According to reports from the African Press Agency, from 2008 all Mauritian homes will be able to connect to the internet via a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network being proposed by United Communications Limited (UCL). The company has reportedly presented a USD318 million two-phase project, dubbed Mauritius FiberNet, to the country’s ICT minister, Etienne Sinatambou, which it claims will make Mauritius a ‘pioneer of such infrastructure among island states’. The rollout will require the deployment of some 2,200km of optical fibre and will provide internet access at speeds of up to 1Gbps, a UCL engineer said. The company is looking for financial support from the government, local banks and businesses to realise the project and is offering them an equity stake in the new venture by way of enticement. Source

Now this is what I'd be calling major news! My friend Neelesh was mentioning this article to me and I found it hard to believe it. After some short googling, I came to this article. Dated 16th Aug 2007. However, it's only now that I find it being mentioned. As always, blame it on bureaucracy and red-tapism of our beloved government.

FTTH people! FTTH!! FTTH!!! What the hell is FTTH? It means Fibre To The Home! What does this mean? Fibre optic cables to your home people, allowing gigabit connection speeds!! This is a major roxorz news! No word on pricing yet, and no word about any progress in the project. If this realises, it will be a M.A.J.O.R leap for our lagging IT industry, albeit accompanied by a tremendous boom in piracy. Who cares! I need more Internet speed! I'm so damn tired of seeing my downloads going at 5-10K during the day, and getting peaks of 55K at 3am! WTF!

The project has been introduced by UCL (United Communications Limited), and apparently, the project lies on the table of our IT Minister, Etienne Sinatambou. Let's hope he can make wise judgements! For now, enjoy your laggy connections. 2008 is near, and if this project is completed, I swear, I'll turn into a true believer!

Also, This Is Mauritius has a very interesting article about "suckband". Check it out! :)

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That's one of the best quotes I ever saw floating around on all of the internets! :)

So during the biggest test of the term I look down and realise my fucking penis not working! I MEAN IT'S COMPLETELY DEAD!

*pen is omfg

haha rofl

Excuse me while I rip out my space bar for failing me like that :(

LOLROFL! :D :D

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Recently, Mauritius gained a new name, together with its numerous others like the 3-S (4 actually but never mind), Paradise Island, Republic Bananiere, and some others. Now? It has Cyber Island. Is our small dot really a Cyber Island? Frankly? I doubt!

What is it in Mauritius that makes it worthy of the name? We got 2 Cyber towers! Whoaa! Impressive. As my friend Atish once said, "Two lonely palm trees in the Sahara". I found this statement was completely true! So? Apart from our Palm Trees? Virtually nothing!! What's in the Two Towers anyways? Call centres! Loads and loads of them. BPOs. Overflowing! Where's our Programmers' Lodges? Our Data Centres? Our Knowledge Hubs? Our Development Centres? Our Risk Management Centres? Our Security Advisories? Our Watch Dogs? Start counting! You won't go beyond 1-2. Where are they? They are not interested in us most probably. We lack the necessary qualifications. We lack the necessary infrastructure. And we lack the decision-making capabilities to solve the first 2 lacks!

After all, we don't have anything that could term us as a Cyber Island. We ain't got a Silicon Valley, like those in India and US. Our small nation is still not fully computer literate. Right! We got the IC3 program which is a nice initiative. But what does it teach? MS Office! And some basic computer usage. Is that enough to develop our IT culture. I, again, doubt! What we are actually learning in IC3 is just a fragment of a sector of the IT world. Even our curriculum at college level is not really suited. You want one very good example of our syllabus not being amended? This year, all to-be University of Mauritius students were asked to at least have IC3, and/or Computing at SC/HSC level. This is a good move. However, can somebody tell me why we still have Fundamentals of Computer Science (FCS) which teaches us basically the same things as IC3? Either they remove the IC3 requirement and keep FCS, or scrap FCS and keep IC3. I think keeping FCS will be a better choice, since FCS v.s IC3, FCS wins by far! It teaches much more than IC3. IC3 is about MS Office and basics of computing. FCS covers the whole of IC3, and adds more. But why do we still require IC3 as entry requirement!! Duh..

Now, another issue. Our really really poor Internet service. The whole world is slowly migrating to faster, better, cheaper and more reliable Internet connections. This is done for a reason. The Web 2.0 revolution is upon us! Social Bookmarking, Blogging, User-generated content (think Youtube), social networks (think Facebook, MySpace), online applications (think Google Docs), and Online TV in HDefinition are already here! And as you might notice, most of these things are true bandwidth hogs! Don't hope using any of them comfortably without at least a megabit connection. Now I come to my point. Do we have affordable megabit connection here? See below:

NOOooOO!! We don't!! We only have a simple 1 Mbps ADSL connection, and priced so much that you'll need to sell a few organs to be able to afford its monthly price of Rs.6000 = $190 = £100. In UK, you can easily get 8Mbps for around £12 per month. Ok, I might agree that UK has many more customers than us, and so it makes the service worthwhile to implement there. But does that mean that us Mauritians do not have the right to enjoy high speed Internet and the Web 2.0 Revolution? What we require now is not constant price decreases. We need speed. Speed at affordable prices.

Setting aside the price, even the service offered is really not worth it. I have a 512Kbps connection. Ask any Mauritian Internet user about their thoughts about their connection state during the day, and you'll get nearly the same reply: "IT SUCKS!!! DIE BIATCH!" and some other variants. Basically, the speed is soooo low during the day that you can barely use that connection for anything. With my 512Kbps with a top speed of 55KBps, during the day, it rarely goes beyond 8KBps. Meaning I am getting less than 20% of my speed during the day.

Why is that? Simple! Our networks can't handle the load. During the day, businesses, BPOs, Call Centres and all the other big bandwidth hogs use internet. With their big connections, IP over Frame Relay type, they take the whole bandwidth. But our ISPs are smart, and found an easy solution. Traffic Shaping, or some kind of shaping. Business-type connections get top priority, while Home-type users get "what is left" of the bandwidth. The situation returns to normal in the evening. Do not expect to see a rise in speed before 9pm.

What can we conclude? Our Cyber development is being squashed by our poor Internet services. With SAFE monopoly, the delays in EASSY Cable implementation, and the simple lack of good-will makes it difficult for us Internet users to enjoy the service. It is really a pain to see Rs.1860 on my telephone bill, when I see that I can get 16x my connection speed for Rs.1000. But what can we do? Take in the blow. Thank you my Republic Bananiere! Glory to thee, motherland... motherland of mine!

Oh yes, just in case you want proofs about my price and speed claims, check this out.

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Yep! I was casually checking news sites and stuff when I encountered this cool article. Apparently, Elcomsoft came up with a software that exploits the massive powers of parallel processing of the new GPUs on the market for password cracking!

It's not unheard of password crackers, but a GPU-based password cracker? That's new for me.

GPU = Graphics Processing Unit, aka your Graphics Card, Geforce, ATI or whatever.

It boasts fast speeds, breaking complex NTLM-based (Vista) passwords in days v.s months previously. It can crack simple passwords in minutes apparently.

I've not tested it personally, but give it a try if you want. Check it out here..

Bleach? "WTF?" Is that what you say? Nope, Bleach is not WTF, nor is it a detergent or whitening agent or anything. Bleach is an anime. About Ichigo, Rukia, some other folks, things called "hollows" and other things called "shinigami". It's like an old Samurai thingy movie placed in our time. And so it began..

But OMG! In the first episode itself, Rukia sustains a hyper-major-mega cut from shoulder to somewhere near her "thing". Wonder how anybody could lose that amount of blood, and still be alive! :S That's an issue in Bleach. Whenever there is a battle, the scene turns to "The Hostel" with added gore. Blood spurts like ketchup in that. And guess what?? NOBODY, I stress, NO frickin person/animal/thing/hollow/stuffed animal dies in Bleach. NOT one! Even when hollows are defeated (hollows = bad), they go to Soul Society as purified souls. Soul Society is some kind of heaven of some sorts. No one dies. So, lesson #1: No matter the amount of blood you lose, you don't die.

After a while, we see another fateful battle. Ishida pairs with Ichigo to kill an army of hollows. Cool cool. The thing is, they get time to debate, kick each other's butts, and the hollows (hollows = bad guys, remember?) WAIT FOR THEM! Wow! If I were the damn hollows, I'd cero their arses to hell! Now comes lesson #2: Your enemies wait for you to kick your partner's arse before attacking. They even allow talking time!

Bla bla bla... After some time, Rukia is taken back to Suck Soul Society and as in every good shonnen, Ichigo goes kamikaze to save the princess. He goes against Captains of Soul Society. Yes. Captains are super powerful Sayen Lv.6-capable. Yes. Ichigo defeats them. WTF!! Now comes lesson #3: A new shinigami-recruit can defeat captains. They get paid tax-payers money for nothing!

A small review of the captains: Byakuya the quiet guy that secretly lusts after his wife's look-alike and sister, Rukia. Zaraki the Ecchi who tags Yacchiru (a kid) around on his shoulders. Genryuusai that farts fire. Kurotsuchi the Caterpillar that carries a knife in his ear. Kyoraku the perv that drinks and loves Nanao's butt. Hitsugaya the Brat that always gets owned and doesn't even have a fully working Bankai. Ukitake that needs a permanent hospital bed. Soi Fon that has a Yuri fetish for Yuroichi. Komamura the Furry that got owned 1-hit. And other captains which are not worth remembering. Then we got Aizen the Power-monger that has something for Gin and Tousen, and secretly loves Hollows. Quite a team! Really... It's scary. How can they all roam around with katanas?? :S

And then we proceed. I'm sure you know that Rukia got saved, right? And that Ichigo rained blood all over Blood Soul Society after getting cut on nearly every part of his body, and healing in record fast times, and summoning his hollow-form out of nowhere and beats the hell out of Byakugaya Byakuya? That his whole team: Ishida, Chad and others got you unscathed? They too rained blood BTW... lesson #4: Even if you go kamikaze, you come out alive after soaking the whole place with blood and getting cut 2749436 times.

There is also a theory about Soul Society being a place of debauchery, which really should be called Hentai Society, but that will be for another time...

After Soul Society, Ichigo confronts Arrankars. Simply put, revamped and stronger hollows. With larger holes and more prominent holes BTW. What?? You thought Hollows wouldn't have holes?? Then check below and tell me what you see on his neck! After a while, Ichigo got beaten to a pulp, and realized how weak he can be without a hole. So? He wants one!! So he goes and trains with the Vizards. Don't ask why W lost one of the V's in it. But instead of Wizards, they are Vizards, perhaps as a tribute to Viz. He gets trained, beaten to a pulp by Hyori and others, and finally comes out with his hole and mask that lasts 11 seconds. All that beating and training, just for 11 seconds... Duh.. That guy's got no talent!
(Over)-confident about his new-found hole, he goes Kamikaze to save Orihime's rack. His team and himself, once again, save the day. Now comes the fun part...

At one time or another, they all got/will get beaten. Rukia got skewered on a spear. 20 chapters after, no word about her. Rumor says she's still skewered and dripping blood, but as Bleach goes. She'll be alive. You can be sure. Chad got his arm cut. Still alive. Renji and Ishida got their organs crushed/ripped/cut. Still alive. Ichigo got owned by Grimmjow. Still alive. WHY ARE THEY ALL ALIVE?? lesson #5: Whatever the damage you take, you live.

Now, you need to understand one thing. Ichigo beat Zaraki without Bankai and Hollow. He beat Byakuya without Hollow (almost). But these 2 captains are supposed to be the strongest. But? Ichigo got OWNED by Espada #6: Grimmjow, even with Bankai and Hollow! Wow! If Espada 6 can own the guy who owned 2 captains, imagine what Espada #1 would do to the other captains! See my point? The power balance in Bleach is sooo disturbed and imbalanced! Totally imba!! But you know what? lesson #6: However strong your enemy is, if you are the main character, you win in the end!

Oh yes a side-point which leads to to lesson #7: Huge racks do not prevent you from fighting. Personally, I don't understand how Matsumoto, Orihime, Yuroichi, Neriel, Halibel and several others can actually move without breaking their spines. Now fighting? Maybe they use special attacks? Like crushing the face of your opponent between boobs? Or coup-de-Boob?
Before we end, Bleach has a varied assortment of stuffed animals. From the filler arc, we got the Mod-Souls Ririn, Nova and the Transformer-guy. Then we got Kon. I don't know where all these things come from, but it's creepy! Talking stuffed animals that fight and open alternate dimensions? Uh... MOMMM! HELP!!!
Finally, I've always wonder what the hell Soul Society does while Ichigo gets to beat legions of Hollows. They NEVER help. Captains do nothing. Vice-Captains do ecchi things to the captains. And others do ecchi things to Vice-Captains. All while Ichigo is getting heavily ecchi-ed by Hollows from all sides! And while Aizen drinks tea. :D Poor kid!

This is my "critical analysis" of Bleach from where the manga has reached. And as a farewell, lesson #8: Bleach is injurious to health. Causes brain damage if you try to figure it out.

My theme: *drum-roll* I BLAME YOU AND ME! Tadaaaa!

Why? Because by the mere fact that you are reading this article and me typing it, you and me are polluting! Why? Because our computers use electricity, and when producing electricity, fossil fuels are burnt. Fossil fuels release harmful gases when burnt, and harmful gases damage our planet. And damaging our planet is called POLLUTING! Criminals! How dare we assault our defenseless planet?


Liked my intro? In fact, you are not the only one to be blamed. Each one of us, while doing our daily activities, pollute in one way or another, and any kind of pollution harms our planet. Let me consider our stereotipical person that goes to work in the morning. We call that person Mr. X, whom friends call X.

X wakes up in the morning, scratches his butt, checks his morning wood and crashes his alarm clock. He's already polluting! Ignore his butt, focus on the clock. When it rings, it causes noise pollution. X moves on to his toilet, gets his tooth-brush and toothpaste. He opens the tap and uses water, forgets to close it again, and after shaving, closes the tap. There again, he goes polluting and wasting resources. Why polluting? Cuz one day or the other, his toothbrush, toothpaste tube and razor equipment will end in a bin somewhere. Maybe they will get recycled. Maybe not. This is pollution. Our chap forgot to close that tap. Water getting wasted. Recently, there have been cases of scarecity of drinking water in various parts of the world. Is that something X should have done? Forgetting to close the tap? But he forgot, and didn't seem to care; care about a poor African kid dying because s/he could not get a mouthful of water, whereas X in his Developed Country is wasting litters while toileting!

After toilet, X goes for breakfast. He switches on the stove, again using electricity and polluting. His food comes wrapped in plastic, which goes to the bin. Pollution. Again and again. And it's still the beginning!

X goes to work. He takes his non-hybrid car out of the garage, and moves, together with the billions of other vehicle users. In doing so he adds his small, but significant contribution to green-house gases which cause climatic changes, and cause our poor African kid to die of thirst. X gets taken in traffic jams, and while his car stands still, the engine burns fuel, just like the billions others stuck in traffic jams worldwide. All those gases go into the atmosphere. That same atmosphere that sustains all living things on this planet!

We break for a moment to consider something. We all need the atmosphere. We won't live a second if ever it vanished and didn't want to come back. All life on this planet will be extinguished in a minute. Our machines will still run, and still pollute, but we will all be stiff. Still, we continue damaging the thing that sustains our very life! Isn't that what you'd call stupid? This is just what we do though!

Finally, or not so finally, X reaches office. He uses elevators and various electric devices, all which require electricity and whose production pollute. He makes use of copiers, which release ozone which is a pollutant in the lower atmosphere, but a savior in the upper layers. Out of his office window, he can see the city, as always wrapped in smog. He makes use of paper, without considering the consequence of his actions.Every single sheet of paper used require trees to be cut down to provide the raw materials. New techniques can create recycled paper, and various other forms of paper, but the basic theory says trees are to be cut down. Whenever a tree is cut down, we should know that one natural Air Filter of our planet goes down, and our atmosphere remains just one bit more polluted. X uses paper, prints on them, and if ever he makes a single typing mistake in his page, trashes the page (even if it has a blank reverse), without a single thought about trees being cut down. He prints, and it happens that one blank page comes out. He puts it in the tray again? NO! He trashes it! Again, without any consideration! During lunchtime, he will use plastic, and other materials that pollute even more. He uses office supplies, which are so easily trashed. Staples and paper clips are thrown on a daily basis. Paper sheets with only a fraction of a side used are trashed. Nobody really cares, provided the office supplies more.

After work, Mr. X returns home using his car, polluting all the way till home. Then he re-pollutes inside his place. At the end of the day, the only thing that remain to be done is to stick a big "I POLLUTE" tag on him!

Because of Mr. X's inconsiderate actions, the climate is changing. Cyclones keep getting stronger. Famine and all the plagues that harm human kind are increasing in proportions. Floods never witnessed before, intense heatwaves, cyclones on inimaginable destructive power. All that because of our combined efforts to pollute the planet! People in regions are dying of hunger, of thirst, or of diseases unheard. Whole sections of the fauna and flora are going extinct. Who is to be thanked for that, we humans. Yes, we humans, who consider ourselves evolved, capable of thinking power, capable of scientific achievement, but who are unable to recognize that we are killing our environment, and in doing so, killing everything that is worth living for. Is it good to be living in a totally barren land like Mars. No. But that's what our planet will turn into if we proceed as we are doing.
Our insensitive nature will kill us. Countries continue to pollute, using "econonic progress" as excuse. USA, the world Super Power and Defender of Liberty, refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and its efforts to reduce pollution are not of the greatest, being the largest emitter of Carbon Dioxide. China too has been gaining notoriety in the Polluters Ranking. With its "world largest" dam that is ruining The Three Gorges ecosystem. We are really grateful to them for ruining our planet, our only home. Ever considered what would happen if we didn't have the planet anymore? Where would we humans go? Earth is our only home, and we fools are trying to destroy it.

This scenario is just a simple example of our daily life. I am sure some of you might have recognized themselves in Mr.X. We often do things he does, without considering what happens to the planet that sustains us. As An Inconvenient Truth said, what is more important, the environment or a handful of gold? Gold often wins, although all the gold in the universe won't sustain our life as our environment does.

After this brief analysis, I take the opportunity on this Blog Action Day to make a plea to you. Take a single of your days as example. On that day, before doing anything, take a few seconds to think about what your action might do to the planet. Does that action harm it? Does it do it good? You will be surprised about how much harm you can cause in one day! Try it!

And next time you ever think of dropping a piece of used plastic on the public way, maybe you should consider punishing yourself. Pollution won't be stopped, but it can be contained, if every single one of us on this planet takes just 1 measure to reduce our pollution!

Some simple measures:

- Use bins! Don't litter the environment.
- Plant / Save trees. DO NOT cut them down.
- Clean your immediate environment. Pick up litter and dump them safely.
- Try to make use of recycled materials if possible.
- Watch "An Inconvenient Truth" made by Al Gore.
- Save energy. Use energy-saving devices like energy-saving light bulbs where possible. Saving just 1 watt per person would greatly reduce the need for burning fossil fuels, and thus decrease pollution. Now imagine saving 100's of watts!
- Avoid using non-recyclable materials.
- Dispose of your trash accordingly. Don't just dump it somewhere in the environment.
- Use alternative sources of energy if possible.
- Use hybrid vehicles if you ever have the chance of getting one.
- Use public transportation instead of getting your vehicle out. This saves on Greenhouse gases emissions.


Remember, it's what you do that counts. If you can do simple things to protect and safeguard the environment, do not hesitate. Even simple things like planting and caring for trees count! This will be your payback to the planet that sustains you, that provides you with what you need to exist and live through, that allows you to be, to enjoy the pleasures of life, to breath, to walk, to eat, to love, to care for and to do all the things you like. Therefore, it is only natural that you try your best to save it, and give it your best efforts.

Thank you, if ever you decide to help save our fragile environment.

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Some of you folks out there must be having a wireless or WIFI connection at your place. If you have MyT, the LiveBox has it included. I don't have it, but I have a Netgear router that gives me wireless access throughout my place. I've gathered some tips which might help you improve your wireless network, specially it's reception throughout your wireless zone.

1. Position your Wireless Access Point (WAP) / Router centrally

Always place your WAP or Router in a central location of your wireless zone. If you want to have wireless access in your whole house, try placing the WAP/Router in a room which is almost in the middle of your house. Avoid placing the router in corners of the room. If possible, place it away from walls for better performance.

2. Keep your WAP off the floor, table-top and away from metal objects

The floor is not the best place for a router, since furnitures will tend to distort the signals, nor is the table-top which places it near your computer devices. These too will tend to distort the signal and degrade performance. The worst thing is metal objects. They literally absorb the signal and greatly affect range. Never place anything metallic near, or on your WAP/Router.

3. Use a more adapted router antenna

Most WAPs/Routers come with omni-directional antennas that broadcast in all directions around your wireless device. This can be a good thing if your router is in a central location of your wireless zone. However, if it is in a corner of your place, and cannot be moved, most of its transmission power is wasted when the broadcast is sent outside of your place. In that case, you will want to change the omni-directional antenna, to a directional antenna (sometimes called a Yagi antenna). These broadcast predominantly in one direction. You can then orient it to suit your needs. Eg. Point it at a room where you will need wireless access. Also, you might invest in Hi-gain antennas which have longer range.

4. Replace your wireless adaptor

As technology evolves, adapters get better. Therefore, you might want to buy a new one. This will certainly increase the range. I experienced that personally. Using a USB adaptor, I used to get Poor Signal rating, reported by Windows. Now that I updated it to a newer one, I get Very Good.

5. Use a wireless repeater or a secondary WAP

If you want to furthur extend the range, you might want to use a Wireless Repeater. It's a device that takes the wireless signal, amplify it and re-transmit it. This extends the range to about twice the normal range. However, WAPs/Routers don't like their signals being repeated, and some data might get corrupted. According to me, a better solution is to get a second WAP, configure it normally, but set it's "Gateway" IP address to the primary WAP/Router IP address. You can then place this WAP in range of the primary WAP/Router. This will extend the range even furthur, without the need for repeaters. The secondary WAP will connect to the primary WAP/Router wirelessly, and send all its data to it. Please note that both devices must be on the same network, eg. 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 for the 2 devices.

6. Change your wireless channel

WAPs/Routers can broadcast on several channels of different frequencies in the order of GHz. Channels 1,6 and 11 are fairly common. If you use the same channel, and several other people are using that same channel in an area, there is interference. Eg. your neighbor and yourself might be using the same channel. To reduce interference, change the channel from the default value to something else apart from 1,6,11. You can normally do that in your WAP/Router configuration panel. Check your manuals if need be. You don't need to change anything on your computer(s). It will detect the channel change automatically.

7. Update your firmwares

Firmwares are softwares found inside your hardware devices, which allow the user to change settings and manage the devices easily without tinkering with hardware things. It is always a good thing to update your firmware often, so that you have the latest features, bug corrections and improvements. You can usually get firmwares from your manufacturer's website. Read the update instructions, and do the update. Your updated firmware will often provide much better performance. However, even if it is easy to flash, note that an improperly updated firmware (flashed device) can often stop working, or completely die. If you don't know what you are doing, don't do it. That is, DO AT YOUR OWN RISK!

8. Switch from 802.11/a/b to 802.11g/n

These are just standards that use different technologies and frequencies, so don't bother about them. What you need to know is that 802.11 represents Wireless Networks, and the letters represents standards, with "a" being the slowest, and "n" being the fastest (till now). Always buy equipment that supports at least 802.11g for better performance. 802.11n is still a draft standard which will be official estimated Sept. 2008. You can already get "Draft-n Ready Device" WAPs/Routers out there, but these are a bit more expensive.

Protocol..........Speed(mbps)..........Range/indoors..........Range/outdoors

802.11............2...............................20m................................100m
802.11a..........54.............................35m................................120m
802.11b..........11.............................38m................................140m
802.11g..........54.............................38m................................140m
802.11n..........248..........................70m.................................250m

9. Use equipment from a single manufacturer

Always try to use equipments bought from one manufacturer. Eg. if you have a DLink WAP, use a DLink adaptor. This also for other manufacturers. This is because devices from one manufacturer might not be well supported by another, so better get something which will ensure compatibility, and thus performance. A simple example is the 108Mbps devices from Netgear. This is an unofficial standard, and only available if you use a Netgear 108Mbps capable WAP/Router and a 108Mbps adaptor from Netgear. Other adaptors cannot get the 108Mbps speeds. They will be restricted to 802.11g's 54Mbps.

10. Check Transmission Power

With most adaptors, there is a feature that allows you to set the Transmission Power of your adaptor. This applies particularly to laptops. Your OS will usually set the Transmission Power to low/medium/power-save to conserve battery. However, this will also degrade your wireless network receptivity. Check your transmission power. It is usually in Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device manager -> (your Wireless Adaptor name) -> Advanced -> Transmit Power. This is under Windows. I still haven't tested that under Linux. Updates on that later. You might want to set it at maximum, but if you are on a laptop and on battery, it will drain significantly faster. You might want to set it at 3 (medium) when on battery, and on 5 (maximum) when plugged-in. You can also adjust these settings under Power Management for laptops. If you can't find it, check your manuals.

I hope this small guide might be of some help to somebody who wants to improve his/her wireless network.

Ok, I have to admit it, I have never been very lenient on Vista. I've always criticized how much of a resource hog it can be, or how it tends to over-facilitate things for users through excessive use of wizards and guided stuff.

However, since I got my own laptop, I moved to Vista since I got that bundled with it, activated and ready for use. So I thought I might update my review of it a bit, and providing some more feelings on MS's flagship OS.

I gave Tiny Vista a download to try it. It's just a stripped-down version of Vista made by some guy using VLite. It failed for me, so I got VLite and decided to make my own Tiny Vista.

Vista, as you already know since I mentioned, is a real resource hog. Being the geek I am, I hate that. I love my HD free, my RAM uncrowded and everything unlagged. Vista didn't initially give me what I wanted. So, I decided to customize my Vista version, by using VLite to strip down its components. What is VLite? It's simply a program that allows you to choose which components to install even before you actually install Vista.

Using it, I was able to shrink Vista from 2.96GB initially to around 1.6GB. Not much, but still I stripped quite a bit of bloatware that I'll never use, eg. the various drivers of printers of makes I never heard. I kept the bare minimum drivers, the most essential programs, and what I found useful like Windows Calendar. Things like Speech support, Tablet PC support went to the bin directly.

After cleaning up a bit, I decided to try the install. FAILED! WTF! Again, I retried, FAILED! Now that got my nerves. I re-burnt the DVD. FAILED! OMGWTF! What happened? After some trial and errors, and 3 dead disks (4th, I used DVD-RW! :P), I got the thing working. It figures it VLite (latest version, duh!) had a problem with its ISO making engine. I had to resort to CDImage to make the ISO and burn it. Quite a waste, and a real pain.

After the effort, I got into Vista. Checking my HD consumption, 8 GB was taken! Even after removing all the junk, 8GB! That's annoying. Checking my RAM, I saw it was ok-consumption. My integrated Intel GMA 965 X3100 chipset was taking 157MB to power the Aero interface of Vista.

What is Aero? It's the fancy things you see when you boot Vista, that is the glass transparency and other fancy effects, plus the small preview windows you get when you pause on something on the task bar. It can be useful, but again, I think it's a resource hog. Even then, I kept it on for the sake of Vista. I mean, lots of people switched to Vista just for the cool effects.

Now for the serious stuff. Vista is really of an improvement over XP. Loads of things were changed to make things easier to access and configure. Some things almost require no configuration! It's kinda noobish, but ok for casual users. I had a tough time fighting to find the settings I was looking for. Eg. changing screen resolution was dug somewhere in Personalize -> Display -> Display Settings, instead of the usual right-click desktop -> properties -> advanced. Finding the settings can be a pain in Vista. That's a fact I assert.

Vista also has compatibility issues. As proof, my FN keys on laptop, together with my integrated webcam are totally useless. I think they would work on XP with some fiddling. Also, getting drivers for Vista is a real pain! I couldn't get them, no matter the amount of googling! This is something to be blamed on Sony, the manufacturer of my lappy!

I liked Vista for just 1-2 things. First is the revamped security via UAC and others. The constant prompt for "Allow this?" is quite of a security measure, copied from Linux IMHO, but ok. It tends to get annoying after some time. I saw a fun quote somewhere:

Even viruses have compatibility issues with Vista

This is a comment which I think holds VERY true! It's quite secured out-of-the-box, with Windows Defender, BitLocker, Malware Detection and the now 2-way Firewall. It might save you some troubles with malware encounters.

That's all I have to say for now.. More about Vista when I get things to blame it about, or even to appreciate about it. For now, I don't find anything overly special about it.

Cool! I got my blog featured in MBB, which is really nice. In case you are wondering, MBB is the Mauritius Blog Brethren, which references loads of Mauritians' blogs.

Feel free to go check it out for yourself. It's a really interesting site, and very worth the visit to get to know more about Mauritian bloggers. Here is the link:

http://thembb.blogspot.com

It allowed me to discover some interesting blogs, and get some reading material while I spend time online.

Thanks again, MBB people...