kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

I had only heard about the abysmal quality of the Idea Customer Care but on 8th I managed to experience it first hand. It so happened that I had finally discovered Nokia Maps and how to use it on my N73M and a friend’s N95. So on 8th, after my End Term Semester Exam of the day, Jitender (the friend), Myself and a few other friends (Varun and Manish) sat together to try out the Nokia Maps. So began the ordeal:

First, I tried installing Nokia Maps on Jitender’s laptop but it needed Microsoft .NET Framework 3. Hence couldn’t install it on the Laptop. Thus, I first downloaded .NET Framework 3, installed it, then installed Nokia Maps, and then downloaded the India Map and the English (UK) Language Files. Presto! Now Jitender could use the map of Delhi in quite a detail and search around for places. However, he couldn’t use the Navigation feature since, it needed GPS. Looking around the Nokia Maps web, I found that N95 comes with A-GPS which uses GPRS to co-ordinate GPS data with the satellite and is a very speedy process using very less data. Awed, started our quest to activate GPRS for Jitender’s phone which is an Idea Number.

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Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is now available for PC users to try, though Microsoft specifically says that the beta is targeted at Web Developers and Designers. I am neither, but I like to try new stuff when I can.

So IE8 is sleeker and smarter. I have used it for half an hour now and have faced no problem yet (but then I haven’t even thought of looking under the hood). What is new this time? Activities, WebSplices, Automatic Crash Recovery.

“Activities give users ready access to the online services they care about most from any page they visit, and developers gain an easy way to extend the reach of their online services. It’s as simple as selecting text to get started with an Activity.” (Microsoft.com)

“Developers can mark parts of webpages as “WebSlices” and enable users to monitor information they rely on as they move about the web. With a click in the Favorites bar, users see rich “WebSlice” visuals and developers establish a valuable, persistent end-user connection.” (Microsoft.com)

And just in case you don’t like the way IE8 works, you can shift back to IE7 ‘mode’ with the click of a button. IE8 features an ‘Emulate IE7′ mode with a nifty ‘7′ icon on the standard tool bar. Though I haven’t still faced a scenario where I would like to do that (chances are I’ll never face one either).

This time “Internet Explorer 8 includes built-in tools that work well for professionals as well as those trying CSS and scripting for the first time.” (Microsoft.com) These tools include a JavaScript Debugger, a utility to work with the DOM,  CSS 2.1 Support, Data URI, AJAX enhancements and more.

Automatic Crash Recovery will help you during your ever-so-frequent crash experiences with Microsoft Software (though I must agree that in the post-xpsp2 world I have faced these crashes rarely).

IE8 has even got one of those cool bookmarks toolbar that we are so used to in Firefox, Opera and all the other browsers. And needless to say, IE8 is the most reliable and secure IE-edition to date.

All in all IE8 looks good first hand, but yet it is Internet Explorer. Will I switch from Mozilla Firefox 2.1 to Windows Internet Explorer 8?

No. Will you?

Okay! I know this is old news! stale news! But I just stumbled Upon it. And I am not referring to the social bookmarking service.

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 is under production, and is supposed to be revealed in the April Issue of PC Gamer, in an exclusive. Now thats revelation! Find more details at theAngryPixel and some screen shots at PlanetCNC.

Why does the Tesla dude look like a Big Daddy? Or is that a custom-made tesla-protected Bathysphere??? looks like, I gotta wait until April to know. (Isn’t my humor getting sicker by the day?)

In the meanwhile, folks who are really wondering what is Command & Conquer (aka the un-initiated folks; in other words: folks living on a different planet) google a bit and dont forget to check IGN, GameSpy and of course, good ol’ Wikipedia ;)

I’ll help you though: Command & Conquer is the first true RTS Game, the one that spanned the genre (to be honest). Though this claim is a bit debatable (between Dune and C&C), yet it is the widely accepted fact. And Wikipedia Says:

“Command & Conquer (often abbreviated as C&C or CNC) is a video game franchise, mostly of the real-time strategy style as well two first-person shooter games based on the former. The Command & Conquer series was initially developed by Westwood Studios between 1995 and 2003, with development being taken over by Electronic Arts with the liquidation of Westwood Studios in 2003.

The first installment of the series was released world-wide on August 31, 1995 and was simply named Command & Conquer. The series is largely marketed for North American, European and Australasian audiences, though many of the games have been translated into other languages including German, French, Spanish, Korean and Chinese. The series is primarily developed for personal computers running Microsoft Windows, although some titles have been ported to various video game consoles and the Apple Macintosh. The latter games of the series starting with Tiberium Wars have also been developed in parallel for Xbox 360. The latest video game title of the franchise, Tiberium, is also being developed for PlayStation 3.” Read More.

Friday, January 11th, 2008. Afternoon.

Busy working on my website, suddenly all HTTP traffic on my Airtel Broadband Connection stopped. That is to say – I could download stuff from different protocols such as Bit Torrent and eMule, Chat on Messenegrs, even browse SSLed sites through the HTTPS protocol, but when it came to sites with the HTTP protocol (almost all of the web), Firefox said “Connection was reset”, while Internet Explorer said “Page cannot eb displayed”.

Flummoxed, I turned to my friends for help (through the messenger), to find a solution to the problem. Sexie, Sanjay and Dinku were prompt to rescue, followed by Ms Riti. By this time it was already 9PM and the only headway I had made was an assumption that somehow, something was blocking port 80 for my network connection (!!). (Note: This is how you get things wrong, for future reference) Since I had recently installed Windows Vista Updates, I started uninstalling them to undo any system changes they might have made. To no avail, offcourse.

And then I had the brilliant idea of migrating back to Windows XP, since I was facing many issues with my Vista Installation. So I commenced on the journey to revert from Vista to XP, which obviously meant I had to delete my system partition. After a long and agonising process where I jumped Vista > Ubuntu > Windows XP, I finally sat satisfied for I now ran Windows XP on my system and now was the magic moment to try and surf the net.

Bam! The realisation: All the pains taken in switching the OS were a waste. The problem persists. Repeat: The Problem Persists.

And now in the most blinding moments of illumination, I realised that the problem was at the backend. Something to do with the Airtel Connection and not my system.

Half crazy by anger, I called the Airtel Call Center, they walked me through – 5 minutes, problem solved. I stared blankly at my monitor, not believing the pains I had taken for such a simple problem.

So a post that was meant to abuse Microsoft for poor quality software ends with a self-lament of foolhardiness.

God Bless. Peace.

Since the day I upgraded my PC to a Windows Vista Ultimate PC few issues were always on with my system. During the installation of Vista itself, I faced my first Genuine® Windows Error Messages – one that I don’t remember now.

Anyhow, my Vista experience wasn’t bad. I enjoyed the migration to Vista more than my migration to Windows XP. And so it went on. In the past seven months, I installed a horde of softwares, tools, games, what else and what not; uninstalled the ones I didn’t use much or the ones that were there for hobbies sake everytime I ran short of HDD space. So that’s that. Somehow, a few problems became a fixture. These were:

1. Internet Explorer 7 used to crash the moment it was launched.
2. Nero 7 Trial never progressed after the “Ask Toolbar” selection.
3. I could not burn DVDs. No matter what tool I used, I would get some error.

To add to this, yesterday morning my Adobe CS3 Design Premium license failed. The software asked me to reinstall the product or contact my IT Administrator. Frustrated, I uninstalled my CS3 installation and attempted a reinstall on which I was requested by CS3 to insert the CS3 Media in the drive, which was already there. And now I was scared that I am in for some mighty trouble, involving a lot of my time.

Anyhow, it had to be solved.

So I started with my research, fired up FireFox did some Google search and came up with references of two tools – the MSI Installation Database Clean Up Utility (msiccu.exe) from Microsoft and the CS3Clean.exe utility from Adobe.

Installed the MSI clean up utility and ran it. Boy! I was amazed. So many applications I had already uninstalled were still listed there. I selected them all and uninstalled them. Next ran the CS3Clean.exe with the option 4 selected a couple of times and voila! my CS3 setup was good to go!

Spent 4 hrs in total and solved the CS3 issue. Also, my Internet Browser works wonders now (not that I use it, yet). I could not install Nero 7 but I have installed the Nero 8 Trial. Bah! I need moneh!

Somehow, I cant burn DVDs yet… No possible error – maybe its time to restart my system :D

Oops I almost forgot to do that. Sure, I should do it now. He He… But the MSICCU tool is recommended to every windows user… geez.. you’ll be shocked, if you’ve been using your system for a long time.

Also, my system is working far faster than it was working earlier…

And this is just In:

I volunteered for a responsibility at college and took the help of about 10 friends in the industry working in HR profiles to complete a document layout. Finally the college students utilizing the extra-ordinary “beliefs” of students from the senior batch and some 2-3 years work experience holding students from the junior batch have completely redrawn the aforementioned document. So much for having professionals with about 7-10 years of industry experience. What scares me is – I forced these people to compromise with their important business schedules to help me, now if they genuinely enquire about how their efforts have helped me, what do I tell them?

Anyhow, these are just my woes from a non-existent meritocracy, and there is no dearth of people cribbing against the system (like minded people :D).

Could you make out what the post heading was all about?

I need help.