Messaging Application Programming Interface(MAPI)

Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is a messaging architecture and a Component Object Model based API for Microsoft Windows. MAPI allows client programs to become (e-mail) messaging-enabled, -aware, or -based by calling MAPI subsystem routines that interface with certain messaging servers. MAPI is closely related to MAPI/RPC, the proprietary protocol that Microsoft Outlook uses to communicate with Microsoft Exchange.
Simple MAPI is a subset of 12 functions which enable developers to add basic messaging functionality. Extended MAPI allows complete control over the messaging system on the client computer, creation and management of messages, management of the client mailbox, service providers, and so forth. Simple MAPI ships with Microsoft Windows as part of Outlook Express/Windows Mail while the full Extended MAPI ships with Office Outlook and Exchange.
In addition to the Extended MAPI client interface, programming calls can be made indirectly through the Simple MAPI API client interface, through the Common Messaging Calls (CMC) API client interface, or by the object-based CDO Library interface. These three methods are easier to use and designed for less complex messaging-enabled and -aware applications. (Simple MAPI and CMC were removed from Exchange 2003.)
MAPI was originally designed by Microsoft. The company founded its MS Mail team in 1987, but it was not until it acquired Consumers Software Inc in 1991 to obtain Network Courier that it had a messaging product. Reworked, it was sold as MS PC Mail (or Microsoft Mail for PC Networking). The basic API to MS PC Mail was known as MAPI version 0 (or MAPI0). MAPI uses functions loosely based on the X.400 XAPIA standard.
MAPI includes facilities to access message transports, message stores, and directories.

Service provider interface
The full Extended MAPI interface is required for interfacing messaging-based services to client applications such as Outlook. For example, several non-Microsoft e-mail server product vendors created "MAPI service providers" to allow their products to be accessed via Outlook. Notable examples included Zimbra, HP OpenMail, IBM Lotus Notes, Zarafa, and Bynari.
MAPI0 also had a service provider interface of sorts. Indeed, Microsoft used this to interface MS Mail to an email system based on Xenix, for internal use.
Extended MAPI is the main e-mail data access method used by Outlook, to interface to Microsoft Exchange, via MAPI service providers shipped with Outlook.

MAPI/RPC protocol details
Microsoft recently released full details of the MAPI/RPC protocol
"MAPI protocol" is a colloquial name for the MAPI/RPC. At times, Microsoft has also called it "Exchange RPC" and "Outlook-Exchange Transport Protocol".

Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience. Recent development by Pioneer has pushed the storage capacity to 500GB on a single disc by using 20 layers. While current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD±R, DVD±RW, and DVD-RAM rely on a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue-violet laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray. Despite the different type of lasers used, Blu-ray products can easily be made backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit. The benefit of using a blue-violet laser (405nm) is that it has a shorter wavelength than a red laser (650nm), which makes it possible to focus the laser spot with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space, so it's possible to fit more data on the disc even though it's the same size as a CD/DVD. This together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 is what enables Blu-ray Discs to hold 25GB/50GB. Blu-ray is currently supported by about 200 of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer, recording media, video game and music companies. The format also has support from all Hollywood studios and countless smaller studios as a successor to today's DVD format. Many studios have also announced that they will begin releasing new feature films on Blu-ray Disc day-and-date with DVD, as well as a continuous slate of catalog titles every month. For more information about Blu-ray movies, check out our Blu-ray movies and Blu-ray reviews section which offers information about new and upcoming Blu-ray releases, as well as what movies are currently available in the Blu-ray format.

Group Policy Editor- How it works

Although the Group Policy Editor console (gpedit.msc) is mostly used by administrators of networks and domains, it also has uses for a stand-alone home computer. One application is to allow convenient and easy editing of the Registry so that a variety of tweaks or changes to the system can be made. These settings are known as policies and are stored in a special hidden folder

%SystemRoot%\System32\GroupPolicy\

(For most home systems the environment variable %SystemRoot% is C:\Windows.) Policies that apply to the machine are stored in a sub-folder "Machine" and policies that apply to a user are stored in a sub-folder "User". In each case the settings are in a file named "Registry.pol". Thus the settings for the machine are in

%SystemRoot%\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Registry.pol

and in similar fashion user settings are in User\Registry.pol. Policies are used to write to a special key of the Registry and override any settings elsewhere in the Registry. Since only the administrator account can access the policy settings, limited account users can be prevented from making unwanted system changes.
Another useful application of the Group Policy Editor (GPE) is to provide for the automatic running of scripts or programs whenever the computer is started up or shut down or when a user logs on or off. This may be the application of most practical use to a typical home PC user.
(Note that the GPE is not present in the Home Edition of Windows XP. The usual warnings about being careful when editing the Registry apply.)
Using the Group Policy Editor
Like many other management consoles, the GPE is not listed in Start-All Programs. To open it, go to Start-Run and enter "gpedit.msc" (without quotes). Figure 1 shows one view of the console. Note that there are entries for the computer configuration and for the user configuration. Selecting either one then gives the entries shown in the right panel of the figure. Clicking plus signs in the left panel will expand the selections.
Figure 1. Group Policy Editor

Administrative templates- Example of removing the Desktop Cleanup Wizard
The editing possibilities are quite numerous and too many to cover in detail here but I will illustrate the procedure with an example that an average home PC user might be interested in. Custom configurations can be made but there are also a number of pre-existing templates that provide for a variety of standard choices. One of these is whether to turn the desktop cleanup wizard off. Personally, I am irritated by the Windows nanny that is always nagging me to remove unused icons from the desktop. This nuisance can be turned off in other ways but I will use the GPE to illustrate the general procedure for using a template. Figure 2 shows an expanded view of the GPE with Desktop templates shown.
Figure 2. Expanded view of Group Policy Editor

The right panel in Figure 2 shows the numerous tweaks that can be made to the Desktop. To illustrate the process for making changes, Figure 3 shows the dialog box obtained by double-clicking the the right-panel entry "Remove the Desktop Cleanup Wizard". The radio buttons are used to enable or disable the wizard. "Not configured" will leave the setting up to the user's discretion.
Figure 3. Dialog for configuring Desktop Cleanup Wizard
Running scripts or programs at startup/shutdown or user logon/logoff
A very useful feature of GPE is the ability to to set scripts or programs to run automatically when the computer is turned on or shut down or when a user logs on or off (Figure 4). Any executable file can be invoked. This would include files with the extensions BAT, CMD, EXE, JS, VBS and others. There are other ways to run scripts or programs at startup but not so many for shutdown so I will illustrate the script capabilities of GPE with a discussion of shutdown or logoff scripts.
In Figure 4, the entry "Windows Settings" entry has been expanded and you can see entries that provide a way to add scripts for both startup and shutdown. Scripts can also be set to run when a user logs on or off by selecting "User Configuration-Windows Settings". More than one script can be run and in a particular order. Also, command-line parameters can be specified.
Figure 4. Running scripts
To add a script, double-click the entry "shutdown" in the right pane shown in Figure 4 and the window shown in Figure 5 will open.
Figure 5. adding a shutdown script
Click the "Add..." button to get the dialog box shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Choosing the file for a script Browse to the file that you wish to add and indicate any parameters that are needed to go with the script or program. Scripts or programs may be located anywhere on the computer but a convenient location for scripts is provided by the folder

C:\WINDOWS\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Shutdown

There are corresponding folders for Startup, User\Scripts\Logon and User\Scripts\Logoff

Introduction to "localhost"

In computer networking of Unix-like operating systems, localhost (meaning "this computer") is the standard hostname given to the address of the loopback network interface. The name is also a reserved domain name (RFC 2606) (cf. .localhost), set aside to avoid confusion with the narrower definition as a hostname.
It is used where one would otherwise specify the name or address of a computer in the network. For example, directing a web browser to http://localhost will display the home page of the web site (if any) being served from the computer running the browser (if the webserver is configured to service the loopback interface).
localhost always translates to the loopback IP address 127.0.0.1 in IPv4, or ::1 in IPv6 (see below).
Communicating with the loopback interface and bypassing the local network interface hardware, in an identical manner as with a remote computer, is useful for the purposes of testing, as well as connecting to locally hosted network services (such as game servers) in a highly efficient manner.
A common basic test of the TCP/IP protocol stack on a computer is to use this command at the operating system's command line prompt:
ping localhost
IETF document "Special-Use IPv4 Addresses" (RFC 3330) describes the IPv4 address block 127.0.0.0/8 as being reserved for loopback. It is therefore excluded from assignment by a Regional Internet Registry or IANA.
For IPv4 communications, the virtual loopback interface of a computer system is normally assigned the address '127.0.0.1' with subnetwork mask '255.0.0.0'. Depending on the specific operating system in use (notably in Linux), and the routing mechanisms installed, this often populates the routing table of the local system with an entry so that packets destined to any address from the '127.0.0.0/8' block would be routed internally to the network loopback device.
In IPv6, on the other hand, the loopback routing prefix ::1/128 consists of only one address ::1 (i.e., 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1, the address with a one at its least significant bit and zero otherwise) is explicitly defined as an automatic loopback address (RFC 3513), though additional addresses maybe assigned to the loopback interface by the host administrator.
Any datagram with a source or destination address assigned to the loopback interface must not appear outside of a computing system, or routed by any routing device. Packets received on an interface with destination address of 'localhost' must be dropped.
One notable exception to the use of the 127/8 network addresses is their use in Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) traceroute error detection techniques (RFC 4379) in which their property of not being routable provides a convenient means to avoid delivery of faulty packet to end users.

How to Recover Windows, IF "Grub" boot loader got corrupted

MBR i.e. Master Boot Record stores all the information about boot laders.

To recover the MBR or reset it to FAT Operating System Booting, we have the command

fdisk/mbr

Follow Following steps to recover you boot loader:
1. Boot your system from some Win98/DOS-Bootable CD/DVD and run DOS Prompt.
2. Type on Command Prompt: fdisk/mbr
3. Press Enter.
4. Remove your bootable Media and Restart your system.

Frequently Asked Questions in Beauty Pageants

Tell me something about yourself.
Tell us about your family background.
What are your strengths?
What are your weaknesses?
Who or what inspires you the most?
Who is your role model?
If there is one thing you could do to change the world what would it be?
What are your hobbies?
What makes you very angry?
Why are you here?
Why did you enter this pageant inspite of being in a full fledged career?
What makes you sad?
What do you feel you can work on with regard to your body?
What do you think can be done to improve your smile?
Tell us a little about your goals and dreams.
Which city do you belong to?
Tell us a little about it?
How prepared are you for the contest?
Which areas do you think you will need to work on for this contest?
What is your opinion about the This contest?
Why do you think we should choose you as one of our final contestants?
Tell us what sets you apart?What makes you most uncomfortable?
What is your take on pre-marital sex?Do you have a boyfriend?
Is he ok with the idea of you taking part in this pageant?
What makes you uncomfortable?
What all can you sacrifice for this pageant?
Are your parents ok with the swimsuit round?
Do you think the swimsuit round is derogatory?
What are the aspects you need to work on?
Who or what inspires you?
What is the worst thing that could happen to you?
How do you see yourself a year from now?
How do you see yourself five years from now?
What are your life goals?
Tell us about some of your shortcomings?
Who has the greatest influence on your life?
How do you think can improve yourself and your personality?
What makes you happy?
What makes you scared?
What intimidates you?
What makes you confident?
What makes you fearful?
Who is the most important person in your life?
At the end of life what do you want to be happy about?
Tell us something interesting about your job.
What do you find most challenging about your job?
What do you want to prove in life?
What have your achievements been so far?
What is beauty according to you?
How do you guarantee your success?
What are the three things you would never do to the person you love?
Do you visualize that your short hair can be a problem?
Do you feel that your looks are a bit unconventional and don’t really fit into the Miss India QR?What would you do if we reject you today?
Don’t you think your age is a barrier……….you are already 25 years old?
If we select you today how will you feel and what would you first today?
Do you know why we would select you?
What makes you confident?
How would you contribute to your country?
how will you highlight the problems in your city and try and solve them?
Tell us five strong points about your city.
The one quality you feel that is required for the pageant.
Are you smart or sexy?
Does sexy have a negative connotation.
How do you think you can help in the prevention of STDs and aids?
Do you think HIV patients have the right to lead a normal life?
Do you think our country has a problem with gender bias?
What do you think are the challenges our country faces?
Describe what motherhood means to you?
What would life after rape be like?
Describe yourself in two words.
What would you name your autobiography?
When do you feel most tired?
How far are you willing to push yourself?
Would you resort to unethical practices in order to win this pageant?
Would you bribe someone to clear the preliminaries?
Do you drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes?
Do you do drugs?
Do you sleep around?
What is your take on one night-stands?
What if you are intimate with someone and your mms tape is circulated around?
Who according to you is a legend ?
If you could work in a film who would you choose as your co-star?
Who do you think is the sexiest man alive?
Where do you think our country lacks?
What would you do if your boyfriend leaves you?
Life begins at…………………What would be your logo on a T-shirt?
What would be your take on sting operations?
If you had a magic wand what is the one thing you would ask for?
If you had an enormous amount of cash today how would you spend it?
What do you think money can buy?
What do you think money cant buy?
How would you rate the following:
a) FamilyCountryFriendsMyself
b) FameGloryWealthSuccess
c) Good looksCharmSex AppealCharismaKindness
How do you describe sex appeal?
What are some of the games people play?
Comment: “I am OK, you’re OK”What is the one thing that sets a woman apart from a man?Describe humanity.
If you were not here where would you be?
Do you read?
Tell us about one book you read recently?
Tell us about one life-changing experience in your life
What kind of music do you listen to and why?
How would you spend a Sunday afternoon ?
Choose between : a fit body and a fit mind.
One cause that you fully support.
What makes you angry?
What is the one thing you would not tolerate?
What do you stand for?
Who is your mentor?
What does love mean to you?
Are you creative? Illustrate.
Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. Comment.
Do you think plastic surgery is an option for those less fortunate in the looks department?
How tall do you stand?
How tall do you feel?
Are you someone people want to be friends with?
Do people confide in you?
Are you a good confidante?
Who or what makes up your world/How do you feel about pageant politics?
Do you think we will judge you fairly?
Tell us about the most beautiful place in our country?
Do you relate to your community?
Are you superstitious?Would you give dowry?
Do you believe in horoscope matching?
Do you believe in blood group matching before marriage?
If you were to have fever on the final day what would you do?
Looks can be deceptive do you agree?
tell us about some noteworthy software giants?
Will you give up your job in order to be a Miss India?
What are the qualities of a woman of substance?
Are you as beautiful as you want to be?
Tell me about a recent goal you accomplished.
What do you expect to gain by participating in pageants? Why?
At what point does a girl become a woman?
Do you consider yourself to be a giver or a taker? Why?
What do you want to do in life?
Do you believe that everyone is a winner? Why or why not?
What has been the biggest disappointment in your life? Why?
Are you a patient person? Why or why not?
Are looks important?
Why or why not?
Tell me about some of your family's traditions.
What do the initials H.I.V. and A.I.D.S. stand for?
What do you like most about yourself? Why?
What measures do you take to safeguard yourself?
The ideal Indian woman is...
What has been the biggest failure of your life?
Do you consider yourself a woman or a girl?
What is your secret to success?
What motivates you to work?
What is the role and responsibility of a titleholder?
What is one question you would ask me if I was a contestant?
What do you think of the competition today?
Tell us your mantra for success.
If you had to choose between your family and your career, which would you choose? Why?
What is the best advice your parents have given to you? Why?
Are you a role model? Why or why not?
Every few seconds another Indian becomes infected with HIV.
What do you know about HIV and AIDS?
How important is it to look your best at all times?
What has been the biggest disappointment in your life?
What is your favorite magazine? Why?
Why do you want to be the winner of this pageant?
If you had to choose to be beautiful or intelligent, which would you choose?
What is the role of today's woman?
How will pageant competition help you develop as a person?
Why is it that people who are attractive tend to be more successful?
What do you see as the difference between confidence and conceit?
Other than this pageant, what is the greatest challenge in your life?
Tell me something that will make me remember you.
What talent would you most like to have? Why?
Everyone has a mission in life. What do you think your mission is?
What is the most important thing you did to prepare for this pageant?
Why did you do that?
What have you learned about yourself today?
Which would you prefer to be in the long term : a software professional or a model/film actress?Why have you not participated in any model contest?
Why did you participate in Miss India so late in life?
Are you coached for this preliminary? Why or why not?
What is your greatest obstacle? Why? How will you overcome that?
What is your goal in life? Why?
If you could be famous, in what way would you choose?
What have you learned most in your preparations for this preliminary round? Why?
What color best describes your outlook on life? Why?
What can women learn from men?
What is your favorite pageant question?
Other than physical appearance, what do you like most about yourself? Why?
What word do you not like to hear?
What kinds of people do you surround yourself with? Why?
Tell me about your self-confidence.If you had thirty minutes a day to do anything you wanted, what would you do? Why?
Are you a patient person? Why or why not?
Do you find it easy or difficult to say "no?"
Where would you rather be right now?
When did you first realize that you were beautiful?
Who is ----------------?
What do people think about you?
What is your most marked characteristic? Why?
Do you want to change? Why or why not?
If you had thirty minutes a day to do anything you wanted, what would you do? Why?T
he ideal Indian woman is...
When was the last time you cried? Why?