Sunday, January 31, 2010

26 Awesome Windows 7 Themes

Windows 7 is the first ever operating system from Microsoft that has been developed largely by keeping user feedback in mind. It is much more faster and better looking than Vista. If you are one of those users looking to upgrade or buy Windows 7, then you should definitely look out for some custom made themes. Today we present you 26 delighting and refreshing themes created by users of DeviantArt.

You will find the installation details along with other information on the respective developer’s page. I am sure that you will enjoy them all.

Windows 7 Skull Visual Style by ~TheDarkenedPoet

Windows_7_Skull_Visual_Style_by_TheDarkenedPoet

Woodstock Windows 7 Theme by ~Markus-Deviant

Woodstock_Windows_7_Theme_by_Markus_Deviant

Windows 7 RED Theme by ~XBMCG33K

Windows_7_RED_Theme_by_XBMCG33K

ThaImpact VS for Windows 7 RC by ~DjabyTown

ThaImpact_VS_for_Windows_7_RC_by_DjabyTown

Underoath Theme for Windows 7 by ~bobmat4

Underoath_Theme_for_Windows_7_by_bobmat4

Windows7 Black Transparent by ~pegass

Windows7_Black_Transparent_by_pegass

Aerosnap 7 Theme by ~Freak180

Aerosnap_7_Theme_by_Freak180

OnlyBlack Windows 7 RC theme by ~tonev

OnlyBlack_Windows_7_RC_theme_by_tonev

AeroLighting For Windows 7 by ~neodesktop

AeroLighting_For_Windows_7_by_neodesktop

Warsaw- Windows 7 Theme by ~G0DLIKE

Warsaw__Windows_7_Theme_by_G0DLIKE

Lumens for Windows 7 by ~alkhan

Lumens_for_Windows_7_by_alkhan

Desk 09 with New Windows 7 OS by ~Dr-Bee

Desk_09_with_New_Windows_7_OS_by_Dr_Bee

Alternative for Windows 7 RC by ~oliver182

Alternative_for_Windows_7_RC_by_oliver182

SiCo for Windows 7 RC by ~alkhan

SiCo_for_Windows_7_RC_by_alkhan

Aero Diamond for Windows 7 x64 by ~alkhan

Aero_Diamond_for_Windows_7_x64_by_alkhan

Heart Windows 7 Theme by ~soffl

Heart_Windows_7_Theme_by_soffl

Theme For Winodws 7 by ~Arturik1988

Theme_For_Winodws_7_by_Arturik1988

Windows 7 OSX by ~Black-Energy

Windows_7_OSX_by_Black_Energy

Clean Green Windows 7 Theme by ~J-MGraphics650

Clean_Green_Windows_7_Theme_by_J_MGraphics650

Seven Aero Shine Blue For 7RC by ~molinarosp

Seven_Aero_Shine_Blue_For_7RC_by_molinarosp

Trans-7 Themepack by ~Crusader1080

Trans_7_Themepack_by_Crusader1080

SevenMaxClearLiveFinal For 7RC by ~molinarosp

SevenMaxClearLiveFinal_For_7RC_by_molinarosp

Windows 7 Simple Black Glass by ~feliipetaumaturgo

Windows_7_Simple_Black_Glass_by_feliipetaumaturgo

Natural by ~phS2

Natural_by_phS2

Waterbomb and Windows 7 by ~Adrenalize81

Waterbomb_and_Windows_7_by_Adrenalize81

Windows 7 with Classic Theme by ~RainingSkies

Windows_7_with_Classic_Theme_by_RainingSkies
So which one do you plan to install? Let us know in the comments. Enjoy!

If you wanna download these, Bing it  

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Install windows xp vista and 7 from pendrive

Let’s begin the guide without wasting time. Just make sure that you have a pen drive with 4GB + capacity if you are making a bootable USB flash drive.

Requirements to create bootable Windows USB:
# Windows 7 or Vista ISO
# Pen drive with 4GB+ (2 GB is sufficient for XP)
# 15 Minutes of free time

Procedure:
1. Insert your USB flash/pen drive to your system and backup all the data from the USB as your USB drive will be formatted during the process.

2. Now download WinToFlash tool (free) from here.
3. Run the tool, and browse to your Windows 7, Vista, or XP DVD files (make sure that your USB drive letter is correct).
wintoflash
4. Click Create button to begin the bootable USB process. Wait for few minutes to see the bootable USB.

5. That’s all!

Friday, January 29, 2010

social-media-wizards-contest-in-2010-rediff

Rediff Social Media Wizards Contest 2010
Institute Name:
Rediff
Details:
Welcome to Rediff Social Media Wizards Contest 2010 – your chance to be crowned Social Media Wizards-2010 and win the top Prize of Rs. 100,000.
The objective of the contest is to create a Rediff Page (details given below) and popularise it within the given timeline. Even if you enter the contest a bit late, its not an issue. Your chances of winning depend upon how well you promote your Rediff Page! For detailed Rules, Refer to the Terms and Conditions tab.
To get you started with ideas for your Rediff Page, Look at the following ideas:

  • Page For your institute itself – Show-case your campus, courses and invite alumni, experts etc. Get the fame your institute deserves!
  • Page For your Department – Tell the world achievements of your department, the research therein and reach out to sponsors or industry gurus!
  • Page For your favorite professor – Consolidate all their work – their blog, links to their articles or papers!
  • Page For upcoming cultural events’ Page – Promote your events and invite sponsors. Update your fans about the programs real-time, as they happen, even through mobile.
  • Page For your sports-teams – Go beyond college and inter-collegiate sports – announce your achievements to the fraternity across the globe and attract promoters of your sport.
  • Page For bands in your college – Don’t let the bands stay within the campus boundaries, tell the world about their programs, and get an audience for a concert.
  • Page For promoting placement activities – Highlight the successes of your institute, the batch profile, medals and accolades making it attractive for placements.
  • Page For social initiatives undertaken by your college – Make your cause heard on the internet, invite followers and reach out to millions who can support the cause and take it to another level.
Terms and Conditions:

  • Contest registrations start from Jan 11, 2010.
  • Contest period is from Jan 11 to Feb 25, 2010.
  • Team will be of 3 members – any number of teams from same institute can participate.
  • Topic of the page is the choice of the team.
  • All 3 team members should be current college students and all 3 from same institute.
  • 1 student cannot be part of 2 teams.
  • No offensive material is allowed – violating this will lead to immediate disqualification
Source : http://pages.rediff.com/wizards-2010/termsandconditions

Thursday, January 28, 2010

National Seminar on Image Processing 2010

A National Seminar on Image Processing is to be held at Sri Krishna Arts and Science College, Coimbatore by the Department of Computer Applications and Software Systems. Please do ping back for updates... More info to come soon...

Sunday, January 24, 2010

MSP Summit 2010

Guys ! ! ! Sorry for the delayed report.... I had just reached ma home town via train from Bangalore for this MSP Summit 2010. Soooooo., here I go [H]
 Day - I    (22nd January, 2010):-

               The train reached the Bangalore station around 6:30AM on 22nd Jan 2010,  With a few yards away was the Bell Hotel where we were supposed to report @ time... We entered the hotel and got identified as MSPs and got the keys after verifications. Got into the room and took a small nap, The starting was to be the Intership exams for the MSPs, it started around 10:00 AM for which we had to take two tests (one hour each). The person incharge for Internship & Placements in India gave an info about Microsoft and its damn cool work place and job tasks. After which the bunch of papers (soo called as Question Papers) were given. Never the less, it was a good experience attending the engineering question being a Arts Student. I've never heard of such words in ma life, All I did was this when the exams were going on.
MobileKing sleeping
             All were asking doubts to the Microsoft People there and i was asking for chocolate to ma friend. After which we were moved to Leela Palace where the TechVista 2010 was to be held. They gave us a bag along with a water bottle after the inter was over and rushed us out of the hotel and pushed into the buses which drove is to the venue, to the surprise it was the lunch [:P] . We had the lunch dripping into the stomach, we reached the Leela Palace. Got down and was really surprised over the splendid palace and the view of it. It was really AWESOME ! ! !. Got into the venue gazing at the beauty of the palace.

             We were to register with the Desk for session-II and they gave us a tag like thing to put it around our had... We merely had it over the hand and went into the halls... I would like to comment that MSR Team is doing such an wonderful job in India, unbelievable, all the papers, presentations, demos, shows were simply cooool... Especially we had a play over the Microsoft Surface, which eventually pulled people around it rather than going and attending the session... We saw a lot of innovative techniques which were to be implemented in future.  We were gazzing over the displays and were intimated that we were to leave the palace by 5:30, but left a bit earlier.... Around 5:25 the busses to Bell Hotel was booing and we got into it after  a long wait...
              After reaching the Bell hotel, we were left free for which we went for the dinner arranged by MS. We enjoyed eating a lot.... Finally Mr.Mark D'Souza & Siddarth Prakash came to us and told the intern results.... ( around some 23 ppl were selected for the interview... ). We ppl were happy that we did not get selected [:P] , All were to bed and we started to roam and were back @ 12:30. 
 Day - II    (23rd January, 2010):-

              Next day morning, we were supposed to checkout @ 6:30 and leave the luggage in the reception. We were redirected to the President Hall, where the Bangalore OpenDays 2010 was to be held. Some Bangalore MSPs were late due to heavy traffic. So had to wait for some time... In the mean while ppl got introduced to all and were chatting happily.
              The session started with the keynote by Mr.John Jacob on IGSTC & IE8 ... He discussed a lot about it.... and clarified a lot of queries in that topic...
              The second session was about  Indic Language tool, which is now developed for Office Word under research section....He showed us a demo on its working...

             The next session was about Visual Studio 2010., that was simply awesome... Our eyes were unable to stand on the demo as she was running from corner to corner... My head partially was twisted and i had a very bad neck pain. And was simply awesome !... I mean the session yar [A]...

              The after-part was the awaiting lunch... People lashed back to the Buffy table to grab their plates.... Everyone had a good lunch and was ready for a sound sleep with the lights dimming off the stage... Before the session was back we had a photo session of all the MSP Summit 2010 attendees.
MSP Summit 2010
                The session was back around 1:45 where in it was the session on Windows 7, it was a interactive but it was with no rejoice, because most of the MSPs have a lot of experience on those on-stages... and nothing was new.. 
               After that we had a sponser Session by HCL Info tech who is a gold certified partner, we had a good nap while the session was for half an hour... They bid a bubye and there came our BOSS(es).....   Mr.Mark D'Souza & Mr.Siddarth Prakash... they introducted the themselves as the Stud-Part team along with Mr.Hilbet & Ms.Sonali.... Gave some simple guidelines for the new MSPs and left off the stage...
               Next was a session by Mr.Mayank Gandhi, IT Academy Evangelist... He gave us a info about the IT Academy program in india, which was cool. (I'm about to implement in it in a week or so, ma college has accepted for it.) 

               The MSP Topper award was given to Mr.Hilbert which was a laptop which both Mr.Sidd & Mr.Mark are using now. Following was the Special Announcements and other info about EduSpark. It was totally exciting for others, the aftermath was the goodies and welcome kits/starterkits/welcomepack/luchpack what ever you ppl call. Everyone bid a bubuye and moved off the venue with a happiness...
               So sad that we really missed a lot of ppl from UP and delhi due to bad weather climate[:@] . Damn flights too got canceled due to bad weather
Mr.Mark , Mr.Sid , Mr.Sathish ,Mr.Reza, Mr.Mayank , Mr.Hilbert , Ms.Sonali Bora gave a final touch for the Open days , Banglore. It was the end of the day and we merrily went down to the railway station and was back home the next day.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Windows 7 GodMode ??? Not Really !

Of late, I saw the following making rounds on twitter, the blogosphere, on email and even on CNET:
Create folder, rename it to GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and double click on it.
So I thought I’d make a few things clear here.

  • Firstly, it’s not called GodMode. Name your folder DevilMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and the new folder will be called DevilMode instead. So it really isn’t “God Mode” – you can call it whatever you like. image
  • Secondly, what you get is just the Windows 7 Control Panel in a different (expanded) layout – it doesn’t contain any “hidden” tweaks. Take a look:
image
When I collapse the tree, GodMode becomes this:
image
Now, let’s open Control Panel and switch to Large Icons:
image
I get exactly the same thing. Why?

Explanation:
  • Open the Windows Registry (REGEDIT)
  • Search for “ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C”
  • You will find this key in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID
image
  • As you can see, this is nothing but Control Panel
What you’ve done is basically figuring out how to make a shortcut to Control Panel and give it your own name! You can do the same with any of the classes in the registry and achieve similar results!
For example: SuperGodMode.{ED834ED6-4B5A-4bfe-8F11-A626DCB6A921} will open the Personalization Control Panel and call it “Super God Mode” :-)
This is a fully documented Windows Shell feature, not an Easter Egg.
Good bye “God Mode”!
For more of these interesting alerts, mail to sathyathemobileking@gmail.com

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

'You've got to find what you love,' Steve Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.


I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Leap year check

What is Leap Year?

The standard Gregorian Calendar that we follow in our daily life, has a leap year every four years. In such a year the month of February contains one extra day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the Astronomical Year. So the number of days in the month of February becomes 29 and the number of days in the leap year becomes 366.

The Rule

The full rule for checking a leap year is not very well known, and I often find many of my juniors and fellow pupils lacking the exact knowledge of the full rule. What most people know is that if the year is divisible by 4 then it is a leap year. But although this rule is good for nearly all practical purposes, it is not the full rule. The exact rule for finding out whether a year is leap year or not, is best described by a flowchart:
leap2
It was of course designed keeping the programmers in mind. But non programmers too, should not have much of a problem to understand the logic. Just to aid them, a%b denotes a mod b, which in simple terms mean the remainder obtained when a is divided by b. The numbers a and b are positive numbers only. The above diagram is technically called a flowchart.

Programming Language Construct

We can of course translate this to a programming language with the use of three if-then-else constructs. But there is an easier way of doing this as I will demonstrate:
Let us denote the three condition checks by three boolean variables, A, B and C (as shown beside flowchart). So the condition for leap year is:
AB’ + ABC
= A ( B’ + BC )
= A ( B’ + C )
The reduced boolean expression when expressed in C-like constructs become:
year%4==0 && (year%100!=0 || year%400==0)

Conclusion

What prompted me to write the article was the popular misconception to the rule and the ability to demonstrate the boolean reduction technique. The article took shape while I was trying to explain the rule to my brother Bikkhan for the the n-th time and decided to draw the flowchart to make matters easy for him. Lastly, I also figured out that this could be an excellent way of showing him the practical usage of boolean reductions that he has learnt in his Std XI curriculum, but never grasped the true significance of.

References

  1. To know more about Leap Year, Gregorian Calendar and Astronomical Year, just follow the links. You will also get an insight on the exact scientific reasons behind the rule.
  2. For a similar discussion and actual program in C language, consult the book “The C Programming Language”, 2nd Ed., by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. They have given a similar construct along with a full program on date computation.
  3. For non-programmers reading this blog, here are some links on Boolean Algebra and Flowcharts.