Why Akbar was Great?

I have fanatical interest to be acquainted with what made Indian emperors take influential decisions during their reign. Few great kings’ valuable decisions created a remarkable history.

When Akbar accepts the marriage proposal of Hindu King (Bharmal of Amer), he wishes to make an attempt to set an example for two culture and religions and convey the message of peace. Later, destiny takes him to the critical path of life having most depraved political and family oriented problems. Being a true great emperor, Akbar learns and conclude challenges by demonstrating his exceptional leadership qualities. With his verdicts, Akbar stands as an incomparable king of all time. “Jodha Akbar” – brings 16th-century incidents to life and shows beginning part of Akbar’s married life which was, in fact, a deal for political gain. This decision slowly unleashes Akbar’s loving life, internal dreadful politics, painfully desirous people around him and betraying family members.

Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar is one of such great kings of Hindustan (now India). Long back I read about him in few magazines and those words were blurred in my mind until I watch Ashutosh Gowarikar’s movie “Jodha Akbar”. The movie reveals Akbar’s initial days of married life. The movie made me start thinking and liking more about this great mogul emperor. Akbar’s religious innovations and policies towards the practice of unifying Hindu-Muslim were one of the greatest attempts in history.

Akbar’s life story always motivates to have new enthusiasm, encourage to do something special and evoke to become strong, stable and calm. His life is evident for confronting challenges by not only resolving them also striving to reach new heights.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 and A Thought

After 2 years, Microsoft's great effort of making Internext Explorer better than ever is resulted in second installment of IE8.0 Beta relese. Beta 2 IE8 looks promising with speed, security and usability. You can check IE8 top features here.

After instaling IE8 on my laptop, very soon I noticed it breaking on Microsoft web sites!

Windows Update

Hotmail Linked Accounts drop down on mouse hover
Let me stop hoping on other sites like blogger.com posts editor.All these may be absolutely okay because IE8 is in 'Beta', what's wondering me was these can be very easily caught during unit testing.

In general, what I do not like about browsers (IE, FF, Opera, Safari....etc) is all are having differently acting HTML render engine.

I certainly do not enjoy writing code to check the browser type and take relevant actions. I sometimes expect browser makers to give a thought on streamlining these differences and reduce web developer's pain. New version of their browser should be a boon instead breaking current code.

Quick Quest is Released

After many months of development work, Quick Quest is available for download. Quick Quest Limited Edition –is a free version for personal use. Soon I will start working on “Professional” and “University” Editions.

Quick Quest home page is revamped.
SrushtiSoft blog is now having new look.

In This World - 12

One of the biggest disappointments in life is, when you were/are treated as 'an optional person' by the person whom you trust a lot.

10 Ways to Fine Tune Windows XP

Now a day, if your installed programs are running slower, if your Windows XP taking more time to boot, if your windows explorer is making you to wait longer before it shows up, then its time for you to wear a spy hat and do some serious investigation to catch out why Windows is shambling.

1. Check in memory processes.

Hold CTRL+SHIFT and press ESC key, The Windows Task Manager will appear. Click on “Processes” tab. Sort entries on “Mem Usage” by pressing it. Find out which one is taking more memory. Usually ignore all ‘svchost.exe’ process because they are good candidates working solely for windows. Other process names should give clear hint about the application they belong to. Sometimes when you don’t get a clue, open Windows File or Folder Search, enter the same process name and find out its location. The folder structure will certainly help you know about its parent application. Depending on the importance of the application you can take appropriate action. You can turn off process from parent application preferences or uninstall it.

2. Missing Drivers

Improper version of hardware drivers installed for the devices could slow down windows activity. Upgrade driver to newer version.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310126

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/devicemgr.mspx

Usually windows installs default driver if it does not find the right one. The default driver may not utilize extra or complete features of hardware device which could result in good performance. It is recommended to install windows signed drivers received from hardware vendors.

3. Start up processes

Check start up processes registered in Windows Startup items list. Press WINDOWS+R and type “msconfig” in Run command, hit enter or OK button. Go to “Startup” tab to see all startup items listed. You can uncheck those you feel are unimportant. Also make sure you have less icons sitting in System Tray. If they are more, take a little time to think which are important to have and remove the rest.

4. Remove XP skin

Many people like Windows XP Theme and apply it as their default scheme. If you are one of them and also expecting faster response, time for you to compromise with visually pleasing part of Windows XP. Disable Windows Theme service. Press WINDOWS+R and type “services.msc” and set “Themes” service startup type to manual, click stop, wait till the service stops and press OK.

5. System Restore

To recover system from unstable state, Windows XP provides System Restore utility. This utility runs in background and creates multiple restore points whenever new software is installed. After few months, the utility end up creating many restore-points and make Windows perform slower. Turn off system restore option if you are not depending on this feature greatly.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/mcgill1.mspx

6. Windows Indexing Service

How many times you use Windows Files and folders search utility in a week? If your usage is very minimal then you could safely turn off Indexing Service running in background as service. Go to services (WINDOWS+R and Type “Services.msc”) and set this service startup type to manual.

7. Page File

This tune up is useful for those who are having more than one Hard Disk Drive (HDD) in their machine. You can move Windows page file to another hard drive. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307886
The new Hard Drive Controllers (HDC) are capable of doing read/write on multiple hard disks at a time. You will find windows being swift when you set page file to different drive.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482

8. Clean ‘Your Temp Folder’ and Defrag C: Drive

Clean up “temp” folder created for your account by Windows. Browse here to reach your private “temp” folder. C:\Documents and Settings\[your login name]\Local Settings\Temp and Delete all files.
Running disk defragmenter once in a month will sure help Windows to organize files and read/write them faster.

9. Install any new software with minimal required options selected

Careful when you are installing any new software. Don't be lazy to opt for advanced setup option when installation process offer it. Go for advanced setup option and select only the required components and unselect additional promotions. For example, if you are installing Nero 7 Deluxe software, it offers bunch of other good utilities like Audio Editor, Movie Editor, Indexing service and many more. If your intention is to get only the CD Burning feature, select only that and uncheck the rest. This will not only save space on your hard drive also contributes to windows run smoother.

10. Service Pack and driver updates

This is most important. Windows SP3 is the latest service pack available for Windows XP till date. Download and Install it if you have not done it yet. Also visit all your hardware vendor web site and look for latest driver downloads for your hardware devices and upgrade your existing drivers. The new driver updates may have performance tune up or bug fixes which will help windows set right and keep healthy.