Rough First Day

Yes, it is one of the simplest rules of grammar, but I still get confused - I call it Writers Block . Technically my mother-tongue is Hindi , and I can speak the “street version” of it and while I can read it - you honestly don’t want me to. The fact that most fellow Indians around at that time are in splits and rolling on the floor might give you a clue. Well I am not particularly proud of that, the fact remains I suck at Hindi and no matter of dressing can fix that. On the flip side, my English is quite strong and for the most part I can read and write it just fine, some of my spellings and grammar sure can do with a refresher (hey but Word helps). ...

I guess, Dheera did not like the faculty entering his dorm room at MIT, so he had to fix the situation I suppose . . If I ever get to own a house with a basement (which would be my “hang out” area), I am sure to get one of these. Writing the PS/2 keyb driver seems simple enough and the code unlock door code is straightforward as well (however, you might want to format it to make it readable). Sweet, I do need to make one of these. ...

Those who know me, know how much I love Fry’s electronics and is the single most thing I miss after moving to London! They finally have a website now ! Although they have had the domain for a while they have not started using it till now. If you have not heard of Fry’s (where the heck have you been living dude), then read up more here . ...

While this story is a few months old, I just came across it. Seems like China has accurate reproductions of the disputed Indo/China border down to scale - including accurate geographical features. Take a look below - the image on top is from China’s reproduction and while on the bottom is on Google earth. ...

Hope all of you have an very happy and safe Diwali! http://www.bahree.com/diwali/happydiwaliwithahumor.htm

Maybe the freezer trick would work

Oh man, this is so perfect after my faux pas on the Diwali greeting, which accidentally was emailed with everyone in the “To” line as opposed to BCC. Needless to say, Meenakshi was pissed! To BCC or Not to BCC

Interesting story by the NYTimes on how American graduates are joining Indian companies and going to India for initial training before going back to their offices. They also talk a little about their experiences in a developing country and how some of the most basic things are different.

If you got more time to waste while searching than doing anything then check out Ms. Dewey . While it seems cool at first, it very quickly gets very irritating. And the fact, she does not shut up does not quite help. (via fellow Avanut, Christopher T Clark)

It is quite unusual for me to blog about non-technical things (other than the usual crappy joke), but there are certain thing which have a profound affect on me and global warming is one of those. Maybe it is the fact that I have seen the shortages first hand while growing up in India (and back then things were better that now, and they are just going to get worse), or maybe I have seen such a huge cultural difference between the Europeans and the Americans (having lived both in California for many years and for a couple of years now in London), or maybe I am just getting old - I don’t know. ...

Yes, there are probably more BSOD screens on the net that anything else, but these Top 10 Linux crashes are a keeper. Karan, see number 5 - were you on it?

I found this very irritating behavior with WCF (at least with the Vista RC2 runtime of WinFX, I have not tried it with the other builds yet). When I am on an active VPN connection (in this case, connected to the Avanade corporate network) and I try and start a new WCF Service it fails spectacularly with a NetworkUnreachable exception. When I disconnect from the VPN everything is fine and executes as expected. ...

I have a USB printer (an HP DeskJet) that shared on my home network via one of the desktops (which is running XP). I had the same problem in Vista RC1 and it still exists in RC2. Whenever I try and connect to this printer it takes a long time and eventually I get the error below. Any ideas what the resolution for this is? Note, I can connect to network printers at work - these are directly on the network and not shared via a Desktop. ...

If you have any mp4 video that you would like to play on Vista then you need to install the Xvid codec’s for those to work. There are many codec’s out there (especially Xvid being open source), for me this particular pack has been quite successful and I would recommend it.

Finally if you have been waiting for WMDC to sync up your Mobile, you don’t need to use the hack I had posted - instead can use Beta 3 of WMDC that is now publicly available . This works on RC1 onwards - I have tried it on Builds 54xx and also now on RC2 (build 5744) and it works fine. If you have the internal dogfood build installed, this will detect that and update it. And you get support for Windows Mobile 2003 as well! ...

I don’t know if I am doing something wrong, or if this is a bug (it has been a long day for me and I am at wit’s end so I cannot be certain one way or the other). If you have a WCF class (for example as shown in the code snipped below), where I have a Windows Form that happens to implement both the Service and Client side of a WCF application. ...

There is a brand spanking new version of Windows Live Writer which came out a little over a week ago. In addition to a number of bugs being fixed, there is tagging support, blogger beta support, improvements to categories, etc. ( read more details here ). There is also an updated Plug-In gallery . ...

Vista RC2 (essentially an updated build of RC1), is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers in addition to the TAP and Beta Testers. I just checked and I don’t see it on MSDN, possibly it is being slowly rolled out. Update: If you are not part of the beta program, you and download RC2 from here (link via fellow Avanut Chris Smith). ...

(Update: Changed the Code plug-in to get the formatting correct) For the last few days I have not been able to run Windows Update on Vista RC1 (I am running Build 5728) even though I am online. I always get the Code 8024400A error (see screen shot below). Nothing stands out in the event log. Speaking of the Event Log, if you think you can find these failures in “Windows Logs => Systems”, well then think again. ...

BBC has this very inspiring story about how a few people give Indians from the poorest rung of society a chance to get into IIT (Indian Institute of Technology). Those of you are familiar with IIT, know how huge an achievement this is. Those who are not familiar with IIT - they are looked at IIT = MIT + Harvard + Princeton to give you an idea. There are many rankings and depends on what you believe as comparing apples and oranges is always difficult. ...

Hot, on the heels of overcoming the Writer’s block 😄 Sharing The Love

(Thanks to Karan for the link)

(Meenakshi forwarded this to me via one of chain emails that she got)

Where is the Secret of Life?