Buying a new windows laptop? Then this is worth a reading.

If you are going to buy a new windows laptop, then you might be interested in reading this.

In this post I will just touch the normal and common problems we face with windows laptops and the remedies I followed.

Here we go.

A. Once your laptop’s initial config is done(setting up the users for the first time use), DO NOT connect to internet or DO NOT install any software.

B. Restart your lappy, and set the BIOS admin password(May be you will have to press DEL button while your lappy boots). This will be helpful for protection from H/W tampering and misuse.

C. Always try to use the Genuine Windows. And keep it regularly updated.

D. Try to insure your laptop. Security from theft.

E. Some of the games are still supporting Windows XP. So you might wanna download this in case you are gaming fan.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

F. Partitioning the drives. ***This is the most common issue***
All windows lappys mostly come with a single MAJOR partition which will be used for both Windows and personal usage.

But its always recommended to have a separate partition for your personal stuff. Which will give you the freedom of completely formatting the windows partition if required.

So here is what we can do to create a new partition for our personal usage keeping the windows intact.

Right Click on My Computer > Properties > System Protection > Protection Settings (Click on Windows partition and click configure button)

Then take below two steps
1. Turn off system protection
2. Disk space usage > Max usage > Keep it around 80GB
3. Apply – OK

4. Run > diskmgmt.msc
5. Right click on windows partition > Shrink volume
6. Enter the new partition size you want to create in the amount of space to shrink. (Remaining space will be kept for windows partition, so be careful while choosing this value. I always recommend to have around 100+GB for Windows 7. So you might need to keep the “Total size after shrink” to equal or 112640MB ~110GB)
7. Shrink.
8. Now check your disk partition table. It should be having the freespace you want.
9. You can play around with that like what ever way you like.

10. LAST but important*********
Revert the first 3 steps we did to original. Keep the max disk space usage to 80GB. That should be fine.

Here is my new partition table layout.

Here we end with having our partition table and genuine windows as well as Linux.

Good luck.
See you again.

Thanks for your time. Comments are welcome.

Sandy-kun

Saga of my Master’s trial

Its been my dream from a long time, perhaps right from the college days. But never thought that I would be writing a post on my blog like this.

It all started when my favorite professor said that his son studied in Harvard University. I wanted to study in IITs, but later realized that it a little high target for me. At least I thought of giving a try for this as every crackfot will be going for master’s and why cant I. And the idea got planted. Getting selected in campus placements in the college has created a boundary of responsibilities and pushed me to go with job. And I did. After two years, with the help of my best friend I dug the masters idea again from its cemetery and started to bring it back to life. Started to plan for that in parallel to my job in reputed IT MNC.

April 2009: GRE Practice. Toefl practice. Required a computer and I bought one and soon lost it with in one month.
September 2009: GRE needs at least 1100 and Toefl needs at least 93 to call them as good scores. I screwed them both (1030,91).
December 2009: Applied for two universities and one said nothing (not even a rejection) and the other said they dint even get my application (what a turn). I sent the application once again that dragged for six months and I got no update from them.
April 2010: Reached some XYZ people for get the update on my application and deferred my admission to next semester to due delay in admit.
August 2010: Somehow got admit for that university and took around one and half a month to get the I20.
October, 2010: US Consulate, Chennai. Visa rejected under 214-B, due to my tensed face and dumb answers for a simple question like “Why MS?”
October, 2010 : US Consulate, Hyderabad
Felt much confident and attended the interview with the same confidence. But again screwed up at some question on finances, and it resulted into one more 214-B.
November 2011: Thoughts of MS were almost moved into trash.
But thought to recollect after talking to my best buddy.

Still I let my H1B to go further which is being sponsored by my company.

December, 2011: My H1B petition was filed at USCIS
February, 2011: My H1B was approved by USCIS
March, 2011: H1B documents were received.
April, 2011: US Consulate, Chennai. Barely 2 questions, and visa was stamped.
May, 2011: Tickets booked for travel on May 13th.

Now tell me do you believe in fate.
Till now I wasn’t, but now I don’t have another choice.
I was more destined for a job than to study, may be.
—
Sandy-kun