Vandit's Webzine

Hello World.

2010-09-26T18:42:00.001+05:30

Just testing the mobile blogging app on my P1i. Verdict : It seriously lacks features. Note to @gx_saurav. Can we work on a Blogging app instead ?

My Novice Photography

2010-05-19T02:07:00.001+05:30

The final vacations of my Engineering degree have just began and I have already made a trip to Nainital ! Due to delays in the Vacations and a few uncertainties I couldn’t book the Train Tickets in advance and ended up paying a little premium for the Tatkal tickets . However the sorrow mitigated as I boarded the train and set off for Nainital.

In Nainital I decided to pursue one of my Hobbies i.e. Photography. Frankly speaking I am a Novice at it. The tool at work was a Sony Cybershot T77 whose review* I had written earlier. Nainital is a host to some wonderful flowers and scenery and I thought of working with the Shutter a bit.

For clicking the pictures of the Flowers, I used the Macro-Focus mode, threw in some imagination and I hence I have a Flickr stream of my own now :) . Most of them were clicked just for practice – you know – adjusting the focal point, position relative to the Sun, Matter of Subject etc.

Too bad I couldn’t find the settings to change the shutter speed else you’d have ogled at some awesome pictures that I visualized in my mind. So the round of shooting Flowers is over. Next time I venture out in the Vacations , you’ll find more variety in my PhotoStream. Thinking of Shooting some Black & White scenes but that’ll be after the exams ( Starting from 8th June ‘10 and ending probably by the end of June )

So that’s that and here I present you some of the pictures I shot there at Nainital.

GOTO My Flickriver Photostream © (in case you missed the link on the picture above)

Comments on the photos are Appreciated .

- Vandit Khamker.

* The pictures in the Review post were taken with utter disregard of Photography Principles .

IPL 3 Standings ( Extrapolated )

2010-03-16T20:21:00.001+05:30

Hello Folks ! IPL Season 3 is here and I have this strong urge to write about a strange pattern I have observed. The 1st season of IPL was as exciting as Cricket can be made. The feeling when an underdog wins can be scripted into a Hollywood movie. IPL 2 was a bit on the down side on excitement due to it being shifted outside India and given the short duration for preparations , I think the IPL team did a fantastic job . Come to season 3 and the season so far has been exciting with all teams being equally competitive and the game being played in spirit (with all the money involved , they have to ;-) )

So far the Standings (that matter) of the IPL in the 2 seasons are :

Season

Winners

Runners up

Semifinalists

Sore Losers

Rajasthan Royals

Chennai Super Kings

1.) Punjab

2.) Delhi Daredevils

Deccan Chargers.

Deccan Chargers

Royal Challengers Bangalore

1.) Delhi Daredevils

2.)Chennai Super Kings.

Kolkata Knight Riders.

Based on some *analysis on a scratch pad, some random guessing and some assumptions (will not be specified ) , I prepared a extrapolated points table based on the trend observed in the two previous seasons with the time scale in mind . My predictions for this year’s standings are :

Season	Winners	Runners up	Semifinalists	Sore Losers
#3	Kolkata Knight Riders	Delhi Daredevils	1.)Mumbai Indians 2.)Royal Challengers Bangalore	Kings XI Punjab.

Don’t ask me how I made these predictions or put your money on them. They are as much strongly based on facts as an over-zealous Mac-fanboy making statements on the Microsoft line of products. I would like to know your opinions and your Guesses on this year’s Teams and their standings.

( *Analysis ? What Analysis ? If you are a sick guy demanding exhaustive data on such an use~~full~~less issue , go waste yourself over Alcohol and buy an iPad or something . Rest of you just enjoy the proceedings. )

Ch. 2 – Communicating With Web Services from a Silverlight application For Absolute Dummies !

2010-03-05T15:11:00.001+05:30

First of all , let me make it clear that I am not a Graphics Designer (and neither I am cool.) . I am the guy that handles stuff that goes on the backend of a software – the Database and Business Logic stuff . So queries regarding what tools to use to design the interface and giving shiny animations will not be responded to or at the best redirected somewhere else.

NOTE : If you are accustomed to the ASP.Net programming model , you *will* face some mental blocks during the Silverlight application development. Why ? Because there are no Auto-Postbacks to the server in Silverlight !! If a call to the server is necessary, it must be manually initiated by the developer. No need to worry, we will handle all that confusion in this chapter.

SILVERLIGHT 3 – THE SUPPORTED COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS AND CHANNELS

Sockets:
Silverlight 3 supports sockets programming (Use the System.Net.Sockets namespace). A socket is a low-level communication channel that is generally configured using TCP/IP.Silverlight 3 supports asynchronously sending data back and forth across a socket over TCP ports, ranging from 4502 to 4534. Be aware that sockets programming is low level,requires more code to implement, and lacks the more robust features of some of the other networking standards. Silverlight 3 supports socket communications between a Silverlight application and any server as long as a cross-domain policy implementation is in place on the server.Sockets are most commonly used to push data from the server to a client. A socket, when used in this manner, eliminates the need to poll the server for updates on a timed basis thus reducing network traffic generated due to polling. We will be using a cooler and higher level channel/protocol for communication –> Web Services + The SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) protocol ; So if there is a strong urge to know more , a detailed view of Sockets can be visited at the MSDN page HERE.

WEBSERVICES – The real thing !

If you are a .Net web developer, you might have an idea of what web services are. Yes , you can consume those pricks using Silverlight . * slurp ! *. For those who don’t know what the hell are Web Services , for them: Web services are, well , services that are hosted on the server and you can write your code into them and use entities from them like calling functions etc from the front-end. This will keep your code free from front-end implementations and also make it reusable. They are a common implementation of the SOA ( Service Oriented Architecture ) model. Don’t worry, the picture will get clearer as we proceed.

So what we want to build has a simplified architecture as shown.

CREATING A WEB SERVICE :

Create a new Silverlight project with a web application as a Test Harness. Right-click on the .Web project , select Add>New Item>web service. Give it some cool name. ( I preferred WebService1.asmx for this tutorial ).
Now open the code of the service you just created and you’ll see a [webmethod] named helloworld() already built by VS. To test a WebService without any front-end , right click on the WebService and click “Open in Web Browser” . This will let you test methods which take primitive data types variables as arguments. Cool , click on the method name and you’ll see hello world returned in XML. This will signal everything is fine.
Now create a ClientAccessPolicy.xml File. In order to protect Web Services from being called by malicious Silverlight controls, Microsoft added a configuration file to Web Services so that access to the service from a control can be configured. A Web Service that is to be consumed by a Silverlight application should include a ClientAccessPolicy.xml file in the root of the virtual directory where the Web Service is hosted. The ClientAccessPolicy.xml file includes information pertaining to the controls and domains that are allowed to call a service. A standard ClientAccessPolicy.xml file is shown here:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<access-policy>
<cross-domain-access>
    <policy>
      <allow-from http-request-headers="*">
        <domain uri="*" />
      </allow-from>
      <grant-to>
        <resource path="/" include-subpaths="true"/>
      </grant-to> </policy>
</cross-domain-access>
</access-policy>

CONSUMING A WEB SERVICE :

Adding a WEB REFERENCE : Right click on the references folder of your Silverlight project in solution explorer and click “Add web reference”. Click Discover to find Web Services currently available. You’ll find the following screen Ok and it will be added to your application ready to be consumed :
To start using the Web methods defined in the service , open the MainPage.xml we created in Ch –1 (the dumb 1 textbox – text1 and a button b1 GUI ). Create a Object of the service we just added as a reference by adding the following code in the MainPage ServiceReference1.WebService1SoapClient svc1 = new ServiceReference1.WebService1SoapClient();
In the MainPage constructor we will create handlers for the Asynchronous calls to methods as we mentioned earlier that Silverlight supports only asynchronous calls . To do that add the following code :
Now add an event handler to the button b1 as discussed in ch 1. add the code in the event handler body as follows :

svc.HelloWorldAsync();

run the application. Press the button and observe.

WOW ! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN ??

Lets rewind a bit and understand what happened there. When the button is clicked , its event handler is called which executes the HelloWorldAsync method of the service SOAP Client object and hence the helloworld() webmethod from our webservice is called. The return value of helloworld() method of the service is captured by the “Result” property of the HelloWorldCompletedEventArgs object which we are displaying in the textbox (text1) .

Did you notice the communication between the Web Service and the Silverlight frontend. This is handled by default by the SOAP protocol so we didn’t need that much coding to handle the communication. You can use other protocols like POX , REST , JSON but as this is an introductory tutorial, we wont dive deep.

PS :

Do try your hands at developing new Web methods which take arguments and return objects of your custom class. [Hint : you will have to “Serialize” your custom class objects to transport them over SOAP . ]

Do ask if you have any doubts . Till then . Chao !

- Vandit.

Ch. 1 – Getting Started with Silverlight 3 – For Absolute Dummies.

2010-02-14T00:43:00.001+05:30

DISCLAIMER : The Author of this Article doesn’t claim this article series to be original. The author himself is a beginner in Silverlight Development and has written this only to help beginners find their way in the maze.

Silverlight is a technology developed by Microsoft that enables the development of Rich Interactive Applications (RIAs) that target the Web ( Silverlight 3 also has the “Out-of-the-browser effect” ). Silverlight is a cross-platform and cross-browser plug-in that is composed of a subset of the functionality included in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and the .NET Framework.

- Microsoft Silverlight 3 – A Beginner’s Guide.

I am not going to discuss the History of Silverlight but , when designing and developing the Silverlight versions ,Microsoft has taken notice of the features being offered by all competitors (Flash, JavaFX … blah blah blah) and has used that as a baseline for creating a new product. As a result, Silverlight includes many features and functionality not available from competing technologies.

For a detailed listing of features , visit here. (You might not actually want to use that many.) Now that sets up the background for Silverlight 3 .

The TOOLS you’ll need to Develop Silverlight 3 Applications are as listed and can be obtained from HERE :

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 / 2010 / Visual Web Developer Studio. (Our Favorite IDE !! )
Silverlight 3 tools for Visual Studio. (Needed for Dev. Silverlight 3 Applications. )
Silverlight 3 Toolkit. (Provides additional Silverlight Controls )
Microsoft Expression Blend 3 . (Required for Graphical Editing of UI . Awesome Tool . )
.NET RIA Services ( If you want to utilize server side data in a 3 Tier application . Don’t worry too much if you don’t understand it at this moment.)

GETTING YOUR HANDS ~~DIRTY~~ SILVER, FOR THE FIRST TIME.

So now that you have the required tools in place, Open up Visual Studio 2008/2010 IDE and Click on FILE > NEW > Project.
Select the Language of Coding (of your preference , I chose C# ) and Select the Silverlight option in the left frame .
In the templates frame (on the right ) Select the Silverlight Application and Give it a suitable name and click create.
In the dialog box that pops up , check the “Host the Silverlight Application in a New Website.” and select the project type as ASP.NET web Application .
Ok so you have created your First Silverlight application !

WAIT A MINUTE , I DON’T UNDERSTAND A THING.

That’s what this article is written for my boy. Wait.

UNDERSTANDING THE SILVERLIGHT APPLICATION STRUCTURE

Open up Solution Explorer (Ctrl + Alt + L). You’ll see Two projects added to your Solution. The first project shown is the web application test harness (The part where you’ll test your Project is called the Test Harness.). The second project shown is the Silverlight application. In the Silverlight application, the only files of interest at this time are the MainPage.xaml file and the associated code-behind file, MainPage.xaml.cs.

The MainPage.xaml file will be opened by default in Visual Studio for editing. The WPF Cider XAML designer was introduced to Silverlight in version 2 but is currently locked in read-only mode. Hence, Silverlight 3 applications created by using Visual Studio 2010 must be created through direct XAML coding. The alternative method for creating and designing a Silverlight application is to use Expression Blend. A Silverlight application created in Visual Studio can easily be opened in Expression Blend as both of use the same project Structure .

To open it up in Expression Blend 3 , right click on the MainPage.xaml file in the Solution Explorer and select open with Expression Blend option and click yes if prompted by a security warning dialog.

WHAT IS XAML AND WHY DO I HAVE TWO FILES , ONE WITH A .xaml.cs EXTENSION ?

The Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML, pronounced zammel) is a custom
XML grammar that Microsoft created for use in WPF.

A XAML file is used to define user interface components and layout. A parser reads
the XAML file and instantiates objects behind the scenes to build and lay out the interface
indicated. As related to WPF, a XAML file may contain one of three document elements:
the <Window> element, the <Page> element, or the <UserControl> element, depending on
the type of WPF application created . ( Didn’t we say SIlverlight is a subset of WPF and .NET framework ?? )

The other file with the extension .xaml.cs is the code-behind file which maintains the event handling and other mechanisms related with the designer file (.xaml file).

OK THAT EXPLAINS IT , BUT NOW WHAT ??

From Expression Blend add a TextBox and a Button to the Canvas (The default drawing area ).
Click on the Textbox and from the properties frame , give a name .eg. Text1 . Repeat similarly for the Button.
Save the project and open it in VS and check the Mainpage.xaml file again and you’ll find the XAML code written for the Textbox and the Button. Explore the various properties of the controls using the VS’s Intelli-sense (press a spacebar after one of the properties and you’ll get a list to choose from .)
In the properties of the Button we will add an event handler. To do this , add the following code

<Button x:Name="B1" Content="Click me" Click="B1_Click"/>

Right click on the B1_Click and select “Navigate to event handler” . In the click event , add the following code.

Text1.Text = "hello, I am a dummy";

(Text1 is the name of the TextBox you added from Expression Blend.)

Right click on the SilverlightApplication1TestPage.aspx from Solution Explorer and Click on “Set as Start Page”.
Run the application by going to the Debug menu and click start debugging. (Try using F5 for the same thing from the next time.) Voila ! You have created your first Silverlight Application.

WOW ! BUT HOW DID THAT HAPPEN ? THE ADDRESSBAR OF MY BROWSER READS “http://localhost:52456/SilverlightApplication1TestPage.aspx” WHEREAS WE DID THE CODING IN MAINPAGE.XAML . HOW ??

You are a smart-ass but the Visual Studio got the better of you. As I said before the .web project is your TEST HARNESS , your highness. click on the SilverlightApplication1TestPage.aspx and select the designer view. If you look carefully , you will see a frame with an object tag on its top. (NOTE: VS 2010 may have <asp:Silverlight > tag.) This is where your Silverlight application will be loaded and displayed . Ok , Now open the SOURCE view. Observe the Object tag we discussed in the design view. The main part is here

<param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication1.xap"/>

This determines the source of the Object . (In our case it is our Silverlight project.)

I leave it to the curious reader to explore the Source in detail.

NOTES :

This was a superficial Introduction to the topics covered due to time and space anomalies of a Blog . For a more exhaustive one, read the first 2 chapters of “Microsoft Silverlight 3 – A Beginner’s Guide.” by Shannon Horn. (But don’t hurry , you’ll lose hope and some hair too. )
The application we just created is useless and just for getting used to various things.
I recommend the reader to practice using simple controls like textbox , button , label , etc and get used to writing event handlers for them before jumping on to the complicated ones. (Yeah, Lots more fun coming up.)

- Vandit.

“ Bored till creation ” - The theory.

2010-01-02T14:15:00.001+05:30

Disclaimer : What you are going to read is in no way a work of research or scientific thesis . It’s just a random outcome of the thought process that exists in a sick (literally… the throat infection kind..) person’s mind who is “ bored till ingenuity ”and might have psychedelic effects on your mind ( just joking ) . Don’t know what this drab sounding theory is all about ? Read on …

Someone asked me , “ Is the Darwin’s theory the ultimatum for the explanation of evolution ? Does it not have the loop holes that usually exist in other theories ? ” I shrugged off his question as my mind was too occupied with other things and I thought it was a trivial question. Things that didn’t allow me to look beyond the obvious and the unquestioned . Our minds are trained to accept the conventionally theorized principles in the schools. If you begin to question the textbooks in your exams , well , you stay in the school for a few more years than you normally would ( not a personal experience… ).

The thing is , when you have nothing to occupy your mind - no books around , nothing worthy of reading , no classes in the college and no project at hand and you are too Sick to think anything Academic or do your Homework or play outside , then , you get start getting bored . There is that phase when you feel as if Time is going by slowly, you check your watch twice every minute or so and you want to do something. This span of moments , as no great man once said , gets you thinking more clearly on a seemingly trivial thing than you normally would. The mind “searches” for information from weird sources .

There was this day long back when I had nothing to do for a few hours as I was away from my HQ. No computers to play around and code some apps for personal use . I couldn’t find any sort of literature to read as I was miles away from a homely environment/newspaper stand , I had friends who were busy that day and the GPRS service on my cell-phone wouldn’t work. I had absolutely nothing on my mind. Had it been occupied at that time , it wouldn’t have allowed me to think of “Cloud Computing” as a basis for the Major Project for my college curriculum . Observe the tendency of the human mind to get thinking when there is nothing to think. If it would have been any other day in the park, I would have procrastinated to even think about what I am going to do the next week , leave the next semester project .

I guess getting bored lets creative things flow . You start to look into things more deeply , analyze every aspect and even question the obvious and the well theorized . Einstein would have had many such days at a stretch and so would have Newton. #Just_thinking . The traits of this can also be seen in the prehistoric days.

Imagine the prehistoric man in the form something similar to an ape. He had nothing to do but play around with his family and eventually got too much of it and hence got bored . Then came the inventions to play around with Animals - the nicely groomed sticks and clubs and started running around in the Forest . This straightened his posture as well as got his legs’ muscles strong. What is more intriguing is the discovery of fire. Yes , it was an accident and what I think is , that Man got bored of playing with sticks and adopted Flint stones instead. This lead to cooking ( The “Mommy , I am bored of eating raw flesh everyday” thing. ) . See it might be Necessity that is the mother of invention but not always.

As days passed , the prehistoric man got bored of wearing tree barks and animal skin and found out a way to stitch , weave and his posture got straighter as he was bored of walking with a hump on his back and we have the “homo- erectus” and gradually the “ homo- sapiens” .

I have started becoming a fan of getting bored. Necessity says “Adapt or find a way,you prick !!” but these valuable moments of having nothing on your mind say “ Hey this seems cool , let me venture more into it” and eventually you end up inventing something or the other.

Even the Yoga Gurus spread the same thought. They tell you relax , let go off everything from your mind. I have read about some camps where you can’t speak with anyone . (Hey is this article making a serious note here ? ) They tell you to meditate for an hour or so in an empty room so that you don’t get distracted. You begin to look for things to interest you but in vain. Then, if you religiously carry it along for a few more ticks of the clock , a time comes when you attain “Dhyana” …. or so they say in an enchanting way.

A careful observer would say that it is precisely the thing I have been saying all along this article. Actually, all they do is get you bored. Now folks , those who said this word didn’t feature in their Dictionary , better add it – It is the cool thing now .

And by-chance if you have read till this “comma”(,) Congratulations , you’ve got bored !!

- Vandit.

The 3 Idiots - 5 Point Someone Fiasco and my Opinion.

2010-01-02T12:52:00.001+05:30

As an introductory note to those who haven’t gone through the awesomeness called 3 Idiots yet, please go and watch the Movie. Superbly made , good performances from everyone and good music so what else does make a good movie good?

A good story perhaps ….

Talking about the story or the script to be precise, some mud-slinging has been going on between the Makers of the 3 Idiots and The author of 5 Point Someone - Mr. Chetan Bhagat. The thing is , Mr. Chetan Bhagat wrote a Novel called 5 Point Someone sometime back . It was filled up with masala… so much that it was Bollywood worthy (#sarcasm) . The novel fell in the prying hands of Rajkumar Hirani – The man behind Munna Bhai . We all know how much Rajkumar Hirani is inclined towards sending out a message through his films. This required some modification of the original masala bloated Novel . Initially the work began keeping 5 Point Someone script in mind. But as the script was being put together to convey a Message , it turned out to be significantly different from 5 Point Someone from the Message point of view . But as I look at the storyline , most of the incidents in the life of the 3 Idiots are a rip-off from the Novel and Chetan Bhagat should have been given the due Credit for that.

Another interesting thing is that although Chetan Bhagat admits that he is not craving for fame in his blog , then why would he refuse to accept the “initiated by” credit displayed in the starting of the Movie (you won’t mind that even if no such credit exists if you don’t want fame ) ?

Overall, I would be disappointed if I put myself in Chetan Bhagat’s place for not getting the credit I deserve . Seeing my name swooshing away at the end (after the junior artists) wouldn’t make me happy , would it ? Looking at the Makers of the film , the “initiated by” title was apt (“adapted from” would have sufficed and would have looked more convincing to Chetan Bhagat ) .

Someone’s gotta sort out the issue between them in person so that my Twitter / orkut / <social networking site>/<news channel> isn’t flooded with articles linking to the same incident.

Chao !!

A pledge to keep blogging.

2009-12-21T11:46:00.006+05:30

For those wondering why I hadn't been writing since ages, well to them - The customary Thanks. I was busy since the last 2 months - you know - the Recession is on the verge of being reduced to a dry dung cake on the road and the companies have started hiring. My efforts have borne fruits and I have been recruited by TCS ( The no. 1 IT , ITES company in India and featuring in top 10 around the world) . Apart from that , I had my "Exams " coming up . Been busy preparing for them.

WHAT NOW ?

Nim$ has totally screwed up his website and looks like coming up with a new (bright) idea. The talks have begun but kept clandestine for reasons (yet unexplained to me. :-) ) .
You should expect to see some changes in my online presence overall . Changes include more sensible Tweets , a more useful blog - I won't blabber over pointless things like Apple vs Microsoft vs Google vs the entire world. Public opinion says that the current template of my blog is excellent . Thanks to FalconHive for that.
I have to get my brains working on the Twitter desktop client again and release the Alpha version soon as I had promised. Will be Open-Sourcing it after the Beta release. Thanks to @jaldesai for reporting obnoxious bugs in its current form.
In another instance, Me , identi5 , Siddharth are going to develop a Cloud Computing application for the final semester project . Yeh, it will be quite a task but the research is already underway. A selected few will get to beta test that as well.

I take a pledge here to keep writing more and churn out jewls of literature . ( Nim$ !! You better suggest something outta this world...)

Thoughts from people of our age ( via @sengupta ).

2009-10-25T13:06:00.006+05:30

Hah ! It has been quite a time since the last post. *Waves hands to say hello.* Actually I will have to disappoint you guys this time as I won't be writing again here soon - you know... the exams and other stuff that's going on .

Meanwhile , try burning your time with these *awesome* thoughts from the people of our age !
- thanks to @sengupta for fishing it out from the www and posting it on posterous.

Heights of epicaricacy !

2009-09-19T00:29:00.001+05:30

There is a certain section of society that exhibits such behavioral traits. They rejoice at every misfortune of others, even at the lesser degrees of haplessness . With the competition heating up and the urge to be " The Numero Uno " , these kind of folks see " Sh*t , I am screwed !! " moments of others as a stepping stone of their success. I can't figure out why but they seem to cherish it more than their own success.

One such group of people I have seen lately. According to the statistics gathered by my subconscious mind , such psychological traits of human behaviour can be seen more clearly amongst " The people from Venus ". It is not the case that we Martians are devoid of any degrees of Schadenfreude but we are reticent when it comes to expressing it. Moreover the statistics also reveal that such feelings are , in fact , lower amongst males than in the females , (throw away that piece of garbage presented by an experiment conducted in xyz year. All that stuff happens in a controlled environment, this is practical, the quintessential qualities emerge when unmonitored ) . We have the bro code imbibed in our nerves . Some special types of males have also displayed such traits ; mind you .

On a more interesting note, such feelings arise specially when a consistent performer or a perfectionist goes off track. One such bugger fist- punched the air when I totally screwed up my CAT registeration form online. And , no it wasn't done to tease me or such thing , it was spontaenous and instinctive . Another such incident took place just yesterday when we all were upbraided at the Coaching classes. I am not amongst the one to receive scoldings often. Today, I heard from *sources* that someone was happy at the fact of me being at the receiving end than feeling shame for his/her self being lambasted. Such incidents have also taken place when , in rare cases, I haven't performed at par.
But in all such cases of spiteful feelings against the hapless fellows ,either the troubled waters have subsided or they have bounced back mightier and stronger.
The CAT admin guys have provided the heavenly "Edit" button and I scored the maximum in the tests after the lambasting. :)

" Rejoice not when thine enemy has falleth , and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth. Lest the Lord see it , and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him ."
- King James.

This is the right time for the Lord Buddha's principles of Mudita to step in. Schadenfreude has become the national pastime. Where is the concept of sympathetic pleasure ? The pleasure of seeing someone else's success . Ok not going that far; it is the 21st century; at least have the restraint to view other's success neutrally ! All we can do is simply ignore such spiteful species and slap their faces non- violently by outscoring not only all others but also ourselves , the next time.

" Be over-amicable to people who show rancor , it will be a sweeter revenge than burning down his pants . "

- Vandit.

A twitter application under development.

2009-08-02T03:32:00.002+05:30

I have been thinking of developing a real world application ever since I studied a programming language for the first time. But so far we have dealt with fibonacci, pascal's triangle and storing entity data in form of classes. I know this builds the basics but the joy of making a complete app. surpasses everything - even sipping a citrus squash on a hot sunny day. The one application I(along with Identi5 ) had made as my previous semester project was a software for managing a multiplex theatre .

The prospect of making a project for my current semester in Java and/or .NET has got me searching the Internet for some ideas on " What to make ? " and " How to make ? ". Let me be clear at this point that "how to make ?" doesn't mean copy-pasting the source code from some xyz.com.

After searching in vain for 3-4 days and almost giving up the search,when I was just scratching along my P1i's touchscreen posting "tweets". Aha ! The lightening had struck and the seeds had been sown. It was right there under my nose - a simple Twitter client. The " what to make ? " question seemed to be answered . Now comes " how to make ? " . Well that is a secret till I complete the entire application. As a hint, try searching for APIs to get some leads . Even if my project partner doesn't agree on making a micro-blogging application for the submissions , rest assured it will bear fruition, just for my self-satisfaction - take my word for that. The moment of seeing " from <myapp>" instead of "from web" underneath the tweet will be an awesome feeling. ( of course this will come after registering my app. with twitter)

As some of you might have observed my Tweeter feed , I have already put some work into it. Hope the faculties also accept this venture as the semester project and everything goes well.

- Vandit Khamker.

Thoughts on Piracy and My disappearance from the blogosphere explained.

2009-07-31T23:59:00.002+05:30

First things first. Some of you might have found this strange that I haven’t posted for nearly an entire month and the last two posts were more suited to a tumblr rather than a Blog. But time needs you to adapt, to make sensible use of it , to dedicate it to the activities of higher priorities. The last month have demanded industriousness on my part and the coming few months will be no different. Something great is gonna bear fruition in the coming months for sure (You can expect a Twitter application all made by me /and by my friend . Not an official statement , so keep it under wraps ). Till I happen to find some time again for an awesome Blogpost , here are some thoughts that have sprung up in these days.

Software as a commodity

No guys I haven’t been studying Economics or such thing during my Houdini’s act. Recently me and my <unnamed> friend were discussing Piracy in the afternoon break we get. Things like – What actually goes in the mind of a Pirate while he his carrying out his acts if he *is* in fact aware of it ? – Is it the thrill ? or it is just a Social Service venture by some prick with a truck-full of bandwidth ? and what if he isn’t aware he is violating some legal stuff ? Is piracy , after all, that bad as it is perceived to be by us ? Is there any “other side of the coin” ?

Before someone accuses me of pretending to be all Mr.Goody Goody , let me tell you that I am no Saint but – I say, there is a fine line between “acquiring” what isn’t available at any ( practical ) costs and flicking one at the snap of the finger without remorse . I have that guilty feeling of copying some piece of code which gave the dev. his piece of the bread. So as a move to show repentance , I have a genuine Windows Vista machine at my disposal on which are running all genuine Applications (apart from some pirated junk that friends bring along :) ).

I know the heading above might have sounded a bit “ Business Times ” like (which I don’t like to sound like ) … putting it in simple words ….

You know what a Commodity is. Something you buy/sell and earn/empty your pockets during the process . Similarly Software , IMO , should be strictly seen as a Commodity – by the COMMON MAN. Now if you are any school representative or a Social activist , go teach this first ; Math , Science and stop cruelty towards animals can follow.

So get these things in your head before you hit the DOWNLOAD button at that Torrent site or the much loved “ Burn ! ” button in your DVD burning software or the even more convenient - ctrl c + ctrl v combination.

Piracy is similar to stealing a television from the store (or probably buying it from a seller selling stolen goods)
Respect the work of software developers. As you pay for the commodity you buy, like an ethical rat , you should also pay for a commercial software.
If you don't want to shell out bucks faster than a Ferrari would guzzle down Gasoline, get yourself FOSS applications which are 8/10 times free ( as in “commercially free”. They are always guaranteed to be free as in “Free to Modify”)

The reason I am saying this because somewhere in the near future I will become a part of the Software Industry and so all you , who are using my piece of code, might pass on the bucks. :)

Now trying to see “ the other side of the coin ” of piracy , I must agree that it has compelled the software companies to keep the pricing low and also resorting to OEMs to sell genuine copies. It may sound abstruse but piracy has a major hand in creating monopolies like the one in the OS market . The boost in the piracy in the late ‘90 s catapulted Window’s popularity. See it can be a blessing in disguise. :)

DISCLAIMER : Piracy is unethical and Illegal. No part of this post suggests/advices/titillates you to pirate any kind of application or digital media.

2+2 =4 ;

2C + O2 –> 2CO

Stop cruelty towards stray dogs and cats .

:-)

Awesome Geeky “Your momma … ” quotes !

2009-07-09T14:17:00.004+05:30

Recently someone dumped a link on my Twitter stream along with one of his originals of these . I found them hilariously funny ( tautology ! ) . I wish to pass on these invaluable jems of literature to my fellow loyal readers and RSS subscribers .

You can visit the site by clicking on the Title of the post. Maybe it is time I start a tumblr or posterous for such trivial posts… maybe not.

Fantastic Optical Illusion

2009-06-26T20:17:00.003+05:30

I don't remember how I landed up on that site ( Click on the title of the post) but it was there in my Bookmarks . Wondering what optical illusion am I talking about ?? What if I say the green and the blue strips are basically made up of the same color ? Can't believe ? Save the image, open up paint and choose the pick color option and pick the green color and spray some on the blue strip ...

So Enjoy this Optical Illusion ! Thanks to anyone who sent me the link (maybe on twitter or something ...) and the creator !

Respect for opinion.

2009-06-19T20:34:00.001+05:30

Vandit : It has been quite a while since I put up the official invitation on my blog to write a guest post on my blog , but as they say, some idiots wake up late. :-)

So here’s how Milind sets the words on a roll on the Vandit’s Webzine.

Happy reading !

GUEST WRITER #3 .

Name : Milind Alvares (better known as Goobimama.)

Game : A Freelancer - Graphics designing , writing awesome shit like the one here @ his own - www.soggysh.it .

Age : 25 yrs old (although Urrack might make him 52 soon . )

I’ve been thinking up some shit lately, as I always do, and somehow while doing so the topic of respect kind of got lodged in my brain-lobe thingies. What is it about a comment said by some as*h’le at the bar, or about that moron in the college, that makes our blood uncontrollably boil to dangerous levels? Yes, the respect I’m talking about is respect for someone’s opinion. Bear with me a few minutes; I’m trying to figure this shit out for myself as well.

The reason I write this into a post, is that I’ve figured this has a lot to do with the hate that’s going on in this world. And I’m always against hate. Right from the small kind to the massive wars ‘in the name of god’. The only way to fix this, is to know when to give respect. As in, to know when to give a shit.

Here’s my solution to knowing when you need to roll up your sleeves. “Respect of opinion should only be given, when you have utmost respect for the source of that opinion.” It could be an internet celebrity you’re listening to. It could be your neighbor’s hot daughter. It could be your parents. Note that this is all subjective, and not necessarily true. Some of you might have a neighbors’ daughter who’s just about capable of crushing a baby elephant. My point is, you without question know when to give respect for someone’s opinion, and when not to.

So why do I say this breeds war? Look around you. Too much respect for the other god’s devotee’s opinion. Or too much respect for your bitchy neighbor's opinion. Or too much respect for that moron at the bar. (This is also where I start coming off as the Dalai Lama.) There was this one time I was in an argument with some woman* and she said something very nasty in reference to my mother. Within seconds I found myself wanting to hit her when I thought, can she, a lowlife I wouldn’t care two hoots about, make my mother anything than what she is? Now it might very well be the case that I kind of chickened out of hitting someone, a whus that I am. But the the thought I mentioned definitely made its appearance. I’ve since been a very peaceful guy. Go ahead, say this writeup is a piece of shit and I couldn’t care less (unless it’s that critical guy whom I have utmost respect for).

Does that guy’s opinion of your religious beliefs make your God any less worthy? You really believe your God is so great, so how can the opinion of someone who doesn’t even understand your religion bring down the almighty creator of all things? Respect of opinion should only be given, when you have utmost respect for the source of that opinion.

The next time someone says something about something that you most dearly love and adore, think about the source of opinion before you take action. Think about whether that opinion is worthy of your rage, anger, or violence. And if the source of opinion is one you do have utmost respect for, maybe it’s time to reconsider your opinion. You will definitely find a whole lot more peace in your life.

*The woman scene was totally real. It was the time I crashed into someone’s car, and this bitch just wouldn’t shut up. I tried to keep it cool, and did so for at least two hours, but then I just blew up. I myself was surprised at my rage. Hopefully I will control it the next time. But she was a bitch and a half that I can tell you that.

- Milind.

Pardon me for a moment ,fellas !

2009-06-01T12:33:00.000+05:30

Now is the time, as you know ,I really cut down on my online hours. Even this post was scribbled in a hurry on my email client on my SE P1i and sent to a "secret email address" passing on the ball to google to do rest of the stuff. So excuse me for bad alignment and little grammatical mistakes.

All this frenzy is due to the exams being just round the corner and I have to step up the preparations. It's not that I haven't done the preparations yet in the reading vacations, but I will have to devote more time for academics for the time being. For the records, my exams are starting on the 10th this month and will be wrapped up by the 19th - The shortest durationed (as in no. of days ) exams so far in my career as a BE - IT student.

So see you on 19th or 20th with an awesome blog post which is already underway .(I will keep in under hushed tones about what it is and *who has written it*)

Do read the archives on the right pane if you do happen to be here to quench your thirst for awesomeness/crap and keep writing comments !!

The Twitter Faux Pas .

2009-05-28T20:47:00.001+05:30

Every Social Networking site has certain “Traditions, customs and etiquettes” and Twitter is no exception. While Twitter is reckoned as the “ Next Best thing ” to happen to internet, we look at some Twitter don’ts – The things that Tweeple generally abhor and yet do it .

1.) Tweeting links and sharing awesome articles with fellow Tweeps is good , but flooding everyone’s Twitter streams with links isn’t. So make sure every Tweet you make doesn’t look like :

“ SUPERB !! RT: 40 things that do nothing : www.shortenedjunk.com (via @some_other_doofus) ”

A proper ratio ( Now don’t get into math ) of article sharing to your own original ramblings ,if maintained, will please fellow Tweeps.

2.) Don’t dare and I MEAN IT , don’t dare ask questions such as :

“ What's up? How's it going ? ASL ? Where are you from ?? ”

They might be your “general social networking- conversation starters” but NO, not on Twitter . The First sentence written on Twitter Login page and on the updates label is “WHAT ARE YOU DOING ?” and everybody is answering just that.

Not only are such questions exasperating , they also are against the very foundation etiquettes of Twitter and , thereby, making you a gaucherie . Nearly everybody has a well written BIO .Even then if there is a persistent itch, kindly D(irect) M(essage) that person.

3.) Don’t expect anyone to follow you compulsorily if you have followed them. Many Tweeple do such horrendous acts of iniquity and even join automated or even viral schemes to accumulate followers. Such people are written down by me in a Logbook - The Blacklist , compiled over a span of time , and hid somewhere secret. (No I don’t literally do that , but it is abominable anyway.)

4.) Please don’t make Twitter - the much detested Orkut. Don’t recommend Twitter to people who will eat your ( and others’ ) head to the extent of enervation and you can’t even avoid them for social reasons. Keep Twitter “ Beautiful ” as in “ Beautiful ” and not as in “ ORKUT ” .

5.) Don’t abuse Hash tags . It takes a lot of brainstorming programming for resolving Hash clashes, modifying current algorithms for a performance meliorations etc. Even I and other notable Tweeters did that but now I am abnegating from doing it. ( Although I slip in 1 or 2 of them occasionally for fun )

- Vandit Khamker.

The author is on Twitter since Jan ‘09 and is fed up with Tweeple flooding his twitter stream with just plain jerky links.

Yes, I am flabbergasted !

2009-05-21T20:56:00.001+05:30

Two trucks loaded with thousands of copies of Roget's Thesaurus collided as they left a New York publishing house last Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Witnesses were aghast, amazed, astonished, astounded, bemused, benumbed, bewildered, confounded, confused, dazed, dazzled, disconcerted, disoriented, dumbstruck, electrified, horrified, immobilized, incredulous, nonplussed, overwhelmed, paralyzed, perplexed, scared, shocked, startled, stunned, stupified, surprised, taken aback, traumatized, upset. . . .

— joke circulated on the Internet
December 2003

Access the root without a root password on a Linux box !

2009-05-20T01:59:00.002+05:30

We all are in awe of how secure and stable a Linux box generally is and don’t fret while giving Windows <Pick any one of the many versions> a piece of our foul mouth when the theme of discussion is security . But what if I tell you that you can change the root’s password without knowing the password previously ? You might be left wondering “ Root Ka Baap Kaun ?? ” OR “ This guy is outta his mind ”.

Sometimes back, I discovered ( an entirely purposeful undertaking :-) ) something called a SINGLE USER MODE in Linux which let me recover my lost Root sessions and also gave me some *cough* esoteric *cough* privileges . The entire stereotype of Linux as a “Secure Fort Knox” went for a toss. Literally.

|| THE SINGLE USER MODE ||

The basic concept of the single user mode in Linux systems is for the rescue work which is the root’s prerogative (which is exploited in this tutorial ). It is a sentinel for the SOS signals which your Linux box may let out . The single user mode “can be” considered analogous (~loosely ) to the Safe Mode which loads drivers diligently and allows only selected ( ~ limited ) services to run per se . The single user mode enables certain administrative rights which aren’t otherwise available generally. ( Try searching for the Single User Mode commands )

DISCLAIMER : Experimenting with the single user mode might result into unforeseen circumstances and you may end up having dreaded days ( read as reinstallation , recovery of data, starting all over again with apps ). I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES/MISADVENTURES/CATASTROPHY THAT MIGHT RESULT OR YOU MAY CAUSE .

This article has been written solely for “ root recovery ” and not for trespassing your college computers.

-> SO HOW DO I GET IN ?

When GRUB loads up, select your Linux OS and press [E] to Edit Boot Options.
Find and go to the line which starts with the word “kernel”. Now press [E] again to EDIT.
At the end of the line, press [space] once and type single .
Now press [Esc] to get back to GRUB and then boot into Linux. You will face a command line environment instead of a shiny GUI that you like so much.
YES !! You are IN !! You can now carry out the Recovery and Maintenance tasks for which the Single User Mode is tailor made for.

If you use LILO , its even easier –> Just type “linux single” (without the quotes ) at LILO command prompt.

-> SCREW ALL THAT >>>> WEREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT ROOT PRIVILEGES ??

Now if you might have noticed, You aren’t asked for any root credentials ( userid/pass ) to carry out administrative tasks !!
You can also change the Root password from the single user mode !
Now to change the root password type in “ passwd root ” (of course , without quotes ! ) . voila !! Now reboot like a nice little boy into the GUI and enjoy Root Privileges .

A Note on Ethics :

Although I might have made it sound this unethical , this might be particularly useful in case you forgot your root password which would have, otherwise, given you sleepless nights. There is a CURE to prevent misdemeanors as stated in the article ( #Burlesqued ). You can set your Linux Box to disable the Single User mode altogether and carry out the recovery tasks using a boot disc. Tutorials can be found from various sources ( or for that matter , do leave me a comment for more on this. ;-) )

Technorati Tags: linux,security,root

- Vandit Khamker.

Google’s innovation of the year is …

2009-05-03T02:32:00.001+05:30

Google ® is well known for its innovative products and ideas. Be it their product line , labs, marketing strategy, work place , everything you can think of has “INNOVATION” written all over it in caps.

Recently, Google foresaw some issues with the real estate they own which consist of fields. And fields,as we know, are somewhat liable to catch fire. Now generally any other corporate giant would have employed Electric mowers to finish up the job of cleaning away the fields, spending heavily on the mowers and causing electric/fuel burnout . But Google came up with a ᵀᴹ Google idea which reiterates the fact that it is still best in the business called “thinking out of the box”.

What Google did was … this :

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/mowing-with-goats.html

Now don’t arm yourself with a baseball bat and hunt me down ! You can read the article on the official Google Blog itself for confirmation . Yes, a symbiosis of the corporate and the animal husbandry. Now what we should learn from this is :

India is a country with not much financial capital to boast about. So some minds need to be flexed to come up with such ideas instead of spending incessantly . Mowing with animals is the way to go.
India’s economy is mainly dependent on agriculture and Dairy. So animals , as is certain , are abundant in number. Quite a large portion of the cattle is left wandering around on open roads nowadays hoping that they will find their own food (I can support this fact by concrete pictorial evidence ). Now such capital can be redirected to places where such mowing is needed to be carried out. So, less cattle will be on the road and more on-the-job .
This will feed the under-fed animals and will also serve the main purpose per se . Now when such replacements are done, the farmers have a reason to rejoice as they will be duly paid, I am sure they will demand less than the mowing company does . What this will also do is , it will clean up the land in an environment-friendly way as they, the Animals, don’t need electricity,coal and all such fossil fuel stuff to mow grass in the baddest of your dreams.
So you are happy, farmers are happy, the entire corporate is happy , what's the big deal ?? The next time you need some cleaning up, call up a animal husbandry somewhere near you . Its just that they will take longer to eat all that up that might change your idea a little .

Partitioning HDD in Vista .

2009-04-30T08:51:00.001+05:30

Ok so here goes a concise tutorial on HDD partitioning on Windows VISTA ( doesn’t matter if you have dell studio or XPS or any other machine ) without losing your valuable data .

Open start -> type administrative tools in the search bar -> press enter. Go to computer management.
In the left pane , select storage -> disk management.
Ok now after some time you should see your partitions.
Now right click the C: (assuming you have to partition the C drive into two.)
Select “Shrink Volume”. Now enter the amount you want in your new partition and click “Shrink”.

You are done!!

NOTE:

- Explore the administrative tools and disk management specially . Maybe they will help you sometime later. Self taught is the best learnt.

- If you are using Win XP, better use a partition manager like partition magic.

Technorati Tags: Windows Vista,hard disk partition

CAT 09 to go online !!

2009-04-28T11:40:00.001+05:30

So its official now (As said in the Economic Times – 28th April 2009 ) !! In a move to reduce the complexity of the logistics and management involved with the exam, The CAT09 – to be held in November- is going online, finally. This move is predicted to yield faster results and probably, a different question paper format. There is a addition of nearly 40,000 students taking the CAT every year and managing such a rise the conventional way would be abysmal.

So we look at what’s in store for us - the CAT ( Common Admission Test ) aspirants.

Firstly and foremostly , we , the students will have to clean up our messed up desks which are currently full of test papers and books lying around. More than the aesthetic appeal, this will free you some valuable space for a pc. (Apple guys, you can put your CrApple there.)…. Now we have to read or at least try reading books and doing stuff on the computer screens. You see getting used to electronic paper will take time but will definitely save buckets of your time on the D-day. Hopefully Endeavor, vvn also comes up with some innovative ideas they are well known for.

Secondly, we, and that specially includes ME, need to be doing mental calculations like Shakuntala Devi herself. So don't buy pens , pencils and stationery from now on, to save money that is … just kidding . Well I am not sure whether we will be provided with paper sheets to carry out our rough work or not , but I expect them to be.

The next thing comes to my mind is --> prayer!! Pray to god that you get a good stable PC (Windows is notorious for its BSODs at crucial times) on the T-day (sometimes referred to as the D-day) with a internet connection as stable as Rahul Dravid because glitches somewhere down there can ruin your day. I am sure that will be taken care of by the authorities .

There have been various models put forth for conducting the test. One of the most popular and expected model is that of the GRE-TOFL. The adaptive difficulty model which adjusts the difficulty of the questions according to the level of the student appearing for the test which is decided on the basis of the questions he answers correctly and incorrectly.

Another model would be an exact replica of the on-paper test with the paper appearing on the computer screens being the only change. There is so much room for awesome(??) experimentations on the students but as we say, “ The pitch is same for everybody ”, there shouldn’t be any specific complaints from a certain section as long as the required IT-infrastructure retains its shape during the exams.

Now I am off to solve some Quant. See you later !!

-Vandit Khamker.

“ The Hummus ” Recipe

2009-04-26T23:21:00.002+05:30

If you have seen the “You don’t mess with the Zohan” starring Adam Sandler, you must have come across two peculiar consumables – The Hummus( golden brown paste) and The Fizzy Bubblesch (the wholesome, drink ) – both of which are shown almost in every frame shot (ok, I have exaggerated it, but only a bit.)

The Hummus is a golden yellow-brown paste which is shown to be eaten voraciously with bread, vegetables ,put into curries, sometimes even with glasses and sometimes even used as a lubricant instead of oil (What were the script writer, director thinking !! ) . Coming to the Fizzy Bubblesch , it is the most popular soft drink amongst the Israelis and the Palestinians (or it is reckoned to be ). The Zohan demands one from the secret agents while discussing military tactics – the raspberry flavor , even his girlfriend pulls one out in the garden – the orange flavor and has the property of sending the first-timers to the loo . It is as ubiquitous as the Hummus or even more .(intended wrong usage of ubiquitous)

Hummus is ,in fact , a pasty Israeli dish as it is shown in the film while the Fizzy Bubblesch is a all made-up crap . There isn’t anything like Fizzy Bubblesch in the Israeli or whatever market you go. I think if someone starts manufacturing one now , it will be a huge success considering the craze for an imaginary drink .

The all secret Israeli formula for the Hummus ( Adapted for Indian availability of items )goes as follows :

Items to keep handy :

1 cup dried Chickpeas ( The ones you use in Chhole-Bhature).

1/2 cup Lemon Juice.

2 Cloves , Garlic as per the taste buds demand.

Salt to taste.

1/2 teaspoon ground Cumin.

3 tablespoons of extra virgin Olive Oil.

Freshly ground pepper.

2 tablespoon of pine nuts.

Dash of paprika.(grind dried capsicum )

2 tablespoons of chopped parsley/cilantro/mint.

1 cup Tehina (aka Tahini ) – It is a paste prepared from ground sesame seeds.

Now that you have got the table of ingredients ready on your side you need to put some of your efforts in there (quite simple though).

Soak the chickpeas in cold water overnight.
Drain and rinse the chickpeas and boil them in water and simmer with the lid partially open . Do this until the peas are soft and skin begins to separate.
Remove excess water and reserve about 1 – 1/2 cups of cooking liquid.
Put the chickpeas and the liquid in a food processor along with the Tehina , Lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, cumin and grind it to a paste. You might need to add some cooking liquid if the paste is too thick. Get a paste like consistency , neither too liquidy , nor too hard. This, my dear rascals , is what we call the “hummus” .
Heat a frying pan with a tablespoon of olive oil put in. Add the pine nuts and stir-fry till they are evenly brown.
Now transfer the hummus in a flat plate and pour in the olive-oil + pine nut mixture just prepared.
Sprinkle some paprika , cilantro over the surface and your very own hummus is ready to be munched down with some servings of raw veggies . Remember the eating with the glasses and all that bullshit is limited only to the films.

A very special thanks to Joan Nathan for this authentic recipe.

“ Don’t stay hungry , * mnon *mnom* , and for your own good ,*mnom*, don’t stay foolish !!”

- Vandit himself.

Technorati Tags: hummus,awesome,recipe

Hackintosh is pointless, after all !

2009-04-24T22:22:00.008+05:30

I have seen folks installing Mac OS x flavors on a non-apple hardware. These machines are called “Hackintosh” by the computing folklore . A more formal note on Hackintosh as quoted from Wikipedia :

SOURCE : Wikipedia

OSx86 (a portmanteau of OS X and x86) is a collaborative "hacking" project to run the Mac OS X computer operating system on non-Apple personal computers with x86 architecture processors. The effort started soon after the June 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference announcement that Apple would be transferring their personal computers from PowerPC to Intel microprocessors.

A computer built to run this type of Mac OS X is also known as a Hackintosh, which is a portmanteau of the word hack and the name of Apple's main brand of computers, Macintosh.

The Apple software license does not allow Mac OS X to be used on hardware that is not "Apple-labeled".

There are numerous articles on how to get your much loved – much hated OS X on your previously overworked Windows or Linux box.

I found these awesome hacks across the internet ( Try these at your own risk !! Please help crumble piracy and try these only if if you own a legal copy of Mac OS X as a little act of nobility ) :)

Hackintosh #1 - Converting dell studio 15 into a Hackintosh Notebook(Macbook) from InsanelyMac by CompCrasher86 .

Hackintosh #2 – Converting dell mini 9 into a Hackintosh netbook from gizmodo .

Other , generalized, approach to hackintosh – HERE !!

The reasons why this move is pointless according to me :

First and foremost – You wont get the Apple experience the Macboys rave so much about. They describe it with weird names like “ The apple ecosystem” ( whatever ! ) . The truth is if you want to a real Macintosh experience then you need to have a real Macintosh.

It is the pleasing( or so called ) Apple aesthetics ( Software and HARDWARE also ) and the ease of usage that is embedded into their design that is the lifeblood of these Macintoshes and not many would disagree that it is the only thing that makes it sell like zucchini .

# Now you wont get the superb ( Notice the sarcasm ) zooooom-in , zooooom-out functionality by just pinching on the touchpad and more so , your PC’s body won’t be made of WHITE PLASTIC . :-P

Apple doesn’t like Hackintosh –violates OS X license agreement , and pirated content ( Google for the iWork Trojan and you’ll see how /why ). I mean investing in original 3rd party apps on a hackintosh would contradict the very purpose .

Wont go through the updates for the OS and the drivers without causing concerns or for that matter the service of your machine also.

# Why would you want to install Mac OS X anyway ?? To stare at the icon-taskbar ?? or zoom in zoom out with fingers (oh ! and a thumb . ) ?? Or so that no one uses your computer as they wont get their required applications that really accomplish real computing tasks ?? Confusing ? yes ? Don’t use Hackintosh ,go spend money on a real Mac if you want to stare at the LCD .

Installing the Mac OSX requires you to like follow some 19 or so steps and you will have to download various packages like the installer (!?! ) , boot loader , disk utilities and stuff from * somewhere * and mess with the Windows’ MBR or Linux’s GRUB / LILO .

Even after following these steps like a obedient dog , there is no guarantee that your piece of non-Apple hardware would work as manufacturers don’t ship their Mac versions of the drivers. The reason for the Mac’s stability plays The Bad Bandit here – The Mac's kernel isn’t designed to support a plethora of hardware and hence is bound to be stable . || More frustration || . It is the frog in the well ( that sometimes jumps out) . Pray you have got hardware similar to the Apple products or a good forum troubleshooting support .

I have reviews that even Mac pros/hackers couldn’t get their Hackintoshes working exactly like the Macs like for e.g. some noticed a strange flickering in mouse pointers, someone’s mouse cursors went out of the display for no reasons, someone’s Wifi and Bluetooth played foul .

You wont get to play the awesome games that are supported by Windows . And by the chance if you are into graphic designing and see Macintosh as your inspiration, you wouldn’t want be stuck on a Hackintosh for long. I am pretty sure you will miss the .NET framework and the amazingly awesome Microsoft Visual Studio and Expression Studio ( can be explained why MS office is the most selling non-apple app. for the Mac ). If you happen to dual boot , why would you want to waste precious HDD space ??

-> The only reason probably you would want to do a Hackintosh is getting a Mac–like experience at half the price ( curse the overly priced Apple Hardware and proprietary applications ) and flaunt it amongst your friends (just for the sake ? ) or if you have a thirst to explore the yet unexplored-by-you and then uninstall and wind-up that junk in 10 days.

DISCLAIMER :

The points beginning with a ‘ # ’ are critically sarcastic and shouldn’t be read by faint hearted apple zealots. (and now that you have already read them ….. )

Installing Mac OS X on non-apple tagged hardware violates the Apple license agreements and I take no responsibility for that.

Earnest apologies, my amigos !!

2009-04-21T12:29:00.002+05:30

My sincerest apologies for the drought of posts lately, but my exams were there on my neck with a butcher knife and you know what….. I had to get my crap ordered and study !!

So now that the clouds have been cleared and the horse has had enough water to pee , its rock N roll time guys.

UPDATED : : I have got the " READ MORE " link at the bottom of each post working now and hopefully you will like it !!

Ok the term work submissions are up ahead but I guess I can manage to fit in a couple of short posts .

- Vandit Khamker.

The “ THE ” and the “ A ” .

2009-04-04T02:05:00.005+05:30

Ok , I know no matter how hard one tries, he/she is always bound to make some or the other grammatical mistake and no one expects everyone to be a purist but some seemingly harmless usage of grammar can make a huge turnaround in the meaning of a sentence.

Well , the 3 lettered word “THE” ( one of the articles of the English language ) is one of the most used words in the English language and still people don’t know its proper usage. ‘A’ , another article of the English language , and ‘ THE ’ are used interchangeably by the general public and sometimes by the not so general public. Now you may be asking whats the great deal ??

Well the issue is serious and the agenda has to be taken up by someone .

I would block someone from reading my blog if it could be done or even block him/her from visiting my profile on Orkut ( twitter followers are always welcome as the “the” uses up 3 characters while “a” uses just 1 characters … and that too as long as they are following me ;-) ) and make him chew up his keyboard or pen or pencil or with whatever he/she writes with , if one makes such a grave mistake again after reading this post.

So when should I use ‘ the ’ and when ‘ a ’ ?

“ THE ” is used whenever we are talking of something specific and we use “ A ” when talking about something in general . You will notice the major difference when I write :

1.) “ THE dog can’t use an iphone but @ismallcat can !”

and

2.) “ ~~the~~ A dog can’t use an iphone but @noone can ! ”

As you can see , in the 1st sentence THE DOG is used for a dog whom the narrator or possibly the reader knows about , beforehand. There has to be some idea about the subject beforehand . It just isn’t any random dog who can’t use the iphone but THE DOG about whom we talked / shooed away earlier this day or whom you or I know personally… other dogs …. they just don’t come into the perspective.

While in the 2nd sentence A DOG is essentially your random dog , the unknown dog about whom neither the narrator nor the reader has any specific mention. The general everyday dog ,as you know, cant use an iphone and this message is conveyed in the 2nd sentence (apart from of course that @noone can use it. ).

So next time you sit down to write an article or ~~the~~ a blog or anything remember the consequences else you will repent. And by now you should have realised why I italicized all the “the s ” and “ A s ” !!

Please, Google , can you stop leaving out “the” and “a” from your search queries only for this article !

Could not find a more intriguing title for the title.

- Vandit Khamker.

Why do people despise the GOTO statement ?

2009-04-04T02:04:00.002+05:30

One of the more dreaded and despised functions in C/C++ or any programming languages is the GOTO statement. The very utterance of this word infuriates most trainers and their students, as good boys and girls, honestly believe them and refrain from using it thenceforth . Now how many of you / the trainers actually know the reason behind this . As a test try asking them or your friends who constantly nag and poke you in the eye every time you happen to use it.

Ok for the sake of history , the GOTO statement was downplayed by the eminent computer scientist Edsgar Dijkstra . Ya ! the same fellow you gave us the shortest path algorithm. In his hand-typed-on-his-typewriter - consecutively numbered technical notes, trip reports, insightful observations, and pungent commentaries, known collectively as "EWDs" for several dozen recipients in academia and industry he put that conviction into practice.

His explanation for the disparagement of the poor GOTO can be read from the E .W .Dijkstra archives at the utexas website HERE ! As you will find, his explanation is very geeky( it *has* to be geeky, he was a computer scientist ) and novices seldom understand his paper in the first or even 2nd trial of reading.

Recently I happened to read it ( was just curious ) and tried to make it as simple as I could. The major argument that he put forth was…

As a program is written in a programming language, the course of action of converting the program into its equivalent process flow ( the equivalent machine code instructions ) should be left to the machine compiler. The human mind should not intervene in the "process" , it is the machine's duty to produce the desired effect of the program written by the programmer as we, humans have some intellectual limitations and sometimes ,accidently are liable to force a fault . Its like “You do your job , let the machine do its ! ”

This is a rational and a wise programming practice according to Dijkstra and I agree with his doctrine .

He proceeds to give a fairly simple example of counting the number of people entering the room which can be read at the link given earlier to further fortify his paper.

So my fellow friends we are advised not to use the GOTO statement in the programming languages, next time someone pokes you, be sure to ask him/her and actually clarify his/her doubt about it !!

NOTE : ( The above opinions have been interpreted entirely by me on the basis of the original manuscript and might not be 100% correct. The readers are advised to read the original manuscript in its entirety. Do keep coming with your valuable comments and suggestions !! )

-> Why we shouldn’t use scanf() ( * !! * ) and void main(void) as a rational programmer ? coming soon ….

- Have fun and always try to implement good programming practices .

Vandit Khamker.

An experience at the vaccination centre

2009-03-28T23:14:00.001+05:30

Recently , as many of you must be knowing , I had another spell of the diarrhea and vomiting this week . During the consultation , the doctor advised me to undergo vaccination when I recover from the sickness. Now that I am fighting fit , I finally decided to undergo vaccination for the “ Typhoid ” and “ Hepatitis A ” ones as I have to eat out a lot as I stay in the hostel and food/water Bourne diseases are widespread these days.

I felt that injections didn’t go all that well with me. I hadn’t had them for atleast 8 yrs now. The very thought of going for vaccination set the cat amongst the canaries . It was 8 pm and the I was due for the vaccination. There were a few of them ahead of me in the queue (not a literal one without seating and all …. This one was well furnished. ) , the ones more eager to get their babies vaccinated . The poor babies didn’t have an idea what was going to happen to them in the next few mins. I sat there and almost felt like laughing on seeing them play innocently while I had a grim .

As the queue shortened , I was reminded that it was the #Earth’sday today and lights could go off any moment , I didn’t know what time were they going off . I started having delusions

I am sitting on the bench with the doc holding a mammoth injection syringe in his hand waiting for me to settle in and then as he is about to do *it* , fussss…. the lights go off and he injects it somewhere else – A hell lot of pain !! Happy #Earth’sday you loser !!

Hah ! A scary mental imagery indeed . And then came my turn. I rolled my sleeves up took a few deep breaths to get some relief and ventured into the doc’s cabin . Opening a sort of a mini fridge (like the one @goobimama has in his repertoire ) , he took out the vaccinations I had *asked * for (I thought I was a zany with a “ kick me ” sign on the back !! ). I have a psychotic perception of needles going inside and wreaking havoc on my sensory nerves and the syringe fortified my beliefs .

I took a deep breath … a loud one … and the doc knew for once that I had the perceptions which I had and started making it a kind of joke. I held my arm and closed my eyes turned my head away expecting the injection to prick me hard and … all of a sudden … I was told to open my eyes … the job was done , the antigens were in .

I didn’t feel any pain . Yes to my sweet disbelief it was nothing . Now came the scary part …. seconds later I mean literally 5 sec. later the lights went off !! There was darkness and I wasn’t scared , I was relieved . Had it been a few seconds here and there, I would have lived my prescient imaginations !! Now that would have made me a heck of a psychic !! (OR am I one already ?? )

Well the experience with the needles wasn’t as harsh or dramatic as I expected and I believe many of you must be having such notions and phobias for them . Many of us don’t go there just due to the needle phobia (I know a few people personally ) but let me tell you … its nothing like we prognosticate it to be . An open and honest plea to all my readers : Please get yourself vaccinated !! Prevention is better than cure ( I know this is clichéd and trite but a lot of truth holds in there . ) Its like going out there with rockets launchers and Kalashnikovs expecting your enemy to turn up something colossal awaiting the apocalypso and then all they come up with is a little wooden stick .

Delusions have been shattered and the clock has ticked many a times since then , the reality has dawned on me . || PEACE||

Sony Cybershot T77 – An unofficial Review

2009-03-28T16:22:00.004+05:30

I have been using my new Sony Cybershot T77 for over two months now and while I was taking some totally pointless snaps today it caught me by the collar and threatened me : “Enough of it J@ck@$$ !! I demand a review on your … your … whatever that crap is called ... else you get expurgated !! ”

So under immense pressure I present before you my unofficial review of the Sony Cybershot T77 !! – gasp !

IN PICTURES – The Sony Cybershot T77/S

An overview of the key System Specs.:

Shooting Resolution: 10.1 mpx

Body thickness :15 mm

Optical zoom : 4x

Other features: Steady shot , face detection,smile detection, full HD 1080 still images, macro focus, flash, support upto 16 GB memory card, video recording upto 10 mins. at a stretch, 3” Touch screen LCD , full charged battery expected to take 110 still shots, auto detection of modes of shooting.

Bundled items : The Sony cybershot T77/S :-p , battery + charger , 2 GB memory card, USB cable (called the multiuse terminal cable), wrist wrap + cover , documentation , Sony cybershot software CD.

Price : Rs. 14,000 approx.

You can read the Full system specifications CLICK HERE ! .

What I have to say :

Well this is one of the slimmest digital cameras out there – Just marginally thicker than my 1st finger . The looks are decent and stylish. The build quality is superb and it is quite sturdy.

Some of the pictures my brother took had some kind of weird spots all around ( see the photo album ) but when I took them , they came out fabulously well. Maybe the spots were due to the presence of water droplets ( correct me if I am wrong ). The pictures are up to the mark considering it is a 10.1 mpx camera.

View Full Album

IN PICTURES : SNAPS FROM THE SONY CYBERSHOT T77- NORMAL MODE ( AUTODETECT )

Shooting in dim light isn’t a problem as the flash is quite powerful and gives stunning pictures with good color reception even in low lit conditions. The auto flash option gave me a flash even in moderately lit conditions and this made way for some unwanted flash lights … could have done better here. Although when I turned the flash off , the stunning pictures started flowing. Hoping someday they put on an intensity adjustment control for the flash .

I particularly like the macro mode of shooting as I go out to shoot flowers and other such stuff often with extreme close-ups and the camera gave me satisfying results. #felicitous !!

View Full Album

IN PICTURES : SNAPS FROM SONY CYBERSHOT T77 IN THE MACRO MODE

With the touch-screen LCD I can focus on to any part of the picture by clicking on that part in the LCD which is really a nice feature. The LCD attracts fingerprints so better get on a scratch guard the moment you open your new digicam . The optical zoom is 4x - a standard one I guess. I tested out the smile detection. One had to give a really loud smile for that to work at low sensitivity although you can tinker with the sensitivity for better results .

The Camera has a good microphone also which is sometimes ignored in digital cameras. Nothing great for the video recording which it isn’t meant for , its just plain and straight no fuss no frolic mode . I was wondering why they didn’t give us full time video recording at a go but searching on the net threw up the answers – To qualify it as a digital camera and not a handy cam , there has to be limitation on the video recording capabilities as per the definition in the tax department .

SO WHO’S UP FOR THE CONTENTION AND WHY ?

Recently I did a little market research and found out that the Sony cybershot T500 ,T300 offer just an added 5x optical zoom and a slightly more focal length lens and set you back by Rs. 4000 more and I don't think that’s a wise investment. But consider the W210-G which doesn't have a touch-screen interface and has a smaller LCD but gets you a whooping 12.4 mpx camera with a slightly better macro focus and an almost double battery life ( called the stamina or shots per full charging ) courtesy its lack of touch-screen ;It certainly is a wise pick if you don't want an touchscreen LCD considering that it costs Rs. 2000 less than the T77 (approx cost Rs 12000).

THE DENOUEMENT (pronounced as “the de-neu-maa ”):

Well, I am quite satisfied with the overall performance of the Sony Cybershot T77 although the W210-G certainly should get a look in ( And no … I will not be under the blackjack of the T77 / W200 anymore and it is my honest and unbiased opinion . ). My Ratings for the T77 – 8/10 .

NOTE: Do visit the Sony cybershot official website for a one on many comparisons . HERE .

Have fun and take care of your digital camera .

- Vandit Khamker.

Dell Studio 15 - The flaws that crop up !

2009-03-21T20:45:00.001+05:30

I have been using my dell studio 15 laptop for … well… 5 months now and am quite satisfied with the “performance” of the laptop. Here are the imperfections I found in the dell studio 15 . None of them are grave but they do make a difference in the overall user experience . Hope Dell comes up with the updates in their future products. Dell *has* come up with awesome products and even more applaudable customer support and may shall continue…..

- Vandit Khamker.

THE FLAWS – Part wise :

1.) THE TOUCH MULTIMEDIA BUTTONS :

The touch-buttons on the top (near the LCD) … They sometimes get stuck ; especially the eject button. You can call the Dell customer care for the problem and they will surely send a replacement .
They glow ONLY when you touch them and hence they are almost invisible in the dark or even semi-dark environment. That makes their glow useless. If you , the Dell designers are listening …. You need a light intensity sensor somewhere… like the ones that come along with the cell-phones.
The dell media direct doesn’t work in the intended way if you created a HDD partition yourself . I mean it boots up Vista and then it starts the dell media direct software…. which shouldn’t happen.

2.) THE LCD FLAP :

The lower part of the flap sometimes intervenes with your legs if you have your laptop in your lap and want to adjust the flap angle. Again … take notes you Dell designers !!
The Flap doesn't have a lock which would prevent it from shuddering when there are jerks and the laptop flap is closed. ( Like the magnet which comes with Macbooks for this purpose. )

3.) THE TOUCHPAD :

The touchpad does go haywire sometimes (although rarely).

4.) SLOT LOAD DVD DRIVE :

Putting in a DVD with scratches will cause the laptop to hang 8/10 times.
Small sized discs are venom for the slot load. Don't ever put them in.
The Drive is a bit close to the USB port on the right. A slight adjustment in placements would have been convenient.

5.) SPEAKERS :

Ok the Creative earphones ( ear-buds ) shipped along with the Dell studio are just splendid but that doesn’t veil the need to provide better speakers on the deck.

Conclusion : The dell studio is a very good pick in terms of performance if your computing needs are a bit of everything – general mobile computing, gaming , photo editing , programming etc . This article just highlights the minor differences that can make it more splendid. WOW !! Now I am shedding that fanboy tag off myself. Totally unbiased here … as promised !!

Amazing Photoshop Tutorials !

2009-03-20T20:51:00.003+05:30

THIS is ->one of the<- *write that off* ... the coolest collections of photoshop editing/creation tutorials and add-ons that I have come across on the internet and the extranet ( I mean on written paper.) . Thanks @piyushp_20 for the link . Twitter Rocks !!

The Linux Kick-Off !!

2009-03-08T02:45:00.002+05:30

Recently there has been so much hoopla-ha in our college ( BVM , Gujarat) with the much awaited ( nearly 60 yrs now ) National level Technological festival “BRAHMAASTRA” scheduled to happen on 7th - 9th April 2009 . Visit www.brahmaastra.org for details . The site is still being refined by our webteam and registrations for events will open from the 10th march .

Now getting to the main point …..

I got many questions from my juniors as well as seniors about the LINUX event in particular . One common question everyone had was … “We don't know Windows properly how the hell are we supposed to compete with other colleges in the Linux workaround competition (called the Linux challenge by our so called “ event managers ”. Don't worry even they are Linux neophytes ) ??”

I am myself that not well versed in Linux so I decided to help people through my blog , if anyone reads it . There are numerous articles , tutorials , communities , forums dedicated to Linux now and as everyone knows Google is the internet god. But people are too lazy to search and classify good articles and active forums. So Everyone who wants to take up Linux seriously , get started here :

-> THIS article from the THINKDIGIT FORUMS contains the links to the handpicked articles/tutorials on Linux written on the awesome forum by various authors. Thanks to moderator @GNUrag for the compilation. I recommend thinkdigit forums to all computer enthusiasts , and no , they haven't paid me heft amounts to advertise here.

->If you are an absolute Linux newbie and don't want to buy expensive books , you can start HERE. The site also contains the download links to almost all Linux distros .

->For “exhaustive” x-ray … I mean … research and prompt replies to your Linux computing needs ,you might want to consider joining THE LINUX FORUMS !!

Although I am a hardcore winboy, I don't mind giving some impetus to the open source movement ;-)

- Vandit Khamker .

Get a full-screened turbo c/c++ on windows Vista !!

2009-03-03T15:28:00.002+05:30

From all these years I have been using Windows operating systems. Starting from windows 95 , then 98, even tried ME on my old P- III rig and finally I stuck to a dual boot Windows XP SP2 with suse Linux (Yeh ! Free and Open Source Software aka FOSS !!) on my P- IV Prescott (which has recently changed only to Win. XP ) . It was a nice experience throughout with the Windows family of OS’es and as the domination of Microsoft over the software market was prominent, I got all my editing/programming/games stuff worked out neatly in my bag .

Now recently I got myself a new Dell Studio 15 laptop which had Windows Vista OEM installed in it. I felt proud of BUYING an original software. It took a full half an hour for me to get used to it and exploring some features of the new prodigy. I didn’t care what disparaging comments I got about Windows Vista from the internet folklore. After I neatly installed all the daily computational software like media players, office suite , photo-editing tools , torr3ntz :p , I came to the programming part. I installed the turbo c/c++ on Windows Vista only to find out that Vista didn’t support full screened DOS . Alas !

Now it wasn’t all good to look at and also work with C/C++ programs in a small windowed screen. I had to find something full screened. I installed codeblocks ( FOSS again …) and it gave me full screened IDE but I missed the conventional blue screen* (* Its not the BSOD for god’s sake. ). I browsed various forums/websites and finally I found DOSBOX !! La panacea !!

Dosbox is an open source initiative for running software from the # Adam and Eve’s era # on the high end machines of today in full screen.

Modus Operandi :

1.) So what you need to do now is get the package from HERE and install it !!

2.) once you have done this , open the dosbox application. A window with the looks of our typical DOS will open up. Click on the title bar and press ALT + ENTER . Now you have the DOS-like application in full screen.

3.) You will be greeted with a Z:\> prompt. Don’t get confused and curse me for recommending this to you , your HDD partitions haven't been tempered with.

4.) Find out the hdd partition in which your tc (Turbo c++) is installed from “my computer”. (press ALT + ENTER if you need to get a windowed display.) . Ok so if you have figured out the location , let me suppose it is g:\ , you need to mount it in the DOSBOX by the mount command. To do this , type the following in dosbox:

mount g g:/

where the 1st “ g ” is the name of the virtual HDD partition and the second is the actual partition where your tc exists.

5.) You are done !! Yes . now open the tc.exe from the dosbox . by the following commands:

6.) Now that you have opened tc , pressing ALT + ENTER will let you toggle between windowed and full screened views.

7.) You might need to set your keyboard layout .

n dosbox if pressing of some keys don’t give out the correct characters. To do this. open up dosbox and open up the keymapper by hitting CTRL + F1 .

Now press save and exit. And you are done configuring your keyboard layout.

8.) Have fun and explore it more !! For other problems , read the awesomely written readme.txt that came along with the package or comment/tweet me ….maybe I can help.

- Vandit Khamker.

An experience with Dell customer care .

2009-02-22T06:52:00.002+05:30

So far it had been so good an experience with my dell studio 15 until it misbehaved some days before … and that too badly. After testing out the Sabayon Linux (twitters would know this) live disc, everything was working just fine and the NOTE on the live CD reading : “Try Sabayon Without messing up your PC !” seemed to hold true. It was stable and the COMPIZ provided some good effects , most of them worthless though . I shutdown the live session safely and removed the DVD only when told to.

Then I put in the digit DVD and looked for some Linux goodies and was quite impressed at the collection and found almost all replacements for my windows softwares except, of course , the uber-end graphics Games. I lamented how much time I had wasted using windows all these days when the explorer kept on restarting every time I opened “certain” folders. Like a good boy (actually it should be - a faithful winboy ) I removed the Linux wares and booted up Vista . I popped in another DVD and waited for the autorun to start …. but it didn’t.

I thought it must be the customary “ignore me pal !! ” bug and I proceeded to double click the DVD drive icon. After making some noises …. * scratch * * puff * my DVD popped out . Yes guys my Slot load 4 months old DVD drive about whom I was raving so much was dead . After a few more trials I eventually gave up and called up the dell technical support on the toll free they have. Thankfully my laptop is still is covered with warranty. Kinda nice !! … I thought only to be put on hold for 15 mins. flat then a lady picked up the phone and asked me for my service tag number and address and then again put me on hold for 10 mins. I was frustrated , and infuriated clouds of wrath gathered over my mind . I cursed the modern society , the modern businesses for their monopoly , unethical acts , putting their profits before anything else .. even before the customer’s basic needs. This was not fair .

After some time which seemed like ages, a fellow picked up the phone and started speaking in American English. I explained him the problem and from the symptoms anyone could make out it was a hardware problem , but not him . He told me to open up some registry locations and look for certain keys.

But eventually he couldn’t do anything and told me that he was going to send an engineer to repair my dell studio within 2-3 days. I said “ The first replacement is coming on my way !! ” . I wondered if they could send for one in 2 days . It was just 2 hrs since then that the dell guys called up and asked if day after tomorrow , 3 pm was feasible to me. I agreed . 2 days hence , at 3:00 pm sharp , the engineer came in and replaced my DVD drive for free (hey , I am entitled for a replacement ! ) . Kudos Dell ! , and keep up the good service ; although your telephone customer care is enervating .

So anyone having questions regarding Dell technical support … here is their answer.

NOTE :

-before the linux freaks gather a mob around here and thrash me up , let me get this clear ... the linux DVD had nothing to do with my DVD drive being doomed to extinction. The reasons are *too confidential* to be revealed directly . Keep reading future posts for implicit hints ;-)

-Dell technical support rocks and apple customer care causes incessant neuralgia !! Atleast in India (what do @preshit , @goobimama ,@smokingapples , @manan have to say about this ?? I am sure @goobimama,@preshit will rejoice !! ;-) (#sarcasm) )

Creating Unattended Windows XP installation CDs .

2009-02-11T10:24:00.001+05:30

Vandit: So here comes the 2nd guest writer post of my blog from cool89 (pritesh) , a fellow blogger and a one of my closest chums. So here’s how he goes about creating Windows XP unattended CDs. Hope this article helps you.

cheers.

Vandit.

About The Author :

Name:        Pritesh Pathak (aka cool89)

Age :            20

Hobbies:    Fooling around in the library,    writing a blog, programming .

CREATING WINDOWS Xp Unattended Installation Cd MY WAY!!

You just feel bored to install your drivers yourself after XP being installed then don't worry make your own XP CD with your drivers. Recently I read a new stuff and loved. So i m writing it here to share with you. Hope you will enjoy
1. Download and install Windows Unattended CD Creator here,
2. Launch the program and insert your Windows XP CD into the drive.
3. Copy all the contents of the CD. Eject the CD after copying the files.
4. In the program’s first tab—”Source CD”—click Select, and select the folder to which you copied the CD’s contents.

The source CD tab in Windows Unattended CD Creator

5. Select “Work in source directory” under the “Target directory for new CD” column.

6. Bypass all other options and head to the Driver tab.
7. Insert the driver CD that came with your motherboard.

8. Give a name to the driver group in the General Drivers text box, for example,

“compaq1930”.ClickAdd.

9. Wait until all the drivers get copied.

Finalize the CD compilation
10. Head straight to the Done tab, making no changes.
11. Click Save and then on “Create ISO-image”. Enter the path of where the image should be written to.
12. After completion, burn the ISO image to a CD using a disc burning tool such as Nero. You’re done!

ENJOY !!

- Cool89 .

Imposing beauty !!

2009-02-08T12:55:00.001+05:30

There are some things that come across us and we start drooling over them at the first look. One such example was my Dell Studio 15 laptop another was my Sony Ericsson p1i. But the one which totally took control over my mind , that made me salivate was none other than the PEARS soap – mint flavor which had perished only in such proportions that it had the right amount of transparencies , the right luminosity and perfect contours at the edges . It was a work of art (aka bathing)– surely . It was so majestic yet raw ; so serene and looked so tasty that I could have even eaten it …. but I didn’t . I stood still admiring its ergonomics and its turquoise blue color.

I soon realized I had wasted enough time brooding over a senseless piece of used up soap and hence I have reached the end of yet another pointless post whilst the creative’s subwoofer is pulsating the entire room . Gotta get some serious stuff for my blog soon.

An account on Sharukh Khan- His pre-stardom days !!

2009-02-01T02:32:00.001+05:30

Vandit : I have received an overwhelming response from my fellow friends and readers. So here it is… the first post from a guest writer on “Vandit’s webzine” – Atul . My classmate and a very good friend, writes about his role model Sharukh Khan . Read on and have fun !!

Cheers.

Vandit .

About The author :

    Name:    Atul Natu.

    Age:        20 yrs.

    Hobbies:playing cricket ,programming,         roaming , giving load ;-)

     Occupation: Student ( IT engineering ).

                                    Favorite personality (aka adulates) : Shahrukh Khan.

SRK – The King Khan

Today I will be sharing some of his behind the curtain facts.

Shahrukh Khan was born on 2nd November 1965. He was brought up in Delhi. He has a sister named Shehnaaz, Wife Gauri Khan, And a dog Named Chewbacca.

Shahrukh started his career on a TV serial called "Fauji" (1988), that won him instant recognition. He also acted in another TV soap called "Circus" (1989). He was born and raised in Delhi, and he was equally brilliant in studies and sports. Fell in love with a girl called Gauri Chibba who was then studying in Loreto Delhi. He later married her before he got his break in Bollywood. Currently, he is the most sought after actor in India. Has a son called Aryan Khan and a daughter named Suhana Khan.

Now this Sharukh came to Mayawi Nagri "Mumbai" in search of his love Gauri as she left her house and ran away due to her fathers objection to their relation.In those two days of search on the first day he slept on the VT station then on the next morning when he was at Juhu got angry on this city and spoke the following words "Ek Din Main Is Seher Pe Raj Karunga",from this we can conclude that he is a man of great morals and discipline.The house "MANNAT" which is owned by him was also his dream.Once while on shoot for his film "YES BOSS" he saw MANNAT and told his co-stars that one day he will buy it.He is nominated as world's 41st most powerful person.He is a man of great honor due his achievements in such a short period of time.

I think this more than enough for having a glimpse on his early life, the later part is known by everyone.

Atul Natu.

The strange case of stubborn bails

2009-02-01T01:33:00.001+05:30

Case File # 2

After the Mysterious case of missing life I have decided to write about an even stranger case which has just happened .

All of you who must have watched the 2nd ODI between India and Sri-lanka today (1-1-2009) must have been witnesses to a thrilling One Day International. India defending a meager total of 256 runs against Sri-lanka thanks to some excellent bowling by the Indian bowlers.

One screamer from Zaheer Khan hit the stumps and went for four and the Bails seem to just stick on top of the stumps as if some industrial strength adhesive was used to bind them. They usually do come off at the slightest gust of wind when the Indian batsmen come out with their wooden stick . We aren’t accustomed to see something like that.

On the other occasion it was the last over and Pravin Kumar was bowling his usual stuff and due to some misunderstanding between the Sri-lankan batsmen, Dhoni got his hands on the bowl and hit the stumps with the it from an arm’s length. And at this instance as previously the bails didnt flitch an inch !! They seemed to show quantum characteristics of strangeness as if all the gravity was concentrated on those two pieces of wood. Eventually Dhoni got frustrated and did some gig-a-little with the stumps – a comic moment and people get something to cheer about. It reminded me of Shane Warne getting his hair all messed up at the hands (gloves) of Adam Gilchrist on taking a wicket.

Now when I’ll be getting home and get my dirty hands on the BSNL broadband connection, I will get onto youtube and do some video analysis of the recordings of those strange events. Maybe I will need some close angle views and 3 Dimensional panning and rotation around those 3 logs of wood . Now off to some serious work !!

- Vandit .

A day in the garden with my p1i

2009-01-27T00:19:00.001+05:30

First let me clear this to you : This isn’t one of those obscure posts, it isn’t one of those posts classified under “load giving” as the title may suggest.

Today I woke up a bit early than usual – at 8:30 am , after all it is the republic day today !! The early (again this is in the relative sense ) morning sunlight lit up the garden inmates beautifully. I thought “ The perfect day for taking some snaps !! ” . So out I went with my p1i and took some snaps and experimented with the macro autofocus mode with the leaves as well as my laptop keyboard . You can view my amateur photography on Picasa below. Hope you like my work.

My Photography

Have a Nice day and Happy Republic day !!

Vandit .

What went wrong with SATYAM ? - A brief note on satyam scam

2009-01-23T22:28:00.005+05:30

Satyam was one of the most reputed and profit making software firms of the current decade. It was ranked as the number two Indian software company by a well distinguished source. Now suddenly it has come into limelight due to all the wrong reasons. The company has undergone tremendous defamation worldwide. It has become an object of mockery, malefaction and a epitome of treachery and deceit in trivial talks as well as group discussions which leads to subsequent decapitation of all the trust and goodwill we have on our digital behemoths.

So what actually went wrong with Satyam ??

Why did the “ Satyam empire ” crumble down like a pack of inferior quality cards?? It basically had to do with malicious ownership of the corporate giant.

Now Ramalingam Raju has become famous … errr…notorious due to his tyrannical acts in Satyam. Raju had falsified accounts , he had created fictitious assets and kept his employees and the board of directors in the dark.

He padded the company’s profits and cooked up the bank balances at satyam computers since genesis. When matters went haywire he tried to plug the gaping hole in his balance sheets by persuading the board of directors to “rubber-stamp” his acquisition of the two companies which he already owned – the Maytas ( “ satyaM ” read backwards ) Infrastructure and Maytas Properties as his last trick of the trade. This soon became public (ok it was still esoteric but the shareholders came to know of this .) The shareholders felt resentful at this debauched act of deception and revolted. Raju finally realized his game was over and the rest has gone down in history as a scornful act.

In his letter to the Directors Raju wrote : “ It was like riding a Tiger , not knowing how to get off without being eaten ! ”

His full 5-paged email can be read HERE

So what prompted Raju to do this ??

The company ( Satyam ) which had grabbed 185 fortune 500 clients was under tremendous pressure to perform better than its peers – the Wipro , TCS and Infy.
As Raju’s stake in Satyam had dwindled to 3.6 %, he was under pressure to create a hoopla around the stock markets and get FII to pick it up. To keep the FIIs interested, he had to show a 40% growth in profits, let aside turnovers.
Showing a operating profit of Rs. 649.27 crores in the second quarter ended September 30 when in reality it was no more than Rs. 61 crores !! Which counts up to 10.64 times the actual profit !!!
According to some data accounts and figures , Satyam would have reported a quarterly loss of Rs 74 crore probably the 1st by an InfoTech major in the country !

The aftershocks of the scam have been experienced as the investors have lost crores and eventually their hair , sleep and some have lost their lives. It was a grave lapse on part of the regulatory agencies deployed by the government like the SEBI, the banks and the Auditors .

Hope you liked this informative piece of info . Do keep looking for the next post in my drafts ( soon to be published ) –

“What after Satyam –1 ?”

Thanks to blogs.siliconindia.com and times of India for exact facts and figures that made it possible for me to write this article.

- Vandit .

The mysterious case of missing “ LIFE ” !!

2009-01-23T15:52:00.001+05:30

It was last Sunday that I came home early morning. I laid out a resting chair , grabbed a cup of hot chocolate drink and the English newspaper. I was the perfect setup for a lazy Sunday . I took a sip of my favorite hot chocolate drink and opened my favorite newspaper and spiraled between the sips and the reads with the scintillating early morning sunrays in the backdrop . I finished the drink and the newspaper simultaneously. I realized something was wrong. Maybe the sugar content of the drink was improper, or I had worn the shoes on the wrong legs, naa I hadn’t worn shoes since 6 months now. Maybe the flower pot was shifted from the central table to the side. No that wasn’t it. My conscience was stirred , my hands feeling the itch - something has gone missing. I introspected , had to retrospect twice over.

Ahah !! The “ Times life “ weekly supplement was missing !! I searched under the table , wasn't there , on the bed in all rooms – still no signs , in the bathroom upstairs – it was like finding a Martian on Jupiter . I shouted , I screamed , I stirred up the environment with the cacophony of my tonsils - still no response. At last I asked my dad and mom where it was hiding or being taken away – maybe some British spy or American secret agent ?? Got a equanimous reply from dad – “It hasn’t been supplied this time around son ! ” . I thought to err is human . After all the newspaper boy has been doing well since all these years , its ok if he missed once . I quickly placated myself and set in the euphony of the instrumentals I have gathered these days on my laptop - all hand picked .

After a eventful week of sickness and struggle against my gastric disorders leaving a trail of weakness on me, I have finally recovered from atleast the stomach pain and diarrhea. I went to the drawing room just below my bedroom and looked around for the SUNDAY times. I found it in the same condition as the newspaper had delivered, unopened. I read through the editorials and the sports section with special attention as recommended to get a hold of the current affairs. It rung my conscience again – The Times Life is missing again.

Now who’s fault is it ?? The newspaper boy who had been working regularly since ages or the Times group distributors in Bharuch ? Who was the main culprit who was playing foul play – the Worm in the apple, eating away the goodies ??

I will have to do a ala Sherlock Holmes and catch hold of those dispossessors and bring them to justice !!

The official invitation post !!

2009-01-18T22:47:00.004+05:30

I hereby officially invite my fellow readers to bear the baton of writing on my blog for 1 day as a guest writer. I give you the chance to express yourself and hope you unearth the author in you !!

So here is how it goes :

You have to write up a nice little post on any damn topic be it your missing tooth, to politics, computers , current affairs etc. And submit it to me. To do this write it in standard .doc format along with images and other stuff and mail me at vanditk@gmail.com. For those who don't have net access can give it to me on paper.

The flexible deadline is roughly upto 7th Feb. Hoping to accommodate max 10 entries till then. So guys get the brain's grey cells working and be privileged to write on my blog for a day. (Entries have started pouring in... be sure to submit yours for review before the limitations get exceeded !! )

RULES :

- Articles should be original . Plagiarism is strictly shunned.
- NO abusive language.
- Cracking and porn articles will not be entertained.
- The selection process for the 10 entries will be done by vrk_blogteam under stringent norms .
- There will be various awards in numerous categories so retain your own style of writing and articulation.

Cheers !!
Vandit Khamker.

The journey !!

2009-01-18T22:18:00.000+05:30

It has been an overwelhming response by the readers all around the globe. I have noticed people from as far away as Brazil , US , norway , belgium , UAE, qatar have taken interest in my anecdotes which I describe over here. I found people searching for strange keywords like vandit records , vandit recession , vandit blog , hell , heaven , optimize blog for increasing traffic , adsense earnings etc and also some noteworthy posts like the one on recession and the IIT lectures have a won world-wide acclaim. The site hit counter now reads somewhere near 2000 and although some people have been a bit lazy in posting comments they surely have left a scrap or 2 and given me eternal bliss. The comments were even more inspirational.

I feel indebted to my readers and owe you guys some kudos. Thinking to give the readers a privilege of writing 1(or even more) posts on my blog as guest writers for a day. Watch out for the official invitation post coming up.

Wah India !! Way to go !!

2009-01-17T14:31:00.005+05:30

If you are made to think that something great has been achieved by india or for that matter - the indians, from the title, I would recommend you to restucture your thoughts. Bring in a bit of sarcasm . Remind yourself about the scams and the dirty political games that are being played around in public in recent times - the thugs, mockery of security, even the corporate resorting to unethical practices.
Hah !! now you have the right frame of mind , the right environment to read the article which the rediff guys have published. It is a must read and sort of a witty article. Hope you like it !!

No cheers this time.
Vandit .

Stamp and coin collection .

2009-01-16T02:58:00.001+05:30

It has been a while since I wanted to showcase two of our( me and my bro ) hobbies – The stamp collection and The coin collection and I think I have found the best place to do it ;-)

Yes our stamp and coin collection has been always in the development stage right from the 5th grade ( or even earlier ). We liked to collect as many coins as we could that were not in current circulation in India. You will also find coins from other countries as well (majority of them are currencies other than rupee) . The same is with stamps.

As time passed our collection grew larger and larger ( > 500 stamps now…. and people complain email has taken over conventional posts ). I would like to whole heartedly thank people – mom, dad, relatives, friends, even strangers - who have made contributions in the collection even by a single stamp seeing our curiosity and zest. This hobby has lasted for over a decade now and although I haven’t made additions to the collections since last few years, it has always been in my mind to make some.

So here it is…. our stamp and coin collection. Hope you will like it !!

View Full Album

So if we share this common interests/hobbies and you would like to showcase yours please send me the link of the pictures . Contributions to our collections are always welcome and wholeheartedly thanked for and are requested to contact me through my blog only. What I realize now is that I need to change that crappy stamp collection book and get a new one probably with more features.

PS:

There is one odd one out in the coin collection photograph … hope you figure that out as well. ;-)

Comments are appreciated and contributions even more.

cheers !!

Vandit Khamker .

Tilt-shift photography

2009-01-14T00:33:00.004+05:30

It was recently that I logged onto my google reader that I found out that goobimama and surelex were sharing their feeds with me. As expected goobimama's feeds were directly orrr...... directly (no indirects) related to apple stuff. As I breezed through their feeds, I found one interesting feed... something called tilt-shift photography.

In tilt shift photography, the camera angle and focus mode is set such that real world objects look like miniaturized models. At first thought I felt as if someone is trying to fool us by spamming. But these guys have a large collection. See for yourself you will be astonished !!

Windows 7 available for beta testing .

2009-01-13T17:36:00.004+05:30

Quite a lot of water has passed under the bridge since windows 7 started making noise in the blogger community. Windows 7 prebeta versions were leaked to people even before microsoft were willing to accept that they had been developing a new OS.
So if you havent got one of those leaked versions or if you want the official beta from microsoft then head to THE OFFICIAL WINDOWS 7 WEBSITE and follow the instructions. You got to be patient as their servers are overcrowded and sometimes unavailable. In that case check after 15 mins. To download that you need to have a windows live id. Its fairly easy to set it up.

Moreover after the installation of this beta ( build 7000 ) you need to download a patch which will cure a bug which renders mp3 files corrupt and fixes other issues in Windows Media Center, recorded TV playback issues in Windows Media Player .

Get this patch from HERE

Hope you guys download it and help microsoft by beta testing it and reporting bugs.

PS: do not turn off windows updates in win 7 beta because important patches may be downloaded in future as bugs are fixed.

Happy beta testing !!
vandit.

An attempt to phish me in vain !

2009-01-12T11:32:00.002+05:30

11th Jan 9:40 am.

I had just arrived home from vidyanagar. As I put my first step on the land of bharuch , I smelt some adventure was coming up. I was surfing the internet from my laptop using the BSNL broadband connection and I logged into Gmail to check if something new had happened in the last 8 hrs. I opened up vandit007.BlogSpot.com to check who had visited my blog. In the visitor list I found someone from Orkut.com had visited. I opened the Orkut page in a new tab and found that it asked my login details. I smelt something was fishy, for sure.

After Rishi it was my turn ( or some idiot thought like that… ) . Someone tried to phish me on Orkut.

Phisher’s details :

{

hosted on ip address 64.247.18.122 ( found it out courtesy my somewhat moderate knowledge of networking )using the link http://orkul.k2free.com/orkut.co.in.html.

Traced back to Morris plains, New Jersey , US

}

As it asked for my login details when actually I had already logged in in my Google account and thought something was terribly wrong and was saved in time as I did not divulge my details.

As you can see it is an exact replica of the original Orkut login page but on closer notice - the address bar and the links below the Orkut about and help . They were of web hosting and other malicious sites. Lightening struck me in time “ Hey Goggle guys would be nuts if they displayed ads for website hosting and such ads on Orkut ?? ” I immediately checked for website certificates and I laughed at those fools for trying to forge me . I reported the link to the anti-phishing organization so your attempts to open that link might go futile.

See it pays to pay minute attention to details of the websites you visit and even if they may look original to the naive, it may be the fox in the sheep skin … who knows ??

Hidden / Useful features in windows vista.

2009-01-07T19:43:00.002+05:30

There was a long delay in releasing Windows Vista after Windows XP and when they came up with Vista you wondered why it took so long ?? Apart from the revamped kernel and additional security measures , there are some features don't creep up and take notice but are extremely useful.

1.) Inbuilt search

Ok you knew about this but it is by far the most useful feature in windows vista and hence gets a mention in this post. The damn search everywhere makes operating so easy and fun !!

2.)parental controls

Oh this is one of my favorites for sure !! How could I have managed to keep those pesks off my movie and games collection and prevent my laptop from turning into a home theatre- cum - playstation. comment me if you want more information on this specially ;-)

3.)Ready boost

This feature enables ready support pen drives to be utilized as RAM space and thus boosting your overall performance. Quite useful if you have got one of those pen drives with the RB support and the game frames are dropping due to lack of RAM. To do this insert your pen drive and right click on the drive. Go to properties and select the ready boost tab and select "Improve performance by .................... "

4.) Secure my computer with windows firewall.

Ok this was present in Windows XP also but the windows defender and firewall give some hope to a computer sans any protection. Useless for most but saves the fort knox when the enemies have broken in.

5.) snip

This is a hidden application in Windows Vista which hasn't come to notice of many users of Vista. This tool helps you to take snaps of your desktop or any area of it. click start and in the search bar type < snip > ( without <> ) and press enter. This makes taking snapshots a breeze.

6.) Transparencies

This is not really a hidden or unnoticed feature but I just love the transparencies that Windows Vista offers. The transparent title bar and gadget sidebar, Aero features; looks awesome.

7.) Windows live writer.

A blog writer's heaven !! Makes writing blogs a child's play. Ok it doesn't write for you but damn it helps a lot. Just try your hands and you'll know what I am talking about .

8.) Task scheduler

Want to open a application at a specified time or schedule for a shutdown ?? click start and type Task scheduler and press enter. To create a new task click on "create a new task" or "create a basic task" and just follow the instructions. I really missed this feature in Windows XP.

9.) Gadgets.

The gadgets that come in the windows vista gallery like the RAM and CPU monitors, notes and clock are useful , apart from looking dazzling .

10.) Speech recognition.

This is particularly cool when you want to get your hands off from your keyboard and command your computer with nothing but speech. The usability is good and with more training you will get used to it and vice versa.

Benchmarking approaches insanity

2008-12-26T02:18:00.003+05:30

All of you must have heard graphics card benchmarked , processors and motherboards put to the grill and most of us have argued 5,55,555 times that which configuration gets the brownies within the least bucks.

Get ready for a different kind of "benchmarking " test altogether !! Its more of a comparison test rather which gives the actual performance data but still worth a look.

My friend Nim$ ( a.k.a Nirmal ) compared a 40,000 BC stone with a brand new and a swanky iphone on his blog and guess what the phone won !! Ya, but only by a small margin...

Cant believe ?? Have a look yourself....

HERE

NOTE: My friend is having some problems with the post comments link on his blog as he was tinkering with the layout... You may leave them here if you desire !!

cheers,
vandit (on behalf of Nim$).

The reason behind Recession decoded !!

2008-12-26T02:10:00.003+05:30

Preparing for a GD ?? or just want to deal with the guys who are responsible for the current economic scenario ?? or just want to cut the crap and know how this situation was created and is spoiling your Christmas celebrations ?? So here you go !! The root cause of sub-prime crisis or the recession , as we call it, explained . Ok its a bit long for Vandit's " 5 " minuters but it does explain the basics well . Hope you give me some brownie points for this post .... you know what I mean ;)

Sub prime loan :

Sub-prime loans are dicey as they are given to people with unstable incomes or low creditworthiness. These individuals are not financially sound enough to be given a loan when judged under the strict standards that should normally be followed by a bank or lending institution.

What is subprime crisis? How it caused financial mayhem?

It all begins with an American wanting to live the famed American dream.

So he seeks a housing loan to give shape to his dream home. But there is a slight problem. He doesn't have good credit rating. This means that he is unable to clear all the stringent conditions that a bank imposes on an individual before it sanctions a loan.

No bank will give him a home loan as there is a fear that the chances of a default by him are high. And Banks don't like defaulters.

But lo!, before the American dream can fade away, there enters a second American -- usually a robust financial institution -- who has good credit rating and is willing to take on some amount of risk.

Also by giving out a home loan to lots of individuals, the second American is trying to hedge his bets. He feels that even if a few of his borrowers default, his overall position would not be affected much, and he will end up making a neat profit.

Now if this home loan market is sub-prime, what is prime? The prime home loan market refers to individuals who have good credit ratings and to whom the banks lend directly.

Now let's get back to the sub-prime market. The institution giving out loans in the sub-prime market does not stop here. It does not wait for the principal and the interest on the sub-prime home loans to be repaid, so that it can repay its loan to the bank (the prime lender), which has given it the loan.

So what does the institution do?

It goes ahead and securitises’ these loans. Securitisation means converting these home loans into financial securities, which promise to pay a certain rate of interest. These financial securities are then sold to big institutional investors.

Many investment banks (or institutions like the second American' in our story) sold complicated securities that were backed by debt which was very risky.

And how are these investors repaid? The interest and the principal that is repaid by the sub-prime borrowers through equated monthly instalments (EMIs) is passed onto these institutional investors.

The institution giving out the sub-prime loans takes the money that it gets by selling the financial securities and passes it on to the bank he had taken the loan from, thereby repaying the loan. And everybody lives happily ever after…………………………..Or so it would have seemed.

The sub-prime home loans were given out as floating rate home loans. A floating rate home loan as the name suggests is not fixed. As interest rates go up, the interest rate on floating rate home loans also go up. As interest rates to be paid on floating rate home loans go up, the EMIs that need to be paid to service these loans go up as well which hit the sub-prime borrowers hard. A lot of them in the first place had unstable incomes .

They, thus, defaulted. Once more and more sub-prime borrowers started defaulting, payments to the institutional investors who had bought the financial securities stopped, leading to huge losses.

The problem primarily began with the United States keeping its interest rates very low for a very long time, thus encouraging Americans to go in for housing loans, or mortgages. Lower interest rates led to buyers wanting to take on bigger loans, and thus bigger and better homes.

But life was fine. With the American economy doing well at that time and housing prices soaring on the back of huge demand for real estate and bigger and better homes, financial institutions saw a mouth-watering opportunity in the mortgage market.

In their zeal to make a quick buck, these institutions relaxed the strict regulatory procedures before extending housing loans to people with unstable jobs and weak credit standing.

Few controls were put in place to handle the situation in case the housing bubble’s burst. And when the US economy began to slow down, the house of cards began to fall.The crisis began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble.

A slowing US economy, high interest rates, unrealistic real estate prices, high inflation and rising oil tags together led to a fall in stock markets, growth stagnation, job losses, lack of consumer spending, a virtual halt to new jobs, and foreclosures and defaults.

Sub-prime homeowners began to default as they could no longer afford to pay their EMIs. A deluge of such defaults inundated these institutions and banks, wiping out their net worth. Their mortgage-backed securities were almost worthless as real estate prices crashed.

The moment it was found out that these institutions had failed to manage the risk, panic spread. Investors realized that they could hardly put any value on the securities that these institutions were selling. This caused many a Wall Street pillar to crumble.

Well, that still does not explain, why stock markets in India, fell? Here's why. . .

Institutional investors, who had invested in securitised paper from the sub-prime home loan market in the US, saw their investments turning into losses. Most big investors have a certain fixed proportion of their total investments invested in various parts of the world. So... Once investments in the US turned bad, more money had to be invested in the US, to maintain that fixed proportion.

In order to invest more money in the US, money had to come in from somewhere. To make up their losses in the sub-prime market in the United States, they went out to sell their investments in emerging markets like India where their investments have been doing well.

Since the amount of selling in the market is much higher than the amount of buying, the Sensex began to tumble.

The flight of capital from the Indian markets also led to a fall in the value of the rupee against the US dollar. This crisis is spreading from sub-prime to prime mortgages, home equity loans, to commercial real estate, to unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, student loans, auto loans), to leveraged loans that financed reckless debt-laden leveraged buy outs, to municipal bonds, to industrial and commercial loans, to corporate bonds, to the derivative markets whose risk are indeterminate, etc.

It has been a total systemic failure that has its roots in the US real estate and the sub-prime loan market.

- Vandit. ( A relaxed EPWOM now !! ........but still an EPWOM :( )

Questions that have puzzled me till date .

2008-12-25T00:22:00.002+05:30

Some questions have multiple answers while some leave you wandering in the deserts of Arabia and you cant even figure out their answers after thousands of years of practicing penance and austerity.

Here are some questions that are troubling the crap out of me since I was a child, playing in the sand and riding on a bicycle ( Hercules topgear ; green , 5 gears and suspension - front and rear ) I tried hard , stretched my imagination , even studied the theory of relativity and nuclear fission/fusion, solved Sherlock Holmes puzzles 3 days on trot , I couldnt sleep , I turned insomniac for a few days , I did some soul-searching but still no answers to these questions :

1. How does an ant (and other debris ) find a way into the nooks and corners of the keyboard ? And even more baffling is why doesn't it show the same determination to get the hell out of there ??

2. Why do the cockroaches happen to hang around people who hate them the most eventually being smashed around and people standing around there knighting the bashers with adjectives like ruthless, cold-blooded and heartless ? No its isn't entomophobia (or whatever it is called.) I just get a feeling that once I sleep they will go haywire and crawl around me .

3. Why doesn't the batman get a shock himself when he wears the mask and activates the "do not take my mask off" feature(if such kind of button does exist) (remember the joker trying to take off his mask ... gets a shock.)

4. Why the Internet connection goes kaput only at the time when you need it the most or when the download approaches 99% completed ?? (Even this post was published way beyond the schedule due to connection problems due to some undersea cables getting ripped off. ) (I had a bad head-ache figuring this one out !!)

5. How can Jason Bourne survive and even chase (and jump off buildings ) a gangster after a car blast just next to him and the person standing 10 feet away losing his life ??

6. Why does the king-pin need an entire magazine of bullets shot at him to perish while for others thugs only a punch would suffice ?? Common directors give some food for thought !!

7. Why is James Bond stripped off his gadgets ?? (looks like recession has hit 'em really bad !! )

8. Why do the total number of bugs in any software remain the same ??

9. Why do the laptop prices seem to get slashed by atleast 25 % just after you have got yourself a new one ??

10. Why do people render a software useless if a single error is detected or a feature gets left out at the first instance when developed by rookie programmers ; when Orkut , after 8 years ( god knows how many .. ) of existence , is still in the beta version and has got many more bugs apart from being designed by the pros ??

11. Why does Ankit Fadia come to colleges and give out a list of spoofing sites and go away , rather than teaching how to secure the computers or even teaching the approach to hacking ?? (He is meant to "Teach" " Ethical hacking " and "security " ! )

12. And lastly how does Open Source Software get so much capital so as to send out free CDs/DVDs containing their OS everywhere on the globe . Even just the media costs Rs 20... have you forgotten about the shipping charge ....eh ?

13. Why do Linux freaks and mac chauvinists ( no one targeted ) do not fight amongst themselves and instead take on windows fanboys ??

14. And lastly... as goobimama pointed out .... How does Rajnikant dodge off bullets ??

Hope you figure out the truth behind these unsolved mysteries and shed the light of knowledge and wisdom on my turbulent mind.

LOLZ

- Vandit Khamker.

Unofficial guide to protecting privacy on the internet.

2008-12-21T19:24:00.002+05:30

Its official !! Risky's yahoo account has been hacked !! I dont know the cause but I suspect he has become the victim of someone posting a link on his orkut profile and he, innocently(foolishly) clicking on it.
Hey risky dont feel demoralised and assume that you are the only fool on this planet. More than 60% of computer intrusion , hacking cases are due to negligience on the user's part.

So here is my unofficial guide to Protecting privacy on internet.

1. Dont post your pic on your profile. I used to do it earlier but now I have become more cautious in that matter .

2. Dont give your ''real'' address on social networking sites. Even on other sites, do so if the site / organistion is trustworthy and well known.

3. Make sure that the pin number you give for purposes other than freelancing and business transactions is wrong.

4. Install a good antiphishing filter and even better antivirus and update it regularly.

5. Also install a good anti spyware software like spybot-search and destroy. Also make sure if you are surfing for

6..Dont fall for schemes for earning money which just give money for surfing for an hour.most of such sites are malicious and give out the databases of private details at dirt cheap prices to telenetworking companies. Ever wondered how telemarketeers get your home phone nos.??

7. Keloggers and pesky friends who would just do anything to get hold of your orkut\myspace\facebook account are even more dangerous than viruses. Be very strict regarding these.

8. Dont visit porn sites. They will install some kind of spyware or keyloggers on your computer more often than not.

9. If your antivirus doesnt have a built-in firewall than dont rely on the default windows firewall. Get a good firewall like zone alarm.

10. Dont wade off instructions that orkut gives.(eg. Dont click on suspicious links from your profile.).I have heard numerous cases where this has lead to their accounts being hacked and then they cry like a silly kid who has droped his ice cream on the floor.

11. Avoid going to cybercafes as much as possible. Most of them dont take necessary precautions to safe gaurd their terminals. I have noticed some of them still using win 98 and XP sans the sercive packs. And even yahoo messenger 5.0 which opens up vulnerabilities.

Hope this article has helped you. I am sure you will be more cautious the next time a link in your scrapbook promises to show you some magic or ''wonderful'' things.

Be preactive and not proactive.
Vandit.

Lectures by IIT and IISC professors available here !!

2008-12-09T20:05:00.003+05:30

So you bunked too many classes this semester ?? or just too tired to get hold of your book (...maybe due to its weight ..) ?? or just want to study the techie way ?? Here is your en-route.

NPTEL is an acronym for National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning which is an initiative by all seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for creating course contents in engineering and science.

Five major engineering disciplines have been covered in this project so far (NPTEL Phase I) at the undergraduate (B.E./B.Tech) level.

Civil Engineering
Computer Science and Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Electronics and Communication Engineering
Mechanical Engineering

Basically, Senior Profs of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have recorded video of their lectures on the above subjects and they have been hosted at Youtube.these are high quality lectures . The course contents focus mainly on engineering and science.

So here is the list of the lectures....keep visiting the official website of this program http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/ to get latest updates on courses .

SO have fun !! Instead of wasting your bandwidth on youtube songs and *cough* * cough * other stuff on youtube .... better get hold of these useful videos !! Thanks to this institution for giving out these videos for free !!

Cheers.

Vandit Khamker.

QWERTY fetches me 2000 bucks and counting !!

2008-12-05T22:45:00.001+05:30

Yes guys !! The DIGIT magazine had organized a "I love my mobile " contest wherein we had to write a review of the mobile phone we own !! I had an extensive practice of writing reviews lately (....courtesy endeavor ). I thought "why not write a review of my mobile just for practice sake ? " and so I wrote up a neat little review according to the format given by the organizers and submitted it and forgot about it !! It was until day before yesterday that I got he email from the DIGIT guys congratulating me as I was the runners up !! OMG...I was taken by surprise...I had forgotten about the contest and now I am one of the runners up !! I checked out the prize on stakes which came out to be rs. 2000 !! I am elated. The results have been also published in the December issue of DIGIT magazine and the 1st prize won that fellow 10,000 .. congrats dude (Whosoever it is !!).

Writing my blog and also the reviews of the novel I write as a curriculum at the endeavor classes helped me immensely . So far I have earned rs 2000 + 10.9 $ and counting( Google adsense earnings...in 2 months....your invaluable contributions ;-) ) and I am proud I did it just by typing on the QWERTY keyboards of my dell studio 15 laptop ,PC(assembled) , Sony Ericsson p1i. I feel honored that my writings bear some significance for others too !!

keep posting and writing comments !! cheers !!

Vandit.

Running an OS from within another OS !

2008-11-30T23:10:00.013+05:30

Do you fell monotonuos using the same OS everyday ?? Do your work hrs on your pc seem irksome and mechanical seeing the same components on your desk -- the same start button on the lower left , same drab icons , or you feel like a loser having experience only on the windows platform (thats what 90 % users are using) ??

Want to get a taste of new OSes everyday without messing up your computer's boot loader ,hdd partitions and data ??

Sun's virtual box comes to the rescue !! Whats exciting is that Virtual box is a Free and Open Source Software. So no need to get in extra bucks (or for that matter feel proud that you wont be infringing any lincenses of any kind by pirating.) and whats even more exciting is that you will be able to run the other OS even when your favourite(overworked) OS is up and running without any issues !!

1.) First download the virtual box from here .
Choose the OS you are using as the host and download the appropriate package.
2.) Install Virtual Box as a normal application.

3.) Now get the .iso of your favourite OS* (I have used DSL(damn small linux) in this tut.)
4.) Run virtual box and you will see such a screen :

5.)Now you need to create a new Virtual machine.Click the NEW button. Press next button and give a appropriate machine name (general thumb rule is the name of the OS you are using as the guest.)
Choose the OS you are using as the guest (for DSL I choose Debian based.)

6.)Set the amount of RAM you want to allocate to the guest OS (I recommend you to refer the recommended settings of the guest OS.....for DSL 256MB is more than sufficient . )

7.)Create a virtual HDD by clicking on new and choose expanding type and 8 gb in subsequent steps.

8.) Now select that virtual hdd and press next > finish .
You are done !!

9.) Now comes the installation of the guest OS. Right click on the virtual machine you have just created and click settings. Make sure in the boot order the CD/DVD drive is checked.
(If you want to directly run it from the iso without burning a cd.....do as shown in the image below

)

10.) Check the sound options and USB support if you want those features from the guest OS (most will need those.)
11.)You are done !! now click on the virtual machine and click START (or just double click on the machine.)
The installation of your guest OS should begin. (or if its a live OS it will run along with your windows up and running thus you can harness the power of windows while experimenting with your new OS.)
(My live! DSL up and running along with win vista !!)

The rest is upto you !! Run guest applications , hack in frenzy and learn and throw OSes at your own sweet will !! Keep discovering and post your reviews here !!

*- For mac OS X you will get .dmg. Better use Ultra ISO along with virtual box to extract max juice from your box !! If you want more information on Ultra ISO post your valuable comments !!

Cheers !!
vandit (Now an overworked EPWOM !!)

Enabling/disabling windows features

2008-11-30T22:55:00.004+05:30

Recently one of my friends windows box got infected with brontok virus which had disabled the task manager and cmd and god knows what !!

So upon some searching on the net and the thinkdigit forum I found ways to fix it....although the best fix was through the antivirus but I came to know about various tricks in Windows XP which might be helpful in some cases.

This wonderful tutorial by Vishal gupta gives valuable registry tips and tricks and also enabling those features which were disabled by the virus/admin/pesky friend ....

hope this link will help you guys immensely.

VARIOUS RESTRICTIONS IN WIN XP/VISTA/2003

Happy birthday to me !!

2008-11-30T00:41:00.002+05:30

Many of you must have guessed that this was coming up !!!

Its the 24th of November and I have turned 20 . Actually me and my brother share the same birthday !!
Its not all rosy when its 12:01 am on your birthday and specially if you are staying in a hostel or amongst a bunch of 11 brats !!
It all started with these guys assembling in my room @ 11:55 one by one as if everything was normal . Some of them even asked doubts(yes the exams are on..) now slowly everybody gathered in my room. I smelt something fishy. I had a deja vu that something was going to be kicked and dragged around . The clock struck 12:00am and all of a sudden J2 and VT attacked and lifted me up with J2 by the hands and VT holding the legs . And I realized that it was my @## that was going to be knocked around . Soon water from heaven was showered on me and it was freezing cold (actually it was haddy and riksy who were there with buckets of freezing water.) soon face washes were applied where they weren’t meant to be used and I received kicks and punches as if The Great Khali was taking out his wrath on me. I requested for a bucket of warm water as I was feeling cold but it fell on deaf ears and the pounding continued.
C'mon what have I done wrong ?? Its just my birthday !!hehehe... These are the moments of happiness which leave you somewhat stiff for a day or two.
Soon my phone rang and I was kept busy for the next 1 hr on the phone( luckily ). Soon absurd topics sprang up and outlandish questions were asked ( questions may be rated as improper content here.)
Then we played another prank on J2 and havent slept yet even as I typed this and it was 2:30 am !! Details of our modus operandi of the prank continued in the next post. (I posted this today as I wasnt in my pink of health due to the pounding I recieved for the last few days...lolz.. Actually my exams were up !!)

Keep reading !!
-Vandit

Something worth learning !

2008-11-14T00:59:00.008+05:30

So you dont know how to tie a necktie eh ?? Feeling like a spoilt kid who cant even tie his own shoelaces ?? Neither did I know till I saw this amazing video on youtube !! kudos !!

Watch how to tie a tie !!

Tired of hearing your mom's high pitched screaming on you for keeping your room as if it were a laundry with your clothes strewn all around !!
So you dont even know how to fold a tshirt !

Watch this video and I bet you will do it quicker than your mom(...and I dont mean screaming here !! lolz ) ... just in 2 seconds !!!

Watch how to fold a tshirt in 2 seconds !!

kudos again !!

Expecting some comments !!

-VRK (EPWOM reloaded !!)

Posts interrupt acknowledged !!

2008-11-12T19:06:00.002+05:30

Since last few months my processor(a.k.a my brain) was coming up with such amazing posts sequentially and thanks for the readers who posted their comments.

Lately the universal serial interrupter has issued an interrupt signal as the exams are within sniffing distance. So it has been acknowledged and the processor has gone into the RST mode (Read Sincerely Till exams ). It will RETURN to the main program and write sequentially from address 291108 when hopefully it will encounter the return instruction. Till then Happy reading !!

-vandit(an EPWOM...upgraded )(see electronics verbiage becomes an integrated part of the language protocol when we study microprocessor for too long ...)

A refreshing change .

2008-11-09T12:49:00.005+05:30

So after using my laptop for so many days(nearly 25 now) I was getting bored messing with the same wallpaper everyday I booted up vista. So the hunt for new and exciting wallpapers began . I searched the internet for vista wallpapers and got some exciting ones.. but when I visited the blog of microsoft's official wallpaper creator MIKE SWANSON . I found some breathtaking,high resolution pics which he specially optimised for use on wallpapers for Vista(although you can use for other OSes also.) He also has a tutorial about how he goes about "manufacturing" such astounding pics. So here are the links if you want your desktop to look really pretty or you just want to know who that guy is and pick up some of the photography yourself.

some eg. of his wallpapers.

The official blog : MIKE SWANSON
The link to the wallpapers : WALLPAPERS
The link to the "how does he make the wallpapers" : c'mon explore his blog...you might find something more interesting . No spoon feeding from now on guyz...

Special thanks to vishal gupta (another Microsoft MVP and a thinkdigitian ) for introducing me to his blog.

Do post comments thanking me and the guys I mentioned above for introducing you to some of these goodies..

Cheers ...
vandit (An EPWOM)

How not to test a laptop !!

2008-11-05T23:42:00.005+05:30

It has been about 20 days since my laptop has arrived and already it has served as the object of experimentation !!

First of all... There is a genre of people who like to test the build quality of everything that comes within reach and when it comes to testing laptops... Their favourite is the keyboard !! It had been barely 15 days from arrival that J2 had laid his dirty hands on my lappy... He has this inveterate habit of ''conciously'' banging on the generally soft keys of a new keyboard ... Luckily my lappy passed this slang-bang endurance test without any injury. Thank god.
From the comments I got in the review post from cool89..It seems like he will also put it through his trademark test when he gets to check it out !!!

The second test came from my 2 yr old cousin sister. We all know how 2 yr olds are like. Actually this one is pretty smart. She was sitting in my lap and I casually asked her ''what is this ?''(pointing towards my laptop ...) she surprised me with her answer. '' Laptop '' she said !! Yes I felt proud of my sister and I let her take the control of my lappy thinking if she could differentiate between a laptop and a computer she must be a damn geek !! But then the smartness became volatile and a devilish gleem was seen in her eyes ... She also put my lappy through the keyboard endurance test and touchpad response test and luckily she was light enough for me to lift her away from my lappy !! Phew that was close !!

The 3rd test was a kind of viva ... Yes the kind they take at the college and the quiz master was none other than CD(curly durly) !! He started asking absurd questions on seeing the ''slot load'' DVD drive(they are rare to find.).
The first question or rather a remark was ''see the dell guyz have shipped faulty equipment !! They forgot to put on the tray !! '' I kept my temper under control and just demonstrated that it was fine by popping in a DVD and he got his answer. But soon a string of questions started !! The most insane questions you can think of ''what if I pop in a roti ?? Will your lappy accept it ?? What if I pop it in upside down (good heavens he didnt say vertically ) ?? What will happen if I put a knife in ??''

Why do people asks such questions ?? These scenarios are possible even with the conventional tray drives !! I mean would it make a difference if I popped in a roti in a slot load or the normal one ?? Both the drives wouldnt read a upside down disc and inserting a knife would beat the hell out of any kind of drive !!

My sheer patience kept me in my senses. See these are the kind of grilling tests a new equipment has go through.And I hope you will take the necessary precautions not to let your newly arrived hot-house-plant lappy go through such outlandish tests after reading this post ... ;)

J2 proves himself a guj. sardar again !!!

2008-10-26T14:33:00.005+05:30

Time: 11/7/2008
Friday(doesn't really matter...)

scene: Me, CD and P2 are in a train and j2 is in another train . Both the trains are proceeding towards the same destination- vvn.

It was the day when hopes would be shattered, when a single white sheet of laminated(poor quality) paper would decide who is gonna frown like a fool who hasn't saw winning and who is going to snatch the lettuce from the salad. This is the day,friends, the D-day.... one of those from the 365 days of sheer hard work that bear fruit...yes guys.." The Results ".

We (me, curly durly(CD) and ping pong(p2)...no way these are real names.. wont give out a damn here who were they..) set out early in the morning from my home town , bharuch, at 6 in bhaktani and headed for vidyanagar....all were anxious for the clock to strike 10:30am..( 'cause that's the time we get the results,,,)

By the time we reached baroda...it was already 9:30am... then to set out a wave of relief from the result fever.... we( me and p2 ) decided to play some prank on jumpy jack(J2)... As it turned out to be , he was in another train "the queen " which reaches bharuch later but vvn earlier than us... so p2 called J2 on his cell...queen had just left baroda then...hope J2 hasn't seen us..I mean our train on the baroda platform..

p2: " Hello...U got 7.34...(he didn't realize that 7.34 spi aren't possible by any combination of grades... neither did J2 so all was fine for the plan...) "
J2:"Wht the @#$%^ "
p2: " Whts the matter 7.34 arent bad... vandit told me ur results " (note : It was still 9:30 and the results are announced at 10:30...lolz..)
J2:"Well I expected lesser... now i'll have to give a damn party to VT(vipu tat) "
p2:"vandit got 8.93.."
J2(in his mind):" wht the @#$% !! "
"Ok bye.."

after some time... J2 calls me...
J2:"hello ... sale mene tujhe mera result dekhne ka naa bola tha na!! tu kaha par hai??"
me(cant control laughter):"abe....(pause...did i hear "where r u?" ???!!!) Mein abhi mera result leke flat par jaa raha hun...I got 8.93..(these were just hypothetical figures...lolz...). Tere 2 mein B aur ek me A hai
(I almost laughed..but as J2 didnt hear..) .. chal bye.."

15 mins have passed since then... J2 is all in sweats...A sms comes on my mobile: " chal feka fek naa kar...(dont just keep on bluffing) " sender: zulu (he was in the same train as J2 ).

After 2-3 mins..my phone rang louder(or did it just seem to...after all it was J2 calling...hehehe)
J2:"sale tu kaha par hai????"
me(laughing):"flat par !!"
J2:" sale @#$#$%%$ #$#@ @@# ... kami** .. tu aa mein tujhe flat pe dekhta hun.."

We all start laughing and howling in the train like anything !!

Thus we cant under-estimate the consistency at which J2 exhibits foolishness or rather we make a bakra out of him...

;)

Using bsnl broadband my way !!

2008-10-24T00:16:00.006+05:30

WARNING : : THIS TOPIC IS ONLY FOR H500 USERS

So you have got the Home 500 plan for bsnl broadband and are not willing to spoil your precious sleep by remaining awake till 2:00 am (as I did before I read this tutorial on the thinkdigit forums...) and hence you feel that the unlimited data transfer span of 2:00 am to 8:00 am is going waste ?

Here are the steps that will help you make the most out of your 500 bucks without turning you into an insomanic:

Step 1 :

Download and install this cool software called auto powerup and shutdown to start/shutdown/schedule your comp from here http://www.lifsoft.com/downloads.html (demo version link)

Step 2 :
Configure this app to start your comp at 2:05 am , let it start the download manager/torrent client/ftp client from where you have to download the file at around 2:15 am
Then configure the download manager/torrent client to start downloading as soon as the app is started.
Finally stop the client from downloading at 7:40 and schedule a shut down at 7:45(Or get schedule a alarm on your fav. clock and get off your bed and shut down comp and turn off modem)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE:

If you are using vista and also have more than 1 user accounts then right click on the shortcut on click on "run as administrator". Then go to options and select auto logon for win vista /xp. and provide the user id and the password.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the configuration is done...
Now for the working..

Step 3:

i)Basically you have to turn on your comp the night before you want to download and ii)add links to your download client....
iii)Then start auto power and shut down...
iv)Then put your comp into hibernate mode using auto power shut down...
v)After the comp has gone into hibernation mode, turn on the modem...you should only see ONLY ONE orange led....

Step 4:
Sleep(... and pray that there are no electricity cuts throughout the night.)!!!

Step 5 : Wake up turn off modem and comp and rush to work/college :d

Step 6: Come back and enjoy download!!!
Wasn't that easy
Now for the working :
When you put the comp in hibernation with auto power shut down working , it starts the comp at the set time... and starts up the download manager/torrent client at the schedulede time .

Now your computer (or rather your modem) does all the work of downloading stuff that you have added in the list.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE:

Even if you start surfing earlier than 2:00 am the bsnl guys wont count the data bytes for the entire session. They will deduct the data transfer from 2:00 am to 8:00am .... so no worries.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to my friend on thinkdigit forums for this wonderful tutorial !!

The dawn of a new acronym !

2008-10-21T01:08:00.005+05:30

I had the microprocessor classes last week as usual. It is one of my favourite subjects. We were studing about memory organization and mem. types.

The lecturer wrote EPROM on the blackboard and asked us the full form and it was obvious most of us knew it. My mind tuned up to a different frequency... The word seem to knock my head as if to tell me something... I recalled placements were coming and many collegues had also joined coaching classes for entrance exams including me... We were under tremendous work load ... Sometimes we dont even have the time to cherish old memories as simple as they may be... We had become machines who didnt dare complain about work. It had become our duty and like androids we went about brushing up our minds ; disturbing the nicely arranged books in the cupboards and putting some wierd signs with ink on them .. Its all in the 'karma' as steve jobs puts it . We are responsible for our actions which reflect in the future. We are woking for our future . To mould our destinies; to work our way through the labyrinths of worldly problems.

I regained conciousness in a jiffy( thats because thoughts(and not necessarily calculations ) flow in my mind @ the speed of light ... Actually havent measured their speed yet , so its unofficial.) , least I should miss anything in my fav. lecture .
Once the lecture was over, the notebook still open with EPROM written on it. I recalled my thoughts. I realised why that word knocked me of my conscience. I came up with an acronym the
EPWOM-
Erasable Programmable Work Only Machines .

Yes this word stands for us. Work is our duty ; our moto; we are ''programmed for work '' ; everything else is erased ; those age of empires and commandos 3 sessions, playing cricket in the evenings , lazily sleeping at any given damn time , software and hardware hacks (oops i spilled the beans..) , coming up with absurd designs of rc cars for the techfests . Someone has said fantasies dont last forever .

Sorry for being so philosophical and heavy but our vocab sir told me to write some non-technical posts on my blog so here it is sir !! (lolz.. And thanx for reading it entirely !! Hehe..)

Cheers !!
Vrk.( Now an EPWOM ! )

Dell Studio 15 - Review

2008-10-19T20:06:00.014+05:30

Mine is Here !!

Yes guys its awesome !! My dell studio 15 laptop arrived on tuesday 14/10/08 .

I specially like when I am given options to choose from and Dell gave me the ability to configure my laptop right from the CPU to "do I want shiny LEDs in the keyboard or not " .

Well I loaded it fully with the technical specs as follows:

2.16ghz T8100.
core2duo 3mb cache and 800mhz fsb.
3gb of ddr2 ram.
256 mb ATI radeon mobility.
250 gb HDD.
2 mpx webcam.
Creative audigy sound card.
15.4 inch lcd with midnight blue colour.
Win vista home premium and microsoft works 9.
Wifi;bluetooth;card reader;dvd writer with dual layer.
Media center remote control(damn !! My previous post !!).
Creative headphones.

It cost me rs 53k .(note : prices slashed now !! Also bargain for student discounts with the dell customer care executive and better get a complete cover protection with accidental damage.)

Review:

The design is plain yet stylish and simple-no fuss ergonomical design-just what is expected from dell.

I found my ''digital'' alter-ego in the design ...yes its just like me.
Nothing flashy or artificially flamboyant in appearance ,just decent yet raw and naturally attractive ; loaded with a truck load of processing power and a huge HDD,responsive and fun to work with !! now that describes me ; doesnt it ??

Havent yet tested out the graphics card with some heavy games but it does render the aero graphics of vista smoothly.
(update : The graphics card is good enough to play somewhat heavy games.... and the term heavy is relative for different people.)

Sound from lappy speakers is ok ; nothing great about it ; but connecting my creative sbs brings the creative audigy to the helm of affairs !! Man it rocks !!

Bluetooth and wifi are performing at their peak .

The only thing I didnt like was that the dvd drive didnt have a tray !! Yes it is slot load type where you pop in the entire dvd unsure of whats gonna happen next or will it come out everytime it eject it from the software interface !!
(update : Now I have a strong liking for the slot load ones...faced no problems whatsoever !! Only don't .. I mean don't insert a mini sized disc into it !! Its poisonous !)

The keyboard and touchpad are good and the lcd quality is up to the mark.

Dimensions : height : 1.51 in
width : 13.98 in
depth : 10.31 in
weight : 3kg approx.

Screen viewable size : 15.4 in (diagonally)

The documentation and media provided is fairly detailed and useful and what more it came in a neat box with

''DELL

YOURS IS HERE ''

Written on it !! Have shot the video of the grand opening and taken some pics too !!

The Vista's performance rating gave 4.0 base score (to know more go to help and type base score.)Well 4.0 score is considered very good.

Yet to benchmark it with 3D mark but I reckon it will come up with good scores.
The Dell network assistant is helpful and also the Dell dock and webcam central.
The infrared remote control provided boots up the pc even if it is turned off and the media center is also refreshing.

Ratings by me : 8.91 / 10
(damn it even gets the same ratings as my cpi !! lolz)

Overall: satisfying buy ! Go for it !!

-Vandit Khamker.

Public Behaviour observance - 2

2008-10-10T09:00:00.000+05:30

Why do people behave foolishly when excited ?? There has to be some connection between adrenaline and blocking of a brain nerve or something like that.

It was just yesterday when I was at the temple on the occasion of dussera. It was at the noisiest best with drummers and devotees of godess durga dancing around the idol of the goddess. Inside the temple it was writen '' please maintain silence ''. Now cant people understand that even the gods are fed up with strange noises of the modern society (and me too..)

Now that wasnt the extreme of madness... 15 mins later they were proceeding towards immersing the idol in the river..crackers were being lit in frenzy with crowd standing at burning distance...dont they have the slightest sense ??
One of the crackers went hey-wire and lit the nice clothes that were put on the idol and none of them even realised it !! They were senslessly excited in their so-called worship...It took the hawkish eyes and presence of mind of people like me who took notice.

Take another example from recent times...

So many worshipers were killed in stampedes at the 2 of the most visited temples in india . The count surpassed that of those killed in the terrorist blasts !!!

A message to people :

Keep your head on your shoulders and your brain in your head.. Dont lose your conscience in frenzy and while worshiping.

A cheap Infrared controller for your PC !!

2008-10-02T00:53:00.005+05:30

It was when I visited my friend's house that I saw the winXP media center PC. He boasted about the cool remote control that comes along with it so that you can " lazily " watch all your movies and change the songs in the playlist .... I thought I can do it better and a tad cheaper too !!

The outcomes of the researches....

(My version of the controller !)
Lo and behold --- I present you the Infrared controller for YOUR pc !! It cost me a miserly Rs 170(including a cheap Chinese DVD player remote control)
I was able to control my pc using my air conditioner's remote control also !! And that's the beauty of this peripheral you are going to make.(Actual product may differ drastically in appearance than the one shown)

(hack-a-day version of the controller !)

As the tutorial has many images... I thought it would be easier for me to upload it as a MS word file..so that the readers get an offline version too...I know the challenges of having the need to get online when you want to refer the tutorial again as you may miss out the minute details at a one time read and also the post was getting too long.... so guys enjoy.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE.

PS:
* I felt more satisfied at the working of this IR module as compared to media center (although media center is more aesthetic and pleasing to the eye) as I was able to perform its "equivalent " operations.

* The link to the software and the detailed documentation are not necessarily generated by me.

--vrk.

The most awesome photoshop tutorial !!

2008-10-01T02:26:00.003+05:30

WARNING: Demands patience and consider some photoshop knowledge as a prerequisite if you don't want to get frustrated on account of not finding the required tools.

One more from the stable of thinkdigit forums.... sorry guyz no plagiarism this time... will give you a link..check out for yourself.

HERE

lock a folder without any 3rd party software.

2008-10-01T02:03:00.003+05:30

While browsing the net, I came across various "tools" that help us lock folders within our PC. Even my friend ( wont give out the name here else you will spam him requests for those tools..) has a good collection of such tools. But this tutorial on thinkdigit forum was really good...just give it a try dude...copy the code in a text file...store it in your mobile and you will have a folder locker in your hands wherever you go(even in those boring VB lab sessions !! hehehehe...) ENJOY!!

cls
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Locker
if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure u want to Lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p "cho=>"
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Locker "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo stuff by vandit
echo Enter password to Unlock folder
set/p "pass=>"
if NOT %pass%==TYPE UR PASSWORD HERE goto FAIL
attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Locker
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Locker
echo Locker created successfully
goto End
:End

Instructions::

1) Copy the give code in a note pad and save the note pad in your PC with the name name.bat (that is with the extension of .bat). you can replace the name portion with anything u want.

Note-- In place of password in the code given type your desired password.

2) A batch file will be created where you have saved. Now double click on it , it will make a folder with the name locker at the same place where the batch file is save.

3) Now add the files you want to be locked in that folder.

4) Double click on the batch file. It will ask for locking the folder formed. Type y(yes). The folder will be locked and hidden.

5) To unlock,double click on batch file again and enter the password in the new window opened.

A peek "inside" the CHROME !!

2008-09-20T00:56:00.001+05:30

Now all of us know that chrome is the new browser launched by Google. At the first hands on experience with chrome, it didnt feel as polished as the IE8 or firefox 3 but hey it was google's first attempt at making such a thing. One of the more known facts about CHROME is that it is a FOSS(Free and Open Source Software) application. So what has it got to do with me (you must be wondering....).Well if its an open source software then shouldnt the source code be available to general public to modify it and " help google by testing and patching it up" ??... Yes it is under the project name CHROMIUM...
So here it goes..the requirements and how to proceed with your next mission...editing the chrome source code !!!

source code for chrome

Happy hacking.
vrk.

A "Lively" XPerience

2008-09-20T00:29:00.008+05:30

I was just surfing the net for some time pass articles and some downloading stuff...I was wondering if I would find anything new today...I was reading a forum post on which it was mentioned..."GOOGLE LABS"...voila ... I realized I hadn't visited them since few months..so I went there to check out some of the new stuff that they come up with at a regular basis and this is what I found !!!

To have a virtual meet (an eg. in the pic) of friends in 3D go to:
http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html
and download the application.

Yes. You can chat in 3D with your buddies and whats more,..Its powered by Google.
For those new to such applications, It is the Google's move to rival the most popular virtual environment simulator called the " Second life ".

So if you have got ample of time or some bandwidth to reckon with... do post me your reviews of the Google lively !!

cheers.
vrk.

Lessons from the goa trip.

2008-09-19T07:26:00.002+05:30

Lessons from the Goa trip.

1.) never ride in a car which is filled with 3 drivers(who reckon they can drive) who cant drive smoothly...1 good driver is a better pick..(and hence i had joined the driving classes and now i can drive a four wheeler!! )

2.) Never have assumptions about the place you are visiting. It may sometimes disappoint you or it might come out to be the exactly the opposite than what you might have imagined !! This makes the place more enjoyable as you stop comparing it with your "bench marked" idea of the place.(This applies to all places on earth... Venice,Mauritius,bharuch,Switzerland )

3.) An all luxuries-comfortable trip is good but sometimes going unplanned can be a hell lot of fun !!

4.) Carry a handful of plastic bags with you wherever you go.you never know where they might be useful...leave out all of that non-biodegradable and environmental perspective at your home when you are on a trip..

Cheers!!
Vrk.

A philantropist site.

2008-09-09T20:54:00.003+05:30

I got to know about this site called www.giveawayoftheday.com courtesy www.raymond.cc ...

These guys give out a full version of a software or game everyday(for a fixed download time period ofcourse..) for free !!! Yes free until your internet provider doesnt charge you for the data transfer...what is so exciting about this site is that it is legal to use it for ''non-comercial'' uses if you except their terms and conditions...(some bottle necks are necessary...)

So that way they spread the not-so-known softwares amongst users legally..

There are some really good softwares(clean and legal to download ) up for grabs. Do give it a try if you have got some spare time or a thirst for acquring full version softies and dont want to spread unlawfull piracy..

For more information kindly visit www.giveawayoftheday.com and www.raymond.cc .

The champ is back !!!!

2008-09-09T13:56:00.001+05:30

After a poor string of performances in this year ; mr. Rodger fedrer has battled his demons and has come out triumphant in the us open !! Poor performances ???? Errr... Ok he reached the semis and the finals of all the grandslams but isnt that way below his par ??? We are so used to see his face in the tv with a trophy in his hand that we fret when he losses even a single damn match. Watch out rodger ; I also play tennis... And have got a cup also..

Some Goodies on offer !!!

2008-09-08T16:36:00.000+05:30

It has been very exciting writing this blog since the last few months. Its has been even more exhilarating reading your valuable comments...
Hence I have decided to put up a special offer on my blog !!!! So heres how it goes...

You as a sincere visitor read all this freakish blogs and give even more comments...

I decide on the basis of some rules and regulations * . . . . Which is the best comment...and i give a surprise gift* ( ipod ... Oops its no longer a surprise now !!! ) to the one which leaves others gasping for quality...

So flex those neurons and come up with something that stands out from the usual crap...

Happy blogging !!!
Vrk.

Taking a break

2008-08-28T23:59:00.001+05:30

Sorry guyz but no blogs this week....exams up next week...

To, The cynics.

2008-08-23T17:34:00.001+05:30

Well.... There are certain things in life which people take for granted or classify into groups at the first look... Here are some of the perceptions i would like to 'erase' from the 'tender' minds of the general public :

1. ALL THOUCHSCREEN MOBILES ARE CHINESE ONES.
Oh c'mon!! Every chinese mobile has got a large screen and a stylus...but the converse might NOT be true !!! Sony ericsson and HTC have got some good touchscreens up their sleeve as well !!! I am leaving it to the reader's imagination to figure out why i wrote this !!

2. EVEN IF WE ( The reference is made to the students of spu ) DONT WRITE ANYTHING IN THE PAPER; WE GET A ''C'' GRADE !!
This is the general perception of my friends studing in other universities... Let me get this straight.. Grades beyond 'C' i.e. D;E;F also exist !!!!
If you had this perception;read this again. if you arent getting good grades, it implies something else and not that they give grades to us in bulks. man we DO have to study to get nice grades !! Its just that we are better at time management than the rest..

3. YOUR PIC SHOWS UP ON ORKUT FOR THE ENTIRE DAY..DONT YOU HAVE ANY OTHER WORK??

Well mister, even a 5 min loggin would put my pic on the right frame. It isnt necessary that i am logged in if my pic shows up !! And btw i sign in from my mobile device at my convinience and i also do something better than sitting on orkut...i write this blog dammit !!

[the author is an avid blog writer and a regular forum browser, a technoholic and a digerati , semanticist and a psychogenic writer and conveyer.]

" push blogging"

2008-08-19T14:57:00.002+05:30

I dont know if its known as push blogging or not but it is a term i would like to give to this methodology of publishing blogs. I have got my hands on the blogger application for my mobile phone; so i dont have to surf through multiple pages for doing something as simple as posting a blog..well i wanted to test this application so i have made this crappy post. Cheers!!

Tech quotient builder-1

2008-08-14T12:12:00.001+05:30

It was one fine day that friendz came up with all sorts of IT quiz - askable questions after we (me and akshay ) came 2nd in the all gujarat state level IT quiz competition...And i was ready for them (...I am good at predicting human behaviour..). They came up with all sorts of questions-ceo's, HQ's, founders,full forms,etc. By searching on the net,magazines etc...And were amazed at the quantity of the questions I answered correctly... Then came the non-technical questions(how come u knw so much ! and those sorts of...). So to answer them I am writing this series called the "tech quotient builder"... So that u can improve urself on it.. Trust me it will be an interesting series..Hope to get appreciative audience..Cheers !!

Fastest supercomputer-roadrunner by IBM.

IBM ceo- samuel palmisano

Yahoo - Yet Another Hierarchical Officius Oracle(..bet u didnt knw this one..)- founders jerry yang and david filo in santa clara.

Digerati- a person who is proficient in use of technology.

White hat- ethical hacker.

Google founders- larry page and sergey brin.

LAMP- Linux Apache Mysql Php.

Laser printer invented in Xerox PARC ( paulo alto research centre.)

Relative behaviour.

2008-08-04T08:16:00.002+05:30

This post is about the transition in the behaviour of people when mishappenings have just shown their ugly face in the public.

A week after the ahmedabad blasts I was at the anand railway station. As soon as I reached there, I heard announcements in the usual monotonic voice :

"Inform the railway police about "suspicious" looking objects on the platform "

Henceforth, I scanned every corner that came my way , with my eagle eyes ,for "objects"-bags,polythenes,dustbins(yes i had a look inside a dustbin under the pretence of dropping a milk tetrapack into it..Lolz...Dont laugh, its necessary.. ) people who seemed "out of place" at that hr on the platform.Every object was tagged "suspicious" by default at the 1st sight.

So as a good citizen, i always kept my luggage confined to my hands(..Usually i dont let it loose anyway..) I sat on the bench where two other hideous looking uncles were sitting. I gathered courage to speak to them and inquired whether the train was going to arrive on that platform only(ok. It was just a conversation starter.. I have travelled enough no. Of times to fig. Out which train comes where..) I was expecting just a "yes"..But to my surprise each one of the passengers turned out to be friendly(atleast at that time). People began with a hello, Which college and even which discipline !!! And the usual(or the unsual) blah blah....! Every creature there appeared amicable- the collies,shopkeepers, even policemen!! The stray dogs appeard like sniffer dogs who would detect even the slightest trace of explosives...

No one even cares who is sitting besides them under normal conditions.

Was this change due to the tension in the air or it was just that all the friendly creatures on this planet had gathered there.? I predict the former...People tend to be a little "chickened" up after calamities and that brings out the sympathetic best out of them...

Well i am not a psychologist,analysing every bit of behavorial change and assigning it some cause, but i do have an eye for the unusual.

Comments please!!

google reader-making lives simpler..

2008-07-20T12:21:00.003+05:30

GOOGLE READER ???

Yes. It is a powerful and an online rss /atom reader developed by google..

NOW WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??

Rss stands for really simple syndication... This is particularly useful when you view
some fixed websites daily like my blog(dont u?? ) , the thinkdigit forum, www.Digg.com,engadget etc... And would like to get updated articles from each of those without visiting all of them(i knw i am lazy but thats not the point..).
Wouldnt it be nice if u got their content on a single site !!
If ur ans. Is yes then the google reader is for u..

OK THANX BUT HOW DO I GET THERE?

Just visit the http://www.google.com/reader/ and sign in with your google account !!

ERR ,LOOKS A COMPLICATED CONSOLE...

Can u read english properly?? If yes then it shouldnt look complicated...The "manage subscription " link on the left frame lets u add/remove the websites whose content u would like to get updated with... And it is also offering u subs. Packs like business,sports,news,hacking etc..

WHY SHOULD I USE IT??

Oh c'mon didnt u read the post?? Even if u dont want to use it ... Why not give it a try? Its free after all !!

IS THIS POST SPONSERED BY GOOGLE?

No way !! I just want u all to make ur lives simpler by using "innovations" in technology !!

-ist -tist -maniac

2008-07-20T12:01:00.002+05:30

cant get hold of the title?? Feeling like a goat lost in the desert... Read on...

It was dusk and we ventured out for our mba classes...
The tutor came sharp on time(... Being a private institution they/we have to maintain the timings and discipline..).
(My hand is itching to describe him but he told in his intro that he surfs the net more than any of us do..Soooo.. what if he might be reading this !!)

After the intro he started writing some words on the board(it was a vocab session.)

1st words..
Egoist ,egotist,egomaniac..

I wondered if he had created a typo in the 2nd wrd...

Then he explained
-ist means a person
ego-oneself
maniac- serious obssession..

Thus the words mean
egoist- selfish person(many wouldnt agree on this one but split the word and u'll realise..)

egotist- a boastful / arrogant person.

Egomanic-
a self obssessed person.

Now all thats ok...But why in the hell did I write this here??

Now didnt that post correct one of the most common mistakes of refering a "ahamkari" with a egoist and not an egotist... I knw i wont make this mistake again, neither should you..

Happy reading.

How did i convince myself to write a blog !!

2008-07-14T19:58:00.002+05:30

Well actually..I didnt have to persuade myself or need some external intervention neither divine nor from any of those pricks abt whom I will be writing in my future posts..

It was solely my decision without any pressure or any legal liabilities/necessities...

Well actually.. I get bored pretty quickly when i have nothing to do on my trips from vvn(shorthand for vallabh vidyanagar..Where my college is located..) and bharuch and vice versa...

So.. I got myself a airtel MO connection activated for some "timepass" in the train or whatever the mode of transportation it may be...

So wht ? My mobile(or any in contemporary ) cant display the bells and whistles of the websites they make these dayz..Thanx to ajax,flash and java..Oh damn it... I gotta find something that gets displayed nicely on this 2.X inch screen...

Then lightening struck my head...Zap !!

why dont i write a blog myself ?? - Will get into a habit of writing as well as will burn some travelling time. Ahaha ! And my blog got resurrected !!

So guyz if u like(or hate ) any posts plz do the honours and post ur valuable comments...Which will fill my dull moments in the train with joy !!

;)

linux tutorial..

2006-07-22T20:14:00.001+05:30

Want to learn linux & learn its basics.......stop right here check this guide out. I myself checked and found it useful.so be a part of worlds fastest growing movement.

FYI::
Linux is the most customisable OS .......
To learn it first it you will need to " unlearn " a few windows concepts first................

http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/index.html

__________________
Linux Genuine Advantage: I am licensed!

Vandit's Webzine

Hello World.

My Novice Photography

IPL 3 Standings ( Extrapolated )

Ch. 2 – Communicating With Web Services from a Silverlight application For Absolute Dummies !

Ch. 1 – Getting Started with Silverlight 3 – For Absolute Dummies.

“ Bored till creation ” - The theory.

The 3 Idiots - 5 Point Someone Fiasco and my Opinion.

A pledge to keep blogging.

WHAT NOW ?

Thoughts from people of our age ( via @sengupta ).

Heights of epicaricacy !

A twitter application under development.

Thoughts on Piracy and My disappearance from the blogosphere explained.

Software as a commodity

Awesome Geeky “Your momma … ” quotes !

Fantastic Optical Illusion

Respect for opinion.

Pardon me for a moment ,fellas !

The Twitter Faux Pas .

Yes, I am flabbergasted !

Access the root without a root password on a Linux box !

|| THE SINGLE USER MODE ||

You can also change the Root password from the single user mode !

Google’s innovation of the year is …

Partitioning HDD in Vista .

CAT 09 to go online !!

“ The Hummus ” Recipe

Hackintosh is pointless, after all !

Earnest apologies, my amigos !!

The “ THE ” and the “ A ” .

Why do people despise the GOTO statement ?

An experience at the vaccination centre

Sony Cybershot T77 – An unofficial Review

Dell Studio 15 - The flaws that crop up !

THE FLAWS – Part wise :

Amazing Photoshop Tutorials !

The Linux Kick-Off !!

Get a full-screened turbo c/c++ on windows Vista !!

An experience with Dell customer care .

Creating Unattended Windows XP installation CDs .

Imposing beauty !!

An account on Sharukh Khan- His pre-stardom days !!

SRK – The King Khan

The strange case of stubborn bails

A day in the garden with my p1i

What went wrong with SATYAM ? - A brief note on satyam scam

The mysterious case of missing “ LIFE ” !!

The official invitation post !!

The journey !!

Wah India !! Way to go !!

Stamp and coin collection .

Tilt-shift photography

Windows 7 available for beta testing .

An attempt to phish me in vain !

Hidden / Useful features in windows vista.

Benchmarking approaches insanity

The reason behind Recession decoded !!

Questions that have puzzled me till date .

Unofficial guide to protecting privacy on the internet.

Lectures by IIT and IISC professors available here !!

NPTEL is an acronym for National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning which is an initiative by all seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for creating course contents in engineering and science.

Civil Engineering

Computer Science Engineering

Artificial Intelligence | Artificial Intelligence - Prof. P. Dasgupta

Core Science

Electrical Engineering

Electronics Engineering

Basic Electronics: Dr.Chitralekha Mahanta | Prof T.S.Natarajan

Electronics For Analog Signal Processing: Part - I | Part - II

Mechanical Engineering