Computers and Technology

Internet Connection Sharing, some issues and solutions !

2012-02-10T11:07:00.000+05:30

Hello,

I am writing a blog post after long time, hope you enjoy it.

I recently faced a small issue in Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate. I wasn't being shown the "Turn On internet connection sharing" prompt when creating WIFI adhoc network. I assumed that somehow ICS has been disabled. But it was just the opposite. If you set the set "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection" option in Adapter properties, then ICS is enabled by default and no new prompt is required. Hope this resolves the issues that isn't there. :) :P . I couldn't find a blog or write up on the same so i summarized the contents here.

How to bypass trial restrictions with vmware thinapp (Use it forever)

2011-08-13T18:46:00.003+05:30

Hi all

Disclaimer :- I don't support cracking/bypassing any software in any way. The information is for educational purpose only, use at your own risk.

This post will explain how we can use vmware thinapp and run any trial application forever with little hassle and outside help.

You will need Vmware Thinapp (and Vmware Workstation/Player for using this). There me be other free alternatives but i have not explored them as of now. I'll give example of using SSH Explorer for demonstration.Please see disclaimer, and buy this software if you like, it will help fund many software engineers around the world.

I have windows 7 installed in Vmware Workstation, with Vmware thinapp installed on the same.
Although you can see guides for Thinapp for Virtualizing SW, i l illustarate settings for ssh explorer here in Section 1. you can off course modify many stages using other tutorials on thinapp.

The applications are tested on Vmware workstation as well on the real system, I'll show the illustration on workstation only.

The main point that enables use trial SW for ever is that Thinapp allows us to store all the information that the application needs, wither registry/programfiles/settings etc in single directory. It is in a way similar to trick application that its still running in past by changing system date/using SW that makes it run in particular date. But many SW which synchronize with internet wont work in this fashion.

Section 1: Make the Single EXE for application using Thinapp.I'll illustrate for SSH Explorer only

Using Thinapp, do a prescan of the system, please keep the installer of your application in the OS before doing prescan. As thinapp compares prescan and postscan to package the data into single exe (you dont want your installer to be included in package as well :)
Install the application (in this case ssh explorer), don't close the thinapp window.
Do a post scan
Select the entry point, off course for simple application you only want the application itself not the uninstaller and stuff. Entry point is the Exe that will be run when click the generated EXE. For products like adobe CS 4, you'll use multiple entry points. Here i use only one.
Enable all groups to run package (Or use a particular group if you want to).
You dont want your application to write data here and there (offcourse for using trial unlimited), so use restricted write access.
Now select same directory as application, this is again for the same reason, you will delete the application data folder as illustrated below (after saving settings).
Helping Vmware or not, is your choice (Popup to send data to vmware on usage pop)
Inventory name is the folder were the generated Exe will be stored, and the application specific data will be kept of the final generated exe. Choose accordingly.
Primary data container is read only file, so keeping it within exe does no harm. MSI is not generated in this case neither the package is compressed (might affect later performance also).
Warnings are usually for files that are not copied (like log files etc, you can skip those or retry if the application fails in the end) (click next here)
Click build to generate final single exe of entire application.
Click finish to open folder to see the generated application and other files if you choosed them (here only single exe is shown).
Copy these exe for using the SW forever :) See Section 2 for how to

Section 2: How to make the application run forever

Now each application has its own data (like personal preferences, connection settings etc). You will need to look for the generated folder for the settings.

In this case settings are stored in the folder SSH Explorer\%ProgramFilesDir%\SSH Explorer

Copy the files conn.ini ,settings.ini and snippets.ini for later use (you dont want to reconfigure the SW again).

Delete the folder "SSH Explorer" , the folder you provided for Inventory name. All the registry and other settings will be erased.

Start SSH Explorer again and you will have your folder recreated, replace the files we copied earlier. and voila you are done :).

Similar procedure is to be followed for all other SW.

Squid behing proxy server (parent proxy)

2011-07-30T19:27:00.008+05:30

Hi all,

Its been a long time since i posted stuff. Anyways some time we need to configure Squid to work behind another proxy server (I needed the same to bypass the internet timing restrictions imposed on us). Although lot of guides exists for the same still some configuration is required which one needs to figure out. Here i give the basic configuration which you can do to place squid behind another proxy.

WARNING : Using a proxy server hosted by some one else for the sake of just bypassing some restrictions might lead to Man in the middle attack, even on SSL enabled sites. Its better to have your own proxy for that sake.

Download Squid from http://wiki.squid-cache.org/SquidFaq/BinaryPackages or use package managers in linux.

Carefull :- Don't install all the versions from synaptic. only one version of squid must be running else you will have an error. This is working as of 10 Aug 2011.

Configuration settings in file located in squid directory (/etc/squid/squid.conf in linux or squid.conf in instaleld directory in windows, rename squid.conf.default to squid.conf if it exists in some versions) . Take a backup before any updations.

Look for a string "http_access deny all" and comment it, It basically Restricts Http access from all but some machines which are listed just above this command. You can define your own ACL and use "http_access allow youracl" or just "http_access allow all"
To hide the hostname visible outside from your computer name, find the "visible_hostname" Tag, just below default add "visible_hostname myproxyname"

It looks like

# TAG: visible_hostname
#       If you want to present a special hostname in error messages, etc,
#       define this. Otherwise, the return value of gethostname()
#       will be used. If you have multiple caches in a cluster and
#       get errors about IP-forwarding you must set them to have individual
#       names with this setting.
#
#Default:
visible_hostname myproxyname
In the end of file add lines

Replace hostname with your proxy host, similar for port, give icp.port as 0 for disabling local cahich protocol (more conf is required to enable it, i am skipping that here)

cache_peer [hostname] parent [proxy.port] [icp.port] no-query no-digest default login=username:password

never_direct allow all

(login=username:password is in the same line as cache_peer, or use line continuation symbol, or skip it if not required)
If you wan to change the default port number of proxy (3128), modify the lines
# Squid normally listens to port 3128
http_port 3128

To what ever you want.
The never_direct directive says that all links accessed through this proxy server must not be sent directly but rather over parent proxy. you can do additonal conf here. Like directing different sites to different proxy or going directly to those sites.
Also multiple parent proxy can be specified. I am looking to handle parent proxy error messages, instead of passing to user proxy must skip to next in schedule (See Link http://gwagit.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/using-a-parent-proxy-with-squid/ ) for more info here.

Like other services use /etc/init.d/squid restart , or restart service manually in windows after configuration change. Might need root permissions to change the file and restart the service.

References:

Reliance , dont go by name, its worst telecom operator

2011-04-06T23:30:00.000+05:30

Hi all,

After a long time i am writing :).

I recently used relaince GSM, and i am here to give its reviews. Unfortunatly after just few days i am jus fed up it. I have already changed my operator to airtel the best ever.

Here are the points that go against relaince :-

They activate any scheme every other day, i dont knw why and with who's permission. Some time the cricket scores are activated, other time ring tones, and other time some sms scheme. TELL THEM MY BALANCE IS FOR CALLING NOT THESE SCHEMES
You can't call their customer care, its always buys
Can't make a single call without calling around 5-8 times.

In nutshell its just shit. Switch your operator NOW.

ND DON'T GO FOR RELIANCE EVER.

Internet Explroer Full Download (Microsift Link)

2011-03-15T00:58:00.000+05:30

Hi all,

A post from me from a really long time. IE 9 is out, but somehow their is a problem that many of us face !! Download IE 9 behind proxy servers (Specially at educational institutions).

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/products/ie-9/home?WT.mc_id=MSCOM_HP_US_F_113LMUS004274

(Search IE-9 Download). Don't select the windows version here and just click on download. It will redirect to another page

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/downloads/ie-9/worldwide-languages

were all the complete versions of IE9 are hosted. You can download what you wish too :) . No more download managers .. I seriously hate them specially when they don't work behind proxy !!

Precautions:- Yes I am saying precautions. The installer asks for a complete list of programs to be closed, presumably all those uses flash player (IE version or IE renderer in some way or other like avast, bit torrent, thunder bird, outlook etc). It was a very long list, IE provided me with option to close all those (off course i wont close my AV software just like that), with other option being "
A restart may be required". I choose the second one, too my horror after it finsihed installing it just closed all the programs and proceeded with restart without asking me to save my work. (In fact some portion of this post and a doc file).
May be its coz IE is still in RC version (the date is shown as 14th march, 9 pm P.T , it will be here soon, hope this is fixed by then).

SAVE YOUR WORK BEFORE STARTING INSTALLATION OF IE-9

How to increase/decrease priority of a program in linux (ubuntu)

2011-02-13T02:02:00.000+05:30

Hi all,

We all want to increase priority of a process sometime or the other. Simply because we want the job get done in fastest possible time. Also we want to reduce priority for some old lazy jobs which we can takes few mins to run.

There is a "nice" command (The command name is actually "nice") :P, but we need to have root permissions to use it.

See man nice for more details. Also see man renice for altering priority of running process.

Nokia Pc Suite not detecting bluetooth hardware (Motorola / Ralink drivers)

2011-02-11T20:26:00.001+05:30

Hi all ,

Unfortunately this post don't give any solution. I am myself stuck with this problem .
That's what happens when many competing companies want their proprietary standard to rule to consumer market.

My brand new HP laptop works great. Graphics card is also great. The only source of problem in bluetooth device. Its from Motorola, with some Ralink company device driver. The Bluetooth devic don't work with the windows driver and unfortunately the Nokia PC suite dont work with this driver. It fails to detect the installed bluetooth on my machine. (Bluetooth works with without pc suite, with any phone including nokia and between computers).

Its terible .. I know this is more to do with PC suite, but yeah i know the vendors are also at fault. They want their products to dominate without caring for the effects on consumers. Windows driver is just great (I actually use them for most of my devices and used those in my previous laptop). Motorola sucks and so does nokia in its PC Suites...
I need to make no guess why its loosing the smartphone market.. Hope the Microsoft-Nokia Deal bring some fortunes for the company.

A link to the discussion :-
http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/t5/PC-and-Mac-Software/PC-Suite-can-t-find-a-bluetooth-device-in-my-laptop/m-p/894859

Any one with the solution please provide me one .. I am waiting for it desperately .. i dont want to carry the data cable with me everywhere i go :(

Amount of data "flowing" acrros the internet in one month

2011-02-03T17:29:00.000+05:30

Hi all,

Yet another weird post !!

Any guesses for how much data flow across the internet per month ? *

Its approximatly 21 exabytes per month (i.e. 1024 Petabyte or 1024*1024 TB or 1024*1024*1024 GB) :) according to cisco.

By 2013 its estimated to reach 667 Exabytes per month :)

*Conditions Apply :-
No prizes for guessing :D :P

Fastest and Cheapest Internet in world

2011-01-29T15:45:00.000+05:30

Hi all,

Most of us wonder which parts of the world have fastest and cheapest internet connection across the world. In India we have the cheapest call rates (even lesser than those offered by Skype etc), but bandwidth is costly and comes with usage cap or fair usage policy. The TRAI guidelines of increasing the minimum speed for broadband definition is yet to be heard. Any ways there are many reports out there which compare the internet speeds.

www.itif.org/files/BroadbandRankings.pdf

Looked here and found that cheapest net access is in HONG KONG (just Rs 1170 for 1Gbps connection ). Guess what i am most jealous person on the planet. Its much cheaper and much faster than one could imagine.

Hail Hong Kong for technological advancements. Hope we have similar standards in coming years. (BSNL has already released FTTH, but its way to costly).

Custom Domain name problems (www subdomain)

2011-01-29T15:34:00.001+05:30

Hi all,

This post describes the problem i faced in setting up a new domain name and solutions to those.
I purchased gunjanbansal.in from http://mitsu.in/ for just Rs 79 ($1.73) for the first year, and Rs 550 from second year onwards (Offer on .in, .co.in and some other root domains only). This is much cheaper than what most of the other registrars offer. Believe me they do offer at this cheap price. Currently their promotional renewal scheme is on in which we can renew up-to 9 years max at about Rs 349-399. Guess what owing a domain name is much cheaper than i though, specially looking at all those sellers listing the price at $10 onwards. I think its much cheaper to buy a domain name from mitsu.

I faced a lot of problems initially as I was unaware of the setups required. Also my email (gunjan@gunjanbansal.in) is not yet working. I think i better take problems and solutions one by one.

I have used my domain for google sites, and blogger.

These are the current parameters :- cv.gunjanbansal.in and www.cv.gunjanbansal.in redirect to my resume at google sites.

blog.gunjanbansal.in and gunjanbansal.in redirect to this blog.

code.gunjanbansal.in redirect to my programming blog which is yet to be worked upon.

The domain names www.gunjanbansal.in and www.blog.gunjanbansal.in unfortunalty dont redirect to any of these :(. Hey wait are you saying that www and without www domain names are different ??

Yes I am. Actually www is considered as the sub domain. By this i mean www.gunjanbansal.in and gunjanbansal.in are two different entities for the DNS servers. I wish they were same. Most of the time we don't care to add www, but see that its auto added, so hows that ?? That is actually done using 301 or 302 redirection. The naked domain (just the top level domain and second level domain (may be third in case of .co.in etc)) i.e. "example.com" is redirected to "www.example.com" or vice-versa. www.example.com is treated as sub domain of example.com.

This redirection can be done in many ways, but the 301 redirection is best way to do so. 301 means permanently moved to other location. This is better done in .htaccess file on Apache.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection for more details, or better search it on the web.

Now for the URL redirection one needs a web host (most domain name registrars don't give it for free), on which one can add the redirection scripts. Unfortunately the free ones didn't impress me, and i am in no mood to buy web-space at the moment. May be I'll do in future who knows. If you have web-space, making a name server entry for hosting provider and adding all the redirection of sub-domains there (on web host) is better solution. (I'll tell in few mins what entries to be made, although they are available on net).

Decide what you want before u start setting up your new domain, the DNS servers take a lot of time to update (upto 48 hours) and you may not be able to check if your settings are correct in a blink of eye, this is not a programming assign my friend. You can off course try different proxy sites like hidemyass.com or anonymouse.org . There DNS servers update a bit faster and you may be able to see results pretty soon. Also try pingywebedition.somee.com which might help in faster propagation of dns changes.
There are various kinds of dns records. The records that will be of interest for first timers are :- CNAME , A records , MX records, TXT records, Name servers. I'll first tell setup required at domain name provider.

TXT records give general info about the domain/subdomain and are generally used to verify owner ship of the domain. You wont require these until unless you are enabling email system, or making use of google webmaster tools etc.
MX records :- These are used to specify mail servers. Hence would be use only when setting up email systems.
CNAME record:- This is the record that is most useful. Be careful while setting this up. As wikipedia explains, these records are used for finding IP address of a domain or subdomain from a different domain/subdomain. Meaning

If i have a CNAME record as follows :- gunjanbansal.in IN 3600 example.com, it means for the IP address of gunjanbansal.in look at example.com . It doesn't mean that this is URL redirection, neither example.com need to be a name server (The A/AAAA record for example.com will be used then). Your visitor will see gunjanbansal.in as the URL and so would example.com. A CNAME record to other CNAME record must be avoided and be used if utmost necessary (This is to avoid loops in CNAME records). If using Google sites or Blogger, the cname record for your subdomain will be ghs.google.com . For the naked domain, its better to have a A record (There can be multiple such records so don't worry, they are explained below). This is because a CNAME and MX record with the same name are discouraged and are not allowed by most of the domain name providers (I am not sure if they are not allowed at all). This means you wont be able to host email if u add cname record for the naked domain (off-course u can host email at a subdomain).

Here the www.example.com CNAME entry with value example.com and example.com cname vlaue as ghs.google.com won't work as suggested here. This is because ghs.google.com would see it as a request for www.example.com rather than example.com and wont have any entry for that, returning 404 error. (Supposing only example.com is setup in blogger or google sites).

I was stuck with all these until I realized whats going on behind the scenes. I had to spend few hours trying to figure this out.
A record :- If using google sites or blogger, and not getting a webspace, you would need to redirect users visiting to your naked domain somewhere. Won't you. Just add A records for your naked domain as specified here. Remember this is only for naked domain.
In the coming years all of us would be running behind AAAA records :D Thanx to upcoming exhaustion of IPv4 address. These records are actual location of your domain (IP address)

Now in the blogger, under settings tab there is option for publishing. Choose advanced in these and provide your custom domain name. Or you can buy one if you want. I couldn't find a cheap hosting provider for .com address. There is option for redirecting the naked domain to your blog, you can tick it if you want. I faced a peculiar problem here, i think its mainly due to poor interface. I now have 2 blogs, code.gunjanbansal.in and blog.gunjanbansal.in , What i saw was that the redirection option was either ticked or unticked in both. I couldn't leave it ticked in one and unticked in other. Actually what we see are not current settings but what blogger expect us to do, whenever you save configuration in one of your blogs, it will be there, but u might see some other configuration (presumably what blogger feels you wish to do). Don't worry about this. Just save one blog with redirection enabled and others with don't, and you ll be done. Forget about it after-wards.
Now in the google sites, there is something called web address. Here you can add custom webaddress were you wish your site must be hosted.
Here also there is a problem. My website is hosted at 3 different locations (without 301/302 redirection) and search engines sees them as different :(. This problem can only be solved if u have some webspace. Until then you have to cope up with it.
If you own the webspace, you can add NS (name server) records for your domain (might be better if hosting very light stuff) or subdomain to your hosting providers name servers. Rest of the settings can be done at the hosting provider.

For all this I would like to thank Satyadeep for his help in setting up the stuff when i was lost. Any suggestions are welcome. I'll update it as soon as possible.

New Blog

2011-01-28T19:30:00.000+05:30

Hi all ,

Somehow i am getting addicted to blogging. I just started a new blog http://code.gunjanbansal.in . In the new blog i l try to solve algorithms related problems (I am not one of the best out there, just trying to be one, please bear with me if I am wrong) and provide tips to people. I wont be giving out complete code, but only snippets. I don't know if the new endeavour will be success full or not. I am just wishing for the same.
Happy Blogging.

Finally I own a domain name !!

2011-01-23T21:36:00.009+05:30

Hi all,

Finally i am proud owner of domain name gunjanbansal.in . This blog will be reachable by

blog.gunjanbansal.in

gunjanbansal.in and gunjan-bansal.blogspot.com will redirect to above link using 301 (Permanently moved) redirection.

Blogger don't allow simple multiple Urls to come to blogger, so i will have to go for some hosting provider to host .htaccess or php file redirecting www.gunjanbansal.in and www.blog.gunjanbansal.in to this blog. I am leaving that for now. May be I'll look forward to it, if i ever need a professional hosting for some other use.

cv.gunjanbansal.in and www.cv.gunjanbansal.in point to my resume. I know it must have been a 301 redirection but that's not possible for now. They are indexed as different web pages by search engines.
:(

Any ways it feels good to have my own domain :) Hope you also buy one :P

Avast AntiVirus Reviews

2011-01-23T00:35:00.000+05:30

Hi all ,

Just another post by me today .. I think i am writing too much .. :D

I have been a registered user of avast antivirus for past 4 years or so. I have been extremely satisfied with the results and recommend every other guy i meet. My reviews might look like biased too few :(

Pros:-

Free :- Avast home edition is free. Only a free registration is required. Which now can be done form the avast interface itself (in Avast 5). Although there is no proxy support in the registration process.Other AV solutions cost a fortune :( at least in a country like India were piracy is rampant, Avast provides a way to keep it to a minimum level :)
Light Weight :- Its one of the lightest application on my computer. Believe me its much lighter than Norton, which i received twice as a bloatware with my new laptops. Norton just kills my machines. It sucks !! Both time i uninstalled it on day 0. :D Avast does not cause a slow down to system performance, and in the mean time keep scanning the file system in the background. You never have to manually scan the HDD.
Fast :- The new interface is multi threaded, and is suitable on today's multiprocessor systems. I have tried it on Pentium 4, Core 2 Duo, Core i5 460, Core i5 760, And the performance increase with multi processor is clearly visible.
Detection Rate:- I must say, being Computer Science student (also from past) i experiment with computers a lot (May be that's why i lost my 1st laptop :(), I have never ever been infected with a virus :) . This is a tough claim, but i fortunately its true. Now i have shifted My testing to virtual machines, so i no more have to care for virus infections etc.

Cons :-

No proxy support for automatic updates :- Although the automatic updates work well on the direct connection, it has given me some issues behind proxy. I can update Avast manually (both 4 and 5) but some how its never auto updated when behind proxy.( With authentication at least). Proxy support is missing in most of the software's, i don't know why they think that it will only work on a direct connection network.

I cant think of any other Con write now, please leave your comments. I feel that Avast is most reliable and best antivirus. Although this may differ on what experts have to say with detection rate etc... I don't have infrastructure to do that kind of testing. For free users,who cant afford a antivirus and don't want to take the path of piracy, i will recommend avast. Its better than most of the paid solution. (Atleast Norton and AVG)

g++: unrecognized option -R

2011-01-22T23:24:00.000+05:30

I was stuck with the unrecognized option -R error in makefile of COOL language. I myself have never used it though.

I found the solution on a maililng list

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-help/2001-05/msg00086.html

The author suggests using -Wl or -rpath instead of -R . Refer to the above mailing list for more info.

"

This option is not portable.  It's actually a linker option, that GCC
accepts on a few targets for compatibility with the native compilers
of those platforms.  In general, you should use -Wl,-R to pass the
flag directly to the linker, if the linker supports it.  Sometimes
you'll find the spelling of the flag.  The GNU linker accepts both
-rpath and -R.

Alexandre Oliva   Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer                  aoliva@{cygnus.com, redhat.com}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp        oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist    *Please* write to mailing lists, not to me

How to use older version of gcc

2011-01-22T22:18:00.003+05:30

Hi all,

This post is for my friends who want to use an older version of gcc/g++ compiler but don't know how (Assuming they are on latest Ubuntu where in the default g++ package installs 4.4 or above). In synaptic versions of gcc ranging from 4.1 are available (at-least they do on Ubuntu 9.10).
When i first googled/binged the question, it was difficult for me to get an answer. No were its mentioned on how to use older version. But just by luck i tired "g++-4.1" and it worked like charm :)

For using an older version (Off-course after installation) supply the version number along with g++ command, eg for version 4.3 use "g++-4.3" no space in between. It will compile the code.

Why we need older versions ??

Its mainly because sites like http://www.codechef.com/ etc support gcc 4.3 but not above (The last time i saw), there is considerable difference between various versions of gcc () , which most of the time must not matter to a user. But sometimes when compiling a old code (I was stuck with COOL language in my compilers assignment), one need an older version.

The changes incorporated in various versions are available at http://gcc.gnu.org/ in the form of change logs.

By default g++ will map to the highest version of g++ installed (by selecting g++ or g++ multilib in synaptic). I think there must be a way to change this mapping . Any one know about it ??

Ethernet (Wired LAN) vs Wi-Fi in Campus

2011-01-22T11:46:00.001+05:30

Hi all,
When i first joined IIT Guwahati, I wanted a WiFi connection in hostel rooms as well in labs instead of the regular Ethernet. My friends in the outside had WiFi in their campus, and could move and still surf the net. With Ethernet its quite limited. But after 3 years in the Institute I realise that Ethernet is much better than WiFi (Even more costly to set up over a large region). A comparison is given below.

Pros of Ethernet over WiFi:

Speed :- WiFi has a maximum speed of 54Mbps for 802.11b/g , in 802.11 its much higher (Up to 150 Mbps ) (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11). Were as in Ethernet its 10Mbps,100Mbps and 1Gbps. In most of the campuses 802.11b/g is employed and 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet is employed. WiFi is more prone to errors (collisions) and suffer from much of packet loss especially if the access points are not connected using a wired backbone (May be Optic/Ethernet etc). Were as Ethernet is more reliable and give better service. Lan Games, Dc++ Works superb on Ethernet. On WiFi it sucked, at least for me. WiFi is more prone to interference. As the distance from access point increases speeds falls considerably. In Ethernet speeds do fall (Distance from nearest switch) but is at much more slower rate than in Wifi.
Performance/Reliability :- Ethernet is much more reliable than WiFi. The theoretical maximum speed (at-least 100Mbps , 1Gbps is difficult to achieve because of long cable lengths, more number of users per cable etc). WiFi this performance is hardly achieved. Connection drops are more frequent in WiFi.

Cons of Ethernet over WiFi:-

Cost :- Laying down long cables is much more costly than purchasing some access points. WiFi is much cheaper to establish than Ethernet in large area.
Mobility :- WiFi provides a great mobility. Ethernet has a limited mobility.

I feel that WiFi is more suited for areas like Coffe Shops/Homes/Restaurants rather than educational institutions were most of the people do their work sitting at a single place. and mobility is not much of importance, but the performance and speed is. Hope my friends who used to tease me reliase this and feel jealous. :P :D

Skype Offline installer

2011-01-12T00:30:00.001+05:30

Get the skype complete installer at

http://download.skype.com/SkypeSetupFull.exe

We all know how much it sucks to use third party down-loaders, when we don't want it !!!

Google Chrome Standalone installer

2011-01-08T02:00:00.001+05:30

Google stand alone installer (complete) without the ugly download and install on demand application is available at

http://dl.google.com/chrome/install/154.36/chrome_installer.exe

How Dell captured Indian laptop market

2011-01-08T01:36:00.000+05:30

Dell, the word is familiar with almost most of us, I myself feel their are varied reasons why they were able to capture Indian market (I don't have a Dell though :D), they are enumerated as follows :-

1) Cheap Laptops, although most of the laptops are inheritor flawed and under perform when compared to their configurations (As far as i have seen, most of my friends have dell), they are much cheaper than their counterparts. This is not a capturing feature in higher end laptops were people tend to go towards Lenovo/Hp/Apple etc.

2) Good after sale support :- I must agree that their after sales support is awesome, with atleast one service center in a major city, they give a quality support. But they mostly end up replacing a major part (motherboard/keyboard etc) in every service (They do become unusable pretty soon).
But anyway the word of mouth and previous image of Accidental protection (which now needs to be purchased separately) continues and bring in new customers.

3) Good and Upto Date Website :- Dell has a awesome website which is up to date most of the time. I have seen Lenovo/HP/Sony website but don't feel the same with them. The models are either too new or old (removed from market/not available even in showrooms). Hp leads the way in being the most outdated website, with price tags missing for most of the products if not all.

4) Customizable Laptops :- Too much extent laptops from dell can be configured, either online or at showrooms, this is missing in Lenovo/Hp/Sony. This is the feature that most students go for, and most experts need. I don't know why its not available in India when it is there in USA etc.

5) Range of laptops:- Dell laptops suite most of the needs of people, when including the 4th point, its becomes more than sufficient. Their range of choices is much larger than their counterparts.

I think if Hp/Lenovo/Sony improve on last 3 points at-least, their market share will zoom a lot :)

Why Lenovo failed / will fail in India

2011-01-05T19:42:00.000+05:30

Hi,

This is more of personal blog post rather than technical one. when i purchased my Lenovo Ideapad Y series laptop spending about 52K Rs, i was king of the world, it had a awesome sound and great graphics capability. Performance was also awesome. But as the destiny does, it screen became loose from hinges within 3 months, i had to under go a lengthy repair process spending 8K Rs, to get it set. I dont know why it shoudnt be covered in warranty. And secondly their after sales service is so poor that one should think twice before going for lenovo. Dont just trust the IBM behind it, Lenovo really sucks in India. Then after a week or so i forgot my BIOS password (my mistake, i know it must not be covered under warranty), but still i sheled another 7.5K bucks.. it sucked a alot. Authorised Service center took around 15 days and declined to give proper bills, on much insistence they gave me a now approved bill on their shop stamp head (Not lenovo). I mailed to them but alas no response from them .. i think they want their customer to suffer.

Then as the destiny goes by my screen again became loose after around 1.5 yrs, i went to service center but i was not willing to shell another 7K on the piece of trash. I purchased an external monitor instead.

Just another year passed and the laptop fan stopped working, i got it replaced, but the overheating knocked down my GPU (It was Nvidia Geforce 8 series). I than made up my mind to never go for lenovo again.

Lenovo does makes laptops which perform awesome as far as computing is concerned, but their after sales serivce is poor, and the laptops need to handled like a child, a little strain will leave it of no use..
Think twice before going for lenovo. :)

Happy shopping.

Increase / Decrease margins in PDF

2010-12-30T22:28:00.000+05:30

Increasing or decreasing margins in PDF is what most of us need to do, specially when printing journals/letters etc on A4 sheets, or vice-versa . I tried few softwares myself, they are as follows :-

Free/Open Source :-

Pdfcrop is good for small files and works well. It takes long long time as well as CPU for large files and hence is almost useless for them. But i must complement the authors work and his will to release it for free. You can use it if you have upto 50-100 pages PDF.

Paid/Shareware :-

Adobe Acrobat Reader Professional :- This is great software with inbuilt capability of croping pages, remove white margins (although some times with variable size pages get screwed up, but its good).

See http://www.itg.ias.edu/node/504 for cropping help, also try the remove margins, its just below the step to specify margins manually .

Unfortunately i couldn't find a way to increase margins in it, please comment if you know how.

Pdf annotator :- This is great software, and is good in trial version, specially if you want to edit just one or two documents :). Increasing margins also supported. Cropping is though is a bit clumsy but does job for most of the pdf's

Lastly :- If printing a book or something similar, don't forget to choose even/odd page option, according to binding and other details, else you ll end up messing the printed documents :P

Mounting Remote folder over ssh as drive in windows

2010-12-26T19:48:00.001+05:30

Most of the times we want to mount remote folder as a drive in windows. Although windows provide a good mount feature, its some not possible to do so due to firewall restrictions. Also mounting drives from different OS such as Ubuntu/Fedora in windows is not inbuilt.. Here NetDrive comes in help, its free for non-commercial use. It can mount drive over FTP/SFTP and is great to use. Although FTP is a much faster than SFTP (FTP over SSH), but is unsecure. Just install a FTP or SSH server, configure default foder, and use netdrive to do the rest :).

Pdf printer for windows

2010-12-26T16:15:00.000+05:30

Hi all, recently i was stuck with pdf printers, i looked on the net but none seem to be sufficient for all my needs.

I suggest two of free pdf writers for use , doPDf and CutePdf writer.

doPdf is good for small files especially office or html files, but performs too slow with larger files. PDF files are some what more clumsy. (If u use lpr for printing, you know sometimes you need pre-formatted documents to avoid problems later). Size is comparatively smaller than those made by other pdf writers.
Its awesome, especially for resumes. Embedding fonts option add a little extra size and some minimal quality to produced pdf (I dint find any :P).

CutePDF is faster and good for large files. The output size is slightly larger than those produced by doPDf, but the speed is a factor when printing large files. Not good for small ones.

So i suggest you to use doPdf for small files (1-50 pages) and CutePdf (50+). Also doPdf starts consuming lot of memory and CPU for large files , so it wont be practical to use. Both are small in size and can be installed side by side.

Adobe reader / Flash Player without DLM

2010-12-16T22:47:00.003+05:30

Adobe !!! I dont want DLM but i am stuck with it .. it is forefully installed on all windows system now for reader download.. But who wants unwanted software on his comp ??

Solutions :-

1) Use thier FTP site for most of the products. This is explained in

http://www.techerator.com/2010/07/how-to-install-adobe-reader-without-installing-adobe-dlm-download-manager-browser-plugin/

Their FTP site is ftp.adobe.com

2) Solution one is awesome but i was stuck, my institute dont allow ftp access, but here good news, windows is not the only OS(although one of the best for PC, i know many would disagree). The adobe states that DLM is installed on all supported systems ( http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/520/cpsid_52001.html ). But good news is most linux distros are not supported for now, i tried on ubuntu and fedora. Just choose different OS option and download :) enjoy. You can also save the link for future reference :)

Adobe reader X for windows is available at :-
http://ardownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/10.x/10.0.0/en_US/AdbeRdr1000_en_US.exe

And the directory listing is forbidden :(

ardownload was initially just download.. but adobe keep changing it :( Just for forcing adobe DLM ... I thought only apple would do so .. :D

Flash player is at :-

http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player.exe

High CPU usage, it may be Overheating

2010-11-22T16:59:00.000+05:30

Recently i observed a very peculiar thing , my CPU usage became exceptionally high for almost all applications. I had installed Office 2010 Pro, and suspected it to be a culprit. I used to download at more than 5MBps from local lan (DC++) so i reinstalled its latest version, i used defragmenter, Disk check and what not.

Eventually almost everything stopped working and my laptop made strange noise (on running any audio for long). I opened my laptop and unfortunatly it was very hot .. alas the cooling fan had stopped :( .

After enough cooling i started my laptop and it worked seamlessly. I now use a cooling pad (till i get a replacement for cooling fan).

So i suggest all of you too look for any signs of overheating (usually only when cpu fan is not working) if CPU usage is very high and get a replacement for it as soon as possible,till then use the laptop in low frequency mode and don't run CPU intensive tasks (It needs more cpu cycles hence more heat generated).

Overheating might damage your CPU beyond repairs, so be careful.