If This Is Malware, God Save The World

Its the last day of the year’s first month – January 31st. Its a great day. Pleasant. Little sun, little breeze. Lots of tension.

Other than the rapidly approaching exams for school kids, this will freak out the world.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Very.

UPDATE

Just moments after I posted this, I stumbled upon the Official Google Blog Post about it. They claim it affected users within a span of 40 minutes, i.e errors appeared from 7:57 PM [IST] to 8:10 PM [IST], once the error-fixing began, errors became disappearing between 8:40 PM [IST] to 8:55 PM [IST].

On what actually caused the error:

… the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file …

Fix Your Hung iPod

Many times, your iPod may hang, depriving you of musical bliss. You may knew how to fix it; but you might forget that manner at home. Heres what you do in such cases.

Presenting the iPod Five Minute Fix. Scroll to the bottom for supported models.

Works only with an iPod having a click wheel. Will not work with your iPod Touch or iPod Shuffle.

1] There should be a Hold button on the top of your iPod. Set it to ON. A fluorescent orange thingy must be visible. This means that the iPod is on hold.

The Hold Button Location On The Top Of Your iPod

The iPod In Hold Mode. Notice the Fluoroscent Orange Thingy.

2] Now, return the Hold button to its original position. The orange thingy should not be visible now. If it is, start all over again. Try working you iPod now.

3] If it still doesn’t work, try this. Press and hold the Menu and the Center button for five seconds. Take somebody’s help if you wish. Make sure the Hold button is in its original position.

Click Wheel

4] The Apple logo must now be visible on the screen, which usually occurs against a black background. The iPod should now be reset to the settings in which is last functioned perfectly.

Apple Logo

List Of Supported iPod Models

iPod Classic 4th Generation

iPod Classic 5th Generation

iPod Classic 6th Generation

iPod Nano 1st Generation

iPod Nano 2nd Generation

iPod Nano 3rd Generation

iPod Nano 4th Generation

The Weekend That Was But Shouldn’t Have Been

Thats true. I was beginning to install Mac OS X Leopard, when I get a Windows XP update alert, which requires me to restart. I do so, and I see this

Error! No Operating System Found

To my horror, when I booted via Gparted, I saw that my hard drive had been wiped clean, and there was 80 GB of unpartitioned space. I was screwed.

I tried installing Mac OS X now, thinking that what could possibly go wrong. I managed to install it, but can not boot it. I tried installing Darwin using bash terminal, but I failed in that too.

Aha! I re-installed XP, and downloaded a copy of Windows Se7en 32-bit, and decided to install it.

It was a nightmare.

First burn it to the DVD, and boot from it.

Two options:

Upgrade

Custom

Naturally, I clicked upgrade! Then this:

For an upgrade, you need to have an earlier Windows operating system running in the background.

So I reset. Go back to Windows XP, and put in the DVD. Same steps. Clicked Upgrade.

Sorry. For an upgrade, you have to have at least Windows Vista Service Pack 1 installed.

Damn. So I click on the Back icon (that blue arrow which you see in Internet Explorer 7) and click Custom Install. I see C: Drive, and click Next.

Setup cannot continue as the following drivers are missing: Primary IDE Channel

Did I say damn?

I am so frustrated, I feel like blowing the DVD to smithereens. But I keep my cool, and boot once again from the DVD. After selecting Custom Install, I realised that I could not install Windows 7 on C: drive, as XP was installed on it. So, I reset and boot via Gparted, do some easy partitioning (yay! Linux!), and return to Windows 7. I have a 20GB D: drive now, and I select that for installation.

Nothing.

I study Acute Diseases. Five minutes later: Nothing

I study Means of Spread. Ten minutes later: Nothing

I study Organ-Specific and Tissue-Specific Manifestation. Fifteen Minutes later: Something!

There’s that dialog box asking me to set the time zone and the country.

It

Has

India!!

Hooray!!!

So I continue. After about half-an-hour or so, I am able to run Windows 7. Its great. Will post about it later.

But I should have been able to run Mac OS X. My luck.

But I am able to dual boot XP and Se7en.

No Posts For A While

I’m actually installing Mac OS X Leopard on my PC. If all goes well and I’m able to dual boot XP and OS X, I’ll post within 3 days.

I might not reply to your comments.

Sorry!

Competition Success Review #2: Cyberfest 2008

Venue: Mata Jai Kaur Public School, Ashok Vihar

I’m kinda biased towards Cyberfest as I have been going to MJKPS since Class V, and have won every single time in Class V,VI and VIII. I didn’t go on seventh. Like always Cyberfest was great. It is always the quality of the symposium that impresses me. It’s conducted in a great manner, although there were two speeches, a prayer song and a dance to start it off. The were off-schedule, but that’s OK. As usual, Mridul and me were going for the quiz, but Shikhar couldn’t go for Digital Imaging (its only till Class VIII, you see).

“Arre Mridul! Yaar Shikhar jaa raha hai ki nahi?”

“Haan haan. Video editing mein.”

“Chalo usme to first he honge. Prakhar ke saath hai na?”

“Haan. Prakhar DI mein bhi to hai.”

“Hain? Phir toh usme bhi kuch mil he jayega. Un dono me pharak kya hai? Prakhar lamba hi toh hai.”

“Par woh basketball be khelta hai.”

“Sahi hai, yaar.”

Now it has been a norm for Shikhar to go and win nearly every event, since 2007. Nearly. So after a long inaguration, we set off. The quiz prelims were tough. Pretty tough. But somehow, we managed to qualify.

While on the way to MJKPS

“Aditya, last time quiz mein ek second round bhi tha. Hume questions bana ke doosro ko dene the.”

“Oh. Phir?”

“Is bar bhi ho sakta hai. Pichlee bar Mudit bimar ho gaya. Akele karna pada.”

“Koi baat nahi. Abhi prepare kar lete hai.”

“Questions kaha likhe?”

“Meri ghadi kab kaam aayegi?”

Now, my watch comes with this cool Memo feature, which can store anything. I stored hints to answers.  One of them was ATI Crossfire. Its a Timex Ironman Triathlon if you’re curious. Back to the present. We qualified and the inevitable happens – Mridul is right. We have to give some questions. I glance stealthily at my watch, and give all the questions.

Reshuffling. We get a Jaspal Kaur paper. It was too ridiculous for me to remember the details.

Question: Computer by IBM, convertible or not.

Heck, what do I know what he’s trying to say? Mridul calls the supervisor and asks to clarify. The supervisor hasn’t got a clue, and asks the author. Some confusion happens, and we end up writing IBM Convertible. I hope you know that’s the first portable computer.

Question: Expand ABC.

Obviously, Atansoff-Berry Computer. I forgot though. Mridul still remembered. Has he got another brain in his stomach or something? I mean, it’s too much info to remember at one time.

We qualified for the finals. After answering nearly all questions, we knew we would. The quiz was damn good.  As usual, stuff happened.

During the crossword round:

We answer, and before we finish celebrating, the next question is show, RKP hits the buzzer and answers.

Mridul- “Please wait! We didn’t see the question.

“So what? It was already shown”

After a lot of scuffle, RKP prevailed, and the question wasn’t scrapped. Before anyone knew what was happening, the next question was showed.

He is credited with the invention of Ethernet.

Mridul- “[Bangs the buzzer] Robert Metcalfe”

RKP- “But…”

Mridul- “Ab phir?”

Never seen Mridul with such a vengeance. Then comes the Visual Round (yay!), but with negative marking (aww…). We are at a good position, with a 50 point lead, I guess.

“Aditya, aaram se boliyo. Buzzer galti se bhi mat daba. We should not lose the advantage.”

“You can trust me yaar.”

There’s some ad about a sound system booming with gunshots, and the police comes to investigate.

“What do you think?”

“I think its Bose.”

Quizmaster: “Anyone?”

Nobody answers. So he asks everyone what they would have answered. Somebody said Sony.

“Montfort, what was your guess?”

“I would have answered Bose.”

“Its Bose.”

!@#$%!!!

Next ad. About some game. Pretty dark. People shooting around. FPS.

“I’ve seen this somewhere!”

“Yaad kar, Aditya!”

“I think Tapas told me.”

“Are you sure of the answer?”

“No”

“Lets not risk it.”

“I have a feeling its F.E.A.R”

“Nah.”

Comes to us. We pass. Goes to RKP.

“I think its F.E.A.R”

“Thats right!”

!@#$%!!!!

Next ad. Some mouse shouting Hello. Many people shouting Hello. Mridul presses buzzer. Too late.

“Kya hai!”

“Shit yaar! iPhone”

!@#$%!!!!!

Like that we lost another one. We knew four out of five questions, and didn’t answer a single one. 80 points down the drain. RKP is only 5 points away from us. We’re still leading. We come second in the rapid fire, but manage to come first.

Shikhar and Prakhar come first in Video Editing, and Prakhar comes third in Digital Imaging. What a surprise.

We won the runners up trophy. Not bad! Considering that we all gave an exam on that day.

Open Applications By Typing A Command

I like to open apps in a flash.

I hate to see my desktop cluttered with icons.

I love to type commands using my keyboard rather than using that mouse to double-click on that icon.

I hate to waste time for navigating to the location of my stored application.

If you feel that the above conditions apply fully to you, then this is the right post. If not, it still is.

Like I was saying, World of Goo is an awesome game. Obviously, I didn’t buy a full version. I downloaded a portable version. But I had to navigate to the folder always to get that game running. So I got an easier way:

1] Navigate to the file you want to open using the Run dialog box. It’s World of Goo in my case.

2] Right-click on the application icon, and click Create Shortcut.

3] You’ll see that the shortcut is created. It’s Shortcut to World of Goo in my case. Hit F2 on your keyboard (which is the shortcut to rename a file) and type a short, sweet name, that you’ll remember. I used goo. World of Goo is all about goo balls. So I possibly can’t forget about them.

4] Now to relocate the file. Hit Ctrl+X (which is the shortcut for moving a file), and open the Run… dialog box in the Start menu. Type %windir% and hit Enter. This opens your default Windows installation directory.

5] Hit Ctrl+V, and paste the shortcut in that directory. That’s it! You’re done!

6] Now, whenever I want to play, tap WinKey+R and type goo and press enter!

Hope you liked this post. Comment if it worked, or didn’t! I’ll solve your queries.

Been Busy

Sorry for not posting for a lotta time. Got lots on my hands lately”

1] Studying for exams

2] Studying for class tests

3] Doing Art homework (Yes! I do it)

4] Playing World of Goo (Super game. A post about it comin’ up)

5] Dammit. Counted fifth an hour ago

Review: Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionare

Director: Danny Boyle

Co-Director (Indian): Loveleen Tandan

Cast: Jamal Malik (Dev Patel)

Latika (Freida Pinto)

Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor)

The Police Inspector (Irrfan Khan)

Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar)

Music: A.R Rahman

I’ve been waiting for this big moment for a long, long time. And finally. I got to see Danny Boyle’s eagerly awaited drama Slumdog Millionaire. Was it worth the wait? You bet.

Based on Vikas Swarup’s novel Q & A, Slumdog Millionaire is actually a two-hour episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionare? or Kaun Banega Crorepati. Its how about Jamal Malik, a guy living in a Mumbai slum, manages to come up to ten million. Just a day before the twenty million question, Jamal Malik is arrested, and interrogated about the happenings of his life. That is Slumdog Millionaire.

Jamal Malik is on the verge of creating history. And how did he do it? He cheated? No. He was asked only those questions, of which he knew the answers. Sheer luck. Jamal explains nearly every answer, which unveils the struggle he had to face living in a Mumbai slum, and the price he had to pay for being a Muslim. Boyle has captured the slums beautifully; every detail is clear – from clothes drying near the railway track to rudimentary toilets (which are actually houses on stilts with a large hole in the centre to let the … excreta … fall down. Jamal escapes from a slum, and is taken along with his brother Salim and friend Latika to an orphanage, where they are forced to beg. They are taught to sing, then blinded, as blind singers get double the sympathy, double the money. Salim and Jamal escape from here too, and spend their lives selling goods in the trains, stealing food from compartments, etc. etc. All this seems horrible, but yet, this is the harsh reality of the slum life. You learn to realise the horrible existence of the needy.

Not a moment to bore you. Not a moment to take your eyes off screen when there are such fine actors. There’s drama, and comedy too. I especially love that scene where Jamal plays a guide and explains about the Taj Mahal to the tourists, describing it as a five star hotel “with the swimming pool”. He later becomes a good guide, whilst his brother steals shoes and ransacks Mercedes-Benzes.

In the entire story, you see the characters develop. Jamal grows up to be honest, but easily influenced. Salim, his brother, on the other hand, develops into a mean and merciless fellow, taking to the underworld and drinking at the age of 15, I guess. That is why the plot is so solid. You feel the characters growing as the film progresses. There are some unbelievable things, however. How the hell do Jamal, Salim, Latika and others speak English so fluently, even when they are uneducated and from a slum? How does Jamal give know the writer of the song Darshan Do Ghanshyaam even when Surdas was never mentioned during the entire sequence?

Although these questions remain unanswered, the sheer detail of the film keeps you engrossed. I’ve already that mentioned that above. Jamal learns to live his life, even when he is plagued with no parents and poverty. The main quest of he film is not to win twenty million bucks, nor is it to be rich or famous, but it is to find Latika, Jamal’s lost love.

There aren’t any songs (except in the end – that Jaya He one), but the background score is great, as it is a fusion of indigenous and foreign music. The screenplay rocks, too! Scenes from the past and the present flash continuously, which keep you glued to your seat, as you wait till the suspense to be unfolded.

Detailed Ratings [Out of 5]

Plot: 4

Acting: 5

Music: 5

Direction: 4

Screenplay: 5

Rating: 4.6/5 [Brilliant!]

Edit:

The Oscars were given out today, and Slumdog Millionaire won eight out of ten nominations, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Song [Jaya He, Rahman!], Best Original Music Score [Rahman again!], Best Sound Mixing, Best Cinematography and Best Adapted Screenplay. Hooray!

Also Smile Pinki, a movie with an India connect, won an Oscar for the best Documentary Short.

Competition Success Review #1: Interface 2008

The title has got nothing to do with the magazine.

I’ve started this brand new series to review all competitions I’ve visited this year.

Interface 2008

Venue: St. Xavier’s School, Raj Niwas Marg, Delhi

Montfort ruled Interface 2006 and 2007; I participated only in the latter with Mridul (in the quiz, obviously). This time, out luck kinda ran out.

We reached late because of the Unit Test exam on that day, and gave the quiz prelims after everybody. Although we got 15 minutes (and there was negative marking) we managed to qualify. It was the finals we screwed up.

Last time, we practically OWN3D every team. This time, the case was different. There was this stupid thing they did about taking all questions in one round from one site. The team sitting next to next to us could get all of them without waiting for the options. That surely means that those people read the questions from the same site. So we did real bad. Managed to finish second though. Here’s a conversation between Mridul, me and the … uhm … “quizmaster”

After reading the question on the screen

Mridul: I think it’s Orkut’s founder

Quizmaster: Give me the name

Mridul: Aditya, bol naa!

Me: I guess it’s Orkut Buddoyokonen or something like that. I can’t pronounce it, it’s a Turkish name.

Quizmaster: Give me the proper name.

Me: It’s Mr Orkut!

Quizmaster: Give me the full name.

Mridul: How can he pronounce it? It’s a Turkish name!!

Quizmaster: Spell it.

Heck, I can’t pronounce it, how the hell do I spell it? I’m not bad at spellings and all, but this?

Me: C’mon man.

Mridul: He said is Orkut Buddoyokonen!

Quizmaster: If you argue, I’ll disqualify you.

Me: Fine! I’ll keep my mouth shut then.

And the whole crowd jeered cheered. Whoo!

Quizmaster: Fine, I’ll give it to you.

He had to succumb anyway. And for all you in-quiz-itives out there, the founder of Orkut is Orkut Büyükkökten. Try pronouncing that!!

The refreshments sucked. Period.

To top it all, huge buses stood in front of out Qualis, which refused to budge until 2 o’ clock. Heck, I had my English paper the next day, and I left the place in a storm Metro.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

The sequel to Transformers is releasing in 2009 – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Obviously, the name indicates that the Decepticons will take revenge from the Autobots. Here is the poster.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen