For those of you who are wondering where Moula Ali Dargah was… its located in Secunderabad some where in between Mirzalaguda, Tarnaka and ECIL.

The trek was organized by enthusiasts from the Great Hyderabad Adventure Club. They’re a club who come together to travel, trek, hike, camp etc. For every trip they go on, they start with an announcement on meetup.com and invite members to RSVP if they’d like to join. The club was founded in 2008 and has become so famous in these two years that there would be a waiting list of about 10 on every one of their meetup adventures.

I was lucky to have registered early, thanks to Moumita, a friend of mine from TCS. And soon as I told my roomies (read room-mates) about the idea, they jumped into registering on meetup. In all we were Bharath, Moumita, Anchal, Vijay, Arun, Naresh, Karteek and Ravi (not in this pic, ‘cos he was shooting it!).

The plan was to meet at Moula Ali at 0615 hrs on Saturday morning. And that meant we’d to get up at a ghostly 0430 hrs, get ready and drive some 20 odd Km to reach Moula Ali on time.

Somehow, things fall in place when we set out to have fun! Moumita and Karteek joined us roomies in just no time and there we were to meet twenty others. Padmaja from the organizing team greeted us, while I was contemplating if I knew this person already. Yes I did, I met here before at a Deloitte Toastmasters event. Aah Toastmasters… I must say its almost like a religion! I get to know quite a few wonderful people through it.  Now for example, there were at least four Toastmasters on this trek (Me, Moumita, Padmaja, Arun and Srivalli).

To describe the terrain that awaited us, Moula Ali dagrah was atop one huge rocky hill. In fact the hill itself looked much like one huge rock. While most of us took the steps, the looking-for-adventure lot tried to climb through the sides. Once up there, we introduced ourselves. As would be expected, there were quite a few IT folks, from TCS, Infotech, Microsoft… so on and so forth. But the interesting part was that there were folks like Mr. Subbarao who once woked for the Indian Air Force, a Kargil veteran, with his about 5yr old chirpy kid Meghna.  And there was Virginia Wang – Chinese by origin, an American by nationality. What we wont forget about her is her flawless Telugu.

Once the intros were done, Padmaja lead us through the steep downhill behind the dargah. Man it was so steep that I thought I’d fall straight down to earth. But as destiny would have it, I climbed down and up easily enough !

Once we were back from the first of the three planned adventures, we tried very hard to push some rocks down the hill, after all there were too many of them there and the hill seemed burdened.

We went to the other side of the hill and discovered that there were two other hills that looked similar and we could go there the next time around.

A little later I saw the team walking down the hill. While I was wondering if the trek was over already over, we assembled for what would be for most of us, the once in a lifetime, almost vertical climbing experience.

Click on this picture for more pics of the trek

Initially climbing the wall like rock seemed impossible and even risky. But as a few of us did it with ease, we the first timers tried it out too. It is at this moment when I learnt a few nice tricks/rules of the sport.

1. Hold on tight, take a nice little jump start, keep the momentum going.
2. The three-point-contact rule: At any instance, three of your limbs have to grip firm before you make the next move.
3. Keep calm, breathe deep and believe that you can make it to the top.
4. Encourage all those around, you’ll get the same from them!

What was beautiful to see was that people from various walks of live, who did not know much of each other teamed up, encouraged, helped eachother, and more than anything else, had loads of fun.

I must thank Moumita for having suggested me to sign up, Padmaja and co. for having organized it perfectly, and all those wonderful people that were there. Hope to meet you all soon!

Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

I had done some home work for myself while preparing to visit around Delhi-NOIDA-Gurgaon early in 2010. It took me quite some browzing time and effort to compile information. I thought this information would help travelers like me.

1. Nizamuddin railway station to NOIDA: Hire an auto rickshaw for around Rs.230. But a better way is to walk down towards the behind of the Nizamuddin station and the take one of those green colored mudrika buses operated by Delhi Transport Corporation. One could also take one of those buses operated by the UP transport dept. If you plan to take an auto rickshaw, please be informed that the Delhi autos can not go all the way into NOIDA as it is UP.

2.NOIDA to Gurgaon:

• NOIDA to Daula Kuan: DTC operated Mudrika Bus no. 392 (one of those green colored ones) would take you straight to Daula Kuan (A.R.S.D college stop) in around an hour. The bus goes via Lajpat Nagar (Rs.30, 1hour travel). A short walk to the Gurgaon side (directions are easy to find) and…
• Daula Kuan to IFFCO Chowk, Gurgaon: One has quite a number of choices here. DTC mudrika buses or those operated by the Haryana Transport dept (around Rs.25, 25min travel). These would be quite frequent. Apart from that one could take one of those number of call-center-cabs (might be risky for the ladies though!) plying between Delhi and Gurgaon.

OR

• By Delhi Metro: From any metro stations to Dwaraka sector9 (last stop between Delhi-Gurgaon as of Jan2010) and from Dwaraka hire a cab or auto rickshaw to destination in Gurgaon.

3. Hazrat nizamuddin station to Gurgaon:

• Nizamuddin to Lajpat nagar: By auto ricksaw (Rs.25 to Rs.40, 20 mins).
• Lajpat Nagar to Daula Kuan: Take one of those frequent mudrika buses to Daula Kuan (around Rs.15, 30 mins)
• Daula Kuan to Gurgaon: As suggested above.

In fact its easy to go to Gurgaon from Daula Kuan. So one could reach there from any part of Delhi NCR by some means and proceed easily to Gurgaon.

4. NOIDA to New Delhi station:

• Share auto to Anand Vihar station (or any metro station in NOIDA), (Rs.10, 30mins)
• Anand Vihar metro station to New Delhi station: One would have to switch trains at Rajiv Chowk, but its rather the easiest and fastest way to get there. (Rs.18, 30 mins).

5. Delhi Airport to NOIDA or Gurgaon:

Best means is a prepaid cab. The dark green pre-paid cabs operated under supervision of the Delhi police used to be the popular service. But over time, several taxi services have come to be. Some cab services offer airport pick up or drop at around Rs.350. The following are a few of their call center numbers for bookings and inquiry.

Cabs for around 400 rupees:
25917441 to 45
Mega Cab : 1929, 41414141
Delhi Cab : 44333222
Metro Cab : 1923
Easy Cab : 43434343
Quick Cab: 45333333 http://quickcabs.in/
ForShe Cabs: 45628200

I have also done some research about budget hotels in Gurgaon. See this document for more info: delhi NCR travel and economy gurgaon hotels

Having planned to be in Delhi by Friday, I started on a crisp Hyderabad Thursday morning to the railway station. While I made it to the station an hour early. While the train arrived right on time, I could not believe my eyes when I saw a third of the 3TierAC coach unoccupied. So to start with, I had a wide variety of seats to choose from. I was charted to sit with a noisy and bombastic hyderabadi-turned-marwari family. I’m ususlly the kind that would enjoy talking to neighbors on journeys but this was rather too intruding, the uncle ji ended up asking my salary right on the second minute of our first conversation. As a natural response, I found a better seat to keep up with my inner peace! The train had curtains for each of the sections and that made the SideBerths look like mini-rooms in their own right. I got all cuddled up on the sideberth with a clear-glass emergency window that said ‘In emergency, pull the hook’.

Train journeys during the day are usually interesting, the view form the window is a world in its own right. One could see various kinds of people, so many different styles of buildings, fields…and of-course a lot more that you wished you did not see! The journey was that usual type until the train stopped over at Nagpur for a house keeping halt. I had heard a lot about Nagpur-orange before, so I went around to see if could find some. I ended up buying quite a lot of food as you can see…from right to left -

The Nagpur Orange in an orange carrybag – Rs.30.

The ’special meete bare’ – Rs.20, I really have no idea what these are called in English but for those who have never tried them, they taste a little like the apples.

Then the famous ‘I-don’t-know-what’ snack ( if you know, please use the comments section to let us know too!). By the time I finished my shopping the train had started to move. So I did not have the privilege to find out what it was called and how it was made. For all I knew after I ate it, it was a combo of alu-bonda (snack with a filling of potato curry) and kachori (with a filling of some sort of a powder this time), topped with a some chutney (usually a spicy sauce, but this one was plain).

The Nagpur experience was exciting!

Munching on the meete-bare I immersed myself into the books (I knew I’d need them on this journey, so I’d enough of them with me). After dinner I settled into a nice sleep and did not know when Bhopal, Jhansi and Gwalior went by. But when I woke up, the train stopped at Agra. I look out of the window I see smoke, then I took a while to realize I need not panic and it was only fog and the train was not burning! I got down to discover for myself why they talk of canceled flights and delayed trains in this part of the country during winter. The fog/mist was falling through the trains top as though you’d see it when you open a deep freezer. That my experience with dense fog. The visibility was not more than a few feet, I would not dare to walk, let alone drive or fly a plane!

As can be expected, the train which was already running 2 hours late started toddling like we see in this video on the right…

I thought that the train would be delayed by 4hrs max. But to my dismay, While it had to Reach Hazrath Nizamuddin station at 0840 hrs, it arrived at 1710 hrs. Now that is what you call a delayed train!

I was cursing the weather and the railway system when I over heard from a radio that a whopping 170 domestic flights were cancelled and rescheduled and 8 international flights landed in a different city in India! Now, aren’t trains better!!?

I had planned to go to Gurgaon that evening but it already seemed like night so I re-planned to go to a friend’s place in NOIDA (New Okhla Industrial Development Authority), UP.

If you ever plan to go from Delhi to NOIDA, don’t to what I did. My friend from NOIDA advised me to simply take an autorikshaw instead of troubling myself up with any other mode. He asked me not to pay more than Rs.250. I thought huh, Hyderabad to Delhi in an 3TierAC for Rs.1200, and to reach home within city Rs.250? Well, that’s when reality struck. After as many as ten autowalas (that’s what we call the auto drivers in India) refused, one guy asked Rs.300. I bargained for Rs.230.The auto initially ran at 30Kmph, then it went to 60 and after that I conveniently closed my eyes as I was getting a flying sensation!

Rules that the Delhi autowalas strictly adhere to:

• Not to apply brakes what so ever.
• Never stop at signals. Never care when crossing a busy road.
• Never mind driving on the wrong side, in-fact prefer that.

But the real twist lied ahead. Autos from Delhi are not supposed to enter NOIDA as its a different state altogether. So he stops another auto that’s passing by, transfers me to that auto, collects 230 from me and pays the second autowala a mere Rs.60 and there he goes…

Well the second autowala explained me the facts as he drove for more distance to reach Shipra Township than the previous one did. Huh!

But the best way to travel to there would be to hop on to one of those Mudrika buses (the green air conditioned ones,easily available behind then Nizamuddin railway station) to NOIDA. Then take a Cycle-Rikshaw or an auto to reach your destination.

My friend received me the township gate. Man what sort of a place was that? NOIDA has at least 65 sectors of which at-least half of them are as big as 10sq Km. The sector that I saw (62) had at-least 200 apartment buildings and society housing buildings put together. I should not forget to mention that these were 20story apartment buildings that house a 100 homes each. Now…now you can imagine what sort of a place I’m talking about and the population out there. NOIDA’s website shows a planned 140 odd phases coming up in the future. Wouldn’t that be bigger than many states in India?

All this while I was wrapped in a sweater and a jacket to keep warm. It was thoroughly cold and humid. After dinner I was advised to hide under two thick quilts or I would not be able to sleep.

Sun rise happened at 0730hrs and I could barely see anything beyond 2-meters, yeah that was how bad visibility was. Add to this the 100% humidity and pollution in Delhi.

I was to travel from NOIDA to Gurgaon to meet a friend. I thought of various options like Metro, cab, bus etc. My friend advised to take one of those frequent Mudrika buses (no.392) from Shipra (sector 62 Noida) to Daula Kuan (Rs.30) and then there would be quite a few options from there to Gurgaon. The bus took an hour from NOIDA to Daula Kuan and there were plenty of those Haryana TC Volvo buses to Guraon(Rs.25). Traveling between Gurgaon and Noida isn’t as bad as I had imagined before. It cost me less than Rs.100 to and fro. If you have the wit to find out information and some patience, it could save you a lot of money for local travel in Delhi NCR.

I was back from Gurgaon late that evening and had to board the train back to Hyderabad the next evening. If one has nothing much to do in the day, Delhi’s winters are ideal for hibernation! One could sleep till around 1100 hours and still feel its not morning yet!

After a lazy breakfast and window shopping at the Shipra mall in NOIDA, it was time for me to plan traveling from NOIDA to the New Delhi railway station. If one plans to travel without a break to Delhi from NOIDA, only a taxi cab would be it. Or if you choose to save some money, there are better ways. I took a share auto (the same auto rickshaw but as the term suggests, the expenses are shared. In other words, you pay as much as you wold if you took a bus) from Shipra to Anand Vihar Metro station (Rs.10). Anand Vihar to Rajiv Chowk metro station to New Delhi Railway Station (Rs.18). The only trouble was to change trains at Rajiv Chowk.

Reaching the station was rather too fast, thanks to the speed and punctuality of the Delhi Metro service. But only after I reached the New Delhi station I realized that I was too early. AP Express was delayed by a unearthly five hours and I had no option but to wait at the station. Most of the trains were running late, delayed by four to 16hours. I settled down with a bottle of water and a magazine. I was reading while a couple came and sat beside.  They were from Bangkok and were headed towards Kolkata. It was their first time to India and their train was delayed by 16hours. We talked for over two hours, mostly about India and its people, food, clothing culture and travel. If it was not for them, my waiting would have been very boring. I was relieved to hear the announcement say my train was leaving as per the rescheduled timings and there was not further delay.

I had to grab a bite before the train started. After much looking around I decided to try the ‘Janata Khana’ (public food in true hindi to english translation) on the platform. It was not particularly tasty but 6 pooris and potato curry, for just Rs.10, it was filling enough.

Unlike the train I came to Delhi in, this one was full and I did not have much of a choice but to climb to my upper berth and sleep soon after dinner. After a good nights sleep I woke up at around 0730 hrs and the chai wala was happy to inform that the train was running at its usual speed though it was expected that it would run slow owing to the dense fog.

As I got up and planned to freshen up, some tragedy struck. Having realized that my phone was running low on battery, I put it to charge and asked a co-passenger to look after it while I went to the loo. He nodded in agreement. But I came back all freshened up and ready for some music on my SonyEricsson w810i Walkman phone, only to realize that the very co-passenger who agreed to keep watch had stolen it and alighted the train at the Bhopal station as I was brushing. None else saw him do that. Now that’s what we call bad luck. I was reduced to a dumbo who not only lost his phone but also all of those 300 odd contacts, loads of precious music and beautiful memories with it.

I told my self that these things happen and they probably happen for a reason. What ever the reason was but I had no memory of any contacts except for my dad’s number and a few others. The rest of the journey was amazingly boring an tiring. The train arrived five hours late and finally I was home before midnight.

And in fact there were errors like:

Remote file error: Remote server did not respond.

and

Remote file error: Remote file is incorrect size.

I then tried to debug the import mechanism on  wordpress-2.8.6. I found that there was not much of a problem with it.  The problem was actually with the export mechanism.

Here are my findings:

Post attachments are mentioned in the XML within the <wp:attachment_url> tag. The URL for one such picture attachment was something like:

When I tried to put this URL on the web-browser, it redirected to:

While the latter URL seems to be more direct form of accessing the attachments, the problem could be with resolving the relative URLs in wp_get_attachment_url() of wp-includes/post.php

The work around for now would be to perform a replace-all for files.wordpress.com with files.wordpress.com in the exported XML file. I have made sure that only the <wp:attachment_url> tag has such entries.

Hope this helps.

My friend Sundar (who’s wedding I was to attend, is a native there) picked me up and we drove to the hotel.

It was a very pleasant morning and something assured me that I’m going to like my stay in the city.

To brief a little about the city: Vizag is a coastal city facing the Bay of Bengal. Called “The Jewel of the East Coast”, Vizag is the second biggest city in Andhra Pradesh, India. Its home to the Eastern naval Command and has the only natural harbor on the eastern coast of India. Vizag also houses many heavy industries along with the Vizag Steel Plant, one of the most advanced steel plants in the world.

Well, coming back to me… we arrived at this  Hotel Supreme.Whats special about the hotel is that it faces the Ramakrishna Beach. As providence would give me, my room had this mind blowing view of the beach from the big window.

The beach was so inviting that I could not resist rushing downstairs and taking a walk. Sundar reminded that I should rest and I’d quite some time to see around the city. So I went back and freshened up. Food and hospitality were fairly good at the hotel. But the water in the bathroom seemed freshly pumped straight from the Bay of Bengal. I mean it when I say, it tasted like lime soda!

Sundar had invited quite a few of his colleagues and friends from Chennai. They were not going to come any sooner than 12noon. I was to wait for them at the hotel and waiting was never so good. I had a whole big sea to stare at, right from the window of my hotel room. And added to that was my new camera, I would shoot pictures to my heart’s content through the trip.

Many friends were expected but just three arrived! Heck with these IT guys and their IT jobs. When they signed up, less did they know that they were going to miss visiting Vizag! haha. I was lucky to have secured myself three days off. Well, Sundar sent a car that was to drive us to his home where lunch was arranged. We were to eat and go around the city.

I had dreamt of going to the Araku Valley, some 120Km away (imagine traveling up and down 1500 feet, through around 25 tunnels and staying at an altitude of 600 To 900mt, that’s Araku for you!). But I was soon told that we’d need one complete day at least and we did not have that time! huh! I hugged myself and said, its okay buddy, better luck next time.

Sundar played a good host by arranging for a nice car to travel around. We set out to visit three places – Victory At Sea, Rishikonda beach and Kailasagiri.

Traveling in Vizag city was interesting, thanks to the hilly terrain all over the place. One had to go up and down a hill to go anywhere to somewhere. I thought a bike would be rather better than a car to drive around in this city. Roads seemed dark and neat. Here we were at ‘Victory At Sea’ on RK beach (RK-RamaKrishna). It was the famous Submarine Museum that we were visiting. This was the first time I saw a submarine and I was aghast at the view at this mighty chunk of steel, wondering how was it possible to for this thing to be submerged and come afloat.

The photo collage, clockwise: Front view (notice the 550Kg anchor there?), The analog radio, The lead battery cell, The computer, Me near the rear propellers and the rudder, Torpedo, Provisions room.

The submarine (INS Kursura) was made in 1969 and was decommissioned in 2001. It was very thoughtful of the Indian navy and GVMC (Greater Vizg Municipal Corp.) to have converted it into a museum. Here are some facts that would be of interest:

The submarine can run its engines only when it can stay afloat. And when it has to dive under water, its 500 lead acid batteries (each weighs around 600kg) power it.

It can carry around 22 electrically propelled, sonar guided torpedoes.

The devise you see on the top right corner looks like a cupboard with too many holes, but in fact, it is a computer. It calculates the future position of a target enemy submarine, using speed (estimated from the sonar) and course of  a target (estimated from some gyro compass). This data is fed to a torpedo ready to be fired.

Now isn’t that amazing technology for a submarine made in the 60’s?

We got into the car and headed north of the town towards Rishi Konda beach. A bike ride along the beach road would be THE THING to do on a Saturday evening. Lucky Vizag-ites. After about a 15 minute of drive we reached the most picturesque beach, I had ever seen.

What make Vizag’s beaches more beautiful are the hills and mountains that are so near to the shore. Not many places would be such. Had I seen Gitam University while in my +2, I would not have gone to college anywhere else but Gitam. Studies aside, this college faces the blue waters right on Rishi Konda beach and is surrounded by huge green mountains.

Then we were headed towards the town to go to KailasaGiri. My first thoughts of this place, from its name, were that this would be another of those hills that had a famous temple. I personally never enjoyed visiting temples, they are usually crowded places. But my exacting myth was soon to be disproved. One could go up the hill either by road or there was a more interesting alternative, the rope way.

Obviously, we chose the rope way up and down. The hill is famous as a tourist attraction. One can get a superb view of the Vizag city and the beach right by its side. The view becomes more interesting as the sun sets and the electric bulbs take over the task of lighting the town. The hill offered quite a few good looking views of the town beneath. Lord Siva and Goddess Parvathi seem to be enjoying the cool breeze atop the moon lit hill. That also justified the name – KailasaGiri.

Apart from all that, there was one more interesting scene. It was this statue on one of the pathways such that we could walk under it. But there was a problem, there seemed to be ‘enlightenment’ emanating from just where it shouldn’t be. For those of you who couldn’t catch the point, see the light arranged right in between the statue’s legs.

My Saturday in Vizag ended with a buffet dinner at the Green-park hotel and me retiring to my hotel room by the Rama Krishna beach.

Sunday morning was meant to make us all lazy. I got up at around 8 and looked out of the window. Wow, sun shining bright on the blue waters was inviting. So I rushed through some freshening and breakfast and set out on a walk into the City.

The place where I stayed seemed to be a medical care hub of the city. There were so many hospitals and diagnostic centers surrounding the famous king George hospital. Roads were kept clean in most parts of the city (at least far better than those in Hyderabad), thanks again to GVMC. I walked through and did not realize I reached the Jagadamba center (quite talked of as a business and shopping place) until I saw the Jagadamba theater. Right across was the biggest of the City’s malls, the CMR mall. One thing I do not quite approve of is the fact that there are not many shopping ares in the city. For a tier-2 city and given that there were a lot of industries and riches all around, retail businesses should have caught on already.

As I walked past the Saint Anthony’s church I could hear the Sunday-morning-prayers loud and clear, and of-course in the typical Tenglish accent. I was back to my hotel after an hours walk. I was already thinking of possibilities of my relocating to that place.

We were to attend Sundar’s wedding reception towards the evening and the wedding itself would follow into the night. So I was advised to stay put and rest. So I did.

In the evening, I used my photography skills to their full potential clicking away photos at the wedding.This was one of the most interesting weddings I attended in the recent times. Check out the album if you please.

It was around 4 AM when we returned to the hotel and fell asleep.

Got up early in the morning at around 1130 and found myself alone in the hotel. So I relaxed and rested watching TV, for I couldn’t do much else, alone. I thought Monday mornings are perhaps always like that, whether at office or on a holiday.

The train was at 1700 hours so I checked out at 1600 thinking I would need some time to buy sweets (my roomi back in Hyderabad had warned me that I couldn’t come without them). So I bought an assortment of Halwa at the famous Shivarama Sweets and boarded the train.

It was in deed a trip I would remember for a long time to come. Vizag is a beautiful place.

Here are some more photos of Vizag.

Please leave your comments.

Going with the buzz on the internet about Windows7 since its release in mid June ‘09, the OS seems to have taken in some performance improvements as compared to Vista. Though soon as you install the Windows7, you might feel its not any different from Vista, there seem to be some good advancements. I would list down my findings and comments about ‘How does 7 fare against Vista and XP – a comparison’ in a separate post a little later on as I use the new OS.

Without wasting much time, lets quickly see in a few steps, how to add Windows7 to our existing OS configurations thus setting up a dual boot (in-case you already have Vista or XP alone) or triple boot (in-case you already have a vista and XP dual boot).

As of this writing, Win7 is a beta version and is available for free download on Microsoft.com. If you already have a copy of Windows7 OS on a bootable DVD, you could skip the first two steps.

1. Download an evaluation copy of Windows7:  You could download it here. Evaluation copies are generally .iso files which you can burn on to an empty DVD.
   • At the beginning of the download process, you are presented with an activation key for the OS, Note it down or save the web page for reference.
   • The download page seeks to run an ActiveX control to start the download application. Select a location of your preference and start the download. The copy I downloaded was around 2.55GB and it finished in roughly 5 hours.
2. Create a Windows7 bootable disc: You can use a DVD burning s/w of your choice and burn the downloaded .iso file on to an empty/rewritable DVD. I used Nero express.
3. Do you have a separate HDD partition for the windows7 already? If not create one (of at least 16GB). You could create partition using the disc management tool either from your existing XP or Vista OS.
   • Windows Vista has built-in tools to re size active partitions, but XP does not. XP users can alternatively use a third party tool like Gparted. You could download a copy here. Burn it on to an empty/rewritable CD and boot from it. Please refer to the GParted documentation for instructions.
   • Vista users
     • type ‘diskmgmt.msc’ in the start-search bar. The Disc Management application launches. You could choose to shrink one of the existing active partitions. You could shrink an existing drive by about 20 GB (at least 16GB recommended).
     • Once this is done, you should see unallocated space on the disc. If your existing drive was C: or D:, you would want the new partition to be D: or E: respectively. But this letter would have been currently allotted to the optical drive. So first rename or re-allocate the drive letter of your optical drive(s) to one letter higher (E: or F: respectively).
     • Right click on the new empty partition, click on ‘New simple partition..’. Format the drive to NTFS and label it to D: or E:
     • Lo! we have a brand new partition!
4. Install Windows7: Put the newly created Windows7 installation DVD in the optical drive and reboot the machine. While it is starting, make sure that it boots from the optical drive. If it doesn’t, use the boot setup (for my Dell laptop I’ve to press F12 to launch a boot sequence menu) or set it the boot sequence to DVD and HDD by editing the BIOS settings.

• The Win7 boot application opens up with this screen

• Select the Custom mode. On the screens that come next, you are prompted to choose a drive, choose the newly created partition and continue.
• During the installation, the application prompts for the activation key, enter the key you noted down in step1.

The installation takes around 30-35 minutes and there we have it!

The dual/triple boot is automatically setup ( this is probably the case since win7 is still an evaluation copy) and the boot menu appears similar to this one:

But in case you wanted to customize the boot menu, download this simple utility called EasyBCD here. Install the application and launch it. Choose the ‘Change Settings’ tab. In ‘Global Settings’ section you can change the default OS from the list and the timeout too.

In case you want to edit the text displayed in the boot menu, you could do that from the ‘Entry-Based settings’. I edited both the settings. I chose XP as default, timeout as 10 sec and the list as shown under.

Conclusions:

Apart from the dual boot being setup automatically, I have observed the following:

1. When I boot into Windows7, the OS drive is appears as C:\ while the other drives got renamed. But when I boot into Vista, I see that Vista drive is C:\ and the Win7 drive is D:\. Guess this confusion gets sorted out with the actual version of Win7.

2. I did not need to install any drivers! Yeah that’s true. My Dell XPS M1330 seems to be working right away. Sound, video, wireless etc are installed already. The web-cam did not work yet though, I guess I would have to install its drivers.

I would use Windows7 today-on and update my review on a separate post – ‘How does 7 fare against Vista and XP – a comparison’.

Please comment on how helpful this post has been to you and also on your initial reaction about Windows7.

Thanks for reading.

Etiology (study of disease causation) of common cold says there are over a hundred different kinds of viruses that cause common cold. In addition, that is one reason why one cannot ideally gain immunity to common cold.

My laptop is no super man, so she got one too, a bitter cold.

This post attempts to discuss:

1. A few basics of computer viruses.
2. The other kinds (Worms, Trojan horses, Spy-ware, Ad-ware).
3. The Effects & Symptoms.
4. How get rid?
5. How gain immunity?
6. The ‘anti’ ware – a review.

A few basics of computer viruses:

By definition: A virus is a computer program that is designed to cause undesirable effects on computer systems. There can be several such definitions though but the following is a list of features that make a program a virus:

1. Generally a piece of code that implants itself on executable files (*.exe)
2. Self replicating and self propagating – can make copies of itself and systematically spread file to file, computer to computer.
3. Implements intentional damage (read as unexpected behavior of the computer) intended by the perpetrator.
4. Generally require user action to show effect.

Types:

• File Infectors – Viruses that attach themselves to files, usually to .exe, .com and .bat files. Further, there are three groups of viruses of this kind.
  • Group one – Overwriting viruses: They overwrite their code into infected file erasing contents. These are primitive and they can be found very quickly.
  • Group two – Parasitic or cavity viruses: They copy themselves into begin/end/middle of infected files and usually do not change the original function of the original file.
  • Group three – Companion viruses: They do not change the content of files but either replace and rename the original file or make a double of the original file.
• Boot viruses – Every logical drive has a boot sector, a master boot record and a partition table (one per physical drive). Boot sector contains information about the data on the disk, formatting information and a small boot program that is run when you boot your system. A virus affecting this boot program loads itself into memory at boot time and spreads to other drives. Master boot record usually uses a master boot program that locates the starting location or bootable partition from the partition table. Infection to this program might lead to even disk crashes.
• Macro Viruses – we know macros from MS Excel as a small set of instructions that result in a certain way for a certain input. Now this category of viruses are usually written as a macro on an MS office file (a word or excel doc). They propagate with the word docs and infect the office software and files.

Read the ‘history of computer viruses’ here . In addition, a timeline of viruses and worms here

That was a brief of my knowledge about viruses.

We have often come across many other terms that point to malicious activity on computers and networks.

The other kinds (not viruses?):

• Worm: These generally self-replicating scripts propagate over a computer network. Unlike viruses, they do not attach themselves to files. These generally target at consuming network bandwidth and designed to spread rapidly. They are capable of sending huge amounts of spam e-mail!
• Trojan horse: The Greek term Trojan means someone who comes in disguise. You would know better if you saw Troy. In computers terms, a Trojan horse id defined as a malware that generally aims at making a system vulnerable to allow unauthorized access via the network. These generally come packed neatly in the form of photographs, screensavers etc. Apart from allowing remote unauthorized access, these also upload/download files more Trojans without the user’s knowledge.
• Spy-ware: As the name suggests, these are certain things that enter computers as spies to spy! Most basic spy-ware are software that watch, interrupt, log and report user’s interaction with the system. Identity theft and fraud is the motto most often. A basic example would be recording keyboard strokes and mouse clicks and transmitting them to a third party. The info could have credit card numbers, Id/Passwords etc! Spy-ware generally get downloaded from webpages and get installed as ActiveX controls. They make use of flaws in the browsers JavaScript handling capability to get installed. These are capable of changing registry keys and register themselves in place of the normal programs or as associations. These unlike viruses and worms are not self replicating.
• Ad-ware: These are privacy invading software that aim at delivering unsolicited advertisements. They generally come bundled with software (free software/shareware especially!).

The Effects & Symptoms:

The most dangerous of the lot are, I would say, Boot viruses, Trojan horses and Spy-ware.

Boot viruses aim at altering the file organization on computers and they aim at corrupting data and eventually make the computer unusable unless the user goes through re installation. This would cost a lot of time and money! Symptoms: 1. Your system doesn’t boot or cries out ‘”no boot devise”; Drives or directories are go invisible.

File infecting viruses and worms target degrading system performance. Symptoms: Your computer seems sluggish. Inexplicable and unjustified  CPU & Memory usage is a general symptom of infection.

Trojan Horses compromise the user’s integrity and security over networks allowing access to third parties. They might at least install spy-ware and ad-ware!. Symptoms: You suspect unsolicited access to data on your computer. You see lots of ads pop up as you browse the internet.

Spy-ware record and transmit sensitive user data. Symptoms: You just saw your credit cared statement with purchases that you haven’t made, someone probably got hold of your credit card number and even worse, the cvv number and expiry date as well. Your keyboard behaves erratic.

We’ve seen how bad the world can be. Call the police!

How get rid?

In these times, all of us have heard of anti-virus , anti-spyware, firewalls, registery mechanics etc. This one is good, that one has so many features, that costs this much and much more of that.

Yes, we heard some of those right. There are several tools out there to help protect or machines from malice. I recommend that an internet using fellow should have at least one up-to-date anti-virus program, a firewall and a ad-ware/spy-ware removal tool.

That is good if we were just starting to have trouble. But if we’re neck deep into it? I personally would format my machine’s hard drive clean and start afresh. But that isn’t an intelligent solution and at times, for many of us, not at all a feasible option. We’d better obtained the good (see the ‘anti’ ware section) tools first.

Lets get the anti-virus in place. Generally, most anti-virus software have a virus definitions database. This database would contain information about the viruses that have already been detected elsewhere. The definitions also generally come with the appropriate remedy.But installing the ati-virus might not be just enough. While the software might be built with the most general virus definitions but it might not be up-to-date. There are lots of them who are churning out new viruses each day. These virus databases are generally maintained on anti-virus s/w vendor websites. They can either be downloaded in the form of .exe files or the anti-virus software might have an update definitions option, given that you have an internet connection.

It is recommended that you scan the whole system. All of the harddrive and even the external storage like USB harddrives and pendrives.

The antivirus software might detect several infections (viruses, worms, trojans etc.) The s/w generally does one of the following things: Quarantine the infected files/Clean or repair infected files/delete infected files.

Some antivirus s/w wont detect spy-ware and ad-ware. We might need special s/w for that(see the ‘anti’ ware section).

Now that we have cleaned the mess up. We need to stay alert to stay healthy.

How gain immunity?

Update and Scan regularly – Most anti-virus s/w have automatic update feature, where by, they update the virus definitions and solutions automatically from the s/w vendors website. If the s/w doesn’t update automatically do the update manually. Updating isn’t just the only thing. We better did a periodic scan of the system to be sure. Most anti-virus s/w have an inbuilt scheduler that can be configured for a periodic scan.

Although it is not practical that we become completely immune. As human race always saw, the more advancement in health care we did, the more new diseases we got! There always the bad guys  (some of them,great coders) who keep making new viruses.

The ‘anti’ ware – a review:

There are several of them out there, each flaunting more features, promise of more efficient  protection.

Antivirus:

I have started with Norton anti-virus once long ago. Norton comes at a price. It guzzles a load of system resources. After all we need to our computers to do some work for us and not just stay protected running an anti-virus right?

I then tried a few like McAffee, TrendMicro, BitDefender, AVG etc. The latest reviews on these can be seen here.

A few features one might have to look for:

1. Download size for installation file – Some anti-virus software claim that that they have all the features in the world. Sorry, we need only a few good ones. Choose the one that suits your need, the file size would vary accordingly
2. Ease of use (installation and Interface)
3. On-access Scanning – Files are scanned as they are accessed. This helps protect particularly when we’re downloading files. The anti-virus scans the downloaded file just as it arrives.
4. On-demand Scanning – Almost all anti-virus programs have this. Files/folders/drives can be chosen for scan as the user wishes to.
5. Scheduled Scanning – User can schedule when to scan and which area to scan.
6. Script Blocking – Java and VBS scripts might pose with virus-like behavior. This feature helps block such scripts.
7. Quarantine – Infected Files have to be separated before they infect other files. Anti-virus s/w generally put such files in a virus-vault or quarantine so that users wont access them until cleaned.
8. Auto-Clean – Automatically attempts to clean and recover infected files.
9. Automatic Incremental Update – Virus definition updates are automated. And the s/w updated only the latest definitions or those that are not present already.
10. Manual offline update – In case there is no internet connection, we might require to download the virus definitions from an internet cafe and transfer to our home PCs. This feature isn’t generally found.
11. E-mail protection – for email clients like outlook. Most of us wont use this.

Many of today’s anti-virus programs have these features but most of them come at a price. I looked for freebies!

AVG topped the charts previously. Now here is the order:

1. Avira AntiVir
2. Avast
3. AVG

My favorite today is Avira AntiVir. Light on resources, easy to use, fast update.

Then, thats not it, we need a personal firewall too.

Firewall:

Again there are a lot of them. Windows firewall is quite quirky I heard. I’ve tried Zone alarm probably one of the best to date. Its a freeware.

Feature of interest:

1. In-boundprotection – Alerts and warns about connection attempts from outside.
2. Out-bound protection – Programs and web pages that are beign used currently on your machine attempt to connect to the internet for various reasons. This feature provides alerts and helps you configure access.
3. Program access control – to specify which all programs need to go online and which all want to but still need not as per the user’s choice.
4. Stealth Mode – When online, your computer constantly receives and responds to information requests from other computers. In stealth mode your computer will not respond to the flow of queries unless you opt to override.

And then the Spy ware?

Anti-spy ware:

Generally the anti-virus s/w and the firewall should be enough as they have anti-spy ware already. But then a separate and efficient program wouldn’t do any harm.

Ad-Aware is my favourite. Download its free version. It also updates the definitions and has features that one would expect of an anti-virus program. It scans for spy-ware and removes them.

For more info, go through resources here.

Well, thats a lot of work! Keep safe keep your systems happy. Hope the post helps. Please leave comments.

A club can be chartered (formed) with a group of 20 interested candidates. The club meets often in an organized way. Members take up roles as Speakers, Evaluators, Sargent at Arms, Treasurer, President etc. One would be certified as a Competent Communicator if he/she could successfully complete 10 speeches. These speeches have specific objectives and test a list of skills one would have to posses to be an effective communicator. They would be in an increasing order of difficulty and challenge. There would be evaluators and mentors who would assess and guide speakers through different levels of speeches.

We have a club that was previously active in my office. Today was the club’s first formal revival session and mine was the first formal speech.

My 1st speech -  The IceBreaker: The objectives broadly were to introduce my self to the club members. Tell them what sort of a person I was, what I did, my ambitions in life etc,. The idea is to break the ice between the new member (me, in this case) and the club members. Here’s what I spoke:

When at school I was different from most of the kids. While all other kids played with their toys, I used to disassemble them and struggle long hours restoring them. My aim was to find out how the toys worked. My mom says I used to break toys right on the second day. Then on, I never lost the habit of dissecting every thing to make sure I knew how it worked. I still do. At school I was not the brightest of the kids but I was a quick learner. I was very talkative. Physics and Geography were my favorite subjects and as far as I can remember, cycling was the best part of going to school.

By the time I got out of school, cousins and elder brothers of friends, joined this new weird league of people called ’software engineers’. Fathers were no longer our heroes; the ’software engineers’ were, for obvious reasons. So here I was at this junior college that prepared us for engineering entrance. I was in the race but my longing to do something different landed me at the selections for the National Defense Academy. But it seemed they thought I’d better be a ’software engineer’, I was sent back. By then I graduated from being a toy breaking lad to someone who took great interest in electronics, sound and music. I read and explored extensively about audio systems and technologies then.

I’m a much different person from what I was 4years ago. I talk less and think a lot! The better things are that I now have many more interests and hobbies than I ever had. I read, I blog quite a bit, I photograph, I love riding my bike and I still have my passion for music and sound intact. My ambitions kept changing all through. Now, I want to use my physical and mental faculties to I want to be a good human being. When I’m old, I would want to look back and feel I’ve not wasted my time but I’ve lead a meaningful life.

This was my Ice breaker speech. I wonder if I have broken the ice or taken too long till it melted.

The speech evaluator said that my talk was interesting and simple, but that I should have been more expressive rather than looking serious ( I was frozen actually). I used the notes as reference (allowed only in the Ice breaker speech!), I should not have. I did not move an inch from the podium. It would have been better if I moved about the stage while I talked. Bottom line is that I can speak well in public, if I better a few of my skills. This was a good start.

Please comment on my speech, be my evaluator, I would be honored.

This might have happened when the Automatic Updates upgraded my XP OS to SP3.

The calculator application is generally found on the start – All Programs – Accessories menu. Or one could launch the application just by typing ‘calc’ in the start – Run command.

I went online to find a way out to fix the missing calc app. Many articles presented one of the following three ways:

1. Reinstall the Accessories by Control Panel – Add or Remove Programs – Add/Remove Windows Components. One would have to insert the Windows XP installation CD for that.
2. Open the folder called ‘i386′ in the XP installation CD, search and locate the calc.exe, mspaint.exe files, copy them to C:WindowsSystem32 folder. Then open the C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsAccessories and paste a short cut for each of them. Test by launching calculator, paint from the start – All Programs – Accessories menu. Also try typing ‘calc’ in the start – Run command; try the same with mspaint.exe
3. Copy C:WindowsSystem32calc.exe and mspaint.exe from a friend’s machine and paste in the same location on your system.

But I would prefer the following two methods:

1. Download this simple application called AccRestore and run it to restore all the windows XP accessories. This restores all the Accessories including MS-Paint and System Tools that might have gone missing.
2. Alternatively, if you want to use this opportunity to install calculator that includes a scientific calculator and a unit converter, download ‘Calculator Plus’ from Microsoft here. Install it. Go to the folder where it is installed, generally c:Program FilesMicrosoft calculator Plus. copy the calcPlus.exe, paste it in C:WindowsSystem32 folder,  rename it to calc.exe. You can paste shortcut in C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsAccessories if you want to launch calculator from there. Voila, we can now run the calculator from the run command by typing ‘calc’.

Learning: You can launch any application xyz.exe through start-Run command if you have a copy of xyz.exe in the C:WindowsSystem32 folder.

Thanks for reading. Please contact if you need any specific information.

The next big challenge was to install the drivers that ran on XP. This was tough as Dell did not support any other OS for m1330 than Vista. Here is a list of the individual drivers and their download locations.

Note: Pleas verify the compatibility before you download the drivers.

I recommend installing drivers in the following order:

• R153997 MOBILE CHIPSET.
• GRAPHICS -

If you’ve not bought your m1330 with Nvidia graphics, the correct drivers for Intel graphics card can be downloaded using the Intel® Driver Update Utility. This driver happens to be GRAPHICS INTEL® GM965WIN2K_XP1437.

OR

If you have the NVIDIA graphics card, obtain the drivers from here – NVIDIA GRAPHICS Driver.

• R141246 MOMORY CARD READER.
• R155246 ETHERNET CONTROLLER.
• R151336 BROADCOM NETWRK UTILITIES.
• R174291 WIRELESS MINI CARD.
• I found two drivers for the integrated webcam, R173082 WEBCAM (recommended) OR R160323 WEBCAM.
• R155586 TOUCHPAD.
• The audio driver did not install that easy! Extract both the following drivers (say, to C:\DellDrivers) and then from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> device manager, locate the PCI device with an yellow flag beside. Open its properties and update drivers. Select the folder where you extracted the audio drivers to. This should do the trick. Let XP decide the best drivers. R171789 SIGMATEL AUDIO and R153908 AUDIO.
• R127314 BLUETOOTH (recommended) OR R161378 BLUETOOTH.
• R156915 FINGER PRINT RDR.
• R165094 DELL QUICKSET.

Installing all of the above listed drivers should give you a grand start to using XP on your Dell XPS m1330. I have personally experienced a huge improvement in performance and a hassle-free computing.

Please feel free to post a comment if you need any assistance in this regard.