Life & Computing

for a very weird application I required SA account to be active but MS SQL server 2005 has it turned off by default. Probably Microsoft’s safest bet turn off all possible remote access Looks like a justified move but could be a little annoying.

I couldn’t logon using the command line so thought of installing the MS SQL express management studio. Which allowed me to login as local admin.

After loging-in you can goto the security Tab and change the authentication mode to mixed (SQL and windows).

Change the permissions for user SA to allow logins.

This should now allow you to login as SA.

SA accounts are preferred to be local so please make sure your actions don’t trigger any security lapses Its suggested that you rather use another account to allow minimal web access to the instance.

Sri :: Dec.21.2008 :: :: No Comments »

UPS charged me $1 for taping a ready to go box with sticker on it. The gesture priceless what happened to all those cheerful faces delivering boxes ?

Sri :: Dec.15.2008 :: :: No Comments »

Vista has finally started to annoy me, Its probably that I have started to notice it. Running linux for a few months changes something fundamentally. It brings in the habit of questioning Why? and if at all you get those answers you probably start to think why not ? or How about this ? Its the lack of such freedom that has suddenly made its presence felt.

I used the windows installer clean up tool and it has managed to cripple my system. I would have preferred manually deleting those bloating directories and achieving the same effect rather than using a totally useless tool.

I am bothered about the fact that how little I can possibly tweak the system, set my preferences. Its like following the Vista code of conduct. One small instance of non adherence and it destroys itself and it does it in a way thats totally non fixable. Why does it keep a copy of every installer possible ? If it was installed using windows installer doesnt it have a way to remember what, where, how was it installed and possible ways to uninstall ?

Why not allow me to decide what version of windows would I prefer using forever. .rather than junking the drive with multiple copies of DLLs, assemblies in winsxs ? and to top it all Windows installer clean up tool leaves the system unusable. It did say the changes would be permanent but never did it say that it would cripple the system. Office doesnt load, Icons have disappeared and its freaking 9GB of WinSxS and 2 GB of installer folder and Windows  folder is now about 15GB ?

Sri :: Dec.15.2008 :: :: No Comments »

It finally snowed today after lows of upto -9C it was time it snowed. Here are pictures I clicked http://picasaweb.google.com/gnosio/Snow08?authkey=guFyN_ofmso#

Sri :: Dec.06.2008 :: :: No Comments »

Its a matter of pride again. Lenovo’s support is simply outstanding. No hassles, No nonsense. I somehow managed to crack the palm rest of my T61 and it possibly happened because I held it at one of the corner edges and as its under warranty I could order the palm rest in less that 5 mins wow

thanks again lenovo

Sri :: Dec.02.2008 :: thinkpad :: No Comments »

Sri :: Dec.01.2008 :: thinkpad :: No Comments »

Spent about half an hour ..trying to see if the buffers were leaking or If I got the pointers wrong. Guess what the last packet was being written to the disk due to the goofiest reason possible. yes I forgot to flush()

if you find your data not being written to the file specially the last few bytes. The reason is probably the data is still in the stream and not flushed to the disk. do a fileHandle.flush() and it would force the data out to the disk.

Moral: Flush () before you slush at the language

Sri :: Nov.14.2008 :: programming :: No Comments »

The New kernel discards the old /sys interface which saves power.

It uses the “/sys/block/%s/device/unload_heads”  instead of “/sys/block/sda/queue/protect” for parking the heads.

Kernel

The patches to the kernel could be downloaded from : http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.hdaps.devel/1379/raw

Build and install the kernel.

Get the lastest source of tp_smapi.

build it with HDAPS=1 flag.

install modules.

UserDaemon : hdapsd : should be downloaded here : http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.hdaps.devel/1372

I had to manually change the if condition that sets the protect_factor. for some reason the sysinfo struct could not be read.

Compile the hdapsd.c and move it to /usr/bin/

edit the /etc/init.d/hdapsd file to check for “/sys/block/%s/device/unload_heads”  instead of “/sys/block/%s/queue/protect”

Thanks Elias Oltmanns for the recent patches.

more info at : http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/HDAPS

Sri :: Oct.21.2008 :: thinkpad :: No Comments »

__ratelimit: 1 messages suppressed
wlan0: CTS protection disabled (BSSID=00:23:a5:28:09:19)

seems like the drivers are messed up in 2.6.26. The possible fix is to use the compat-wireless drivers. (http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download)

Sri :: Sep.25.2008 :: :: No Comments »

The Large Hadron Collider is the largest and most complex scientific instrument ever built and the highest energy particle accelerator in the world.
The accelerator is located 100 m underground and runs through both French and Swiss territory. ( 27km circumference)

Year 2008 September 10th, marks the culmination of 20 years of work by over 8000 scientists thousands of engineers, technicians and support staff from over 80 different countries.

some critics say that this could create a black hole and suck up the entire world..but many say that even if a black hole is created it will wannish within a millionth of a second..

Latest : they have successfully done the 1st testing on the 10th September 2008, sending 2 beams separately clockwise and anticlockwise, which had successfully gone all the way around the ring. but there had been some minor errors, which we dont have to worry about.

They are going to do one big collision on the 21st of October, but apparently, “In the 2008 run, however, the LHC will operate at a reduced energy of 10 TeV. The winter shut-down (starting likely around end of November) will then be used to train the superconducting magnets, such that the 2009 run will start at the full 14 TeV design energy.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQNpucos9wc

Sri :: Sep.10.2008 :: :: No Comments »