Majority of the population is blessed to have leaves. Students know it as vacations (summer vacations, winter vacations, etc) while the working generation avail earned leaves (popularly termed as paid leaves) which comes with many ifs and buts. Earned leaves come in a virtual basket. People are aware about the amount of leaves they are entitled to and can take them at will (though at times there are ifs and buts here as well).

Now, if leaves came in some physical bags and people are given their leaves in bags, can you think about the chaos it can create. Imagine an organisation A gave its employees their share of leaves and while they are happily calculating on how they can spend it, a mob comes and robs them off. News channel would start flashing "Breaking News - Employees of Organisation A robbed, no leaves this year".

Now, imagine a newly married couple have left for their honeymoon. A wicked person comes in and robs leaves from either of them. This causes the couple to split, one is at honeymoon and the other back at work. And if both of them are robbed, both are back to work. Now someone asks them "Hey, how was your honeymoon?" and the reply is "Sad. We were looted."

Now, students enjoy some massive holidays (somewhere around 3 months). Now lets imagine students from a college A loot holidays from student's of college B, C and D. College A will remain close through out the year while students from colleges B, C and D will starve for leaves.

It can be fun, just imagine some scenario's and do comment in here.

Saturday evening, I visited one of my friend's cyber cafe. I showed off my new Nokia N78. He added that he has pampered himself with Nokia E62. Started boasting about the features and added the best thing is that it doesn't have a camera hence he can take it to office. Due to security concerns, some organisations do not allow handsets with camera.

Some people have misused technology to leak confidential information. What would be the percentage of such people - less than a percent. But the discomfort has to be bourne by all.

But the question that arises here is who was wrong - the camera enabled handset or that person's intentions. Technology can never be wrong as it is a boon to ease our life. The inventor/innovator had created the device for good use but some people misuse it and the majority gets deprived of the vast number of benefits that can be reaped from technology.

For some time, let us imagine that camera enabled handsets do not exist. If someone wanted to do data-theft, could have easily used some other means; example - the most commonly practiced malpractices during exams.

This does show that technology was not guilty but merely a scapegoat. The other thing that comes into light is that human mind keeps on finding ways. "Necessity is the mother of all inventions/innovations."

Since some time my friend was complaining that his keyboard was not working. He was lucky enough that he had not set a login password. He was passing his time playing Rise of Nations - Thrones and Patriots. A few days later he purchased a PS2 to USB connector and was able to use his keyboard. But sadly, the USB devices enabled at boot-up setting was set to false and hence he could not enter his BIOS as his keyboard was recognised only after the OS booted up.

To make things more annoying, his Windows XP installation had gone crazy. The sound was cracking hence no music.

I came in to his rescue. I downloaded the latest BIOS for his motherboard (ASUS A8N-VM). I tried installing the Asus update utility but it threw an error "No Asus Motherboard found".

I created a bootable CD with AFU2DOS and added the updated BIOS in it as well. The first boot device was hard disk drive followed by CD/DVD ROM. I could not boot from the CD unless the hard disk drive was unplugged. I asked my friend to unplug his Hard Disk Drive. I started his computer and inserted the bootable CD. The computer booted from the CD, but his keyboard was not working in DOS mode and hence I could not update his BIOS.

My friend wanted to use Windows Vista so I planned to install Windows Vista and then upgrade the BIOS. I restarted Windows XP and started the Windows Vista installation from there. The installation had almost completed. It was asking for user name and password. I entered the Username, kept the password blank and was selecting a wallpaper when the screen went blank. After around ten seconds, the login screen was displayed with the name "Other User". I clicked on "Other User". It then asked for the username and password. I provided it with the username and kept the password field empty but I was not able to login.

I restarted his computer. The dual boot options were displayed but I could not navigate through it as the keyboard was not detected. Vista booted up but I was not able to login. I was not able to start a fresh installation as the first boot device was his Hard Disk Drive and then the CD/DVD-ROM.

I started laughing at my friend. He was helpless. I said this is what happens when you don't listen to the Nova. Tech loves Nova and it will fight for me. Flashback: Last weekend, when I had visited him, he was busy playing Prince of Persia. I wanted to go out and do some stress-busting but this friend of mine was not ready to budge. He made me wait for roughly 45 minutes as he was not getting the in-game save point. Back to present.

After some mockery, I planned to reset his motherboard settings. I was aware about the consequences but that was the only option visible to me at that time. I cleared the settings and started his computer once again. POST (Power On Self Test) was successful followed by an error message "System Halted! System Intruded!. Press F1 to use the default settings and DEL to enter BIOS". I did think that after resetting his motherboard settings, his USB keyboard should have been detected at start-up but it didn't happen. Serious trouble. I knew what had to be done next but was not able to do it. Completely helpless.

After fiddling with the motherboard manual and the motherboard for some ten minutes. I didn't do anything new other than resetting the settings once more. I thought about giving some additional power to the keyboard and connect it to the PS/2 port. But then decided on something else. My friend thought about connecting the keyboard back to the PS/2 port and he did that.

I started his computer once again. WOOT! The keyboard was working. I quickly entered the BIOS and changed some settings viz; Enabled USB devices at boot-up and set the first boot device to CD/DVD ROM followed by Hard Disk. I saved the settings and booted from CD. The DOS prompt was waiting for my command. I typed "afu2dos /iAsus.rom" and hit enter. The old BIOS was cleared and the updated BIOS was flashed. Restarted the computer and changed the settings as it was done previously.

In the Dual-boot option, I selected Windows XP. All the drivers were reinstalled automatically. The sound had stopped cracking and everything now seems to be OK. I wanted to go out and we left for some stress busting.

Vanilla - The first thing one can remember is an ice-cream which is as white as snow. One can consider it to be an ice-cream in its purest form. A new scoop is created on adding essence. But the vanilla is lost.

In 1337 terms, a fresh installation is called as a vanilla install. No mods and no tweaks but just the Out Of Box Experience. You install some other software or mods and the installation is diluted.

Time is a finite entity which once passes cannot be fetched back. People quite often say that "Time is the best thing one can offer as it cannot be returned back."

But this ain't that simple. What's the use of time spent with someone if it is not a vanilla. It would be a vanilla if and only if one gives complete attention for the entire time spent with that someone.


The reason why I am considering the combination of Time and Attention as a vanilla because this combination is the purest as there isn't any dilution. If there is some dilution, either of time or attention is missing.

So, its time to redefine the often said quote to "Time and attention is the best on offer because this vanilla can never be recovered."