I listen to podcasts. I have been listening to them for about 5 years or so now. Perhaps a little over. My first few were podcasts were HanselMinutes by Scott Hanselmann and DotnetRocks by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell. Throughout these 2 have been my favorite. And the single reason is that they enjoy their conversations the most. It shows that they love technology, they love the products and the enthusiasm is all over the show. I love these shows because I share the enthusiasm with them.
Microsoft has taken geekhood to a different level. I love playing with gadgets and Microsoft with its big 2004 / 4.0 releases gave me so many gadgets to play with. And it is coming up with more. Very soon you will be able to game at home… on the way to work… and then on your work PC starting exactly where you left off…
I am an architect. I wear formals and go to work every day. I have nicely done short hair and wear those sophisticated horn rimmed glasses. I am a Commerce Graduate with Accountancy as major. And it took me 10 years to realize that even I might be a geek. So how do you know you are a geek? When a new windows comes out, the first thing you check out is the perfmon? When the new Windows Phone 7 looks sexier than Halle Berry? When the new version control system looks more enticing than pornography? I don’t know, to every geek his own.
I love the Hanselminutes and DotnetRocks because I share the enthusiasm with them. The problem is we rarely find people in real life to share our enthusiasm. Probably I am hanging out in all the wrong places.
Even the Microsoft User Group Hyderabad has become just a website. I remember back in the day, when I worked for Wipro Technologies, the community was so active, they had to form a core group of people to administer the administration. All I see now is announcements every now and then. I don’t see any activity and I sure as hell can’t talk to anyone.
So I have formed a linked in group. The intention is to provide people who share the passion for Microsoft Technologies and live in the Hyderabad Area, with a platform to meet up. Linked in just acts as a platform to bring people together. So although everyone is welcome, the real discussions would be happening in bars, coffee shops and house parties and not on the discussion forum.
If you feel how I feel and live in Hyderabad, perhaps you should click here and hang out with the homies.
There was a time when I used to hate reading. I still do. But not everything. And thankfully what I like reading, I made a career out of… More here…
Many a time you must have come across the underscore naming convention while reading books or articles on any C# based Microsoft technology. Although as per the standard naming convention private variables should be camel case. But you still see they start with an underscore. Such as “_categoryManager”. Have you ever wondered why?
The secret lies in the intellisense… More here…
Error Message: “There was an error synchronizing your folder hierarchy. Error: 80041004”.
I don’t write such blog posts too much these days. I used to write these “type” of posts till a few months back. By these “type” I mean stuff that we go bump in the dark of the night and can’t figure out a solution over the internet. Silly stuff... I used to post these after I solved them back then. I don’t any more to keep my posts interesting. But this is an interesting discovery and I can’t and mustn’t resist. So I will try to keep it succinct. More here…
“Why do you always start off a project with a database design?”, Vivek asked. It was around
10.30 PM Monday. Vivek had come on Google chat, first time ever. His girlfriend, apparently, wanted him to talk to me. I don’t remember talking to Vivek on any IM before that day. I was telling him about a personal project I was working on. I had told him about 2 more projects that I had started in the past, which are on the verge of completion. And every time he had heard me saying I am working on the database. More here…
“Only the naive use no tools. The enlightened one knows exactly which tool is to be used”. And behold…!!! the tools just got smarter, more intuitive with the Visual Studio 2010 productivity power tools. I am not going to… More here…
The internet has given mankind something that could make him an equivalent to the Gods. The easily accessible knowledge repository that it is, is just the tip of the iceberg. There was some research somewhere that the mental development of apes and humans is equal until the human child learns to talk. Internet is perhaps in the communication world what the nuke is in the weapons world.
Read More…
They say that knowledge never goes a waste. Although sometimes you might feel a little “not so fruitful” about certain things that you might have done in the past or things that you are doing currently, but trust me, if you are willing to wait a while, you will realize that it will come handy.
Read More…
Note: I am slowly moving my blog to http://www.dasboard.in/nilotpal/blogs/347. Please check my blogs there and update your RSS feeds. Thanks.
I bought a computer recently and I didn’t have an antivirus software. I was wondering what I would do about that. Microsoft already had a fantastic utility called Defender, to detect and remove spyware and potentially unwanted software (which ships with Windows 7). Well now they have come up with is a new antivirus software. It is called the Microsoft Security Essentials, previously known as Microsoft One live care.
It is freely downloadable. There is a 32 bit and a 64 bit versions available and they are compatible with the new and shining Windows 7.
The 32 bit is downloadable here and the 64 bit here.
So no need to worry about spending extra just to keep your machine safe. I say it should come free with the OS, coz the OS, after all, is a software and what’s a software if its not safe…
Note: I have a new blog and I am posting more frequently there than I am here. http://dasboard.in/nilotpal/blogs/347.
I remember I had just started working for Microsoft. One day I was going out to help my good friend David. He happens to be working for Microsoft and he is into technical documentation. One thing led to another and I was telling him that some day I would like to write a book and build a "command station" - a room full of computers.
A year or so passed by and there was still no computer. Well a no. of things happened in the meantime. I met the love of my life and just when I was about to buy my computer, she badly needed a laptop for her job. I bought her the Dell Inspiron. My savings for my first computer went out of the windows. Then I started saving for host of other things and later I got married and went for a fairly expensive life long vacation. Yes, as a wedding gift I gave her a holiday package that would allow us to go for a honeymoon every year.
Today I bought that computer that I have been planning for a year and a half. Nothing too jazzy I would say, but its the beginning. Here are the specs.
Processor: Intel Pentium Core 2 Quad 2.66 ghz
Motherboard: Intel G45 SG
RAM: 4 GB DDR III
Graphics Card: ATU Radeon HD 4350 1 GB DDR II RAM, DirectX 10.1 support
Keyboard: Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
Monitor: 18.5" wide screen from ACER.
Rest of the specification is nothing to be mentioned. The usual standard mouse and a dual fan cabinet, UPS. I could have gone for a better monitor too, but I guess I didn't care too much about the monitor either. I am planning to buy a monitor or 2 more. So I guess I will buy better ones then.
On this box goes my Window 7 Ultimate, signature edition. I have been waiting to install this for quite some time. I have just test driven it (on my new box) for a couple of hours and I already like it. Although I was running windows 7 on my official Microsoft Laptop, so its not that I am new to it completely. Check out the search feature. The damn thing is quite intuitive.
And what do you know, this blog comes from my new machine. I will be posting photographs soon.
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