Download Yahoo! Messenger Installer to PC

It may seem as trivial as it can. But have you tried to install Yahoo! Messenger? Read on, and you will find the problem. Yahoo messenger installation, as given in the website, involves the following steps:

• Save msgr8us.exe to your desktop
  
• Once downloading has completed, go to your desktop, double-click the msgr8us.exe icon
• Follow the instructions to finish the installation

Well, what's the problem with that? Consider that you want to install messenger on multiple PCs. Of course, you can follow the same procedure on every PC, why waste bandwidth on every PC?. But consider doing it on a dial up, or a slow connection. At that time, it is really a pain to download it every single time. Instead, why not have a direct installer? Sounds feasible right? Here is a little hack just to do that:

• Save msgr8us.exe to your desktop
• Once downloading has completed, go to your desktop, double-click the msgr8us.exe icon
• Now, don't just keep watching till the wizard finishes the installation. Instead go to C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Installs folder on your computer
• You will see a temporary file. As soon as the download reaches 100%, that temporary file will be renamed to ymsgr8us.exe
  
• Now you have to be really quick. Just copy that ymsgr8us.exe file and paste it somewhere else. You have to do this as early as possible, because the wizard will delete that file soon after the installation

Now, you can use the copied ymsgr8us.exe file to install it on any PC. If you have a fast connection, you can share it with your friends who have a slower connection, so that they don't have to wait for an hour to install Yahoo! Messenger

I DNT HATE MOZILLA! ORKUT IS BANNED!!

I was asked by my friend that he is the only user in his computer, his account is having administrative rights, but he is not able to open Orkut, and it says Orkut is banned. Another friend had told that he is not able to use Mozilla Firefox and it asks him to use Internet Explorer. I just told it must be some virus, but really didn't care much about that. But none of the antivirus software could detect or remove this malware.

My friend had given me a pen drive. I remembered it while browsing net on Firefox. When I put that in my PC and double clicked, it didn't open. I knew at once: I had activated a virus. But I didn't have any idea about the kind of virus that might have come to my PC, until I switched back to Firefox. Immediately a message box was displayed: I DNT HATE MOZILLA BUT USE IE OR ELSE... with title as USE INTERNET EXPLORER U DOPE. I just remembered the experiences of my friends. I tried to locate the virus by running the Task Manager. But there were no suspicious entries there. I had to bow the owner of the virus. I used Internet Explorer to search about it. The first entry in Google took me to the Mozilla Forum page, and after going through some pages, I came to know that the same virus also displayed another message when you opened Orkut. Orkut is banned you fool, The administrators didnt write this program guess who did?? MUHAHAHA!! with title ORKUT IS BANNED. Well, a similar message was displayed for YouTube also. So I went through all the posts, and finally found a solution given here:

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL and go to the processes tab
2. Look for svchost.exe under the image name. There will be many but look for the ones which have your username under the username
3. Press DEL to kill these files. It will give you a warning, Press Yes
4. Repeat for more svchost.exe files with your username and repeat. Do not kill svchost.exe with system, local service or network service!
5. Now open My Computer
6. In the address bar, type C:\heap41a and press enter. It is a hidden folder, and is not visible by default.
7. Delete all the files here
8. Now go to Start --> Run and type Regedit
9. Go to the menu Edit --> Find
10. Type "heap41a" here and press enter. You will get something like this "[winlogon] C:\heap41a\svchost.exe C:\heap(some number)\std.txt"
11. Select that and Press DEL. It will ask "Are you sure you want to delete this value?", click Yes
12. Now close the registry editor.

Now the virus is gone. But be sure to delete the autorun.inf file and any folder whose name ends with .exe in the pen drive.

UPDATE
It seems that they have named this malware as w32.USBWorm and according my friend, Avast is able to detect and remove it. I hope the other antivirus software will also be able to remove it soon.

This virus is not responsible for disabling Folder Options in the Tools Menu and not allowing hidden files to be shown. It is some other virus, and the solution is explained in the post Hidden Files Not Shown

Fair Fun with Fun Fair and Murphy

Fun, once again. Yes. We are enjoying our last days at the college, regardless of our pressing internals and the final exams coming in just about a week. Yesterday (12^th May) we had project exhibition in our college, and everyone was to exhibit the project they have done. After that we decided to have some fun in the fun fair in the ground opposite to Aruna theatre.

We had internal test in the morning. After finishing it, (how was it, is not the question to be asked, since it was by no means a test and having not read even for ten minutes, I returned an almost-blank paper) we went to the hostel and checked our project. It worked fine. So we packed it in a box and brought to the college and set it up. But there is Murphy's law which can be put as if anything can go wrong, it will. Yes, our project was not working at all! The same hardware we had built from scratch and which was working properly just 10 minutes ago, was showing no sign of giving some useful output. We struggled for about half an hour in the lab. But being unarmed (not with guns and bullets, but with multimeter, soldering guns and all), we couldn't debug it there. So we decided to go back to the hostel and test it again there. Instantly we were able to figure out that the microcontroller was getting reset repeatedly because the reset pin was having a voltage of 3.5 volts. But why, was still a mystery. We suspected about every component and even replaced a capacitor. It took us about two hours to find that the wire connected to the output of an unused timer was given by mistake, to the reset pin of the microcontroller. If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it, says the Original Murphy's law. Our CNG had done it during our pack-up earlier. In the mean time, the power supply connector got disconnected. We had to do everything which we shouldn't have been doing at that time. We had to device a power supply. By that time, the exhibition was half over. Ensuring that the project is working again, we went to the college and it gave no further problems. Being one of a very few projects done in the college, it wasn't below par, even though some finishing work needs to be completed. After demonstrating it to the judges and others, we packed it up and many of us gathered at the juice centre. Another Murphy's law applies whenever we go there. No matter what is the direction of the wind, when people smoke, the smoke always goes to the non smoker

After having a glass of juice, we decided to go to the Fun Fair. I, V1, V2, SS, MAP, CNG, VBK, PKS, MB, SBS, BVP, LDA, TRM, NRS, BA, MG, ARH, ABN, RA, LDA's brother... our gang was big. No sooner than we entered the fair, ARH was invited by a small boy who called her aunty. It was sufficient for us to tease her for some time. Then someone purchased popcorns, and all of us shared it. We went ahead. It was time for the play.

Myself enjoying Tora-Tora

All of us played the Tora-Tora, which was given the name Break dance. Some of us opined that it wasn't any better than Harihar-Davanagere city buses. Then we went to play Columbus. It was much better. But we had to wait for it more than the time we played. We then headed towards the Slant wheel and then to the Giant wheel. This was the first time I was on a giant wheel, but I didn't feel any fear. Probably I was phobophobic than altophobic, which is a good sign. Those who didn't land on the giant wheel were having juice and other chats on the land. We had our time. I called my home while on the giant wheel and informed that I would be late. After the play was over, we had everything which others were having when we were on the wheel and a little more. It was already about 9:30 and we backed towards home.

All in all, it was a good outing just before the exams. We follow, once again, Murphy's philosophy: Smile... tomorrow will be worse. But tomorrow (14^th May) happens to be my birthday, and I hope it won't be worse.

The Interview with the God

Earlier in my blog, I had written about Questions from God where the user was asked some questions. While browsing the net, I stumbled upon another flash movie, in which human questions the God. The answers are really inspiring and reflect the mindset of any common person. Watch it and decide whether it is true or not...

True, we wanted to grow big like others when we were children and now that we have grown up, we want the golden life back. With our college life ending in a few days, I feel it is more inspiring. Student life is Golden life

Courtesy http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/

Magic - What's behind it?

Magic - Everyone gets fascinated by the very word itself. Does it really exist? I don't know. But most of the tricks involve deception in one or the other way, or some strong mathematical foundation known to not many. Let us go through both of these...

Just try this mind reader:

Well, if you are wondering how it works every single time, just get to the mathematical basics

Assume xy be the two digit number, x being the first digit and y being the second. So, the total value of the number is x*10+y. Now, it asks to subtract the sum of the two digits from the original number. That is, x+y should be subtracted from 10x+y. What is left is 9x. Which means, the answer is independent of y and will always be an integral multiple of 9, that is, 9, 18, 27 etc.. up 81. Now see the flash again, and go through the symbols of 9, 18 etc.. They are all same!! And every time you click the crystal ball, it just displays the corresponding symbol. Since x can not be greater than 9 (remember, it is the first digit of the two-digit number you take) the answer can not be 90 or 99.

Now go through this video showing glass illusion:

Wondering how it is possible? Go through the video once again, or till you get the clue. If you are still wondering, I will give a hint: Observe carefully when 42 seconds are remaining. You will see there is another cylinder inside the glasses, and obviously it is filled before in hand with water!

Don't you agree that there is either mathematics or cheating in every magic trick? If you don't, go through this one to know it! Enjoy...

Mallika - College function of GMIT

This is the final semester, and nothing should block us from enjoying - some of us have decided. In spite of being busy with the project, I happened to visit GMIT college on 30th April to attend Mallika - their college function. You can take it either way: To just watch and enjoy or to compare it with our college function, Davana (You can read about our college function Davana here). Well, I got the information from my friend that the function would commence at 5:00 PM. But we are Indians! I knew when the program was going to start. So after doing a little project related work in our college hostel, I went to GMIT at about 6:45 PM. The program had just begun and the chief guest Pranesh, was about to start his speech.

Pranesh is popularly known as Junior ಬೀchi

He started his speech in his inimitable style. But one thing that I noticed was that he had the students as the primary audience throughout his speech, unlike his other public talks. He took off by telling that young age, when we study in a college, is the right time to decide what you want to become. He also insisted on going through the books, which are being neglected because of the popularity of the television. He gave himself as an example. He is a B.Com graduate, yet he is so popular that he has traveled around 220 cities and the program in GMIT was his 993rd. Exposure to the literature, especially that of Beechi, is the cause for his current status, he explained. Truly inspirational.

After his addressing with the light comedy, there was prize distribution, which we were not much interested in. We went to the canteen and had an ice cream, as a birthday treat of my friend whom I met there unexpectedly. We then explored the surroundings of the college going to the top floor. As the cultural programs began, we came down to watch the proceedings.

Well, the sound system here was certainly better than that in our college function Davana. But the programs were only handful, may be due to the fact that there were cultural programs on the previous day too. The major difference between Davana and Mallika was that Mallika stressed more on Kannada, when there was no sign of Kannada at all, in Davana. Good going, GMIT. A folk dance with drums was exceptional. You can't expect engineering students to know how to beat the drums, and in my opinion, it wasn't less to any professionals. Apart from that, the function was quite standard, with some songs, dances, poetry and a fashion show.

One more thing which I came to know was that there was bus arrangement from GMIT to Harihar and Davanagere to assist the people who attended the function, since it was already 10:15 PM and you can hardly catch a bus at that time. Again a good thing, GMIT. I wish our college granted us some similar facility. I have seen about four times our college bus moving in this duration of eight semesters, that too once in Harihar.

Well, coming to the comparison, as I said, Mallika emphasized on Kannada, and the sound system was good. But going by the numbers, Davana was far big, being an inter-college fest...