Finally found some time to blog

The past few days have been an interesting mix of extremly hard work and a lot of hard work. On one hand I had a lot of fun at school (well.. not really since its school, but hey it was kind of fun). I finally couldn't resist blogging a little bit. I mean I've maintained this blog for a whole year, and why just stop right now? It kinda hurts... deep inside when you see your blog just sitting there, like a ghost town completely useless (except for the few iPod posts that constantly get read).

So yeah, I guess I'll try to blog a little bit when I get the time. It's fun, plus I need to keep in touch with blogger technology. I'm also planning to switch to Blogger 2.0 sometime soon. And I'll probably write articles on how to do that properly as well.

Anyways, that's it for now. Even if nobody reads this stuff, I know I will, and like Franklin McMahon says, I can keep my record for my progress.

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What's hapennin' lately?

If your wondering what's hapenning lately (if you are wondering though... seriously, get a life, I'm quite sure you have lot more things to do then read a blog that get's one post in a week (hopefully) and has really big run-on sentences (like this one) in it) then you've really come to the right place.

Anyways, apparently there's a lot of stuff going on in the web (as well as the web 2.0) world lately. Like blogger recently upgraded to a much more btter web-2.0 ish style type platform. But honestly though, if you do use blogger, then more web 2.0 stuff is the last thing you care about (unless you are somebody like Amit Agarwal who earns about 20,000 dollars per month (yes that's right there are 4 zeros in the number... it's not a mistake!)). I've yet to switch to the new type (if it is possible) but right now I have my hands a bit to tied with work right now. May be sometime in the future.

By the way does anyone still read this blog? I see 12 people subscribing to the blog but I'm quite sure they are probably the kind that don't check much about the blogs on their subscription list, just read the latest articles. If anybody does stumble upon this blog/website/work of genius and wants me to keep it alive with articles/rants and or boring articles then just holler (a.k.a. leave a comment) and I'll see if I can find some time to blog.

life, boring, web, development, Apple, jokes

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How to study from a textbook

Although this has nothing to do with technology, I think textbooks play a huge role in our life. Time and again they have served as the way humans learn more about a subject and further their understanding on a particular topic. Obviously as we progress the populations of textbooks is assuredly going to dwindle, nonetheless it is still the most important way many students today get their knowledge from. Here are a couple of tips that I found that are sure to help you study better, retain more and therefore make the most out of your textbook.

Step 1 - Skim through the text / chapter you are about to learn or cover in class

• Get an overview, find out what the chapter is about: Discovery only.

Step 2 - Underline

• Underline the keyword for subheadings
  
• Main phrase of paragraphs and definitions
• Important names, places, dates

Step 3 - Number

• Events in sequence, steps in a process
• All points to be remembered
• You should now recopy the notes in point form

Step 4 - Draw

• Drawing often helps people retain more, especially visual learners who like to picture facts and even numbers
• Draw a chart to - link events - show a process - show differences such as advantages / disadvantages or cause / effect, or similarities and differences.

Step 5 - Arrange

• Outlines in order; collect charts and diagrams to go with outline notes.
• Arrange study cue cards too

Step 6  - Write out things in your own words

• Rewrite th ekey words as a subheading
• Rerite ll point form notes in YOUR OWN WORDS for each heading
• Redraw the charts and diagrams

Finally -- Study

Study every thing from your charts, sub-headings and your point form notes. Following the process in a timely manner will help you get more out from school and more importantly help you manage your time a lot better.

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Why is e-mail required while commenting?

Many are probably wondering why I've made it mandatory to put in your e-mail while using the comment form in post pages. The answer is simple: It helps me help you better! This is because usually many people don't realize that when they are asking for help, they need to be contacted with the solution. However many just say something like

Hey dude... I tried what you said, but it isn't working. Help me!

Sure, I can help you out, but hey, how do I help you? I don't know how to tell you what to do. I could of course write a comment, however the odds of the person coming back to read the comments again are very scarce.

That's why I've come up with this feature, not to make your life harder, but to make it easier... its for your own good. Plus, its not like you really have to type in your real address if you aren't asking for help, just fake it. It's not like I'm going to sit here collecting everybody's e-mail address.

So please, keep in mind that the e-mail feild is only there so that you can type in your e-mail if you are asking for help. This way I can get back to you. And also keep in mind that all e-mail you give out is strictly confidential and will not be used for any thing else except contact you only if you need help and say so in your comment.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

We all know that the saying is definately true! If you don't believe in it then here's an example for you: I posted the article on how to make Gmail more secure... and it got on digg.com's front page, but was soon demoted by users and was burried with only 137 diggs.

However, Adam has published a similar article on his blog which got about 1324 diggs... wow! Ok, I'm not going to argue about how Adam got his article up there, whilst my article wasn't really appreciated that much although it was the same thing. But as you can see from this example people really don't pay attention to things, and sometimes something looks sensible and other times the exact same thing is classified as worthless.

May be if the people would have read my article wayyyyy back in January they might be safer today. Ok... may be Gmail isn't that important but what if it was about ... the earth was going to get hit by a comet in 24 hours and people burried my story because they thought I was lying and din't now about my SupRRRman (or may be Nach-OOOOOOOOO!) powers? Pretty interesting to see how people think, huh?

I guess I should become a psychologist I'm sure there's some law (which is probably named the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' law) that describes how people react... atleast I'm guessing there is some kind of algorithm that describes it?

Anyways, I seem to be really busy this summer... yeah I know, summer and busy don't exactly go together but hey, I might as well work instead of stabbing myself with a needle due to extraneous boredom.

Basically I'm working on a couple of site designs simultaneously, although I'd love to talk about it I think it is better not to. You never know if the client is going to get furious just because his web designer posted a little 16x16 screenshot of the website on his blog... but as soon as the designs are released I'll make sure to write about it.

In other news I'm going to be at the CyberArtsCamp this summer, so if you want to pick up some handy Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash MX or Dreamweaver skills then make sure to drop by the camp. Although I'm guessing there won't be much time for most to grasp the advanced skills such as Action Script 2 or anything but well atleast you can boast that you know how to use flash.

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Virtual Memory and Low Virtual Memory Problems in Windows

Virtual memory is a common part of most operating systems on desktop computers. It has become so common because it provides a big benefit for users at a very low cost.

Most computers today have something like 64 or 128 megabytes of RAM (random-access memory) available for use by the CPU (central processing unit). Often, that amount of RAM is not enough to run all of the programs that most users expect to run at once. For example, if you load the Windows operating system, an e-mail program, a Web browser and word processor into RAM simultaneously, 64 megabytes is not enough to hold it all.

If there were no such thing as virtual memory, your computer would have to say, "Sorry, you cannot load any more applications. Please close an application to load a new one." With virtual memory, the computer can look for areas of RAM that have not been used recently and copy them onto the hard disk.

This frees up space in RAM to load the new application. Because it does this automatically, you don't even know it is happening, and it makes your computer feel like is has unlimited RAM space even though it has only 32 megabytes installed. Because hard-disk space is so much cheaper than RAM chips, virtual memory also provides a nice economic benefit.

The area of the hard disk that stores the RAM image is called a page file. It holds pages of RAM on the hard disk, and the operating system moves data back and forth between the page file and RAM. (On a Windows machine, page files have a .SWP extension.)

Of course, the read/write speed of a hard drive is much slower than RAM, and the technology of a hard drive is not geared toward accessing small pieces of data at a time. If your system has to rely too heavily on virtual memory, you will notice a significant performance drop. The key is to have enough RAM to handle everything you tend to work on simultaneously. Then, the only time you "feel" the slowness of virtual memory is in the slight pause that occurs when you change tasks. When you have enough RAM for your needs, virtual memory works beautifully. When you don't, the operating system has to constantly swap information back and forth between RAM and the hard disk. This is called thrashing, and it can make your computer feel incredibly slow.

You must be logged on as an administrator or as a member of the Administrators group to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.
1. Click Start, click Run, and then type sysdm.cpl in the Open box.
2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Performance.
3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Change under Virtual memory.
4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file that you want to change.
5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, type a new paging file size in megabytes (MB) in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.
If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum paging file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. When you increase the paging file size, you typically do not have to restart your computer.

Notes
• To have Windows select the best paging file size, click System managed size. The recommended minimum size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer, and 3 times that figure for the maximum size. For example, if you have 256 MB of RAM, the minimum size is 384 MB, and the maximum size is 1152 MB.
• For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives. The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer. It is good practice to leave the paging file at its recommended size. However, you may increase its size if you frequently use programs that use much memory.
• To delete a paging file, set both the initial size and the maximum size to zero, or click No paging file. I strongly recommend that you do not disable or delete the paging file

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EnergizeIT 2006 was awesome!

Now I don't usually go to a lot of conferences, or view them to the magic of live streaming but EnergizeIT was an exception. Although I couldn't visit the seminar, because of my schedule being 'booked' right after 12:30 (so I'm going to miss the afternoon session) with my family and then my friends (hey... it's a weekend!) the live stream was just as good, plus it was being streamed at 320 K bits/second... which is awesome!

First, the Vista presentation by Barry Goffe I must say was really good.. lots of interesting stuff that informed me more about how Microsoft is catching up to Apple... and in some cases surpassing them (obviously this is bound to happen because Vista is newer... and OS X had a similar advantage over XP because it was released a little later). I'm not a Microsoft fanboy, and neither am I an apple fanboy but I'm quite sure that Vista is really nice, I'm not being biased.

After the Vista talk there was an awesome geek presentation (I'm saying that because he used really geek terms, such as TPM and what not that might be over the head of some people) by Mark Russinovich of Winternals (yeah you've probably used one of their products in your life time....). His presentation did have a little bit of glitches when Vista which was running in VMware refused to cooperate (may be because of Vista's great memory needs). Although his slides too did have a bit too much of information and no graphics (having graphics in your presentation is one of the key ingredients in order to create a really great presentation) but it was kinda nice... so I won't complain about it. Another good that was that since he wasn't a Microsoft employee... he also pointed out some key minus points in Vista. For example you won't get to edit the BOOT.INI file any more... because there isn't going to be a boot.ini file in Vista. Instead they have the BCD (boot configuration Data) that you need to change using command prompt... and it takes about 4 steps to accomplish one thing as opposed to 1 in XP. But then there were other benefits such as optimizing the I/O so that the computer can function better... you can check out the recorded presentation (please use IE though)... I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give out links (because technically you need to be registered to view any of this, but I don't mind bending a few rules to spread geekdom). And make sure that you are not sleepy because if you are then I warn you that you might fall asleep near the end where there are technical problems.... other than that just enjoy the show.

After this there was a little presentation on Office 12 with Mike Bulmer (beta of course), but although the guys didn't really explain a lot about the ribbon (which they should have to make the IT admins that had gathered there go, "cool... that's interesting) nor did they even give a demo of the interface, but overall it was kinda cool. The presentation was I'm guessing made using Office 12 to show off all the capabilities of the software... and of course they also used all kinds of colourful graphics and so on to enhance it. I really was expecting a demo but I guess not. Actually, all the people who went to conference (in downtown Toronto) probably installed it on their computers when they went there... so its really pointless to show what the people can see right in front of them.

Then there were some tips of how your can use Office Outlook web access to track lost data and what not on your own so that you don't have to call the 'IT guy' at 2 o'clock in the morning... after you've lost your laptop on the taxi while coming back from a party.

The presentation was a bit business/big organizations centric but was informative never the less. There were parts about Virtual Server by Allen Stewart and so on, which explained the benefits and so on... which are solely useful for business only. Other than that it was pretty cool. Lots of info squeezed into about a 3 hour presentation for people interested in knowing more about software and so on provided by Microsoft and what they are doing to help businesses and security and the like.

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