Uff Teri Ada!

My previous post, the Iktara male version was a super hit. This is the first time, that my blog was visited by about 8000+ people and I got about 1800 hits on 1 day, for Iktara! Nice... that has made me really happy.

Am putting up this beautiful song from Karthik Calling Karthik, Farhan Akhtar & Deepika's new movie.

Uff Teri Ada... what a catchy tune ;-) enjoy!!!

Iktara, the missing track!

For reasons better known to Dharma Productions or Karan Johar, they decided to leave out a rather wonderful version of the amazing song, 'Iktara' from Wake Up Sid's OST.

I managed to get this track from Karan Johar's tweet, and decided to upload it on my blog to make it a quick share! Spread the word people... share this song. Its really cool.

 

Interesting experiment from Google

Known for its simple and a clean user interface, the Google Search Homepage has not been touched for over 10 years. Apart from the only change that happens to Google logo/ Doodles, Google has never experimented with its homepage.

But, after more than 10 years, comes Google's first experiment on its homepage... Fade out effect!

I don't understand the value addition of this feature and at first, when I saw it, I thought it was my browser that is infected by some spyware. Such strange things can happen only when a spyware infects your machine. The strange thing was, the "Search" and the "I'm feeling lucky" buttons were missing on the homepage. All I could see was the Google logo and the search box

A little mouse over, and the fading effect comes into picture and brings other links on the screen, but the buttons still are missing :-)

A Google Search, and I figured, it was not my browser that was corrupt, but the fact that I am amongst those select few users, who is being given the opportunity to test this new experiment by Google.

My verdict... I don't really like it !!! No value addition. Although, it is true, that most of us don't even click on that search button. We always let the cool "Google Suggest" feature to prompt us the closest search string in our mind and navigate further... Well, Google, we certainly love you a lot for this cool feature, which was then an experiment in Google Labs!

Don’t feel bad if you don’t have the new, highly streamlined page — this is apparently part of a Google bucket test, which means only a small subset of users have access to it. It’s entirely possible that the new design will never be released broadly too, so don’t get alarmed if you hate it.

Note: If you have installed Silverlight, you might not be able to see this effect! In other words, if you don't want this effect, install Silverlight :-D

K3b and MP3?

If you installed K3b, you'd probably be getting a warning message, every time you start K3b. A message informing that no MP3 plug-in has been found, and that you won't be able to burn Audio CD's from an MP3 file.

To get rid of this message, and to install MP3 support, type in the following in terminal:

yum install k3b-extras-nonfree

Restart K3b and that message won't be displayed any more!

MP3 Support in Fedora 11

Because MP3 formats are patented, and the patent holders have not provided the necessary license Fedora 11 cannot include MP3 support out of the box. However, installing MP3 support is quite simple!

Follow these steps: (Log in/ su as root and install the following repos)
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Additional Plug Ins
yum -y install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly xine-lib-extras-nonfree

Install XMMS Multimedia Player and make is MP3 capable ;-)
yum install xmms xmms-mp3

That's it! type xmms in the terminal, and you can now play MP3 on your Fedora 11 installation!

Adding/ Mounting NTFS partion in Fedora 11

The best way to mount an NTFS partition in Fedora 11 is:

su -c 'yum install ntfs-3g ntfs-config'

The ntfs-config package is as small as 367 kb. Once installed, simply take a backup of the existing fstab file, just in case if you happen to encounter some screw up!

cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.original

Now run:

su -c 'ntfs-config'

You will be presented with a nice UI and am sure, it is quite simple to understand what needs to be done, once the application is running :-)

Update Firefox on Fedora 11

So you just installed Fedora 11 and wish to upgrade the pre-installed Firefox 3.5 RC 4 to the stable version, ha? Well, its quite simple! Type in the following command:

su -c 'yum update firefox'

Its about a 28M download. Simply restart your Firefox browser after yum finishes doing its business and you are good to go!

Tourist Pass

So you are new to Mumbai and want to explore the city, but you are extremely scared to travel in our Mumbai local train. You also look at the first class, and think twice... is it really worth spending 90 odd bucks for a single way ticket from Bandra to Churchgate or Bandra to Borivali?

Enter 'Tourist Pass'. Yes! Western Railway has introduced a day Tourist Pass for tourists and people of Mumbai, who just love the city! And a First Class, Unlimited Day pass is available at a dirt cheap INR 170! Yes... can you believe that? Travel throughout the Western line, in your day pass... Enjoy the awesome bandra evenings at Bandstand, or the Churchgate rush hours in the morning... Visit the Dadar market or the over crowded Andheri, or just simply, travel from Churchgate to Virar, in first class. All this for only 170 bucks! Is that not cool?

O&M creates ‘ZooZoos’ for Vodafone

If you are following IPL 2 on Set Max, you probably have come across 8 to 10 unique Vodafone commercials. These commercials are just so funny! Indeed, O&M has created some fantastic commercials for Vodafone... whether it was the cute li'l pug running after his buddy or these cute li'l new Zoozoo's!

Hats off the O&M Mumbai! These guys rock! Perhaps, the most creative guys around!

Some videos on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz4TWqAmlc0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJr9n-lE9lQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLkinohw1mw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nk89haDA48&feature=related

Google Easter Egg

If you want to see some cool Google Easter Egg, check this link [Google Maps]. Once there, make sure you are in StreetView. Navigate the streets and see the entire Google team! The entire Google Team, nerds, geeks standing right next to Googleplex. It is just so awesome! This was when the Google StreetView went live. Indeed, what an awesome feature! I just love and respect this company a lot!

Change Display Font Size on Lotus Notes

I always liked smaller display fonts on my applications... but ever tried to change the font size on your Lotus Notes? Well, you can change the font, but not the font size! Is that not funny? IBM guys, hope you read my blog ;-)

By the way, if you want to reduce the font size... do this...

Under the \Notes directory, you will find a file 'notes.ini'. Edit that file and put the following entry to change the font size:

....

EnableJavaApplets=1

EnablePlugins=1

...

Display_Font_Adjustment=1

The one in BOLD above is the entry you need to put to adjust your font size. Higher the number, bigger the font. You can also go in negative to reduce it further. e.g. I love the Georgia font, really small i.e. about 8pt. The above numbers are in pixels (I guess), so go as low as -1 or -2 to have a really small display!

Retrieve BLOB column in Sybase

In one of my recent projects, I was expected to explain something to client, which involved retrieving binary large object data from Sybase! So, you might think, what was the big challenge in this? It's BLOB! Just use the JDBC API and call the getBlob() method of the ResultSet!

Yeps, so, why don't you try that? Give it a try. I used the jconn3 driver to connect to my Sybase database. Driver Class being 'com.sybase.jdbc3.jdbc.SybDriver'. The moment you try to call the getBlob() method, you will get a nice exception stack trace, informing you that this is an unsupported operation! Yeps, its not as straight forward as that!

But don't worry, it actually is even more simple! For fetching the BLOB data all you need to do is:

// build a byte array
byte stuff[] = resultSet.getBytes();

// check the size of the data now
System.out.println("BLOB Size: " + stuff.length);

Congratulations! You have retrieved the BLOB data from a Sybase IMAGE column!!!

Norton 360, Post Uninstall Internet Problems?

I was always a big fan of Eset NOD32 and Kaspersky Antivirus systems. However, ever since NOD32 released their 3.x version, I've not seen any good cracks on the Internet for the same. So, here I was... with a rather vulnerable Windows Vista Ultimate OS and no antivirus! I some how managed to get hands on Norton Antivirus/ Norton 360.

As some days passed, some genius people managed to find a working crack for my favourite antivirus systems and I happily uninstalled Norton 360. I tried evaluating both the antivirus softwares... i.e. Eset NOD32 3.x and Kaspersky. Post installation, I faced the same problem for both the systems. My Internet refused to work! I mean, my Internet was working, my browsers refused to work or for that matter, any connections from any ports. I wondered what was causing this problem, and eventually realised that McAfee and Norton, have certain annoying uninstallation tools, to completely uninstall their respective products. I remember of having faced this problem with McAfee, and Norton was no exception to this silly thing either!

So if any of you people, who have faced such a weird problem, your answer to all your misery's is... ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe and this is only for Norton products. Google a similar removal tool for McAfee if you witness such weird problems!

Norton Keygen... how to use it?

How to use the keygen:

1. Unrar, Burn or mount with Daemon Tools.
2. DISCONNECT FROM THE INTERNET! THIS IS IMPORTANT!
3. Run the installer, and run the EDGE keygen located in the Keygen dir.
4. Copy the Product Key from the keygen to the Norton Setup then press the I Agree button.
5. Complete installation and finally you will get to the activation, it's important that you are NOT connected to the Internet! Press the Next button.
6. A message box will come up telling you that you need Internet connectivity to continue, just press the OK Button, and then press the Next button.
7. You will get to a part where it's trying to connect to the Internet for online activation, after a while it will fail, this is fine, repeat this step again.
8. After attempting to do online activation two times, it will fail and open a browser window. Before you close the browser window, copy the URL that appears in the address bar. (In my case, the Activation actually failed, so you have to copy the URL instantly...) Paste this URL in the keygen now and press that Generate button!
9. Bingo, you now have an Activation key generated in the box! (It is typically in an XML format i.e. and so on...
10. Now copy the Request Code into the Request Code field in the keygen, no dashes or spaces just one long string. Select how many years you want to license the software for, and press the Generate button to get your Unlock Code.
11. Copy the generated Unlock Code to the Norton activation screen, then press the Next button.
12. Enjoy a fully unlocked copy, and naturally DO NOT register this software with Norton, you can now reconnect to the Internet.
13. Contact me if you still are not able to get through!

Windows XP SP3 & HD Audio Issue (Intel DG965RY)

I just downloaded a copy of Windows XP SP3 integrated and started a fresh installation on my machine. Everything went fine... The installation process did not have much changes, and the only change I could realize was that during installation, the copy did not ask me for a CD key and the Setting up of Network screen was a little different that the previous versions of Windows XP. So my Windows XP SP3 was set and I started installing the Drivers of my motherboard, Intel DG965RY.

To my surprise, the Driver installer could not install Intel Audio Drivers! I then noticed, that the Device Manager was displaying a PCI Device under the 'Unknown Devices' heading. I was a little surprised to learn that Windows XP was not detecting my HD audio!

The only way to really fix this issue is... You download the latest drivers from Intel Website for your specific motherboard. In my case, it was Intel DG965RY. Once extracted, navigate to \HDAQFE\xpsp2\us\ folder or the \MSHDQFE\Win2K_XP\us\ folder. (The name of this folder depends on your desktop board model.). Extract the file KB file there and now, just go to the Device Manager and click update driver, specifying the location/ path where you just extracted the KB file.

You should now be able to install your HD Drivers! I don't understand in the first place, as to why this problem occurred... It probably means that Microsoft forgot to put in the HD Drivers in the Windows XP SP3 integrated CD?

Windows Vista & the 4GB RAM Nightmare!

So, I got up on one fine Saturday and decided to stack my PC with 4 Gigs of DDR2 RAM. I checked the prices for RAM at lamington road, and to my surprise, the price for the 1GB stick was around 1300 bucks! Of course, that was after a little bargain and deciding to take 2 sticks of 1 GB each... So here I was, heading back home, with 2 Gigs of DDR2 RAM, all sticks operating at a voltage of 1.8V+ and FSB of 800Mhz. I was just so happy of getting them! I was going to have a real fast PC (This was in addition to the already installed 2 Gigs of RAM)!

So I installed the sticks with an anticipation of a rocking speed to my PC and great boot times. All that was turned into a nightmare, when I noticed that my Windows Vista Ultimate is taking over a minute and a half to boot my installation! My earlier RAM, standing @ 2 GB was booting it much much faster! I tried frantically to do somethings to get the boot time up. The first thing that did strike me is my previous experience of Windows OS installations. Add a new hardware, and Windows sometimes tumbles down! That was my first guess. So my troubleshooting started with re-installing my OS. Interestingly, the installation too, was taking ages! I had to abort installation and install just 2 Gigs of RAM to get my new installation up and running... What do I do now? :-)

Well, this is how I troubleshooted... And am sure, this is something that will work for all those out there who own an Intel DG965RY OR (DG965XX series). My motherboard was at 1687 BIOS version. The following technet forum helped me solve my problem. I upgraded my BIOS to 1698, the release note clearly specifies that the fix in this release is to handle the slow boot issue when 4 Gigs of RAM is installed. Also, I installed one KB fix. Installing just the KB fix did not help me. Only after upgrading my BIOS to 1698 did the RAM's work for me :-)

The Technet Forum I am referring to:
http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/showpost.aspx?postid=1292561&siteid=17&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=0

The Microsoft KB I am referring to: (KB929777)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777

In case you face such similar problems, feel free to drop in a line to me :-). I'll be more than glad to help you!!

Lamington Road... "Andar ki khabar" :-)

Me and my friend visited Lamington road today, a place for all technology freaks; or rather, a place where all computer hardware lovers would love to spend a lot of time...

So, try and remember whether this has happened to you, when you were at a PC peripheral shop? You go to the shop/ retailer, ask him for something, say an LCD monitor or DDR RAM... the retailer quickly picks up his phone and makes 2 phone calls, one for the LCD and 1 for the RAM. Now, some expenses conscious users like me and my friend thought, how the hell can he afford to sell this stuff at such a low price, make these contingent phone calls and even make profit and run his shop...

The answer to this is, he does not make any normal outbound calls. The entire Lamington Road is actually connected on an Inter Com. The phone call he makes rings at the brand distributors warehouse directly, who by the ways is in some remote unknown place... some khufiya jagah. E.g. If you wish to purchase an LG LCD Monitor, the retailer makes a call to the LG Distributor, who by the way is just 1, in the market. There is 1 unique distributor, for almost all products. The Transcend guy, the ViewSonic guy, all are sitting at such remote places, which we ain't aware about, and that's where all the intercom calls are routed!

The price difference you notice is because the retailers define their profit margins. Off late, these guys don't really have a big profit margin. He might be selling an LCD monitor for a profit of INR 100, or might be selling RAM modules for a profit of INR 50.

Just make sure, you bargain! The best way to negotiate and bargain is to do shop hopping! Yes, do that. Visit every shop you can, which you find looks nice & is crowded. The more the crowded it is, the best & the lowest price is what you'll pay.

Me & my friend visited a couple of shops today... Terabyte, Hardtrac Computers (We got our stuff from here), PC Guide (Is actually, perhaps the biggest & most easily recognizable shop @ Lamington, Perfect Electronics... to name a few...

Anyway, happy shopping at Lamington :-)

By the wayz, I got two 1 GB, 800 FSB Transcend RAM for INR 1500 each. i.e. INR 3000 total. I was first quoted a price of INR 1650 each. You see, after hopping around 7 shops, I finally got it for INR 1500! My friend was quoted INR 9450 for a ViewSonic 19" wide screen monitor. We finally got that price down to INR 9150. Of course, he eventually purchase an LG Wide screen monitor for INR 10K, but I just wanted to give you an idea of how well you can negotiate!

64-bit OS, Whats the Big Deal?

The computer industry is changing, and 64-bit technology is the next, inevitable step. With the Core 2 Duo processors flowing in at real cheap rates in Indian markets... 64-bit computing will be installed in almost every home buying a new PC! I too am one such user, and 64-bit computing was something that was always generating a lot of interest, as well as a few questions in my mind. Finally, I got sometime to really experience what the 64-bit fuss is all about! I'll try to address some questions that I had in my mind which am sure a few of you might be having in your mind too!

I started my 64-bit experience by installing the 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate OS. Let me tell you, the installation process, look and feel and everything of the OS is just like its 32-bit variant. No difference at all! So, don't expect to look at the desktop and figure out if it's a 64-bit or a 32-bit! The only way to figure that out is to check your system properties, which gives you the following screen... See at the bottom where it mentions, that this is a 64-bit Operating System

Fine, so I was done, installing the OS now; what was new? The very first question I had was, Do I strictly need 64-bit applications for installing & running them on a 64-bit OS? The answer is 'NO'! You can very much run your 32-bit apps. However, the device drivers need to be 64-bit compulsorily. All hardware devices need 64-bit drivers to work on a 64-bit version of Windows. So if you are running some old legacy devices (quite unlikely) first make sure that 64-bit OS specific drivers for the same are available! I got a nice error screen while I tried to install 32-bit display drivers for my GeForce 7600GS Video Card.

So, how does Windows allow you to install 32-bit apps on a 64-bit OS? The answer to this is WOW64! Now I know, Vista was majorly using this keyword 'WOW' in the Vista marketing campaigns and product promotions, but there is a lot of difference in both these WOW's :-D! The WOW that I am talking about stands for 'Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit (WOW64 or WOW)', a subsystem of the OS.

What's the big deal? I mean, I have a 64-bit OS, I'll install an application & expect it to run. What's with these numbers? What's with the difference in 64-bit & 32-bit? The issues are related to the 64-bit processors and Windows itself.

The processors run in two modes: 32-bit and 64-bit. In the 64-bit mode, the memory pointers are larger than in the 32-bit mode. While this gives the 64-bit applications access to more memory, the execution contexts and data are incompatible with 32-bit applications. As a result, 64-bit and 32-bit code cannot be mixed within a single process. For example, if a 64-bit process loads a 32-bit Dynamic Link Library (DLL), or vice versa, an error results, saying that the DLL format is incorrect. Consequently, 32-bit applications cannot use the 64-bit system DLLs. WOW64 solves these and other problems.

That's all that I know about WOW... and also one more thing... Wondered how the segregation of 32-bit and 64-bit applications is done by Windows OS while installing a new program/ application? Well Well Well, Vista makes a new folder, 'Program Files (x86)' & also just 'Program Files'. As the name suggests, 1 is for storing your 32-bit apps while the other one is for you 64-bit apps!

That's all I know about the 64-bit OS. If you have any questions or even extra information to share, please drop in a comment. I'll try to answer the questions, if I can & would be more than happy to learn more, from the extra info that you might have for me :-)

How to delete / drop a Database in Oracle 9i

I was struggling today to drop / delete a Oracle 9i database! And even though I went through a lot of documentation which indicated using the RMAN utility to drop the database, nothing worked for me :-)

I finally found out a way to drop / delete a database, using one of Oracle 9i's tool (Database Configuration Assistant aka DBCA), and trust me, it was the most simplest way in which, even a layman can drop a database! Dropping a database involves following 2 steps of a simple wizard!

How do I drop a database? (All the below screenshots & the steps pertain to Oracle 9i)

Note: It is assumed that you are doing the following on the database server (Windows)

Navigate to Start > All Programs > Oracle Home > Configuration and Migration Tools > Database Configuration Assistant

The Database Configuration Assistant is your answer for getting rid of a database, which you don't want anymore now! Follow the wizard which involves 2 simple steps...

Step 1: Select the delete operation from the list of options that you get

Step 2: Just select the database which you want to delete, and specify the 'sys' account credentials in the username, password field respectively... Hit Finish, and you are done!

A status window pops up, which keeps refreshing the status about the delete process. Usually, a database is deleted within few minutes! You'll get a confirmation, once the database is deleted!

So what all does get deleted?

This is actually a systematic delete. All the control files, datafiles, tns entries etc., are deleted systematically by this wizard, not leaving back any traces...

If anyone has any other better way to delete / drop a database, please do email me the same!

The ISP Scene in Mumbai, Bandra (East)

As a resident of M.I.G. Colony, Bandra (East), I came to realize & wish to express one very important thing... One of the biggest things this colony is missing, is the presence of a professional Internet Service Provider... The ISP scene in general, in Mumbai is extremely dismal. With players like Tata Indicom Broadband and Reliance Broadband coming in the market, I expected some increase in the services given by these traditional Cable Operators, but to my surprise, the underworld & cable walla nexus, posts just too much of a strong competition for these big players :-)



For all those who perhaps don't know this, that the Mumbai cable walla's providing the Internet service to you, are nothing but intermediaries and agents for the above mentioned commercial players. Of course, these guys don't really have much command when it comes to commercial connections for big business houses, but for small residents like you and me, the cable walla's are the bhai's!



The whole idea of this post is not only to reflect upon the appalling scene that we are living in, but also, my review on 2 ISP's that I've always been connected to at my residence in Bandra.



From 2002 - 2005, I was connected to the beautiful Internet world via my local cable operator, who was purchasing and distributing bandwidth from Exatt technologies. Now these guys supply bandwidth to a lot of cable operators across Mumbai. I don't know about the ownership of Exatt, but somewhere in May / June 2007, Exatt was taken over by the mighty American giant, AOL. I've heard, the service has improved since then :-). Also, just FYI, the backbone bandwidth carrier for Exatt is Tata Broadband. These guys have a huge backbone infrastructure to carry bandwidth, across Mumbai for these guys...


Coming to my opinion about Exatt... These guys have given me a complete mixed experience. Sometimes, the service is just really great! While sometimes, it is simply depressing. These guys are just not able to define a proper downtime. And rainy season is the most harrowing experience with these guys... I mean, imagine, its raining heavily on a Saturday morning. You can't move out of the house (read, you don't want to move out of the house ;-))... you just want to make yourself a hot cup of coffee and want to surf the internet for technology news and events... you start your PC only to find that the local area network cable is unplugged... In an absolute angry mood, you dial your ISP (read local cable operators) number to abuse him, only to learn that he is such an a*****e that he has kept the receiver aside to avoid calls... This is such a common technique used by these guys :-)


Next, for almost about 1 year, I used the services of Sify Broadband. Sify scared of the local dada's and bhai's went through a different approach. Instead of competing with them, they joined hands with the local cable operators & started their services. Needless to say, Sify is Terrible too. I don't want to comment much on & about Sify, but yes, it sucks!

Recently, I installed the Reliance Broadnet Service at my place. I pay about INR 1122 per month for a 300 Kbps connection. And let me tell you, the service so far has been excellent. There are no down times (but once, when there were heavy rains). The support is just about OK. Sometimes, the support guys fails to understand your query! But the speed has been really good. It is fast, and always manages to deliver a constant speed :-). Also, the -ve about Reliance Broadnet is bill payment. They don't have an online bill payment facility :-(. So if a Reliance drop box is near your house, then you have absolutely no worries!!