The Lonesome Road

Note : Will not make sense till you read the post below. Seriously.

A = me and N is Anshul. Enjoy

A: see post
A: the end
N: ouch
N: *o-u-c-h*
A: yeah!
A: the funny thing is
A: it’s off across the board
A: IE, Opera and FF
N: your comp has been flashed clean
A: truly
N: check if registry key is back
A: nope
N: search registry for macromedia
A: found a factory object
N: hmmm is that good or bad
A: no idea
N: i’ve forgotten
A: there is flashfactory.flashfactory
A: flashprop.flashpro
A: p
N: i vaguely remember either it was a bad thing - residual stuff - or a normal thing - installed with the installer
N: hmmmm
N: the registry is screwed man what is all this trash
A: annoying man
N: very much so
N: google?
A: looks like it
N: so any luck
A: nope
A: all flash obj deleted
A: but no go
N: hmmm
N: reinstall flashplayer
N: ?
A: tried
A: zippo
N: hmmmm
A: do not seek to reinstall the flash. Instead understand - there is no flash
N: no flash working now? as in even on my page?
N: lol
N: true enough
A: your @#$@#$@# badge works!
N: hahaha
N: ouch
A: dude
A: I can live with it
A: if I can figure out WHY
N: haha
N: yeah
N: i know
N: the thing that killed the feline animal
N: is dangerous
A: I know…
A: but what to do
A: it entices and lures me into the dark depths of the registry
N: where there be dragons
A: of course

Later all!

Due to a set of circumstances I do not want to talk about (believe me - I don’t), Firefox needed to be re-installed on my computer.

From experiece, the only thing I know that’s worth saving is the bookmarks I have collected (and sorted) over time. So the bookmarks were duly exported and I was pleased.

Then a quick reinstall took place and Firefox was back on it’s throne as my ruling browser. Unfortunately, it seems that during the reinstall, the original FF was replaced by it’s idiotic twin brother.

Ok here’s the thing. When I started the new FF, it looked and felt like the old thing - but there were subtle differences. My extensions and plug-ins were all working fine. Just had to re-tweak the about:config page again to get the speed settings correct. I was happy.

Then it came crashing down.

I opened Gmail - typed in my credentials, pressed enter. It said loading…and then gave me a blank screen and a done message in the status bar. Now, I have written about this problem earlier (don’t know which month the post was from) and the work around is to go to the address bar and change “http://” to “https://”. This was something I was not expecting.

It got worse from there.

I opened my blog after publishing a post and noticed something was amiss - my Flick badge consisted of the border - and nothing else. The funny part was when I opened Anshul’s site, his Flickr badge could be seen in all it’s glory. Now I was getting annoyed.

Wait - there’s more.

Finally, I opened Google video, opened a video - and all I saw was a blank screen with the images of the video on the right hand side.

After turning the air around me blue, I decided to get rid of FF from the ground up and reinstall it. If you want to do it clean - here’s how :

1) Uninstall from Add/Remove Programs

2) Go to Documents and Settings -> User name -> Application Data and delete the Mozilla folder (unless you have Thunderbird as well. In which case delete the Firefox directory)

3) Delete Program Files -> Mozilla Firefox directory.

Once that was done, I uninstalled the Flash player as well. The problems above (other than the gmail thing) are flash related.

After doing all this, I installed Firefox. It was as good as a clean install. All my extensions and bookmarks were gone. Once they were back, I opened Google video again.

And saw a blank screen - with no bar that said Mussing plug-in. Click here to install missing plugins.

Frustrated, I opened the registry. Went to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Mozilla plugins and deleted the registry key for the Macromedia plugin I found there.

Presto! Google video and flash work again!

I don’t get it - when I say uninstall - I want every bit (every 0 and 1) of the program OUT of my system. Don’t want ghosts on my drive that come back to haunt me…

Until next time - go get a mac!

Update : It seems that Flash has gone off again. Once again there is a blank screen on google video and a border on my Flick badge.

Somebody help me!!

Last morning I “woke” up around 8:30 AM. Well, actually, I tried to. My eyes felt like they were glued shut - but my body refused to sleep any more. By the time I actually got up and brushed my teeth, things seemed to be back to normal - i.e eyes open (check), body working (check).

I sat in front of the laptop to check my mail and see who was online. Somehow, I just could not concentrate on the screen. I wanted to be anywhere but in front of the comp. I tried turning on the TV as well, but it did no good. I spoke with a couple of people (online) and decided it was time to get off the comp. Time : 10 AM.

So, I took my book (Runelords - David Farland) and resumed my reading. I think I read all of 3 pages before I fell asleep again. Not that the book is boring. It’s a nice book with a very diferent explanation of magic.

Let me digress a little. The book is a fantasy novel which describes a battle between the four elements of nature i.e Earth, Fire, Wind and Water. What I liked is the rune system. A person may take endowments (gifts) from other people. For instance a person may endow another his strength. The person who receives gets the strength of two people. However, the person who gave up his strength becomes as weak as a baby. The same for any other attribute that is given up. The Kings and Dukes of the land take a large number of endowments to protect their kingdoms and are called Runelords. The people they take endowments from are called Dedicates and are cared for. Also, if a dedicate dies, the receiver loses the part of the endowment that the dedicate provided. For instance, if a dedicate provided wit, a receiver may lose the memories that he stored in the dedicate’s brain.

Of course, the rest of the story is standard fantasy. One person wants to take over the world and there is a chosen one (The Earth King) who has to oppose him.

Anyway, the next thing I know is the phone is ringing and it’s 2 PM. Spoke to my cousin and decided to check the mail. Good mail - the library found the book I wanted. Straken - Book 3 of the High Druid of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

This could not be ignored. So I heaved myself out of bed, took a bath and headed off for the library. The weather was not in a co-operative mood and I was blown all over the place by the wind.

Came home and promptly went to sleep - again. This time I came out of my stupor at around 8:30 PM. Just in time to help the guys make dinner. Dinner finished, I came back to my room, turned on the TV - and went to sleep again. Time : 10:30 PM.

Woke up at 1 AM. Shifted around till I was comfortable. And - you guessed it - slept. Just woke up. Hopefully, this day will not go the same way.

Until next time - catch your zzzzzzzz’s!

Yes, once in a while I feel like writing bad poetry.

If you don’t like it - deal with it. Better yet - drop me a comment saying how much you hate it. The choice is yours and yours alone

Until next time - keep on rhyming!

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Aztec Sun Disc, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Psst :
1] Longish post due to a lot of photos
2] Those who want to see the photos only, go here
3]50+ photos uploaded today! Crossed 250 and 300 photos - all in one shot. Woohoo!

The weather gods have decided to be kind to us this weekend (for me the weekend begins on Friday. Don’t be jealous ). Temperatures over the last two days have been around 20 degrees celcius. It’s such a nice feeling to walk around without a jacket and gloves. It’s like freedom!

Anyhow, today’s program began with lunch at the Popover Cafe. Great place - a little small - but amazing food. They are famous for (as the name says) Popovers. If you go there, I can recommend the Pop-Art Sandwich over a popover. Delicious.

Lunch done, the AMNH beckoned. I still have to get used to the fact that things are BIG in this country. The AMNH has four floors of goodies! Here’s the dude who gave us our tickets :

Taking that as a promise of good things to come we moved on. First stop - The Hall of Bio Diversity. It’s a slightly creepy looking place. Low light and all. But there are some amazing displays in there. Like this :

They even have an full size recreation of a giant squid hanging around!

After taking a fill of that, we moved on to the ocean view. The centerpiece here is a life size recreation of a whale. It was dark in there, so I had to touch up this pic a bit. It isn’t the whole whale, but it will give you an idea of the size. The tiny dot you see is the eye of the whale :

The entire room is lit in a soft blue light to represent the ocean depths. Beautiful. Also check out the display of the Sperm Whale fighting off a Giant Squid. Really cool. Also worth a special mention is the Dolphin exhibit.

We moved on from the ocean depths to the past i.e The Dinosaur exhibits. I don’t know about you guys - but there is something about these huge lizards that always makes them seem larger than life

Ok. I will stop with the stupid jokes.

Here’s a size comparion photo. Long necked dinosaur next to tiny dude :

From there on, it was three halls full of dinosaurs. Bones, reconstructions and evolutionary mechanisms. I was like a kid in a candy shop. Didn’t know if I should read the displays or take photos!
Here is a really special mention from the dino exhibit.

What say??

I also learned today that there were two types of mammoth. There were the wooly and the non-wooly mammoth. Nice. The dinosaur exhibits are huge and occupy almost the entire fourth floor. By the way, they also have a real dinosaur egg that you can touch!

After seeing - and being dwarfed by the skeletons, I was thankful that these guys decided not to stick around. Self preservation and all that you know.

Once that was done, we moved on to the special exhibit. The AMNH is showing a Darwin exhibit through the 29th of this month (if I remember correctly). No pics here cos it’s not allowed. Go see it for yourself!

Then came the animals of africa exhibit.The funny part is, a couple of days back, I was reading Catch me a Colobus by Gerald Durrell - and there they were :

Of course, then I had to see the Asian animals exhibit. Not too many of those though. I thought the tiger stuffing they had in the Bio Diversity room looked a lot better than the tigers they had in the Asian animals display. You decide for yourself.

That’s all the time we really had today. There’s so much more to see. Planning to make another trip there in the near future.

I leave you with a picture of the museum exterior :

Until next time - happy exploring!
PS : The first picture is an Sun disc - which if I remember correctly, is also a calender.

When I fire up my browser (Firefox), the page that I usually head to first is the Gmail website.

Over the last week or so, I have noticed that if I have an open tab or two and then open Gmail in a new tab, Firefox crashes. As a smart person, I have the session restore extension installed. It manages to catch the failed session and restore it. Unfortunately, the reloaded session also crashes.

The other thing is that the crashing does not depend on the site/sites that is/are open in the other tab(s). I have tried it out with different sites and the same result - a crash.

If I let the system crash and then don’t restore the session, things are back to normal. I’m using Firefox 1.5.0.1. Anyone else with the same issues?

Until next time - don’t get bugged!

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Bird in the braches (again), originally uploaded by shadowfall.

This post is a couple of days late actually. Can’t be helped. For some odd reason, assignments seem to take priority over blogging. Am still trying to figure out why.

In any case, I have a new found respect for bird photographers. Was making lunch on sunday when I heard bird calls from outside. I grabbed my trusty camera and decided to take some snaps.

Now, the weather is getting warmer - but Sunday was cold and windy. So there I was freezing away in the wind, trying to take some snaps. I got in a few good ones. Really like the ones of the bird in red. I only wish I could have taken a few photos without all those branches in the way.

For the most part, the birds were stationary on their perches, so the shots were easy. However, there were these gulls - beautiful birds. All white with black tipped wings. Unfortunately for me, they seemed to be more interested in gliding rather than perching. I spent half an hour standing in the wind to get a clean photo.

I got a lot of photos of the sky.

I also got very annoyed.

There are a couple of snaps I did get with the gulls. However, they are not as zoomed in as I would have liked.

I also managed to get a video of the bird that you see above. You can catch it here. I don’t like the degradation in quality - but I guess it cannot be helped for free online storage.

We started with the red, and we’ll end with black. Here are photos of a black bird (no idea on the species).

All the photos you see here (and more) can be found on my Birds and animals photoset . For other photos, click on the Flickr badge or here .

Until next time - happy warbling!

My friend and I went grocery shopping today. By the time we finished picking up all that we needed, there were 6 bags filled with “stuff that we really need” and 2 bags full of stuff that we actually needed (read milk, rice, etc).

Now, since we are poor students, we don’t own a car. The grocery store is a 20-25 minute walk in good weather conditions. It’s a lot longer with 8 heavy bags and a stiff wind.

And we had to take a detour to return a book at the library.

Anyway, here’s the wierd experience part. I was telling my friend “I hope someone gives us a lift. My shoulders are killing me.” My friend didn’t reply - he was too busy lifting his four bags. So, we were crossing this parking lot and a car pulled up next to me. The front passenger side window rolled down, and the lady called out to me.

Car Lady (looking slightly horrified at the weight I was lifting) : Hello

Me (Feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders) : Hello

Car Lady (sounding concerned) : Do you have a car?

Me (sounding hopeful - I was still far from home) : No.

Car Lady (rolling up window) : Ok.

And off they went looking for a parking space. Guess that’s life.

Believe me - this is the second time in two days that I have stumbled home fighting the wind. Today had the added fun of weight lifting. When I dropped the bags, I can swear I almost felt a moment of weightlessness. I’m glad it’s over.

Until next time - plan your shopping wisely!

I went to college for some work this afternoon. Before leaving, I checked the weather report. It said : -2 C (feels like -9). An extended forecast revealed the same pattern of high winds and low temperatures would prevail through the day.

When I left the house though, the weather was quite pleasant. The sun was shining brightly (note - I did not say warmly). Made me think that the weather dudes were being pessimistic about the temperature.

I finished my work at 5:30 PM and was soon at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to arrive. 5:45 came and went and there was no sign of the bus. The warmth retained from sitting in a heated area was soon leached away by the wind. All of us were looking at the road, praying for deliverance from the cold and the wind. But it was not to be. I was standing wearing a thick T-shirt, a sweater, a jacket, leggings and a thick pair of jeans. Also a winter cap (the one that covers the ears), gloves, and thick woolen socks. And I was cold. Really cold.

The bus finally decided to show up at 6:25. I have never been happier to see a bus in my life. Unfortunately, the heating system on the bus had decided to give up the unequal struggle with the atmospreheric conditions. I will not say the bus was freezing - but it didn’t do much to warm me either.

I thought the worst of my journey home was over.

I was wrong.

The walk from the bus stop to my house is between 8 - 10 minutes. I never knew 10 minutes could seem so long. The tone was set when I stepped off the bus and was nearly blown off my feet. Things did not get better from there.

As I continued moving (struggling) forward against the wind, I passed a sign flashing the temperature. I did not want to see it - but curiosity killed the cat - and the meter showed 25F (around -4 C). If you think that is less - please factor in the wind chill and the temperature plummets to -13C.

So, here I am, manfully struggling onwards - only to confront a new problem. The ground, thank’s to yesterdays snow, rain and sleet is covered with a thin layer of ice. Really slippery ice. Imagine walking while being pushed around by the wind and then having to look where you put your feet. Long ten minutes.

Finally, I saw the welcoming lights of home. In my hurry, I quickened my pace, stepped on the sidewalk - and encountered ICE! Only luck, and some nifty hand-and-footwork saved me from a nasty fall.

The worst part is when you step inside the house and start to thaw out - it hurts! As the circulation is restored to the frozen parts of the body, they start complaining - loudly. Still, I am glad to be back home.

Plan for this weekend : Stay indoors!

Until next time - believe the weather forecast!

I woke up today hearing that there was a severe weather alert with a day of sleet and snow. Even so, I woke up hoping for a day that looked like the photo above. What I got can be summarized below.

Depressing grey skies and a bunch of forlorn birds. And a lot of snow, rain and sleet. In all possible combinations.

Well, every grey day has a silver lining somewhere. It seems that my college thought that the weather conditions were severe enough to justify cancelling evening classes. This means we have to go shovel the snow tomorrow. Ah well….

So here I sit, opening a book on C# - assignments do not depend on the weather.

But my mood - oh that’s like the top pic

Until next time - Shovel it!

This is one of the new Mac Minis on the Apple line up.

The problem is that I am sorely tempted to buy it - even though I have a perfectly good laptop. Why? Well, first of all it’s a Mac - well, that’s not exactly a reason. But who cares - human beings are illogical creatures.

For those not in the know, here are the feature specs :

Buddha wisely said - Want is the cause of all suffering. I can tell you - he’s right.

Until next time - keep wishing!