Thursday, December 25, 2008

How to Open Unfinished Torrent Downloads (BitComet)

Problem
1. You download a file through some Torrent Client like BitComet, it shows 100% but you can't open the file.
2. There is .BC! file in your system after Torrent download, which you can't open simply by renaming.

Reason : Because of missing/corrupt file pieces ( technically IP packet corrupt/missing) you can't open the downloaded file even after it says 100%.

Solution : All the Torrent files are signed with a Hash key, which helps in identifying the integrity of the file. Also you can go to "piecegraph" the file is 100% finished but still green and red dots instead of all blue. This indicates the pieces are missing or corrupt.

Below steps apply to BitComet, but the same concept can be applied with other Torrrent Clients as well.

1. Once the Client shows 100% Right click on the Torrent Task 
2. Select Manual Hash Check
3. Torrent Client checks the hash again with the original Hash key 
4. If it finds Hash Key mismatch it will again Requests the missing pieces
5. After missing/corrupt file download the Client shows 100%
6. Now you can open it.

Hope this helps.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Unproductiveness

Sometimes I just can't get anything done.

Sure, I come into the office, roam around, check my email every ten seconds, read the web and even do a few brainless tasks. But getting back into the flow of writing code just doesn't happen.

These periods of unproductiveness usually last for a day or two. But there have been times in my career as a developer when I went for weeks at a time without being able to get anything done. I was not in flow. I was not in the zone. I was not anywhere.

Everybody has mood swings, for some people they are mild, for others, they can be more dysfunctional.

It makes me think of those researchers who say that basically people can't control what they eat, so any attempt to diet is bound to be short term and they will always return back to their natural weight. Maybe as a software developer I really can't control when I'm productive, and I just have to take the slow times with the fast times and hope that they average out to enough lines of code to make me employable.

What drives me crazy is that ever since my first job I've realized that as a developer, I usually average about two or three hours a day of productive coding. One fellow worker mentioned me that he too can work productively for 2 to 3 hours a day.

Sometimes I feel guilty when I see how hard everybody else seems to be working, & I get about two or three quality hours in a day. But its not the days when I "only" get two hours of work done that worry me. It's the days when I can't do anything.

I have thought about this a lot, as per my understanding the productivity greatly depends on the work environment like Google or Microsoft Office.

Many of my days go like this:
(1)get into office
(2)check email, read the web
(3)decide that today I will work productively
(4)lunch time comes I go out for lunch, at hotel I think that once I go back I will do work
(5)Come back from lunch, read news paper
(6)Check email, facebook, read the web
(7)Finally decides to start working and realize that its already 8:00
(8)leave office

This reminds of Newton's law, An object at rest tends to remain at rest......
And over the years I have figured out what we have to do in such unproductive periods, the rule is simple, get started & stick to it............ once you get into the flow, its not too hard to keep moving as other part of Newton's law mentions it, an object in motion tends to move until and unless an external force is applied.........

What do you do in such unproductive situations?

Monday, December 22, 2008

Ramanujan: The Man who knew Infinity


Today is the 121 Birth Anniversary of Srinivas Ramanujan,a famous Indian Mathematician,who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis,number theory,infinite series and continued fractions.Recently his contributions have found applications in crystallography and string theory.

In the memory of Ramanujan, Tamil Nadu every year celebrates 22 December as 'State IT Day'. His contributions to Mathematics are well known.The contribution of G.H. Hardy a famous mathematician is also equally important, but when some body asked him what was his biggest contribution to Mathematics, Hardy told, Ramanujan was his biggest contribution to Mathematics,such was the genius of Ramanujan.


Here is his brief Profile.

Profile

Born : 22 Dec 1887
Died : 26 April 1920
Birth Place : Erode, Tamil Nadu, India

Contributions to Mathematics :

1. Landau- Ramanujan Constant
2. Mock Theta Fuction
3. Ramanujan Prime
4. Ramanujan - Soldner Constant
5. Rogers- Ramanujan Identities

Applications of his contributions :

1. Crystallography
2. String Theory

I wrote this post to pay tribute to him & his genius.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Terrorist Attack on Mumbai

Readers of this blog may be wondering why i did not post any thing since from a long time. Its just that mind is not supporting to think beyond Mumbai attacks. What happened to India? Why still no action from Indian part?Why our so called leaders lost control of the situation?Why can't we the youngsters contribute to India? Why still we living like ostrich bird?What we can do to strengthen our country? Earning for our living is there but why can't we take some day of week and come up with action plans and clean up the system?It is evident that, now People are very very angry against Politicians and Corruption.

I know you too have many questions and many ideas that can help India.I thought about it and wanted something to do my part for the sake of India. In that process i registered a website called http://akhandabharat.org (Akhanda Bharat -- United India) and it has a forum at http://forum.akhandabharat.org . I request you to register and share your ideas and action steps that we need to take to strengthen our country. Whatever is under our control we will take those actions and try to bring golden days back to India.


Let us rebuild our nation.

"Jai Hind" "Vande Mataram"