iSync for Lion

With Lion available on the shelf – the urge to update will be stronger than ever- but there is some not so good news. I am not diving into the awesome OS that is Lion – but the little nuisances that it comes with. First, with a change in certain architecture methods, some applications are not compatible with Lion (much like 98 and W2K) – the casualty for me was MPlayerOSx – in my opinion the coolest player for the Mac. Though VLC has now fought back to reclaim the top spot in my book. The second and most critical for me was the deletion of iSync. With a Nokia- the best way to sync contacts and calendar events was via iSync. Now with it being gone- it was a little startling. However, fear not there is a workaround this irritant.
First- if you have not upgraded to Lion good. Copy the iSync.app file and any modules that might be there in the library to an external drive. After you update to Lion, copy back the files to the Application folder (iSync.app) and the others to the library. and Viola – it works.

Incase you have already upgraded to Lion – and were shocked to find iSync missing- don’t worry – Visit: http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1184017.html or http://www.mediafire.com/?6rt8k244sbxyyem and download the iSync.zip from the server. Unzip and run. and it works just as well.

 

disclaimer: its worked for me – and I downloaded the file. I cannot verify / vouch / authenticate the particular file as I have not uploaded it.

Horn-y

well, the devious marketeers mind can think of any hook to catch the gulliable fish( Read:Customer) to try the goods. in this case, my devious mind thinks of the seven sins, and well, since you have reached till this line, i can assume my strategy has work. sadly, this has nothing to do with any of the seven sins, but more like the 8th sin. Being an irate bus driver.
i must tell you at this point of the kind gentleman, who was in the service to my previous company is his unique skill of driving a 40ft piece of metal like a 6ft rover mini. the best part is that he not only lives an illusion that the piece of metal, that is a 20tonne bus, is as small as a car, but also that he is driving a rally in traffic.
he achieves break neck speeds, (that is by breaking the innocent bystanders necks) by some craxzy ass rash driving, but also with his Horn. (now you know the story of the title)

I will call him the Arnold Schwarzenegger of horns.
He has a horn for every occassion and every situation.
But why Arnold Schwarzenegger? simply because in the Movie commando, he has a gun for every occasion.

Here is an MP5, ideal for cleaning teeth, combing hair and blowing off the earlobes of a person within a 70ft range.
Next on the shelf is a baretta 0.45, ideal for combating road rage, silincing irratating critters and mugging someone.

anyways, my gentleman bus driver, has a horn for every body. His body, her body, dead body, everybody!

First, the high pitched Air horn, for close combat: If its a 2 wheeler, or a bus within a 10 ft range. The range here is from my bus’s front bumper to the driver of the condemed vehicle. consistent blowing gives everyone such a headache that they have to pull over to buy an asprin. the day it was fitted, i could swear that the driver wore a wicked smile seeing other drivers veer off near pharmacys. i on the other hand sitting right behind this maniac almost threw up due to the consistant badgering.

Next, the regular horn. tuned to the note C on a keyboard, however far far less pleasant, this is used as the standard equipment horn. red light turns to green, PHWEEEEE! Green light turns to red! PHWEEEEE!( Now, this is only if he bother to stop, i did however wonder why did he do that, was he displaying his displeausre at the signal, well, these are one of those GAKs, or God Alone Knows)

Incase there is a vehicle who is refusing to move from his path, there is the multi note horn, i suspect its tuned to C and A, does break across wavelenghts. The amplitude is also rather large as this is BLOODY loud. so, if he begings to loose his cool, in comes the MP5 of horns.

Now the mother of all horns, The OICW of horns ( Objective Individual Combat Weapon for the un initiated, it was a special weapons program by HK), the THREE tone horn, this is once he HAs lost his cool. now i would much rather not be around when he does blow it, and defninlty not in Front of the bloody bus, but this is saved for those rare occasions of Lboard dirives, and imcompetent nincompops. !

anyways, i am sure from past history our gentleman has a hidden stash of horns like grenades. he keeps replenshing his arsenal every now and then.
well, god do help those who cross his path, and refuse to give way, even if there is NO way to move, just move!
:)

Reality bites the dust?

In a recent article that appeared in BusinessWeek – about the new genre of reality TV shows – really got me thinking. Of the whole lot – i was hooked onto a handful – actually just 2.

1. MasterChef – Australia and

2. Undercover Boss

Though I believed that there was a good amount of learning from the two shows, Businessweek has gone ahead and debunked this great theory of mine.

MasterChef – yes- i still rate it as my favorite reality TV show to the point my wife and I used to rush back to watch. I remember i timed one travel of mine so that I can reach in time for the 11pm rerun of the same! That was me.

Though Undercover boss has just started screening on the tele, i caught it during my recent trips. I really enjoyed the fact that many CEOs take time to understand what the issue really is, and implement policies in improving them. Can be rather small gestures in sending folks on a holiday, to career advancement steps. As much as I wondered how the folks would not know this was something big – the usual explanation that they were part of a reality TV show about startup jobs, so many episodes were filmed without them guessing. Then the shit hit the fan!

You can read the BusinessWeek article here.

Undercover Boss is entertaining precisely to the extent that it’s dishonest. The fraudulence peaks with its messianic mythmaking, but its faux populism is the true sham. Because the series’ very existence requires cooperation from the executives that it purports to make suffer for their sins, it has to raise them higher, in the end, than it found them at the start. If it doesn’t, they’ll stop volunteering for their fake lashings and ritual redemptions. “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss,” sang The Who. However he chooses to hide it, scuff it up, or beg forgiveness for misusing it, the power is still his. And that’s reality.

Though these are rather scalding allegations, there is a certain amount of truth or if i repharse it- there is a certain amount of doubt on the authenticity of the program that has cropped into my head!

Well, that being said- i think its time to just stick to the regular programs that come on TV!

Air India

I was seeing a lot of stuff on Air India happening on the news- the strikes and cash crunch and what not… and the only thing i felt was sad. Having first flown on Indian Airlines and that having been the starting point of the my love affair with airplanes- “it pains me” to see th mess the airline is going through. Well, instead of sitting aside and doing nothing – i decided to put down some thoughts.. now the only thing left to do is get the attention of  the good folks at the airline. :)

 

Grub Rescue – Windows 7 and Ubuntu load error

So you have installed a dual boot windows 7 and Ubuntu and then after a futile attempt to make things work at office, decide to delete the partition onto which Ubuntu has been installed. you restart and bang!

GrubRescue>
GrubRescue>
GrubRescue>
GrubRescue>
GrubRescue>
You realize that you need to get things fixed without formatting the hard disk and loosing your windows files.
Here are the steps which I took that worked for me.
1. Boot with a regular windows 7 CD.
Select the English (or your language option)/ keyboard setup etc and click next
3. select “Repair Windows” option
4. after the installation of windows is found, select the install and click next.
5. select the Repair boot option
now if this does not work. You need to get your hands dirty.
6. Select the option of “Command Prompt”
7. Enter the following command
bootsect /nt60 sys c:\
this should repair the mbr
incase this does not work try the next option

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup

C:

CD Boot

Attrib bcd –s –h –r

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /RebuildBcd

 

then it said

“Scanning all disks for windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while…

Successfully scanned windows installations: 1

[1] C:\windows

Add installations to boot list? Yes(y)/No(N)/All(A) : “

I pressed ‘Y’ as there was only one instance of windows installation. Then it said The operation completed successfully.

6. Next entred the following command bootrec /fixmbr It said The operation completed successfully.

7. Next entred the following command bootrec /FixBoot Again It said The operation completed successfully.

 

incase this does not work try the next option

 

go to c:

type Dir

if you get a blank directory then thats the problem. Find out what drive letter has been assigned to the primary windows installation drive. in my case, the rescue drive setup by toshiba assigned c to itself. and my windows was loaded onto what dos assumed was D: so i changed the bootsect command a bit

type :

bootsect /nt60 sys d:\


and bang!

Windows boots up!


thanks to www.pcchimp.com for this support

and http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7repair/thread/42d3f550-bf5f-459d-94ed-4cbadd7c933c