Fixing Corrupted Desktop Icons in XP

After I logged on to my XP pro with a different user id, some of my desktop icons including My Computer icon & Internet Explorer icon got corrupted. I recalled from my desktop support days that it had something to do with dllcache but could not remember exactly how I used to fix it. So, I googled it and instantly remembered the solution when I saw it here:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1083714822

To fix the problem:

• Right click on the desktop
• Go to properties
• Select Appearance
• Click Advanced
• Select "Icon" from the Items
• Increase Size from 32 to 33
• Click OK & Apply
• Repeat the same procedure to resize icons back to 32.

Installing JRE Plugin for Firefox in FC4

Many web sites need Java Run Time Environment Plugin for Firefox and but it can not be installed automatically and manual installation will direct you to Sun's site. Fedora Core 4 release documents, however, advise against installing the rpm from there as it interferes with FC4 libraries:

6.1.8. Java Package Recommendations

Fedora Core 4 users are advised not to use the Java RPM provided by Sun. It contains Provides that conflict with names used in packages provided as part of Fedora Core 4. Because of this, Sun Java might disappear from an installed system during package upgrade operations.

Fedora Core 4 users should use either the RPM from jpackage.org or manually install the Sun Java tarball into /opt. Sun Java 1.5+ is recommended for stability purposes.

So, here is how I installed it:

• download the JRE 1.5.0 update 4 (not the rpm version) from Sun Site to "/opt" directory
• chmod 755 /opt/jre-1_5_0_04-linux-i586.bin (make it executable)
• ./jre-1_5_0_04-linux-i586.bin (unpack the package)
• clicked yes; it installed the package to /opt/jre1.5.0_04 directory
• cd /usr/lib/firefox/plugins
• ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_04/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so (create a symlink)
• Restart Firefox & Test your installation.

Windows SharePoint Services Templates

Microsoft Download site has been flooded with Windows SharePoint Services Templates today. Something to check out!

Windows Vista Beta 1 - First Impressions

I've downloaded Windows Vista Beta 1, formerly known as "Windows Code Name Longhorn", from MSDN yesterday. I was planning to install it on my pc where I have Fedora Core 4 but this version is picky about file systems and refused to install there. I could have probably tried the suggested method of hitting shift+F10 and use diskpart to get rid of all partitions but decided to install it on my other pc which has 2 disks.

Anyway, I was able to just insert the DVD when I was using XP and install it. Installation was seemless. It just asked me a couple of questions and installed it.

I am not sure how much disk space it actually takes but Windows folder itself is about 3.2GB, Program Files takes less than 200 MB, so does the users and others folders. So, it looks like a 4GB installation.

I've installed on my HP XW6000 workstation with 2x2.8GHz CU, 1 GB memory, nVidia Quadro4 980XGL card, Sony DVD RW 510A, Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Card. They all work fine with the default drivers but nVidia already has alpha drivers for Windows Vista which according to some NeoWin.Net Vista Forum users works (There are several Vista forums there). It did not, however, recognize my FlashCard when I attached it to SanDisk Reader and claimed that it needs to be formatted.

I have tried to run Yahoo Messenger but it kept on crashing. There does not seem to be windows messenger bundled with this version either :( When I go to messenger.msn.com, site thinks that I have Windows 98 and offers me to download that version of MSN Messenger. I installed XP version but could not connect yet.

Microsoft has a Windows Vista site up but there is not much content there. MSDN Windows Vista Site has more information about Vista with lots of Screen Shots.

I'm using Free Edition of AVG Antivirus application which sems to work OK for the moment. Vista has not been performance tuned yet, so it is kinda slower than XP.

Vista Beta 1 comes with IE 7.0.5112 which has tabbed browsing and a nice, very clean interface. I have not managed to make RSS feeds work yet though. I will post more info as I find more about it later...

[UPDATE - 08/02/2005]
MSN Messenger finally worked! I also found out how to add a RSS feed to IE7: just right click the RSS/Atom/XML icon and choose "add to favorites", then choose feeds.

[UPDATE - 08/03/2005]
I think I found out why IE7 is painfully slow. It has an option to check the authenticity of the sites you are opening in your browser. When asked, I had selected to check the sites. To turn it off, Go to Tools > Options > Advanced and select "Turn off Phishing Filter". Life is back to normal.

Ouch!

I fell from my mountain bicycle yesterday and hurt myself (I am doing that pretty often these days). Anyway, here is a video that describes how I feel.

MSDN Channel 9

MSDN Channel 9 is probably not news to MS techies but I'll blog it anyway :)

It's a forum/blog etc. where you can talk to MS developers and listen to them. It hosts pretty cool videos with the key people inside MS.

Nowaday, the half an hour video of Chris Jones talking about Windows Vista Beta 1 is quite populer. Check it out.

Bash Tips

Below are some useful Bash tips (For more check out Tip Of The week from Fedora News & Power Shell Usage Page):

There are a couple of tricks you can use to save time in a BASH terminal, by making use of BASH's history, silently stored in the file ~/.bash_history. These work in all BASH terminals, including Konsole, XTerm and gnome-terminal.

Here are a couple of Tips:

• If you press the up, or down arrow, then BASH will cycle through the list of recently used commands

• If you type part of a command, and then press , BASH will finish the command name for you. If there is more then one command, all of them are displayed on pressing again (see Command 2 in screenshot)

• If you type part of a filename, and then press , then BASH will finish the filename for you. Again, if there is more than one option, all are diplayed on pressing again (see Command 3 in screenshot)

• Press ctrl-R. A search box comes up for you to find previous commands

• ! commands - This will search the History and execute a command. The command will be displayed before execution (See Commands 4-6). There are 5 ways you can use the ! in BASH

1. !! - Execute The Last Command
2. !x - Execute The Last Command Starting with x
3. !-n - Execute The nth from last Command
4. !?abc - Execute The last Command that contained abc
5. !n - Execute The nth Command in history (not very useful)

• ctrl+u and ctrl+k 'cut' from the cursor to the beginning and the end of the line respectively. This can later be pasted using ctrl+y
• ctrl+w deletes a 'word' to the left of the cursor
  
• If you press alt+. then the last parameter you passed to any command will appear at the cursor. Example below: First time I press alt+., it displayed -lr, 2nd time I did it it displayed Desktop etc.
  
[adil@ahlinux ~]$ ls -l
[adil@ahlinux ~]$ cd Desktop
[adil@ahlinux Desktop]$ ls -lr
[adil@ahlinux Desktop]$ -lr Desktop -l

• Define functions providing default options in .bashrc

function ls
{
command ls -F "$@"
}

• command runs the real command
• "$@" inserts the user arguments

• Commands with arguments can have different names:

  function duff
  {
  diff -ur "$@"
  }

• Safe to export, for use in shells embedded in editors:

  export -f duff

• Leaves the original name alone for programs relying on it

Carlton Draught big Ad

check out this big ad:Carlton Draught Big Ad

A Huge List of RSS Readers

I came across this huge list of RSS Readers. I personally use the one from RssReader.org & SharpReader. I've written a comparison entry about them in April 2005. I am not very happy with either of them and still searching for a perfect reader...

MSN Virtual Earth

According to Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion Blog, MSN has launched Virtual Earth. The team's Virtual Earth Blog has some tips and tricks. Although promising, it does not look a match for Google Earth Plus to me. Still check-out Chandu's blog for a more detailed review.

Smallest MP3 Player - MobiBLU DAH-1500

This tiny (1" x 1" x 1" and weighs only 18 grams) mp3 player is available at Walmart in 6 colors and 1Gig version costs around $130. There is good review about it at Anything But iPod Blog, well -worth reading.

Also check out MobileWhack site for specs. I like radio & firmware upgradibility features ;-)

I am reading conflicting news about battery life which ranges between 10-20 hrs. The official web site of MobiBLU claims 17 hrs though.

Cirque Du Soleil - VAREKAI

Wooooow! That's what I have to say about Varekai Show by Cirque Du Soleil in Meadowlands, East Rutherford that we have seen on Saturday (July 23,2005).

What a great show! Colorful costumes, beautiful music, original choreography and mind-boggling acrobatics were all fabulous.

They will be around just until the end of the July. This is something not to be missed!

VAREKAI

Deep within a forest, at the summit of a volcano, exists an extraordinary world where something else is possible. A world called Varekai.

From the sky falls a solitary young man, and the story of Varekai begins. Parachuted into the shadows of a magical forest, a kaleidoscopic world populated by fantastical creatures, this young man sets off on an adventure both absurd and extraordinary. On this day at the edge of time, in this place of all possibilities, begins an inspired incantation to life rediscovered.

The word varekai means "wherever" in the Romany language of the gypsies the universal wanderers. This production pays tribute to the nomadic soul, to the spirit and art of the circus tradition, and to the infinite passion of those whose quest takes them along the path that leads to Varekai.

IBM OpenPowerProject

Jan Weck told me about this IBM site: http://openpowerproject.org/us/index.php I signed up already (sc0ri0n). Below is from the site:

Welcome to the Beta launch of the OpenPower Project – created just for Linux users. It's a great opportunity to pioneer an online Linux initiative, dedicated to testing the latest Power Architecture™ technology that's intended to advance Linux on Power.

This is where you can test and tinker with the latest OpenPower servers tuned for running Linux. You get remote, non-root, shared access via SSH to the latest POWER5™ processor-based OpenPower™ servers. Compile and run your applications, test them, compare them, whatever – it's up to you and your imagination. Power Architecture technology is an ideal platform for Linux® – simple, fast, and robust. Simply put, OpenPower servers take Linux to the next level. Join us. Others already have.

There are two remote locations you can choose from, in two different configurations. Choose your machine, get your most challenging code, and have some fun!

Jan's Blog

Jan Weck is a guy I met years ago in one of NT Server Admin discussion lists. We kept in touch mostly on ICQ for years and shared tips and tricks. We lost contact shortly after I moved to US & started working for Wall Street Companies*.

Anyway, recently I installed my Fedora and started using GAIM and to make the long story short we are able to keep in touch again. I've added Jan's blog to my links at the rights side...

(*) Security Exchange Commission - SEC - requires Wall Street companies to retain logs of all communications especially on Trading Floors.

Whose line is it anyway?

Karl Rove said in an interview: "I did not know her name, I did not leak her name". That's playing with the words at its finest. So, if he says "His wife is a CIA agent", and then utters the words above, is he being honest?

Watch this movie from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show and have some fun. Be warned, it is big [~46 Megs)

My Favorite Word

Everyone has a Favorite Word! What's yours?

usnews.com: Technology: Bill Gates' House

usnews.com: Technology: Bill Gates' House

Saving Gnome Terminal Window Size

I did not see any options in FC4 to save Gnome Terminal Windows Size and I was getting annoyed with Terminal size resetting everytime I close the window. So, I did a little research but did not find much about it. Then I asked about it in fedora-list and got 2 answers:
1) Create a shortcut to gnome-terminal --geometry=80x10

2) Adil, I had the same problem... switched to 'konsole' and am very pleased.
There are also a few bugs in konsole, but it is more flexible, and
offers more control than the gnomne terminal. It may not be on your
desktop. Type 'konsole' in the "Run Applications".

I tried both and both works fine!

Fun links of the day

Here is a fun link: Subservient chicken. Get chicken just the way you like it. Type the commands (sit, run, fly, etc...) and have fun...

[UPDATE]: I've forwarded this link to a few friends of mine and guess what? I am told that I am too far behind of 'the circulated entertainment materials' and was asked to challange Lord Vader. You'll be impressed! Thanks, Sam Li!

vim - the perfect cheat sheet

I copied this useful cheat sheet from "Command Line Warriors" blog. Check out their blog for more.

Command Mode ESC
Insert Mode i

Movement commands

h, j, k, l left, down, up, right
w, W, b, B forward, backward by word
H highest line of the screen
M middle line of the screen
L lowest line of the screen
Ctrl-F forward one screen
Ctrl-B backward one screen
Ctrl-D halfway down (i.e. forward) the screen
Ctrl-U halfway up (i.e. back) the screen
0 (zero), $ start, end of current line

Inserting text

a append after cursor
i insert before cursor
A append to end of line
I insert at start of line
o open a line below current line
O open a line above current line
r replace char

Delete text

x current character
dh previous character
dw current word
db previous word
dd entire line
d$ to end of line
d0 (zero) to start of line
ndd next n lines

Undelete

p insert after cursor
P insert before cursor

Goto line

:linenumber
nG Goto line n
:7 Goto line 7

Save and exit

ZZ write if changes and quit
:wq write and quit
:w filename save to new file
:q! quit vi
:x save & quit (Thanks for the tip Jan!)

Search

/pattern forward for a pattern
?pattern backward for a pattern
n repeat previous search
N repeat previous search in reverse direction

Search and replace

Example:

* Search from current line and replace first occurance
:s/search_string/replace_string/
* Search from current line and replace all matches
:s/search_string/replace_string/g
* Search from every line, replace confirmation (with [y]es)
:%s/search_string/replace_string/gc
:1,$s/search_string/replace_string/gc
* Search lines from 10 to 20
:10,20s/search_string/replace_string/g

Undo

u the latest change
U all changes on a line

Concatenate
J concatenate two lines

Rocketboom : drinking game

Rocketboom: "drinking game played to karl rove ongoing investigation from white house press briefing by scott mcclellan". Boy, THIS IS FUNNY!

GUI tools for YUM: yumex & kyum

As per Fedora News yumex (YUM extender) has now been added to Fedora Extras. yumex is a gui for YUM (Yellow Dog Updater Modified - used by Fedora to update/install applications). It's pretty easy to install:
$ yum install yumex

The other tool I tried is KDE's kyum. Although, I am now using GNOME, I installed it to see the interface. I found both yumex and kyum are pretty easy to use but yumex has a filter option which becomes very handy...

[UPDATE - 08/11/2005]
After using both for a few months, it looks like kyum serves me better. When I had an issue with one of the repositories, yumex kept looping and crashed while kyum just displayed the the error. Kyum interface does allow you to disable/enable repos easily too.

You can install both by typing
yum install yumex kyum

Problem with Google Toolbar for Firefox

I have no idea how this has happened! After Iinstall the new Google toolbar for Firefox (1.0.20050707) on my Fedora Core 4 linux box, firefox menus and google toolbar menus changed to German! As soon as I uninstall it, menus revert back to English. I tested this a few times and it does happen all the time. Screenshot above...

[UPDATE]: I sent an e-mail to Fedora List about the issue. Apparently, I am not the only one who has encountered the issue. I'll report this in Google Groups > 'Google-firefox-extentions'. I am guessing that someone from Google maybe watching the list...

[UPDATE]: Today, Jeremy Tan from Fedora list sent me an e-mail saying that he too had the problem but menus reverted back when he closed all the Firefox instances and restarted it. I tried it, it worked for me too - with a catch: when I, for example hover on this text (or a link), it displays some message in German. See the screenshot below:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

ratDVD: DVD movie format for online download

ratDVD claims to be a DVD movie format for online download. Author says " RatDVD is the result of my downloading experiences. Downloading movies, even DVD rips never really worked out to what I expected.



When I download movies, I want the full DVD feature set and I want to be able to watch it on any DVD player - without loosing any features of the original DVD. That is what ratDVD can do for you".



It sound like a promising new tool. AfterDown has a nice article on how to use it. A must read!

Yahoo Shortcuts

It looks like Yahoo has followed the steps of Google Special Searches and done a very good job with 'Yahoo Shortcuts'

You can use the search box as a calculator. In the screenshot above you see the result it gave me when I typed a interest calculation formula 1000*(1+0.11)^2 = 1232.10

Take a look at other useful shortcuts!

Goodbye to Martin Eriksen

Martin is a friend of mine from work. Today is his last day at work. He is going back to Denmark. Last night, we had our "Farewell to the "Great Dane" party at Pravda - 281 Lafayette St, NY.

Goodbye baby! (baby is Martin's favorite english word). We will miss you.

Google Earth Plus

I got the news from InsideGoogle Blog and immediately downloaded Google Earth Plus. I loved it! I was holding my breath when I saw it zooming from space down to NYC! Wow, such a cool effect! Checkout the original post here.

Free Music Downloads from BBC & Others

I ran into a few sites which offer mp3 downloads. Before we get serious though, let's listen to this song - Another Irish Drinking Song 96kbps (dedicated to Gil, my Irish manager :)

Ok. I found the other sites thru BBC, so I will just list the important links on their site...
For a limited time BBC is allowing people to
Download an mp3 of Symphony no.9 (61.7 MB)

Check out the following link for more info
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethoven/downloads.shtml

Here is the link to other sites where you can download (mostly classical) music:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethoven/digitalclassicaldownloads.shtml

Morningstar Investing Classroom

Morningstar Investing Classroom is a pretty cool place to learn about investing. They are best known for their ratings of Mutual funds but recentrly they offer individual stock researches over 1500 companies. It's FREE. Go for it!

Oh, while you are there, check out their new indexing system. I like it!

Flash Games: Get Outta Room...

I've collected some flash games where the purpose is to get out of the room:

Crimson Room
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/crimson/crimson_e.php

Viridian's Room
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/viridian/index_e.php

The Pink Room
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=10806

Yepyip Room
http://yepyip.free.fr/room/

Maama's Room
http://www.maama.com/download/socute/view.php?id=000091

Swan's Room
http://mofuya.com/flash/swan.htm

Continuation:
http://www.atfriday.com/GameZone/200549203002/20055149302449945.swf

Blue Chamber
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/bluechamber/index_e.php

The Doors
http://alt.tnt.tv/games/thedoors/

Dr. Metro
http://www.xylo.co.jp/animetion/game/orignalgames/drmetoro/drmetoro.html

Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement...

All day today, TVs are repeated talking about Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement after 24 years at the age 75. She is called 'the swing vote' as she sometimes contradicted to her own position she took in the past.

There are several references to her position to upheld Roe vs. Wade which seems to be the single most controversial decision in the recent American History. As usual, Wikipedia has a very good article on this case thanks to which Women can choose to have abortion.

LCD Monitor Review

Firing Squad has a pretty good article about 19" lcd monitors on their June 2005 review. While you are there, you may want to check out the 17" LCD Monitor review they published a few months ago.

Who are The Turks

I came across this comprehensive document about Turks and Turkey. It's written by Justin McCarthy and Carolyn McCarthy as a manual for teachers. It's a pdf document and can be freely downloaded. Check it out...

Goodies from New york Public Library

NYPL, Digital Library is your gateway to The New York Public Library’s rare and unique collections in digitized form. NYPL Digital helps fulfill The Library’s traditional mission in the Internet Age to collect, preserve and make its holdings available. Also check out here the e-books & e-Audio New York Public Library is offering.

Create a DVD image from Fedora CDs

Here is a link to a shell script which lets you take Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core Linux CD images and build a DVD image!

Microsoft vs. Bittorrent? What ?

I got this news from Windows IT Pro e-mail (check out their forums here):
Microsoft researchers have created a new peer-to-peer (P2P) file- sharing system that's similar--but superior?--to the widely used BitTorrent system. Microsoft researchers say that the system (code- named Avalanche) is 20 percent to 30 percent faster than BitTorrent.
Like BitTorrent, Avalanche breaks large files into tiny chunks, which are distributed to the users who want the file. As users complete the download, Avalanche uses their systems in a distributed manner as servers, and other users download chunks from a variety of systems simultaneously. This process speeds downloads for many users.

I have no idea what guys at MS Research decided to work on this but they published a white paper titled "Network Coding for Large Scale Content Distribution" that explains a technology which claims to be better than bittorrent.

Configuring yum for proxy

I've installed FC4 on one of my test pcs @ work but of course I had to set up proxy all over the place. I found a useful article in one of the fedora forums. In short here is what I did to resolve the issue:

backed up my current wget config file:
su -
cd /etc
cp -pr wgetrc wgetrc.bck

& then edited it:
gedit wgetrc &

went down to the section below, change it to my proxy settings & removed comment (# sign)
# You can set the default proxies for Wget to use for http and ftp.
# They will override the value in the environment.
http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
ftp_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
# If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
use_proxy = on

then edited /etc/profile and added the following 2 lines
export http_proxy=http://username:password@myproxy.settings.com:8080
export ftp_proxy=http://username:password@myproxy.settings.com:8080

Voila! Yum is yummy again :)

Fedora Core 4 Mount Problem

Below is the e-mail I just posted to fedora-list@redhat.com
---------------
I hit my first problem since I upgraded to FC4: I had mount points that
connected to different XP drives using something like

mount -t cifs -o
username={username},password={password] //{machine_name}/{share} /mnt/c

There does not seem to be a problem during mounting but then when I try
to access the mount point, what used to be an instant thing takes ages
now.

If I replace cifs with smbfs, mounting is instant.

Anyone else having such problems? Any leads how to troubleshoot
this?

-------------------

How to snatch an expiring domain

I found this great article about snatching a domain name. Gee!

Aha! Yahoo Domains is the one to blame?

I talked to GoDaddy and consequently sent an e-mail to Yahoo. Apparently, Yahoo was supposed to transfer the address from GoDaddy but they did not. I got the lengthy answer from Yahoo why they did not. What they are saying is when they are selling the domain, they are actually not selling it but selling the management of it? Oh, Puhleease, that info is nowhere to be found in their Domain Selling site!

Original E0mail from Yahoo Domains Support:

-----Original Message-----
From: Yahoo! Domains [mailto:domains-support@cc.yahoo-inc.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: Email - hindistan.net - Domains (KMM4310551V8506L0KM)
Hello Adil,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Domains. I hope this email will answer your question.
I understand that you are concerned about the transfer of your domain, 'hindistan.net' to Yahoo! from your current registrar, GoDaddy.com.
According to the public Whois database, your domain name registration was expired on April 16, 2005 and it has been put under the 'REDEMPTIONPERIOD' status by your current registrar.
For your reference, included here is the information about your domain as reflected in the Whois public database:
Domain Name: HINDISTAN.NET
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com Name Server: PARK11.SECURESERVER.NET Name Server: PARK12.SECURESERVER.NET
Status: REDEMPTIONPERIOD
Updated Date: 27-may-2005
Creation Date: 16-apr-2001
Expiration Date: 16-apr-2005
Please know that your domain name was registered through another registrar. Even though this domain name has expired, most registrars will normally hold onto a domain name for a short period of time before releasing it to the public.
It appears that you have only transferred your domain hosting to Yahoo!, and not your domain name registration when you signed up for Yahoo!
Domains using an existing domain name registered elsewhere. Please understand that Yahoo! is not a Domain Registrar; we register our domain names through our partner Melbourne IT (inww.com). Once you register a new domain name through Yahoo! your domain name is put under Yahoo's!
Reseller list. This makes Yahoo! the Reseller of your domain name.
Yahoo! will be responsible for renewing your domain name, which is covered within the service charges of your account.
As Yahoo! is a reseller and not a registrar we are not able to perform a registrar transfer of your pre-registered domain name. Once you transfer your existing domain name to Yahoo!, using one of our Small Business packages, you will still be responsible for renewing your domain name through the original registrar of your domain name.
After you order services from us, your domain name will need to be re-delegated to Yahoo!'s nameservers to host your domain with us. The process varies depending on which registrar you originally registered your domain. Many allow you to make the changes online at their website.
Yahoo! uses the following nameservers:
Primary Name Server: yns1.yahoo.com
Primary IP Address: 66.218.71.205 (may not be required)

Secondary Name Server: yns2.yahoo.com
Secondary IP Address: 216.109.116.20 (may not be required)
Please be aware that Yahoo! has no jurisdiction over domain names
registered with other services. You (the registrant) through your
current hosting provider or registrar have the ability to modify this
information.
If you want to open a full registration account with Yahoo!, you will
either need to wait for the domain name to be publicly available or
request directly to the registrar that holds your domain that they
release the domain name to the public.
In general, for domain names which are already registered through
another company, Yahoo! can take over hosting for the domain name.
However, the registration of the domain name will continue through the
current registrar. You do not need another company in this case to
manage your domain name.
When Yahoo! Domains is hosting your domain name, all other necessary
updates should be able to be performed directly through your registrar.
In your case, as your domain name has already expired and it is going to
be released to the public soon, may I recommend you to please wait till
the domain name is publically available for new registration. You may
cancel your Domains account with us to prevent future billing. Once the
domain name is publically available you may then sign up for Yahoo!
Domains services at the following URL:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains
I apologize for any inconvenience it may cause you. Please do not
hesitate to reply if you need further assistance.
Regards,
Graham
Yahoo! Customer Care
For assistance with all Yahoo! services please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/


Original Message Follows:
-------------------------
Mail-Id: 1118795906-9497
Domain name: hindistan.net
Service: Domains
Topic: Domain registration and renewal info
Please describe your problem or question here.
Hello,
I had registered hindistan.net via
Godaddy.com. I did not want to extend
my contract with them and decided to
move to Yahoo. So I paid Yahoo for
this domain for 3 years and got the
confirmation letter below:
----------------------------------
Service Ordered
"Plan: Domains "
7 A single-page Web Card or Web
address forwarding to another web site
"Purchase Date: April 08, 2005 "
Billing Summary
Domain Name Term Yearly Fee Total
hindistan.net 3 year(s) $9.95 $4.98 1
(save 50% per year
for up to 5 years) $14.94
"Today's Charge: $14.94 "
-----------------------------------
As instructed in your web page I went
back to godaddy.com and changed the
name servers to yahoo.
It worked fine until my contract with
them expired. They are telling me
that yahoo never transferred my domain
and now I lost it. How is this
possible. I paid for it and I do not
have access to it? Please help
rectify this situation.
While Viewing: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/domains/domains-47.html
Date Originated: Tuesday June 14, 2005 - 17:38:26
-------

Never use godaddy.com again!!!

These guys are really driving me crazy! Their support can not resolve anything don't understand a thing! They keep on hijacking my domain...

I wanted Yahoo to handle my domain 'hindistan.net', so I redelagated the domain to Yahoo. Ie. changed the Name Servers to yahoo at godaddy.com. All was fine until my contract with godaddy expired. Then, they changed my name servers to park.godaddy.com

I contacted them and after several e-mail exchanges I realized that discussion is going nowhere. They keep on explaining me why they did it. Anyway, I changed them back to Yahoo. Apparently, a few days ago, they again changed them??? I sent e-mails to both Yahoo and godaddy again, arrgh :(

Helicopter accident at Pier 11

Just a few mins ago, a helicopter went down near Pier 11 at New York City. Our office building is on Maiden Lane next to FDR. We can see the scene thru the windows facing the Pier. Fire Department is on the scene. I guess Helicopter immediately submerged but we have seen someone carried away. This has not even hit the news channels yet...

The Hive

Are you a MS community leader? Do you have a group about MS products with at least 50 users? If yes, join The Hive! A forum for online community leaders.

Fedora Core 4 Finally Out

After a few days of delay FC4 is out. Fedora site has the release notes. As one might guess all mirrors are a bit slow as people are rushing to download it.

WinkFlash ;-)

So, you have tons of pictures and you don't know where to put them, eh? Hmm, this may be answer for you: winkflash . It's free and and it lets you store your photos in the original size without any limitation of storage. You can share your albums with 'other' Winkflash users. Although signing up is fast and free, I wish it was possible to share albums without forcing people to sign up.

Hi5 - Who's in?

Have you ever heard of Hi5? Well, I had no idea until today. A friend of mine invited me, so I joined in. It looks very much like Orkut but just does not seem to break every so often. I'll post a review once I have more time to check it out...

Fedora Sound Problem (Resolved)

Yehaaa! I finally have sound on my Fedora FC3 linux box. It was always working in Mandriva 2005 LE but after upgrading the kernel to 2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp, I had no sound.

Anyway, muting Headphone Jack Sense & Line Jack Sense via 'alsamixer' resolved the issue. Below is my e-mail to fedora-list@redhat.com:

I checked my settings again for these two you mentioned and as I wrote
above they were already off but I did not hear anything. Still, I kept
on trying to mute/unmute others and got noise at some point. Then, I
muted all and started to unmute them one by one. After a little bit
more trial-and-error, suddenly it worked! Interestingly, it turned out
that I really just needed to have that two Muted! Why it did not work
before is beyond me.

Browsers compared

Here is a nice Comparison of several Browsers. I heard several good reviews about Maxthon. It's worth trying!

No sound on Fedora FC3

For the last two days, I'm trying to find out why my sound card would not work on Fedora FC3. I know that sound card itself is fine because the other linux distribution on the same box - Mandriva 2005 LE - has no problems and when I was installing the Fedoram it correctly found my card:
ICH4 845G/GL Chipset AC'97 Audio Controller & I heard the sound.

I think problem started after I used "yum update" to install all updates which included a kernel upgrade to
2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp

I found out via "alsamixer" that all volume controls are muted by default and pumped them up to no avail.
Card is detected and drivers are installed properly:

[root@ahlnx ~] lsmod |grep snd
snd_intel8x0 35329 2
snd_ac97_codec 73145 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm_oss 55153 0
snd_mixer_oss 22465 2 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 92741 3 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 28741 1 snd_pcm
snd 57765 8 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 13217 2 snd
snd_page_alloc 13765 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm

So? This sucks!

Does Orkut rock or suck?

I started using orkut about 2 months ago. My experience is that it is PAIN to use orkut. Honestly, 8/10 times you get an error when you click on something. I was just trying to post something and after 10 trials, I got tired and stopped. It's too much frusturation...

Having used other Social Networking sites like Yahoo's 360 and Microsoft's Wallop, I think I clearly see the pluses and minuses now. I actually posted a lengthy suggestions list on MS Wallop Team's page. Somebody thanked me for suggestions but I don't know if they will implement them.

Basically the big advantage orkut has over the others is that it has 'communities' (or forums). That is where people meet others and I believe that's why orkut is so populer. I mean it really rocks when it works. Unfortunately that is not the case most of the time.

One may ask what does it have that yahoogroups do not? Interestingly, not really that much. I believe yahoo can do some magic to make 360 work like orkut.

Online File Storage

I was talking to a friend the other day who had just purchased a digital camera. He asked me what I was doing to back up my photos / files. I told him that I has written a script to copy important files to my wife's pc over the LAN and time to time I burn them onto DVDs.

He said he was afraid to keep them on his pc because he was afraid to lose them so he was looking for an online file storage solution. It made perfect sense! The challenge is to find a 'saf' location. You do not want to put your files on to a server and find out that company went out of business the other day.

I know a few guys who are using fotki for storing their fotos (I never liked the name). They charge a flat fee of $50/year for unlimited access, not that bad actually.

If you just would like to carry around a few files, Yahoo hass its Yahoo briefcase which can hold about 30MB only. Some people are using their gmail accounts to store files but that is not really convenient.

There is a company called streamload, offering 10 GB storage area. The catch is that you can only download 100MB/month, yet it is free.

I checked some other site like flipdrive, xdrive etc. For the convenience they are offering, they are not that pricey either. The question remains: are they secure enough and are they going to be around.

In fact, I keep on asking myself, why would not Google (or Yahoo) go into online storage business. They have a good reputation and are trusted. As they are already offering GB e-mails they seem to have no issue with space.

Yahoo! Mindset

I have been seen more articled about Yahoo! Mindset which is basically a beta product (aka. in research phase) that gives you a new way of relating searches to your needs.



It has a slider. On one end is "shopping", on the other is "researching". when you move the slider to a side, results of the search changes accordingly. I just started playing with it and thingking that it is in beta phase one should not have high hopes but I think it is a cool idea!



Oh BTW, while you are the, take a look at Yahoo Research page.

Dual booting Fedora and Mandriva

Last weekend I've downloaded both Mandriva 2005 LE DVD and Fedora Core 3 DVD and installed them on my spare pc. Problem was that I only had 1 SCSI HD and when I installed the second Linux distibution, its loader did not recognize the other one. So, below is how I tinkered with grub and finally made it work in anyway I wanted.

I posted an e-mail to Mandriva expert group and asked for help. Someone extended his handed and suggested that I copy Mandriva boot files into Fedora boot partition and add an entry for it in the grub. I did it and it worked.

Below is from my e-mail to the grup but note that boot loader application 'grub' does not care if you have an ide or scsi. First harddrive will be shown as hd0 (not as sd0 as one might expect).

-----------------------------------------
[root@ahlnx ~] fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 36.4 GB, 36420075520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4427 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Cap. Id System Holds
----------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/sda1 300MB 83 Linux (Mandriva /boot)
/dev/sda2 12.5GB 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 100MB 83 Linux (Fedora /boot)
/dev/sda4 22.5GB 8e Linux LVM (Fedora /)
/dev/sda5 2.0GB 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda6 10.0GB 83 Linux (Mandriva /)

First I mounted /dev/sda1 - where my current Mandriva boot images are
hold - to Fedora & copied everything under it to /boot/Mandriva:

mkdir /mnt/bootMandriva
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/bootMandriva
cd /mnt/bootMandriva
rsync -va . /boot/Mandriva

Then, I added these lines in /etc/grub.conf
title Mandrive 2005
root (hd0,2)
kernel /Mandriva/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdksmp ro root=/dev/sda6
initrd /Mandriva/initrd-2.6.11-6mdksmp.img

Happy ending, eh? Well, not so quick...Once I got on to Mandriva, I
could not go back to Fedora as it did not know anything about Fedora!

So, I tried the same approach by mounting fedora boot partion /dev/sda3
to Mandriva and adding an entry to /etc/lilo.conf after copying 3 files
that I thought would do the trick:
config-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp
initrd-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp.img
vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp
System.map-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp

Unfortunately I got errors during boot...

I'll keep on troubleshooting this as it serves as a good learning
practice for me. For the time being, I loaded grub back (to MBR):

[root@ahlnx ~] grub
[root@ahlnx ~] grub> root (hd0,2)
[root@ahlnx ~] grub> setup (hd0)
[root@ahlnx ~] grub> quit

root (hd0,2) tells grub that my boot partition is /dev/sda3
setup (hd0) loads grub into MBR (Master Boot Record) so that it will run next time I boot.

After rebooting, I am back to Fedora.
-----------------------------------------
Well, actually after a little bit more digging, I realized that I did not need to copy boot files from the linux boot partition at all. So, I added the following entry into /etc/grub.conf on Fedora's boot sector (/dev/sda3)

title Mandriva 2005 (From /dev/sda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz ro root=/dev/sda6
initrd /initrd.img
And just to prove it to myself that I could it do the same from Mandriva side, I added the following entry into /boot/grub/menu.lst on Mandriva's boot sector (/dev/sda1)

title Fedora (Boot from Fedora /boot)
kernel (hd0,2)/vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
initrd (hd0,2)/initrd-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp.img

The interesting thing is the part which reads root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
This notation seems to be specific to my installation and Grub. Lilo does not recognize it as a valid root (/) partition.

Plumber - Movie

Plumber - MovieThis is a fun movie!

Google Labs

Google Labs is Google's technology playground. Currently they are testing personalized home pages. Check it out...

Yahoo! Messenger Beta - Fixed

I fixed my connection problem by choosing "No Proxies" instead of "Firewall with no proxies" which used to be my default in the previous version. The new build number is: 7,0,0,242!

Yahoo! Messenger Beta

Yahoo! Messenger Beta is available for download from Yahoo. I tried it but seems to have some connection issues.



I checked Yahoo's page. Apparently there is a page for those people who are having connection issues with Beta but guess what. It is not accessible: "The requested URL /pager/download/beta/more.html was not found on this server."

Arrrgh!

Traffic & Weather info on Google Map

Traffic/Weather info on Google Map


I found out about this cool web site called Google-Traffic.com . Apparently, someone found yet another useful way to hack Google Map to display Traffic & Weather info on it. In fact, you can also display such info on Yahoo Maps too. Pretty neat trick!

Scot's Newsletter - Customizing Firefox

Scot's Newsletter | The Best Of | Customizing Firefox I'm posting this for my own reference. Scot has a nice list of customization on this web site. I am also a subscriber of his monthly newsletter. Check out this month's issue here and if you like it you can subscribe to it here.

Google puts the brake on Web Accelerator

Google puts the brake on Web Accelerator The Register
Wow. My site took the greatest page hit when I posted the issue I discovered with Google Web Accelerator. I stopped using Google Web Accelerator since then.

Apparently Google has disabled downloads of its Web Accelerator software less than a week after introducing the service. The suspension follows reports that the software was caching sensitive content, such as user control panels to online forums. Continue at source

Have some fun: Rocketboom

I learnt about a vlog site called Rocketboom. They have 3mins long funny vlogs everyday. Oh, do not forget to check out yet another histerical 'numa numa' video.

Google Web Accelerator - 2

Citrix Error

OK, it's been a few days since I installed Google Web Accelerator . I have not had a chance to use my pc much but it claims that it saved me 1.9 mins.

Anyway, last night I started seeing the error above when I was trying to connect to my office via Citrix. As soon as I shutdown the Google Web Accelerator, it started working. Hmm, I tried it again today and the same story. I guess I will report it to Google...

Google Web Accelerator

Google Web Accelerator

Here is yet another Beta tool from Google: Web Accelerator . Hmm, maybe I should really go ahead and buy their stock...

You may ask, 'hey I already have Broadband! Why would I need a web accelerator?'. My answer would be 'If you are asking that, you probably do not need it'.

Honestly, as a broadband user, I do not really need it but as a curious technologist, indeed I went ahead and intalled it. I read the help & faq, it looks like a giant proxy server implementation to me. I'll post my findings later on...

War Nerd - Glory to the Turks!

eXile - Issue #212 - War Nerd - Glory to the Turks! - By Gary Brecher

A friend of mine forwarded this link to me. There are a few small mistakes (it was Ottomans that captured Istanbul not Seljuks) but it is a fun article about Turkish History...

Circumventing Group Policy Settings

Mark's Blog: Circumventing Group Policy Settings



Group policy settings are an integral part of any Windows-based IT environment. If you’re a network administrator you use them to enforce corporate security and desktop management policy, and if you’re a user you’ve almost certainly been frustrated by the limitations imposed by those policies. Regardless of which you are, you should be aware that if the users in your network belong to the local administrator’s group they can get around policies any time they want. Continue at source...

Avoid Machines, Find-A-Human

Aunty did it again. Here is a link to the database to
Find-A-Human for some Integrated Voice Response (IVR) systems. It's a nice list if you need to talk to a human in let's say Bank Of America, Citibank, Chase, Amazon, American Express or Best Buy? Check out the link above. There are about 94 companies in the list right now...

Xtra-Google

Xtra-Google is a neat idea. Site facilitates one-click searches for all of Google's services.

Free MP3 downloads from Amazon

Wow! I read this article in Aunty Spam's Net Patrol blog that Amazon actually lets you download 200 mp3 at any time and refreshes this list every 6 hours. You can view the top downloads list at their web site.

You may think that they probably only have unheard musicians. Well, they have some well known names like Depeche Mode and Bob Marley too. Is not that great?

Mark Minasi Introduces Log Parser

In his monthly bulletin, Mark Minasi has covered Log Parser, a free tool available for download from Microsoft.

A First Query
Let's try out just about the simplest Log Parser command possible:
logparser "select * from *.log" -i:iisw3c
Picked apart, it is the command "logparser," followed by a SQL query statement -- don't run away, I'll show you all the SQL you'll need today! -- followed by the -i option, which explains to Log Parser what kind of file it is (an IIS log file, in this case). The SQL query is "Select * from *.log", which just means "get everything" -- the asterisk works in SQL the same as it does in DOS commands, meaning "everything" -- from all of the files with the extension "log" in the current directory.
(Aside: this is why learning Log Parser is difficult -- you're trying to learn two new things at the same time. Half of what you're trying to learn is Log Parser's syntax, which is ugly enough all by itself. But every Log Parser query includes a SQL query, and if you've never written SQL queries then you'll find that they're a quite wide field of syntax to master as well. I strongly recommend taking the time to browse through the logparser.chm Help file that installs in the same directory as Log Parser. And let me note at this point that I'm not a SQL query expert, so I may not be approaching these problems in the best way.)

Read more at source.

Google Maps, meet Craigslist real estate

An enterprising programmer has combined Google Maps with Craigslist's real estate listings to create a tool that lets people find housing simply by looking at a map. Read the whole story:

Google Maps, meet Craigslist real estate | News.blog | CNET News.com

Problems opening PDF files in Internet Explorer

I was having problems opening PDF files in Internet Explorer. IE would just show an image placeholder icon instead of launching Acrobat Reader.



I goggled the problem and came across with

Troubleshooting problems opening PDF files in Internet Explorer window site. It has is a useful troubleshooting checklist. As advised, I reregistered pdf.ocx and that solved my problem.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

Here is a list of The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities by TechSupportalert Site.

Ars Technica: USB Flash Drives

They are given different names like USB Flash drives, Pen Drives, Thumb Drives etc. etc. Anyway, Ars Technica has a nice article about 10 Flash drives. Check it out here.

Windows Server Hacks: Remotely Enable Remote Desktop

Windows Server Hacks: Remotely Enable Remote Desktop

This is a really simple way of enabling Remote Desktop just by just setting a registry key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\fDenyTSConnection to 0 (enabled)

USDA updates Food Pyramid

United States Department Of Agriculture yet again updates Food Pyramid, this time to fight against obesity.


Honestly, I do not trust them. This is the organization that could not stand against big food companies and played a key role in the increase of obesity.

It's simple people! Everything you eat is converted into engery (ie. calories). Some more some less. You have to spend the calories you take in not to gain weight. 3500 calories = 1 pound. You start spending more calories than you take, soon you will start losing weight.

I was weighing 210 pounds roughly this time last year. I weigh ~175 pounds now. I actually reached that goal about 6 months ago and I am keeping it without any trouble. How? Well, I started working out 3 times a week and also started a low-carb / low-fat / high protein diet. I had witnessed some of my friends successfully applying Atkins but it seemed harsh to me. As a matter of fact, Atkins evolved and changed some of their recommendations which brought them closer to South Beach. so, I took South Beach diet as the basis but modified it as I thought would be fit.

The good thing about diets is that you read and learn more about what you eat. Before I started dieting, I never paid attention to Nutrition Facts. My life changed afterwards. It's been a year and I can not drink most of the soft drinks like coca cola if it is not diet. I know how painful it is to get rid of 160 calories in gym.

Ordinary men need about 2000 calories and although it is very easy to get that much calorie, human body is an amazing animal; it is very efficent and it uses the calories efficiently. I went on to Work out my muscles so they became bigger and higher-maintenance; ie. when I am doing the same daily activities I am spending more calories. Leaving healthy in a junk food addict society may not be be easy but it is not that difficult too...

Microsoft Time Zone Utility

As part of my job, I usually need to know what time is on some other parts of the world. I recently found about this cool Microsoft Utility called MS Time Zone Utility . Basically, you can enter 5 cities and when you click on the icon on the notification area, it shows you the time in these cities. Cool!

Bad, Bad Orkut. No soup for you!

I found out that Orkut was a project developed by a Turkish guy in his '20% personal time' while he was working for Google. His full name is Orkut Buyukkokten Looks like a cool guy and apparently a busy one (he did not reply to me :)

Anyway, I've been using Orkut for sometime now and I can tell more about it. Unfortunately, the servers where Orkut resides are very very unstable. I get something like below message every other time I click on something:

Bad, bad server. No donut for you

Unfortunately, the orkut.com server has acted out in an unexpected way. Hopefully, it will return to its helpful self if you try again in a few minutes.

Ahhh! If it works though, it is a vast network with really cool features like 'communities'... There are tons of communities that you can join. These are basically forums where you can read/post messages and it is a good way to meet new people. Clicking the name of a poster will take you to their profile page and you see their friends and communities as well as personal information and pictures they may be sharing. On the other hand, unlike Microsoft's Wallop & Yahoo's 360 there is no blog feature

When you add someone as a friend, you are actually giving the person ability to see more about you and if (s)he does the same then you become connected-friends. You may write a testimonial about your friend.

There in the forums, I've read that server instability has always been an issue and there has not any improvements, so people are even speculating that Google may drop Orkut service all-together. Now that Yahoo & Microsoft are in the game, I don't think that will happen soon.

What's wrong with Comcast?

I have read a few days ago that there was a huge Comcast outage related to some DNS configuration error. They claimed it was fixed in an hour but in fact, I had problem for hours. Since then, my internet connection is on and off. I constantly see DNS problems.

Unfortunatly, I can not even reach Comcast Support to tell them (I am sure they do know anyway). 1-800-Comcast keeps me on the line for sometime and then disconnects, so called direct number, 1-877-6373128, is always busy. I am not sure if this is specific to NJ :(

Well, this turned out to be yet another DNS related issue. After a week of on and off connection, finally they got it right.

Free SysInternals Utilities

Probably all Windows System Admins know the name 'SysInternals' very well, mostly because of their free set of Windows Utilities called 'Winternals'. They have just released the new version: PsTools v2.14.

The guy behind the creation of these tools is Mark Russinovich. I have recently used his Registry Monitoring Tool (Regmon v.7) to see what was going on on my system following Mark's blog on MSN Desktop Search Tool.

I found out that 'Hello', which is an IM that was recently bought by Google and is a convenient application currently you can use to post a picture to blogger, was non-stop polling the registry 10s of times in a second filling all the monitor screen...


I killed it and then started it up again. Apparently it is trying to communicate with Picasa -yet another cool imaging tool Google purchased recently- related registry keys. Whatever the reason is, I derive from Mark's blog entry that Hello is ayet another badly written application. So, instead of keeping it minimized in the tray when I am not using it, I will just terminate it. I suggest you do the same.

Yoko Ono receives lifetime achievement award from Japan Society

Everyone has heard of her name but probably many does not know much about her. She is surely an enigmatic person.

If you look at the comments following the subject article in Japan Times, there are quite interesting stuff you probably never heard of.

However, what I found most interesting is the comprehensive page on Yoko Ono in Wikipedia.

The State's Game

Test your geography knowledge of US

... The State's Game ...

MSN Messenger 7 & MSN Spaces Final

I was using MSN Messenger 7 Beta for quite sometime and found it acceptable. Yesterday Microsoft released the final version of his Instant Messenger. you can download it from http://messenger.msn.com.

MS claims that it has better Audio/Video quality. My previous experience with MSN audio was pretty good but video was not. They seem to integrate it with MSN Spaces now. So when you click your icon on top (see below) it shows you the last blog entries from your 'space'.



As for MSN Spaces, I have not noticed any additional functionality on top of 'Beta' version. I still can not reclaim the space I had deleted. I have yet to hear from 'MSN spaces support' why..

Lasik Surgery

I've been wearing glasses for more than 15 years now and I am done. I decided to go for Lasik surgery last year. I started to research the available technologies and eye centers. I also started put money in my Flexible Spending Account.

I met with Dr. Della Russo in the autumn of 2004. He is one of the well known high profile Manhattan eye surgeons. Although he is one of the original creators of VisX Excimer Laser technology, he currently uses a tehnology called LadarVision. He had done about 1600 operations with it and he was talking highly of the method he was using.

Even with DavisVision insurance I had, he was charging about $2050 per eye at the time. His son works with him and charges a little bit less. Anyway, I did not mind the amount of money but somehow did not feel much comfortable with the method. He would dilute my eyes and after the operation he would put a protective lens which would be removed the next day. I did not like the necessity of using protective lenses.

As I lost my glasses in a funny way last week, I decided to check out my second choice Stahl Eye Center. I've chosen Dr. Thierry J. Hufnagel as he had successfully operated one of my friends a few years ago. My friend was pretty happy with the results; and had no side effects like 'Halos' at night or 'dry eye' problems. They use the 4th generation of VisX technology S4 VisX (which Dr. Dello Russo had belittled when I asked him about it).

There is not yet any study, as far as I know, that proves Ladarvision results are better than S4 VisX although I believe it maybe slightly more advanced with its 'Active' Ladarvision technology which essentially tracks your eye when its moves and adjusts itself. On the other hand, S4 VisX, for example, would detect the eye movement and stop but would not adjust itself. Then again S4 VisX is told to be a very adaptive and easy to use device which may explain why many Doctors choose it over others.

So, on April 25, I will undergo the Bladeless CustomVue Lasik surgery!

It looks like it all comes down to the surgeon but for my situation,

If you are looking into Lasik surgery, below are a few web sites I found useful:

• Tough Questions for your Doctor
• Sharper Vision - Check Out Laser Vision Corection 101 page

I've also looked into following doctors but their did not contact them as their offices were not close to me:

• Harmon C. Stein, M.D.
• Dr. Robert W. Weisenthal, M.D.

I am smoke-free!

Well, well. I quit smoking cigarettes 10 yrs ago but never quite quit 'smoking'. Although there were months or years of break, I smoked cigarellos. But I am now done! So, today is the beginning of the rest of my life. I am no longer smoking anything. Enough already!

Last Laugh '04 'Speechalist'

COMEDY CENTRAL



This is hilarious! Don't miss it.

feedmap .net: Where Blogs Meet Maps

feedmap .net : Where Blogs Meet Maps



This is a cool site that I've added to my links. Basically, you tell them where you live (or where your blog is located) and they show you blogs published near you :)

Google Adds Satellite Images to Maps

My U shaped Apartment Block in Google Maps

I see, however, a green field behind my apartment which has been replaced by a new building now. So I guess images date back about a year..

Mozilla Products Arbitrary Memory Exposure Test

Here we go: another vulnerability was discovered in FireFox (actually in all Mozilla products). There is actually a test page to demonstrate it.

I am not surprised and not discouraged by these. Open Source or not, it is perfectly normal for a populer product to draw more attention from Hackers, no?

Google Toolbar 3 Beta

I've just noticed that Google has Google toolbar 3 Beta out:

Google Toolbar

An important concession: MGM says ripping MP3s is OK

An important concession: MGM says ripping MP3s is OK by ZDNet's Joe Brockmeier -- On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in MGM v. Grokster. The Grokster case, for those who haven't been following it, concerns the liability of distributors of P2P software. As we all know, there are legitimate uses for P2P software (think BitTorrent and distributing Linux ISOs, which are legally free and clear for distribution) and infringing uses (distributing MP3s of Dark Side of the Moon on a P2P network). The question is, whether a distributor should be held liable for infringing uses when there are substantial non-infringing uses as well. The case is a test of the famous (or infamous, if you happen to be on the recording industry's side of the fence) Betamax standard. (See the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Betamax ...

Trackback URL for this post: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/wp-trackback.php/219

Early Version Of Yahoo 360 Confusing All Around (washingtonpost.com)

Early Version Of Yahoo 360 Confusing All Around (washingtonpost.com): "Early Version Of Yahoo 360 Confusing All Around"



As I've been using it for a few days now, I do not know what is so confusing about it??? Anyway, read on...

SharpReader vs. RssReader

That's the dilemma! Both SharpReader (current version 0.9.5.1) and RssReader (Current version 1.0.88.0) are FREE Rss/Atom readers.

I've been using RssReader for about a year now. There have been rare updates to it. The things I like about it:

• Powerful & real fast search/filtering capability. So, if I am looking for say "usb", I put that in the Keyword field, and only the articles which have that keyword show up.
• Interface is clean and simple
• It used to be a memory hungry app but latest version trimmed it down considerable. It just uses a few megs now!

And that's about it. What I do NOT like:

• You can not specify to have the read pane on the right as in Outlook 2003 (unfortunately it is the same in SharpReader)
• It can import but can NOT export my feeds to the commonly used OPML format. Ie. I had to manually copy/paste all my feeds to SharpReader :(
• If left on for an extended period, will start throwing atom/xml parsing errors instead of handling them and memory usage goes up!
• When clicked on an item to view the whole story, it is usually slow to parse the page (SharpReader seems faster but I've been testing it for a day only)

It's still early to submit a judgment for SharpReader but it already annoys me not to be able to subscribe to a feed and immediately categorize it. Another early annoyance is the sort function which does not seem to work for categories...

Review: Desktop Search Programs Differ

Yahoo! News - Review: Desktop Search Programs Differ: " Google's ability to index Thunderbird e-mail"



There is a nice article above that reviews 3 desktop search engines.

MSN - Video Downloads

MSN - Video Downloads



This is a new service from Microsoft. Check it out at the above address.



How Do I Download Portable Video?

MSN Video Downloads does most of the work for you. All you have to do is sign up and you’ll start receiving daily downloads to your PC, ready to be transferred to your Windows Mobile™-based portable

device using Windows Media Player 10.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Download GMail to Outlook 2003

Download Outlook to 2003

Above link takes you to GMail Support page where they show you how you can download your gmail to Outlook 2003.

FireTune for FireFox

FileForum | FireTune



I stumpled upon an optimization tool for firefox 1.x My first impression is OK. It seems to make FF a little bit faster but as I have BB and dual 2.8 GHz PC with 1 Gig RAM, I guess I should not expect much...

United States of Electronica

USE - Emerald City



Check out this video from U.S.E., if you have broandband.

More on Wallop and Yahoo 360

I've been testing both systems now. Unfortunately Orkut was a bit disappointing as the servers are very unstable and I find myself reading it is down again and again.

Yahoo's 360 & Microsoft Wallop on the other hand seems quite stable. Yahoo is very new but I like the way they have integrated their IM to the service. It gives you 10s of invitations so I sent out a lot to my friends and they already started to sign up :)

Wallop is flash based and therefore has a very cool interface. I tend to right click now and then though :) I've found out how to delete a post (picture or music). Help does not really help as it does not have much information in it but Wallop team is very helpful and responding quickly to questions.

They keep on adding new feautures and fixing bugs one of which is about importing your RSS from another site. I learnt that they will fix it soon. One of my contacts in there told me to re-importing the next day is a workaround. I'll test and see.

In the meantime, blogger.com acts up time to time and I am still looking for a better blogging site. Both Wallop and 360 allow blogs but they do not have the bells and whistles...

Get Solaris 10 for Free

Get Solaris 10

You can download it from above URL. It's good thing that they allow CD or DVD images. I will get on one of my PCs soon and test to see what they are up to :)

[UPDATED ON 07/27/2005]

And here are some useful links (From Linda Wu):
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin
http://mediacast.sun.com/details.jsp?id=194