Friday, July 31, 2009

The perfect tea recipe for this season

I have been finally be able to get to the perfect tea recipe, which will work as wonder in the rainy & winter season to keep the health problems away and of course is an aromatic tea to refresh you. This recipe is made with suggestions of many people. Here is how I make a cup of it,


Ingredients:
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1) A small chunk of fresh ginger (crushed) - I generally cut a piece of size approx 3 cm X 1 cm.
2) A leaf of Lemon grass, cut in about 2 inch pieces.
3) Pepper powder - just a very small amount
4) Sugar to taste - I use One and half teaspoons.
5) Fresh Lemon juice to taste - from a few drops to a tea spoon full.

Method:
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- Put the crushed ginger & Lemon grass pieces in water and boil it for about 7-8 minutes, make sure you add some extra water for evaporation.
- Now drain the water in a cup, if you are going to make it in microwave using tea dips, or simply add tea & lemon juice to the bowl itself and boil for another 1-2 minutes.
- The tea is ready, drain it in a cup through a filter if you have made it in a bowl.

Now enjoy the aromatic and healthy tea. Two cups of it daily will help you keep cold & flu at bay and of course there are other health benefits of ginger & lemon grass as well. So, enjoy the tea !!

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Friday, July 10, 2009

Suddenly Windows becomes very slow

If you are facing a dramatic slowdown in your windows system with symptoms like, Windows takes forever to boot up, Disk is being accessed all the time, CPU usage is consistently high, movies take too long to load and seeking is a nightmare, even the play back is not smooth anymore. When you run multiple programs you feel like you are using a archaic 486 machine because the applications take arbitrary long time to load or to switch. If so, most probable causes
can be
a) There is some virus/spy ware/Trojan active on the system which is causing the problem. Which is easy to fix, as all you need is a latest antivirus and / or tools like ad aware, super antispyware, spybot search & destroy etc.

OR

b) Your windows may have switched your hard-drive from DMA mode to PIO mode.

DMA stands for Direct Memory Access and the devices using DMA can transfer data to & from computer's memory without involving CPU. Where as Programmed Input/Output (PIO) mode,
on the other hand, requires the CPU to read the data from a device, and then write it to memory. This takes the CPU usage up for all the data transfer tasks, and so naturally any modern multi tasking OS (like windows) will drastically slow down.

So, why would Windows switch to PIO mode if it is going to be a problem? Well, if a series of errors occurs with the IDE bus to which a drive is connected, Windows will assume that there are compatibility/hardware issues with that device, and drop to a simpler mode that is likely to be less problematic (but much slower). Unfortunately, PIO mode is so old and slow, that it
renders the machine almost unusable. Even worse, Windows sets a few registry values to make this change permanent. Once it has dropped down to PIO mode, it will never switch back.

Sometimes software issues can also cause the problem, In my case my secondary hard drive was causing problem as it was too old. I removed it but windows won't automatically switch the mode. It has to be done explicitly.


The Fix:

There are actually two ways to fix this problem: reinstalling the driver, and editing the registry. Only the registry fix is detailed here. For the reinstallation fix, see this webpage.

  • Run RegEdit (click on the "start" button, select "run,"type in regedit, and press enter)
  • Search for the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
  • There should be several sub-keys labelled "0000," "0001," "0002," etc. Sub-keys "0001" and "0002" are usually the primary and secondary IDE channels, respectively,
  • Find the sub-keys belonging to the IDE channel (primary/secondary) that the drive is connected to based on the DriverDesc entry within that sub-key. If you are unsure as to which one is correct, do not worry; the next step can be applied to all sub-keys without damaging anything,
  • Within the selected sub-key, delete "MasterIdDataChecksum" or "SlaveIdDataChecksum," depending on whether the drive in question is connected as master or slave. If in doubt, just delete all "MasterIdDataChecksum" and "SlaveIdDataChecksum" entries in all sub-keys; this will not hurt, and guarantees that the affected drive will be fixed.
  • Now restart the computer. Windows will re detect the appropriate modes for your drive(s).
Note: This article & fix has been composed with the help of this original article
which can be referred for more links & details.

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Achievement

Well this is not about any great achievement as such. This is about me, sticking to my commitment. A few months ago, I had decided of continuing at least one physical activity / sports everyday as a routine and learn new things in the mean while. So, it's been 4 months since and I am following that routine with ease. Interestingly prevailing conditions always threw challenges on my continuity & still I found ways to keep up anyway.


I had started with badminton, I used to play baddy in a ground near my office. Suddenly one day weather changed and it became too windy to play baddy at all. So, I thought about it & started with walking/jogging in a near by garden for half an hour everyday. I also got ligament injury in my toes which disabled my activities for 2 weeks, but I was back in action as soon as possible. As if, it wasn't enough my dear old shoulder dislocation started to trouble. Which thankfully started my physio exercises of shoulder again, doctor had said do it regularly some 3 yrs ago. Only if I could listen, but now I am at it regularly :) Finally pre-monsoon showers started & jogging was out of question because of showers and consequent mud on jogging track. So, I thought of it as a good opportunity and started with swimming, learning actually, which I wanted to learn since I was in Xth.

This changed my schedule drastically, as in order to get the coach I need to reach the pool by 8am and before that I have my shoulder exercises so I must wake up on or before 6 am. I thought I can't do it at first, as I used to wake up earliest by 8:30.. but interestingly I have been doing it for a week now and actually enjoying my new routine. I had thought I will learn for a month & then pick up an evening time from next month. But now I am thinking of taking the morning batch & coaching regularly. Especially because the coach is very good & fun, I am enjoying swimming, making good progress, getting set with the new routine and I get to go to Vahuman for breakfast whenever I want :D

Committing something to self and sticking to it and loving it at the same time.. It is an achievement for me.. let's see what lies ahead for me.. For now I am loving the splash!!


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