Make Bootable USB

Using bootable USB to install an operating system (OS) not only makes the installation faster, but also saves a DVD.


Creating or using an USB Drive to install Windows operating systems is very easy if you follow the below mentioned steps.


Here we assume that you are using either Vista or Windows 7 to create a bootable USB.

1. Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable) stick to the system and backup all the data from the USB as we are going to format the USB to make it as bootable.

2. Open Command Prompt with admin rights. Use any of the below methods to open Command Prompt with admin rights.

*Type cmd in Start menu search box and hit Ctrl+ Shift+ Enter.

Or

*Go to Start menu > All programs > Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

3. You need to know about the USB drive a little bit.  When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

 DISKPART and hit enter.

LIST DISK and hit enter.

Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the below image my USB drive disk no is Disk 1.

4. In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.

SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)

ASSIGN

EXIT

Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

5. Insert your Windows DVD in the optical drive and note down the Drive letter of the optical drive and USB media. Here I use “D” as my optical (DVD) drive letter and “H” as my USB drive letter.

6. Go back to command prompt and execute the following commands:

D:CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD Drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.

BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

(Where “H” is your USB drive letter)

7. Copy Windows DVD contents to USB.

You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer that comes with USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

Note that this bootable USB guide will not work if you are trying to make a bootable USB on XP computer.

CSC Campus Selection in JIIT Noida, Sector- 62

Today CSC had come to our college for campus Selection. After Knowing the package they were offering (i.e. 3.27 lakhs CTC) , training period and bond. Me and my friends decided not to join this company as we already have one offer in our hand. I already had infosys's letter of intent in my hand at that time. Selection process was :-

1. Written Aptitude Test (40 Mins)

2. Written Technical Test (40 Mins) followed by Written Communication Skills Test (10 mins)

3. Communication Evaluation (GD)

4. Technical Interview / HR Interview

5. Final Short-listing 

 So in the presentaion (i.e. CSC Corporate PPT) , we(jiit, noida fellas ) showed complete disinterest in CSC. We didn't gave any response to their questions.When they asked how many of us have visited their website ? None of us raised our arms to answer their question. But when they asked- "how many of you are having internet connections in their home". Very proudly all of us raised our hand. When they asked how many of us are active on facebook. None of us raised our hand. No-one told them the full form of CSC. Somehow ppt was completed.  Then there came the  aptitude test and technical test. These 2 tests were compulsory for all. We passed the aptitude test but in technical test we marked all questions wrong and in essay writing we wrote some pathetic story so that there would not be any chance of selection. 

After giving the test we started bluffing each other saying that "oh man, results are out ! and i saw ur name in the list..." and in all possible ways we tried to beguile each other. Then we started playing cricket.After two hours final list came & we took sigh of relief that most of us were not selected. :) :) But unluckily they are few chaps who got selected :( :( & were sent to TnP cell for GD & PI.

In the GD when they raised the question that who would join the CSC if they got selected. All of those poor guys who got selected replied on their face that they do not wish to join CSC. But  then came the biggest blunder of all. All those student who were uninterested got shortlisted for the next round. The same thing happened with them in the technical PI. They spoke the truth. The interview didn't ask anything. He just saw the CV and try to convince the candidate that what kind of opportunity he might get if he joins CSC. Then they gave HR interview. There they asked which job location would you prefer but answer was still the same that we are not interested in CSC. :) Then the interviewer enquired the reason for that. 

Around 10 O'clock final list of selected student came in which they selected 53 students. Luckily all of  us who don't wish to join CSC wasn't there in the list. :) :)

Now the reason why we were not interested in CSC was....

1. It is having the dream status i.e. if selected we have to join CSC.

2. We are ECE student with already 1 offer either from Infosys, Accenture, Wipro, HCL, Google, Grail Research, MTree, CMC etc.

3. We were waiting for core Companies like Ericssion, Landis & Gyr, Continental etc

4 .Package was not lucrative.

5. Job Profile was crap. (i.e. Global Infrastructure Services (GIS) ) .Systems engg. /Software engg. is a better profile than GIS.

6. Once volunteered for the process, you will not be allowed to withdraw .

What to do when Cellphone / Mobile is stolen ???

If u lose your mobile..............??

This is how it works!!!!!!

1. Dial

*#06# from your mobile.

2. Your mobile shows a unique 15 digit.

3. Note down this no anywhere but except your mobile as this is the no which will help trace your mobile in case of a theft.

4. Once stolen you just have to mail this 15 digit IMEI no. to cop@vsnl.net

5. No need to go to police.

6. Your Mobile will be traced within next 24 hrs via a complex system of GPRS and internet.

7. You will find where your hand set is being operated even in case your no is being changed. PASS ON THIS VERY IMP MESSAGE TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES.

If u lost your mobile, send an e-mail to cop@vsnl.net

With the following info

Your name:

Address:
Phone model:
Make:
Last used No.:
E-mail for communication:
Missed date:
IMEI No.:

Keep all these information stored for emergency use..

Rules of Hearts Card Game

Object of the game

The object of the game is to score as few points as possible. The game ends when any player has 100 or more points. The winner is the player with the least points.

Passing cards

At the beginning of most hands, you pass 3 of the cards you have been dealt to another player. In the first hand, you pass to the player on your left. In the second, you pass to the player on your right. In the third, you pass to the player across from you. In the fourth, you don't pass any cards. This sequence of passing cards is repeated for subsequent hands.

Starting a hand

The player with the 2 of clubs leads by playing that card. The other players must play a card in the same suit if they can. If they can't follow suit, they may play a card from another suit. In the first round, you may not play a heart or the queen of spades.

Taking a trick

The player who played the highest card of the suit that was led takes the trick. The 2 card has the lowest rank. The ace has the highest rank.

Broken hearts

You may lead a heart at the beginning of a round only if you have only hearts in your hand or if hearts have been broken. Hearts are broken when anyone plays a heart when they cannot follow suit.

Scoring

You score 1 point for each heart you take. You score 13 points if you take the queen of spades.

Shooting the moon

When a player takes all the heart cards and the queen of spades, this is know as shooting the moon. The player's score for that hand is 0 and 26 points are added to the scores of the other players.

How To Apply Windows 7 Visual Style To XP Desktop

Windows 7 is a real eye candy. It looks awesome. I know many Windows XP users would like to make XP look like Windows 7 (that’s why you’re here, right?), because, either they don’t want to upgrade yet, or they can’t.

If you have some crap PC (don’t worry, I know it’s only temporarily) or maybe some other obstacles that don’t let you install Windows 7, then this will definitely help you…

I know that you would, at least like to feel that Win 7 design if you can’t use the Windows 7 itself. All those newly designed features like big and iconized taskbar buttons, Windows 7 Superbar, or even full Start ORB. Now you can have all that in Windows XP too.

Here’s how your desktop will look like after you complete the steps below:

And here’s how to make it possible: (UPDATED with taskbar hack included into theme package)

1. Download Windows 7 Theme “SevenVG RTM” for Windows XP theme here and extract its contents. You should see a folder named: “SevenVG RTM Theme for Windows XP by Vishal Gupta”.

2. In this folder, you’ll get 5 more folders:

a) Fonts – This folder contains Segoe UI fonts required for the theme. Run “Fonts.exe” file to install them.

b) Styler Toolbar – This folder contains Styler setup and SevenVG styler toolbar skin. It will provide toolbar and commandbar in Explorer that looks like Windows 7.

c) Theme – This folder contains the main theme. LATER, you will run “Theme.exe”file to install it.

d) Iconized Taskbar Hack – This folder contains registry script to enable Iconized taskbar in Windows XP

e) Extra Common Tasks – This folder contains 2 extra shell styles: Bottom and Left dark blue.

3. Make sure you have patched the “uxtheme.dll” file (needs to be patched to allow 3rd party visual styles).
Download and run the UXtheme Patcher from here:

For XP SP3 Users – Download UXTheme Patcher here
For XP SP2 Users – Download UXTheme Patcher here

4. Now, run the Theme.exe (from the folder described above) to install the windows 7 theme. Apply the theme using Desktop Properties.

Ok, you have applied the new theme and should now see the difference. If, for some reason, your taskbar is not iconized as on screenshot below, you will need to do one additional step, to make iconized taskbar buttons on your XP to look just like on Windows 7.

How to make iconized taskbar buttons on your XP:

Windows 7 taskbar doesn’t show text in application buttons, it only show their icons. Here’s how it will look like after you follow these steps:

And as you already know, previous Windows versions used to show icon as well as text in all application’s taskbar buttons. That takes too much space when you open lot of applications. And here is how it looks (although you know how it looks because you are using it now, but just for the record…)

As you can see, Windows 7 new iconized taskbar feature looks cool and it also saves a lot of space in the taskbar area.

There are 2 ways to do this.

Download a registry file which will automatically make necessary changes in your registry base and make your toolbar look like in the image above (the easy way – recommended)

Manually make the changes in your Windows registry base to apply the above effect. (for advanced users).

I hope you have chosen the easy way, but if you really insist that you want to do it yourself, manually, then here’s how to do it:

1. Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor. Now go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

2. In right-side panel, create a new String value “MinWidth” and set its value to “-255″

3. That’s it. Log off or restart your system and get ready to have iconized taskbar on your system.

That’s all you need to do to make that XP desktop look as shiny and cool looking as Windows 7.

If for some reason, you want to restore the default taskbar behavior, just delete the “MinWidth” String value and log off or restart your system.

Enjoy! 

3 Hacks for Firefox That Will Double Your Internet Browsing Speed

There are many people out there complaining about the Firefox RAM Memory Bug. Lets get it straight. It’s not a bug. It’s part of the cache feature. This ‘feature’ is how the pages are cached in a tabbed environment.

To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are renavigations to pages visited less than 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last five session history entries for each tab.

This is a lot of data. If you have a lot of tabs, Firefox’s RAM memory usage can climb dramatically. It’s a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web.

Now a lot of us have found the ’secrets’ on how to manipulate settings in “about:config” to drop the memory usage as long as possible and to increase the speed at which Firefox loads sites. Read on to find out how to do this.

Remember: Firefox (download it here) is the best internet browser available (in my opinion), and these tweaks below will make it even greater and faster. So enjoy!

Reduce the amount of RAM Firefox uses for it’s cache feature

Here’s how to do it:
1. Type “about:config” (no quotes) in the adress bar in the browser.
2. Find “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewer”
3. Set it’s value to “0“;(Zero)

Increase the Speed in Which Firefox loads pages

1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter.
(Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.)

2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 10.

This means it will make 10 requests at once.

3. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0“;.(Zero)

This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages faster now.
Optionally (for even faster web browsing) here are some more options for your about:config (you might have to create some of these entries by Right Click –> New– > Interger or String

network.dns.disableIPv6: set “false” 
“content.notify.backoffcount”: set “5“; (Five)
“plugin.expose_full_path”: set “true”.
“ui.submenuDelay”: set “0; (zero)

Reduce RAM usage to 10mb when Firefox is minimized:

This little hack will drop Firefox’s RAM usage down to 10 Mb when minimized:

1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter “config.trim_on_minimize”. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.

These simple tweaks will make your web browsing with Mozilla Firefox 2-3 times faster and easier. And I think they are fairly easy to apply. Enjoy!