turbopowerdmaxsteel

I wish this plugin was released an year ago. It would have saved loads of time for me. Looking back at the precious hours, that I spent consistently, for the past 10 months or so, to develop Pika Bot, (a Yahoo! Messenger Protocol session automater), I feel this SDK could have come handy. But, I had to give the project up after releasing v 1.1.0 due to career concerns. Hopefully, I'll be able to resume it once I am settled in NIIT. tansqrx, you can take a look at Pika Bot. Download it from http://lygo.com/ly/sitemissing.html.

 

You'll have to download & apply the fix too, after you finish installing, inorder to get rid of the annoying expiry message. Sorry 'bout that, I didn't have the time to release the next version.

Annoyed by the frequent power failures and voltage fluctuations, resulting in Bad Shutdowns, I made my own Download Manager in VB .NET. The download manager uses 4 simultaneous connections to download the file. The 4 parts are static and their range does not change throughout the operation. Before beginning the download, the size of the content is retrieved and a file of the same size, filled with the Hex value '00' is created. As the download begins, another file is created, which stores the current marker for each of the 4 connections, thus allowing the download process to be resumed. When resuming, the markers are shifted 10KB back each, to minimize the chances of data corruption due to power failures.

 

I have tried this process for files of around 10 MB size and tested by forcing bad shutdowns and it works (the file not getting corrupted). But, when I tried the same for a ~450 MB stuff, it got corrupted during download (which I only came to know, after the operation finished and tried running the file). I am sure it must have happened because of the power failures, which kept recurring. I even had Write Behind Caching disabled on the HDDs to make sure that the data was physically written. Inspite of all the safety measures, the file got corrupted. I want to resolve this problem for the future downloads, but I need to know what exactly happens during such an event (power failure, I mean). Here are some other details which might help :-

 

> File Opened in Binary Mode after the '00' filled file was created and closed thereby resolving the problem of having the size of the download file modified.

> Log File Maintained which contains all the locations of resume operations.

 

I would appreciate any suggestion in resolving the issue.

Thanx for all the time you took to explaining me all the facts. I was very positive about doing the NIIT course. But, from your experience I am going to wipe it off my mind. The prospect of going abroad, is something I can only dream about, (atleast for now). But still, I would like to know how much it would take, altogether for the journey. I would be more than happy to study there, but my dad's firm stance (mostly derived from the fact of financial insufficiency) that studying in India is the best and probably the only option, has left my hands tied.

Thanx for the advice, Chesso. Let me clarify things to you.

 

The biggest flaw is in our Education system. I am not sure about things in Australia, but here in India, one has to excel in Physics, Chemistry & Mathematics to be able to purusue a career in Engineering. The trend's kindaa like this - you pass your senior secondary, do a 1 year coaching for engineering and then try cracking at the various Joint Entrance Exams (I must mention, some extraordinary ones do that without coaching), following which you get subjects as per as your rank and are then able to become an Engineer in it. This doesn't sound anything like a flaw. But what startles me, is the fact that you choose your stream after competing successfully in the JEEs, before which you have no clear aim (well some do have options) and some like me, have just one way to go - Programming (as in my case).

 

The education system assumes that any student who's good in Physics, Chemistry & Mathematics can study any kind of engineering. Theres nothing wrong with this either. But, what about the other minorities, like in this case me and m^e (as he was actually some 10 year ago). We were born to program. Who knows the best ever programmer might be one of us. In the US, as I have come to know, special talents are cited and taken up by companies but in here they see everything that's deviated from the standards set up a long while ago by some upper class hypocrites, as not suitable.

 

Its this thing that's been bothering me for the past couple of years. Even though I knew going by the way I was, I wud have extreme difficulties in the future, I had a feeling that I would be taken up by some company for my talent, hence I kept on dedicating 12+ hours to programming.

 

I believe I have made something that very few with my academic qualifications would have been able to. But I just don't know how to launch myself through it or if it is actually possible.

 

BTW, I am 19 and have had a PC for 4 years now. I managed to learn quite a bit of VB from the MSDN library and lately from my 1 year old Internet Connection, besides the Basic and C++ as part of the school curriculum.

Well.. Airtel seems to have different plans for different areas. Regarding the 400 MB Download limit, well it sure sucks. Even the slowest Internet connection in the world(Which I presume mine is) would be able to download that much in a week and 1.5 Rs per MB is just plain looting. The GPRS at my place doesn't have any restrictions when it comes to time usage. The major problem for the past 4 months was a seemingly dead connection during the peak hours (7 AM to 11 PM), which would take like 15 refreshes to open a page, except for Google's services off course. But Airtel seems to have sorted that out and has finally resumed its services during the peak hours to where it was-last year. 5KBps seemed like a dream offlate, but now its again become a reality. Good Job Airtel!!!

My Computerphobia has left my career in complete disarray. Despite warnings from m^e and the others, I kept on splending huge amounts of time on the PC. I could never justify a smoker's addiction. But now, its more credible to me since I have accepted it too, that I have become addicted to computer.

 

The engineering prospect is a distant proposition now. Although, I can say that I didn't waste my time for nothing. I have learned a lot about Programming. I have managed to publish my 8 months' work - Pika Bot and I can proudly say its one heck of an application. With 26709 lines of code that went into the program, it would surely show my calibre. But, its all so worthless now. My career's even more jeopardised than yours was, m^e . I didn't study anything of Physics or Chemistry in the last year which has left me with not much career options.

 

I wonder if I'll even be able to pursue Computer Science. They say to take every failure with a 'Its not the end of the world' statement. But, I can't seem to snap out of it by thinking that. Is this the dead-end? Can I ever get on the right track? These are the questions eluding me for the past days.

 

But still, I can't stop trying. I need an advice from you m^e. How good would a BSc IT + GNIIT Software Engineering dual degree certification program be for my career. Also is a BCA from BIT Mesra better than this. Please advice me on this or if there's anything else I shud do.

 

I got 80% in Class X from St. Francis School, B. Deoghar which is afflilated to ICSE and 61% in Class XII from Dev Sangh National School (CBSE), Deoghar where my PCM perecentage is below 50%.

I have an application named Pika Bot. I was wondering how to exit the application by running another instance of the application with a command line argument "Quit". This would come handy when uninstalling the Application. I tried using getmessage & sendmessage API functions to do this, but due to lack of time and knowledge of "Windows Messaging", I failed. Could you peeps please give me a fairly detailed method of doing this?

I wonder why no one mentioned Yahoo!. Maybe 'cause its less popular. Lemme do the calculations.90% --> MSN5% ---> AIM4% ---> GTalk1% ---> Rest0.??% ---> Yahoo!That below unity percent is a huge community, from what I have seen in the past year or so. In that respect, I can't comprehend how many accounts MSN has. Or is it that 90% of the people have MSN while quite a few of them utilize multiple Messengers?

There are a few points which I hope you'll clarify for me - are you certain that your actual connection speed is 115kbps or are you going by what the windows DUN connection tooltip shows you when you hover the mouse over it. By default, it's usually the port speed that's displayed - the speed at which data is transferred between your modem (in this case your cell-phone) and the serial port of your computer. In order to display your true speed, enter the following string in your modem's extra settings field.

 

For Win XP:

 

1. In Control Panel, click PHONE & MODEM OPTIONS.

2. On the Modem tab, select your modem and click PROPERTIES

3. In the new box that opens up, selece the ADVANCED tab and enter the appropriate settings depending on your modems chipset (in your case, try each one to see which one works).

4. Click OK to all dialogs.

 

Chipset ==== Extra Settings

Motorola ==== atq=1\v=4

Rockwell PCI ==== at+mr=2

Other Rockwell ==== w2

USR ==== &a3

All ==== at&f1

 

I read in Samsung's documentation that by default windows always shows 115.2 KBps for a GPRS connection.Tried the extra initialization commands under Advanced Tab. None of them works. I mean a modem hardware error pops up.

 

Use an online speed testing site like BandwidthPlace or this one. That gives you a better idea of actual speeds, although with some compression algorithms, one can see an increase in the speed ratings.

 

The online tests showed the following results :-

Bandwidth Page - 29.2 Kbps

The other one showed an average speed of 32.6 KBps .

Wonder what caused the difference?

 

Next point - you mention that you're getting only 5 kbps while downloading? That, my dear fellow, would be wholly unacceptable. That's even slower than WAP access unless.... unless you mean 5 KBps. See there's a difference between bits and bytes - 8 bits ( make one byte ( (but I'm sure you knew that ;-) )

 

Regarding the B factor, ok that was a mistake.

 

Finally, do you use your Airtel connect while on the move or do you usually remain stationary while connecting? Is the performance of the connection dependent on the battery life of your phone? I mean, how long does your battery drain out when using your cell-phone as a modem?

 

No, I use my connection on the stationary. Earlier, when I didn't realize that the phone can be put into charge while connected to the PC, the battery got drained out after around 3 hrs. But now there's no such problem as the charger is connected throughout the time I am connected to the Internet and that's about for 12 hrs.

 

I'd like to add to your tariffs table re: BPL Mobile in Mumbai - Although now taken over by Hutch, operations haven't been merged yet, so the old tariff still holds and it's a whopping Rs. 750.00 a month for unlimited downloads and unlimited time per month.

 

I am sure BPL gives a much better speed at that rate.

wat is it with people loving Linux then windows

 

windows is much better what do you think

 

Well, my interaction with Linux is too meager to compare it with Windows. But, I presume Windows is better. How can the FREE thingy be better than the one people pay for?

Oops! I did it again.

 

In case you may have been wondering why I was gone for so long resulting in my hosting credits reach :blink -18 :blink... Well I blew one of the parts of my PCs core system. Just for the record, this ain't the first time I did it. Previously, I caused a burnt out processor when I tested my PC with the minimum components -> Motherboard, RAM & the Processor - The Heatsink. It all happened while I was doing my fortnight PC cleaning (I kinda like cleaning every bit of my PC regularly), I was almost done, when dad asked me to check one of his documents. So, without strapping on every bit of hardware, I booted the PC up. What I didn't know was that, without the Heat Sink, the Intel Processor would get fried. It didn't run for long, probably 15 seconds, before the computer turned of with a sound. I wasn't sure as to what had happened, but when I touched the Red hot processor, I felt something was wrong. When I finally took the CPU to my system administrator he asked me if I ran the processor without the fan. At first I hesitated then I accepted it. That took place some 2 years back. I got my PC in the late months of 2002. Back then my system comprised of the following : -

 

> Motherboard - Mercury KOBP4M266, 400 MHz FSB @ Rs. 4000

> Processor - Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz, 400 MHz FSB @ Rs. 8100

> RAM - Transcend SDRAM 128 MB, FSB 133 MHz @ Rs. 1700

> CD ROM - LG 52X @ Rs. 1240

> Hard Disk - Segate 40 GB @ Rs. 3400

> Floppy Drive - Sony 1.44 MB @ Rs. 300

> SMPS - Mercury 325 W @ Rs. 400

> Cabinet - Mercury Micro ATX @ Rs. 700

> Monitor - 15 '' LG Studioworks 563N @ Rs. 7150

> Keyboard - Multimedia Keyboard from I Key @ Rs. 600

> Mouse - Samsung USB Optical Cyber Beatle @ Rs. 1350

> Speaker - I Sound 1500 PMPO 2.1 @ Rs. 2700

> UPS - Classic 500 VA @ Rs. 3200

> Microphone - Frontech @ Rs. 125

Beore the Processor black out, I got myself a few more gizmos to work with : -

 

> Printer - HP Deskjet 3550 @ Rs. 3000

> RAM - An additional 128 MB of SDRAM @ Rs. 1100

> Keyboard - Samsung KB2M001SPAAD Multimedia Keyboard @ Rs. 500

> Mouse - PS/2 Optical from Samsung with 12 function scroll button. @ Rs. 500

 

After the blow up, I had to get a new processor, but with my Mercury motherboard, I could only have got a Celron equivalent for the Pentium's had switched to 533 MHz. So, I thought of upgrading my system and purchased the following : -

 

> Motherboard - Intel D865GVHZ, FSB upto 800 MHz with HT support @ Rs. 5200

> Processor - Intel Pentium 2.4 GHz, FSB 533 MHz non HT @ Rs. 5800

> RAM - Non Hynix DDR 256 MB, 333 MHz FSB @ Rs. 2150

> Headphone - TechCom @ Rs. 125

 

During the 865 era, I got a few other devices : -

 

> Scanner - Cannon Lide single cord USB @ Rs. 3200

> Gampad - Frontech antasy PAD @ Rs. 500

> UPS - Microtek Max Power 600 VA @ Rs. 2600

> Speaker - 4.1 Intex 3000 watt @ Rs. 2100

 

It was all running smoothly except for one hectic problem that I have faced throughout these 4 years or so; Bad Shutdowns. Earlier the computer would start on 2 or 3 attempts because of the power instability. Quite often (5 to 10 times daily), the PC would have a bad shutdown despite having a good UPS. I asked for a UPS change but that didn't help either. The Mercury Motherboard would power off for safety during a BS. The power button would have to be pressed for 3 seconds followed by again pressing the power button to power the PC back on (to many power's I suppose). But, I managed to bring the rate down, by removing the Monitor power supply from the UPS. When I got my second UPS (Microtek Max Power), I plugged in the CPU to it and the monitor to the other one. Eventually the old Classic UPS's battery got drained out and I decided to put the monitor on direct resulting in a blackout during a power cutoff. But thanks to hibernating feature, I was able to turn my PC off without being able to see anything on the screen. The BS rate was minimal during this phase. I had both speed and reliability. This went on for 2 years, with the BS rate fluctuating up and down. I was quite fed up with it and finally resorted to getting an SMPS with higher wattage (450 to be precise). It had been long since I had cleaned the CPU, so I began cleaning it with a clothe. Seeing plenty of dust on the heatsink, I unlocked it and gave it a thorough cleaning. Then I moved on to the processor hoping to gain some speed, so I moved the socket lever up and unlocked the processor. While I was giving the Internal Display card a thorough cleaning, the socket lever got stuck in the perforated clothe and flew away. It wasn't until I was done cleaning and on my way to put the processor back in its slot that I noticed the missing lever. Even at that time I didn't realize it was a serious issue, 'cause I thought it had just opened. It was only after I had failed to set it in its place despite all my efforts, that I realized that I was in for big trouble. Without the lever attached, the processor won't get locked firmly and the system wouldn't boot. I got in touch with my administrator, Piyush Jaiswal who's a GID (Genuine Intel Dealer) and told him about my misdoings. He's always been very helpful and supportive. Anyways, I brought the CPU to him and he gave it a few tries to see if the processor would somehow get locked. But I knew from having tried every possible way, that it just wouldn't do. Being of his liking that I was, he gave me the E-Mail address of Intel Customer support of the Asia Pacific region, printed some templates and gave me all the necessary instructions to contact them and ask for a replacement. He was pretty sure that if I flattered them, they would give me a replacement. I followed all the procedures and exchanged details, sent them a photo of the part and after 10 days of uncertianity the response was negative. It was disappointing, but I had to move forward. Now I had two options :-

 

> Get the board fixed via chip level repairing

> Get a new motherboard

 

Being the gizmo freak that I am, I chose the latter and resorted to getting the following : -

 

> Motherboard - Intel 915GAG, FSB upto 800MHz with HT @ Rs. 4900

> Processor - Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, FSB 800 MHz with HT @ Rs. 8300

> RAM - DDR 512 MB, 400 MHz FSB @ Rs. 2125

 

Now, my system's super fast, but the BS(Bad Shutdown) rate has gone tremendously high, 20 - 30 per day.

 

Here's my power supply configuration : -

 

> AC 230V

> 5 KW Automatic Stabilizer from Sen & Pandit

 

Can U pundits tell me how do I minimize the BS rate. Also, are the costs of my last buys genuine?

 

Here's some other information.

 

> When the 5 KW stabilizer is turned off, even though the voltage is very less, fluctuations are less and so is the BS rate

> When using a manual stabilizer, the BS rate is less

> BS rate increases with the number of stabilizers in series and number of accesories that are along the same socket.

This question is such a payne in the but, I wonder if anyone can solve this. (And no cheating)

 

Extracted from http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/.

 

This quiz is supposed to have been written by Einstein . He said that 98% of the people in the world cannot solve the quiz. Could you be among the other 2%?

 

 

 

There are 5 houses, each is a different colour

In each house lives a person of a different nationality.

These 5 owners all drink a certain beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.

No owner has the same pet, smokes the same brand of cigar or drinks the same drink as another owner.

 

 

1: The Briton lives in a red house.

2: The Swede keeps dogs as pets

3: The Dane drinks tea

4: The green house is on the left of the white house (they are also next door to each other)

5: The green house owner drinks coffee

6: The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds

7: The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill

8: The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk

9: The Norwegian lives in the first house

10: The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats

11: The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill

12: The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer

13: The German smokes Prince

14: The Norwegian lives next to the blue house

15: The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water.

 

The question is: WHO KEEPS FISH?

 

Ok here's the solution to the bridge crossing Puzzle

 

Method 1

 

First Bono and Edge shall cross the bridge taking 2 mins, followed by Edge returning with the flashlight summing up the time to 4 mins. He'll then handover the flashlight to the tortoises (I mean Adam and Larry) and they'll cross the bridge in furhter 10 mins making the total 14. Now our speedster Bono shall return for Edge in 1 minute and then walk past the bridge along with him in additional 2 mins. Hence the total time = 2 mins + 2 mins + 10 mins + 1 min + 2 min= 17 Mins

 

Method 2

 

First Bono and Edge shall cross the bridge taking 2 mins, followed by Bono returning with the flashlight summing up the time to 3 mins. He'll then handover the flashlight to the tortoises (I mean Adam and Larry) and they'll cross the bridge in furhter 10 mins making the total 13. Now Edge shall return for Bono in 2 mins and then walk past the bridge along with him in additional 2 mins. Hence the total time = 2 mins + 1 mins + 10 mins + 2 min + 2 min= 17 Mins

Here's the solution to my puzzle.

 

Puzzle 1

 

Let Grandma be X years old and Dad be Y yrs old.

Since, Grandma is 45 years older than dad, we can write X = Y + 45

Now let us assume that the two digits in their ages be a and b.

So, Grandma's age can be written as X=10a + b.

Similarly Dad's age can be written as Y=10b + a

where a and b, being prime numbers belong to the set { 2, 3, 5, 7 }

Putting the above values of X and Y in the equation X = Y + 45 we get,

10a + b = 10b + a + 45

=> 9a - 9b = 45

=> 9 (a - b) = 45

=> a - b = 5

From this we can easily see that the difference between the two prime numbers is 5, which leads us to the only possible answer that a (being greater of the two) = 7 and b = 2

Therefore Grandma's age X = 10a + b = (10 x 7) + 2 = 72

And just for the record, Dad's age Y = 10b + a = (10 x 2) + 7 = 27 which is 45 years less than grandma's

 

Wonder how old Trickle is?

 

Puzzle 2

 

There are 3 possibilities : Dimwit (the gold guard) is telling the truth and the others not, Thickplank (the silver guard) is telling the truth while the others are lying or Beefbrain (the bronze guard) is telling the truth.

 

Case 1 : Dimwit is telling the truth

In this case number of Silver coins = 3000 and number of Bronze coins = 5000 while the number of Gold coins could be either 3000 or 4000 based on who is telling the truth (Thickplank or Beefbrain).

 

Incase Thickplank is telling the truth about the number of gold coins.

Number of Gold coins = 3000

Therefore total no. of coins = 3000 + 3000 + 5000 = 11000 which does not match the actual amount, so this can't be true.

 

Incase Beefbrain is telling the truth about the number of gold coins.

Number of Gold coins = 4000

Therefore total no. of coins = 4000 + 3000 + 5000 = 12000 which is equal to the actual amount, so this is true.

 

hence no. of coins : Gold = 4000, Silver = 3000 and Bronze = 5000

 

For the sake of the puzzle :

 

Case 2 : Thickplank is telling the truth

In this case number of Gold coins = 3000 and number of Bronze coins = 5000 while the number of Silver coins can only be 3000 (answer of both Dimwit and Beefbrain)

Therefore total no. of coins = 3000 + 5000 + 3000 = 11000 which does not match the actual amount, so this can't be true.

 

Case 3 : Beefbrain is telling the truth

In this case number of Gold coins = 4000 and number of Silver coins = 3000 while the number of Bronze coins can only be 5000 (answer of both Dimwit and Thickplank)

Therefore total no. of coins = 4000 + 3000 + 5000 = 12000 which is equal to the actual amount, so this is true.

 

So in either of the two cases 1 and 3 we get the same result: Gold = 4000, Silver = 3000 and Bronze = 5000

 

Sorry, 'bout the size of the Reply, but I gotta maintain uniformity, Big Question, Big answer

Just give the answers, m^e will come up with the questions.BTW, I think not many peeps in here will be voluntaring for this quiz since it won't Fetch them Hosting points.

Before the replies start comming, let me get on with another question.

 

Q2: Scatterbrain the Treasurer was a bit of a ...... well, scatterbrain, and he had forgotten how many gold, silver and bronze coins were kept in the town vaults. So he decided to ask the three guards, each of whom guarded one type of coin. How many coins were in his charge?

 

However, the guards were uncooperative, and the best that Scatterbrain could get from each was a statement about the numbers of coins in the other two vaults. Dimwit, who was guarding the gold, said there were 3000 silver and 5000 bronze coins; Thickplank who was in charge of the silver, said there were 3000 gold and 5000 bronze; while Beefbrain, who was protecting the bronze, said there were 4000 gold and 3000 silver.

 

Unfortunately, only one guard was being truthful, each of the other two stating at least one false amount. If there were 12000 coins al-together, how many of each type were there?

 

BTW, this is an extract from The Telegraph monday 27 February 2006.

I saw your quiz Topic on VB City, m^e and u were damn good. How 'bout we test each others skill in here ?

 

So let me begin the quiz.

 

Q1: "I've always been 45 years older than your Dad", said Grandma to young Trickle. "But now the two digits in my age, both prime, are the reverse of the two in your Dad's age". How old is Grandma?

 

BTW, this is an extract from The Telegraph monday 27 February 2006.

I haven't given Firefox a try, but from my own experience of Opera, come on guys, you ain't crediting it enough.

 

Its much better than M$ IE when it comes to speed, security and features. The glories of multi-tab browsing, session error recovery, superb cache handling, click back and instantly get back to the previous page (even works on forms) are too good not to be praised.

 

Talking of Ads in v 7.0 or less, it isn't as bad as you are making it sound. Select the relevant text ads for minimal delay in web browsing. Its just a small area on the top toolbar that this thing occupies, much better than those annoying ads that people are resorting to in their web sites to get some more dollar$.

 

In v 8 or higher the ads have been removed, toolbars made sleeker, more features like Voice Browsing have been added. E-Mail support, better bookmark arrangement, Wand Passwords manager, automatic lookup and fiiling of registration forms: Name, Address, E-Mail address, etc on those annoying sites, requiring registration for every puny little thing you do.

 

Besides, the cool skins is an icing on the cake. Customize your browser to suite your style.

 

I haven't faced any spyware or adware trouble with Opera either. But, what really sets Opera apart is the page loading time, undoubtedly its the fastest browser on earth, be it the PC or Mobile.

 

Keep it going lads.

Netopsystems FEAD Optimizer uses a high compression technology (FEAD). What's so special about this technique is that it can compress already compressed files by 20%-40%. Adobe Reader was one of the first to incorporate FEAD Optimizer. At first look the decompression termed as 'recomposition' by Netopsystems, looks intriguing, being heavy on the CPU and taking quite a lot of time and the absence of cancel button to stop the decompression (Oops! Recomposition) is further displeasing. But, the compression ratio of FEAD is more than enough to overcome these drawbacks. Here's a comparison between FEAD and a few well known compression algorithms.

 

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0

 

Total Files---> 8

Total Size---> 32.7 MB

Portable Zip---> 30.2 MB

Enhanced Deflate---> 30.2 MB

Bzip 2---> 30.3 MB

PPMD---> 30.7 MB

LZX---> 30.1 MB

FEAD---> 19.8 MB

 

Panda Antivirus Titanium 2006

Total Files---> 321

Total Size---> 80.4 MB

Portable Zip---> 39.4 MB

Enhanced Deflate---> 38.9 MB

Bzip 2---> 38.0 MB

PPMD---> 35.0 MB

LZX---> 32.0 MB

FEAD---> 22.2 MB

 

As you can see, the FEAD technology is much more effective in compressing pre-compressed files. It is even better than the best these days (PPMD and LZX) by some 30% (Approx). UPX is the only algorithm I have heard about that can compress Portable Executables by that much. Then I learned that it was indeed a modified version of the UPX algorithm which they have named NOS. Some people reckon, that in doing so they have violated the GPL. Check this out for more details.

 

Possible technique: Netopsystems have come out with a basic but effective technique to copy repeated files just once in the source package and copy them as many times required during recomposition in the destination folder(s). There must be many other things they have put into use, because UPX can only compress PEs which in the case of Panda Antivirus is 10.5 MB in size. Had they compressed the 10.5 MB PEs to 0 Byte, that would have accounted for the 10 MBs deficit (which even by Napolean's standard is impossible) . So, they must be using some other algorithm for other files.

 

Another probability: They haven't released their FEAD Optimizer for users, rather they rely on customers handing their Setup files to them for analysis and compression. It might be this step that hands them the edge. Maybe they search the files for every drop of fatty byte they can shed.

 

Whatever be it, the company has opened doors for further research in the field of compression algorithms, which was seeming to have reached its zenith.

Check out this site for the list of Free Antivirus, Firewalls, E-Mail Protection Tools and loads of other cool stuffs --> Free Byte

I no longer need the Proxy server. My IP seems to have got unbanned and I am pretty sure it took about 20 Hrs. I guess 188 connections were too much for the server .

Thanks m^e. I used a free proxy server to gain access and its working fine.

It all happened due to my slow Internet Speed. Good Ol' Google told me about this cool site to learn Internet Programming in VB. So I checked it out, and it turned out to be really good with those free tutorials. But it would take me years to learn what I wanted if I read the entire page, following the entire tutorial's steps and then waiting for my browser to download the next part of the tutorial ( Can't really expect more @ 3Kbps). So I used an offline downloader to download the entire web site. Well... that turned out to be an even slower process, so I increased the maximum number of connections to the server to 188. The trick worked and it was all being downloaded pretty smoothly, until the download stopped with a soceket error .I retried many a times but it stopped with the same error every time.

 

So the only option left was to continue the online tutorial. So I typed in "http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/; in my browser's address bar and clicked on the go button. While I waited for my DGL (Direct Galaxial Link ) to open the page, I went about googling. After about 5 minutes I checked the page and to my surprise it was all blank and my browser was indicating that the page had been downloaded completely. Then I resorted to refreshing the page, loading another page on the same domain,but to no avail.

 

So, I guess they banned my IP for using too many connections, wright? (Just guessing) Is there any process to un-ban myself or will it be done automatically?

I use a SAMSUNG SGH-C200N handset coupled with Airtel (a GSM Service Provider in Asia)

 

GPRS to connect to the internet.

 

Here is a review about my Internet Connection

 

- Points

 

> By default Windows always shows the connection speed to an outstanding 115.6 KBps. Although, from what I have seen via the connection status, when downloading files from a good server, the maximum speed that I get is around 5 Kbps. During the peak hours, the connection's speed deteriorates and the data transmission becomes intermittent. Every Page (except for good ol' Google) needs to be refreshed once or twice to be displayed properly.

> Quite often Airtel's server goes down for maintainence. (Atleast once weekly)

> Proxy server (Some sites won't allow me to access certain features because of Airtel using a proxy

 

Internet server)

> Pay whether you use the Internet or not

 

+ Points

 

> No Username/ Password (as in the case of BSNL dialups) required. That throws the question of getting my password hacked and used by someother person out of the window.

> Time to connect is very less, about 6-9 secs on an average

> Very Handy (Connect to your laptop, get into a car and surf the Internet Wirelessly)

> Extremely and I mean extremely cheap.

Comparisons

 

BSNL--> Charge per hour is around Rs. 15 ( ¢ 33.72)

RIM--> Rs. 20 per hour (¢ 44.96)

Hutch--> Rs. 50 per month ($ 1.1254) + Rs. 0.01 (¢ 2.25) per KB

Airtel--> Rs. 99 ($2.2257) per month

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Its been about 9 months now and on the whole I am quite satisfied with the experience.

 

On the basis of this review, would you choose this Internet Service for yourself?

Reading your story I rolled back some 10 yrs and found myself going through the exact same dilemmas as you - although I believe I'd been into programming far longer than you at that period. My first experience with computers was when I was in my fifth grade and my coding journey started when I was in the 6th.

My mistake for not clarifying, but I was into computers from class four . But it was only in class 10 that I got a PC. Nice to know that I am not the only one of this kind and I presume I am not the last either. Anyways, thanx for the advice bro. Now I know that I gotta be super lucky to get to the top (this way that is), which I promise I won't take for granted and yeah study my *bottom* off for the JEEs

 

Often I need motivations from experienced peeps to keep on studying (thanx to you this time).

 

Talking of similarities between me and the 10 year old model of yourself:

 

> Computer Fanatics (Make no mistake I am no less than you )

> Vanity (Offcourse)

> High School Mess Up (Dunno how you screwed it up, but I did get a compart in Mathematics)

> Dads vs Us (At times I considered myself more mature than him)

> Kolkata connection (From what you wrote, I suppose you lived there and as for me, I am based there but I have been living all my life in Deoghar)

> Literature (I must say, you 'sound' exactly like I want to, with those sarcastic follow ups)

 

Now for the dissimilarities:

 

> I didn't win the AISD as you did, I didn't even here it before (Well you can't expect that from a small town dude like me, genuinely speaking)

> My dad wishes that I should atleast do a Graduation. He says, "The way you are going you'd be called just a matric pass, atleast make sure you are a Graduate".

> Hard Work: As for now, the only thing I can work hard on, is that seducing QWERT based keypad.

 

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Before I peace of, thanx for taking the time from your busy schedule and writing so much descriptively for me. I'll make sure that it doesn't go in vain. Last but not the least, we are gonna meet somedays, somewhere, sometime and hopefully work together.

 

Together we stand, divided we (correction I in this case, since you've already faced the challenges and stood tall) fall.