Planet Manipal

July 03, 2009

1st Year @ MIT – PART 1


The Long awaited post finally comes … Initially , I wanted to write this post just right after the first year exams .. but as usual circumstances did not permit me…(a too strong statement)… So , now coming to the topic ..

Well , if I had to describe the first year of college in one line , it would be ” one of the most memorable year and a year of change  ” .. the usual one liner .. But , its true , I have changed a lot during this year , my close friends(those who have known me since school) would have surely noticed .. To start with , I have made quite a lot of friends , some of them very close too….

Lets split up the first year into different parts :

First day : I arrived a day late thus missing the orientation programme..I reached Manipal at around 8 pm ( via Rajdhani from delhi then a taxi to Manipal from the udupi ) .. Me n my frnd ( Anirudh ) both of us entered the coll when it was pitch dark…. We went directly to the K Block ( my hostel) .. the caretaker ( rather Vasu anna..).. and he gave us our room keys .. we completed sum formalities.. The first impression I had when I entered my room .. “how would I stay here for one whole year ” .. the room was arnd 9 feet by 9 feet .. no bathroom (there was a common bathroom  , no ac , no tv … just a table , a chair , a bed , a godrej almirah attached to the wall ..Then we had dinner in Apurva mess ,the food was a lot better .. After settling in the room ( buying some things , unpacking etc ) to my astonishment , I had a good night sleep…

First week : I woke up at arnd 6 daily ( its too early for me) .. had a good bath … then I went to the college and back to hostel like a good college boy .. Just had random chats in the college with classmates and got to know the teachers , make a good impression ( the impression helped me a lot .. to escape fines..).. In the evenings , me and my hostel mates all sat together .. then had a good nice long chat which extended up to wee hours in the morning ..We chatted about almost anything ranging from where have come from to our ranks in the recent exams .. from our school to our crushes .. It was like narrating your story to entirely new people… Very soon we had to got to know each other as if we had known each other from years ( Its strange that we get to know people very easily by having a long conversation .. ).. Eventually , I made many friends during the course of the first week …

First month : The first month was pretty cool , not at all hectic .. I had developed a bad habit of sending sms for everything right from calling people for mess even when they stayed only a couple of metres away ( Thanks to Airtel’s 100 free sms daily).. My mobile bill would have surely soared up a lot if not for the free sms .. During the first month , I learnt a lot about the college , about the various clubs , activities etc.. ( I was amazed by the number of clubs MIT had) ..Most of the month went off in eagerly waiting for our laptop ( For those of who dont know , MIT gives a laptop to each and every student ) .. But still we managed to watch a quite a lot of movies ( on a friend’s laptop who was kind enough to let us use ).. I was starting a hang of the college also …  I also had the chance to witness a birthday in the first month of the college . We just went out for dinner ( rather snacks ) . BTW , it was my friend AATIF’s birthday .We had our sessionals just after the first month ..

The next few months ( August , September , October ) : Finally , I received my laptop  in the last week of August , LENOVO R61 .. I was the first one to recieve in the entire hostel to get it .. The first privilege of belonging to Computer Science ..I experimented quite a lot with MY FIRST LAPTOP . Then , I had my sessionals , the results were not as expected but were ok overall .. I attended quite a lot club meetings .. Me n my friends went on a trip ( Freshers Day out ) to nearby places organised by Rotract . .. It wassfun indeed .. learnt a couple of words (  like bakchodi etc) .. Also , we had a IITian teaching us ( guess what ??) Ethics .. it was a subject which was ideal for easing off tension .. Initially , I liked the teacher and what he preached .. Infact , I went to his house every Saturday along with my friend Ankit ( 9.67 CG) to attend a informal type of gathering .. We just chanted Hare Rame Hare Krishna  and then had dinner which was made and served by our seniors … ( I must admit here that the food was very good )..  I even thought many of the people came here just for the food.. I attended a workshop by LUG MANIPAL .. on Mobivision … then eventually made a small application using Python with my classmate Apan . (had great help from seniors like OS and Shubendra bhaiya ( a forum NOKIA Champion)). Then , the second sessionals arrived which passed off without much problem except low marks ..Then the biggest Techfest ( I ever attended ) arrived , TECHTATVA 08 .. I took part in many events but to my utter disappointment not won a single one even though I had qualified for the last round of every competition ..Infact I came third in TECHOPS ( the first and second were both seniors ).. I had taken in too many competitions ( the maximum one could because of time constraints ) .. There was a time when I had to choose between two competions ( MOBIVISION and AMAZING TECH RACE ) . I had reached the finals of both the competitions but I chose MOBIVISION for I had coded a application for it .. But , finally I lost both .. So , I am eagerly waiting for this year’s Techtatva to WIN .. After that , we had Dhol Baje ( a cultural event by Rotract ) .. I had helped quite a lot by volunteering.. I had also set up my first info desks in the college for the publicity of the club..

More in my next post ..

July 02, 2009

Fedora 11 Fixing Various Problems


0)  Graphic Driver Problems

- For ATI RadeonHD cards (especially x1250 and x1200)

yum install xorg-x11-drv-radeonhd

if /etc/X11/xorg.conf doesnt exist
yum install system-config-display
Run system-config-display –reconfig in terminal.

Modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf

"Device" Section
Driver "radeonhd"
Option "DRI" "True"

- Or Install fglrx (At the time of writing of post official rpmfusion drivers dont exist)

Hence Fedora 10 ’s kernel needs to be installed .Refer this post

(Make sure that you use correct driver since ati recently removed support for many cards )

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=224519

1)  Enabling OSS
(This is needed for Real Player 11 as it crashes with ALSA)

(In Root /Sudo Mode)

nano /etc/modprobe.d/dist-oss.conf

uncomment line as mentioned

2)  Fixing glitchy sound problems.
There are many solutions to the sound problems listed in http://fedoraforums.org
They mainly deal with time scheduling
Other solutions consist of

- Enable OSS (See Above)
- Install OSS v4.x ( This replaces all the ALSA/Pulse Audio kernel modules)

3)  Enabling TAP in MousePad / Touchpad

- Temporary Measure

synclient TapButton1=1
synclient TapButton2=1

- Permanent Measures
- Using gsynaptics  ,a gui interface for synapitcs  ( touchpad driver)

yum install gsynaptics -y

- Modifying xorg.conf

See this link.

NOTE: IF YOU FIND ANY PROBLEM / ALTERNATE SOLUTION WITH ABOVE FIXES PLEASE POST A COMMENT.

Posted in Fedora 11

July 01, 2009

The iPhone for Me

When it debuted, the iPhone was a beautiful device, although it lacked a lot of functionality, and the hardware wasn’t powerful enough. Yet, we defended, bought and loved it, making it one of the biggest hits of ‘07, and the fastest selling device in some countries. I, however, was one of those people who didn’t/couldn’t take the plunge1. As with most new Apple products, I knew that rapid iteration was the name of the game, and no matter when I would buy one, it would be obsolete by the next big conference. I chose to hold out. And boy am I glad.

When it did arrive in India, the iPhone 3G was ridiculously priced, and it didn’t back that up with features that we were used to. The U.S. has been fairly backward when it comes to mobile phones, but India is not. For years, we have been Symbian toting users of Nokia phones (which holds a huge majority share here) who have come to expect a lot of features from our phones, even if we never really used them. Most of the people I know willingly pay for what it can do, and not what they really do with it. That, coupled with lack of 3G in the country (even though the same people would buy other 3G enabled devices), and superfluous requirements like SMS-forwarding turned people away. So it was really no surprise when the launch failed miserably.

But now comes the iPhone 3G S. The first iPhone I can really get on board with, and it’s not just because it’s faster and better than previous iPhones. That’s a big part, yes, but the decision is made so much easier because of the fact that the competition looks (to quote Steve Jobs) really last century.

The Grass is not Greener

No matter what one might think, most non-iPhone smartphones today sucks. I’ve had a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for quite a while now, and am thoroughly frustrated (I’ve already argued about how it’s a smartphone even though Nokia never meant for it to be one). I’m frustrated with the UI, with the lack of apps, the terrible hog that is the OS, and the plastic-y feel to the build. It’s a good phone, but not for ‘09. I’ve seen the specifications and read reviews of the N97 as well, and am still not impressed. If you thought Nokia, the largest smartphone manufacturer, would maybe get it right after two iterations, you’re very wrong.

Competing phones from Samsung and Sony Ericsson are just glorified good looking devices that offer nothing beyond a touch interface to whatever has been there in the market for the last decade. I’ve not seen the Android phones because they haven’t launched in India, so I can’t say anything about them. Windows Mobile devices are in the same boat, and a downward spiral.

Basically, any non-iPhone device that is trying to compete with it at the moment, is a poor man’s version of the iPhone. They’ve clearly missed the point.

Apple has almost completely bridged the gap (features wise) with iPhone OS 3.0. The apps war wages on, but it has already won the battle with a massive head start the App Store and its 50,000+ apps has given it. The Ovi store is a joke (and I dare say too little too late), and the Prē is too new and too immature to be in reckoning for at least a year to come. Windows Mobile isn’t even relevant anymore in this department. The competition today, is where Apple and the Macintosh were in the 1980s — not differentiating enough, and hence, constantly playing catch-up, among other things. If all this sounds fanboy-ish, then let the numbers talk. Remember, this is just one model, on one carrier in 8 countries.

I guess what I’m saying, in a few words, is that iPhone shines through like a diamond in a coal mine that is the phone market today. But a diamond that shines by its own light, not reflected. It’s not an awesome device because everything around it sucks. It’s an awesome device, period.

It is finally something that meets my requirements from a portable device that is a worthy substitute for my computer when I’m on the move. And it’s constantly pushing that boundary to show me things I didn’t realise I wanted. For example, my favourite thing from this year’s WWDC was the peripherals’ support2. The iPhone being able to 2-way communicate with other devices is such an awesome thing, that ideas like this don’t seem so unworldly crazy anymore. It’s not only innovating, it’s letting us innovate along with it as well.

Coup De Grâce

Apple started by making the smartphone usable. Now, it’s giving us things to use. Slow and steady will win this race, because that allows Apple to work on the features that people will use, and make them in a way that people will want to use. The iPhone is already its priority device, with maximum development and marketing efforts going into making it as much of a hit as the iPod was. And I’m glad that they are turning it into a device that people want because they like it, and not because it’s flashy. People are buying the iPhone to use it and be productive with it, do things that they did not or could not do with other phones, in a way that makes it a very pleasant experience. They’re actually having fun with their phones.

I’ll be buying one when I move to the UK this October, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m half expecting an OS update by then, to iron out any bugs they might have found after the release (UPDATE: early signs of which are showing).

I am an Apple faithful, but sometimes it just takes a while. The wait, however, is so worth it.

Further Reading

R • Waffle
The iPhone Software Revolution • Coding Horror


  1. I couldn’t take the plunge since the first iPhone was never released in India. I meant that I didn’t buy the first iPhone that did come to India, the 3G, even though the software and hardware had taken a huge jump. 

  2. I won’t deny that I was pretty excited about push notifications and copy-paste as well. But push notifications aren’t really a substitute for multi-tasking, which I fully expect to see next year. However, iPhone’s copy-paste is clearly superior and actually usable as compared to Symbian’s and even Prē’s for that matter (I mean seriously, look at this!) 

June 29, 2009

Michael_Jackson_-_Number_Ones


our hearts,with grief they are filled
we cannot believe
your breathe has been still’d
of all your pains u’ve got relieve.

some of us forever may weep
during our lonely sleep
thinking that MJ wont be again ever
and that your music will play on forever.

Michael_Jackson_-_Number_Ones

you gave the treasures of many kind
the moonwalk & wonderful music you leave behind
sad though , but it is true
jacko , no one in the world can matchup with you.

I pray to the one far above
that your soul in peace may rest
& you are the one we all still love
we’ll meet you in eternity as god’s guest.

Aamir
dedicated to the king of pop
MJ ..RIP
on behalf of all fans..

June 26, 2009

Moving to Google Code

I have decided to move some of my personal projects to Google Code so that it’d give me some impetus and make me get off my lazy ass and actually put some real effort into the things I like.

Er, not really. It’s more of a selfish decision. Right now I want other people to read and criticize my code so that I’d know where I’m going wrong and correct myself. Nothing’s more dangerous than complacency.

As a starter, I have uploaded the tiny mpd now playing plugin I wrote for xchat about an year ago when I was learning socket programming in python. Showing the current playing track was too easy. Right now I want it to become more like an interface to mpd that provides basic controls sitting in the comfort of xchat.

I named the project mpd-xchat

PS: Just after I had uploaded the code, I found a project by the name of xchat-mpd :P

I hope to add one more project in the next few days :)

Dhananjay (BE-2k7)

Fedora 11 Leonidas Essentials Guide Part 1: Getting Started


Fedora 11 Leonidas essentials guide

Well Howdy Folks ! ,thou having trouble with getting Fedora 11 Leonidas Up and Running ?

Well then you have come to the right place !!!
NOTE:all commands r to be typed in terminal with sudo or su login or su -c
PS: All yum commands can be replaced by package kit alternatives type “info pkcon” in terminal.

0) PRESTO PLUGIN FOR YUM: Presto is a delta rpm plugin for  yum . (Delta rpm is only the difference in old and new version of packages Hence Saves Precious Bandwidth.
yum install yum-presto

1)RPM-FUSION:Adding rpmfusion as a repository to get access to lot of other packages and features.

(VERY ESSENTIAL ALL OTHER STEPS REQUIRE THIS)

rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm  http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

yum update

To install something in command line use

yum install Name of Packages Seperated by spaces -y

of course to find the exact package name use

yum search Package


2)Package Management Frontend GUI :

Fedora already has PackageKit (System>Administration>Add/Remove Software)

but it doesn’t quite compare up to yumex

yum install yumex

3)MP3 Support:

Well, everybody loves their songs right ?

yum install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly xine xine-lib libdvdcss xine-lib-extras-nonfree


4)Music Players:

Everybody has a different choice of a music player , I personally prefer Songbird and Amarok which have everything from cover management ,id3tag editing,online Music Store Support and Global key Shortcuts.

Few of the most used players.

                     -Amarok
                     -Audacious
                     -Banshee
                     -Exaile
                     -Listen
                     -Rhythmbox
                     -Xmms
                     -Songbird

4)GCC compatibility:

GCC is the GNU compiler supporting a lot of languages. Its needed for old packages.

yum install gcc gcc-c++ compat-libstdc++-33 compat-libstdc++-296

5)Video Codecs:

Fedora doesn’t with proprietary codecs for playing Codecs.

Download them.

wget  http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2

then

mkdir -p /usr/lib/codecs

tar -jxvf all-20071007.tar.bz2 --strip-components 1 -C /usr/lib/codecs/

5)Video Players:

Totem is installed by default but its not a favourite of mine.

Real Player

Download RealPlayer 11 GOLD from: http://www.real.com/linux/. ( preferably use .bin file)

Select: “Advanced Installation RedHat Package”

Before installing RealPlayer, make sure to have the compat-libstdc++-33 compatibility libraries installed.
yum install compat-libstdc++-33

chmod +x name.bin

./name.bin

Read Agreement Go to end and press y and enter (keep pressing enter, till it starts installing)

For RPM:
sudo rpm -ivh RealPlayer11.rpm

note:if real/helix or any plugin doesnt load in firefox use:
sudo /usr/bin/mozilla-plugin-config -i -f

Other Players

mplayer: yum install mplayer mplayer-gui mplayer-skins mplayer-fonts mplayerplug-in mencoder
xine:       yum install xine xine-lib-extras xine-lib-extras-nonfree libdvdcss
vlc:         yum install vlc

kaffeine yum install kaffeine kdemultimedia kdemultimedia-libs

Dragon : yum install dragon kdemultimedia kdemultimedia-libs

Note: After this if it doesn’t work refer to my other posts

Posted in Fedora 11

June 25, 2009

Resource limits – Part II (hard limits)

So much for late night coding. Yesterday I missed out on a very important part about setting the hard limits on resources. But you need to have a superuser process to achieve this. Referring to the code of exec.c in the previous post, put in this after line no. 18.

limit.rlim_max =1;

This is actually the hard limit and as the man page says, it acts as a ceiling for the soft limit i.e. rlim_cur. The advantage being that if the process exceeds the limit and yet continues running such as by handling the SIGXCPU signal in the previous example, this time a SIGKILL will be issued which would force it to terminate.

Now compile exec.c as usual and run it as root. You won’t see any output as we set the hard limit equal to the soft limit.

  • Soft limit reached, SIGXCPU sent
  • Process tries to handle it
  • At the same time the hard limit i.e. the ceiling for soft limit is reached too. So a SIGKILL is sent and the process terminates before any output.

References


setrlimit(2) man page

Ankur Shrivastava (BE-2k7)

How Manipal got its first Linux (fedora) server

It all started with a failing Student’s Teacher Feedback System, designed by few fourth year students of my college, in oct-nov 2008 the system was not able to scale and everything was reverted back to paper, it was then when i was contacted by a teacher from my Department ( Information and Communication Technology ), regarding if i can improve it.

i asked DJ if he wants to join me and after few weeks of coding there it was Manipal university’s first (working) Feedback System, when the point of hosting it came, i was surprised to find Manipal University has no Linux servers, i mean come on no Linux what are you people click sys admins, then we decided to setup our own server in the department, thus giving Manipal university its first Linux ( fedora 10 ) server.

currently it just hosts the Feedback System, but we are planning to use it as local ( internal ) fedora repository mirror, we need permission from the WiFi provider ION because almost all the students use only WiFi and not LAN, last time we tried we were denied by saying ” You are a threat to our network “, lets see how it goes this time. we will also require people to manage it but i think this can be handled very well by LUG Manipal, some pics

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

Fedora 10 server in Manipal


Fedora 10 server in Manipal

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

PS – i am looking for a way to convince them that setting up a mirror will be helpful for them as well as students can anyone suggest me how to go about it??

LUG Manipal

How Manipal got its first Linux (fedora) server

It all started with a failing Student’s Teacher Feedback System, designed by few fourth year students of college, in oct-nov 2008 the system was not able to scale and everything was reverted back to paper, it was then when i was contacted by a teacher from my Department ( Information and Communication Technology ), regarding if i can improve it,

i asked DJ if he wants to join me and after few weeks of coding there it was Manipal university’s first (working) Feedback System, when the point of hosting it came, i was surprised to find Manipal University has no Linux servers, i mean come on no Linux what are you people click sys admins, then we decided to setup our own server in the department, thus giving Manipal university its first Linux ( fedora 10 ) server.

currently it just hosts the Feedback System, but we are planning to use it as local ( internal ) fedora repository mirror, we need permission from the WiFi provider ION because almost all the students use only WiFi and not LAN, last time we tried we were denied by saying ” You are a threat to our network “, lets see how it goes this time. we will also require people to manage it but i think this can be handled very well by LUG Manipal, some pics

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

Fedora 10 server in Manipal


Fedora 10 server in Manipal

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

PS – i am looking for a way to convene them that setting up a mirror will be helpful for them as well as students can anyone suggest me how to go about it??

Kartik Mandaville (BE-2k8)

Taking Date from the user as input


I was making a website where I had to take the Date of Birth from the user . Initially , I took the whole date as a string and passed it to MYSQL through PHP , but then my friend ( Prateek) told me to have a drop down menu for the day, month and the year so as to make it look cool and more user friendly ..

So , then I started to do it and discovered many functions like checkdate() in the process .

The final result : date2

This code :

  • Displays three drop down menus one each for the day ,month and the year .
  • It checks the date for validity using PHP .
  • It combines all three (day,month and year) into a MYSQL date format so as to send it to the database
  • It will also show by default the option previously selected . eg If there are many fields in your form then the user enters a wrong date ( let it be 29/02/1990) then it will ask you to enter a correct date and also by default select the day as 29 , month as 02 and year as 1990 .

entereddateThis is being done by $_POST variable of PHP

    Here is the code :

    <tr>
    <td height=”28″>Date of Birth</td>
    <td><select name=”Date” size=”1″ >
    <?php

    $i=1;
    while($i<32)
    {

    if($i==$_POST['Day'])
    echo “<option selected value=”.$i.”>”.$i.”</option>”;
    else
    echo “<option value=”.$i.”>”.$i.”</option>”;
    $i++;

    }

    ?>
    </select>
    <select name=”Month” size=”1″>
    <?php

    $i=1;
    while($i<13)
    {

    if($i==$_POST['Month'])
    echo “<option selected value=”.$i.”>”.$i.”</option>”;
    else
    echo “<option value=”.$i.”>”.$i.”</option>”;
    $i++;

    }

    ?>
    </select>
    <select name=”year” size=”1″>
    <?php

    $i=1980;
    while($i<2000)

    {

    if($i==$_POST['year'])
    echo “<option selected value=”.$i.”>”.$i.”</option>”;
    else
    echo “<option value=”.$i.”>”.$i.”</option>”;
    $i++;

    }

    ?>
    </select></td>
    </tr>

    And then you can check the date like this :

    if(!checkdate($_POST['Month'],$_POST['Day'],$_POST['year']))
    {

    $error[]=”Please enter a correct date”;

    }

    Finally , send it to the database :

    $date=$_POST['year'].”-”.$_POST['Month'].”-”.$_POST['Date'];

    Use this date variable to insert into the database .

    PS: If any one has a better way to do it , please leave it as a comment .

    June 24, 2009

    Resource limits on an exec()-ed process

    This might seem trivial at first sight but you have no idea how darn happy I’m to see this works :D . So happy that I decided to blog about it. I already hear trumpets blowing in the distance.

    Here is what I was worried about:

    Normally, exec() is carried out in a forked process. Setting resource limits on a forked process is straightforward using setrlimit(). But I was apprehensive whether those limits would hold once I exec() another binary image within that forked process, and it wouldn’t be overstating it if I said I was about to front kick my laptop in joy :P .

    I tested by limiting the amount of CPU time(RLIMIT_CPU) that a running process is allocated since this would be the easiest to test IMO. The signal delivered to the process when it exceeds the CPU time limit is SIGXCPU.

    Since this is all that is to it, wasting no more words, let’s get our hands dirty.

    The program in which a process is forked and exec() is run (exec.c):

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <sys/resource.h>
    #include <sys/types.h>
    #include <sys/wait.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    
    int main()
    {
        int pid;
        int rv;
    
        if (!( pid=fork() ))
        {
            struct rlimit limit;
            getrlimit(RLIMIT_CPU, &limit);
    
            limit.rlim_cur = 1;
    
            setrlimit(RLIMIT_CPU, &limit);
    
            execl("./inf","inf",NULL);
        }
        else if(pid)
        {
            wait(&rv);
        }
        else
            printf("Error forking\n");
    
        return 0;
    }
    

    The program whose binary image is specified in exec() (inf.c):

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <signal.h>
    
    void handler(int signum)
    {
        if (signum == SIGXCPU)
            printf("Caught SIGXCPU signal, exec in peace\n");
    }
    
    int main()
    {
    signal(SIGXCPU, handler);
    while(1);
    return 0;
    }
    

    Now compile
    $gcc -Wall exec.c -o exec
    $gcc -Wall inf.c -o inf

    and run
    $./exec

    You’ll see SIGXCPU being handled which means the resource limit is working!

    Dhananjay (BE-2k7)

    Fedora 11 Leonidas Essentials Guide Part 2: More Config


    NOTE:All Commands to be entered in terminal in Super User/root mode. (.:. su – or sudo)

    1) Setup sudo
    In Fedora the root and normal user accounts are different and one can switch between them to do administrative tasks.
    However if you want to give a user other than root administrative priviliges

    nano /etc/sudoers

    Add to the end

    <name> ALL=(ALL) ALL

    is the user name you want to give sudo privilige.

    <name> ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

    if you dont want to be asked the password .(NOT RECOMMENDED)

    2)Permanantly Mounting Partitions:

    Fedora 11 has ntfs 3g preinstalled but sometimes the partitions don’t get mounted (or you just may want to get rid of manual mounting)

    Editing fstab gives read/write support on boot

    a) use fdisk : /sbin/fdisk -l

    b) note down partions u wnt to access name (eg sda1) type (eg ntfs or FAT32)

    c)Make mount points:

    mkdir /media/<name>
    <name>can be replaced by whatever name you choose.

    d)open gedit in sudo mode

    e)Open /etc/fstab

    f)For ntfs drive ( mount point here is DATA)

       /dev/sda1 /media/DATA ntfs-3g rw,defaults,umask=0000 0 0
    or /dev/sda1 /media/DATA ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

    if drive is FAT32/FAT16 use vfat instead of ntfs-3g , other lines are NOT REQUIRED

    3)Adobe Flash :

    For 32 bit:

    install the Adobe YUM repository, and install through yum:

    rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
    rpm –import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux

    yum install flash-plugin (if you dont do this no sound for flash applicatons)
    For 64 bit:

    There are 2 ways.

    OLDER WAY: (NOT NEEDED AS 64 BIT FLASH PLAYER WORKS)

    mkdir -p /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
    yum install nspluginwrapper.{i386,x86_64} pulseaud/io-lib.i386
    yum install flash-plugin
    mozilla-plugin-config -i -g -v

    NEWER WAY:

    Download 64 bit Flash Player 10
    http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

    4) Installing Sun Java

    a) Download JDK from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads
    To install rpm
    rpm -ivh .rpm
    To install bin
    chmox +x .bin
    ./.bin

    /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/jre/bin/java 100
    /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/java/jre/bin/jar 100
    /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/javavc javavc /usr/java/jre/bin/javavc 100
    /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so 100

    b) To use Switch among javas:
    /usr/sbin/alternatives --config java
    /usr/sbin/alternatives --config libjavaplugin.so
    /usr/sbin/alternatives --config jar

    c)For Java Programs(You Probably Already Have This):
    yum install libXp compat-libstdc++-*

    Posted in Fedora 11

    Aditya Mukherjee (ICAS-2k5)

    No Comments

    The first weblog I came across that didn’t have comments was Daring Fireball about 4-5 years ago. The concept was so foreign and radical to me, I just couldn’t understand it. Why would someone discourage discussion? Everyone reads through those lists of “how to attract more readers to your blog” when they’re starting out. A common point in all of them is to be an active participant in the blogosphere. To comment on and link to others’ posts. It did make sense — give some to get some. So then why was such a popular weblog not following such a basic rule?

    Turns out that when I got the answer, I realised that I was asking the wrong question.

    Everything has a purpose

    Writing, is an art. Sharing one’s knowledge and opinion in a way that others want to read, and keep reading, is an art — and like any other, difficult to master. Just because publishing has become easier over the years thanks to the Internet, doesn’t mean the paradigm has changed. The written word still has its charm. Unfortunately, most new bloggers are in it for a quick buck, and as more and more of these people proliferate the blogosphere, the general perception suffers. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the written word that is a reflection of a person’s thoughts about a certain topic or issue, with the motive of sharing it other people who have thought the same but are looking for a different perspective.

    I initially began blogging not because everyone was doing it. I had things to say, and having a blog seemed to be the fastest way to get them out. But even from the early days, I was never a “tips and tricks” kinda writer. My intention has always been to bring a certain analytical, intellectual bent to the issue I’m writing about, because I’ve always thought of it as not worth writing something if there is nothing original in it. That is why I take days to refine what I’ve written. I owe it to you, to put out the best possible rendition of my thoughts into words. After all, not a lot of worth a writer is without his readers.

    Comments on a weblog are like critique on the sleeves of a book. You buy a book to read the book, not the critique. When I write something, I write it for the person who wants to read what I have to say. I don’t really care for their opinion of my opinion. At least, not enough to have it on the same page as my writing. That why they have a blog, or my mailing address. Or even Twitter now. The idea is to take all the extra conversation off-line, so that only the important things stay up. Plus, in my experience, comments haven’t really added anything to what I’ve had to say. Part of the reason is the reader base I became popular with, owing to my beginnings as a Blogger customisations coder1.

    Even if you consider popular blogs like (eyeroll) TechCrunch, which get hundreds of comments on almost every post, just skimming over them shows how worthless they are. It’s either someone pushing something they wrote themselves by adding a link in their comment, or chiding the author of the post for being fanboy-ish/biased, or worst, just a one line — “Nice post, enjoyed reading it” — compliment.

    Getting my mute on

    Seeing how useless comments on weblogs usually are, and more or less agreeing with John Gruber’s reasons for disabling them on his, I decided to get rid of them from Geekaholic once and for all. It’s not like I get a lot of comments either, so it’s more of an unnecessary annoyance. I tried turning them off partly, allowing comments on my proper, big posts and not on my linked list. But people asked me to enable comments on those too, and I caved. This time I don’t plan to.

    I respond to people faster on Twitter than I do on my blog, and the conversation reaches more people that way. There was an experiment some time back on exclusively using Twitter to handle comments. I’m not really sure how that worked out. Seems pretty chaotic, so I won’t be doing that either. This place will be read-only from now on. If you disagree, or need to vent, well too bad. Only one person can talk at a time. Here, it’s me.


    1. We were lovingly called ‘hackers’, but I never considered ourselves to be so. Hackers are way more ingenious than what we used to do. Not to trivialise some of the things we achieved though. 

    June 22, 2009

    Upcoming exciting news from Tech World


    1. Steve Ballmer throws a car at Eric Schmidt.
    2. Ubuntu L***** L**** just works without any goof-ups.
    3. Apple makes iPhone un-pwnable.
    4. Windows 8 removes administrative privileges from default user. In short, now onwards viruses will run with non-administrative privileges.
    5. Opera re-invents the web again. Bundles an Operating System in it’s upcoming “Opera Fright”.
    6. Flash 11 needs 4 CPU cores to render basic animations.
    7. Internet Explorer becomes the safest browser. Reminds “Connecting to the Internet might expose you to viruses, do you want to go offline?” and shows an OK button.
    8. Sun re-writes Solaris in Java. Amen!
    9. Windows 8 requires just 8GB of RAM to run properly.
    10. Script kiddies write malware for Linux and Mac and affect them badly.
    11. FreeBSD gets fool-proof secure. Asks for password when opening Firefox.
    12. Ballmer boasts “Windows has maximum number of applications” (considering viruses as apps too)

    Aamer Aslam (BE-2k7)

    Reasons why Real Madrid won’t win trophies next Season!


    With Florentino Perez back at the helm, a new galacticos era has already begun. With the likes of Kaka’ Cristiano Ronaldo already signed David Villa & some others are soon likely to follow. Former World

    Florentino Perez

    Florentino Perez

    PLayer of the year Zinedine Zidane is back at the los Blancos helping with the backroom staff & things are looking bright for Real Madrid. And under Manuel Pellegrini Real Madrid will be looking to restore some lost pride in the upcoming season. But here are some of the reasons why they wont be able to do so-

    1] Manuel pellegrini is the 3rd Real Madrid coach in less than a year. Obvioulsy it’l take some time for the new gaffer to find his way around. But wait a sec its Florentino Perez he doesn like waiting he wants instant trophies so out goes Manuel Pellegrini atmost till the end of the season.

    2] Next season its going to be a completely reconstructed Real Madrid side. Except for the goal keeper major changes are expected in defence,midfield & attack. Its going to take a while for any side to get going with these many changes around.

    3] Worldclass Players like Cristiano Ronaldo bring along with them their ego of being the best player.Kaka’ not so much but with the much expected signing of David Villa. Don’t you think there will to be too much of

    Kakas Signing

    Kaka's Signing

    worldclass talent to handle.

    4] Increased pressure on the Real Madrid side to contest with their arch rivals Barcalona who had a staggering treble winning season. & mind you majority of their players will remain the same hence their attacking flow will undoubtably be more strengthened.

    So if i were a Real Madrid fan. I wudn’t be surprised if Los Blancos cudn’t win anythin major

    Aamer Aslam

    Note :- Following are my views & my views only & arent related to any site or any other content

    June 21, 2009

    Flex 4 Component Lifecycle (Slides and Code)

    I gave a talk this Friday on the lifecycle of a component in Flex 4. The talk went into the details of how the flash player works, why a component needs a lifecycle and the various stages of a components life.

    Here are the slides and experimental code from the talk …

    Here’s the code we played with to understand how frame rates work in the flash player …

    FrameRates.as


    Here’s the code we wrote with to understand the Elastic Racetrack

    ElasticRaceTrack.as


    Here’s the experiment to understand marshaled slices

    MarshaledSlices.as


    Download Slides
    Download Source Code

    The presentation was slightly long and I’ve already heard that some people found it boring but I hope that wasn’t the case for everyone :)

    I would like to thank all the awesome people in the Flash/Flex community who have helped me understand all this by publishing some great articles and blog posts … here are just some of the articles that I’ve found very useful …

    Ted Patrick on the Elastic Racetrack

    Sean Christmann’s Updated ‘Elastic Racetrack’ for Flash 9 and AVM2

    Ely Greenfrield on Building a Flex Component [PDF] (Thanks Ted Patrick for making it available on his blog)
    “Diving Deep With the Flex Component Lifecycle,” by Brad Umbaugh and RJ Owen
    White Paper by the guys at Development Arc on Component Lifecycle

    Please do let me know what you thought of my talk and how I can improve it.

    Ramnathan Subramanian

    Not Just Racism

    I turned to self-publishing as I could not find a mainstream publisher for it. OR may be I did not try hard enough, but whatever! Here it is. Some additions to suit my blog :P


    The Indian mainstream media has openly declared Australia racist. Accusations of the country being unsafe, inhuman and unfair to it’s immigrants and international students are being hurled across throughout the nation. Opinion makers and the revered columnists of the country have also taken this opportunity to sling some mud at the education system in India. While all this is happening, it is perhaps time for us to hear the whole story from those who do not agree with the way this issue has been hyped up. The attacks on Indian students are much more complicated than just “racism”.

    No one denies racism exists in Australia. Liam is an Irish construction worker here and is patient but firm when he says, "Australia is the most racist country I have seen in the world, and if I was given a dollar every time I have been asked to go home, I would be a millionaire now."

    Sam Owen, a native of the Sunshine Coast studying at the University of Queensland opens up easily, “Australia is pretty racist mate! The media, the sports and our politics, we show it everywhere. But all of us are not like that, and the issue is different when it comes to attacks.” He is talking about online communities like “F*** On, We’re Empty”, which encourages Australians to accept other cultures migrating in, as opposed to hate-filled communities like “F*** off! We’re Full”. Moreover, while a lot of Indians did get beat up during the past few months, there were numerous incidents of white Australians being stabbed and mugged as well.

    A famous Indian news website carried a story quoting statistics on how the number of attacks and robbery on Indians in Australia has gone up from 1083 to 1447 in the last one year. What they conveniently forgot to mention was that there have been more than 176,400 registered assault cases alone in Australia in 2007, up by more than 4000 cases since the previous year. It is evident that the statistics meant nothing in comparison to the overall situation and were just being thrown around to serve media's sensationalist attitude towards important issues. However, it is true that Indians are easier targets in a country where the crime is high anyway, as Liam says "Indians are visibly different and are defenseless and scared in a foreign country!"

    Ramya and Deepak Kumar, a young family living in Melbourne since 2003, also have some other issues in mind. “We do believe some of the recent incidents have more to do with alcohol and drug abuse by the youth, than being racist in nature.” What they further say, and many others agree, is that while there are many instances of racism on the streets and the public transport, these attacks are not just because of racism.

    For any new immigrant, it is very easy to assume that the culture here is rather nasty. “The culture makes you think that Aussies are brash and aggressive. They talk like that, they ask you frank, rude questions and they are harsh in their ways sometimes. But for them it is pretty normal. That is their culture and they still respect everyone.” says Gurtaj Singh Atwal, who was born and brought up in Australia. He sports a turban and a beard and plays cricket every weekend, typically Indian as he puts it, and he has been asked rude questions about his beard and turban, but disagrees that it is racism, it is just a misunderstanding of the culture on both sides, he says.

    Some of these "curry bashings" are also due to ignorance. "They can’t easily differentiate between Fiji Indians, Malays, Singaporeans, Sri Lankans and Indians. We all look alike and our names don’t sound very different. We get classified in a broad group and type-casted.” says Rajesh*, who migrated 16 years ago and is now a respected member of the community in Melbourne. The type-casting is based on jobs and courses also. “Many Indian students here come for a hospitality course, and a taxi job. People are very surprised to hear if you come from a different faculty of studies.” says Shyam Mohan, a student at the Queensland University of Technology. So even if a few people of this wide demographic misbehave, the entire community is looked at as annoyingly inferior. Indians are victims of that misunderstanding. "I would say they are wrong, but no, they aren’t racist." adds Shyam.

    But the burden of this misunderstanding falls heavily on the Indian camp. By and large, Indians have been known to form their own communities based on their religion or language and not mingle with the locals more than what is absolutely necessary. Shyam openly accepts it, “Most Indians here do remain in their communities, as they rarely hang out with Australian friends, and this itself projects a negative attitude towards the local people. They don’t get to know us properly.” Achuth Menon, who has lived in Brisbane for 12 years, has an instant example of what some think about India, “The other day my Aussie barber showed me a picture of an Indian barber shop – a guy sitting outdoors next to a banyan tree and cutting someone’s hair.” But Shyam quickly adds “We are the ones who have come here, we should go out and mingle, right?”

    Achuth and Gurtaj also believe that students who study at the Universities and later settle here tend to do better than those who are placed here directly by job agencies. They have the advantage of knowing the Australian culture through their college lives. Also, people who come here in a mid-career stage for higher positions also do well. Nonetheless, the students who land here are definitely not completely equipped to face the culture and adopt it. “Indian students are far ahead academically, but on the social front – etiquettes, behaviour, language, etc., they need to be better.” says Rajesh*.

    Videos of the supposed police atrocities on Indian protesters in Melbourne were rife in the media, but the news anchors chose to ignore the fact that the police had accepted the demands of the protesters and acknowledged their anger, and had requested them to move out of the roads to give way to the peak hour traffic. It was when they refused to budge, like they would in India, that they were subject to coercion.

    The Kumars, Shyam, Achuth, and Rakesh strongly believe that some suburbs in Melbourne, Sydney and even Brisbane are indeed very dangerous and unsafe. But the reason is not racism alone. The roots lie in our education system, our misconceptions about the west and the Australian society and a misunderstanding between the people of both countries. As for the mainstream Indian media, the Kumars say it well, “More they call Aussies racists, more they will put all the Indians living here at risk. We should stand shoulder to shoulder with Australians and tackle the violence and not distract the efforts by putting a racism spin to it.”



    *Name changed on request for anonymity.

    The writer is a student at the Manipal Institute of Communication, Manipal and is presently on exchange with the University of Queensland, Brisbane.

    June 20, 2009

    Fighting Fighting

    “Do you think they … ?”“Of course. It’s a first principle. Everyone knows that!”“But wouldn’t it be a little silly to do that? I mean, one can’t typecast them as frivolous, fruity fools, can one?”“One can. Nice thing that, by the way. Let me try. Shallow, silly sociophiles.”“Is that a even a word? Sociophiles?”“You behave like an idiot, again. Has that ever stopped me? Now you go.”“Hmm. Extreme

    June 19, 2009

    Bad Timing

    It is my 100th post. In the last 3 years, I have changed and today I have come to accepting that change. This blog sphere that was filled with empty and had scope for plenty is no longer empty. The virgin warmth is lost to cold rape. I have not had any awefully depressing experience ever. But, this feeling of change seeping in made the colours fly out. I don't have my way with words any more. On this note, I declare the end of this blog. I will miss the crab-shell. But, I guess it's time for the crab to walk out of the shell. It's time to enter the ocean and take to a stream. Ambition has not overcome my feelings of sensitivity, so don't discard me as ambitious. Newness and dawn of realization has brought the tree theory to a close and my imagination to the dark caverns of truth.

    My last note in this shell. I don't know if this qualifies for prose or poetry. But this is how the flow came, and I let it be.

    I will also publicize this post because I want everyone to know of this end.



    Astray amidst the arrow-headed approach of ambition.

    Why couldn't I care about career and take control of the wheel of success I must steer.

    Daze and delusional drudgery sweeps me off my sunken rooted feet..

    It's mush and muck I am so firmly rooted in..

    The mush of romanticism that must become much less pulls me gravitationally towards the roots..

    I plunge in the dilemma of dreams and duty..

    Trivialities of dressing and late-coming bound unto us by the norm of civilization is suffocating..

    The corporate is killing the hippie..

    The norms are confronting the free-spirit..

    The need to fit in is weakening the feminist..

    Esteem takes a whirl and then takes a bow and falls..

    The much needed beams of faith of family are crumbling with their own need to sustain..

    The other pillars of friends are crumbling due to lack of faith..

    The lone standing in the this world of money, power and sex is causing reform..

    Reform to confirm..

    Reform of ruin..

    The lead blunts out so must I stop now? Is it a sign?

    I must.


    With this - it's the end of Zero.. Can I say, stereotypically, it's a new start.. After Zero, it's always: One - Two - Three - Go!

    The end.

    End of story.
    Seeking glory?

    Shubhendra Singh (BE-2k5)

    The Internship @ France

    Sometimes I look back at my life and think what I achieved if anything I always feel that I am successful, as I made such good friends everytime. The life has been so kind to me that there has always been good people around me.

    France experience was amazing in every way. Not only you learn so many things academically but you learn more on other side of life. Dancing on the music of your destiny is magical experience. Life has shown so many different faces and each face gives you another lesson, Hope the future lessons are helpful too.