Sorry for the lame post title, but I have to use this for SEO’s sake. Yup, this week’s post is a little bit technical, and I am doing this so as to help others who may have the same problem – Why is your DVD Player usb slot not detecting your portable hard drive?First of all, the main reason why I am writing this post is that, problems like this are rare. Very few people (like me) still watch movies on their DVD Players these days. It’s all computer this and computer that, so if you try to google for a solution, most of the search results will be quite irrelevant.I went through many tech forums and even mentioned my problems there, but the replies were all unhelpful. Most of them told me, “Why don’t you just watch it on your PC?”Uh… what if I don’t have a computer or don’t want to buy one? What if I am content watching movies using my plain old DVD Player and TV, the old fashion way?So after a lot of trial and error, I finally found a way to solve this problem.These days, all new DVD Players come with a usb slot. Gone are the days of limiting your entertainment to just CDs or DVDs on your DVD Player. We can just take our pen-drive, copy the movie file we want, insert the pen drive in the DVD Player usb slot, and enjoy the movie.After that comes the next level – Instead of inserting my 4GB or 8GB pen drive, what if I insert my portable 500GB hard drive? Will that work too? And won’t that be awesome?And so, a lot of us tried, and the DVD player of course couldn’t detect the hard drive.“DEVICE NOT SUPPORTED” the DVD Player proudly displayed.Many so called “experts” on numerous Tech forums then said that the DVD Player didn’t detect the 500 GB portable hard drive because it couldn’t support such a huge data storage size, it was not built that way, blah blah blah…BOLLOCKS!Last night, I finally got my plain ol simple DVD Player to detect my 1TB portable hard drive! Yeah, one freaking TB, baby. 1000 gig of Movies, TV shows, Music etc. Suck on that.So here’s how you should do it.First of all, let me just briefly explain the basic – Your hard drive can be formatted in either FATxx (FAT16, FAT 32 etc) or NTFS. NTFS is a more popular file system, and considered to be safer, faster and more space efficient.Most hard drives come pre-formatted in NTFS, while most pen drives are formatted in FAT32. In FAT32, you cannot save a single file that is bigger than 4GB. You can do that in NTFS, but it has many compatibility issues with third party devices.And that is where the PROBLEM lies.Your DVD Player cannot detect your portable hard drive simply because it is in NTFS format. You will find the same problem with a car music player that has a usb slot, your PSP etc.The simple solution to this is to format your drive and convert it to FAT32.Of course this is not so simple as I learnt recently.First of all, formatting a 1TB hard drive using command prompt is apparently not possible. I googled and found the correct cmd command – Suppose the drive you want to format and convert is G:Then type: convert G: /fs: FAT32It will start converting. Slowly. Very slowly. 10%. 40%. 98%... Since it was converting a 1TB drive, it took nearly 3 hours to complete!And finally when it’s done, *drumroll* I got the message that the drive could not be converted to FAT32 because it is too big! Aaargghhh…Next, I tried formatting it directly, like how most of us would format pen drives – Right click on the drive letter, and select “Format”.The problem is, Windows does not support formatting a hard drive of more than 32GB size to FAT32 format! And so, while you have the option of selecting either FAT32 or NTFS while formatting a pen drive, if you do the same with a hard drive that is greater than 32 GB, you will not get this option. Instead, there is just NTFS and a vague FATxx option! (See screenshot below)So one of my colleagues took my 1 TB hard disk, formatted it in NTFS using Windows, and then converted it to FAT32 using a Linux system.mkfs.vfat /dev/hd7In just a matter of seconds, my 1TB drive was converted to FAT32! Whoah!So I rushed home all excited and all… connected my newly FAT32 formatted 1TB drive to my DVD Player… and bloody hell got the same freaking message that the device is not supported again! Aaaarghh!So yesterday, for the last time, I googled again, trying to be more specific. I did come across some discussions saying that Linux formatted FAT32 drives sometimes don’t work well on third party devices. Which didn’t surprise me much because it took just 4-5 seconds to convert the 1TB drive. Lolz. Linux systems are not exactly my area of expertise, so I browsed for some more time and took another advice – Use softwares like Partition Magic to format it in FAT32.I found the perfect software – Aomei Partition Assistant. Using this, I could format up to 2TB partition in FAT32! Me Gusta!There’s a freeware version from the link mentioned above. Less than 3MB file, the software is very easy to use. I formatted my 1 TB drive to FAT32 in 5-10 minutes.And FINALLYYYYY my DVD Player can now detect my 1TB hard drive. W00t!!Imagine all the movies and TV series I can fit into this and easily watch via my DVD Player and TV. And 1 TB portable hard drives now come cheaper than 5 grand, so it is indeed a good investment.Of course there are many disadvantages to having a FAT32 drive, like you cannot save a file that is bigger than 4GB. So if you are a gamer, you will come across many .iso files that are bigger than 8GB. Also, many of these HD movies are more than 4GB per file.So in the end, it’s your call. Meanwhile, if you just want your DVD Player to detect your portable hard disk, whether it is 250GB or 500GB or 1TB or 2TB, it can be easily done the way I’ve mentioned above. Don’t let any so called tech expert tell you that it cannot be done because of the file size limitation. Friday cheers!Edit: WARNING!!! Please BACK-UP your files before you format! :D I was working on a new 1TB hard drive above so I didn’t have any data on it, but if you are doing it to your existing hard drive, do back-up all your files first before you format, or you’ll lose everything. [Thanx @mnowluck]
Who is a stud? The exact definition may differ from culture to culture, but at the end of the day, a stud is one who is surrounded by women or can easily be with any chick he wants. As the universal Bro Code aptly puts it – A stud is respected by all other Bros.Yes you may find this post a tad sexist. Like how my friend Jerusha would say, “If a girl sleeps with different men, she is labeled a whore, but if a guy sleeps with different women, he is called a stud? That’s not fair!” Or as my friend Amos would say, “If a girl sleeps with different guys, she is called a whore, but if I do the same, then suddenly I am called gay? That’s not fair!”A stud is a guy other guys respect, especially by us nerds and geeks. While we slogged our asses off during engineering exams, he was constantly on the prowl, always in the company of women. We respected him and envied him at the same time. “Don’t worry nerds, study hard for your exams and you will get all the bitches you want later,” he would tell us, as he took the assignment we did for him with one hand, and held the hottest girl in college with the other hand. Oh we hated him right then. Because we didn’t want any female dogs. Why the hell would we want female dogs? We just wanted to speak to women, that’s all. But even though we never actually understood him, one thing’s for sure – We may have hated him, sometimes even loathed him, but at the end of the day we respected him!In our Mizo culture, the word we use for such a person is “Luck”. Yes, it is derived from the English word, and it means exactly that. “Tlangval luck” means a guy who has a lot of women admirers or one who has no difficulty appealing to the opposite sex. There is hardly any moment in his life when his relationship status remains “single”.In Mizoram, things are different.I still remember being asked by a friend in Bangalore when he saw me play a riff of “Hotel California” and end it with the intro of “Sweet Child of Mine” – “Dude! You’re bloody amazing with the guitar! You must be having a lot of chicks after you, back in Mizoram huh?” Hahaha! Nopes. In Mizoram, women don’t give flying crap if you play the guitar or whether you're in a rock band. Because 90% of the guys can play the guitar over there. It’s as if we were all born with our fingers clutching an A minor chord and the first time we cried in the hospital bed, we probably did so in tonic sol-fa.Nah, things are different in Mizoram. There are actually different time periods when a person with a particular designation was considered a stud. Every profession had an era of being deemed a “Tlangval luck”.Here are some of them, and the reason why many Mizo children (like me) had once upon a time dreamt to become just like that person, so that we too would be surrounded by women. Ah… the dreams of a folly youth!1. The TV Antennae TwisterThis is as far as I can remember. During the early 80’s, Mizoram, which was not even a state then, was just starting to develop. The insurgency led by the MNF was slowly coming to an end, and few “privileged” people started buying TV sets. There was only Doordarshan channel back then, but Mizoram being situated on a high altitude and lying between Burma and Bangladesh, we could get (free) channels from Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, and even Korea, simply by adjusting our TV antennae reception!That’s where the Antennae twister stepped in. He’s usually around 20-25 years old, jobless, clean shaven, smokes like hell, skinny, and really got a badass talent of climbing up the roof and twisting the TV antennae to find a particular channel. Women used to sigh in admiration as he twist and twist and twist… androgenic sweat dripping off him as he turned the antennae… switching from Burmese channel to Korean to Bangladesh… ahhh… ohhhh… ahhh… Watching the women squirm in ecstasy, that was when a lot of kids decided they wanted to become just like the antennae twister when they grow up. And maybe that’s why a lot of guys started training by practicing with their little antennas first…2. Driver/HandymanThe mid 80’s saw the signing of the Mizoram Peace Accord, and Mizoram became a state. Employment rate started growing and more and more people bought vehicles. Of course people who had vehicles were considered affluent, but they were not considered “Tlangval luck” because most of them were married and had a family. But the drivers were not. And boy oh boy, they had all the women!Whether you drove a private vehicle or a government vehicle, being a driver was the new definition of being a stud. My dad was working in the Power & Electric department then, and I used to go with him during his tours across Mizoram. He usually moved in a convoy of 4-5 vehicles. And during those tours, I spent more time with the drivers, probably because I have three elder sisters and no brother, so they were like the elder brothers I never had.During the tours, I used to just sit with them and listen to their campfire stories as they exchanged stories about their conquests and sexcapades, about the many virgins they "conquered" at this village and that village etc. And they weren’t just bullshitting. Wherever we went, while my dad and other senior officers were working inside the local office, these drivers always managed to find a village damsel they could take to their rooms. I was young then, but I understood.And the best part about being a driver was that sometimes many of these drivers, especially truck drivers, had handymen. The handyman acted as the wingman. Now what better ways to score than having the stud reputation of a driver with an equally cool wingman! Ah, it was Paradise for them. That was definitely their era. In my mind, the studification process started right then.So after we got back from one of those tours, I told my mom I wanted to become a driver when I grow up. She nearly had a heart attack. Strangely, my dad never took me along on his tours again…3. SDO/JEWith more employment opportunity and Government sectors opening, the late eighties saw a sudden surge in a new stud category – the SDOs and JEs. The SDO (Sub Division Officer) and JE (Junior Engineer) bachelors were the center of attraction at every function, regardless of whether they were in the P&E dept, PWD, PHE, etc.Maybe it was because of their lifestyle and the way they partied, even till today, if you go to any Mizo house party, people will be doing the “SDO dance”. And yes, to have an SDO or JE son-in-law was the desire of many Mizo parents back then.4. DoctorDuring the 90s, the stud crown was passed on to the doctors. Hell yeah, they not only saved lives, but made lives, if you know what I mean. They were that “lucky”.In fact, I think more than the girls, it was the mother of the girl who was more in love with the doctors – most of them would do anything to make sure their daughter married a doctor. Now this kind of fight and attention, every guy loves, right? And so, many of us slogged hard for various medical entrance exams, hoping to become a stud one day too.In addition to that, I was hooked to Robin Cook novels those days, so I really used to think doctors had an extremely glamorous lifestyle. After school, I was probably the only Mizo guy who had never even kissed a girl, and the ambition of becoming a doctor only became stronger.But then, after the entrance exam results came out, I got into Guahati Medical College (GMC) which is a well reputed college, but I got a much higher rank in the Engineering entrance exam – So after much consultation and contemplation, I told myself – Ahhhh chuck it. I’m a nerd. And I’ll always remain a nerd. I’ll die alone, unknown, unconquered, unridden. Let the other guys enjoy, maybe this is my fate.And so with a heavy heart, I said goodbye to GMC, lost the opportunity to become a stud, and dwelled even deeper into NerdDom and became a Computer Science Engineer. After graduation, I went back to Mizoram and everybody thought I took a four year course on how to install Windows. Now which mother would want their daughter to marry somebody like that huh?5. PastorAhhh now this is one stud who isn’t a badass and yet commands deep respect. He’s the apple of every mother’s eyes, the gem of the locality, and sometimes even the entire local community would go around searching for a fitting bride for him! Take this scenario for example. Guy comes across a beautiful hot girl. He asks people around about her, and learns that she is extremely homely, devoted to God, sincere, honest, and all other things nice and sweet. He doesn’t think, “Dayymm, I gotta nail that” or “I gotta marry her”. Instead, the first thought that comes to his mind is, “Yeah, she’s perfect for our Pastor. I gotta fix them up!”See, that’s how Pastors roll. Wicked! You come across such a girl and you do not hope that she likes you. Instead, you hope that she likes your Pastor! See? Bros before Hopes! Yeah, even the Bro Code works perfectly fine here.6. IASIAS (and recently MCS) bachelors are another batch of studs who have no difficulty in finding a partner. I think they are currently the reigning stud-pions in Mizoram.Line up a couple of suitors for the hand of a girl, and the one with an IAS designation will blow every competition away for miles. They are like the Terminator of bachelors, powerful and feared. Some are humble, some are badass, and some are humbly badass. All in all, they rock!Conclusion:So where do we copywriters stand in the stud ladder? Well, for the fact that most people in Mizoram will not even know what I actually do for a living (the term “copywriter” does sound like somebody who spends his whole day in a government office copying files and writing them out manually into a new document right?), I guess we don’t even make it to the ladder....which reminds me of that animation “Shark Tale” (with the voice of Will Smith) – Sykes: Now I have to pay Don Lino protection, so everything you owe me, you owe him!Oscar: How do you figure that?Sykes: Simple - the food chain![Pulls out chart]Sykes: On top there's Don Lino, there's me, there's regular fish...Oscar: And that's me!Sykes: No. There's plankton, there's single-celled amoebas...Oscar: And then me!Sykes: I'm getting there, I'm getting there... There's coral, there's rocks, there's whale poop, and then there's you.Oscar: That's messed up.Yup, in the Stud hierarchy within Mizoram, we copywriters are so messed up. Hehe…Maybe there’s an important lesson in this. If you want to be a stud, then be one. Remember the old saying, “Nice guys finish last”? Yup that is so true. If you want to be a nice guy, that’s well and good, but don’t regret finishing last. I wanted to be a stud when I was younger too, but later chose the nerd path. And now, I am definitely not regretting that decision at all. What matters in the end is, regardless of who you are, are you happy? Once you learn the importance of happiness and job satisfaction, being a stud suddenly becomes insignificant.Friday cheers! :)
With the smart-phone gaming industry still at its nascent phase, there are indeed a lot of games (and features) I would like to see in the future. I may not have the resource to produce such games, but it won’t hurt spilling out my reviews & ideas here.First of all, before I begin, I’d like to share something I discovered recently – For all you Androiders, if you go to the Android Market, not the mobile version but the actual site market.android.com and login with your Google account, you will see a complete list of all the apps/games you have downloaded till now!Lolz. Yeah, all those three-letter-word related apps and other apps you have downloaded and kept hidden from friends and family… they are ALL THERE! Listed. Recorded. Archived. With complete details regarding the download date, version, file size, etc etc. haha! Not so private now huh?Anyhoo, here is my first review, one of my recent favorite games, and how I think the developers should take it to the next level.Contract KillerOriginally an iPhone/iPad game, this is probably one of the most awesome games I’ve played on my droid. You’re a contract killer, and your job is to take out the mob. You get orders now and then, sometimes from a rival mob, an informant, or from the cops, and you can also refill your ammunition or buy better weapons using the in-game cash/credit.Every contract requires around 5 energy, and whether you fulfill the contract or not, you end up losing that much energy. So, as addictive as this game may be, you cannot play the entire day. You need to quit the game now and then after your energy runs out and wait for it to recharge. You can also use your credit to buy energy, but trust me, it’s not worth it.But it’s been more than a month now since I last played this game. Why? Because if you don’t intend on spending money (real money), it is close to impossible to buy the good guns, especially the Zerstorer!As I kept advancing, the bad guys were harder to kill, and the level kept getting more difficult, and yet, the bounty did not increase at all. Eventually, if you subtract the cost of ammunition per contract, I wasn’t getting anything at all. I even stopped buying the medikit to get more cash per contract, such that I would die during an ambush rather than buy expensive medikit, but even then, I realized it was going to take me forever to reach my target money to buy the awesome guns.Plus there is no cash-credit converter. Some guns like the Zerstorer costs 400 credits. Yet, even if I have collected a million cash during my missions, I cannot use them to buy those special guns that can be bought only through credits. Hence I need to buy the in-game cash and the in-game credit separately with real money. A Zerstorer gun, costing 400 credits, would be around $20 (INR 900!)And yeah, couple that with the fact that the game gets boring after some time… repetitive kills and instructions. You can easily start predicting where the boss’ goons are going to come running out from.Hence the reason why I stopped playing this game.----------------------------------How I wish the game could be like this:With such an amazing (and realistic) game as this, I wish Glu (the developer) could make it a bit more interesting. Here are some of my suggestions. I’m not talking about changing the interface of the game, like players should be able to run towards an enemy and stab him etc. I’m sticking to the original game action. My suggestions are purely about the gameplay and the kinda story that can come in etc.1. Locations:First of all, I want to stop using the single map selection theme.Instead, how about making this game truly global? Give users the option to travel from one country/continent to the other.And the user will end up losing quite a lot of energy as he travels, which is ok, as he can always recharge his energy once he lands at his new destination.At his new destination, he will of course get new sets of orders and who to kill, and most of the targets will be region specific (example – the Yakuza in Japan, the Triad in China, Cosa Nostra in Sicily, Drug warlords in Cambodia etc etc).2. Weapons:The guns can also change from region to region, depending on the availability.Hence, even if the player has managed to buy really good guns in the US, he cannot take his guns along with him when he flies to other countries (for the obvious reason). So he has to start from scratch.He can take his cash (and credit) along from one place to the other though. And when he returns to a place he has been before, he can use his existing gun there (he probably has a safehouse where he stores his guns and ammunition).This way, we are making everything more interesting just by introducing different characters and maps, even though the gameplay is the same as before – you get info from somebody and you take the contract.Remember, at the end of the day, the backend logic may be the same, but if the game is coated with different characters and maps, it will definitely make the game more interesting. Take Storm8 for example. All their games like Ninjas Live, Vampires, Zombies, World War, iMobster etc are (almost) all the same. Take away the character names and tasks, and they are all quite similar, yet most of them are the top downloaded games at the Android Market and iPhone App Store. In the end, the way we package a product really counts too.3. The Bounty:Like I mentioned earlier, it sucks when the level gets harder and harder but the bounty remains the same. Collecting money takes too long. If the amount of bounty can increase per level, then it is worth spending more on medikits and ammunitions too. Otherwise, it is purely a waste.4. Non-scope guns:Seriously, there was actually no point buying non-scope guns like SMG, shotgun etc. They are not effective at all, and I usually end up wasting an entire clip of ammo before I finally manage to take down one gangster. If this can be changed a bit so that even non-scope guns have their uses (trust me, I thought they would be more useful in the Dockyard fights etc when the enemy is relatively closer to my hideout compared to the other locations, but they still take time to die there too if I use non-scope weapons).5. Silencers:Ah this is my dream feature for this game. There should be some guns that can be attached with a silencer/suppressor. How awesome would that be! That way, we can quietly kill off some of the boss’ men one by one, and I can be discovered only if one of the gangsters is within, say 10 meters from the dead body. Unlike currently when I fire one freaking shot (even a tranquilizer gun) and the entire mob descends upon me like a swarm of bees. The silencer should be an option during the gameplay, and I should be able to use it only 5 times. After that I need to purchase it from the store again.Trust me, making these small changes will definitely change the game a lot, and I for one, will definitely come back to playing it.Ending this post, here are some screenshots of the game for those of you who have not played this game yet.Disclaimer: All images in this post are from The Droid Guy, 148 Apps and I code and code.
This post may not be a big deal to many of you, but to me, it is indeed a big deal. For today, I have just completed my three years of work experience! I can’t believe it’s been just three years though… lolz.I know many of you have been working for around 10 years now. I remember all the sermons and preaching my close friends used to give me about being “so old” and yet not working or doing anything worthwhile.Maybe I was lazy, maybe I was unqualified, maybe I was spoilt, maybe I was just too scared to work on a job I might detest later… whatever be the reason, I ended up wasting my life for almost 6 years after I graduated from college, just partying, blogging and drinking my life away.And then, when I finally decided it was high time I started working and doing something meaningful with my life, my friends warned me about rejections… That somebody like me who’s “old” and yet without any work experience was not exactly the most suitable candidate, and that I would have to go through many interview processes… I understood.Since advertising had always been my passion and I knew the digital space quite well, along with JV and my sister, we decided that I should aim big and go for the best digital advertising agency in India. That way I would surely get rejected and move on to smaller agencies, yet without feeling the pangs of rejection.I called up my friend Pawan, who told me that the number 1 digital agency in India then was Webchutney.So I took a printout of my resume, hailed an auto, and went to Webchutney Mumbai office. It took me an hour because I was looking at a Webchutney Delhi office address! Hahaa. Finally, I reached the office and met the shocked receptionist Rihanna (who became a very close friend later) because I didn’t have any appointment with the HR.The equally shocked HR Manisha luckily happened to be in a good mood, and interviewed me. Walk-in interviews are actually not allowed, and to fix an interview appointment, one needs to send his/her resume and an appointment will be arranged if that resume is what the agency wants. I was extremely lucky that day, hehehe. I don’t know what happened, but somehow the interview went well too, and I was called back the next day!The next day, I met the ACD, who is now our CD (Creative Director) today. He interviewed me for an hour. Later he gave me a copy test.I wrote my (first ever) copy test, and went home.The next day, AGAIN, I was called to the office. This time, it was the Branch Head who wanted to meet me!I met Poornima, who was our Mumbai Branch Head then, and finally after a long interview, I got the job! Lolz, if you think I was shocked, then you should have seen my sister’s face when I told her about the news. My FIRST job interview, NO work experience, didn’t even KNOW what being a copywriter meant, accepted in India’s LEADING digital ad agency!Yeah, it felt like a dream.I still remember my first project after joining Webchutney. Our ACD and Art Director were preparing for a pitch on an “Ocean Racing” campaign. I was told to get involved and help with the concept & strategy, and after listening to the brief, I came up with this – HAHAHA… Seriously, that’s what I thought copywriters do, you know… write the copy in a stylish manner. Lolzzzz….I have come a LONGGGGG way from there.Much later, I asked my bosses what they saw in me when they first hired me. And it turned out - It was because of my blog! And no, it was not about any particular post. They saw the potential in me after seeing the creativity in my writing. Creative writing and thinking creatively for an ad campaign may be different, but at the end of the day, creativity is creativity.And that’s what Webchutney did – harnessed my talent, taught me how to channel my creativity, and made me into what I am today. I will forever be indebted to Nishi and Meghana for this.Today I am handling many leading national and International brands on my own, with my own dedicated team. And none of this would have been possible without what I have learnt during the past three years.MY FIRST DAY @ WORKJuly 1, 2008 - Exactly three years ago from today. That was when I was told to join this company.On July 1, 2008, God probably decided to play a prank on me because maybe even HE couldn’t believe I finally started working. So on that fateful day, He sent along a mini flood.Yup, that’s what happened on my first day. On July 1, 2008, as my sister wished me luck (like a child going to school for the first time), I braved the rain thinking it was going to be just another of those normal Monsoon rain spells.[Google: “July 1 2011 Mumbai” and you’ll know what I’m talking about.]Just after I left my apartment, my sister switched on the TV to see news channels everywhere warning people to stay indoors! Most of the roads in Mumbai were completely flooded, and there were landslides here and there! She called me immediately, but my phone was tightly wrapped in a polythene bag deep inside my bag.I on the other hand, was preoccupied, battling the rain and thinking about my first day at work. All autos refused to ply and most vehicles were off the road, so I walked. I kept walking towards my new office, not noticing that the water level kept rising higher and higher… first I was avoiding the puddle… next my feet were completely submerged…. soon the water came up to my ankles…. then my knees… by the time I reached SV Road, the water was up to my waist!!!Yet, I was determined because it was my first day at work and I didn’t want to screw it up.I held my umbrella up along with my bag, which reminded me of those Vietnam war movies where the GIs would patrol through waist-high water in the jungle while holding their guns above the water.And the thing about Mumbai floods is, you MUST follow the person right in front of you. Coz you’ll never know if there is a pothole or a manhole ahead when the muddy water is up to your waist. So this is one incident where herd mentality is a really positive thing. Lolz.FINALLY, after nearly 3 hours of struggling through the water, I reached my new office. Very few people turned up that day, and the HR told me I didn’t have to come!Hehehe… well, in the end, my first day at work was indeed a very memorable day, and I will never forget what I went through that day.Cheers.[I may update this post later with a video]