Mr. Aggarwal

I have summarized the 10 dimensions as described by the video and interpreted by me below:

1. Length – a line
2. Length + Width – an impossibly flat object
3. Length + Width + Height – every object we can perceive; our world — an example is a human
4. Introduction of Time – imagine a single perceivable object in the 4th dimension is of indeterminate size and shows your entire life span
5. Introduction of Possibility – we introduce all the possible life spans you could have led in the 5th dimensional object
6. Our universe’s Infinity – all possibilities from the beginning to end of our entire universe accessed at an instance without travel; as an example, even in the 4th or 5th dimension, you would have to “travel” an indeterminate “distance” (though there is no such notion distance as we know it in dimensions that encompass time) in order to access a place in one of your possible life spans — in the 6th dimension, they would all exist at once
7. Introduction of other universes – imagine other universes with different laws of physics and altogether different foundational beginnings
8+9. Ability to travel “instantly” between different possible universes (similar to 5+6)
10. As our universe’s infinity became a point in the 7th dimension that allowed us to branch to other universe’s infinities, so all the infinities of all universes became a point in the 10th dimension. However, it is unclear what that could possibly branch to. So, in my mind, the 10th dimension is not well defined.

You may want to watch, think about this for a few days, and then come back to watch it again. It is just one way of describing 10 dimensions in layman terms, but I believe it will help formulate a thought process you can engage your mind with. I think you will find that you have already postulated some of these concepts during your own personal contemplation.

This happened to me recently. I needed to download my iPhone photos and videos like I normally do periodically, but I was not seeing the device in Windows Explorer like I used to.

The solution was simple. I just need to:

1. Unplug the phone from the USB charger
2. Enter my passcode
3. Plug it back in

Why? When the phone is locked, Windows cannot detect the device properly. I hope this helps someone.

These are all branded names of web browsers. I have been using FireFox and Chrome for a few years now. I only use IE7/8 for enterprise application development that requires compatibility with those browsers. After seeing such productivity gains myself by switching to the fastest browser available, I am starting to look into introducing FireFox into enterprises. It has certainly occurred to me that a quick description of a web browser is in order.

Notes:

1. A program on your computer, just like Microsoft Word
2. For Windows, Internet Explorer (also called its acronym, “IE”) is the default browser. If you don’t know which browser you are running, you are likely running IE.
3. At its basis, a Web Browser takes a web addresses (also called a “URL”) like http://www.mraggarwal.com as its input, and outputs the result on the screen, which is typically a web page.
4. There are four main Web Browsers on the market:
- IE (Closed Source by Microsoft)
- FireFox (Open Source)
- Google Chrome (Open Source by Google)
- Safari (Closed Source by Apple)

I found the following video to further help exemplify and provide another learning medium. I hope you enjoy it:

As you go higher, the wind gets stronger. – Ashok Aggarwal

I had a font package with afm, pfb, and inf files. When I tried to copy/paste them into c:\windows\fonts on Windows Vista, they would not install. Nor would they install using the “Install Fonts…” options.

These worked fine with XP — I realized that Vista requires a pfm file. And it is not difficult to convert these, though third party software is required. I download the free AfmToPfm software to complete my conversion:

http://www.proximasoftware.com/afmtopfm/

I hope this helps someone in the same situation.

Excerpt from Alon’s blog:

Download the patched version: termsrv_sp3_patch.rar

Installation instructions
0. Go to C:\Windows\system32\dllcache and rename the termsrv.dll to termsrv.dll.bak
1. Go to \Windows\System32 folder and rename termsrv.dll to termsrv.dll.bak
2. Copy the new SP3 patched termsrv.dll to \Windows\System32 folder
3. Run the included registry patch “ts_concurrent_session_patch.reg” (by double clicking it), it will update the relevant registry values which are relevant to the concurrent sessions support.
3. Restart windows.

NOTE:
if you are currently using Terminal Services, you will need to start windows in safe mode before you can overwrite the existing termsrv.dll files.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended her decision not to close the borders with Mexico, saying it “would be a very, very heavy cost for what epidemiologists tell us would be marginal benefit.”

Where was this logic with the handling of the economic crisis? That approach has really just been “spend as much as possible, as quickly as possible, without waiting to assess the benefit.” I always thought people working with numbers were supposed to be the most logical. And in a time when we are at the cusp of an epidemic with the “swine” or “Mexico” flu, I am more likely to accept questionable and conservatively irrational decisions.

I guess, something about reading that quote just got me thinking.

I really like this animation of the credit crisis. I hope it provides you some insight as well:

I thought the animation here was very well done and simple. Of course, the content is also interesting and educational.

I am fed up…completely.

iMovie doesn’t work natively with AVCHD files…that’s garbage. When you import files, the resulting, encoded files are 3-6 times larger than the .MTS files. Even with their expensive time capsule, I would have to buy multiple ones to keep my memories.

Vegas doesn’t have skimming and takes longer to edit.

Figuring out the right settings for posting online vs. DVD vs. is a mess…I just want to specify a simple calculator that tells me resulting file size, video length, resolution, and video quality.

Why is video editing such a pain when technology has come soooo far?

We have all been touched or hurt by the emotions we envision someone else has gone through. At what point, if any, is this taken too far?

When do other people’s joys and sorrows begin to affect you to the point where you are being “too empathetic”? What kind of person is prone to being/becoming “too empathetic”? Do you even believe there is such a thing?

I think there very well could be such a thing, and in a society where we feel that people are becoming less sociable, I tend to believe we will end up with some level of social “climate control” issues…where people cannot form the proper balance with many important social constructs, including empathy. I am concerned that people will begin to go to the extremes of feeling either too little empathy (I believe that everyone feels at least some small amount of empathy) or too much empathy. I believe there will be empathy balancing techniques that will be devised and training courses for the “social climate control” crisis we are already facing or will soon face in our technology-driven, impersonal world.

What are your thoughts? I know many people must be seeing this as it unfolds in front of all of our eyes. Maybe we can get to this and improve people’s quality of life in the current and future generations faster than we can find ways to solve the ozone issues or viable alternative fuel sources.

If you have been connecting to a machine via remote desktop and using the blow command, you may have noticed this no longer connects to console:

mstsc /console

With XP SP3, you now need to use:

mstsc /admin

If you aren’t doing multiple monitors yet…you need to. Here are some tools that will get the wheels turning:

• Matrox
• Multiplicity
• MaxiVista

If you have a laptop, at least get started with two monitors for which you should not require any additional hardware or software, expect for the external monitor, of course. If you have a desktop that has multiple video outputs (i.e. VGA and DVI) you too should be able to try this out without any extra tools.

I know this may seem obvious to some people, but believe me…it needs to be said…

When you drive in city, highway, fast, slow…anywhere…

LOOK CAREFULY FOR THE LIGHTS ON CARS AROUND YOU, specifically, the signal and brake lights.

Here is a freebie tip…while on the highway, don’t just look for brake lights of the car directly in front of you. Be conscious of brake lights for a few cars ahead as well. You will be better able to anticipate any sudden stops, which is how many highways accidents occur.

Again, I know even you might think you do this, but this is all about training yourself to do it constantly and consistently when you drive. Thank you for keeping the roads safe all the time, not just when you have nothing better to do like talking on the phone, finding your favorite CD, plugging in your cell phone to the car charger, reading a newspaper, responding to SMS’s/emails, or something even more insane that I can’t even image, yet I know people can think of and actually do while they drive.

Better comparisons can be drawn once the Instinct is released, but I can comment based on what I know about each…

1. Instinct is slated to support Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync on day one — how Apply and iPhone could avoid this for so long is amazing to me, but I am glad to hear that even they plan to support Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync this summer

2. Instinct supports faster broadband speeds than iPhone (again, iPhone is coming out with a new version this year that supports similar speeds)

3. Instinct is being released on Sprint (and I’m not sure when they plan to release on any other network). I really dislike the idea of a phone only being available on one network. I hope Instinct does not pigeon-hole into Sprint for too long.

4. iPhone is releasing an SDK. Instinct programs are written with Java BREW. I guess we will see how many useful applications will be written for each in time. I assume iPhone will get the advantage on this because of the simple fact that it currently has so many more users.

5. iPhone incorporates all the iPod features. I don’t have/use an iPod, but so many people do and there is a distinct advantage in combining the most popular music and video solution into the phone as a single device.

6. Apple has marketing prowess and a general sexiness factor that Samsung can do almost nothing to compete with. I really like Samsung products (like their gorgeous LCD monitors), but I don’t see the overall market share tilting a great deal regardless of how compelling the phone features prove to be.

I am hopeful that the Samsung Instinct will be a viable competitor to the iPhone since healthy competition is only good for us consumers. As I mentioned, I don’t think the market share for this kind of device will shift too far away from Apple (reference the history of the iPod and the many viable competitors that came out before/after it), and this will be a large factor that continues to lands in Apple’s (and the iPhone’s) favor. Besides, in this case, Apple has quite a bit of time ahead of all other devices in this arena and the multi-touch was real innovation that was brought to the table (and it worked perfectly from the day it hit the shelves).

Apple has proven to innovate at a rate and with a quality better than others, but this, combined with their lead time and market share will make it very difficult for any other company or product to make a real dent. Of course, I remember another product (Palm Treo) that was considered the de facto standard “smart phone” in somewhat recent history; so I look forward to allowing our world’s business, marketing, and technology surprise me as soon as possible.

Hmmmmmm…maybe the oPhone will do it…