G Krishnaa

The Messengers

gkrishnaa — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:56:08 +0000

Not a post about the Movie, The Messengers, its about the Instant messenger Applications.

There has been many new changes and upgrades on Instant Messenger Applications. All the major IM vendors[Live, ~~Gtalk~~ Google Chat, Yahoo] now have new IM Applications for users.

Live Messenger 9.0 released to Beta to selected users last week has got new features like adding Signature Sounds for notification.
Yahoo has released the long waited Yahoo Messenger for Vista after it was last shown to public in January 2007.
At last Google has added some cool features to the Chat ~~Application~~ Applet hosted in its web mail.

Both Live and Yahoo have released products while Google is still sticking onto Cloud based developement, which again makes me think if Google could ever deliver any Desktop Product.

PS: Am still alive to Blog.

Imagine Cup 2008

gkrishnaa — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:21:54 +0000

This post comes after disastrously forgetting to Submit my Imagine Cup 2007 Documents for Information Technology Invitational in spite of being through to the Round 2 and regretting about that for almost a month. Now that its all History I am delighted that the next year Imagine Cup Theme and Finals Venue have been put up on the Imagine Cup website.

Theme for Imagine Cup 2008 : “Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment.”

Registrations for Imagine Cup 2008 will Start in the Month of August.

Next SQL Server Codenamed Katmai

gkrishnaa — Sun, 13 May 2007 21:00:26 +0000

While the Title says it all, the next release of SQL Server successor to SQL Server 2005 is codenamed Katmai.

Just a bit of Live revealed that Katmai directed to

Promises to be Secure, Reliable and Scalable Data platform across Devices. More on this after the early bit CTPs are out for Katmai. . Hoping this to RTM along with Orcas like SQL Server 2005 did for Visual Studio 2005.

Back to Dial-up !@#$%^&*()

gkrishnaa — Tue, 01 May 2007 08:29:00 +0000

Yes am back on dialup connection which is the only connectivity to internet as of now[March 18,2007- May 01,2007....]. Almost for the past 2 weeks I have been getting disconnected whenever I try to connect. Worst case is that even after my ADSL modem is connected [which is a probability of less than 1%] I just have the time of not more than 5 minutes to stay connected. Quickly my LAN and WAN lamps would go OFF. Being totally not able to connect for a day, I had to call up the Customer Complaint number of my Broadband provider. The provider stating that they have got 24 x 7 x 365 helpline didnt respond to the call which was made at 23:00 hrs. Even on picking the call after some 7 retries from my side the phone was hug up on the other side. So back to early methods of complaining it to the local exchange.

Within a COUPLE OF DAYS a technician came over to my place to check for the connectivity while only my mom and my sister were at home. Initially the technician had replaced my modem with a new one which he had brought to check for connectivity. Since I wasnt at home at this point of time i got a call from home saying that all the connection is very perfect. I was still wondering on how this would be so simple and asked the technician if he had tested with my modem. Yes, was in Negative. So he back again connected my Modem and checked for connectivity. Later he discovered through ipconfig that something was wrong with Subnet Mask field that wont allow me to get connected. But the actualy strategy was I was able to connect but only for a few miutes, after which I would go disconnected. Still wondering how he would solve it, I got a 3rd call from my home again saying that he couldnt edit Internet Protocol Properties. So basically with all the permissions on my machine with which he has been working on now was on a Guest account.:P.

Now I had to risk my Admin account details so that he can work it out. Nothing much to worry on , I told him the Credential. One more thing is that my provider supports DHCP so I dont have to worry on naming my IP to a certain range or address. The work around he did for getting connected was to type in a specific IP address and code in Gateway and DNS server. Luckily he got connectivity in some 10 minutes it seems and was connected for over 15 mins which I told is a probability of less than 1% previously. His Mission accomplished. Packed off and moved.

Back home, I had the same problem again. I got pushed to the extent of getting a ADSL modem from my friend to get connected. But still last night the same problem of getting connectivity happened. Though wasnt disconnected got the connection very late[after 40mins of trying].

Later this morning another technician followed by my second complaint checked my interet usage online[from my dialup] and said that “this modem has done too much of transfers, so might need replacement“. ..lol..

Looking on the Brighter side :

Exams are ahead from May 5th, so doesnt matter a lot to me now.[Surcastic]
NOTHING MORE HERE

On the other Side:

Really been missing to read mails and respond on time.
Didnt get to download both Longhorn Server Beta 3 and Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1
Couldnt watch the Keynote and the Webcasts of MIX07
Missed out the Whole Silverlight Action on time.

On the whole coverage I wouldnt go wrong with Balakrishnan referring to my state as “BAD INTERNET MONTH”. Yup really a bad one to experience.

PS : I really hate typing lenghty Blogs. This entry from my dialup connection should have given an idea of how I am disoriented.

Beta Tester Reward

gkrishnaa — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:52:26 +0000

If Windows Vista Beta Testers got a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, an Office 12 2007 beta tester got this.

Closing an open Handle

gkrishnaa — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:01:16 +0000

Often are the times that Windows throws you a ding on deleting a File or a Folder. Mostly the error message is kind of “Access Denied” or “Cannot Delete” or someother blah. I have got a lot of Complaints from my friends that the reason accounting to this as Windows getting Older. They were actually trying to say that D-Day for Windows is nearing. i.e Format C:[Return Key]. Well actually there are ways to tweak around these stuff and make it smooth. Though basically it needed the help of 3rd party Tools from SysInternals now its all under one roof as Microsoft bought Sysinternals.[Old news:)]

The Tool Process Explorer prooves of great help in getting Windows back to work smoothly. Whenever there is a Folder that would go undeletable open ProcessExplorer and Find ur Handle[in this case name of the Folder]. ProcessExplorer should be able to get you the right handle along with the Application that uses it. Now you can choose to close your handle and try Deleting the Folder or File.

Got a new Nikon Coolpix S8

gkrishnaa — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:28:30 +0000

Finally after the long wait, persuaded my dad to get a Digital Camera. And now its a New Nikon Coolpix S8 with 7.1 Megapixel and Sleek design.

Effective Pixels -7.1 Million

Maximum Image Size -3072

Optical Zoom- 3x

Storage Memory – 14MB Internal and bought an Extra 1GB SD card

LCD Monitor – 2.5 ” TFT

Movie Mode – 640×480 @ 30fps

Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista

gkrishnaa — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:00:48 +0000

The folks at Yahoo have really come up with a super cool WPF based Yahoo Messenger specially for Windows Vista. Saw this Video on on10.net and I was amazed at the cool looks of the new Messenger which runs completely over WPF. The app makes use of all the Vista exclusive components such as Glass in the Messenger Window, adding a Chat conversation to the Sidebar Gadget, and tabbing multiple conversations into a Single Window than cluttering the Desktop. Yahoo has now opened Signups for using the new Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista when its available.

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 is available.

gkrishnaa — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:06:39 +0000

An year after the RTM of Visual Studio 2005 the next milestone patch Service Pack1 [SP1] for VS 2005 has been released. But still for developers using Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista, Microsoft is in current development on an update to Service Pack 1 called the ‘Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Vista Refresh Beta’. The Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista is expected to ship after the consumer availability of Windows Vista in Q1 of 2007 and is now available in beta.

Quick links to obtain the Service pack for different Suites.[Team Foundation Server ,Express and Professional]

Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 available

gkrishnaa — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:24:33 +0000

Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 available. The Game development platform for the XBox360 Consoles are now available for Download.

This allows the developer to deliver games targeting the Console system from the Visual C# Express Environment. XNA Game Studio Express and the XNA Framework, aimed at helping students and hobbyists build games for Windows and the Xbox 360. This release supports both Windows game development and Xbox 360 development.

Get the Studio from this site.