Yet Another Blogger

Indian cities ATM Locators

2012-01-01T00:19:00.004+05:30

Hey guys, on the eve of 2012, I am proud to announce the ATM Locators for Indian cities. The android apps totally provides 3000 Locations to search information from.
http://www.smargav.com/post/indian-cities-atm-locators-2012/

Please check out and give your valuable feedback.

Thanks & Happy new year.

Regards,
Amit S

When do you know you are improving your programming Skills

2011-08-27T10:58:00.002+05:30

* You know you are a bad programmer when you fail to explain any programming or technical query to CEO/Executive/Top Level management

* You know you are a budding programmer when you fail to explain any programming or technical query to a Solution Architect

* You know you are a good programmer when you fail to explain any programming or technical query to your peer Developers

* You know you are one of the best programmers when when you try really hard but fail to explain any programming or technical query to a fresh college grad. If you successfully do so, you have passed the litmus test of being called an expert programmer

Connect to Internet from Blackberry Playbook by tethering Nokia phones

2011-05-10T10:59:00.002+05:30

Blackberry PlayBook is an awesome tablet for new bee like me who never owned a mobile-device other than my Nokia phone.

I was playing around on how to tether my Nokia N70 with PlayBook. Though there is inbuilt tethering feature in PlayBook I could not get it working. I kept on getting error messages.

I read this article on Crackberry with the hope of getting internet working on PlayBook. But could not connect to net and every time the tablet shouted with same error messages:

The wireless service plan of the device must support tethering.
The device must be compatible with Bluetooth technology. To find out what Bluetooth profiles the device uses, see the information that came with the device.

Finally, After an hour long of tinkering around, I found how on how to connect to internet from my Nokia.

Follow these steps to connect to Internet via PlayBook and Nokia:

Connect your Nokia phone to the Playbook via Bluetooth.
In Nokia, set the Playbook device as authorized.
Go to 'Internet Tethering' section in 'Settings' and Select the Nokia phone from list.
In the next page instead of searching for carrier, create a Custom carrier and enter the APN, username and password.
Hit Connect after filling the details.
Bingo ! You are done. Playbook will now magically connect to internet from Nokia via Bluetooth.

Is cloud really what you Imagined it to be ?

2011-01-05T13:36:00.007+05:30

I am little late to write on what Cloud Computing is, how cloud makes life easier, saves money, etc. There are tons of materials available on internet.

I have been involved in cloud computing projects and I have seen the 'real cloud(s)'. Cloud computing is not worth the hype it received. I read a tweet which said 'Cloud computing is most abusive word of 2010'. Every IT company started developing cloud tools and made life of businesses even more complex. The companies created more mess than solving the issues. Everyone was bored of web2.0 so IT guru's came out with new way to 'loot' (increase business).

Every cloud vendor argues to get the businesses get started using cloud very easily and smoothly in very short span of time and at very less cost. This sounds like an utopia for any business requiring IT Infrastructure. Cloud is better than old technologies, but in reality it is costly and does require enough amount of time to setup.

For example, I work in an IT firm in India. The company houses 1000's of employees and has massive infrastructure setup. Very recently it was announced that the infra is being moved to cloud and henceforth we can get virtually infinite amount of resource we want for projects. This was a welcome news for us. With old hardware infra in place, we had to raise requests with our requirements and it took long hours to process them.

But the end result, nothing has changed. The infra has moved to cloud but we still raise same kind of requests and get only limited resources to use. On top of that the turn around time to process the request has not changed at all.

Cloud computing has just changed the hardware lab infra and nothing else. People need to be trained to use special cloud tools has increased overhead in cost. People processing the requirements remains same. Like any other management changes that moves from top-bottom, cloud computing should move from bottom to top. It just affects the company cost but developer's frustration remains same yet !

Ultimately we are back where we started. Cloud computing has done little good except for IT companies. What I am trying to say here is even though cloud promises to be faster and elastic, the company's policies and processes cannot make it better for use. So if you want your company to use cloud and be quicker and faster, ensure that everyone is benefited from the infra rather than only lab maintenance department :)

Sriramu's SameTime gotchas

2010-12-16T09:34:00.007+05:30

Sriramu works in a giant geographically spread IT organization. A lean tall guy equivalent to the banana tree. He has been in IT industry past 3years now and has learned a great deal about corporate culture. He has become a corporate monkey as my friend Jill quotes.

SameTime is chat client by IBM. I wonder when we have many options of free chat clients, why the hell a company needs to buy a chat client and that too from THE IBM ? Well, according to Sriramu, SameTime (ST) is the best chat client for enterprises. Other day he was mentioning some gotchas about ST.

According to Sriramu,

If you are online in ST, it means you are working. Your physical location can be home or office or rest-room, it doesn't matter.
Even if you do not apply for any Leave, but if you are offline in ST, your manager will get suspicious to know if you are on leave or working.
If you do not specify your location information {Home, Office, Client location, etc} in ST, it definitely means that you are working from Home.
If your status is 'Do not disturb' in ST, it means you are watching some ;)
ST is a good tool to do profile hopping. ST provides all info about the person in form of a profile. So like profile hopping in FB, Sriramu uses ST to hop profiles in his company.
The first thing Sriramu does when he comes to office is login to ST else people {esp. Manager} will not realize he has come to work.
Keep changing the profile picture in ST, who know someday this ST may do wonder. {Sriramu is still single and searching !!!}

If you are using ST @ your workplace, add on your ST gotcha.

Guru Rajinikant

2010-10-04T16:05:00.003+05:30

I just could not stop myself from posting this. :) Credits to my bro who sent me scanned copy of this newspaper article.

What does Ayodhya verdict mean to common people ?

2010-09-30T11:32:00.007+05:30

The entire Indian country has, for the second time, come to standstill to witness the result of the Ayodhya issue, last time it was when India won Cricket world cup. I have been reading news past two weeks about this verdict but then realizing what I have to with this ? I just want to do my day job happily rather than sit idly and blog about it.

But is it all just for the sake of a piece of land (I know its not 'just a land' its Ram-janmabhumi). When Mughals conquered Indian territory, they would have destroyed many such temples and constructed Masjid over them. Considering the fact that Babri Masjid was built in 15th century also means that it was a monument of heritage. If we do not respect our heritage then who else will.

High alert has been declared in the entire country, but for my friends here it does not matter. They feel its a good time to relax and be at home, off from work. This is what we do during every national holiday with an exception here is that we cannot go out fearing stone pelters like in Kashmir valley over months.

Organizing Committee of Common Wealth Games will definitely cherish that this verdict issue taken some media focus away from the dirty rest rooms to falling ceiling tiles in CWG venues. This verdict if invokes riots may affect the games. Foreign athletes on seeing such high security in the venues may feel they are held captive like the prisoners in Guantanamo bay.(seeing the media reporting on CWG it can be called so !)

Well, to me this verdict is just another day off. I sincerely feel that government should better construct a monument depicting Ram-Rahim bhai-bhai scenario, with money plucked from Mayawati's garland. D.V Sharma, who is one of the presiding judges to give the verdict, will be retiring on October 1st, tomorrow. Its a lifetime opportunity the high court judge to take a harmonious decision and retire in peace than creating chaos all around.

How to skip a Meeting

2010-08-23T17:50:00.003+05:30

The very word Meeting makes me yawn and reminds me about most boring lectures I had in college. Meetings are most times are meant to waste time than improve your work. I am saying this partly after reading Dilbert comic and partly by attending meetings. I am sure most of you will agree with this. So I have come up with some strategic ideas to avoid such boring meetings.

Let us define meetings first. Wiki says meeting is some sort of boring formal gathering. Traditional meetings where people used to meet in same location and yap about the work which they plan to do but actually never do it. New or modern meetings are virtual in nature, in which you never know whether the participant is sitting in rest-room or on camel or next to you. Modern meetings have become very popular for majorly cos' of the shitty recession and cos' even chinese and madrasi's have learnt to speak English.

Meetings, most times, are boring part of the day. To be frank, I am writing this blog after attending one such meeting. The following bulleted points are some ways to skip a meeting. Follow at your own risk ;)

If it is some sort of 'All hands meet' or division wide meet, you can easily skip the meeting by simply walking down to cafeteria before 5mins of call. There are many mumbo-jumbos who will attend this call. So you not being there will go unnoticed. Hence skip !
This is a derived idea. If you and any of your teammate are unwillingly sitting in a meeting, ask your colleague to call on your phone and you move out of the room. Next, to save your teammate from boring madrasi's and chinese in the meeting, give him a ghost call and get him out too.
If you are one among the enlightened souls who has a smartphone, then try out the apps like 'Fake-a-call'[BlackBerry, Android]. Add a timed call and make sure your phone is in Loud profile mode. Once the phone rings, act as if its an emergency call and run out of the meeting room.
If your organization is in multiple geographies, then there are lot chances of you getting stuck with chinki or racist or negro in a meeting. This gives good chance to avoid meeting. Simply send an email stating your phone is dead, or you are not well or say its holiday in your country today. This does work !
In case its an status meeting called on by your manager and you are running behind the schedule. In order to avoid the embarrassment in front of all members, simply keep hands on your stomach and run towards rest room. Note: Do not keep hands little up or down, else you may land up in emergency ward.
Virtual/online meetings are easiest to skip. Most times, there is just one speaker/presenter, assuming you are not that. Dial in to the audio bridge & mute it and when you login to the meetings web-page make sure you enter your name in caps. No one will ever know if you are watching nsfw section in Reddit or Facebooking.

I hope this helps to our professional crowd. Any more ideas are welcome.

Eclipse mania is back with Helios

2010-06-20T11:44:00.009+05:30

Last year around the same time I blogged about new upcoming release of Eclipse Galileo. An year has passed since then and Eclipse is back again with new version called Helios which will be released on June 23rd. Eclipse as Wayne Beaton says is more than just an IDE. Eclipse initially may have started off as an IDE, but today Eclipse has evolved into a platform.

If you were thinking that only Linux has many flavors/distributions, then look at the Helios downloads page. There is an Eclipse distribution for virtually every kind of developer. If you are a JME developer, Eclipse Pulsar is best suited, or if you are a SOA developAer, grab Eclipse SOA release, and so on.

If you google 'wiki Eclipse', the first search result will be Eclipse (Software), not the natural 'Eclipse'. There is an interesting story of why Eclipse is named so. Some say, it was because of close rivalry between IBM and Sun. IBM wanted to name the IDE as 'Solar Eclipse' but later on they released it as 'Eclipse'. Well this is just an heard story. :)

This release of Eclipse comes with a new feature called 'Eclipse Marketplace', can be accessed from Help-> Eclipse marketplace. The marketplace is a set of customized plugins called solutions. Each solution is packaged along with its dependencies making the installation more smooth and easy. Any vendor can contribute a solution to this marketplace.

Eclipse Foundation provides many customized downloads of Eclipse. However I am going to write only about Eclipse Pulsar. Eclipse Pulsar is designed especially for mobile developer. It makes easy to get the tools and handset SDKs you need for developing mobile applications. Pulsar is based on Eclipse project Mobile Tools for Java (MTJ). Developing JME applications with the help of Pulsar is very easy. I have already written a decent HOW-TO on using the IDE. So I will not re-iterate it here.

I would definitely like to see the Android and Blackberry SDKs to be added to the list as both provide Eclipse plugins for their app development. This will be a great value to the millions of developers. I must refute Blackberry here for providing their own version numbers for Eclipse downloads (Eclipse 3.4+RIM Eclipse plugin is named as 1.1 Eclipse SDK). It really confuses the developers. They should follow standards with Eclipse release cycles. Furthermore Blackberry platform is more or less JME based, so RIM can easily take advantage of the MTJ tools.

To conclude, I 'd like to thank the entire Eclipse community for such a great product and in case you are unaware of Eclipse labs, have a look at it here.

Cheers,
/A

Random Scribblings - Facebook !

2010-05-23T13:28:00.006+05:30

I knew you would start reading this article. The very word facebook excites most of the web users.

Past few weeks I have been reading quite a bit on political and social science. The very reason for reading such diverse subjects than my actual profession is that they are more related to the society unlike those social networking and twitter crap websites. It seems like, the rate at which people are joining facebook may eliminate the jobs of many government personnel in population and census department. The Oxford guys may soon add the words twitter and facebook to the English dictionary.

Facebook is live example of increasing digital clutter in the web. Every damn idiot on facebook uploads hundreds of their photos in so-called different poses, writes random shit on 'Wall', shares random video's and links which are available in millions of web pages already. Facebook folks think that most users love notification, but they are wrong! Even if I comment on X's wall post, anyone else commenting on same post sends out a notification too all those in the comment list. It adds to one in million spam mails we already have in our mail box. (Now many will say, turn off notifications. Well I have done that :)

Another interesting thing I noticed is that many celebrities are joining facebook and twitter, etc. To-be-close-to-fans is what most celebrities tell when asked their reason for joining these sites. Being close to fans has not at all helped anyone, instead have created more controversy and these news media have even started new programme just to highlight celeb-tweets and what they have been doing. Nowadays even in The Hindu newspaper, in any celeb news you will find references from tweets and facebook.

The entire meaning of social networking has been changed by these sites. Though a revolution in their own sense, they are a nuisance as well. I used to go out with friends for lunch, nowadays they are busy playing farmville and ask me to join for lunch in some stupid facebook game (I forgot the game). I feel facebook is more a feminine thing, who don't know what to do and how to spend the meagre 24hours in a day.

I can go on and on to argue on this topic. The only reason I blogged, is to do justice to my month-long idle blog and the payment I made to renew my domain.

/A

Indiblogger knows a lot about my blog !!

2010-04-22T10:48:00.004+05:30

I am a registered member in Indiblogger. It's a place where you will find blogs by Indians and mad comments in Forums.

Well, Every month they send some random number called 'IndiRank'. I really dunno how they arrive at this. But this time, I found some interesting stats.

Now the stats say 'Your blog is starting to feel neglected'. That's really interesting !!!!
Do they monitor the blog activity every day, like visitors tracking, etc. Or do they just mine data based on my atom feed. Whatever it is they are right on target. :) The frequency at which I used to clutter my blog is reduced a lot past few months, owning to recession ;).

Thanks Indi !

Tips to work smart with Blackberry Storm2

2010-04-02T20:09:00.010+05:30

Just been 3 weeks with the new phone and am already writing blog to educate others. How fool of me. However an honest attempt to educate the masses who never utilize the phone to their fullest of limits.

Storm2 is biggest myth breaker that Blackberry is meant only for "corporate monkey's". Any average user can have it to its own disposal provided they are able to shell out bucks little more than your average phone.

First thing I noticed is that, we need to use power button to lock / unlock phone. Only other way is to click the 'Lock' icon in the Blackberry menu. So best way to avoid pressing button is to move the Lock icon front screen.
Change the keys tap rate to 'fast' via Menu -> Options -> Screen/Keyboard. Along with this change TouchScreen's tap interval and Hover Period to 100 and change Swipe Sensitivity to High. This will make typing better.
If you are using unlocked phone, I would suggest www.crackberry.com as a very good site to explore the berry ! :)
Left side convenience button on Storm2 by default opens Nuance voice recognition stuff and its very annoying when it gets clicked by mistake. To avoid this nuisance change the left navigation to Keyboard. This is pretty handy when you wanna type sooner unlike selecting it from menu. Change it by going to Menu -> Options -> Screen/Keyboard -> Left side convenience key option.
Avoid using Desktop Manager to install BB softwares. Its horribly slow and pisses you off when you wanna install even one app. My suggestion, get BBSAK or CrackUtil.
Be careful in using BBSAK. Never wipe your OS. You might end up with 907 invalid OS error. I did this and re-installed the OS via Desktop Manager (only time when I used this.)
Last tip for post. A very handy app is 'RestartMe'. Storm2 does not do full restart, it goes to sleep state when you power off. So to perform full restart, this app is handy. One click and done !

BTW, Anyone requiring Airtel service books can contact me. I may help you out here ;)
More tips and hacks will be added soon.

Cheers,
/A

First week with Blackberry Storm2

2010-03-22T16:13:00.007+05:30

You got it right pal, I am one of the elite owners of much awaited phone Blackberry Storm2. The phone, which is not yet released in India, was released officially sometime in October last year.

The phone is super-cool. For those of us who are used to button like click sounds when pressing keypad, Storm2 is an easy transformation, RIM has come out with new technology called 'SureTouch'/'SurePress' which simply means you hear a click whenever you press on screen. Many would not like this feature by arguing that its not touch-screen, its click-screen, but its kind a cool. I wanted this phone cos' of the cool APIs RIM provides.
Cons: Little heavy, 165g. But no issues if you too are a heavy guy ;)

For those wondering how I got this, well, I bought the phone from ebay. Ebay India have a unique place called ' Global Easy Buy ' {GEB}, where in buyers can view items listed in US ebay site and pay in Indian money including all shipping and customs bill. This way you can be sure the product will reach safely without bothering about customs and excise taxes.

Being a techie, I have already done lot of experiments on the new phone including re-installation of BlackBerry OS. :)

Within a week I unlocked the phone, configured my home Wi-Fi (tried my office wi-fi but failed miserably with network admin sent out a mail saying 420 unsuccessful attempts to connect.), installed few apps like gmail app, opera, etc.

Blackberry phones are very closely tied up with your service provider to provide Data service like Edge, GPRS. Bloody these service providers, in my case Airtel, charge 900bucks for unlimited net on phone and sucking amount of 500bucks just 500KB, yes its Kilo Bytes, I verified 5times !!! Insane, isn't it ?

So to overcome this, I tried configuring Airtel Mobile office. It worked like charm. :) I am an average internet user, atleast on cell phone, so the 98 bucks 2GB plan fits my budget and I can use all apps on my phone without requiring BB Data plan.

BTW, you will BB Data plan, if at all you wanna access your company mails. Who will want to do that ? unless you are an 'executive'. I still don't understand what the fuck these execs do.

I don't wanna write any reviews on the phone, there are plenty available on net.

My personal view: I love this phone ! More posts will show why this phone is so cool and worth owning !

Save time more than Money !!!

2010-02-24T10:51:00.003+05:30

Well, I came up with this thought when I was driving down from IndiraNagar to my DISTANT office. Smokin' hell, its so far !!!!

Blogging after long time is one of the reasons that I was saving time, yet running out of time in blogging. :)

Thats a small suggestion from guru Amu to all, Apna samay bachao. Paise bachake kya karoge.

Signing out without wasting more time!
ciao.

Dive into 2010

2010-01-01T00:05:00.008+05:30

Current Time in India 00:25am when I finished writing this blog entry.

Well, Yes. We Indians have already entered 2010. I wonder how Americans or other nations are still living a decade behind us. ;)

Wondering if I have gone crazy sitting @ home in this hour and watching Victoria's secret Fashion show on Star world and typing this blog. Sitting alone at home, but-not-alone notion in mind makes me type this and move ahead.

It was not an overall boring time sitting at home. Went out to Maiya's for special Neer Dosa, some kannda dish like Akki Rotti. Then rolled back to peaceful location near my place. Yes, you guessed it right if you stay in IndiraNagar Bangalore, I went to Leela Palace. Its such an amazing 'palace'. Directly jumped in Oxford books outlet and bought P.G Wodehouse's 'The Girl in Blue', after getting confused on seeing almost 10 odd humor books from the same author. I really enjoyed reading the initial pages of the book and sipping Black Berry flavored natural iced tea at Barista outlet in Leela itself.

Came back home around half-past eleven and started watching Daniel Craig kill Mitchell's guy, Edmund Slate in Quantum of Solace. I really lost track of the movie story even after reading in Wikipedia. So switching channels lead me to some interesting yet mindless entertainment on Star World. Such shows have become 'cliché'. Turned and rolled on bed for sometime and now am back here typing this blog :)

something-cool... I entered new year by registering a new domain for some cool stuffs I have planned for next year. Do not assume it as my resolution, its just an attempt to 'feel' that I am moving ahead unlike as shown in a local Bangalore news channel where ~10k losers on Brigade Road drinking and then shooed by Police lathi charge just after new year. Dammit even during end of year, I am thinking of progress and stuff. Now stop judging if am loser or not nor try guessing the new domain.

Anyways, time to go to bed. Have a great new year ahead and wish you good luck.
Hope you, the reader, was not among that loser in 10k crowd ;)

Cheers,
/A

26/11 - Something good did happen in Bangalore

2009-11-26T10:11:00.006+05:30

26/11 (2008), the way our media calls this date comparing to 7/11, will always be remembered as a day of massacre and attacks in Mumbai, the financial capital of India. I honor and respect all those who fought against the attacks. I pray for all the victims and family who lost their loved and near ones. May all rest in peace.

But to me 26/11 (2007) is a very special day as I formally began my career as an intern in an reputed IT firm here at Bangalore. I really curse those terrorists to make MY day as a black day. Anyways, its been wonderful 2years and surprisingly, am still up and running like a headless chicken. I really could not stop myself from writing this blog even though I am in office !!! ;)

I am not sure what I have achieved /lost in these 2years of my professional life. However, I am quite satisfied and happy to be in such a place. Bangalore is a cool place to be. Following the principles of 'Digest Blogging', I am not gonna write same stuff about the garden city. Please read this blog. This person off late has been writing many articles w.r.t Bangalore.

Nothing much has changed since I wrote these articles on Bangalore and my stay.

Introduction to Digest Blogging

2009-11-13T16:23:00.013+05:30

Hey fellas, Our very own Dex has come up with a new form of Blogging. After all micro and macro blogging we now have Digest Blogging !!!!

Let us dive into some history of blogging before I define all new 'Digest' Blogging.
According to wikipedia "A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."
What a creepy definition, heh??
According to Dex, We blog, when we do not have any work, or want to speak out cos' none listens us, wanna spit lot of hatred about politicians, losing-Indian-cricket-team, to show off your writing talent, to brag about how cool you are, to earn money, etc.
Blogging has contributed to major part of Web2.0 too. Web2.0 is a phenomena that involves our very own social networking, collaborating and so on. Twitter changed the way one used to think about blogging. Twitter brought us 'Micro-blogging'[wiki:a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them].
Summarizing, macro blogging => eg: Blogspot, wordspress. micro-blogging => twitter

Lets start off. I came up with this weird idea of Digest Blogging from the cribbing of my Lead. He was really angered over the way google results are liquidating with the blogs and forums having same questions and queries. If we take into account, every search page will have 20-40% blog results. So what I am trying to say here is that we end users, consumers blog and tweet so much worthless stuff that in turn makes web a mess. I do not say that blogs are totally useless and we should stop creating this digital mess. But what I am trying to portray here is way too much of content for anyone.

Thats the reason we have the new Digest Blogging. Put in simple form: Digest Blogging is a form of blogging that will summarize all the happenings/news/blog you wanted to write/etc in one single Blog post.

Digest blogging is more than one micro-blogs in single blog entry. In micro blogs we simply update our status or provide some links and feeds. This form of blogging does not require any new technology or stuff. Its just an extension of your 'normal blogging'. With digest way one can provide much better preview of what they want to say. I have seen on twitter that many news sites use APIs to post more than 5-10 feeds to twitter . Instead they can use digest blogging and provide one feed. Makes life simple. isn't it?

Various reasons why we should do digest blogging:

Provide a Digest Blog along with links to the articles to your readers summarizing the entries which are easier to read.
Digest Blogging can let you write a digest combining various sources of information that you want. Say write on technology, politics, bikes all in one.
Link the web. Yes. One can provide links and references to the popular / similar posts which helps more than re-writing same thing. Do a google blog search you will find lot of posts here.
Folks having personal blog can indeed have a digest blog. I read my friends and colleagues blog once in a week. So to keep friends update digest blog with entire week stuff, digest blog can help.
Start a weekly news kind of stuff. Like our weekly magazines. I have not come across weekly mags kind of stuff on net.

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Keep checking this space for updates on 'digest blogging'.
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Random Scribblings - II

2009-11-12T12:54:00.006+05:30

Nowadays I see a lot of blogs that have more or less same contents as I wanted to write. So I have decided to write only weekly or monthly snippets.
My team lead always complains that we bloggers have made web a mess. Even few minutes before, he was reiterating his words. Twitter introduced micro-blogging. and I am introducing digest-blogging ;)

Welcome to second random-scribblings of my blog. Read first one here.

Its been great festive season this year. Diwli was lighted up with family gathering and crackers.
Visited Mumbai to meet a client. I was really thrilled to be in IL& FS center, Bandra-Kurla Complex. The park houses almost every big commercial bank's HQ. I even came across SEBI and Nifty offices there. These tall buildings and thousands of professionals smoking around indeed confirmed that I am in Financial Capital of India !! Vada-pav is best replacement for lunch if you are in BKC. There are zero food courts in and around.
Misfortunate struck when I happened to go to a so-called movie 'Aladin'. I still don't believe that when aladin released there was no other better movie in theatres. Next worst was London Dreams. Ideally I should have dropped my plans of seeing movie. But could not resist going to INOX.
I have become big fan of Akki Rotti. Went to Ganesh Darshan just for sake of having the rotti. This time I also tried Ragi Roti. The very dark magenta color of ragi had been stopping me from having that. Woh kehte na - dikawe pe na jao. It was equally good !
My friend started blogging again. Inspired by his hectic and boring schedule, he took up blogging again. You should read his blog, pretty interesting stuff around like this one. (Mr. Blogger had bribed me to publize his blog...!!! ;)
Attended an Eclipse Demo Camp, hosted by Eclipse Foundation and attended by cool dudes from many MNCs. BTW, If you are looking for job, dudes from Nokia and HP openly announced many openings in his company. Sorry cannot provide you with any other details. Funny to see the guys trying to hijack dudes from other company in an event !!
Read my next post here. Introduction to Digest-Blogging :)

A real long day

2009-11-02T20:06:00.005+05:30

Today its been a real long day. Long day? Why? There are various reasons we feel day is extending more than 24hours. Its like Einstein's Theory of Relativity, where when you don't like the things you are doing, your time does not pass on at all. Where as when things/work is interesting life becomes easy. We need more time to enjoy the task we are doing.

Today is one such day. A real long and boring day without much progress and hence I am writing this stuff to make my day worth ending with some notes. There are times when you do things you have to do even though you don't know why you are doing.

Weekend was like 'chutki bajate hi gaayab'. But neverthless, sunday ko bhi 3hours ke liye office aana pada !!! :(

Ciao
/A

Get well soon, Riya

2009-10-17T00:43:00.003+05:30

I wish my niece Riya to get well soon. She is down with fever. :(

10000 Visitors

2009-10-13T14:06:00.004+05:30

Congrats to my blog on reaching distinction of 9999 visitors in just 27months ;)
I thank all readers who came via google search or reader or any other means and spent (wasted) their time going through ma blog.

I know its one less. But first reader of this article will be 10k'th reader ;)

WTF: Akki Roti == Akshay Kumar Roti ???

2009-10-11T21:16:00.003+05:30

You heard it right. Lagta hai apne Akki bhaiya itne famous ho gaye ki, restaurants and eateries now have roti/chapati/naan named after him. ;)
I had recently been to a place called "Ganesh Darshan" in Jayanagar, Bangalore. I still don't know exact name of this eatery. Rumors say its called "Ganesh Darshan" only. I could not find even a single board in English which verifies that. Now this eatery was hell crowded. So I decided to try some stuff here. I am thankful to the eatery owner for atleast putting menu in English and Kannada.
Yahan par dekha toh apne akki bhaiya ke naam ki rotiyan ban rahi thi. Super cool, eh. They call this "Akki Roti". I too ordered one. Itna tasty laga ki, I ate 2 roti's. Baad mein pata chala that 'akki' means 'chawal', and as always google and wikipedia knows everything before you do. The search engine showed me a wiki page on akki roti.

FYI, if u search 'Akki kannada', our akki bhaiya will be listed on top of search results ;)

/A

Time to show off ;)

2009-09-12T09:17:00.002+05:30

In one of my articles, I wrote about my Profile being highlighted on MyDeveloperWorks.

Well, now I am indeed an author in dW: Check out this article on LotusLive.

Cheers,
/A

Random Scribblings

2009-08-30T18:48:00.007+05:30

Last one month has been very rushing. I have been doing N number of things at a time and yet blogging did not come even into Nth position. Possibly blogging has become least priority in such busy life. But taking into account all shitty busy days, I do not remember what I have achieved. I remember only slogging!!!

Nevertheless, forget all those 'work-busy-life-career' talks. In spite of my 'busy schedule', I did take out time for :

Ice Age 3 @ PVR. kya movie hai sirjee! Wonderful animation and I really enjoyed Diego's role [Mr. Tiger in movie]. I rate it 8.5/10
Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince @ Fame Lido (not such a good theatre, bad caramel smell all over theatre). Now I was really waiting for this movie for long time. But quite disappointed with this 'love-romance-nonsense' stuff in the movie. I wanted to see more of dark-lord (voldy). David Yates made mess of the script by modifying certain facts from the book. I rate it 6/10.
Manager's treat @ Indi Joe on Airport Road. My Manager got promoted higher by one level, so we benefited with this treat :D. Good buffet with lot of delicious dishes I have had never seen or tasted before. Being Indian by heart (even now!), I found kulfi most interesting of all dishes.
Next in the list is a surprise treat by another team-mate on 28th August. Yes, last Friday. We team members decided to go out for some good food. Out of sudden, Raj started asking for every one's b'day. To our surprise, It was Prajakta's b'day. Well, well, bakra phas gaya! We drove to Chandani Chowk @ Koramangla. Good ambience, typical rajasthani-punjabi mix kind of restau. We really felt sorry for Prajakta for losing one of her earring, b'day present from her hubby. :(
Awesome 29Th August outing, which I had been waiting for so long. I met an old friend of mine. We went for movie [Daddy Cool], which turned out to be extremely pathetic. Then drove to Pizza Hut to enjoy their new stuff 'Cheesy Bites'. Quite good but not as cheesy as one might see in the pamphlets and ads. From there went to mall, spent almost half a day there going around the shops, food court. I must tell you, these mall food courts are extraordinarily expensive. Bloody they charge more than twice the price in their same outlet outside malls. Fcuk man!

Cool! Finally I did finish this article. I wanted to split all in separate articles. But you see, Blogging-slogging ka time kisko hai. Oops, only slogging at work. hehe
Arey team log isko na aap seriously mat lena.

Signing off for now,
/A

I thought KKHH is by Karan Johar ???

2009-08-27T14:08:00.005+05:30

I am (even now!) listening to Y! Launchcast radio. Came across this interesting Album Label when listening to Bollywood radio channel.

I thought Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is directed by Karan Johar.
Possibly Y! guys would have modified the labels recently after SRK detention in U.S ;)

What the heck is this "Fast Life"?

2009-07-22T10:05:00.006+05:30

Its been quite a long time since I blogged. Plain old reason is I was quite busy and occupied with my work. Now when I said the same line to one of my friends in Coimbatore he exclaimed - "Dude! You live in Bangalore where life is Fast".

I still do not understand the funda of "Fast" and "Slow" Lifestyle !!! Pretty weird to me.
Does it mean that people in Coimbatore have slow life. ? I don't think so. I always see the city buzzing with lot of activities and people.

So then what the heck is this funda of slow or fast or random life?
What I think is that in "Fast" Life, people do not have time for each other. They live a mechanical work-home-work-weekend-party kind of life. In fact I have been into this rat race for quite a while. When I say "I am busy", It means bloody only work. People in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and other places consider this as fast life. I have already blogged about Bangalore in one of my articles here. I am sure some day bangaloreans will kick me out of here ! But hey who are true Bangaloreans. 80% of us are migrants ;)

Where as in Coimbatore, I used to enjoy "Slow" Life. It should be opposite of fast. So It must mean that you meet lot of people. Move around places 'slowly'. Do your work 'slowly'. Simply put, life in Coimbatore is more like a work-home-friends-family-work-party kind of life. Here in such a lifestyle, you get to know people who care about you, whom you know pretty well, etc, etc.

Fast Life: "Aao toh welcome, Nahi aao toh bheed kam"
Slow Life: "Humesha Welcome" :)

Eclipse Galileo Releasd !!

2009-06-25T18:18:00.005+05:30

The much awaited 24th June (25th in India) has arrived !!! Eclipse Galileo is out for you !!
You can get 3.5 from here. The new release have lot of exciting stuffs for Developers.

We, the "Fun Coordinating Team", in our company organized "Eclipse Galileo Release Party". We had snacks, drinks, Eclipse Quiz and preview on the new release. It was first of its kind organized by us, neverthless it was fun and exciting to showcase Eclipse.

I have been using Eclipse right from Callisto release. But till date, I had been only an Eclipse user, preacher, enthusiast. Its high time to get involved in Eclipse development too. I have seen the vibrant Eclipse community of Developers so lets get started and contribute to Eclipse to become part of such vibrant community :)

Its going to be another exciting year for Eclipse. If you come across any bugs or feature improvement do report it in Eclipse Bugzilla. Another way of contributing to Eclipse will be by becoming "Friend of Eclipse".

Happy Using Eclipse... ciao !

Eclipse: From Ganymede to Galileo

2009-06-13T22:53:00.016+05:30

[Future Link to Helios review. Click here]

Eclipse is a one of the best products I have ever come across. Eclipse is panacea for millions of developers who need to write code or maintain it or even test it. Eclipse plays major role in lives of millions of people. Millions of Eclipse users think it is 'just' an IDE. But millions others treat Eclipse as a Platform. Eclipse was developed initially by IBM when the latter decided to adopt the open source licensing and operating model for this technology to increase exposure and accelerate adoption. IBM, along with eight other organizations, established the Eclipse consortium and eclipse.org. Initial members included (then-partners) Rational Software and TogetherSoft, as well as competitors WebGain and Borland.

Eclipse community is currently preparing for yearly release. The new release dubbed as Eclipse Galileo will go GA on June 24th. There will also be a virtual conference entitled Galileo in Action. There will be talks about Mylyn, ECF, p2 and more!

To honour this release I went on surveying already existing Eclipse users. The views are from advanced users to intermediate to early adopters. All these users are currently using Eclipse Ganymede 3.4.

My Friend Dattatreya, who uses Eclipse everyday in his work says:
I have been using eclipse from past 2 years.
Pros -
* Very neat UI
* Plug-able yet powerful tool for development
* Easy to Install and run
* Forums to support and solve most common issues / problem faced
Cons -
* Can't think of many cons, perhaps a bit more info on EMF, GMF and other emerging technologies will help. Nevertheless, it satisfies my development needs, and i do not have any intentions to switch to other non-eclipse based IDE's

Two of my colleagues had same views:
pros:
*Opensource
*Plug and play architecture
cons:
*Too much to understand from one version to other
*Incompatibility between versions
*Poor UI Response and It hangs many times

**A friend of mine who recently started using Eclipse feels its a great product and like above lazy colleague of mine, he googled out and sent me this link as his views: views. Little does he know that we have graduated from 3.0 eclipse to 3.5 now :) Still I appreciate the time spent for this.

My View:
Pros:
*Many companies have used Eclipse and created their Business model around it. Eclipse is a Billion Dollar business and Open Source. :) + all pros from above folks !

Cons:
*Its difficult to find what are the new projects added to Eclipse. Even if they are in incubation there should be a list of Projects I can look into.
*Using GMF was quite tough for me as I was new to Eclipse before 2years. I could not find good docs like those for EMF. So I had to create my own GMF documentation for future use: Documentation here. Its not complete yet ! Need desperate help from people out here :)

Some useful links:

Download the all new Galileo.
Have you heard of next generation Eclipse: E4 ? Download it from here
One really cool thing I came across was, Eclipse Pulsar. Folks developing Mobile applications will find it very useful. Have a look at this post on how to setup Eclipse Galileo-Pulsar environment for your J2ME application.
Wondering where they have pushed older versions of Eclipse to download ? Check here
Get in touch with Eclipse developers in your location. See if Eclipse demo camps are happening around you or go ahead and organize one :)

Concluding:
I do hope 3.5 will solve all your issues if not most of it at least.
It took me more than a week to collate these response. So for the people who gave their views, we have organized a small Galileo release party. You will soon get mails for that. :)
Please do fill in your views and let us know how we can make Eclipse "A Better tool at Work".

Edited: I am really glad to say that Eclipse.org has gifted me a T-shirt for this article. Thanks.
Edited Again: Being cunning here ;) One of my article is published on IBM DeveloperWorks site. The article is on IBM's LotusLive . Happy Reading on SaaS

Chodo Kal ki Baatein

2009-05-16T23:35:00.003+05:30

I just could not stop myself posting this. One of Golden hit 'Chodo kal ki baatein' from movie Hum Hindustani (1960)

What makes the song more inspirational is Mukesh's voice, Sunil Dutt, Cinematography and of course the Lyrics. Hats off to old golden songs.

I am on MydeveloperWorks

2009-05-16T14:02:00.007+05:30

IBM recently announced new social technology enhancements to developerWorks, to help software developers more easily work together on open-standards-based innovations.

I am a big fan of developerWorks. When in need of some 'get-started-tutorials' to 'advanced-tutorials' on any technology, dWis the best site to refer. dW have brilliant articles written by brilliant people. I am trying to get into their authors list too, but struggle is still on. :)

With this social touch to dW, they have added communities, groups, blogs, etc etc. You can have your own profile and add any colleague in your colleagues list. Its pretty cool actually.
Today to my surprise in MydeveloperWorks main page my profile was listed. Though not yet as an author but I am indeed proud to be a member :)

Something to cheer about !!!
You can anytime visit my blog @ dW. I will be filling in some tech stuffs soon.

/ciao

WTF: Procession @ Morning 3AM?

2009-05-10T19:11:00.010+05:30

Today early morning at around 3am IST, near our place in Kodihalli, some so-called religious aholes started a rally. Instead of peacefully marching to temple they were 'banging' drums, dancing madly creating hell lot of trouble of not letting the entire street sleep.

Everyone of us went down to see what the hell was going on. Expecting a small rally, but in vain, it was a huge procession. It lasted for almost 3hours from 3 to 6. Those aholes started back during noon.

Now let me ask, what kind of procession is this ? Instead of peacefully chanting mantras and moving to temple most of them were drunk and jumping over the drum beats. Have a look at this video. Like crackers should not be burst after 10pm during Diwali, they should also ban such acts.

I don't know when will people grow up. They feel its called Bhakti and celebrations, its nothing but nuisance. Really pissed everyone in the locality. Bloody drunkards feel its their culture and they should dance their way to temple. In my view it was more of noise than something to enjoy.

I am not complaining about the rally. It is about the way you do it. They can very well start this during day time, carry on whole day and celebrate in 'human' manner. I found a bunch of crowd who were part of this procession were for the sake of it.

None of those aholes might read my blog, but it does feel good to release my frustration here. I took a video of my friend 'dancing' along with them. But sorry folks can't upload it here. He was so quick that my N70 camera's fps fell short to record his movements. ;)

Bachchan's showing fingers to ?

2009-05-02T10:56:00.009+05:30

The moment I saw this picture in The Hindu, I couldn't stop myself from posting it in my blog.

Are Bachchan's showing fingers to Media? or Election Candidates? or Amar Singh?. ;) I think it should be all the three !!!
Jokes apart. Celebrities endorsing brands /products and their behaviour in public have always impacted decision of a common man. Bachchan's are very renowned family. I hope everyone do follow their attitude and cast their vote along with their family and friends.

One doubt. Is vote mark not applied on Index Finger?

Google and Samuel Morse

2009-04-27T20:40:00.004+05:30

Today is Samuel Morse's Birth anniversary. Google celebrates birthday of the creator of Telegraph system with this doodle [below image] on their home page. Its most wonderful doodle I have ever seen. Too good.

Wondering, what these gibberish dash and dotes are, take a look here. More doodles at their doodle page.

Are you going through 'Quarter Life Crisis'?

2009-04-23T09:05:00.002+05:30

The quarterlife crisis (QLC) is a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence, usually ranging from the early twenties to the early thirties.

QLC is what I am going through now. After passing out of college I feel a sudden increase in responsibilities, feels like doing something larger than life, missing college days, unsatisfied with current life style, feels as if others are indeed faring better than me, insecurity regarding future (esp. this Economic Slowdown has increased this insecurity).
In this competitive world one must always be on his heels to grab the opportunities coming up. Seems like things are kind of stagnant. Life has become a 'routine'. Go to work, come back home, do some stuffs (which you think are cool, but doesn't let you anywhere), eat, sleep. The same routine follows every day, week, month and year. Planning to look out for some change. Weekends do give enough time to relax and have fun. But people, this is also kind of rountine. Every weekend do same stuff.

I have at least realized that am indeed going through such a crisis. I can't imagine those millions who do same routine as mine and keep doing it forever.

So is it only me or you are going through such crisis? Give your suggestions here to resolve this crisis.

Jaago aur kuch karo !!!! (This sounds like that Tata Tea Jaagore initiative for the elections to 'wake' up people for voting :)

Yet Another Blooper: VS2008 on 'Java Ads'

2009-04-18T17:33:00.004+05:30

I previously posted in one of my article regarding Visual Studio ad in EclipseZone (Java) community. Well, that can be a mistake and Google ads might have got their algorithm wrong. What will you say if same thing happens twice !!!

Now what I can assume here is Microsoft might be using the popularity of 'Java' adwords to advertise their products ;)
Another interesting thing to see here is that its M$ India. I believe people out in India feel Java and Visual Studio are same. Both are used for some-programming and developing-some-computer-application.

Do yorself a Favor - Watch this video

2009-04-11T11:39:00.004+05:30

This is one of the most amazing video I have ever come across. Brilliant facts !!! Have a look by yourself.

I got this video as shared item in Google Reader. Thanks !!

Summer Craft Camp @ Coimbatore

2009-04-05T00:23:00.006+05:30

This post is for people in Coimbatore. One of my friend is organizing a summer camp for kids from age 3 to 12years. Please get in touch with her for more details. This event is organized every time in same phase of year. Kids have summer vacation and parents want their kids to learn more stuffs. So why not get creative and enjoy summer.

Contact Details and address are printed on Poster.

What am I missing?

2009-04-02T11:14:00.003+05:30

Its been long time since I have blogged. I am like now running out on what topic to write on. Last month I was quite active on blogger and that was very much evident on the number of readers I had every week. I do not want my visitors to keep reading same old stuffs. Its like I have been missing to blog. After becoming so-called Professional I have been missing on so many stuffs. Here is a small but long list of what I feel I am Missing !!!

First and Foremost: Blogging.
I always used to read News Paper daily atleast for an hour. Now due to this office timing and work its reduced to just reading Headlines.
I used to read lot of tech blogs and tech news sites. Nowadays I read only those blogs which are related to the area I work on.
When in college I used to follow KDE development and status. Now I don't even know if KDE4 has become stable enough to be used in Production Machines.
Previously I used to play around with Linux Distro's and atleast download source-compile-run some applications. That was great experience. But now all I do is WORK related stuffs.
I used to go out with friends almost every alternate day of week. But now Office-Home-Office-Home-Office-Home...........
I used to spend quality time with my girlfriend. But nowadays I am struck up in my office and make-it-larger life complexities.
I really enjoyed trying different varities of food and cuisines. But now situation is like everyday I eat only to fill my stomach. I miss ma's Home made food :(
I was also a regular vistior to many forums like KDE, LinuxQuestions, Qt, Ubuntu, etc and did answer few queries. But now lost in touch with everything.
Everytime a new movie released I used to get the songs and even movie. Nowadays, I am so tired that I don't get 2hrs at stretch to see the movies stored in my Laptop.
I think its been atleast 4months or longer since I visited theatre to watch movie. I do miss this badly.

That was part completed list. The only reason for missing these stuffs is that I have 'grown-up' and more responsible. Life is best when we are kids, going to school, college, studying.
Though I miss these things in Life, I really can't say that Life has become boring. I am doing lot of quality work. Only the meaning of 'enjoyment' has changed.

My First Google Adsense Pay-Check

2009-03-18T14:19:00.006+05:30

I have finally received my FIRST check from Google Adsense scheme. I started displaying ads on my blog via Google Adsense almost 4-5months before. After a real long wait, Google dispatched the check when my earnings crossed $100 (~5000 INR).

(check snapshot)

I would like to thank to all the readers and everyone who clicked ads. THANK YOU :)
Last week I upgraded my Orkut App for benefit of all the users. The app previously used to show only my Blog feeds coupled with adsense. Now I have mashed the app with my Google Reader shared items. So you can not only see my blog links but also other interesting links. Weekly stats of the app is also quite decent. More than 100 users have this app in their profile.

Thanks all. Keep Reading and Keep CLICKING (if u want :).
[I hope google doesn't block me for this ;)]
/A

Sodexo acquiring RKHS - FcUk man !!!

2009-03-12T14:14:00.003+05:30

I was startled to read this news in ET: Sodexo set to gobble up RKHS in Rs 520-cr deal
It reads:
"BANGALORE | MUMBAI: French food services giant Sodexo is acquiring Radhakrishna Hospitality Services Group (RKHS), India’s pioneer in the food and facilities management sector, in a transaction valued at over $100 million, or roughly Rs 520 crore."

I now sincerely hope that Food quality of Sodexo doesn't get as bad as RKHS. My previous post "RKHS food Sucks", shows how much even animals hate eating food from RKHS suppliers. They supply most un-hygenic food you would have ever eaten. I once suffered food-poisoning problem. My consultant said "tum roti khate ho ya kachra". :(

RKHS founder promoter Raju Sethe said, “This relationship with Sodexo will create sustainable employment opportunities and growth for a country that needs it the most. Ownership shift is not an issue. It’s about creating an institution and creating jobs in every service area."
For them its just BUSINESS and money Making. They are least bothered about quality and type of food they supply. I think Mr. Sethe might be owning a AALOO farm too ;)

All I hope is either Sodexo makes RKHS food supply better and takes care to see that they supply better and hygenic food for the money they get.

Weekly statistics for app "My Blog Feeds" on orkut

2009-03-05T10:21:00.003+05:30

Today I got a mail from Orkut team regarding the statistics of my app developed using OpenSocial APIs.
Here is the entire mail:

Hello,

Here are the statistics for your OpenSocial app adsense.xml on orkut for the week of 2009/02/25:
App submitted to orkut on 2009/01/06 at 11:54 hrs GMT
Total number of unique users who currently have the app installed: 51
Monthly active users of the app: 38

This week's activity:
Active users of the app: 15
Number of unique users who installed the app: 107
Number of unique users who un-installed the app: 91
Number of times this app was viewed in canvas view: 255
Average latency of loading this app in canvas view: 4890 ms

Regards
The orkut team

Not Bad at all !!! right ?
I think now its time to enhance the app. Just need little time.
Thank to all the app users. :)

Here I am sitting in my office @ night...

2009-02-27T10:18:00.003+05:30

Hi all, This is taken directly from a mail which I received from my friend. She feels I am too much occupied that I do not realize things I am missing like before. From a irresponsible student to a young professional lot of things have changed. It really touched me.

Please read on and let your comments flow in. Tell me how your life has changed? Is it similar to these verses below.

"Here I am sitting in my office @ night...
Thinking hard about life
How it changed from a maverick college life to strict professional life......

How tiny pocket money changed to huge monthly paychecks
but then why it gives lesss happiness....

How a few local denim jeans changed to new branded wardrobe
but then why there are less people to use them

How a single plate of samosa changed to a full Pizza or burger
But then why there is less hunger.....

Here i am sitting in my office @ night.....
Thinking hard about life
How it changed.......

How a bike always in reserve changed to bike always on
but then why there are less places to go on.....

How a small coffee shop changed to cafe coffee day
but then why its feels like shop is far away....

How a limited prepaid card changed to postpaid package
but then why there are less calls & more messages......

Here i am sitting in my office @ night....
Thinking hard about life
How it changed......

How a general class journey changed to Flight journey
But then why there are less vacations for enjoyment......

How a old assembled desktop changed to new branded laptop
but then why there is less time to put it on......

How a small bunch of friends changed to office mate
But then why we always feel lonely n miss those college frnz....

Here i am sitting in my office @ night....
Thinking hard about life
How it changed.... How it changed.... "

Delhi 6 - An overdoze of Dilli

2009-02-21T13:42:00.008+05:30

My over excitement to see the movie by Rang De Basanti veteran Rake(y)sh Mehra was killed totally. I pity that A.R.Rehman songs are going for "waste". Critics say success of a movie depends on the music also. Well, I should say the main driving force behind Delhi-6 was ONLY the music. ARR should be truly given the honorary title of "Sir". The title track 'Delhi-6'('Genda Phool' on rants on life of a newly married bride, 'Rahna Tu' on romance, 'Dil Gira Daffatan' portraying a confused lover, and 'Masakalli' on nakhre-jhatke, 'Aarthi' on Bhajans, 'Maula' on Namaz), speaks the versatility of ARR. My personal favourite is 'Dil Gira Daffatan', mesmerizing music and beautiful cinematography (a blend of India in US Background).

Delhi-6 is like too much of Dilli life. Rak(y)sh Mehra seems like a strong believer of Astrology, Numerology, Gyan....logy oops... But this did not bring him any luck. If the movie story itself is not gripping how can he expect his 'lucky name' to get him fame.

Abhishek B arrives in India because his grandmother Waheeda R wants to spend her last days in the place she spent most of her life - Delhi -6. The half-Hindu, half-Muslim AB arrives to the chaos of Delhi and is amazed at the love of the people, the traffic and superstitions. Abhishek B miserably fails with his forced American accent. Entire movie revolves around 'Kala Bandar', a MONKEY-MAN criminal causing nuisance in Delhi-6. It took at least an hour to set the plot of movie by showing delhi streets, people, love among hindu-muslim (why the heck they pull this religion every time), spiritual beliefs. Sonam Kapoor is adorable - sweet and beautiful. But her role was not very compelling. She played an ordinary-Indian girl who has her own dreams but family-pressure forces her to give them up. Now you would have guessed the story, Hero, Heroine, Spiritual People and MONKEY-MAN around makes a good mix. But sad to say this did not work out. :(

In RDB, Rake(y)sh Mehra's mapping of historical 'Bhagat Singh' and modern revolutionists worked out. But same thing was tried in Delhi-6, he tried to map 'Ramayan' with illogical ideologies of old spiritual people of Dilli, especially Muslim and Hindu (now please don't ask which side was portrayed as Lanka!!). Delhi-6 tries to deliver a good message of 'listening to inner-self'. Director has done wonderful job, but the script writers did not support story properly.

The best parts of movie were: ARR Music, Cinematography (in some scenes), Sonam Kapoor and length of the movie (140mins).
I would not recommend watching this movie in theatres. Let the movie CD/DVDs come out priced at 49/-. Then you can watch it peacefully at home forwarding boring parts !!!

KDE - Desktop Environment of the Year 2008

2009-02-17T15:41:00.003+05:30

Congratulations everybody, we rock! KDE was again able to secure the precious LinuxQuestions.org desktop environment of the year award for 2008. The prize is a testament to the great and innovative work done on the KDE applications, desktop and in extension the KDE platform. Put another way, it is a testament to a community that based on excellence and technically sound solutions manages to be a beacon for innovation in the Free Software world.

I am also glad to announce that IDE/Web Development Editor of the Year was awarded to Eclipse. Its one of the most wonderful IDEs I have ever come across. If you have not used yet please go on. Use it today and feel the change.

Hail Eclipse and KDE :)
/A

Kingfisher Heavy Metal Blogger Meet

2009-02-15T10:52:00.006+05:30

Yesterday I had been to the 'Heavy Metal Blogger Meet' organized by Indiblogger and sponsored by Kingfisher. It took place @ Stones Pub. I guess those who are real fan of drinking would have been awaiting this meet for so long. They offered free- UNLIMITED beer to all attendees. Now this was indeed a big treat for all bloggers. Finally maintaining a blog has paved off in this way ;)
The agenda of the meet was quite simple : Enjoy your drink and tap your feet with Iron Maiden songs in background.

I met many bloggers whom I have heard of and read their blogs on regular basis. I also met entrepreneurs to guys who are software engineers. I hope to keep in touch with them and meet them during such meets.

If you are a blogger and missed this meet, then I suggest you to mark 28th February in your calendar. Indiblogger have organized a 'formal' blogger meet @ Bangalore/Bengaluru. For more details visit here.

ciao
/A

14 Months in Bangalore

2009-01-26T18:10:00.013+05:30

You might have started guessing, why exactly I am writing for my '14months' stay in Blore ??? Why not 12months or some X years stay. Well, I kind of forgot to write on it when I crossed 12months :)

Like any other Engineering graduate, I too landed up in an over-crowded city of Software Engineers. Bangalore/Bengalooru/B'lore/Silicon valley of India/IT-capital (any other synonym for this city) in my view is a city composed of millions of people from all over India. Afaik In Bangalore, major language spoken is English (not kannada). I was quite surprised to see parents conversing in English with their 3-year old child. I felt that mine is typical 'fatichar-english'.

My friends and I rented out a flat near to office location. The rent was 3times when compared to place I am from. Traveling in Bangalore is biggest headache. The closer is your flat near work location the better it is, else you might end up traveling half your duty time.

Corporate life began on November 26th 2007. First day is always filled with filling out forms. Imagine the day you start new life, these corporates get signature for fucking death, accident, etc coverage. Entire day was 'wasted' in this boring activity. Next day I went to new office and met many new peers whom I am working with now.

Days and months passed on like this. I did not do anything useful which I can take credit of yet. Transition to this new place was very easy as I had some really cool friends to get help from.

Life in Bengaluru seems very fast and modern. Weekdays passed on with work and weekends sleeping. Calendar flipped very quickly every month. This place is like filled with lot of culture. I have colleagues who are Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Keralite, Kannada, Gujju, etc. Every one of us are here for one motive 'Earn Money, Earn Name, Earn Fame'. Unlike my home town, where I could find many familiar faces every street, this is such a big city that I am totally lost. I find this place filled with aliens who look like humans !!!

Being away from family and home, forced me do bit of cooking, wash my clothes, ironing (I still do not iron my jeans), etc all stuffs that you get at home without any worry. I learned to value money and realized how easy it is to spend it.

Most importantly I have 'recently' learned how to make real decisions. In Bengaluru, one motto rules: 'Be self-centered'. Never ever be dependent on anyone for final results. You might get screwed anytime if you try to be a good person and help others. If you really are a good y guy and wanna help someone, I would advice you to help NGO's in their welfare association. Be selfish and make decisions that help your interests than others.
(I know this sounds little harsh or arrogant, but I have seen this.)

Only thing I can say is : "Bangalore aane se 'dunyadaari' sikh li". Bangalore is truly an IT Capital. 1000's of IT companies giving big bucks even to a fresh grad. Its been wonderful stay here. It made me independent and self-centered person :)

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WTF - Google Apps doesnt Support CHROME

2009-01-15T12:21:00.006+05:30

Google Apps is a service from Google for using custom domain names with several Google products. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites.

I do own a domain so I thought of integrating it with Google Apps. I had created my account long back. But today finally after several months I got time to customize it.

Google provides you to customize the start page for your domain. When I clicked to change my start page settings from Google Chrome browser, I got this pop-up message:

WTF? Google doesn't support its own product?

I think Google Apps team has some grudge against Chrome team. :D

I couldn't stop laughing on seeing this.

ROFL

Not-so-big-star-cast Movies of 2008

2009-01-07T13:41:00.005+05:30

Bollywood has always believed in funda of havin Bigger star-cast for making big bucks and majorly commercial. But in 2008 the trend seemed to change. Movies even without big star-cast faired well at the box-office. Few movies exposed the cruel reality and the fear of any common man in India.

Listed below are few movies which I feel did fairly well:

A Wednesday
Mumbai Meri Jaan
Aamir
Dasvidaniya
Welcome to Sajjanpur
Slumdog Millionaire

I especially liked movie 'Aamir'. It clearly shows how out-of-nowhere one might become part of brutal terrorism.

'A Wednesday' shows frustration of a common man whereas 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' has portrayed fear of a common man to terrorism.

'Dasvidaniya' wonderfully portrays how a common man tries to come out of Rat Race after he realizes that he is going to die in another few months.

'Welcome to Sajjanpur' is just fun to watch. Words-does-matter is the message from this movie.

'Slumdog Millionaire' has exposed the shocking reality of Mumbai slums. I was stupefied to see the life of a child born in slum. This is definitely more than just-a-movie.

Please let me know if I have missed any such movies in 2008. :)

New Year or 'Just' a flip in Gregorian Calendar?

2009-01-03T18:17:00.002+05:30

'Hey ya, Wish you a very happy new year'. This was what I kept on hearing from my friends, family and relatives. Everyone were so excited and cheerful. But is it really NEW YEAR ? or Just a Flip/change from December'08 to January'09 calendar? It was same cold night on 31st. Nothing had changed except a sense of feeling that everytime I write a Date on paper, I need to change year from 08 to 09. ('cold-night' always reminds me of the game MaxPayne)

I really cannot understand the reason to celebrate. Should we celebrate because we had terrific 2008 or celebrate for unknown 2009?

Everything is a big question mark. 2008 will be remembered as a year for modern era Economic depression, Mumbai blasts, Serial blasts in cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Etc (nowadays so many blasts that I cannot remember all city names). Do you think Olymipic medals and Indian cricket team victories this year outweigh the tragedies happened ? Is it really a achievement for us ? Should we celebrate this?

In many news channels they showed new year bash/parties going on around the metros in India. Do you think every single person who was in the party did something really great for country or family or society or individually ?? has s/he done something seriously cool in 2008 that they were celebrating.

New year parties have now become a money-minting machine for big hotels, restaurants, clubs, pubs, bars, artists, etc. They organize events for everyone be it a big-time-loser or a real-winner !!!

I will celebrate the day I really feel I had done something great for myself or my family or society or country. Then it can indeed be called a 'New' year. A new beginning of taking things more higher. Keep raising your success graph higher and higher. Thats called achievement and a reason to celebrate !!!

ciao. and Wish you all readers a very happy new year !!! :)

VS'08 ad on Eclipse Zone Community !!!

2008-12-27T12:32:00.009+05:30

Its quite interesting to see Visual Studio ad on Eclipse Zone. I immediately took a snapshot of this. I think EclipseZone has got their ad algorithm wrong ;)

Beard Guru in Bangalore

2008-12-19T16:10:00.000+05:30

RMS visited Bangalore on 13th December 2008. We all FOSS enthusiasts were very eager to meet him. It was first time I met him. He is very patient preacher who never hesitates in explaining n-times the concept of Free Software. It was a pleasure meeting the guru himself and listening to his ideologies. He spoke for about and hour-and-half, having sips from 3-tea cups in front of him every few minutes.

Once the event was over everyone of us rushed to take a snap with him. He generously let one by one take the pic and give out Laptop stickers and badges.

As far as his speech is concerned. I suggest you to read my previous posts. He highlighted major points of GPL and why GPL is needed to protect freedom of a user. One fact which I was unaware of is that Linux Kernel contains proprietory code called 'blobs'

Overall it was great to meet RMS and knowing how one can support Free Software movement.

/Hail OpenSource

The Big Fat Indian Wedding !!!

2008-12-05T14:14:00.007+05:30

The BIG FAT Indian wedding. That's what most of us have, right? The Wedding market in India is approximately 1,50,000 crores. Yes, you got these figures correct, its crores !!! Wedding is one such occasion where people spend lavishly, just for show off their richness or fearing 'log kya kahenge'.

Recently I had been to one such wedding in Rajasthan. The fortune spend on such wedding can in fact revive a struggling state. Nowadays there is new trend of functions during any wedding. Its called 'Sangeet Sandhya'. Few years before, this function was internal to family members. They all used to organize an event with close family relatives. Naach-gaana, dhoom-dhadaka, halla-gulla had to happen within family members and it was more fun. But this dubbed Sangeet Sandhya is pretty 'formal' event. Here all relatives (be it far, close or not) all are invited. Indian weddings have become so lavish that they call famous personalities to host their show, professional dancers, singers, comedians, etc.
What I feel about such FAT weddings is that other than family everyone else is benefitted. You as invitee enjoy great food at the expense of only one small gift. Caterers make more food items so they earn more. Decorators on the verge of making money use costly stuffs. Even after doing so much preparations and efforts, people like me put in their blog that 'they waste money', 'food was not up to expectation', 'its-just-show-off''.
Weddings are like a welcome occasion for females. They can torture their 'better-half' to get costly jewelery, designer dresses, bla bla bla bla.. A Lady's wish list is like 'Draupadi's Saree' it will never roll out completely ;)

My friends wedding was something similar to what I exclaimed above. It would have been one of most memorable day for him. His wedding reception was held in Lalgarh Palace in Bikaner. They signed a caterer for rs. 1200/- per plate. There were more than 800+ invitees. More than us the tourists who stayed in the Palace hotel enjoyed this wedding. They all thronged in with their Digi Cams. It would have been like paisa-vasool trip for them. !!!

I recorded the video of his wedding reception. He enters the decorated Palace ground in 'Baggi' with his bride. Punjabi dancers doing Bhangra, fireworks, lights off all over ground, all humans gathered around the entrance. After reaching the stage, a remote helicoptor showering flowers over them. Every human on the ground started gazing sky with mouth open as if a pigeon is gonna do a golden shit over them.

Overall it was a wonderful experience to attend such wedding. Being one of my close friends I had to go in spite of my 'busy schedule'. I wish him good-luck for his new journey of life. I hope he does come online someday and read this blog ;)

RKHS Food Sucks

2008-11-13T14:56:00.006+05:30

Its been an year since I joined this so-called corporate world as an engineer. In the place I work they have outsourced bfast/meals/snacks/dinner/shit to RKHS caterers. Everyday when its aboult lunch time I am forced to skip it and grab a fruit bowl instead. The food they supply is so bad, horrible, pathetic (and all other girlish slang) that it is unsuitable for human consumption at all.

This is the typical menu they have for Lunch:
- White Rice
- Colored Rice (it can be either yellow or green or rainbow colored)
- AALOO Sabzi (Its MUST for bfast/meals/snacks/dinner/shit/etc)
- Dal (not bad)
- Rasam (pepper, red colored, yellow, lemon, etc)
- Rubbery Rotis (u need saw to cut it!!!)
- Sweet (I have never had such bad sweets in my life)
- Curd (very bitter even after adding 1/2 litre water with 50ml curd)

Today We had SOMETHING different. They add new item 'AALOO-Bhindi Masala'. Now bloody who in hell mixes aaloo with bhindi. I have eaten aaloo-matar, aaloo-gobi. But this AALOO-Bhindi. I thought of giving a try. It was so very bad that I had to bite those rubbery-rotis without gravy. This is how it looks. So do you feel like eating this ???? :D
AALOO is orange colored !!!!!

I am big foodie and I really don't believe in wasting food too. But how can one eat such pathetic lunch. Eating at RKHS is like Money waste + Time Waste + Unhygenic + :(

There are many consumers who have complained about RKHS.
One of the consumers have said:
'This is great regret that i would like to mention to the authrities that teh food supplied by the vendor RKHS, which boasts itself to be a huge multi crore porject is third ckass. it is outright un hygenic and unsafe. Yesterday a lizard leg was found in the dal. on complainng the authoprities overlooked the issue. with this i am very sure that RKHS is paying heavy bribes to the higher authorities to keep there mouth shut.'

It is interesting to read lot many complaints here. RKHS seems to have history of supplying pathetic food.

Golmaal - Why the heck it 'return'ed?

2008-11-05T21:22:00.003+05:30

People have become so very intolerant to any sort of reviews or any personal opinions that disclaimers occupy first lines of posts. The opinions written here are biased. :)

To sum the moview review in one word is that Golmaal Returns was 'Pathetic'. The movie did not make any sense. Its like director was very eager to re-create the success of its so-called prequel. Ajay D looked like a lost actor who is acting just for the sake of doing it. Kareena K, who played his wife, was equally boring. Tusshar K should better leave acting and better become a spot-boy in Balaji Telefilms. Shreyas T tried to look smart in movie, but failed. Arshad W had played a decent role. But he was made to look dumb ahole in the song 'tha karke'. Amrita A and Celina J had no role to play. Just coz' there are 4 so-called actors in movie they had been included I guess. 'Anjana Sukhni' is the only actor in movie whom you can admire. She looks very cute and beautiful though her role was as bad as everyone else.

Basically there is no story in the movie. Rohit Shetty was worried about this Global Economy slowdown so for cost-cutting he fired the story writer itself. Everything in movie is senseless.
The entire story is about Ajay D and his Wife KK who is a fan of typical saas bahu serials. She doubts him for everything. Kareena behaves like hen pecked wife who always question Ajay D for coming late or every encounter with a girl. Once Ajay D by chance after fighting gundas for saving life of a girl spend night protecting her ( Now that turns out that she is the girl friend of Shreyas T ). Then the story revolves around this and there they try to insert a guy named Anthony gonsalves which never helps and thus leading to a very idiotic climax.

The movie will not provide entertainment even for a kid who ennjoys watching Jetix Power Ranger serials. Better to turn your head around the theatre to enjoy some smooching scenes ;)
If next time any one says 'mujhe tum par Shuck hai', just yell 'Shuck.... What the Fuckkkkkk' Thats the message by Rohit Shetty for entire public and especially females who have lost their 'empty' minds by watching saas-bahu soaps.

Save your money and better enjoy McD burgers instead of this boring movie !!!

Linux Hater's Blog - Dead ?

2008-10-27T18:17:00.000+05:30

Linux Hater's Blog one of its kind received great response all around. Blog readers who loves or hates Linux/OSS had very different views about this one. People were indeed carried by the style of writing by LH. Its still unknown if its a bunch of people or a single person.
On October 25th LH finally decided to close up the shop !!! EOF
Community is very sad by this decision. LH will definitely be missed. I myself had subscribed for the LH blog. LH wit of bringing out any technical or rant about OSS was very unique. The last post by LH received mixed reactions. Most said they gonna miss the blog and few were happy that 'yet-another-idiot' is gone.
Over all it was fun reading. I have unsubscried to the Feeds !!! :(

LH's Last Post - EOF

Edited: I want to give credit to Manjunath, my colleague, who introduced me to this blog. Thanks :)

Green IT Plans by Microsoft?

2008-10-10T10:42:00.003+05:30

No offenses pls. Just for humor.

I guess Microsoft has decided to take on Google, IBM and others in the Green IT program.

I hate 'Waiting'

2008-09-28T13:40:00.007+05:30

What exactly is meaning of 'wait' ? The dictionary I have in my N70 describes wait as 'Stay where one is or delay action until a particular time or occurrence'; 'be delayed or deferred'. I did not find any other satisfactory answers online other than this one.
This seems like trivial meaning to me. Nowadays everyone (be it human or animal) is rushing behind golden egg. No one wants to wait. Its like everyone has developed an allergy to 'wait'. Those who wait are called 'Losers' by this world. Waiting causes stress and trauma and makes one anxious.

Thinking of 'wait' makes me relate to these f***ing instances:

Waiting at ATM centeres (most annoying thing there is you have to unwillingly over hear the conversations of peers in line)
Waiting to get tokens in self-service eateries ( most annoying when the person billing is very slow and its female. I just hate that. and worst when you end up eating bad food)
Waiting longggg to get results of interview (most annoying when you realize that your name is not in list).
Waiting to load a Web page (most annoying when net is damn slow but you don't have any other options)
Waiting for someone, who puts me 'on hold', while speaking over cell phone (most annoying when the call gets disconnected)
Waiting for any competition results ( most annoying when you prepared very hard for it and ultimately you are eliminated)
Waiting in queues to get movie tickets ( most annoying when the lady who giving tickets is dead slow / at times ultimately you end up not getting tickets at all)
Waiting at Hospital (most annoying is even though you have taken appt a month before and yet wait for your turn like any other patient)
Waiting in a traffic jam ( most annoying when an a****le having f***ing 10 feet long car blocking way for others to take over or any f***er have his car hit or any jacka** who never realizes when the signal turns green)
Waiting for your roomie to come out of rest-room (most annoying during urgent nature call ;). Everything seems out of focus and numb)
Waiting for share market prices to go up (most annoying when you lose your wealth in this gamble)

These are very few of the instances I can recollect. Please feel free to add any to the list.

In one of the article I read a human waits at least one year in his/her entire lifetime. phew!! That sounds huge. Assuming an average lifetime of 75years. Then every day, one has to wait for at least 20minutes per day.

cheers.
/A

Google may repeat Browser wars of 90's

2008-09-22T15:38:00.003+05:30

A very good article on Economic Times: I copied entire content from here.

Ten years after its birth, Google is threatening to reopen the ‘Browser Wars’ of the 1990s, when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer eliminated its rival, Netscape’s Navigator.

This time, however, it is Google’s Chrome that promises to transform the economics underlying the entire software industry, and not only because of its technical innovation in linking very different kinds of software to an Internet browser. In doing so it eliminates the need for a program such as Windows, which previously controlled access to every kind of software.

Google’s new technology is impressive, and will no doubt prove convenient for many consumers once the initial security problems are resolved. But the fundamental innovation lies elsewhere.

Chrome is a breakthrough because it offers a completely novel approach to a dilemma created by the legal and regulatory regime of competition policy in the world’s two major legal jurisdictions, the United States and the European Union.

Between 1995 and 1997, Explorer almost completely eradicated Navigator, although Navigator had initially opened up the World Wide Web for most users and its dominance appeared unassailable.

The major advantage of Explorer was not so much a technical one, but rather that Microsoft’s Windows provided the operating software for the overwhelming majority of personal computers.

As a result, an Internet browser — and, indeed, other media software — could be integrated into the Windows framework as an entire software package.

The ability to have operating systems and software bundled together made life much easier for the average consumer. You simply got everything you wanted (and probably much more) with the purchase of a computer.

But this also reduced the possibility of choice, of selecting and combining different software. Microsoft’s critics have complained endlessly about this, claiming that the browser’s integration into the operating system drove out inherently superior software solutions.

For instance, many users preferred the word-processing program WordPerfect to Microsoft’s Word, but the ease of having a bundled solution meant that Word had the advantage of being used more widely, and thus drove its rival into extinction.

Microsoft’s advantage, and its business model, goes back to another protracted legal struggle. Computer software was originally not a commodity to be bought, but a service. IBM built up a massively dominant position because it leased a carefully custom-designed and individualised package.

It did not sell anything, computers or software. IBM’s leasing model seemed to challenge the entire legal philosophy of US competition policy that was established in the New Deal era.

President Franklin Roosevelt had originally wanted to control American business by setting price levels, but when the US Supreme Court rejected this approach, his administration started to use competition policy to challenge the positions of market-dominant companies.

Competition policy, however, faces great difficulty in dealing with industries in which technical breakthroughs can create apparently instant monopolies.

In line with the philosophy of challenging dominant positions, the US department of justice in 1969 started a major investigation of IBM, which had just revolutionised business computing with its 360 line. The case dragged on until it was dismissed in 1982 as being “without merit.”

But so long as the anti-trust case remained a threat, IBM was nervous, and began to back away from its business model. Microsoft’s current position is a direct outcome of the old anti-trust case pushed against IBM.

When IBM launched its personal computer, it could easily have bundled it together with its own operating software, and in this way maintained its dominance.

But, worried that the US authorities would accuse it of attempting to control a new market, IBM left the Disk Operating System (DOS) for the new PCs to a tiny new company that no one saw as a threat: Microsoft.

Of course, Microsoft ran into its own legal troubles when it took over IBM’s former dominant position, waging long drawn-out court cases on both sides of the Atlantic. The EU, which has looked increasingly to the US model for competition law, began proceedings against Microsoft in 1993.

The US started only after Microsoft’s victory in the browser wars, with a case beginning in 1998. Initially, both cases went decisively against Microsoft, with a US ruling in 2000 that would have required the company’s break-up, although this was subsequently overturned on appeal.

Google’s position is so interesting and so powerful because the legal philosophy that challenges any ascendant position, even in an industry that seems naturally to produce monopoly, remains in place. Leasing software and hardware, as IBM initially did, is problematic.

But so is selling computer services on a one-time basis, in the manner of Microsoft. By contrast, on the face of it, there cannot be anything wrong with offering services or products for free, and then simply using the resulting advertising possibilities.

Google’s model is a neat example of what might be termed “post-modern economics.” The amazing story of technical innovation is that it was, and remains, hard for innovators to benefit from radical technological breakthroughs.

Industrial Revolution-era cotton makers in England did not make a great deal of money, even though their products revolutionised personal life and hygiene, and even extended life expectancy.

In our own time, air travel has become much cheaper, but airlines lose money; telephoning is no longer unaffordable, but the telecommunications companies lost fortunes by over-bidding for mobile telephony rights.

Google has taken the logic of loss-making technology to its ultimate culmination of not charging at all for its product.

(The author is professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University, and Professor at the European University Institute, Florence)(C): Project Syndicate, 2008

Software Freedom Day

2008-09-20T12:11:00.000+05:30

Small Byte:
"GNU is turning 25 years old lad, married to Linux during early 90's. Their child GNU/Linux is maturing every new day. Colleagues of GNU/Linux (developers) have helped and will always help him to grow exponentially like Moore's Law. Richard M Stallman, God-Father of GNU, planned for GNU/Linux's future long before he was born. He publicly announced this plans on September 27th 1983". :)

Software Freedom Day (SFD) as per wiki is "an annual worldwide celebration of free/open-source software. SFD is a public education effort, not only to celebrate the virtues of free/open-source software, but also to encourage its use, to the benefit of the public." This particular day all FOSS enthusiasts celebrate this event by organizing events like Installation fests, technical talks, free-software essay writing contests for kids, hack fests, etc.

Economic Times interviewed J Schwartz of Sun on the eve of SFD. One of the questions asked by ET:

What are the advantages of a free software world? How is free software different from open source software?

JS: Free software is like free media. It benefits all. Free software has many advantages. First of all it comes with a price tag of zero. (Example: HTML, JavaScript). Secondly, it promotes free innovation and creativity. It’s primarily because of free and open software that Internet has grown to this size. Sun’s Java and Sun Solaris have played a key role in it. But free software may not necessarily be open source software. Free software (as in free beer) may come with a zero price, but may have its source code as closed. We are pushing for a world where all software is both free and open source.

You can read whole interview here.

-----
SFD started in 2004 and has been celebrated every year from then. In 2006 it was decided to be celebrated on every 3rd week of September. This year it falls on 20th September 2008. Every country has their plans of celebrations. You can visit official website of SFD to find out where it is happening in your city. Check out the SFD Maps to find nearby location for you.
I reside in Bangalore, India. This place is called Silicon-Valley of India. But still I could find only one team "Turtule Linux Labs" observing this day. They have also put up their schedule here. I could not find any other listed teams like RVCE, BMS, etc schedules on the wiki. In the FSUG wiki I did find a lot of activities being planned for SFD, but I am not sure if anything has taken shape. I would be glad to be part of SFD and contribute to Free Software.

I am writing this because there are millions of techies in India. But very few of them are unaware of what is Free and Open Source Software. Those techies need to be targetted first than complete novices. We Indians are thriving on IT but we are forgetting that we do have power to drive entire IT field with our Technical knowledge.
SFD can be a education effort to increase more techies in Free Software movement. I encourage the FOSS enthusiasts to bring in more techies into this GNU-FOSS-Linux-OpenSource-GPL-LGPL-CopyLeft-AntiSoftwarePatents funda.

cheers,
/A

The Week that was: 1-7 September 2008

2008-09-07T18:48:00.000+05:30

A Weekly coup of happenings in OpenSource World:

Interesting map of GNU. All elements in the map points to wiki links. [See Here]
Debian has entered into a new phase of its life by releasing live CDs. The current release of Debian's Lenny is in beta stage and is available for users to download and try [Read Here]
Novell and SCO Agree on Interest, Trust Amounts; Final Judgment Still in Dispute [Read Here]
Dell Puts Linux and Atom in Vostro PCs for Emerging Markets [Read Here]
Google's announcement of Chrome Browser [Read Here]
ODF vs OOXML: The newest challenge to the continued relevance of ISO and IEC was thrown when major IT agencies of six nations - Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Paraguay, South Africa and Venezuela - signed a declaration that deploring the refusal of ISO and IEC to further review the appeals submitted by the National Bodies of four nations (Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela). [Read Here]
iPhone chasing Linux in operating system market share race [Read Here]
Stephen Fry, a popular humorist, actor and novelist features in a five-minute long film in which he explains the history of free software and its importance. Fry, has been called in to be part of the 25th anniversary of the GNU OS. [Read Here, Video]
Ubuntu Server vs. Windows Small Business Server: Looming Showdown? [Read Here]
IBM Ditches i and AIX in U.S. Open Systems for Linux [Read Here]
Sam Ramji: Microsoft's Man in Open Source [Read Here]
GNU Turns 25 [Read Here]
$98 laptop from China - Industry changer? [Read Here]
Google's goals for its new Chrome Web browser are simple: Make the Web experience faster and, by extension, make more money for Google. [Read Here]
Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux Tops 8 Million Users [Read Here]
Red Hat buys desktop-virtualization vendor Qumranet [Read Here]
Microsoft's IE Share drops again [Read Here]
C-DAC Launches Advanced Version Of BOSS [Read Here]
Sun Microsystems released its new version of xVM virtualization software and its enterprise support [Read Here]
Firefox and Norton: Fight !! [Read Here]
10 things we'd like to see in Chrome [Read Here]

Happy Birthday to GNU

2008-09-04T14:13:00.013+05:30

This month GNU marks its 25th anniversary. It was on 27 September 1983 that Richard M Stallman announced that he intended to develop a Unix-like OS that would be completely open and hackable, giving anyone the right to modify and distribute the work.

Richard Stallman felt a threat from commercial-closed companies which developed their products in closed environment and created such a situation where a ordinary user/developer cannot modify or redistribute the software. He started this 'Open Source' Mantra as a counter attack to all proprietary software vendors. Over the next few years, he created a toolchain that allowed other developers to create working, open computer systems on entirely new/alien hardware.

Along the way, Stallman's puritanical approach managed to lose him many of his best and oldest collaborators - critics argued this wasted too much of the Free Software Foundation's resources. But the same uncompromising approach resulted in Stallman's other significant achievement of the past 25 years: codifying his principles into a strong copyright licence. The GPL is founded on the strength of creator's rights, but attaches mandatory stipulations on how the work should be used.[source]. GNU General Public License(GPLv3) was "officially" released on 29th June 2007 by Richard Stallman. This day ended the long run of GPL version 2, which was released 16years ago. Basically GPLv3, like its older version GPLv2, is targetted for the distribution, modification, sharing of "free" softwares. The main goal of GPLv3 is to defend the "freedom of every user".

Check out this video by Mr. Stephen Fry where introduces you to free software, and reminds you of a very special birthday. Fry says that proprietary operating systems are akin to "bad science," as unofficial modifications to the operating system are prohibited.

"We intend for the 25th anniversary to be more than just a reflection on the history of the free-software movement. Because, despite all of the success brought about by the GNU system and other free-software projects, we still need a determined effort to replace or eliminate the proprietary applications, platforms, drivers and firmware that many users still run," Peter Brown, the Free Software Foundation's executive director, said in a statement. he foundation plans further releases as part of the monthlong anniversary celebrations, with announcements timed for Software Freedom Day on 20 September and for the GNU anniversary itself on September 27.[source].

Join the movement to make 25th anniversary more special. Long live GNU. :)

Google Chrome - Enhance Browsing Experience

2008-09-03T12:58:00.015+05:30

I have started a new blog, which will have a weekly article on the happenings in Open Source world in the entire week. My first post started with google's new browser offering 'Chrome'. It was under development for about an year.

I downloaded the browser today morning. It has really simple UI. I like the way google has decided to place Tabs instead of a titlebar. The entire UI has only Tab-bar, Address-bar and a Bookmarks-bar. A small tool-like icon will give you fair number of options

to change your preferences.

A sample screenshot of the browser.

I was playing the browser opening various sites to see how its performance was. While typing the site address on the address-bar, google searches for any site with this name. It also suggests you alternatives for such sites. Its really cool feature. This help one navigate sites very quickly. Say if you are searching for site named "samurai". As per google most relevant match to your term is link to Wikipedia. Hence it shows en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai this wiki link to you.

I guess it is something like "I'm feeling Lucky".

Then I opened adobe's home page. The page crashed and it showed me this error meesage.

When such error messages are thrown by Windows , your work is lost and the application

is shut-down. But Chrome did not crash. This might be because as per google's comic book for chrome - "Every tab is sandboxed". This means every tab is an isolated process like entity. Hence this crashed only one tab. :)

Owing to google's popularity, everyone must try Chrome for sure. They do come out with 'better' products than their competitors.

You can read google's official blog for more details.

Its very early to say all the features of chrome are really cool. Its fairly simple and easy to browse. I dont think Chrome will replace Firefox but I do believe that IE should start worrying about its future ;)

Google's OpenSource Browser - Chrome

2008-09-02T11:29:00.000+05:30

From Google's Official Blog: A fresh take on the browser

Google is releasing its own Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and also to ensure easy access to their dominant search engine.
Google also released a 38-page comic book to promote its browser. Reading the comic strip we can summarise the features provided by Browser.

- More powerful JavaScript Engine
- Each tab is 'sandboxed', hence avoiding crashing of browser due to other tabs.
- In most tabbed browsers when a tab is closed, memory bits remain. This causes fragmentation and makes browser to increase more memory use. Chrome cleans entire memory when a tab is closed.
- It's built on Webkit, the browser framework used to power Safari and the iPhone
- Quick navigation. Your most frequently visited pages will be available in a point and click navigation, like Opera's Quick Dial.
- Its also an OpenSource initiative like Google's Android and OpenSocial API's.

For the past few years, Google has been trying to take advantage of its search engine's popularity to loosen Microsoft's grip on how most people interact with personal computers. This Google Docs and now this browser offering will change the way personal computers are used.

Bangalore Techies 'protest' against Software Patents

2008-09-01T11:48:00.001+05:30

Bangalore Free Software User Group activists organized a 'Candle light vigil' against Software patents being introduced in India. It gathered good amount of media attention. Students, IT professionals, college professors, and others were part of this protest.

I don't understand why everything in India happens via 'protests'. Can we not reach people by any other better way? or Is it because government will hear our view only if we have a protest? or Is it a 'tradition' of organizing dharnas and protests to create awareness?
Introducing software patents will stop people from innovation, bring in monopoly, etc can be told to all via media, articles, sms, blogs, networking sites, etc.
To stop the Software patents being introduced in India, can we not approach higher authorities or may be supreme court?
A common man who is nowhere related to software field will definitely not be interested in knowing why the heck you introduce software patents or any thing like that. A protest can be effective if it involves huge public than just selected odd people.
'Protests' are like daily routines for politicians, but I did not know even IT professionals have jumped into the scene. I am not against the FOSS duties but I still think we can find a better medium of making people hear our words, views and create awareness.

A Talk on OpenSource

2008-08-13T15:15:00.006+05:30

Few days back, my friends had organized a discussion-kind-of meeting for juniors. Anyone interested on any topic can deliver a small tak to them. Few gave talk on "How to prepare for GRE", "How to crack CAT", "MapReduce Techniques", "Data Structures", "Online Programming contests", etc. It was mix of technical and non-technical stuffs.
I when persuaded by one of my friends agreed to give a small talk on "Open Source". People think I am quite a good preacher when it comes to talking on FOSS/ Linux. ;-)
Talking on a topic which is close to you is never a problem. You need not prepare even if its a gathering of 200 odd people.
I started off with one simple story:
Once there were 3 car manufacturers- Mr. Leonex, Mr. Fill Bates and Mr. Stephen Gobs.
Mr. Stephen Gobs used to manufacture cars which were not only pleasing to eyes but had superb mileage. But if you purchase cars from Mr. Gobs you need to buy Fuel from his company too. Next came Mr. Fill Bates. He manufactured cars by 'stealing ideas' from Mr. Gobs and many-many others. But the products were not upto the mark. Only good thing was even a kid can drive that car, people got so used to this cars. But again problem here was Mr. Bates locked and sealed all the car parts with his special company made nuts-bolts. Hence only his company can repair and service your cars. Well people started dis-liking this attitude. Third came Mr. Leonex. He revolutionized car manufacturing industry. He used to sell all 'open' parts. His deals ranged from small car parts to partial cars to customized cars for all your needs. It became a great hit among users. People started realizing the 'freedom' they have in choosing their cars and modifying as they require. It also created lots of business for other manufacturers. They began providing services and support to all such 'open' cars.
The story above perfectly suits the FOSS funda !!!

As I proceeded people started shooting questions. One asked "I only wanna play games, watch videos, movies, listen songs, browse. Nothing else. Will your OSSs provide me with such facilities".
Well, Though gaming arena is not that supported by OSSs, others are very well supported. In face there are tools for CommandLine users too.

Another question seemed like a dialogue from movie Batman Dark Night. "If I am good in coding and programming, why should I do it for free".
People tend to misunderstand that Free Softwares doesn't mean 'free of cost'. If at all you are good at something then you can make it even bigger than closed software makers. I encourage everyone to read this article.

The session was ended by giving few tips on how to contribute to FOSS.
One thing I'd like to all is, "Contribution" is what makes FOSS bigger and better every new day.

Fedora9 on USB Stick

2008-08-06T18:05:00.005+05:30

I reently came across the news that we can install Fedora on usb sticks. I had previously used DSL on Windows which was installed on my stick but it did not have that appealing UI and various pre-installed softwares which Fedora gives. DSL was good enough to run on my college systems which were dead slow and crappy Windows installed on them. VM Ware and other such softwares are available in market. But this option of starting Linux without booting windows and not-screwing your laptop was best I can go for.

Recently after joining the company I was hoping to get some Linux pre-installed Laptop. But to my dismay they gave me the same crappy Windows. I was desperate to use Linux on my Laptop. Luckily in the same time-frame I came across this Fedora9 installation USB Stick. Its pretty cool thing. Perhaps the easiest way to set up my own Fedora desktop on a stick is to use, believe it or not, liveusb-creator on Windows. This program gave me a straightforward GUI for creating Fedora desktop sticks. It downloads Fedora9 if you don't have any iso downloaded on your disk. I also installed additional programs on my portable desktop. The stick boots from BIOS hence avoiding starting of Windows completely. Its like making you Laptop/Computer dual boot without modifying the MBR for Windows (This is good for me, as I dont want to screw up my company laptop).

Well, I now enjoy using Fedora on my Laptop. I atleast can be 'free' from using that crappy shit like Windows. I can also access my Windows partitions, play songs, movies, browse. :)

If you are a Linux fan looking for a change from shitty stuffs, I am sure this link will help you.
(try out on ur own risk)

Format War : ODF vs OOXML

2008-07-19T09:14:00.001+05:30

Off late you might have been hearing a lot about the format war between ODF versus OOXML. ODF as per wikipedia is "a free and open file format for electronic office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents." while OOXML as per wikipedia is also "a free and open international standard for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents."
If they both are similar then why there is need for such format war ?
One Reason in my view : ODF was already an accepted ISO standard and used by many countries as their document standards. It is growing large and finding acceptance all over world. M$ felt threatened and released their own 'defective' and 'broken' standard OOXML. M$ felt threatened that their Office Suite which has great market share might lose out to other free ones.

There are many *novices* who think Format war is OpenOffice.org Vs Microsoft Office. I myself have met such ignorant people. They feel nothing can even close to Microsoft Office just because it has great support for Rich Documents. They dont care if any other office suite opens their documents. In my view its really absurd. There are many around who doesn't have clear idea of what exactly it means to have a Open Format than to proprietory ones.

Here are few links for people who want to know more:

ODF

ODF v1.0 -- approved by ISO as an international standard on May 1, 2006
OpenDocument-v1.0 download

ODF Alliance

ISO:

ISO/IEC DIS 29500 - Office Open XML file formats
ISO/IEC directives and ISO supplement
- ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives, Edition 5, Version 3.0 [PDF; "This version of the JTC 1 Directives, Edition 5 has been produced in accordance with the recommendations of the November 2006 JTC 1 Plenary meeting in South Africa (JTC 1 N 8426 ) March 2007 SWG-Directives Meeting in New York (JTC 1 N 8536). Changes are indicated in purple, bold type..."]
- Part 1 [PDF]
- Part 2 [PDF]
- supplements
- Supplementary Rules
- Drafting Standards

Blogs:

OOXML.org
IBM's Rob Weir, co-chair of ODF Adoption Technical Committee at OASIS [the famous screenshots, July 13 entry, "Traduttore, Traditore"; or Groklaw]
Andy Updegrove's Standards blog
Sun's Simon Phipps
Microsoft's Brian Jones
Microsoft's Jason Matusow
IBM's Bob Sutor; previous blog location
Alex Brown convenor, ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting (February 2008)
Dan Bricklin
Peter Korn, Sun's Accessibility Architect
Erwin Tenhumberg, co-chair the ODF Adoption Technical Committee at OASIS
Open Malaysia Blog

You can find more links here

An interesting excerpt from a popular site:
"Microsoft announced on May 21st that it will support ODF version 1.1 in the release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2), scheduled for the first half of 2009. The company will also support PDF and XPS in Office 2007 SP2. In Microsoft's announcement, the company said it was adding native support for ODF due to increasing pressure from customers "and because we want to get involved in the maintenance of ODF". The company now says OOXML support would require substantially more work"

News from Microsoft's official site : Microsoft Expands List of Formats

I hope now everyone will know what exactly a Format War is. It is not related to good Office Suite. Its all about Openness, freedom, interoperability. :)

Bearded Gods

2008-07-13T21:40:00.009+05:30

Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson - People behind creation of UNIX. Thanks to these people that we need not *waste* our money on getting a copy of M$ Windows.

Larry Wall - Creater of Perl. Seems like he is not fond of having a long beard ;)

Richard Stallman - Open Source Guru. Founder of GNU.

James Gosling - The Java guy. :)

Bjarne Stroustrup - This guy brought us C++! I couldn't talk trash about a guy who made C++.

Steve Jobs - An Innovative man who gave us Mac. M$ owe a lot this man..

I know this person doesnt havebeard or mustche, but exceptions are always there. He is the *Kingpin* of Computer world. He is Sir Donald Knuth.

Pretty geekish

2008-06-25T16:39:00.005+05:30

Every Computer Science graduate will recognize whats cool in this number plate. This is my new obsession. Collect number plates pic that seem quite geekish. :)
So did u recognize ??

Open Source is Everywhere

2008-06-18T13:14:00.004+05:30

I went for a two day trip to guest house in pollachi away from city pollution, work and tension. It is a decent town and climate was amazing. I some how managed to stay away from my x86 for more than 48 hours. Near our guest house was a good restaurant named "Hotel Samson". I used to go there often to get some eatables now and then. The restaurant owner Mr. George Varghese who is in his late 50's became quite friendly to me and served us very well everytime we went there.

Mr. Varghese has a hobby of collecting photos and put it in his hotel. Out of 20 odd framed pics I happened to see a frame of a familiar looking long bearded guy wearing an odd cap , strange robes and posing like blessing someone. I instantly recognized him as Richar Stallman. I went to ask Mr. Varghese as though I did not recognize the person in pic. He patiently explained me entire story of how the pic came there and also gave me gyan on Open Source, FOSS related stuffs [though I knew those stuffs, but felt good hearing from a fellow supporter :) ].

It is surprising that Open Source has spread to such an extent and its supporters are everywhere around the world. Before leaving the place I did meet Mr. Varghese again. He is really cool old chap.

Hail Open Source !!!

Linux vs FreeBSD vs OpenSolaris

2008-06-01T19:25:00.006+05:30

I found this excerpt from this blog I was going through "One of the more interesting aspects of the three OSes is the amount of similarities between them. Once you get past the different naming conventions, each OS takes fairly similar paths toward implementing the different concepts."
I decided to try all these UNIX variants too. I have already been using Kubuntu, Linux Distribution. It was time to try Solaris and freeBSD. I got freeBSD7 DVD with an IT Magazine. I ordered for OpenSolaris DVD via their home site. I also download Mandriva 2008 Spring Linux Distribution.

With all these 3 DVD's in hand I felt like a real tester who going to test the distributions in and out. ;) I first tried installing freeBSD7 from the DVD. Being familiar with Linux installation, I assumed freeBSD installation will be similar to it. But to my dismay, I was struggling in the installation process. Keyboard, mouse, and other hardware detection was quite ok. When it came to Hard Disk partition, freeBSD did not present me with any Graphical partitioner. I did not want to risk destroying my data, so I withdrew the installation process itself. Now I felt freeBSD is not that easy to play with or I am not upto the level to try this distribution.
Next comes OpenSolaris. After failing freeBSD test, I took out the OpenSolaris DVD. The DVD consisted of Belenix live CD, Nexenta Install, Schillix Live CD. Inserting the DVD during boot presented me with lotssss of options like, Nexenta Install (32 bit), Nexenta Install (No milestone), Belenix 32 -bit, Belenix Live CD, Schillix 32-bit, etc. There were around 12-15 options to choose from. I chose Nexenta Install 32-bit and loading began. Like freeBSD, same kind of install menu came up. Keyboard, mouse, and other hardware detection was quite ok here also. I faced the same problem of Hard-disk partitioning here also. OpenSolaris does have GUI partitioner but that some how failed to load saying "you do not have any 'solaris2' partition." Here too I did not want to risk my data so I withdrew the installation.

Next comes Mandriva Linux Distribution. 2008 Spring had lot to offer and I have DVD which has both Gnome & KDE. I inserted the DVD. The grub loader took control and showed a neat graphical menu with just few required options. I chose 'Install ... ' and same procedure like other two previous installations followed, but it was much better. I had no problem in partitioning my hard-disk and creating swap partition too. Jus few clicks and options Mandriva took control and started its job. The installation was done in 30mins. Everything was smooth and cool.
But here also the biggest problem I faced was that Mandriva by default enables IPv6 and this makes your broadband much slower than dial-up. This took me time to sort out.

I as an END-USER concluded,

freeBSD, OpenSolaris are little difficult to install
I need less option to choose from, as am not a 'real-geek' to know how many cylinders, tracks are present on my hard-disk.
Linux can be rightly given status of 'Desktop-OS'

I am bit biased and prefer Linux to other two OS. Many might feel OpenSolaris is better because it has some cool things like DTrace, ZFS and many might like freeBSD too.
But one thing is common to all. They have given M$ run for money. :)

Kuruvi - Nonsensical Movie

2008-05-06T11:19:00.002+05:30

disclaimer: All views are my own. I request all jerks not to take it personally. may 3rd 2008

After seeing an impressive victory of the Royal Challengers in chinnasamy stadium, guys decided to plan for movie. I rarely like any tamil movies so I kept on denying myself coming for movie. But as always "none listens me". They are similar to bollywood movies very boring except for few more silly stuffs like:

there is no multi cast in tamil movies
senseless fights are cheered most
stupid romance of hero-heroine with love-dialogues picked from 15th centuary books
hero signs movie only if there are 4fights, 5songs, touching heroine's back 3times atleast, 1kiss, 2bajji daily on sets, etc.
most movies are commercial
heroes with big fat tummies and bigggg moustache.
heroines who have huge butts and are veryyyy fat.

I have never heard of the movie "kuruvi" before but as per bharath movie is supposed to be one of the best movies directed by dharani casting vijay( :P) and bathroom hearthrob trisha. After seeing this movie all these above mentioned facts have become clear. There is mindless action which only afaik a tamil-superstar can perform. Vijay is indeed a super hero who can jump 1km distance and fight 100's of villains at same time. I guess Vijyakanth will have tough time beating him in this super-stardom act.

Trisha's role in the movie is for name-sake. It used to be like a rule in Indian cinema that every hero must have a lover. But overtime bollywood grew up to realize this is un-necessary. It seems like tamil cinema is still not matured enough. There are not even need of any heroine in the movie, still the director insisted in having a heroine for our super-hero vijay in the movie. She keeps dreaming of Vijay and songs but our super-hero is busy saving people from villains.

I agree that Hindi movies are bad but atleast they are not as worst as kuruvi is. This movie has set a benchmark which I believe can only be broken by any other tamil movie only.

Bad: We bought tickets in black
Worse: We got the first row seats in theatre
Worst: The movie itself :(

Another disclaimer: all the character names presented here are fictious. hehe. :D

Royal Challengers vs Deccan Chargers

2008-05-05T10:23:00.000+05:30

BCCI has created great hype among cricket lovers by bringing IPL. It seems like a perfect mix of cricket+fun+glamour+babes. Hell lot of money is involved in IPL and cricketers were "sold" via auction. Being a cricket lover and a cine buff I really enjoy watching IPL. Big names are involved in the game. All the cricketers whom I have cherished through out life are now playing against each other. So it becomes difficult to choose the favourites.

May 3rd, 2008 I went to see cricket match between RC vs DC at Chinnasamy stadium, in here, at B'lore. DC has big favourites like Gibsy, Gilly, VVS, Afridi, etc while RC has the Wall, Kallis, Boucher, Katrina Kaif, sexy cheer leaders ;) It was great to see all these "stars" out there on ground. We all friends were cheering, screaming, shouting for every huge hit, be it by DC or RC with loud music played in the background. People enjoyed more on seeing cheer leaders than cricketers. ;) My g.f got boiled when I said I had "close" look of cheer leaders.
The pic shown here is of the Bangalore Cheer Leader. Being home ground for B'lore with such cheer leaders people around had no doubts but to support their team. But I was keen on supporting DC :)

Nine of us went to see the match. It was terrific experience. Seeing on t.v and in reality was entirely different experience. One of my friends throughout the match kept complaining that ground seem smaller one than usual. T20 is an excellent form of entertainment. Just 4hours of entire match play. T20 suits perfect for people who are busy in their work but free enough to spend few hours for entertainment.

It was a gripping final over by Anil Kumble. DC needed 20runs in the last over. Sanjay Bangar came to rescue for DC by hitting 2 great knocks over the top of boundry. But he couldnt gain victory for his team. All he could do was to make many bookies and betters bite their nails and pray God.

KR (in center of pic) was keen on taking a pic which he can put up in his orkut album to show to all his contra-fans. I have taken some awesome videos of KR dancing and cheering. If you are yet-another-kr-fan then do mail me to get all his pics and vids.

All I can say is I had wonderful time watching match+glamor+babes+crowd. :)

How you feel being a LOSER !!!

2008-04-24T17:11:00.001+05:30

I dunno how to write start-up lines for this articles. So I tried googling to find what exactly LOSER means. But I could not find any "better" meaning than people occassionally use. Few of the meanings are: "A person who fails to win", "someone who loses consistently", "One who continually comes up short on a trade", "one who is unlucky".

Loser in my terms -> It is that period in life of a person, during which the productivity level keeps decreasing considerably. By "productivity level", I mean the state of not being loser. ;)
I hope this period is like Ballmer peak for most of us.

Its like my period of being a loser is on. I have been constantly failing to win anything I try my hands onto. I can go on providing a list of the events, but that will make me a real "loser" in front of all (here the term loser had other meaning). Being a loser is the worst one can ever feel. Even if family, friends, guide, others are there with you, the guilty feeling remains. At times you might feel like throwing everything that is on ur office desk, hitting walls, not hungry enough to eat, mind occupied with utter nonsense, sleepless nights, increased alcohol consumption, (u can add some more if u want).

One thing I noticed was the ratio of number of losers to non-losers is very high. Its like I only form 0.000001% of loser (calculated from Intel FPU). Its like there is a whole bunch of people. They have started a forum to identify themselves.
Out of a sudden I feel proud to be happy. I am part of a big community which even nominates "loser of the week". Its like the loser of week is a less-loser than others in the community. I too wanna be loser of the week some day. :) Be proud to be a loser than simply hiding yourself from those idiotic non-losers.

I am sure there are lots out there who do agree to what I have stated. This blog entry is dedicated to those losers who could not make it big in this competitive arena.

Annoying home page Links

2008-04-21T12:21:00.001+05:30

One of the many annoying things I face while reading blogs is the reference links the blogger provides. For example the blogger is mentioning about Eclipse community, the blogger usually tends to provide links only to the home page of Eclipse Foundation rather than the Community or details he/she mentioning. In my view such citations are unnecessary. If at all I wanna go to the home-page of the referred detail, I can very well find it myself. I expect the blogger to provide the relevant link to what exactly is being highlighted.

Here are some copy-pasted snippets from various blogs/sites:
Blog: google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/04/nominations-open-for-google-oreilly.html
Snippet: Google's Open Source Team and O'Reilly Media are once again teaming up to present five Open Sourcerers with awards at OSCON 2008. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to nominate recipients, so check out our Hall of Fame for inspiration and a list of past winners. We'll be accepting nominations through May 15, 2008; for more details, check out the announcement on the O'Reilly Radar.

Blog: http://www.linux.com/feature/132567
Snippet: In 10 years, Luis Villa has seen his career expand side by side with free and open source software (FOSS). Starting as bugmaster at Ximian, one of the companies that shaped GNOME as we know it today, he has been a mid-level manager at Novell, the coordinator of testing with the GNOME project, and a frequent member of the GNOME Foundation Board.

A good Blogger in my view provides such relevant links in the content:
Blog: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001103.html

Snippet: My previous post on upgrading the CPU in your PC was more controversial than I intended. Here's what I wrote:

In my opinion, quad-core CPUs are still a waste of electricity unless you're putting them in a server. Four cores on the desktop is great for bragging rights and mathematical superiority (yep, 4 > 2), but those four cores provide almost no benchmarkable improvement in the type of applications most people use. Including software development tools.

An eventful B'day

2008-04-18T12:26:00.000+05:30

Hi,
I know its toooo late for me to write about my B'day celebrations. I actually forgot that I do have a blog and I do need to keep updating my blog. I was getting too bored in my office and suddenly realized that I need to update the blog atleast. So here I am with new article centered on my B'day bash... for those who dunno, my b'day was on 29th March.

After shifting to b'lore I go to coimbatore to meet family and friends mostly only during weekends. This year luckily my b'day too was on weekend. So I planned to spend this day with everyone there rather than staying here in b'lore and eating this sad outside hotel food daily :P

For the first time I was out of coimbatore during ma b'day. For the first time I was in train on way to cbe. For the first time I got less calls during my b'day as there was no tower in train :(
Well added to this I the train reached an hour and half late to cbe. I was really pissed off. But hey after landing to cbe it was like breathing fresh air. Everything for the b'day was planned long back.

After reaching home, I took out a chocolate box I bought for Riya. But as always mum and bhabhi wanted me not give her. So as usual I went to keep the choc in fridge. To my surprise I found my b'day cake in the fridge.... hahahaha... Bhabhi was like you-spoiled-our-surprise. :D
I did not stop there. Me and Riya took out the cake and started there itself.
That was a great start for the day :)

Mom and Bhabhi had planned spl dishes for whole day. I am real foodie. Had wonderful time eating every dish they made. Even now while writing my mouth is watering on imagining those dishes...
Evening it was decided for a family dinner. But before that my school friends called up and wanted me to treat them. Evening now was splitted into two parts. Dinner + treat.
I took all my friends for ice cream treat at bon-bon. everyone was searching for most costliest ice-cream in the parlor. (aaj bali ka bakra mein tha).

After finishing off with them I went home to get ready. Suddenly out of nowhere another set of my school friends came in my home with a Excess Chocolate cake. That was a gr8 surprise. Cake was looking very yummy and my friends were not letting cut it so easily. Bhabhi was a hidden-detective who knew this surprise was planned perfectly.
Later part of evening was spent with family. we all went out to Richfood. It was around ten and service was not on par. Finally after long wait we did eat good food and quality time :)
Birthday did not end so soon. Late night talks with my "friend" made it the best and it was a perfect end for my day.

It was the most memorable b'day I ever had.

Ciao

24 things to do at 24 !!!

2008-03-16T09:22:00.001+05:30

This is a TODO list of tasks that I 'll do before am 24 :)

1. Finish up writing my book
2. Contribute to the KDE effort
3. Be a Regular Blogger
4. Take part in organizing FOSS events
5. Register my own named domain website
6. Buy a better cell phone
7. Buy a Macbook Air
8. Buy a Fridge (for God's sake)
9. Buy a Car ( Yup, the Maruti Suzuki SX4 )
10. Buy a Suit ( Refer to point #13 ;)
11. Buy a digital SLR ( the Sony DSC H3)
12. Buy lots of Nike!
13. Get Married!
14. Get into a nicer house
15. Start living with style!
16. Stop flirting with women
17. Finish up lessons
18. Go home!
19. Reduce alcohol drinks
20. Be more regular at work
21. Learn to cook
22. Start buying original music CD's
23. Get known as a top KDE contributor ( in light of #1-#6)
24. Make sure 1-23 are implemented

IT@School project

2008-03-14T12:02:00.000+05:30

The IT@School project of the State Education Department, Kerala, has developed an operating system based on the Linux version Ubuntu called IT@School GNU Linux Version 3.0, it was distributed to 2,666 high schools — over a thousand of them government schools, the rest aided and unaided ones.

Kerala has embarked on usage of "Free & Open Source Softwares". More than 4Lakh school students took their yearly practicals between 27th Feb to 7th March. The exams were completed successfully and infact Kerala IT Department is planning to register a "Guiness World Record of Largest number of Simultaneous usage of Free Software".

GNU GPL licenced softwares were used for teaching purpose.
These are few of them.

Tux -> Drawing Tool
Gimp -> Picture Editing Tool
OpenOffice.org -> Spreadsheet, Presentation, Database Learning software

Kerala has not only created a world-record but also established a solid platform for development of FOSS.

Ek din jab savere-savere...........

2008-03-05T10:23:00.000+05:30


एक दिने जब सवेरे सवेरे, सुरमई की चादर हटा कर

एक परबत के तकिये से , सूरज ने सर जो उठाया, तोह देखा

दिल की वादी में चाहत का मौसम है

और यादों की डालियों पर

अनगिनत बीते लम्हों की कलियाँ महेकने लगी है

अनकही अनसुनी आरजू, आधी सोयी हवी आधी जागी हवी

आंखें मलते हुवे देखती है, लहर डर लहर

मौज डर मौज, बहती हवी ज़िंदगी

जैसे हर एक पल नई है, और फिर भी वही, हाँ, वही ज़िंदगी

जिसके दामन में एक मोहब्बत भी है, कोई हसरत भी है

पास आना भी है, दूर जाना भी है, और ये एहसास है

वक्त झरने सा बहता हुवा, जा रहा है, यह कहता हुवा

दिल की वादी में चाहत का मौसम है

और यादों की डालियों पर

अनगिनत बीते लम्हों की कलियाँ मेहेकने लगी हैं


No words can describe the beauty of these lines. :)

The Seven largest Open Source deals ever:

2008-02-12T16:30:00.003+05:30

Here are the seven largest deals that we could find the numbers for:

1. Sun buys MySQL, $1 billion, 2008
Sun now has their hands on the world’s most widely used open source database.

2. Red Hat buys Cygnus Solutions, $675 million, 1999
Red Hat started the open source acquisition race early when they bought Cygnus Solutions, providers of open source software support.

3. Citrix buys XenSource, $500 million, 2007
Considering how hot virtualization is right now, we can see why Citrix bought XenSource, the company behind the Xen virtualization software.

4. Yahoo buys Zimbra, $350 million, 2007
Yahoo already have their own email services, and with Zimbra they got an integrated email, messaging and collaboration software.

5. Red Hat buys JBoss, $350 million, 2006
Red Hat strengthened their SOA offerings by buying the JBoss Java application server.

6. Novell buys SUSE, $210 million, 2003
Novell got their own Linux distribution by buying SUSE..

7. Nokia buys Trolltech, $153 million, 2008
Trolltech is the company behind the Qt GUI framework which is used by the popular Linux desktop environment KDE.

From this we can draw two different view points.
One side you can say how much impact Open Souce companies have created in the market by providing tough competition. On the other end, We can see the dominance of Big giants taking on such companies for their own market growth.

This trend can affect the Open Source community drastically in future. Nokia might change the licensing schemes for future Qt framework versions and Sun may also make future mysql release propritory. I hope the companies will not do such "evil" act.

Referenced Article : http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=245

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2007-11-12T15:14:00.000+05:30

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Major Players of Linux

2007-10-24T22:29:00.002+05:30

Linux is surrounded by proprietary IT firms. Some of them view Linux as a profit maker, others as a threat to their profits. Both sides represent a challenge for Linux in holding to its ideals of freedom and openess.

The first large IT firm to really grok Linux was IBM. It has a long and mutually beneficial association with Linux, Apache, and other FOSS projects. The company has learned the language and the mores of the FOSS world, and has made significant code contributions as part of those projects along the way.

One of the reasons that IBM began to embrace Linux -- which it described as a "disruptive technology" -- was because it wanted to shake things up at Microsoft. Linux gave Big Blue a chance to regain some clout in the world of operating systems, something it lost after it abandoned OS/2.

One of the positive results of this alliance of the IBM boardroom and the Linux bazaar has been new life for and new profits from IBM's mainframes. Yes, IBM has driven some kernel changes for their own benefit. That is just as it is supposed to be with Linux development. If you want the software to do something differently than it currently does, you code it and you submit it to the maintainers. Over time, many of your changes end up in the kernel. IBM has accomplished its goals without trying to destroy the fabric of the community or stage a junta to replace Linux creator Linus Torvalds.

Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and AMD are other proprietary IT firms that arrived at the party early. Google's incredible financial success owes a great deal to its choice of Linux as the platform for its servers. Even Dell, once loyal only to Intel and Microsoft, is dabbling again with Linux, and apparently going to expand its Linux offerings. Oracle, believe it or not, plans to create a distribution of its own.

By contrast we have SCO and Microsoft. SCO thought it could get rich through litigation, and if it destroyed Linux along the way, well, sorry, but that's the nature of corporate warfare and collateral damages. But even with financial backing from Mics the rest of the software indusrosoft, it appears the only thing SCO has destroyed is itself.

Microsoft is drawn to Linux like a moth to a flame. It doesn't want to get too close, but it just can't stay away, not with so much money in play. All of Microsoft's attention to Linux, however, has been negative, attempting to stifle its continued growth. Microsoft has not come to praise Linux, but to bury it -- to to try to bury it, anyway, with advertising campaigns, by funding for SCO's litigation efforts, and by calling it communism or a cancer. It's the money that drives Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to utter such complete drivel that the entire Microsoft public relations machine is thrown into chaos trying to do damage control.

The most powerful influences on Linux in the group? IBM, no doubt, is on top. Google is probably second, not only by illustrating the power of Linux, but by generating enormous profits point thanks to the cost savings which come as a result of using it. Microsoft, now lurking in the shadows while it plans its next assault, is third in influence, even though all of its efforts have negative rather than positive.

Courtesy: I liked this snippet in one of the article I found in www.linux.com

Indian companies and Open Source projects

2007-10-13T22:32:00.002+05:30

OUR finest exports are software and IT-related. Yet we in India use very little of our own products and services. There can be a number of fairly obvious reasons for it. Its fact that we cannot mass-produce IT services. So the cost of development is the same whether it is for a foreign client or an Indian. In fact, the development costs may even be lower for foreign clients if we factor in some risks. Indian clients being new to IT, may be prone to greater change of their requirements and even confusion especially at the late stages. Contract re-negotiation may be very difficult because Indian clients normally feel they are already paying far too much as it is. That is why IT services are not affordable for many Indian organisations.

If these services became affordable, we would probably be acutely short of experienced personnel to match the demand. We therefore really need to look at alternatives, and OpenSource seems to be most ideal option.

Large IT companies in India have a wealth of knowledge within their organisations. These companies could sponsor Open Source projects to which their staff could contribute; in fact, they should be encouraged to contribute. The projects could be chosen especially for the social benefit which may result from use of such systems. For example, a free POS application may include an option for adding VAT for all Inventory, etc . Lots of Small Scale Companies in India will be benifitted. Another example can be quoted here. QUICKEN is used by millions of indians to file their tax returns. Such an OpenSource version will help many save money and profit from the same.

The skill-sets required to implement solutions are different from those required for creating complex, reliable applications. These companies may even hire IT people the way they hire accountants. This will bring about a significant change and the mingling of Commerce and Engineering professionals. The Accountants usually dont get much salary when compared to IT professional. Hence this will also be a turning point for other set of people.
For the employees of the companies, this may lead to improved morale. People have the need to be needed and contribute to the welfare of the society around them. Contributing to Open Source software is a very satisfying experience for many like Me.

Open Source need not be a gift from large IT companies only. Professional bodies could sponsor Open Source projects targeted at their members. Collective development will result in a very small cost-per-member and also help develop a better Product. Another advantage of Open Source would be that members and groups could alter and enhance the application for their needs. Say you can modify certain features of a Software suited for your own Firm, Organization, or Shop.

Co-operation in IT for Open Source Projects can thus lead to a change in entire situation of our society.

Bhai ishtyle mein Mail karna !!!

2007-10-07T11:57:00.001+05:30

Bhai aur unki Behan log, aap ko apun se Shikayat hai ya kuch Jhakaas Idea Dena hai, Ya Kuch Apun ke Baare mein Taarif Karne ka hai to mere ko ek mail kar do yaar.

Comment Likhne Ke liye APun ek Tarika Bata rela hai. Dhyan Se samaj le aur follow karna...

1. Pehle to yeh hai GuRu ka E-mail ID - amitsurana1@gmail.com

2. Isko click karne ka aur ek Dialog Box aayega. Usme Type karne ka aur "Send" button press karna.

3. Agar tum ekdum gochu ho aur mail clients nahi use karte ho to Pehle is ID ko copy karo.

4. Phir Kya apne Mail Account se GuRu ki is ID ke liye Ek Mail Compose Karne ka.

Ab to samaj mein aaya ??? nahi aaya to NIIT mein jaa aur Internet aur Networking ka ek chota sa course hai wo Kar le. Mere ko mail bhi kar Payega, aur apni waali ke saat Chat bhi kar sakega. Hai na Rapchik Idea !!!!

A Day Without X

2007-09-10T20:25:00.004+05:30

X Server is the backbone for Linux GUI. Every user impigne on X for its day-to-day work. X provides you with everything that you need for Browsing, Chatting, Watching Movies, Using ur favourite s/w to Listen Music.

Just Imagine a "Day Without X Server", using Command Line Interface (CLI) for all your day work. Don't worry there are a lots of CLI based softwares that makes you browse net, chat with your friends, watch movies, etc etc stuffs...

Folowing are a list of CLI based tools that does all tasks which X do.

Web Browsing:
Browsing web pages without X has been a real problem for all the users, especially while using Text Based Browsers which does not support CSS, Ajax. There are a range of decent CLI Browsers available, viz. Elinks, Lynx.

Email:
If you are a gmail user like me, you are in luck. Google has a javascript-less version of their interface which actually works beautifully in Elinks. Another helpful tool is Mutt which supports most mail systems.

Chat:
There are many softwares that lets you chat in CLI. Configuring them is pretty easy too. Few of the chat clients I used were Centericq, Naim. If you are a gmail user then I suggest you to try freetalk. For viewing RSS feeds you 've Raggle for your service. Its basically written in Ruby.

Viewing Images:
zgv is the console based software that provides you with functionality of seeing images in CLI. The Image quality may degrade a little.

Watching Video:
mplayer and vlc can be better options to see videos of any format. Be it mpeg, avi, divx, wmv. mplayer provides a big list of options that can manipulate the video. "frame buffer" device is used for playing vids.

Music:
For playing music mp3blaster is a good choice. You can also use cplay
I 'll go for mp3blaster. It is just an amazing tool. Lets you create and load playLists easily, along with a number of options.

Text Editing:
Vim and Emacs -- I need not mention about them. Every Linux user knows about them.

Windows Management:
Yes! you got it right. Its WINDOWS management in CLI. I came accross in some Linux distro. It had a tool called TWIN pre-installed. Its pretty neat and clean. Though working might be bit tricky. TWIN stands for Terminal Windows Management.

Now you can gladly spend a day without X. :)

Another Reason Why M$ SuX

2007-08-10T19:41:00.005+05:30

Everyone is very much familiar with the word "M$", some consider it like an oxymoron to OpenSource, some consider it as the company who works only for their benefits, some consider it as a company who delivers only "Bugged" Softwares followed by "lots" of Service Packs to patch those Bugs. :)

Well *another* reason why M$ Suck is its so called "Rigorous" Interview process. Though the employers from called it Rigorous it was no less than a "non sense". I am a Final Year CS student from YYZZ college (find my college name yourself!). M$ IDC visited our campus for Recruitment.

They divided their whole day process as:
10:00 -- Algorithms Aptitude Test
13:30 -- Results of 1st Round
15:00 -- Group Test
16:30+ -- 2-3 Rounds of Interview
Final Interview.

We had just 2 questions for the Algorithm Aptitiude Round. Let me make it clear, the title was *Algorithm*, but we were expected to *write C code* for Serializing/Deserializing an N-ary Tree and *Pseudo Code* for MS word Spell Check. The time alloted for this round was *One hour*. I did write lot of crap and cleared the first round. And yes, the results were out by 14:15 than 13:30.

We were called to our Placement Cell for *Group Test*. To our surprise it was the first ever Group Test where every short Listed candidate was Interviewed *one-by-one*. I was waiting anxiously for my turn.

15:00 -> first 8 of 14 candidates called in. We were asked to wait for 1/2 hour.
15:30 -> None came out. I thot they 'll come in few mins. ( Waiting).
16:00 -> Still Waiting some one to turn up.
17:00 -> :(
18:00 -> 3 more, of the remaining 6 people, went in. I was still waiting.
18:30 -> I thought of quitting. but my friends made me wait.
19:00 -> FINALLY, they called my name. I went in an isolated room. There too I had to wait.
19:20 -> O boy, My chance came. I was already exhausted after such a long wait.
Recruiter gave me a *algorithm* question and asked to write *Perfect
Error Free* code with all test cases on *Paper*.
Now writing a bug free code is possible, but on paper. Though a little hesitant in beginning I did finish my code with few struck out lines and scratches. It took ten minutes for Interviewer to actually understand my Code. It looked like he had memorized that similar code before and just using *diff* in his mind to identify the differences in my code. He disagreed saying my code is wrong. Even after proving correctness of the program, that fellow was not satisfied. He finally told "Nice meeting you" with a sarcastic smile and asked me to leave. (it was 20:00).

I did not know whether I was eliminated from the whole process or still some more rounds. It was a very confusing scenario. Those people were moving from cabin to cabin. Other candidates too were called in and few sent out. All of us were in dilemma as to what was going on. One of them told results will be announced by around 20:30. The last list of candidates who got selected for MS came out at 22:30 and finally I did know I was eliminated.

The whole recruitment process was nowhere as per their plans. This shows MS though a Big organization "couldn't plan" a small interview process. They lack in basics of Planning and Design itself.

Now you know why the M$ Products you use is *not* Bug free. ;)

About Me!

2007-07-26T10:40:00.001+05:30

I m wat I m, cz' f wat I ws.

The wake up alarm to get ready for the walk at 6am to the final signs from tiredness to sleep at night, calls for every moment of the day to buzz by playing various roles and fulfilling various responsibilities. My life as a software engineer has called for constant up gradation with technological development, and the inner drive and passion within me, makes me refrain from being idle at any point of time. Spending most of the time finishing up assignments and tasks on hand does lead to lesser time in hand to spend in a relaxed manner. But this being the time of life where one can stretch up to maximum limits and achieve the pinnacle of my desired goals.

The amount of work has risen in the due course and that does create hassle at times, but herein again technology only comes to my rescue. Technology driven stuffs always provide most comfort when no one seems around, it either being listening to music, or a movie or the other things I keep experimenting on my mobile and laptop. They are indeed fun-filled.

The transformation from a casual college going student to a serious professional called in for a lot of hard work and sacrifice at various stages. Staying alone in a city and managing every basic necessity has thought me how to lead an independent and a respectable life. I would term my life asLiving Information Filled Engine, giving back to the world of technology with my innovative and high spirited created tools that would bring in a revolution in itself.

My Fotu album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dexters_guru/sets/
my blog : http://blog.suranaamit.com

PS: Credit goes to the person who wrote this for me :)

Review on GNU GPL Version 3

2007-07-16T18:08:00.002+05:30

GNU General Public License(GPLv3) was "officially" released on 29th June 2007 by Richard Stallman. This day ended the long run of GPL version 2, which was released 16years ago. Basically GPLv3, like its older version GPLv2, is targetted for the distribution, modification, sharing of "free" softwares. The main goal of GPLv3 is to defend the "freedom of every user".

Freedom 0 -> To Run the program as per your wish.
Freedom 1 -> To customize the programs.
Freedom 2 -> To Distribute and Republish the Programs.
Freedom 3 -> To Cntribute to your community by Distributing copies of Program.

GPLv3 also tries to solve the problem of "Tivoization", which is the creation of a system that incorporates software under the terms of a copyleft Software license, but uses hardware to prevent users from running modified versions of the software on that hardware. Under GPLv3, the user must be given the modified Program along with the proper instruction to install and run the program like the Original Version of unmodified Program.

Another threat that GPLv3 resists is that of patent deals like the Novell-Microsoft deal. Microsoft wants to use its thousands of patents to make GNU/Linux users pay Microsoft for the privilege, and made this deal to try to get that. The deal offers Novell's customers rather limited protection from Microsoft patents.

Microsoft made a few mistakes in the Novell-Microsoft deal, and GPLv3 is designed to turn them against Microsoft, extending that limited patent protection to the whole community.

In order to take advantage of this, programs need to use GPLv3. So it is requested by all the owners of "free" softwares to migrate thier License from GPLv2 to GPLv3. Its very carefully designed and provides all "freedom to users". GPLv3 also provides for explicit patent protection of the users from the program's contributors and redistributors.

OpenSource Mantra

2007-07-15T17:07:00.002+05:30

Off Late the word "Open Source" has taken me by storm. I 've become a big fan of "Richard Stallman". He is a dynamic person with Long Beard, cracking jokes in his speeches and providing "free" tips to those who really bothers using their skills, rather than just "selling" their potentials.

Right from the beginning I had heard this word "OpenSource". I was a novice, like a million others, thinking that it just stands for providing your "Source Code" along with the Software you Develop. Later on I started exploring the powers of "OpenSource". Like Richard Stallman Says "Free software and open source are the slogans of two different movements with different philosophies. In the free software movement, our goal is to be free to share and cooperate. We say that non-free software is antisocial because it tramples the users' freedom, and we develop free software to escape from that".

What he mean to say here is that, Major Software Firms develop their "vendor specific" apps and make the user devoid of being free to use it as per his/her own needs. For any updates or any purpose the user to go back to the "vendor" and pay them to get a customized version based on needs.

"OpenSource" takes users one step forward providing all additional facilities to Customize, Add, Delete, Edit any of the features in the Free Software you are using. And all that "free" of cost.

Another advantage I found is that OpenSource is not only for free softwares. A Developer can Customize a free software based on the "present market needs" and sell it to many clients for some cost. This encourages many "Free Lancers" and exploits the culture of "Cost-free" apps.

This mantra is growing larger and larger. Many large scale projects are being undertaken by volunteers who believe in this mantra. The most evident example I can quote here is "KDE - K Desktop Environment". This very project has volunteers all over the world who write codes and post it in the svn repositories maintain by the KDE team. Recently aKademy, an annual meeting of KDE community was held in the Department of Computer & Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. The event spanned eight days and included exciting programme of talks and presentations by outstanding KDE developers, joint development, bug-fixing & coding sessions, workshops for all KDE contributors.

That was just one Example of how fast OpenSource and Free Software movements are growing. I urge all you readers to spread this MANTRA to as many people you can.

:)