chakravyuha

Rules of using an apostrophe described using a flowchart.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

You can also buy it as a poster!

A device is statistically going to either break down within a year of it’s operation or would break down after an “extended” period of time. You are covered by the manufacturer’s warranty for the first year and extended warranties would not cover you over a very long period anyway. If you put these two facts together then it seems that the extended warranties are not worth it. There’s also the problem of actually putting these warranties to use. Customer service agents are reluctant to do this kind of work and it’s quite possible that the actual service contract would be handed off to a third party. When the time comes, you will have to deal with these third parties who you have no relationship with.

[Source]: Planet Money podcast

I have quoted the last point almost verbatim from commentator “Hank Van den Berg” and I find it the most convincing and

[Source]: Points derived in large part from the NYT thread “The Catastrophic Option”

[Update]: Tim Hartford, in the FT blog post titled “A brilliant (and doomed) template for healthcare reform“, proposes (at least) considering a system where we pay for medical services the same way we pay for our cars or our food or a roof over our heads

He believes that the high cost of health care is because the users are disassociated from the actual bill of the services rendered. Since people never bear the actual cost of the services and never see the actual bill they never have to wonder about whether a procedure was worth the price. He then goes on to say “I never had to ask myself whether my doctors and I were treading the path of cost-effectiveness, straying off into wasteful indulgence, or indulging in dangerous penny-pinching. Someone else always picked up the bill.“

To tackle catastrophic events then he suggests that it is perfectly possible to design a system where redistribution, forced saving and “real” insurance – that is, against unexpected and very costly events – address these concerns without whisking away every bill before the patient sees it.

And finally, to refute my first point,

it is true that patients do not today have the information they need to make sensible decisions about buying their own healthcare. But then, why would they, given the current systems? I recall the local press in the US being full of articles along the lines of “the city’s 50 best dermatologists”. Value for money was never mentioned, but ask patients to buy their own treatment and you can be sure that such articles would soon be supplemented by the medical equivalent of “cheap eats” reviews.

Bought the G1 yesterday. The G1 is a HTC phone and it seems to me that it’s supposed to rival the iPhone. Not really used the iPhone but this phone is a beauty! The only problem is that the battery life sucks majorly and that’s where this comes in. I’ve ordered my piece and am waiting for it. The only downside to this large battery is that it’s going to increase the bulk of the phone. In that case though it would still not be any worse than the Palm Treo that I had before.

Introduction

I am writing this document to facilitate Windows users switching from running from an administrator account to a restricted user account. Most Windows users run as an administrator. Though this insures hassle free computing, it is not a secure practice to follow. This is because in case your computer gets infected with a piece of malware, that malware will run in the context of the current user. If you are running as an administrator, then the malware will be able to install itself and gain complete control of the computer. All other operating systems run regular users as restricted users. Most things that people need to do such as e-mail; word processing and surfing the Internet do not need administrative user privileges. These privileges are usually required to carry out operating system level activities such as updating components of the operating system, setting operating system level settings such as security related settings or updating device drivers.

Despite what you may read in the popular press, Windows from Windows 2000 onwards is very secure especially when a user runs under a limited user account. The trouble is most of us by default are set up to run as an administrator when we think about switching to running as a limited user, we find that the process can be intimidating and perhaps complex. What if a particular application does not work? Usually, the answer of experts would be that the application has been badly written. This indeed may be the case but, just because of that, we really cannot stop using a given application. It would be nice to find alternatives but, we may not have the time or the inclination to do so. This document will show you how to start running as a restricted user.

The challenges of running as a restricted user

The primary challenge of running as a restricted user is to identify what special access a given program needs to run effectively. There is no easy way to do this except monitoring the event logs in Windows. You need to use the group policy editor to ensure that you have set the correct audit privileges to monitor access to different objects in Windows. An object could be a running process or a file. Once you launch an application under a limited user account, it will bring up an error message. Or, if it is really badly written, it will crash. Immediately after this crash, you must log back on as the administrator, review the security and or application logs and, make relevant changes to Windows permissions.

Another challenge is to migrate settings from one user profile to another. Settings would include both operating system settings and application level settings. For example, you could have a number of e-mail accounts and message rules set up in Microsoft Outlook. You need to ensure that the transition from the administrator account is as painless and seamless as is possible.

My computer is currently running Windows XP professional, all updates applied as of this writing, Microsoft Office 2007, Dragon naturally speaking and a host of other applications. I’m going to be outlining how I carried out the migration to another profile and will also tell you a little about the challenges I faced with some of the utilities and applications I use regularly. This list of course is not complete but I will add to it as and when I encounter anything new.

How to migrate to a limited user

In an ideal world, the best way to do this is actually not to have to migrate at all. You must start running as a limited user. Given that this is not possible for most of us, there are a few ways that this can be accomplished.

1. |Copy the administrators profile to that of the limited user,
2. Create the user account; configure the applications individually in that account and then export whatever data is required from the administrator’s profile.

I’m going to follow the second approach. I did try copying my user profiles but, this method was not very successful. This is because some applications such as Abbey fine reader had their program data corrupted.

Steps to migrate to the limited user account

1. Creating the restricted user’s

account

To create the restricted user’s account, you log in to the account you are currently using. You then navigate to the users applet in the Windows control panel. This applet looks something like a web page. All you need to now do is choose the relevant options. You need to select “restricted user” when you are asked about the type of the account you want to create. Once you have created this account, you can then close the applet and navigate to the “users and groups” item under the “computer browser.” The computer browser is found in the administrative tools applet of the Windows control panel. Here, you can right click the user that you have created and set its password. While you are here, navigate to the “groups” item and create a group. This group can be called anything. In my case, I have called it “regular users). We will use this group to give our user relevant permissions.

2. Assigning permissions

The crucial thing to remember is that your limited user is not the owner of the files that have been created on your computer. It is the administrative user who owns the files. Of course, if you create documents under the limited user account, then that limited user will be the owner of those documents. The result of all this is that when you try and delete or modify the files that have been created under the administrative user’s login, you would be unable to do so from the limited user login. Therefore, you create a group and allow full access to the relevant files and folders that you have created under the administrative user’s login. Please ensure that these files and folders are only documents such as word processing files, spreadsheets and in some cases media. I usually keep all my data outside the “my documents” folder. Therefore, I had to give full permission to the group to manipulate the folders where I had stored the documents I had created. This folder in fact was on a separate partition. The advantage of creating a group is that you can add as many users as you like and, they will all have the same set of permissions.

3. Exporting settings

It is now time to export your bookmarks or favorites and any RSS feeds you may be having in Internet Explorer. You carry out the export using the “import export wizard). This is accessed from within the file menu of Internet Explorer. Do ensure that when you are saving the favorites and feeds, save them to a location other than the default location suggested by the wizard. Otherwise, you will have to launch Windows Explorer using administrative credentials from your limited user account and then copy them into the limited user’s profile. Also be warned, the favorites will be organized alphabetically once you import them into Internet Explorer.

4. Your first login as a limited user

When you log on for the first time as a limited user, you might be forgiven for thinking that you have actually re-installed Windows. A number of the prompts you get this time round are those that come when Windows is being installed. This is because the new user is being created and certain settings need to be customized. Answer the prompts as best as you can. You now need to import your favorites and feeds. You can do so from Internet Explorer.
Note:
At the time of this writing, Internet Explorer version 7 has a bug. The menu bar does not display when you are running under a limited user account. You need to click on the “links” toolbar to enable it. Once you’ve enabled that, the menu bar comes up automatically. You can then check the “menu bar) item under the “toolbars” menu item which is under the “view” menu of Internet Explorer version 7. You can then disable the “links) toolbar.

5. Configuring various programs

as a limited user
1. One of the most tedious things you will need to do once you have logged in as a limited user is to configure the rest of your programs. The only easy way to do this than I have found is to launch every program and set it up afresh.

\Programs and their behavior under limited user credentials

Abbey find reader version 9

This program works seamlessly even under accounts that have limited user credentials. However, if you try and copy user profiles, then the program will warn you stating that “program data has been corrupted”.

The Microsoft office suite

If you are using Microsoft Office 2003, you can use the files and settings transfer wizard to transfer your office settings to your newly created account. If you are using Microsoft office 2007, you will need to re-customize Microsoft Office. Having said that, there is a way to import settings from your account with administrative privileges to your limited user account especially for Outlook 2007. Be warned that this method does not import the passwords that belong to your e-mail accounts. You will need to re-type those passwords. See the following link for details. Exporting Outlook 2007 settings

Note:
As a general rule, it is advisable to store your outlook e-mail in a separate folder. This way, you will be able to use Outlook in both profiles.

The FileZilla FTP client

You will need to re-customize this application. Alternatively, you can copy the FileZilla settings from the relevant folder under the administrator account. See the FileZilla project Wiki for more information on where the FileZilla settings are stored.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking along

With J-say and Jaws for Windows

You will need to customize your settings for Jaws for Windows. By settings I mean settings related to speech rate, pitch, the reading of graphics and so on. Dragon NaturallySpeaking does indeed work seamlessly even under limited user credentials. However, you need to ensure that you have backed up your user profile. This is so because Dragon NaturallySpeaking will be unable to access your user profile if it is stored in the default location. The default location is user specific and will be mapped to your initial user who has administrative credentials. Another way around this is to export your vocabulary and commands and then create a fresh profile under limited user credentials. This is what I chose to do. J-say for the most part is also working seamlessly. I am unable to create text notes when running as a limited user.

The vOICe

You will need to reconfigure and also reregister this application.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

You will need to reconfigure this application. When you launch it for the first time, it will install itself in your currently active user profile.

Windows Media Player version 11

You will need to reconfigure this application. When you launch it for the first time, it will install itself in your currently active user profile.

<h4The Opendns client for Windows

You will be able to install this application. However, I was unable to install it is a service while running from my limited user account. I could however do so when I logged in using my account with administrative privileges.

Apcupsd

This program works seamlessly under a limited user account. No action was required on my part. It was just there in the system tray. I still need to test it’s kill power functionality. It is able to send e-mail notifications without any difficulty even when running under a limited account.

Carrying out administrative tasks when running as a limited user

when running as a limited user, you use the “runas” utility to carry out administrative tasks. See the following Microsoft knowledge base article for details.
kb294676

Installing and removing programs

one of the biggest headaches you will encounter when running as a limited user is that it is difficult to install or remove programs. Many programmes right to the “program files” folder. You could either redirect these or, ideally, run the installation as an administrator. Always try installing a programme from the limited account first unless of course the programme explicitly states that it needs administrative credentials for installation. be warned that you will encounter several programs that do not state this explicitly but still require those credentials based on the locations they write to in Windows.

The account titled “administrator”

When Windows XP displays a list of possible accounts you can run from, in some situations, you may encounter an account called “administrator”. This is a hidden account which is usually visible only in safe mode. It is not password protected. You should login into safe mode and set a password for this account to maximise your computer security. See the following link for more information on how to do this.
Windows XP Administrator Account Passwords

Coping with scheduled tasks

If you use the scheduled tasks feature of Windows, you would need to recreate the tasks that you have created under the administrative account. Alternatively, you can set those tasks from the administrative account to run under the credentials of the limited user account. If you do this, be aware that you may have to set special permissions for files and folders to allow these tasks to run successfully. In some cases, if your scheduled tasks do not require any user intervention, you would have to make no changes except that you must ensure that the option to allow the tasks to run without that user being logged on is checked.

Migrating to a restricted user account from an administrator account by Pranav Lal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Norway License.
See the below links to older downloadable versions of this post.
Click here to download migrating to a restricted user account from an administrator account in Word 2003 (*.doc) format
Click here to download migrating to a restricted user account from an administrator account in PDF
Click here to download migrating to a restricted user account from an administrator account in RTF
Note
My Thanks to Wayne Johnson for creating the initial tagged PDF version of this document.

We set out this morning for immersing my grandmother’s ashes in the Ganges. We had to get to the river which was about a 2 hour drive. Before that though, we had to visit the crematorium to collect the ashes. Mind you, those are not ashes in the technical sense of the term. They are actually bones and, in my grandmother’s case, they were very recognizable. By recognizable, I mean that the remnants of the cremation were recognizable as bones. I do not know enough anatomy to decipher which part of the body they belonged to. The drive was uneventful and we got the car to the riverbank without incident. The only thing worthy of note was the amount of told boots we had to cross. The last one charged us 7 1/2 rupees for a dirt track. To be more precise, the road was not really a dirt track. Idle construction machinery was everywhere. My uncle and my father and uncle, who accompanied me, are seasoned civil engineers and project managers. They spent a happy 10 minutes speculating on what could have happened and, reached the same conclusion; namely, that some kind of dispute had risen and the contractor had walked away.

Once we were out of the car, we were besieged by priests and other hangers on. We had to buy some cans to take holy water in and of course try to haggle for the cost of the boat. This was not successful. The rowboat was quite large and, no ores were being used. The boatman was using a long bamboo pole to propel the boat. The priest who came on board performed a small ceremony where, we had to throw flowers into the Ganges and repeat some words he said. He of course try to find out how influential weaver, our connections and in turn, he listed his own connections. My dad had the most physically demanding task of actually scooping my grandmother’s remains out of the earthenware pitcher they were in and pitching them into the river. He had to do a thorough job and, it is difficult to do given the weight of the remains, the picture and the awkward angle at which one has to lean to over the gunwale of the boat. I cannot tell if there was an emotional component to the whole exercise.

Once we were back at the bank, we will once more besieged by crowds asking for money. Apparently, you need to feed people at the bank so; one had to shell out more cash. Just when we reached the car, the local sweepers asked us for money. We finally got away.

The drive back was smooth and, we felt it took less time than the drive to the river. This particular place, he situated in the sugar belt of India. We passed a number of sugarcane fields and sugar mills with several bullock carts standing outside their gates.

So I guess that’s that… My grandmother’s room is almost empty so, by virtue of echolocation, I am able to feel the emptiness. That however is something I will get used to in time. The healing process may have already begun.

I made my first visit to a crematorium. No funeral dirge, no waling women since, in our community, they are not allowed to come for the cremation. We had elected to go with the electric crematorium.
The crematorium is in a small tree lined complex. There is the traditional wood burning one and the electric one. As I disembarked from the car, I could smell the faint odor of holy offerings. The priests are efficient and the paper work so far, has not taken much time. We had to wait for a bit, but the machine was free so, the ceremonies began. They were not very elaborate. The priest said something then my father had to go around a tree and sprinkle holy water.
I had read in Q and A by Vikram Swarup about the skull needing to be cracked to provide easy passage to the soul. My father did not even hesitate. It was a clean blow, no fuss nothing. We then went inside.
The inside of the crematorium was a large hall with the furnace towards one end. The hall was tangibly hotter than the outside. A series of wall fans relieved the heat but made conversation difficult unless you were standing close to the person you were conversing with. There was a small depression near the furnace for placing offerings and carrying out other prayers. This was done and then I heard the crash of the handles as the body was lifted from the bier. One of the handles was then turned anti-clock wise and the body was lowered into the furnace. When the furnace was opened, and though I was about 4 feet away, I could feel a blast of heat. I do not know what the inside temperature was. Another crash, and then the lid were slammed shut and that was that. We could have collected the ashes after 2 hours but we have chosen to do so in the morning on our way to immerse them in the river.
Note:
Given the inside temperature, I could not understand why it would take 2 hours to convert the body to ashes. It turns out that the conversion takes place in about 15 minutes but then the ashes need to be cooled before removal, hence the time taken.
We all trooped out. The priest brought us to a halt and then announced the time of the prayer meeting which is on Monday afternoon at 16:00 to 17:00.

So, people have begun streaming in. They are all sitting in the lobby talking in hushed tones. The phones have wrung almost every 12 minutes. Some callers are very persistant. How does one handle them nicely? I can smell a lot of incense so I guess things are ready for the next phase. The certificate of death needs to be stamped and photocopied. Someone should make a manual for all this. I wonder which ancient text of ours has all this documented.

My grandmother died this morning around 07:45. It was not sudden and everyone knew that this could happen. What is to be done now? Everyone is calm and mom is busy in arranging the body etc. Is there a point to all this? Perhaps the point is to be busy doing something so that the sharp edge is taken off one’s grief. Yet, I don’t know.
I feel adrift like a bark tossed on a medium lighter than air. Do I work, do I study, and do I read? What do I wear? As it happens I am wearing jeans and a shirt. I always thought one wore black clothes on such occasions.
I have also become the local “telephone operator” which is ok. Note: find out when the prayer meeting is. Some people want to know.
I seem to have gone into a self analysis mode. It is if everything has become tasteless or toned down. I can still laugh but my laughter lasts a few seconds longer. I feel solemn and at rest in a void.

One of my relations is under going Laser lithotripsy as I write this post. The family is in a state of controlled panick even though this procedure is quite safe and is considered minimally invasive. As usual, it is only yours truely who has done some research on the whole thing. I should have done this some time ago since I could have asked the doctors some “interesting” questions on why such a procedure was necessary. My main question would have been why could the stone not be shattered by using shock waves as described on the below links?

Some links with information on Laser lithotripsy follow.

http://www.cornellurology.com/stones/treatments/surgical.shtml

http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/kidneystones/KS_treatment.html

A sound scape of the box of spicesThis image shows a box of spices. There is one big box and every individual spice is kept in its own box. You will be able to sense the different circles belonging to different boxes.

a humorous illustrated narration of the  history of Physics.

To all the desis out there… Happy Holi !! 

My brother is not particularly fond of the Holi mess and sometimes the celebrations can turn rather nasty (what with people sailing on bhang and all that) but I love it and that’s one of the things that I miss living here in the US. Just try this Flickr link for tons of Holi photos from India and elsewhere.

Had to post a pointer to this.

While we are talking about graffiti, if you’ve not already seen it, check out this artist who goes by the pseudonym of Bansky here and here. His (her?) art is breathtakingly simple and carries an underlying idea most of the times.

Wheel valves for the uninitiated

A picture of pipes and veal valves on my terrace. These valves resemble miniature steering wheels. They are used to control the flow of water A overhead tanks to my house.

A water tank and it’s associated down take pipes

Sound scape of water tankThis image is of a water tank on top of my house and it’s down take pipes. This was the first image I took using the latest version of the vOICe and my Nokia E51.

Terrace panorama

A view of the Street facing my house. This photograph has been taken from my terrace. The image is extremely complex because it shows a variety of vehicles and I suspect, parts of people.

Hehehe… vote for Amitabh Bachan for the Prime Minister of the US. It’s hilarious how he compares himself to Optimus. Also watch how they poke fun at both Elliot Spitzer (his sex scandal) and the Hillary Clinton (her 3 A.M ad) in the same sketch. Clever.

That festival is just around the corner again. Yes, I am talking about Holi. I appreciate the sense of community, the triumph over good and evil etc., but please, one water balloon is one too many and don’t spray water and or color on me without asking!

Yes, I have played holi with gusto many times and wont mind doing it again but it was with a group of people who had consented to play. There is an assumption on holi day on the streets of Delhi that any one walking is desperate to play and in a spirit of fellowship, must be obliged!! Just because it is holi, people will not stop taking their constitutional though they may do so at an unusual hour and mundane things like going to a grocery store (I wonder if any will be open) still have to be done.

Over at xkcd, the kilobyte abbreviations sorted out. Fun stuff.

I was running this blog earlier at theemptyvessel.info. The other posters were my brothers Abhishek and Pranav. That domain name expired and I decided to change it. The banner is from my previous site. It’s still here because it was done by a friend of mine and I really love it. The site name has changed, so sadly, I’ll have to replace it.

Update#1: The banner’s been replaced. For those who are curious this is what it looked like.

Update #2: Embedded links in the posts from the older site (that’s every post before this one) are not working still. Also, the “next”/”previous” pages link is absent so you’ll have to rely on the archives or authors pages to navigate to get to the older pages. (03/01/08)

 Update #3: The “next/”previous” page links are now added. (03/02/08)

First to break the recent drought posts, here’s an analysis of that scrouge of our times, the Viagra spam.

via: Arts & Letters Daily