IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
The author of this blog has been institutionalised in the B.D.C (Blog Deaddiction Centre).He is prohibited from blogging unless his condition improves dramatically (very unlikely) or he runs away whichever happens first.As he is still allowed to read and maybe post comments in the zonkboard and backblog if his conditions permits, don't post any comments that will lure him back to blogging.Expecting sincere cooperation from all the regualrs and the irregualars to this site.He has been shifted from his residence to an unknown(i.e to u) location with limited net connectivity.I will be personally monitoring his situation and his activities.
Regards,
Dr.Noblog Back.
The author of this blog has been institutionalised in the B.D.C (Blog Deaddiction Centre).He is prohibited from blogging unless his condition improves dramatically (very unlikely) or he runs away whichever happens first.As he is still allowed to read and maybe post comments in the zonkboard and backblog if his conditions permits, don't post any comments that will lure him back to blogging.Expecting sincere cooperation from all the regualrs and the irregualars to this site.He has been shifted from his residence to an unknown(i.e to u) location with limited net connectivity.I will be personally monitoring his situation and his activities.
Regards,
Dr.Noblog Back.
I am going high tech here....just kidding.But today's post has a lot to do with that :technology.Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance said something about people using gadgets and yet hating them subconsciuosly in a way to loath taking care of them.Same goes for computers.We use it to do so many things but never take the time to maintain it in good working condition.Today's topic is then about what infects almost every computer connected to the net:spyware.
I first came across the term in the dying days of Audiogalaxy in cnet's download section.I was shocked to learn that that great mp3 sharing program came bundled with lots of spyware that one had no choice to exclude.So I went for the best and most popular spyware destroyer in the market..Ad-aware.Now yesterday I came across a program that made Ad-aware look like a toy in comparison.
Spybot,as with all good things in life is free and realtively new in the market(released March 21st) but it's already immensely poplular.Its not difficult to see why.It discovered stuff in my computer undetected by Ad-Aware and whats more increased my system resources from 60-80%!! Personally I dont have much against spyware but the thing is they suck your system power and bandwidth and makes the computer literally crawl.What makes Spybot unique is that you can block the servers of many of the programs from accessing your computer.And it has lots of settings in its advanced mode covering everything there's to cover.A word of caution though ,if you're a newbie in the world of spyware and can't imagine what or where registry keys are , I suggest you start with Ad-aware first.It's simple and direct and found 120(yep!!) malicious components on the first run.
Spy Sweeper is good too but its free to try whatever that means ;) They have regular updates ,like Spybot, which Ad- aware now sorely lacks.Spy sweeper found stuff missed by Ad-aware and its very simple and basic.Once you get the hang of these two you will be confident to have a go at Spybot.What's good and maybe bad about Spybot is that it's a one man show by a German dude,Patrick.Thoough its free now,I guess its a matter of time before someone buys him out,though he vehemently denies he will ever make the program paid.
When I first used Spybot ,it got stuck when it got to 2957 of 5835 of C2.lop. I ran the scan for 8-10 times with the same result."Insanity is doing the same thing again again and expecting different results".Anyway I visited Patrick's website and had a dekho at the FAQs, as a last resort...wow my prob was listed.Very surprised coz some users in cnet had complained about the same prob .Obviously they had just whined and failed to check.Wonder if they were mallus?
Before anyone gets excited and go on a deleting spree with Spybot ,a word of caution.This is a very powerful program and can wreck havoc on your system if used injudiciously.Be very very careful ,otherwise your system will be screwed for life.Don't believe me??Read these user opinions. As with any product ,first let me suggest you just observe it...meaning before you get down to any serious deleting and killing files and cookies just "look around" and get a feel of it.And read the help file/faq though it may not make sense at first.Oh ,one more thing, as lot of users pointed out in cnet, pop up windows are almost non existent now,even on sites where they used to come.And if any spyware tries to load ,I get a warning and a choice what to do with the buster.
Well ,so far so good.If anything major(like reboot,blue screen of death,etc) happens I will keep you guys posted :)
I first came across the term in the dying days of Audiogalaxy in cnet's download section.I was shocked to learn that that great mp3 sharing program came bundled with lots of spyware that one had no choice to exclude.So I went for the best and most popular spyware destroyer in the market..Ad-aware.Now yesterday I came across a program that made Ad-aware look like a toy in comparison.
Spybot,as with all good things in life is free and realtively new in the market(released March 21st) but it's already immensely poplular.Its not difficult to see why.It discovered stuff in my computer undetected by Ad-Aware and whats more increased my system resources from 60-80%!! Personally I dont have much against spyware but the thing is they suck your system power and bandwidth and makes the computer literally crawl.What makes Spybot unique is that you can block the servers of many of the programs from accessing your computer.And it has lots of settings in its advanced mode covering everything there's to cover.A word of caution though ,if you're a newbie in the world of spyware and can't imagine what or where registry keys are , I suggest you start with Ad-aware first.It's simple and direct and found 120(yep!!) malicious components on the first run.
Spy Sweeper is good too but its free to try whatever that means ;) They have regular updates ,like Spybot, which Ad- aware now sorely lacks.Spy sweeper found stuff missed by Ad-aware and its very simple and basic.Once you get the hang of these two you will be confident to have a go at Spybot.What's good and maybe bad about Spybot is that it's a one man show by a German dude,Patrick.Thoough its free now,I guess its a matter of time before someone buys him out,though he vehemently denies he will ever make the program paid.
When I first used Spybot ,it got stuck when it got to 2957 of 5835 of C2.lop. I ran the scan for 8-10 times with the same result."Insanity is doing the same thing again again and expecting different results".Anyway I visited Patrick's website and had a dekho at the FAQs, as a last resort...wow my prob was listed.Very surprised coz some users in cnet had complained about the same prob .Obviously they had just whined and failed to check.Wonder if they were mallus?
Before anyone gets excited and go on a deleting spree with Spybot ,a word of caution.This is a very powerful program and can wreck havoc on your system if used injudiciously.Be very very careful ,otherwise your system will be screwed for life.Don't believe me??Read these user opinions. As with any product ,first let me suggest you just observe it...meaning before you get down to any serious deleting and killing files and cookies just "look around" and get a feel of it.And read the help file/faq though it may not make sense at first.Oh ,one more thing, as lot of users pointed out in cnet, pop up windows are almost non existent now,even on sites where they used to come.And if any spyware tries to load ,I get a warning and a choice what to do with the buster.
Well ,so far so good.If anything major(like reboot,blue screen of death,etc) happens I will keep you guys posted :)
Had the oppurtunity to go through my diary a couple of days back...The first entry reads Feb 2001 and the latest one on Munnar and the diary is not even one fourth over.I write in my diary only in periods of intense emotion but there are some entries which dispute this fact...
Went to bangalore for the weekend.Brr...train arrived at 4:30a.m ....it was freezing.Went to her home from the station.An unforgettable two days for more than one reason.At the end of it all one hopes to have emerged saner...or has one?
Life can seem to be topsy turvy when one looks back.Arrogance can become calculated aloofness in hindsight.But let there be no doubt about it,the girl in the train charmed me no end.One cannot call it friendship or dare call it infatuation. Acquaintance fails to explore the depth of the situation.Ah, Ruskin Bond's poem comes to the mind.
Enough for me you are beautiful,
Beauty posessed diminishes
Better a dream of love
Than love's dream broken
Better a look exchanged
Than love's word spoken
Enough for me that you walk past
A firefly flashing in the dark
Went to bangalore for the weekend.Brr...train arrived at 4:30a.m ....it was freezing.Went to her home from the station.An unforgettable two days for more than one reason.At the end of it all one hopes to have emerged saner...or has one?
Life can seem to be topsy turvy when one looks back.Arrogance can become calculated aloofness in hindsight.But let there be no doubt about it,the girl in the train charmed me no end.One cannot call it friendship or dare call it infatuation. Acquaintance fails to explore the depth of the situation.Ah, Ruskin Bond's poem comes to the mind.
Enough for me you are beautiful,
Beauty posessed diminishes
Better a dream of love
Than love's dream broken
Better a look exchanged
Than love's word spoken
Enough for me that you walk past
A firefly flashing in the dark
J was in town again,this time for TOEFL and ofcourse Shetty joined us for lunch.The question was where to go.It's pretty difficult to pinpoint a decent place to dine(or lunch) in Trivandrum.We settled for Rangoli ,which never disappointed.We arrived at 1:30 ,hoping for the AC to cool us off..but the AC was not working and there just seemed one waiter who was also acting as the man taking orders.Maybe hes the cook too , J suggested.Very funny!!So we pushed off from there to Residency Tower for the 195/- buffet.Never had been to the place and must admit the food and the atmosphere was excellent.
On the way there, we jumped a traffic light and were told to park by a very angry policeman.No doubt ,if u were standing in the sun that long and had to deal with fools who kept jumping lights and pedestrians who kept crossing when they were not supposed to, you wouled be angry .A second policeman came up...
"Pattathu poyi oru petty adakkanam,ariyallo?"(You have to go to Pattom police atation and pay a petty fine.You know that ofcourse.).
Dear old Shetty(new to town) heard it as petty(in malayalam means box).He thought that the policeman was asking for a favour like to have his box dropped in Pattom(quite far from where we stood).Why the impudence of the rascal!!
"Athonnum pattathilla" fumes Shetty.(That can't be done).The policeman was taken aback at this, just as I was.A look of suspicion came to his eyes.Maybe we were some big shots?He asked our professions and ofcourse then things went easy.Shetty was in the Gov. service and that helped too.He let us off with a warning but we parted with smiles.
There is a ceremony of sorts going on in Mr Gorgeous's aka Nobody's place.It all originated from a not too kind coment on why we blog and why people read us.My reason for blogging was mainly to give vent to my frustrations and to improve my writing skills(what little is left)..The trip to Munnar has certainly soothed my nerves though I don't expect the effects to last long.One of the reasons maybe that I'm hard put to blog these days..But of course there are my regular blogs to read and that itself takes around an hour.. :)
Saw Dil Chahta Hai again( fifth time?) and man, its a superb movie ,a real work of art!!
On the way there, we jumped a traffic light and were told to park by a very angry policeman.No doubt ,if u were standing in the sun that long and had to deal with fools who kept jumping lights and pedestrians who kept crossing when they were not supposed to, you wouled be angry .A second policeman came up...
"Pattathu poyi oru petty adakkanam,ariyallo?"(You have to go to Pattom police atation and pay a petty fine.You know that ofcourse.).
Dear old Shetty(new to town) heard it as petty(in malayalam means box).He thought that the policeman was asking for a favour like to have his box dropped in Pattom(quite far from where we stood).Why the impudence of the rascal!!
"Athonnum pattathilla" fumes Shetty.(That can't be done).The policeman was taken aback at this, just as I was.A look of suspicion came to his eyes.Maybe we were some big shots?He asked our professions and ofcourse then things went easy.Shetty was in the Gov. service and that helped too.He let us off with a warning but we parted with smiles.
There is a ceremony of sorts going on in Mr Gorgeous's aka Nobody's place.It all originated from a not too kind coment on why we blog and why people read us.My reason for blogging was mainly to give vent to my frustrations and to improve my writing skills(what little is left)..The trip to Munnar has certainly soothed my nerves though I don't expect the effects to last long.One of the reasons maybe that I'm hard put to blog these days..But of course there are my regular blogs to read and that itself takes around an hour.. :)
Saw Dil Chahta Hai again( fifth time?) and man, its a superb movie ,a real work of art!!
The First Time Part 2
The morning was crisp and cold with the freshness of mountains in the air.Walking along the road with little or no traffic and only the sounds of nature was a rare privilege.The sound of my shoes on the ground seemed almost blasphemous.
BSNL has network coverage in Munnar,the only cell phone company to do so.But on hindsight,I'm glad I left it behind.With the exception of a small Sansui TV in the I.B ,I'm cut off from the "civilized world".
I met the D.F.O in the morning .I owed her a visit anyway.Without her helping hand,I wouldn't be here.I told her how much I was enjoying myself and the stay.I told her about the location of the I.B and how it fitted my plans to a T.She recommended me going to Marayoor , famous for its sandalwood forest.
The drive to Marayoor is inarguably the most beautiful drives in the world.Forests,tea plantations,majestic mountains,waterfalls,the smell of tea,by God it's divine.There are buses and jeeps plying regularly .I took the jeep for the view and for that sense of adventure (not much though) you get while travelling with total strangers.I was wedged in between the driver and the gear of the jeep.There were 4 persons in the front seat excluding the driver.The driver sits with half his ass hanging out in the mountain air but mercifully with both his legs inside.The person sitting next to him(poor me) will have one leg between the driver and the gear.But incidentally it wasn't that uncomfortable.But for the weakhearted pleasure loving folk, I suggest a private vehicle ;)
The people in the forest office were very accomodating and they sent a forest guard with me for trekking.Saw this prehistoric painting on top of a rock shaped like a serpent's head.Below those faint paintings was written in bold blue "priya I love you" and many such declarations from our cultured love sick countrymen.Then there was an unexplored cave...very spooky, dark and unbearably hot..
It was good fast trekking and I was exhausted when we finally reached the top.The view was great and the breeze was cool and steady.There were sandalwood trees all around and many more cut by poachers.It's incredible what man will do for money. Madhu,my guide, was an affable chap .He spoke of his hardships while we went to his village and had tea in his shop.There is a children's park which has a huge banyan tree standing majestically in the middle.But the park is in disuse and the place looks shabby and abandoned.
Back in Munnar , had a very interesting conversation with a forest guard who lamented the changing climate and the increase in pollution.There were "illegeal couples" in the inner posh resorts,he deplored.The people here are very friendly and theres the city antagonism missing here in relationships.
The night air is cool and calm.The sky is lit up with stars and one can make out all the constellations with absolute ease.There are no visitors here in the I.B except me and it's unbelievably quiet and peaceful.Just the sounds of the night and the cook preparing dinner in the kitchen.
-Sanitised,harmless excerpts from The Devil's Diary.
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