If you want to give that old computer new life on your home network, try using it as a file server for music so that no matter where in the house you are you can access your massive digital music library from any computer. Here's what you'll need to do.


1) You'll need a home network. I'm going to assume that you do. If you don't you'll need to buy a home network router (from DLink, Linksys, Netgear, etc.) and connect it to you high speed Internet connection and connect all your computers to it, including the old computer you are going to turn into a music server.

2) Check to see that your old computer has the chops to be a music file server.

a) You'll need to make sure that there's enough hard drive space for all your files. Really old computers will have hard drives that are less than 10 GB, so you might consider adding a new larger hard drive. An old Pentium II or better with a 10 GB hard drive is probably your best bet.

b) Double check to see that the computer has a network card so it can be connected to the network. Older computers will have 10 Megabit Ethernet cards which should be fine, but you might consider upgrading to a newer 100 Mbit or Gigabit card.

c) Put all your files on the computer in a folder called MUSIC on the Desktop.

d) For easy identification on the network you might consider renaming the computer MUSICSERVER in control panel under Network and Identification Tab (in Windows 98 )

3) Right click on the MUSIC folder to activate sharing and give the shared folder a name on the network. You may have to run the file and printer sharing wizard first then right click and activate sharing after this.

4) On the MUSICSERVER computer click START then Run then type cmd (XP) or command (Windows 95/98 ) to get a DOS box and type ipconfig to see what the computer's IP address is. make a note of it. It will be something like 192.168.x.x where the X represents number between 0 and 255.

5) Now go to your regular computer and start Windows Explorer where you usually play your MP3 files from. You'll want to assign the MUSICSERVER as a virtual drive, maybe call it your Z drive. In Windows Explorer click Tools then Map Network Drive. Then choose the drive letter to use (ie. Z: ). Under folder type the IP address of the MUSICSERVER computer and name of the folder you assigned when you shared it. It should look something like:\\192.168.1.104\MUSIC\. Then click Finish. Now all those MP3 files are now accessible of the network as your Z drive.

6) NOTE: You have to repeat #5 for each computer you want to access the MUSICSERVER.

Enjoy!

Ten Principles for Peace of Mind..

1. Do Not Interfere In Others' Business Unless Asked.

Most of us create our own problems by interfering too often in others' affairs. We do so because somehow we have convinced ourselves that our way is the best way, our logic is the perfect logic and those who do not conform to our thinking must be criticized and steered to the right direction, our direction. This thinking denies the existence of individuality and consequently the existence of God.. God has created each one of us in a unique way. No two human beings can think or act in exactly the same way. All men or women act the way they do because God within them prompts them that way. Mind your own business and you will keep your peace.

2. Forgive And Forget:

This is the most powerful aid to peace of mind. We often develop ill feelings inside our heart for the person who insults us or harms us. We nurture grievances. This in turn results in loss of sleep, development of stomach ulcers, and high blood pressure. This insult or injury was done once, but nourishing of grievance goes on forever by constantly remembering it. Get over this bad habit. Life is too short to waste in such trifles. Forgive,20Forget, and march on. Love flourishes in giving and forgiving.

3. Do Not Crave For Recognition:

This world is full of selfish people. They seldom praise anybody without selfish motives. They may praise you today because you are in power, but no sooner than you are powerless, they will forget your achievement and will start finding faults in you. Why do you wish to kill yourse lf in striving for their recognition? Their recognition is not worth the aggravation. Do your duties ethically and sincerely.

4. Do Not Be Jealous:

We all have experienced how jealousy can disturb our peace of mind. You know that you work harder than your colleagues in the office, but sometimes they get promotions; you do not. You started a business several years ago, but you are not as successful as your neighbor whose business is only one year old. There are several examples like these in everyday life. Should you be jealous? No. Remember everybody's life is shaped by his/her destiny, which has now become his/her reality. If you are destined to be rich, nothing in the world can stop you. If you are not so destined, no one can help you either. Nothing will be gained by blaming others for your misfortune. Jealousy will not get you anywhere; it will only take away your peace of mind.

5. Change Yourself According To The Environment:

If you try to change the environment single-handedly, the chances are you will fail. Instead, change yourself to suit your environment. As you do this, even the environment, which has been unfriendly to you, will mysteriously change and seem congenial and harmonious.

6. Endure What Cannot Be Cured:

This is the best way to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Every day we face numerous inconveniences, ailments, irritations, and accidents that are beyond our control... If we cannot control them or change them, we must learn to put up with these things. We must learn to endure them cheerfully. Believe in yourself and you will gain in terms of patience, inner strength and will power.

7. Do Not Bite Off More Than You Can Chew:

This maxim needs to be remembered constantly. We often tend to take more responsibilities than we are capable of carrying out. This is done to satisfy our ego. Know your limitations. . Why take on additional loads that may create more worries? You cannot gain peace of mind by expanding your external activities. Reduce your material engagements and spend time in prayer, introspection and meditation. This will reduce those thoughts in your mind that make you restless. Uncluttered mind will produce greater peace of mind.

8. Meditate Regularly:

Meditation calms the mind and gets rid of disturbing thoughts. This is the highest state of peace of mind. Try and experience it yourself. If you meditate earnestly for half an hour everyday, your mind will tend to become peaceful during the remaining twenty-three and half-hours. Your mind will not be easily disturbed as it was before. You would benefit by gradually increasing the period of daily meditation. You may think that this will interfere with your daily work. On the contrary, this will increase your efficiency and you will be able to produce better results in less time.

9. Never Leave The Mind Vacant:

An empty mind is the devil's workshop. All evil actions start in the vacant mind. Keep your mind occupied in something positive, something worthwhile. Actively follow a hobby. Do something that holds your interest. You must decide what you value more: money or peace of mind. Your hobby, like social work or religious work, may not always earn you more money, but you will have a sense of fulfillment and achievement. Even when you are resting physically, occupy yourself in healthy reading or mental chanting of God's name.

10. Do Not Procrastinate And Never Regret:

Do not waste time in protracted wondering " Should I or shouldn't I?" Days, weeks, months, and years may be wasted in that futile mental debating. You can never plan enough because you can never anticipate all future happenings. Value your time and do the things that need to be done. It does not matter if you fail the first time. You can learn from your mistakes and succeed the next time. Sitting back and worrying will lead to nothing. Learn from your mistakes, but do not brood over the past. DO NOT REGRET. Whatever happened was desti ned to happen only that way. Why cry over spilt milk?

From a forward which i got.....

Yesterday, I was driving, and the FM radio went off for few seconds. I thought, I should have an iPod. Then suddenly I realized that I have not used my iPod in last 6 months. And then… more things, Handy cam in last 2 years, Digital Camera in last 2 months, DVD player in last 1 month and many more. Now I can say that I bought that Handy cam just out of impulse, I have used it twice only in last 4 years.

So, whats wrong and where? When I look at myself or my friends I can see it everywhere.We are not happy with what we have but all are stressed and not happy for the things we don’t have. You have a Santro, but you want City… You have a City, but you want Skoda. Just after buying a new phone, we need another one. Better laptop, bigger TV, faster car, bigger house, more money… .I mean, these examples are endless. The point is, does it actually worth? Do we ever think if we actually need those things before we want them?

After this, I was forced to think what I need and what I don’t. May be I didn’t need this Handy cam or the iPod or that DVD player. When I see my father back at home. He has a simple BPL color tv, he doesn’t need 32″ Sony LCD wall mount. He has a cellphone worth Rs 2,500. Whenever I ask him to change the phone, he always says… “Its a phone, I need this just for calls.” And believe me; he is much happier in life than me with those limited resources and simple gadgets. The very basic reason why he is happy with so little is that he doesn’t want things in life to make it luxurious, but he wants only those things which are making his life easier. It’s a very fine line between these two, but after looking my father’s life style closely, I got the point. He needs a cell phone but not the iPhone. He needs a TV but not the 32″ plasma. He needs a car but not an expensive one.

Initially I had lot of questions.

I am earning good, still I am not happy…...why ?

I have all luxuries, still I am stressed........... why ?

I had a great weekend, still I am feeling tired...... why?

I met lot of people, I thought over it again and again, I still don’t know if I got the answers, but certainly figured out few things. I realize that one thing which is keeping me stressed is the “stay connected” syndrome. I realized that, at home also I am logged in on messengers, checking mails, using social networks, and on the top of that, the windows mobile is not letting me disconnected. On the weekend itself, trying to avoid unwanted calls… and that is keeping my mind always full of stress. I realized that I am spending far lesser money than what I earn, even then I am always worried about money and more money. I realized that I am saving enough money I would ever need, whenever needed. Still I am stressed about job and salary and spends.


May be, many people will call this approach “not progressive attitude“, but I want my life back. Ultimately it’s a single life, a day gone is a day gone. I believe if I am not happy tonight, I’ll never be happy tomorrow morning. I finally realized that meeting friends, spending quality time with your loved one’s; spending time with yourself is the most important thing. If on Sunday you are alone and you don’t have anybody to talk with, then all that luxuries life, all that money is wasted. May be cutting down your requirements, re-calculating your future goal in the light of today’s happiness is a worthwhile thing to do. May be selling off your Santro and buying Honda City on EMIs is not a good idea. I believe putting your happiness ahead of money is the choice we need to make.


I think, a lot can be said and done but what we need the most is re-evaluation of the value of happiness and time we are giving to our life and people associate with it .

Four Management Lessons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Lesson Number One *

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw
the crow, and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day
long?"

The crow answered: "Sure, why not."

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a
sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Management Lesson: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting
very, very high up.

* Lesson Number Two *

A turkey was chatting with a bull.

"I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the
turkey, "but I haven't got the energy. "Well, why don't you nibble on
some of my droppings?" replied the bull. "They're packed with
nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him
enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree. The next day,
after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after
a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon
he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the
tree.

Management Lesson: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep
you there.

* Lesson Number Three *

When the body was first made, all the parts wanted to be Boss. The brain
said, "I should be Boss because I control the whole body's responses and
functions."

The feet said, "We should be Boss as we carry the brain about and get
him to where he wants to go." The hands said, "We should be the Boss
because we do all the work and earn all the money." And so it went on
and on with the heart, the lungs and the eyes until finally the asshole
spoke up.

All the parts laughed at the idea of the asshole being the Boss. So the
asshole went on strike, blocked itself up and refused to work. Within a
short time the eyes became crossed, the hands clenched, the feet
twitched, the heart and lungs began to panic and the brain fevered.
Eventually they all decided that the asshole should be the Boss, so the
motion was passed.

All the other parts did all the work while the Boss just sat and passed
out the shit!

Management Lesson: You don't need brains to be Boss, any asshole will
do!

* Lesson Number Four *

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold, the bird
froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there,
a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there
in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was. The dung
was actually thawing him out!

He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A
passing cat heard he bird singing and came to investigate. Following the
sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and
promptly dug him out and ate him!

Management Lessons Summary:

1. Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
2. Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3. When you're in deep shit, keep your mouth shut!

This is GULF

* Local calls are free
* Petrol is cheaper than water, Payment for drainage too.
* Any building construction finishes in 3 months .
* Unqualified get more salary than Qualified
* Show-off matters more than real quality & performance .
* Labourers are paid less than what they can earn back in their own country.
* Companies can kick out their employees without any reason .
* Wastas (recommendation) are more powerful than money .
* Cleaners have more Wasta than officers .
* Watchman has more Rights than the Building Owner.
* Office boy & Drivers have more influence on Boss than Manager.
* Gulf climate changes so fast, in one hour u can see raining, dust storm, hot / humid / chilling weather.
* Gulf is located in desert, still u find greenery everywhere .
* If u can ' t earn money in the Gulf, u can ' t earn anywhere in the world .
* In Gulf, time goes very fast, Friday to Friday comes u never know, its sooo fast.
* Every bachelor has a dream of getting married and buying a house in thier own countries.
* U love your parents, friends, relatives 100 times more than when you were together.
* Being at home is more painful than being at work.
* Gulf girls sing Hindi songs but don ' t understand anything.
* A ladies hair saloon every 5 meters.
* Food/Grocery delivery to the car.
* A Starbucks every 10 meters.
* Hard Rock Cafe with no alcohol.
* In one single flat sharing with 5 families.
* A Shopping Mall located every 2 km.
* Highway lanes differentiated for slow & fast drivers .
* Getting a license is more difficult than buying a car .
* Smashed cars are more than bugs.
* Parking charge: 2 Dirham for 1 hour - 5 Dirham for 2 hours & so on .
* No Queues for women .

TRAFFIC SIGNAL IN GULF:
* GREEN : Signal to go for Indians.
* YELLOW : Signal to go for Egyptians and Pakistanis, Americans, Europeans.
* RED : Signal to go for Kuwaitis, Saudis , Palestinians & Lebanese...
IF YOU ' RE SAYING ' NO ' THEN YOU ARE HIDING THE TRUTH.......

The Acer Aspire one!

I bought this one as a present to my wife when she was carrying meenuty.

The specification of the netbook which I bought was,

· 1.6GHz N270 Intel Atom Processor

· 1GB DDR2 533MHz

· Windows XP Home SP3

· 8.9" 1024 x 600 WSVGA glossy LED backlit display

· 160GB HDD

· 802.11b/g Atheros Wireless · 3-Cell 23Wh battery · Memory card slot (2 slots – one for sony memory cards and rest all fit to the other one)

I Loaded: Google Chrome, ITunes, Yahoo messenger, Google talk etc.

1. Build and Design:

The first impression was that the built quality is solid and the construction feels strong (infact it was proved when it was accidently slipped out of my mother’s hand). This is rigid enough to handle the compression is kept inside a bag. The screen cover is also strong to protect the LCD screen. I don’t know how easy it is to dismantle it – because I buy these things to use and not to spoil. If you require the inner hardware details, check some note book review sites. This blog will carry only a review on daily using aspects.

Keyboard is worth mentioning. This is small but I didn’t find any difficulty in typing with that. Initially I faced a problem of missing keys since I am used to type in my Acer 4720g with a normal keypad. How ever a period of time typing in this little monster, I felt the keys are properly placed. No missing of keys was noticed after the initial few weeks.

Multitouch Touchpad.

The touch pad features multi touch. You can increase the picture size and do website zooming (the same function as pressing control and using the scroll button) using the multitouch touchpad. I haven’t seen it in anyother laptops till now (except for HP TX series). The buttons are on the side, rather than on the top or bottom. This sometimes feels odd. However, I don’t use touch pad, but a mouse.

The display is very bright and solid. This is clearly legible in bright sunlight. After all a net book is meant for emailing and internet browsing. I don’t think there is any point in comparing this with a 42inch LCD screen. Overall the screen is clear, visible and color output is excellent. The reading legibility of the screen is very decent. The only thing that made me decide against buying a mini Sony was the screen size. The screen was tooo small to read. I found it difficult to read even the start menu items in Sony. How ever, Acer is neat in doing that.

With the Intel N270 atom processor cloaked at 1.6 Ghz I think the netbook was fast. I loaded google chrome, itunes, and few other software. Still the system didn’t tent to slow down. Its response was very fast. To tell the truth, it is performing faster than my official Toshiba A300 Laptop.

The speaker volume is low (do you expect a net book to give u sound like a HP media station?). The other thing worth mentioning is the webcam attached. It does the job neatly.

Problem I faced: Apart from the good thing above, there are some bad things also. Connecting the wifi to my network was a herculean task. Acer took a lot of time to connect. Even after connecting I had occasional disconnections also. I think that is the software problem. Probably ACER will be coming up with some upgrade to that. It was a nightmare to connect Acer wirelessly to my network!!!

Connectivity:

It has one Lan port, 2 card readers, 3 USB ports, a VGA port and audio jack ports.

Battery life: Battery life is decent. It lasts for two and a half hours on a normal use (with wifi on). If heavy multimedia files are laoded, then it may come down but will how ever last for 2 hours. That’s guaranteed. This computer has solid build quality to handle being tossed around in a backpack or purse, and modest performance to handle common software applications with ease.

Conclusion:

I found this a very good product, value for money. But, ACER if you are listening, please make sure the wifi is connecting properly.

The managed to get the PC benchmarking scores (which determines how better is the performance is) from a popular website.You can see Acer is no: 3 in that. All those above Acer one is using a Core 2 Duo processor.

CMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):
Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600)	2446
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600)	1839
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1555
Sony VAIO VGN-G11XN/B (1.33GHz Core Solo U1500)	1554
ASUS Eee PC 900 (900MHz Intel Celeron M ULV)	1172
Fujitsu LifeBook P7230 (1.2GHz Intel Core Solo U1400)	1152
ASUS Eee PC 4G (900MHz Intel Celeron M ULV)	1132
ASUS Eee PC 4G (630MHz Intel Celeron M ULV)	908
HTC Shift (800MHz Intel A110) - Laptop or mobile?	891
HP 2133 Mini-Note (1.6GHz VIA C7-M ULV)	801
ASUS Eee PC 901 (1.60GHz Intel Atom)	746

Hi guys, You have seen my blog on the commando game. That reminds me of the kind of games we used to play on the old gaming machines (yes u guessed right – our own Mario). Now there is one more addictive game which I have already become addict of – the miniclip cricket. You can check the game in the following website: http://www.miniclip.com/games/cricket-defend-the-wicket/en/

 

Do play it and try to beat my score of 386! (I know my position is 3894… still I bet none of you will be able to beat me)

 

Guys, I bought my Ipod classic during the last gitex (this is a yearly technology show organised in Dubai). Now it is almost a year and I think i have gained experience to write about my one and only portable music player!

My wife was using a Toshiba portable DVD player and I was so ashamed of my self that i didn't had one of my own. I am not going to compare these two totally different items - portable DVD player and ipod classic.... but to shed some light on the usefulness as well as uselessness of the monster called ipod classic.

Even before buying this product, i knew that ipod dont have a built in radio. May be this is a marketing strategy of apple... as i found separate radio attachment in few shops - that too costing around Dirham 250!!! Thats almost $70!!! Guys, u can get good 2 - 4 GB portable player with that money...

How ever, the real beauty of ipod classic is not in radio... nor in the stupid itunes (i have never seen a software such complicated)... but in the capacity...

I have 120 GB of space.. for my entire music collection...

Do you believe.. my 10 years music collection is around 80 GB (may be too small for some of you) and ipod can fit everything...

Now the real issue - If you have 20,000 songs.. then its not possible to find a particular song that easy.. especially when the artist name is "unknown artist" and album name is "unknown album". I have around 8000 songs in that category...

I believe.. its better to buy a 4 - 16 Gb player and copy only those songs which you frequently hear. Put everything else in your portable harddisk (costs almost 1/5th of ipod classic) and use your laptop to listen to that. When you are travelling, take the 4 Gb and listen to songs (almost all portable players do have a built in radio, except for apple products). Radio is a requirement when you have more than 40 channels to listen. We find it very usefull in Dubai, were people listen more to radio than simply songs.. Hats off to my fav RJs in hit96.7 Fm..

But, if you are having a home theatre system with built in ipod dock then I recommed you buy ipod classic rather than ipod touch. This is just becauase of the extra internal memory classic is offering.

My verdict is that if you need radio dont go for ipod. If you need to store all your music and video and like to listen to all of then while on the move, buy ipod classic (come one guys, who is going to search and find a song from 20000 songs? u will be searching the song all the way while travelling and by the time u find it out.. u may have reached back home).

One more thing is the music quality - I dont care for that. All the portable players in the market now give a decent quality sound.

Anyway, I am happy with my ipod classic. I take it when ever i travel. For radio, I have my cute old Nokia N95...

Commando 2 Our Hero continues the battle with more missions, more enemies and bigger artillery.

Play this free game now!!

This was a very interesting game. I happen to accidently click on a website and this came up. NO installation required, no sign on required... thats quite a relief :-)

Added on 5th Aug: Infact, I checked out few more games in that website. Its really addictive. Try your self: http://www.miniclip.com/games

About a month back, I was in need of a mouse for my laptop. I went to carrefour and was checking mouse by various companies including microsoft, logitech, targus, etc etc. Suddenly a black one in a box like shape caught my attention. That was a Philips cordless optical mouse.

This one was costing around 80 Dirhams (almost $22). Even though a little hesitant, i bought the Philips. Because till that time i had no idea that Philips manufactured any IT products!!!

After reaching home, i opened the package, there is the medium sized black mouse, with both sides having a rubber material (provides good grip). There was one CD for installing the software, the IR receiver for optical mouse and two AAA batteries.

It was written in the manual that the batteries will last for more than 7 months. Anyway, its almost 1 month and i cant see any drop in the battery level (there is no indicator for that.. its your assumption based on the performance).

The hand rest is perfectly designed and to tell the truth, I am now unable to use my travel mouse after using and getting accustomed to the comfort of this Philips.

Guys, I can recommend this product as a worth buy. For those looking for a laser one, they have a laser variant of the same. Scrolling is very smooth.

Philips included one application along with this. This helps you to configure the keys according to your needs. You can assign short cut keys to your mouse button for frequently used key combinations - eg: copy, paste, etc

I am fully satisfied with this product - especially after buying a branded laser mouse and throwing it out of the window due to its low performance.