The day Chrome froze

For the last few months I have migrated over to Google Chrome to be my default web browser. It was all working fine till one day last week, chrome refused to load any website. As a typical user of Windows system, I uninstalled chrome and reinstalled the same, sadly that step did not help (of course I repeated this step multiple times hoping it will work at some point). Around the same time I noticed that the other browsers like Firefox and IE had started to work with diminished capacity. When I say diminished capacity I mean, I do a google search and click on the results I would be redirected to a malware website and pop ups come up every now and then.  

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the system has been infected by a malware or some such virus. So, I un-installed the AVG free antivirus (which I had been hoping will save me money) and installed the Norton Internet Security 2010. After doing a complete system scan with Norton I was surprised to see that  no virus was found. Next step I ran the Malwarebytes to detect any malware infections, still no luck. One good thing that came out of installing Norton was that the other browsers started to work better (read less redirection to malware and less popup) but Chrome still did not budge. 

After doing some Google search I found that the registry settings may have been modified by a virus or a malware and websites suggested registry fix options and alternate browsers. I tried a couple of free registry fix softwares and that didn't fix the problem either. 


As a last resort I booted the system with windows installer CD and asked it to repair the system. It took a whole hour and a few reboots and a ton of Microsoft updates later chrome started to work fine and firefox was back up too but another problem showed up and IE refused to load. 

Last step was to make IE work and for this I had to uninstall the previous installations of IE using the alternative steps described and then download and do a fresh installation of IE8. After all this IE started to work but with disclaimer "IE is running with add-ons disabled". Again after consulting    Dr. Google, I had to install and un-install Google toolbar and again re-install the same to get rid of  the disclaimer.    

The post looks like an ad for Norton or scare people away from windows towards Mac or Linux but that is not my intent. My intent is to say that registry fix softwares alone might not fix all the problems. There probably was an easy way like system restore to an earlier date but I was concerned that the restore may screw up my installations of Norton and other softwares. 

YES+ - We participated, We played, We learned and We had fun

For a long time I had been asking my good buddies Anoop and Shraddha that I want to write about their efforts in making YES+ happen and appreciate their efforts in energizing the YES+ team. They always told me to do the course and then you can write and my excuse was, when you teach by yourselves, I will think about doing it. 

YES+ as it is advertised is the Art of Living Course (basic course, part-1) but designed and modified with youth in mind. Since I wear the old timer hat with the Art of Living organization and I have done quite a few part-1 or basic courses, I did not feel the need to the YES+ course. Basically, what is the point in drinking the same medicine in a new bottle  So, I was pretty reluctant to enroll myself and whenever the course was announced I was thinking of my excuses. Finally the time came last week and I was enrolled into it without me actually wanting to do so and at the end of 6 grueling days and 28hrs later, I am glad I did it and I am proud to call myself a YES+ graduate. 

The course is a complete package in itself, it has the seva, the sadhana and the satsang (for the purists, I mean company of the good). There are more practicals than theory, the processes/events in the course stir up emotions in you and at the same time you are given the tool to handle it. It brought out the leaders in us and at the same time taught us the very important lesson of life "TO HAVE FUN and ENJOY THE GAME". It was physically demanding (not as much as advertised though). Other courses try to teach the lessons and this course makes you learn the lesson. All done in a fun filled and happy environment. I wouldn't sugar coat and say it was all goody goody, on the weekdays, sessions were long and tiring but definitely not boring. I can't say anymore without giving out the course itself.   

For a good course we need 3 things, good venue, good participation and good teachers. This course had it all, everybody gave their 100% and no holding back. The teachers truly led us from the front, they always were there before us and had the place ready for us to start. Some of us knew that they were teaching for the first time but none of us could say they were novice.   

In the end I felt the course is advertised in a wrong way, it has parts and elements from the other courses like any other course taught under Art of Living umbrella but in the core it is completely different. In short, it is not the part-1 course targeted towards people in the age group 18-30, it is a course that anybody can do as long they are willing to be physically a bit active.  

If the above writing did not convince you to come join the upcoming YES+ course, then here is the carrot. There is a very important meditation that they teach during the course that is not taught in any other Art of Living course.  

The post wont be complete without thanking behind the scene volunteers who got us food every day. Special thanks to Bawa and Dinesh for designing this course. 

Anoop and Shraddha, you guys rocked. Keep the good times rolling.      

Part-2 Course at the Texas Ashram

After a big push from my wife, I finally enrolled and completed the part-2 course during Memorial day weekend. It was a 4 day course held at the beautiful and scenic Texas ashram. This was my second course but after a long break.

The teacher Commander Suresh, whom we used to call Commander-ji had flown all the way from India to meet his daughter and grand kids and in the middle of his vacation he decided to teach the course for us. He was a gem, one in a million. He took personal interest in each and every one of us. I liked his schedule driven approach towards the course. He used to come up with a schedule for the day to the minute and worked hard towards maintaining it, too bad we students could not keep up with his schedule. His preparation towards the course is another thing worth mentioning, he had the audio for the meditations on his ipod and couple of sets of tapes. He was so sweet, I almost wanted to call him grandpa. His devotion to the master is another story onto itself. He advised us to continue our sadhana on a regular basis and said you will see a benefit but at the same warned us not to attach expectations to the sadhana. He said even if you stop doing sadhana for a week it is almost like starting all over. He was very approachable and non judgemental, this is the first time during my time in Art of Living that I havs spoken to a teacher during the course about my concerns, I wasn't alone either. At the begining of every meditaion he would make sure he could completly see each and every participant and insisted on people to change their postions so that he can have a visual.    

The course itself was a roller coaster ride. On day 1 I was completely miserable and was feeling very tired and sleepy, by the end of day 1 I had a throbbing head ache on my right side. At the end of the satsang on day 1 I went to my room and crashed only to wake up at 4:30AM next day. Day 2 was better then day 1 but by end of the day left side of my head was throbbing away but the intensity was milder than previous day. It was on day 3 morning during one of the meditations, something flipped and I was energized and went on a complete high. By the end of the day 3 I was on cloud nine only to be brought down in night by some weird dreams. Next day morning I was sad again that my high is gone but the sadhana in the morning gave it back to me.

The days I was feeling tired, my mind was thinking may be its the heat outside that was making me drained, or may be I didn't sleep well previous night or I didn't have enough for lunch and so on. At one point I started thinking, I am probably wasting my time here and should have stayed home and played wii and saved some money also. But something in me kept me pushing and I simply followed the teachers instructions without questioning and now that I have completed, I feel it was well worth the money, the time and everything else. If I think back the duration of the course was exact for me, if it had been even a day shorter I would have come out with a negative thought and not on a postive high.    

I went to the course with lots of questions on my mind and I came back with all of them resolved. Another observation was on the meditation in the course, start of the course the meditations were more like sleep sessions or day dreaming time for me but by the end there was a complete 180 degree phase shift in the meditations. On the 3 days of the course we got three specific messages from "THE MAN" himself.

On the way back I got the wonderful opportunity to drive commander-ji back to airport and that in itself was a experience. When I appreciated him on his time sense during the course, he said the sign of a true leader is to be ahead of the rest and report 15mins before the expected time, this he said he learnt while he was in Indian Navy. He said you need love and discipline to progress on this path and not just quote guruji and create chaos and think we are enjoying it.

Thanks to Selva, Yamuna, Prakash, Uncle and Aunty and a bunch of other volunteers, all the cottages were well kept and the food was amazing. We didn't feel a pinch while staying at the Ashram.

One last thing I have to mention is the co-ordination among us 4 room mates, they all were just truly wonderful, using the bathrooms in a sequence went like clock work. Each one honored others timing very well.

A beautiful experience in the end. 

An year without cable TV

About a year ago, US went through its digital TV transition. I saw an opportunity to get rid or minimize my addiction to television and I took it.

At that time we used to have Time Warner cable at home and were pretty happy with it. I was aware that I am becoming more and more addicted to TV and used all kinds of techniques like, not watching repeat telecasts, watching only selected channels and so on to reduce my addiction but none seemed to work. My excuse for not getting rid of cable altogether is that the analog transmission at that time was crappy and getting rid of cable means end of TV and I had tried this once before and had failed (I watched a lot of movies and spent money on movie rental than cable TV). When the US went through its long awaited DTV transition I had no more excuses to get rid of the cable and with a strong mind and heart I took the chance and got rid of the cable.

I consider that to be a very wise decision and I must say, I had complete support of my wife in making that decision. The idea was we will give it a 6 month try (of which we were out of town for close to 2 months) and see if we miss cable.


I confess, initial few weeks were tough for me and I used to watch some of the paid programming on ABC and NBC and so on. But over time I discovered the flavor of network TV and I started following certain shows in a day instead of mindless surfing of channels and shows. Currently my favorite channel is CBS and I occasionally switch to ABC, NBC or FOX. I still haven't fallen for reality TV which most of the network channels want to emphasize or developed a condition that says "no David Letterman or Jay Leno", no sleep.


My own analysis says that I do not gain a ton of time on week days but I do gain a lot of time on the weekends. A trial that started with a time limit of 6 months has now reached a year and I am quite happy about the fact that I am saving money every month.


I realized how easy it is to fall back when I discovered Netflix streaming of movies and shows, I started watching the show 24 like a maniac (completed season 1 and season 2 in less than couple of weeks). Thanks to my breathing practices, I am able to get it under control without falling into the cracks.

STOMP

If you thought you need a precision tuned musical instrument to generate music then stomp is here to prove you wrong. If you ever tried generating noise using house hold things and imagined you generated music then check out stomp, they truly generate music with household things. 

Thanks to our Bahraini friend, some of us were fortunate enough to witness the show yesterday at paramount theaters in Austin. The show was spectacular, incredible, no adjective would do justice for the show. 

Never in my wildest imagination I had thought that somebody can generate music with things like broom stick, trash can, pipes, sticks, match box, cigarette lighters, gutter pipes, trash bags, news paper and on and on. They had amazing rhythm and the co-ordination among the members of the team was a feast to watch.  The short hour and half show was an interactive one with the artists interacting with the audience very frequently. The show had comedy too. Some parts of the show were pretty loud but not unpleasant  The show was performed in a single stretch without a break. I definitely would appreciate their stamina and teamwork. I came out of the show thinking, all I need is rhythm and music just happens. At the end of the show the artists got a well deserved standing ovation. 

It wouldn't be fair on my part if I do not complement the acoustics of the paramount theaters and their organizational skills.  I doubt if there is any other theater in Austin with better acoustics than paramount theaters. Their organization skill of employing just enough ushers and distributing them arond the theater in right quantities is something to learn from.    

The group is currently performing at Austin Paramount theaters and they will be there till sunday. The tickets are well worth the price and keep in mind the shows are running houseful.  

Wild flower drive

This blog is dedicated to the people who are in Austin, Texas and like the wild flowers that have sprung all around Austin. If the wild flowers that have sprung in and around Austin have made you want for more then here is the drive you should consider. 

Take TX-71W towards Llano and take TX-16S towards Fredericksburg. You will truly will be in for a feast. Fields are filled with colorful flowers. I am not sure how long will these last, so if you want to make it do it soon. While you are there you can take FM 965 and visit Enchanted Rock and the Wild seed farms in Fredericksburg. If you are even more enthusiastic consider the willow city loop (we didn't do this).  

Here is a glimpse of what you might see. 

The above red flowers were not on the way but at Wild seed farm Fredericksburg. 

  

Some times simple solutions isn't what I want

After I posted a comment on my friend's blog, I realized when it comes to myself, many a times simple solutions is not what I look for. Here is one example for the same. 

I retired my old Athlon based PC and built a new Athlon X2 based PC. Everything was new including the hard disk and the OS and all. The PC was running fine for a few months and then started blue screening and complain "Insert OS disk and boot". I used to faithfully re format the disk and re-install the OS, until I realized I can solve the problem  by unhooking the SATA cable from the hard disk and the motherboard and re insert the same after some time (cooling time). 


Over time the blue screen became more and more frequent, it was like sitting on a time bomb not knowing when it will go off. I suspected the memory interface, so I slowed the memory speed in the bios. I downloaded memory stress test and ran the same, there were no errors in the memory interface. 

Since I had already invested too much money on the new PC, I had to fix it and make it stable. I debated on changing the hard disk. but I wasn't sure whether it was the hard disk or the motherboard that was faulty, I decided to ditch the SATA disk completely and installed the OS on an old IDE hard disk. The 80GB space on the IDE disk was not nearly enough to hold the pics and the music among other things, hence I decided to use the SATA disk for data. 


The instability of the PC got solved but every now and then the data disk would drop off and become unavailable. The only way to recover was to unhook the SATA cable and hook it back. I did some research on forums and based on those suggestions, I uninstalled the nvidia SATA drivers. This step did help to some extent and the data disk fail became less frequent. 

One fine day I realized I had an extra SATA cable and decided to swap the cable, I can't believe all my problems with the PC is solved. The fact is I had this cable for ever and could have done this long time ago but my logical mind couldn't accept the cable could be at fault, but turns out it was. If only I had taken this simple step in the first place, I could have saved myself a lot of agony. 

In hindsight I think the cable was failing as the temperature of the CPU box went up and the system used to blue screen once the cable failed. For a long time I had setting "Reboot on failure" and hence I used to get the error "Disk not found". Uninstalling the SATA drivers helped because the data transfer rate reduced and hence the heat generation reduced.