2) No Hang-Outs - Usually I would depend upon Sneezy or Shitty or Kitallis or Vishal for calling me up and making a programme for some kind of fun which would involve refreshing old memories, watching a movie, WLAN gaming, book hunting, feasting on random roadside food, or just mocking handicaps on the road. But no one came to my rescue. Sneezy had plans with his family, Shitty was down with some random illness, Kitallis was away in Noida partying with his cousins, and Vishal was at some random gathering near Vasant Kunj (?!). I was forced to walk alone on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

3) A Bad Dinner - After all the bad time that I had throughout the day I expected to have a good meal at home. Is that too much to expect on New Year’s Eve? I was disappointed again. Bad food at home. Had a fight with parents. I went to bed early on an empty stomach.

4) Broken Plans - When I couldn’t think of anything else to do on New Year’s I thought Shitty and me could hang-out at Adventure Island and see what all had changed in the two years since it opened. We spent our New Year’s in 2006 at Adventure Island with old friends like Shailesh and had a lot of fun on the then exciting rides like SideWinder. From what I’ve heard, that is pretty much the only ride people truly enjoy over there, but I still wanted to do something to pass time. Shitty, as I already mentioned, was bedridden.

The only good thing that happened was that I went out to do what I enjoy doing alone - hardware shopping. The AASP was in Naraina, and my work over there was over in about 10 minutes, after which I was left with the option of going home, or doing something else, alone. I had come half the way from my home to Nehru Place, and so I went ahead to Nehru Place, alone. I spent around 4 hours at Nehru Place looking around at small accessories on which I could spend the little money I had, bargaining with the dealers and then going around different shops doing market research for lowest prices and more so to kill time. I got myself a Logitech Classic Keyboard 200 (USB), a Quantum 4-Port USB Hub, a Bluetooth Dongle from Quantum again, Streetwear Earphones EP-50 from Creative, and a pack of 10 CDs.

Crappy new year, but gave me a lot of ‘me’ time, which I spent thinking about my life in general and listening to music on my new earphones.

Quoted from the official Lolax page :

LOLAX

When you mockingly LOL at a situation and simultaneously stretch out your tongue and make it sound as Vulgar as possible.

It is an evolved interpretation of the term LOL.
Unlike LOL, it possess an amazing feature of Vocal Integration. It can be used freely in normal speech.

Pronounced as : “LOL-AXE”

Gaming :
“He Knifed him from behind!!! He didn’t even notice!!! LOLAX!!”

Somewhere else (In Speech) :
A: *Laughs* Look at that guy! His fake beard fell off in the middle of the show!
B: LOLAX!
C: LOLAX!
D: LOLAX! Totally!

Digg it here : Lolax

To apply online for BITSAT, Click Here.

To visit BITS Admissions Homepage, Click Here.

To visit BITS, Pilani Homepage, Click Here.

Date Of Examination: 26-04-2009

Paper I : Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics: 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM

Paper II: Mathematics-Part I, Aptitude Test-PartII & Drawing Test-Part III: 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Scheme of Examination

Entrance examination would consist of two papers i.e. 1st paper consisting of three parts of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics of equal weightage with objective type questions for BE/B.Tech courses and 2nd paper – consisting of Mathematics,Aptitude Test and Drawing for B. Architecture and B. Planning. The Aptitude Test is designed to evaluate candidate’s perception, imagination, observation, creativity and architectural awareness.

Scoring and Negative Marking

There will be objective type questions with four options having single correct answer. For each incorrect response one fourth (1/4) of the total marks allotted to the question would be deducted. No deduction from the total score will, however, be made if no response is indicated for an item in the answer sheet. The candidates are advised not to attempt such item in the answer sheet if they are not sure of the correct response. More than one answer indicated against a question will be deemed as incorrect response and will be negatively marked. All objective type questions are required to be answered on specially designed machine gradable answer sheets. Answers are to be marked using ball point pen (black/blue) only. For the purpose of evaluation, Test Booklet Code as printed in the Answer Sheet on Side-2 will be accepted as final.

Visit the official AIEEE 2009 website here : Click Here

Date of examination: April 12, 2009

Paper I : 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Paper II: 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Pattern

Question Papers

There will be two question papers, each of three hours duration. Both the question papers would consist of three separate sections on Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics. Questions in these papers will be of objective type, which are to be answered on a specially designed machine-gradable sheet (ORS – Optical Response Sheet) using HB pencils only. Incorrect answers will be awarded negative marks.

Language and Font of Question Papers

Candidates can opt for Question Papers either in English or in Hindi. This option should be exercised while filling the application form. It cannot be changed at any later stage.

Visually impaired candidates, on request, will be provided with question papers with 20% enlarged font.

Calculating Aids

Use of log tables and any electronic calculating aids are NOT permitted in JEE-2009.

Declaration Of Results: May 25, 2009

Two new IITs, namely IIT Indore and IIT Himachal Pradesh are also being setup this year.

For more information, visit the official JEE website.

The drive is no doubt beautiful, the indicator light is what I love the most. But the drive has a base stand below it which is attached to the casing, and cannot be removed. That means the only proper way to place the drive is in the upright position which makes it unstable and vulnerable to getting knocked down.

The first problem that I faced with the drive wasn’t really a problem with the drive itself, but a problem created by OS wars. I had a partitioning layout in mind for the drive, but the problem is that I have to use the drive frequently with 3 operating systems – Windows XP, Mac OS X, and of course PCLinuxOS. So I needed to format the partitions with a file system that would work flawlessly with all of the three systems. I checked NTFS, but that would have problems in Linux and no write support in Mac OS X. Any Linux native partition was out of question, it wouldn’t work in Windows and Mac OS X. Same for HFS. The only one that came to mind was FAT32, but that had its own share of problems. The Windows Disk Utility supports FAT32 partitions of a maximum size of 32 GB. I thought I was stuck, but fortunately the Mac OS X disk Utility supports formatting in FAT32 but with no apparent size limits to the partition. So I made 4 partitions, all in FAT32 by using the Mac OS X Disk Utility.

The next problem was with the firmware of the drive. The drive comes with a power saving feature that makes it spin down after a few minutes of inactivity. The problem that this setting causes is that when you are listening to music or watching a movie that is on the disk, your media player buffers a part of it for you and closes the stream to the source until it needs to buffer more data. So when the stream is closed, the drive spins down to save energy, and when the media player requests for more data to buffer, the disk starts spinning up again which takes around 5-6 seconds and this time interval is seen by you in the form of a hiccup in video/audio. This destroys the whole experience of watching a movie or listening to music, because it happens once in every 2-3 minutes.
The power setting can be changed from the ‘Drive Manager’ software that came bundled with the drive, but this setting is present only in the version for Windows. In the version of the software for Mac OS X, this setting is not present. This makes your life hellish and you have copy any media that you want to play to your own hard drive prior to playing it. In Linux, I have somehow made it to work as it doesn’t forget the settings when it is connected to a Linux system after being connected to a Windows system where its settings were changed. In Mac OS X, it apparently forgets your settings as soon as you plug it in.

CBSE 10th Board Exams 2009: Download

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Though it seems pretty late for a review on this movie, yet the relevance of it in the wake of the current Mumbai attacks prompted me to do so. As I was watching it a second time over a while earlier, the realism portrayed, hit me hard. The whole movie seemed to be scripted by delving into the thoughts of the ‘stupid common man’ walking the streets today. Masterminding something of this sort is a desire existing in the subconscious of every Indian today. Having lost all faith in the system of this country we too wish we could boldly blow up every enemy without the slightest bit of remorse. Each dialogue spoken by Naseeruddin Shah is a reflection of what goes on in the average mind today. The manner in which he brings out our fear, anger and trauma is exceptional. Lines such as ‘Meri biwi janana chahti hai ki mein zinda hun ki nahin’ and ‘Hum naam mein mazhab dhunnd lete hai’ are touching and well written.

Earlier today I was thinking that Amir Kasab should be given a fair trial but I now realise the hollowness of the demand. Justice is never going to be granted as the case will be tossed around for years and the shortness of public memory will be exploited. We need to follow the movie and take quick action and punish him in a manner that will terrify anyone from terrorising us ever again.

I would also like to applaud the great satire on the Hindi news channels that was very accurately presented. The example of trivial issues being sensationalized was very impressive along with being extremely hilarious.

So I found out a really simple way of getting the audio output from my phone as well as my MacBook (or PC or whatever other audio device you want to use) in the same headphones or speakers.

For this you need :

1) For the input from your phone, you need a 3.5 mm converter for your phone. It is available at common mobile phone shops and provided as an accessory by popular brands such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung. Mine cost me Rs 100, and is worth it because it can be a lot of use as 3.5 mm is the standard for audio output. The converter also has a built-in mic and a button for answering/ending calls, and also performs the function of voice dialing.

2) For the input from the other source, in this case, my MacBook, you will need a 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm wire, which is really cheap and can be bought from a computer/audio equipment shop.

3) To combine the audio, ironically, you need a 3.5 mm SPLITTER. Though the purpose for this thing is to split an audio output, it effectively interconnects the 3 terminals it has. I used this property to combine the audio from 2 sources.

4) Of course you need something to take the combined output in. I use the Altec Lansing AHP524 Studio Headphones, you can use anything that gives audio output through a 3.5 mm jack.

I’ve marked the terminals to connect with numbers for easy understanding. Let the output port from my MacBook (or whatever your device) be 9 and the output from the phone be 10.

i) Connect 3 to 9.

ii) Connect 4 to 6.

iii) Connect 2 to 5.

iv) Connect 7 to 8.

v) Finally connect 1 to 10.

Now put on your headphones and enjoy a true hands and hassle free experience!

BTW, the downside is that your workspace becomes clogged with wires, so you need to make sure everything is arranged neatly and that the wires don’t get entangled.

Ok. So the point here is that I’ve tried a lot. And mind you, I do rate myself as a fairly intelligent Googler. And yet I can’t find out about most of the fests on the internet. So here’s a list of fests, their timings, and their highlights, that I decided to collect for all of you who might be having the same trouble. Wait. Wash your hands first. I don’t want this mouse dirty. Ok. Now. Scroll Down.



COLLEGE : FEST : DATES : HIGHLIGHTS

SRCC (Sri Ram College of Commerce) : Crossroads : Dec 16-19 : Business Quizzes (Prizes worth Rs. 1 lakh), KK, Advaita (Electric Fusion Band)

KMC (Kirori Mal College) : Renaissance : Dec 18-20 : Rakhi Sawant, Aryans

Hindu College : Mecca : Dec 17-19 : Parikrama, Euphoria, Gaming tournament (Counter Strike, Need For Speed, FIFA)

KNC (Kamla Nehru College) : Ullas : Dec 16-17 : Anushka Manchanda (of VIVA fame), Astitva, Metal Forcel

Hans Raj College : Confluence : Dec 18-20 : Hasya Kavi Sammelan

Ramjas College : Mosaic : Jan 2009 : Daler Mehndi



Miranda House (Tempest) and IP College (Shruti) are already over with their fests. IP College especially rocked having roped in Pentagram. DDU’s Kalrav was a lukewarm event with a local band called Bandish which was not so foot-tapping. And the band members were more than an hour and a half  late and heavily drugged (unverified claims). Checkout the pics below.