For Nisha

My one faithful reader, Nisha is the one I dedicate this post to. She has kept my hopes of a multi-million dollar publishing deal alive when similar delusions on my part have long since vanished. I dedicate her this post for her unstinting and unflinching propensity to comment on my posts, no matter how innocuous, inane or even down right stupid they may be. Nisha is the reason I still write as often as I do, and I hope she gets all that she wants pretty soon.
I have been posted to the ward, so I am not getting enough time to blog as before, and well my Flickr page too takes up the little time that i have online. But this ward posting has been interesting on many aspects, firstly my enforced education on the various aspects of the Nhatquanglan virus, secondly the whole idea of finally getting some authority no matter how facile and thirdly the opportunity to make a difference in the life of lots of patients and a few residents as well.
If asked to decide what I find most satisfying, I would unhesitatingly root for the opportunity to run a ward with a certain vision quite my own, and teach junior residents with a view quite my own. For the first time in career I have started to realize the power that influence has. And I often am reminded of how my practice and my view on psychiatry was shaped by my senior resident and now I find myself trying to teach them much in the same way. Scientific temper, objectivity, compassion and common sense being the pillars on which such practices rest.
Thanks Nisha, i will get back to you soon. And I hope your eyes get better soon.

Nhatquanghlan Update

I recently noticed a spurt in the traffic to my blog which is apparently caused by people looking for answers to the Nhatquanghlan worm. Well, over here in Chandigarh, it seems that this virus is just about in all computers and is being spread by the ubiquitous pen/usb/zip/thumb drive. From my ruminations on the net and frequent tinkering around the ward computer that gets reinfected almost every day, I have made certain observations that seem to make some conclusions about this worm.
1. This worm spreads by USB drives though it is possible that other portable media may be involved too.
2. It causes the task manager, the folder options, registry files to be altered.
3. It can be diagnosed by the above symptoms.
4. There is a crappy looking folder icon that is seen (with same name as the original folder), the file size of which is 282 kb.
5. It makes the computer slow down, and no anti-virus as of now seems to catch hold of it.
6. Inability to stop the USB drive from remove hardware safely option.
7. Inability to format the USB drive.
8. The worm is an autorun .exe file and executes and infects every time a USB drive is plugged in.
Cure:
1. Download Hijack this(free), and the task manager fix of the interra group (also free), and a program called spybot killer.
2. Run the hijack this (rename it first or it wont start), and fix all files with scvhost.exe (not svchost.exe), run spybot, and then task manager fix. This should cure it. As u learn more about viruses, hijack this is probably the most useful program to have.
3. Reboot, and should run ok.
Prevention:
1. USB hygiene is paramount. Disable autorun (wont happen unless infection is cleared first) using administrative tools.
2. Do not run any program from the USB drive, copy paste on to computer first.
3. Scan USB drive all the times.
4. Format USB drive often.
5. Read about hakaglan on the web.

All the best.

Time Out in the Traffic Lights!!!

Talk about being penny wise and pound foolish!!! Suddenly there seems to be pound wise and penny wise phenomenon as well. I am talking about the suddenly and thankfully non-functioning traffic lights at the airport chowk while entering Chandigarh from Ambala. After going through hell with all that debris and chaos at the Zirakpur crossing, another traffic light that further concentrates the light and heavy traffic together is the last thing that a harassed driver like me needs every single god damn morning of the week, month or year. As a result the traffic is now a lot smoother, there is some space to maneuver instead of the constant apprehension and anxiety of a bus, truck, scooter, horse cart or whatever breathing down your neck all the time. Suddenly the first few kilometers into Chandigarh are thankfully more relaxed than before. I hope they have a similar idea with the seemingly mindless and idiotic decision to install traffic lights at the tribune chowk.
I have often thought that we are prone to mindless knee jerk reactions. Traffic lights for instance should be put up where they facilitate the smooth movement of traffic rather than actually creating stupid conditions where traffic jams are created. So thats a good thing that happened.