Zune Bug explained

On new year eve, All Microsoft Zune players freezed, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless.

“In what appears to be the biggest worldwide device failure in consumer electronics history, tens of thousands of owners of Microsoft’s Zune turned on the music player Wednesday morning only to discover it was the day the music died. By early afternoon, Microsoft released a statement saying the problem, which affected the original 30-gigabyte model of the Zune that first went on sale in September 2006, was solved. The issue: a bug in the way the gadget’s internal clock handles a leap year.”

The problem was in a small part of code in Zune’s clock driver which resulted in Zune looping forever.

Zune Failing :
http://gizmodo.com/5121311/reports-30gb-zunes-failing-everywhere-all-at-once
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11345379

Cause : (Zune bug explained here )
Bug in code ( Not taking leap year into account properly, seems simple ?)

Part of a function :

————————————————————–


while (days > 365)
{
    if (IsLeapYear(year))
    {
        if (days > 366)
        {
            days -= 366;
            year += 1;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        days -= 365;
        year += 1;
    }
}

————————————————————–

Bugs:

1) It should be days==366 or days>=366
2) No else condition mentioned for nested if. (Should have been there specially when if is inside a while loop )

Now Zune will keep looping forever. Zune bug explained here

Microsoft response : http://www.zune.net/en-us/support/zune30.htm
This is big reputational risk for Microsoft’s Zune, when it trying hard to stand against Apple’s Ipod.

January 2, 2009 | Filed Under tech | 2 Comments

Inovation in India/IITs

I read this interesting article by Bernard on State of Inovation in India. I agree with him that lot have changed (improved) but still we have yet to see Google/Microsoft from here(IITs). As he mentioned one of the main reason is playing things safe.

The fundamental issue in India is the risk/reward equation. It is simply too easy for a young developer in India to get paid a lot by an outsourcing firm; then enjoy being headhunted every year for more money.

One more issue is difference between IITs and Stanford providing inovation to world. Important difference in giving good startups is because lack of implementation of ideas here in IITs. In IITs atleast some good projects (Mtech & Btech projects) are worth transforming into good business opportunities but they die as you pass out from there or after its being graded. I will agreed with comment made by Amit that

There are many socio economic reasons why young people in India hesitate to implement an innovative idea. Current trend of high paying jobs in MNCs will make entrepreneurship ever lesser attractive… especially in software.

January 2, 2008 | Filed Under india, tech, web | Leave a Comment

Career in Computer Science.

A funky futuristic video, exploring the possibilities in a career in Computer Science.

Video: Career in Computer Science – MS Research

Microsoft Research has put together a promotional video – Career in Computer Science. It features mediocre skateboarding, but a cute all-purpose personal robot.

Source :Career in computer science – javascript robots

March 11, 2007 | Filed Under tech | Leave a Comment

Open source is key to reaching 500 million Indian children

An interesting article by Mark Rais on role of open source in making education available to the large youth population of india. And a greta initiative by CII-Shiksha.

To support more than 650,000 villages and one half billion youths who need education, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) created a nonprofit organization called Shiksha India in 2001. One of Shiksha’s primary initiatives was the creation of a collaborative online Web portal, which the president of India launched in a formal ceremony last month. The new e-learning and collaboration portal uses open source technology such as Moodle, Drupal, and MediaWiki.

In my opinion the reason behind its success can be attributed to mainly: its free of cost availabilty which is big issue in regard to country like India, where population(half billion) which need attention is much higher and money involved if proprietary softwares are being used. And other important aspect which article mentions is in the ability to customize and provide products in local languages (including Hindi and Tamil) along with chosing most suited among vast available resources.
Another important issue which can be solved with open source is large scale piracy, currently software piracy laws are not so strict in india but still piracy is a getting a major issue.

“The bad side is that with so much available, a newcomer to OSS is bound to get confused about what to use.” He says this is often exacerbated due to some projects being fixated on proving that their product is best.

Other than that at present, their are linux distributons like Ubuntu, which is quite user friendly and its available in many flavours. Also earlier there has also been efforts in shifting towards linux and other open source mediums like :
LIC opts for Linux
Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India
Kerala logs Microsoft out

Linux.com : Open source is key to reaching 500 million Indian children
Program Details for Shiksha India

February 26, 2007 | Filed Under india, linux | Leave a Comment

9 Things The Non-Tech Savvy Do That Annoy Geeks

Earlier also i made a similar post :I’m A Programmer, Not A Computer Guy, Now its the time again

When you ’re a tech nerd working or living with the not so tech savvy, there are a few things they tend to do that make you bite your tongue, and resist the urge to take over what they’re doing and get it done yourself. They may be trivial, but they are all oh so wrong.

Microsoft Clippy, RIP: 1997 – 2007

Microsoft finally axed the most annoying aspect of Office has decided to leave “Clippy” behind in Office 2007.

One of comments from Digg:

“Clippy, it looks like you’re going to your grave. Do you need help with this?”

Kerala (Indian State) to go 100% Linux

After the cola ban it is now the turn of Microsoft to log out of Kerala. Children in 12500 high schools in the state will not be taught Windows. Instead instructors are lining up Linux for them. Kerala has 99.9% Literacy.

Useful Windows XP DOS Commands & Tricks

Typing DOS commands on the Windows Command Line prompt is a most efficient and faster way of doing things in Windows XP. Here’s a run-down of the most useful DOS commands available in Windows XP. Some of these DOS commands even do not have an visual alternative. Digital Inspiration has a nice roundup of 10 very useful commands and tricks that can help you get things done quickly from the command line.
Useful Windows XP DOS Commands & Tricks [Digital Inspiration]

Related resources on Microsoft Website:
List of DOS Commands with Examples

April 7, 2006 | Filed Under hacks, tutorial | 1 Comment

Learning Visual Basic and C#

Learning Visual Basic with Microsoft Visual Studio .Net is going great.
I have designed few application with Visual basic

one of one is just use of Buttons and label .. it just copies the text from one text fiel to another field with a button click.Code is pretty simple.

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
TextBox2.Text = TextBox1.Text
End Sub

Another is calendar with stopwatch. I have done it using a inbuilt timer function.Code is like.

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
If (Timer1.Enabled) Then
Button1.Text = “Start Timer”
Timer1.Stop()

Else
startTime = DateTime.Now()
Timer1.Start()
Button1.Text = “Stop Timer”
End If
End Sub

Another one is a network browser…

Using visual c#. first select Microsoft WebBrowser from Tool Box and then add a text input field for url and a click button which can be designed as given below.

private void button1_Click_1(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
System.Object nullObject = 0;
string str = “”;
System.Object nullObjStr = str;
Cursor.Current = Cursors.WaitCursor;
axWebBrowser1.Navigate(textBox1.Text, ref nullObject, ref nullObjStr, ref nullObjStr, ref nullObjStr);
Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default;
}
You can also add some basic tool bar features as Back ,Refresh,Stop.
You can download executable from here.