Windhu - "Pulse"

IT - a means to maintain justice.

2008-08-20T15:52:00.008+05:00

Fabrication of resume is not an uncommon act. Many are guilty of that. Especially in an environment where, there is no means to cross reference the resumes, have left many people who are guilty of such a crime in high positions of the government and other commercial sectors.

How often do we cross reference the letters or certificates? How often do we check the given serial numbers or at least the actual certificates when the copies have been submitted? Many times there is even no way to check a tracking number to see whether the person is telling the truth. This is where the importance of databases comes in to action.

Central databases play an important role in reducing such frauds by giving the opportunity for everyone to at least check the serial numbers to trace back to the original. Many times what happen is that people who are 'smart' and wicked enough to commit such crimes play nicely. They won't fake an entire certificate or document, they just change the part they want so even if accidentally some one happens to check, they escape.

Unfortunately even the countries who have all the facilities to cross reference these documents also have found such fraud cases, many have been caught but still few have escaped. The results of a recent survey conducted by CareerBuilder.com indicate that folks in the IT industry rank third among those who lie most in their resumes. Here’s a look at the other stats, and some of the more outrageous lies hiring managers have unearthed.

Toni Bowers writes...

Apparently, the temptation to make their resumes stand out from the crowd is too much for some people to resist. For an article about resume fabrications, Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder.com senior career adviser, surveyed hiring managers and workers and found that:

38 percent of those surveyed indicated they had embellished their job responsibilities.
18 percent admitted to lying about their skill set.
12 percent indicated they had been dishonest about their start and end dates of employment.
10 percent confessed to lying about an academic degree.
7 percent said they had lied about the companies they had worked for.
5 percent disclosed that they had been untruthful about their job title.

What I found most interesting about this survey is that the results indicated that some industries seem more likely than others to have incidences of resume fabrication. The hospitality industry reported the most, with 60 percent of employers reporting lies on resumes. The transportation/utilities field was a close second with 59 percent. And rounding out the top three, with 57 percent of hiring managers saying they uncovered lies on resumes was IT.

The article also listed some of the most outrageous untruths found on resumes as reported by hiring managers. My favorites are:

Candidate claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family.
Applicant invented a school that did not exist.
Candidate listed military experience dating back to before he was born.
Job seeker included samples of work, which were actually those of the interviewer.

(Toni Bowers, 2008: Techrepublic.com)
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Its so obvious that there are people who will do anything to get what they want, hence, it is for us to do what ever it takes to keep the integrity of job interviews and reduce such fraud cases. IT may be seen as a way to get hacked or as a path to be a victim of such cases, but this is not always true. Because many times, this IT is the only savior we need.

No More Windows? No OS?!!!!!!!!

2008-08-17T10:51:00.004+05:00

Have you ever imagined a 'no windows' world? In a world where you don’t have to deal with any Operating Systems like windows? Sounds exciting aren’t it? Well, Microsoft has imagined it. They called it cloud computing.

Steve Bass writes…

It's true: Microsoft has confirmed that it's abandoning Windows as we know it. Cagey as ever, the Microsofties won't say when it'll happen, but they have talked a little bit about what the next OS is going to look like--or not look like.

Microsoft code-named the project Midori. As best I can figure, its cloud computing: Everything, including applications and data, is on the Internet.

What Exactly Is Midori?

My colleague Elizabeth Montalbano, with the IDG News Service, tried making some sense of it in "Microsoft Prepares for End of Windows With Midori" and Erik Larkin, our crackerjack OS and Web guy, has plenty to say in "Cloud Computing, Microsoft's Midori, and the End of Windows." There are also details--and speculation--in an SDTimes piece, "Microsoft's plans for post-Windows OS revealed."

Midori for Linux?

One of my smarter-than-me buddies, Gary F., told me that Linus Torvalds worked on something called Midori a few years ago, an embedded Linux for mobile devices: "I doubt Microsoft would ever release something that could be traced back to Linux, but if I recall correctly, Transmeta's Midori had some rudimentary 'cloud computing' features vaguely similar to Microsoft's Midori." Read "Details emerge on Transmeta's "Mobile Linux" and "Transmeta Exports Midori Linux to China".

Quick aside: Cloud computing is worth knowing about, if for no other reason than sounding smart at your next dinner party. Read "Yahoo, Intel and HP Form Cloud Computing Labs" and "Sci-Fi Channel Has Head In Cloud Computing" to get a handle on it. Interesting, too, is what Dell is trying to do; read "Dell Tries to Trademark 'Cloud Computing'" for details on that. (All right reserved by PC Magazine, 2008).

IT and Hollywood: The reality gap

2008-08-01T03:45:00.001+05:00

Toni Bowers writes...

In the movies, all you need is access to the Internet to change someone’s bank account or to launch nuclear missiles. We know it’s all for effect, but how much is too much?

—————————————————————————————————————
I love movies. I love television. But if you knew only of the world what you saw in those two media, you’d be one delusional person.

For example, going by movie and TV alone, here’s what you would think you knew about the medical profession: Nobody ever comes into the ER with anything less than a rare condition brought on by the bite of a insect that is one of only six left on the planet. Writers write this way because an hour-long episode about a tetanus shot wouldn’t be worth watching.

And TV’s view of journalism is seriously flawed because it implies that newspaper reporters are always running around chasing down important stories that involve some secret government conspiracy. When in reality, most reporters make a living writing obituary copy or pieces about the local strawberry festival.

Yeah, I know they have to do these things to make movies exciting. But there’s nothing more aggravating than when a movie takes liberty with something you do for a living.

Let’s take technology, for instance. Why are the people who crack program codes always furiously typing and never having to wait for a screen to load? Why do words on the screen like IM messages or Access Denied messages always appear in 84-point type?

And what’s with the preponderance of voice-activated technology? Do you know of many actual offices that make use of it on a regular basis?

And, according to Hollywood, if you can access the Internet, you can access information on anyone’s desktop, look up that person’s criminal record, and edit your own dental records.

So do any particular pet peeves come to your mind of Hollywood taking liberties in regard to technology? Let’s hear ‘em! (cited from Techrepublic)

Linux Not The Savior For Our Economy

2008-07-19T01:27:00.003+05:00

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service writes....

You knew the argument had to come up sometime: survive the economic down turn by using open source to help you save money. Now Computer World blogger Steve J. Vaughan-Nichols makes that claim in his Linux Will Save Us blog post. The title almost has religious overtones. I found Steve's article thanks to blog posts by Alan Shimel and Michael Farnum. Whether it's iPhones, Linux vs. Microsoft, or Macs vs. PCs, there's always a group who are so overly passionate about their favorite hammer that everything else looks like a nail. I've developed many products on Linux, Windows and some even on Macs, to know that taking your favorite technology too seriously creates other blind spots in your logic and decision making. That said, I can't claim I've never done the same, but hopefully I've learned from those experiences. (My picking on Apple is all in good fun, btw.)

Okay, now back to Steve's post about ditching Microsoft and switching to Linux. There's also the matter of practicality. Yep, Linux software is free, but Linux isn't. Especially converting to Linux. Converting could actually lead to laying off people on your IT staff to get the skills necessary to move to Linux. (I hate it when we refer to employees with impersonal phrases like retool or upgrade.) How about all those ASP.NET and SharePoint applications and the developers who created and support them? And despite up and coming Exchange clones, it's still arguable there isn't really an Exchange replacement that can support large enterprises. An you'll still need to pay for support from Red Hat, Novell or others. How about retraining users so they can be productive on a Linux desktop using Open Office? What's the productivity hit to the business for that? Plus there's the cash outlay to replace all the other software you use (systems management, virtualization, etc.).

Having just returned for Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, I was really struck by the sheer mass of the companies pulled by the wake Microsoft creates in the market. There were partners from all over the world and it seemed there were even more attending WPC from companies located outside the US. Linux also has its mass of companies that follow in the open source's wake and it may even be larger than Microsoft's. I'm sure there is some IDC or other analyst study containing these numbers. We all like to pick on the easy targets, like Microsoft, Cisco and Apple, but the fact of the matter is that competition is good and we all benefit from the fact that commercial and open source technologies are better because of it.

So while Steve's idea for promoting Linux by saving money is thought provoking, the idea's not likely to take a foothold anytime soon. Plus, by the time you converted, the economy would have turned around years before.

It’s not about what we know, but it’s about what we believe!

2008-07-13T04:18:00.006+05:00

Wisdom comes with proper belief.

It is always the team work which goes beyond the one man’s effort. We have seen and witnessed that. So did we find out what was the problem? Why one party went beyond the expectation and others were just spectators of their success? Surely we have seen a wonderful performance. But was it just a single person’s effort?

Managing a team is a hard work; it can be the most difficult of all the tasks. Just having a good team or crowd doesn’t work, it is always the guidance of the leader and support of the members which makes the team work. Teams can only be put to work with a people oriented manager. A manager who tries to understand and tries to listen to his team members can go beyond an ordinary person’s expectation and even can break the limit of human barriers. So it is up tous to decide what we want to be. Just knowing doesn’t work and we have seen it by experience.

The point here is very simple. Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. Just knowing the theory or background information will give no success, unless we practice what we know. And that is what wise people do, they practice what they learn. Big positions means bigger responsibility and it also means bigger role. A leader is the one who has to take part in all the activities, he is the one who plays the big part. He is the one who saves the team and also himself when a tragedy happens. Imagine a situation where a group of people sinking to the sea and they are trying to get rescued. If one of them is the boss and he says that “Can you please swim faster and rescue me as well because I am the boss.” Will get him rescued even if he didn’t try to swim at all? I don’t think so! Being the boss is not enough in these kinds of situations because the boss is also in danger now. Here every one is equal and they all have to try themselves to get rescued, they both have to do their best. Isn’t it? Because it effects every one.

It is the same situation in our case also. When the case is about everyone’s benefit, stepping behind won’t do any good either. We all are equal so we all have to do our best. Isn’t it? Adopting a bossy character won’t make a person a boss. It’s how you do things and how you behave which distinguishes from leaders and the rest of the world.

I think enough have been said, about everything indirectly. But we finally have to think that from difficulties come ease. From failures come successes. And doing mistakes we learn. Nobody is born as a doctor or as an engineer, it is the experience and the knowledge which gives the wisdom. Being a wise person is not a thing which any one can achieve, because being wise means implementing what you know and believing in the good and stepping away from the bad as soon as it arrives, Not a build-in quality in all of us. It’s all about how you set your mind; a person can only learn if he thinks he needs to learn. If he already thinks that he knows so much, then even if reading 100 books won’t make him a learner. If we always try to find faults in others, then we can never find the faults within us. We can never realize that we are also like the one who is being criticized.

Saying I know this and that is different from saying I believe this and that. We have to believe in what we study then only we can implement it, just because we know some information about being a good leader won’t make us leaders, we have to believe that, then only we can implement it, and implementing what we know is called being wise.

Is IT no longer about technology?

2008-07-07T22:45:00.002+05:00

Author: Jason Hiner Writes...

It’s become horribly cliche to talk about the importance of IT-business alignment and the need for IT professionals to become much more business-savvy, but Gartner’s Tom Austin (right) takes it to the next level. He believes that the IT professional of the future will be less of an engineer and more of a social scientist.

What? Yes, you heard that right — the word “social” will become a key part of the IT professional’s job description. It flies in the face of most of the stereotypes about techies and it sounds a little corny, but Austin does draw some interesting conclusions that are worth a look, if only because they are so unconventional.
Here are some of the most salient quotes from Austin on this subject (from an interview in Fast Company):

“The problem with IT today is there are too many engineers and not enough social
scientists.”
“Too often, we have measurement and reward systems that are
focused on how many transactions did you process, how many orders did you ship,
and how many deals did you close — rather than who helped these other people
succeed.”
“There’s a recognition that if you relax some controls — not all —
you’re probably going to get more creative behavior out of the individuals than
if everything is locked down.”
“There are still people in IT who’ll have to
worry about keeping the systems running, but now we’re going to think more about
how to exploit the things we can do with social networking, expertise location,
and all of the other higher-level social ordered phenomenon we can facilitate
using technology.”
“It’s not the technology that counts. It’s the people.”

The fact that IT keeps running into these issues about being more business-savvy and people-savvy may simply be a natural part of the evolution of the profession. My TechRepublic colleague Mark Kaelin said that when he was in business school studying accounting, his professors constantly drilled home the fact that too many accountants were just number crunchers and that what the field needed was accountants who were more focused on understanding the business and how they could best serve it. Sound familiar?
In order to evaluate Austin’s arguments, let’s take a look at the three segments that IT is going to be divided into over the next decade:

1.) Operations and infrastructure management
We’re primarily talking about server rooms, data centers, and network operations centers here. IT pros in this realm will manage the backend infrastructure that powers businesses large and small. In the years ahead, this category of IT is going to become highly centralized and highly commoditized. The increase of virtualization and cloud computing will hasten this development.
As a result, managed services companies will grow and take over the data center for many companies. It simply won’t be cost-efficient to have your own data center, in many cases. As such, the administrators and engineers who run these uber-NOCs will be highly trained and highly versatile. They will be the blue collar workers of the IT industry, focused on maintenance and process work.
Although many of these IT pros will need to have strong communications skills because they will deal with multiple customers and multiple accounts on a daily basis, there will also be plenty of IT workers chained to keyboard and monitor and tasked solely for monitoring the infrastructure and keeping it running. Austin’s argument doesn’t hold up very well in this category.

2.) Solutions and project management
Today’s developers and software engineers will morph into this category, which will have a greater focus on delivering end-to-end solutions to businesses, whether in pre-packaged software or custom applications. Just as it happens in many organizations right now, project managers will gather business requirements and build out the plans for solutions that software engineers can deliver.
This is primarily where Austin’s ideas apply. He sees these solutions makers evolving from technology-focused engineers to people-focused scientists and business associates. And, he’s correct that IT needs to build better solutions that are more customer-centric and get the technology out of the way so that users can collaborate and work more effectively.

3.) End user management
From help desk to training to PC provisioning, IT is also responsible for deploying, managing, and supporting the systems that employees use every day. This isn’t going away anytime soon — although some companies have tried to outsource pieces of this — because it almost always involves some form of physical access to the machines. Managed services could take over some of this, but there’s always still a need for at least some physical access.
In the future, the role of this part of the IT department will diminish, although not entirely disappear. Many companies will move toward a self-provisioning model and will support user-owned systems and devices. Plus, the bar for usability and ease-of-use will continue to to be pushed higher and higher.
Nevertheless, even a diminished support department will likely need to change many of its attitudes and policies, as Austin notes, in order to help the company stay competitive. IT will need to relax some of its standards in order to allow more users to easily collaborate and share data and documents.

Bottom line
So, yes, IT is becoming more about people than technology, and IT professionals will need to become more business- and people-savvy. Part of the change is a natural evolution of the profession, and part of it has to do with some of the big technology shifts happening in the back office. Still, there are a lot of IT jobs and roles that won’t be directly affected by these changes, especially in operations and infrastructure. Those jobs will become the blue collar jobs of IT, focused heavily on processes and maintenance, and employed by managed services companies.
(Reff: techrepublic)

We are messed up!

2008-07-06T03:41:00.003+05:00

Still it’s not too late to start organizing!

Forming a company is no child’s play. It is hard work. Things won’t work unless we make them work. Now we are facing a real challenge, the challenge of organizing the challenge of working together. We need to find ways that we can contribute. It doesn’t have to be always the hard way. There are various ways in which we can contribute, our company needs our help. We are really messed up. But still it’s not too late to start organizing.

Ever wonder why we are lagging behind? Why we can’t organize? Why we are confused? Sure there are many reasons. But one thing is lack of commitment and guidance. There are people who can work but they are waiting for some guidelines. They need someone to tell them what to do, otherwise they can’t work. It is true, not everyone can think of their own and start working when leadership positions are being filled. So why we are falling back? So why we are messing the whole thing?

One reason is we don’t have enough time. The second reason is we are not been told what to do because we don’t have a plan. It is very surprising when these days someone comes to the class and attempt drawing Gantt charts with white board and a maker. Isn’t it? We have all the software tools that can be used in order to do that. Why can’t we do it at our own peace and email it to others? Aren’t we the IT guys? Aren’t we the final year computing students?
We have been given everything in advance and all we have to do is work out that in advance before coming to the class, so that we can tell the other members what to be done. We have no time for voting, and we have no time to play democracy here. Unless we make things in advance we will not be able to catch with this company thing!

We have all got email adds, so we all can communicate using email. Everyone can be informed before coming to the class what is required of them, because we all know it in advance, we have been given the CDs, etc, etc.

Come on people! Let’s do it because we can really do it! We have the quality and the guts, all we need is little bit of planning in advance! We are the IT guys; we should be smarter than this! Don’t mess it up! Let’s work together as a team giving as much as we can, surely we have no time!

Why do we ignore and pretend that everything is all right?

2008-07-05T01:38:00.000+05:00

Com on people! Speak it up!

We are humans and we are not perfect. We all know that, don’t we? And it is our nature that we commit mistakes and that we do stupid things sometimes. As much as this is our nature, we should also try to contribute to make things work nicely instead of encouraging making mistakes. I think we all can agree on this. Isn’t it?

Even though we all agree, we step back when it comes to implementation. Even if we know something is not right, we are reluctant to take any action. Why is that? Even we feel if something is not right, we turn back and we never do anything, of course other than just speaking about it to ourselves or with our friends who can really do nothing about this. Why is that?

An example of this was seen and witnessed recently. Yes, I am talking about our class, the business computing class. When we all did know that the time given to complete the assessment was not enough and it was nearly impossible for many of us to complete it on time, still we did nothing. We were waiting to a miracle to happen? Isn’t it? Why is that? Why even if we see that something should be changed still we don’t do anything about it? We all know that we can send an email to the abroad tutor, but still we ignored the problem and pretended that everything was going fine. Why do we ignore? Why do we just think that there is always someone else to do these things for us? Why? When will we start taking our responsibilities? When will we stop ignoring?

We need to ponder on these things more seriously. And we need to come forward, we need to face it. Face it with our guts. No one else is there to do these things for us. We are all alone here, the world is so cruel, we need to fight for our share, our right and our part. Not for anyone else, but for our own good, to live, to be a part of this world and to belong to this universe. And that can only be achieved by stepping forward. We need to stop ignoring and we need to stop pretending, it is too obvious so we have to see it and take action! Com on people! Lets come forward!

The three stages of a tech career

2008-04-28T14:14:00.002+05:00

Stage one - You don’t know much
You are in awe of all the other techs. You make a lot of dumb mistakes. You feel like you are swamped all the time. You have to read a lot before you dare try anything for fear of breaking something. Everybody dumps on you because you are the new kid. Things take longer for you to accomplish. You work a lot of overtime, often without pay. You don’t get paid a lot. You wonder if you’ll ever get a break. You realize that school didn’t quite prepare you for the real world. Work hard. You’ll make it.

Stage two - You know a lot of stuff
You’re good and you know it. So does everyone else around you. They can see that you are good. You don’t have to tell them. Things get done quickly. You even amaze yourself sometimes. You are valuable and can command a good salary. The managers and business owners want to keep you on board. They want you to be happy and offer perks to entice you to stay. You get calls from headhunters all the time. It is very flattering and a nice position to be in. Life is good. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Stage three - You don’t know much again
Technology is passing you by. The young techs seem to know so much more than you. It takes longer to figure things out again. You are probably in a position where you can delegate so you do. You are most likely in a management role and spend more time with people issues than tech issues. You are looked on as wise and experienced. You seek input from other techs before making big decisions. It’s not a big deal that you don’t know all the details anymore. You’ve got the big picture. Let others work out the details.

Ref: Techrepublic.com

10 ways humans could kill the Internet

2008-04-23T20:32:00.001+05:00

Earlier this month, GigaOm’s Alistair Croll wrote a terrificly depressing and honest piece about the ways the Internet is changing and, as a result, some of the potential disasters that could bring it to its knees in the future.

Below is Croll’s list of the top “10 Ways the Internet (As We Know It) Will Die.”

Someone subverts DNS
Zombie networks attack
Massive physical infrastructure failure
Death by a thousand fragments
A really good virus breaks the routers
Updates break how updates work
The Net stops being neutral
The lawyers get involved
Walled gardens
Humans take themselves out

Bottom line for IT leaders

Since the Internet is a mission critical system for doing business, IT leaders should take a general interest in promoting practices that support a stable, neutral, and secure Internet. Some of the issues in this article are a little overblown — such as DNS being subverted and updates breaking updates — but it correctly notes that the Internet is currently facing a number of critical issues that could negatively impact users and businesses. The issues of net neutrality, severe regulation of ISPs and Web hosts, and the protection of the Internet’s physical infrastructure are all extremely important and very timely. (Log on to Techrepublic)

The ten hottest certifications for 2008

2008-04-23T19:59:00.002+05:00

Michael Trapp, writing for knowhow-now.com, has composed a list of what he believes will be the hottest certs for 2008. The list is based on job growth, sales of certification training material, and “a little guess work.”

1. MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional)

With more than 80% of the Operating systems used in the world being Microsoft's, no surprise why this certification is on top of our list.

2. CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)

Trapp reasons that most network administrator jobs right now are IP related and they are in more demand at a higher professional level as compared to Microsoft Certifications.

3. MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer)

Demand for these developers is up over 80% compared to last year. Trapp says there are only a little over 3,000 currently with the certification.

4. SCJP (SUN Certified Java Programmer)

Trapp says that a Java credential is one of the most valuable credentials that a programmer or developer can have, since about 70% of business entities’ development projects are done through J2EE.

5. CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)

With CISSPs earning $94,070 a year on average, it’s easy to see why Trapp puts this one on the list. (Note that the exam costs $500, lasts up to six hours, and includes 250 multiple choice questions.

6. Comptia A+

By far the most popular entry level certification.

7. Comptia Network +

A good cert to have since the network systems and data communications analyst is ranked Number 2 on the most in demand jobs list.

8. MCTS SQL Server 2005 (The Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist)

Trapp thinks SQL Server 2005 is going to be hot next year since many companies are switching to SQL Server 2005.

9. RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer)

RHCE is called the “crown jewel of Linux certifications.” According to a survey by Saugatuck Technology and BusinessWeek Researce Services, about 25% of enterprises will be running mission-critical business applications on the Linux open source operating system by 2009.

10. Comptia Security+

Growth in Security+, which covers topics like communication security, infrastructure security, cryptography, access control and authentication, shows no signs of slowing down. According to Trapp, “Comptia’s Security+ Credential is must have in today’s world.”

So is it clear now? Previously I presented the certificates which really mean something, that list includes certifications which pays the highest. but here it is in the order of popularity.

10 Tech Certifications that Actually Mean Something

2008-04-19T15:31:00.005+05:00

There are hundreds of tech certifications out there, so how do you know which ones really provide a measure of your knowledge and skills? And which ones will really help you get a job or promotion? Here’s a look at 10 of the technical certifications that offer value in today’s IT job market.

1. Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) or Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) (formerly MCSE)
2. Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA)
3. Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
4. Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP)
5. GIAC Security Expert (GSE)
6. Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE)
7. Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP)
8. Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)
9. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
10. Certifications for Special Situations (including VoIP)

In addition, for those who have little or no experience in IT, entry-level certifications such as those offered by CompTIA may help you get a foot in the door as you start your IT career.(More info: logon to http://www.techrepublic.com/ or click here!)

These certification mentioned here is considered as the highest paying IT certifications, but that doesnt mean other famous certifications are not valuable. Infact these might not be the most famous ones out there, even though these are considered the highest payable certificates.

Confusing? Isnt it? OK, let me present you here the most famous IT certificates....Not now, but in the coming articles. Untill now, Have a good grasp of what these certificates mean?

American College - How american is it?

2008-03-22T19:57:00.003+05:00

American College, famous for the colleges' population of Maldivian Students, is considered as one of the most reputed institutes in Sri lanka. Ooops! Did I said that? Not really is the case. However, many Maldivians are mistakenly believing that American college of sri lanka is actually an American college and is one of the most prestiges colleges in Sri lanka. This is can be the most inappropriate things to say, cos this is hardly the case.

American college is just another institute which deals with Maldivians who want a customizable course and study environment, which many a times becomes so customized that even exam marks and assignment marks aslo doesnt count in giving any credential certificate. Cool! inst it?

More about the college can be said later! The point is not to start a campaign against the college, but to clear the misconception. There are many institutes that can provide a higher educational satisfaction than American college and also takes less amount of money. Money do count, don't they? After all its several days of hard work that the parents undergo in order to educate their children so that they can have a better life. So why waste years of hard work for just a college whose name is similar to the worlds greatest and most civilized country?

Just because many do, it doesn't mean that thats the best thing to do? Try harder and search harder, Sri Lanka is full of "diplomas" but you need to know what a diploma means to a Sri Lankan and how it is recognized in the Maldives.

Windhu Returns with a new tast!

2008-03-22T19:30:00.003+05:00

Windhu Returns!

"Windhu" was just a beginning, a means to stay in touch with the art of blogging, just another way of being "IT". All these days without posting any article in this blog, the author almost forgot the URL even, don't! Blame worthy, isnt it? but it was brought our notice that doing a rather useful work and making this blog a little more useful will be a good idea. So here is the IDEA!

Many people, especially, Maldivians who wanna study in Sri lanka wants to know about the institues, the good ones and the bad ones, the possible paths and the wrong turns and how great it would be to tell about the author's own experience? Living in Sri Lanka for 2 years as a Student and intereacting with many institues and knowing about the pros and cons of most of the popular places, makes him an advicible person, isnt it?

So here is the good news, we are going to tell you about the courses and institues with a personal touch and in a students points of view. So get ready for the up coming articles and posts. U WONT REGRET reading them...!

Once again thank you All for the help and support!

10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT

2007-09-26T10:41:00.000+05:00

If you are preparing for a career in IT or are new to IT, many of the “dirty little secrets” listed below may surprise you because we don’t usually talk about them out loud. If you are an IT veteran, you’ve probably encountered most of these issues and have a few of your own to add — and please, by all means, take a moment to add them to the discussion. Most of these secrets are aimed at network administrators, IT managers, and desktop support professionals. This list is not aimed at developers and programmers — they have their own set of additional dirty little secrets — but some of these will apply to them as well.

>>10.) The pay in IT is good compared to many other professions, but since they pay you well, they often think they own you
Although the pay for IT professionals is not as great as it was before the dot-com flameout and the IT backlash in 2001-2002, IT workers still make very good money compared to many other professions (at least the ones that require only an associate’s or bachelor’s degree). And there is every reason to believe that IT pros will continue to be in demand in the coming decades, as technology continues to play a growing role in business and society. However, because IT professionals can be so expensive, some companies treat IT pros like they own them. If you have to answer a tech call at 9:00 PM because someone is working late, you hear, “That’s just part of the job.” If you need to work six hours on a Saturday to deploy a software update to avoid downtime during business hours, you get, “There’s no comp time for that since you’re on salary. That’s why we pay you the big bucks!”

>>9.) It will be your fault when users make silly errors
Some users will angrily snap at you when they are frustrated. They will yell, “What’s wrong with this thing?” or “This computer is NOT working!” or (my personal favorite), “What did you do to the computers?” In fact, the problem is that they accidentally deleted the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop, or unplugged the mouse from the back of the computer with their foot, or spilled their coffee on the keyboard.

>>8.) You will go from goat to hero and back again multiple times within any given day
When you miraculously fix something that had been keeping multiple employees from being able to work for the past 10 minutes — and they don’t realize how simple the fix really was — you will become the hero of the moment and everyone’s favorite employee. But they will conveniently forget about your hero anointment a few hours later when they have trouble printing because of a network slowdown — you will be enemy No. 1 at that moment. But if you show users a handy little Microsoft Outlook trick before the end of the day, you’ll soon return to hero status.

>>7.) Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise
Headhunters and human resources departments love IT certifications. They make it easy to match up job candidates with job openings. They also make it easy for HR to screen candidates. You’ll hear a lot of veteran IT pros whine about techies who were hired based on certifications but who don’t have the experience to effectively do the job. They are often right. That has happened in plenty of places. But the fact is that certifications open up your career options. They show that you are organized and ambitious and have a desire to educate yourself and expand your skills. If you are an experienced IT pro and have certifications to match your experience, you will find yourself to be extremely marketable. Tech certifications are simply a way to prove your baseline knowledge and to market yourself as a professional. However, most of them are not a good indicator of how good you will be at the job.

>>6.) Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs
Your co-workers (in addition to your friends, family, and neighbors) will view you as their personal tech support department for their home PCs and home networks. They will e-mail you, call you, and/or stop by your office to talk about how to deal with the virus that took over their home PC or the wireless router that stopped working after the last power outage and to ask you how to put their photos and videos on the Web so their grandparents in Iowa can view them. Some of them might even ask you if they can bring their home PC to the office for you to fix it. The polite ones will offer to pay you, but some of them will just hope or expect you can help them for free. Helping these folks can be very rewarding, but you have to be careful about where to draw the line and know when to decline.

>>5.) Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong
Working with IT consultants is an important part of the job and can be one of the more challenging things to manage. Consultants bring niche expertise to help you deploy specialized systems, and when everything works right, it’s a great partnership. But you have to be careful. When things go wrong, some consultants will try to push the blame off on you by arguing that their solution works great everywhere else so it must be a problem with the local IT infrastructure. Conversely, when a project is wildly successful, there are consultants who will try to take all of the credit and ignore the substantial work you did to customize and implement the solution for your company.

>>4.) You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones
One of the most attractive things about working in IT is the idea that we’ll get to play with the latest cutting edge technologies. However, that’s not usually the case in most IT jobs. The truth is that IT professionals typically spend far more time maintaining, babysitting, and nursing established technologies than implementing new ones. Even IT consultants, who work with more of the latest and greatest technologies, still tend to work primarily with established, proven solutions rather than the real cutting edge stuff.

>>3.) Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies
A lot of companies could implement more cutting edge stuff than they do. There are plenty of times when upgrading or replacing software or infrastructure can potentially save money and/or increase productivity and profitability. However, it’s often the case that one of the largest roadblocks to migrating to new technologies is not budget constraints or management objections; it’s the veteran techies in the IT department. Once they have something up and running, they are reluctant to change it. This can be a good thing because their jobs depend on keeping the infrastructure stable, but they also use that as an excuse to not spend the time to learn new things or stretch themselves in new directions. They get lazy, complacent, and self-satisfied.

>>2.) Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business
Another subtle but blameworthy thing that some IT professionals do is select and implement technologies based on how well those technologies make the business dependent on the IT pros to run them, rather than which ones are truly best for the business itself. For example, IT pros might select a solution that requires specialized skills to maintain instead of a more turnkey solution. Or an IT manager might have more of a Linux/UNIX background and so chooses a Linux-based solution over a Windows solution, even though the Windows solution is a better business decision (or, vice versa, a Windows admin might bypass a Linux-based appliance, for example). There are often excuses and justifications given for this type of behavior, but most of them are disingenuous.

>>1.) IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up
All IT pros — even the very best — screw things up once in a while. This is a profession where a lot is at stake and the systems that are being managed are complex and often difficult to integrate. However, not all IT pros are good at admitting when they make a mistake. Many of them take advantage of the fact that business managers (and even some high-level technical managers) don’t have a good understanding of technology, and so the techies will use jargon to confuse them (and cover up the truth) when explaining why a problem or an outage occurred. For example, to tell a business manager why a financial application went down for three hours, the techie might say, “We had a blue screen of death on the SQL Server that runs that app. Damn Microsoft!” What the techie would fail to mention was that the BSOD was caused by a driver update he applied to the server without first testing it on a staging machine

Chinese Student Sues Microsoft for Privacy Violation

2007-09-20T01:31:00.000+05:00

A Beijing college student claims that Microsoft's antipiracy program violates his privacy, according to a Chinese government-controlled news site.

A Beijing college student has sued Microsoft Corp., claiming that its antipiracy program violated his privacy, a Chinese government-controlled news site reported last week.

According to China.org.cn, a news portal run by China's State Council Information Office, Lu Feng has sued Microsoft and its Chinese subsidiary, Microsoft (China) Co., in a People's Court.

Lu's lawsuit said Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) antipiracy software posed a threat to his privacy and the security of his PC, which runs Windows XP. He also claimed that he was not properly informed before XP installed WGA Notifications, a separate program that flags counterfeit copies and nags users running pirated versions.

" The suit asks the court to order Microsoft to delete the information it harvested from Lu's PC, provide an uninstaller for Notifications, publicly apologize, and pay Lu US$179 as compensation. "

A Microsoft spokesperson in China was quoted by China.org.cn as saying that the company would have no comment on the case.

News Source:>> visit: PC World.com >>

Building your Fist JavaScript Application!

2007-09-15T21:38:00.000+05:00

JavaScript is what is called a Client-side Scripting Language. That means that it is a computer programming language that runs inside an Internet browser (a browser is also known as a Web client because it connects to a Web server to download pages).

The way JavaScript works is interesting. Inside a normal Web page you place some JavaScript code . When the browser loads the page, the browser has a built-in interpreter that reads the JavaScript code it finds in the page and runs it.

Web page designers use JavaScript in many different ways. One of the most common is to do field validation in a form. Many Web sites gather information from users in online forms, and JavaScript can help validate entries. For example, the programmer might validate that a person's age entered into a form falls between 1 and 120. Another way that web page designers use JavaScript is to create calculators.

Now its time to built your own javascript calculator!
The following code represents a simple Fahrenheit to Celsius converter using JavaScript.

Click here to Read full artcile and get the source code for this simple calculator application

Getting the magic done!

Copy and paste the HTML coding whihc you see from the above link, to the notepad
Go to Files > Save As

Select All Files > and type the following name

Calculator.html > Save it in your Desktop! (.html is very important!)

Go to your Desktop, now you will see a Webpage known as Calculator, Double-Click, Wow! thats It! your calculator is up and running!

You just wrote your First JavaScript Application, now go to the code and try to undastand what actually happened! Hope to see you with some more tips on JavaScrpt! Keep Visiting >>Windhu Blog>>

QuickTime Bug Gives Hackers New Drive-by Attack

2007-09-15T00:07:00.000+05:00

The bug, when paired with Firefox, allows hackers to hijack PCs and Macs.

" The risk is more to firefox than Internet Explorer "

Until fixes are in place for QuickTime, Firefox, and other affected applications, Symantec recommends that users update anti-virus software and browse with the fewest user privileges possible......... Read More>>

Major threats to A network

2007-09-13T15:43:00.000+05:00

In terms of security a threat is an action or tool, which can exploit and expose vulnerability and therefore compromise the integrity of the given system. Not all threats are equal in terms of their ability to expose and exploit the vulnerability. In this regard the main threat to a network comes from malicious hackers and from intruders.

The following are some of the major attacks which are known to be the major threats to any particular network.

Exploit attack: In this type of attack, the attacker knows of a security problem within an operating system or a piece of software and leverages that knowledge by exploiting the vulnerability.

Social engineer attack: With a social engineer attack, the attacker compromises the network or system through social interaction with an individual (such as through email or phone can) and tricks the individual into divulging information that can be used in a subsequent attack. For example, a hacker may call the employee, impersonate the network administrator, and try to obtain the user's password.

Eavesdropping attack: This widely used type of attack typically involves the use of network monitoring tools to analyze and read communications on the network.

Spoof attack: In a spoof attack, the hacker modifies the source address of the packets he or she is sending so that they appear to be coming from someone else. This may be attempted to try to bypass your firewall rules.

Hijack attack: In a hijack attack, a hacker takes over a session between you and another individual and disconnects the other individual from the communication. You still believe that you are talking to the original party and may send private information to the backer unintentionally.

Denial of service: A denial of service (DOS) is a type of attack that causes the system or its services to crash. As a result, the system cannot perform its purpose and provide those services.

Distributed denial of service (DDOS): The hacker uses multiple systems to attack a single target system. A good example is the SMURF attack, in which the hacker pings a number of computers but modifies the source address of those packets so that they appear to come from another system (the victim in this case). When all of these systems receive the ping request, all systems will reply to the same address, essentially overburdening that system with data.

Password attack: An attacker tries to crack the passwords stored in a network account database or a password protected file. To use this method hackers use many freeware software applications which can be easily download from the web.

One of the most effective ways of all times, in protecting against these kinds of attacks is, awareness! Having a current knowledge about security and having heard the most commonly adopted ways that people use to fool around people may save your network!

Skype Warns Users about Circulating Worm

2007-09-12T17:44:00.000+05:00

A worm targeting Windows PCs is spreading through the service's instant messenger, making the VoIP's chat software the latest to come under the hacker gun.

Skype Ltd. warned its users Monday that a worm targeting Windows PCs is spreading through the service's instant messenger, making the Voice over IP (VOIP)'s chat software the latest to come under the hacker gun. Read More>>

Could one of these five companies be the next Microsoft?

2007-09-10T20:05:00.000+05:00

So, if a company were to take Microsoft’s crown, who would it be? The graveyard of failed challengers is littered with names like .....

Cisco or Google or Apple or Amazon or Zoho...Which one?

Click here to read the full article>>

Forcing the users to shutdown when their time is up!

2007-09-10T19:46:00.000+05:00

If you have many users who uses your PC or even your home office/small office PC, you find it difficult to control the time they use the PCs, sometimes you have a hard time in explaining why you need the Pc to be shutdown after sometimes or why you need that “some one” to leave you PC for a particular time span. So here comes a handy solution for that, which will even be very useful to system administrators of enterprise level networks.

In order to do this, you need a third party utility application, because Microsoft hasn’t included this feature in their OS versions.

First thing first,

Click the link to download the UtilityBeyound Logic Shutdown for Windows NT/2000/XP!

UtilityBeyond Logic Shutdown for NT/2000/XP is a simple freeware utility that you can schedule to run, and it will do the job every time without modifying user rights. Download the utility, and extract it into a directory.

Then, follow these steps:

Go to Start Run, type cmd, and press [Enter].

Navigate to the directory where the extracted file resides.

To view the different command parameters available, type shutdown /?.

Create a batch fileUsing this utility, we’ll create a batch file to run that enforces our time restrictions. Follow these steps:

Go to Start Run, type notepad, and press [Enter].

Type shutdown -s -f -c -l 30 -m “Time restrictions are now forcing you to logoff; please save all your work.”

Go to File Save, and name the file Shutpc.bat, and save it in the same directory as the utility.

With this command, we’re forcing the machine to shut down, forcing applications to terminate at shutdown, preventing the user from cancelling the command, displaying a message box to inform the user what’s happening, and giving the user 30 seconds to save all work.

Next, we’ll schedule the batch file to run using the built-in scheduler.

Follow these steps:

Go to Start Control Panel, and double-click the Schedule Tasks applet.

Double-click Add Scheduled Task, and click Next.

Click Browse, navigate to the Shutpc.bat file you just created, and double-click the file.

You can change the name of the task or leave it; then, select Daily, and click Next.

Configure the time you want to force logoff, and click Next.

Enter the password for the account that’s going to run this task (it should be an administrator account), and click Next.

Select the Open Advanced Properties For This Task When I Click Finish check box, and click Finish.

On the Settings tab, deselect the Power Management check box.

Click OK, and you’re finished!

This Utility can be very handy depending your job role, but even for the home users, this can be a veryt usefull one! Click here to visit TehcRepublic for the complete article!

Is Apple the New Microsoft?

2007-09-08T03:57:00.000+05:00

Don't look now, but the role of the industry's biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft...Read More>>

Why do you think formatting the PC is the only Cure?

2007-09-08T03:23:00.000+05:00

Most of the problems that force us to format our PC are due to System registry problems.

When ever you encounter some problems with your windows machine, the first think comes may be to format the PC, this isn’t surprising when most of the Asians, especially Maldivians uses pirated software, but never the less still there exits many smart ways that you can repair most of the windows problems. You don’t have to always format, but if you think it doesn’t consume your time and is very easy for you, then you are most welcome in that regard.
Most of the PC problems start when we start accessing the internet and if we don’t have a good anti virus software installed in our PC, we will end-up corrupting our computer, many a times this results in corruption of the system registry.
System registry is the most important place of the windows operating system, so if you end-up corrupting it, you will experience all sort of disappointing things, many a times will result a slow performance.
Registry can be corrupted by many things, such as installing many applications and improper un-installation of some applications, malwares, viruses, spam wares and many more.
One of the way that you can recognize that your system’s registry has been compromise is, when you start getting unexpected error massages at start up, and when you cant use command prompt and when your system gets extremely slow while you have lots of memory and hard disk capacity available.

So how can I repair my computer system's registry?

The answer for that is to clear unwanted items in your systems registry, the best way to do this is to use a registry cleaning and repairing utility software. Since there are lot of free ware applications, to garb one of them wouldn’t be a problem.

Here is one of the best ones I have found Free Error Cleaner 1.00 and this is also a free ware, but if you want go for a more advance one, you can download registry Mechanic as well, but remember even though this application can be downloaded for free, it wont work fully unless you pay for it. Click here to download Registry Mechanic 6.0.

Hope this gives you some information on optimizing your computer’s registry.

Students Take Google as Gospel - PC Magazine

2007-09-06T07:28:00.000+05:00

Survey shows university students don't seem to question Google's ranking system.
By Dahna McConnachie, Computerworld Australia

Read the Full article>>

“The crazy dual booting…! Aren’t there an easy way???” what about Virtual PC?

2007-09-06T00:45:00.000+05:00

You have always wanted to learn many Operating systems, probably other than windows, but your concern is the pain taking dual booting process, where you install windows and Linux on the same machine or even multiple windows OS when it comes to learning and getting ready for certificate exams like MCSE and so forth.
So here is the solution for that! I am talking about Virtual PC, referred as hardware virtual machine,

a Software application that is built to work as a virtual PC so that you can
install multiple operating systems on the same computer without formatting the
hard disk and without making any damage to the actual system. That’s not
all; you can even work on different Operating systems simultaneously.

Sounds good? Let’s see what we have to do to make this as real as you might imagine.

Getting handy with a Virtual PC Software application.

First thing you need to do is getting a virtual PC software and there are two good products out there that I recommend, one is VMware and another one is Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007. You can get more information on these products by visiting their websites.
If you ask which one is the best, I might say its VMware, but if you ask which one is the easiest to use, I will say Microsoft’s Virtual PC, because it is really simple and easy to use, and also its FREE. Microsoft has mad this very handy little software available for free download and its only 30.4MB!
Click here to download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007! So in this case its better you go for the MS Virtual PC 2007, but there are some versions and operating systems which want work with this product but definitely will work with VMware. If you go and check the VMware Website , you can see they offer really cool and fascinating Virtual reality products which can be very handy to personal and business use. VMware provides a 30 day trial version for free; check it out it as well.

Before you download any virtualization software you need to know about few tearms,
Guest Operating system: the opearating system which we want dual boot, or the operating system that you are gonna install using Virtual PC Software.
Host Operating system: The Operating system that is currently running on your machine to which you have installed the Virtual PC software. And I also recommend you to check the Microsoft website to check the system requirements, remember, windows Vista home basic and windows XP Home edition is not supported by this Virtual software. If its XP, you have to have Professional edition.

I have downloaded MS virtual PC 2007, then what?

You just need to double click and install the application, it’s really an easy installation wizard, just press next, next, then you are done.

After installing you can see the Microsoft Virtual PC icon in your start menu > all programs, when executed, you will see the following screen.

Just press New, and follow the wizard, select the first option, “Create virtual machine”, press next.

Give a name for your virtual machine, for example, Linux machine or Windows 98, it must be something readable, press next.

Select an operating system from the list or if not present just select other and press next.
From this screen, select “adjusting RAM” option and adjust the RAM size to a reasonable, it is should not be 128MB or 256MB, because it totally depends on the amount of RAM you have and the type of work you are gonna do in the guest operating system you are going to install, better not to give large space for gust learning purposes if you don’t have enough RAM on you computer like say, IGB. Any ways putting the minimum requirement will be fine in most cases, now press next.

From this screen, select “A new virtual Hard disk” from the options and select next.
Here you have to mention the folder which will be used as the virtual machines hard disk to which the respected guest operating system will be installed. You can also specify the capacity of the hard disk you are going to use for this virtual hard disk, better to select a reasonable one, say 5GB may be. And press next.

It finishes configuring a new guest operating system wizard. Next thing you have to do is just insert the CD containing the operating system that you configured for, and click the start button in the Virtual PC 2007 interface. (same as the in the diagram above)

When you click start, the virtual PC will be started and as you are installing a new OS, it will show the boot screen and all the boot sequence and installing procedures step by step, that’s it.

If every thing goes smoothly as it should be, you will most probably end up with installing another OS in the same OS environment and you can switch between OS like you switch between normal windows programs. For any Assistance you can just post any comments, I will be glad to answer to the capacity of my little knowledge and even redirect to some good stuff on the web.

Have you ever wished that if you could hide your personal user account from the Windows Welcome screen?

2007-09-02T01:56:00.000+05:00

One of the unfortunate side effects of the Welcome Screen is the listing of all of the user accounts on the computer. What if there is an account that you do not want the whole world to see? Using the same features that Microsoft uses to hide system accounts from the Welcome Screen. You can hide user accounts as well.
Hiding user accounts can be done by a simple hack in the registry. Hidden away in the local system settings is a list of accounts that Microsoft does not want to appear on the Welcome screen. These accounts are primarily system accounts under which different processes that run in the background use to execute.
To hide a user from the Welcome screen, all you have to do is create an entry on the list for the user you want to hide.

Removing a user account from Welcome Screen

Before You make any changes to registry , please create a restore point in your
computer, so incase if anything goes out of hand you can always restore
your computer to the earlier state and another the thing is to print a screens
shot of the registry when you reach the editing part. Be careful while editing,
make sure you are editing the correct one and as in the steps given below.

Click the start button and select Run, then type regedit in the box and click OK.

This will start up the system Registry Editor. You are going to want to expand the following keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE> SOFTWARE > Microsoft >Windows NT> CurrentVersion> Winlogon> SpecialAccounts> and UserList.

You should now see the list of the account names, and parts of account names, that the system will look for and will hide. To add a name to the list, just right click and select New > DWORD value, as shown in the figure.

After this you must be careful...!

A DWORD is a specific data type of an entry in the system registry. In short, the DWORD data type allows an integer value to be stored.

When the new key is created, enter in the name of the user’s account as the name of the key. Once you have done this, you can close regedit.

After log off and back on or reboot, the user will not be displayed on the Welcome screen. If you ever want to log into the account that you hid from the Welcome screen, just press Ctrl+Alt+Delete on your keyboard once, twice, and you will be able to type in the name of the user under which you want to log in. This way, you can hide an account from your family or friends but still log into it.

If you ever change your mind and want the account to be displayed on the welcome screen again, just delete the entry that you made in the list in the System Registry and everything will be back the way it was.

Are You Bored with the default boot screen that you see every time you boot your windows Xp machine?

2007-08-30T11:17:00.000+05:00

The answer of many users will be yes, but what prevents them changing it? well the answer may depend on whom it is being asked, But One thing is sure! Many users are afraid of the side effects of using such a third party software to change the default XP boot Screen, if so here is a grate solution for that!

But before do any thing or change any system files, it is always recommended
that you create a restore point on your computer, so in case if any thing goes
out of hand, it can be always restored to the earlier state!

The BootSkin app is a great piece of software, but it does not
do everything.Currently it does not allow you to use the
thousands of boot screens that were made especially for the
program.

The good news is there is a very handy hack that can be done in order to convert other boot screen compatible with the one I am gonna mention, i hope in future i will present all those cool hacks that you have been waiting for!
Click here to download BootSkin software for FREE!

Using BootSkin to change your boot screen

Its very simple, just select what you want and apply! that's it!
Several different boot-screen-changing programs are available
on the Web. Some of these programs are shareware and others are
freeware. Expert authors have used them all. According to them,
not all of them have been user friendly, and some of them have
been an out and out pain. The one Expert authors prefer to use is BootSkin by Stardock, which also happens to be free. This program is by
far the easiest and safest one to use to change the boot
screen.
for more boot Screens Visit Win Customize ! and Skinbase!

Check the next post on this blog to grab the tricks and tips of Windows XP and some interesting PC troubleshooting scenarios.

Do you want to make your Hard Disk Portable?

2007-08-29T18:19:00.000+05:00

USB portable hard disks are becoming very popular nowadays, because of its ease of use and its compatibility with laptops, but it has one down side, its double as the price of normal SATA or IDE hard disk. Now there comes an alternate option for budget users, that’s SATA/ IDE to USB Cable. This cable comes with DC power adapter which can be plugged in to the AC power supply, there by making any SATA or IDE hard disk portable with a computer or laptop having a USB port.

Its average cost is 25us$ or even cheaper in some case. So dear friends don’t get disappointed because some of your rich friends buy USB hard disks, because you also can make your hard disk portable, just buy the SATA/IDE to USB kit and that’s it.
This is not only true for Hard disks, any disk drive which supports IDE or SATA can be connected to the USB port of your computer using this very handy little kit.

So lets get this cable and make each hard disk a portable disk!

It’s not an imagination or Science fiction, but it’s the technology.

2007-08-29T16:27:00.000+05:00

It is true that long checkout lines at the grocery store are one of the biggest complaints about the shopping experience, but soon these lines could disappear when the ubiquitous Universal Product Code(UPC), bar code is replaced by smart labels, also called radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. RFID tags are intelligent bar codes that can talk to a networked system to track every product that you put in your shopping cart.

Imagine going to the grocery store, filling up your cart and walking right out
the door. No longer will you have to wait as someone rings up each item in your
cart one at a time. Instead, now the shopping basket will communicate with the
billing system and as soon as you arrive at the counter, your total amount will
be already calculated and displayed to you by the cashier. Is it too factious?
Do I sound Crazy?

Dear friends, all what I said can be accomplished by the RFID tags and its proper implementation. These RFID tags will communicate with an electronic reader that will detect every item in the cart and ring each up almost instantly. The reader will be connected to a large network that will send information on your products to the retailer and product manufacturers. Your bank will then be notified and the amount of the bill will be deducted from your account. No lines, no waiting.

Tags - An RFID tag is a tiny radio device that is also referred to as a transponder, smart tag, smart label or radio barcode. The tag comprises of a simple silicon microchip (typically less than half a millimeter in size) attached to a small flat aerial and mounted on a substrate. The whole device can then be encapsulated in different materials (such as plastic) dependent upon its intended usage. The finished tag can be attached to an object, typically an item, box or pallet and read remotely to ascertain its identity, position or state.

So you wonder why we don’t replace our barcode system with RFID tags.
Privacy may be the concern, but it can also be handled and security can also be increased with the use of these tags and supported systems. This can be a very appropriate solution for garment retailers, since people are tend to walk in with their belongings, such as shopping bags and other necessary bags and by implementing this solution it can, the particular garment can be monitored and theft can be prevented as a whole, even if something happens a worse case scenario will be catching a thief while trying to shoplift any RFID tagged garment.

More information on RFID technology, visit the following links
RFID Center
Ross Enterprise

Why when shared, Windows XP cannot communicate with winodws Vista in the Same Local network?

2007-08-28T19:00:00.001+05:00

Network Map in Microsoft® Windows Vista™ diagrams the connections between network devices to help you troubleshoot connectivity problems. Network Map uses a discovery protocol called Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) in order to query the other devices on the network to determine how the network is organized. Computers running Windows Vista include the software components that implement the LLTD protocol. For other devices on the network to be placed on the map, they must have a discovery protocol enabled that can respond to the mapping computer's requests.

This means in order to communicate windows Xp with Windows Vista we need to install a Portocol known as LLTD from microsoft website, unfortunately only licensed versions of widnows XP can download and install this protocol from microsoft website?

"Too bad, Our poor, pirated copy users have to face the dificulties.... "
but why most of the asians always use pirated copies of any software they USE?

But if u crack windows ganuine validation program and download this protocol from some whre u might be able to install this Protocol to ur Pirated copy of windows, but will it be legal?

Any ways dear friends, there are ways this can be done... i mean u can downlaod this protocol form the follwoing link if you wanna take the responsibility of the legal issues.

download the LLTD protocol!

So here is what you do to solve the problem as microsoft says:

Solution
For computers running Windows XP to appear on the Network Map diagram, you must download and install the LLTD Responder component. With the LLTD Responder, a computer running Windows XP can respond to other Windows Vista computers on the network that are attempting to create a network map.

To install the LLTD Responder to a computer running Windows XP

1. Download the update for Windows XP from Microsoft Download center

2. Run the update on the computer running Windows XP that you want to appear on the Network Map.
3. On the Software Update Installation Wizard, click Next.
4. On the License Agreement page, read the license agreement, and if you agree to the terms, click I Agree, and then click Next.
5. On the final page of the wizard, click Finish.
6. If you are prompted to do so, restart your computer.
7. After your computer running Windows XP restarts, generate a new Network Map with the computer running Windows XP included.

What Slows Windows Down?

2007-08-28T18:12:00.000+05:00

Well this seems to bea question that every body wants find the answer. People always complain about their computer or laptop being so slow, so is it the hardware which makes the differance or the software that we install or the operating system itself? well the answer is rather complicate then making one of them responsible for all the slow downs.

"It happens rather gradually. when i bought my computer, it was very fast and i was very impressed with its performance but now i find it to be slower than 80s celeron system."

says my frend who bought a intel pentium D PC system in last month with 1GB of RAM.

so is it really the Hardware whihc plays the role or proper maintenance of the PC? or is it the corroption of the operating system which kills the speed of the computer ?

What Slows Windows Down? check the link out for a nice reseach