Tech, Life & I

Ummmm Raspberry Pi

2012-02-28T19:52:00.001-06:00

I have recently been following Raspberry Pi for its potential to change the way we view computers. It is at its core a computer for 25/35$. It runs Linux, Fedora & Debian. It will run XBMC. It is small, size of a credit card. It will be quiet, and uses 3.5 watts of power.

For once they aren't expensive systems, they can be used as single task machines. It is going to be my HTPC. Who knows I may get one to be my file server, web server, and at 35$ might even get one to be a paper weight.

Windows 8 Tablet

2012-02-27T19:13:00.004-06:00

I am eagerly awaiting Windows 8, and hoping that it can match what my iPad does for me, and hopefully solve all the issues I have with my iPad.

The iPad over the last 1.5 years has been my companion to every meeting, every trip, and been one of THE most useful devices. But I am tired of syncing notes manually, not being able to edit my word documents, and not use what is in essence a computer as a computer.

Finally I wont need a laptop, and an iPad when I travel. Lets hope they don't disappoint.

WoW rolls

2010-06-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

There Adone was his hands were glowing green and Deathbringer Saurfand was lying dead at his feet. There was a drop, a conqueror's mark of sanctification. His history with rolls had been troublesome, and marked with streaks of such low rolls that would have made Thrall cry. Yet he knew it was a good day since he had walked out of the softball battlefield without getting hurt. Then he noticed the other rolls coming in, 19,74,92, 83.... everything seemed to slow down as he typed out /roll.... and there it was a 97. The warlock let out a houl that could have been heard miles away.... and is now a proud owner of a Sanctified Dark Coven Hood. :D

Application Pool Custom Account

2009-04-14T16:06:00.002-05:00

So IIS7 I have been having an issue with the following Exception.

Exception Details: System.Security.SecurityException: Request for the permission of type 'System.Web.AspNetHostingPermission, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' failed

However the exception would go away when I used the Network Service account versus a custom account running the app pool. After a bunch of prodding with ProcMon (Systernals tools) turned out it was writing to a temp profile folder in windows.
The solution...
Run any executable with runas as the user, which created a profile for the user. This solved the problem.

Facebook mobile on T-Mobile

2009-04-11T15:50:00.001-05:00

So every once in a while I check facebook to see if they added T-Mobile for facebook mobile. Considering they have every other carrier in the US, I am guessing it is some holdup Tmobile has.

So it turned out just as usual T-mobile was not listed, but the ironic part was there was a T-mobile ad, on the facebook mobile page. The only US carrier not supported by facebook decides to advertise on facebook, on the mobile page.

iTunes SUCKS

2009-03-22T17:28:00.001-05:00

So I thought I would upgrade the songs I had bought from iTunes to the DRM free stuff. Some 40 odd songs, and they have been running for over 29 hours. Downloads then “processing file” for like 15 minutes a song….

Thankfully can uninstall and get rid it for ever…. Amazon or Zune from here on out

Yummy black bean salad

2009-03-15T21:48:00.001-05:00

So I was bored and hungry so I figured I would try out this recipe on saw on Good Eats.

Alton's Black bean salad

Before I started to make I was thinking raw mangoes would go great with it, so I chopped mangoes as well. This was freaking amazing. Definitely a killer salad, spicy, healthy and just tasty.

The President Speaks

2009-01-21T06:34:00.001-06:00

Yacht, this one is pretty...

2008-12-06T19:19:00.001-06:00

This is one gorgeous boat. Never really wanted a boat ever before, but this one looks sooo dolphin/whale like. The design is just unbelievable, what is with us and designs based on animals.

For instance my lancer, looks really nice from the front, well so I thought, then one of my friends pointed out how shark like its front was. I guess we all just prewired to notice certain things, and obviously like them.

Well back to my weekend, browse through the manufacturer's site, they have more pics of this beauty...

http://www.schopferyachts.com/

Zune Pass

2008-12-06T14:51:00.002-06:00

Ok I love the new Zune Pass, I have in the past always gotten subscription services but always cancelled in the end, usually because I would rather buy some songs than subscribe.

This time though there was a pleasent twist to the Zune Pass, for 15$ a month, not only do you get the usual subscription music, but also get to keep 10 songs a month. Awesomeeeee.....

So now I dont feel like I am just throwing money away. But the better part was when I was curious about the "Songs for you" tab, so I played it, I am 10 songs in, and I have liked 9 of them. One hell of an impressive ratio. Now, what is different from other subscription music, when I download something I am given the option of using my 10 tokens to keep the song!!!

I really hope this continues, nice job Zune team.

A picture of a terrorist

2008-11-26T14:30:00.001-06:00

Wow, a screencap from NDTV, a picture of a really young guy, holding a gun, presumed to be jackass. I cant believe what might be going through his head. :(

Sad world we live in

2008-11-26T13:47:00.003-06:00

Day after day not only are people dying due to a lack food, medication and shelter, but people still continue random acts of violence against people. In mumbai shootings taking place as I am typing this, and I am watching this live on CNN/Fox. It is just soo sad that people continue to do this. Seven different hotels attacked, hostages taken, arrrgghhh.

People really need to reflect on the issues, and look at the root cause, and quit just trying to fix the symptoms.

Saying bye

2008-11-26T12:31:00.006-06:00

Life is always interesting, what it gives you, how you process it, and what how it takes it away.
I just went through yet another cycle give and take, and this time I am sad just as everytime before as to how soon it got taken away. Working at a university I am sorta used to people coming and going in my life, friends you make that have to leave.

This time it was simlar (but harder) , because sadly I did not get to spend time, and hang out until much later when I knew she would leave in a matter of weeks. Now you would think a few weeks of a friendship would not affect you all too much, but again my brain proved me wrong. I should have known better, no matter how short a time, emails, IMs we develop a connection with people just the same. Later on when this connection is absent we miss it just as much as you would miss someone you have known for years.

Well I will miss you, "the cuter, less neurotic version of elliot reed". I hope you have a great life ahead.

Challenging prop 8 in California

2008-11-08T12:11:00.002-06:00

When 52% of religious mined Californians voted for prop 8, and against liberty the first thought that came to my mind was a case in India where the supreme court in India held a constitutional amendment unconstitutional. The case essentially struck down a constitutional amendment because the court believed that an amendment cannot alter the basic structure of the constitution.

I am pretty ambivalent on this topic, with the wrong judges in the high court this could lead to an awful lot of problems, but in reality it is the politicians and people that often times seek to restrict the rights of the people. So in many ways I can also see myself supporting this.

So I am hoping that this high court will hold that amendments of constitution cannot be used to abridge liberty.

To all my religiously motivated friends, marriage as defined by the government has nothing to do with marriage as defined by your religion. After all separation of church and state is core principle of this nation. Marriage that is defined by the government is essentially sanctioning a contract between two adults.

Funny ad I saw

2008-11-08T11:34:00.001-06:00

So can you catch the issue.....

Not only did the woman loose 12 lbs, she also turned from black to white. LMAO

MSNBC Widget

2008-11-03T17:52:00.001-06:00

Pants

2008-10-16T21:17:00.004-05:00

OK, I am sooo not one to blog about clothing. However I found the most comfertable pair of pants. Well to be accurate three pairs :D. Made by Lee, part of their custom fit collection or something like that.
It was one of those similar feelings like wearing glasses for the first time when all of the sudden everything looks clear. I tried these on and well knew i needed to pick up a couple more.
http://shop.lee.com/storefront/leejeans/detail.aspx?ID=868&cat=Pants

Typing in tamil

2008-10-11T18:59:00.004-05:00

OK, this is the best feature created by google (ok other than search) that i have ever seen. Letting one type in english and switch it to tamil. Although curiously they have only a few indian languages.

பட்ரியிக்கு வயசு இப்போ இருவத்தி எட்டு. எப்போ என்ன பண்ணறது?

Personality Quiz...

2008-07-31T12:21:00.001-05:00

Funny part is I never take these.... however a coworker was asking me, I actually liked this one, it was all just clicking on pics, it just felt more natural than well picking options from text. :D

Say no to IE6

2008-03-25T22:18:00.001-05:00

Last week at work, one of our clients complained that our application was showing no results on a particular page. After some investigation it turned out they were using IE6 and the content was just pushed down after all the other content on the page.

So to all those IT folks out PLEASE PLEASE upgrade from IE6, and save the developers.

iPhone gets support for Exchange & SDK

2008-03-06T19:13:00.001-06:00

Alright this I am really happy about. I am not a big apple user. I have a mac in my office, but it runs windows 99% of the time. I have a windows mobile phone (T-mobile Dash), and I like T-mobile.

But Apple has me thinking if I should in fact get an iPhone. It would have every feature I want except for a few

I can not add any application I want.
Only AT&T
No 3G

For now 3 and 2 are my main reasons for keeping out of it, but it really would not take much for me to switch.

Congrats to the iPhone SDK team & Apple. And Jobs.... I am impressed.

iPhone gets ActiveSync support for Exchange - Engadget

iPhone SDK gets real, available today

Silverlight media player

2008-03-03T00:17:00.001-06:00

I have been working on a web based media player that streams my music from home. I used to use GNUmp3d and it worked great, then I moved everything over to my Media Center box.

So I built my own replacement for GNUmp3d which replicated all the functionality in ASP.net using the Windows media player API. Then I realized I could use Silverlight or a Flash based player in the web site, and thus not having a client application at all.

I ~~will post~~ posted my web application ~~soon~~, and then hopefully post basic silverlight front end soon as figure out my way around it.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Windows Media Player,Streaming Audio

Windows Vista installing Adminpak for windows 2003

2007-03-23T10:48:00.000-05:00

Ok, after looking at the http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/930056 article, and installing http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932246, I kept noticing that no matter what I did my 64 bit Vista would not run any of the mmc snapins provided.

So after a while, I realized that while the script i was running specified in kb930056 was using regsvr32, it was not using the correct one. There are two regsvr32s in 64 bit windows, one in the system32 folder (which is really the 64 bit one) and one in the syswow64 folder(which is the 32 bit one). Once i modified the script to run the 32bit regsvr32 in the syswow64 folder everything worked. Microsoft should have probably documented this, I wonder if they even consider 64bit as a major platform yet.

Backup Windows ACLs

2007-03-15T19:22:00.000-05:00

I was reading through SP2 feature list, and I noticed a command called icacls. I had used cacls to set permissions before, and secedit to restore the default windows permissions. But this tool lets you back up any set of ACLs on a computer, and back it up, and restore it later or to a different machine. (sid must match)

So lets say you want to back up permissions on d:\fileroot to a file named saveAcls
icacls d:\fileroot\* /save saveAcls /T

and to restore those ACLs on the new server
icacls n:\fileroot\ /restore saveAcls

Nice tool, it also exists in Vista, although i don't know when microsoft added this to Windows Server.

COM, DCOM, MFC, ATL, OLE, ActiveX, WIN32..... aaaagh

2007-01-14T19:57:00.000-06:00

Why oh why did I decide to script Windows media player.....

So to give you a background, as to why I am in Win32 hell, when I typically work in .Net, here it goes. There is this nifty feature in Vista called gadgets, it is essentially small javascript/html applcations (in osx widgets, yahoo konfabulator etc.) Anyways, I use WMP for my music, and all I wanted was to stop/start/pause/skip wmp gadget that would control an existing instance of windows media player.

Then it turned out that there is in fact no scriptable/automation object for WMP. There is a way to embed a new object, but that is not what i want. Which led to MSDN, and then I figured out that there are infact a couple of interfaces and classes that would let me do this, but it turned out they are not accessable from the .net framework, and had to done through c++.

Well C++, i had not touched in few years, but that was not the problem, the problem was that I found myself in a very different world to build applications on. So here I am trying to learn COM, MFC etc, and figure the hidden world of windows, well atleast for me. And I just ordered a few books on amazon to help me learn the guts of windows.