Month: March 2007

Earlier today, when I tried running Notepad on the system, the Windows Media Center window diaplayed, until yesterday double-clicking notepad displayed the Notepad application. I tried opening “notepad.exe” couple of times but the result was the same. I tried other applications as well, but again, the Windows MCE window just kept popping up.

Wonder what’s wrong, is it a virus, malware, or is somebody using a trojan to stop me from completing my upcoming best seller, “Taking Blind Monkeys for a Shit” Let me do a thorough scan of the system and see what comes up. Will post once I am back.

UPDATE:  After spending the last two hours trying to rid the system of theW32/Sality.t parasitic virus, I am back online, in all possible ways.

What this wicked virus does is that it infects all Windows portable executable (the ones that end in “.exe”) on a system, and launches an application other than the one it belongs to. In my case it turned out to be “Windows Media Center Edition” hence the title. Guess I must apologize to the folks at Microsoft for falsely accusing them, but nah forget it, they can’t hear me anyways so why bother.
But then again, you can’t blame me entirely for it. I tried launching every other application on my system, but each time time the Windows MCE window displayed. Microsoft too must share the blame because ultimately it was one of its apps that got infected. Then I got the brainwave that this could be MS’s latest trick to trouble people like me [:)]. The only executables that didn’t get infected were the ones I had running at that time, namely, Firefox, FlashGet, AVG Anti-Virus etc.

This is where I made my second mistaker. I decided to reboot the system before running a virus scan. After rebooting, even these applications stopped working, so running a virus scan was no longer an option. Ultimately, I was left with one of two choices, either I could plug my hard drive into another system and run a scan, or I could format the drive and reinstall everything. Yes, I lost all my data as well because the virus would not allow me to burn a DVD. Most of you would have chosen the first one. But I guess I’m too lazy to go looking into people’s systems. I decided to reinstall everything even at the cost of losing all my data, which included six movies, and my master piece I had written to educate people who have pet monkeys.

Now everything is up and running and I am protected in more ways than one. Unfortunately, the world will have to wait a few more months so that I may be able to re-wtrite my book. Hope they don’t go on a rampage on hearing about this.

March 18th 2007 will always be etched in the memory of cricket lovers from across the world. Less than 24 hours after Pakistan’s exit from the World Cup at the hands of Ireland, Woolmer was found unconscious in his hotel room in Jamaica and was pronounced DOA (Dead on Arrival) on being taken to hospital.

I can never forget the look on Woolmer’s face after Pakistan’s loss to Ireland. It looked as if he would shatter into a billion pieces if touched or spoken to. The manner in which he packed his gift to World Cricket, the laptop, it seemed that life would never be the same again for him. Indeed not only did life change, he lost it altogether.

Continue reading “Did Pakistan's World Cup Exit Hasten Woolmer's Demise?”

I managed to get hold of a Windows Vista RTM DVD in December 2006 much before the official release date of January 30th, 2007. I was so excited that I sat up late one night to install it on my Lenovo 8823 3AQ desktop. The installation was slick and fast, taking just 20 minuses to install. But this is where the feeling of excitement turned into one of despair. As I discovered, Windows Vista had turned my Pentium IV powered desktop into something similar to one using a Celeron processor. Not to mention, the graphics sucked big time, the awesome Aero and Flip3D features just weren’t there, which was fair enough as my system didn’t have either an AGP card or an AGP slot which I could have used to insert one. Lenovo had taken Intel’s 865 chipset and removed few slots (including AGP) to bring down the price.

Anyway, after shedding a bucket full of tears, I removed Vista and reinstalled Windows XP, hoping that soon enough I would get a new board, a high-end graphics card (hopefully nVidia), and more RAM (the Lenovo system came with a paltry 512 MB.)

Continue reading “A Bitter Sweet Transition to Windows Vista”

The Indian cricket team has always done its bit to encourage teams from weaker cricket playing countries. They have the ability to lower the level of their game to meet that of their weaker opponents, thereby giving them a fair chance to win. This is exactly what has happened in its first match of the Cricket World Cup 2007. Compared to India, Bangladesh is worse than a Ranji team. Our Sachin Tendulkar alone has amassed more runs than the entire Bangladesh team put together.

Continue reading “Men in Blue Beaten Black and Blue”

Today when I set out on my regular act of googling for blogs that expressed my feelings about the pathetic quality of life in Hyderabad, I came across Suresh’ blog. Suresh who likes “Riding Bike! Especially in highways!” has taken great pains to express his views about the driving skills – or rather the lack of – of Hyderabadis. I totally agree with him, a large majority of the people here think they own the road and treat anyone who’s traveling in a smaller vehicle, or worse is on foot, is insignificant and dispensable. I have a zillion instances to support my claim but don’t expect me to express even one of them here because even the thought of it makes my blood burn.

Continue reading “From Bullock Carts to Automobiles in a Decade”