The Taming of the Shrew

Recrudescence : noun; Return of a blogger after a period of abatement, from the International Dictionary of Blogosphere*.

I'm not much of a Blogger really and much of my previous posts (which are not many, in fact ) have been reviews or something vague. I've never really tried my hand at personal blogging and I'm not much of a narrator, so mind you, the following venture could get very boring indeed. Since my old posts have been months and months old and the fact that I actually had to type the only URL that is mine (probably the last visit was so far back in time that the browser failed to recognize it, anyway not the point here...) prompted me to write this post.

 (If you hate computers then skip some lines) The PC at my home is the quintessential desktop of the 2000's, using a 15 " CRT for display, a standard ASCII keyboard, a mouse (which thinks it is smart by suddenly swaying to the corner of the screen when you need it the most),a 750 W sub woofer system (which is over 8 years old now, and the left and right speakers have been at war lately and they have decided not to sing together at a given random instance. Whenever this happens I try to look clever by simply jerking the wires connecting the sound-box to the woofer, a simple twitch is all that is needed to keep them happy, I suppose. ) My box is over 6 years old now and about 2 years ago a major influenza attack threatened to take everything away. I dreaded formatting the hard disk the most, so when an Ubuntu 8.04 (hardy) live disc booted without any hassles, the era of Linux computing began at my box.

The New Dawn

Ubuntu Hardy proved to be a very stable companion to my box, for a fractional GB RAM my newly loaded box seemed to perform very well, though detoxification was still an issue then, I could do basic things like accessing Internet without any occurrences of crashes and delays at all, normally in my older configuration, I had to play games like ctrl+alt+del or push power button in order to work on it. Later after some RAM up-gradation, the box seemed better than ever, delivering the best possible performance for something that can be considered as an antique in this rapidly advancing digital age. For over an year or so there were just countable instances wherein I had to reboot in order to restore order from chaos. This was to me, heaven compared to the ordeal I had to undergo, about an year ago, in order to perform even the most menial of tasks like editing a document or accessing the Internet.

Plague

Good times were not to last forever or so the saying went, while migrating to Linux I did encounter some software related issues, but a large on line community and loads of documentation almost provided solution to the most common problems encountered, however nearly after a year of hassle free operation my box failed to boot, it was a festive occasion of Onam then, which ruled out the possibility of calling up the repair-man, the power button did glow but everything else went blank. Equipped with a new toolbox purchased sometime back, after some desperate phone calls I found out that problem was with the RAM, after some frantic searching at home, I fished out the 256 MB RAM which I previously regarded as something redundant, blunt and obsolete. Even things we regard as useless have their places in life I guess. So for the first time I opened the CPU cover on my own and and found out to my relief that the warranty still lasted for 2 more months, so after finding out the culprit, my box was back alive and kicking, though now with a reduced computing power (it was only temporary thanks to the warranty sticker).

The Final Frontier

The new version of Ubuntu, viz. Karmic was shipped with a host of new features, however because I had opted for a shorter install procedure, most of the configurations of the file-system never seemed right, importantly the recovery mode (equivalent to safe mode) appeared to have only a command line utility.

Sometime later the box started behaving really odd. I had to use the reset button so much; that at one instance I had to actually pry the button out from the cabinet, the problem was slipping well beyond my reigns and I could do nothing about it. A few hours later nothing seemed to work. Now power button gave no more responses even the beep sound I realised then that the problem was with the power supply all along, I opened the cabinet and tried the same sequence I had done months ago when the RAM failed, though I was sure I wouldn't get a response, which was proved correct. The problem was out of my grasp. I had to call up the technician to fix it up.

A few days later the technician arrived and did his routine procedure opening the cabinet and re-fixing the cables. Finally he replaced the SMPS with the spare one he had brought and I finally the monitor came to life with the intel graphics blushing with its certificate of purity. I was about to take my wallet when I found out that he in fact did not mean to complete the repairs as of now,as the SMPS was meant for a more deserving customer, this was just a mock session a mere identification of the problem, not its rectification. Now this was fate I thought, after informing clearly that the problem was with the SMPS the company sent a technician without the one thing I asked for. Obviously they listen very well, so much for customer service I thought.
Epilogue


On a fine day morning the technician finally reappeared to finish the job he had started initially. After calling up the company 2 or 3 more times the problem had been solved. Finally a new SMPS was fixed, with a sticker ascertaining a warranty of one year and my box roared back to life. Hopefully everything happened for the best.

P.S: This post may contain some information that may get too technical at times, maybe I'm experiencing the so called 'not so writer's block'. Hopefully everything will be better the next time.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE (MYL)

Guidelines to the perfect social networking

Social networking seems to be the coolest thing around these days. It allows one to stay in touch with friends and meet exciting new people from every walk of life. While there is no recorded documentation of MYL Theory, it is seen everywhere on your wall, your page, even on your mobile. Though this post can never describe something like the wind completely we may be able to just take a sneak peek into what is one of the universal laws governing the other half of the world.

Social Networking sites are developing fast these days. Sites like maspace ,fb are used by millions. Besides having a wonderful wall and many sharing options there are some killer applications. It is suspected that many of these involve really complex algorithms to actually serve its great purpose. For instance applications like fiend of the day is the best, it chooses from your list the best person who can possibly guide you through the day. This is nothing compared applications like your crush or your future wedding bliss, many dating services have supposedly given up their jobs considering that one can find their perfect partner through this utility. The actual codes of this applications are really long some even employing the best cryptographic techniques there is, it is even speculated by fans that the codes were written by a 5th generation bot, so that accuracy is right on. Some skeptics though still maintain that all that these applications do are, reply like a five year old if you ask a really inquisitory question.

Article 81A :Of Posts and Posting (a.k.a The Neo-lingual paradigm)
It is of primary importance that you get accepted in your social network. A typical posting on the wall by really cool dudes takes the following form

“2day i lyk had br3lfast at ma hOME in the morn3n.OMG THAT”S LYK SO K000000L”- posted at 2:30pm by McooL
Daemon commented on this at 2:32 pm

“Ur ROCKIINN MANN…lol LOL” – posted at 2:35pm by lifescoolDUDE
Rig likes this.

Matt Pery took the personality test and found his perfect love.Take this quiz and find yours

“WHAT are u doing anywayz?What are u lyk R3tR3d??” posted at 3:42am by whoisthis


If the above posts don’t make any sense to you, then your English is probably the source of trouble, try completing about a trillion personality tests and read about 1000 posts on your wall and comeback again later. The history of the language written above is still in doubted. It can only be understood by really cool people having an IQ of the order of 190 or so, which is generally the case of most users. If you think that this was just a random combination of using caps lock and num keys coupled up with a broken language, then you’re heavily mistaken. Even advanced etymologists can only speculate how this language came about. Initially spellcheck was a feature that characterized posts, however due to heavy pressure from a great number of users this was later disabled. So when during registration if you are asked a question like what is your language? it is a trick question and only the selected few can answer it.

Article 96B: Vocabulary Redefined

If you’re thinking that you cannot get your ideas across fully even though you attended the basic English courses then probably your vocabulary is impeding your progress. Learning the social networking jargon may not be an easy thing though it appears like poorly constructed language wherein singulars and plurals are switched(eg. newayz /anyway), caps being used at wrong places and punctuations used everywhere. Let me tell you this the developers of this language gave a lot of thought into it while developing. It was originally created when a monkey sat on a typewriter. Though if you want to flaunt in front of your peers you might give typing on broken keyboard with your eyes closed a shot, although it may not work everytime.

Article :(.-.. --- .-..:)

If you’re a total newbie at social networking and don’t know how to get recognized then you have come to the right place here. If you have nothing to post then you can always comment on others with .-.. --- .-.. (translated LOL in Morse Code).If nothing is going your way and you are desperately searching for a break then you have lol to the rescue.Even if the post makes no sense to you and you’re unsure of what it means you can always complement it with lol, chances are that the guy at the receiving end is a newbie too and thus all is well though this makes no sense to anybody. Also there are always the smiley symbols, if you still have to learn smiley code then you can always try some random combinations of braces and full stops.It is speculated that lol was created when a user misinterpreted the slang lol(lots of love) and as of the present only the few echelon members at top social networking sites know the actual meaning of this abbreviation(or a shorthand?) while the true meaning is still in doubt newbies in this world of social networking can always try to sound cool by just about using lol anywhere.

Well these are just some glints into the great MYL Theory, while the entire documentation is still awaiting completion. Btw Good Luck with creating a great profile at the great social networking sites.

P.S: My keyboard was working perfectly fine, and neither the caps key nor the numeric keys had any problems and no I did not attempt to post this blog from my mobile phone

UPDATE: For the comic fans out there here is a link to the XKCD comic strip that aptly describes the situation

Blogcode 2.0

[parts 1 & 2 )

Whether we know it or not every Blogger adheres to a set of rules though none of these are stated explicitly.Blogcode 2.0 is aimed at documenting the various rules that govern the blogosphere of its blogs. It is a piece of code that was written by the very developers of blogs & blogosphere. While the etymology of the word blog dates back to the 1990s to something called weblogs, the real meaning of the word blog is still speculated.(If you’re using older versions of word or any other WYSIWYG processors pre-2007 era for that matter, you might find that the spellcheck fails to recognize this incongruous word.(As a matter of fact, spellcheck fails to recognize itself, so this may not be a bug!))
(WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get)
(Btw the word Blogosphere came out of the blue, it has no known meaning)

PART 1
The Quintessential cliché
Every Blogger begins his blog stating its purpose and greeting the blogosphere. It is something much similar to the ‘Hello World’ in programming. Something that has to be done, a swearing in ceremony, it is even speculated that the word blog came into existence when a very famous blogger attempted the ‘Hello World’. Most bloggers then try to explain the reason for their entry into blogosphere as boredom or choosing blogging as they have nothing better to do. Generally the first posts are the quintessential cliché’s of every blog. Much like those chick flicks that are made these days, the first blog often contains long soliloquies of a blogger often explaining the reasons for their entry in this world, where adventure is an everyday phenomenon. If you’re a newbie to the blogosphere and you desperately want to blog (obviously for unexplained reasons) you can always begin by telling boredom is the primary reason for entry into this part of the world. Even better, you might even get praised by other blogo-sapiens for your entry even though your first blog essentially contains nothing but boredom explained, it is something, generally so clichéd that you might actually get away by pasting someone else’s first blog which itself may be a metaphor for boredom explained.

PART x
Of Postscripts and Post-scripting:
If you feel that your reader’s patience wasn’t tested enough with your excellent post already, you always have post-scripts to the rescue. You can always post script your blog with something that ensures that your reader may never visit your blog again. And to further ensure that this happens you can always post-post script your blog to ensure that this process is speeded up. Please don’t go beyond an order of 3 lest only Nobel peace laureates may read your blog. Though most users claim they don’t know the actual use of this literary technique, bloggers continue to use P.S as an effective way to scare non bloggers off the blogerado.

P.S: Blogcode 2.0 is still in its development (beta) phase and further postings are required to complete this marvelous piece of code.

P.P.S: More postings to come, though this heavily depends on your support.

P.P.P.S: The above statement was false.


Comments:
“Give man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to blog, you get rid of him forever”-An Anonymous Blogger

“Excellent! This is something that I have always been looking for”-The new kid on the blog