Blog of Cyber Brahma

Friends Don’t Let Friends Get Married

S.K — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:59:59 +0000

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Ass-trology!

S.K — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:35:12 +0000

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Just don’t do it!

S.K — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:04:43 +0000

Men, Math and Marriage!

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A husband’s day in

S.K — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:29:12 +0000

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Women spur men to just do it and…

S.K — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:01:30 +0000

Men just do it lest they get spurned!

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The size has more to do with peer pressure than real pleasure!

S.K — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:20:23 +0000

Now it is official! Small “Ding-A-Ling-a-Ling” has a problem! (Lyrics)

Now a Victoria University (VU) study into penis size and body image has discovered that size does matter to men, but chiefly in relation to how they shape up compared with other men.

“It’s the locker room syndrome,” said principal researcher and Doctor of Clinical Psychology student Annabel Chan. “Men are more concerned about how their overall body size compares to the perceived male ideal than they are about how their size might impact on their sexual relations.”

So all the spam mail you get bombarded with assuring a guaranteed elongation has some sense , after all!

Read more about the dongle issue from eSarcasm!

An aside:

“Do You Want To See My C*ck?”, asks a budding author!

Well, that is the long and short of the matter!

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Ultimate philosophy!

S.K — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:30:51 +0000

“Non-sequitur”, a comic strip by Wiley Miller.

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Gmail lost and found

S.K — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:25:17 +0000

The story in single line: I lost my Gmail account!

I wake up one morning last week and I could not log on. Simple. Typed and retyped the latest password as I remembered it. Normally I make the browser retain it for a few days. I cross-checked the correctness of the password with what I had scribbled in my scrapbook. It was right, but not good enough for an open sesame! Wait, was it the one that lay tattooed between my toes? Tried that too. But no joy!

What about “Forgot Password” routine? Wait man, why hurry? Read on!

Big deal? Yes. Because my Gmail account is linked to the whole load of components of the Google suite which I use for two reasons:

they are good and efficient and
they are Free!

And to list the the bundle of services:

Google Adsense – by far the most important one although I am yet to hit pay dirt!
Picasaweb – where my entire photo collection resides – spent many a midnight oil to upload what with <30 kbps Broad (read “Fraud”) band connection – but why do they call it 256 kbps? That is another story. Don’t digress!
Google Notebook – where I have Ctrl+C-ed and Ctrl+V-ed all important snippets of information scraped from many a website for future use as a comprehensive plagiarized resource on various subjects planned to be shared albsolutely free with the community ( I believe in everything Free – as in Free Lunch!)
Blogger account that facilitates spraying my comments profusely in Blogspot-run blogs without much ado
Groups I run and participate – what would I do without indulging in a daily dose of flame wars in those groups. Folks would miss me over there. After office politics, email groups satiate my innate propensity towards scandal and polemics
Docs and spreadsheets – where I have kept most of my collaborative work
Knol
App engine
Analytics
Reader
Sites
Youtube videos
Many eCommerce sites where this particular Gmail Id is the username
Plus over 9000+ email messages (”Conversations” in Gmail parlance!) that have been tucked away for keeps bearing testimony for my faculty of procrastination (Why, it is still only 25% of the total space so generously allotted by Gmail. Why do you grumble!). Some day I’ll read them all, Promise! (Not the viagra stuff, anyway)

Perils of a “single sign-on” facility – laziness has its own risks!

You agree then that I had a problem at hand. I had to somehow get back the Gmail account in tact. My whole digital life depends on it. Rather the well being of the posterity is pivoted on it. So the society has a responsibility in getting it restored to the rightful owner.

Ok. That is settled. Now to the nitty-grtties. I clicked the link tauntingly asking you “Can’t access your account?”, like anybody wise enough to lose one’s Gmail account would do.

I correctly keyed in my username which was very clever of me to remember. It was actually a nickname which my classmates used liberally to ridicule me. I specifically selected it since I could never forget the stigma attached to the word. Then it led me to a Captcha routine which I passed, though they resembled the snarled hieroglyphic charts that the doctors used for testing color blindness.

Then to my horror, I was asked to answer a secret question which even in my wildest dream would not have selected in the first place. It asks “Who was your first girl friend?” No fears! Danger indeed. Someone has hacked (or, cracked/) into my Gmail account. Someone who is up to no good. Sure thing. I have to do something about it pronto.

So on the next page I selected the radio button against “My account has been compromised” which in my opinion amply reflected the reality.

Then comes the “nub”, as good ol’ P.G. Wodehouse would exclaim.

I had to undergo a form-filling ritual answering questions that call for data on the very genesis of the impugned Gmail account. Yes. Right from its date of birth.

Here is the screenshot of the obstacle race arena:

I couldn’t recapitulate any historical data about my Gmail account. But I tried to rack my brains – both hemispheres alternately, but to no avail. But as a man who is wordly wise, I filled all the form elements with the best available dat and submitted.

Pat came the reply with 24 hours deeply regretting and profusely apologizing for their inability to return my account they were unable to verify that I own this account based on the information I provided and that Google had completed their investigation. But the Google team provided me another chance to submit the information called for.

Fair enough.

I thought I have to be serious and do something to drill deep into the recess of my neuronic network as well as the gazillions of files stored in the various partitions and folders of my hard disk(s) – both internal and external.

My, my! Did it not call for real work!

But in the end it was Eureka! I could dig out an old email sent by a friend inviting me to Gmail some light years back That was the day my Gmail account was born. The precious email message was ensconced in the good ol’ Outlook express which I had divorced ages ago before I got admitted into the exclusive Geek’s club! Anything to do with the “Evil Empire” was a taboo!

And rest was very easy. I could furnish the email IDs that frequently send mails to and all such stuff with ease.

And believe me and have faith in the veritable cyber God, the Google that they are efficient, they are considerate and they are empathetic.

Bingo! I got a reply within a span of 12 hours restoring my Gmail account with all its limbs in tact. No damage done.

Thanks to the good folks in Google. But the episode has taught me a lesson.

The moral of the story is this:

Keep a record of the date of opening of your Gmail account
Jot down the email IDs of people to whom you send emails frequently
Give an alternate email address in another server to the Gmail settings and write down that address
Update the secret question which you can easily remember and also write it down somewhere
Change your password and make it difficult to guess

Now over to Gmail Utopia!

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Flat what?

S.K — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:18:28 +0000

The ad is full of half truths!

It says things are flat. Agreed. Things that are not supposed to be flat look flat indeed!

But it also says 50% off. Well, ahem! You are the best judge.

And it is sale on “everything”. Perhaps the scene depicted is after sale!

Anyway, have fun! (In good (sic) humour without malice!)

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Lending a helping hand

S.K — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:37:54 +0000

This is an old picture circulated through emails:

This one appeared in today’s newspaper (The Hindu) in India. It shows villagers helping out boys marooned in floods in the Indian state of Bihar.

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Hallmark of a civil society

S.K — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:10:21 +0000

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Linux is Not Windows!

S.K — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:57:25 +0000

Who said it is? But it is not a rhetorical question.

It is true that many to whom desktop computer is synonymous with Windows try to move curiously near Linux with the assumption that it is just another Operating system like windows and they expect it to be like that. More than that. “They come to Linux, expecting to find essentially a free, open-source version of Windows”, avers Dominic Humphries. That is the truth of the matter.

He has written a comprehensive article dwelling on what to expect and what not to in Linux and shapes your mindset such that your Linux experience is smooth and rewarding.

In addition, he imparts ample “gyan” (meaning knowledge in Sanskrit) on Open source, Linux and all that jazz.

A must read for all techies, non-techies and wannabes!

Link? Duh!

Here it is:

!=