To increase the time out for Apache Tomcat in Eclipse :
Choose Windows -> Show View -> Others -> Server.
Double click on server and the below image comes up. Increase the timeout and the eclipse will start tomcat without any hassles.
Increase timeout for Tomcat
I have a laptop which has Windows Server 2008 installed. I wanted to listen to a new radio station which needed WMP plugin in FF. So I had to go through certain set of steps which I have documented here. Note : Windows Media Player plugin installation fails when trying to install on Windows Server 2008, 2003. Not compatible for server operating system.
To make it work on servers :
1.Add Desktop Enhancements Feature in the Server manager. ( Server Manager -> Add Features -> Desktop Enhancements) Do this addition and a MUST restart, to proceed to next step.
2.Download the ns-mswmp.dll from the link provided and paste it in Plugins folder of Firefox.
(C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins)
ns-mswmp.dll – Download link – http://www.mediafire.com/?u0vyyr0ozyq
Then close and start Firefox to listen to WMP audio.
After going through loads of forums I really found the same in youtube. 
Thanks to the andreasm, you can find further info – Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbiAyeSJDHg.
Difference between New / Delete and Malloc / Free
Basic is new is to C++, malloc is to C
Malloc is used to allocate memory. Returns a void * pointer which has to be converted to the type of memory allocated.
Free is used to deallocate memory.
New creates objects and makes use of Constructors ( may use malloc or may not)
Delete destroys the objects and makes use of Destructors.
If you have used new, delete has to be used. If malloc is used, free has to be used.
The combination of new and free will work, but will lead to memory leaks.
Why new should be preferred ?
Constructors/ Destructors – Unlike malloc, new used Constructors and delete uses destructors.
Type safety – Malloc needs a return and shud be type casted. Where as new does not need to be typecasted as it returns the object type directly.
Over rideability – New can be over ridden from the derived classes, where as malloc cannot be over ridden.
How does free know the size of memory to be deleted ?
It depends on implementation, but there is usually a malloc header added to all the memory allocated through malloc.
Linux has bytes of memory preceding t he memory returned.
Aur phir yun hua …. An amazing song in recent times. Bow down to Gulzar. Amazing lyrics. Soothing music. Loved it totally !!
Surprising part is that the music for the song is composed and sung by Vishal Baradwaj himself.
From the movie Striker … Good movie which does strike you. But bad reviews about the movie. Worth a watch for Siddharth fans. He gets into the character and emotes well. The song goes like this ….
Aur phir yun hua…
Raat ek khawab ne jagaa diya,
Aur phir yun hua..
Raat ek khawab ne jagaa diya,
Phir yun hua, chaand ki woh dali ghul gayee,
Aur yun hua, khawab ki woh ladi khul gayee,
Chalti rahee be-nooriyaan,
Chalte rahe andheron ki..roshni ke tale..
Phir nahii so sake..
Ek sadi ke liye…hum diljale..
Phir nahii so sake…
Ek sadi ke liye.. hum diljale..
Aur phir yun hua, Subah ki dhool ne udaa diya..
Aur phir yun hua, Subah ki dhool ne udaa diya..
Phir yun hua, chehre ke naksh sab dhul gayee,
Aur yun hua, gard the.. gard mein rul gaye,
tanhaaiyaan odhe hue..
galte rahe bheege hue..
Aansuon se gale…
Phir nahii so sake, ek sadi ke liye hum diljale,
Ek sadi ke liye hum diljale…
I happened to watch My sisters keeper today. Must say was blown away by the story. Nicholas Sparks!! How can he churn out so many stories like this !! The Notebook … My sisters keeper .. and Dear John .. are the ones I know.
My sisters keeper talks about Anna, who is brought into this world to keep her elder sister, Kate alive from day one. Kate is born with changes in her genes in order to match Anna’s blood and kidney. Kate is brought up to an age where she can donate her kidney which is a 100% match for her elder sister, who is ailing with Cancer (leukemia).
The story takes a turn when Kate files a law suit, to sue her parents for forcing her to donate her blood and organs to her sister. Loved how it took turns and how it all was handled by the parents and the brother.
A beautifully shot film which shows how a family is there for each other always. The close knit family, the sisters, a short love story, all in all a good movie. Loved the way how the romantic scenes are shot, showing love can happen to anyone, who meet on their deathbeds. An awesome mix of emotions, when Anna is shown in the prom dress and she sees her dad. Brilliant.
The story is accompanied by great background music, commendable acting by Cameron Diaz and Sofia Vassilieva.
If you are too sentimental like me, the later parts of the movie can be a tear jerker. But it is worth a watch and I rate it 8.5 on 10. Though IMDB has 7.4 on 10.
Click here todownload movie
Its been long since I logged in here and wrote about anything. Many other assignments have been keeping me busy and today I came across an interesting thing and felt I let you know all about it.
I came across this BidRivals UK. I was wondering bidding and rivals …umm interesting. I went across this website and found that you can bid for a camera worth 1250 GBP(1GBP ~=1.5 USD) and get it for less than 50 GBP. That was one helluva deal and wanted to go for it. I went through the website checked how it works and found it really surprising, a camera for less than 75 dollars !!! Hmm … seems fishy. Ahh there must be some catch, any one mite feel.
On further investigation (:P), in any bidding you dont loose money. But here to place a bid, it costs you 90 cents. Getting back to my basic maths, approximately around 2000 people bid for the camera for around 2-3 times, then the this total amount spent on bids, actually goes beyond 3 times of the original price of the camera!! And there are bid agents which can increase the price automatically in a bidding. So effectively its a gamble, out of which you may or may not get the camera
If you have a lucky fortune for the day then you mite get lucky by getting your bid through !!!
So if you are ready for any kind of lottery. go ahead to BidRivals UK or Swoopo.
I came across this exciting “friend” who can be added into your IRC(gtalk,yahoo,etc) list. I was really impressed with what was offered by adding this contact onto my list. I was actually looking for a solution on the net(Bing, Google, bing-vs-google) and since it was not available on the net I had almost lost hopes of finding a solution to it.
As a last shot I was directed by a friend to Aardvark !! Huh what was I looking at, I did read the wiki page but later found I was on the wrong page again!! Aardvark – It is the first word in most of the English dictionaries !! So i finally landed in the correct Vark page.
With Aardvark, there’s nothing to download or install: just send Aardvark a message through IM, like you do when talking to a friend. It has a loads of things to offer. Any question on any topic ranging from baby care to animal care, coding to cooking !! You name the topic and the solution or suggestion for your issue can be answered on Aardvark in less than 5 mins of average turn around time for the response. It is just simple to get involved. Just add yourself on aardvark and accept the friend request and you are on. All your questions will be answered by real people who will be passed on your question based on their area of expertise.
You can ask questions, answer questions of your choice, see answers to question you don’t know and more. So what I wanna say is … go vark it !!
Let me know what do you feel after using vark !!
Everyone is talking about elections in India. This is probably the time when all the journalists are extremely busy though I feel only a few of them are into sensible meaningful journalism. I am also one among many Indians who would complain but yet watch election related shows on TV. These shows I am sure have a higher TRP compared to other daily soaps.
Election related debates are highly entertaining. I strongly feel these shows are better than any other comedy show on Indian television till date. On a serious note, look at our country, it is going nowhere. All newspapers, forwarded mails, TV news channels are trying to bring in awareness about how important it is to vote. We all have a right to vote and no doubt we should exercise it. But whom do we vote that’s the big question. It is difficult to find politicians who are qualified, have relevant experience, are not corrupt, have had no criminal record in the past and more importantly want to work for the welfare of all Indians. I have a feeling that election is all about choosing the best among the worst.
Every time during elections we see political leaders campaign for their respective parties.
Election commission has given them the permission to campaign. Agreed. However, in the name of campaigning they just try to put the opposite political party down, criticize each others work, try to communally divide the country, make false promises, deliver hate speeches and attack each other personally.
The so called leaders are busy calling each others names, deciding who is young and who is old, whose hands should be cut, who should be put under a bulldozer and the funniest comment I have heard was one MP speaking about which political leaders should be thrown into the Arabian Sea. Have they lost it???? I wonder if they have ever heard of common sense. Do they think that no other country is watching us? I am sure people will be laughing at us all over the world only because of some senseless goons. When these people only try to break the unity in the country why will a terrorist not take any advantage? In this mad rush to get more votes, no one is bothered about what is happening to the country. No leader will even initiate to quit this Tit for Tat game and try to speak about what they will do for the country men once they are elected.
It is nice to see that this year we have independent candidates who claim that they really want to work for the country. A few of them are very determined and are trying hard not to be discouraged by the comments of the other political parties. At least they are trying to set the system right. My best wishes to such candidates. But the big question still remains the same… WHO DESERVES MY PRECIOUS VOTE?
A beauty pageant is based mainly on the physical beauty of its contestants, and often incorporating personality, talent demonstration, and question responses as judged criteria.
Most of the countries do conduct such pageants every year. There have been many protests against such competitions in India. Many Indians think that showcasing beauty by wearing swim suits is against our culture. I would not like to comment on that as it’s a different debate altogether. Such pageants are also conducted for men, though I have never watched any of those.
I have never been able to understand the whole concept of beauty pageants. The jury claiming that they give away the crown to a girl who has beauty and brains. But as far as my understanding goes, many girls take part in such competitions to be titled as the most beautiful girl. I have heard and read that they really work hard to win. And work hard to me means starving themselves to death so that they can loose all the extra weight and gain perfect vital statistics. ( akhir kuch paane ke liye kuch khona padta hai 
)They also follow a routine workout schedule. Beauty surely does lie in the eyes of the beholder and I believe there is no way you can measure someone’s beauty. So what looks beautiful to a judge many not look beautiful to someone else. As one of my friends rightly said along with the beauty, having a great body is also 1 prerequisite.
The last factor is intelligence. The last round of the pageant is really humorous. All the questions asked to the contestants are really funny. And the answers are of course a lot funnier. One such funny question is “what will you do once you win the crown?”. The contestant then tries hard to bring in a very sophisticated tone in her speech and says, “I will work for the welfare of the orphans. I will take care of the special children and people in old age homes.”….. blah blah blah. Another question is “whom do u idolize?”
And undoubtedly every such contestant idolizes Mother Teresa. But I am sure not many of them knew Mother Teresa’s name was Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu and she was an Albanian and not an Indian. One thing always pops up on my mind, if someone idolizes Mother Teresa then why would she want to participate in a beauty contest? We all know that these answers are just scripted. Nobody sticks to it once they win. If every beauty queen were to be socially so responsible, things would have been different.
I really wonder how anyone can judge one’s intelligence by asking such open ended questions. The answers to such questions are more often subjective and they seldom help in testing one’s intelligence. If I were to be a judge, I would have given them a set of aptitude questions along with some puzzles. Or may be I would have asked them basic general knowledge questions about India. After all, winning a title with country’s name in it should not be taken lightly he he he he he eh. And how can I forget this one. Who says models can’t act. The way the winner of the pageant acts so well after she realizes she won. She acts so surprised, as though she never intended to take part in such a contest and she accidentally won the crown. Now that’s what I call an Oscar winning performance
Every year March 8th is celebrated as International Woman’s day. Many people consider such days as being brought on calendar by western culture. However, Indians in the urban areas off late have started celebrating such days. Like every year, many TV channels aired special ads on woman’s day. The news papers were flooded with motivational articles related to Women liberation and feminism.
Being a feminist, how could I not enjoy all these? Each time someone wished me Happy woman’s day, I felt great about being a woman. But unfortunately the feeling didn’t last longer. I just started asking myself, is this day really worth celebrating? Are we Indian women really liberated? Are we really free to do what we want, wear what we like and live our life? And most importantly, how secure are we in a country we call our own? I am proud to be an Indian, I am proud to be a woman. But am I proud to be an Indian Woman??? I might have to think about that.
To be honest, I really don’t think we are liberated. We just live in a make believe society. Our country undoubtedly is filled with sexists. The Mangalore pub incident where women were beaten up is an example to endorse it. I guess this whole anti women-liberation campaign starts very early. Many parts of India report foeticide or female infanticide every year. Rape cases and cases related to harassment for dowry grow northwards everyday. I feel awful to even mention about child molestation and human trafficking which most of the times leads to prostitution. We have never been able to get rid of such problems. Blame it on the lack of awareness of women’s rights, lack of education, lack of co-operation from family or simply lack of courage to speak against the chauvinistic society. Many of you out there possess the same opinion as mine. We just talk about equality. Get inspired when we read some article or hear some speech on “naari shakti”. But at the end of the day, we do nothing to solve the ongoing problems.
Many parents instruct their daughters to be back home soon, not to fight with anyone in the bus, not to fight with auto drivers and we all I am sure every girl would have got this instruction at least once in her life; “If someone teases you on the road, or passes a cheesy comment, just avoid him and walk away”. It might sound funny at times. But that’s the truth. I take the local transport to office everyday. I see many men trying to unnecessarily touch all the female passengers, most of them school girls. Its very shocking to know that many of these people don’t even revolt against such situations. This is just one such instance. We all can share many such incidents. They seem like small petty issues to many of the Indians. May be we are used to such incidents. But the big question is, for how long are we going to be resilient?
No doubt, India has produced many successful women like Indira Gandhi, Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Sudha Murthy, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and so on. We feel proud to count their achievements. How long will we give examples of such women to feel that we Indian women are liberated? Do these women represent the entire women population in the country? Not really, they just represent one section of Indian women. Liberation does not only mean being financially independent or smoking cigarettes just to show women are no less than men. Liberation means having right to education, reproductive rights (including access to contraception and quality prenatal care), for protection from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape, for workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; and against other forms of discrimination. When so many Indian women are deprived of these basic rights; why are we fighting to have rights to access pubs and discos?
Women in our country have not been treated well for a very long time. Lets try and educate at least the younger generation to respect women and treat them with dignity. Its an earnest request to all women, please do not be bogged down by anything. There are many laws for protection and welfare of women. We should learn to be independent and protect ourselves. Fathers, brothers or for that matter even police cannot follow us or protect us all the time. If something wrong is happening to you or any other girl around, please voice out your opinions against it. Do not be scared of any legal complications. After all, expecting to be treated as a human being with esteem is not a crime.
–
Amit Agarwal Chinamyi Sripada
