When do your Twitter friends sleep? If you want an answer to this question, there's When Do They Sleep. It analyses your friends' tweets to give an estimate of their sleeping habit. In my case, it has been able to be very close to my actual sleeping time. I am not sure about how accurate results it gave for others, but it's surely an amusing toy. 

A list of Bollywood celebrities on Twitter shows that many of them go to bed at around 10-11pm. And, comedian Cyrus Broacha goes to bed at 10am and gets up at 6pm!



When Do They Sleep

Dual booting Linux along with a Windows is a great way of enjoying the Linux distribution while retaining the ubiquitous, and often indispensable, Windows. But there's just one problem. Windows crash.

If the Windows operating on the dual-boot system crashes, how do you fix it without disturbing Ubuntu (or Debian or Open Suse or just any other Linux)? When the Windows is reinstalled on the system, it cuts you off from your Ubuntu. Windows makes changes to the master boot loader and disables the Grub loader that enables dual-booting option. In simpler terms, after re-installing Windows, you won't get the option of choosing which operating system to choose even though the Ubuntu is still present in the system. Reinstalling Windows on a dual-boot system just cuts off your access to Ubuntu and automatically starts Windows. How to recover Ubuntu after Windows installation?

The solution: Super Grub Disk

Super Grub Disk allows you to revert your system to earlier state with Grub loader allowing you to choose between Windows and Ubuntu, thereby restoring access to the old Ubuntu.

1. Start Windows.
2. Download Auto for Windows version of Super Grub Disk.
3. Double-click and begin the installation wizard of Super Grub Disk.


4. Now choose Auto Super Grub Disk from the "Distribution" option and click OK. (You will find a detailed instruction on this installation screen.)
5. Restart the computer after installation complete.


6. Use down arrow key to select Auto Super Grub Disk option in the boot menu and press Enter.


7. Auto Super Grub Disk will come in action. Just wait for it to finish the job.
8. If everything goes OK, you will see the Grub menu.
9. Choose your Ubuntu (Linux) distribution and hit Enter to boot it.
10. After entering Ubuntu, reboot the computer.
11. You will see the Grub menu without going to Windows directly.
12. Choose your Windows and boot it by hitting Enter
13. This will lead you to another boot menu screen with Windows and Super Grub Disk options. Choose Windows.


14. Once the Windows boots, the Super Grub Disk wizard will ask if you want to remove the application. Say yes. In some cases, you might not see the wizard but a security warning for the Super Grub Disk wizard. Make sure that you allow Super Grub Disk wizard to run. If not, you will have to deal with the extra boot menu screen with Super Grub Disk option every time you try to boot Windows. I am sure you don't want that annoyance.
15. After Super Grub Disk is uninstalled, you get your old dual-boot system back.

Super Grub Disk Wiki

It's a war between two Goliaths of the world, Google and China. In response to attacks on Google servers in China and government censorship there, the Web giant has shut its China website on 22 March. All users to Google.cn are now being redirected to Google's Hong Kong website.

Google's official blog said:

We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered—combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger—had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.

Google says it's aware that the Chinese government could at any time block access to its services. It has been caution enough to say that none of its China employees were responsible for the decision.

Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them.

Google has created a website where people can get the status of Google's services in China. So if you want to know if Google search is available in China today or a few days later, check the Web page that Google says will be updated daily. According to the latest information, its search, images, ads, news and Gmail services are currently accessible to Chinese users.

Keeping your data safe is important. More so if you have kept it on a USB drive. That's why  had written a post about how to use TrueCrypt to keep our data safe from pesky friends and evil data thieves.

Today, I recieved an email requesting review of a free USB encryption utility tool for Windows, Rohos Mini Drive. If my computer can read my emails, it knew it will have to face another brutality of installing and running an application for a few minutes and then endure the pain of uninstallation.

After downloading the 2.2MB application, I clicked on the exe file. It started the installation of the programon my computer. Rohos Mini Drive is supposed to be useful for use even on computers where one doesn't have the administrator rights. So it wasn't quite expected of it. The application should have ideally been an executable one that starts working on the fly, without the need for any installation.

Rohos Mini Drive started the process once the application was activated. It gave me a screen that allowed me to choose between creating an encrypted USB drive or changing the password of any USB drive already encrypted with the help of the application. Of course, I choose to set up a new encryption on my USB drive.



The next screen appeared like a puzzle to me. The screen had two Change buttons, one for changing the USB drive, which will come handy if more than one USB key is attached to the computer, and the other for partition image file. The screen said the application will create a 500MB partition for me. But I wanted a larger portion of my drive to be encrypted. How do I change? It was possible to set up the size and other properties of the encrypted partition by clicking on the "Change" buttons, the first for choosing the USB drive where an encrypted partition is to be created, the other for changing the size and other properties of the partition.



Once set, it will connect the encrypted drive to your computer. The encrypted partition on the USB drive can now be accessed like any normal drive.



How does one access the drive on some other PC? When you connect a USB key with an Rohos encrypted partition, you will find a shortcut link for Rohos Mini Drive in the USB key. Clicking it will present an screen requesting your password for the encrypted partition, after which your encrypted partition will be connected to the computer.

Rohos Mini drive, which allows encrypted partitions of only up to 2GB, is not recommended if you can use TrueCrypt., which is a more advanced, open source encryption tool. So why use Rohos Mini Drive? Because you can't use TrueCrypt on computers where you don't have administrator rights. Rohos Mini Drive is a free alternative if you want to use your encrypted USB on computers in libraries, cyber cafes, computer labs, etc.

Beware: When I tried to eject my pen drive after having ejected the Rohos drive by right-clicking on the Rohos icon in the icon tray, I faced an error message after which my computer restarted. I don't know if it was due to any error in the application or was it due to some snag in my operating system.