Adding value to power cuts!

Staying in Maharastra, power cut is customary. To come out of power crises is probably not so easy. But currently technology can definitely made power cuts little less painful. With all the advertise SMS that we keep on receiving thought the day, why not to broadcast SMS in particular area where power grid is about to go down! If message is broadcasted 30 minutes in advance to power cut, then it can definitely help people to plan out the activites accordingly. With this I throw open the playground for more discussion on similar lines. I wish it motivates right person to implement the technology very soon.
Chao...

Real story of Micro$oft Window$

“People liked NASCAR because the constant crashes made it exciting, and this gave me an idea...”

~ Bill Gates on Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows, or simply "Windows", is the collective name for a series of operating systems that began in 1983 as a means of reversing the stagnation of the computer hardware market. Copying features from other competing platforms, Windows began as an add-on piece of bloated code latched to Microsoft Disk Operating System (or "MS-DOS"), but a series turnings of event eventually allowed Windows saw the opportunity to dominate the desktop computer platform and become one of the most popular broken software products of all times.

History

In the year 1981, Microsoft and IBM took the first steps of a relationship that would eventually dominate the personal computer industry. The marriage of Microsoft's virtually bulletproof MS-DOS with IBM's premium hardware was an instant success, and soon gave birth to a host of clone manufacturers who later became industry giants in their own right: Zenith, Heathkit, and Tandy, to name a few. Unfortunately, the explosive growth had the side effect of completely saturating the slowly emerging market. While plenty of satisfied customers were happily number crunching with VisiCalc, many manufacturers including IBM itself were left with mountains of unsold inventory. It was until Rowland Hanson, the head of marketing at Microsoft, who inadvertently hit upon the answer when he pondered aloud at an executive meeting:

It's too bad we couldn't make people so irritated that they'd throw their computers out of their windows. It'd be their own fault, and they'd have to buy a new unit complete with software once they came back to their senses.

This view was vocally supported by then-business manager Steve Ballmer, who observed:

Just because we can build a computer that can run for 100 years doesn't mean we should. I mean, look! It almost fucking killed the light bulb industry!

Without so much as another word spoken, it was understood by the whole room that Microsoft would begin the process of systematically removing all the improvements it had made to QDOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating system" it had purchased from Seattle Computer Products in 1980, and proceeded to initiate the development of a new software product without the involvement of IBM. The then-CEO William Henry Gate III argued:

And the name? Well, why not "Windows"? Let's capitalize on peoples' urges to throw their computers out the window, shall we?

Early on, there were a number of critics who suggested that the name "Windows" was a reference to the product's fragility. Technology writer Dick Hertz observed:

I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? Like a window, it seems perfectly clear and simple to use, but it crashes with the slightest pressure, or sometimes breaks inexplicably.

This speculation was largely curbed when Mr Hertz was found stabbed, burned, electrocuted, strangled, shot, and floating in the East River. Gates refused to comment directly to the press about the incident, but though his press secretary he stated that the death appeared "accidental".

Culture shock

A product placement by Microsoft in the popular sci-fi series Star Trek

Tearing a page directly out of the Steve Jobs' Book of Corporate Culture Creation - or perhaps it was the Jim Jones' one, no matter - Bill Gates printed up a scores of T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "style, not substance" and set his minions to work. Their mission, if they chose to accept it, was to dial up the eye-candy while systematically rebugging the software infrastructure. It was a punishing endeavour: writing bad software is easy, but writing software that runs like a gazelle but occasionally trips and falls and loses its memory, or collides in spectacular fashion with some unseen predator who devours it whole, lashes to limbs proved to be extremely difficult. Early efforts on test subjects also yielded poor results, with participants eager to throw their computer out of the nearest non-ground-floor opening but reluctant to visit ComputerLand for a replacement.

In 2002, Windows XD was introduced.

The test code was subjected to ongoing in-house peer-reviews - "VFI", or "Vote For Inclusion" - with programmers choosing the bugs they liked best. Unexpectedly, it was not always the most clever or most well crafted coding that drew the most votes. Often, innocuous bits of writing that struck blindside by delivering an unforseen playload walked hand-in-hand with obviously chaotic monsters of destructive programming, and with stupidly crafted pieces of clumsy kludge following in tow. As it turned out, this carefully selected blend of predictable error and random terror developed into something akin to the corporate secret sauce. By allowing test subjects to have an occasionally pleasant experience (provided that they took certain steps to avoid known pitfalls), they developed an increasing tolerance to the built-in mix of random hardware and software fault messages, and at times even blamed their own stupidity for the crash. Before the Environmental Protection Agency was able to substantiate their half-baked conspiracy theory about some causal link between Microsoft and the sharp increase in the volume of silicon waste accumulating in municipal landfills, people began to quit throwing their computers away and instead looked to Microsoft for answers. The name Windows was retained for marketing reasons, but also to remind programmers of the development imperative: make it look clear and easy to use, but easily breakable.

IBM, on the other hand, began their downward spiral into OS/2 and was eventual taken over by the Chinese. Bill has screwed people over before, as whatshisname from Seattle Computer Products insists; although he is currently under a legally-binding non-disclosure agreement to not divulge any further related details.

Marketing

A keyboard layout designed by Microsoft marketing department features an "Any" key for responding certain system messages such as "press any key to continue".

Marketing Windows may seem pointless, since it is not what one pays for and has the right to receive. Even then, it is simply nuances.

• Fetish marketing. People who used to go into San Francisco bathhouses, put a ball gag in their mouths, cover their heads in a hood, bend over a table, put a can of Crisco on their butt, handcuff their hands behind their back, and wait to feel who came in, were left high and dry for a while in the 1980's, until they found something better — surfing with Microsoft Internet Explorer! After dozens of years of development, Microsoft has managed to make a browser that in full security mode with all the latest updates to everything simply cannot find a cleavage picture of Rose McGowan on a Web search without installing two keyloggers in the process, and they are only the ones the unscrupulous "anti spyware" program developers have not been paid to not report. While this method of discouraging visits to any "subversive" or "non-standard" site is less efficient for the national economy than the Great Firewall of China, it nevertheless generates dozens of times more revenue for Microsoft.
• License competitions. The International Olympic Committe is currently entertaining competitions for how many licenses for Windows a single person can accumulate for personal use. Every time the hard drive on a Windows machine gets irretrievably obliterated (per an average of approximately six months) the respective user gets tempted to spend another $500 or more on another computer with another Windows license. However, some people often outperform others as they are somewhat more careless than the latter. Plus, some actually pay to upgrade their software version, as though they would not be stuck doing it anyway the next time the computer crashed.

Development

A computing magazine shows a purported image of a Microsoft staff member transporting the candidate bug lists for Windows 2000 to the software development team in Osaka, Japan.

A longevity studies demonstrated that the error-tolerance and self-blaming observed in laboratory studies was short-term, and the development team were forced to reevaluate their strategies. After closely examining the implementation illustration created by the marketing department, their error was immediately apparent: software designers had created the rider and the stick, but had failed to produce the carrot for the donkey to follow.

The developers addressed the problem by by providing new software and a new service support plan:

Support type	Translation
"Bug Fixes"	Code that was previously voted for and approved by the 'VFI panel has been subsequently removed by the Vote for Removal (VFR) panel.
"Telephone support"	Soak the customers for $3.99 per minute while reading chapters on "Reboot" or "Reinstall" verbatim from the book How to use Windows: New User Experience™. If that fails, direct them to "Bug Fixes" (q.v.) and hype the upcoming "New Version" (q.v.).
"New Versions"	Creeping featurism has led to an otherwise not-dissimilar version of Windows that may seem both aesthetically and functionally superior to its predecessor but is in fact an introduction of a new set of VFI'd bugs along with some cherished favourites.
"Killer Apps"	Notepad, Minesweeper, Calculator, 3D Text screensaver, Ms Paint, and the ubiquitous solitaire.

Internet

Believing the Internet to be nothing more than a glorified Bulletin Board system (BBS) of use only to a handful of nerds, Gates and company were late-comers to the browser wars. Their lateness not only cost them the opportunity for software patents but also threatened them to return the product back to the dark days of stability. Worldwide communication meant virus and trojan alerts through newsgroups, file trading in illicit software (like patches and fixes), and worst of all, troubleshooting by expert users during their free time free of charge. In short, with the Internet it had never been easier to ensure that a copy of Windows was running in tip-top shape. Early versions of Internet Explorer proved unusable, but by installing it by default with every copy of Windows, it offered the hope of re-establishing imbalance towards the Windows line. The "Windows Update" website was eventually created to provide the illusion of fast access to the latest patches and updates while actually continuing to pipeline the latest results from the VFI/VFR chess tournament.

Microsoft's masterstroke, yet, was its eventual integration of Internet Explorer as the operating system's file browser, and the wide scale use of "DirectX" technology. This not only provided users with direct access to the Internet from any window but also provided viruses and other malware with direct access to the user's computer. Combined with its own in-house "anti-virus" software, a truly attractive but sub-standard software package which developers used their extra time to carefully construct, Microsoft is guaranteed to foster the cycle of dependence for many years to come.

Special thanks to http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/ for providing with such interesting information.

After long time!

After long time, I'm writing a blog and it is going to be very short. One of the must have on machine is GIMP. Its best image processing tool that I've seen. It easily beats commercially available tools (read Adobe photoshop). Altium Designer Winter Edition 09, rocks \m/. Its awesome tool to have for PCB or circuit design and simulation. Though its not free :(
All embedded system developers should dirty their hands in embedded linux. It is one of the best options for embedded OS.

Amen!

Intriguing ***doz user

I always see ***doz users always running away from linux. Now one hardcore ***doz friend of mine happen to see me using linux and immediately made comment dat he needs ***doz for some work. And I grabbed opportunity to show a hardcore ***doz user few basic linux stuff and desktop effects. This particular friend of mine is vista user. He was dumbfounded by what was running in front of him. Now I think he got his lesson...wont ever ask for ***doz to linux fan...\m/

Here comes UBUNTU 8.10

Well while my laptop was not working, something was missing in my life. I was feeling all those break up blues. Well not much different from guy in relationship, having 1st thought of his gal when wakes up, first thing that I was used to see was my laptop. As Barney (How I met your mother) says "Its gonna be legend-wait for it-dary", ubuntu 8.10 wait was worth it. As I heard of release of Ubuntu 8.10, I immediately got my laptop repaired. Cant wait any more to get my hands dirty on Ubuntu 8.10, within minutes of getting laptop up, I was installing Ubuntu 8.10 in my system. Now that I've booted up to Ubuntu 8.10 kernel, m writing this blog from Ubuntu 8.10. Well comes with lot of newer versions of packages as compared to 8.04 LTS. Best part being gnome tabbed browsing feature which was part of critism for long time by KDE fans. Installed AWN-dock and its awesome. Its must try for any geek. I want to explore it more so for time being m taking leave...if you happen to try it, do post your comments...\m/

Rock on FOSS!!!

Lets face it...FOSS has got more features than any of its proprietary counterparts. There is a reason for it and apparently as a developer I've realized it. It so happens that proprietary softwares are developed inside an organization where developer is restricted to think. Developer is actually a moron inside most of the IT companies where he is to do what is requirement which is decided by market survey. Probably this survey is too old or may be it has incorrect observations. But developer has just to look into requirements and design software. He cant use his imagination, ideas, innovation etc in project. Hence it has got limited functionalities. But when it comes to open source, developer is at liberty to explore his ideas and creativity. Sky is also not limit to the features that developer can add to FOSS. Developer works for money in company but FOSS developers work for themselves. They work for satisfaction and of course geekism is the motive.

People do complain that there are bugs in FOSS. If we use proprietary software then we get good technical support. But while making such statements they don't realize that actually when using proprietary software, they are actually rejecting huge support from FOSS community which is probably 100 times the size of any technical support team in company. Bugs are solved faster in FOSS software than in proprietary ones. And of course they should be, as the number of developers working on FOSS software are huge as compared to small team working on any proprietary software.
On the top of this, developers/organizations do use FOSS to develop proprietary softwares. Extent to which FOSS is used by proprietary software developers is something remarkable. And why does features of open source and proprietary softwares overlap. Well now we know from where exactly proprietary software survey comes from (something is fishy huh). Thats the reason why very few innovative ideas are originated in proprietary softwares. Isn't this difference visible in desktop effects of any linux distro and ***doz Vista? Vista looks like primitive version of compiz/beryl desktop effects.
FOSS really is "by the people, for the people and of the people" which provides freedom in true sense to everybody!!!

On positive side

All my previous blogs have been very linuxish...:-)...so this time I wanted readers to have a dose of positive potion of life. Only knowledge does not suffice...after all you need right attitude to use it. In course of life, I've found that all the positive things in my life come from within me. If I tell to myself that my day is gonna be great, it goes great. External factors should hardly affect way of life. All feelings, emotions, energy etc are within us which make us feel great. Its internal motivation which drives me to do the mission of my life. Having dream/mission is very important, and then one always needs to stay motivated towards that dream. Life without dream is like computer without software or body without soul. All the positive energy required to achieve your dreams is there within you, you just need to unleash it. It is you who is responsible for your day, your future, your life. Afterall search for true love ends in mirror! Dont look for answers in surrounding world, search for them within yourself.