Last day of classes today, finals begin on Friday.
My next piece of software review will be of my two favorite open source browsers:-
1. Mozilla 1.4
2. Mozilla Firebird(previously known as Phoenix, I think this is a cooler name though)

I personally cant wait for both to come out since they have some major feature upgrades!!!!

Other tech news, Grokster and Morpheus have won the P2P battle by proving that they couldnt track what was going on, on their servers....but I am sure there will be appeals to this decision. Kazaa is not yet free though.

I wonder when the next version of winamp will come out, since 3.0 in my opinion is quite bloated and a resource hog....I still use 2.9....

Just my luck, the new host does not support MT...:(

Talk about irony, I mention about the reliable servers of pcplayground and their website gets suspended...well got another host, so I will put it up there

All exams over....did them well....now dreaded finals!!!
well movable type blog is set at reliable pcplayground servers and can be seen at http://kashif.pcplayground.com

so busy this week, not even funny....no more updates(i think till friday)

wohoo!!!! im in the top 3....http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/interact/story/0,24330,3425210,00.html

It is so ironic that, all throughout the week the birds are so quite and dont chirp at all.....but as soon as the weekend comes around you can expect them to be at their chirping loudest in the morning, and its so unbelievably loud as if they are just next to your ears. Now its not that I dont enjoy the birds chirping, its just that, please not on the weekend!!!! Also bird poop on your car is a force to reckon, its as if they seem to know which cars have just been washed. They like sit on the community tree discussing that, and then in hoardes poop bomb the cars....thats why I had to wash both cards today, just disgusting.

As for the programs, all tweaks have been done and is ready to be given in for grading. wohoo!!!!

hmmm.....SNL what can I say, it was just somdry....2 times in a row...what a damper.

Simpsons was the winner this week, it was hillarious, probably one of the best shows this season.

Man these couple of days have been hell, there is this program that I have to write that translates a line into piglatin.....now for a while this program was acting like a unicorn, I was unable to catch yet I was crazy driven towards it, resulting in having dreams about that program.....you can imagine how bad things are when you start dreaming about the program( I even saw that it executed successfully...lol), well the program has been completed needing only a minor tweaks, which I shall do tommorrow. I have had enough of looking at my screen and endless amount of code.

I think my 8tc MT blog went down, I just hope that this is some downtime, and not like the last time. This time would suck even more cause I had manually transferred all my archives from here to there.....just hope they arent lost.

Now off to get some much needed sleep.

try this out it is a like a stock market with blogs Blog Shares. Seems like a lot of fun, i just registered.

Why did SNL have to suck that bad....comon it was pitiful, no excuse for that...ok thats that

I hate the climate in Houston--being so unpredictable and all, one moment the suns out, birds are chirping, the next its pouring cats and dogs. And to top it off are the drivers who drive as if they can see everything and are just zooming off splashing water all over your windsheild making it impossible to see for about 10 seconds, which is vvvvv dangerous. Just hate that!!!

Got schedule okayed today, just have to register.

What a week...really nice to meet someone you know for such a long time, after such a long time. Talks abt the "good ol days" and all the cricket stories and what a rogue class we were...hmmmm

Speaking of cricket, played cricket after 3 years(another great feeling), bowling and batting were a little rusty, but fielding(something that I was always known for) was spot on!!!! But the effects of lack of exercise are being felt....I am so damn sore...lol

Finally got the school alumni community up, and this time it is with pictures, here is the link http://nk2002.f2o.org/community

Waiting for SNL, Bernie Mac, cant get better than that!!!

My first ever software review got published today, here it is now for your reading pleasure:-

Tech Discussion:

Thanks to Kashif Khan (kashif) for this contribution.

Lavasoft's Ad-Aware has been the popular choice for removing spyware and other malware. However, Lavasoft seemed to neglect Ad Aware, and there was a period when no updates were available. This created an opportunity for Spybot, and many people switched from Ad Aware to this product. Lavasoft are back in business now with the release of Ad Aware 6, so I decided to pit these two against each other to see which was the best.

1. Ease of Use: Ad-aware won in this category hands down, with an attractive gui and very helpful step by step wizards, that can even make a newbie use this with a fair amount of ease. Spybot S&D on the other hand is geared more towards the advanced user and some of the buttons can be confusing at times, such as the Spybot s&d button instead of a simple scan button. Spybot has made changes to gui in the newer versions by having an "easy mode" and an "advanced mode".

2. Getting the job done: I updated both the software's with the latest patches from their respective sites. Spybot S&D won this category detecting more spyware and malware in my system that Ad-Aware, one of which was extremely shocking was that Ad-Aware could not even find alexa installed on my system and even valueclick and other notorious spyware for that matter.

3. Advanced features:- The winner again was Spybot S&D. One of the features that impressed me the most was it gave you a detailed explanation of what the spyware does and also from it usually originates. More advanced features include immunization and check for bho's and active x controls. Ad-aware on the other hand had nothing to match these features. The Bho feature helped me detect a .dll file that would show an "enhanced search result" page while searching on google.

4. Scan time:- Both had practically the same timings when it came to scanning. I felt Ad-Aware 6 was slower than previous versions. So it was a tie here

Keeping all these things in mind I removed Lavasoft Ad-Aware from both my computers and have installed Spybot S&D. Even though you have to be a little careful about what you delete it does an excellent job of cleaning the system (it has a recovery mode as well), and its bundled advanced features are just the thing that advanced users want. Ad-aware just could not keep up with Spybot S&D and is now my favorite pick.

Today's my birthday...just love to open my mail and see all those funny cards that people save..wohoo!!
well nothing new for the week, just waiting for this one to get over.

I have been complaining as to how this week is going to be hell with so much work and all. Well it is going to be like that, but my american government professor has made the third paper that is due optional. So that means I do not have to worry about it and is a huge relief...wohoo!!!!! But it has been an unbelievabley long day.....just waiting for this last class to get over so that I can go home.

Nothing like a weekend where you dont have to any work whatsoever.....but this feeling is going to pass pretty soon once the week starts and the work starts piling up( and I know that this week is going to be busy). Maybe if the webCT is easy enough I can get rid of it on Monday.
I uploaded all my archives from here and xanga to Movable Type, though a little tedious its up there, and now i can make a backup of it whenever I want.

looking forward to simpsons this week as it involved everybody's favorite officer, officer wiggum.

A fantastic win for the rockets as they fight the warriors for the play-off spot
go houston!!!!!




So close to converting the blog at 8tc to make it look like this....thanks to my brother.

Finally done with the week, nothing feels better than that. On top of that I am done with the webCT quiz and the program as well, so that leaves me free to do other things during the weekend....wohooo!!!!!
Maybe I can experiment with making the 8tc blog look more like this one or work on finding a place for the online community and if its a bright and sunny day I can go play some tennis.
Also excited to meet one of my bes friends after 3 years, so thats something I am looking forward to.

Really addicted to this game

Nothing much today.....I really like it since I have started taking the car to university more often....I use to take the bus on alternate days in the beginning, so that I would not be stressed out through out the week since the highway 59 of houston is hell !!!!! the traffic on there is horrible at all times, I take the highway 90 which is kinda of a backroad, but takes the same time to reach the destination. So bottom line, now that I am driving everyday, I dont find it that bad and plus you know that you have the car so you can leave immediately when classes are cancelled etc.. plus it takes a longer time to travel by bus. So it has been decided, more driving for me.

I am seriosuly thinking of getting a website(hopefully free) and moving everything to movable type, and all the archives here there as well, hmmmm lets see about that.....it seems like a high possibility, lets see...

Done with WebCT earlier this week, clearing up alot from what I have to do in this week.

Well the webCT quiz didnt take forever like the last time....that was just hell, but on a brighter note they do make good reviews. I tried getting a rss feed for blogger from an external site, but it didnt go that well....but the mt one does have one.
What I need right now is one of those programs that feeds the latest news right on my desktop, I tried downloading newsdesk today, that uses the xml feed of a website to view website, but you have to download a 20mb microsoft .net platfrom thingee from microsoft, which I dont wanna do even though I have broadband, but i bet there must be alternatives.
Well the article that I was talking about, got accepted and will be published in the next new letter, I will also post that article the day it is published.