Visual Studio 2008 Cache issue

I had to test something with Online Topic Language set to Portuguese. This can be set under Tools>Options>Environment>Help>Online Topic Language dropdown.

But when i tried it in my machine, i couldnt find portuguese. I dont know why! i was able to see portuguese listed in other boxes but not my test box! sucker - i had to spend 5 hours debugging this. I tried all - restart the environment, restart the machine (you never know what all wonder restarting the machine would do, but apparantly it didnt help in this case). I even tried to reset the user settings using devenv.exe /ResetSettings - nope none worked.

Finally i figured out that under C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\VS Help Data the XML file is cached with the language list. Once i deleted these files, the problem is resolved.

I wonder why devenv.exe /ResetSettings didnt do it!

VS without Portuguese:



VS with Portuguese:

Online Tamil radio

occasionally i have this craving to interest to listen tamil radio - triggers the good old college days - radio + tea + vadai in a tea kadai - what a combo that was!

anyway, i found some interesting urls/sites for the online radio

Shyam radio - decent radio; 8/10 songs are good songs, plays in winamp. stupid site though, i couldnt find the url to play the radio from their site, just the ad! anyway, this is the url - mms://st.malargal.com/shyamradio

Next - Ahaa radio toolbar - cool toolbar for firefox, have a big list of radio. Just installed, havent tried it, but looks promising - url: http://www.ahaa.co.in/download.htm

have fun

Director Perarusu for Hollywood!

Call me crazy but i bet if you watch Palani movie, this is exactly how you will feel. Director made his intentions very clear even before the film started when he called Bharath as "chinna thalapathi" or something in those lines. The word thalapathi is good enough for me to relaise its going to be another crap movie that perarusu directs for the so called thalapathis. well, i wasnt disapointed. Anyway, i was prepared for the worst and thats what i got. My heard goes out to the noble souls who didnt see it coming... pity pity...

anyway, if you still want to watch the movie, dont miss the first 5 mins of the movie.. too many informations and too many important characters (who play big roles - pun intended) in the end. you dont want to miss it. particularly bharath's introduction. sorry, i cant tell it, you got to watch it to enjoy it.

well, its a prety normal story - brother comes out of jail, helps his sister to get her life back on track and makes his brother in law from a bad guy to a good guy. thats prety much it. however i should say I admire the characterisation of Kushbu, who plays bharath's sister. One can only hope to get such innocent characters as wife! such a dumb head... perarusu, you rock.

next the heroin character Kaajal. well, let me be honest here. Only reason i decided to watch this movie, even after knowing its a perarusu's movie, is Kajal. Well, i am quite disapointed with the way she has been used. Perarusu is a magician in one way, kajal comes out of no where in a comedy scene and she goes away in thin air. no clue what happend to her.

post interval, perarusu himself makes a grand entry as a cop - man what a scene. comes only next to rajini's alex pandian scene. DO NOT MISS IT! Warning - dont watch this scene after eating full, you might vomit.

Music - Srikanth deva is trying really hard to emulate his dad. In this movie, right from back ground music to the songs, he has copied everything. Do not miss the back ground music - another major comedy!

photography - amazing... the frame changes from green to black to normal just like anything. I think they have used some 1980 technology! most of the time you will have to search the characters in dark

last but not least - dialougs - can make TR proud! no kidding.

at this rate, only way we can get to Hollywood standards is to make Perarusu direct hollywood movies! again, there should be a balancing act and change this periodically so that there isnt much gap!

do watch the movie. its FUN.

"n"th attempt where n tends to infinity!!!

Monday i have started my "n"th attempt towards weight loss. i am really hoping i can nail it this time... i am starting on my diet tomorrow and on paper it doesnt look like a diet with all my fav food - chicken and fish!

i was really lucky though that i am starting my diet after my birthday (yes, my birthday was on feb 19th) which allowed me to have a good cake and beer! i wonder when i can have them again - not atleast for another 6 months

but i am not going to let these come in my goal. i have faced enough challenges in my life and i am more mature now so i am not going to fail now, not this time...

TFS explorer stopped working

Suddenly for some wierd reason my TFS stopped responding. I didnt realise it till when mstest.exe threw a File not found error. it was totally a redundent error because all the path i provided were validated. i had no clue what path it was refering to. After spending some good 30 mins with no luck, i clicked the team explorer shortcut and got a wierd message box which read

---------------------------Microsoft Visual Studio---------------------------Package Load Failure
Package 'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.ServicesHostPackage, Microsoft.VisualStudio.TeamFoundation.TeamExplorer, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' has failed to load properly ( GUID = {8E01EC3E-2928-4AA5-B720-E28C163818E6} ). Please contact package vendor for assistance. Application restart is recommended, due to possible environment corruption. Would you like to disable loading this package in the future? You may use 'devenv /resetskippkgs' to re-enable package loading.---------------------------Yes No ---------------------------

Unfortunately i hit no without reading this. So it disabled the package totally! i wasnt able to load it again.

Happend to read this blog about resetting the user data

http://www.sysknowlogy.com/2007/06/25/Item+Templates+And+Project+Templates+Not+Showing+In+Visual+Studio.aspx

I was able to reset the TFS environment and able to repro the issue. Now am waiting for technical assistance to resolve the issue!

what a way to start the day...

Carrot Halwa for bachelors

Today i tried to do carrot halwa. this is the recipe i followed:

1. Take some carrot, skin the outer layer and grate it finely.
2. Heat the thawa, add some oil/ghee and kindof fry the carrot so that the carrot doesnt smell the way it used to. My mom used to call it as "Pacchai" smell but god knows what that is!
3. Once that so called smell is gone, add sufficient milk and sugar and let the carrot boil in milk. add some resins as well. Keep the heat in medium so that the milk doesnt get burnt.
4. This is not a complex process - dont worry about the milk quantity or sugar quantity. just keep tasting it during the process and add as needed. Note: Do not add too much in the begining and end up taking the milk away later! better add in small quantities - show it you are the boss.
5. Keep heating it for a while till the carrot is boiled and the milk is dried. Adding some ghee during this process will help the milk to thicken quickly.
6. Take some bhadam and cashew, cut them into small pieces and add it along with some cardamom powder


you have yourself a good carrot halwa.

PS: if it doenst come good, dont worry too much. give it to your friends and get yourself a good halwa in shop :)

12 angry men... Life Is In Their Hands -- Death Is On Their Minds

I happend to see this movie last week... a very good movie.

The movie opens in a court room after the prosecution and defence has summarised their arguments. Its a murder case, a 16 year old slum boy murdering his drunken and abusive dad. Judge asks the 12 jury members to come to an unanimous decision. The case looks very week on the defense side and if all the jury members are convinced, the boy will be sent to chair.

The entire movie, an hour and half long, happens in a single room where the 12 members debate about the case. 11 would vote guilty in the very first voting while Henry Fonda alone would say otherwise. Now as a unanimous decision is needed, the 11 jury members will try to convince him. What makes the movie very interesting is the characterisation. Each character is unique, old man, agressive man, adament man, educated man, over confident, talkative, selfish, submisive, passive, stupid... you name it, one of the character will suit the bill...

Eventually Henry Fonda will endup convincing the remaining 11 members that the boy is not guilty but how he does that is quite marvelous. In modern day cinema, with all the technology and all the glamour factors, directors find it difficult to make a movie which is watchable for an hour.

With no modern technology (its a 1957 movie) and no women character atall, its quite an impressive screenplay that will make you sit till the very end...

also the way the Hero tackles each character is just awesome. You can learn lot on how to win an argument :)