Expectations, Studies and Internet woes

I got my half yearly exams’ results last week. I had hoped to get better results than in the quarterly exams. Bu it wasn't so. It was the worst result of my life, at least until now and hopefully it will always be. I got 80%. I had got 81% in the first term, and it was also the worst till this term. Now I am spending most of my time studying. I have been doing only maths because at present it requires the most time. I have 15 chapters in total. I think I have done about 4-5 so far. I am doing the tough ones first. 

Until now I am working more than I have ever worked. I usually started studying for exams about a week before they started and got around 90%, usually above it. But this time I started studying about a month before. The entire syllabus has been completed in advance. The only days I have to go to school now are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as I have my practicals on those days. This week I went on Saturday too, just to check it out. I may have to go on the coming Saturday. I have geography only on Saturdays and Mondays, as its one of the two subjects in which the portion has not been completed. The other is history. Our history teacher will be back by Saturday. He was in India, I think.

Nowadays I am sitting on the PC only on weekends. During weekdays, I am watching an hour of television each day. Just a series call Kyle XY on FOX Series from 11 to 12 at night. All other time I am studying. I have never ever studied so much and it feels extremely strange doing it.

The internet connection is not too well these days. Sometimes there's no connectivity at all. It’s been happening since Friday. On Friday, I had come to the PC for the first time in a week. And the internet was down. Completely down. 0 kbps. I was feeling extremely frustrated. First of all I cleaned off the temporary internet files, all of them using CCleaner . It’s the best cleaner I have found so far. Still the connection was down. Then I turned off other unnecessary apps like Google Desktop , OpenVPN , Yahoo Messenger , HP Printer Alerts etc. Nothing worked. Finally I restarted my PC after almost about 2-3 days of uptime. Still there was no connectivity. I now checked the router for problems. But there weren’t any problems I could see. I gave up. I checked it again in the evening. I was able to connect but there wasn't much speed. Just about 3-4 kBps instead of the usual 28-30 kBps. On Sunday a newspaper report came, saying that some cables have been cut in some sea possibly due to some seismic activity in that area. I really hate it when the internet is not working. I t makes me feel............disconnected and highly irritated. Although I am browsing the net at regular speed now, it’s not always possible. Just a few hours ago the internet was completely down, then it came back. I don't know how long it will last now.

The weather is also changing a lot. Nowadays when I set out of my home at 6:30 in the morning there is bearly any sunlight.Sometimes its also cold, but not usually. Jeddah is a bit hotter tham Makkah though.

Our Hajj

I know it’s been a long time since my last post. The reason I have not been able to write is that .............none of them are actual reasons, I waste time thinking about it, plan to write later and then forget to do so. So let me tell what has happened since my last post. First of all, the temperatures increased again, there was no more rain or hail, but it left a thin layer of cool green grass in most of the visible desert. Alhamdulillah my exams also went well. The result isn't declared yet, another week remaining.

And now the Hajj. I performed the Hajj this time. Me, my parents and my sister. We went directly to the plain of Arafah on Sunday (7th Dec). We went from home at 11 in the morning. We had planned to go by 10. We first went to an area near Arafah called Azizyah, parked our car there and soon got a taxi to Arafah. We reached there by around 12:30. We spent the day there. It was sunny, with clear skies. But the weather wasn't unbearable. We had to exit Arafah at Maghreb (sunset). This time we had a bit of difficulty in getting a taxi. Many people were walking too. The destination was Muzdalifah, around 1-3 km. I don't know the exact distance. It took us an hour to get there. The main reason was due to high traffic, vehicular as well as pedestrian, and also because the roads were being blocked from time to time to control and guide the flow of traffic. After we reached Muzdalifah, we put up a mat at a clean spot we found fairly easily. We ate some food, picked up pebbles, 49 for each of us which would be 196. And prepared to sleep. I slept at around midnight. Maybe around 1. The temperature was dropping. I woke up at 5 in the morning. The sun had not risen yet. Not even dawn. I went to the toilet to relieve myself. There was a line, at each toilet. There must have been 10-14 toilets there, but each had a queue of at least 3-5 people. By the time I was over, it was time for (or had been) Fajr (dawn). I soon prayed the Salah. Then we started walking. Walking to the Jamarah, to stone the Shaitaan (devil). This was the day to stone just the largest one. This is a ritual in which we have to stone a wall (previously a pillar, made a wall to increase the surface area enabling more people to do it in a shorter time). This ritual is repeated following what the Messenger Muhammad (SAW) did. We walked a lot. Maybe more than a kilometer or two. Each of us had to stone it with 7 pebbles which we had collected in Muzdalifah. There were 4 four floors in total, one ground plus three. We took the topmost, as it would probably have the least number of people and would perhaps be least tiring or troubling. Alhamdulillah we did it very comfortably. We could stand in the first row and do it. After we had finished it, we went back to Azizyah; we took our car and headed back home. We still had to shave our heads, but that was to be done after sacrificing the sheep/goats. We didn't do it personally. Previously we had bought a coupon thru which the sacrificing and distribution is done by the government. We were told that it would be done in the morning when we took the coupon. But we didn't want to take chance. So after coming home, at about 9:30 am, we had some food and slept. I slept till about 2:30. Then me and my father went to the barber shop to have our heads shaved. There were many people already waiting there. By the time my head was shave it was past 3:30. My father went after me. I am bald now. I returned home and took a bath. Wore new clothes. And again ate something. I also had a Panadol (basically paracetamol, a pain killer) to make sure I don't have the pains in my legs. I wasted the remaining day lying around.

 

  

Views of the Jamarah Complex (none of them are whole)

 

The Shaitaan (devil), [The Grey Wall]

 Me Stoning the Shaitaan

The next day we again had to go to jamarah in order to stone the devils. This time we had to stone all the three, with seven pebbles each. I woke up at around 1:30 pm. Had some breakfast. We did the same thing, parked our car in Azizyah and took a taxi. We had a walk a lot this day. A third of the distance in Azizyah itself (as the taxi couldn't get us very far due to road blocks), some in Mina and a lot in Jamarah itself. This time we went through the third floor instead of the first as this time we had come through a different way and didn't know where we had made the choice. It wasn't difficult this time too. Alhamdulillah we completed the ritual fairly easily, through the first row again. By the time we were over it was past Maghrib (sunset) around 5:40 pm. We took the same way (or should I say method) backhome. Today we also went to Haram to do our Tawaaf (circumambulation of the Kaabah) and Saee (walking between the two hills, Safa and Marwa, the hills were no longer big enough to be called hills, they had been cut again and again during construction). We could also have done this throughout the whole (lunar/Hijrah) month, but chose today as there would be probably least rush. Only the residents of Makkah are given the time of whole month. All others have to do it in the one of three days of Jamarah. But we did it this day, as the non-resident (of Makkah) Hajis (pilgrims) need to spend the night in Mina, which means that there would be less of those people and the pilgrims also start their Vidaai (exiting, from Makkah) Tawaaf after the third day. We went to Haram between 11-12 at night. But unexpectedly, there still was a lot of rush.We did the Tawaaf and did the Saee from the second floor. There are three in total.

 

A View of the Kaabah from The Second Floor 

 Almost Half of The Saee Area (The Closest Bald Head is Mine)

The third day we were supposed to go early. By early I mean after Zuhr (noon) which means after 12. Thats my early. I woke up at 1 pm. All of us had very light breakfast. By 2 we set out. There was a lot of traffic today. The main reason was because the stoning had to done by Maghrib (sunset). Which means about 3 million pilgrims in 5 and a half hours. If we was completed after sunset, it had to repeated the next day. So after being stuck in traffic for some time, finding a taxi in some more, we still had a walk a lot more than before because although the roads were not blocked by the officials, they were blocked due to the large number of buses and pilgrims walking. We walked half of Azizyah. Then we finally reached Jamarah by 5. By jamarah I mean just its beginning. There was a lot of walking left. We tried to hurry. We again went through the same third floor because of the same reason as before, we didn't know where we had to make the choice. This time there was a bit more rush than earlier times. But Alhamdulillah we completed it fairly easily. We did this 10 minutes before sunset. So we were saved from the trouble of repeating this the oher day by 10 minutes. All of us very hungry by now. Some hotel outlets are located at the end of Jamrah. One of them is the very popular Al Baik. Although no broasted chicken was available, the broasted nuggets were available. WE bought two boxes. The nuggets they were selling here were smaller in size but 12 in number. In other places larger were sold but 10 in number. In volume the 10 would propbably be more than these 12. All of us ate. My sister ate two, she was feeling sick, my mother ate four; and the remaining 18 were eaten by my father and me. I think I had eaten more than my father. On the way out we bought come caps, Islamic caps. Although there isn't much Islamic about them, they are worn mostly by Muslims. These are very similar to the skull caps, just bigger.We returned home.

Our Hajj was over. This was my Fard (obligatory) Hajj. After this I may do it only if I want to. It is no longer required. But I hope to do it again some day.

Physics, Rain, Hailstorm, Rain, Math

I had my physics practical examination yesterday. There were four practicals in total. I got one in which we had to trace the path of a ray of lights passing through a glass slab. The experiment just fine but I don't know much about the viva-voice. The examiner was expressionless, silent and didn't ask me my roll number  (could also be because my viva was taken last) or seemed to put to tick while he was hiding the marks sheet. But I know I gave the right answer. I was asked what was refraction. The remaining day went on as usual.

At night, around 11:30 it started to rain and it got rough. Soon there was a hailstorm. There was a lot of noise due to it because it was falling on the ACs. Some even came into our home through the small spaces between the ACs and the walls they were attached.  My mother picked up some of the ice (hail) and gave it to my little brother and sister. After taking it into their hands they started laughing loudly and jumping. I turned to look at what my other sister was doing only to see that she was also jumping around and laughing but slowly. It lasted for around an hour. Then the rain slowed down for some time only to start again. There was also a lot of thunder. When I slept at around 1:30 it was still raining. I don't know what happened after that.

I woke up at 6:30 in the morning. I had to go to school as I had my math test today. It didn't seem to rain now. I got all ready for school, packed my bag and was ready to get out. Suddenly I could hear rain. A lot of it. I went back into my room and searched for a jacket. I soon found mine and put it on. I wore my spots shoes today as I didn't want to ruin my other formal ones. I got out of my home and headed to my stop. It was raining  but not as fast as a few minutes earlier. As I was heading towards my stop I saw that a tree (or two maybe) had fallen. The whole road was wet and had a lot of water especially near the pavement where there was almost difficult to walk. My bus came a bit late today but it didn't matter. It was even raining more than halfway into the highway. I saw four accidents. In two of them the cars were badly destroyed.

Near Jeddah there was not much rain just a lot of sunlight. I reached school about 15 minutes late than usual today. There was still a lot of sunlight. In some time my math test started. It wasn't the best test I have given. There wasn't even enough time. I forgot some formulae in between but did as much as I could. There were even two six-mark questions in the test.I thought it was absurd as to put two six-mark questions in a test whose total was 25. Thats like almost half the marks. I hope I get good marks in this test also. And I will have to study a lot for the fast approaching exams.

Rain In The School & My Math Practical

The weather was cool today as well. While I was in the school it started to rain around 11 o'clock and must have rained for more than an hour. But it didn't rain too harsh or too much just the right pleasant speed though there were newspaper reports that it rained much yesterday and today in other regions. We had a free period during some of the time it rained. During that many students from my class went out into the ground to get wet along with many others from other classes. The whole ground was full. Some of the students (the senior ones also) were playing in the dirty, muddy water after the rain had finished. For some reason the water was stagnant in the ground possibly because of an absence of a proper drainage system.

After the free period I had my Mathemeatics practical. It went very well Alhamdulillah. I got the first set of question papers (there were two in all). There was a chice between two questions; either solve a system of linear equations graphically or verify the Pythagoras theorem experimentally. I solved the given pair of linear equations. And Alhamdulillah I got the right answer. My viva-voice also went well. I was just asked the formulae for volumes of a cylinder, a cone and a frustum of a cone. I got'em all right.Alhamdulillah.

Tomorrow is my physics practical examination. Inshallah it will also go well. I am only scared about the viva-voice part as the teacher taking it takes it tough.

The Cool Blue Sky

Today while I was going to my bus stop at around 6:30 a.m. it was a very cool weather. There was no proper sunlight to seen. Its been similar to this since the past few days but the sunlight could always be seen. It was different today. I liked it. Since the past few years Makkah has been cooling a lot. Mostly in the last 2-3 years. Earlier there used to be no winter or rainy season; just a summer with the last and forst few months being a bit more pleasant or less hot than others. But now there is cold. Cold in which we have to wear some insulation instead of the one we could just enjoy and live just with a fan swithced on in the room. Even int he school it was pretty cool. At time and time again the sunlight was completely covered and it seemed as if it was evening school. When I was returning home it was still very clody and cool instead of the sweating heat although I had to walk just about a minute or two. I am sure it will be getting colder by day. Just about a week ago (or less than that) it was still hot with night time temperature around 36 degrees celsius but now it is around 24.

A Long Weekend

I haven't been going to school since Monday. On Monday I didn't go as I hadn't slept properly the whole night. Then Tuesday was a holiday for Diwali, I think. I didn't go yesterday as a friend had told me that it would be a Cultural Day so there won't be many classes. But I haven't been enjoying much though. I have been a bit busy studying. My exams are staring in about two to three weeks and there is a lot of portion to complete. And moreover this is the toughest academic year I have been thru. New concepts have been introduced this year as well as fully explained which are mostly pretty tough. I just hope that Allah helps me get a good score this year.

School Started At Full Speed

My school started on 11th Oct last week. I have been very busy since. In the first week I had to submit my holiday assignments which I had not completed (or even touched). My tests also started in the same week. I had English & Social Sciences on Thursday. Alhamdulillah both went well. In all the activities the last week went by unnoticed, untouched, unknown. This week too I have been busy enough. I didn't go to school today with a goal of studying for this week's tests which are on Thursday, Science and Arabic. I have completed Science and some Arabic is left. I will complete it in some time.

I have been downloading some movies in the past few days but haven't had time to watch them and I probably won't have it until at least the end of November. Today is the first time in days that I am properly surfing the web. And probably it won't come soon.

I don't know what to write even though it is the one thing I want to do most now. If I ask this question to someone else in my home right now they will tell me that I have tests so I should be studying atleast by writing rather than waste time on the net which is something I like to do but don't want to.

Updated Google Chrome

From the last time I had seen Chrome seems to have had some udates which have helped a lot. Now all the sites I open come up extremely fast (including Facebook which was having problems earlier). But still there are no add-ons or user-scripts though I have read that newer versions of Chrome will have them with less instability problems as compared to Firefox. And I no longer care about the fact that there is no website-loading-status-bar (showing how much of the site has loaded) as the pages load up pretty fast which could also be because I have a nice internet connection. Though I am completely using Chrome now there still is no proper bookmarks organizing tools. 

Google Chrome

I installed the new internet browser, Google Chrome from Google yesterday. The installation package was small and the total installation also didn't take long. The browser has a new look to it and a new interface which may take a bit to get used to. But it absolutely simple and clean like most (I think all) Google products. I went thru some of the comic book-like explaination as to how and why the browser should be better than any other especially if Firefox is in the area. According to the explaination the browser does multiple tasks together like loading the Javascript and other stuff at the same time instead of waiting for one to happen and then proceeding to the other which should make it faster. And the tabs in it are treated as separate processes/tasks so only one tab can crash at time meaning you save all the others.

Most of the pages load pretty fast (compared to Firefox a bit faster). Everytime we open a new tab a page showing most visited pages, recent bookmarks and history search is displayed. We can find out about the memory usage by just putting about:memory in the address bar. There is also a Incognito window option using which no data will be saved in the system af our browsing, download histories etc; in other words it can be used for complete privacy. We can also create application shortcuts for applications like Gmail, Blogger etc onto the desktop using it.

The browser is easy to use but I there's one thing I don't like about it which is that nothing is displayed until almost the whole page is loaded which can include ads and there is no status bar showing how much of the page is loaded. And everything including ads must load as there is no add-on like AdBlock or FlashBlock as in Firefox. I didn't find any add-ons for it or any add-ons option in the browser itself. There isn't even an option for organizing bookmarks. Ocassionally the browser uses more memory than Firefox.

I hope that being in the beta stages the browser will improve much as it is not ready for full time internet browsing. As for now, I will still be using be using Firefox.

The Flights: To and From Hyderabad

My vacation started somewhere in July last week.  And  I had a flight to India on 24th Jul. It was a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight which we had bokked in advance a few months ago. I expected the flight to be an enjoyable experience. But the flight was small. A 3-by-3 seater in the economy section and a common first/business class with 2-by-2. I was in the economy. There weren't any monitors for the seats so the flight was pretty boring.with not much to do. I didn't sleep during the flight. It was a night flight so by the time the flight landed in the Hyderabad Airport it was the next day.This was the first time the I had landed at the new airport. It was just a few months old. It was a pretty beautiful airport. Possibly because it was still new and had not gone thru much rough use as of yet. There were more than enough of our relatives to receive us there.

Our return flight was scheduled for 3rd Sept during the morning hours at around 11:30 so I think I can also call it an afternoon one. We hadn't had any breakfast and were out from home by around 7:30 as the way was a bit long and didn't want to wait in the long lines. There were many counters for the check-in and the the procedures also didn't take too long. After getting in we had some breakfast. I had some Wadas. They small in size as result they are in plural. Soon after we were in the flight. It was similar to the one we had come from but a bit better. I'm saying this perhaps because there were monitors opened for some time and a movie was shown although there were no headphones provided and the ones I had were not of any use. We landed at the Jeddah airport at evening before the sun was down armaybe around the time it passes the meridian. 

Some Internet Speed Incresing Tweaks

The below compilation is solely my own work and I hope ayone utilising it to put it on their blogs, e-mails etc. mention me as it is a result of some serous time-wasting browsing to increse the internet speed and I hope this who find more, better and free ways (but legal) to speed up the net give me some links to whatever they have got.

I don't exactly know why but I was having some problems with my internet speed so I started searching for ways to speed it up. In a post I published some time back (Windows XP Tricks) there was a method to increase the bandwidth by about 20% and now I have come across more methods to increase the speed and am willing to share it about now.

First of all ditch Internet Explorer. Now choose a fast browser, preferable Firefox (latest version) or maybe Safari. I prefer Firefox as all the images always load in it (there isn't a cross like in IE or a question mark as in Safari) and moreover Firefox's download file (7.8 MB) is much smaller as compared to that of Safari(18.6 MB). This will bring about some change in speed. Don't use Opera as it is a bit slow and moreover I don't like the fact that in it for a few seconds the page (which you are visiting) seems unresponsive and then suddenly everything appears.

Next increase the cache size of your browser. In Firefox navigate to Tools, then Options. Now go to Advanced. There will be a box in which the default cache size is given. Increase it. I keep it at 1024 MB. This lets the pages you have visited some time earlier (or maybe longer than some) load faster. Also remove all unnecessary add-ons as this may slow down your browsing speed.

Now download a file by googling it called TCP/IP Configurations or by clicking here as after I got the file the first time I couldn't find it later.

Now download a Firefox extension called Fasterfox. This is similar to Google Web accelerator but is specific to Firefox and updated to the latest version of Firefox.

All these features help in increasing the browsing speed (except the the TCP/IP Configurations I think). In order to increase download speed of file use Download Accelerator. This has free and paid-for versions. The free version is more than enough but if you are still hungry for more speed you can download the premium version as it has some features as well as it is add-free. This one of the few free download accelerators present (or maybe the only one) and I always use it. It integrates into most of the major browsers. To increase the video buffering speed you can use SpeedBit Video Accelerator. This speeds up buffering from all the major sites you are likely to visit in this lifetime and removes those annoying freezes.
Both the above accelerators increase speed by increasing connections to the associated site.

So there's as much I could find. If someone has more please tell me by atleast commenting on this post or mailing me at hazmahsa@gmail.com.

Exams Over

My exams are finally over today. But I didn't feel much difficulty this time. The only exam on which I worked really hard. The other exams just came and went by. Today was Arabic. I did almost everything in it except a 10-mark composition which doesn't worry me much as everything else went well. I have started watching movies now; starting with The Incredible Hulk and Jaanue Tu....Ya Jaane Na. But I have more ready. I have a flight to India on Thursday and I will be there by Friday. The packin is almost done but some things are left.

I hope to enjoy this time too in India

Windows XP Tricks

This is something I copied off my cousins blog (http://aymenn.wordpress.com). Click here for the exact article.

Deleting System Softwares:
XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/ sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

Creating Shutdown Icon or One Click Shutdown: Navigate to your desktop. On the desktop, right-click and go to New, then to Shortcut (in other words, create a new shortcut). You should now see a pop-up window instructing you to enter a command line path. Use this path in “Type Location of the Item”
SHUTDOWN -s -t 01 If the C: drive is not your local hard drive, then replace “C” with the correct letter of the hard drive. Click the “Next” button. Name the shortcut and click the “Finish” button. Now whenever you want to shut down, just click on this shortcut and you’re done.

Increasing Band-Width By 20%:
Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC etc To get it back:

Click Start then Run and type ” gpedit.msc” without quotes.This opens the group policy editor. Then go to:
Local Computer Policy then Computer Configuration then Administrative Templates then Network then QOS Packet Scheduler and then to Limit Reservable Bandwidth.
Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the ‘Explain’ tab i.e.”By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default.”
So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Win 2000 as well.

Renaming The Recycle Bin icon:

To change the name of the Recycle Bin desktop icon, click Start then goto Run, write Regedit and press Enter. It opens Registry Editor. Now in Registry Editor go to: HKEY_CLASSES_ ROOT/CLSID/ {645FF040- 5081-101B- 9F08-00AA002F954 E} and change the name “Recycle Bin” to whatever you want (don’t type any quotes).

Managing Tasks:You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘tas

kkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.

Removing Shared Documents folder From My Computer window:

Open registry editor by going to Start then Run and entering regedit. Once in registry, navigate to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ My Computer \ NameSpace \ DelegateFolders You must see a sub-key named {59031a47-3f72- 44a7-89c5- 5595fe6b30ee} . If you delete this key, you have effectively removed the my shared documents folder.

Making Google the Default Search Engine in Internet Explorer:
Open registry editor by going to Start then Run and entering regedit and navigate to following three keys separately and change it as shown below:[HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Main]
“Search Page”=”http://www.google. com“
“Search Bar”=” http://www.google. com/ie“
[HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\SearchURL]
“”=” http://www.google. com/keyword/ %s“
[HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE \Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Search]
“SearchAssistant” =” http://www.google. com/ie” .

Improving the Slow Boot up time:

There are a variety of reasons why your windows XP system would boot slowly. Most of the times it this has to do with the startup applications. If you would like to speed up the bootup sequence, consider removing some of the startup applications that you do not need. Easiest way to remove startup apps is through System Configuration Utility. Go to Start then Run and enter MSCONFIG and go to the Startup tab. Deselect/UnCheck application( s) that you do not want to startup at boot time.

Customize Logon prompt with your Own Words:

Open Registry by going to Start then Run, entering regedit and Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE \Microsoft\ Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ Winlogon] . In right pane, look for key by the name “LogonPrompt” . Set its value to whatever text you want to see displayed at login screen.

IP address of your connection:Go to Start then Run. Enter ‘cmd’ and then enter ‘ipconfig’

.Add the ‘/all’ switch for more info.

Making Folders Private:

Open My Computer Double-click the drive where Windows is installed (usually drive (C:), unless you have more than one drive on your computer). If the contents of the drive are hidden, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive.
Double-click the Documents and Settings folder. Double-click your user folder. Right-click any folder in your user profile, and then click Properties. On the Sharing tab, select the Make this folder private so that only I have access to it check box.

To change Drive Letters:

Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management, Disk Management, then right-click the partition whose name you want to change (click in the white area just below the word “Volume”) and select “change drive letter and paths.”
From here you can add, remove or change drive letters and paths to the partition.

Removing the Shortcut arrow from Desktop Icons: Goto Start then Run and Enter regedit. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ ROOTlnkfile. Delete the IsShortcut registry value. You may need to restart Windows XP.

Get Drivers for your Devices:

Visit Windows Update (XP Only)
Look at the left hand pane and under Other Options click Personalize Windows Update.
Now in the right hand pane check the box - Display the link to the Windows Update Catalog under See Also
Below Choose which categories and updates to display on Windows Update - make sure you check all the boxes you want shown.
Click Save Settings
Now look in the left hand pane under See Also click Windows Update Catalog and choose what you’re looking for. Choose either MS updates or drivers for hardware devices.
Start the Wizard and off you go.

Customize Internet Explorer’s Title Bar:

Open Registry by going to Start then Run and Enter regedit. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\ Microsoft\ Internet. Explorer\Main. In right hand panel look for string “Window Title” and change its value to whatever custom text you want to see.

Disabling the use of Win Key:

If your are a gaming freak then you must be sick of the Win key in your keyboard. To disable use of Win key, open registry by going to Start then Run and entering regedit. Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSe t\Control\ Keyboard Layout] . In this look for value of “Scancode Map”. Its binary data so be extra careful:
Set its value to “00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00″ to disable the win key.

Restarting Windows without Restarting the Computer:

This one is again is. When you click on the SHUTDOWN button, make sure to simultaneous press SHIFT Button. If you hold the Shift key down while clicking on SHUTDOWN button, you computer would restart without restarting the Computer. This is equivalent to term “HOT REBOOT”.

Stopping XP from displaying unread messages count on Welcome Screen:

To stop XP from displaying count of unread messages, Open registry and navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentV ersion\UnreadMai l] and look for the data key “MessageExpiryDays” . If you do not see this key, create one DWORD key by the name “MessageExpiryDays” . Setting its value to 0 would stop Windows XP from displaying the count of unread messages.

Modify Color Selection of Default Theme:Open registry by going to Start then Run. Entering regedit, navigate to [HKEY_USERS\ .DEFAULT\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentV ersion\ThemeMana ger] and locate the key “ColorName”.
Right Click on it and select modify its value from “NormalColor” to “Metallic”
Click Ok, and exit regedit and restart your computer.

Removing the Recycle Bin from the Desktop: If you don’t use the Recycle Bin to store deleted files , you can get rid of its desktop icon all together. Run Regedit and go to:

Busy, busy, busy

These days have been very (and also are being) extremely busy for me. My exams ave sarted and I have been studying a lot. Thats a reason why I am updating my blog after such a long time. Another reason for it is because my parents unplugged my computer because of my brother's addiction of sitting for hours on the it playing online games for the whole time. My exams are ending on the 22nd of July and Inshallah I will be in India by 25th. The most I am doing these days is listening to songs on my 30 GB Zune which I bought a few months ago and sometimes watching something on TV if its worth wasting the time.

Always A Harsh World

A few days ago we were taught in history of the depressions, crises which happened over time and how they affected the people. With that I remembered what my mother had told me. She had told me that the world is always harsh and gave an example; that when Allah's Messenger had died many people had come up saying that they were the messengers. This was a complete fraud as the Messenger had told He was the last. In history we read of economic depressions that caused widespread damages losses, then the famines, droughts, protests, violence everywhere, curfews and the list goes on.

And nowadays its all about Iraq, Palestine and occasionally Afghanistan. Then there are groups for women to prevent violence against them. In the TV and movies, especially Indian it is mentioned that its a cruel, pitiless world and that its a bad time/era. There is inflation of prices everywhere on God's green earth.

Whats wrong with people. Its always been a cruel world. The world is better now than it has ever been if you exclude the time before humans came to earth and it was very little. There are just a few civil wars, the problem in Iran will hopefully finish after Bush leaves and women have more rights than ever, they have social security if they follow some guidelines meant for them, Iraq will be OK soon and as for the price rise, if there is no price rise there is no use of and increase in salaries, there are no rich and poor which are very essential. If there are no rich and poor there are no divisions, no way people can be different from each other, no way to pity anyone and in some time no one remembers God or knows what to do if he by chance somewhere else sees a poor person.

So I think the world's a better place than ever, if its harsh you can't have or buy a new one so stop wasting your energy and telling everyone you meet that its a very cruel world and start seeing the good things in life before you die because it could be anytime soon.

A Day Of Enjoyment

Yesterday some of my paternal cousins from Riyadh had come who are planning gonna go to India for good in some time for a last Umrah. Some more came in the evening from Jeddah to take them. And when they were going I too went with them. I had an enjoyable time. I watched a horror movie called Silent Hill, played on the PS2 and PSP and did some other stuff.

Today I am back at home. I have to do a nice amount of school work I had been delaying and so I will be busy today.

Startup Delayer

I have recently started using a new software called called Startup Delayer. It delays the apps that start when the computer boots meaning more important apps like antivirus can start start first and unessential ones likes messengers later giving resources directly to the important apps that start first. I have found it very useful as the computer seems to start faster and smoother beacuse of it.

You can download it from here.

KeepVid

I have recently started using a free webware called KeepVid used to download videos from multiple sites. Its fairly easy to use we just have copy the URL and paste it in the download address bar, click on download and then two links will come up asking whether you want a flash video file (flv) or MP4. Click on download this time and it starts.

It also has links for software for downloading a video downloader, video converter and a free FLV player. I have found this better than the Real Player 11 video download plugin as its easier to use and we can download in MP4 format also

Firefox 3 Beta 5

I have been following all versions of Firefox from 2.0.0.11 and have found the lates i.e. 3 Beta 5 to be the best. The previous beta versions had some problem with the Back button which for some reason sometimes did not work properly and all the RAM was sucked out from your PC but the latest version has it all fixed and I am completely using.

The only problem I have with it is I can use the Real Player Video Download Plug-in with it for which I have to use Firefox 2.

I don't exactly have the knowledge of the bugs and their fixes but a list of it all and the download is available at http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Main_Page

The First Three Sucking Weeks of Tenth

I haven't written a post since a long time (although I never write regularly) mainly because its been very busy. It's just been three weeks since I came into tenth and already they are teaching like hell. The whole day goes waste if you don't take the learning and its very difficult for me to take a day off (a practice I followed without fail till I was in ninth).

From next time onwards I am thinking of writing posts based on the softwares I use as I am not able to write properly what I feel as advised by one of my most successful blogging cousin and moreover I can't write anything long as he can.

First Day of Tenth Standard

I woke up at 8:30 today. My bus came at about 9:10 although the school was from 11:15. I thought that the bus wasn't going to pick anyone after me but I was wrong. It pick up about 5-6 boys from various parts of the city thru a very complicated route in 40 minutes. When I reached school I had to wait outside for sometime as the CBSE exams of 12^th were going on. After that we entered the auditorium from where we were directed to our respective classes. Our sections were didn't change; so I am in class 10-B-2.

 

Our class teacher teaches math. He took our attendance and unexpectedly started teaching. Unexpectedly because this is the first time we were taught on the first day. Next was physics in which also we were taught, followed by Arabic in which we did nothing; after which was recess. We had Economics and English after that. In all the classes the teachers told us about the importance of tenth as they did in ninth, eight and in every other class. The school ended as usual at 3:15 and I was at home by 4:15.

The Results

Yesterday my father woke me up before 11 and asked me to get ready. After some time we went to take pick up my mom from the university. By 12:30 we were on the way to Jeddah. Once there we had some light lunch at a south indian restaurant. Then we went to our paternal cousins home. My mom went to sleep there but I watched a movie called 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' and played on PS2 till 7 when we went to get the results. There was some traffic near the school but not much. My stomach started physical exercises as I was climbing the stairs and increased in frequency once I was in the class. There I was sitting behind a another boy who couldn't stop his nonsense chit-chat. But because of that nonsense the fear seemed to be draining out of me and made me feel less tense. In about 15 minutes my chance for the result came. I started walking towards the class teacher hearing my heart stomping loudly, sweating but feeling very cold and my stomach making push-ups. I did pretty good, not great though. It was less than I had expected. I got 86%; I was expecting at least 90. I got the second rank in the class. It was my best result this year and was not at all worth the tension. We went to the the bookshop also to get the books. It was a small shop but many people had thronged into it. Then atlast by 10 we were at home

An Invitation to Cynosure 2K8

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: MJCC - MJCET <cynosure2k8@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 8:07 PM
Subject: An Invitation to Cynosure 2K8
To: xubayr.z@gmail.com

WWW.CYNOSURE2K8.COM

Waheeduddin—9985603801 Irfan—9885135516 E-mail:cynosure2k8@gmail.com

End Of Board Exams

Yesterday was my last exam. These exams went better than all others this year although they had the whole year's portion. I am expecting above 90 in all subjects. I wanted to scan and upload the papers but ain't got time so I am doing what I can. I thought that Arabic would be very tough seeing the old question papers and the previous exams' ones but it was too easy to be said in words.

I am sitting on the net after a long time. The usual problem I have is my four-year old brother. He watches Arabic cartoons the whole day (which obviously he does not understand) and when he sees the laptop he does the same. He googles out his and his friends names and clicks on the links not knowing where they take him. Our computer was disconnected a few weeks ago because of the same reason. The moment I turn on the laptop he came here as if he smelt it. He always does that even when he is sleeping he wakes up and comes looking innocently as if he does not what happened.And the moment I get up from the laptop he asks if he can sit. If I say yes he sits politely. But if I say no it will be an inferno of living hell in the form of a little human.

Busi-ness

I have not written a post for the past many days coz I have been really very busy. I have done a lot in the past weeks. About two or three weeks ago I went to Madinah. My final exams started on the 13th of february. They were GULF SAHODAYA BOARD EXAMS. I thought that they might be very tough because of all the portion. I have written the social science and maths exams. They went very well as compared to how much I had studied and how difficult it was. I hope to get good marks in both of them. After all that I studied it felt a shame to write so less in the exam. But it wasn't as if I could write more.

Action Needed !

www.tamilmuslimmedia.com

 

ASSLAAM O ALAIKUM.  
 
WIKIPEDIA site has published the image of our prophet Mohammad  SAS. Please sign the petition on the
below mentioned link to have it  removed. We need 10,000 signatures to get pictures of Prophet be removed
from WIKIPEDIA. So far only 4300 signatures are obtained.  Please act now! JAZAKALLAHU   KHAIRA Also  please forward the link to all your Muslim contacts.   
    ---------- 
FOR PICTURE OF PROPHET AND DETAILS OF ISLAMIC MOVEMENT  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad  

FOR THE REMOVAL PETITION TO BE SIGNED; PLEASE LOG  ON; 
  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/removal-of-the-pics-of-muhammad-from-wikipedia http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/removal-of-the-pics-of-muhammad-from-wikipedia 
  
Dear Friends, I have just read and signed the petition: 'Removal of the Pics of Muhammad  from Wikipedia'. Please take a moment to read about this important issue, and join me in signing the petition. It takes just 30 seconds, but can truly make a  difference. We are trying to reach 10000 signatures - please sign here:  
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/removal-of-the-pics-of-muhammad-from-wikipedia 

Once you have signed, you can help even more by asking your friends to do it. 

 

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My Science Practical

I don't actually know why but I have a bad habit of delaying everything as much as I can. I don't even study till my mom has told me a not so few times. All my posts are written some time after I want to coz I don't sit when I can.

On Sunday, I had my science practicals. And I am going to write about it now. Two days later. They went pretty good. I didn't have much difficulty in any of them. First was my physics practical. Not all students have the same practicals. Half the batch has one and the other half one. It is not selected randomly but in roll numbers. So I got the experiment of plotting a temperature-time graph of water as it cools down and the boy with the next roll number got the experiment of finding the density of a material. Mine was pretty easy. Then next in biology, I had to make a stained slide of onion peel cells and identify the given slide. The slide was parenchymatous tissue. But the boy next to me got the cheek cell experiment and had to write, draw and identify the given specimen which was a fish. This time too I got the easy one. Then the last practical, chemistry I got the heating of lead nitrate, decomposition experiment whereas my friend got the double displacement experiment of mixing barium chloride and sodium sulphate. Again I got the easy one. I also got all the easy viva questions. I hope to do get full marks in the practicals.

One thing I forgot is the scene in the chemistry lab when I was writing down the experiment. All the boys near me, well almost three feet apart were asking for my help. Among them a few had different experiments. And I helped them. I don't cheat but if I don't help them I won't be able to write the next exam.

The Past Three Days

Since a few days i haven't been regularly updating my blog. The main reason I don't have much to blog about and I am a bit busy with studying (yes I sometimes do that sort of things) for my exams which are trying to make sure I don't survive this year. On Wednesday I ate Al-Baik for dinner. It is a very special kind of broasted chicken unique to Jeddah, Makkah and Madina. The special thing about it is it is very tasty as a result it always has a lot of rush in the restaurant. They have got enough staff working to speed up the process but the traffic in the area is also very high which neutralizes their speed. We took our parcel in 15 minutes but returned home about half an hour later. I even took some pictures when I was eating.



The picture above shows a large/family pack which contains the whole chicken in eight pieces. They also sell a smaller pack with half a chicken in four pieces. You also get two buns and four garlic sauce packs. I couldn't take any pics while eating as the only thing you can think of while eating Al-Baik is eating more of it.



Then on Thursday and Friday I and my fasted as it was the ninth and tenth of Muharram, respectively. On thursday after Iftaar we went to Jeddah for a small party by our cousins. It was actually a birthday celebration of the son of another of my cousins.

And today was my maths practical exam. It was pretty easy. In my set of questions was a choice between proving that the area of a parallelogram is equal to base multiplied by height by paper cutting and pasting or I had to prove the mid-point theorem by a similar method. The mid-point theorem was common to all the sets of question papers (there were a total of for sets). I solved the one of area of a parallelogram. In the viva I gave all the three answers correct. I hope to get full marks in it.

Tomorrow is my science practical exam which includes physics, chemistry and biology. I have studied for it too but I will be revising for it in a short time.