How to find the MAC address of an offline computer?

There are multiple ways of getting the MAC address of a system that is on either locally or remotely. But, what if your system is off, you do not have physical access to the system and you wanted to turn it on remotely using Wake on Lan(WOL)? In order to turn your computer on remotely using WOL you need to know the MAC address of that system. If you are not planned this ahead of time, finding the systems MAC address might not be very easy. What are your options?

Continue reading “How to find the MAC address of an offline computer?” →

Apple and Quality Control

Steve Jobs announced today that the reception problems with iPhone 4 is not limited to iPhone 4, it also affects 3G and 3GS as well. Apple is going to give free bumpers to all iPhone 4 owners. So, here is a question: If the same antenna problem exists in 3G and 3GS, why doesn’t Apple give free bumpers/cases to 3G and 3GS owners as well? He said that He has a theory why more people are noticing the reception problem with iPhone 4: It is because Apple did not produce enough iPhone 4 bumpers, so the iPhone 4 buyers couldn’t get a case/bumper with their iPhone 4 purchase. Isn’t this as same as saying “Our phones don’t function properly without a case” Continue reading “Apple and Quality Control” →

World’s First Opening of the GeoGiftBox™

I would like to report the world’s first ever use of a GeoGiftBox™ for presenting engagement ring/request has happened on 7/8/2010 at 4:20pm PDT.

What is a GeoGiftBox™? It is a locked Antique Wooden box fitted with electronics to detect its current location that opens only if you are standing near the location it’s programmed to open. I will give more information about the box, and how it’s been used in my engagement process, and where can you purchase your own box later.

How to bulk destroy CDs and DVDs?

We are soon moving to our new place and I am trying to pack all my stuff. Being an IT professional, you can imagine that I have a lot of CDs and DVDs for software, backup etc. So, I was going through all of these media and I realized that I need to get rid of a lot of them as I have no use for them anymore. Here comes the problem, how to destroy hundreds of CDs/DVDs easily. There are many suggestions on the internet, but those either cost money or hazardous or tedious. I needed a quick and acceptable solution. So, here is what I come up with: Continue reading “How to bulk destroy CDs and DVDs?” →

More Yoga Schedules

I’ve updated the Bay Area Yoga Schedules site with two more Yoga Schedules. It is amazing how messed up some of these sites are. For example someone in LifeStretch Yoga decided not to indicate if the time given is AM or PM, and of course they are not using 24 hour notation either. So, when you see a Yoga class at 8:30, you have no idea if it is in the morning or at night. Who does this kind of nonsense stuff? Also it appears to me that they don’t know how to create borders for some cells of the HTML table while leaving other cells border-less, since they crammed the entire day’s schedule in a same cell. This type of unconventional methods makes my life very difficult of course as I am programmatically trying to make sense of the HTML code to extract the schedule. I have to admit it is not fair to pick on this one Yoga studio as others are not any better.

That said, If you somehow find my Bay Area Yoga Schedules site and if you want your favorite Yoga studio to be added to the list, drop me a line here. I’ll do my best to add it in the list. If you are a Yoga studio owner and want to participate in this, drop me a line using the contact form below.

[easy-contact]

Yoga Schedules in better format

I am one of those people who continuously generate new ideas, and most inventions are born because of a need. Lately, I found myself scrambling to find a yoga class in odd times. Since I don’t have a routine, the classes and studios I go changes all the time. Some might think it is crazy, but it suits me just fine. The problem is to find a yoga class when I needed one. The process involves going to individual sites of my favorite yoga studios and checking if they have an upcoming class for the time I am available and if it is the right type of yoga class or not. This process takes way too longer then I like, and since I am an expert of automating data collection and presentation, I decided to come up with my own calendar that combines all of my favorite Yoga studios schedules into one giant calendar. About 3 hours of work allowed me to combine 4 different yoga studios schedule. It would’ve taken shorter if I knew the Google Calendar API ahead of time. Since I learned the Google Calendar API now and leveraging the Google Calendar to store the schedules of the different yoga studios, it’ll be easy to expand this. I’ll add more yoga studios soon. You can check it out at here: http://www.unal.org/?page_id=200

Consumers lose again

Right after Amazon announced the availability of Kindle 2 with Text to Speech (TTS) functionality, the Author’s Guild president Roy (the dinosaur) Blount Jr. wrote an article about it and claimed that this technology is a copyright infringement of audio books. For those who don’t know what Text to Speech (TTS) technology is: It is a technology that allows computers to read text aloud. Amazon incorporated the technology in Kindle 2 so you can switch from reading a book to listening. Although TTS technology has improved throughout the years, it is still very robotic sounding. It also lacks proper punctuation and tonality. It reads everything at a flat pace and voice. Continue reading “Consumers lose again” →