Shaved in Hurry, Repented in Leisure............

Whoa!!! Who is this guy staring back from the mirror??? He looks somewhat like me.........but more like someone from Class 7 or someone who has just finished 5 yrs at his workplace.The not so subtle difference between today & all the days before is..............I've shaved off my moustache, that integral part of me,that which made me a Maharana.
I've been meaning to do it for a long time (neither the seniors nor the blokes at NCC had made me conform) but as Shakespeare had so nicely put it,

"Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council, and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."

Well, council it was, though not between "The genius and the mortal instruments" but the person who held the veto power.........My Mom.All through the 2nd semester my friends had tried their level best to convince me (DJ going that extra mile) but I wouldn't lift a finger without my Mom's consent.But this morning , something was different, my mom gave the green signal (not exactly green ....something more mottled) but she was adamant that I leave the moustache untouched. So off I went (without brushing my teeth, You don't wait when you get permission from The Senate).Taking the gel ,the brush & razor as accomplices ,I was all set for time travel.

Now, let me make this very clear from the outset , it wasn't that the foliage had grown so unruly to leave no difference between Abhishek & Karl Marx,but as my father later said "It's all a matter of gaining experience ".Well,experience gained ,but innocence lost. That innocence which each morn proclaimed,"Go yonder young man, Take on the world with a stiff upper lip" .Now, robbed of all it's guards, the upper lip quivers ,the chin lies vulnerable.

Back to the procedure, taking up the brush I whipped up just enough lather to shave 3 whiskers of Garfield.With that , I proceeded to emancipate myself.If there ever were 17 whiskers which could change the whole appearance of a person,By Jove! I had managed to uproot every single one of them.Sans beard,sans moustache.....the only thing I gained was the no. of times everyone used to look at my face & shake their head.The attention I've received was no less than a movie star.Even Bin Laden could have walked by without anybody noticing (& wondered where's the world headed?).And each face just held one question.....WHY???????

Thus, it's time to call upon my inner reserves( i.e all my friends) to pray to the Hair Gods to bless their two prodigal sons (RV being the other one) & restore their assets to the glory of yore...Till then I do agree,

"Moochh nahin to Kuchh Nahin"

Engaged To N-Gage

This entire vacation I had been trying to get that new N-Gage 2.0 onto my N73......Nokia's N-Gage site lists that N73, N92,N93i(my friend RV's baby) are all compatible but they still say that support is Coming Soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(the greater the exclamation marks,the later it's gonna get).So what do all of us do???? Sit & Wait?????

Not really..........

The only way out is to hack , crack & bend the rules....There are actually 2 ways I found out that one can install N-Gage 2.0 on compatible phones (till Nokia guys wake up from their vodka induced slumber).One uses the USB connection the other can be done via bluetooth.........
But first things first.....you should have a 3rd party file manager like X-Plore installed(download)
to access the system folders & hidden files which Nokia so zealously guards.

So here they go.................

• Via USB Data Cable:

1. Download the N-Gage pack from here.
2. Install the NGageInstaller.sisx- keep twiddling your thumbs till it installs..........it takes a long time (15-20 mins).
3. Press OK when the installer says "Symbian OS pips Missing".
4. Install pips_s60_1_2_SS.sis given in the zip file.
5. Install ngage_autostart_204.sis
6. The 2 other files 20001079.txt and copy.txt must wait till we hack the phone.

Hacking the Phone:
Actually no such thing...........just a roundabout to escaping certificate expired errors(which one faces more often than not).

1. Download the BiNPDA hack tools
2. Install s60_3_0_app_trk_2_7.sisx
3. Connect the phone using the USB cable in PC Suite mode (& not Mass storage).
4. After installing this go to your Applications folder in the phone and run TRK

6.It will startup in bluetooth mode, cancel it and go to Options ---> Settings ---> Connection ---> USB
7.Once you choose the USB connection you should see Status as "Connected" in TRK.
8.Now run SecMan.exe in your PC. Follow the steps shown in Information and you are all set to rock on...
9.For ppl who missed out the steps shown in Information, Click Next when you come to the "Select Metro TRK com port". Keep "Find Metro TRK port automatically" checked.
10.After the installation is done go to your phone apps folder, run SecMan, options ---> Install root certificate.
11.Now do you remember text files we saw a little while ago,

The file 20001079.txt has to be pasted in the location c:\private\10202be9\. The file copy.txt just has the instruction to where the 20001079.txt file is to be pasted.

Since the file has to be pasted in a location in the phone memory C:, the phone has to be hacked first to have access to the private folder in C:. In SecMan select "Turn Plat. Security OFF". Now use X-plore or any other 3rd party file browser to copy the file 20001079.txt to the specified location.

Turn ON the plat.Security once your are done copying the file. This is very important.Be careful with this, and make sure Platform Security is turned ON when playing N-Gage games.

Now, all these steps should really have got your head spinning..........It looks like the manual to dismantle an Atom Bomb. So we present to you Bluetooth ,our manna from heaven........
No wires , no hassles & hell , no 22 steps!!!!!!!!!!!

• Installing Via Bluetooth:

1. Download & Install HelloCarbide.
2. Download and keep Installserver.
3. Open X-Plorer provided.Goto options->tools--Config and tick on 1st four options.Goto main page of X-lorer(i mean back) then press Menu Key so that u leave it in background
4. Start HelloCarbide->Options->Menu1. it will say 18 messages. Say YES to all of them. It will crash. That is OK
   
5. Move installserver.exe to Phone.
6. Switch to X-plorer,Move installserver.exe to c:/sys/Bin
7. Install the N-Gage Pack(3 files)
   
   
   RESTART YOU DEVICE, its compulsory......

Now you are all set to rock with N-Gage 2.0...........It would be there in your applications folder.Open it once & wait for it needs a lot of RAM to start.Better close the music player.

Vacations

Summer Vacations are an anticlimax.....really.Staying in hostel for the better part of the year,one reminisces the good time at home,with family doting upon you, savouring choices of dishes from Maa's hands.All through the gruelling train journey (36 hours.......Roorkee seems like Mars' capital)
one gets misty eyed about home memories............afternoons passing into nothingness,evenings with friends,dinner with Archie. Ruskin bond really had it when he said.........

"Looking back on boyhood days,
Even unhappiness acquires a certain glow."

So when I arrived, I was looking forward to all this.But, lo behold! the Vacation Gods must really have been watching those Saas Bahu serials for the whole vacation has passed and when I look back I've done absolutely nothing. Yes, I did play football with friends & juniors (but after kicking my left foot with my right and falling over it....I knew my career was over).I tried my hand in Ping Pong & it did turn out to be a real hard contest, with everyone trying to win over me with maximum points.I returned to the only thing I was good at i.e CounterStrike but here too the omnipresent Gods provided no relief. A whole month of playing with snipers has made me lame shot with pretty much everything else.

Then what have I really done with these two & a half months????

The only thing that I've been successful in is with my cellphone........my beloved N73 Music Edition. I've scoured the net for all kinds of softwares(every time going overboard with broadband download limit) & now my phone has N-gage 2.0 the new gaming platform.

So all my next posts will be on the Symbian Series 60v3 platform.