Gmail Has a New Look!

I bought Tata Photon+ on 13th Jan 2011. The validity expired on 13th Feb 2011 and I was forced to use the BIT Mesra Intranet! Hell it was pain full. Imagine how would you feel if you are robbed off your Ferrari and you have to travel on a Bullock-cart for 4 days!! That is how it felt. Luckily I got my Photon+ recharged and began surfing the net.

When I opened Gmail in the non-basic HTML mode I noticed a few changes. It might have been implemented by the Gmail team earlier, still I felt the need to share this. I used 'Print Screen' option to take a few snapshots of the same.

You can see the following changes (the ones marked in red ellipses):

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Windows vs Linux - The Auotmated System Restore feature.

About a week ago, I installed VMware on my Windows7. I did this to run Windows7 and Linux simultaneously as required in the NetTech Course-curriculum. However, when I installed VMware a Dangerous virus program disguising itself as an Anti-Virus program got installed. I had the VMware Setup in a pen-drive which was circulated among 3-4 colleagues before I used to setup on my system. Hence I am not sure where the virus came from!

It changed my Desktop Image; blocked all my programs and flashed a message - 'Your system has been attacked by viruses and trojans, please upgrade the anti-virus software'. I was surprised because I never installed an anti-virus since I first installed Windows7. The anti-virus program had blocked all other programs. I couldn't run any program and the anti-virus software took me to a webpage asking for my VISA-card credentials to get rid of the viruses found by the self proclaimed anti-virus program.

Since I was not able to run any program - I couldn't use task manager nor msconfig. So I restarted the system in Safe Mode. As expected the Virus (or the anti-virus software) didn't attack me this time. I used msconfig to check out all non-Microsoft services but when I restarted the system again, I found that the problem persisted! It was then that the System Restore feature in the Advanced Boot Options of Windows came to my rescue. I simply went back to a previous stage.

I clicked the following  pics of the whole process (which was very painless and user-friendly):

I was glad to see the message after the process was completed which read - "System restore completed successfully. The system has been restored to 08-02-2011. Your documents have not been affected." I was glad to see this message, since I had moved a lot of files after installing VMware.

As for the anti-virus program and its cousin viruses, trojan and spyware - they were all gone! Now, I was able to run all the programs; and all this happened without any authentic ANTI-VIRUS program. I was reminded of the times when I used to format my system every now and then for such petty issues.

I installed licensed Windows7(from my MSDN Visual Studio Premium Subscription) on my new Laptop in June 2009. Since then I have never installed an anti-virus program nor have I formatted my system. I use multi-boot with the following Operating Systems:

• Windows7 Ultimate Edition
• Windows7 Ultimate N Edition
• Windows Web Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008

For sometime I also had Linux Distros - Ubuntu, Granular, and Fedora. making it a total of 7 Operating Systems.

You know what's ironical? People still say -

• Windows in not secure!
• There's no recovery tool and system rollback for Windows!

Launch of Microsoft Software and Technology Club India Website.

Microsoft Software and Technology Club (MSTC) India's website was launched in second week of  January, 2011. Since then many changes have been made based on the feedback we have received. We have also included Practice tests to aid anyone and everyone who wants to hone their computer science skills and/or prepare for GRE/GATE/Campus Placements.



MSTC India has been established to create technological awareness in the society and specially among students. We believe that training on technologies is a necessity for overall development of society. As the Founder & Chairman, my job is to make sure that training on Microsoft Technologies are available to the general public free of cost! 
 

MSTC India has affiliations with: 

1. International .NET Association (INETA) 
2. Global IT Community Association (GITCA) 
3. Microsoft User Group Support Services (UGSS)
4. Student Tech Clubs

We will soon be adding many more functionality. Please let us know if you need something else. As for the Events - we are soon gonna rock you very soon with our unconventional and non-traditional approach as we always do!

You can follow the updates on:
MSTC India Website
MSTC Facebook Page
MSTC Facebook Group
MSTC on Twitter.

My Interview with MicrosoftFeed.

Being a Microsoft Student Partner has contributed a lot in making me what I am today. It has refined many aspects of my life and my personality. It gave me many things, and even took away my most Loved Possession :(.  It has taught me - Time Management, HR Management, Resource Management but the best thing it has taught me is Life Management :)

I have received some appreciation and criticism. Appreciation has kept me motivated while criticism led to introspection. Recently I was contacted by Mr Ali Raza Sheikh, a Microsoft Valuable Professional from Pakistan. He's the Founder of MicrosoftFeed in the Middle East. His team conducts interviews of MSPs and MVPs all around the world. To my knowledge, till date, approximately 40 MSPs have been interviewed by MicrosoftFeed and only 4 Indian MSPs (out of 600+).

To be honest I was happy when I came to know that he had selected me as well. I went on to read interviews by other MSPs and realized that there was something missing; they all were talking about networking and passion about technology. I believed being an MSP was much more than that, and that should reflect in my Interview.


I was happier when Ali sent me a facebook message - "Your interview has been one of the best we had! Thanks for that!"

Windows vs Linux - Almost everything you do in linux you can do equally efficiently in Windows.

With all due respect to  Linux, Linux Distros, Google, Open Source Communities, Open Source Lovers and Developers, Linux User Groups and NetTech team, I would like to say that Windows indeed is a wonderful Operating System and when it comes to GUI and approach to user comfort its much better than Linux, as it makes almost everything a cake walk for an average user.

I have heard people talking about Linux and compare it with Windows. I regularly hear these statements:

1. Its Command Prompt that makes Linux special. 
2. If you can work with linux you can work with any OS.
3. Linux is smart since its case sensitive when it comes to commands and directory/file names.
4. One can do 'this' with/in Linux but not with/in Windows.
5. Windows is for dumb users
6. Windows is Dumb!
7. etc etc

Well, let me ask you a few questions:

1. In this era of advanced User Interface Design do you really want to work all time with command prompt? I agree its fancy sometimes, but all times?
2. This is the time of surface technology, LCDs and touch-screens you still want to sit and type commands instead of using the advanced GUI features?
3. Do you really know Windows well - when you put up claims that 'This can't be done in/with Windows'?
4. Do you not understand that Windows and Linux are simply two different ideologies?
5. If everything is same on Linux and Windows would you not complain that Windows has copied from Linux?
6. Does an average user care about how exactly the command works? Just like these days we use IDEs (Integrated Development Environment) instead of the command line compilers and debuggers, what's wrong in using a full featured GUI provided by Windows?
7. Would you say that people should begin everything from scratch - lets say for example websites instead of using templates and/or tools like Wordpress?

I have observed that people who make these statements are (most often):

• People who do not have much idea about windows. 
• People who do not like to pay for software and/or Operating System.
• People who just want to promote Linux(for their own benefit) and the best way to do that it so criticize windows.
• People who feel more comfortable with command prompt and traditional computing facilities and are either afraid or reluctant to explore the new world.

So my dear friends let me make it very clear that Almost everything you do in linux you can do equally efficiently in Windows!

I've decided to post a series of blog-posts on the same. Stay tuned and you'll see for yourself how things can be done, how windows have made everything look so simple and how beautiful windows really is!