Thursday, September 29, 2005

Superb Imagination !!! ha ha ha

hi!! couldnt control laughter when i saw this link http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1322360

superb imagination about the search capablilities of google :)) =)). Jes go 2 the above link m chk dat out.


bye!!~~

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The Joy of Teaching Kids...

hi!!

Right next door to my house, there is a small guy doing his 5th grade. Since, we know him right when he was born, he used to be very free with our family. When i came from college yesterday, he immediately came running to my house, sat by my side & told me a very BIG secret !!!!!

Guess what it was??? His parents had bought him a brand new computer (pretty decent configuration) & he was excited about it because he could play "car race" (still NFS 2) & "bike race" (Roadrash). Other than this, what excited me was that he told me how to open "MS Paint" from the start menu & before that switching on the UPS, then pressing the blue button (boot button) near the small opening...... (floppy drive). All my tiredness completely vanished when i heard those words from a kid who had learnt all these just by watching the system assembler work at his home the previous day (quite amazing right?? atleast i think so).

So, without even changing, i went with him next door & asked him to show me a demo of creating a drawing because i didnt know how to do that. By seeing the interest he showed towards this, i thought i should teach him some more in MS Paint. Then i told him how to use brush, change some colours, save his work & reopen his work etc.

But, what really amazed him was, when the desktop background was changed & kept on asking me, to know how it was done. Since his dad had hidden the games from the start menu, he told me that the game was hidden somewhere in the computer & was pestering me to find it for him. As they had also listened to some songs the previous day, he asked how to do the same (he liked the Vijay starrer Ghilli very much). And do u know how he found it!!!!! He clicked on start, programs & instead on clicking on NFS2, he clicked Windows Media Player (a little unsteady with mouse). You should have seen the brighter than the sun smile on his face.....a sense of achievement began to envelope him & shouted Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! with so much ecstacy that bought his mom running from the kitchen :)).

Coming back home, i feel his quest to know more touched me deeply & rang a bell in my mind, that told me to be a MASTER of 1 trade & jack of others.

Right now, he is sitting besides me, tugging at my left hand, to show him how to open the white screen (notepad) so that he could type something & i keep smiling as i have a tough time finishing this blog.....

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Fun...Fun...Fun...

hey!! guyz, i took this "stupidity" test. click on the image below for more. all i can tell u now that its funny. ha ha ha!!!

dont forget, there are more funny tests on dat site. neway heres my score...


The Stupid Quiz said I am "Kinda Smart, but Stupid!" How stupid are you? Click here to find out!

Monday, September 19, 2005

Security threat in Internet Explorer

hi!! here is a major security threat in IE. Using jes a line of javascript or vbscript, u can retrieve text from clipboard. And using technology such as AJAX, it is possible to send it to the server without page refresh i.e. user willnt know that some communication has happened between his sys & the server. 1 e.g. where AJAX is used is wen u sign up for a new mail account at gmail or yahoo. It gives u a button to check whether the user id u selected is available or not & the result is almost instantaneous without the whole page refreshing.

Btw, i read abt this somewhere around 2 weeks ago, but i understood the threat & its severeness when i was reading Sudar's blog yesterday. Thanks 2 u sudar!!

Click on the links to get more information, a demo and a possible(not fool-proof) way to get rid of this problem.

1 more thing, this problem occurs only in internet explorer and i feel its mainly because of the extensive support of activeX controls. if u have some thoughts 2 share, dont hesitate to post a comment.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Start downloading 2 to 8 :-)

hey!! ne1 out there using dataone like me???

well, v hava reason 2 b unhappy 'cos they r giving only 1GB download/upload per month. But there is 1 small reason to be a "lil" happy. 2 AM to 8 AM is free for unlimited usage. To take advantage of this, i created a scheduled task to start downloading using Download Acclerator Plus (DAP) at 2:10 AM & shutdown the system after download completes or at 7:55 AM, whichever occurs first. Ok, heres the procedure to do that. I did this WinXP home and DAP version 7.2.
1. Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Scheduled Tasks.
2. Click next & select a program from the list or click "Browse" button to select ur own. I selected DAP frm the list.
3. Type a name & choose an option from the 1ce given. I chose daily.
4. Give a start time. As for this, give it as "2:10 AM" & select a start date.
5. Enter ur user name & password.
6. If u wan something else 2 b configured tick off the chk box & say "Finish".

Now, u gotta config DAP to start downloading at 2:10 AM. Other download managers vil surely a similar feature.

1. Fire DAP frm Start->Programs->Download Accelerator Plus->Download Accelerator
2. Goto Options->Preferences.
3. Select "Scheduler" from the left side menu & select the chk box
4. Tick the chk box dat says "Start scheduler at..." & select "Daily" & give the time of starting. If u want give the time at which the scheduler has to stop.
5. Select the options from "After scheduled downloads stopped/finished".
6. Click "Apply" & say "Close".

Dats!! it u can now close DAP, leave ur comp on & happily go 2 sleep......Today i have scheduled for 2 downloads from channel9. The 1st 1 is here & the 2nd is here, if u want to c them. They both promise 2 b gud. bye!! n have a gud day.... ;-)

Update: Read through Part 2 also.

BEA User Group Meeting

hi!! i attended the BEA user group meeting at Taj Connemara & this is the first session BEA is having in chennai. Its having plans of starting the same in other metros (its started in mumbai i think, not sure) & pune too.

The topic that was covered in that session was on their "Diablo" (WebLogic Server 9.0) & BEA AquaLogic. Aqualogic is 1 platform for integrating systems of diff. architectures & enabling communication between them. It is more architecture oriented. & b4 going into that there was an hr session on SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). If you dont know what SOA is, it is the next wave of the future & to ride on it, read the June 2005 magz of Developer IQ. There r very good articles on SOA, more importantly Web Services.

In brief, SOA talks about exposing ur application or ur code as a service. This means that, the methods you write for ur app can be called from any OS, any language & also it is available anywhere, anytime. Therefore, you first need to publish your code or class (enabling the service) & make it available to the world (discover) by registering at any of the registries available E.g. UDDI (Universal Description Discovery Integration).

And obviously we were given a DVD containing the WebLogic Platform 8.1, Weblogic Server 9.0 beta, Apache Beehive, Spring framework 1.2 etc.

Gotta try it now. bye!!~~

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Pharming Attacks.....Beware!!!

Pharming is a very popular type of network attack among hackers. Lemme explain the process in brief.

  1. The hacker looks for a web page from where he wants to get details. Typically it will be a bank’s website.

  2. By viewing the design source code of the web page (View > Source) from internet explorer, he recreates a similar web page.

  3. Then, he looks at the DNS (Domain Name System) table of the ISP (Internet Service Provider). He gets the list of IP addresses for the different websites & searches for the website he wants to spoof.

  4. Now in the DNS table, he changes the IP address of the website to represent his server’s IP address. Eg: If he wants to spoof yahoo.com, he changes yahoo’s IP to his own IP.

  5. Whenever a user accesses the site by giving yahoo.com, the DNS now redirects him to the hacker’s system. Since he has recreated a similar page, the end user believes that he has come to the correct page. Now, he gives his user id and pwd to login to the site & wat happens now?? The website shows an error & by this time, the user has lost his user id & pwd to the world.

Prevention is better than cure

  1. Banks & other institutions which take data such as user id & pwd often put up a notice on their saying that they never ask for other details.

  2. For the users, plzz b careful. Have a look at the url each time u see the site. If it differs, cross check by sending a mail or calling them up. Most probably, the mail wont b replied bcos, the hacker’s IP wont be having a mail server.

  3. Check whether the website’s certificate is from an authorized agent. Most hackers don’t have a proper certificate. For this, c whether u have a small eye icon on the status bar of the internet browser (internet fxplorer, firefox, opera etc.).

  4. Double click on it to c the certificate.Or better still, don’t use internet :-). That way, u can remain safe forever.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Caritor Orientation Programme Cont....

hi!! im back with the update on Caritor orientation programme....

It happened on 10th and 11th of Sep at my college and was really excellent. Ok, heres a short desc of wat exactly happened. These sessions have proved wat a gr8 company caritor is.

Day 1

After the inaugral function with our chairman, we were left with Mr.Kaushik & Ms.Nidhi from Caritor. They started the sessions by introducing themselves & i should specifically mention here that both of them were real cool. The first session was on "success" and how success is different from happiness (this was eye opening). The second session today was on introducing ourselves. This was not the normal kinda intro v r used to. V were paired up in groups of 2 (1 guy & 1 gal) & told to know abt each other.

After talking with ur partner for sometime, each group went on stage to introduce the other. This was a lot fun, especially "unique experience" section.

Heres my expr. As for me, i went to Tirunelveli with my dad once. He went to office dat morning & told me to visit a temple dat was abt an hr from the city. So, i had breakfast & headed to the bus stop. Since i didnt know the city or its suburbs much, i asked the bus conductor to tell me wen the stop came. He was very cool & didnt tell me abt it. Soon, something at the back of my mind told that i may have missed the stop & i asked the conductor abt it. He told im 45 mins behind that temple..... :) I got really mad & asked him how do i get back. He told me to take a bus dat goes to tirunelveli & once i got onto the bus, i was looking at each board of the stop until i was sure i got down at the right place. phew!! i had travelled for more than 4 hrs dat day alone & once i got to the room, i slept until the next morning. :))

Day 2

Today, the first session was on corporate ettiquette. Then v had some more sessions on how to achieve success. 3 main ingredients for achieving success are

1. desire - the burning desire to do something
2. knowledge - that helps u move towards the desire
3. skill - helps u perform the task more efficiently to achieve ur goal

The 2nd session was on listening skills & there were some tests on listening comprehensions. Importance was on managing with other english accents & it can be improved by listening to news channels, movies etc.

Dats it for this post guyz, have anything to ask, plz post a comment. bye!!

Friday, September 09, 2005

Ilaiyaraja's Thiruvasagam

hi!! friends, heard Thiruvasagam? For those of u who dont know wat it is, it is a set of hyms or poems written on Lord Shiva by Thiruvasagar.

For the mortals, the great work by the poet is remade in such a way so that, it reaches the common man. There was a program on sun tv abt this where Ilaiyaraja was giving interview. The question was, "Sir, you very well know that the meaning of the words in the work are difficult to understand. How do u expect it to reach the common man?" The answer was, "The feeling u get wen u listen is what that is more important then understanding the words, which induces change in u (+ve change)".

As an example, he recited the words in the poem (which had no effect ofcourse) & then he sang it in a particular way, which had some effect on me (couldnt really explain dat, u have 2 feel it). Whether u r Ilaiyaraja's fan or not, u must listen to the 1st song. It starts like this

"Poovar senni mannan empuyangap peruman siriyomai ..........."

It was done with Budapest Symphony Orchestra (120 singers), conducted by Laszlo Kovacs & sung by Ilaiyaraja, Bhavatharini etc. A must listen for music lovers around the world. Without doubt, its 1 of the greatest creations!!!

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Caritor Orientation Programme

hi!! some of my future colleagues (Caritor) had some orientation programme that was conducted by Caritor itself in their colleges. They had a lot of fun in the 2 days of the program. And v r having it in my college along with the guyz n gals frm Jerusalem & SRM Easweri.

Looking forward to it. seems to b very exciting, i vil surely keep u posted...bye!!

Friday, September 02, 2005

No mouse click??? chk this out

hi!! i found a site called http://www.dontclick.it from this blog. Its a site where u neednt click to navigate.

Chk it out, its really kewl!!.

Oh dear, Its a saturday again....

Its dat time of the week again ..... when all your friends r njoying a good morning sleep & u have to get up early and go to college. And what happens here???

Friends!! its 1 of those sat's again for me & My mom will be asking me to get up, from 5:30AM until its 6:15 AM. After dat, a splash of water goes off on my face & i get up wincing to c dat its a saturday. Rest assured, i lazily brush up & get ready for college ...... oh!! God its 6:45, my buz leaves in another 5 mins & im still dressing up :-O

I scrammble for my socks, stuff them in 1 of my pockets to wear it in the bus (I dont disturb my bag because it isnt opened on normal days) & bolt to the bus stop. Phew!! jes in time to catch the bus, its already leaving. What do i notice now??? I have taken 1 black & 1 white sock in a hurry. oh!! wat a saturday morning itz been. Lets c wat happens 2mrw.

Till then, bye & good night ;)