Offline! 2 Months.. or Minutes?

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Offline for 2 months..?
Reason? “Had a tough time struggling my space board with the INSAT-1C I collided with whilst playing around in the Medieval ages“.

Did that seem all nonsensical to you? Then READ ON…
—————————————————————-

Past 2 minutes, oops.. I mean 2 months of an Offline status around instant messengers and social networks did get a ton of worried messages piled up that went ‘Where are you?’ or astonied ones like ‘Nish is offline?!’.

NO! Technically I may have been offline from the virtual hangouts, the period extending upto 2 months, but I was neither off nor is the period correct anywhere near it.

April 5 was the day, after a fine conversation with a few contacts on Orkut, I decided to take some time off the online routines and get some fresh air out space-surfing around Xeus.

My space surf-board was not in sight and I felt I had probably left it back at the previous orbit I surfed across. Alternatively, I hopped inside my spaceship and drove across the Nexus City (New South Xeus) constellations, with my time-traveller gadget ready to revive some nostalgic moments back in history. I did switch it on at once, but this time I chose the Virtual mode (unlike the Realtime mode which physically transports you back into time) just because I was a bit too lazy to physically go venturing into the past.

The Medieval ages.. Ah! How random.. Around 1269AD, that’s where I lowered down the traveller spinner and halted it down to get into the era. Before I could even get the chance to explore the land around and blog it here for you, I suddenly felt a loud jerk on the spaceship, which after peeking out I got to know I had accidently flown into the wrong path and collided with the INSAT-1C satellite that orbits the Earth. Due to the sudden collision, while I was mentally (virtually) amidst a time travelling process, the system got disrupted and I got virtually stuck fluctuating up and down in time. Because of this, the TTSU (Time Travel Synchronization Unit) that keeps your virtual time in sync with the current time, which is later needed to revive you back to the present, got out of sync.

This collision and getting out of sync landed me into a 2 min state of mind that was mentally lost in time, while the Auto Defense Mechanism (ADM) of the space-ship tried to get off the INSAT-1C track. Once I was back on the right path, the Time Traveller Auto Revival System (TTARS) managed to get me back to my present time state.

Later, I realized that due to the de-sync in time and whatever else went on during the entire collision, which had probably just appeared as a 2 min period to me, but was actually a whole 45 day time period that elapsed on Earth.

So in conclusion, I was actually just away for 2 mins back in space, but on Earth it was a period of 45 days all passed away in an instant. The rest few days until now have been spent trying to recover back home from this mental trauma, and finally I’M BACK ONLINE!!

Rolling on to half an Mb/sec.

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512 Kbps Unlimited (Night – 10 hrs/day : 22hrs – 08hrs)

And.. finally! True broadband GETTO DAZE!! My humble (o’rly?) ISP, Sify Broadband (India) has just recently launched some new broadband packages in their plans; the numero uno that stands out the most is the pack U25N, that promises to deliver blazing speeds (for us Indians) of 512Kbps with Unlimited data transfer between 22:00hrs to 08:00hrs IST, and thereafter, a decent speed (in today’s Indian broadband scene..) of 256Kbps Unlimited for the rest of the day i.e. 08:00hrs to 22:00hrs.

256 Kbps Unlimited
Having just renewed my broadband account with the same, it seriously feels exciting to have a .5mbps connection. atleast for the night, which is legally owned (*coughs @ previous 6mbps connection 0wnages with previous ‘hax0red’ ISP ;)). Although the price of the plan, which may seem fair in today’s broadband scene at (Sify price) Rs. 1299/- per month; it ultimately gets you a hole in your pocket when it arrives through your CTO (Local Sify/Cable TV Operator) which throw in their own so-called maintenance charges which sums upto Rs. 1550/- per month for me. This is because unlike other ISPs, Sify provides broadband through local cable operators because of some monopoly issues since the past few years, AFAIK.

Even though it may not seem as über as a constant 24/7 connection of 512kbps, but looking at broadband in India today, where the average surfer is more than satisfied with a 1Gb capped {insert_any_speed_here_as_it_doesnt_really_matter_since_capped_connections_PHAIL} Kbps line, and those ones a step ahead who cannot bear to watch their Internet pipes idle of any 24/7 mass-leeching torrents/movies/games and streaming online media, contented with a 128/256 UL plan; the U25N feels a level up. Also from the perspective of the comparison of the amount of hours you get in the so-called ‘Night’ as compared to day, even though it may feel as a bit too less, Sify generously defines a ‘night’ slot as the period from 10pm to 8am, as compared to some other (evil!) ISPs like MTNL/BSNL who have 2am to 8am defined as a ‘night’ as a part of their conspiracy into getting the average 7-8 hrs Zzz’ing person to stay upto 2am to start the leeching, and out of some misfortune due to the late bedtime, wake up a tad late post the 8am mark; thus brutally charging the person for the entire night’s data transfer.

Thus, a ‘Sify day’ lasts for 14 hrs, and a night for 10 hrs; that’s just a bit less than half a day that you’re going to enjoy the 512 glory if you rather not look at it from the darn_it’s_bedtime_for_me perspective.

And before I hit the [Publish] button and switch back to getting pampered by the new speeds, I’d like to conclude that inspite of the so-called ‘super’ Download speed that it provides (64+ KB/s), it was yet too much of a letdown when I discovered online streaming sites like Youtube & Google Video still not attaining a smooth video playback, staggering with buffering screens, even if it’s for a second or two; for what I believe they are to be blamed, since downloading the same video would result in a faster rate than it streaming in their embedded players; [EDIT] the videos play smooth as ever, and buffer much in advance to allow you to seek ahead =)

And as you await for my next post in the distant future ;p.. here’s me signing off, and wishing hopefully the broadband scene in India gets even more better in the weeks to come.

Cleaning up..

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Howdy! Back after another long gap for posting around here, as always thanks to my laziness..

So these days being at home after some really hectic weeks at college, it’s quite likely that I’m going to get into completely weird and odd randomnesses again.. Though this time it was neat!

After months of archiving the Digit & Chip magazines (and plus a few other random tech mags bought along the way) , they still weren’t accessible as and when needed, thanks to once again.. yes, my laziness! heh.. So they needed to get organized chronologically in one place, unlike how they were spread across the cabinets in my room. Just like I managed to pile up the complementary Digit & Chip DVDs this week, it was now time to stack up the issues alongwith. So I just shoved everything off the cabinet that lies exactly on top of my rig (NiShPC 4.1) onto my bed (which laid there all thru the day as a complete mess..), and took a huge plastic bag to start /dev/null’ing the junk that’d been collected thru these months in that particular cabinet.

After the unnecessary matter was junked away, the issues were cuddled up into neat stacks (for each, Digit & Chip) that had everything chronologically set up. The other random magazines like PC World, PC Quest, Developer IQ, Linux for you, My Mobile, T3, .. were also piled up into one single stack (since I’m not a regular reader of the same and hence do not own every issue till date). Well now that it was done.. I randomly felt the urge to get the artistic side out of me, and do sumthing phun. So, stuck up some random right-sized Chip/PC Quest/Developer IQ cardboard covers up at the walls of the lower shelf, thus building up the charm of having a little archive library of tech magazines.

Next, the stacks were set up neatly in the shelf, alongwith the little mini booklets (Fastrack & Chip Plus) that come free alongwith them. There.. task completed. But no! There was still an urge to keep myself active from getting b0red. So the top shelf was filled in with all the books: novels, comics and other good ol’ books that were scattered around various directories around /home/nish/room3 ; and to throw in some creativity, printed out and stuck some cool labels that help to tag the book piles into easily searchable categories (thanks to navigation signboards at the supermarts, and travel instruction boards at highways for the random inspiration of these “labels” =P). Little arrows printed on the labels pointed towards the corresponding stacks. All this just added to the fun of getting everything organized together again, and get into the mood to sit back with a book sometime, which was an hobby that had been forgotten lately, due to the hands being kept busy on the keyboard at all times.

Click to view larger


And so ultimately this post turned out quite big, whereas I just hoped to post the neat photo of the end-result of the whole organization randomness. Anyways do comment on the set up, and suggestions are welcome as always.

P.S.: For those lazy readers out there with a similar mess in their rooms, do try cleaning up sometime ;p… it’s fun; even more if you throw in your creativity and make it enjoyable.

NiSh Birthday – Year 20 – How it went along..

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NiSh Birthday – Year 20 – How it went along..


*burrrp*.. That’s what you get when you end up your birthday dinner @ 2am in the morning.. LOL..
So, let’s start the birthday post right from the Birthday Eve.. The phone started ringing right up from ~23.15* for early birthday wishes.. next call up at 23:40 from a dear friend who was all ‘Ab tum bees saal ke ho gaye toh hum bachchon ko bhuul jaaoge isliye jaldi phone kiya‘ (Since you’re 20 yrs old now you may forget us kids so called you up early)… And I was all.. WTF.. Let that 2-digit number spelt T-W-E-N-T-Y be BANNEDTH Now!! :x I’m Still in my Sweet 16 age ^_^

And the call went up until 00:06 when he finally WiShed me A very Happy Birthday.. .. Pretty smart how people actually call you up early just to avoid a Waiting tone after midnight.. Which was exactly the situation after the 00 hrs onwards.. with some friends talking on and on, not realising there are some other dear ones waiting in the call queue.. And to those who failed to connect to me in such a case, my apologies, but you could have tried again later

Txt-message greeting fails in cases where you pull out your Saved msgs box and randomly shove a Birthday sms to your friend; not realizing it’s quite a commonly forwarded one.. who knows maybe that same friend may have forwarded it to you.. and you back to him.. -_-; Although I still appreciate all those who did greet me online via IMs, Scraps, Emails, or SMSes.. But those who could manage to call and talk to me personally, that’s the best gift I believe I could’ve got, since voice is one thing that reaches out from your heart direct to the other person and conveys your wishes better. =)

Rise n’ shine.. It’s THE Day.. the Sun’s up.. but NiSh isn’t.. ? Finally I wake up with.. a headache and nerve pains? Gah.. Once again probably left the phone radio headset playing in my ear all night… Ouch.. So anyways, I get the first morning call from my Aunt.. and later on some more to follow, and constant greetings getting scrapped on Orkut all day as usual. So I dress up in some neat new clothes with a red & light blue combination… and.. sit around.. and just sit around some more… taking a few birthday day snaps.. and sit around some more..? Ofcourse, how dull can your birthday morning get when you have no college to attend (not for the lectures sake tho ;)) resulting in no friends to meet and wish you personally, no going out and giving them a treat… absolutely nothing! And since Laziness ownz over me, I do not wander out the door until there’s a genuine reason for it.. So I just sit some more.. And that headache really gets bad..

Lunch time around, and I have some really good dishes waiting for me.. Thanks to my sweet loving mom who actually went through the trouble of cooking up a special Lunch (not forgetting a sweet dish :)) inspite of having office to attend early morning.. *cuddles* ^^ And later, I just fall off to bed.. Yes! Bed! I never knew I’d actually have a nap on a birthday.. or even look at my lousy lazy messed up bed.. if it wasn’t for that headache and sickness sort of feeling that started to get worst..

***Zzzz… And it’s late evening already? Somehow did manage to wake up, and all I had to do.. is wait for my mom to get back from office.. and even tho it was time already, she still wasn’t home.. I guess she was shopping around for me.. ….. So let’s quickly speed up the whole waiting part.. which was really long, and get to the celebration! Well before which, I did have a few more phone calls and smses (plus Orkut scrapping to glory continues), with everyone just adamant to point out that it was my ‘TWENTY’th Birthday.. damn 20 is Forbidden!! Inverse use of 20 is still allowed tho (as in 02 yrs ) Some went even ahead to boldly state ‘congrats for beginning 21st year..’ ….

Moving on to the celebration again, it’s around 22:00hrs, and I get shoved out.. with a scrumptious lil’ cake in front of me, with _Nishant_ scribbled over it with cream.. so as always I first need to get the NISH part partitioned from the ANT.. thus leaving the NISH piece only for the NiSh

And the cake cutting follows with my dear mom and bro humming the Happy Birthday tune for me.. ^^ and I’m gifted with some self-baked chocolate cookies by my brother… and a Chrono watch by my mom .. who does also say she was supposed to get me a better gift , but due to lack of time cudn’t.. so I may have to wait.. (and later leaked by my brother that it was supposed to be an iPod.. Eww.. Apple..). The chocolate cookies was something that my brother had been trying to bake all day for me.. (sweet ^^).. and taking a bite of which did feel a lil’ bit odd.. and the reason was cuz.. my mom realised he had used Salted cashews instead of the normal ones.. hence resulting in somewhat Salted chocolate cookies… Altho my dog enjoyed them (LOL).. robbing away one after the another from the dish whilst no one was at watch.

Beverages included the usual soft drinks and some Fruit sodas.. which did add up to my sickness, but can’t deny on your birthday :)…. And finally.. whilst it was time for dinner, the sickness started to show up even more, and I literally had a nice short nap near the oven.. which was busy heating up the pizzas my mom was upto, at 1 in the morning.. Lol.. And the rest.. *burrp* is where this post began with.

The things I did miss this year was as written above, having no college so no meeting up with friends and givin’ them a good enough treat , as well as the online celebration that I had previous year on IRC and the forums. [Check it out]

And before I forget to mention, I’d like to specially thank that special guy, my dear close friend and brother online, who gifted me a domain on my birthday [www.nishmudkip.com].. As a hint, it’s the guy mentioned above who first used the forbidden number.. 20.. figure him out

—- And sooo… here ends my awfully X-tra large post.. which rather turned out into an Essay instead… describing all about the Lazy, somewhat boring, yet a fun-filled Birthday… in the start of the 21st Year of the NiSh.

La Fin-

Your comments are appreciated, click the [Reply] button below.

*All times mentioned here are in IST (GMT +5.30) unless specified NSTw (NiSh Standard Time winter = IST +/- 18hrs).

Learn the ‘How to talk to Nish’ Netiquette

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Alright so here’s a good time to write about how to get along with a proper chat convo when ur talking with ‘ME’, Nishant! This may sound really silly, but that’s what I have to do since I’ve been getting quite annoyed at the chats I’ve been having from the past couple of years. >.>

These are just the Frequently Asked Questions which are quite common and are the most annoyance when people answer them in the weirdest possible ways. So here goes:….

FAQs and their recommended answers on a Nish convo: (Else earn a Block/Ignore w/e u call it -_- )

  1. Greetings

So u suddenly noticed I’m online ^_^ and start off with the popular Hi Sup? kind of convo… Right.. I had this contact msging me all the time randomly with the same 3 lines of chat:

Hi
Wassup?
Ok
……………
Hi Wassup? Ok…..

WTF?!!! That looks like a bot to me lol, coz that’s all she’s got to talk, completely nothing else.. So here’s my recommendation. To start off with a convo, Ur allowed to go ahead with a ‘hi’ to ensure im there and not just idling around. NOW, ONLY if, remember ONLY if I’ve been really sick OR been away from quite a long time, ask me this really senseless yet highly used question ‘HOW ARE YOU?’
-__- Well I’m FINE as a Horse galloping away to glory in a marathon, u needn’t ask me that 10 times a day everytime u start with a chat.

2. Silly Queries
Next up is the random ‘what are you doing?’
Well there’s a hell lot of stuff i do at a time (i’m a multi-tasker), I’m chattin on irc, msn, yahoo alongwith posting/blogging, surfing, watching some video, winamp, messing with some php scripts or h4xx0ring sumone, etc..etc..etc.. So u don’t suppose i’m gonna take me time out to write all of that for u, but asking that once in a while is fine, not tons of times a day…

3. Acting like a n00b

Fine ur a n00b, doesn’t mean u go bugging around me just coz i’m nice with u. Everyone’s a n00b at some point, U always keep learning more and more in the world of computers and internet, and each time u get smarter ur once again a n00b at something else.

So the main point is, before u go around bugging me with tons of questions that will be much better answered by the interweb, help urself. I’m always happy to help out friends for anything that I know bout, its my pleasure, but well sometimes it does happen that some idiots just go around asking the lamest of queries that I have absolutely no time for, quite kiddish kind of..
So here’s my advice, I’ll tell u bout a wonderful family that’s ever ready to help u out. I do the same before asking it to anyone, it really saves the embarassment, and instead makes u smarter ;p

Ur Best Friend: Google – The *best* search engine that can get u almost any kind of info that u are always curious about. For any kind of definations, search for ‘define:word’, e.g. define:blog
That’s a really helpful and quickest search query string that’ll get u the defination of any word from the English dictionary whenever u come across sumthing in a chat which u wudn’t like to show out ur n00bness bout not knowing that word to the other person who said it.

Ur Brother: Wikipedia – Next is ur brother, Wikipedia is one of the best online encyclopedia around. It can give u pages and pages of info for all ur school projects, while solving ur queries about a particular stuff that u want to know bout.

Ur Uncle: Torrentspy – All ur queries about where to get this software, and where to get that shud be helped now. Torrents are the best ways to get any kind of softwares/programs/music/games/apps that u require, besides p2p being another alternative. So before u start asking me where I go this and where I got that program, try out Torrentspy, or ur brother (look above). There’s also other good torrent sites like Mininova.org and Demonoid.com.

4. Audibles, Winks, Nudges, IMVs = EVIL!!!

Next in the series of annoyances is one of the best ones, pieces of torture that come with messengers nowadays. Seriously they don’t go along with decent chats, they’re good for timepass or whenever u wanna really play around with sumone. But with me, NO, unless u wanna show off a new and cool one u got from sumwhere (NOT the defaults ones, i’ve seen them all -_-..)

I’ve got this bad experience of the same bout a year ago when in the middle of the night at around 3 am (the night I forgot to turn off my speakers), a contact starts sending me nudges and winks winks winks and WTF more winks… and im asleep in bed which gets my Dad to enter my room and start fiddling with the speakers to turn them off wondering whats up with them. So I needn’t say anything more, and yes once again, did I forget to mention BUZZ!!, the Yahoo! equivalent of nudges, it gets really frustrating when sumone keeps doing that even when ur chatting with him/her… WTF? WHAT DO U WANT ANYWAYS, IM HERE TALKING WITH U.. YTF WUD U STILL WANNA BUZZ ME…. and don’t even bother to, since I’ve disabled every part of that torture that I’ve mentioned above, so I wont get ur buzzes or nudges, imvs, audibles, w/e…

…. and more to come soon, visit back soon for the continuation

Orkut Tricks

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Well long time no post *rolls eyes* Lol, so fine I’ll give u sumthin interesting to read coz I’m too b0red to post anything else atm. So here goes: Oh and yes, HAPPY DUSSEHRA ^^

Orkut Tricks

1. Changing Orkut Background
If you use firefox you can change the orkut backgroung by using the greasemonkey firefox extension. First install greasemonkey from here and then install Bluekut hack from here
2. Orkut Cute
Orkut cute is a program that let you send scraps to all your friends in orkut. It also alerts you when you receive new scraps send notifications when forums are updated. Orkut cute can be downloaded here.
3. Sorkut Firefox Extension
This is a toolbar to search for the threads with specific words in the title. Just give the commumity id of the community you want to search, enter the search term and click Search.
Sorkut can be downloaded from here.
4. Scraboy
This is a freeware program that let you browse orkut and know when you or your friends receive new scraps. You can add emoticons, colour and formatting to your scraps with ease. Sending scraps from your desktop is also as easy as writing an instant message. Scrapboy can be downloaded from here.
5. Orkut Scrap Helper
This is a cool firefox extension that let you scrap faster by providing messaging options in your own scrapbook page. It also reduces the number of steps to scrap someone who has scrapped you to just one!. Scrap helper can be downloaded from here.
6. Scrapbook Flooding
An Indian dude named Rahul created this Firefox extension for Orkut scrapbook flooding. The extension is compatible with Firefox1.5+ and can be downloaded from here. For more information you can visit Rahul’s weblog here
7. Javascript Hacks
There are some Javascript hacks for Orkut. Like, for flooding scrapbook, Increasing number of fans, testimonial flodding, Invisible names, blank scraps, etc. Some of them do work.
A good compilation can be found here. Try at your own risk. :p

I may not have tested all of them, so don’t complain if any of those don’t work, but still, leave ur comments ;p

Registered my first Domain name!

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Hmm.. I shud have posted this earlier but bah..

I’ve finally managed to register my domain name after having the payment transactions from more than 2 months >.> … and so here I sent the payment 3 weeks back, and I wait for 2 weeks, hmm no reply yet… Ah! Lemme contact that guy, and wh0a the guy contacts me back to register my domain (maybe he received my payment already?) on his domain hosting site. And well I add my domain there, a bit of n00b at this whole domain thing, and after a few more emails with the guy, I finally received the email ^____^

Congratulations. Your Domain Name desipokemon.com has been Registered. Please read through this mail, and store it for future reference, since it contains important information on managing desipokemon.com

So well I go setting about the domain then, pointing it to my site host’s nameservers, and play around a bit on the domain control panel :p fun.. And yes! myemail@desipokemon.com !!! I’ll blog about that next time xD And time to start uploading the forums and site on the new domain.

Yay new 512 MB RAM!!!

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Finally!! I got a new 512 MB RAM yesterday..

I really planned on getting a 1 GB one for Rs. 4200/- but what the hell… I suddenly get the news the prices have risen up to Rs. 5500/- O_O … *faints.. My mom is a no-no for that now, so had to get the 512 MB one..

And this is so disappointing that even after the RAM replacement, my system is still getting the random reboots (tho not the blue screen related to memory probs, so maybe the new RAM solved that) whenever I’m working on Photoshop (the Polygonal Lasso tool especially), or playing a game (I’ve stopped playing games from the past 1 yr due to this :'( ) or just surfing around, chatting and listening to music… its really RANDOM.. I hope to fix my system soon, I’ll be trying to reinstall Windows on a clean drive.. But I really think this must be either CPU Overheating related issues or sumthing with the MB, please comment or let me know if u can help me fix it.. its really a frustrating issue.