Evil Mad Technophile Laboratories

According to market-research firm NPD Group, the gap in average selling prices between Macs and PCs has widened over the last couple of years. This June, Mac desktops cost an average of $1,543, up from $1,432 two years ago; meanwhile, PCs were essentially stable at $550. On the laptop front, the difference is smaller: $1,515 for Macs ($60 less than in June 2006) versus $700 for PCs (down from $877). Of course, it’s important to remember that we’re talking price here, and not value for the money.

Ever wonder why a lot of iPod and iPhone accessories seem kind of, well, overpriced? Popular Mechanics reports that Apple uses a proprietary authentication chip in its portables that makes it impossible for third-party companies to create iPod- and iPhone compatible accessories without signing an often-costly agreement with Apple. For instance, I could go on eBay and buy a generic $2 video cable that would work just fine with my iPod video. New iPhones and iPods, however, require the “officially licensed” Apple cables, and these can run up to $50. Needless to say, the chip not only increases prices, but forces accessory companies to cut corners and cheapen production to pay for the Apple license while maintaining a consumer-friendly price point. Of course, it’s understandable that Apple would want to have some control over the quality of accessories designed for its products, but most of the manufacturers interviewed estimated that up to $20 of the retail cost of iPod and iPhone speake...

Press Win+L to switch to the Welcome screen. Press Win+L to lock your workstation. You can switch users without going through the Welcome screen: From Task Manager, go to the Users tab, right-click a user, and select Connect. Hold down the shift key in the shutdown dialog to change "Stand By" to "Hibernate". Or just press H to hibernate instantly. You can even use the Power Control Panel to configure your power button to hibernate. To disable the password when resuming from standby or hibernation, open the Power Control Panel and uncheck "Prompt for password after returning from standby" on the Advanced tab. You can rename multiple files all at once: Select a group of files, right-click the first file, and select "Rename". Type in a name for the first file, and the rest will follow. Hold down the shift key when switching to thumbnail view to hide the file names. Do it again to bring them back. When dragging a file in Explorer, you can control the...

Courtesy: Market Share

Circa 2108 Sir Icaas Tewnon, though famous for his seminal work in Mechanics, his theories on the prediction of graduation formulated during while still a grad student at the Jaypee Institute of Information Technology remain his most important contribution to the academia. First published in 2079, Sir Icaas Tewnon's "Procrastinare Unnaturalis Principia Mathematica" is often considered one of the most important single works in the history of science. First Law "A graduation student in procrastination tends to stay in procrastination unless an external force is applied to it" This postulate is known as the "Law of Inertia" and was originally discovered experimentally by Lagileo four years before Tewnon was born when he threatened to cut his grad student's funding. This resulted in a quickening of the student's research progress. Lagileo's observations were later perfected by Tescades through the application of " Weekly Meetings "....

BarCamp is here! And its happening! When? Date: May 17th, 2008 (Saturday) Time: 0900 hrs - 1800 hrs IST Where? Amity Innovation Incubator Auditorium, Block C Amity University Campus Sector 125, Noida Ph: +91.120.465.9000, 465.9151 Click here for driving directions. Wait a minute! Jeeves.. What's a BarCamp? BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. It is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment with intense events and discussions, demos and interaction from participants. What about BarCampDelhi4? BarCampDelhi4 is the fourth edition of a BarCamp in the Delhi region. It is proposed to be a camp to get together and discuss/rant/brain-storm/share opinions/information/wisdom about anything. Be it web Te...

Copyright January 2006: Niyam Bhushan. Inspired by the vision of Osho. Published under the Free Documentation License (FDL) 01: Must Be A Shape A simple, vector, shape. Exactly like a glyph. Imagine the alphabet with a new character-shape added to it. Thus, a logo has to be the most primal shape you can imagine. At times, a logo could also contain more than one shape in it. 02: Must Be Scalable As a shape, the logo must scalable from about 5mm mm in size, to about the size of a football field, without distortion. To test the scalability of your logo, start with a logo that is scaled to 5mm in size, make a copy double its size, and go on doing this until you fill an entire sheet. Then print it out and see if the shape loses any detail or suffers from any sort of distortion. Sometimes, a minimum scalable size of around 1 cm is also acceptable, though it does limit the use of the logo conditions where you have to use it less than this size, for example on a tie-pin, or printed on co...

Facebook has some weird ways of getting its employees. Solve any of these puzzles they are currently facing and simply apply! Some of the many puzzles... Prime Bits First, consider a function P(x) where: P(x) returns: true if the number of 1 bits set in the binary representation of x is prime, false otherwise. For example, P(239) returns true , while P(51) returns false . Next, consider the following function prime_bits : uint64_t prime_bits( uint64_t a , uint64_t b ) ; A call to prime_bits(a, b) returns the number of values between a and b inclusive for which P(x) is true. For example, prime_bits(4, 10) returns 5 , while prime_bits(137, 31415926535897 ) returns 7753256197126 . Your job is to implement the prime_bits function. Your implementation should be efficient, and it should be wrapped up nicely such that one can specify a and b on the commandline when running your program. You may expect the range of a and b to be lim...

Using this Method you can start creating masterpieces of Abstract Art within five minutes. No assistance from any Genius is needed. The only prerequisite is Microsoft Word on your PC. 1. In the AutoShapes menu select Curve under Lines. 2. Move the mouse aimlessly, left-clicking occasionally, and you will get something like this: 3. Point the arrow towards any point on your curve and left-click. Keep the arrow in the same position and right-click. In the menu that will appear select “Format AutoShape”. 4. In the Format AutoShape menu choose Fill Color and Line Color. In the present example they both were chosen green. You will see something like this: 5. Now let us make the background. In the AutoShapes menu select Basic Shapes, than select Rectangle. Make a rectangle about the size of the figure. Than in the Format AutoShape menu choose the Fill Color for this rectangle. In the present example it was selected red. Now drag the green figure over the red rectangle. 6. Finally name it in...

(drum roll) 10. You prefer writing C, C++ and C# (CS/IT dudes) or Matlab and VHDL (ECE folks) over writing English. 9. You prefer meeting your room-mate over a game of Counter Strike or Dota rather than face-to-face and swear at your wing-mates loudly when they easily frag you in the game rather meekly (@#$% @#$ @#$%!). 8. There are no windows in your room…and you like it. 7. You are currently reading this on your laptop screen, with your laptop positioned in such a way that you can sleep comfortably on your hostel-bed and still be able to read it (Note that extensive use of these pixels makes them die faster.. so I suggest you use your room-mate's monitor to do your daily web browsing, without the comforts of your bed though) 6. You understand most of the jokes on xkcd . 5. You understand all of the jokes and are a contributing source to the forums of PhD Comics . 4. You run at the slightest sight of Prof. A Pathak, towards your 'workstation' and flood IP Messenger with l...

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" Two continuous posts relating to energy and environment! ", some might ask. But this post is not the one to be missed! Between 8 PM - 9 PM on March 29th, i.e. today , people from over 370 cities from 35 nations have pledged to voluntarily switch-off all their electric appliances as a small starting step against global warming, but a one that may eventually make the difference between survival and extinction. Some might ask.. "Do we really need to participate in this, being without electricity for n-hours daily here in India because of the load-shedding?". The answer is a yes ! Load-shedding is not voluntary! It's all about how much you really care for our planet and it's future. Thus, I strongly urge all of you to participate in this global cause and as a starting step, sign up at the Earth Hour website by visiting http://www.earthhour.org or visit my Earth Hour profile page at http://www.earthhour.org/user/X2BA to pledge to do your bit towards the envi...

Technology can be a force for evil, or for awesome. Those who shun the tech are just as guilty as those who ignore the environment. There's a safe balance, where the awesome can help nature as much as it helps us have a good time and live easier lives. This post, " EcoGeek! ", devotes to exploring the symbiosis between nature and technology. Steps to earn yourself the tag of a responsible EcoGeek: Tip #1: Unplug Taking a few minutes to turn off electrical devices won't just help you save the planet, it can also help you save a few bucks off your electric bill each month. At home/room, go ahead and turn off the lights when leaving (chances are the walls and floor won't mind the dark)! Take an extra few seconds to shut down your computer and printer instead of letting them idle, and-annoying as it sounds-make morning a routine of unplugging TVs, fans and stereos before leaving for work/college. Like any routine, you'll get used to doing it in no time flat. Tip ...

A Physics Processing Unit (PPU) is a dedicated processor designed to handle the calculations of physics, specially in the physics engine of video games. Calculations involving a PPU might include rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, collision detection, fluid dynamics, hair and clothing simulation, finite element analysis, and fracturing of objects. To understand the underlying principle and working of a PPU, let's understand what physics processing really is and how it is used. What is Physics? Physics is all about how objects in, say for example your game, move and react. It's not just how things look, but how they behave. In many of today's games, objects just don't seem to act the way you'd want or expect. Most of the action is limited to pre-scripted or canned animations. Even the most powerful weapons leave little more than a charred smudge on the thinnest of walls; and every opponent you take out falls in a strangely familiar way. Serious gamers are left ...

Want to be a player? Read on.. Rearrange your priorities as follows: #1 - Gaming #2 - Eating #3 - Sleeping #4 - On second thought, scratch #3. You still need to get past the next level. Explore the terrain (Get a map and study it). Learn from other players and guides available on the web or in magazines. Practice in Single player (God like mode) as well as multiplayer to improve reflexes and explore maneuvers. Learn the difference between a shock rifle and a sniper rifle. Or at least fake it. Customize your keys button configuration for each game to maximize efficiency. Forget about the difference between fantasy and reality. (Who needs reality anyways) Take advantage of all the features of the game such as sound effects (foot steps, noises), visual effects (shadows, explosions), game features (radar, night vision). Taking in all of this information will help keep you a step ahead of the competition. Pimp your new PC to the limit, then donate your old, slow PC to a friend and challenge...

What I've Done | Linkin Park इन थिस फरेवेल्ल ठेरेस नो ब्लड ठेरेस नो अलीबी 'कुस इवे द्रवं रेग्रेट फ्रॉम थे ट्रुथ ऑफ़ अ थौसंद लैस [प्री-कोरुस] स लेट मेर्क्य काम एंड वश आवे वहत इव दोने [कोरुस] इल फस म्य्सेल्फ़ टू क्रॉस आउट वहत इव बेकोमे एरसे म्य्सेल्फ़ एंड लेट गो ऑफ़ वहत इव दोने पुट टू रेस्ट वहत यू थौघ्त ऑफ़ मी व्हिले इ चलेँ थिस स्लेट विथ थे हंड्स ऑफ़ उन्सर्तैन्टी [प्री-कोरुस] [कोरुस] फॉर वहत इव दोने एंड व्तेवर पेन माय काम टुडे थिस एंड्स आईएम फोर्गिविंग वहत इव दोने! [कोरुस] वहत इव दोने फोर्गिविंग वहत इव दोने

Was getting a bit bugged doing nothing.. So surfed Alienware's website and guess what? Configured two of these beauties! And the extent of customizing them was simply mind-boggling! Check out the specs! The Formidable Laptop Area-51® m9750 Video/Graphics Card : Dual 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8700M GT - SLI Enabled Enables DirectX® 10 Graphics and up to 100% Performance Increase! Chassis : 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology - Stealth Black Processor : Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7600 2.33GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB Memory : 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 2048MB Operating System (Office software not included) : Windows Vista® Ultimate Notebook Tuners and Remotes : Without Media Center Remote Control or TV Tuner System Drive : Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 128GB (64GB x 2) Solid State Drive Optical Drives : 2x Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Burner (BD-R, DVD±RW, CD-RW) Wireless Network Card : Wireless-N Bundle Includes Intel® 4965 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card and Netge...

How dispiriting can it be to see that one idea , from the implementation of which you dreamed millions (in fact billions of those melodious golden dollars), be prototyped in front of your own ruddy eyes.. :O Well that's the story of one little technophile who believed whose idea could have changed the world.. It so happened one fine day on a walk, that this little technophile struck with a great idea of integrating a GIS map search application with a run-time image storing and processing application and a seach engine. Imagine mapping the complete planet in detail (Hint: something like Google Maps Street View ) and embedding this information (obviously using the internet) in a wearable hardware device (like your old goggles/spectacles) that can process data on the run and then also adding a GPS navigation device to pin-point the exact location of the device-wearer. Now also try to imagine the possibilities that such a device can open up, seeing the world with every object showing u...

1 Megacity 1 Not so Megacity 1 Great Journey 26 Hours of Haplessness 18 Hours of Sleep! Lord! Thats the journey from New Delhi to Ahmednagar in the great Indian Railway's Jhelum Express one has to suffer.

The Blogger's Code of Conduct is a proposal by Tim O'Reilly for bloggers to enforce civility on their bloggers by being civil themselves and moderating comments on their blog. The code was proposed due to threats made to blogger Kathy Sierra. The idea of the code was first reported by BBC News, who quoted O'Reilly saying, "I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn't come through any kind of regulation it would come through self-regulation." Read original draft here We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation. 1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog. We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we w...