Stop freezes gutsy linux

Since i updated to gutsy i was experiencing freezes whenever the power status changed, for example when i switched from AC power to battery and vise versa.
I was not even able to login after installing gutsy and it would freeze at GDM level, i remember i had to prevent powernowd from loading at boot. This made me possible to login.
I would also get freezes whenever there was intense CPU use for a period of say 10 secs or more. This would happen for example when a web page in being loaded which has got some Java applications.
I was fiddling a bit with the system last week, i wondered any one of the updates since gutsy release has managed to resolve this issue. So i opened system->Administration->services, enabled powernowd. That was it, system had an instant freeze and i had to do cold reboot.

But now i started facing the same old problem of reaching till GDM and the system freezes.
I tried to boot into recovery mode and did
/etc/init.d/powernowd stop
that would allow me to select GDM and login normally. But once i did reboot i would experience the same freeze at Gdm, which is understandable since stoping powernowd worked only for that session.
so i was left with the only option of getting rid of powernowd.
I was back in recovery mode and did a
apt-get remove powernowd
That did the trick, i can login without any problem and to my surprise i am no longer experiencing the freezes i use to get with power status change and with intense CPU use.
In effect, i lost CPU frequency scaling and gained in the sense that it stopped the freezes on the laptop.
I am not sure of the implications of running the CPU at full scale all the time but i am more than happy of not seeing any more freezes and having to do a hard reboot.

Installing Windows Live

I had to resort to a clean install of windows on my laptop recently, wiping the C drive, because it started acting funny. I brought my laptop almost 4 years back and it had windows XP, only with SP1. So now my job was to install SP2 and to do all the available updates. Everything went well without a major problem.

Now i wanted windows Live to be installed. I downloaded the live installer from get.live.com. It was set up and gave me an option to select the applications i want to install. I selected for windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photogallery and Windows Live Writer. It said it is checking for installed windows Live apps and started the download. Within a minute it reached 99% and just got stuck over there for ever. I tried two more times with the same results.

So i had to Google a lot to find a solution and finally succeeded in installing windows Live. So what did i do.

REMEMBER THIS IS ON XP ONLY NOT VISTA

1. If you have previously tried to install Windows Live without Success, Do this first

- Go to C:\Program Files\Windows Live. Delete the installer folder.

- Go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\. Delete WLInstaller Folder. Do remember to select, Show hidden Folders option in folder options to be able to see the Application Data Folder.

- Do be doubly sure go to add and remove applications under control panel and if you find a entry for Windows Live Installer, Remove or delete it.

-Reboot...

Look Here.

2. Now you need to make sure you have all the dependencies met before you try to reinstall Windows Live

Look here

- Install Microsoft .NET 2.0 from here

- Install windows imaging component from here

- Install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact edition from here

all from the Microsoft website.

3. Go to get.live .com and select the components you want to install and click on install button. Windows Live Installer will be downloaded. Install this and it will check your system and the download should start with individual applications one at a time.

Be warned that if you have a slow internet connection the download seems to reach to 99% very fast and sits there far a while till download is complete and then will install fine.

So login assistant and writer will be installed without much delay but mail and photogallery seem to take long. So be patient, you may have to wait almost 30 mins at 99% download before the download is complete and it installs fine.

Do not ask me why it happens, i am no expert.

This is what worked for me and i can give no guarantee that it would work fine for you. Try at your own risk.

Dawn to Dusk

Last weekend, i wanted to visit nearby places of tourist interest. I live in Bangalore, India. I and a friend of mine decided that we will be visiting Bluff, officially known as shivanasamudra. It is around 120 Kms from Bangalore, 40kms off Mysore highway.
I do amateur photography and i am seriously in to it since the last 4 years. I wanted to be in Bluff for the sunrise. So we left Bangalore at around 5 in the morning. I have a canon 300D with me plus a moderate collection of accessories. We drove along Mysore Highway till Maddur and took a diversion from there towards Malavalli. The journey was excellent till Maddur as it is a highway and the road was relatively empty. But from then onwards the road is very bad, sometimes only a katcha road full of pot holes. So, we got delayed and the sun wouldn't want to wait till we are in Bluff. I had to stop and remove all the photography gear and shoot the sunrise on the way, 10 kms short of Bluff.