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Friday, May 8, 2009

A Windows trick

A little .bat file trick

I had been learning how to put custom made batch files (they are the ones with .bat extension) into good use. With a little bit of effort I came up with this batch file. As of now it's a collection of about three files, which causes your system to shutdown. Yes, shutdown.


Now you might be wondering what use can such a file have apart from playing pranks on friends. Maybe not many, but it sure does have one. Say you dont want your friends using your computer withot your permission, but dont want them think you are selfish (which is what happens if you set a password to lock them out of your account). In such a scenario you can use a batch file to cause your system to shutdown as soon as someone logs into it. And when they enquire lust tell them that it's some stupid virus which your antivirus can't get rid of. Trust me, they'll believe you.

Now you might ask, wont the system shutdown when I start using it?. Yes it will. But if you know a particular command you can prevent the system from shutting down (Just type "shutdown -a" without the quotes in the command prompt).And thats the beauty of it all. You can use your computer, while anyone else trying to do so without your permission can't. And I have set a delay of 59 seconds so that you may use the shutdown -a command in the command prompt to prevent the shutdown.

But there is a loophole. The whole process will start only if the batch file is executed at every login. Therefore I went ahead and added a registry entry which does exactly that.

I know only the basics of using .bat files and am trying to improve my bat file. I am particularly interested in reducing the number of files.I have not uploaded the file since it is still under testing. I'll surely upload it once I have finalised the file.

Afterthought:
The batch file is pretty basic and wont prevent advanced users from using your system.

Acknowledgements:
I am deeply in debt of my friend Dhandeep to whom I owe a lot of my batch file programming skills.

So long everyone [Right now, I think I'm the only one visiting this page. ;-) ]

Thursday, May 7, 2009

My first post

And finally, I too have a blog.


I had always wanted to have a blog but was too lazy to set one up. And then there was the problem of updating it. Not having a computer meant that I would have to go to the nearest internet cafe to access the web, which ain't exactly cheap. All these reasons conspired to keep me from having my blog.

All that changed when I got admission to a college. The college was quite a long way away from my home and hence I had to stay in a hostel. The college computer centre [CC] was just about a hundred yards away from my hostel and best of all internet was free 24X7, 365 days a year [well, not exactly]. So now I had no reason not to have a blog, except my laziness of course. ;)
And now I have one.



About me.
I'm no elite hacker, nor am I an avid programmer. Why, for that matter I don't even own a computer. And when it comes to my programming skills, less said the better. But I dare say I'm interested about computers and have acquired enough knowledge over the years to qualify me to be a geek. And I'll be posting on it.

Now on to my hobbies and interests. I am ardent fan of F1 and absolutely adore Michael Schumacher. I like football, basketball,cricket, tennis, golf etc.[No. I'm not lying about golf]. Basically, I like any game that I can understand. I'm no bookworm, far from that, but I do like reading short stories and detective stories and I particularly like Sherlock Holmes. And when it comes to music i like almost every type of music - from rap to rock. But Linkin Park is by far my favourite band. I just love their songs - not just the music but also the lyrics.

I think that's a bit too long for a maiden post, well atleast by my standards, for I know no touch typing. I should end this post here or I would be too late for the evening tea [as I said earlier I live in a hostel].

Until then,
+91_