ASP.NET Bundle

Unit Testing ASP.NET? ASP.NET unit testing has never been this easy.Typemock is launching a new product for ASP.NET developers – the ASP.NET Bundle - and for the launch will be giving out FREE licenses to bloggers and their readers.
The ASP.NET Bundle is the ultimate ASP.NET unit testing solution, and offers both Typemock Isolator, a unit test tool and Ivonna, the Isolator add-on for ASP.NET unit testing, for a bargain price.
Typemock Isolator is a leading .NET unit testing tool (C# and VB.NET) for many ‘hard to test’ technologies such as SharePoint, ASP.NET, MVC, WCF, WPF, Silverlight and more. Note that for unit testing Silverlight there is an open source Isolator add-on called SilverUnit.

The first 60 bloggers who will blog this text in their blog and tell us about it, will get a Free Isolator ASP.NET Bundle license (Typemock Isolator + Ivonna). If you post this in an ASP.NET dedicated blog, you'll get a license automatically (even if more than 60 submit) during the first week of this announcement.Also 8 bloggers will get an additional 2 licenses (each) to give away to their readers / friends.Go ahead, click the following link for more information on how to get your free license.

Installing XP on Dell Inspiron 1525

Okay, let me guess why you are here. You have been using some Vista version on your Dell Inspiron 1525 and you are not happy with Vista. You planned to use you weekend in installing windows xp but to your surprise your relatively new laptop does not recoganized your hard disk. Rather it is that your XP did not recoganize the hard disk. It lacks the drivers (or simply call it software). Now if you have used your favourite search (mine is google) to find the solution you will find a lot many option of making new XP disk image by injecting drivers into it. I don't know if it works but it did not work for me. I don't know how many CDs/DVDs I wasted making duplicate copies with new drivers for my Dell Inspiron 1525 supported hard disk drivers.

Now I opted for alternate route,
First Step :

1. Goto BIOS and disable AHCI mode for your SATA hard disk.
2. Install Windows XP with SP2 normally now.
3. Install required drivers normally you do for XP installation.
4. If any of your required XP drivers are missing they are easily available at Dell website.
5. Now real fun start when you want to switch back to a better mode ie. AHCI mode. Although I have not noticed much difference. Ok back to work. Copy and paste the below italic text in notepad and save as Dell_AHCI.reg and double click to enter setting into registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version
5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2829&cc_0106]"Service"="iaStor""ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]"Type"=dword:00000001"Start"=dword:00000000"Group"="SCSI
miniport""ErrorControl"=dword:00000001"ImagePath"="system32\\drivers\\iaStor.sys""tag"=dword:00000019"DisplayName"="Intel
AHCI
Controller"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]"queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2821&SUBSYS_B0051458&REV_02\\3&13c0b0c5&0&FA""Count"=dword:00000001"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

Second Step
Copy the iaStor.sys-File into the \Windows\System32\Drivers\-Folder from Intel Matrix Storage Manager( download this from Dell website) for XP. File name should be IATA621_CD.EXE
Third Step
Restart the computer. Be ready to get into BIOS and switch back to AHCI mode. Save the setting and restart. The windows XP should load properly now in AHCI mode too.
Well this has worked for me and should work for you if you are using the said laptop. I have not tried on other models.

Mumbai Attacked

Yet again.. yet again... India has been attacked.. Mumbai has been attacked. Its painful to see again and again people going through all this. I agree with Mr. Ratan Tata, in last 25 years we are still incapable to handle these situations. How easier for these morons to enter the the mega city and fires gun shots randomly. For these exigencies policemen were carrying lathis to handle these "equipped guys". How easy it is to plan such events in India !!

Just watching these footage on news channels I was wondering where are the politicians who ideologies which are region centric. Maharashtra is attacked .. Mumbai is attacked.. India is attacked.

Cable television was disconnected in these hotels so that terrorists are disconnected from outside world. But I want to know why Internet connectivity was still on. If guests in hotels can access them why not terrorists. Isn't it a lapse ?

Yahoo Login Service Is Down

Well I don't know how many user across the globe felt a yahoo login service failure. It was quite evident around 11:00 AM London time when I was unable to login into few of my yahoo accounts. Be sure I was not using invalid username and password. Just within couple of minutes the service was restored. I think yahoo might update on why this has happened. No update as of now.

Update ( 30-Jan-2008 ) : There has been an another such outrage from yahoo. The user are unable to login into any services from yahoo including popular chat,mail and flickr accounts. This time it has lasted more than 5 minutes. It started around 04:45 AM London time. There is also a small change in the user interface of login screen. The sign-in seal show "Are you protected ?".



Update (30-Jan-2008) : Its almost more than half an hour and yahoo login services are still down. I am not sure about premium ( paid ) services. I have tried almost 20 times but I am unable to login. If I am not wrong yahoo usually block the account after few unsuccessful attempts. But there is no such warning. I tried to recover my password by providing my credit card information but it gave a programming exception ( FEATURE_ERROR_USER_OPEN_NO_ACCESS ). Well hold one if you thought it is happening with all yahoo id's then surprisingly its not. I have tested it on few other id's, a couple of them were found to be working fine and there was no exception error even if I tried to recover password ( though I don't have to as I was able to login ).

Professional Australians : Change the definition

"Professional" Australians almost redefined the word of "gentleman". Cricket still believed to be a gentleman's game in the cricket books. But today at the end of Sydney cricket test did everything to put India on losing side. Human errors ( read umpires ) were at its best almost every wrong decision was made against Indians. Australians needed additional support from umpires to get 10 Indian wickets. Professional and arrogantly aggressive Ricky Ponting did not hesitated to raise finger to give Ganguly out on the ground. Umpire meekly followed ponting. I think match fixing is a passe and looks like we are heading for something more spicy.

Ponting with his burning eyes questioned the journalist if he was doubting his integrity with his pointing finger. Mr. Ponting I think you should check it out from your inner conscious. There are better ways and tactics to be admirable champion side.

[Happy] New Year Mumbai

NWell most of the mumbaikars are proud of the city. In fact the whole country is proud of financial capital of India. There is always a taste of arrogance when they talk about how safe Mumbai is specially for women. But from past few the data has revealed a considerable amount of increase in number of cases of eve teasing, rape etc. Mumbai woke up to a new year morning with a news of two young women being molested and manhandled by around 70 men in the heart of city outside Marriott Hotel. Last year the similar incident was repeated at Gateway Of India, Mumbai. Some desperate men did it again and continues to spoil the name of the country as well as Mumbai. Such incident shows that Mumbai is no exception. Women are not as safe as they are highlighted in Mumbai. I can see the arrogance fading away. This is no way to take Mumbai to Shanghai heights. Now I would like see what I am going to write on 3 Jan 2009. I know I am not going [hope] to write a similar post as I did on 3 Jan 2007 or this post .. something fresh for which we can feel good about and start 2009 on good note.

Happy New Year to all of you !

Sony Ericcsson w580i Walkman Phone : Shake it up but How ?

Well not long ago but yesterday I bought a new Sony Ericcsson w580i Walkman Phone. Hritik Roshan is a brand ambassador for Sony Ericcsson phone in India. He can be seen shaking up W580i and W910 phone to change the track. Although it look funny shaking your new phone as you got a faulty piece. Nevertheless I tried to shake it to change the track on my walkman application but it never worked. Checked manual and official website but there is no mention about how to turn on this feature. After some fiddling I found that I have press the walkman button and shake a little to change the track. Atlast I got it right before it got slipped out of my hand shaking it up and looking silly.

Impressive Words !

Ever thought whats going on his mind when I am interviewing him..
Well it happened yesterday. No I was not interviewing anyone. I was on the other side. The company needed a new senior project manager so this guy was given a responsibilty ( another project manager ) to interview from the current talent pool in the company.

I have always been turned off by "I knew it all" attitudes no matter at what levels it existed. I was surprised by the way he conducted the whole thing. The kind of words he choosed to address the profile or his expectation for new project manager was not at all impressive. As he was judging me if I suited for the position. Did he thought for a moment if I was thinking on the same lines... "Is he the kind of guy I would like to work with"

Restructuring continues ..

This week started with the speculations and then actual firing of quark employees. So I my last two posts have been about them their firing and "restructuring". Just when I thought ( rather everyone @quark thought ) the "restructuring" is over. Late in the evening I got the news about two more techies being fired. This latest hitlist has count of 10. Strangely all this happened even the teams were addressed to calmn down as there will be no more firing. In my honest opinion this is poor strategy. Your actual are speaking louder than words. Management not only loses faith but also respect from employees.

Restructuring = Mandatory Firing

Continuing from where I left in the last post, firing of quarkians seems to have stopped. But it has left few scars. The "big guy" from HR had an impressive speech for all the "left overs". Restructuring was the center of attraction. Many choose not to see the beautiful faces and did not attendid his impressive speech. Floor seemed slippery.
This "restructuring" was need of the hour to make things "better" in quark said the "big guy". Yeah you must be thinking to checking your latest dictionaries to check what actually "restructring" means. I am calling my beautiful english teacher... its ringing !!

Yeah it has stopped raining now but expect some more heavy showers in mid october when another "ship" is going to sink. But don't expect many casualities next time. I heard few of them are already on their way to jump to the nearby ships. Is it stinking ..

Second cricket test between India and England starts in Oval today. Chak de India !

Quark is firing again

Well I just heard that Quark has started firing his employees here in India. The way they fire their hard working employees is just phenomenal. The employee is suddenly called, he is asked to leave the office premises in next 15 minutes or so. The security guard and a networking guy accompanies him/her to his desk. Networking guy locks and takes custody his/her machine. The employee collects the belongings in next 15 minutes and the the security guy makes sure that this employee is out of the office premises.

No questions, no answers, no reasons. He is given a two month salary in advance and is asked to sign a paper which says due to internal company department transfer, your professional goals will not be met so You are resigning. Isn't it incredible !!

And funny thing is some of them are top performers and have received appreciations in the near past. Quark does not acknowledge the previous performances. Cost cutting is all there on thier mind. Employees have just no idea about the criterion for firing. Quark has a reputation of being a most insecure company as far as job security is concerned. Would you like to work for such company no matter how much hefty packages they have ?

Just got a sms .. one more fired !

Update : this post is continued here.

Interesting Game

I just found a simple yet cool game. I am sure you gonna like it. Try you your hand and do leave comments about it.







Source: http://armorgames.com

laziness

I just keep scribbling here what ever comes to my mind. I think that is what blogging is all about. I will be more frequently blogging what happening all around me.

The clock hits 3:08PM as I am writing this. Surrounded by laziness, I am feeling bit sleepy. I think it has more to do with my job. Just not enjoying my work !
I am ugrading my technical skills at slow pace. Yeah I know I have to be bit quick if I want to be out of this mess.

I am learning few designing techniques in .net. I have googled for MVP ( Model View Presenter ). Found few good links. Although most of them target asp.net but I am specifically looking for winforms. These are the few links I will be reading.

Martin Fowler's post
Jeremy Miller's post
From MSDN Magazine

Not sure when I will be through with MVP..
hah ...

Money Money !!

Ever wondered what money has a role in our lives. I know what you are thinking. No its not all about materialistic aspect. Money has a lot to do with one's confidence. Money brings confidence in your personality, even if you don't need it at that very moment.

Just try a small trick. For one day leave your wallet and credit cards at home. Be at your office without your accessibility to money. Its just about 8-10 hours. You will feel weak and low in confidence. Just try it once.

Flickr Private Photos are not Private

I was using Yahoo image search option in the morning and came to know about a strange phenomenon. If you are aware Flickr images have been linked in with yahoo image search. So you will find many images from Flickr community in yahoo image search, which is good. Flickr users can save their private images such as nudes, family pictures, pets, Children etc. These pictures are private are not supposed to be viewable until you post them in some groups or give access to family and friends. All well until now but you will be shocked to know that these private pictures can be seen in yahoo image search. Let explain you how.

You can check it the way I did it

- I am using tabs in Firefox
- Logged in to Flickr through my yahoo id.
- A new tab and searched on "yahoo image search" with a keyword
- The result showed many Flickr thumbnails.
- A few thumbnails when I checked out were private. Remember I was logged in to Flickr on other tab so the link from search did not asked me Flickr login/password to access full page on Flickr.

Here is a link to a thumbnail of otherwise private picture.

Does that mean private pictures aren't private ?
Thankfully I don’t save my personal or private pictures on Flickr or internet. But question is how did Yahoo launched a feature without testing it properly.

Tags : Yahoo , Flickr , Bug , Image , Search

Safari Beta for Windows : Are you really using it ?

Its been two days I downloaded and installed Safari beta for windows. Apple has released a press release that Safari beta has 1 million downloads in just 48 hours. That's quite a figure to show the kind of interest generated about safari among internet users. But there is a an other side of the coin too. I have installed safari but I was not happy with beta release for obvious reasons and switched back to FireFox within couple of hours. There are number of users who have switched back to their older browsers. I have seen the buzz about Safari for windows on various community websites and forums. But vast number of users have been dissappointed with Safari. I feel beta release should have been open for selected users only.

Apple is known for reliable and quality products than their competitors. But 1 million download may not tell you the real picture. Apple has already released a patch to seal the bugs. But I am sure in the days to come there will be lot of patch releases for Safari to really get stable.

Tags : Apple , Safari , Browsers

Bharat Matrimony : Judging your service

Bharat Matrimony is one of the premier matrimony websites ( purely my opinion ). Whenever you think of matrimony websites you think of Shaadi.com and Bharat matrimony first. All I have used their services but I use to rate them good. This may have lot to do with their marketing and advertisements(specially online ). A few days back I was checking my Yahoo mail, I happen to see the online advertisement of Bharat Matrimony ( See the picture in the box ). Well its not photoshopped, its print screen of the webpage I was visiting. The spelling of Bharat Matrimony ( underlined ) were incorrect. I am not sure its Yahoo or Bharat Matrimony is at fault or its some sort of publicity. But what I know is it had earned Bharat Matrimony some negative points from me. One has to be very immaculate with branding of their products. This won't do any good to them. Be alert guys, the world is watching you.

KBC3 - SRK Over Do's

KBC starts their new season with quite a fanfare. This is the third season of India's most popular quiz show. This has been a come back vehicle for superstar Shah Rukh Khan to small screen. SRK, who started his acting career on television in late 80's, went on to become India biggest bollywood star of his era. King khan has given a number of hits in his career spaning more than 15 years.

KBC last two seasons were hosted by biggest superstar of all time, Amitabh Bachchan. AB not only hosted the show successfully but made a turnaround for himself in dropping showbiz career but also put Star Plus to number one spot in TRP ratings. People whole heartedly accept Big B in his new avatar as a quiz master. The show went stronger and stronger with masses. The show is not only about making people crorepatis ( millionaire ) but thier chance to meet and interact with AB. The charm of evergreen AB has just been irresistible on KBC.

SRK has stepped into the shoes ( bigger shoes ) of AB by accepting to host the KBC. SRK's popularity is nothing less than AB. There were no better options for producers when AB refused to continue with the show. SRK has his own histrionics and charm to bind people. The show started his third innings on 22 January 2007. There has been tremendous speculations about the future of show with SRK. Star Plus have been publicizing the show for more than a month before the start of show. Even Big B came home early to watch the show on TV. He was
anxious to see how his successor hosts the show.

KBC3 started with an item song of SRK. Quite a filmy touch to the song. The song was not catchy enough keep you glued to the TV for 5 minutes. The set was quite the same what
we are used to see. But compters have been changed from lenovo to "Compaq da". Yes, thats what SRK was addressing computer ji. Brands endorsed by Shah Rukh will fancy thier chances. SRK tried to make few changes in presentation of show in a witty style. King ordered that "lock kiya jaye" has been replaced with "freeze it". Dear contestants now on you cannot "quit" the show. You have to say "gale laga lo".
SRK declare "one never quits !!" so "gale laga lo". At times SRK tries to sound witty but sounded sarcastic to AB which I am sure viewers wouldn't like. I personally did not expected this from Shah Rukh. Many times he looked conscious and slight loss of appropriate words. I am sure as he moves further with the show, we will see him a bit more relaxed. Shah Rukh we don't want to see you act in the show. Be yourself. He lacked natural expressions on the face which we are used ( and like ) to see on AB's face. It helps you to connect with the audience. I would say SRK over do's in his debut episode or the shoes of AB are too big for SRK.

Tags : KBC , SRK , AB , KBC3 , Quiz

C# - Protected Access for Instance Members

Today I learned something new which I was not aware of.

I was reading the Peter's blog post regarding limited access of protected constructor. According to the new c# specification , protected constructor cannot be accessed through base class rather it is accessible through instance of derived class. This is a marked change in VS2005 ( not followed in VS2003 ). Protected instance constructors follow the same rule as the protected instance members. They are accessible only through instance of derived class.

Protected static members can be accessed from base class as well as derived class. There is no need to create the instance. So protected static member are accessible in same way as public static members are. So to avoid confusion, static members can be declared as private, public and internal rather then protected. Declaring them as protected would hardly make any difference when compared to public static declaration.

Tags : C# , CSharp , DotNet , VS2005 , Programming, Protected Constructors, Constructors

Girl groped in Mumbai by Mob

It was the night of 31st dec 2006. The crowd had gathered to witness fireworks at Gateway Of India, Mumbai. As the clock was reaching 12:00 am. The crowd was going berserk and anxiously waiting for new year. There were around more than 1000 people gathered to witness the celebrations. A girl with her male friend was also present in the crowd to witness the same. But to her nightmare, few shameless men started to molest the girl. Her male friend stepped in to stop them. But rather then supporting her friend , more people joined and groped her. In a minute around 70 people surrounded her and torned her clothes. Her friend was helplessly beaten who was trying to protect her. The whole drama continued for around 10 minutes. During this incident the girl fell down and the disgusting men pounded on her.

Similiar incident were reported with few other women in the same gathering after this incident. Strangely there was not much done by policemen who present in the police post. It is quite pathetic and sad that these incidents happen in the country which bring shame to the city and country. The traumatized girl could not be identified and the couple have not complained in the police to prevent further embarrassment.

Its quite more strange when I raised this issue in one of the indian forums. My thread was deleted as most of the members were from mumbai and they did not like my view point. Its shameless mumbai .

The story was reported by Shadab Khan in Mid-Day, a local newspaper.