Life @ IITB - II

Its almost over 2 months that I'm staying here. As days went by, I witnessed many things. Things that were wierd. Things that were funny. Things that were too good to forget. (sorry...I'm not a creative writer. I just type in whatever come to my mind).

The campus:

The campus is wisely organised with the departments on one side and resdential area on the other. All the departments are connected through infinite and semi-infinite corridors. And you know what? I walked many a time from end to end through this INFINITY corridor.

Many things changed after coming here. Like ... the language, time spent on the comp, night outs(watching movies or F.R.I.E.N.D.S or playing T.T or simply Lukkha), playing guitar or just chatting. Here, the term GODgiri was born long before GANDHIgiri ( lage raho munna bhai).

Sh** the only problem is that time runs very very fast here. Look..I'm trying to complete this post but...the time has run out. I mean I'm running short of time. Gotta go back to hostel. I'll complete this post sometime later. I promise...

... To be continued

Lord of the links - IV

After a long long time, here I am again with my Lord of the Links series. Here are some new links I found out useful.

mouthshut

MouthShut.com - Compare prices, read consumer written product reviews on movies, music, books, cars, digital cameras and millions of other products and services.

flock

Flock is an amazing new web browser that makes it easier to share media and connect to other people online.

writely

writely is a web word processor. You can create, edit and share files from anywhere without anything to download. Moreover it is secure and free!

wikimapia

wikimapia is similar to google earth but only difference is that it is online and you don't need to download anything to use it.

box

box provides free online file storage upto 1 GB (free). You can also upgrade to 5GB for which you'll need to pay. You can access to your files from any computer and share it also.

goodtree

Search simultaneously in yahoo, google and other search engines. As a matter of fact, this site supports charity and hence you help someone indirectly by searching using their service.

I'll post some more useful links shortly in my Lord of the links series.

Forwards

I got this mail today... found it good and think it is worthy enough to be posted here.

I want to thank all my friends and other unknown people who have forwarded chain letters to me in 2003, 2004 & 2005 and 2006.

Because of your kindness:

• I stopped drinking Coca-Cola after I found out that it's good only for removing toilet stains.
• I stopped going to the movies for fear of sitting on a needle infected with AIDS
• I smell like a wet dog since I stopped using deodorants because they cause cancer.
• I also stopped answering the phone for fear that they may ask me to dial a stupid number and then I get a phone bill from hell with calls to Uganda , Singapore and Tokyo.
• I also stopped drinking water outside for fear that I will get sick from the rat shit and urine.
• When I go to parties, I don't look at any girl, no matter how hot she is, for fear that she will take me to a hotel, drug me, then take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.
• I also donated all my savings to the Amy Bruce account. A sick girl that was about to die in the hospital about 7,000 times. (Poor girl! she's been 7 since 1993...)
• My free Nokia phone never arrived and neither did the free passes for a paid vacation to Disneyland.
• Made some Hundred wishes before forwarding those Dalai Lama, Ganesh Vandana, Tirupathi Balaji pics etc..
  Now most of those "Wishes" are already married (to someone else)!
• You can add your own notes based on your similar experience and send them to your friends.

If ORKUT deletes my account, it doesn't matter BUT PLEASE DON'T SEND me "Orkut is deleting accounts: Due to sudden rush..." Otherwise I'll delete my E-Mail account!

Wandering...

With almost 0 scraps and emails, I thought of surfing the deep web for a while. As I went on, I found this:

The Indian Institutes of Technology is another name for IIT, which is the acronym for Institute of Infinite Tension, Institute of Indian Technology, etc. They institutes of so-called national importance set up by the Indian Parliament at seven campuses across India, decided purely on merits of political alliances of the ruling party. It was the mastermind of a certain Jawaharlal Nehru to reduce the average intelligence of Indians that led to the establishments of these institutes. Just like Zion in Matrix, where 3% of the people who do not accept the Matrix are gathered together to prevent dissent as a whole, IITs were formed by the Government of India to gather at one place the 2% of the intellegensia of the country and dumb them down. There is a similar prophecy that The One would appear one day to lead these students to their destiny…

Courtesy: uncyclopedia.org

What the hell? An encyclopedia... describing IIT in such a manner? I almost decided to write a post on this matter. A hate post infact. But what is this? This is not some kinda of encyclopedia. This is infact an UNCYCLOPEDIA. This is how they describe themselves:

,p>Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia full of misinformation and utter lies. You might say it puts the "psych!" in "encyclopedia". It's sort of like Congress or Parliament, but unlike Congress or Parliament, we do have a sense of humor. Nonetheless, this is one of the only factual pages, before everything turns into a puddle of utter confusion and disarray. Savor it. And for the love of Sophia, we know you like disarray, (and confusion) but stop adding confusion to this non-confusing page which leads to confusion, and possibly disarray. Which we wish to stop. Non-non-confusion, that is. Not disarray. Or is it the other way around?

Happy september

Here goes my first Post of this month. The time seems to travel faster day by day. I can't believe that it has been a month since I joined IITB. May be the speed of light is decaying or whatever but, the time really seems to travel faster as never before. Hmmm… what to write and what not? I'm not able to decide. Signing out…

How to remove Blogger Beta Navbar

I never happened to like the Blogger Navbar at the top of my Blog and I bet all the Bloggers have the same opinion.

Ok... lets waste no more time and get into our work. Lets learn HOW TO REMOVE BLOGGER BETA NAVBAR

• First, login into your blogger (beta) account and click Template.
• Now, click on Edit HTML. Wait... look at the code and go to line which says
  
  

  /* global
  ----------------------------------------------- */

  
  Infact, you can add the code anywhere in the stylesheet but I recommend you to do as I said so that you don't screw up the layout.
• Now add this style anywhere in the stylesheet
  

  /* Apnerve trick
  more info @: http://www.apnerve.blogspot.com
  ----------------------------------------------- */
  #navbar-iframe{
  display:none !important
  }

  
  
• Save the changes and have a look at your new Blog. You'll find that the Navbar has disappeared

Update:Now there is no need to edit the HTML template as a widget is available to hide the navbar. Check out my latest post "hide navbar widget" for that

Technovanza (...continued)

People started wondering about the machine I was holding and I had to convince them that it was an AERORAIL. Two wheels, two motors, two castor wheels, two groove wheels and some bolts, nuts, wires, switch, soap box... piece of ply wood and a pipe. All these things made our machine a bit more bulkier and the poor thing couldn't get more than 12 volts supply from the eliminator we borrowed from Nithin nitin and Aniket (As a matter of fact they won the third prize in the contest) to move faster. The contest started. Our turn came. I mounted the machine...switched it on. Voila! it covered the track in 3.3 seconds. We were in the second position till that point of time. But..but..but.....in the second round we screwed it up. How? C'mon guess it and answer using the post comment link.

Technovanza

Robotics was one the many things I started admiring at IIT Bombay. Technovanza - a techfest kind of thing of VJTI. No sooner did it was announced, the (Technic)seniors started pumping ENTHU. After certain amount of hardwork, aquiring GYAN from seniors and sleepless nights, other people of my wing geared up for the event with their machines complete. Coming to our group, we had sleepless nights too...but for discussion and arguement. Somehow, we managed to complete our AERORAIL and I was chosen to represnt our team(as I was ever-ready to bunk the classes on that day).

The journey

I started off for the technovanza arena with few of my wingmates and a senior to escort us. Of all things under the sun, we had to travel by the local train.I got in. You know? it is very easy to board the local trains in mumbai...just stand near the entrance,scratch your head and wait...the crowd rushes in and carries you in that process. The same method can be applied to come out. Inspite of the heavy rush, I was told that we were lucky as the train was somewhat KHAALI. Finally, we got down( infact, I was carried out by the crowd) and reached the arena.

The arena

The hall was not fully packed. The participants were busy checking,re-checking their machines. Some were still wondering about the thing I carried in my arms- THE AERORAIL.

To be continued…

The Water fight

water, water, every where, and all our rooms did stink; Water, water, everywhere, nor any guy to sprink(le)

I don't know who started it but within few minutes, whole freshie block got involved in this fight. These things, fights I mean, are some of the most common things that happen here at IIT Bombay. The tradition passes on from batch to batch through the ORIENTation sessions. No sooner did we had our Hostel and Sports orientation, we got into action!

Knock..knock...Who's there?? No one....Woosh! hey he's the guy from our very own block...2nd floor. He made all his way from his floor to mine just to throw water on me. How strange this method of introduction is. Well... now it was my turn to do the same. So, I came out with my weapons- My bucket n mug and gave my warcry: H4....H4........ and started throwing water on everyone I encountered. We enjoyed to the fullest and now, I am posting this to let everyone know that we, the IITians don't just slog or study. We also enjoy our lives.

• I EAT
• I SLEEP
• I STUDY
• I BLOG
• I SING
• I CHILL
• I DANCE
• I IT BOMBAY

Matki phod

Matki Phod- our unique way of celebrating INDEPENDENCE DAY JANMASTAMI at HIV(read hostel 4, IIT Bombay). The funda is simple… a matki(pot) is tied high enough to make sure that you don't reach it and on the other hand a group of people try to break the same. I must say it is not that easy as it is to write about. It requires a strategy, teamwork and of course a hell lot of enthu! (read enthusiasm). The group which tries to break the matki, forms a structure growing layer by layer till they reach the matki. And to disturb them, junta(read people) throw water and cheer them up with ma behen gaalis (also known as C language). The structure is like graphite. Why? Coz… its slippery and it is in the same form i.e. six junta in each layer. Mostly, all the junta are semi-nude and wearing a shirt will mean sacrificing it.

There were three matkis, and one had to be phoded (broken) by the freshies (frehser rather). The higher we climbed, the farther the matki was pulled from us, thus trying to make our attempts all go in vain. But how could that ever happen? We (frehies) are IITians too. So, within no time we devised our strategy… formed a layer… sent a tall guy on the top (a senior though)… supported him…gave him a hockey stick…and VOILA! we accomplished our task as he phoded the matki (well … after that everyone came down crashing but fortunately no one was injured). We celebrated our victory. Even rain supported us and showered a little more.

E.O.F (End Of File)

The event was over. Now it was the time for the seniors to express their love to their batchmate… a birthday boy. I couldn't have the view properly but I can say one thing- he won't be able to sit on anything till 2 weeks! Coming soon… I love sleep (with photos)

Life @ IIT Bombay: Part-1

It almost 2 weeks since I joined this place but still I'm in the process of exploring things out here. Out of all the things, I liked LDAP account the most, with which I can use any computer inside the campus to check my emails and web browsing. Thanks to LDAP, thanks to technology… and a bigger thanks to blogger. Now I can still update my blog even if the proxy doesn't work. I can use the LDAP or departmental email and post entries to blogger. Ok. I guess we had enough of the tech stuff. Now lets move on… to the more important things.

Girls

They are considered to be rare species as boys outnumber them. Life for them is very easy as they get selected into anything just because of the fact that, they are Girls

Rain

some say it rains cats and dogs. But I don't really agree with them. I would use "It rains buffaloes and bullocks" instead. The rains here are very deceptive. It suddenly starts raining right when you forget your rain coat or umbrella.

Ragging

It is officially banned here. The seniors, sometimes, give us GYAAN in return to the intro we give.

Humm… more to post but running out of time (and energy too). Time for my snacks...
Coming soon… Life @ IIT Bombay: Part -2

IIT Bombay - My home for the next 4 years

Finally, I got B-Tech, Electrical Enginering in IIT Bombay.

'MAD'RAS

I should have posted this earlier but my laziness ( my virtue!) stopped me from doing so. I have a good excuse too… I have no internet connection in my home.

19^th June. 2006 A.D
IIT Madras. Chennai.

After a long (14 hours) journey, I could finally find myself in one of the India's prestigious institutes - IIT MADRAS. It wasn't a piligrimage or a tour either. It was my counselling… scheduled to happen the next day.

This place, at first, ressembled a wildlife sanctuary as evident from the presence of deers and monkeys moving around. I heard about Panthers in IIT Bombay. I'm lucky I didn't find any here.

After going deeper into it… the campus I mean, you'll find 7 storied buildings which, I later came to know, were student's hostels. Humm… looks like hitech residence for the techies. Two days stay at IIT made me love the place but hate the weather. You know? I sweat like hell! This kind of weather is something that one would love to hate and others hate to love! I do both simultaneously. No sooner did I complete my counselling, I started back home as I could no longer bear that weather. Well… now I'm in my Hyderabad…my fingers crossed… waiting for the counselling result to be out within next few minutes.

Musical might!

The day night before yersterday night was a musical night for me as I was awake till 2 AM, composing music for the songs my Dad's friend had sung. I still wonder why in the world, I didn't feel sleepy that night because this is not the case when I sit to study. (As a matter of fact, I rarely attempt such adventures… studying… I mean.) It is musical might, that kept me awake. I call it might because, nothing else can keep me awake.

Show Desktop: How to restore it?

Ever tried deleting the "show desktop" icon of the quick launch menu in taskbar? Well… I tried and to my horror couldn't get it back. So it was time for the silly white hat hacker inside me to wake up and carry on the ASSignment. Here is the step by step procedure on how I restored the show desktop icon to the quicklaunch bar.

1. Go to C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch and check if you find show desktop icon in that folder. If not found try C:\Documents and Settings\Guest\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
2. Now copy this file (Show Desktop) to the Quick launch folder in your user account. Example: c:\Documents and Settings\your username\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
3. Press F5 to refresh. Thats all… now you may rest in peace. You have just restored the show desktop.

The great ESCape!

No. This post is not about any adventure or anything like that, as seems from the title of this post. I'm talking about the great ESC key of the keyboard. Well... whats so great about it?

…Press ESC to go to the previous menu…

Alas! I'm stuck. Why? Recently the ESC key of my keyboard became stubborn to function. Though I use it gently and look after every peripheral of my PC with LOVE n CARE, it has forsaken me, leaving me helpless while playing games and using BIOS. Without it, life almost seems impossible. Now, I cannot tweak my BIOS nor play games. Try plucking the ESC thing out and watch how it changes the way you control things in your windows BOX. I wish I had been bitten by TUX, like vinay (a friend of mine… now considered as LINUX GOD at IIT Bombay) , so that I could map the key to some other working one. He asked me to delete this line. I still use windows just to pray and wait for a miracle to happen… or replace my keyboard.

Radio mirchi - hOt or cOLD

Ever since I saw the big big ads showing images of red hot mirchi on the hoardings, I couldn't stop wondering why and who in this big big world would ever tune into the radio. With i-pods and portable Mp3 players zooming in, I thought radio would be something which no-one would ever remember. Well… what abt the AD? why so much big hoarding??

Radio Mirchi...Idi chaala HOT Guru

Thanks to my curiosity … I took my kchibo kk88 (radio) and tuned in to 95 FM. I couldn't believe my ears when it played my favourite song… with a high-clarity that reminded me of my fren's Sony CDman. Now I realise the power of radio. Radio mirchi not only broadcasts the songs but also live traffic and weather reports, that goes 24x7x365. Wait… I'm tuning in (95 FM) again. Will blog later.

Testing

Well...this is my first blog from my mobile. At last i succeeded in connecting my mobile to the internet. Signing out...

Airtel - Depress yourself!

Airtel- Express yourself. This is the tagline you see everytime you come across an Airtel ad. But unfortunately I couldn't express myself

...Send INTERNET ON to 121 and after you get the confirmation sms, switch off your mobile and switch it on again. Now, your mobile is ready to connect to the internet...

This was what the customer care executive told me when I enquired as to how to get internet connectivity on my mobile. Very eagerly, I followed her advice as a dumb lamb just to get a DATA CONNECTION FAILED! message. To add woes to it, Rs.15 got deducted from my account though I couldn't use it. When I called again, I was told that I was speaking to shravani and she would asist me. But instead she confused me by telling some other details. Confused though, I thanked her and went back to my work. After 6 - 8 vain attempts, I decided to call the customer care oncemore. Well... this time I was speaking to rachana or richa sushma or whatever( I don't know why these ppl remind me that I'm speaking to them). Again the same story...again DATA CONNECTION FAILED! Atlast, I called up again. This time it was Raju to whom I was speaking to ( infact he too reminded me that I was speaking to him as if never knew this) He apologised and assured me that it would be set right. Then I thanked him and waited...waited...waited. You know what happened next?

DATA CONECTION FAILED!

Fruity music

Hmmm… I guess I'm not that bad in composing music. As a matter of fact I had a chance to create a music using fruity loops.

http://geocities.com/babu_14u/Suma.mp3 . Really, fruity loops is amazing and I feel lucky to have it installed in my comp. Moreover, this summer I'm planning to create some more loops and music which I'll upload to my server. Hope you will enjoy them. Signing out...

In the end

Its the end… finally the day has come and the day ended too. Yes, the most awaited gruesome JEE is over. With a new pattern to leave the aspirants flabbergasted, it succeeded in screwing up the mathematics paper.

Neways…kay serasera… whatever happened has happened. We could do what all we couldI did all I could do … the rest I leave it to the Almighty. Signing out…

Upcoming designs

This summer, I'm planning to add few more designs in OSWD. Most of them will be based on indian Traditions and culture. The theme names are as follows.

• Prerna
• Savera
• Prakriti
• Moksha
• Tapasya
• Pranam
• Akriti
• Shastra
• Karma
• Mukti

Design in action

Day by day… my designs are being featured in more and more websites. Now it is being used by threetenseventy.com for their blog and articles. http://www.threetenseventy.com/gambling/0n-casino-net.phpThats all 4 now… Signing out

apnerve.com rated as top ten designs in openwebdesign.org

Hmmm… I didn't expect my design would be that successful. it was rated as top ten designs of the month in http://openwebdesign.org/most_popular.phtml .But that doesn't mean I'm gonna design few more templates these days. Neither does it mean I'm gonna stop designing. How can I ever stop it? Its my passion.

Todays attractions

After 4 hours of sitting and staring the computer, I've, at last, created designed an open source web template called apnerve.com. To view it go to http://www.freewebs.com/apnerve and my new blog address is http://www.apnerve.uni.cc

These are today's attractions. I'll come back again in holidays… So no blogging till holidays… bye for now.

Lord of the links-III

yet another list of good links useful for site testing and analysis.

• http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/index.html
• http://webxact.watchfire.com/
• http://uitest.com/en/analysis/
• http://uitest.com/
• http://www.google.com/webmasters/

These, I suppose, will do wonders for amateur web designers and content developers … signing out… apnerve.

Lord of the links - II

Here are some more good links that find place in my blog.

• http://www.oswd.org
• http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/pencil_sketch/index.html
• http://www.wpdfd.com/
• http://www.webstyleguide.com/
• http://www.htmlhelp.com/

How to hack yahoo password?

The exact method may not work for the latest yahoo page, but the process is more or less the same

Here is how one can try hacking phishing other's password.(Remember: Hacking email accounts is crime. I'm in no way responsible if you get caught doing it)

• Copy the yahoo login page and save it with name yahoo.html or any other name of your choice in the desktop or any other folder.
• Now, open it in notepad. Delete all the script and noscript tags which look like these <script> and <noscript>. You can use notepad's find command for this.
• Now look for the form tag <form method=post action="http://www.someaddress">. Modify it by changing the action address to a from processor under your control like the service provided by allforms
• Now upload this page to a server under your control like freewebs and send a mail to your friend(victim) providing this link as a greeting or anything
• Now, you may rest in peace....you have almost finished your work. The victim will click on the link and find a login screen and will try to login. The moment he submits it, the id and password will come to you as an email.

This trick works with mostly new users as they don't take enough precautions while surfing. Here are some steps to avoid anyone playing such a trick on you.

1. Always look at the address bar to ensure if you are in the yahoo networks
2. Enter a wrong password for the first time and if there is any error message, then type the correct one

The fake login page cannot give the error message as your password is not known to the author of that page. So always type wrong password first time. As a matter of fact here is my fake login page login here . Well I'm in, in noway, responsible if your password gets hacked by using this page. Just look at the code and learn from it. Remember: Hacking cracking is crime..but ethical hacking is not a crime as long as you do it for gaining knowledge.

Lord of the links

Remembering the links is really a very tough job. Remembering long links like: http://webreference.com/programming/css_borders/1 calls for a good memory power.

• http://webreference.com/programming/css_borders/1 -This contains stu's tutorial as to how to create rounded corners without the use of images.
• http://www.cssplay.co.uk/layouts/minimum.html -This has stu's example of minimum width layout.

More links to come soon