If you are using Windows Vista and wish to Remotely connect to that PC from a Windows XP machine, then remember to download the new RDP Client 6.0. This version is for Windows XP and in this version Clipboard copy-paste works flawlessly between Windows XP Host and Vista Client machines.

RDP Client 6.0 Download

If you have watched Ray Romano in his popular Everybody loves Raymond, you will know how funny he can be. His comedy is most of the time clean, everyday family happenings. I love this serial that I have the entire DVD collection with me.

In this book titled "Everything and a Kite" Ray narrates with his usual humour about Wifes, Kids and more. When reading the book as a Married man with a Kid, there were many sentences that I could relate to my life and at the same time laugh on them. A good read over a long flight.

I am probably the first few in India to lay hands on a Zune Player. Last week I received a Zune Player - thanks to Microsoft RD Program and My Vista, My Office Challenge.

The first thing that strikes you is the package which is Simple, Compact & Clean. Definitely something I haven't seen before from Microsoft. There is no big logos or long instructions.  

The device itself is fabulous, well designed for day to day usage. The buttons are cleanly lay out, intitutive to use. The device sports Audio (WMA, MP3), Video (WMV) Playback, Radio Tuner, WiFi to share songs (which play on other device for 3 days/3 times) & Photo Slideshow.  The Audio & Video playback is flawless. Overall a serious competitor to Apple iPod.

The only thing I desire in Zune, is a better Desktop Software. For some reasons the software didn't install the necessary device drivers in my Home Windows XP SP2 PC, while it worked fine in my Office (WinXP SP2) machine. Hope Microsoft which makes great software like Windows Vista and Office 2007 comes out with a better Zune Desktop Software.

Update 20/12/06: There has been a new release of Zune Software yesterday that works with Windows Vista.

T.Nagar Talk (a local paper) today carried a piece about Centre for Social and Economic Justice. This Organizations runs a site creditcardvictims.org for helping consumers for their rights with credit card companies. The site offers some good advice on smart usage of credit card. Though sites like this are common in the USA, even the popular TV Show Oprah has a website on this - but in India, this is a new effort.

Read my earlier post on Credit Card Regulations in India. Last week I had a good experience - for official use I had bought 3 mobile phones on a same day from one shop with my Citibank card. I got a call with in few hours from Citibank Service Center in Gurgaon verifying whether I did the transactions. This is what I call "Good Service" and protecting consumer interests.

Don't mistake the above to be screenshot of new Hotmail (Windows Live Mail Beta), instead it is the new desktop version (Client Software) of Live Mail. It is called "Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta". It is a neat replacement for Outlook Express and gives you offline mail access.

It sports the following features:

1. Ability to work not only with Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) but with Yahoo Mail (need to be a Yahoo Plus user), GMail and more.
2. Active Search -  a new feature by which a keyword of the current email is determined and Live Search result for it is shown in a right side pane
3. Supports RSS (Feed) Subscription apart from the regular NewsGroup subscription

It works in Windows XP SP2 and Vista. You can download it from Windows Live Mail HTTP site and discuss about it here.

If you are using SQL Server 2005 and not able to connect to it remotely, then check out this useful blog post.

Today I received a wonderful greeting card for New Year 2007. It was from Kevin Schuler (Microsoft Manager who runs the Microsoft RD Program) showing a  collage created from Photographs of Regional Directors from Around the World, each displaying their notebook computers running Microsoft Vista and Office 2007. The exhibit is nearly 20 feet wide and stretches from ceiling to floor in Microsoft Redmond Campus, Building 18.

Needless to say I am super excited as my photo is also there in Second Row, Fourth Column from top (or) the most beautiful photo in the lot

Read here my previous post about this "My Vista, My Office" Challenge

No formal training, poor nutrition in childhood, parents working as labourers in brick kiln yet S.Santhi has made all Indians proud. In the Doha Asian Games, S.Santhi a girl from Kattakurichi village in Pudukottai district, Tamilnadu has won Silver in 800metres.

Best Wishes to Santhi and her parents who had the courage to see her through this. Great, Quick decision by Tamilnadu Government to award her with Rs.15 Lakhs to help her to continue. We need more such cash awards from all quarters - so that young prospective atheletes go for it big and not suffer for economic considerations.

I hope and pray that more Santhi's of India won worldwide regonization. India cannot rest on its laurels just as World Economic powerhouse, when out of 1.2 Billion people we score pathetic in all atheletic events including olympics.

Read the full story here from "The Hindu"

Update 19/12/06: It was disappointing to read about the sudden turn of events in this story. Shanti had failed a "Gender Medical Test" and OCA has asked for return of her medal.

This week I was mildly infected by Conjunctivitis (Madras Eye) and was quarantined by my family in my sister's house. This gave me two days to do some peaceful reading apart from the occassional office phone calls. I picked up this book iWoz from my bookshelf - long abonded and read it. The book is about the co-founder of Apple "Steve Wozniak" who is an engineer who designed the original Apple-I and Apple-II computers.

Disclaimer: Though I have used a Mac Mini and love its Hardware Design, I grow up in a PC environment, that makes me a hardcore Wintel fan. So before this book I had little idea about the story behind Apple and its investors other than reading occassionally about Steve Jobs.

Wikipedia carries here a brief on what this book talks about and a positive review of this book is at a blog by Guy Kawasaki (Apple Engineer), so I will skip the basics.  

The simplest way for me to describe this book is a bell curve . A bell curve just like the one in the image on left shows, peaks in middle and tapers at both ends, that's exactly how the book was for me. The initial chapters were boring, where Steve is talking in detail about his childhood and his father (as hard as I try I am unable to remember details other than the school and few friends of mine in LKG to Sixth Standard, but Steve remembers everything).

Then the interesting part about his designs, Apple-I and then Apple-II. Apple-II is covered in few pages, then few chapters on non-apple passions and then when you are expecting more on Apple the book ends abruptly - not even a brief mention of his next 20 years of his life (Post US Fashions till date). As an engineer myself and who has been through the second half of PC revolution, I felt Steve is incorrect to miss completely the IBM PC and DOS Story - it is as if he and Apple-I/II existed in a world without any competition.

If you are an Apple fan, please buy a copy of this book for your own collection. If not please read it only if someone lends a copy, don't waste your own money.  

Now that .NET Framework 3.0 (WPF, WCF, WWF) has been released you may want to start programming, so here is the download list you will need to do that:

• .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime (Vista has it pre-installed) - dotnetfx3setup.exe
• Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (EN).exe
• Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (WCF & WPF), November 2006 CTP - vsextwfx.msi
• Windows SDK

Read my earlier posts on CTP of .NET Framework 3.0

I had bought this book sometime back, but didn't proceed more than few pages at that time. This week I took it again from my bookshelf, I became interested on the topics discussed by the Authors (Economists) - Steven D.Levitt and Stephen J.Dubner. With reading for few days - few hours every night I finished the book.

The book has a good followup resources including website, a blog and a wikipedia entry - so I will skip the introductions and details about the book. Instead I will just list here on what I liked/learned from this book:

• US Crime rate falling and connection with Abortion made legal two decades back (I think I have read this somewhere earlier as well)
• It is a fact that Real Estate Agents do sell for more there own properties
• Cheating happens even in a disciplined elite group like Sumo Wrestlers
• Drug dealers (other than the big bosses) don't earn great monies
• Sudhir Venkatesh (An Indian born American Citizen) had the courage to spend considerable time with Drug groups in Chicago in order to understand their behaviours.
• 50% of a child's chance of success is determined before its birth (Genetics, Family Income, Parents Education, etc.)
• The name of a child does make a difference in the chance of success, but that's more a side-effect and changing a name doesn't have a proven effect for reversing fortunes.

Though the title may make the book sound serious read, in reality it is not. It is a light reading book that can be enjoyed over a long journey.

Nowadays the telemarketing calls from Banks, Insurance Companies and Telco's at all times in your mobiles are becoming worser; All of us are very familiar with this menace, so I will just talk about two quotes here and then a possible remedy

Few weeks I got an automated RingTone marketing call from Airtel in my landline and the stupid call doesn't end even if I disconnect that too on a Sunday Afternoon. Last 2 days I am getting calls from CitiBank selling Credit Card, the irony is I am already a Gold Card customer with them. Today my wife answered the call politely, but I interrupted and answered the way I saw was fit - in the call the agent asks me if I refer anyone else, what a stupid question I wonder do I have no other job other than referring customers to them.

After these incidents I spent good amount of time recently in searching the Internet for Don't Call Registries of major Indian banks and listed my name in that. For your benefit the list is reproduced here, please list yourself there. I suppose the recent RBI warning has been the reason for these webpages to be made available.

Don't Call / Do not Disturb webpages of Banks in India

• ICICI Bank (15 Days to remove)
• Standard Chartered Bank (30 days to remove, only bank to give a Request ID)
• Citibank
• ABN Amro Bank
• Deutsche Bank (30 Days to remove)
• HDFC (45 days to remove!)
  

For a similar list containing Telco's, check this The Hindu Article on Rejecting SPAMs. For Insurance company's I am yet to find this service in their websites - if you know about them, please post it in the comments section below.