~~Null Pointer Exception~~

How to Take Ownership of a Item in Vista and Windows 7

Ok friends.. So here goes the reason for this post...
Actually, I was trying to delete a file from Windows 7. My login has 'Administrative' rights. But even then the OS kept on saying that I need SYSTEM rights or I have no rights to delete the stupid file. So, u can imagine how irritating the situation would have been. I mean, in my own PC i was having no control over what files i should keep and which I should delete. Hence I wint out googling for some way. Its then when I stumbled upon this solution. So I thought to share it with u guys as wel...

This method will add Take Ownership to the Context (right click) menu for all folders and files in Vista. The Application files, (EX: EXE, CMD, MSI) will still have Run as administrator in addition to Take Ownership now. When you use Take Ownership on a folder, it will take ownership of all the files and subfolders within that folder to.

EXAMPLE: Before and After Context Menus

STEP ONE
Add or Remove Take Ownership
1. To Add Take Ownership -
A) Click on the download button below to download the
Add_Take_Ownership.reg file.

B) Go to step 3.
2. To Remove Take Ownership -
A) Click on the download button below to download the
Remove_Take_Ownership.reg file.

3. Click on Save, and save the .reg file to the Desktop.

4. Right click on the .reg file (on Desktop) and click on Merge.

5. Click on the Run button in the Security Warning pop-up.

6. Click on Continue (UAC), Yes, and then OK when prompted.

7. When done, you can delete the .reg file (on Desktop).
Tip
Taking ownership only changes the "owner" of the file to be your user account. It does not change the permission level of the file.

After you have taking ownership of the file, you may still need to "Allow" your user account "Full Control" of the file before you will have full permission to access it. See steps 11 to 22 in the tutorial below for how.

Take Ownership of file - Vista Forums

STEP TWO
How to Use Take Ownership
1. Right click on a folder or file.
NOTE: When you use Take Ownership on a folder, it will take ownership of all the files and subfolders within that folder to.

2. Click on Take Ownership. (See Example at top)

3. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.

4. You will see a command window pop-up and then go away when it's finished. (See example screenshot below)

5. The folder or file has been taken ownership of.
NOTE:
A) You can verify from METHOD TWO step 7 here: How to Take Ownership of a Item in Vista
B) It will have your user name listed as the owner.
Tip
Taking ownership only changes the "owner" of the file to be your user account. It does not change the permission level of the file.

After you have taking ownership of the file, you may still need to "Allow" your user account "Full Control" of the file before you will have full permission to access it. See steps 11 to 22 in the tutorial below for how.

Take Ownership of file - Vista Forums

Source of this great solution: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/112795-context-menu-take-ownership.htmlhttp://www.vistax64.com/attachments/tutorials/19678d1276323719-context-menu-take-ownership-remove_take_ownership.reg

How to Create a bootable USB Drive

If you do not have a floppy disk drive, you may want to create a bootable USB memory key which will allow you to boot into a pure DOS environment. This can be very useful if you want to flash your BIOS. Here is a step by step procedure on how to perform this operation.
NOTE: Your computer must support booting from a USB device in order to boot from the USB Memory Key.
Step 1 - Download and install the Windows based HP USB Disk Format Tool. For your convenience, you can download it fromHERE.
Step 2 - Download the Windows 98 system files from HERE. This is a zip file that contains all of the system files that you will need. Create a new folder and extract these files into the folder that you just created. Make sure that you preserve the directory structure.

Step 3 - Insert the USB Memory Key into the USB port of your computer.

NOTE: Make sure that the lock/unlock switch (if present) is set to the unlock position.

Step 4 - Launch the HP format tool program.

Under the device drop down list, make sure that the USB memory key is selected.

Step 5 - Under the file system drop down list, select FAT32. This is important to do correctly.

Step 6 - Check the box next to Create a DOS startup disk.

Select "using DOS system files located at:

Then click on the square box with 3 dots on it.

Step 7 - Browse to the folder that you extracted the Win98 system files and then click on the OK button.

Step 8 - Now click the Start button.

Step 9 - You will receive a warning message. Make sure you have the USB memory key selected. If you are sure, then click the Yes button.

Step 10 - Your USB memory key is now being formated and the DOS system files will be copied onto it.

Once the program has completed the operation, click on the Close button.

You now have a bootable USB memory key.

On the USB memory key, you will see these files. These are the basic Win98 system files.

If you want to have CDROM support when you boot from your USB memory key, copy these files, including the CDROM folder to the memory key. These files are the ones that you extracted earlier to a folder.

If you copy all of these files to the memory key, you will have mouse support for any DOS program that support this feature.

You will also have many other DOS utilities that are ve

Source: http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ?

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ?
- Azim Premji, CEO- Wipro

Every company faces the problem of people leaving the company for better pay or profile.

Early this year, Mark, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer.

He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, and the very best technology, even a canteen that served superb food.

Twice Mark was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined.

Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Mark walked out of the job.

Why did this talented employee leave ?

Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.

The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules". It came up with this surprising finding:

If you're losing good people, look to their line managers .... the manager is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge, experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition.

" People leave managers not companies ," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

Mostly manager drives people away?

HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.

When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job."

Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over a trivial issue.

Talented men leave. Dead wood doesn't.

Watch IPL match live on Youtube

Hey guys,
Just came to know that you can watch IPL matches LIVE on youtube.
Just follow the following link below,

<<< Watch IPL Match Live >>

Enjoy!!
and cheer your favourite teams!! :-)

Currency converter

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Universal Currency Converter^®

Convert this amount	of this type of currency	into this type of currency.
enter any amount	scroll down to see more currencies	scroll down to see more currencies

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Aaaram Karo.. Aaram Karo..

Well friends, while profile surfing on Orkut last days I stumbed at this profile of some guy.. The about me had a poem which was so tempting that I could not stop myself from sharing it with you people..
Please read and cherish the humour in it... Cheers!!

Have Breakfast... or...Be Breakfast!

"Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast!"
By Y. L. R. MOORTHI

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?

Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit that Apple's Iphone and Google's Android can make life difficult in future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The "Mahabharat" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – "who is my competitor?"

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says "What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as "digital."

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India? Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no. Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker. They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary! The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal called competition. He said "Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast"! That sums it up rather neatly.
—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore.

______________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: This email message and any attachments are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is confidential, legally privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient(s) or have received this message in error, you are instructed to immediately notify the sender by return email and required to delete this message from your computer system. This communication does not form any contractual obligation on behalf of the sender, the sender's employer or such employer's parent company, affiliates or subsidiaries.

POEM POSTED IN INFOSYS BANGALORE PUBLIC FOLDER ON JAN 01, 2010

The pressure was heavy, the schedule was tight,

Slogged like a dog, tested with all might,

Worked through the day, sat late in the night,

But for me, there is no onsite in sight...

She meets me for coffee, she catches up for a bite,

As I write this stupid poem, she is packing for her third long flight,

What did I do wrong, that she did right?

Why for me, there is no onsite in sight...

Want to climb the Eiffel, see Paris from that height,

Want to see the felled Berlin wall sipping beer light,

Want to bet that dollar as I see Vegas by the night,

Unfortunately for me, there is no onsite in sight...

Talked to my boss, with her I had a fight,

But she earns too much to understand my plight,

Now I don't work that hard, I take it light,

Because for me, there is no onsite in sight...

The future is dark, it ain't bright,

Life is routine, office bus I will board and alight,

Stay offshore and test byte by byte,

For me, there is no onsite in sight...

Forgot to mention subject in mail??? - Outlook Tip

Useful if u use “Microsoft Outlook”

Forgot to mention subject in mail???

Very useful precaution, have tried this & its working, please do it in your Outlook too, reading below…

Forgot to mention subject while writing an Official Mail and feel bad later???????

Yes…. It's a concern for all…. A mail without a subject brings a bad impression on us.

To avoid this, just follow the simple steps mentioned below and see the result.

Here are the steps: -

1. Open your Outlook,

2. Press Alt+F11. This opens the Visual Basic Editor and open Project-Project 1 (left side). If this doesn’t open Project-Project 1 then press then Press Ctrl+R.

3. On the Left Pane, one can see "Microsoft Outlook Objects" or "Project1", expand this. Now one can see the "ThisOutLookSession".

4. Double click on "ThisOutLookSession". It will open up a Code Pane on the right hand side.

5. Copy and Paste the following code in the right pane (Code Pane) and save it

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)

Dim strSubject As String

strSubject = Item.Subject

If Len(Trim(strSubject)) = 0 Then

Prompt$ = "Subject is Empty. Are you sure you want to send the Mail?"

If MsgBox(Prompt$, vbYesNo + vbQuestion + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, "Check for Subject") = vbNo Then

Cancel = True

End If

End Sub

6. Now whenever you try to send a mail without subject, a pop-up is raised to remind you of the blank subject.

Make your Laptop be an Access Point

Hello Friends,

So as the title states, its true that you can convert your laptop wifi module to act as a access point. So what does this mean??

Well, it means that if you have a wired internet connection and couple of wifi enabled devices in your home then you can create a wireless home network and share internet with all the devices without burdening your pocket by buying a separate wireless router.

Now that sounds great, RITE !!

So, lets get it done...

Below is the link to a video that guides us to convert our laptop as an access point on windows XP, Vista and Mac platforms..

Please make the best out of it.. Cheers !!

And ya, don't forget to share your precious success stories... :-)

Stream video to another PC with VLC Player

Ok, frnds.. though after long break; I am back wid yet another cool thing u peeps can do..

Many a times it has happened that we have wanted to watch the same movie that our friend in the next room is watching. So as a solution we end up borrowing a copy of the same in a pen drive n copying the same on our disk. Well, what we donot have a pen drive or a copying media.

Alas we end up with a sad mood.

well, this wont be the case any more with what I am going to tell you now.

Actually, you have a feature in our favorite VLC Player that allows us to stream a video on the local network. So the solution is that we make one of the PC having the video as the streaming server and other as the receiver. KOOL EH !!

Please, check out the video below that teaches us the way to set it up.. Its really simple and fun.. Do give a try !!

The Pre-Release Version of Remote Desktop Connection has expired. - Solution

Remote Desktop Connection has Expired (Pre-Release Version)

MICRO$OFT STRIKES AGAIN...
Today, many Remote Desktop users were struck with the following message:

"The Pre-Release Version of Remote Desktop Connection has expired. To download the full version of Remote Desktop Connection, Go to Windows update or contact your system administrator"

This is a result of installing the recently released XP SP3 RC2 from Microsoft. Apparently they packaged the new Remote Desktop Connection in SP3 with an expiration date (assuming 4/7/2008). Thanks so much for the warning Microsoft! This came on as a big Monday morning surprise to many IT pros as well as home server users (WHS).

The fix?
I have seen many posts where people are uninstalling SP3, which works however rather extreme.

As a temporary workaround, you can simply copy the previous version of the following two files into your windows System32 folder. You can copy these files from another pre-SP3 XP machine or simply search your local hard drive and use a previous version which will be in a previous $NtServicePackUninstall$ folder or in the DLLCACHE folder:
mstscax.dll
mstsc.exe

Then execute the mstsc.exe (which is the same exe name as the expired version). This effectively rolls back your Remote Desktop version to the previous version.

why Team India crashed out

Ten reasons why Team India crashed out
of ICC -Twenty20 World Cup 2009...
Must Read and forward to All

The sudden and dramatic exit of Team India from the race for the semi-finals of the ICC World Twenty- 20 Cup 2009 has shocked onlookers and confounded experts. Being the joint favourites along with South Africa for winning the Cup, the defending champions displayed a lack of innovation as also the absence of sheer desperation that resulted in their amazing success in South Africa in 2007 when they lifted the trophy as rank outsiders. The ten main reasons that led to their shocking elimination are -

1) Complacency - There seemed to be an air of 'nothing-can- go-wrong' in the team's approach. They appeared to feel all along that the Cup was rightfully theirs and that no other team had the fire power to gun them down. That they lost to both the West Indies and England, two of the less formidable teams in the draw, indicated a sense of false superiority which did not result in runs on the board or wickets in the bag.

Click here to Join Hum-Our-Tum Group for Informative and Inspiring Emails

2) Sehwag's unavailability - Despite a star-studded line-up, India had no other batsman who could scare the wits out of the opposition bowlers quite like Virender Sehwag does. Yuvraj Singh is India's batting hero in this version of the game, but the task proved too much even for him, in the absence of the Sultan of Multan, whose shoulder injury cost India dear..

3) Wrong team selection - India bungled by playing an extra bowler in a batsman oriented format of the game. As a result, there was not enough ammunition in the late middle order to test the opposition seriously enough. Dinesh Karthik should have played instead of Ravinder Jadeja in the match against England.. Yusuf Pathan and Rohit Sharma could have bowled spin along with Yuvraj Singh to fill the breach. Ishant Sharma could have been dropped in favour of Praveen Kumar whose swing bowling was suited to English conditions. RP Singh should have played all the matches, given that he was the highest wicket taker in the IPL, and the in-form bowler in the team!

4) Fielding lapses - In the match against the West Indies especially and also on some other occasions, misfielding hurt India badly. Two clear boundaries went through the legs of the fielders against the Windies, and could have made the difference in a close match. More over, India's field placing was such that the slower fielders in the team found the ball coming towards them on more occasions than did the best fielders. Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan were

5) Easy early matches - A factor that Team India could not do anything about, given their top-seeded billing! They had Bangladesh and Ireland for company in their group and found them to be easy meat. But the lack of serious opposition at that stage meant that they had to suddenly up the ante against better teams in the super-league, which they could not manage!

6) Jadeja's dilemma - By pushing green-horn Ravinder Jadeja up the order the team management exposed him to some accurate and hostile bowling from the England pacers in the crucial tie at Lords. Jadeja is a talented player and had claimed two key wickets with his left-arm spin earlier in the match but he appeared to be overawed by the occasion and could not really handle the pressure. In a match that India lost by just 3 runs, Jadeja's 22 off 30 balls was surely a match-losing effort.

7) Short-pitched challenge - The manner in which the West Indian fast bowlers, followed by their English counterparts, tested India's top order with short-pitched bowling was revelatory. Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina just could not get going and were tied down and then forced to find ungainly ways of hitting out or getting out while facing the bouncy stuff. India's top order has seldom looked as ruffled as it did in this tournament. Perhaps a realization that the conditions in England are such that they require pure cricketing shots in the first few overs may have done the trick

8) Dhoni was out of sorts - Captain cool, MS Dhoni kept wickets reasonably well, and marshalled his forces to the best of his ability, but his batting was a let down. Even in the match against England when he and Pathan almost chased down the target, he could not really get the big shots going. His bat seemed to have lost its potency, for his shots simply lacked the explosiveness that they are known for.

9) Media trouble - Another factor was surely the off-the-field distraction especially the manner in which the Sehwag issue was dealt with.. The media flayed the present Captain's attitude for the first time ever and the foolhardy attempt at displaying a sense of camaraderie by presenting the whole team at a Press conference was most bizarre.

10) Too much cricket - The current Indian team plays all around the year and big matches obviously lose their aura for the players when so much cricket is played. This was the World Cup after all, but from the look of them, Team India could well have been playing any other international series. Gautam Gambhir, who has been the most prolific scorer in world cricket in the past one year, looked totally jaded, and exemplified the mal-effects of excessive international cricket. Fans of the Indian team are distraught and shocked at their early exit from the ICC World Twenty 20. Let's see if the team can re-group from here and win back our admiration in the coming months..

Diff Ways To Propose....Njoy!!!

* (Walk up behind girl and point fingers shaped like gun into her back)
“You’re under arrest!” (For what?) “For stealing my heart.”
* Hi, my name is Chance, Do I have one?
* Are your legs tired?
(Girl: Why?)
Because you have been running through my mind all day!
* “I lost my phone number, can I borrow yours?”
* Can you give me directions to your heart? I’ve seemed to lose myself in your eyes
* (Take a look at the tag on the girls shirt, jacket, She would say, “What are doing”)
Respond, “Oh, just checking to see if you were made in Heaven.”
* (Pick up a flower and walk over to girl.)
“I was just showing this flower how beautiful you are.”
* Is it hot in here or is it just you?
* Walk up to a guy and say: “Are you from heaven?”
“No” he answers. “Oh, I thought all the angels were from heaven”
* I could be born in your eye, run down your cheek and die on your lips.
* Did you know they changed the alphabet?
They put U and I together.
* Are you lost?
Cause it’s so strange to see an angel so far from heaven.
* Do you believe in love at first sight, or do I have to walk by you again?
* What’s that in your eye? Oh…it’s a sparkle.
* Do you have a map? I just got lost in your eyes.
* You can forget about going to heaven because it’s sin to look that good.

Unix turns 40: The past, present and future of a revolutionary OS

Forty years ago this summer, a programmer sat down and knocked out in one month what would become one of the most important pieces of software ever created.

Let’s Cheer for that Legend!!

How To Reinstall Windows Without Losing Anything

How To Reinstall Windows Without Losing Anything Here Is Another Possible Solution: easy way and tested:

1- Start WindowsXP
2- Go to the location of your source files
3- Run WINNT32 /unattend
For example, D:\I386\winnt32 /unattend ( copy & paste this command into the RUN box, then press ENTER ) Your computer will do the rest.
Or,
Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt.
Copy & paste > D:\I386\winnt32 /unattend
Press Enter.
If you have i386 on your drive, you can replace D: ( if D: is your cd drive ) with the location of it.
I've often need to do this to repair something that had gotten corrupted and didn't want to do a clean install.

D: is the driver letter where your windows XP Cd is
if D:\I386\winnt32 /unattend doesn't work then try : d:\winnt32 /unattend.

Happy reinstalling windows… J

Best way to survive in the job!!

Great EH!!! :-)

The Invisible man - Get Invisible In Google Talk With Google Talk Labs Edition

We all have missed the great feature to get invisible in GTALK. Unlike other popular messengers like the yahoo messenger, the common version of Gtalk doesnot have the option to enter into invisible mode. Though through Gmail we can remain invisible to our friends and disturb the ;-)

Well, google has released a some what different version to Gtalk called the Gtalk labs edition.

So what are you peeps waiting for?? Click the link here to download it.

Download Gtalk Labs Edition

Zoozoo: The new brand 'endorser' for Vodafone

No, they aren't animated characters. They are human beings who were made to wear body suits. "The design of the characters is such that one gets fooled into thinking it is animation," shrugs Rao, which was indeed the very illusion that had to be created. "In a sense, it is 'live' animation!" he quips, referring to the fact that it was all shot live.

Prakash Varma, ad filmmaker, Nirvana Films, has directed the commercials, and reveals that the Zoozoos were a big challenge to create. The practical aspects of how they will move, talk, gesticulate and emote were very important. Essentially, costume design and artwork were crucial elements.

"It took me three weeks of pre-production to understand how it will work," says Varma. There were two fabrics that were considered for the body suits, and one was rejected for it had too many wrinkles and was shiny. The wrinkles would have shown when the characters moved, thereby shattering the illusion of animation. "So we chose the more practical, thicker fabric," Varma explains.

The production team divided the outfit into two parts: the body and the head. The body part of the outfit was stuffed with foam in some places, while the head was attached separately. To make it look bigger than a human head, a harder material called Perspex was used, which in turn was stuffed with foam (with scope for ventilation).

If one wishes to understand the size of this head, here's a fact: a human head would typically reach up to the mouth level of this giant Zoozoo head. "We kept the hands and legs thin, which is why we cast women - and occasionally children - wearing the costumes," says Varma. The thin limbs, contrasted with big bellies and a bulbous head, all add to the illusion that these creatures are 'smaller' than humans. Sets were created to suit the size of the Zoozoos.
Cinematically, this 'size' was a trick: the creatures look smaller than they actually are on screen, to portray a different world of sorts. For this, the speed of shooting was altered: Nirvana shot it in a high-speed format to make them look the size that they do.
Furthermore, simple sets/backdrops were created and spray painted with neutral Greys - a colour of choice so that attention isn't diverted from the main characters. For a supposedly 'outdoor' shot, even the shadow of a Zoozoo was kept 'live' and not done in post production: it was painted in a darker shade of grey on the ground. An even lighting was maintained throughout.
There was virtually no post production work done.
The films were shot by Nirvana in Cape Town, South Africa, with the help of a local production house there, called Platypus. Incidentally, the same combination of people also worked on the 'Happy to Help' series last year. When asked whether Cape Town is fast becoming a tourist spot for Vodafone and Nirvana, Varma laughs, saying, "Oh no! It's just that we are very comfortable with the team there and know what sort of work to expect from them."
Nagpal adds here that the production cost had to be minimal for unveiling such a large number of commercials. "Otherwise, our production costs would exceed media spends," he quips.

The Trusted Second hand Sale

Hi friends..
All might have heard of people starting online ventures..
Some failing while others making fortunes out of it. Inspired from those successful lot I have thought of catching the big fish too. In coordination with two other friends of mine, we have decided to set up this web site facilitating sale of second hand goods among ourself.
The details goes as..

- A place for buying/selling almost anything: Electronic goods, books, computer accessories, household goods, etc.

- The difference here would be that the people allowed to participate would our friends, and friends of friends, forming a network of trusted people, from whom buying second hand/used goods , would be a safe proposition.

- Each person would be connected to everyone, either directly or indirectly, bringing some form of accountability, in case of dissatisfaction of the good sold.

- I'm sure we all have stuff lying around, which we never thought we cud sell, but maybe useful to someone. We could sell it to our direct friends, but with this network, we could target people we didnt know as well.

- Ex: My father has a Reliance Net-Card which he wont be using anymore, coz he's going for a wireless Broadband card. He never thought of selling the old card till i told him. Now imagine how wud i look for someone interested? A perfectly funtional device will be lying waste unless i find someone to buy it.

- Addionally, we would have forums recommending stuff to our friends as well.

But we are still experimental on the idea. I mean we are still not sure if this can make a mark. So we have put up this small survey asking people as to how they feel about it. The link is
http://tinyurl.com/pad-survey
So it would be very appreciable if you guys could please take this survey and provide your useful feedback.
Thanks a ton!!

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