A quicker firefox

Some great tricks to speed up your firefox browser here
Here a few in the list I tried and that real speeds up the browsing

1. Access the firefox config by typing about:config in the address bar
2. Change network.http.pipelining to true
3. Change network.http.proxy.pipelining to true
4. Change network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8
5. Create a new variable content.notify.interval (right-click in the window and select New -> Integer). Click OK and enter value as 500000
6. Create a new variable content.notify.ontimer (right-click in the window and select New -> Boolean). Click OK and enter value as true
7. Create a new variable content.switch.threshold (right-click in the window and select New -> Integer). Click OK and enter value as 250000

For details on how this works go to the source which is here.

The Beginning..

July1, 2008 (Delhi, India) – Guri dressed in her beautiful green dress says a tearful bye to her parents and starts looking for Geet. Delhi Airport is in a mess due to continuous downpour outside. It has been raining since last two days. Guri wanted to do some more shopping but time was short. She got to know about her travel plans only a week ago.

There, standing next to ticket counter, she spotted Geet as usual talking over her mobile. She was parallel trying to pull the Red suitcase on to the trolley. But it was falling side ways time and again.

Geet had a small frame and long black hair pulled back with a black clip. She was very touchy about her hair and took lot of care. She also got to know about the travel only last week. She is very happy about this trip as since long she was wishing for a short trip to US.

Guri pushed the trolley loaded with two big suitcases and a laptop, and moved towards Geet. By the time Guri reached Geet, she was done with her call. They greeted each other and started moving towards immigration counter absorbed in their thoughts.

July 2, 2008 (New York, USA) – After a tiring journey of 14 hours, Geet and Guri came out of New York Airport. Guri is all smiles and happy about being here. This was a dream come true for her. Both of them are here for a project assignment. She can feel the air of independence around her. They hired a cab and started their journey towards hotel Grand Hyatt. Guri with her beautiful eyes wide open is trying to absorb each and every scene around her. Big tall buildings disappearing in to sky, fast moving cars on busy roads and people from different ethnic origins. Everything is so new and different to her. She is feeling as if she has been yearning for this throughout her life.

Geet tapped Guri on shoulder when she found her smiling all to herself. ‘I am soooo happy today.’ Guri said. Geet smiled. She was happy for her too. Soon they reached the hotel and were settled in their queen size beds after a hot and lavish bath. This was second time for Geet in US so she started telling Guri about few pieces of information which will be required initially. They soon slipped in to a peaceful sleep with smiles on their face getting themselves ready for a challenging day ahead.

July 3, 2008 – Geet dressed up in her black skirt and light blue shirt, is busy reading newspaper. She loves to keep herself updated with the latest happenings. It is 8:30 Am and they need to reach office by 9:00 Am. Office is just across the street so she is not bothered. Guri comes out of bathroom with a comb in her hand. She is dressed up in her favorite black trousers and off white shirt. ‘Do I look fine?’ Guri asked. She had a worried expression on her face. This is her first day in a client office. She is tense and excited at the same time. ‘Yes, you look stunning. Now stop bothering yourself too much. I am sure you will do well today.’ Said Geet with a cute smile on her face. Guri smiled too but she had a lot of things going on in her mind.

It was not long before they were absorbed in the days work. Before they could even catch their breath, it was time to leave back for hotel. The day had been very fruitful and client was very satisfied with their presentation. They planned to go for exploring near by areas before going to hotel. Guri was very much relaxed now and a feeling of comfort and belonging was already settling down in her. Guri and Geet talked about their days activities and cracked jokes about the smart manager who was all the time eying Guri. She had handled the presentation very well. By the time they reached hotel they were too tired to change and slept in their office clothes.

Life moved on very fast from this day. Guri had found a new world here. They had explored a lot of places by the end of one month. Guri had even started driving a car there and now she was completely independent. Geet is going back to India tomorrow and is picking up her stuff, which she has thrown all over the place in last one month. Guri is helping her do the packing. They talked about all the fun things they had done together and how much they enjoyed each other’s company.

July 31, 2008 – Guri dropped Geet to Airport before going to office. Guri is going to be here for few more months. She has made a few good friends in the office. One of them is going to move in with her by next week. “I will miss you’, Geet said while giving a big hug to Guri. “I will miss you too”, Guri said. “Don’t miss me too much else people will doubt”, Geet said with her mischievous smile. They parted their ways and started moving towards their destination. Guri came out of the Airport. She was ready to spread her wings and carry on with the flight of her dreams. Life moves on…..

Heres a a good initiative

With all the political ruckus in the country here is a nice initiative by a group of students and some young working professionals to try and remedy this. They have come up with a website to educate the educated section of the society to go out and vote. They also have some data which shows how narrow some of the victory margins in past elections were.. which means every vote counts. Here is the website. www.voteindia.in

And now reservations for IIT faculty..

Can you imagine reservations for IIT Faculty?
Reservations for students is a big issue as it is and now this. A below standard instructor would lead to the whole batch being potentially substandard.
The biggest fear is that if IITs adopts such a policy it would fuel a race among the other educational institutions to join the bandwagon.
Heres a link to petition opposing this move by the HRD department Revoke IIT Faculty Reservation Petition.
Do sign it. This is an important issue.

firefox v3 first impression

i was waiting for FF3 to go live. After trying to connect to firefox.com for an hour.. (yes it went down under briefly) i got my new firefox.. All the promises made.. and kept.. My first impression its blazing fast.. kudos to the firefox team.. still have to try all the plugins but its so much more satisfying to browse the web.

Move over from outlook to thunderbird

After using outlook for a very long time I finally thought about moving on to thunderbird. The process of setting this up turned out to be surprisingly easy..

After downloading thunderbird the installer automatically imported my existing outlook psts from my desktop(my biggest concern about the shift was loosing my old mails).

It did not migrate my email accounts though. However adding my gmail account to thunderbird was a breeze. Unlike setting this in outlook there was no need to set up the incoming/outgoing servers.. just my account id and password did the trick.

My next concern was i could not minimize thunderbird to tray icon like i was used to for outlook. A google search led me to this nice plugin which fixed this..

Importing my contacts from outlook address book was straight forward too.
Thunderbird asked me on start up whether I wanted to use it as default. Marking this as yes means i can right click any document and now the send to email recipient uses thunderbird instead of outlook.

One thing which nagged me was all that all my old mails showed as unread.. A simple "ctrl a" (select all) and right click followed by mark as read in each of my folders solved this issue.

As a final word i love what i got.. Its really light and does not bother my machines memory the way outlook used to.. Next am going to try using open office.

The definition of language

A few years back in the year 2002 I was completing hand written applications for my first job . There always was a field called languages known. My standard entry was English,Hindi,Marathi followed by a joke to whoever was around "can i enter C as one of the options?". Usually this resulted in a light hearted banter.

Fast forward to 2007. Am on a website filling up job applications. Theres a drop down titled languages known. What do i do? I start looking for Java(by pressing J repeatedly.. its a drop down you know) and then i see that the options started with Afrikaans.. "J" got me to Javanese..

I thought of that incident 5 years hence. It brought a smile to my face. The world has come a full circle or is it me who has?

Strange things technology makes you do or should i say strange things technology does to you?