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BlogCampPune2

BlogCampPune2 is a blogger unconference. Its happening for the 2nd time in Pune. It is completely free and sounds like serious fun. Instead of looking for more details here, I think it's better if you check out their cool wiki page.

I have registered and I'll be attending this the first time (I'll try my best to attend, unless I get some official issue to solve(slog) on weekend like every other weekend). And I hope those of you who are in Pune would be interested in it too.

Ubuntu 9.04 overheats my notebook

For last few days I observed my notebook (Sony vaio FZ140E) was heating up too much. Also battery could last for only 15 mins to half hour max. I thought it's EOL(End Of Life) phase of my laptop. But then, for some reason, when I booted it in Vista, the problem was not there. A little googling suggested that there is some bug in the ubuntu that is causing this issue. I am not at all aware with all the cpu cycle/frequency related terminologies quoted, but it has got something to do with percentage of processor usage. A lot of people seem to have same complaint. So the culprit is not my notebook :)

I hope Ubuntu folks will come with the fix soon.

Ubuntu upgrade

Today when I turned on my notebook, I realized that its April and the fresh new release of ubuntu should be out. I checked out the site and yeah, it was.

So I upgraded my notebook from 8.10 to 9.04. And it was a breeze. For those who wonder what the version numbers are, its really a very simple logic. The major version number is the year and the minor is month. 9.04 means released in month of April'09. 8.10 meant the version released in Oct'08. Ubuntu usually releases new version in these two months only. Can you see how simplified is the logic behind the version numbers. Doesn't it tell you about how simple this OS is?

If you have not yet checked it out, please do. Its free :)

Disable unused windows services

There are lot of windows services that unnecessarily load on start-up and consume resources. You can find more info about such services here. Disabling these or turning them to manual mode instead of automatic may greatly improve performance and boot speed. I am doing it right now. Thought of sharing with all.

Go Green

Maybe you and I can afford to waste, but our country and planet cannot afford to do so. Please Don't waste Food and Energy.

Here is the getting started guide:
  • Please turn off the computer monitor whenever not in use
  • Switch Off work PC when leaving for the day
  • Opt out of paper statement options for banking and other billing statements
  • Take prints only when absolutely necessary
  • Check the emission of your vehicle
  • Control the temptation to use the plastic bags, try to reuse the same ones
None of these points are very difficult to implement. It just needs to get into your habits.

PS: I know there's nothing new in this post. Just consider it as a reminder and tally yourself how many points you actually follow.

New hotmail on chrome

All new hotmail is even more annoying on chrome. Earlier (Sep/2008) I blogged about hotmail having some trouble when opened on chrome. Then about some issues with new hotmail in general (Oct/2008).  Hotmail has been improving (or simply changing) since then. But looks like these improvements (???) have made it complete disaster on chrome. Links are not working. I can't even reply or delete. And I guess it's not only me.

Closing cmd window after executing bat file

Just a small post you may find useful if you are as annoyed as I was of a command window left open after execution of a bat file.

I had to call an exe with some options. So I wrote a bat for it. But after executing the bat file, it always kept a command window open until I explicitly close it or the executed program finishes. Actually the command window remains open till the control is returned from the exe to bat again. Point to be noted is EXIT doesn't help in this case as it's call is also deferred until control is returned back.

eg.

start-netbeans.bat
netbeans --jdkhome d:\dev\jdk

putty-to-server.bat
d:\programs\putty -pw password username@ip-addrs

Use start before the command so your bat calls the exe and continues its execution i.e. doesn't wait for the exe to complete the execution

start netbeans --jdkhome d:\dev\jdk

start d:\programs\putty -pw password username@ip-addrs

You can use pause command for "Press any key to continue . . ."