New tips as and when we find them

Think before judging someone

Question 1:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three
who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had
syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?
Read the next question before looking at the response for this one. Read the rest of this entry »

Three Things to Reduce Stress Now !

Are any of these scenes familiar?

…The kids woke up late again this morning. By the time you get them to school and fight rush hour traffic, you’ll be 20 minutes late for the meeting you’re supposed to lead…

…When you were first hired, you felt lucky to get your customer service job. But now you wonder if it’s worth it. The phones ring constantly and you hear nothing but complaints. Last week, you called in sick just to get a break…

…It’s almost time for your presentation. Top management is here and your supervisor is counting on you to make her look good. You were up all night finishing the Powerpoint. You wonder if you’ve anticipated all the possible questions… Read the rest of this entry »

All about Computer Viruses that we all should know

Your computer is as slow as molasses. Your mouse freezes every 15 minutes, and that Microsoft Word program just won’t seem to open.

You might have a virus.

Just what exactly is a virus? What kind is in your computer? How did it get there? How is it spreading and wreaking such havoc? And why is it bothering with your computer anyway?

Viruses are pieces of programming code that make copies of themselves, or replicate, inside your computer without asking your explicit written permission to do so. Forget getting your permission down on paper. Viruses don’t bother to seek your permission at all! Very invasive. Read the rest of this entry »

Want to be more Organize ? Some tips for you

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Organizing is probably not at the top of your list of
fun things to do, is it? If your clutter is overwhelming,
it’s especially difficult to get started. Here are some
easy tips to motivate yourself to organize. Read the rest of this entry »

How to deal with a demanding Boss.

If you are working under a boss who is demanding, pushes you over the limit and never gets satisfied with your work, here are few tips to deal with him.

(1) Admit it as reality of life
(2) They are demanding for everybody.
(3) See the brighter picture.
(4)Limit his importance.
(5) Respect his ego.
(6) If all fail try this.

Let us learn all these tips one by one Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting management lesson

One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops - a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.

At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” and sat down at the back. Read the rest of this entry »

Another Y2K problem in 2038 ?

:::Year 2038..Again the replica of Y2K
[ 19-January-2038 will suddenly become 13-December-1901]

Note: This is just for you information only, Please Don’t try this. This is true and if you do this then your network based applications will not work.

The Year 2038 Problem

Test it now.

steps…

1. login to yahoo messenger

2. send instant message to anyone - fine its working…

3. now, change ur system date to 19-Jan-2038, 03:14:07 AM or above

4. Confirm weather ur date is changed

5. again send instant message to anyone…

Your YM crahes….

* * * YES ALL NETWORK BASED APPLICATION WILL NOT WORK NOW * * *

Why…..

What is it?
*

*
Starting at GMT 03:14:07, Tuesday, January 19, 2038, It is expected to see lots of systems around the world breaking magnificently: satellites falling out of orbit, massive power outages (like the 2003 North American blackout), hospital life support system failures, phone system interruptions, banking errors, etc. One second after this critical second, many of these systems will have wildly inaccurate date settings, producing all kinds of unpredictable consequences.
In short, many of the dire predictions for the year 2000 are much more likely to actually
occur in the year.

In the first month of the year 2038 C.E. many computers will encounter a date-related bug in their operating systems and/or in the applications they run. This can result in incorrect and wildly inaccurate dates being reported by the operating system and/or applications. The effect of this bug is hard to predict, because many applications are not prepared for the resulting “skip” in reported time anywhere from 1901 to a “broken record” repeat of the reported time at the second the bug occurs. Also, may make some small adjustment to the actual time the bug expresses itself. This bug to cause serious problems on many platforms, especially Unix and Unix-like platforms, because these systems will “run out of time”.

What causes it?

Time_t is a data type used by C and C++ prog ram s to represent dates and times internally. (Windows prog ram mers out there might also recognize it as the basis for the CTime and CTimeSpan classes in MFC.) time_t is actually just an integer, a whole number, that counts the
number of seconds since January 1, 1970 at 12:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time. A time_t value of 0 would be 12:00:00 AM (exactly midnight) 1-Jan-1970, a time_t value of 1 would be 12:00:01 AM (one second after midnight) 1-Jan-1970, etc..

some example times and their exact time_t representations:

Date & time time_t representation

1-Jan-1970, 12:00:00 AM GMT 0

1-Jan-1970, 12:01:00 AM GMT 60

1-Jan-1970, 01:00:00 AM GMT 3 600

2-Jan-1970, 12:00:00 AM GMT 86 400

1-Jan-1971, 12:00:00 AM GMT 31 536 000

1-Jan-1972, 12:00:00 AM GMT 63 072 000

1-Jan-2038, 12:00:00 AM GMT 2 145 916 800

19-Jan-2038, 03:14:07 AM GMT 2 147 483 647

By the year 2038, the time_t representation for the current time will be over 2 140 000 000. And that’s the problem. A modern 32-bit computer stores a “signed integer” data type, such as time_t, in 32 bits. The first of these bits is used for the positive/negative sign of the integer, while the remaining 31 bits are used to store the number itself.

The highest number these 31 data bits can store works out to exactly 2 147 483 647. A time_t value of this exact number, 2 147 483 647, represents January 19, 2038, at 7 seconds past 3:14 AM Greenwich Mean Time. So, at 3:14:07 AM GMT on that fateful day, every time_t used in a 32-bit C or C++ prog ram will reach its upper limit.

One second later, on 19-January-2038 at 3:14:08 AM GMT, disaster strikes. When a signed integer reaches its maximum value and then gets incremented, it wraps around to its lowest possible negative value. This means a 32-bit signed integer, such as a time_t, set to its maximum value of 2 147 483 647 and then incremented by 1, will become -2 147 483
648. Note that “-” sign at the beginning of this large number. A time_t value of -2 147 483 648 would represent December 13, 1901 at 8:45:52 PM GMT.

So, if all goes normally, 19-January-2038 will suddenly become 13-December-1901 in every time_t across the globe, and every date calculation based on this figure will go haywire. And it gets worse.

Most of the support functions that use the time_t data type cannot handle negative time_t values at all. They simply fail and return an error code.

What is the Year 2038 problem?

The Year 2000 problem is understood by most people these days because of the large amount of media attention it received.

Most programs written in the C programming language are relatively immune to the Y2K problem, but suffer instead from the Year 2038 problem. This problem arises because most C programs use a library of routines called the standard time library . This library establishes a standard 4-byte format for the storage of time values, and also provides a number of functions for converting, displaying and calculating time values.

The standard 4-byte format assumes that the beginning of time is January 1, 1970, at 12:00:00 a.m. This value is 0. Any time/date value is expressed as the number of seconds following that zero value. So the value 919642718 is 919,642,718 seconds past 12:00:00 a.m. on January 1, 1970, which is Sunday, February 21, 1999, at 16:18:38 Pacific time (U.S.). This is a convenient format because if you subtract any two values, what you get is a number of seconds that is the time difference between them. Then you can use other functions in the library to determine how many minutes/hours/days/months/years have passed between the two times.

If you have read How Bits and Bytes Work, you know that a signed 4-byte integer has a maximum value of 2,147,483,647, and this is where the Year 2038 problem comes from. The maximum value of time before it rolls over to a negative (and invalid) value is 2,147,483,647, which translates into January 19, 2038. On this date, any C programs that use the standard time library will start to have problems with date calculations.

This problem is somewhat easier to fix than the Y2K problem on mainframes, fortunately. Well-written programs can simply be recompiled with a new version of the library that uses, for example, 8-byte values for the storage format. This is possible because the library
encapsulates the whole time activity with its own time types and functions (unlike most mainframe programs, which did not standardize their date formats or calculations). So the Year 2038 problem should not be nearly as hard to fix as the Y2K problem was.

An alert reader was kind enough to point out that IBM PC hardware suffers from the Year 2116 problem. For a PC, the beginning of time starts at January 1, 1980, and increments by seconds in an unsigned 32-bit integer in a manner similar to UNIX time. By 2116, the integer overflows.

Windows NT uses a 64-bit integer to track time. However, it uses 100 nanoseconds as its increment and the beginning of time is January 1, 1601, so NT suffers from the Year 2184 problem.

On this page, Apple states that the Mac is okay out to the year 29,940!

Why teamwork is always important……

There are few jobs that don’t require us to interact with colleagues in a team. For the most part, we need to work cohesively with others at our workplaces to achieve the organisational goals.

But how many of us can really claim to be good teammates? Here are a few ways to help you become a more effective team member. Read the rest of this entry »

Decision Making : An interesting insight

A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.

The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?

Let’s take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make…………….

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Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, I thought the same way initially because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally. But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard the train’s sirens. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

“Remember that what’s right isn’t always popular… and what’s popular isn’t always right.”

Everybody makes mistakes; that’s why they put erasers on pencils.

3 stubborn PC problems you can fix

Recently I found an excellent article which discuss three very common (& stubborn) PC problems and provide easy solution to them.

These three problems are :

  1. You keep getting a ‘Your system is running low on virtual memory‘ message.
  2. Your windows slide off the desktop . . . and you can’t grab them .
  3. Your taskbar has disappeared

Learn how you can solve these three problems here :

3 stubborn PC problems you can fix

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