R.I.P. July 2007 - March 2011.

I still remember the first day when I set my eyes on you. 25^th July 2007, a Friday hot summer afternoon. I was transfixed by the sight, you were there, right there in front of me, sitting idly in an inanimate form so innocent, so… flattering! The way you lay in repose, I was sure it had to be you. The curves and yet, the symmetry. Love at first sight, this is what they say, I felt connected.

I bought you home and my family liked you, no, loved you. The way you just so seamlessly connected to mother, and merrily danced around on the stage set specially for you, you were just a magnifica opera d'arte. I remember how mother was a little apprehensive while handling you, lest you may run around and hide away in some corner and not be seen. I wonder was she so careful with me too when I was just born, same apprehension, same protectiveness, same concern that I might get hurt? But then, it was her first time meeting you.

We had a great time together, you virtually became my right hand. An extension to my right hand rather, like a sword. Thinking of sword reminds me of how many frags that we made, countless heads, how many civilizations planned, built and demolished, not to forget the medieval times that we were together conniving and dispensing history. I proposed and plotted, while you assisted in its execution. Some said you’re too heavy, some said you’re not enough, for me you were just perfect.

I believed that our relation was meant to last long, really long. I never saw it coming, the futility of wishful thinking. Nothing’s built to last, nor you, neither me. And yet, its really remarkable what resilience you showed until there was someone who could fill in some part of the void while you would be away. Alas, the shoes were too big to fit in for just a replacement, but you were lost, to me, forever. I am at loss that I cannot repair. Did I greive for you? No, just that I missed you every single time the other one missed something that you never failed to achieve. Post mortem reveals that you succumbed to some malfunction in your sensory parts, how I now wish I had just cremated you in the dead of the night rather than to open you up and look for signs of resurrection. Hope! I was blinded, so naive. 

You made me realize that a master once chosen in seldom defied until death. The way you upheld your loyalty to me, and played tricks with others who tried to treat you like just anything, I feel all the more proud, and this makes me more nostalgic. I specially liked your tail, how it curved into any little room it got for itself. The only solace that I can get is that you breathed your last in my very palms. 

We had a beautiful time together my friend, my aide. I wish you all the peace. Dearest Logitech, R.I.P.!

P.S.: Now I think you can think of why the cats are happy?

USB Write Protecting your Windows PC

OK, this is a very common blog post and you might probably find dozens of related posts, but going along with the promise that I shall share what I shall learn, I am going to tell about a method which shall allow you to exercise control over the writing permissions to a USB device. This method applies to computers above windows XP.

Well, I am in a new place and here, they gave me a computer to work on. Fortunately, they had to give me an admin account, because my work demanded the use of some software with hardware keys. But I found that I could not take my workspace home, because writing into a USB storage device had been forbidden. So I fished the internet and found this method to get rid of this constant bugging. Here is how I did it.

*Note: Don’t forget to export your registry settings before attempting any tweaks in the registry. The author takes no responsibility of any lost data or crashed registry. (Though nothing has happened to his PC till now.)

Step 1:

Go into the registry editor. I go into it using run command window. Run>regedit

Step 2:

In the registry editor navigate as per the following sequence:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control

Step 3:

Right click on Control, and make a new key by the name StorageDevicePolicies

Step 4:

Now add a DWORD value to it by right clicking on the right side frame, and name that DWORD value as WriteProtect

Step 5:

Right Click on this newly created string and click modify. The default value is 0, set it to 1 if you need to enable write protection. 

Step 6:

Reboot and check if it is working properly.

End

Un-name a folder in Windows based systems

A friend of mine, who knew much of the computer, sort of geek, once told me about a glitch in Windows systems.

We cannot name a folder as 'con' directly. Why?

It is because just like any other software, windows was also made using some language and Windows has its own reserved keywords. 'Con' happens to be one of them. It is a keyword for Console and hence naming a folder as con is forbidden in the windows based systems.

But there is always a way around, and in most of the cases, many!

Some of them that I have come to know through internet scavenging are :

Use DOS Prompt:

md \\.\c:\con

the problem is that this folder cannot be manipulated from the GUI. Try deleting it from the GUI using Shift+Del. Nothing will happen.

rd\\.\c:\con

Use Alt+255:

 Click on the folder

alt+255 con

 Now it can be accessed and deleted like a normal folder.

Use Alt+0160:

alt+0160 con

 This can also be used to remove the name for any folder. Just press Alt+0160 and delete the name of the folder. 

It becomes a Folder without any name.
But remember to use the numpad for this purpose. The traditional number keys won't work.

*I acknowledge the internet for this information. I have myself tried this trick and it did not cause any problem to me or my computer. If something happens to your Computer, then probably you did not love it enough.

Custom Folder background in XP..

This method will allow you to put a custom background to your folders.


The trick is to make your folder a system folder and then you are done with it.

Just fire open the notepad and copy paste the following code into it.



[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll
IconIndex=141
[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
IconArea_Image-=
iconArea_image=<"The name and location of the wallpaper">



save the file as "desktop.ini" in the folder that you want the wallpaper in.

Refresh and voila.....you are done.





The image will be tiled and you may not like it......

so just choose the image that matches the current resolution of your screen.



This is what I did.. to my counter strike folder.
Image resolution was 1024 x 768 and my resolution was 1280 x 1024
So I increased the image size using photoshop(you may use paint) to the next permitted level and this was it.