Micro Blogging

Morty arrives home from work and as soon as he sets foot in the house,

Sadie is on to him, telling him that their friend Marvin has finally quit smoking.

"Imagine that, Morty," she says, "Someone who smoked 3 packs a day for 20 years has stopped smoking all of a sudden. Now that's what I call will power - something that you definitely don't have."

But Sadie hadn't finished. "And that's not all. I hear that Bernie, that drunken friend of yours, is finally giving up drinking - another example of the kind of will power that you don't have."

"OK, Sadie," said Morty, "you want to see will power, do you? Well here's will power. I am going to sleep in the spare room from now on. I am going to prove to you that I won't be affected at all by not sleeping with a woman."

Morty keeps to his word.

One night, when he had been sleeping alone for a week, there is a knock on his bedroom door.

Morty shouts out, "What do you want?" Sadie replies, "Er... Marvin has started smoking again."

I got this result while searching a keyword in my hard disk using some searching tool. :)

A woman awakes during the night to find that her husband was not in bed.

She goes downstairs to look for him. She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him.

He appears to be in deep thought, just staring at the wall. She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and takes a sip of his coffee.

"What's the matter, dear?" she whispers as she steps into the room. "Why are you down here at this time of night?"

The husband looks up from his coffee, "Do you remember 20 years ago when we were dating, and you were only 18?" he asks solemnly. "Yes I do" she replies.

The husband pauses; the words were not coming easily. "Do you remember when your father caught us in the garden?"

"Yes, I remember" said the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him.

The husband continued.. "Do you remember when he showed the shotgun in my face and said, 'Either you marry my daughter, or I'll send you to jail for 20 years?"

"I remember that too" she replied softly.

He wiped another tear from his cheek and said, "I would have been released today!"

Boxing Day seems to have originated in the mid nineteenth century in England. Some historians believe the name 'Boxing Day' came about because the boxes placed in churches where parishioners deposited alms (coins) for the poor were opened, and the contents were distributed on December 26, which is also the Feast of St Stephen. (St Stephen was the first Christian martyr.)

Others believe that the Boxing Day tradition originated as a holiday for members of the upper class to give boxes containing food, clothing or money to tradespeople and servants, in much the same way that many employers offer their employees bonuses today. These gifts were usually given in boxes; hence the name 'Boxing Day".
Oxford English Dictionary says this comes from the Christmas box; the verb box meaning: To give a Christmas-box, and then leading to the term boxing-day.

An extension of the above theory is that when Christmas holidays were much shorter than they are today certain services often only had Christmas Day as a holiday and returned to work the day after. These included services such as the mail, newspaper or milk delivery. Householders would give them a Christmas gift or, as it was commonly called, a Christmas box on this day to thank them for their service throughout the year.

The common theme, however, is that Boxing Day has absolutely nothing to do with the sport of boxing.

Partially taken from "http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_Boxing_Day_called_Boxing_Day"

A white hat hacker, also rendered as ethical hacker, is, in the realm of information technology, a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of computer systems. Realization that the Internet now represents human voices from around the world has made the defense of its integrity an important pastime for many. A white hat generally focuses on securing IT systems, whereas a black hat (the opposite) would like to break into them.

Please check Cyber Laws India's website to read more about this. Its website address is http://www.cyberlawsindia.net/white-hat.html

Yesterday Chetan Bhagat tweeted a lot on Andhra issue. His all tweets were funny and interesting too. Please find the snap shots of his tweets below.



To see the bigger picture, please click on the snapshot.

Recently I got a new 'Sony VAIO W series' laptop as a gift from my Dad. It was looking very cute, just 10 inch screen. I was not happy only with two things. First - It don't have DVD Drive and Second - Still it is coming with Windows XP second edition (No Vista or Windows 7).

Anyway, lets come on to the topic. After 3-4 days, one virus attacked on my lappy and suddenly it stopped showing all the hidden files. Now what to do? I know that almost all the anti-virus program can remove this virus, but I don't have net connection and I am unable to update my antivirus program. Now whatever I have to do, I have to do it without antivirus program.

Solution I -
The first solution came in my mind was, restore my laptop with some days back.

Step(s) : Start -> My Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore. And restore on the your selected date.

Solution II -
Since I knew that it is the perfect solution, so I was started some other solution for those people who don't know the exact date when their machine got virus affected. So I started playing with windows registry and got one new solution for this problem.

Step(s) :
Warning !!
You should take a back up of your current settings. You can make a restore point in system restore, or just open the registry and export the whole thing, or export some selected keys.

How to take back up of all registry entries : Start -> Run -> (type) regedit -> (rightclick on the little my computer icon, and export the whole thing.)

Go to Start -> Run -> regedit and Find this key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. Go to the rightside of the window, where the values are. Find the value "Hidden" . Rightclick it and modify it to 1(if it is 0 means you can see hidden files, it is 1 means you are hidding your hidden files and if it is any other number means it is affetced by Virus).


This next text is from my own registry. Copy it to notepad, then rename the notepad file, so it have the extension .reg ,and then doubleclick it.:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden]
"Text"="@shell32.dll,-30499"
"Type"="group"
"Bitmap"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\
00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,53,00,\
48,00,45,00,4c,00,4c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,34,00,00,\
00
"HelpID"="shell.hlp#51131"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden\NOHIDDEN]
"RegPath"="Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced"
"Text"="@shell32.dll,-30501"
"Type"="radio"
"CheckedValue"=dword:00000002
"ValueName"="Hidden"
"DefaultValue"=dword:00000002
"HKeyRoot"=dword:80000001
"HelpID"="shell.hlp#51104"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL]
"RegPath"="Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced"
"Text"="@shell32.dll,-30500"
"Type"="radio"
"CheckedValue"=dword:00000001
"ValueName"="Hidden"
"DefaultValue"=dword:00000002
"HKeyRoot"=dword:80000001
"HelpID"="shell.hlp#51105"

That's all Folks!!! :)

DEADBEEF is a hexadecimal value that was used in debugging back in the mainframe/assembly days because it was easy to see when marking and finding specific memory in pages of hex dumps. Most computer science graduates have seen this at least in their assembly language classes in college and that's why interviewers expect software engineers to know it.

From Wikipedia : "0xDEADBEEF ("dead beef") is used by IBM RS/6000 systems, Mac OS on 32-bit PowerPC processors and the Commodore Amiga as a magic debug value. On Sun Microsystems' Solaris, it marks freed kernel memory. On OpenVMS running on Alpha processors, DEAD_BEEF can be seen by pressing CTRL-T.[3]"

A BAD BABE is also a Hexadecimal Number(ABADBABE) which is used by Apple as the "Boot Zero Block" magic number.

Please check this wiki link also.

Do something amazing today. Save a life. Give blood

• Give the gift that costs nothing to give.
• We need each other. Please give blood.
• Every drop counts. Give blood today!
• It’s in your blood to help save a life.
• Blood donors are special people.
• From me to you—a gift of life.
• Donate blood, start young.
• Life is precious. Be a life-saver. Give blood!
• Blood. It’s in you to give.
• Accidents and medical emergencies don’t take holidays—we need blood every minute, every day of the year.
• Blood costs nothing to give yet is more valuable than any other resource on earth. Don’t let the blood center run dry!
• The blood you donate gives someone another chance at life. One day that someone may be a close relative, a friend, a loved one—or even you.
• Do you feel you don’t have much to offer? You have the most precious resource of all: the ability to save a life by donating blood! Help share this invaluable gift with someone in need.
• Feel like you’re low on supplies? But you’re rich in the most precious resource of all: blood and the gift of life.
• If you’re a blood donor, you’re a hero to someone, somewhere, who received your gracious gift of life.
• Good blood helps sick people get better.
• Strong communities are built on safe blood.
• We need what you’ve got! Give blood.
• Share life. Donate blood.
• Give blood—stay healthy.
• When you give blood, you’ll be doing one of the most amazing things anybody could dream of—saving a life.
• Give blood today. It may be a member of your family or a friend who needs this precious resource next.
• To give blood is an honor for youth…become a regular volunteer blood donor.

From my side : Last time I donated my blood on 1st
September 2009

एक पुराना पोस्ट, जो दिल के बेहद नजदीक है..

उस दिन जब तुम्हें देखा तो मानो दिल कि धड़कन थम सी गई थी.. तुम्हारी नजरों को भी मैंने देखा था.. पल भर को मेरे चेहरे पर टिकी थी.. मानो इस बात का सबूत दे रही हो कि मैं कोई अंजान नहीं हूं.. दिल को तसल्ली हुई, तुम अभी भी मुझे देख कर पहचान रही हो.. अभिनय करने में तुम अभी कच्ची हो.. नहीं तो तुम मुझे ये एहसास नहीं होने देती.. जिंदगी भी किसी नदी कि तरह होती है, हर परिस्तिथि में अपना रास्ता तलाश कर लेती है.. बहना कभी बंद नहीं करती है.. मगर रास्ता बदलने पर जैसे सूखे हुये पानी के श्रोत अपना निशान छोड़ जाती है वैसे ही जिंदगी भी कहीं ना कहीं अपना निशान छोड़ जाती है.. मानो ये याद दिलाने के लिये कि कहीं कुछ सूना सा है.. कुछ खालीपन.. कुछ यादें.. तुमने भले ही अपनी नजरें मुझसे फेर ली थी, मगर मैं तुम्हें एक-टक देखता रहा.. फिर बेतरतीबी में सिगरेट जलाया.. मेरी मित्र ने मुझे कहा कि मत जलाओ.. शायद धुवें से उसे दिक्कत थी, या शायद मेरे सिगरेट पीने से.. मैं सॉरी कहकर वहां से जाने लगा, उसने जाने से मना कर दिया.. सिगरेट बुझाने को कहा.. मैंने एक लंबा कश लिया, उसने फिर मना किया.. इतने अधिकार से जिसे मैं नजर अंदाज नहीं कर पाया.. सिगरेट फेंक कर अपना सारा आवेश अपने जूते से उस पर निकाल दिया.. "यहीं थोड़ी दूर पर एक मंदिर है, चलोगे वहां?" मन नहीं था, सो एक सपाट सा उत्तर.. "अरे प्रसाद भी बहुत अच्छा मिलता है वहां.." एक खिलखिलाती हुई सी हंसी, जो शत-प्रतिशत मुझे बहलाने का प्रयास था.. मैं फिर मना नहीं कर पाया.. सोचा मेरा मन बहलाने के लिये ही तो कर रही है ये सब.. मंदिर से बाहर निकलकर सभी प्रसाद खाने लगे.. शायद सच में अच्छा था.. उनके चेहरे से झलक रहा था.. दो चने के दाने मैंने भी उठाया और मुह में डाल लिया.. अनमने ढंग से उसे निगल भी लिया.. फिर वापस कर दिया.. ना जाने क्यों कुछ भी अच्छा नहीं लग रहा था.. कुछ यादें फिर से दिल पर दस्तक दे रही थी.. ऐसी यादें जिनका मैं सामना नहीं कर सकता.. बस भागना चाहता हूं.. मगर भाग भी नहीं पाता.. क्या करूं? कहां जाऊं इन यादों से?

तुम उस दिन सफेद कपड़े में आयी थी, मैं तुम्हें ऐसे देख रहा था जैसे कोई परी आसमान से उतर आयी हो.. कालेज का आखिरी दिन होने के कारण से हम दोनों ही बेचैन थे.. इस असमंजस में थे की पता नहीं अब मुलाकात हो ना हो.. सभी कुछ खत्म होने के बाद हम भी अपने रस्ते चलने को तैयार थे, मगर कुछ वक्त एक दूसरे के साथ बिताने के इच्छुक भी.. टहलते हुये निकल परे, कदम जितना धीमा परे इसके जतन में.. एक आईस्क्रीम वाल दिखा और दोनों ने ही चोकोबार लिया और धीरे-धीरे खाने लगे.. थोड़ा प्यार-मनुहार भी कुछ शरारतें भी.. तभी कहीं से एक आवाज सी सुनाई देने लगी..

"तुम मुझे यूं भुला ना पाओगे.. जब कभी भी सुनोगे गीत मेरे.."

शायद कुछ गीतों कि उम्र बहुत लम्बी होती है.. जो बिन बुलाये अपनी धमक छोड़ जाती है.. गाहे-बगाहे सटीक तरीके से उस महौल में ढ़ल भी जाती है..

उस समय पहली बार ये अहसास हुआ की सच में मैं तुम्हें कभी भुला नहीं पाऊंगा.. कभी नहीं.. तुम आज भी मुझमें जिंदा हो, मेरे ख्वाबों में जिंदा हो.. हर पल तुम मेरे साथ होती हो.. कभी दोस्त बनकर.. कभी प्रेमिका बनकर.. कभी हितचिंतक बनकर.. तो कभी शत्रु बनकर.. हर पल में तुम्हें हजार बार जीता हूं..

क्या तुम्हें याद है, आज कौन सा दिन है?

There's a myth that if we were really good at programming, there would be no bugs to catch. If only we could really concentrate, if only everyone used structured programming, topdown design, decision tables, if programs were written in SQUISH, if we had the right silver bullets, then there would be no bugs. So goes the myth. There are bugs, the myth says, because we are bad at what we do; and if we are bad at it, we should feel guilty about it. Therefore, testing and test case design is an admission of failure, which instills a goodly dose of guilt. And the tedium of testing is just punishment for our errors. Punishment for what? For being human? Guilt for what? For failing to achieve inhuman perfection? For not distinguishing between what another programmer thinks and what he says? For failing to be telepathic? For not solving human communications problems that have been kicked
around . . . for forty centuries?

Yesterday I was going through Software Engineering book by Pressman and I found these quotes. I found it very interesting and some philosphical also, so I am posting it here. These words he wrote in the 17th chapter(Software Testing).

क्यों चली आती हो ख्वाबों में
क्यों भूल जाती हो
तुमने ही खत्म किया था
अपने उन सारे अधिकारों को
मुझ पर से
अब इन ख्वाबों पर भी
तुम्हारा कोई अधिकार नहीं

क्यों चली आती हो ख्यालो में
कभी नींद चुराने, कभी चैन चुराने
तुमने ही तो मुझे
अपने ख्यालों से निकाल फेंका था
अब मैं तुम्हारा
बहिष्कार करना चाहता हूं
पर तुम हो कि मानती ही नहीं

मेरे हिस्से कि दिन की गरमी
से घबरा उठी थी तुम,
अब क्यों रातों कि
चांदनी चुराने आती हो
ये शीतलता ही मेरे
जीने का भरोसा है
ये जैसे तुम जानती ही नहीं

"Bhai, what you gifted to Anni?" I asked to my friend. Today is his 2nd marriage anniversary. Anni is a Tamil word, it means "Bhabhi".

"Nothing bhai.." He replied. "Today is last day of the month, so I am almost bankrrupt."

These things we were talking on 31st August. Within an hour I checked my salary account and I found my August months salary there. Again I turned towards my friend and said, "Bhai, ab to gift banta hai. We got the salary."

He said, "Yes" and started googling for some gold chain stores in Chennai and its price. After 1 hour, finally he selected one jewellery and call to the "Joy Alukka's" showroom for the availability and the price. Its price was approx 25K. He came back to me and said, "Bhai, I was very much happy when I was a bachelor."

I laughed on that and asked him, "Tell me honestly, are you really think like this?"

"No boss. Honest answer is, yes I'm happy now." he replied and he continue speaking "If really some one is not happy after 2 yrs of marriage it means somewhere something is definitely wrong."

Today is Onam. One of the most awaited fetival for South Indian people. Apart from Onam, Pongal is another most awaited fetival for South Indian. Just Like "Chhath" for "Biharis", "Dashahara" for "Bengalies" and "Ganeshotsav" for "Marathies".

Lets first talk about Onam.

Story goes that during the reign of mighty asura (demon) king, Mahabali, Kerala witnessed its golden era. Every body in the state was happy and prosperous and king was highly regarded by his subjects. Apart from all his virtues, Mahabali had one shortcoming. He was egoistic. This weakness in Mahabali's character was utilized by Gods to bring an end to his reign as they felt challenged by Mahabali's growing popularity. However, for all the good deed done by Mahabali, God granted him a boon that he could annually visit his people with whom he was so attached.

Source - Wikipedia


Now lets talk about a celebration in my office. It happened on 31st August. Actually it was a competition for Rangoli, which should made by flowers. Let take a look of all participated Rangolies and tell me which one is the best. In the end of the post I'll tell you about the winning one. :)














The last one was the winner.. :)

All photographs are Copyrighted.

Normally in any industry we are giving our work estimation, but here I'll only talk about IT industry.

Just imagine, there is a very big ground and your boss will tell to run into the ground from one end to another end. You don't know that how much you have to run, either 1 km or 2 km or 10 km. You knew only one thing that what is your speed and you can run 1 km in 10 minutes. Your boss will again give some pressure that give your maximum time estimation.

Now you are happy, that you will give very high estimation and you'll finish your work in lesser hours. And rest of the time you will enjoy.. ;)

But my friend, suppose you will give your estimation for 10 km and the exact distance will be 100 km then what you'll do? You will be in a deep shit, you'll have to face the pressure from all the directions. From your boss, from the management, from the client(if you are working for any client), and also from your family because they always wants to spend time with you.

Anyway! Whatever you are doing or wherever you are working, it doesn't matter. But you have to give some time estimation, and 75% times you'll find yourself in a condition like a cat running on a hot tin roof.

FYI

I started this blog to write about my small thoughts & ideas. Then my dearest friend Manoj also joined this blog as a writer and moderator. Just now I gave all rights to him, and from now he will share his ownership with me.

Thanks & Regards to all readers
Prashant Priyadarshi (PD)

Day before yesterday, I met with my friend Mukta and we and some more friends went for the lunch. In the restaurant she started watching the pics from my mobile and mean while she was asking some of questions about the person in the pic. When she saw my brother's(Bhaiya) pic, she first asked, "Who is he?"

"My bhaiya", I answered.

"He is your real bhaiya?", it was her next question.

"No, he is Integer bhaiya", I replied.

"????? what does it mean?", she asked this in little puzzled way.

I replied, "You asked about my real bhaiya. But he is my all bhaiya. Like Integer bhaiya, Imaginary bhaiya, Whole bhaiya."

Now she got it that I am making some fun. And we all started laughing. :)

On a very charming day, we were planned to visit a Water Park named Kishkindha. Its name is taken from kingdom of Bali and Sugreev(the famous character from Ramayana). But when I saw the spelling of that water park, I found that it is "Kishkinta" which makes me puzzled. We(Vikas, Vani, Shiv, Sharda & myself) discussed about this and conclude that in Tamil Language there is no scope of "Dh" and they are pronouncing "Dh" as "T" so they are also writing as same.

Yes! It was a Sunday. I didn't sleep well in the last night and I wanted to sleep some more, at least I didn't want to woke up at 8 in the morning. Only one thing make me fresh in this condition, I knew that it is not good but i felt helpless at that time. Its a Cigarette. "After shifting to my new house I left my habit to take cigarette in the morning. Previously also I wanted to quit it but it was easy to get at anytime, but here I got a chance and I took it." But on that Sunday I went to the shop and took 1 cigarette and after that I went to get ready for that water park. We all(Vikas, Shiv & me) pack our bags. Sharda came at 9:15 and Vani came after that. Cab came at 9:40 AM and we all sat in the car and our journey started towards Kishkinta Water Park.

We all got down in front of Kishkinta's main gate and went for the tickets. Its cost was 380/- for adults. I thought that Shiv may take 280/- ticket for himself, ;) but then didn't allowed. It proves that Shiv is now adult and also ready to get marry.. :D Apart from joke, we found there that it is not only water park, it is an amusement + water park. Most of the rides were included in that Rs. 380 ticket and few rides were charged separately.

We went Inside and mean while Vani took some Photographs from her Camera. "If anyone will see our photographs, they can't find any water in the water park. ;-)" We don't had any option to directly get into the water because opening time for water park was from 1 PM, so initially we opted for some rides. After so many years(last time was 1998) I had some those kind of rides. So I really enjoyed all the rides. I wanted some more adventurous ride but no rides was up to my expectation. I also had to take care of my fractured leg, so some water rides I didn't opted.

After that we went into the pool. It was really good fun to get into the water and play as much you want. Yes, I confess that it again raised my passion about swimming which I missed in the college time. I hope that very soon I will join some swimming training institute.

There was a show named "Tsunami" in the water park, which putted me into deep thought. The complete show was like this - First they created some noises like Tsunami, then suddenly one big wave came just like a Tsunami.
I was thinking like, Chennai was the only one metro which was badly affected by Tsunami, and thousands of people were died. But this is the same city where people are making money with the name of Tsunami, people are dancing on the wave of Tsunami. I think this is the world where everything is counting in money. People are pronouncing it as being more practical and professional. Only one thing you have to learn to become more practical is you should know that how to make money from the emotion of the people, but people shouldn't realize that you are making money from their emotion.

Anyway, after sometime we went out from the water and changed our cloths. Sharda called the "Call Taxi" and we came to our old place, i.e.Vadapalani to eat some nice food. Because food was not good in the Kishkinta. Mean while we got the call of Afroz, that he came back to Chennai and coming to our home with the chocolates....... :)

That's all folks........