Nirenjan’s Space

There are only two things in life to worry about: Whether you are well or whether you are sick.

If you are well, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you are sick, there are only two things to worry about: Whether you are going to get well or whether you are going to die.

If you get well, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you die, there are only two things to worry about: Whether you are going to go to heaven or whether you are going to go to hell.

If you go to heaven, then you have nothing to worry about. But if you go to hell, you’ll be so busy shaking hands with all your friends, that you won’t have time to worry!

So, Why Worry? Be Happy!

A system administrator’s work is never done. Just three days after I finished formatting my computer, a mega worm managed to creep in and screw up my XP installation. It even screwed up Windows 98 which I rarely (if ever) use. The end result: I had to format the entire disc and reload both operating systems and install all the software.

And they all lived happily ever after? No. Just two days ago, some major spyware has creeped in. I’ve managed to delete the process but just refuses to leave my taskbar alone. I guess I have no choice but to reinstall XP again.

The good news? It will work like a brand new PC, until another virus strikes. The bad? It takes me a good 6-7 hours to install every piece of software, from the basic OS and security updates to the full fledged MS Office.

Otherwise, I can go in for Plan B: Linux. Which my parents will never agree to. A system administrator’s work is never done…

I’ve just finished formatting my computer and reinstalling all the applications and updates. Thankfully, I have a habit of downloading the patch files to my hard disk and then running it with a few command line switches. So, I save on my downloads and the downloading time.

So far, the system is running as fast as a new computer. But only time will tell how long it takes till another bug settles in and starts slowing down the system. I’m just waiting for Microsoft to release Windows XP Service Pack 2, so that I can install it and throw out all the other junk updates.

It seems pretty odd that the one person who was projected to become the Prime Minister of India has actually stepped out of the race. I’m talking about Sonia Gandhi, the Italian. From the start of the campaigning, everybody was projecting that if the Congress won, which it did, Sonia Gandhi would become the Prime Minister. But in any case, Sushma Swaraj gets to keep her hair.
Now that Manmohan Singh is becoming PM, the future is rather cloudy. Former Finance Minister, now about to become PM. I’m no political analyst, so I’ll leave this speculation to the experts.

I went today for a career conference conducted by the Magnus School of Business at Quality Inn Aruna on Sterling Road. The Professor & Head, Dr. Ashok Iyer, made quite a few statements about why we should study at Magnus and not some other B-school. It certainly cleared a large majority of the doubts and reservations I had about an MBA degree.

However, when I did speak with Dr. Iyer later after the conference, he suggested to get a couple of years work experience as it is extremely valuable (which was what I was going to do anyway even if I wanted to do an MBA) and then try for an MBA. The only problem right now with Magnus is that they currently offer an MBA only in Marketing, Finance and Human Resources, all three of which are outside my scope. If Magnus does introduce an MBA in Systems, I might consider joining.

In a rather funny turn of events, I’ve received a mail in my inbox which was purported to be from myself. My first thought was that it was a virus, but the mail size was only 2K, unlike Netsky or Beagle which have larger sizes. Naturally I was rather intrigued and opened the file. I was a bit surprised when I got this message.

VIRUS INFECTION ALERT
The WebShield® e250 Appliance discovered a virus in this file. The file was not cleaned and has been removed.

Copyright © 1993-2002, Networks Associates Technology, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
http://www.mcafeeb2b.com

Now I’ve realized, no e-mail ID is safe from virus spammers.

I got a call today morning from Origin Systems, the people who are trying to repair my monitor. Unfortunately, the Line Out Transformer in the monitor has been damaged and they are not able to obtain spares since the monitor is a very old model. I plan to call up Supreme Computers and find out if they have any good monitors for a low price.

It looks like Google has begun improving Blogger and its features. When I logged in today, I was pretty surprised at the new layout and look. Now Blogger has more features that make it more like professional blogging tools like Movable Type, including unique pages for each post and built in comments.

Sometime last year, I was trying to find some good tools to manage my website once I purchased my own domain. With Blogger improving like this, I don’t think I’ll ever need to shift.

After almost 3 weeks of outage, my computer is finally operational again. But as always, the USB device on the modem has failed, again…

Finally, after four long years of drudgery, torture, sleep, etc. etc. etc., my final exam got over today. Now I’m free for the next 2 months till I join HCL Technologies.

After 328 days of absolute silence, I finally have the answer to the ultimate question we freshers have - When do we join the company? Today morning I received the letter from HCL Technologies, telling me to report to their Vadapalani office on 5th July at 9 AM. Right now, I’m on cloud number 9…

May 1st, 2004, 5.00 PM: I look up from the screen of my laptop at the wall clock and think, “Damn, it’s already 5 o’ clock and I haven’t opened my books yet. I have less than 90 hours to complete the entire syllabus. And this damn book doesn’t cover the syllabus, usual story. Wish I could go back to October 26th, 2003, 1.00 PM and change the elective.”

But I can’t change the future, so here I am now, stuck with Biomedical & Signal Processing, a paper thin book, 10 pages of notes corresponding to a semester of classes, spent primarily sleeping or yakking with somebody else, one broken cell phone and a syllabus that looks like it’s been taken from the Ph.D. thesis of Albert Einstein. I’d like to strangle the jackass who framed it.