Techworld

Back to Unix

2011-12-23T14:48:00.001+05:30

And finally, I have landed myself back into Unix/Linux domain.

All those stuff I had seen 2.5 years back have to be brushed up now and applied at a professional level.
Everything people speak around here sounds familiar but never quite strikes any place in my head.

That is the state one got to get out asap so that the machinery gets into motion without any unfortunate events.

The state of lethargy and the bone chilling(relatively) climate of Bengaluru acts as resistant to such brave plans and as usual I get back on my plan to take over the world.. :P

Couldn't resist mentioning the jargon, this being a technical blog:-
Linux
Shell
Kernel
Patch
SVN
Scripts
Perl
Python
Module
Structures
Pointers
Memory :-)

so on and so off..

"A coward dies a thousand times, but a brave man dies only once"

Management Instincts Revisited

2011-05-01T18:13:00.003+05:30

This is again about instincts in the software engineering industry.

Last time I vouched for trusting your test cases and what-if analysis rather than instincts.

But I missed upon a major point, that is the part that instinct plays in the overall process of software engineering.

You might have highly qualified engineers, architects, designers and so on employed to perform your tasks. They might be very well trained in the technologies and process also. But still there remains a scope for instinctive decision making and analysis.

These instincts are usually expected from the experienced ones. They would be able to instinctively capture missing parts of a system based on their past experiences and some pure gut feeling. But the gut feeling part is eased by the experience, and hence their suggestions and hints are considered as 'expert opinions'. Such people are also conducive to developing gut feelings among junior personnel.

But sometimes inexperienced personnel in charge of similar duties in the absence of the above mentioned qualified experienced personnel, get to experience such gut feelings. But more often it happens so that they are incapable of expressing the feelings into useful input for the team or getting it implemented in the right fashion. The reasons for these are partially individualistic and partially due to the organizational atmosphere.

Some people have the natural skill to reason logically and think deep into what-if cases, and some are good in providing a wide angle overall picture. If deployed in the right roles, such people can boost the productivity by a huge margin. But if they are deployed in completely unrelated roles or shifted around roles, the overall productivity from such individuals will go into the negative scale. This is something every resource manager has to take care of.

Overall, managing people in an organization is a tricky business involving lot of patience, detailed study of people, quite a lot of common sense and a bit of psychological motivation. And it would be good you have the instincts for it too :)

There is more to it than what I can summarize here. So watch out for more..

Time is Money

2011-02-27T11:55:00.006+05:30

I was browsing through some sites, when I came upon this product called BRING TIM!. TIM stands for Time Is Money.

It seems like a very much required device for most of the organizations which spend a lot of time in meetings. If they can keep in mind how many dollars are spent in the meetings, it can help save a lot of time and hence money.

The problem of repetitive and often unproductive meetings is predominant in corporates, politics, government offices and such similar groups which need lots of brainstorming. If such devices are installed and utilized in those places, it will surely help in increasing their productivity. Afterall, how many really like to sit all day discussing the same things again and again, without much results?

It seems there is also a free online tool which does the same. Visit Meeting Ticker.

Instinctive Software Engineering

2011-02-11T23:09:00.000+05:30

When I stepped into the profession of software engineering, a good 1.5 years back, I had a feeling that my habit of relying on gut feelings, trial-and-error and happy-go-lucky would help me excel in my job.

But after 1.7 years of working in different environments and with different people in the same organization, I feel that though I was not completely wrong, I was not completely right either.

Instincts and creative sparks help you in some tight spots or spur you to new domains. But more than those, it is the tried and tested principles of Software Engineering which will keep your ass away from the fire for a longer period of time.

Simple processes like always doubting every single piece of word in every document, every line of code and every test case, go a long way in keeping you on the safe side. Having said this, I can't still stop thinking about the amount of time 'wasted' on such processes in cases where you 'know' what has to be done.

But time and again, it has been proved to me that the benefits of such habits are valuable beyond what they are generally believed to be.

So my new mantra which I am trying to tell to myself and my colleagues is: "Trust your instincts, but trust your test cases more".

VLC Shuffled Off

2011-02-05T10:07:00.011+05:30

I have been using VLC media player for Windows and Linux for over a year now.

Since then I have been plagued with various issues ranging from improper folder expansions, crashes etc.

Now, the lack of randomness in its 'Shuffle' feature has been a pain in the neck for me for the last one week. That became the last nail in its coffin.

There is no doubt that VLC is quite good in playing various file formats and provides a good UI. But randomness in my tracks is a must for me. Hence I decided to replace it with Winamp for playing my audio tracks. VLC still maintains its position as my favourite video player.

Winamp with its global hotkeys and awesome experience had been my favourite media player for Windows during college days. Now it is back to take its original place. I must add that Winamp for Windows 7 is quite intuitive and flexible for me. I am one satisfied music buff now.

On the other hand, I need to explore for VLC alternatives in Linux. I might opt for rhythmbox, which somehow resembles Winamp w.r.t the UI. Or there are tonnes of other players out there, from which I can take a pick.

Question: What would be my choice for Mac. Update: Received a tweet from Moosa to go for Itunes player in all three OSes. Will certainly give it a try.

Why Google Image Search is falling short

2011-01-22T14:01:00.004+05:30

How do you assign thoughts, and ideas to images?

You all must have heard about a picture being equal to a thousand words.
If so, when Google Image search relies on just the keywords in the site for retrieving images, how accurate can it be? Though I am aware that some experiments are going on in the information retrieval community and search engine giants, for mapping common thoughts and ideas to images, I want a tool coming out of it soon.

The task of finding an image that matches the emotion in your mind, even though accurately mapped to English words, is quite tedious because not many think alike. And, Google uses a pagerank method for ranking, and the image you badly wanted could very well have been out of the index due to hundreds of reasons.

At this point, I am forced to learn graphics designing, explore myself for an artist within, and bring the idea into an image and upload for common use. Though that might sound like an excellent business/utilitarian initiative, the fact is that it is very tedious for a small spark of idea.

Having said all that, I am feeling more in need to pursue my Neural Network Mapping campaign I started in college. That would give me the position of being on top of the problem, rather than the problem being on my head. Here begins my reunion with the Information Retrieval side of Vivek. ( ah those days were so intellectually fulfilling )

Electron Monger Ants

2010-12-20T21:42:00.003+05:30

It never occurred to me when ants were found in my roommate's laptop occasionally, that these little creatures have an attraction to electrical equipments.

Now I am facing issues with ants covering up my laptop charger node, even if there is no supply.
Also, some of the days I find ants crawling beneath my laptop, and going inside the case. These occurrences were too many that I finally decided to Google search this phenomenon.

After a couple of unsuccessful keywords, I got the answer from Wiki answers and Yahoo Answers that indeed some variety of ants are attracted to source of electricity. But it is in fact the magnetic fields surrounding these equipments that somehow simulate them.

The wiring in my building is not even earthed properly, so all devices connected to the power supply continuously emanate an AC charge, attracting huge crowds of ants to these power outlets, even when the plugs are switched off.

Now, I have no other go than cleaning up all devices before connecting to my laptop and regularly warding off the hordes of ants from my room. Sheesh, what a mess.

To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade

2010-12-04T13:35:00.001+05:30

Nowadays Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux Distros out there. It provides all kinds of features that Windows and Mac provide , free of cost. And, compared to other distros and early generation Linux, Ubuntu has taken the concept of hassle free OS to a new level.

They are forever catching up with the latest in technology and new designs by having a very fast and reliable release cycle of 6 months. That means, every 6 months, you get a newer version of Ubuntu, boasting new and improved features, UI and bug fixes. Exciting , isn’t it.

Unfortunately that also means that you might have to do a distro upgrade operation every 6 months or so. For some users, this can be very troublesome as they would have already installed a whole lots of apps and packages. For this reason, many users don’t opt for this change. But what if you desperately need that latest feature or compatibility woes trouble you in your current distro? Then you are forced to make that move.

There are two ways to make that upgrade. If you have good internet connection , you can opt to upgrade your distribution directly, without harming your data files. Another option is to buy/order or download a fresh iso image of the latest Ubuntu and install OVER your current installation. The latter is time consuming especially to restore your installed apps manually. But the former too is not such a great idea as per my personal experience.

Being Ubuntu, you would be having APT ( Advanced Packaging Tool ) installed in your machine. Use
apt-get dist-upgrade
to directly initiate the upgradation to a higher version of OS ( if available). Last time I did this, many of my application configurations got corrupted and crashed. There were some known dependency issues between consecutive versions, which are not visible to the user while initiating the upgrade. At the end, I had to opt for a fresh install. You can try out this for yourself. If it works fine, then its good. Else, read on.

If you want to do a fresh install , then there are a couple of steps to save your currently installed app list ( because remembering, choosing and installing them is the toughest phase ) to a file and automatically reinstall the same list after a fresh OS install. The following are the steps for it:

1) dpkg --get-selections > ./backup.log
2) Save the file to some other device
3) Do a fresh install of latest version of OS
4) dpkg –-set-selections < ./backup.log
5) dselect
6) Use “i” to install all the apps

Going through google labs...

2010-11-20T19:43:00.008+05:30

I was just going through Google Labs looking out for any new additions in it.

I tried out the Image Swirl feature which is quite old now,but would be nice if implemented in the main Google Image search.

The next one which caught my attention was Indic Music Search which allows you to search and play Indian movie songs(currently only Hindi is supported) online. This again was released some time back,but I never remembered to actually try it out, until now.

There were loads of great looking apps,but all were for android, and as I don't own any android devices or haven't started developing in it, I skipped them. But the apps were innovative and made me wish I had an android phone to try it out. One of them is Google Goggles, which allows you to search using photos captured in your phone camera. It is available for IPhone4 and Android.It seemed quite similar to my classmate at MEC , Sandeep's academic project.

Afterwards, all the apps were quite old, heard of, or boring in nature. I just tried out one, named People Hopper, which basically is an app which shows the transformation path between the profile pics of any two friends, through your Orkut Account. It will be added as an app to your profile and you can drag and drop your friends (any 2 including urself) and the app will calculate and show the transformations that convert one photo to match the other. It was quite crappy for the pics I tried and looked surreal. Anyway nice concept..someone might believe its actually accurate.

Thats it for time being..will be back with more updates on my view of this myriad world of technologies..

Saving All Tabs in Firefox

2010-11-09T18:47:00.001+05:30

Often while reading technical articles and solutions, we might end up opening lots of tabs.

Now, having lots of tabs open has its own downside , like slow loading.But a bigger problem is losing all these tabs data if your browser crashes for some reason( chances of crashing increase with increasing tab count and contents).

These tabs are not exactly 'Bookmarks', as in you don't want to bookmark all these sites forever, as they might only be for temporary reference. And you don't want to save one-by-one.
Instead, there is a nifty option in Firefox to save all tabs as bookmarks at one shot. Pressing ctrl+shift+D will prompt you to enter a bookmark location and folder name under which all your currently open tabs will be saved as bookmarks.

But I didn't find a way to load all these tabs back at once if required.

So I am still looking for a solution to this problem of mine. The TabSaver extension of Firefox also seems to address similar problems.

Will check it out and update back here.

In mean time if anyone has any suggestions/solutions, please add in comment.

Google Instant

2010-09-08T23:25:00.004+05:30

So, its out.

Google releases a major change to the UI after the autocomplete and spell-suggest addons, which is called Google Instant. It supposedly borrows its name from the Instant Coffee ,which is quite popular in the corporate world and Instant Noodles, which is very popular in Japan and among couch potatoes/geeks/kids. Google's innovations are also like these - Fresh, fun-filled and utilitarian.

With the release of this change, you don't need to press the Search Button for any of your queries any more. Google will search while you type by combining an old technique called 'Incremental Search' designed by an engineer Amit Patel, and Google's now popular Autocomplete feature. When you start typing itself, Google predicts a list of possible queries and in addition, brings you the results of the top ranked query among that.

Its kinda weird after all these years of conventional search that we have been doing. But it helps out a lot when you are not so sure about the query that you need to give in , to get to the data you want. You can straight-away decide whether you need to type the whole story , or just the first few words are enough. This definitely is an improvement, and not a revolution, because all it does is add to the overall user experience and reduce search time.

I was just watching the Live Streaming of its release and talk by the famous Marissa Mayer (VP of Search ,Google) and the product managers and technical leads behind this quirky innovation, that is Google Instant. They showed some really cool search examples in the video, and I was excited to watch it all. But a tweeple friend of my Chetan Gole also tweeted out the additional capability of Google Instant to be morally conscious. It won't support any kind of swear words or profanities in its predictive real time searches. Wow!!

Currently, this feature is released on in the US version of the page, and will be rolled out for signed in users in other versions like Spain,Russia,UK, France and Italy. It will be available on the IE8,Firefox, Safari and of course Chrome.So keep your eyes peeled out for its release to Indian version and the default search page of your browser as well.

The new age of search is here...

Revisiting the wave

2010-09-02T22:17:00.004+05:30

I was reminded of the Google service called 'Wave' when I saw the article: Joined the wave.
So I just went over there to see whether it looks any different from what it used to be. I had read some tweets and news about Google discontinuing the development on wave ,some time back.So, I wasn't really expecting anything above the slow and unresponsive windows and cluttered boxes which is my memory of Google Wave.

Though the activities and presence (or lack of) of online contacts in wave supported by expectations, the interface and its responsiveness looked better than it used to. Maybe if, initially itself, they had released it the way it is now, it wouldn't have had this sudden death. Considering the hype that surrounded it during its beta release time, it has been a real nail in the coffin for the internet giant, that is Google. With this and some more failures and partially successful ventures, Google has been gaining on the negative opinions scale, competing with the likes of Microsoft and Facebook.

Coming back to wave, the thing that caught my attention was the 6 boxes under "Start a New Wave", namely 'Blank Wave','Discussion','Task Tracking','Meeting','Document' and 'Brainstorming'. As there weren't any contacts online, I was not interested in any of these, except 'Task tracking' and 'Brainstorming'.

But, each of them turned out be something like a custom template from Google Docs.Brainstorming had this extra feature of flash component that allows drawing. So, for collaborative brainstorming, this might have been a good tool. I liked that.

Speaking of the task tracker, I being a person of low brain retentivity, tend to use task trackers and notes extensively. And hence, I find such tools very useful and amusing. Here also, the availability, of categorization of tasks based on priority caught my attention. Apart from that, it is not interesting at all. I would any day prefer a proper task planner software on my desktop, or for that matter, even gmail's task list over this.

Overall, I felt good that Google stopped wasting time on this. Maybe they will enhance something else worth using. It was rightly discontinued, as it is a big failure from Google. So waving goodbye to Google Wave again..adios

Echofon breaks in Linux

2010-09-02T21:55:00.005+05:30

One fine day,when I logged onto my Ubuntu, and started firefox, I got a message box with no contents in it other than an OK button with the message box title reading 'Echofon'. As I couldn't figure out what was causing this error, I executed Firefox from the terminal in background mode. The error message that was printed on the terminal is :
"Can't get OAuth signer. Use Basic Auth instead. / Cc['@naan.net/twitterfox-sign;1']"

I googled this, and came to Echofon for Firefox, where many people have put their comments that Echofon is broken for Linux or has been discontinued for Linux from version 1.9.6.5 onwards.

Mine was that version, and so as per the suggestions in that page, I reverted back to version 1.9.6.4,and voila echofon is working fine.

Morever I saw that Twitter has sent me a mail regarding discontinuation of basic authentication and enforcement of "OAuth" authenatication method. This might prove useful in centrally controlling all applications which have access to twitter timeline.

But the news of rolling out of "t.co" url wrapping doesn't sound so good, in spite of their claims of providing protection from potentially malicious website and reducing obscurity in URLs provided over twitter.

With this in place, I wonder what would happen to services like bit.ly which provide realtime analytics for such shortened links. Anyway it will be deployed in a beta mode in a couple of weeks, and made mandatory by end of the year. So, have to wait and see what happens, and how tweeples react to these new regulations and rules in twitter,.

VLC 1.1 Crash on PC Lock

2010-06-30T22:13:00.002+05:30

I noticed that my latest vlc(1.1) installed on Windows XP SP2 crashes whenever I lock the pc (win+L or auto-lock). This seems to be a known bug when I searched the net.

Hope they will fix this soon. I am fed up of this bug as I listen to long list of songs while at work, and hate to fill it up again due to the crash.

VLC 1.1 is here

2010-06-22T17:24:00.001+05:30

The new and improved VLC 1.1 is here. Check out

Download

Importance of Logs and History

2010-04-10T13:09:00.004+05:30

Something that is very important for administration of large systems and databases are logs.
Logs in the sense, log files as well as log of all transactions by maintaining history tables, in case of databases.

Why is it that logs are so important?

From the point of view of administrator of DB or any system, various logs allow him/her to monitor parameters, activities etc and trace back reasons for any errors/malicious activities.It also keeps the administrator safe from accusations, as he would have immediate proof of all activities.

In case of DBs, it helps capture historic data either for analysis at a later stage, or for the same reasons as mentioned above. It also gives indications when and why your application/system behave in ways it was not meant to.

It is an excellent guide for debugging, and sometimes the only resource in your disposal to identify and correct major issues. If you don't have a robust logging mechanism in place when disaster befalls your crucial data, you better start looking for a new job( or even worse ).

How and what to log

Now, w.r.t a system related more to users,files and devices, logs must be present to capture login, file related and device related data. All major changes to any of these must be recorded for maximum debugging and recovery ability. A standard Unix server which hosts files for multiple users and allows access to multiple devices is a an ideal place to learn about good administrative practices and policies. There will always be a competent administrator behind every well-administered Unix system.

But in case of Windows servers, I won't say that much. The minimal administrative tasks that are configurable will certainly allow the administrator to handle 80-90% of the scenarios smoothly. But for the remaining 10% , a call to Microsoft tech support might be required, which might only be 50% successful in resolving the issue. But they will 90% of the time be successful in closing the request you raise, irrespective of whether they solved your problem or not. Anyway, lets not stray from the topic( I just couldn't resist ).

In a production database handling millions of records with 100+ columns on an average in each table, database designers end up loading a huge amount of logic flows. In this scenario,if any one of these flows end up being wrong, and data has already gone into the DB, it is a hellish task to restore it without substantial downtime. This is where logging and history tables come into the picture.

There are many things that need logging which are dependent upon the business logic of the database. Excluding that, the other things that require logging are DB usage details, abnormal disk/memory usages, logins, transactions etc. Most of the databases have system tables to record almost all these information. But sometimes, the designer/administrator will have to incorporate additional logging tables to record some indirectly available data.

History tables are an excellent tool for debugging and analysis. But,they take up lots of disk space. Sometimes, it is acceptable to archive or purge historical data. In that case, regular maintenance tasks can be scheduled to trim the history tables. But in cases where data is required, we might have to think of extra storage facilities or mechanisms to automatically archive and restore data. Those solutions do have their own processing requirements and hence provide extra overhead, but sometimes are the only solutions suited to the business need.

So, whenever you design a database for transactions involving lots of data, design a robust history logging mechanism as well. You will not regret this decision. It helps in validating logic changes to procedures, migration packages, schema changes etc.

As an administrator or designer of either Operating systems, Web Servers or Databases , it is a very good policy to maintain proper logs/history tables and utilize them effectively to get the required information out of complex systems, and make your life easier. Don't end up giving yourself a nervous breakdown ;)

Now, That is Rude!

2010-03-19T12:18:00.001+05:30

This is an error message I received for a mail I sent with a mistyped address.

Now thats really personal to say things like that.
The 'Mail Delivery Agent' even apologises that 'he' was not able to deliver my message.
But stating that he doesn't like my recipient IS rude. :D :D

I wonder what all such agents would end up doing if they showed their own tastes and preferences.

Happy Hacking

Script Design component of SSIS missing

2010-03-17T11:56:00.002+05:30

If you have installed Visual Studio 2005 alongwith 2008 version and are working on SSIS Script Components or Script Tasks, then you will find that clicking on Design Script button on the component will give an error "Cannot show visual studio for application editor".

The solution is this is to either remove Visual Studio 2008 or install SQL Server 2005 SP3 edition. In my personal laptop, I did both as I didn't need Visual Studio 2008. But in case, you need both IDEs, you can install SP3 and fix the issue for good. It worked for me.

-Vivek

One day of work

2010-03-16T23:03:00.003+05:30

Phew,today I decided to get into my development environment in Windows 7 and fix it up for good.

SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition, which I had installed previously had issues with the SQL instances. I ran 'services.msc' to find that SQLExpress was not running. I tried reinstalling SQL Server a couple of times from the CD, before realizing that it did not include SQLExpress server.

I then had to download it from the Microsoft Website and install it. Before installing it, I removed my existing installation of Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2005 as well. It must be noted that for Windows7, it is mandatory to install SP3 of all SQL Server components. So, I did that and finally(by afternoon), got it running.

Next issue was with SSIS itself. Through some googling, I got to know about derived transformations and lookups. I just managed to finish up a partial setup of my required workflow, a few minutes ago. Rest of it, I have to continue from office, after some discussion with my senior. Some alternative solutions exist for it. Btw I will briefly explain the required workflow here. It might be pretty easy for those used to SSIS, but as a fresher it was pretty tough for me.

An excel file contains about 5 workbooks, each to be migrated to corresponding SQL tables, with additional fields of IDs,Creation/Modification Timestamps and By info. Also, to be implemented is a history mechanism, which just means that whenever a field in excel file is modified, the package must detect the change, and update the table with changed data, and insert that info into the history table. This needs that every update to transaction table be clubbed with an insert to history table. I am clear with the requirement,but neither the workflow design nor which transformations can help me achieve these.

Lets see...btw here is a screenshot of the workflow designed so far

SQL Server 2005 on 64 bit

2010-03-08T22:15:00.001+05:30

To properly run SQL Server 2005 on a 64 bit (Windows 7 in my case), you have additionally install the SQL Server 2005 SP3 patch.
It seems due to that, I had issues previously on trying to run the Server Management Studio.
Now trying it out!

-via mail

Geo-Localized Tweets Apt for Criminals

2010-02-18T05:38:00.004+05:30

Image from Pleaserobme.com

There are lots of geo-location based services out there now, like Foursquare and Buzz.
These allow you to tell the world where you are currently in addition to other info like what you are upto.

It is definitely fun and sometimes comes in handy for people who travel.

But if you are prone to put sensitive information on your whereabouts on the internet, do think twice. Because sites like Please Rob Me have come up, that allow a person's public tweet/buzz/location updates to be filtered and indexed. It will tell a potential criminal whether you would be available at your home for the weekend or not, making the information gathering an easier task for him/her. The site is actually meant to show the users how much vulnerable they are.

Its not very common in India for a criminal to be considered tech-savvy, so Indians might find it a trivial matter. But irrespective of location,criminals( successful and ambitious ones ) have been found to be one or two steps ahead of the society's expectations off them. So, next time when you post something, just give a thought whether it will put you or someone close to you in danger in real life. Its better to be safe than sorry.

In a related story,a person hacked through the authentication system of Foursquare, the popular geo-location service,and exploited all its benefits. Read his confessions here

Flat Curves

2010-02-16T10:16:00.003+05:30

Hi,
There was a beautiful talk by Stefan Sagmeister on TED, on three phases of your career- Learning phase,Working Phase and then Retirement.
He mentioned that the learning phase occurs till around 25 years of age,but as it is, I am already working and nowhere near 25. So, am I in learning or working phase??

I would say partially in-partially out, of both the phases. I ain't learning much to talk about,but learning enough to explore day-to-day work. And I ain't working much to create stuff that would blow away minds,but working enough to get more stuff to learn ,while earning of course.

With respect to my learning curve, it is a 'relatively' flat phase. I meant that w.r.t technical stuff only,otherwise it is one-helluva learning experience going on.

Technically, now I am more into managing large pieces of code, doing proper impact analysis on bug fixes and new features and, of course implementing them.
The technologies I am involved with are the bit outdated, Microsoft ones, like IIS 7.0, .NET 2.0 framework with VB.net and ASP.net. I have been doing some nifty new features with Office automation and Visual Source Safe libraries.

The main involvement is with SQL Server 2005, with its Reporting,Analysis and Integration Services plus linked servers,scheduled jobs etc etc. It is a thoroughly enjoyable job to work with complicated SPs,functions and services.

On the sidelines, I manage to put some effort into COM based communications, tcp/ip related issues, kernel concepts and of course, my favourite, network hacking! The methods for these vary from simple casual talk to brainstorming sessions with colleagues who might be like-minded or have issues in these fields.

Will put up something on these topics in coming days.. in the meantime, I am open for discussion
Follow me on Twitter,or put comments in this blog.

Testing Email Posting

2010-02-06T22:10:00.001+05:30

Hi,
This is my test for email posting. If this comes fine, I will be able to update my blogs from office as well.

Microsoft Beta

2010-02-06T19:50:00.005+05:30

Oh well, I thought I would just write about some of the new Microsoft products I have been trying.

From my old setup of Windows XP age, I have now moved to Windows 7, thanks to my new laptop. So, along with the new OS, I had to shift my preferences of a few other software as well. Though I haven't ventured out much to acquire the 'best' tools out there, I do have made changes where I required it. I don't fancy downloading and testing all the software out there.

So, this time I decided to get myself the new Office 2010 Beta version. I thought it would be cool to try. I got this idea while attending a training session on .NET 4.0 at office. When you need something and its freely available out there, why hesitate?

Over the past 3 days, I finally finished downloading the following:
1) Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
2) MS SQL Server and Studio Enterprise Edition
3) MS Office 2010 Beta
4) Visual Studio 2010 Toolkits(Azure and Silverlight)

I installed the first 3 and I would like to consider only Office here.

I had not read any reviews/previews before installing,so I had expected more eye-catching stuff. I must admit that I was disappointed to see the new layout. I loved that circular button. Not many interesting changes were registered at first sight.

I had to run Excel 2-3 times to observe some of the new cool features in it. It definitely boosts ease of use. I liked the additions in Powerpoint also. Word looks very much the same though. And this time, I even tried out something I have never used before--Outlook. And that turned to be a waste of my time. I couldn't get to like it,when compared to Gmail interface. But, on any given day, I would prefer Outlook to Lotus Notes used at Office.
The beta testing is still in progress, so I might write another post if I find really good stuff.

Now I am more interested in looking for Windows 7 tweaks and combining my Linux and Windows development environments.

Compatibility Woes

2010-01-31T22:14:00.002+05:30

My laptop came with a Windows 7. So far I liked it for its visual effects. But now, as I started downloading games and applications, win 7 gives me headaches. Most of the older applications,especially the games refuse to work with this version.

I downloaded around 10gb of content, just to be put aside as they won't start at all.I even tried quite a bit of googling. But it didn't give much useful info. The OS being 64bit also hurts some applications badly.
Anyway,I found out that patches are coming up for many apps which might fix the compatibility issues. So, i just have to wait and download them when they are available.

If those woes hadn't come up,I might now be stuck up with some game. Instead, I am blogging and listening to some good ol' strings. Anyway I am off to download more development and networking tools,hoping they are not affected seriously by the compatibility issues.

Personas

2010-01-22T23:52:00.002+05:30

Firefox 3.6 is out and it comes with a new feature called "Personas". Its an awesome feature with which you can make your firefox more personal than it used to be.

I am loving it. Wish I could do that in my office pc as well..sigh..

There is a bundle of cool personas to choose from at Personas

Enjoy

Phone purchase

2010-01-13T01:07:00.007+05:30

I had mentioned in my other blog that I had bought a new phone.It was done after I did some extensive search online.
Mobile is one field where finding the accurate information that is relevant,is difficult. I had gone through countless forums comparing models,technologies etc. Also there were many portals involved. Some of them were pure crap,and some were exceptionally useful.

One among them is this site called Consumer Mate. They provide solutions for four categories:Laptops, Mobile, Cameras and LCD/Plasma. The very home page seems different from the other sites you get to see out there. It has options to let us select various features that we expect,using sliders and checkboxes( far more user-friendly than drop down lists ) for the mobile phone prices.

That helped me play with the options I wanted. The search threw up quite a number of respectable models. The review and information I got for each model was pretty satisfactory. This is not the case with most of the other sites where information is only partial or half-cooked :)

They also provide an online store facility. That would make it easy for someone to buy immediately. I was fairly impressed by their overall design and layout. But the most interesting business strategy they have adopted is the ASK US section. You can post your queries or purchase interest in that and you get a call from a local vendor within two days. I filled it up for fun and got a call from a dealer here. Now that is quite some business model.
Though I went for a Nokia phone,a friend of mine who lost his Samsung phone to "Tea-logging" went for a brand new one from this site. His comments about the prompt service reminded me to blog about this. The site mentions they provide the best deals for Samsung mobile phones in India

I found it good for laptop prices and reviews as well..
Check out and see how good it is for you.

Framework Corruption

2010-01-08T12:09:00.004+05:30

"BC32400: Class 'CLSID_CorSymWriter' could not be created: Access is denied."

This is the error we get while trying to run our .NET application.
The application is a ASP.net/VB.net website running on MS SQL Server DB. It runs a host of windows services like MS Excel and MS Project.
This error has been occurring since yesterday evening 7 pm and so far a lot of diagnostics have gone into it,with us doing overtime late into night :)

As far as obtained from the internet, the .net framework requires reinstallation. Based on logs,we have been able to find the service which might have caused a registry corruption leading to this.
We have already run various tests and diagnostics to isolate and fix the issue without opting for tough solutions like re-formatting.

After spending many hours in front of our server in the closed and otherwise inaccessible server room, the decision has been taken to format the server. This is due to application's criticality to the day-to-day working of the organization.
But I have asked the team to record all logs and keep for further study. Hopefully we can make a learning out of it for future cases.

Brain v/s Technology

2009-12-15T21:37:00.005+05:30

What I want to blog about today has its cause and roots at my Windows work environment(:D)

My idea of a software engineer is that of a person who uses software and technology to provide solutions to problems in businesses/industries.

The general conception of

Software Engineering Equals Coding,Coding and more coding

is absolute bullshit as far as I am concerned. An engineer must be involved in the design of a solution and implementation of the same using the right tools and technology.And, to aid the engineer in building his solutions quickly/easily/efficiently an industry itself thrives to provide tools,frameworks and platforms. A lot of big and small players are involved in this industry,with varying degrees of success and market penetration. Each player remains in market owing to some specialty they are able to provide to their customers which the others are not able to match.

Now,from the point of view of an engineer who is interested in developing products/solutions for solving a set of problems,lets observe the requirements of a tool he/she would want to acquire.
1)Ease of use
Intuitive UIs,complete and concise manuals
2)Features that aid reduction in production time
Methods to accelerate commonly used operations
3)Facilities to let developer focus on business logic
Abstraction of internal technological details(left to developer to choose)

We see these things implemented with varying degrees of effectiveness in the various tools,IDEs,frameworks and platforms that are popular in the market.

The whole idea is that the developer's brain,effort and time has to be devoted only to solving the given problem logically and not in fiddling with the tool/technology itself. Its for this reason that companies are ready to invest on costly development environment like the ones ###@#@$*** Microsoft sells. But .NET and its accompanying tools are so royally messed up that a developer ends up wasting almost half of his/her time circumventing some technical issues or hacking it(as it is called). And it has to be done so frequently and in inexplicable ways that if the software moves to a maintenance team,the developer will have to make sure not to come in contact with that team(if he values his life i.e).
If I start listing the stupid and frustrating bugs that come up with Visual Studio, I can fill pages(that too in this short period of exp).

Another fact that I would like to point out here is that,though bug circumventing and hacking of tools are needed in other platforms as well,a few well placed Google searches can place you at a good position in those cases. In case of M$, for most of the crazy problems, you can only see questions been posted by poor developers like yourself. No official solution or usually ANY solution at all are usually present. If something is present, it might be either someone saying "I too have this problem..Please Help!",or someone pointing to something that does not work at all or some troublesome suggestions like reinstall framework/IDE or even OS :D :P.

So now I am getting to know in First Person why M$ development environment is royally ****ed up. They should realize that developers are people with brains and should let them utilize that more to solve more and more problems with more efficiency. The current state of affairs only aid in frustrating the developer and stealing his valuable time and clarity of thought. They should seriously stop imposing the junk technology on smart people.
Maybe they are just afraid that once people use their brains more,they will migrate to other platforms :P :P
Adios....

Datarupt

2009-12-03T21:40:00.006+05:30

That is what a person who has lost all his data must right be called.
My dear 250GB hard disk at home got fully erased a couple of weeks back. Initially I couldn't handle the shock well,but in half an hour I managed to estimate the extent of damage and started inquiring with my friends about recovery mechanisms as well as availability of some of the data that I had.

Most of them comforted me by ensuring that its just a matter of recovery. So,this time when I was at home, I tried a pack of recovery tools on my disk,to no avail.All I managed to recover were a few random songs and some college photos.

By now I have resigned to the fact that I won't get all those data back very easily. And I have started planning on how to reclaim majority of those data. Softwares,games,movies and majority of the songs are available with the common market(i.e the average commoner also has). For the specific and rare ones, I might have to go visiting some old friends. Still there would remain a bulk of data that only I held. Those, I would either have to recreate or redownload if necessary/possible. Some(especially programs and ebooks),I have brought alongwith me to Mysore,making them the sole survivors of the loss.

Anyway,there would still be many such items which are never replaceable,the loss of which I have to accept. So anyone who wishes to contact me for any data,please know I am legally 'Datarupt'.
Living the life of a vagabond..its great fun.. adios amigos

Joined the wave

2009-11-14T19:51:00.004+05:30

Hi
I too joined the wave, that is Google wave today.(Thanks to Cyriac and Ribu for sending me one invite each in an interval of two minutes :) ).
Initially I found it highly confusing and nonsensical. I had already got a few opinions of the wave being just a hype and it being a bore. But I was more interested in spending my afternoon trying out the new tool. I didn't find it to be something of interest after spending 10 minutes in it and went back to my other tasks.
Then my friend Anil popped up in Wave and gave me tips on how to use the features and we even played a couple of games collaboratively. That caught my interest and I started getting comfortable with the wave concept and interface. To my opinion both are flawed(yes I do mean it). Anyways, as with all Google products, its in development mode..(this is in Preview which is buggier than beta).
I found it to be very useful for collaborative activities,and having group chats like we have for our class group. Its great when there are a lot of people involved at the same time. Other than that, currently I don't see much of a use for this.
The extensions are cool and it alone made me stay for a while in the site.
I found the interface highly cluttered and difficult to handle.I was using my room-mate's laptop,making it even harder to move around all those windows. Also,I found out that in Chrome, the interface gets stuck when you select two waves one after the other. The number of unread wavelets in a wave also tend to change and it returns to normal only when the "Sync completed" message appears on top left.In a system with 256mb ram running Chrome, I got an error asking to stop an unresponsive script about 5 times in 10 minutes. Even while I type this, my wave interface is not responding. :D
I haven't tried Wave in FF,so I don't know if its some problem with Chrome (what an irony ).

Anyway for its initial stage,it does provide something different from the various other 'socializing' tools available out there. I wonder if it would just be another site you open as soon as you fire up your browser...Lets wait and see whether this tool becomes a communication wave or would require us to wave it goodbye...depending upon how much more value Google is able to add to its much hyped new product...happy waving..

Working with windows

2009-11-12T22:44:00.004+05:30

Hi the linux and free software guy is working with Windows Development environment..fyi.

So,take out whatever u have to say about it.. circumstances and couple of wrong choices bring to the point. And of course a bit of bad luck mixed with my otherwise very good luck.

So,in my regular spirit of taking everything as a learning experience, I dived directly into the world of .net,c# and the work environment of visual studio. It all began with a proper .net training(which frankly took the life out of me by the 4th day of the 7 day training..)C# was fun and the power interested me.
But as the days wore on, I realised the truth that I have heard and even promoted about the evils of M$.They have built a looot( i meant it) of in-built this and that. Basically a lot of bullshit, if you stop to think how easy and sensible it would be for a developer to handle it themselves.

Though a lot of such facilities are touted as aiding in faster development,I personally feel(maybe due to my largely Linux and open source background) that it severely prohibits creativity and most importantly debugging facilities. I had spend about 3-4 hours trying to find ways to do some very simple operations on a UI component and finally gave it up and simply hid the control with another . I also find it tough to convince experienced developers in the .NET platform to adopt my crude but effective methods. I guess I do have a task of bringing about a mindset shift :D

In technical work there should be something with an art in it..something creative, else its boring and mundane ..very.Its upto each person involved with this art to keep the passion alive :D Different people have different passion in the same field,so thats not something generic to comment about with a sensible conclusion.

Do you know whats wrong with the .NET development framework?
They try to make things accessible and flexible,by providing a lot of things..finally making it too damn complicated for anyone to make any sense out of what they should and in which way to solve a given business logic problem.
And you have no way to bypass what they give, at times..coz of the closed source
tats all...makes a deadly combination :D

Thats all for now.. will be back with more info on something new.. taata

Its not "Hard"ware..

2009-08-15T15:15:00.004+05:30

This is not something I would have written some months ago..but as of now..my career is in close ties with hardware.

Being an embedded Product Engineer in training...my scope covers a large area consisting of software engineering,user interface design,hardware interfacing,quality engineering,testing and some research also.

Life in hardware with all the capacitors,resistors and amplifiers is fine. But with the FPGA/CPLD, protocols,controllers,processors,busses,RF,EMI/EMC, PCB design tools and God-knows-what-all coming into the picture, it becomes very interesting and challenging..though my exact area of work would just have to touch upon a little of all..

Having a majority of E&C trainees in the batch and highly experienced and passionate seniors as trainers is a great advantage for people like me.

Anyway it is not just hardware here..lot of semi hardware with a mix of low level interfacing and programming comes into the picture. This includes kernel level development and involvement with real time operating systems.

I am not writing more about these, as I have no idea of things to come...its just class room training now..once put into a team doing a product...all hell breaks loose..something you don't expect in any other field..because with a product ,the kind of accountability each individual carries is immense..and so is the pride and passion of being included in such a team.

adios...

Google's dead link

2009-04-16T12:04:00.003+05:30

Just found a dead link from http://labs.google.co.in/
The link to Music Trends gives 404 not found.

Be it http://www.google.com/trends/music
or http://www.google.co.in/trends/music

Any explanation? Is it legitimate mistake?( I am not pointing fingers,donno if it has some explanation..after all its google )

Just innocently logged it..

Amusing Text Classifier

2009-03-19T06:32:00.007+05:30

I just happened to visit Kuklutzklan and found a link to Gender Analyzer

It is a site that allows you to feed a blog's url and they try to tell you whether the author is a male or female.Now, ain't that amusing??(though I admit that it is pretty useless as it is)

What is more interesting is the technology that runs the site,uClassify.This site allows anyone to create text classifiers using their APIs. Now this should be interesting to CS people involved with information retrieval(me for eg.),artificial intelligence(me again),neural networks(me,me..),natural language processing(should i repeat?) and ..blogging(of course me). The gender analyzer doesn't seem to work for both my blogs, but then its not that easy to make classifiers for all kinds of people out there, who write in various fashions.They claim that it works perfectly in their labs ;)

A visit to uClassify showed that there are many other products based on this service,one for guessing mood of author,another for analyzing personality type,love type and sports type(??) of the author. The first one never worked for me with urls,but does work for plain text that I copied from my posts(which means text classifying is working,but not parsing maybe).Mood Analyzer

I liked Typealyzer as it does work properly for my blogs,each turning up different results(naturally based on contents or rather nouns).Its derivative ie. Sport and Love are pretty much the same as the original with some differences in wording(meh..didn't impress).

There is one more service which I found very interesting and pretty different,which I want every blogger/non-blogger to test(bloggers would want to check their own blogs first in all these tools).ofaust, as they claim, is a literature expert that parses your url/text and tells you which famous author you resemble and in case of text,it highlights similar patterns(wow)..I was more like Jonathan Swift for some of my entries.Check out who you resemble the most...

So bloggers,try out these interesting services and amuse yourself(or maybe learn something about yourself/blog) and definitely its a great idea to work upon for people interested in those early mentioned fields(in which I was present..remember?). It would be interesting to see more accurate and innovative services being built out of these APIs in these coming days....adios

Obama brings in change

2009-01-21T09:48:00.004+05:30

So thats it, Barack Hussein Obama has been sworn in as the 44th President of the US of A. I watched the speech yesterday evening,and it was very interesting. It's not Obama's policies or what he is going to do or not do that I am gonna write about..its about his association with new technologies.

That is the change that Obama seems to have brought, and with good effects as well. From the time he began his campaign, the utilization of the web facilities made him pretty popular among the people who support and embrace such facilities of the internet. The facilities he used included Social Networking sites,blogs,dedicated sites for reaching out to supporters,forums,and even channels in Youtube. His attachment to the blackberry too was in the news for sometime.

Though America is far ahead of us in terms of technology penetration and quality of service, unlike us, there are many there who do not trust/understand such technologies, in spite of being well educated. Many people who use these technologies do not understand the reasoning behind them(not technical), and hence can't think beyond what is provided to them.

With his intelligent campaign, I feel Obama has reached out to the vast population online and even proved a point or two to the people who believed that web and its facilities cannot be used for uniting people for a common cause. The use of such technologies also meant, many of his supporters got a chance to understand and appreciate the underlying technology and its capability to be used in innovative ways.

I was surprised and even amused by the amount of effort that has been put by his campaign teams in utilizing the resources of the web and high end technologies for the campaigning purpose.Even after being elected, his public activities were religiously followed by groups and forums consisting of his ardent supporters and blogs were constantly buzzing with his whereabouts. Even tech bloggers found enough material to write about this man.

The inaugural function was streamed using Microsoft Silverlight technology, which made quite a news. Read M$ press article But later, to assist Linux and MAC users, it was made available via Moonlight technology. There are also many sites that cover the function completely as streaming video as well as pictures. The Official Presidential Inaugural Committee too has online resource to guide supporters who wished to come to DC for the event. It contains maps,contact informations and guidebooks.

It seems Microsoft and Google are stealing the limelight in Obama's victory as 'technology partners'. Here is an article on CNN-Microsoft collaborative Photosynth that covered the Inaugural ceremony. Here is something about Google's youtube.

That's all for now folks..lets hope the change is positive ...

Yahoo not sending my mails

2008-12-13T08:27:00.002+05:30

Yahoomail is giving me trouble in mailing also.
After composing an important mail and clicking "SEND",all that they have to inform me is that "Message could not be sent due to a connection problem" in the purple font.And a retry button,that never seems to work (as if made to look as if clicking it will solve the problem,but believe me,it doesn't..atleast didn't for the 16 times I tried it from various 'angles') makes the issue worth posting. :)

XP Sp3 Nvidia driver issue

2008-11-30T01:45:00.002+05:30

Found that nvidia chipset drivers(graphics) do not work with windows xp sp3.I was trying to play "Rise of Nations",but it didn't load due to some graphics problem.Early,I had the issue with World of Goo,but I didn't know of that game's specs,so left it there.

Anyway,on checking the 'dxdiag' on the Video tab,Direct 3D was disabled.So I searched the net and found that indeed sp3 was the culprit,and the suggested solution was to download and use the latest chipset from nVidia.So,I downloaded the 84 mb driver and installed and restarted the pc.Voila,fixed.

Just came back after playing the game for a couple of hours(cheating of course,not bothering to play it fairly and slowly).

Yahoo! is bugging me ..

2008-11-26T21:10:00.005+05:30

I wonder what has happened to Yahoo! services nowadays. None of them load properly for me all the time.
I use Mail,Answers and delicious.All three have been upset in some or the other way.
Logging into mail leads to many errors coming up as message boxes(strange enough that I suspect malicious activities..but even on Linux?) and finally leading to me opting for classic mail,which has no images or backgrounds and no proper ordering of contents..I didn't investigate what exactly is off,but then I am not pretty good with web stuff..

The above list of services is in the increasing order of usefulness and frequency of use for me...and hence the errors with Answers bugs me more than mail.It shows similar errors with only text showing up,that too one beneath the other and no horizontal spacing and all..I know I am not stating the correct technical terms,but I am helpless about that :) Sometimes,they even turn up errors that say 'Oops' ...

The most important tool that I use almost daily is delicious.With the new interface I found its use increasing for me...and now my earlier method of browsing the bookmarks via the web interface has to be dropped as it doesn't load in the new interface or as any interface..the links are listed vertically and that needs tedious scrolling..so I stick to logging in and using the integrated bookmarks using plugins in Firefox.

All these look like some rendering issues,so would I be right to think the issue is with FF3?But I couldn't find any article or issue of this form reported anywhere or never heard anyone talk about it..I wonder if something is off at the other side..Yahoo's web servers having issues of some kind?
Any idea?anyone?Its irritating for a pretty much used service from a company I had dreamed to join and prepared like hell for it turning up so bad...

Update:Finally,on whitelisting the site with Adblock,the problem seemed to be solved.But it exists even now,and doesn't seem to be going even after disabling Adblock.So,the issue persists....

Bootchart

2008-11-25T23:38:00.003+05:30

This is about a new tool I started to use,bootchart.
As the name implies,it is used to make a chart of the booting processes.It gives CPU and memory usages at various stages of booting and also informs which processes are running and how much resources it uses.
The results are stored in /var/log/bootchart/ as .png files..so that we can view it as graph.

The tool actually runs ahead of init as a daemon bootchartd and hence is able to monitor all subsequent processes.
It is a nice tool that helps you analyze slow or abnormal boot times(though there are lots of other ways to find and solve boot issues).I cannot say if it is ultimate,but it is kind of user-friendly,as in no cluttering with jargon and information.I didn't take the time to read more on it,as I have an exam tomorrow.But I did do a search on Google,and found some of these..you may read through if you wish..

Home Page
Bootchart refresher course
Distro comparison
Linux.com article
Usage guide
Debian Article
Ubuntu Time Saving Tips from nixCraft

Double Bonanza

2008-11-17T12:31:00.004+05:30

Yippe..just confirmed the news that BSNL is providing broadband at double the usage limits to users who have been subscribers for atleast 6 months...
I have now 5 gb as the limit...and I am at about 1.53g as I speak..so gonna do downloading in broad daylight (happens rarely)

I thank BSNL for bringing such a nice offer,hoping that this doesn't lead to any problems due to confusion and bring about huge bills next month.This news was confirmed by authorities when I called them up.It is an offer that lasts only for November...and it is gonna help in the project hunt.

Happy...

Flop Quiz

2008-11-16T13:39:00.003+05:30

I was restraining myself from posting about this..but I guess I am doing the right stuff..

This is about the Free Software Quiz conducted by CUSAT during the Free Software Conference they are having over the weekend.The entire event is pretty large and well organized, with lots of dignitaries and loots of politicians pouring in...there is a good exhibition as well...featuring lots of stalls by companies,organizations,colleges etc for promoting free software related work...though I must mention my inability to understand how some of those stalls are even remotely connected software(free/proprietary).

The Quiz in itself is something to be mentioned.We were invited many times..lots of papers were circulated,we were even asked in person to register.So me and my friend Cijo, left the stall duties our juniors and came early for the prelims at abt 9..which finally began at 10.30 in a hall filled with only school students !!Later some college students also poured in..and the question papers were given.We were awaiting a standard type quiz on open source and free software movement,personalities,licenses,projects etc...but it turned out to be what I call 'Free' Software Quiz.It was like some school level paper on computers..definitely hard for the kids..but I finished it in 5 minutes,though not answering all questions correctly as they were very specific into technical details,nothing on the line of the entire Free Software Movement as a whole.We weren't allowed to leave the hall until about 25 minutes passed :(.Results were to be announced at abt 1.30 with finals at 2.

After leaving the hall..we were sure to get in..coz it was really a crappy paper.We went onto our jobs with stalls..until afternoon and finally at there Open Air Auditorium..the results were announced after some waiting.We were in first.Total 5 teams from junior and senior sections respectively were chosen.One junior team was from my school as well(10th std).

What followed later on in the name of Free Software Quiz was the biggest flop quiz I have ever seen...off the topic...too complicated and into internal details of specific linux flavours...asking unrelated questions on some god-knows-what technology and many more on exact dates and years!!! In addition to all this...they repeated many questions which were answered earlier by either participants or the crowd(still some didnt answer those..wonder why).The quizmasters themselves having no idea on the topic relied on a guy called the 'judge'.. another fellow who wanted answers by the way it was written down!

After the juniors' quiz came ours...almost on the same lines..asking unknown details of unknown stuff...RNDC,how many mails can be sent by qmail(wtf)..and asking abt configuration files that exists in fedora only and not in other flavours like the common Debian(anyway the entire quiz was off track from being a free software related one to one which was half cooked and some tech stuff added to maybe increase difficulty just for the sake of it)..and again asking questions asked to and answered by junior teams over and over and even mixing tough ones with very simple ones like GNU's full form..blah
We had discussed two things before coming stage..one abt Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu fame and about the year Linux came out( I said '91,Cijo corrected me as '92).The first question was asked and I got it correct after it was passed by other teams.The second one was asked in a rapid fire round at last ...where I said '92 and ans turned out to be '91.:D The team from MES got away with first prize as they ans one question more than us(they were at tie before that) which was full form of GNU!!! Can u believe it..I can't ..this could be the crappiest quiz I have ever participated or even seen in my life..that too conducted by BTech students of CUSAT...to say the truth..I feel sorry for those guys..so I didn't criticize them there...and the prize didn't involve any money..so its all the same for us.. :D

Anyway it was a funny incident ...we r still trying to put the blame on each other for not winning this crappy quiz...
Site for the conference

BOSS is here

2008-11-14T22:40:00.004+05:30

Today I got a copy of BOSS( Bharat Operating System Solutions ) from the CUSAT stall of C-DAC, after a fierce argument.
I hadn't been interested in this flavour since it time of release,because I didn't see any real enthusiastic support for it from the community in any forums..so I thought it must be really crappy..used for Indian govt offices and all...

Today the major attraction at their stall was a distributed system they call 'Chinnu' that performs heavy tasks using a Message Passing Interface(MPI)..just learnt in the paper AAP( :( )...BOSS was apparently near there and they started explaining..I caught off the difference between this and Debian Malayalam..they couldn't clarify my doubts..not only because I was not sure about the topic...they weren't the actual people who had developed that..this is what I understood.

Anyway..the DVD wasn't given away to many people from the stall..so I decided to try it on the laptop that was taken from college for the stall.I booted it up..and observed a pretty good bootscreen.....nice graphics...
The loaded Desktop looked very much like the normal debian with a blue wallpaper..looked good.

I just checked out all the menus and options..it looked much more like Ubuntu than Debian..even had customized icon set..with compiz fusion and k3b (among other extra apps) pre-installed. So, I just checked out if it played all media formats and fired up an mp3 from my usb...and it didn't play as expected and gave the similar sequence of steps as Ubuntu does( to search online for packages).So far so good..I have only checked it out for few minutes..not bad.

Only problems faced are the sluggish control..but then it is normal when such heavy stuff run on 256mb ram...and it couldn't even mount the Debian partition on the hard disk citing permission problems..funny!

I checked out their site,registered and travelled here and there...checking out content..not bad..but they seem to be giving too much credit to themselves for the quite simple tasks they seem to have done..and this has been confirmed by our Free Software puli Sarath Lakshman of the 'Slynux' fame.He says BOSS and his group i.e the Swanthanthra Malayalam Computing are engaged in some fight.He accuses BOSS of removing credits of many softwares and using wrong usages and principles over the entire OS.
May be this is the reason to the lack of enthusiasm among many people for the distro..anyway its not such a bad distro.I might try it for some time before coming back to life using a normal distro than a pseudo 'live' one...
Frankly I am fed up of the live cds..running on different pcs..exotic ones especially..and especialllllly.... gOS and SliTaz..crappy ones ..nothing big to explain about for a whole day.I have got nothing to say about Jacklab Audio Distribution...its pure waste as far as I am concerned..but Backtrack and Geexbox rule!!!
Tux Rules...!!

Google Introduces Video Chat

2008-11-13T19:01:00.003+05:30

Wow..google comes up new feature.just saw..lets see if its good enough..hm..clicked the link and reached the site..
As usual.the beautiful page that google always sports...with the same type of buttons( of chrome and lively fame) and owww..hm..they have kept that same thing over these three products...crap...

It's free and installs in seconds
System requirements: Windows XP or later

Why only windows xp...?why not Linux..why don't they ever release products for Linux anymore..I would love to see chrome get more add-ons and a Linux version...they are using the beta excuse over the line..
Hm..and ya ok..whatever..lets see what they have to offer...clicked 'Learn More'
and hehe...and what awaits is...ads from Buy.com for web cams and also a link to Google's product search for webcams..so this is just an ad gimmick..not focused on the technology it seems..

Feel lil bit sad after learning Pagerank for IR today( easy paper..:) )....hm..have a stall at a Free software national conference at CUSAT tomorrow..got some work also..

BSNL Dataone screws up own service

2008-09-01T19:42:00.005+05:30

This is the biggest news of today.that is why I am taking my time to post this,even though I have two exams to prepare for tomorrow :)

From today morning,my friend who uses Dataone 500C was getting a strange problem with the otherwise troublesome service.Whatever url he gives in his browser leads to a page that contains a login page and tells the user that their bandwidth has exceeded 1 GB.

http://172.30.3.134:8080/ssssportal.war/exceedlimit.jsp

I being a user having 59 range of ips and him being a 117 user(a class of users doomed to face the wrath of foolish dataone engineers),I had no issues. The description of the problem suits a classic DNS poisoning case.Whatever url you give,is redirected to the above said page,asking for username and password(which doesn't work also :P).So I feared it might be related to the BIND bug that had surface a few weeks back and is at large even now.Our lab administrator had explained how dangerous that could be and we had seen it attack ours as well as our University's sites.

So,I advised him to move to OpenDNS,hoping that it would have solved the issue.But it didn't.One thing to note is that torrents were working properly,you could visit secure sites(which used https),use Yahoo Messenger etc.Also ping and other network tools work without issues.I was wondering if its some kind of virus,as he and some others who had issues were from Windows.

This continued till just a few minutes back.I looked up several forums,and found one which mentioned and debated various reasons for this to happen.The last post was by a guy who got info from BSNL that this is a legitimate work of BSNL that got screwed up due to their usual crappy implementation policies.

The intention was to warn the user that their bandwidth has exceeded 1GB,so they can login,accept and continue with net usage.But thanks to the good engineers sitting over there,the login code was not in place..hence giving it a hacking site look.Also the traceroute gave its position to be just after the BSNL site,making people think that the site got hacked or corrupted.Also as the users were never informed beforehand of such a move,all were taken by surprise.But thanks to a few ppl in 117 range who didn't cross 1GB,I could fix that it was not bind bug,in which case it would have affected all 117 ppl at once,or even using OpenDNS would have solved problem.

I just got information that it has finally been fixed.But I wonder how could such a blunder have occured?Why did they implement a feature without warning or informing users?Shouldn't they have given workaround or info on the page they had redirected everyone to??? And wth did they not test the login code that was supposed to affect thousands of users all over India???This is not the first time such stupid things are being done by them.

On implementing and introducing the 117 range of ips,their login and usage checking site was a complete mess...it was a big headache for those users.A friend informed me that its not quite perfect even now.Also there were many cases when users got huge bills as big as 35k per month.Their support system certainly has improved a bit(8 bit=1 byte),but they still can deal with only the old issues that plagued initial Dataone users,like with the router and other things.Most of the BSNL offices responded to this issue by either taking the JTO's phone receiver off the cradle or giving a list of phone numbers(mostly disconnected ones) to call to.

Hm...I have been using BSNL Dataone for quite some time now..I had faced some issues,but the new 117 users are facing much more troublesome ones...not to mention the other bureaucratic delays involved...Why is all this happening to such a big company that deals with such a huge number of customers who are paying to get good service.The speed and plans provided by Dataone makes it a destination of all those who can afford it(time cost far exceeds financial cost).I still can't figure out what is happening at their technical office...what the engineers were thinking before letting out such a new feature...are they dumb???I am not alone is expressing this kind of feelings...just google for BSNL or bsnl sucks or check any broadband related forum..there are always more people pointing out new and strange issues of the service than those pointing out good features.

I do appreciate their technical service quality(read as bandwidth and speed),but their implementation and support policies are the worst of any I have ever seen or heard in this high tech field.The fact that they do limit speeds during 2-8 is something bad which I add here...so thats it..hope those guys improve ...

"Good decisions come out of experience,but experience comes out of bad decisions!":P

'i no tail'

2008-08-21T21:58:00.002+05:30

This is about a package called 'inotail'.
Tail is a very common command that even basic linux users use.
You might have also seen the tail -f command for tailing the contents of any file continously...and this is very useful for monitoring logs...
But by default tail -f checks the file for updates every one second..whereas inotail uses the inotify property of the kernel to decide if the file needs to be accessed...try this out.

This is supposed to increase system performance for log monitoring purposes.

Command line fun

2008-08-10T17:33:00.002+05:30

In Ubuntu,press alt+F2 to get the Run Application window.
Type "free the fish" and enjoy...

Try these if u want a laugh
1)apt-get moo
2)aptitude moo
3)aptitude -vv moo
4)aptitude -vvv moo
5)aptitude -vvvv moo
6)aptitude -vvvvv moo
7)aptitude -vvvvvv moo

Really these guys have no other work it seems..but its nice to see some fun in the otherwise "Why so serious" attitude of CLI....

Enjoy

fork bomb deployment

2008-08-10T11:34:00.005+05:30

I have been telling about this to my friends over the last few weeks,now I am gonna post it here..
its the fork bomb..currently I will deal only with the Linux one...

vivek@vivek-desktop:~$ :(){ :|:& };:

What happens after this ?Please do try it out at home.Then read beyond this...

It is a fork bomb.When a process fork,a child process is created.Here we define a function ':' which calls itself and pipes to itself,thereby recursively calling itself and also goes to background.Once you type this and press Enter,you can't help...will have to reboot system manually.

What happens is that the infinite number of forked processes flood the process table and bring the system down.This is an ideal DOS attack.

Here I like to deal with more than introducing this concept...I have thought about unleashing it.

My ideas are based on our College lab setup.It works in our CC1.There all systems are accessible via ssh and passwords to 'mec' user is known.

1)ssh to system of choice as user(no need for root)
2)Either run it on terminal for instant gratification or maybe as in step 3
3)nano .bashrc
4)Add a line at end alias ls=':(){ :|:& };:'
5)save and exit

Note:it takes effect when new terminal is opened.
As ls is a common command,you get to see your devilish action at work many times,maybe until the system administrator finds it and fixes it.

This is quite susceptible to be discovered by anyone wise enough to open up bashrc and check out.
Another method i propose is to replace the /bin/ls with a soft link to a script of urs (hidden and in unusual places preferably) which contains the fork bomb.This is tougher to trace out,but needs either root access or a user with sudoer power.for eg:graphics user in our lab

Ah..now that we had enough fun crashing systems...lets think how this can be stopped so that no one plays this on you..or if u r the system admin(see..i care for them..i am a good guy).This can be stopped by editing the /etc/limits.conf file which specifies the number of processes(among other resources) that can be opened at a time by each user on the system.If you keep it a a decent value(by default unlimited),fork bombs won't explode..voila..hehe
So you see...the moral of the story is that ignorance is the biggest security hole in any system..you can always avoid or prevent such attacks by doing the right thing at the right time...

Happy denial of service... ;)

And ya..let me add what happened when I used its counterpart in windows...it spawned dos windows...one after other...but was able to shutdown properly using task manager...unlike Linux which completely died the moment after u entered this...hehe..bad news for Linux fans. :D

another df modification

2008-08-10T11:30:00.002+05:30

df -H|sed -n '/^\//{H;d};${x;p}'

Just another modification to view usage of all partitions in the way I want...

vivek@vivek-desktop:~$ df -H|sed -n '/^\//{H;d};${x;p}'

/dev/sda3 13G 6.6G 5.6G 55% /
/dev/sda6 38G 32G 5.9G 85% /media/6
/dev/sda7 65G 63G 2.0G 97% /media/7
/dev/sda8 43G 38G 5.7G 87% /media/8
/dev/sda9 33G 32G 1.2G 97% /media/9
/dev/sda1 17G 7.4G 8.8G 46% /media/1
/dev/sda5 43G 41G 2.0G 96% /media/5

'mogrif'ication

2008-08-10T11:17:00.004+05:30

There is a tool called mogrify in linux that allows mass image editing on Command Line Interface,and it works perfectly.I cannot stop admiring the tools that are available in the CLI,that surpasses the GUI counterparts for many reasons..

I use this tool regularly to compress photos I get from my friends' cameras that are big in size and resolution.And it takes just a single line of simple commands to compress entire folders of photos to desired resolution.Actually mogrify provides a huge ( and I mean huge...) amount of modifications and editing capabilities...I haven't used any other than resize option..but a regular photoshop or gimp user might appreciate the value of this.It helps a lot when you are low on memory to run a full fledged proper image editing tool to perform some of those operations...and I no longer have to wait for the big images to be loaded in GIMP to then save them with lower resolution..
I just need
vivek@vivek-desktop:~$ mogrify -resize 640 *.jpg

mogrify comes in Ubuntu with the imagemagick pack.Install using aptitude...

vivek@vivek-desktop:~$ apt-get install imagemagick

Mogrify page
Please do try this tool and post your comments..I really love it...

Screen savers save nothing

2008-07-21T11:22:00.002+05:30

"Enable screen savers to save power!"
You must have heard it a lot...but its nothing but a myth with current generation computers.

It takes more power to display graphical images on the screen,especially a CRT monitor.
So,if you want to save power, instead of enabling screen savers,configure your system to put monitor to sleep after a period of time.You can also set system to shutdown after a long period of inactivity if you want to.

Still,if you want to show a screen saver,chose one with minimum white..a complete black screen might save some power.

In Linux,you have many attractive screen savers...many of them on black themes.You may choose one of 'em or choose the first option(Blank Screen).Also remember to set your monitor to sleep after prolonged idle time.This applies to Windows also.

I used to have Linux screen savers with 10 minutes timeout,and I have enabled random screen savers.Now I changed it to Blank Screen with same timeout.Also my monitor goes to sleep after 25 minutes of inactivity.

I boot my system using BIOS RTC at night for scheduled downloading,that too with monitor and speakers off...just the cpu and router remains powered up.After 8.15 if I don't attend to system,it shuts down automatically.

I am mentioning all this,so that if someone in similar cases wants to save power,they can follow my model or use a better one.I have seen many people(even I used to) keeping system on overnight so that downloads can be done later...but most of the motherboards support Booting over RTC...use that to minimize power usage.

Wish all a happy and green computing...signing off...

Thought Controlled Applications

2008-07-15T18:36:00.003+05:30

Hi.
With the hunt for seminar topics...started the soaring imagination..my imagination.

I thought up 2-3 things that could change the way we live..if it were ever implemented.
I have mentioned about them in a fictional setup in my personal blog.
Here I will try to put down the specifications about these ideas and the issues I face.

The topics are kind of spawned from my deep interest in A.I,Neural Networks,Data Mining and the concept of web.All those who have heard about/played Neural Network Mapping would know my interest(or craze..as some see it) in understanding deep concepts of the mind and extracting it...and also the effort to connect it to the vast web containing the products of millions of brains and hearts...(actually billions and also hands,toes watever..)

Ok idea number one..in its raw form..is translating thoughts to a language understandable by softwares...mainly web search engines.A lot of doubts would arise in everyone's mind on hearing such ideas...one being the ability of machines to read and interpret thoughts...and even if did so...(actually brain signals have been utilised so far..never heard about any solid breakthrough in understanding thoughts)..the issue of utilizing it in its full strength.

I don't know if I can bring forward all the arguments and counter-arguments about this idea that I had over a period of time and write it in this post(if i do so...i fear this wud be a dynamically changing post,which wud require a reader to refresh page occasionally to read more)

My proposal is to use a nano device that resides in the brain(implanted) and can monitor brain signals.I assume that by the time this technology is operational,there would have been some breakthrough research that would allow us to atleast get an idea of what is being thought(i.e identify formation of thought and convert this into abstract form that can be used to uniquely identify the thought).It should be able to distinguish between my perception of an idea and another person's(which is quite different).What I think when I hear 'tree' is quite different from what you might be...Once this abstract form is available..it is transmitted out as a magnetic signal that doesn't affect normal working of body or other devices.

An external device (I called it mind-pod..:P),reads this data and can use it for any application.Here I am trying it for searching the web.This is tricky.I have to use an advanced AI to create a set of keywords from the abstract form that would then be used to fetch accurate results from teh web in the ordinary way.I felt this is a revolutionary idea..but depends a lot on future technologies and as a IR man,only the small AI is involved..which might well be done with some AI and Data Mining.My original design had design and concept flaws,so I propose this.The abstract form maybe used for any other innovative applications as well..actually it would open up a plethora of opportunities for application development....

The second topic is similar...its called dream analyzer(Dreamfix).Its faar more advanced than the previous..it should be able to read dreams and make a list of possible inferences.Its application would to be salvage useful ideas after a nap..after all sleep enhances thought processes and creativity!!!

Filesystems

2008-06-22T20:28:00.003+05:30

I am intrigued about the working of filesystems.We had a discussion about how live cds work,but couldn't get any solid idea.Searching on the net didn't reveal much directly.So,today I just opened up google and typed Live CD,and lo...Wikipedia's entry took me to about 30 sites by now.I just read up the articles on various methods used and the associated filesystems.But didn't do any serious study.
Unlike the usual FAT,NTFS or the Linux native ext3 or ext2,the filesystems used for this are like CramFS,Cloop,SquashFS,zisofs,UnionFS,auFS etc etc..too many eh?

Basically what I understood was that 'compression' of the boot image is what is done by most of these.CramFS stands for Compressed Filesystem,Cloop is for Compressed loopback(used in Knoppix to compress the approx 2 GB image to fit into a standard CD).There is also this UnionFS which perform Union Mount that merges directory and file nodes of different filesystems.How it actually works,that I didn't lookup,as just the variety of systems used itself has stopped me from going into any one of these deeply.I should clearly understanding the basics.

I also found some interesting sites explaining the process of creation of a Custom Live CD,(Building Your Own Live CD) and also some articles on softwares like the 'remastersys' for creating live cds from Ubuntu.It is loosely based on mklivecd in Mandriva and remasterme in PCLinuxOS.

The entire concept of filesystems is interesting,but can be quite complicated and at times tough to understand.I should refer to my text book(Tanenbaum) and see if there are any interesting stuff in it.Ebooks don't give the pleasure of reading,which a real book provides.I have tonnes of ebooks on all topics,but I wish I had real books of at least half of that number.

Hope you all have read about the phenomenal record that Firefox 3 made...more than 8 million downloads in 24 hours.Things are going good for the FSF and the OSI as well.Adios..

Perl Script to Organize Scripts

2008-06-11T14:01:00.005+05:30

This is a perl script for renaming and arranging your scripts(perl,bash,sed,awk and sh currently included) into corresponding folders.

You just run it in a folder where you store all your scripts.This script examines the she-bang(#!) line and determines which folder to move the program to and what extension to provide.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
%ftypes= qw (perl pl bash sh sed ed awk aw sh sh);
opendir dirhndl,"." or die "Cannot open directory:$!";

while ($file= readdir(dirhndl)) {
if(-f $file){
open fh,$file;
$line= ;
if($line=~/^\#!.*?(\w+)\s+/) {
$dir= $1;
$ext= $ftypes{$dir}; #Identify and extract extension from hash
}
if($file=~/(\w+\.)\w*/) {$new=$1.$ext;}
else {$new=$file.".".$ext;}
mkdir $dir unless( -e $dir); #Make directory by type name
$newfile="./".$dir."/".$new;
rename "$file", "$newfile";
close(fh);
}
}
closedir(dirhndl);

Fixing the grub

2008-06-01T18:33:00.006+05:30

You may manage to install Linux to run along with Windows using the easy to use interface that Ubuntu provides nowadays.But what happens if your hard disk crashes or some other hardware device fails.Or the usual troubles with Windows causes you to reinstall it.Now GRUB is effectively removed from your Master Boot Record(MBR).

Windows overwrites the GRUB(Grand Unified Bootloader) files from the hard disk's MBR,effectively making itself the only bootable OS in the system. On reinstall Windows,only this damage occurs to you Linux.No other changes come..you won't have to reinstall Linux.Now I will give you a step-by-step description of how to fix the boot-loader and return to the older condition where you could choose which OS to boot to.

Unless you need to urgently access the internet or run applications immediately,you can do this job after you have effectively restored your Windows install which might include installation of a huge number of drivers,applications and its configurations.You can also do the tweaking and modifications part and customize the Windows to be what it was before,if you are a person who likes OSes to be personalized.Surely I feel that way.It feels good when the way the system is arranged and managed reflects part of yourself.Ok..once you are done with all those activities,its time to give yourself the choice to go into a better OS.I will try to be as general as possible,but I can't help quoting examples from my system's cases:

1.Insert the Ubuntu cd into the drive and reboot.If you don't have the cd ready with you at the moment,stick to Windows for the time being and elongate your suffering even further.
Exit!!

2.Make sure the the optical drive you inserted the cd into is first in boot priority(No need to explain how to set this if you just finished re-installing Windows).

3.I am assuming you to be using version 6.06 or above(i.e Breezy Badger onwards).As you had once installed the same or newer version before,I am skipping the various options that you may need to provide for some systems(Like some systems like mine,need an option 'noapic' appended).

4.Once the live cd has booted up,(preferred over alternate cd) start the terminal.Go into root user mode by typing in 'sudo su'.

5.Type 'grub' to enter the GRUB shell.You can refer to the exact device details if you wish to,either before you enter grub or in another terminal window using 'fdisk -l'.

6.Now,in the grub itself you can find which is the location the grub is installed,using 'find /boot/grub/stage1'.It returns a device string.

7.Type 'root' followed by the device string " (hd0,1) for eg" returned in the previous command.Press enter to make it the device where the grub is stored.Now your original GRUB configuration files would be read to perform the boot-loader operations.

8.Finish the actions by the command 'setup ("device")',where "device" is the device name part hd1/hd0 etc,which was returned by the find command.If you have only a single hard disk,its always hd0.Watch out for the confirmation and success messages.In case of errors,Google it,though the chances for error are minimum.

9.Type 'quit' to exit GRUB shell.Type 'reboot' or manually quit the live cd environment.Remove the disc and wait for system to reboot.The GRUB menu will reappear as before and now you have restored your system to previous condition.

Few things to keep in mind and hand when you have multi-boot systems:
a)Have multiple copies of bootable cds(either OS).
b)Have and idea about device and partitions in the system.
c)Re-installation of either OS affects only the boot-loader unless you decide to modify the partitions owned by the other OS.
d)Always backup important data,emails and software installation packs(also their configuration files) to a secure location(External hard disks,dvd/cds,or network storages).
e)Keep in touch with one or two people who are good at troubleshooting in both the OSes involved(i.e you yourself are not one).Forums can also help.

That's it for now.Suggestions are welcome and if you find any mistakes in my approaches or if you want to comment,please do post it.

M$ or Linux?

2008-05-20T22:38:00.001+05:30

Now,I am not interested in posting some comparison or Windows bashing.

For once,let's face the truth,Linux is not as great as it is said to be and Windows is not as bad as it is accused to be.

Leave the free software philosophy,source code sharing,license issues etc out.Let's just think from a customer's point of view.

As an operating system,Windows was the one which set the standards for the lay users(lets forget M$ as our enemy for a second,otherwise I know there is a reason and a counter argument for all these).Linux is a comparatively new entry into this area.

Its a fact that, to use Linux properly and to learn its various features,a user must have more technical knowledge compared to the case when Windows is used.I speak based on my experience of using and observing others work on Windows(XP) and Linux(many flavors).

Of the few people who opt to make the wise and brave decision to install a Linux along with their Windows,majority look forward to the so called advantages of Linux,namely internet security.Also there is this beautiful eye-candy called Compiz fusion.So,such users expect to try out Linux for the new experience and at the same time not lose their usual workstation where they can watch their favourite movies,listen to music(mostly as pirated as their OS),do office work on the pirated MS Office,use the tonnes of new and great softwares they have been using over the last few years or so.

People 'know' that installing softwares and packs to bring Linux to almost stand-alone condition where it can do all their work that they are used to in Windows ,is a task that needs downloading,which is not such a good option for majority people(especially the developing countries,where broadband is still not at a standard level or just in the papers).So,they end up using the standard Linux and believe this is what is available.The contribution of tech mags towards Open Source Softwares might change this scenario though.

There also arises times when your 'trusty' application on either OS crash.I say 'either' to maintain the neutrality,as both Linux and Windows apps tend to crash.At such times,the other OS might help you save important data or backup some important data.This,I am saying based on my experience.Also many people express the 'Oh,I should have installed a Linux system ...' type feelings in tech forums regarding data recovery issues.So,what are we pointing at?
Well,I just am trying to convey that the user,as a person who has different issues and uses with his system should ideally have a multi-boot system with a Linux installed in addition to the existing Windows to complement as well as supplement the power of the system.Myself being a FOSS guy have complaints against M$ policies,but that doesn't mean their product,Windows is nothing but a piece of crappy engineering product.It does have issues(lots of them),but then its not sensible to just banish it from the face of the earth or ignore its existence,is it?

Hope M$ decision makers develop more sense and also put more effort into developing better softwares systems.The same goes for Linux developer community.There is not much sense in over-aggressive promotion.Face the facts,Linux has shortcomings.It takes time and creative effort from both sides to develop high standard,user friendly operating systems.After all ,the customer is supposed to choose!!!

Automated scripts

2008-04-30T23:57:00.003+05:30

This is a simple and very simple script! Not even worth mentioning as it does nothing but utilizes another command.Still let it be here.

#/bin/bash
df -H|awk 'BEGIN{i=0;j=0} $1~/\/dev/ \
{if($4~/M$/){i=i+($4/1000)}else{i=i+$4};j=j+$2} \
END{print"Free space:"i" GB";print"Total Space:"j" GB";print"Percentage Free:"i/j*100"%"}'

Its self explaining enough.
Sample output is:

vivek@vivek-desktop:~$ space
Free space:31.6 GB
Total Space:252 GB
Percentage Free:12.5397%
vivek@vivek-desktop:~$

Here is the content of my /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh
I guess here I can add some scripts I need to run.

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: bootmisc
# Required-Start: $local_fs hostname $remote_fs
# Required-Stop: $local_fs
# Default-Start: S
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: Miscellaneous things to be done during bootup.
# Description:
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
[ "$DELAYLOGIN" ] || DELAYLOGIN=yes
. /lib/init/vars.sh

do_start () {
#
# If login delaying is enabled then create the flag file
# which prevents logins before startup is complete
#
case "$DELAYLOGIN" in
Y*|y*)
echo "System bootup in progress - please wait" > /var/lib/initscripts/nologin
;;
esac

# Create /var/run/utmp so we can login.
: > /var/run/utmp
if grep -q ^utmp: /etc/group
then
chmod 664 /var/run/utmp
chgrp utmp /var/run/utmp
fi

# Set pseudo-terminal access permissions.
if [ ! -e /dev/.devfsd ] && [ -c /dev/ttyp0 ]
then
chmod -f 666 /dev/tty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]
chown -f root:tty /dev/tty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]
fi

# Update motd
uname -snrvm > /var/run/motd
[ -f /etc/motd.tail ] && cat /etc/motd.tail >> /var/run/motd

# Save kernel messages in /var/log/dmesg
if which dmesg >/dev/null 2>&1
then
savelog -q -p -c 5 /var/log/dmesg
dmesg -s 524288 > /var/log/dmesg
chgrp adm /var/log/dmesg || :
elif [ -c /dev/klog ]
then
savelog -q -p -c 5 /var/log/dmesg
dd if=/dev/klog of=/var/log/dmesg &
sleep 1
kill $!
[ -f /var/log/dmesg ] && { chgrp adm /var/log/dmesg || : ; }
fi

# Remove bootclean's flag files.
# Don't run bootclean again after this!
rm -f /tmp/.clean
}

case "$1" in
start|"")
do_start
;;
restart|reload|force-reload)
echo "Error: argument '$1' not supported" >&2
exit 3
;;
stop)
# No-op
;;
*)
echo "Usage: bootmisc.sh [start|stop]" >&2
exit 3
;;
esac

:

My first perl program

2008-04-12T01:12:00.001+05:30

#!/usr/bin/perl

# chess.plx

use warnings;

use strict;

my @chessboard;

my @back = qw(R N B Q K N B R);

for (0..7) {

$chessboard[0]->[$_] = "W" . $back[$_]; # White Back Row

$chessboard[1]->[$_] = "WP"; # White Pawns

$chessboard[6]->[$_] = "BP"; # Black Pawns

$chessboard[7]->[$_] = "B" . $back[$_]; # Black Back Row

}

while (1) {

# Print board

for my $i (reverse (0..7)) { # Row

for my $j (0..7) { # Column

if (defined $chessboard[$i]->[$j]) {

print $chessboard[$i]->[$j];

} elsif ( ($i %2) == ($j %2) ) {

print "..";

} else {

print " ";

}

print " "; # End of cell

}

print "\n"; # End of row

}

print "\nStarting square [x,y]: ";

my $move = <>;

last unless ($move =~ /^\s*([1-8]),([1-8])/);

my $startx = $1-1; my $starty = $2-1;

unless (defined $chessboard[$starty]->[$startx]) {

print "There's nothing on that square!\n";

next;

}

print "\nEnding square [x,y]: ";

$move = <>;

last unless ($move =~ /([1-8]),([1-8])/);

my $endx = $1-1; my $endy = $2-1;

# Put starting square on ending square.

$chessboard[$endy]->[$endx] = $chessboard[$starty]->[$startx];

# Remove from old square

undef $chessboard[$starty]->[$startx];

}

This is just a simple chess,where white player can move around anywhere doing anything.Not victory conditions set.Please do try it.
I remade it from an original chess program.

Pidgin rocks!!!

2008-04-05T01:04:00.005+05:30

PIDGIN

This is about my favorite IM,Purple Pidgin.I had used GAIM messenger previously in Linux.As with most of the Linux Apps, it had lots of shortcomings,in spite of which we all loved and used it ..mainly because that was the best one available.

Then with the latest Ubuntu came Pidgin.The base install is clean and looks similar to GAIM,only that the interface looks more clean and attractive.Also with pidgin,I set up my google and yahoo accounts and hence was more useful to me than my GAIM,for which I didn't know how to setup up google account.

Why I am suddenly blogging about this software is because last week I was bored and had nothing to do.... and my bandwidth was pretty low.So I just opened up Pidgin and started checking out all options and configurations.I got curious with the plugin list which is quite interesting.There was a mention about more plugins available on the site.

After 2 am that day...I searched for pidgin plugins...got a few sites and went through the plugins...some where mind-blowing and some were the features that other IMs sport.I had also checked the Google Summer of Code page for Pidgin,there were some interesting plugins like Musictracker which puts currently playing music on status message.Soon I had found about 10 plugins and downloaded and installed each.

The main one I did was the best in the pack.It gives a script for my site.I can put up a chat window on any site,with the javascript.Then I have to configure my client with a new Account(all details from that site itself).I configured it and tried it soon...it was simply amazing...I really love it.Many of my pals have already tried it.Its here in this blog...please do try if I am online.

I also installed some more plugins from the Synaptic Package Manager.I didn't get a chance to try them though.Today I found all of them installed and I just went through the Plugins list..whoa..and I enabled a few.I will list the ones I liked and am using and describe a few.

Chat colours,autocomplete(really cool),Off the Record,Invisibility,Away Time Setter,Psychic Mode,Availabilty Probability,GUIfications,Hotkeys,New Smileys,Notifications,Music Messaging and Mouse Gestures.

Invisibility and Off the Record
The really cool features available in most IMs...now in Pidgin too

Psychic Mode
Whenever a user starts typing a new conversation...I get a funny message..saying "I feel a disturbance in the force..."so i can react before they do....helps startle my buddies...

Availability Probability
This I don't know how it works.It is supposed to give probability of being available for each contact.... :P

GUIfications
Cool pop ups and notifications when someone types or leaves or returns

Music Messaging
Allows people work on same score of music simultaneously..not much use to me..but cool

Mouse Gestures
Allows many operations by mouse gestures..cool

There are many more cool features about Pidgin and many more to come.Anyway pidgin has become more fun than gtalk.It just lacks in file transferring,voicemails and ability to remove status messages.

Pidgin Site
Also there is a command line version called Finch.Its really cool..do try it out.
Finch

My love...ma keyboard

2008-04-04T02:51:00.003+05:30

It happened so that I was going to sleep and decided that as it was 1.30am,I should login and then put some downloads.DSP preparation is scheduled.
But what awaited me were dead keys on the keyboard,quite a lot of them.I had struggled with them earlier in the day,but now it wasn't going away,I couldn't even login....what else could be a worse situation for a terminal savvy person???Gosh...I was worried whether I would need to run to the shop tomorrow to buy a new keyboard.
I did some google search(carefully using other keys) and most sites asked me to replace keyboard if such dead keys occur frequently.
Umpgh....I had a sudden impulse and quickly shutdown the system and grabbed a screwdriver.I tried removing the dead keys,but the keys around didn't allow....so I set to remove each and everyone...anyway I hadn't cleaned it after it was bought 2 yrs back.
So I set to the task of popping out key after key without bothering to remember their positions,I was fully enjoying it.It was fun...some keys flew away and had to be picked up.Only after removing majority of the keys did I realize that I should have noticed their positions...oh well..I didnt expect the dead keys to be fixed..but then I wanted to continue with this work.Also in the process of removal,I accidentally broke the Space key partially which was working very well and the most used key.
Sigh...

Then I set to cleaning up the dirty board with some hankie..it was fun...2mins...job done.Now remained the huge task of replacing the keys to the correct position and sleep was rocking me like anything....yawn..even now...
And I put those parts back which I knew well(thats around 80%).Rest was guess work.I had to try some keys few times to get it right.I had my doubts whether the keys would respond.
So I connected the fully set keyboard and powered up to Windows.I did some type tests and found 2-3 misplacements.I was relieved only when I logged into Ubuntu,put downloads and typed this in...love u my keyboard.
I am keyboard savvy person in love with the terminal,and only when the keyboard was in a dangerous situation did I felt the real pain.I was so worried about what I would without my black beauty...the one that helps me conquer the terminal...hehe...

Tech tek tek

2008-03-20T20:58:00.006+05:30

Well I cudn't think of any other title..so just put it in...
Got to tell abt the urge to pursue tech with pure interest of an engineer(for me an ideal engineer in my dreams would be the technician working late into night into his new machine with great enthusiasm).
Though i have been quite unable to emulate that enthusiasm always...i really am optimistic about it.
Perl seems so synonymous with a placement in Yahoo! that it doesn't strike a chord with me.
C on the other hand seems attractive as it seems to be able surprise me on a weekly basis due to its power and reach.
Today by chance I looked up the Google Summer of Code thing..wish I had put some effort into one of the many fields and got the unique chance for an engineer to get a project to live and die on...hehe
Surely such events are gonna boost the upcoming techies ....more nice projects,improvements await the industry.

Google as usual seems to be going far ahead in all terms...just check Google Code
OpenSocial and Android are two promising fields for development.
There are also tonnes of other APIs provided..what more can an enthusiastic young engineer ask for...but I(the glorified so called techie) dont find all this to be enuf...hehe...tats coz while reading the details of a project,sooner or later I wud come upon some roadblock,most probably a new language or concept..gosh i wish i knew them too....hm..i seem to be wishing for a lot of things..its a good sign....hope the best of the better dreams await me...

Linux Calls

2008-03-19T21:45:00.003+05:30

Well long time since I posted something here...anyway i just wanted to record the love towards linux....the shell the infinite power that can be harnessed..hew cool...
There is lots of programming and system maintenance involved.I really like the latter...

Now trying to record and check bugs that I face and those which I was reluctant to clear out.

Bugs are part and parcel of life so its promising enough to be on the move...

Will post something interesting here sometimes..I cant exactly make it a tech blog,because there will always be a dedicated site...this is just my view of things...

Rush for Perl...??(not pearl)

2007-05-17T07:34:00.000+05:30

Well,this is a matter I had noticed recently in my college.
Generally all of the Computer Science students of my college are reluctant to work any harder than to get pass marks in the university and internal exams(of course there are those who plan only 80+..leave them).

This is the sad but true condition of CS students of MEC,one of the top engineering colleges of Kerala.Amongst the very few guys and gals who are technically skilled and most importantly interested in working on technical projects,only a handful see futility of academics without technical exposure.I must say when exams are nearing,I too freak out and leave technical jobs.Thats because I need to be at least that much competent about my academics.

But there are lots of technically brilliant guys and yes some gals also,who do not take pains to get technical exposure.I am evidence to the argument that you need not know how to do something to actually work in a group for it.The team effort and the spirit is what counts and it is that experience which will help you for placements and in the companies also.

Last month,Yahoo! guys dropped by to give a speech on their selection procedures.Even though many of our tech guys loved Yahoo! ,it was amazing that no one turned up,including me(I had lab exams...though).The auditorium was nearly vacant.Seeing this the placement cell operatives and teachers were alarmed of loosing reputation,so they canvassed students to occupy maximum number of seats...

Many electronics students were present for the program,along with some CS students of B batch.They basically emphasized on learning Perl and other major scripting languages as a criteria for selection into Yahoo!.And they also described many qualities and qualifications and selection procedures and work conditions.

One week later,what I saw amazed me.Nearly every Electronics student was learning Perl and PHP earnestly even during study holidays....whereas I know of only 3-4 CS students who know any of these properly.

By the level of enthusiasm that I have seen in the EC students,I ask my classmates and fellow CS people to understand that we have competition and it is high time that we woke up and show case our skills....

CD and DVD Format

2007-03-29T06:51:00.000+05:30

CD (Compact Disc):

An optical disc. CD is a term loosely used when describing a variety of compact disc formats, from the production (mass-produced) audio and data discs, to the write-once “recordable” versions (CD-R) or write-many "rewritable" versions (CD-RW) CDs. The standard CD can hold about 650MB of data.

CD+G (Compact Disc plus Graphics):

Primarily used for karaoke, this type of CD embeds graphical data with the audio data, allowing video pictures to be displayed periodically
as music is played. A special player is needed to read and display
the information.

CD-I (Compact Disc-Interactive):

A compact disc format designed to allow interactive multimedia applications
(digital audio and video, video games, and software applications)
to be run on a player attached to a television.

CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable):

A version of CD on which data can be recorded but not erased. An organic dye-based material is used to hold data that are written to it by a laser.

CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory):

An extension of the compact disc digital audio format that allows computer data to be stored.
CD-ROM drive:

A peripheral device attached to a computer that allows it to read and play all CDs.

CD-RW (Compact Disc-ReWritable):
A version of CD on which data can be recorded and erased and re-recorded in the same physical location of the disc. A phase-changing metal alloy film is used to hold the data that are written to it by the laser.

DVD:

Once stood for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, now just DVD. The next generation of optical disc storage technology after the CD. A DVD is the same physical size and shape as a CD, but has a higher density and gives the option for data to be double-sided or double-layered in the disc.

DVD-Audio:

An audio-only storage format similar to CD-Audio. DVD-Audio differs, however, in offering 16, 20 and 24-bit samples at a variety of sampling rates from 44.1 to 192KHz, compared with 16 bits and 44.1KHz for CDs. The latest audio format more than doubles the fidelity of a standard CD. DVD-Audio discs can also contain music videos, graphics, and other information.

DVD-R (DVD-Recordable, sometimes referred to as DVD minus R):

A version of DVD on which data can be recorded, but not erased, by a disc drive. An organic, dye-based material is used to hold data that are written to it by a laser. DVD-R provides secure recording for volumes of information that cannot be accidentally or intentionally altered. DVD-R has a capacity of 4.7 GB. There are two versions of DVD-R:

1. DVD-R (A) (DVD-Recordable for Authoring):
A format for professional content developers and software producers.
Primarily used to create master discs that will be mass-produced by software houses and multimedia/video postproduction facilities.

2. DVD-R (G) (DVD-Recordable for General use) and DVD+R (DVD plus Recordable):
A format for general recording of all types of content: audio, video, and data. Compatible with most DVD-Video players and DVD-ROM drives.
The differences between DVD-R and DVD+R are as follows:
—DVD+R uses a different technique from DVD-R in how the laser follows the disc track while writing data to the disc. A writer disc-drive is generally capable of writing to one type of disc but some may be capable of writing to both types. All DVD drives should read both DVD-R and DVD+R.
—DVD-R uses constant linear velocity (CLV) for the disc rotation; DVD+R can use CLV or constant angular velocity (CAV) for the disc rotation. CAV allows for easier random access of data on the disc.
—DVD+R can provide lossless linking of new data added from multiple
recording sessions.

DVD-RAM (DVD-Random Access Memory):

A rewritable DVD. It is a cartridge-based, or, more recently, cartridge-
less optical disc for data recording and playback. Data can be recorded and erased up to 100,000 times, making the DVD-RAM a virtual hard disk. DVD RAM uses a phase-change data layer to record data written to it by a laser. Current DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players cannot read DVD-RAM media.

DVD-ROM (Read Only Memory):

Typically, an optical disc used for storing data, interactive sequences, audio, and video. DVD-ROMs run in DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, or DVD-RAM drives, but not in DVD-Video players connected to televisions and home theaters. However, most DVD-ROM drives will play DVD-Video movies if the associated software is installed in the computer.

DVD-RW (sometimes referred to as DVD minus RW, DVD-ReWritable):

The DVD-RW is similar to DVD-RAM except that its technology features
a sequential read-write access more like a phonograph than a hard disk. Its read-write capacity is 4.7 GB, and it can be re-written to about 1,000 times. For general recording of all types of content, for audio, for video recording and editing, and for random data recording.
Compatible with most DVD-Video players and DVD-ROM drives.

DVD+RW (DVD plus RW), (DVD-ReWritable):

For general recording of all types of content, for audio, for video recording and editing, and for random data recording. Compatible with most DVD-Video players and DVD-ROM drives.
Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs—A Guide for Librarians and Archivists 33
The differences between DVD-RW and DVD+RW are as follows:
—DVD+RW uses a different technique from DVD-RW in how the laser follows the disc track while writing data to the disc. A writer disc-drive is generally capable of writing to one type of disc but some may be capable of writing to both types. Most newer DVD drives should read both DVD-RW and DVD+RW.
—DVD-RW uses constant linear velocity (CLV) for the disc rotation; DVD+RW can use CLV or constant angular velocity (CAV) for the disc rotation. CAV allows for easier random access of data on the disc.
—DVD+RW can provide lossless linking of new data inserted or added from multiple recording sessions.

DVD Video:

Used for viewing movies and for other visual entertainment, DVD Video is a popular format for high-quality MPEG2 or MPEG4 video and digital surround sound. It enables multilanguage, multisubtitling,
and other advanced user features. The total capacity is 17 GB if two layers are used on both sides of the disk.

CD and DVD Lifetime and Maintenance

2007-03-29T06:40:00.000+05:30

Life of the medium

The life expectancy (LE) of optical discs depends on many factors, some controllable by the user, others not.
Factors that affect disc life expectancy include the following:
• type
• manufacturing quality
• condition of the disc before recording
• quality of the disc recording
• handling and maintenance
• environmental conditions
As noted previously, the three basic types of CD and DVD discs—ROM, R, and RW and RAM—each use a different data layer material (molded aluminum, organic dye, or phase-changing film, respectively). Deterioration of this material is the primary cause for disc degradation and, ultimately, “end of life” for the disc, assuming proper physical handling.

Environmental factors can affect the rate of disc degradation. In each of the three basic disc types, environmental forces will degrade the data layer much faster than the polycarbonate substrate layer (the clear plastic that makes up most of the disc). Because degradation
of the data layer will render the disc useless well before the polycarbonate begins to deteriorate, the relative degradation rate for the polycarbonate layer is not used for life expectancy considerations.
Physical mishandling of the disc is usually the cause of polycarbonate
layer damage. The polycarbonate may also flex or bend if stored for a long period of time in a nonvertical position.
So what is the life expectancy of a disc? First, we must define life expectancy. For most users, it means the length of time for which the disc remains usable. But that implies some acceptable amount of degradation.

How much and what type of degradation is acceptable?

With CDs and DVDs, the user does not notice early degradation because the error detection and correction capability built into the system corrects a certain number of errors. The user notices a problem only when the error correction coding is unable to fully correct the errors.One method for determining end of life for a disc is based on the number of errors on a disc before the error correction occurs. The chance of disc failure increases with the number of errors, but it is impossible to define the number of errors in a disc that will absolutely cause a performance problem (minor or catastrophic) because it depends on the number of errors left, after error correction, and their distribution within the data. When the number of errors (before error correction) on a disc increases to a certain level, the chance of disc failure, even if small, can be deemed unacceptable and thus signal the disc’s end of life.

Manufacturers tend to use this premise to estimate media longevity.
They test discs by using accelerated aging methodologies with controlled extreme temperature and humidity influences over a relatively short period of time. However, it is not always clear how a manufacturer interprets its measurements for determining a disc’s end of life. Among the manufacturers that have done testing, there is consensus that, under recommended storage conditions, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R discs should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years or more; CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM discs should have a life expectancy of 25 years or more. Little information
is available for CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs (including audio and video), resulting in an increased level of uncertainty for their life expectancy. Expectations vary from 20 to 100 years for these discs.

Few, if any, life expectancy reports for these discs have been published by independent laboratories. An accelerated aging study at NIST estimated the life expectancy of one type of DVD-R for authoring
disc to be 30 years if stored at 25°C (77°F) and 50% relative humidity.
This testing for R discs is in the preliminary stages, and much more needs to be done.

Individual Disc Storage

Optical discs should be kept in individual storage containers until used and returned to those containers immediately thereafter. Typical
storage containers, as listed below, isolate and help protect discs from airborne contaminants and other foreign material. They also help buffer rapid environmental changes that can cause stresses to the disc. Cases are designed to keep surfaces of the disc from contact with the inside of the case. Only one disc should be placed on the hub (or each hub) in the case. To remove the disc, one should press down on the hub tab while holding the outer edge of the disc with the fingers and then lift up. Bending the disc while lifting it off the hub tab should be avoided.
For long-term disc storage, it may sometimes be prudent to remove
the label insert or booklet from inside the case and attach it to the outside, perhaps in a sleeve. In theory, the paper can attract moisture
and produce higher moisture content in the case. The paper may also spread moisture by contact with the disc. This recommendation is based on no specific tests of the effects of paper inside a case; it is merely a consideration—one that takes on added significance with large amounts of paper inside a disc case and higher-than-recommended
humidity conditions.
Cases commonly used for individual disc protection include the following:
• Jewel case. The jewel case, which comes in different varieties, holds one to six discs, depending on its design. It is typically a transparent
plastic case with a hinged lid, one or more plastic trays, an inlay card for labeling, and an optional booklet.
• Slimline case. As its name suggests, a slimline case is a slimmer version of the jewel case but without the tray. It comes with an inlay
card (J-card) and is primarily used for audio discs.
• Amaray case. An amaray case is a plastic case used for commercially
available prerecorded (replicated) DVD videos and games.
• Snapper case. An alternative to the amaray case, the snapper case is a plastic DVD case with a cardboard cover that is snapped shut and held in place by a plastic lip.

Scratches on the Laser-Reading Side of CDs and DVDs

Scratches generally cross data lines or tracks on the disc, and how bad (deep and wide) they are will determine the extent of interference
with laser focus on the data. Small or occasional scratches will likely have little or no effect on the ability of the laser to read the disc, because the data are far enough below the surface of the disc that the laser is focused beyond the scratch. This is comparable to the effect of a light scratch on a pair of eyeglasses; it does not markedly impair vision because the viewer’s eyes are focused beyond it.
Even assuming a scratch is deep or wide enough to influence laser
focus, error detection and correction coding in the disc drive can in many cases recover the misread data. However, scratches that are deep, wide, or bunched together can adversely affect the readability of the disc. These scratches can cause the laser to misread enough data to make error correction coding ineffectual.
While data errors generated from scratches that run outward from the center of the disc stand a good chance of correction by the error correction firmware, scratches running in the direction of the track, the same direction as the laser reads the disc, are more likely to cause uncorrectable errors. These uncorrectable errors are called E32 in the Red Book for CD specifications, and PO Error in DVD specifications.
If scratches are deep enough to damage the data or metal layers on the reading side of a disc, the data cannot be read or repaired.

Fingerprints, Smudges, Dirt, and Dust

Fingerprints, smudges, dirt, or dust on the laser reading side of the disc can disrupt laser focus on the data even more than a scratch can. Dirt or dust on the disc will block or reduce the light intensity of the laser. If severe enough, it will cause the disc drive to miss data as the disc is being read. Fingerprints, smudges, or dirt cover wide areas of data and will cause the laser beam to go out of focus or lose intensity. They will also cause widespread misreading of data along the data lines or tracks, to an extent that exceeds the error correction capability
of the disc drive. Dust can also spin off into the disc drive and collect on the laser head or other internal components. Fingerprints, smudges, and dirt are easier to remove than scratches; it is simply a matter of cleaning them off.
To summarize, the effects of scratches versus fingerprints and smudges on the laser reading side of a disc include the following:
• Occasional fine scratches will typically not affect the focus of the laser.
• Deep scratches can affect the focus of the laser and cause errors.
• The error detection and correction coding system in the disc drive will correct many errors caused by scratches.
• Fingerprints and smudges can cause more errors than scratches and are more likely to overwhelm the error correction coding system
capability.
• Scratches in the direction of the track (tangential direction) are worse than those going from the center of the disc outward (radial direction).
• Like fingerprints and smudges, several scratches close together can also overwhelm the error correction coding system capability.

Wear from Disc Play

CDs and DVDs do not wear from friction as vinyl records or tapes do. There is no physical contact with the disc in the area that the laser
uses.
ROM Discs: The laser light will have no effect on the data or metal layer in ROM discs. In theory, it is possible for the disc to be read so many times that the cumulative effect of the laser light can eventually affect the polycarbonate. There is, however, no record of such discs having been played a sufficient number of times to incur damage from laser light. Accordingly, it is felt that any effects of the light on ROM discs is negligible. It is assumed, in fact, that the disc would likely fail much earlier from some other condition than from the effects of laser light.
R discs: In theory, R discs should have a limited number of read times (several thousand) because of the cumulative effect on the data layer from the laser light. As with ROM discs, the polycarbonate may also eventually be affected, but there is no recorded evidence of ill effects of laser light, so such effects are deemed negligible.
RW discs: RW discs, unlike the other types, can “wear-out.” CD-RW and DVD-RW discs should last for about 1,000 rewrites, and DVD-RAM discs, 100,000 times, before the rewriting capability is lost. The reading functionality of the disc should continue for a limited
number of read times after each writing. While the maximum number of read times possible after writing is unknown, it may become
fewer after each successive writing.

Cleaning

CDs or DVDs do not require routine cleaning. It is best to clean the disc only when it is absolutely necessary, specifically:
• before storing, when surface contamination is visible
• before recording, when surface contamination is visible
• before playing, to prevent surface contamination from being “flung off” while the disc is spinning in the disc drive
• when readability (playability) is impaired and surface contamination
is visible
In general, avoid using organic solvents. Harsher solvents (acetone,
benzene) will dissolve the polycarbonate and damage the disc beyond repair. Mild solvents (isopropyl alcohol, methanol), however, may be used. These mild solvents evaporate quickly and will not dissolve the polycarbonate.Other solutions that are not harmful are water-based lens cleaners or water-based detergents (with mild soap) formulated for cleaning CDs or DVDs.The polycarbonate substrate is a relatively soft and transparent type of plastic. Each time a disc is wiped, rubbed, treated with some solution, or otherwise manipulated for cleaning, that substrate, and thus the disc itself, is at risk of scratching or contamination.
If the disc needs cleaning, remember these tips:
• Use an air puffer to blow off dust.
• Use a soft cotton cloth or chamois to wipe the disc.
• Try cleaning with a dry cloth first, before using any cleaning solutions.
• Do not wipe in a direction going around the disc.
• Wipe from the center of the disc straight toward the outer edge.
• Avoid using paper products, including lens paper, to wipe the disc.
• Avoid using anything abrasive on the surface of the disc.
• If the disc has a heavy accumulation of dirt, try rinsing it with water
first.
• Use commercially available water-based detergent formulated for cleaning the surface of optical discs.
• Use isopropyl alcohol or methanol, as an alternate to water-based detergents, to clean the disc surface.

Maintaining Your Discs

Do:

1. Handle discs by the outer edge or the center hole.
2. Use a non-solvent-based felt-tip permanent marker to mark the label side of the disc.
3. Keep dirt or other foreign matter from the disc.
4. Store discs upright (book style) in plastic cases specified for CDs and DVDs.
5. Return discs to storage cases immediately after use.
6. Leave discs in their packaging (or cases) to minimize the effects of environmental changes.
7. Open a recordable disc package only when you are ready to record data on that disc.
8. Store discs in a cool, dry, dark environment in which the air is clean.
9. Remove dirt, foreign material, fingerprints, smudges, and liquids by wiping with a clean cotton fabric in a straight line from the center of the disc toward the outer edge.
10. Use CD/DVD-cleaning detergent, isopropyl alcohol, or methanol to remove stubborn dirt or material.
11. Check the disc surface before recording.

Do not:

1. Touch the surface of the disc.
2. Bend the disc.
3. Use adhesive labels.
4. Store discs horizontally for a long time (years).
5. Open a recordable optical disc package if you are not ready to record.
6. Expose discs to extreme heat or high humidity.
7. Expose discs to extremely rapid temperature or humidity changes.
8. Expose recordable discs to prolonged sunlight or other sources of ultraviolet light.
9. Write or mark in the data area of the disc (the area the laser “reads”).
10. Clean by wiping in a direction going around the disc.

For CDs especially do not:

1. Scratch the label side of the disc.
2. Use a pen, pencil, or fine-tip marker to write on the disc.
3. Write on the disc with markers that contain solvents.
4. Try to peel off or reposition a label.

A brief note on CD-DVD technology

2007-03-29T06:16:00.000+05:30

CDs and DVDs: Operation and Variety

CD is short for compact disc. DVD initially stood for digital video disc, then digital versatile disc, but today the term DVD is often used without referring to a specific set of words. Both CDs and DVDs are optical media, meaning media that use light technology (more specifically,laser light) for data retrieval. A disc drive focuses a laser light beam into the CD or DVD to “read” the bits (data) in the disc. The drive can also “write” bits by focusing the laser beam into recordable CDs or DVDs. The laser reads and writes data starting from the center of the disc and proceeding in a spiral direction toward the outer edge. A pre-groove is stamped in all blank recordable and rewritable CDs and DVDs to guide the laser as it writes.Optical discs are differentially identified to designate specific features such as recordability, rewritability, and accessibility. For example, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R discs are dye-based recordable (write-once) discs—i.e., recordable but not erasable. CD-RW, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW discs are phase-change based, recordable, (rewritable) discs, or discs that permit the erasing of earlier information and the recording of new material in the same location on the disc. DVD-RAM discs are phase-change based, recordable (rewritable) discs formatted for random access,much like a computer hard drive. CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs are pressed and molded,nonrecordable,read-only discs.

Structure

CDs and DVDs consist of the same basic materials and layers but are manufactured differently. A DVD is actually like two thin CDs glued together. A CD is read from and written to (by laser) on one side only; a DVD can be read from or written to on one or both sides, depending on how the disc was manufactured. Recordable DVDs (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM) can be manufactured with one recording
layer on each side. Prerecorded DVDs (DVD-ROM) can be manufactured with one or two recorded layers on each side.

Polycarbonate (Plastic) Substrate Layer

The polycarbonate substrate makes up most of the disc, including the area that is read by the laser (opposite the label side on CDs). It is present on both sides of a DVD, even a “single-sided” disc with a label on one side. This substrate provides the disc depth necessary to maintain laser focus on the metal and data layers. It also gives the disc enough strength to remain flat. Anything in or on the polycarbonate
layer that interferes with the ability of the laser to focus on the data layer will result in the misreading of data. Accordingly, fingerprints,smudges,or scratches,as well as such substances as dirt, dust, solvents, and excessive moisture (which polycarbonate will absorb), can interfere with the ability of the laser to read the data. Contact of any foreign material with the polycarbonate substrate layer should be avoided.

The dye-based (R discs) and the phase-changing film layers (RW discs) both hold data by allowing or blocking light transfer through the data layer.The laser-affected “written”) areas of the data layer absorb the “reading” laser beam as it is emitted from the laser to the metal layer and reflected back to the laser photosensor.The light and dark areas give reflectivity effects that are similar to the interference
effect of the “pressed” and molded data in the metal/substrate layer in ROM discs. The reflection, whether the result of dye, film, or pressed effects,is represented digitally as ones and zeros by the firmware in the disc drive as the laser reads the disc.

Data Layer in ROM Discs

ROM discs are commercially available or made-to-order prerecorded discs, also called “replicated” discs. Examples of CD-ROMs include the Audio-CD, Video-CD, CD-i, and CD+G, as well as any number of CDs used in computer applications. Among DVD-ROMs are the DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, and any of various DVDs used in games and computer applications.The data in CD-ROM or DVD-ROM discs are not actually in a separate layer. A molding machine uses a stamper to impress the pits (depressions) and lands (surface), which form the data, into the polycarbonate substrate surface. Metal is then sputtered or condensed onto the molded substrate to form a “reflective data layer.” The reflective metal layer in ROM discs can also be considered the data layer because the metal is integrated with the pits and lands in the polycarbonate.The metal layer in ROM discs is usually aluminum. For double-sided DVD-ROM discs, the semi-reflective layer is gold, silver alloy, or silicon.

Data Layer in R Discs

The recordable, write-once optical disc (CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R) has its data-recording layer sandwiched between the polycarbonate strate and the metal layer. This layer is an organic dye. The dyes used in CDs and DVDs are the same basic types; those used in DVDs, however, are patented by the manufacturer, and the disc color does not indicate the type of dye used. The dyes in both CDs and DVDs are photosensitive. Bits (marks) are written to the dye by a chemical change caused by the laser light beam. This
dye degrades over time, eventually making the disc unreadable.The data layer in CD-R discs consists of one of three basic dye types, each yielding a different disc color depending on the type of dye and the type of reflective metal used in the disc. Even on a plain, unlabelled disc, the label side can be a different color from the reading side. If the label side of a recordable disc does not have a printable surface, a label attached, or some other protective layer, it will have the color of the metal used (silver or gold).

Data Layer in RW and RAM discs

The data-recording layer of the rewritable optical disc (CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM) also lies between the polycarbonDye ate substrate and the metal reflective layer. This is a phase-changing metal alloy film. A laser beam writes bits (marks) to the film by heating the film above the melting temperature in the areas selected for bits. The rapid cooling enabled by the dielectric layers on both sides of the phase-changing film causes these bit or mark areas to remain in the amorphous state caused by melting. By heating the phase-changing film to a specific temperature above the crystalline temperature but below the melting temperature, the film can revert back to the crystalline state, thereby erasing previous bits. The writing and erasing processes can be done together in a single pass when rewriting a disc.

Metal (Reflective) Layer

The metal layer in optical discs reflects the laser beam back to the laser
photosensor in the laser head. Three types of reflective metals are typically used for this layer: aluminum, gold, and silver or silver alloy.In “double-layer” DVDs, silicon is sometimes used as one of the semireflective layers.

Metal Layer in RW, ROM, and RAM Discs

RW, ROM, and RAM discs (CD-RW, CD-ROM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM) use aluminum for the reflective layer, mainly because it is inexpensive and easy to apply. Aluminum oxidizes on exposure to oxygen from the environment or to moisture that has penetrated the disc. In some earlier CDs, poor sealing allowed oxygen to come into contact with the aluminum metal layer, causing the aluminum to oxidize. Oxidation of the aluminum diminishes its reflectivity, making the disc unreadable by the laser, and is sometimes referred to as disc “rot.” It is the primary cause of ROM disc degradation from environmental influences. Not so, however, for RW and RAM disc degradation; the phase-changing film in these discs normally degrades at a faster rate than the aluminum in the disc oxidizes.

Metal Layer in R Discs

In R discs (CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R), gold, silver, or a silver alloy is used for the reflective layer. Silver is slightly more reflective than gold but can lose reflectivity with corrosion on exposure to adverse environmental conditions. Silver corrodes through reaction with sulfur dioxide, an environmental pollutant that can migrate through the disc with moisture. Gold is noncorrosive, very stable, and longer lasting, but it is also expensive. Either metal should outlast the dye. Aluminum is not used with these discs because it can react with the dye in the recording (data) layer.

Metal Layers in Double-Layer DVD-ROM Discs

DVD-ROMs can be manufactured with two reflective metal layers that allow the laser to read data from both layers using one side of the disc. These “double layered” DVDs provide up to four times the capacity for content (video, audio, computer applications) as do “single-layered” DVDs. The laser beam must pass through a semi-reflective metal layer to read data from a fully reflective layer. The outer metal layer (silicon, gold, or silver alloy) is semi-reflective; that is, it reflects back some of the laser beam and allows some of it to pass through to a fully reflective layer (aluminum) and then reflect back. Both parts are thus reflected to, and detected by, the photosensor in the laser head, which focuses on one layer at a time.

These are a few points I had made note of from a few good ebooks.Not much detailed..but I couln't find more time to refine this..

This christmas vacation.....

2007-01-06T14:25:00.000+05:30

Ha....

This christmas hols after our s3 theory exams i saw and learnt many important and intersting things.
Those may be classified as information,knowledge,fun,curiosity etc.

One of the most important achivement this month was achieved not by me,but my father!!
He succeeded in bringing my 500 plan broadband to 250.
I can't say whether I am sad or happy at this,but as it came through,it can be understood that I didnt object much.

As my father says,the more you have the more you want.So when the source was curbed,I found to my surprise that I really need not spend so much time with the net,and still not be bored or miss important things.

Anyway,with that done and exams over,my bro came over.So I had no job in the computer.
So,I started learning many new and forgotten things.I built the crave for work that I had almost lost.

As my friend Manu was involved in buying upgrades for his old pc,we used to discuss those things usually.He learnt many things about motherboards,graphic cards etc from many sources and we were trying to get a decent upgrade so that he may play many new games.In the process I too started checking those details in net and mags.This was followed by daily checking of the cabinet.

Unlike usual drive connection works,this time I tried to really understand what the board looks like and found it to be quite understandable for a normal person who may need to fix and check a few things on the board usually.All ports and circuits were properly named and allotted space.
I learnt to dismantle most ports,cords,cards and devices.

When I bought the pendrive this time,I was able to make a proper study of pendrive manufacture,common industry standards and recovery tools.

I also happened to go deeper into optical drives and especially the new medias like dvd+r/-r,blu-ray etc.Also when I got my old 120gb HD replaced,I went for some research on HDs.I learnt of perpendicular storage and industry standards and codes.

No one can just completely(or even half) understand their own actions and interests.You need other sources to help you to understand those.This time the Yahoo Answers helped me.
In the technical portion I was able to answer most question related to motherboards,graphic cards,RAM,pendrives,optical media,hard disk etc,whereas most of question in programming,gaming etc which were my earlier areas, were strange and tough.

Also during these days I have played very little games and so my mind is fresh.So I decided that I rekindle my old spirits of PL-SQL,SQL and VB.By their re-emergence I will go into MySQL and then onto the castle PHP.
In the mean time I wish to keep in gud touch with C also ,so that I may go easy with kernels and then onto..........JAVA(long dream...)

I have just made a note-like mention of my chores and my hopes.....give ur comments

My first ILUG

2006-11-27T07:36:00.001+05:30

Oh God!What a day it was....

On Sunday the 26th of November 2006,I and Nikil went for our first ILUG Cochin Chapter meeting.I had raised great objections to this meeting from the start as our exams were set to begin by 5th dec and I haven't covered portions enough.But by Nikil's pressure I accepted the offer and we met at Menaka by 2 pm.

The it was a tough job to find the old building in which the meeting was held...

When we entered it,what I saw was an old fashioned building housing an internet cafe` with many old furniture and wooden roof.The lighting suggested a kind of intellectual workplace,which actually it was.Two guys looking like nerds,one bearded and the other with a kinda stressed look were talking.We introduced ourselves and entered and took our seat.We had expected a large hall with lots of tech enthusiasts of our age asking doubts and solving tech problems..but this was too different.

I tried to observe the surroundings and the atmosphere...Many empty packs of AMD processors and graphics cards were stacked at one place and the cafe` was like a club with many machines strewn along with lots of cds,books..posters ....all such stuff.Then entered Jay Jacob(the Cafe` is named Jay's Internet Club),the co-ordinator.
He looked intelligent and techy with his stout and fair face.He was a very lean guy but his eyes had the glow of an intelligent person.

That day's meeting was important as I later came to know that the Asst. commissioner of Kerala Police was visiting them to talk about the transfer of all computers in the police dept to Linux OS.

Then came the most astonishing and different person,Balakrishnan sir.He was a old person(maybe in 60s)with thick white beard like that of a saint.He entered with two packs one which he revealed to be Ubuntu cds.He seemed to be the intellectual lighthouse of the ILUG cochin chapter.

Two-three more guys entered the room and took their places.We were quickly introduced to them and the matters in the agenda were put forward to discussion.The first one was the transfer of JAVA to GPL.I didn't understand much at first,but soon I was in the stream.According to them,it was a reason to celebrate also...so I feel I am getting into the mainstream linux discussion now.That is fine and I am happy about that.I was really enthusiastic about the ideals and the methodologies they discussed though the technical parts were not all too easy.But we two didn't open our mouths in the meeting,it would be too early.I wanted to wait and know each of the members and then start working actively by S4.

Then came the tea break,when tea was ordered for all and the second pack from Balakrishnan sir was opened.It had cream biscuits.We all ate it and soon we two were mingling with the team.

The next topic was quite sticky and tough to understand.Through his meticulous explanation Jay sir made the history of things clear with frequent clarifications from Bala sir.It was the possible inclusion of MS coding into Suse linux.This is seen as a serious threat by the community.They were holding many hypothetical situations to suggest foul play by MS.But I didn't think like them.MS may have a foul play int he deal with Suse,but then it can't be as serious as they were suggesting.Well,my inexperience in this field could be the reason for such judgements..so I decided to keep quiet.

Anyway by 4.00 the commissioner called up to inform that he would be there immediately.Me and Nikil felt that we had enough for a day so he was pricking me for some time.Many other members were outside talking in their mob phones,and 2-3 were inside discussing about their suspicion and contempt of MS and its tie up with Indian Govt(donno why this ppl 'hate' MS).Their attitude seemed to hostile to any corporate..(so I even doubted their communist side of thinking)

I got a call from home and had to go.So I went inside and told Jay sir that I need to go.He inquired whether I could be available for the expo on 30th.I informed him of our tight exam schedules due to which we couldn't help him and made our way out.

The stress of all that made me sleep for long and I studied ET(alternators,1phase induction motors) at night and went to sleep.

Edited note: These r my feelings of the first meeting at ILUG, which I soon began to respect and co-operate with.Now we are in good contact with many active members.

Battle of Browsers-contd

2006-11-11T20:56:00.000+05:30

Finally Firefox 2 has come out....
I just give you a review here.

Mozilla Firefox 2 (formerly known as Bon Echo) builds on the strength and the security demonstrated in Firefox 1.5 by adding several new features. Like Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 includes built-in antiphishing, but overall, Firefox 2 is much better than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. Firefox 2 offers forward-looking features, such as Live Titles, as well as practical here-and-now tools, such as search engine suggestions, session restore, and inline spell-checking. Despite its many improvements, Firefox 2, like Internet Explorer 7, still does not pass the Acid2 Web Standards test, although, unlike Microsoft, Mozilla says it is working toward full compliance. Given its many pros and relatively few cons, Firefox 2 deserves its place.

You can download Firefox 2 for free, and unlike Internet Explorer 7, Firefox is available on a variety of operating systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux. There are also a wide variety of localized language versions, including Basque and Byelorussian. Again unlike IE 7, Firefox 2 does not require that you shut down antivirus protection nor does it perform a system reboot.

Unlike IE 7, which has reorganized its toolbar, Firefox 2 changes only the look and feel of its buttons. The new shiny-glass look is much more sophisticated, as are the rounded tabs and the hairline borders around the address bar and the search engine box. Missing, however, is Places, a side panel feature we saw briefly in alpha builds; Places organizes bookmarks, RSS feeds, and history in one place, much like IE 7's Favorites Center. The good news is that Places will return in Firefox 3, which is currently under development.

Tabs have long been a part of Firefox. Now, with Firefox 2, you can open any number of tabs, rearrange them, and reopen a previously closed tab using the hot keys Ctrl-Shift-T. With another feature carried over from Firefox 1.5, you can also save active tabs as a bookmark so that you can open the entire set of tabs at a later time. Missing, however, are thumbnail previews of each tab (still available only as an extension).

At the far right of the Firefox toolbar is the search engine box. Firefox 2 now includes suggested search terms from the search engine itself; for instance type fire and Google returns Firefox among other suggestions. Firefox 2 provides several built-in search engines, such as Amazon and eBay--far more than provided by IE 7--with the option to add even more search engines.

Should you decide to remove Firefox, you'll be disappointed. Despite the speed we witnessed upon instigating uninstall, the uninstall feature left behind several folders and far too many registry entries. Thus, if you want to clean out your Firefox completely or you attempt to load Firefox 2 as a clean browser, you'll be stuck with your previous bookmarks and preferences, including extensions, intact.

New in Firefox 2 is session restore; if Windows crashes and you have several tabs open in Firefox at the time, you can now relaunch Firefox with all the tabs intact. This is quite a useful feature.

Firefox 2 also gives you the ability to correct your spelling mistakes online, just like using a word processor. This is great for typing blogs or posting to a newsgroup. Common dictionary words are checked, with misspellings identified with a squiggly red line. You can add more words and even include dictionaries available in various languages. Once you have access to inline spell-checking, you won't want to surf the Web without it.

Possibly the coolest new feature is Live Titles, formerly Microsummaries, which allows Web sites to stream updated data to your bookmarks. You can add the Live Titles functionality to the Merriam-Webster dictionary site, for example, and once you have done so, when you bookmark a page, you can choose the Live Title option to display the word of the day in your bookmark. When you drop down the bookmark menu or open the bookmark side panel, you'll see the Merriam-Webster logo followed by the word of the day. For news sites such as the BBC's, you'll see the latest headline. Think of Live Titles as RSS-like feeds for your otherwise static bookmarks.

Unfortunately extensions designed for Firefox 1.5 will probably break within Firefox 2. When you install Firefox 2, a handy wizard checks to see if there are new versions of already installed 1.5 extensions available; in my case, some but not all of my favorites had not been optimized for 2.0.In general, the Firefox add-on community is much more robust than that of Internet Explorer.

Security enhancements within Firefox 2 continue. New is a dialog box informing you of cross-domain scripting, a tactic used by criminal hackers to link nonrelated sites to sites you think may be legit. And Mozilla remains very responsive to fixing its vulnerabilities, pushing out updates within a few days of public notice. Microsoft, on the other hand, parses out its vulnerability fixes a little at a time. In the five years since its release, IE 6 has accrued a large deficit, and we see no sign that Microsoft is addressing new vulnerabilities found in IE 7 any faster.

The underlying Web rendering engine within Firefox 2 is Gecko 1.8, and it is largely unchanged from the previous release, Firefox 1.5. The next release of Firefox should include a new rendering engine.

Unfortunately, Firefox 2 does not fully support all the standards supported by the W3C organization, so it fails what is called the Acid2 test, a test designed by the Web Standards Project, although Mozilla is working hard toward full compliance.
For comparison, of the browsers tested by CNET, only Opera 9 passed the test; IE 7 fared the worst, unable to render the page in the correct colors or shapes.

Antiphishing technology within Firefox 2 is good, and the technology has steadily improved throughout the various betas

There are many enhancements within Firefox 2, making it a worthy upgrade for existing users and a fine introduction for new users. Firefox is truly innovative, yet it's also very practical for everyday use.

Battle of the Browsers

2006-08-15T18:21:00.000+05:30

Recently I felt that in the present IT market,with more and more people getting access to internet and the standardisation of previously unique technologies of web browsing,we hear of various jargons like phishing,e-transactions,malicious codes,spywares,adwares..and all those god-knows-what kinda things....When you are asked to choose a browser for browsing the net...which would you choose?

I have tried all the three major browser out there,namely the IE6(IE7 is the one which has to be actually considered),Mozilla Firefox and of course the Opera.