Blogging In A Round World !

Firstly, thanks to all my blog visitors for being umm.. regular visitors ! With the last post my blog completed 1000 hits. Looks like people from far and beyond have been reading my blog too :D My statistics counter reveals that this blog is visited by people from India, US, UK, Germany, Singapore, UAE, Mauritius, Egypt, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Japan, Senegal, Romania, Canada, Malaysia, Qatar, Netherlands and some others which the tracker couldn't track.

Speaking of hits, don't we all like more and more hits on our blogs everyday ? But then how many of us actually manage to get hits without pestering our friends to go and click on our blog links (GA and PDV - are you listening ? :P) ? But let that not bring a wrinkle on your forehead. Venture out into the Google territory and there are enormous number of sites and blogs which give you "tips" on increasing your blog traffic (yeah.. they tell you to go and pester your friends too :P). Now you might find this weird but blogs which tell you how to increase your blog's site traffic get some pretty good traffic themselves !! So here's what I'm gonna do.. like a true consultant, I shall give you wonderful topics to blog about. These topics are sure to get you increased traffic on your blog.

(The topics come with my extended never-return-to-my-blog-if-not-satisfied-guarantee !)

1. How to increase hits on your blog ! (Tried and tested... never fails)
   
   
2. I love Windows Vista ! (Write on this topic and I assure you threatening comments from the indignants)
   
   
3. MBA, placements, money (You get 2 lac CAT aspirants from India buzzing to your site)
   
   
4. How to lose X kgs in Y days (The number of hits is directly proportional to the X:Y ratio. The larger the X and smaller the Y, the more is your blog traffic)
   
   
5. Osama Bin Laden (ONE hit assured.. guess where from ? ;))
   
   
6. Shakira, Sakira, Sakhira, Sakir, Sharikha - just try ANY one of them. With people desperately googling for any info on her and making little typos in the process, you'll be better off tagging ALL those keywords.
   
   
7. Give out freebies on your blog - free software, wallpaper, iconset.. anything ! (Here's the analogy - FREE:Humans::Honey:Bees)
   
   
8. Aishwarya Rai (Who cares if you get traffic or not - just drop me a line with your blog link and consider one hit added)
   

Satisfaction guaranteed with the above topics. Do leave a comment if you blog on any of those topics. Unfortunately I can't reserve copyrights to the above topics, but I'd nevertheless expect a thank you phrase in your blog, a link-back and a courtesy mail should any of them work for you :P

Till next time..

Cheers..

SPJIMR DOCC Project @ SOS, Bhopal

The DOCC (Development of Corporate Citizenship) projects @ S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai (SPJIMR) is an attempt to bring future managers closer to the social sector. During the six week tenure of this project, SPJIMR participants work with NGOs across the length and breadth of the country. This year's participants have been to places like Ladakh, Andaman & Nicobar, Shimla, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. Since the theme was "rural and slum based projects", most of the participants are working in villages and communities adjoining these cities.

This series of projects, started in 2001, has had multi-pronged advantages : sensitizing MBA students to the needs of the social sector and providing inputs to the NGOs for funding, branding, program enhancement and assessment. This also offers an avenue for the participants to put their learnings to fruitful and practical use.

As far as I'm concerned, my project is titled "Family Strengthening Program" which is a run by the SOS Children's Villages of India, Bhopal. Currently, me and good friend, Diksha Mangla, are working on this project along with 2 SOS co-workers. I've put some of the pictures above from the field visits to the villages that we've made so far.

Will keep you posted more on this ;)

Cheers...

Vista Boot Repair for Dummies ;)

"The afternoon sun poured brightly into the office of the manager of Guiderstern's Stores, Madison Avenue, New York, but there was no corresponding sunshine in the heart of Homer Pyle, the eminent corporation lawyer, as he sat there."

An excerpt from Wodehouse's master-stroke "Girl in The Blue". But why I quote it here is because, all you need to do is substitute me for "Homer Pyle" and my home in Bhopal for "Guilderstern's Stores, Madison Avenue, New York" and you've got the complete picture ! "Why?" you ask ? Well.. that's the most reasonable stance (of lacking corresponding sunshine in the heart) you can adopt when Windows Vista simply denies to boot on your laptop. Yes.. mysteriously, miraculously and to my great annoyance, without bothering to throw up a boot time error.

Well.. I eventually got it working, so I'll put this post in flashback and detail the steps for recovering your corrupted vista boot sector. While I was attempting to fix my own installation, I googled voraciously and found several bits of scattered information which I'll attempt to collate here.

To start with, my system configuration:

Toshiba Satellite Pro
Intel Dual Core (2.xx Mhz)
2GB DDR
Windows Vista Business Service Pack 1 (32 bit)

When your vista installation fails to boot and all you get is a flickering cursor on the upper left corner of your screen on switching on your laptop, you KNOW that it's a boot sector error. There are 2 broad options to fix this:

1. Use the recovery disk utility that comes with your laptop. Most manufacturers like Dell, Toshiba etc create a recovery partition on your HDD and provide you with a utility to create a recovery disk (CD/DVD) from that partition. Of course, they expect you to be far-sighted and keep such a disk handy in case of any such eventuality as a corrupt boot sector. My Toshiba laptop also came with such an option but the disadvantage of using the utility is that it needs to format your entire drive (at least your primary partition - C:) which'll cause you to lose all data.
   
   
2. Another option is the Windows Vista Recovery Disk that is an added feature of Vista SP1. This recovery environment lets you fix your startup errors (boot errors) after you boot in with your recovery disk.

Second option is the one that I attempted first and it worked for me. Here's how :

1. Those of you who have Vista SP1 installed, may follow the steps given in this article to create your recovery disk :
   
   http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070929/vista-sp1-recovery-disc/
   
   
2. In case you do not have SP1 installed or you cannot find the recovery disk creator for some reason, follow these steps:

• Download the image file for the recovery disk (120 MB) from this torrent (you'll need a torrent downloader like u-Torrent or BitTorrent(http://www.bittorrent.com), which I'm sure most people have these days ;) ) : http://neosmart.net:6969/torrent.html?info_hash=c7411cffb5b0c27b28d0ec080af55ea0016f7b7b
  
  
• Once you have the ISO file, you need to burn it onto a CD/DVD (I recommend a CD since it's only 120MB). I was stuck here for quite some time since several burning programs gave me improper results and the CD wouldn't boot my laptop. Please use Img Burn (http://www.imgburn.com) only. It's a small (around 3MB) freeware utility for burning ISO files and fits the bill perfectly.

Once the Recovery disk is ready, you need to boot using that disk. Instructions henceforth are specific for the Toshiba Satellite Pro Laptop and the Phoenix BIOS. Read through and judge if it can apply to your system model also:

1. Press F2 at boot time to enter "System Utilities" (BIOS setup)
   
   
2. Goto "Advanced" tab
   
   
3. Change the value of the "Execute-Disable bit" to "Not Available" (The default value is "Available"). This option apparently prevents the execution of malicious code at startup and in this case, even prevented my recovery disk from booting.
   
   
4. Save and exit using F10
   
   
5. Your system will restart. At the next boot screen, press F12 to select the boot device. Select the CD/DVD drive as your boot device.
   
   
6. The next screen will show you a message "Loading Windows Files" after which you get a slick (typical Microsoft style ;)) GUI. Among several options, "Startup Repair" is one. This should take a few minutes to run and at the end of which it'll ask you to reboot your system. I got my windows booting after just one run of the "Startup Repair" utility but in some cases you might require you to boot with your CD/DVD run the utility again.
   
   
7. Once you're convinced that your system is booting properly, do remember to change the status of the "Execute-Disable bit" back to "Available"
   

I'd strongly recommend that even those of you who are not facing this problem currently, keep a copy of the Windows Vista Recovery Disk and your manufacturer's Recovery Disk ready.

Till next time...

Cheers...

P.S : The title is dedicated to one of my friends who's constantly been pushing me to write a book titled "PPT for Dummies" ;)

Do leave a comment to let me and other visitors know if this worked (or didn't work) for you !

Microsoft, Yahoo and Google - The Mammoth Clash !

Much has been reported and discussed about Microsoft's attempts at gobbling up Yahoo! Inc in what could turn to be one of the biggest consolidations of software giants in recent times. There was a time when Oracle Corp. went on a shopping spree ending up with PeopleSoft, Siebel and other biggies in its cart only to come "closer" to the market leader in business software - SAP.Microsoft's motives are similar, but much bigger than we can fathom. I'll not mince my words in saying this - It's a desperate attempt on part of world's leading software company at slowing down the pace of the charging internet mammoth called Google.

The might of Google has not been hidden from Microsoft. With a share of 75% in search advertising, Google has tapped one of the most lucrative online businesses which big daddy (read:Microsoft) totally missed out on. Also, several attempts by Microsoft at improvising its own services (MSN, Live, Hotmail revamped etc.) have not really taken off and it continues to be only the 5th most popular destination on the World Wide Web. Google has also opened the doors to a completely new world of online software. Microsoft's might in desktop software stands challenged today with Google replicating the same features in online softwares such as Google Docs, Google Apps for Enterprises. The next step for Google is rumoured to be the launch of its very own Operating System. It's high penetration into an era of net savvy PC customers will give Google more than an edge in selling their OS (IF the rumours are to be believed!). What options does this leave then for Microsoft? For a company sitting on a pile of cash worth $6111 million, the easiest way out would seem to be to BUY its way to the top. That's probably the thought that struck MS when it made a bid for the ailing Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft can only aim at at being a "reasonable" competitor to Google after its tie-up with Yahoo.

In the war of the worldwide software giant and the search leviathan, we cannot underestimate what has been the most popular online destination for netizens worldwide - Yahoo! Inc. Yahoo's messenger, chat rooms, groups, avataars, games and much more - have been hosts to millions of users across the globe, transcending boundaries of culture and language. I remember typing "www.yahoo.com" into my browser's address bar the FIRST time I ever used the internet - and so do lacs of others. Yahoo has rarely let down its users by constantly improving its services, giving users what they wanted and doing it BEFORE anyone else did it. But while Yahoo managed to do this for several years, it has recently been accused to failing to keep pace with the advancements in technology. It's profits and share prices have taken a dip, and shareholders' confidence has been at a low.Businesses like Microsoft would term the situation as "Hit the Iron While It's Hot" but the move would undoubtedly invite the ire and anxiety of millions of users worldwide. Microsoft is not very popular among the net-surfers for its online services - Hotmail, MSN Live Messenger, MSN Communities etc., all of which invoke a solitary feeling from users -"Ancient"! Its inability to feel the pulse of the evolving netizen and its needs has pushed Microsoft on the back front in the arena of online services. Microsoft taking over Yahoo could have dual implications for the users. While Microsoft as an organization is known to be a highly innovative software developer and marketeer, it’s knack of bringing technology under the umbrella of proprietorship is also well known. Users might, therefore, end up with better services, should Microsoft manage a seamless integration with Yahoo (as-it-is) or a set of inferior services, led by proprietary technology (and hence little growth), should Microsoft try to have an iron grip on everything.

In the end - the internet has tremendous potential for growth which needs to be managed and captured not by ONE monolithic giant but by several technology leaders each of whom can specialize and innovate in their domains. Microsoft, without doubt, is the company that needs to be credited for making the PC a household name. It is the company that needs to be credited with making operating systems which enable “dummies” to use computers. But the internet is one place that will be better off without a giant such as Microsoft. And should Microsoft manage to successfully complete this deal, let it be known that the fate of the internet and the companies that drive it is determined NOT by the companies or the governments – it is determined by the users of the World Wide Web who have a mind of their own.

Till next time.. Cheers !

A tele-protagonists' dilemma !

Just when I was rid of my end term examinations and was strolling in Andheri with my friends to celebrate the joyous occasion, a huge billboard caught my eye - one of the tele-serial bahus, with the typical tele-serial look (expression, make-up, saree, bindi included) posing a tricky question to the audience of the hoarding - "Saas sasur ki salgirah ya mayke mein pooja - Aap meri jagah hote to kya karte?" (For those not conversant with Hindi - "My in-laws' anniversary party or pooja at parents' house ? What would you have attended if you were in my position?").

Now for those of you who are already rolling on the floor, laughing away to glory, I'd like to emphasize upon the criticality and urgency of this question. Do you people even realize that it was close to a life-and-death situation for this poor female? Lets explore some options...

You say that she could've easily divided her time between the two? HAH ! Fat chance! With all her poor luck (and ours too!), the very muhurat for both the events would match till the last millisecond washing out any multi-tasking plans she might have had.

You say that she could've attended the anniversary party and ditched her parents? Woah ! You inhuman soul! The very same parents who nurtured HER from childhood till adulthood and finally managed to get her married into a nice rich family (where the in-laws throw prompt anniversary parties :P) will now be deprived of her company on such an important occasion? To add to the trouble, the pooja is probably meant for the longer life of her ailing father/ mother/ brother/ sister/ bua/ tai/ tau/ mausa / mausi / kaka/ kaki/ ba/ ba's ba etc and is an absolute must-attend!

You say that she could've attended ghar ki pooja and ditched the party at in-laws' house? Now thats where you cross all lines! How will she ever come back her in-laws' place? Won't they burn her alive? Won't they torture her and ridicule her all her life for not joining in the celebration of their matrimonial union? Won't they get her divorced? Won't they disown her? The poor soul will then have nowhere to go (neither will YOU when you sit there watching episode after episode of tears trickling down the protagonist's eyes!)

I urge all readers of this blog to spare some time and give a serious thought to this poor female's dilemma. Help her out - by helping her out in solving this dilemma, you'll not only help her but also help a large section of the populace by saving them innumerable episodes of long winding discussions, unending tears, unceremonious slapping, shameless lying and bitter verbal retorts! Do tune in to future episodes of "Babul... blah blah.. aangan.. etc etc.." on one of the regular saas-bahu channels (Sony/ Star/ Zee) to know more and advise the protagonist.

Till next time.. Cheers !