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My everyday work laptop is a lightweight Sony Vaio TX57GN around 1.25Kg, having a Core Solo CPU, 1.5GB RAM, 4200RPM HDD, Vista its speed is sub-optimal and I can only use it for email and browsing. Even then I am not complaining and actually I love it especially on my travels. This changes when I have to do demos (customer presentations or Microsoft events) I got to run multiple virtual machines and at that time CPU muscle, RAM and Speed are crucial. So few months back I decided to buy a second laptop for demos alone and eventually settled down on Dell Vostro 1400. That was the time (August ’07) Dell had introduced Vostro series in USA, the price of USD 1740 (with taxes) for the configuration was attractive so I immediately purchased it and got it through one of my colleagues coming to India.
Dell Vostro 1400 configuration
- Vostro 1400, Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, 1.6GHz, 800Mhz FSB 2M L2 Cache
- 14.1 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD
- 4GB, DDR2, 667MHz
- Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset
- Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
- 160GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Windows Vista Business
- 24X COMBO CD-RW/DVD for Vostro
- Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g
- Warranty Support, 2 Year Extended
The laptop scores good on Vista Benchmarks and performs well with multiple VPCs and Vista Aero interface. Dell shipped the laptop (strangely) with Vista 32Bit OS, so it showed only 3.5GB of RAM. This week I decided to upgrade the machine to Vista x64, so I got it formatted and installed Vista Ultimate x64. Now the laptop shows 4GB RAM, but most of the devices (as expected) were not installed with drivers. Luckily Wi-Fi worked and after running Windows Update which download 150MB of 42+ updates and a reboot, most of the devices including Graphics card got installed. The Ethernet card proved tricky with no drivers available either from Microsoft’s Windows Update or from Dell support site. Dell doesn’t provide drivers for Windows x64 OS for any of the devices in their Vostro series Laptop. After some searching I found the driver from Broadcom’s support site for the LAN card and now everything is working fine.
Download Vista x64 Ethernet Driver for Dell Vostro 1400 laptop from here. 
This is a complete time pass post with no serious value  , anyway here it is.
My mother keeps telling us all the time to close with lids non-empty bowls. Last night in our bathroom we had left a bowl with Ginger Oil left overnight without covering. In the morning when brushing I saw something suspicious – a cockroach dead and it was almost indistinguishable from the herbs in the oil, we could easily have mistakenly used it.
Sometimes you are stuck by not able to delete the file because some application unknown to you is holding the file lock. This freeware (Unlocker) helps you in those scenarios. I haven’t tried it yet, use it at your own risk !
What looked impressive for me is the GUI listing of all applications having locks over files in a folder.
தமிழில் வெளிவந்த நகைச்சுவை நாடங்களில் மிகவும் பிரபலமாக கருதப்படுவது அய்யா… அம்மா… அம்மம்மா…
என் சிறு வயதில் சென்னை தொலைக்காட்சியில் முதல் தடவையாக பார்த்ததில் இருந்து என்னை மிகவும் கவார்ந்த மற்றும் ஒலிநாடாவில் (Audio Cassette) பலப்பல முறை நான் கேட்ட நாடங்கமும் இது தான். ‘கிரேசி’ மோகன் எழுதி காத்தாடி ராமமூர்த்தி நடித்த இந்த நாடங்கம், இதற்குப்பின் தமிழில் வெளிவந்த அனைத்து நகைச்சுவைப் படைப்புகளிலும் (சினிமா, நாடகம், கதை) தனது தாக்கத்தை பதித்துள்ளது. பிற்காலத்தில் ‘கிரேசி’ மோகன் எழுதிய பல பிரபலமாக நாடங்களில் அவரையும் அறியாமல் சிலயிடங்களில் இதன் துனுக்குகளை நாம் கேட்கலாம்.
ஒலிநாடாவில் மட்டுமே வெளிவந்த இந்த படைப்பு இப்பொழுது ஓளிதட்டு (VCD) வடிவில் வந்துள்ளது. போன வாரம் Landmark கடையில் பார்த்தவுடன் இதை வாங்கியதில் (ரூ 199) எனக்கு மகிழ்ச்சி. ஒரு சிறு ஏமாற்றம் இது சென்னை தொலைக்காட்சியில் வெளிவந்த காத்தாடி ராமமூர்த்தியுடன் டெல்லி கணேஷ் மற்றும் பலர் நடித்த மூலப்பிரதி அல்ல சமீபத்தில் பதிவு செய்யப்பட்டது,
இருந்தாலும் இந்த நாடங்கத்தை இதுவரைப் பார்க்காதவார்கள் உடனே இந்த ஓளிதட்டை வாங்கிப் பார்க்கலாம்.
 
The other day I was in Landmark (Nungambakkam High Road Branch) and saw the largest collection of Original Tamil DVDs and VCDs from Moserbaer and other manufacturers. It was several hundreds of movies spanning last several decades of Tamil movie including those released in last few years. Before this the largest such collection of original Tamil movies I have seen only in Singapore Serangoon Road (where VCDs are priced at SGD 10 and DVDs at SGD 20). In Landmark that day for instance I bought காக்க காக்க DVD at Rs.49 and வீரா, குரு சிஷ்யன் DVD combo at Rs.65.
After several decades, Tamil Film Producers & copyright owners seems to have come to their senses. Instead of fighting piracy they seem to have realized making their recent and old assets widely available as Discs in affordable rates will bring a new revenue stream for them. Just like T-Series in early 80′s brought out affordable Cassettes and pioneered in India the original music market, Moser Baer seems to have now done the trick for VCDs and DVDs by bringing out original discs at Rs.39 and Rs.49/-
Ten days back when I reached Singapore from Los Angeles by Singapore Airlines (my favourite next to Jet Airways) I realized my checked-in bags haven’t reached Singapore. I had through checked in the bags with United from Seattle, and though in LA there was over 3 hours time before the Singapore flight the bags didn’t make it. It was not only my bags, but that of 10-12 other passengers. The saving grace was when I went to the Lost and Found counter of Singapore Airlines (SG), they already had a printout ready with information tracing my bag, where it was and when it will come to Singapore. So the bag technically didn’t go missing, but didn’t make it in the flight I came.
SG teller at the Lost and Found, gave me a printout acknowledging the incident, SG$120 to cover one day of my incidentals, a toiletry bag with a spare T-shirt all without asking – the way it should be done. I was promised the bags will be coming in the next flight from LA, they will call and leave the bags with my hotel; and the next day morning when I get up the bags will be in my hotel. So it was there next day. I really felt I was handled with respect, professionalism and the incident was resolved quick and well by Singapore Airlines.
Windows Live Search seems to have introduced a video search recently. When I searched “Vishwak” the results page impressed me – you can mouse over on a result image and see the video playing in place with audio. Surprisingly it included results from Google’s YouTube as well and playing it in a Live branded page.
This is yet another post on Chennai’s traffic. Traffic in T.Nagar area is becoming worst day by day due to the bridge constructions.
Every month TiE Chennai conducts their monthly events at 7PM mostly at Hotel RainTree, St.Mary’s Road. I don’t attend every month, but whenever I attend I get stuck bad in traffic and go late. I leave my office (Habibullah Road, T.Nagar) around 6:15PM and reach the venue around 7:15PM or so, though the actual journey shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes. I have tried all the different (so called side roads) routes but of no use, either I get stuck at Pondy Bazaar/Mount Road junction or at Vijayaraghava Road/Mount Road junction and so on.
Today I decided to brave it out. I left office at 6:30PM, went through Panagal Park, Venkatanarayana Road, Nandanam Signal and believe it or not, I reached the venue at 6:50PM. And this at the peak time driving through two of the Chennai’s renowned traffic choke points. I am now more than ever confused on the routes that take less time in Chennai.
Being in the IT Industry you can feel the energy of growth, innovation and excitement that’s in India now. You can relate the present scene to the one that was there a decade back when IT professionals were rushing to United States and India suffered a brain drain (as it used to be called). Now the scene is completely the reverse where you are seeing many of those professionals returning back to India. They have had time to enjoy the western lifestyle, save some money and return back to India which was unheard of few years back. I personally know few of my friends at least who have returned from their high-paying/senior profile jobs in companies like Siebel, Microsoft, etc. in the last few years to India. In this connection I saw this Video in Hindustantimes that quantifies this to be about 60,000 Indian IT professionals who have moved back to India in last few years.
Moreover, nowadays people in the mid to senior roles don’t want to leave their family behind and want to go to USA – they are getting salaries in India itself that are attractive and comparable.
I came across these two references today.
One was Web Browser Standards Summary that summarizes the level of support for web standards and maturing technologies in popular web browsers. It covers the Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera web browsers, with focus on the HTML, CSS, DOM, and ECMAScript technologies.
Second one is the Audio interview with Chris Wilson, the Platform Architect for Internet Explorer at Microsoft. “Chris has been building web browsers for as long as there have been web browsers, and it was a pleasure to sit down with him at the end of the final day of the conference. In his talk at the conference, Moving the Web Forward, Chris gave the audience a glimpse into the realities of developing the most popular web browser in the world. With over 500,000,000 users to answer to, the words Don’t break the Web have become an overriding mantra for the company in its work to develop the next version of Internet Explorer (currently known as IE.Next)”.
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