Information Science and Technology News in One Place

NIKON'S NEW D90 HAS WOWED THE WORLD AS THE FIRST DIGITAL SLR

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:46:00 +0000

Nikon's new D90 has wowed the world as the first digital SLR that can record high definition videos.
Long hailed as the king of the mid-segment dSLR market, the D80 now has a successor worthy of its name,
the unimaginatively named and mathematically predictable Nikon D90. Making up for most of the current
hot features that D80 lacked, the D90 packs in new twist that promises to bowl the camera world over
with its significance and utility.
The feature on the D90 that got it the most attention isn't related to still photography at all. The
D90 is the first digital SLR on the planet with the ability to record movies, and it can do it in high
definition, no less.

None of that VGA (640 x 480 pixels) output that has been the standard for compact cameras for years now.
Nikon's gone straight for 720p HD (1280 x 729 pixels), record in AVI format t 24 frames per second, and
you can record all the way till you hit the 2GB file size limit.

When you compare them to the output from compact cameras, capturing a lot of detail and performing
brilliantly in low light conditions - that's down to the sensor really. And the real clincher - because
it's a dSLR, the awesome effects that the interchangeable lens system allow you to produce is now
available for video as well - snap on your favorite lens, and the D90 can work wonders in the right
hands.Quick Specs:
__________________

Effective pixels: 12.3 million
Image sensor: Nikon DX format (23.6 x 15.8 mm) CMOS sensor.
Image size: 4,288 x 2,848 [L], 3,216 x 2136 [M], 2,144 x 1,424 [S], D-movie: 1280 x 720fps, 640 x 424/27fps, 320 x 216/24fps
Sensitivity: 200 to 3200 (ISO equivalent) in steps of 1/3 EV, plus HI-0.3, HI-0.7 and HI-I (ISO 6400)
Storage media: SD memory card, SDHC compatible LCD monitor: 3.0", 920,000-dot low-temperature poly silicon TFT LCD
Exposure Metering System: 1) 3D-Color Matrix Metering II (type G and D lenses); Color Matrix Metering II (other CPU lenses) performed by 420-segmentRGB sensor, 2) Center-weighted: Weight of 75% given to 6, 8 or 10mm circle in center of frame, 3) Spot: Meters 3.5mm circle (approx. 2% of frame) centered on active focus area
Exposure Metering Range: (at normal temperature [68°F/20°C], ISO 100 equivalent, f/1.4 lens) 1) 0 to 20 EV (3D-Color Matrix or Center-weighted metering), 2) 2 to 20 EV (Spot metering)
Exposure Control: 1) Digital Vari-Program (Auto, Auto [Flash Off], Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Close Up, Night Portrait), 2) Programmed Auto [P], 3) Shutter-Priority Auto [S], 4) Aperture Priority Auto [A], 5) Manual [M]
Auto Exposure Bracketing: 2 to 3 exposures in increments of 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 1 or 2 steps to (+-) 1.0 EV
Interface: USB 2.0 (High-speed): Mass Storage and MTP/PTP selectable, GP-1 (GPS Unit)
Power Requirements: Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL3e, AC Adapter EH-5a (optional)
Battery Life (on a fully charged battery): Approx 1,000 shots
Dimension (W x H x D): Approx 132 x 103 x 77 mm
Weight (without battery, memory card or body cap): Approx. 620g
Price: INR.69,950 (body only, kit lens extra) plus taxes
URL: http://nikon.co.in/productitem.php?pid=1281-86d7b52026

It's clear that the D90 is a milestone in digital camera innovation. The image quality is excellent,
the viewfinder and the LCD screen best in class. The D90 has taken over that mantle, and video or no
video, the core still photography features are fantastic and make the D90 a great platform for any
amateur photographer, possibly even the best in its price segment.

SATYAM LIE, BIGGEST CORPORATE FRAUD IN INDIA

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:31:00 +0000

Corporate chieftain B. Ramalinga raju stunned investors, clients and regulators with the revelation that he had padded profits and cooked up bank balance at Satyam Computer Services for years -a and then promptly resigned from his position as chairman. In his own words: "It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get of without being eaten".

What did Ramalinga Raju do?

Cooked the books of the company; inflated revenues and profits for several years.
Inflated cash and bank balances by Rs. 5040 crore.
Claimed interest of Rs. 376 crore on a non-existent investment.
Raised Rs.1230 crore(mostly by pledging his shares to lenders) and understanding the liability of the company to that extent.
Overstated how much clients owed Satyam by Rs.490 crore.
The fraudulent entries add up to 7136 crore.

Why did he confess?

He had created fake accounts and assests. The gap between the fake accounts and the real one was expanding too quickly.
As his stake fell in the company, he realised the company was going to beome a takeover target.This would create problems: when a buyer went through his books he would find the fake assests.

How did he get away for so long?

Auditors Pricewaterhouse Coopers did not scrutinise the accounts vigorously.
Independent directors on the board didn't grill the management.
Institutional shareholders didn't complain as long as the market was booming and the returns were good.
Claims to haave kept his own executives in the dark.

How did the scam unravel?

Fictitious ccounting meant that there was a big holes in the balancesheet.
The company had fake assests on its books; Rju wanted to replace this with real assests. he got the board to clear the buyout of wo entities - Raju-owned Maytas Infrastructure and Maytas Properties - for $1.6 billion.
Satyam shareholders revolted, thinking that raju was looking to bail out debt-laden Maytas entities. Nobody sensed it was the other way round.
Four directors quit suitors circled the company.
Raju realised that he couldn't keep up the sham if potential buyers scrutinised his books.

If there is any truth in those revealed figures, Satyam would have reported a quarterly loss of Rs. 74 crore - probably the first by an Infotech major in India.

TECHNOLOGIES TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2009 - part 2

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Processors

A lot is happening in the field of processors as always, since this is undoubtedly the single most important field as far as computing is concerned. We shall tell you separately about what you can expect from Intel and AMD.
Intel processors

Intel Processors

Intel launched their latest Core i7 processors near the end of 2008. Formerly codenamed Nehalem, these are aimed at high-performance servers, and you can expect desktops and laptop versions coming out in the second half of 2009. Heralded as the biggest architectural advance Intel has made since the Pentium 4 in 2000, the architecture is scalable from two to eight cores. It makes use of HyperThreading technology, which makes its appearance for the first time after we saw it on desktop processors with the NetBurst architecture a few years ago. It is currently only in some Pentium and Xeon processors, allowing two threads per core.Along with energy efficiency, you also get better performance per clock speed and also a Turbo mode for an improved sleep facility. Cores not in use can be completely shut down, and they consume absolutely no power in this mode unlike its predecessors. To provide additional performance for applications not supporting multithreading, Core i7 boosts the clock speeds of the remaining cores while keeping the chip within its design power consumption limits.
According to the Intel's "tick tock" model, since the Nehalem is a "tock", 2009 will be a "tick", meaning that a new fabrication process will be used. We had seen at the Fall IDF 2007 that they had showcased the Tukwila wafer based on 32 nm fabrication process and it is this process which will be introduced for desktop processors this year.

AMD processors

Unlike Intel, AMD has still kept its plans for 2009 under wraps and have only stated that a transition to 45nm technology is on the cards making them one generation behind Intel. It is known that AMD will bring out six-core processors to join its triple-core and quad-core Phenom parts. Unlike Intel, they still refuse to go along rating and promoting processors according to clock speeds. We can only hope that they have something up their sleeve; otherwise it will be yet another eventless year for them.

Graphics

3D graphics cards have been rendering three dimensional graphics on the monitor, giving you a depth of perception. But 2009 will see a true out-of-the-screen 3D graphics in which you can experience games in three dimensions like you did while watching 3D movies.

There are many display technologies that can achieve this, but the one we are talking about is the Stereo 3D technology being promoted by Nvidia that will use special polarizing glasses to achieve the 3D effect.
Nvidia had launched PhysX in 2008 but there wasn't much happening about it last year. This year though, you will see many games embracing this version of physics algorithms done on certain GPUs of Nvidia. The first games to use PhysX as an integral part of game play will probably be launched during the second half of 2009. They will provide a greater level of reality in areas such as explosions, smoke and fog. The characters will have complex, jointed geometries for movements that will be more lifelike.
Intel is also expected to do something about its new GPU codenamed Larrabee in either the later part of 2009 or in the first part of 2010. Not much is known about how well it will perform in comparison with the already established ones from Nvidia and ATI. All that is known at this point in time is that the Larrabee has multiple cores and we will know the rest only after Intel is a bit more forthcoming about it.

TECHNOLOGIES TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2009 - part 1

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:06:00 +0000

Goodbye 2008 and welcome 2009! The past year has seen a slew of products being launched and new technology replacing the old. The New Year too promises us better technology for faster and more efficient functioning. We think this is the right time to get you started with what upcoming technologies you can expect this year. We shall cover a few areas which we think will be important and will make a difference in most people's lives. So buckle up as we take you for a quick tour.

Windows 7 :

Windows Vista has been a failure and that is no secret. But Microsoft has been working on its successor since the past few years. Slated to be released in 2009, the new operating system known as Windows 7, will try to succeed where its predecessor failed, or at least that is what the plan is. If we go by the beta versions, and if that is any indication of what the final thing would be like, then we see light at the end of the tunnel.

While it looks a lot like Vista, at least cosmetically, Windows 7 has certain things that will delight you. It will support native reading and writing Blu-ray discs. A new platform for interacting with removable devices - Device Stage will be featured. It will have support for Virtual Hard Drive images and have improved backup and restore mechanisms. Seamless audio transfers to Bluetooth 2.1 audio devices will be there. Since Microsoft no longer talks about DirectX 10.1, this will come with DirectX 11 and have improved tessellation, shading, and multithreaded rendering support. Speeds and accuracy of pen input devices will be much better.

There will be inbuilt support for many GPS positioning sensors, so you may probably roam around with your ultraportable lappy with GPS and get to know where you are heading to using Google Earth. Remote computing is another area where there will be improvement, thanks to DirectAccess tool, which will let you access your Windows 7 desktop from anywhere in the world. Those who have used Vista will probably agree that the UAC has proved to be a nightmare at times. Windows 7 will have UAC with simpler, clearer and fewer messages. In addition to a few additional accessibility tools, the bootup and shutdown times will be much faster.

Monitors :

There are going to be a lot of changes in the display technology and if you are about to buy an LCD monitor, we suggest you hang on a bit. We are already seeing LCD monitors moving from 16:10 aspect ratio to 16:9, which is the proper wide-screen ratio accepted by motion pictures. There are only a few such monitors available today, but 2009 will see them completely occupy the market and the new aspect ratio will result in monitors with weird sizes such as 15.6, 18.5, or 21.6 inches. As their prices drop, bigger LCDs with better viewing angles, higher resolution, faster response times (as low as 2 ms) and high contrast ratios due to technical enhancements will become the norm.

As an example of how new technology can improve displays, Viewsonic had demonstrated a 22-inch monitor at NVISION 08 earlier in 2008 and this featured a 120 Hz desktop with a 3 ms response time that makes motion artifacts and ghosting, a thing of the past.

LCDs and TVs with inbuilt digital media players will also start coming into the market this year. You will therefore not need to boot up your computer to watch your favorite movie or listen to your favorite track. All you need to do is simply copy it to your USB drive, plug it in the monitor's USB port and watch it on the monitor, which will play it.

The 22-inch AOC 2230Fm is one such monitor.

Multi-touch has been seen to appeal a lot to people and though there are no concrete plans to introduce any of these in the form of PC monitors, things may change suddenly, because Windows 7 has support for multi-touch and it is going to launch this year. There are other technologies such as OLED, LED and 3D display, but we do not expect to see them come into the market, or at least the Indian market, this year.

EXTRA SECOND (LEAP SECOND) ADDED TO 2008

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:41:00 +0000

Those eager to put 2008 behind them will have to hold their good-byes for just a moment this New Year's Eve.

The world's official timekeepers have added a "leap second" to the last day of the year on Wednesday, to help match clocks to the Earth's slowing spin on its axis, which takes place at ever-changing rates affected by tides and other factors.

The U.S. Naval Observatory, keeper of the Pentagon's master clock, said it would add the extra second on Wednesday in coordination with the world's atomic clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC.

That corresponds to 6:59:59 p.m. EST (23:59:59 GMT), when an extra second will tick by -- the 24th to be added to UTC since 1972, when the practice began.

UTC is the time scale kept by highly precise atomic clocks around the world, accurate to about a billionth of a second per day, the Naval Observatory says. For those with a need for precision timing, it has replaced Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT.

The decision to add or remove a second is the responsibility of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, based on its monitoring of the Earth's rotation.

The goal is to make sure clocks vary from the Earth's rotational time by no more than 0.9 seconds before an adjustment. That keeps UTC in sync with the position of the sun above the Earth.

Mechanisms such as the Internet-based Network Time Protocol and the satellite-based Global Positioning System depend on precision timing.

The first leap second was introduced into UTC on June 30, 1972. The last was added on December 31, 2005.

They have been added at intervals ranging from six months to seven years, Daniel Gambis, head of the IERS Earth Orientation Center at the Observatoire de Paris, wrote in an explanatory piece this month (http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/).

Among the reasons for Earth's slowing whirl on its axis are the braking action of tides, snow or the lack of it at the polar ice caps, solar wind, space dust and magnetic storms, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology, another timekeeper.

By contrast, a leap day, February 29, occurs once every four years because a complete turn around the sun -- our year with all its seasons -- takes about 365 days and six hours.

In 1970, an international agreement established two time scales: one based on the Earth's rotation and another on highly accurate atomic clocks.

The U.S. Naval Observatory's master clock is based on a system that now includes 50 atomic clocks, 36 based on the element cesium and 14 known as hydrogen masers.

With the Earth's rotation gradually slowing, the periodic insertion of a leap second into the atomic time scale is needed to keep the two systems within a second of each other.

SATYAM SAGA SHOWS HOLES IN INDIA CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Just three months ago, India's fourth-largest software services exporter, Satyam Computer Services received a Golden Peacock award from a group of Indian directors for excellence in corporate governance.

Now its board is in turmoil and its shares have plunged after a botched attempt to buy two infrastructure firms in which management held stakes, sparking concerns about conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency.

Analysts say the saga exposes serious shortfalls in corporate India that must be addressed to ensure its credibility in an increasingly globalised and competitive world.

Four independent directors have resigned from the board of Satyam since the scandal erupted. But that does not fix the problem, said Premchand Palety, director of the Centre for Forecasting and Research in Delhi.

"Independent directors are supposed to be the watchdogs, the ones responsible for safeguarding the interests of minority shareholders. They clearly failed in their duty," he said.

Satyam says it adhered to corporate governance rules, appointing the requisite number of independent directors with excellent credentials, including the dean of a top business school in its hometown of Hyderabad and a professor at Harvard business school.

But there are concerns that some directors may be too close to Satyam's chairman to be considered truly independent, and all of them failed to ask tough questions about the now controversial infrastructure deals, Palety said.

"If Satyam's board was convinced about the merits of acquiring (the two firms), then good corporate governance demanded that it should have taken into confidence at least the major institutional shareholders," he said.

Even though the company aborted the plan, the damage was done: New York-listed Satyam's shares have plunged by a third since it first announced plans to acquire two sister firms for $1.6 billion and then abandoned the deal two weeks ago.

Satyam's board will meet on Jan 10 to consider more options to improve shareholder value and corporate governance.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DUAL CORE AND CORE 2 DUO

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:30:00 +0000

The Core 2 Duo is Intel's second generation (Hence, Core 2) processor made for desktops and laptops designed from the ground up to be fast while not consuming nearly as much power as previous CPUs, Dual core is simply a generic term referring to any processor package with two physical CPUs in one.

Dual core and Core2 Duo both use 2 cores to process instructions..... good.... ok... but what's the difference then...

Well... the main difference is in the cache memory they use.....
The Dual Core processors use single cache shared between the 2 cores... plus, the size of this cache memory is usually less as compared to Core2 Duo ones (typically in size of 128 KB to around 512 Kb or 1 MB)......

On the other side Core 2 Duo processors also use 2 cores but they have dedicated cache memory assigned to each of the core. so in effect there are two cache memories (note - in case if you don't know what exactly cache memory is - its a static memory - Static RAM - which is costly - and charged per KB size - because they are embedded into your processors.... and your processor stores instruction set into these cores and also info of frequently accessed memory locations so that it doesn't need to go to your main memory - RAM - on motherboard - every time and search indexes to get these locations. The result is - your access time is greatly reduced.. ok.. enough of info... lets get back to main topic)... so, the more cache your processor has got, the more costly will it be and more info can it store and faster will it become.... coming back to Core 2 Duo processors.... the cache size is typically 1 MB to up to 4 / 6 / 8 /12 Mb of size. so if a core 2 duo processor config states 4 Mb of cache, then effectively your 2 cores will use 2 Mb each... now you can make out the difference in speed between a dual core using 512 cache and a Core 2 Duo using 4 Mb of cache... and the same reason why core 2 duo processors are costly and more faster (about 40 %) than the dual core ones...

Finally... to summarize, dual core procs (less cache size and that too shared cache between two cores) are strip in version of Core 2 Duo procs (more cache size and independant cache between each of the two cores), which make Core 2 Duo procs costlier and faster than Dual Core procs... so the winner is Core 2 Duo (and its comes with a price...)

PAK HACKER ATTACKS E RLYS SITE, THREATENS CYBER WAR ON INDIA

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:28:00 +0000

In the first instance of cyber attack on Indian government websites, the attack on Eastern Railways site on Wednesday popped open vulnerability of government websites in the country.

While Eastern Railway took almost two and half hours to restore the site to normalcy, visitors to the site continued to be attacked by Trojan virus. ER officials could only primarily trace the roots to Toronto in Canada after repeated top-brass meetings all through the day.

As spotted by FE in the morning, the official site of the Eastern Railway-www.eastern railway.gov.inÂ—was hacked on Wednesday. When opened, the scroll on the siteÂ— which normally consists of official announcementsÂ—had unusual notes. The first note read: "Cyber war has been declared on Indian cyberspace by Whackerz- Pakistan (24 Dec-2008)." This was followed by two other notes: "Indians hit hard by Zaid Hamid" and "We are f**ked up Indians. You are hacked."

When clicked, the scroll opened into a new window which claimed that 'Mianwalian of Whackerz" has hacked the site in response to the air violation of Pakistan. It also claimed that it will continue to hack more Indian military and government sites. The threat note also claimed that servers of Indian financial institutions will also be hacked with the help of the group's members working in computer departments of "foreign companies". Data belonging to "Indian nationals (only Hindus)" will be destroyed eventually, it added.

Another threat note asked the visitors of the website to watch the real Indian conspiracy in Mumbai attacks on the website-www.brasstacks.pk. Brasstacks claims to be "a unique Pakistani think tank devoted to the study of regional and global political events and their implications for Pakistan's security and interests." The note ended with the slogan "Long live Pakistan".

The third note, which showed the hackers' apathy towards India, Israel and USA, challenged Indians to save their 'motherland' from turning into pieces.

When contacted, ER officials seemed unaware of the entire incident and the site remained as it is for almost an hour, till 11.40am, after which ER blocked it. The website resumed to normalcy after 12, when the threat notes in the scroll as well as in the news and events section were removed.

"Our sites have cyber security certificate from US-based Thawte," said an ER official. "We have informed the service provider and will get a detailed response from them only after 24 hours," he added.

According to a cyber security expert, similar attacks can be done through SQL injection method. In case of a SQL injection attack, webpages with active content like feedback forms are used. Attackers can write malicious commands in the forms through a rich text format and get control over the database of the target site.

VOLVO TO UNVEIL WORLD'S FIRST ACCIDENT-PROOF CAR NEXT MONTH

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:06:00 +0000

Car giant Volvo is set to unveil its first ever "accident-proof car", which will drive itself in traffic by using radar to control the distance.

The Swedish manufacturer will unveil Volvo S60 with automatic brakes at the next month's Detroit motor show. It will go on the market in 2010.

"This technology helps us take an important step towards our long-term vision of designing cars that should not crash," the Telegraph quoted Thomas Broberg, the company's safety specialist as saying.

"Our aim for 2020 is that no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car," he added.

The car can stop itself upon sensing that a collision is about to happen either a car or a pedestrian, even when travelling at low speeds.

It will feature a sophisticated cruise control system designed to automatically maintain a safe distance from the car in front.

It works with the help of a radar unit fitted in the car's grille, which not only detects what is in front of the vehicle, but how fast it is moving.

When the car believes that there is an imminent threat of a collision, a light flashes on a windscreen display in front of the driver at the same time along with an audible warning, the brakes are applied automatically.

Places :: Fact

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:23:00 +0000

Buckingham Palace has over six hundred rooms.
Central Park located in New York has 125 drinking fountains.
Cimeti?re du P?re Lachaise located in Paris is the most visited cemetery in the world. The cemetery opened in 1805 and has over one million people buried there, including rock star Jim Morrison.
Every year, an igloo hotel is built in Sweden that has the capacity to sleep 100 people.
Frank Wathernam was the last prisoner to leave Alcatraz prison on March 21, 1963.
From 1939 to 1942, there was a undersea post office in the Bahamas.
Hawaii's Mount Waialeale is the wettest place in the world - it rains throughout the year and about 460 inches per annum.
Ho-Ho-Kus, a small town in New Jersey, is the only town in the United States of America that has two dashes in its name.
Honolulu, Hawaii boasts the only royal palace in the United States of America.
In 1785, the city of Paris removed bones from cemeteries to ease the overflow of dead people. They took these bones and stacked them in tunnels now known as the Catacombs. You can visit these tunnel attractions and work your way along long corridors, which are stacked with skulls and bones.
In Czechoslovakia, there is a church that has a chandelier made out of human bones.
In Las Vegas, casinos do not have any clocks.
In Las Vegas, the busiest and two most popular days chosen for couples to get married are St. Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve.
Levan, which is located in Utah, got its name from "navel" which is levan spelt backwards. It was named this because it is in the center of Utah.
One of the steepest main streets in Canada is located in Saint John, New Brunswick. Over a distance of two blocks the street rises about 80 feet.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge which was located in Washington was nicknamed "Galloping Gertie" because of the unusual way it twisted and swayed with even with the slightest winds when people would drive on it. The bridge collapsed on November 7, 1940, fortunately no humans died, except for a dog.
The American Airlines Center in Dallas has more toilets per capita than any other sports and entertainment venue in the country
The Golden Gate Bridge was first opened in 1937.
The Great Wall stretches for about 4,500 miles across North China.
The Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923. It was first erected as "Hollywoodland."
The Library of Congress, located in Washington D.C., is the largest library in the world.
The Mall of America, located in Bloomington, Minnesota is so big that it can hold 24,336 school buses.
The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum which is located in Wisconsin has the biggest collection of prepared mustards. They have approximately 4,000 different jars and tubes from all over the world.
The North of Scotland's oldest inhabited castle is Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye.
The Sears Tower consists of nine framed tubes, which connects nine skyscrapers as one building.
The Sears Tower in Chicago contains enough steel to build 50,000 automobiles.
The Sears Tower located in Chicago, Illinois is made up 76,000 tons of steel.
The average stay for a prisoner on Alcatraz, when it was used as a prison, was five years.
The city of Chicago has the only post office in the world where you can drive your car through.
The deepest cave in the world is the "Lamprechtsofen- Vogelshacht" cave which can be found in Salzburg, Austria. The cave is 5,354 feet deep.
The first ice hotel was built in Swedish Lapland.
The largest ketchup bottle in the world is a 170 feet tall and is located in Collinsville, Illinois, USA. It was built in 1949 by the W.E. Caldwell Company as a water tower.
The largest school in the world is City Montessori School in India and has over 25,000 students in grade levels ranging from kindergarten to college.
The largest wedding chapel in Las Vegas is the Viva Las Vegas Chapel, which can seat 100 people.
The most famous movie theatre is the "Chinese Theatre" located in Los Angeles, USA.
The most popular vacation destinations for Americans in 1956 was Niagara Falls.
The names of the two stone lions in front of the New York Public Library are Patience and Fortitude. They were named by then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
The oldest inhabited house in Scotland is the Traquair Castle. The castle has had 27 kings as visitors.
The only flying saucer launch pad in the world is located in St. Paul, Alberta, Canada.
The steepest street in the world is Baldwin Street located in Dunedin, New Zealand. It has an incline of 38%.
The tallest freestanding sculpture in the world is Chief Crazy Horse in South Dakota, USA.
The term "the Big Apple" came into common usage in the 1930s when touring jazz musicians referred to a town or city as an apple, making New York the Big Apple.
The world's largest bullfighting ring is in Mexico City. The "Plaza de Toros" opened in 1946 and has a seating capacity of about fifty thousand people.
The world's only museum of Phallology is in Reykjavik, Iceland. Phallology is the the science of the penis.
The world's tallest roller coaster is located in England and reaches a peak height of 72 meters.
The worlds tallest free fall rollercoaster is The Giant Drop located in Australia. The drops is 120 meters which is equivalent to a 39 storey building.
There are places in Saskatchewan called Elbow, Eyebrow, and Drinkwater.
There is enough concrete in the Hoover Dam to pave a two lane highway from San Francisco to New York.
There was a post office on the Russian space station Mir. Visiting cosmonauts would use unique postal "markers" to stamp envelopes and other items as having flown aboard the Mir space station.
Tomatina is the legendary Spanish tomato-throwing festival held in Bunol, Spain.

10 Technologies That Will Transform Your Life

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:45:00 +0000

1) Digital Libraries

Having total connectivity is pointless if all you get is the latest gossip about Paris Hilton. But the digitization of mankind's accumulated works proceeds apace. All of MIT's courses are now online, for instance, and, if you haven't done so, check out Google Book Search. The time will come when any straightforward factual question can be answered immediately, online. But, alas, those are always the easy questions.

2) Gene Therapy and/or Stem Cells

A lot of maladies actually involve inherited conditions–they're in your genes, in other words. But scientists are working to change those genes and trick defective cells into growing correctly. Perhaps, someday, birth defects will be as treatable as pneumonia.

3) Pervasive Wireless Internet

WiMAX, 3G, 4G, etc., all point to a pervasive wireless Internet, where being on-line everywhere, all the time, will be routine. That implies the possibility of full connectivity between any two random devices. Want to check your burglar alarm from your cell phone? It'll be easy. Unjacking to get away and relax, however, may not be so easy.

4) Mobile Robots

The recent DARPA challenge (where robot cars navigated through suburban traffic) hints at what might come. Why drive to the deli to pick up your order when you can just send your car? We may see convoys of robot trucks on the highways. Admittedly, they'll probably have more initial acceptance in warehouses, handling pick-and-pull chores.

5) Better, Cheaper Solar Cells

The cost of photovoltaic cells (that turn sunlight into electricity) are coming down. In less than ten years the cost of solar energy could be at parity with the cost of electricity from the grid, and solar cells could be standard features in new residential construction. Your house could power itself about a third of the time. (Science can't do much about night and bad weather.)

6) Location-Based Computing

Instead of clicking an icon on a browser screen, you can walk outside, point your cell phone at an actual three-dimensional thing (presumably, a building that houses a business), click the phone, and get information about (or jump to the Web site of) whatever you were pointing at. As well as servers with Internet address, there will be servers with geographic coordinates.

7) Desktop 3-D Printing

Instead of going to the store for your next gadget, you might download a design of your choosing and generate it in your desktop 3-D printer. The next step will be to design your own gadgets, post the designs, and sell them, etc. Toys, kitchenware, and decorative household items should be fair game, at least. Cottage industry, here we come!

8) Moore's Law Upheld

The law, stated by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore in 1965, implies that available computer power can be expected to double every other year. For at least two decades pundits have been pointing out barriers to the law's fulfillment, and the chip industry has been smashing those barriers. Currently they can't agree if the law has a couple of more decades of life left, or 600 years. Either way, in terms of available computing power, it's clear that we ain't seen nothing yet.

9) Therapeutic Cloning

Forget the stories about generating identical copies of a particular sheep or person. The whole idea behind cloning all along has been to grow replacement organs or tissue in a vat, which the body would see no reason to reject. Cancerous or damaged organs could be replaced by new, disease-free clones of themselves.

10) The Hydrogen Economy

Instead of guzzling imported oil (and being at the mercy of oil suppliers) we could turn water into hydrogen and burn that (or use to charge fuel cells.) Meanwhile, the only byproduct of the combustion of hydrogen is ... more water! However, hydrogen storage remains a thorny issue, due to its low density, and hydrogen may end up being only one of many interlocking components that replace the current oil economy.

- referenced from http://www.livescience.com

AMAZING FACTS (HEALTH AND BODY)

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:59:00 +0000

* A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for approximately sixty-nine years.
* 1 out of every 4 kids in the USA is overweight.
* 41% of women apply body or hand moisturizer a minimum three times a day.
* 75-90% of primary physician visits are due to stress.
* A Russian man who wore a beard during the time of Peter the Great had to pay a special tax.
* A blink lasts approximately 0.3 seconds.
* A ear trumpet was used before the hearing aid was invented by people who had difficulty hearing.
* A fetus develops fingerprints at eighteen weeks.
* A fetus starts to develop fingerprints at the age of eight weeks.
* A fetus that is four months old, will becomes startled and turn away if a light is flashed on the mother's stomach.
* A headache and inflammatory pain can be reduced by eating 20 tart cherries.
* A human embryo is smaller than a grain of rice at four weeks old.
* A kiss for one minute can burn 26.
* A little under one quarter of the people in the world are vegetarians.
* A person infected with the SARS virus, has a 95-98% chance of recovery.
* A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day will on average lose two teeth every ten years.
* A person will burn 7 percent more calories if they walk on hard dirt compared to pavement.
* A sneeze can travel as fast as one hundred miles per hour.
* A study concludes that kids who snore do poorly in school.
* A study indicates that smokers are likely to die on average six and a half years earlier than non-smokers.
* A women from Berlin Germany has had 3,110 gallstones taken out of her gall bladder.
* A world record 328 pound ovarian cyst was removed from a woman in Galveston, Texas, in 1905.
* A yawn usually lasts for approximately six seconds.
* About twenty-five percent of the population sneeze when they are exposed to light.
* According to the American Institute of Stress, job stress approximately costs the U.S. industry over $300 billion dollars per year.
* After twenty-seven years, Betty Rubble made her debut as a Flintstones Vitamin in 1996.
* Air is passed through the nose at a speed of 100 miles per hour when a person sneezes.
* Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were both epileptic.
* An adult esophagus can range from 10 to 14 inches in length and is one inch in diameter.
* An average adult produces about half a litre of flatulent gas per day, resulting in an average of about fourteen occurrences of flatulence a day.
* Approximately 1-2 calorie are burned a minute while watching T.V.
* Approximately 25,000 workers died during the building of the Panama Canal and approximately 20,000 of them contracted malaria and yellow fever.
* Asthma affects one in fifteen children under the age of eighteen.
* At least 7% of all health care costs in the United States are attributed to smoking.
* At one time it was thought that the heart controlled a person's emotions, Babies that are exposed to cats and dogs in their first year of life have a lower chance of developing allergies when they grow older.
* Babies' eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately six to eight weeks old.
* Being lactose intolerant can cause chronic flatulence.
* Between 12%-15% of the population is left-handed.
* Between 1997-2002, there was an increase of 228% in cosmetic procedures in the United States.
* Bile produced by the liver is responsible for making your feces a brownish, green colour.
* Brain damage will only occur if a fever goes above 107.6 degrees farenheit.
* By walking an extra 20 minutes every day, an average person will burn off seven pounds of body fat in an year.
* Carbon monoxide can kill a person in less than 15 minutes.
* Children grow faster in the springtime than any other season during the year.

Microsoft Reveals What Windows Vista SP1 Offers

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 07:36:00 +0000

With the first release candidate of Windows Vista SP1 just a few days away, Microsoft is now finally opening up and revealing what can be expected in the first service pack to Microsoft’s flagship operating system, Windows Vista.

Simply put, Windows Vista SP1 will add tons of added hardware compatibility, loads of compatibility, better system reliability, and Ofcourse better performance and better energy saving for laptops etc.. The standalone installer will come in at about 450MB, but if you were to download Service Pack 1 through Windows Update, it would take only about 65MB. The reason is quite obvious enough, you might have already downloaded many of the hotfixes, security updates and other features that are included in Service Pack 1.

Well here are the few features in SP1 that make me get really excited, and should probably get you excited too…

Adds support for Direct3D® 10.1, an update to Direct3D 10 that extends the API to support new hardware features.
SP1 addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.
Adds support for exFAT, a new file system supporting larger overall capacity and larger files, which will be used in Flash memory storage and consumer devices.
Enhances support for high density drives by adding new icons and labels that will identify HD-DVD and Blu-ray Drives as high density drives.
Improves power consumption and battery life.
Improves the speed of adding and extracting files to and from a compressed (zipped) folder.
Improves the speed of copying files, folders, and other media.
Improves startup and resume times when using ReadyBoost.
Users can control which volumes the disk defragmenter runs on.

Lock Your Drives and Folders Using Registry Tweaks

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 07:02:00 +0000

There are plenty of software which locks drives and folder to protect your confidential data. Why waste money on such tools when you can do it with a simple registry tweak? Here’s how:

Caution: Before you attempt these tweaks, please make sure that you have a backup of your registry, just incase something goes wrong in the middle.

Locking Folders:

Consider you want to lock a folder named XXXX in your E:\, whose path is E:\XXXX.
Now open the Notepad and type the following

ren xxxx xxxx.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Where xxxx is your folder name. Save the text file as loc.bat in the same drive.
Open another new notepad text file and type the following

ren xxxx.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} xxxx

Save the text file as key.bat in the same drive.

Steps to lock the folder:

To lock the xxxx folder, simply click the loc.bat and it will transform into control panel icon which is inaccessible.
To unlock the folder click the key.bat file. Thus the folder will be unlocked and the contents are accessible.

Locking Drives:

We don’t usually prefer to lock our drives, but sometimes it becomes nesscary. Say for instance you might have stored your office documents in D:\ and you don’t want your kids to access it, in such case this technique can be useful for you. Please don’t try this tweak with your root drive (usually C:\ is the root drive) since root drives are not intended to be locked because they are mandatory for the system and application programs.

Start & Run and type Regedit to open Registry editor
Browse HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer
Create a new DWORD value NoViewOnDrive and set its value as

2^ (Alpha Number of Drive Letter-1) where Alpha number are simple counting of alphabets from A to Z as 1 - 26

For example: to lock C:\, Alpha number of C is 3 so 2^ (3-1) = 4 (decimal value)

To lock more drives, calculate the value of each drive and then set sum of those numbers as value
To unlock your drive just delete the key from the registry.

UNKNOWNS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:04:00 +0000

Leonardo da Vinci is best remembered as the painter of the Mona Lisa (1503-1506) and The Last Supper (1495). But he's almost equally famous for his astonishing multiplicity of talents: he dabbled in architecture, sculpture, engineering, geology, hydraulics and the military arts, all with success, and in his spare time doodled parachutes and flying machines that resembled inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries. He made detailed drawings of human anatomy which are still highly regarded today. Leonardo also was quirky enough to write notebook entries in mirror (backwards) script, a trick which kept many of his observations from being widely known until decades after his death.

Birth name- Leonardo di Ser Piero

Born- April 15, 1452(1452-04-15) Vinci, Florence, in present-day Italy

Died- May 2, 1519 (aged 67)Amboise, Indre-et-Loire, in present-day France

Nationality- Tuscan, Italian

Field- Many and diverse fields of arts and sciences

Movement- High Renaissance

Famous works- Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Vitruvian Man

It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.[b] Nevertheless these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime,but some of his smaller inventions such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

Virgin and Child with St Anne, return None of Leonardo's paintings are signed. Certain works still in existence are cited by Vasari or are referred to in contracts. All notes in this section are drawn from the analysis of opinions of various scholars by Angela Ottino della Chiesa.

Entirely by Leonardo -

The Last Supper (1498)—Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy
Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503–1505/1507)—Louvre, Paris, France
Adoration of the Magi unfinished painting (1481)—Uffizi, Florence, Italy
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (c. 1510)—Louvre, Paris, France
Virgin of the Rocks, Louvre, Paris, considered by most historians to be the earlier of two versions and to therefore date from 1483–1486.
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist large drawing (c. 1499–1500)—National Gallery, London, UK.
St. Jerome in the Wilderness, (c.1480), Vatican, unfinished painting.

The Baptism of Christ (1472–1475)—Uffizi, by Verrocchio and Leonardo

Leonardo with other hands -

The Baptism of Christ (1472–1475)—Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Cited by Vasari as by Verrocchio, with the angel on the left-hand side by Leonardo.[8] It is generally considered that Leonardo also painted the background landscape and the torso of Christ. One of Leornardo's earliest extant works.[x]
Virgin of the Rocks, National Gallery, London, generally accepted as postdating the version in the Louvre, possibly 1505–1508, with collaboration of de Predis and perhaps others.[y]

Virgin of the Rocks, National Gallery, London, possibly 1505–

1508, demonstrates Leonardo's interest in nature.

Extra credit: Leonardo da Vinci means "Leonardo from the town of Vinci," and thus he is generally referred to in short as "Leonardo" rather than as "da Vinci"... He received a fresh burst of public interest in 2003 with the publication of The Da Vinci Code, the bestselling thriller by author Dan Brown.

CLIMATE SAVERS COMPUTING INITIATIVE

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:45:00 +0000

Started by Google and Intel, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative brings together industry, consumers,government, and conservation organizations to significantly increase the energy efficiency of computers and servers. Believe it or not, the average desktop PC wastes over half the power delivered to it! Servers are slightly more efficient but still squander about one-third of the power consumed. This wasted electricity unnecessarily increases the cost to power computers and also increases the emissions of greenhouse gases. Improving the energy efficiency of computers is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce electricity consumption and the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

Through more efficient design optimized for power consumption alongside speed, capacity and cost, together with use of power-saving technologies, the electricity required to power computers can be significantly reduced while at the same time increasing their computing capabilities. As participants in this program, computer and component manufacturers commit to produce products that meet specified power-efficiency targets, and corporate participants commit to purchase power-efficient computing products. In addition, the Initiative will educate consumers and IT personnel about power management of computers and show individuals how they can reduce the electrical footprint of their computers without any resulting loss of productivity.

Increased deployment of high-efficiency systems combined with education and power management technologies will save money, reduce energy consumption, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2010, the focused effort of technology providers and committed participants will lead to about a 50% reduction in annual power consumption by computers, and committed participants in the Initiative could collectively save $5.5 billion in energy costs.

LATEST INVENTION IN COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:36:00 +0000

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CONTACTLESS DATA INPUT IN COMPUTER :-

FIELD: computer engineering and computer control.

SUBSTANCE: proposed method that provides for persons of limited capabilities to communicate with aid of written speech and also for teaching by concurrent operation with teacher using same computer screen includes generation of cursor position on screen control signal by turning head toward desired direction of displacement; in the process displacement speed is set to be proportional to spatial head turn angle; INPUT control signal is generated by facial expression. System has contactless handler built around computer vision system that has series-connected receiving television camera, image processing unit, as well as cursor position on screen and INPUT control signal generation unit.

EFFECT: enhanced social activity of persons of limited capabilities. 9 cl, 5 dwg

Vezhnevets V.P., Bajakovskij Ju.M., Krichevets A.N.

Patent number: 2227930

Publishing date: May 25, 2004

FACTS TO MAKE EVERY INDIAN PROUD

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:05:00 +0000

Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
Vinod Khosla

Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today’s computers run on it)?
Vinod Dahm

Who is the richest man on the world?
India’s Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited.He is the chairman, managing director and
the largest shareholder of Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector enterprise and a Fortune 500 company.

The five richest people in the world with their net worth
1. Mukesh Ambani ($63.2 billion)
2. Carlos Slim Helu ($62.2993 billion)
3. William (Bill) Gates ($62.29 billion)
4. Warren Buffett ($55.9 billion)
5. Lakshmi Mittal ($50.9 billion)
Source : CNBC TV Broadcast

Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world’s No.1 web based email program)?
Sabeer Bhatia

Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
Arun Netravalli

Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
Rajiv Gupta

Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
Sanjay Tejwrika

Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives. There! are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,

38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.

You may know some of the following facts. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA.

01. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.

02. India invented the Number system. Aryabhatta invented ‘zero.’

03. The world’s first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

04. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.

05. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.

06. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.

07. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word “Navigation” is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.

08. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan’s works dates to the 6th Century, which is long before the European mathematicians.

09. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 1053.

10. According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.

11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.

12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

13. Chess was invented in India.

14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was well known in ancient India.

15. When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilisation).

16. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

Quotes about India.

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
Albert Einstein.

India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition.
Mark Twain.

If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.
French scholar Romain Rolland.

India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.
Hu Shih.
(Former Chinese ambassador to USA)

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG, THE LIST COULD BE ENDLESS. BUT,

if we don’t see even a glimpse of that great India in the India that we see today, it clearly means that we are not working up to our potential; and that if we do, we could once again be an ever shining and inspiring country setting a bright path for rest of the world to follow. I hope you enjoyed it and work towards the welfare of INDIA.

Say proudly, I AM AN INDIAN.

MORE WEB SITES CATEGORIES part-2

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:19:00 +0000

As I told all of you , I am going to add more categories of web sites. Hope these categories will also help you to quicken your web search as it did before. But this time I like to post this in a file in Excel. You will find all the categories of web sites there, but this time you need to download the file from the below mentioned link.

http://bloggeraditya.googlepages.com/Best_Websites_list.xls (right click->save target as)

In my future posts you will find the important documents in this manner. Hope you will like this.

IMPORTANT WEB SITE ADDRESSES part-1

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:59:00 +0000

20 UNKNOWNS ABOUT WINDOWS-XP

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:39:00 +0000

You've read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it's time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP's secrets.

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type ' gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care – some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exeuser32.dll, LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just
double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or
Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

6. XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the
command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using 'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you've got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll'.

9. XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology -- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat.
To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/ControlPanel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who's using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum's real IP address -- they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com -- and get them to make sure that they've got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have
administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run... from the start menu and type 'control userpasswords2', which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options... and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when
browser is closed.

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can't see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You'll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/ControlPanel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you
can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By... Show In Groups.

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks -- if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn't, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

20. The next release of Windows XP, codenamed Longhorn, is due out late next year or early 2006 and won't be much to write home about. The next big release is codenamed Blackcomb and will be out in 2003/2007.

GET KNOWLEDGE - SPREAD KNOWLEDGE

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 04:57:00 +0000

No. Question Answer
01 The theory of relativity was propounded by Albert Einstein
02 The principal metal used in manufacturing steel is Iron
03 An alimeter is used for measuring Altitude
04 Oology is the study of Birds eggs
05 Radioactivity was discovered by Henry Bacquerel
06 The metal used in storage batteries is Lead
07 The instrument used to measure the relative humidity of air is Hygrometer
08 Barometer was invented by Torricelli
09 The unit of power is Watt
10 Radium was discovered by Marie and Pierrie Curie
11 The existence of isotopes was discovered by Frederick Soddy
12 Dynamo was invented by Michael Faraday
13 The nuclear reactor was invented by Enrico Ferni
14 The law of gravitation was propounded by Sir Isaac Newton
15 Crescograph was invented by J.C.Bose
16 Crescograph is used to measure the Rate of growth of a plant
17 Galileo's first scientific discovery was Pendulum
18 Microscope was invented by Aaton Van Leewen Hock
19 The scientist who is known as father of modern biology is Aristotle
20 The first person to see a cell under microscope was Robert Hooke
21 The smallest flowering plant is Worffia
22 The four blood groups were discovered by Karl Landsteiner
23 Sodium was discovered by Sir Humphry Davy
24 The atomic number of oxygen is Eight
25 The basic building blocks of proteins are Amino acids
26 The botanical name of the cotton plant is Gossipium Hirsutum
27 An Electroscope is used to Detect charges on a body
28 The unit of loudness is Phon
29 An ammeter is used to measure Electric current
30 Plant that eat insects are called Insectivorous plants
31 Fruits that are formed without fertilization are called Parthenocarpic
32 Plants that flower only once in their lifetime are called Mono carpic
33 The botanical name for rice is Oryza Sativa
34 Penicillin is obtained from Mould
35 The largest tree in the world is Seguoia Gigantica
36 Herpetology is the study of Reptiles
37 Entomology is the study of Insects
38 Ornithology is the study of Birds
39 Ichtyology is the study of Fishes
40 Osteology is the study of Bones
41 The botanical name for brinjal is Solanum melongenal
42 The botanical name for onion is Allium Cepa
43 The study of sound is called Acoustics
44 The study of heavenly bodies is called Astronomy
45 The study of tissues is called Histology
46 Electric Lamp was invented by Thomas alva Edison
47 The fear of crowd is called Ochlophobia
48 The fear of books is called Bibliophobia
49 The fear of going to bed is called Clinophobia
50 The symbol of gold is Au
51 The symbol of sodium is Na
52 The symbol of Sr stands for Strontium
53 The symbol Rb stands for Rubidium
54 The symbol Md stands for Mendelevium
55 Calcium sulphate is commonly called Plaster of Paris
56 Sodium carbonate is commonly called Washing Soda
57 Sodium chloride is commonly known as Common Salt
58 The chemical name of Chloroform is Trichloromethane
59 The chemical name of baking powder is Sodium bicarbonate
60 The chemical name of bleaching powder is Calcium hypochlorite
61 The formula HCL stands for Hydrochloric Acid
62 The formula H2SO4 stands for Sulphuric Acid
63 The formula CHCI3 stands for Trichloromethane
64 The formula H2O2 stands for Hydrogen peroxide
65 A fungus which can only survive on other living organisms is called Obligate Parasite
66 A plant which lives in the dark is called Scotophyte
67 A plant adapted to live in dry places is called a Xerophyte
68 A plant adapted for growth in water is called a Hydrophyte
69 Bifocal lens was invented by Benjamin Franklin
70 Cement was invented by Joseph Aspdin
71 Laser was invented by Dr.Charles H.Townes
72 Electromagnet was invented by William Sturgeon
73 Rayon was invented by Sir Joseph Swann
74 Thermostat is an instrument used for regulating Constant temperature
75 The science of organic forms and structures is known as Morphology
76 Phycology is the study of Algae
77 Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was established in 1945
78 CSIR stands for Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
79 ISRO stands for Indian Space Research Organisation
80 The first human being to land on moon was Neil Armstrong
81 The first Indian in space was Rakesh Sharma
82 ISAC stands for ISRO Satellite Centre
83 VSSC stands for Vikram Sarabhai space Centre
84 The headquarters of ISRO is located at Bangalore
85 VSSC is located at Thiruvananthapuram
86 ISAC is located at Bangalore
87 National Science Centre is located at New Delhi
88 Central Tobacco Research Institute is located at Rajahmundry
89 Indian Institute of Horticultural Research is located at Bangalore
90 The Atomic Energy Commission was set up in August 1948
91 The first Indian Satellite was Aryabhatta
92 The first Indian Satellite was launched in the year 1975
93 ASLV stands for Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle
94 INSAT stands for Indian National Satellite
95 The fear of women is known as Gynophobia
96 The fear of men is known as Androphobia
97 The scientist who developed the Quantum theory was Max Plonck
98 The steam engine was invented by James Watt
99 The botanical name of tea is Camellia Sinensis
100 Logarithms were devised by John Napier
101 The acid used in a car battery is Sulphuric acid
102 The system for writing by blind people was invented by Louis Braille
103 The parachute was used for the first time by J.P.Blanchard
104 The German physicit who first demonstrated the existence of Radio waves was Henrich Hertz
105 The instrument that records the intensity of earthquakes is Seismograph
106 The laws of floating bodies was discovered by Archimedes
107 The density of milk is measured by a Lactometer
108 Fountain pen was invented by L.E.Waterman
109 The instrument used to measure the pressure of gases is the Monometer
110 Bhaskara I was a famous Astronomer
111 The first atomic power station established in India was the Tarapore Atomic Power Station
112 The role of heredity was demonstrated by Mendel
113 The instrument used to measure the concentration of salt water is the Salinometer
114 Spectroscopy is the study of Anders John Angstrom
115 Dactylography is the study of Finger Prints
116 A tangent galvanometer is used to study the Strength of direct current
117 The fruit of Oak is called Acron
118 ZETA stands for Zero Energy Thermonuclear Assembly
119 The formula C6H5OH stands for Phenol
120 Michael Faraday worked as an assistant under another scientist whose name was Sir Humphry Davy
121 Vulcanised rubber was invented by Charles Goodyear
122 The symbol Zn stands for Zinc
123 The symbol He stands for Helium
124 Celluloid was invented by A.Parker
125 Glider was invented by Sir George Caley
126 Safety matches was invented by J.E.Lundstrom
127 Radio valve was invented by Sir J.A.Fleming
128 Space Applications Centre is located at Ahmedabad
129 Atomic Energy Commission is located at Mumbai
130 Dynamics is the study of Movements of bodies
131 Statics is the study of Forces acting on bodies at rest
132 Mechanics is the study of Forces acting on bodies
133 Zoology is the study of Animal life
134 Botany is the study of Plant life
135 Psychology is the study of Human mind
136 The first American to orbit earth was John H.Glen
137 The electro-cardiograph was invented by William Einthoven
138 The molecular formula of cane sugar is C12H22O11
139 A compound which contains only hydrogen and Carbon is called a Hydrocarbon
140 The liquid used to preserve specimens of plans and animals is Formalin

122 FUNNY FACTS AROUND - 2

noreply@blogger.com (ADITYA DAS) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:45:00 +0000

Ants don't
sleep.
Owls have eyeballs that
are tubular in shape, because of this, they cannot move their eyes.
A
bird requires more food in proportion to its size than a baby or a
cat.
The
mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
A
newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.
A
cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
The
Canary Islands were not named for a bird
called a canary. They were named after a breed of large dogs. The Latin name
was Canariae insulae -
"Island of
Dogs."
There are 701 types of
pure breed dogs.
A
polecat is not a cat. It is a nocturnal European weasel.
Tapeworms range in size
from about 0.04 inch to more than 50 feet in length.
A
baby bat is called a pup.
German Shepherds bite
humans more than any other breed of dog.
A
female mackerel lays about 500,000 eggs at one time.
It
takes 35 to 65 minks to produce the average mink coat. The numbers for other
types of fur coats are: beaver - 15; fox - 15 to 25; ermine - 150; chinchilla
- 60 to 100.
The
animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the mosquito.
The
biggest pig in recorded history was Big Boy of Black Mountain, North Carolina,
who was weighed at 1,904 pounds in 1939.
Cats respond most
readily to names that end in an "ee"
sound.
A
cat cannot see directly under its nose. This is why the cat cannot seem to
find tidbits on the floor.
Pigs, walruses and
light-colored horses can be sunburned.
Snakes are immune to
their own poison.
An
iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
Cats have more than one
hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
The
biggest member of the cat family is the male lion, which weighs 528 pounds
(240 kilograms).
Most lipstick contains
fish scales.
Rats multiply so
quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
Each day in the
US, animal shelters are forced to
destroy 30,000 dogs and cats.
A
shrimp's heart is in their head.
A
pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
A
cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to
death.
The
cat lover is an ailurophile, while a cat hater is an ailurophobe.
A
woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
It
may take longer than two days for a chick to break out of its shell.
Dragonflies are one of
the fastest insects, flying 50 to 60 mph.
Despite man's fear and
hatred of the wolf, it has not ever been proved that a non-rabid wolf ever
attacked a human.
There are more than 100
million dogs and cats in the United States.
Americans spend more
than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.
Cat's urine glows under
a black light.
The
largest cockroach on record is one measured at 3.81 inches in length.
It
is estimated that a single toad may catch and eat as many as 10,000 insects in
the course of a summer.
Amphibians eyes come in a variety shapes and sizes. Some
even have square or heart-shaped pupils.
It
would require an average of 18 hummingbirds to weigh in at 1 ounce.
Dogs that do not
tolerate small children well are the St. Bernard, the Old English sheep dog,
the Alaskan malamute, the bull terrier, and the toy poodle.
Moles are able to
tunnel through 300 feet of earth in a day.
Howler monkeys are the
noisiest land animals. Their calls can be heard over 2 miles away.
A
quarter of the horses in the US died of a vast virus epidemic in
1872.
The
fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles
per hour.
There is no single cat
called the panther. The name is commonly applied to the leopard, but it is
also used to refer to the puma and the jaguar. A black panther is really a
black leopard. A capon is a castrated rooster.
The
world's largest rodent is the Capybara. An Amazon
water hog that looks like a guinea pig, it can weigh more than 100 pounds.
The
poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.
The
hummingbird, the loon, the swift, the kingfisher, and the grebe are all birds
that cannot walk.
The
poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
A
chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.
Worker ants may live
seven years and the queen may live as long as 15 years.
The
blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of
lobsters is blue.
Cheetahs make a
chirping sound that is much like a bird's chirp or a dog's yelp. The sound is
so an intense, it can be heard a mile away.
The
underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times
a year with new growth.
The
bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible in an American
court. 98% of brown bears in the United
States are in Alaska.
Before air conditioning
was invented, white cotton slipcovers were put on furniture to keep the air
cool.
The
Barbie doll has more than 80 careers.
To
make one pound of whole milk cheese, 10 pounds of whole milk is
needed.
99%
of pumpkins that are sold for decoration.
Every 30 seconds a
house fire doubles in size.
The
month of December is the most popular month for weddings in the
Philippines.
A
one ounce milk chocolate bar has 6 mg of caffeine.
Carbon monoxide can
kill a person in less than 15 minutes.
The
largest ever hailstone weighed over 1kg and fell in Bangladesh in
1986.
Ants can live up to 16
years.
In
Belgium, there is a museum that is
just for strawberries.
The
sense of smell of an ant is just as good as a dog's.
Popped popcorn should
be stored in the freezer or refrigerator as this way it can stay crunchy for
up to three weeks.
Coca-Cola was
originally green.
The
most common name in the world is Mohammed.
The
name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start
with.
The
strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
TYPEWRITER is the
longest word that can be made using the letters only on
one row ! of the
keyboard.
Women blink nearly
twice as much as men!!
You
can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
It
is impossible to lick your elbow.
People say "Bless you"
when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart
stops for a millisecond.
It
is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
The
"sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest
tongue twister in the English language.
If
you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress
a
sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck
and die.
Each king in a deck of
playing cards represents great king from history.
Spades - King
David
Clubs - Alexander the
Great,
Hearts -
Charlemagne
Diamonds - Julius
Caesar.

111,111,111 x
111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987, 654,321
If
a statue of a person in the park on a horse has both front legs in
the
air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front
leg in the air,
the person died as a result of wounds received in battle.
If the horse has
all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural
causes.
What do bullet proof
vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser
printers all have in common?
Ans. - All invented by
women.
Question - This is the
only food that doesn't spoil. What is this?
Ans. - HoneY.
A
crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
A
snail can sleep for three years.
All
polar bears are left handed.
American Airlines saved
$40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each
salad served in first-class.

Butterflies taste with
their feet.
Elephants are the only
animals that can't jump.
In
the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
On
average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
Shakespeare invented
the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.
Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left
hand.
The
ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
The
electric chair was invented by a dentist.
The
human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body
to
squirt blood 30 feet.
Wearing headphones for
just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear
by 700 times.
The
cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Most lipstick contains
fish scales.
Like fingerprints,
everyone's tongue print is different