Accepted

People, its 0128 hrs by my watch and the reason I blog at this irregular hour after a whopping twelve hours of work today is because of yet another incredible movie that I jus completed watching. Accepted. Even after a tiring day, I still feel afresh is because of the same fact that is re-established in this awesome movie. You want to know about the summary? Then please find it in the wikipedia.org. I’m not going to reiterate the same here. Man, you should watch this movie. This is real ass kicking. The last movie review that I wrote was because of a fact that was personified in it which is the excellence of feeling in believing things and fighting for it till the end no matter who say what. And Accepted jus excels on this motive – yet another movie that rocked my heart. (By this time you should have read the plot summary or at least watched this movie and then continue reading this blog lest this is nothing worth than shit).

The very basic reason that we fail in all our endeavors or end up complacent is because we don’t believe in what we do. We don’t believe that we would ever achieve more lest we would at least complete it. We don’t believe in ourselves. We don’t believe that we can lose weight. We don’t believe that we can be punctual. We don’t believe that we can also buy a car. We don’t believe in anything that we do. Even if we do, we don’t do it with our full heartedly. How many of us have believed that you would complete a particular job in a specified period of time? Or how many of us have believed that we would reduce our weight in 12 weeks time? But we all do everything because of a mere fact we are obliged to do it. How many of us work willingly? We work because our dad worked, our grandpa worked. It is orthodox. It is the tradition. To how many of us does our same job remain challenging even after 3 years in the same company?

Guys, to achieve anything extraordinary, first we need to believe and see it happening through our inward eyes. All the greatest inventors in this earth believed in what they were doing. Some called Copernicus a fool, some called Galilee an asshole, some cursed Socrates, some threw Gandhi on the floor but they never failed to believe and fight for what they believed in. And today the world talks about the cursed and not the curser.

Friends, I am writing this blog to re-emphasize on the truth that if you can believe, all things are possible. The problem is we don’t have the heart to believe things and see things that are yet to happen. Faith can move mountains. Faith can empty an ocean. Believe and again I say believe. No matter whoever is against you, no matter whoever is for you. For your things to happen, you should believe and believe it with all your heart, mind and soul. And it will happen, and when it happens buddy, savor that moment. Relish it. Pass the joy to every cell in your body because it was that which believed that this would happen. But if it did not happen, be very proud that you had the balls to stand up for something when the whole damn world was against, when no one else dared it to do it. JUS Believe!!!

 

HE LOVED HER

All that she could give him was a farewell hug when she decided to break up with him. The only reason that she gave for the break up is that it was impossible for their relationship to continue forever. When he asked the reason for such a decision, she had no answer. Whenever he felt that it was impossible, it was she who gave him the confidence that it will happen because she strongly believed in it but now when she herself had said that it was impossible, he lost hopes. This had been the reason that had kept them in expressing their love for each other in the initial days of their relationship. She had so many friends but she could never feel anyone of them that belonged only to her. She wanted a friend for herself. Even though he too had many friends, he never exposed his real feelings to anyone. He was alone everywhere – alone with friends, alone with family, even alone in a crowd. He always believed that one day he would have a friend, a friend only for himself and that would be his wife. Yes, he was waiting for his wife, the only person that would ever belong only to him until he met her but now everything changed and he felt as if the whole world is turning up against him.

He was shattered by her decision to break-up because that meant he would have to go back to square one – alone again. And what hurt him more now was the realization of being dumped after being loved by someone. If she had not come into his life, he would have agonized only for living alone but now he had to go thru a more painful experience of learning that he was once loved but now ditched. He did not know what to do but he did not even want to convince her. It was then that the final and farewell hug happened. He left without saying a word to her. She shed a tear and he did not understood whether that tear is for the joy of their relationship so far or for the conclusion of their relationship today.

All the way to his home, his despair never lost momentum. He was thinking, thinking and thinking on what could have went wrong. Even when their friends did not understand them but hurled accusations against her, she stood for him and decided that they would never part. There were many instances where they covered for each other and stood for each other but he had no clue on what had made her to jilt him. That night, he couldn't even cry because his mind was racing only towards the reason for the break up. He did not know when he slept. The next day, he woke up as if everything was normal. He acted normal. Whatever he did on that was so normal that even a close friend would not say that he was dumped last night. He spoke with everyone like any other day. He had his usual breakfast, went to office and started working. Even during the lunch, his face never showed a hint of his despair. He was jovial with everyone as usual and was a little more efficient in his work that day. When she saw him behaving no different even towards her, she thought he had become insensible to his pain.

That night, his consciousness, not being able to hold the curiosity asked him why he never cried after losing his beloved one. He was silent. It continues asking whether he had loved her truly to which he replied affirmative. His consciousness was confused and thought that this guy has really gone nuts. He then replied calmly, "I did love her truly and with all that I had. There has never been a day where I did not imagine how our relationship would continue forever. I had discussed with her everyday on this. Even now, I don't know the reason why she jilted me. All I know is that I loved her, whatever may come. May be I loved the wrong person, may be I loved a person who was not worthy of it but the truth remains that I loved her and that too truly. Yes, it is very painful to know that the person whom you loved so much is not reciprocating thereafter but I have loved her so much that it takes very less of me to be painful as most of me still loving her. It is she that should be crying for neglecting my love and this relationship and not me."

It was the day that the skies were never so clear for the consciousness. Both slept peacefully thereafter but that little pain in him did not.

The Gift to India

Even though most of us (Indians) celebrate the departure of the British from the Indian soil as Independence Day, I regret about it for one reason. History narrates that the British had sent their people to report on the countries that are suitable for doing business when they wanted to do trading. One such reporter who had visited and analyzed India had reported that India was so prosperous that he could not find a single beggar in the country. Only then the British came into India as traders and later ruled it. I was not even born when India got her freedom from British so rationalizing on why British started to enslave India would not be fair. I imagine that British would not have wanted to ruin the land but wanted to make use of it to their benefit. When India would have protested for it, then the British would have tried to enslave them. Whatever may be the happenings, amidst all the cruelty that the British did to India, they did leave some good things.

One is the monuments like Victoria Terminus (now renames as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) in Mumbai, Fort St. George in Chennai, Fort William in Kolkata, Bombay Castle in Mumbai, Madras Presidency College in Chennai, a lot of forts like Riwa Fort, Worli Fort, Mazagaon Fort, Sion Hillock Fort in Mumbai, Fort St.David in Cuddalore. Some of these monuments still stand so strongly that one can hardly find a crack in it. It had become a prestigious property of India even though it was the work of the British hands. The other would be the advancement in transportation brought to India like the railways, motor vehicles and many other transportation utilities. Not to be forgotten about the education system in India like constructing the University of Bombay, University of Madras, University of Punjab and University of Calcutta. The British also established the Archaeological Survey of India. They even did apply their expertise in irrigation, creation of paper currencies, creation of Indian Police Service, creation of the Department of Agriculture, extensions of railways, roads, canals, and the list seems to be endless.

Of all that the British had left, what I consider the best is the English language. Brother, it is because of this language India was able to make advancement in many fields like medicine, education, aeronautics, bio-engineering, architecture, textiles and still going on. Had they not left this wonderful gift to us, we would still be like those in the 18th century, even in the year 2200. We would have never learned so many wonderful things of the world but for the English language. We would have never known so many diseases and arrived at cures for those but for the English language. We would have never known anything about computer or programming or anything that is related to electronics if the British had not left English language in our country. You would not be reading my blog but for this language. Of all the British left, English language is the wonderful gift that India should never stop thanking the British.

Please don’t tell me that we would have made advancement thru our mother tongue. People, to achieve that we have achieved today was done years ago in the English and the America. If we had waited to make advancement in our mother tongue, it would have taken another century to achieve the same achievements. One might argue that it is because of the English language, the advancement could not be made in the mother tongue. Let me tell you something – if we had not known the English language which had become the universal language, then how would have we known the advancements made by the other countries. English would have been and has been the only bridge between us and the outside world. I am in no way against my mother tongue but what my mother tongue could not achieve is achieved thru the foreign language.

When we celebrate the Independence Day on August 15 this year as our freedom from the British, let us also thank them in the corner of our hearts for the magnificent gift that they have left to us. Let the lips that said “Vande Mataram” say for once “God Save the Queen”.

Windows Activation

Finally I have learnt the art of cracking Windows Activation after much research. Before I get into the steps, it would be justified if I throw light on the technical aspect of this Windows Activation.

In order to reduce Windows OS piracy, Microsoft came up with an idea which is the Windows Activation. Even though you own a genuine copy of Windows OS, you cannot use it every time you reinstall the OS. You would need to acquire Microsoft's permission (now that's really irritating) which is the Windows Activation. Once the OS is installed using the genuine OS discs, a message would pop up stating that Windows needs to be activated within 30 days.

When you opt to activate it immediately, it would open the Activation window providing the option to activate either thru Internet or Phone. If Internet is chosen, it would connect to Internet and the product would be activated. If Phone option is chosen, it would display an installation ID. You would need to choose the country for the phone number, call them and provide this ID and they would return another ID which you would require to enter in the provided box.

Now what is this ID that is displayed in the window? The ID corresponds to your hardware components like your motherboard, RAM and processor and the Windows Product Key. When you install the OS for the very first time, your hardware information is stored against the particular Product Key. Then every time you re-install in the same computer, Microsoft checks whether the OS is installed in the same computer or another by checking the installation ID that you provide to them (brilliant, huh?). If the ID differs, they might ask you the reason for the re-installation and after some time, they would say that the OS has expired and cannot use it anymore.

No, we'll beat them by using the genuine OS without the activating.

First, if you are re-installing it in the same machine, then all you need to do before re-installing is to a backup of two files: wpa.dbl and wpa.bak. These files can be found in the system32 folder of your Windows installation directory. After the re-installation, restore these two files to the same folder in Safe Mode.

Second, if you are installing it in a different machine, then there are series of steps to be followed:

1. After the re-installation, start the computer in Safe Mode and log on using an administrator account.
2. Click on Start -> Run, type regedit and hit Enter. The Windows Registry would be displayed.
3. ExpandHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\WPAEvents.
4. Take a backup of the registry before modifying (find instructions towards end of blog).
5. On the right panel, you would find a key named OOBETimer. Double click on it to modify its contents.
6. Delete all the values and then type the following (without the quotes): "FF D5 71 D6 8B 6A 8D 6F D5 33 93 FD"
7. Click Ok.
8. Then right-click on the WPAEvents key on the right panel and select Permissions.
9. Click on SYSTEM under Group or user names and select Deny Full Control. Click Ok.
10. Close the Registry window and restart.

When clicked on the Windows Activation pop-up, it will display "Windows is already activated. Click Ok to exit."

Voila! We did it.

Wait, wait, its not over. This will work only till the 30 days. After 30 days, Windows will prompt to activate the product while logging in. Now since we had activated the product thru the back door, Windows would display the "Windows already activated" depicted in the image above. When you click Ok, it would log you out. This will go on in an endless loop. Now, don't ask what's the point in using the OS only for 30 days. Where there's a will, there's way.

What we need to do is to remove the script to check the product activation during the startup.

1. Start the computer in Safe Mode and log on to an administrator account.
2. Click on Start -> Run, type regedit and hit Enter.
3. In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expandHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/WindowsNT/CurrentVersion/Winlogon/Notify.
4. Under Notify, right-click RESETS, and then click Delete.
5. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the RESETS subkey.
6. Exit the Registry window and restart.

Now, you will not get the prompt to activate windows during Windows logon.

Don't curse me if this didn't work or the Resets key is not found in the Registry. There's another workaround for the same. Take a copy of the winlogon.exe (found in system32 folder of Windows installation directory, e.g.: c:\windows\system32) from any activated computer and replace it in the same folder in your machine where the product needs to be activated. Do this in the Safe Mode. If you are unable to replace, rename the existing one and then copy this to the system32 folder.

Steps to backup and restore registry:

1. Once you are the location where the key needs to be modified, click on File -> Export in the Windows Registry window.
2. The following dialog box will be displayed:
3. Make sure that the key you want to update is mentioned properly under the Expand Range column.
4. Then click on Save.
5. To restore, just double-click on it and confirm the same.

Guys, that was a really huge article that I'm writing after so many days. I have verified the steps and assure that it works. If it doesn't work, please contact Microsoft for further instructions.