Have you ever visited a place or seen someone for the first time and had a very familiar feeling about the same? Or maybe you're deep in conversation with a friend and you suddenly get the feeling that you've had the exact conversation before, even though you know that you haven't. If you've ever found yourself in either of these situations, you've experienced déjà vu. Sixty to 70 percent of us admit to getting this feeling at least once in our lives. The sight, sound, taste or even smell of something makes us think that we've experienced it before, although we know that we couldn't have.
Wonder what could cause it? Well there are plenty of theories to explain it, it is upto to you to choose which one to believe.
Visit here for more information: http://science.howstuffworks.com/deja-vu.htm
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Know your Santa Claus better
Santa claus who is also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle lives in a village near the Arctic Circle called Rovaniemi in Finland. The legend may have its basis in various tales concerning the historical figure of Saint Claus but the modern Santa is believed to be a fat jolly man wearing a red overcoat and carrying a bag full of presents for the kinds.
A legend associated with Santa says that he lives in the far north, in a land full of snow. The American version of Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, while Father Christmas is said to reside in Finland. Also it says he is married and lives with Mrs. Claus, that he makes a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior and delivers presents, including toys, candy, and other presents to all of the good boys and girls in the world, and sometimes coal or sticks to the naughty children, in one night. He also accomplishes this feat with the aid of magical elves who make the toys, and nine flying reindeer who pull his sleigh.
Wondered where did "Jingle all the way" come from? :D
A legend associated with Santa says that he lives in the far north, in a land full of snow. The American version of Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, while Father Christmas is said to reside in Finland. Also it says he is married and lives with Mrs. Claus, that he makes a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior and delivers presents, including toys, candy, and other presents to all of the good boys and girls in the world, and sometimes coal or sticks to the naughty children, in one night. He also accomplishes this feat with the aid of magical elves who make the toys, and nine flying reindeer who pull his sleigh.
Wondered where did "Jingle all the way" come from? :D
Monday, November 5, 2007
USB Stick as a Car Key
Automakers are all set to embrace the universal serial bus(USB) technology for in-car entertainment and control.During the recent auto show in frankfurt,germany,Mazda Motor unveiled its two - door 'SASSOU' car that , instead of a key ,uses a USB memory stick to lock as well as unlock the car and start up the motor ,as well as inform the on-board hard disk about your preferred and latest music tunes
Monday, October 29, 2007
20 Things the Average Person Doesn’t Know About Windows XP
1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).
2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).
3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can make it show everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be the software and you can now uninstall it.
5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options.
6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry.
7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.
8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can change things back by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.
9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.
10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your friend’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to http://www.whatismyip.com/ — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.
11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.
12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might go insane before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.
14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.
15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.
16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.
17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.
18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.
19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.
20. Windows XP secretly KNOWS that the average user has no idea what they are doing. Therefore, it doesn’t let you do really stupid things like deleting the windows directory (at least not without spending several hours convincing it that you REALLY want to do this). Oh yeah, and internet explorer kinda sucks, get Firefox.
2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).
3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can make it show everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be the software and you can now uninstall it.
5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options.
6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry.
7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.
8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can change things back by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.
9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.
10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your friend’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to http://www.whatismyip.com/ — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.
11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.
12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might go insane before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.
14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.
15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.
16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.
17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.
18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.
19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.
20. Windows XP secretly KNOWS that the average user has no idea what they are doing. Therefore, it doesn’t let you do really stupid things like deleting the windows directory (at least not without spending several hours convincing it that you REALLY want to do this). Oh yeah, and internet explorer kinda sucks, get Firefox.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Cell Phones No Cancer Risk - Study Says!!
A new Australian study refutes claims of health danger from cell phones and coffee.Drinking coffee, using mobile phones or having breast implants is unlikely to cause cancer, according to a risk ranking system devised by an Australian cancer specialist to debunk popular myths.
The cancer risk assessment reaffirms smoking, alcohol and exposure to sunlight as leading risk factors, but allays concerns about coffee, mobile phones, deodorants, breast implants and water with added fluoride.
The five-point system created by University of New South Wales Professor Bernard Stewart lists the risk of cancer from proven and likely, to inferred, unknown or unlikely.
"Our tool will help establish if the level of risk is high, say on a par with smoking, or unlikely such as using deodorants, artificial sweeteners, drinking coffee," Stewart said.
He found active smokers and ex-smokers to be the most at risk, although the risk is reduced for people who quit smoking.
Drinking alcohol was also a high risk factor, particularly for people who also smoke, although Stewart said no specific type of alcoholic drink was most strongly to blame.Drinking chlorinated water and using a mobile phone was far less likely to cause cancer, Stewart said, although the risks associated with the long-term use of mobile phones had not been fully established.He said there little risk from drinking coffee, using deodorants, drinking fluoridated water and having breast implants or dental fillings.
The cancer risk assessment reaffirms smoking, alcohol and exposure to sunlight as leading risk factors, but allays concerns about coffee, mobile phones, deodorants, breast implants and water with added fluoride.
The five-point system created by University of New South Wales Professor Bernard Stewart lists the risk of cancer from proven and likely, to inferred, unknown or unlikely.
"Our tool will help establish if the level of risk is high, say on a par with smoking, or unlikely such as using deodorants, artificial sweeteners, drinking coffee," Stewart said.
He found active smokers and ex-smokers to be the most at risk, although the risk is reduced for people who quit smoking.
Drinking alcohol was also a high risk factor, particularly for people who also smoke, although Stewart said no specific type of alcoholic drink was most strongly to blame.Drinking chlorinated water and using a mobile phone was far less likely to cause cancer, Stewart said, although the risks associated with the long-term use of mobile phones had not been fully established.He said there little risk from drinking coffee, using deodorants, drinking fluoridated water and having breast implants or dental fillings.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
KNOL - Google's answer to WIKIPEDIA
Last night on the official Google blog, Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, announced that Google is testing a publishing platform called Knol.
It's being compared to Wikipedia and Mahalo. While it's a somewhat different take on knowledge collection, these comparisons are apt.
From what we know so far, Knol is a wiki-like platform. Authors can create topics, and there are tools to interlink articles and content, but as Manber says, an article, or "knol," is "just a Web page." Where it differs from a wiki is its focus on the author. All knols will highlight who wrote them.
Knol should make it easy to create nicely formatted reference pages.That small difference becomes dramatic when you put Knol alongside Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a collaborative system. There is no author listed on a wiki page because a page may have many authors (if you want to, you can divine who said what on the history pages).
Since Knol pages will be authored, users won't, presumably, be able to dive in and edit another page. They'll be able to submit edits to the author for approval, though. So much for open collaboration. But as a platform for authors who might want to make some money from their work, it's a better bet (Knol will allow authors to monetize their pages as they see fit).
Purists may think that since Google is in the business of monetizing content via advertising, it should not compete with other publishing platforms. However, this is not the first time that Google has gotten into this business.
Blogger, of course, is Google's biggest success in text-publishing platforms. But Google also experimented with its own database, Google Base, in which it not only indexes the information but also stores it. And then there's YouTube.
I would compare Knol to Blogger, and eventually, I think it will have Digg-like elements. Knol is like Blogger because it's a personal publishing platform. It's all about giving authors a platform for writing. It's just a like a blog, but much more structured. If you like a Knoller, you'll likely want to read more written by that person, or even subscribe to his work.
It could become Digg-like, in that multiple Knol pages on the same topic will compete with each other. And while the Manber's post hinted that the arbiter of Knol quality will be Google search rankings, I cannot imagine that there won't, at some point, be both a social network of Knol users and a main page that ranks the most popular Knol pages by votes, page views, discussion flow, or other group metrics.
At this point, based only on the official blog post, Knol looks like a solid end-user publishing platform. I strongly doubt that it will put much of a hurt on Wikipedia, since its author focus makes it much the antithesis of the open, community-driven wiki model. Knol looks more like a Google version of About.com, Mahalo, or Squidoo.
No word on when--or if--Knol will be released to the public.
It's being compared to Wikipedia and Mahalo. While it's a somewhat different take on knowledge collection, these comparisons are apt.
From what we know so far, Knol is a wiki-like platform. Authors can create topics, and there are tools to interlink articles and content, but as Manber says, an article, or "knol," is "just a Web page." Where it differs from a wiki is its focus on the author. All knols will highlight who wrote them.
Knol should make it easy to create nicely formatted reference pages.That small difference becomes dramatic when you put Knol alongside Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a collaborative system. There is no author listed on a wiki page because a page may have many authors (if you want to, you can divine who said what on the history pages).
Since Knol pages will be authored, users won't, presumably, be able to dive in and edit another page. They'll be able to submit edits to the author for approval, though. So much for open collaboration. But as a platform for authors who might want to make some money from their work, it's a better bet (Knol will allow authors to monetize their pages as they see fit).
Purists may think that since Google is in the business of monetizing content via advertising, it should not compete with other publishing platforms. However, this is not the first time that Google has gotten into this business.
Blogger, of course, is Google's biggest success in text-publishing platforms. But Google also experimented with its own database, Google Base, in which it not only indexes the information but also stores it. And then there's YouTube.
I would compare Knol to Blogger, and eventually, I think it will have Digg-like elements. Knol is like Blogger because it's a personal publishing platform. It's all about giving authors a platform for writing. It's just a like a blog, but much more structured. If you like a Knoller, you'll likely want to read more written by that person, or even subscribe to his work.
It could become Digg-like, in that multiple Knol pages on the same topic will compete with each other. And while the Manber's post hinted that the arbiter of Knol quality will be Google search rankings, I cannot imagine that there won't, at some point, be both a social network of Knol users and a main page that ranks the most popular Knol pages by votes, page views, discussion flow, or other group metrics.
At this point, based only on the official blog post, Knol looks like a solid end-user publishing platform. I strongly doubt that it will put much of a hurt on Wikipedia, since its author focus makes it much the antithesis of the open, community-driven wiki model. Knol looks more like a Google version of About.com, Mahalo, or Squidoo.
No word on when--or if--Knol will be released to the public.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
BIOS Password Hack
A lotta of you guys out there will already be knowing how to reset a BIOS password if activated in a computer. But what I am about to teach you here is a new way to do it which very few people know. For those who don't know what BIOS is, here it is in short:
BIOS - Basic Input Output System whose settings are stored in your motherboard. The most general stuff you can find there is the system time, date, boot options etc. If you want to have more idea about BIOS goto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
Basically if a BIOS password is enabled one cannot do anything with the computer if the password is not known. There are a number of ways one can reset it.
1. If you open the cabinet of your PC you will find a small cmos battery which stores all the data even if the computer is turned off. (This is how your system time, date does not reset each time you restart your computer) If you take the battery out for about fifteen minutes and place it back in, all the setting stored previously will be reset. So most probably your BIOS password will reset. This works for most the AWARD BIOS.
2. The BIOS generally has a some preset passwords. Some of the most common BIOS passwords are:
lkwpeter
j262
AWARD_SW
AWARD_PW
Biostar
AMI
Award
P.S For more default BIOS passwords from any manufacturer, just leave a comment and the name of the manufacturer. I will get back to you in a couple of days' time.
3. This is one of the best ways to reset the BIOS, but the only flaw in this is that you should be able to access the DOS prompt. If you are able to, then type the following there:
DEBUG (hit enter)
-o 70 2e (hit enter)
-o 71 ff (hit enter)
-q (hit enter)
exit (hit enter)
Restart the computer.
BIOS - Basic Input Output System whose settings are stored in your motherboard. The most general stuff you can find there is the system time, date, boot options etc. If you want to have more idea about BIOS goto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
Basically if a BIOS password is enabled one cannot do anything with the computer if the password is not known. There are a number of ways one can reset it.
1. If you open the cabinet of your PC you will find a small cmos battery which stores all the data even if the computer is turned off. (This is how your system time, date does not reset each time you restart your computer) If you take the battery out for about fifteen minutes and place it back in, all the setting stored previously will be reset. So most probably your BIOS password will reset. This works for most the AWARD BIOS.
2. The BIOS generally has a some preset passwords. Some of the most common BIOS passwords are:
lkwpeter
j262
AWARD_SW
AWARD_PW
Biostar
AMI
Award
P.S For more default BIOS passwords from any manufacturer, just leave a comment and the name of the manufacturer. I will get back to you in a couple of days' time.
3. This is one of the best ways to reset the BIOS, but the only flaw in this is that you should be able to access the DOS prompt. If you are able to, then type the following there:
DEBUG (hit enter)
-o 70 2e (hit enter)
-o 71 ff (hit enter)
-q (hit enter)
exit (hit enter)
Restart the computer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)