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!!