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Showing posts from August, 2008

How developers think

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INDOS

Instant Distributed Operating System. ------------------------------------------ Why should computers take a minute to boot (start) while a much cheaper Dvd player can sing instantly? A TV, tape recorder, you name it, they start working the moment they are powered on. One pays lot of money and yet computers tale anywhere between a minute to ten depending on your fate and its own speed. An engineer will quickly tell you that, "BIOS.. POST...", hold it. I do not care. All we want is a thing we can use to, "do stuff". That explains the need for "Instant". I have two laptops and a mobile phone. They are always out of sync. Let us forget ubiquitous computing for a while. We need to deel with these multiple devices to make them data location and interface invariant. I'll leave it at that. Fill in the blanks please. Drivers are not OSs' business. We need a slim OS that just does what its name says, 'operate the system'! Indos by the way is the Gre

How To Manage Contacts in Outlook

Sun's ceo calls it Lookout! But many use it including me. Managing contacts in Outlook is tricky. Here are few things I do when I move. By default all email ids are recorded in a file called Outlook.NK2 which is, by generocity of Microsoft, hidden. These are used to auto fill when we type an emil id. These are not stored in the address book. Its default location is: C:\Documents and Settings\ \ Application Data \Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.NK2 is your user login id on the computer. Application Data is a folder that is hidden from view. Go to Tools->View and select Show Hidden files. When I move, I copy/backup this file. When I setup outlook on new machine, I zimbly copy the backup file to the default location in the new machine. Address book is a sacred thing. Mine is mostly empty! To manage autofill email address we can use a freeware availale online. It is called NK2View (Download).