Category — Softwares

System restore feature was introduced in windows xp. The popularity of windows xp system restore feature has ensured that the feature is avialable in the latest OS offering from microsoft i.e windows 7 that too in a much improvesied form.

Understanding System Restore

If you have not encountered system restore in earlier versions of windows then think of it as a undo command for microsoft windows. If your os starts behavings badly after installing a particular programme or because of a virus etc, then you can use system restore to take your computer back to an earlier date when it was working fine.

How does System Restore in Windows 7 work

If you enable system restore then it takes periodical snapshot of your system and stores them as restore points when you make any significant changes or install any driver. When you use system restore to solve a problem it simply overwrites your current file system by this backed up configuration. Since the backed up version did not have the problematic software or virus, the problem gets resolved.

Scan for Affected Programs before doing system restore in Windows 7

A big problem with system restore in windows xp was that there was no way to find out what all programmes will be deleted after the system restore. The problem has been resolved to a large extent in windows 7 through a feature called scan for affected programmes. It will provide you a list of prgrams that will be uninstalled after the system restore, thereby making it easier to decide if you need to back up certain files.

The dreaded com surrogate has stopped error

Microsoft windows may be the most popular operating system in the world. But it is notorious for its vulnerability to virus attacks and several bugs that can cause error in most basic functions of a computer. Com surrogate has stopped  is one of the stupid bugs that can drive you crazy. As usual the help message from microsoft makes things worse rather than better.

What is com surrogate?

Com surrogate is one of the many dll files present in windows. The com surrogate dll extension is used by the OS while playing a video file. For those who do not know what a dll is, it is a software component that an application links to at the run time. My sense is plugins in wordpress will be a similar concept.  

What is com surrogate error?

The com surrogate error occurs when the video player tries to use a codec that is not compatible with vista. In such a case the com surrogate dll extension closes down while Vista tries to bring up the first frame of the video player. That results in the com surrogate error which in turn brings up the dreaded message of com surrogate has stopped error message.

How to fix com surrogate stopped error in Vista?

Microsoft makes all small problem look too complex by using its trademark cryptic message. The last I was faced with this issue, I tried a simple google search for com surrogate. The solution is quite simple. Check video related programmes like DivX and Nero. Upgrading them to latest version normally solves the com surrogate error. Else remove your existing codec files and reinstall newly downloaded codec files to get rid of this issue.

If you want to read emails on your phone ,I sugggest you to use ProfiMail, a very nice mobile email client

Profimail is a cool client which helps me to read and respond to my emails even from office.

To start using profimail, I had to just download the client on my mobile and configure it by giving required input fields like username, password, incoming mail server ,outgoing mail server
etc.

Profimail is a really feature reach application. Some of the important features are listed below :

• Automatic synchronization of messages with mail server
• IMAP folders
• Attachments – view, save, send
• ability to send HTML messages with images and hyperlinks
• Address book support
• Support for POP3 / IMAP / SMTP mail servers
• Multiple email accounts
• Text viewer for standard text, HTML and Word documents
• Optimized for GPRS – get headers first, then download message bodies which you really want to see

Well though I normally use very few of these features but it is indeed a cool client and enables me to respond to critical mails really fast

But the only catch is that it is a paid client. However if want to be able to access your mails then I think the $60 price may not be too much to pay.

In the mean time I am trying to find a free email client for my mobile. Please drop a line in the comments section, if you are aware of one.

Linux began with this post to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix, in August, 1991,
written by a Finnish college student:

Hello everybody out there using minix-
I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be
big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

That student, of course, was Linus Torvalds and the “hobby” of which he wrote grew to
what is known today as Linux. Version 1.0 of the kernel was released on March 14,
1994.
(Taken from the book : “Linux programming unleashed”)

While playing around with the synaptic package manager on my Debian I came across this thing called geekcode. It was developed by Robert Hayden in 1993. The official geekcode website is at http://www.geekcode.com. It’s a code used by geeks to depict their personal profile. It tells about ones preferences, physical structure, relationship status, etc.
Some geeks also used it as their signature.
A nice thing to know if you are a geek.
If you want to make your geekcode just install the geekcode program on your system and run it. You will understand what to do if you are geek enough.

BTW below is my geekcode

—–BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK—–
Version: 3.12
GAT d- s:+ a– C+++ UL++ P+ L+++ E– W+++ N+ o+ K w–
O++ M- V- PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP- t+ 5 X R- tv– b+ DI++ D+
G++ e++ h* !r y
——END GEEK CODE BLOCK——

I have been working on this idea of “There’s more to selected text than cut/copy & paste” for past few weekends.
What do we do when you come across a word whose meaning you don’t know or a term you want to know more about while reading a Charles Dicken’s or Shakespeare’s work or may be just a newspaper?
Most of us simply ignore it or think “I’ll lookup in a dictionary when I get up” and we never do that. There are a very chosen few of us who purposely keep a dictionary with us while reading.
Consider this scenario while reading on the web. It’s lot easier, right? just select the term, right click, copy, open a new window, open google, paste and then wait for result. Fast enough but also irritating enough to break your concentration.
I came up with a widget to try to solve this problem. As of now I call it “DotGyan”. It allows you to search a word/term there and then with least interference in your reading pleasure.

It works like this…
1. You see a word like lagniappe whose meaning you don’t know. The word can be there any where on the blog or webpage.
2. Select the word as you would do for cut/copy & paste.
3. You see a dot at the end of your selection.
4. Click this dot.
5. You get the options (on what I call a “GyanBox”) to search the term in Google, Wikipedia or Wiktionary.
6. Click on one of the three options.
7. Rest you will get it yourself.

TRY THIS OUT, RIGHT HERE ON BINARYDAY !

What if I don’t want to search the selected term? Simple, just ignore the dot. It will go away in 3 seconds.
What if I want to edit the selected text before searching? Well, just edit it in the text box you see on the GyanBox.

Some may argue that we already have such softwares. True but almost all of them are available as browser plugins and how many of us actually know about such plugins and even if we know how many of us install them? Also plugins are browser dependent. DotGyan is browser independent and it shifts the installation trouble from user to web-master.

I have installed DotGyan on BinaryDay. Go ahead, Try it out Please! (Just select any word or phrase and click the dot)
DotGyan is right now in a very initial phase. Please give your valuable comments and suggestions as comments to this post or mail me at vineet7kumar@gmail.com.
Your comments and suggestions can pertain to anything from looks & colors to any new feature you would like to have. Also suggest some good names for the widget.

Team BinaryDay will be more than happy to hear from you

PS: If you are a blogger or a webmaster and would like to install DotGyan on your blog or page please drop me a mail at vineet7kumar@gmail.com … I will love to have DotGyan on your Blog or page.

PS: Currently safari browser and Internet explorer less that IE7 are not supported.

There is one more good news which strengthens my belief in India and Indians ability to lead the world.

Yahoo Inc has announced a tie up with Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) , a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Limited, for cloud computing research.

Eka , CRL’s Supercomputer , which has 14400 processors , 28 terabytes of memory, 140 terabytes of disks, a peak performance of 180 trillion calculations per second (180 teraflops) will help Yahoo to perform data intensive computing research.

For details please read here

Hip Hip Hurrey…….Cheers to India and Indians.. Hope to hear many more R & D news in this area…

While reading about Ubuntu on Wikipedia , I came across this huge list of Linux distributions on Wikipedia. I never knew there were so so many of them…

You may like to read this post where I have tried to explain what a Linux distro is by giving an analogy to pizzas.

Do you want to resize your hard disk partitions without removing your current installed operating system? Do you want to create new partitions again without destroying your current operating system?
Do you want to install a second operating system? Or you computer refuses to boot and gives messages like “NTLDR missing” or “no bootable media found” (not exactly same messages…I don’t remember the exact ones )…
Well there’s a nice solution to all these...GParted (GNOME partition editor) .
It has three versions… installable, liveCD and liveUSB. I found the liveCD really good because using it you boot your system from the CD and not from the HDD so even if your OS gets corrupted you can use it . Also it has a very simple to use and intuitive GUI.
You can read more about GParted, Download it, check its screenshots here at its home-page.

I wrote my ‘hello world’ in C. Around 8 years back, as a mechanical engineering student. Since then I have spent 3 years as a hard core programmer in SQL/PLSQL and java. I have written lot of code in php/mysql. Funny thing is I have earned handsomely through the programmes writeen in these languages. All that C ever gave me was a prize from azeolots (“A white cap that is still with me”). But the fact is nothing excites me as much as the prospect of writing code in C. Sadly I do not get much chance of working on C nowadays.

Still was going through some articles about C and chanced upon this article on Dennis Ritchie’s homepage. Thought that would put it up here for all the diwanas of C. Happy Reading

Btw if any of you know of a “I Love C” group on orkut, please let me know.

There’s been lot of hue and cry about open source in past few years in the technical world. Whatever technical forums or blogs or news you see has some story on open source every day. Some people think open source is the best thing and they want o go open source (though many of them don’t even know the true meaning of open source!) and there are some who think it’s something bad (may be just because they don’t know what it is!).

I would like to explain what I came to know about open source in past three years and what I think about it. (Please beware that all ideas expressed in this article are my personal views, don’t be simply guided by them and believe in what you think … Everyone’s free to believe in and do what one thinks, that’s one of the features of open source).

Do you know the recipe of Coke? I am sure you don’t. Nobody knows (except for the people who make it) because the Coca-Cola company does not tell anyone how they make it . But I am sure you know how to make a good lemonade (lime juice or shikanji or neembu paani) … If you don’t know please first go and ask your mom how to make it, make one and then swallow this article with it .

So, we can’t make Coke at our home but we can make lemonade (probably a better one than sold by a few multi-national companies).
Now let us look at some other facts related to Coke and lemonade…
We pay approximately 20 Indian bucks for 500 ml of coke bottle (you may pay upto 30 Indian bucks for the same thing if you buy it at a multiplex). Making 500 ml of lemonade won’t cost more than 7 or 8 Indian bucks (just the cost of two lemons and some sugar, water is free).
We always get coke as it is, wherever we buy it. Yes we can add stuff to it to change its taste but the basic thing remains same…though most of us won’t mess with a 20 bucks cost (probably not worth) thing. But in case of lemonade we are free to modify its recipe as we like… choose the number of lemons, quantity of sugar, type of lemons, etc. We have to trust the Coke company when they say that they use clean water and ingredients that don’t harm our health. There’s no other way to know the truth unless you know a food inspector who won’t take bribe. But in case of lemonade we always know how good or bad the ingredients are that are used.

I guess by now you think that I want to say that lemonade is open source and coke is closed source. Yes you are right if you think so. Lemonade is open source because the recipe(the source ) of lemonade is known to all and coke is closed source because we don’t know how it is made.

Since this article is on BinaryDay, a few technical words…

Comparing the above to software industry, an open source software is one for which the users know the source code written in C, Java or any of the hundreds of computer languages (the recipe) of the software and closed source software in which you get the compiled executable file but you don’t know the source code (the recipe) of the software…You know what it does but you don’t know how it does.

There’s a very common question that people ask . “How to make money with open source?”
Most people’s answer to this question is a very moral one… “Not every work should be done for money”… True, but how practical is it? Not at all. What’s the point in burning your brains out when you can’t buy even a laptop or a bike? The philosophy of open source does not stop one from making money. People generally take free software to be free in the sense of “Buy two, get one free”. That’s not the correct meaning . The “free” in free software is free in the sense of “freedom”.

Let me again bring in some coke and lemonade to explain the money part and the freedom part of open source.
First the money part. We all know how to make lemonade but still we buy it in a shop or order it in a restaurant.(I guess lime juice is the most sold thing (in terms of quantity) in our college canteen!). We all buy a thing which we know how to make (sometimes even better than what we buy) because due to some reason or the other we can’t always make it ourselves.

Consider one more thing. If you make your lemonade yourself there’s no guarantee that every time you make it, it’s equally good. But a good restaurant can guarantee that and that’s one of the things they charge for.
Similar is the case with Software. Companies buy software just as we buy lemonade. But why will a company buy open source software rather than a closed source software? (Or why will I buy lemonade rather than Coke?) The answer is below in the freedom part.

If we order lemonade in a good restaurant we can always ask the waiter to tell the person who prepares lemonade to add less/more sugar or to add a pinch of salt or to add extra lime juice, etc. The point is that we can get it customized according to our taste. Whereas in case of coke we don’t have such “freedom”. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer lemonade and former President of the Republic of India, Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam prefers Open Source software for the Indian Armed Forces.

There’s one more issue I would like to discuss.
When we make lemonade for the first time, or bake a cake for the first time or for that matter cook anything new, we always ask for help from someone, mostly our mother (all mothers are expert cooks, that’s why we have so much good food in the world), who knows to make it or knows to make something similar (in case you are creative with food and try new recipes). When we have made our new recipe we want everyone we know to try it out (We don’t charge them). If our new recipe is good enough and people like it, it’s very likely that they want you to make it again and again and if it’s really great you may end up making money by teaching the chefs of a five start hotel how to make it.
Same is the case with software, you always get help from people in the online forums. You make a new software and give it to people to try it and if your software is real good, it may be the next MySQL (MySQL is the world’s most famous database software, it is open source and was bought by Sun Microsystems a few days ago).
That’s how somebody once made a burger and Linus Torvaldz made Linux !!!

Food and Software are so similar, aren’t they?