INDIA and US

First of all, congratulations to USA for completing 10 years without any further attack after the terror attack on 9/11 of 2001. You have shown what are the measures to be taken against terrorism in order to curb it. People and politicians didn't call it just another "Black Tuesday". Politicians didn't give statements on televisions saying they condemn this attack strongly. What the then President, George Bush, said was this:

The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. 

I appreciate so very much the members of Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks. And on behalf of the American people, I thank the many world leaders who have called to offer their condolences and assistance.

This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.

At the same time, In India, we hear such statements as "We strongly condemn this cowardly act", "Government is announcing Rs. 2 lakhs each for the killed", "We will find the culprits soon and take strong actions against them" from the responsible people in the top. Also, we find the ministers telling "No terrorist group has claimed the responsibility of the attacks". Arrey morons! Why do you wait for them to come and surrender? Can't you put all your intelligence agencies and police forces on full swing and find them? 

And we hear the opposition parties blaming the government telling "This government is useless". Aren't you the part of the Parliament which is responsible to make laws? Is it not your responsibility to make   sure that the government does what is in the best interest of the people? Opposition party leaders, open your your eyes.. Don't confuse "watch-dog of Constitution", the explanation of the Opposition party, as "barking-dogs".

The list of terror attacks that have taken place itself is frightening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_India

Shame on the Indian government for having given these many opportunities to the terrorist organisations to attack Indian places time and again. During the recent movement against corruption, all politicians unanimously said Parliament was supreme. But, isn't it a disgrace to leave the person responsible for the attacks on the Parliament for almost 10 years without capital punishment? The US hunted down Osama bin Laden around the Earth and killed him. India is feeding that moron Afzal Guru on public's money. And shame on us, the people of India, for getting used to such conditions. If two or three persons are killed in some attacks, we call it minor attack. 

Ask anyone in US when was the terror attack, and he will tell it was 9/11. But ask the same question to anyone in India and you won't get any day. We can't list out 12/3, 25/8, 11/7, 13/12, 26/11, 13/2, 29/10, 7/9 and so on. And we don't remember most of them. We are used to it. We call the attack days as Black Friday, Black Wednesday etc.  In fact, we have all days blacked out! We have Black Sundays to Black Saturdays.

I can just hope that we, the people of India, awake and be aware of what should be done instead of just playing the blame-game. The future of the country is in the government's hands, and the future of the government is in our hands.

Solution for Orkut worm Bom Sabado!

Today orkut users were flooded with scraps telling Bom Sabado!. Unlike other malware, this doesn't need you to click a link. Just by opening Orkut profile of the affected user, you will be affected. So I suggest you not to use orkut till this problm is fixed. However, if you are already affected, you can get rid of this using the following steps. (This is applicable only for Firefox users. If you are using any other browser, see below):

• Download AdBlock Plus add-on for Firefox and install it.
• Restart the browser to enable AdBlock.
• You will see a red icon with ABP on the right hand side of the search box in Firefox.
  
  
• Click on that, and select Preferences.
• Click Add Filter and enter *tptools.org/*.

Now you can safely open orkut.

You may have to remove yourself from the communities added by the worm, such as saadzin, meu miguxinho, O vírus que contagia, Eu tenho um grande AMOR, Juizo eu TENHO, só não USO!, Dino ♥ etc.

Note: The "Old Orkut" users are not affected by this worm, and are safe.

If you are not using Firefox, then you can follow the following steps:

Update: The website tptools.org is down now. Orkut is beautiful, again :-)


If you have a browser other than firefox, or to ensure that site won't get accessed by any other way, you can edit hosts file and adding the following lines:

127.0.0.1 tptools.org
127.0.0.1 www.tptools.org

hosts file is found in:

• C:\Windows\ - Windows 95, 98, Me
• C:\WinNT\system32\drivers\etc\ - Windows NT, 2000, XP Pro
• C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\etc\ - Windows XP Home, Vista, 7
• /etc/ - Linux

Airtel Customer (Don't) Care: As useless as ever

When does a person get frustrated to the core? Probably when he badly needs some help and no one around is ready to assist. Airtel Customer Care is one such call centre which is determined enough to put you in such a hopeless situation.

I do have reason to be spilling my anguish here about Airtel's customer care service. There are many incidents which clearly indicate that Airtel is much interested in cheating its customers.

Incident #1: Connection not deactivated
My friend, who had an Airtel corporate connection in Bangalore, got transferred to Hyderabad. Since he didn't need this postpaid connection any more, he filled an application to cancel the connection and asked me get it deactivated. I went to their office (none of their executives, who come running to give you a new connection, would come to take the disconnection form) around January 20th and gave the application form. They took the application along with the outstanding amount and stated that the connection will be deactivated within two working days. However, after about 20 days, a bill was sent for that connection. When I called the customer care, they told that the application itself hasn't been received! So I gave the bill number of the outstanding amount which I had payed and also told details about the office where I had given the application. They also gave a complaint number and assured the same thing: the connection will be deactivated within two working days. Then again, as usual, I got the bill for the month of February in March. I called the customer care again and censured them about the issue. Again the ready reply came: it will surely be deactivated within 48 hours. I am still waiting for the disconnection of that SIM.

Incident #2: Security Deposit not returned
Another colleague of my friend, who was also transferred to Hyderabad, had given an application to deactivate. But the Airtel people didn't deactivate it and in the next month, they deducted security deposit of Rs. 300/- and deactivated. As he is not insane to come to Bangalore by spending more than Rs. 300/- to get Rs. 300/- back, the money will permanently be with Airtel.

Incident #3: SIM Deactivated because of failed address verification
Airtel address verifiers are not Pizza boys to always find the correct address within half an hour. But don't be under the impression that they will try their level best to find the place. Airtel will simply deactivate your SIM giving failed address verification as the reason. If you call customer care you'll get the ready answer again: Sorry for inconvenience sir. Our person will come today evening and verify your address. This happened with my colleague just three days back and after calling customer care and getting the before said answer every day, today the concerned person came to our office, and gave the report as house address is verified. He told that the SIM will be reactivated by today evening, but you know, I have my doubts!

This is not the end of the list. There are many more similar experiences. According to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Airtel is having maximum subscriber base in Karnataka. If it's customer care service is so useless here itself, I can't help but feel sorry for the Airtel customers in other places.

One more point to be noted is, it is not only Airtel which follows such a nasty purview with the customers. Apparently Hutch (now Vodafone) and other operators also do the same thing. Sometimes I feel as though having a mobile phone itself is a sin. What is the need of these helplines if they can't even resolve even simplest of the requests raised by the user, let alone extreme technical issues. In my opinion, such call centres should be referred as Customer Don't Cares instead of Customer Cares. They seem to know that the best service is no service. What do you think?

How to stop or reduce Spam Emails

One can be as happy as he wants. But the same statement may not apply to Internet users, thanks to spam emails. Although there is no foolproof way to stop spams, we can reduce the amount of spams by being a bit careful.

The first thing before attacking is to understand the enemy and its strength. What is spam? We may call it junk mail, spam or whatever else you fancy, its property remains to be the same: it's unsolicited and it's useless. Most often than not, spams get generated from bots, viruses and automated mailing lists. In the rare cases, they are also caused my human users which, quite often, happen to be the most irritating kind of spam generators. It is observed that around 80% of the email messages exchanged are spams!. How disgusting!!

Take, for example, an incident which happened recently. One of my friends sent a mail to a large number of recepients. But one of those recepients was not an intended person. That person used Reply All and asked my friend to remove him from his mailing list. Well, you can guess what happened. All of us got the reply email which was intended only for my friend. Thankfully the chapter ended there itself. To get a hint of what can happen in such cases, see how to look stupid.

What is the solution for this? It's simple: We have to be in the right mind and know when to use Reply and when to use Reply All. As a rule of thumb, we should NEVER use Reply All unless we are 100% sure about what we are doing.

Instead of relying on others, another way to prevent such incidents is to be cautious enough not to disclose the email addresses to the recepients at all. It can be easily done by adding the addresses to BCC (Blind Courtesy Copy or Blind Carbon Copy) field instead of TO or CC fields. Unfortunately BCC field ranks top among the most obscure and unused standard feature of email!

The features discussed above are only for mails generated by humans. What about those spam emails which get generated by malwares and bots? Such spam emails are mainly the means for advertising products. More the number of recepients, more the number of customers. But how do they get the email ids? It's directly or indirectly by ourselves. We may have inadverently given our email ids to some website or it might have gone there by one of our friends. We need to be extra careful if we want to be at a distance from spams.

Also it is a good idea to remove the sender's information while forwarding an email to others. It not only protects your privacy, but also prevents any potential spammer to use the email addresses in the body of the mail to be used for unsolicited mailings.

Virtually there is no way to stop such emails if you are already receiving them. Precaution is better than cure is the mantra to be followed here. When we give out our email ids to some third party web sites, we need to be extra careful. Never give your email id to any unknown public mailing lists. You never know who shares your email id with spammers!

Another way to detect and filtering out spams is to give plus or minus addressing. You can use different tags for different mailing lists and if you start receiving spams, you can come to know who shared your email address with the spammers. Read more about spam control by plus addressing technique here.

Is that all? Not quite. One of the most common mistakes done by many people is to use their email addresses in their signatures. You may think that is going to make you more famous in the online world. But remember, for one genuine email you get by displaying your email id there, you start receiving hundreds of spams. Never ever make the mistake of putting email id in web pages, forums or social networking sites. Also, remember never to give away your friends' email ids to sites which ask you to invite them to join it. You may think you are being courteous to your friends by giving their email ids but, in reality, you are making them victims of spam emails.

Last but not the least, as a rule of thumb, don't forward any email message if it explicitly asks you to do so! Stopping spams may not be in our hands, but reducing them really is!

Additional Rules in Cricket

My friend got a mail like this:

After watching the test match, I feel some rules have to be incorporated by ICC to give the other teams a perfect clarification:

1. Ricky Ponting - (THE TRULY GENUINE CRICKETER OF THE CRICKET ERA AND WHOSE INTEGRITY SHOULD NOT BE DOUBTED) should be considered as the FOURTH UMPIRE. As per the new rules, FOURTH UMPIRE decision is final and will over ride any decisions taken by any other umpires. ON-FIELD umpires can seek the assistance of RICKY PONTING even if he is not on the field. This rule is to be made, so that every team should understand the importance of the FOURTH UMPIRE.


2. While AUSTRALIAN TEAM is bowling, If the ball flies anywhere close to the AUSTRALIAN FIELDER(WITHIN 5 metre distance), the batsman is to be considered OUT irrelevant of whether the catch was taken cleanly or grassed. Any decision for further clarification should be sought from the FOURTH UMPIRE. This is made to ensure that the cricket is played with SPORTIVE SPIRIT by all the teams.


3. While BATTING, AUSTRALIAN players will wait for the ON-FIELD UMPIRE decisions only (even if the catch goes to the FIFTH SLIP as the ball might not have touched the bat). Each AUSTRALIAN batsman has to be out FOUR TIMES (minimum) before he can return to the pavilion. In case of THE CRICKETER WITH INTEGRITY, this can be higher.


4. UMPIRES should consider a huge bonus if an AUSTRALIAN player scores a century. Any wrong decisions can be ignored as they will be paid huge bonus and will receive the backing of the AUSTRALIAN team and board.


5. All AUSTRALIAN players are eligible to keep commenting about all players on the field and the OPPONENT TEAM should never comment as they will be spoiling the spirit of the AUSTRALIAN team. Any comments made in any other language are to be considered as RACIALISM only.


6. MATCH REFEREE decisions will be taken purely on the AUSTRALIAN TEAM advices only. Player views from the other teams decisions will not be considered for hearing. MATCH REFEREES are to be given huge bonus if this rule is implemented.


7. NO VISITING TEAM should plan to win in AUSTRALIA. This is to ensure that the sportive spirit of CRICKET is maintained.


8. THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: If any bowler gets RICKY PONTING - "THE UNDISPUTED CRICKETER WITH INTEGTIRY IN THE GAME OF CRICKET" more than twice in a series, he will be banned for the REST OF THE SERIES. This is to ensure that the best batsman/Captain will be played to break records and create history in the game of CRICKET.
   

These rules will clarify better to the all the teams VISITING AUSTRALIA.

Now it is upto you decide whether these rules are to be incorporated or not

What do you think of yourselves, MindTree Minds?

They were humble, elegant and more social than they are now. They had never shown this frog-in-the-well attitude until that fateful (?) day they got recruited to an Indian multinational company called MindTree. I'm talking about my own classmates and friends who got entitled MindTree Minds when they got selected.

I have been observing this attitude not only in my classmates, but also in friends in other colleges and juniors too. There are a few exceptions, nevertheless. But I stress, only a few are still the same as they were before. What makes me post it here? Because the so called MindTree Minds:

• act as if MindTree is the only IT company in the world.
• don't generally combine with people other than MindTree recruitees as they used to be.
• show off that they are recruited to MindTree.
• talk about the company all the time.
• think that they are superior to others, while the truth is that some of them got selected by sheer luck.

I don't know what they think of themselves. Are their minds rotten to the core to be unable to understand the simple fact that they may not be in Mindtree forever? The sooner these vain mindtree minds understand the reality and come out of this dangerous egocentric syndrome, the better. As MindTree tag-line itself says, a tree is known by the fruit it bears. Mind it and get a life, folks!

Your honest opinions are welcome.

Annoying Pop-up: ilead.track.it

What can be more annoying for a blogger or a web-master than a pop-up that appears out of his web page, without him being aware of it? Nothing, probably. Recently I was experiencing the same problem. Advertisement window of ilead.track.it would pop-up occasionally in my blog, displaying some ads. I haven't put any ads purposefully on my blog so far, and hence, each time it protruded, I kept thinking that it is the result of some other web page I have opened.

Some of you might have experienced this already. A pop-up would show up with address ilead.track.it and display ads which won't facilitate the owner of the web page in any way. What is more disgusting about this irritating ad pop-up is that, it would show up only sometimes, not always and hence making it difficult to track where it originates.

Thanks to Nirmal T V, a fellow blogger, who informed me that the pop-up is caused by WebStats4U traffic tracker. I just had to remove the code pertaining to that tracker to get rid of this annoyance. Thanks to all those who had informed me about this pop-up being displayed in my blog as well.

The webstats4u website doesn't say anything about the resulting pop-up while registering and offers ad-free service for quite some time. It only unveils its true colour when your website has got significant number of visitors. It can really be a pain in the neck if you do not notice it soon. Now that I have removed it, there should be no pop ups arising from my blog.

Nokia Battery Replacement

Nokia, the largest mobile handset manufacturer, has announced that it will replace certain defective BL-5C batteries, free of cost. Some of the batteries manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. Ltd. of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006 were affected and experienced overheating while charging, according to Nokia Product Advisory.

The models that contain BL-5C batteries are:

Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60

Approximately 100 incidents have been noticed globally and the battery malfunctioned only during charging in all the cases, Nokia claims. The company has identified that the batteries could "potentially experience over heating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge".

So, if you have a handset of any of the above mentioned models, goto Nokia Battery Replacement page and enter your 26 digit battery identification number. If your battery is  recognized as defective, you will get a free replacement.

Secure your Computer - The Best Things in Life are Free

Lately I have been hearing a lot of complaints from my friends about virus attacks. We all know that precaution is better than cure. It is easy to protect our PC from malwares than scratch our head to get rid of them after they get in. So here are some tips which won't cost you anything, but make your PC as safe as it can be:

1. Web Browser: Most of the malwares and adwares find their way into the PC from the Internet and if your browser application is not good enough to block the harmful contents, what good is that for? Almost all the browsers have pitfalls, but Mozilla Firefox is the most secure web browser till date.
   Download Firefox here
   
   
2. Antivirus: A good antivirus will always keep your PC clean. But it should not eat up most of the PC resources scanning each and every wanted/unwanted files. Avast Home Edition is a simple and easy to use antivirus, that has automatic updates. Its requires a key that is obtained by registering in the site for free.
   Download Avast here
   
   
3. Antispyware: There are many antispywares which brag about their features. Honestly, most of them are useless. SpyBot S&D is a good one, which provides immunity from known threats and registry tweaks. It also has update feature, which enables you to be insusceptible to the most recent vulnerabilities.
   Download SpyBot S&D here
   
   
4. System Optimization Tool: Registry Cleaners, Duplicate / Unnecessary / Temporary File Managers, Internet History / Cookie Managers all fall under this category. But CCleaner and EasyCleaner are two such tools, which provide almost everything you want.
   Download CCleaner here
   Download EasyCleaner here

You can protect your PC from 99% of the attacks if you have the above mentioned softwares. There are some other tools such as Firewalls and Internet Security Suites which, I think, are unnecessary for personal use. Trust me, I've not got any virus in the last two years, apart from w32.USBWorm which can be removed manually using the steps given here. All these tools are freewares, which means you can download them from their site free of charge. The best things in life are free.

If you have anything to discuss about these or have a better solutions/tips, you are welcome to share them.

Wise to be unvoiced

In the recent past, I've quarrelled with those I shouldn't have fought with, I've remained silent with those with whom I should have spent this time with and leant towards those who were better off without getting into my life. I don't know why I have been doing all this and I don't understand even the cause of it. This is the period of metamorphosis. Being myself for two more months, just two more months, would have restrained my life under my control. I guess it is too late and enough damage has been caused to last for years.

Few days ago I happened to chat with my friend after a long time, just to tell him Friendship Day wishes. In the middle of it, when I was, as usual, discussing about these boring holidays, he said something: Enjoy the last vacation until your retirement. Don't know what made him tell that, but it certainly stirred my thoughts. Already a month is over after I have been officially declared an engineer! So what I am wasting this time for? After all, time is the most precious thing in the world, and I seem to have plenty of it!!

The real reason that made me pen down my thoughts in this post now is the quote I read in my feed reader: It is not how old you are, but how you are old quoted by Jules Renard. It made me retrospect and realize that I haven't done anything useful recently, instead, they have all been bearing poisonous fruits. Two months are over since I finished our exams and I can't find anything which I did in these two months that is worth mentioning!

I tried to find the solution for this. Am I lazy? Certainly I am. Wait, may be I am not. I do all these online stuff for almost 16-18 hours a day. Someone has rightly said, the only solution for all your problems is yourself. I found 20 biggest online time wasters and it is a really pathetic to find most of them to be the causes of my problem as well.

Well, I can follow handful of those suggestions. I would certainly be happy to see my life back on track. I'm certainly going to cut down the time I remain online. I don't want to be out of the frying pan to fall into the fire. A final word, again from Jules Renard:

Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it

Life on Fast track - Coffee or Cup

It has just been one month since our BE exams finished, but the life thereafter has been boring and confusing enough to worry about the future! It has been really hard to say Good Bye to the friends who were together for four years and all those conversations, teasings, tauntings, parties, treats will surely haunt, at least until we get drenched in the undulation of the real world.

However one can't keep lamenting! Destiny takes everyone where one supposed to go. But the problem is, life is a teacher who teaches lessons by giving tests.

Learning from experiences is good; but learning from others' experiences is better. I want to share a mail I got from my friend SN, who told he received it from a Swamiji of Ramakrishna Mission. Although it is not exactly an experience, it does allow us to previse the bitter truth of life:

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups. Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

Don't let the cups drive you... Enjoy the coffee instead

I enjoyed and learnt something from the mail and I hope you did too.

Hidden Files Not Shown

Recently virus programmers are becoming smart. A worm w32.USBWorm which attacked and banned Orkut, has left one more problem. (Here are the steps to remove w32.USBWorm). You will not be able to see the hidden files. Even if you change the setting in the folder options, it will not show the hidden files. So here are the steps to remove that problem and make the hidden files appear as before. I got the solution from one of the comments on my previous posts.

1. Go to Start --> Run, then type Regedit
2. Navigate to the registry folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
   CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL
   
3. Find a key called CheckedValue.
4. Double Click CheckedValue key and modify it to 1. This is to show all the hidden files.

Now you should be able to view all the hidden files, and also to alter its status from folder options.

This is where I found the solution.

UPDATE
If the virus is still present, this solution may not work permanently. Once you restart the PC, the hidden files will be concealed once again. I recommend using Avast antivirus, but remember to change security level from Medium to High after you install it.

You can see more tips about securing your computer here.

Somewhere, something went terribly wrong

There are some pictures which are equivalent to thousand words. Some pictures are just for fun, and some put you in serious thinking. Here is rare image belonging to both of these categories, which I saw first on my friend's (MAP) T-shirt:

Then I googled for more of this, and found many websites. Also a colourful image:

I found it wonderful. In this world, in which everything is being be forgotten because of the Internet, in which the difference between man and machine is becoming narrower day by day, I think the title Somewhere, something went terribly wrong matches the present condition and the image reflects the situation. What went wrong? Whether it is really wrong? We might never know. What is your opinion?

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

It happens only in India!

Do you know why India is called developing country? Neither because it has lagged behind a lot, nor because it is really developing. It is just because it can't be given the status of a developed country. Not now, not ever.

There have been a lot of happenings in Karnataka itself, which is just a medium sized state in the country. Some people can't keep quiet even for a small period. Kannada should be given the status of a classic language, all boards should be written in Kannada, all the government forms should be in Kannada and everything should be Kannadified . All in all, one group of Kannadigas (whom we call fighters-by-birth) is fighting very hard for something (It doesn't seem to be anything good).

(Fighters-by-birth = ಹುಟ್ಟು ಹೋರಾಟಗಾರರು,, FYI)

Now that I don't feel like remembering them, I don't go through their details. But I can't keep myself out without mentioning some of their brave deeds. They start ringing bells in the Legislative Assembly, they ride bicycles in and around the capital (if you are wondering why do they do that, I don't have any answer. Of course they do all such things, but nothing to improve the state of the language). To be told in a line, they can do anything to improve of Kannada, except improving it.

That is just one side of their Kannada movement. On the other side, there are some people, who are born to destroy their mother tongue. Whatever you do, they won't refrain from talking in Kannada. Do you think that is great? Wait, the problem is that they simply can't talk without making mistakes. (Put in other way, they don't know Kannada)

Why am I talking about all such crap now? There is a reason. Long back, I had gone for a morning jog. (That's only for a single day, if you are wondering). I saw a great sign board which asked people not to swim. You again say it is a good thing that they have put it? Wait again, I will show the sign board. If you know Kannada, I am sure you will immediately start searching for that person who wrote it.

It took me and the techno-twins a good five minutes before we could decipher the message -

ಈ ನದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಈಜುವುದು ಅಪಾಯಕಾರಿ

Now say, isn't India developing? I can just say "It happens only in India!!!"

The fate of engineering: Jogi Remix

ಹೊಡಿ ಮಗ, ಹೊಡಿ ಮಗ, ಹೊಡಿ ಮಗ, ಹೊಡಿ ಮಗ, ಬಿಡಬೇಡ Copyನಾ...
ಅಕ್ಕ ಪಕ್ಕ ಮುಂದೆ ಹಿಂದೆ ಯಾರೆ ಸಿಗ್ಲಿ ನೀನು ಮಾತ್ರ ಬಿಡಬೇಡ Copyನಾ...
Engineering ಸೇರಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ಹೊಡೀಲೇ ಬೇಕೋ...
ಈ ಕೈಗೆ ಪೆನ್ನು ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ಬರೀಲೇ ಬೇಕೋ...
ಮಗ ಜೋರಾಗ್ ಬರೀಬೇಡ, Nervous ಆಗಬೇಡ
Bench ಅನ್ನು ಮುರೀಬೇಡ, ಬರ್ದು ಬೇಗ್ ಮುಗಿಸ್ಬೇಡ... ಲೇ
ಬಲವೀರ ರೆಡ್ಡಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು Sketch ಹಾಕ್ತಾರೋ...
ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕೂಡ ಯಾಮಾರಿದ್ರೆ Fail ಮಾಡ್ತಾರೋ...
ಬರಿ ಗೋಳು ಕಣೋ... ಇದು VTU ಕಣೋ...
Revaluation ಇಲ್ದಿದ್ರೆ ಸಾವೇ ಕಣೋ...

This is an SMS I got from one of my friends. I am in a dilemma here, whether to appreciate the creativity of the writer, or to commiserate him for being a VTU student.

This message not only exposes the condition of the VTU students, but also describes the wrong paths chosen by the students in order to survive. Hats off to the original author of this message!!

A trip with Hera Pheri

As the project fever began, we were seriously thinking of starting the project. So, we decided to go to Bangalore to get the required components. It was a mess right from beginning, as each of us (project-mates) were in different places and some of us were out of contact. Finally, after a lot of this and that, we settled onto the plan of going to Bangalore on 17th Jan 2007 morning, by intercity train.

We thought that it wasn't necessary for all of us to go, and hence V, who was in a far more distant place, didn't come. J planned to take off from Davanagere. C, who was in his village, came to my home the previous day and halted. Both of us planned to go from Harihar. We should be thankful to V2, who agreed to come with us to Bangalore to help us find the right areas to look at, as all of us were strangers in Bangalore. All went fine upto this, and only upto this...

The next day, we (I and C) had our breakfast in a hotel. In the mean time, V2 sent a message asking us whether to take train tickets or not. As we had much time, we said no. Then I realized that time was nearing, and I sent a message to V2 asking him to take three tickets. We finished our tiffin and headed towards the railway station.

V2 was waiting there. I asked him whether he took tickets. He said no (The message I had sent was not delivered yet). So I stood in the queue to take three tickets. S, who was also going to Bangalore for his project work, came to the station at the same time. So I had now four tickets to get, and I took them. All of us started chatting, waiting for the train to come.

I had the train tickets, and I asked them whether I shall keep them or someone else will take the responsibility. Only then, V2 told that he had his ticket. We had already started our day with a mess! We were four passengers from Harihar, and we had five tickets with us!! What to do now?! V2 and S came with an idea, and we asked J, who was yet to take the ticket in Davanagere, not to take the ticket. Thanks to the distance metrics, difference in charge to Bangalore from the two places was only 2 Rs...

During the same time, we met some other friends, who were going to Tumkur and Bangalore. Train arrived at about 8:25 AM to Harihar. After reaching Davanagere, J and some more friends also joined us. So we had nothing less to enjoy and we had a full compartment for ourself (Totally we were 10 friends). We spent most of our time chatting with each others, enjoying the best part of the day...

We had tiffin again in the train, after Arasikere. As we neared Bangalore, it was time for some FM stuff. Those who had FM radio enabled mobile phones were in two minds, whether to hear to it or save the battery!! With a little bit of music and a lot of chatting we reached Bangalore at about 1:50 PM. It was time to depart, and some of the friends headed to their destinations, and we headed towards the places where our destiny led us to...

We decided to have our food, and the roam around. While we were trying to find the place to go, a friend of C, R, came and joined us. We went to hotel Kamath and had our lunch. Then we came back to the city bus stand and took the daily pass, thinking that we have a lot to stray. But we were wrong, as we shall discover later...

We went to Sadar Patrappa (SP) Road. It is a street full of electronics shops. You can't even get water in there. We searched for the major component of our project, the Bluetooth module. We searched many shops, but in vain. The main purpose why we had gone to Banaglore, was not served. No shop in such a big city had a component we needed. I contacted BCS consultancy to query whether they had any Bluetooth kits which may be of use for us. But they told that it wasn't available in whole India itself, and the project we have undertaken is next to impossible one (I know it is an utter lie, but can't argue with them, eh?). V2 purchased some components he needed for their project and other purposes. Apart from that, it was entirely unworthy. For having come, we thought of purchasing any peripheral we needed. We searched for DVD writer in nearly 5 shops. All we could get was either a white LiteOn writer, or a black Sony or LG writer. I wanted a white LG or Sony writer. After a much exploration, we found a shop where they had a writer with replaceable front panel, and I purchased it. Then V2 I purchased a Bluetooth dongle each. (I needed it for project, and V2 for experiment). He also bought a 2 GB pen drive. Our next aim was to get the books of eight semester and hence we headed towards Avenue road...

Many of us, who were seeing it for the first time, were astonished by the number of second hand books available there. V2 was seriously indulged in getting the books. Rest of us spent much of our time seeing here and there, and sometimes towards the books. And finally after two hours, we went to Sapna Book House. We needed some reference books for our project. Closing time was 7:45 PM, after which no one is allowed to enter the shop and we went inside at about 7:35 PM. Fortunately we were able to find two books we needed and purchased them. Then it was time to decide where to go. All of us were in dilemma whether to stay there and search further in other places where we had left, or to come back. I thought it won't help to stay there and decided to come back. V2 was also of same opinion. J and C decided to stay there to meet their relatives. Both of them didn't know where to go, and it was already 8:30 PM!! J called his sister, and after a lot of thought, decided to come with us thinking that it would not be good to search the home in the night. So we were three now who settled to come back. C went with his friend to his room.

After having dinner, we three went to the bus stand. Since it was too early (we thought we get ended up in Davanagere at 4:30 AM if we leave Bangalore at 9:30 PM). I desired to have an ice cream (yeah, it is funny... but I myself am funny). Each of us had a pineapple flavoured softy. OMG! What a tasty one it was!! I wanted another one!! Both V2 and J refused to take another. So I alone ate the other one. But it was so tasty that I couldn't stop with two. (After all, you won't get it whenever you need, right?). So I decided to have one more. V2 seemed furious and headed towards the bus. I hurried to get the ice cream. When I came back, both of them had vanished!! I searched all around, and couldn't get a hint about where they had gone. Thank you mobile, I called J. I didn't call V2 because V1, twin brother of V2, was fed up having called V2 five times, without the calls being received. I don't think V2 is deaf either, not to hear the phone ringing. So V1 had called me twice instead. (Sometimes we can't tell why people use their gadgets, just for show off or for real use). J didn't receive the call, but came towards me seeing me. Couldn't the mobile operators wait? The call was being forwarded!! So I cut the call. And we met again.

We got on board of the bus. Aw! There was a smell of desi liquor!! Rules are meant to be broken. Liquors are meant to be drunk, no matter where and how. Unfortunately the bus was almost full and we got seat in the last but one row. V2 didn't seem to have noticed the fragrance!! (Did he have cold on that day? I don't think so... He hadn't refused first ice cream). I kept insisting to get down, but even some intelligent people act like silly at times. So, we didn't change the bus and continued the journey. The bus left Bangalore at 10:15 PM.

Both fortunes and hazards seem to strike in bursts. That person who was spreading the aroma was sitting just in front of us! So I and J started to contend for the window seat (V2, who is a third generation incarnation of Gandhiji, didn't bother about it at all). Then I and J had a agreement between us. I should sit there till Tumkur, and then we should interchange our position.

All of us took tickets to Davanagere, since I and V2 had student pass from Davanagere to Harihar. The journey wasn't bad, as we had all topics in the world to discuss about. J had a cat sleep in between, and was struggling to sleep properly. He didn't seem to have noticed Tumkur passing (Actually, none of us did, since the bus didn't go inside the city at all). At 12:20 AM it was time for the bus to stop for dinner!! (Some are weird, and some are more). There was some time, and we did what we needed to do. I got a biscuit pack, and V2 brought a chilling water bottle. (Where in the hell did he get the idea of getting cold water in that late night?!). But it was useful in a way, and the bottle was emptied in five minutes by three of us. By this time J had come to know that Tumkur had passed, and sat next to the window. (Thank God, that aromatic person was sleeping with his mouth shut, and there was no smell as such now). I and J started recalling the moments of our engineering life. V2 was sleeping. After Chitradurga passed, I and J got sleep. But V2 was awake by that time. Making all our calculations wrong, the bus arrived at Davanagere at 3:30 AM!! We distributed the books among ourselves, and waited for the bus to come. Both of us, I V2, were thinking whether student pass will be allowed at that time. We caught the bus at 4:00 AM. Unfortunately, we had to no place to sit other than the last seat. The bus was literally hopping, and we got free horse-like-ride!! Yes, free, because the pass was allowed...

Finally we reached Harihar at about 4:20 AM, and V2 took an auto and took all the books with him. I came to home, but and opened the gates in silence. I realized I was offline for too much time!! So I switched on my computer. But then I remembered the DVD writer and shut the computer down to put it. I had too many surprises to come along my way. The tray of the DVD writer was not opening at all. Cursing it, I went to bed, at 5:30 AM.

PS: The Hera Pheri hadn't ended yet, but the journey had. I will be jotting all of those shortly...

Road Destruction

It was hard to see good roads in India a few years ago. Thanks to the development, we can see them in many areas now. But there is a problem. There is a road destruction board, which digs the roads within a few days after they are constructed. No one takes the responsibility of repairing them or reconstructing them for the next 15-20 years. That board can be named Bharateeya Sadak Nirnam Limited (BSNL).

Yes, I am talking about that same governement company, Bharath Sanchar Nigam Limited, which provides telecommunication services throughout India. It has been undertaking this work (of digging roads) from quite a few years now, right from the moment when the cables were replaced with Optical Fibre Cables (OFC). But the annoying thing is that they put the OFCs only after the construction of a new road, never before it. They dug the National Highway 4 (the famous PB Road) after 2 weeks after construction. They dug the cement road in Harihar just after 2 days. I can't guess whether it is intentional or they get the idea of putting OFC only after the road is constructed or whether there is any aggression between the BSNL and the PWD (Public Works Department).

We have to just wait and see when there will be a co-ordination between these two government bodies and when India would shine!

Engineering and Law

I don't know who got the noble idea of keeping Constitution of India as a subject for Engineering students.

Do all students (not only engineering) really need to know about all the rules and regulations of the country? Is it so much a necessity in today's world?

Well, before coming to those topics, let us know what we are taught of: We are taught about many articles regarding freedoms, rights, duties and about the union and the state governments, emergencies, amendments, commissions, case studies etc etc.. Then what do the law students learn? All of these in detail, plus some more case studies.

So, here is an indigenous idea: Why don't keep the subject for two or three more semesters and award a law degree also?! Well, it is certainly a notable point to be considered! After all, this is not new for VTU to provide two degrees if the student studies one more year...

Now on to the necessity of the subject: It may be necessary in the minds of some people. But I tell you, perhaps no student learns it as a means of learning, but as just another subject. So, nothing to be gained, either by students or the university.