Speeding your mobile broadband

I moved the article to here.
http://computersight.com/communication-networks/speed-up-your-mobile-broadband/

Wordpress site Infection : save your site

Today I witness something , that I never expected to happen. At office I was having chat with my friend Gopal. Gopal had subscribed to my wordpres site "burnedpages.com" through feeds. Suddenly his computer blocks an infection from my site (Thanks to Avast, the best in business). I was kinda surprised.
First I thought it was a false alarm but when i reached home, I couldn't access to my site. My own avast was blocking all the infection. So I figured something had wrong. It was my first time hosting a site, and I didn't wanted Google to show my site as unsecured.
I was using wordpress 3.0.1 with "erudite" theme. no other plugins.
I don't want google or other search engine to ban my site from search results, So here are some (desperate) steps that I took:-

• Backup of Data:- I used my website admin tools to get access to my wordpress database and then exported all the data to my computer. after all its your work and it shouldn't be wasted. My site provides an easy way to export the database using "PhpMyadmin". phpmyadmin has an export option that can be use to export your data to a text file. This backup is very usualful  if you need to change wordpress database name. In most cases it wouldn't be necessary though.
• Change FTP password : I guess hackers some how accessed my ftp password, or used sql-injection techniques to transfer the infected code to my index.php file. Any ways I changed my ftp password to a secure and hard to crack one.
• Deleted WordPress:- Then I deleted all word press files. (Yeah its better to delete it and then install a fresh one, rather then cure the infected file yourself. You can remove  'Extra Melicious code' from your webpages,but i guess wiping is better ;)   )
• Note for users:- Created a html page in my site saying that my site is undergoing maintenance.It is great for your traffic, otherwise people may go like "WTH, this site was working yesterday".
• Upload the original installation: If you have original installation of wordpress in your computer , you can upload them back and get your site to its original state easily.
• Access modification  : Change file permissions on your site so only you can write them.

And my sites was up and running in 10 mins. Next time I will be more careful.

What I have learned :- Don't use Wordpress own theme installation module . Why? it uses FTP and its better if you do it from your FTP client. Choose a hard password to crack for your wordpress installations. Its better that your site remains under maintenace mode rather then spreading infection. I hope it helps those wordpress sites that have such infection. Wordpress is great blogging tool and such incidents shouldn't put a question mark on it. Webmaster can be and must be a little careful next time.

Beat within my heart

Music is something that is just beyond description. The very essence of life , pleasure and faith. A calm beat that constantly loops while you surf the net. An aura of music beats that surrounds you when you are happy , a simple song that you hum every sec of the day.
It remarkable how taste of music varies with person to person , place to place and time to time. With so many genre of music around us, how we like so many form of music . From plain jazz , Hindi songs , ghazals  to  pop ,rock and  metal.
Music has the power of devouring you in it. An affliction that constantly beats within you. How we enjoy every line of our favorite song. Feel every word of the song ,listening to every line like its part of our life. Singing it like we are the one who created it.
Our culture is rich in Music forms. So many flavours , types and colors,  defines music and the way we appreciate it.

"Music is Life ".

Wiki Leaks : Down?

I was just trying to search wikileaks at google, and guess what? their main domain appears to be down. "www.wikileaks.org" is down. I think government striped their domain name from name server or somehow prevented access to their name server or even worse their site may be under attack. I think thier other mirrors are still operational. I found their facebook account showing some mirrors working directly on IPs.

But what I found interesting was how google's search engine still is able to search them. Just type "wiki leaks" and google searches page that don't have a domain name , but rather a static IP. Strange? well kinda yeah. I mean how the hell they did that? ( might have been the cached pages... don't know for sure). I mean it blows up the SEO right? Or is it just googles own preference to find them cause it is a burning topic?

Is it possible to remove wikileaks from Internet? Well the answer is probebly "nope". Why? Because Internet was designed for this specific purpose. (I know you don't know that. So here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpanet ).
Internet was designed to endure a Nuclear attack. So it even works if some of its portion is blown.

P.S. dismantling Internet would be the only way to bring down wikileaks to dust i guess  :)

Google Docs: Moving with World

How many times it happened to you that you got a laptop to edit your word document  or create a presentation in 30 mins!! just to find that the laptop doesn'nt have office suit in it.

Gone the days when you needed a office suit in your computers. With Internet technologies improving at rapid speed. You have all the office suit with Google Docs at your finger tips. Google Docs allows your to create basic word doc, excel-sheets , presentations , images at your Google home page.
Just follow http://docs.google.com/
All of your word documents , spread-sheets, presentation travel with you. Yeah no more pen-drives :)
No more shouting on cunning neighbour children who delete your stuff from computer when your are away.
No more headaches of finding the documents.
Google Docs also has an import function. Moreover it also allows you to link your spreadsheet or presentation to webpages. Nice isn't it.
Also has Template feature.Templates allow you to quickly create those Resume, Monthly bills etc.
Its better to watch it in action yourself.
Cheers. :)

Witch doctors and Computer Virus Infection

This article is dedicated to my good friends, who regularly get virus in their laptops and then bring them to me for the "cure". ( and I cleaned them with help of "Decease Cleansing Totem" (dedicated to my World of Warcraft friends) ).
Common Mistakes that lead to infections :

• "Antivirus are useless". Funny but true, most people think antivirus are worthless.
• "I checked this pendrive. It doesn't have any viruses". Really?? think again.
• "This pendrive may have viruses but don't worry, I just need this song from your HDD.". Great Work Einstein.
• "I formatted the pen drive, No more viruses!!!!". LOL.

You have virus infections: Symptoms.
Most of the symptomsare easily observable.

• Right clicking pen drives give Odd looking Menu items.
• Task manager has some unusual processes running.
• Task manager is blocked or not showing.
• Msconfig shows unusual entries at startup.
• Msconfig is blocked.

Avoid double clicking pen drives, either right click->explore or type the address at addressbar.  Get an anti virus!!! regularly update it. Scan every pen drives, even if the owner claims that its empty.

"Prevention is better 'then' cure".

P.S : thanks akshata, luv your comments.

Guarding my Computer: My Avast

Its been 3 years, yes three long years and no other anti virus program has come even closer to Avast. I use Avast home Edition and its awesome.
Being on Internet is not safe specially if you are not aware. Mal ware, Trojans, Root kits crawling around. Your friends running with scissors (pen drives) ready to hurt your computer.
How does Avast prevents all of these?

Avast Home Edition

• On access protection: protects you when files are accessed, very important for pen drives where virus auto run most of the time.
• Network shield: when your firewall fails, which usually do. prevents infection from Networks.
• Low memory print:  yes you wont even know Avast is doing its job.
• Boot time scan: very important, if you are caught off guarded, which is rare with Avast.
• Regular Update: gets updated 3-4 times per day automatically.
• Home Edition: free registration for 1 year.

"I was checking the traffic details on my blog. when i saw new links. I curiously clicked on them, to check the source of this traffic. And suddenly Avast blocks a JS-infection from the site.

Thanks to Avast my computer is safe again. :P

This article was written after that incident."

Together We Stand

The fun parts of job are the moments you share with your fellow colleagues. I have been fortunate, having great colleagues at work. Working at college has been like being in college once again. Cheers

Quotes and lines

Mark of  Genius, You throw rocks at them they make a wall  out of it , climb on it and say  "hey I am still over and above you   :P !!!".
I love such quotes. These small lines just describes the pain,barriers, struggle of a person. I usually get such good qoutes from my friends' SMSes,who get them from thier friends etc. But I rarely get programming qoutes. I searched the net and found some really funny one.
some of the quotes I really like:

• “The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it’s too late.”
• “In C++ it’s harder to shoot yourself in the foot, but when you do, you blow off your whole leg.”
• “Fine, Java MIGHT be a good example of what a programming language should be like.  But Java applications are good examples of what applications SHOULDN’T be like.”

Some lines by me :P (here it comes):-

• Programmer devotes 80% of his time on one half of the program and 80% of people like the other half.
• Programmer 1:" your code looks seriously messy!!". Programmer 2:" yeah I optimised it, so only I can correct it".
• For a programmer, who crys the most? the "keyboard" ofcourse.

Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems

AI has been the most mysterious topic for me. I have always wondered about human like systems, System which can show intelligent behaviour. Describing intelligence is quite tricky, as human minds can do such things that a AI system cant even imagine (imagination in system is whole new topic to discuss).

blogging on the fly

currently testing bloggers mobile blogging capability. I am using opera 5 and nokia 6300. The editor works directly in html mode. no fancy compose mode available for opera 5. rest seem to work fine. One more thing. sometime the auto save doesn't work, so make sure to hit save (yup i wrote this thing twice ;)  ).

Spending Money on Recharges

What do you get when you have a lot of idle time, a mobile phone  and a spreadsheet. You get a pretty weird research topic. :)

How much you spend on your mobile phone per month?. Tricky right? with so many tariff plans available for your network, the amount you pay will vary with network to network, person to person.

Migration: Windows to Linux

Here I am with my Ubuntu System (10.04 Lucid Lynx), migrated from windows. Why? well I like to keep exploring new things. So whats new? well I tried following following distributions

1. OpenSuse 11.3 DVD version.
2. Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) 1CD version

So what did i found about? Well lets break it down to some criteria.

Getting ready for college website

After working for like one month, I was able to get the college site to its final layout. I choose a pretty simple look and color combination. The site itself is in beta phase. Some testing is needed for other web browser. I abandoned the IE6, (yeah its long gone and i don't want to create extra CSS for it anyways). while other web browser worked fine, I had some problems with IE7-8.

Pointers in C for starters

This article has been moved to my other blog .
http://programs-in-c-plus-plus.blogspot.com/2011/11/pointers-in-c-for-starters.html

Temple Artworks

I find Temple artwork very amazing , descriptive and creative. Some Artwork are related to tales ,lore or stories of gods while other are just demonstrating faith of people over their religion. It really exciting to learn that how artists used to work in the past with little less technology at their hands and were still able to create some marvelous artworks.

Going Open Source

I find it really hard to believe how people will run after genuine commercial products where an "Open source " alternate is possible. I am a huge fan of the Open source Community and i believe in sharing knowledge with world. In My own college I advice my student to always look for an Open Source alternate to their software needs.

History And Computer Science

Specialization is a word that is used pretty often in one's skill. Does it mark ones potential for research work and innovation? May be not, I have seen over past year the merge of different categories to invent something new.
When people start combining things up , some pretty interesting fields emerge out of it.
And I still believe merging things up to produce new topics of research. Prof. YashPal once said, " Students should be allowed to switch between fields at higher studies level". So a physics student can learn humanity, or a Computer Student can learn history. All seems to be completely weird and illogical, but this type of convergence allows new research topics. ( combining geology with computer science to produce GIS is a classical example ).
My recent idea is to archiving records of history architecture, tradition and manuscript. A Good database could serve many people. With online capability the data would be accessible to all part of world.

Need for Historical Archive in himachal

I dont think there are many places in himachal where you can get a good historical archives for places, tradition ,dialects or rituals. Our own religion and customs ,which are fading away with time. I cant see classical houses in my home town. Traditional ways of architectures , customs and artistic work are diminishing. A good way needs to be formulated for proper catalogging these things.
With the technology on our hand, I think it can be done .Its necessary for us to preserve our own past and culture which will be fading to death pretty soon.