at the "Download all attachments" link in the screenshot below. When you click on it, Gmail will compress any attachments you've got in that email and give you a zip file to download from it's server.

Screenshot of Attachments in Gmail

That's probably just few of the things that is hidden into Gmail's beautiful interface. And those ads, which we see on the right are not at all obtrusive. I went to check my mail once just to check whether Gmail has ads like they said. Yes they did and exactly like they said I hadn't even noticed it.. Wonder when GMail is coming out of it's beta. It's birthday is not far from now. To be precise, on April Fool's Day.

I've got a whole lot of Gmail invitations to give out, and what's surprising is that is that when I send one, the number does not decrease..So anyone wanting an invite may leave their e-address as a comment to this post.

Other than Gmailing, there is nothing new these days, as such. We don't want to touch somethings that are new. Yes those school books. They look as if they were bought yesterday(even though they were bought almost a year back).

And something that I've been working on is a technical website as mentioned in my previous post. Help will be appreciated again as mentioned earlier..

I bunked school yesterday, thinking there won't be much to do..But my prediction's, as usual...

And I've fallen in love with the MacBook Pro and I do like the name too unlike others, who think Power would be better prefix to Mac. Feel free to donate your MacBook to me, in case you are tired of using it or something. And also do inform me of any competitions where we can win Apple products(not software).

Dreams of iY

2006-01-18T08:49:00.000-08:00

Need help improving upon the design and content in page below. Please help. It's to revive the long lost iY we tried to create in september 2005, when it was a complete failure. Please post your suggestions, and tell me what you would like to see in the section links, as a part of our site we can update regularly... Please suggest a new name also..and you're welcome to be part of the team...I hope this one's successful.

http://iy2.hostrocket.com/new/index1.html

~Thanks.

Umm...Faster!!!

2006-01-14T04:16:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't guessed already what this screenshot signifies, let me tell you that you have very little knowledge about computer games. This is the superbly realistic Most Wanted from the Need For Speed series created by Electronic Arts also known as EA. I got the game today and having played it I would give it a 4/5 rating. Why not 5/5? Hey, because I lost in a few races.

Though EA has done it's best in creating this game, there are still a few glitches I see in the game. Maybe they are not visible when you're playing on a high-end graphic card, but I still think EA should start catering to the needs of the users with normal computers. Well, many won't agree, but how many people do you know who own 7800GTXes?

Though it looks more like 2D on my game like Dhruv said, I still enjoyed playing this much advanced version of Hot Persuit 2, and suggest you get it, steal it from somewhere and play it. It's can be downloaded from PirateBay. Though downloading it is like piracy, I say playing it for an hour and deleting it won't hurt EA so much. Or will it?

Time for India to Change

2006-01-11T08:24:00.000-08:00

Pick up a copy of January's "Readers' Digest" and check out the article on Finnish Education.. It talks about how successful people are after going through the world's most flexible system of studies. Students are given freedom to do almost what they wan't and at the same time deliver results better comparably better than any other institution in the world.

India, sadly, is still stuck with rattafication. (a self-coined word, also used in Hinglish by fellow classmates of Indian origin).

In another corner of the world a quite well-known person comes on stage and says his usual "One More Thing..." and at the same time releases the first Macintosh based desktop and laptop powered none other than by Intel's Dual Core Processors. Though, the world has gone ga-ga over Steve Job's keynote every year at MacWorldExpo, I do not find anything that interesting this year. The MacBook Pro and iMac have been upgraded, but I who already uses an Intel PC, would not go for a computer that costs double the price for less than half my PC's configuration.

Vista 5270 has pleased me more than the Darwin Unix based Mac OS X Tiger...See for yourself by either visiting the Microsoft website, or downloading the OS itself from PirateBay.org or TorrentSpy.

Here is a pic of Vista running smoothly on my PC with only 256MB of RAM.

Click on the image to get an enlarged view.

Here's one of Mac OS X Failing to boot on my PC(sob, sob)

It does work when I've used VMware, but was of no use almost

This week has been rather boring, with my hopeless efforts of keeping my new year resolutions.
I am not going to be shouted at by my Chemistry teacher tomorrow, as I have completed my homework..That's the only thing to be happy about, as I am going to be shouted at in the last period, for not finishing my practical work(as usual).

Please feel free to use your complete vocabulary in my Web Log, as I do not censor it like I censor the school website's forum, etc.

C'mon People

2006-01-05T06:33:00.000-08:00

I have a few friends boasting about their Sony and Philips iPods that they bought from Karol Bagh's Gaffar Market. They just refuse to believe Apple alone can use 'iPod' as a name for their product. Also, people believe, that those advanced games we see these days, are programmed in C++. I would like to say that they are programmed in C# which is somewhat different from C++. DirectX is one cool thing to learn. You just can't create stunning graphics in Flash, like the ones you can render using DirectX.

Also, I just can't seem to believe that people need to spend so much money upgrading their PCs, every 2 months, as I find it pointless to get the latest of everything when you don't actually need it. People in India would prefer to spend more money on something because of it's fame, rather than spending half the money on something as good, if not better. The price difference between Intel and AMD's competing processors would be a good example.

Dirty Tricks

2006-01-04T01:04:00.001-08:00

My new book on photoshop. Get a copy if you can. It shows you how to create those stunning graphics you might see in some of those tech magazines and hollywood posters. Has amazing stuff that I would never wan't to reveal if I had discovered myself. It's from the editor of Photoshop Magazine in the US/UK. Plus it even tells you how to jump out of photographs and look real. Really good book if you have a copy of Photoshop CS..You have to have Photoshop CS to use this book effectively...

This week has been the worst for my new year resolutions, with no study and all play.

New in 2006

2006-01-03T02:07:00.000-08:00

Already the dhamaka has started. Adobe has bought Macromedia. Intel has changed it's logo. Google will start free webhosting. There will be peace everywhere. Let's hope 2006 will be the best year of all our lives, with interesting things happening and studies suddenly looking a lot more interesting.

My iPod has started working better in 2006, which is really good, as it gives me 20 hrs of music even though it is supposed to give only 18.

Beggars in New York

2005-12-31T01:58:00.000-08:00

Beggars can be spotted easily on Delhi roads. They irritate us when we are going and earn a lot by the end of the day. No different is this beggar outside the Metropolitan Art Museum in NYC.

New Year Resolutions

2005-12-30T10:02:00.001-08:00

1. Study.
2. Study harder.
3. Study even harder
4 ...
∞. Don't forget the ∞ -1th resolution.

Here are some rather interesting new year resolutions I found on Google.

And before I forget to say: Happy New Year!

Untitled

2005-12-25T06:02:00.000-08:00

My friend from Germany arrived today and told me that he loves visiting India because of the cheap hardware for PCs. It's great that India attracts people at least for something. This trip he plans to buy the 7800 GTX, thinks 500 Euros is cheap. Umm...never in my sweetest dreams, would I think 500 euros to be cheap...Anyway I'm waiting to setup my LAN at home which is going to test my patience greatly. Let's hope I am successful...

Signing Off!

xAbhishek

Google PageRank

Skype - Still the best?

Wirefly- Awesome Phone Deals

Google AJAX Search API

अन्ग्रेज़ी exam over

Relief from Tension

Chemistry 'Bored' Exam over

Nike Ad

Boards Start Today

Spam, Spam and more Spam!

Manipal University Virus

Flip3D for Windows XP

Saying farewell to my alma mater

Canon Rock

CompSc Board Practical Exam

Activate Windows Vista

Board Exam starts tomorrow

A&$holes

Windows Vista Premium Computer

OSX86: The Final Moments

Skipping Captcha

Exams are nice

Class Field Trip

Untitled

Shifted to xAbhishek.com

ThinkQuest 06

Exun 2006

Movie downloads from MS

Bro. Bergins Music Meet

Playstation 3 Preview

iPod: Back from the dead

Custom Search Engine

Better Results

Looking forward to exams

revieware 2.0 beta

I won...

Galaxy 42

Blogrolling

Wireless Routers

Touch screen iPod? Not quite.

I love Mac OS...

Ossum Ad!

Surprise Event, no longer a surprise

xAbhishek.com and revieware.net are now mine

MINET 2006

Matrix- Ecomm 2006 - The End

Countdown 9, 8, 7, ...5 days remaining

10 Days and Counting...

Firefox - The People's Browser

Am I lucky or what?

What I want to see in Flash 10

The PC is not becoming personal

How dumb can you be?

Buh-Bye Network Solutions!

Happy Birthday to Me-self!

Matrix - Ecomm 2006

Zune vs. iPod

Installing Linux Safely

Blogizen India: Return of the Blog

The govt. strikes again

CSS and me can never be good friends

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Screen shots

Old is still Gold

Internet Connections in India

Bill Gates, Argentina and Ronaldinho

Breath of Fresh Air™

Quality vs Quantity

Business Ideas

Post 61 of an Internetholic

April (27-17)th (2005+0001)

Mac OS X.4.1 on your Intel

The Mac experience, this time on my Pentium 4

Reading is(or can be) Fun

The Future as I see it..

Fools' Blah..

Back to the Future

Microsoft is on war..

Junkyard Visited

What's next?