Fallen to the dark side, you have

Ubuntu 10.04 tweaks

2010-06-12T00:04:00.001+05:30

Ubuntu 10.04 is really good. It comes very close to being 'just what I want'. But alas, so close and yet, so far. Here are a few tweaks that make it much better for me, and maybe for you too. The changes are focussed on usability more than aesthetics.Here they are -Theme:I quite prefer the Radiance theme over the default Ambiance theme.Applications:If you use a desktop mail client, and you use

Truth at face value

2010-05-09T23:42:00.001+05:30

Now I get what the big deal with Facebook is!Following is a comment /. (Actual link: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646022&cid=32146680)I used to feel that way back when I was a programmer working the normal 100 hour weeks. Then I quit my job and did something else. But without the constant security blanket that was work I noticed I was missing something. I later learned it was

Firefox 3.6

2010-02-19T08:05:00.001+05:30

I don't know whether it is just me, but firefox 3.6 looks fast.

Whats all the buzz about?

2010-02-11T20:09:00.002+05:30

Google released something called Buzz which is integrated right into GMail. So what is buzz? The way I see it, it is a cross between twitter and facebook.Unlike a lot of other mashups, they seem to have taken the good parts of both. One good decision (so far) is that there are no apps. The only reason I detest Facebook is all the invitations from all the people for all the apps, causes, games,

The storm before the calm

2009-11-11T17:22:00.001+05:30

The media wrecked up quite a storm today. They showed amazing animations of raindrops falling in synchronisation from identical looking clouds. They shouted "Cyclone alert!" everywhere. They caused kids to be sent home from school. They made teenagers get out of their beloved college canteens. They made everyone stop work and go home. They even made the cricket match start late!Now we are all

Ubuntu issues for the lay man

2009-10-04T09:33:00.001+05:30

This is primarily in response to this. While I usually don't waste time explaining things to wannabe CEOs, I think that where there is some sound engineering background, there is still hope :)So, the issues, one by one.1. Browser compatibility is an evil. It is the result of monopolies and a great example of how marketing people can screw up interoperability for a few dollars more. What they

Ubuntu Jaunty and Xorg intel problems

2009-09-11T14:04:00.001+05:30

About 3 months ago, I 'upgraded' to Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04). I have a Thinkpad T61 which has the Intel 965 GM card. Apparently, a lot changed in the Xorg intel driver around that time, which basically led to very buggy Xorg driver which had lots of memory leak issues and performance problems. For a long time, I have been trying various things to get rid of these problems. The problems themselves

Nice

2009-09-07T10:03:00.002+05:30

http://tinyurl.com/mscnb7

Small and sweet

2009-08-26T13:52:00.008+05:30

Here is a brief list of all (relevant) processes on my system.fetchmailpulseaudio --start --log-target=syslogssh-agentgpg-agentsh /home/aditya/.xsessiondbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --sessiondbus-launch --exit-with-session sh /home/aditya/.xsessionxscreensaver -no-splashfluxboxxcompmgr -c -r10 -F -f -D5 -C -o0.8scim-launcher -d -c socket -e socket -f

Knee updates

2009-08-18T15:56:00.001+05:30

So, I have a full tear on the anterior cruciate ligament (http://orthopedics.about.com/od/aclinjury/tp/acl.htm). Immediate action would be an arthroscopy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthroscopy).Further plan of action will be decided after that.Update:I will be undergoing arthroscopic surgery on the 29th. This will be followed by a 4 day post-op and a 3 week recovery period at home.

Knee-jerk

2009-08-11T17:45:00.001+05:30

I have done something to my knee while playing football. Actually, it's my knee that has done something to me. Something at the side of the knee went for a short trip to the front of the knee and I haven't been able to walk since. Currently I'm hobbling on crutches.No verdict has been passed yet by the doc yet. Have been asked to rest as of now. A second checkup might yield a verdict soon. I

GCC hacks

2009-04-14T12:49:00.001+05:30

int recursive(int a){ return recursive(a + 1);}main(){ return recursive(1);}If you compile the above code with "gcc recur.c", running the executable gives a segmentation fault (stack overflow).Using the O2 optimisation switch - "gcc -O2 recur.c", the program goes in an infinite loop. GCC does do tail call optimisation.Another cool gcc extension I came across:#define which(a) \ ({ \

UI preferences

2009-03-19T14:58:00.001+05:30

Very rarely do I end up with a UI that I quite like. So, for the record (my own record actually), here are the settings.Desktop - Gnome 2.22.3 (Ubuntu 8.04)Appearance - Theme: Outcrop (http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=19703) Window decoration: Soft Squares (http://art.gnome.org/download/themes/metacity/1070/MCity-SoftSquares.tar.gz) Desktop Background: AnotherWaves (http:

SSD

2009-03-16T19:25:00.001+05:30

These could just be life savers!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

OLPC, GNUnify and more

2009-03-02T16:11:00.001+05:30

A couple of weeks ago, PLUG and SICSR hosted their annual event GNUnify. All in all, the event had a pretty low attendance and the average quality of the talks was not good either. But that was expected. The main focus was not on quality anyways. If it were, people who had not decided the topic of their talk would not have been selected as speakers.All in all, it seems a bad year of open source

मराठी

2008-12-17T16:37:00.002+05:30

मला खूप दिवस इच्छा होती की मराठी मधे एक blog post लिहावा. माझं मराठी लिखाण आणी वाचन काही फार छान बिलकुल नाहिये. भरपूर spelling mistakes पण असणार आहेत इथे.तरीपण एक प्रयत्न करून पहायचा होता. कदाचित ह्यापुढे आजून मराठी मधे लिहीन सुद्धा. अत्ता करता एवढच पुरे.

The terror nexus

2008-12-07T13:46:00.001+05:30

I always had this question in mind for the past few days: Why would the Mumbai terrorists, who had planned everything so immaculately and precisely, miss out on the fact that they carried identity proofs and left behind a neatly defined trail that pointed to Karachi, Pakistan?Maybe this provides an answer.

My fair gentleman

2008-12-05T17:14:00.001+05:30

This is what happens when you recite this to your girlfriend!Time to perform the ostrich algorithm.

USA??

2008-12-01T23:03:00.001+05:30

1. News channels describe the Taj Hotel attacks as India's 9/11.2. Indian government asks US to put pressure on PakistanMy head hangs in shame. Our self respect as a nation has now been officially declared null and void.

Mumbai!

2008-11-28T00:43:00.001+05:30

And Mumbai is under attack from armed gunmen. I'm just too sleepy right now, so I'll post my thoughts on this later.

Game, Set and Match

2008-11-05T03:13:00.001+05:30

You know you have met your match when this happens:I was eating potato chips and deep in thought about something, when S (name abbreviated) walks in.S: What are you doing?Me: I'm ruminating.S: Cool guy.Me: Cool guy?S: 'Guy'?Me: Oh!

Making life easier

2008-11-01T23:35:00.001+05:30

A few observations:1. The amount of time I have saved while programming, due to the fact that I have chosen a Unix (like) platform, is huge. Simple things like bash, consistent hierarchical filesystems, network transparency is most operations are a great help.2. No matter what any Tom, Dick or Eric says, perl is awesome. Its one of the best programming languages out there. And all this talk of it

A Wednesday, Ubuntu and 'Contributors'

2008-10-12T19:51:00.001+05:30

1. After a long time I saw a Hindi movie in a theater. I guess the last one was 'Rang De Basanti'. This time I saw 'A Wednesday'. Quite a refreshing change it was. I'm usually skeptical when I go to see a hindi movie, always expecting the usual dose of rubbish. This one though, had none. Brilliant performances by Anupam Kher and Nasserudin Shah. Brilliant locations as well. And by brilliant, I

Volume matters

2008-09-13T22:54:00.001+05:30

I have a suspicion that TV News channel (actually its more of opinion channels) reporters are paid according to the volume of their voices. The higher, the better.I simply can't understand why all of them are shouting all the time!

Gold!

2008-08-12T11:03:00.002+05:30

It has happened - finally. An Indian won a gold medal at the Olympic games and the whole country (well at least the proud ones) rejoiced and congratulated each other on the wonderful achievement.Indeed a sad day in the history of the country! We have proved to ourselves how low we are on self esteem. It is a bit like celebrating a goal when you are 10-0 down already.No doubt, a wonderful

KDE 4.1

2008-07-31T20:14:00.001+05:30

Blogging this from a KDE 4.1 Live CD. I like what I see :) Well done folks, hats off to you.

The grass is greener on the other side

2008-07-25T19:49:00.001+05:30

Seriously. I can prove it. The grass is a bright fluorescent green at Mulshi and beyond (i.e. towards the coast). I don't know why.

When?

2008-07-25T19:43:00.001+05:30

While walking through the town of Dive-agaar, I came across a beautifulfield with soft fluorescent green grass, flowering bushes and beautifultrees. I stood on its edge admiring it, almost scared of entering andspoiling its beauty. Then I decided to enter. Then I thought to myself- let me see what lies ahead, I'll go sit in the field on the way back.AsI walked on, the road curved and circled

Out

2008-07-25T19:40:00.001+05:30

Woke up at 5:45. Was supposed to leave at 6:30, but ended up leaving at 7:30.The drive started of mechanically. The toll booth at Chandani Chowk is illegal, so didn't stop there. Stopped to by buscuits at Paud; good decision because the drive can be nauseating on an empty stomach.Passed the beautiful backwaters of Mulshi dam. Then entered the Kokan through Tamhini ghat. That too is beautiful at

Monday Morning

2008-07-14T14:11:00.001+05:30

I've got Monday morning blues. I can't believe it.

The intelligent mobile race

2008-06-21T15:34:00.000+05:30

An SMS which I got today -"My new cell no. Is97xxx xxxxx"From +9197xxxxxxxx (The same number as above)

The void

2008-04-30T15:35:00.001+05:30

Sometimes voids are created in your universe. The universe justdoesn't remain the same when that happens. Most of the times suchvoids are small enough and we forget them over time. Some are so bigthat they are impossible to forget.There are very few people who love you unconditionally. Grandparentstop that list. No matter what you do, you are always the apple oftheir eye. My earliest memories of

Colour and jazz

2008-04-08T17:59:00.000+05:30

The modern desktops seem to have too much colour on them. Ditto for webpages. Just because someone invented a way to put colour on a computer monitor, doesn't mean the colour has to be used. Good use of gray shades can create a soothing theme which is not in your face and might even help save battery.Howerver, nowadays there is a lot of rich media that is displayed on computers like video, photos

Why?

2008-03-23T15:32:00.000+05:30

Why is it that the word 'why', when used in an interrogative sense is taken to have all sorts of meanings and connotations than the one which is the most straightforward? Here is an exampe:Someone: "People feel like eating less in the summers."Me: "Why?"Now either the answer should be "Because ... xyz (I don't know myself so can't tell, something to do with metabolism maybe)" or "I don't know".

Blogger composer

2008-03-20T23:48:00.000+05:30

The last time I wrote a blog from Blogger's web interface, it just screwed up the newlines.Lets see what it does now that I have changed the settings.

GNUnify, window managers and more

2008-02-12T16:12:00.000+05:30

GNUnify just concluded this weekend. It was a pretty decent event with people like David Axmark and Brian Behlendorf coming down to give us company. I couldnt attend most of the sessions because of work and the programming course I am taking.My talk was very well received and attended, with some people having to miss out. I'll put up the slides of my talk on my site soon, since the event website

You didn't go to USA?

2008-01-08T01:52:00.000+05:30

"Didn't you ever think of going to USA?"I've come across this question quite a few times. I never found it surprising when it came from people from an older generation. After all, they were the ones who taught us that imported means good and they were the ones who defined success in terms of acceptance by the americans.I used to think that all that has changed, but I guess I was wrong. Here is a

FOSS.in and Delhi and more

2007-12-13T16:59:00.001+05:30

Last week I was at FOSS.in, Indias largest FOSS event. In terms of quality, the event was what I had expected it to be. This year I was not giving a talk. That takes away half the fun I guess, because the real conference happens after the official hours, during the dinners. Thats when you get to meet the whos who of the FOSS world. Missed out on that this time.The conference as such was not very

Flock

2007-11-02T12:54:00.001+05:30

Flock seems to be a good browser. Its probably going to become the browser of choice for me.

Kubuntu Gutsy ...

2007-10-26T23:09:00.001+05:30

For all those taken aback by my last post where I said that Gnome was usable, I apologize and take back my words.It wasn't long before the problems started surfacing. Sure, Ubuntu has done well to make Gnome usable, but the problem is ... its still Gnome. Even if it is made usable, its not much good. 10 minutes into the session, Nautilus started crashing. That was enough of a hint to try out

Gutsy

2007-10-26T16:57:00.001+05:30

I must really congratulate a distribution that makes Gnome usable!Powered by ScribeFire.

Long long ago ...

2007-09-22T00:00:00.001+05:30

... I wrote a blog post. Its been so long that I don't even remember it. Actually I have been just too lazy to update the blog even when I had something to write about. So I'll just put everything that comes to mind in this post.At the top of my mind are the six sixes by Yuvraj Singh. I missed it live, but it felt great to see in the replay! It gave the team the impetus to take on South Africa

The new age desktop

2007-07-16T00:04:00.001+05:30

Actually, this is old news, but pretty new to me. I recently installed Beryl and my desktop looks pretty cool now. With all the fancy effects and the works. Windows Vista and Mac have a long way to go in that department. The Linux/Unix desktops are giving them a run for their money.Of course, the screenshot is not going to show you all the wobbly windows and animations.

English

2007-07-13T23:29:00.001+05:30

Go buffalo

The Idiot Box

2007-06-16T01:53:00.001+05:30

The idiot boxI am getting more and more frustrated nowadays when I watch TV. In the middle of anything worthwhile, there are spans of 10 - 15 minutes when I am repeatedly told that my life is totally useless and not worth living, and the way to correct that is to buy so and so toothpaste or toothbrush or computer or bike or car or something like that.I also get to know recently that one should

Starting afresh

2007-06-13T21:09:00.001+05:30

For a long long time, I wanted to clean up my laptop of all the junk that had accumulated over the last three years. I had started off on Ubuntu Hoary, converted it to Kubuntu, upgraded to Dapper, then to Edgy and basically played around with it so much that it had become a big mess.So I decided to get back to that tried and tested distribution which I had abandoned on the laptop - Debian. And I

Back!

2007-06-11T01:32:00.001+05:30

I got this pretty cool firefox extension for blogging. It supports both LJ and blogger, so considering that I have been using various Google services now, I might just switch back to blogger. Provided this works, of course.powered by performancing firefox

Moving ...

2005-07-11T16:44:00.000+05:30

I'm fed up with blogger!I have moved to LiveJournal.http://www.livejournal.com/users/adityag

Testing!

2005-05-28T10:33:00.000+05:30

The reason why I have written to this blog in some time is that the mailed blogs are not getting formatted correctly.
Lets see whether this one goes through!
Otherwise, I might as well switch to LJ. Coz the Blogger site is patheticly slow.

Weekend ... loong one

2005-05-16T12:00:00.000+05:30

Weekends start with Friday evening. A chat with Himanshu inspired me to write down some things related to science and DSP that I had in my mind. I've started writing them. I'll post them here one by one as and when I'm through with them. I'm kind of stuck with some fundas of electromagnetic waves.Saturday and Sunday were spent at Mahabaleshwar with my family. Man, it was warm in the afternoons. I

google toolbar

2005-05-12T12:32:00.000+05:30

The google toolbar for firefox is quite amazing. The best part is that it has a gmail inbox notification and a single click takes you to the gmail inbox. Other google services are also at a clicks distance. Try it out, maybe its what you are looking for.

Petrol shortage

2005-05-11T23:19:00.000+05:30

Something very interesting has happened. There is no petrol left in Pune :)It going to be fun to observe what happens for the next two days.-- A man may sometimes be forgiven the kiss to which he is not entitled,but never the kiss he has not the initiative to claim.

Xfce

2005-05-09T22:38:00.000+05:30

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Xfce desktop 2, originally uploaded by urwithaditya. Its the gdesklets that get you the nice eye candy actually. Xfce4 is a much improved version. Its almost revamped. I guess I'm going to be using it for quite some time to

Testing the photo uploads

2005-05-06T15:18:00.000+05:30

Does the photo come above the text or below?And well ... I couldn't find any other image offhand.

A visit to my guru

2005-05-02T22:58:00.001+05:30

I guess I have written about him already out here. But no amount of writing can do justice to the respect I have for this man. He is simply phenomenal. A PHD in Physical Chemistry, a great lover of hindi film music and english films, an experienced trekker (he knows the wester Ghats by heart I think), has a lot of knowledge of medicine, astronomy, astrophysics, astrology, philosophy (well, he is

Super specialisation

2005-05-02T22:58:00.000+05:30

I was wandering around on Lakshmi road on Saturday on the hot afternoon sun looking for a particular set of headphones. The amount of specialisation you find there is amazing. In one lane you have shops selling electric cables and nothing but electric cables. Then there is another lane in which you get audio equipment, but only electronic equipment. Heaphones are not part of that. So I had to

Should I migrate?

2005-04-28T18:34:00.000+05:30

I saw the Fireox extension to work with Live Journal today. I'm seriously thinking of migrating to LJ now. Though one great advantage with blogger is that you can mail your posts.

Out of this world experience

2005-04-27T15:19:00.000+05:30

I have started listening to the h2g2 radio series all over again. After listening to two episodes immediately one after the other, my head had started swimming now. Feels like I've had a pan-galactic gargle blaster.I need rehab. Time to go back to listening.

Thunderstorm!

2005-04-17T21:36:00.000+05:30

Wow! It was one the more beautiful sights I've seen in a long time. Rain pouring down so hard that you would get completely drenched in no more than two seconds. if you had the guts to go out there and brave the huge hailstones, that is.And this, bang in the middle of April! Its a wonderful world :)

Colours!

2005-04-16T21:15:00.000+05:30

I'm pondering on a question I've had for over 10 years now. The question is: does what we see, appear the same to everyone, with respect to colours.I'm thinking whether there is a way to test this out.Do all of us 'see' the colours the same way. I mean it's possible that the stimulus x gets on seeing green is what y gets on seeing blue. I mean, what appears to x as green, appears to y as what

Book review: State of fear

2005-04-10T23:43:00.001+05:30

This one is *very* different from other Michael Crichton books. But this one is as good as any other. He has dealt with a sensitive subject and I think he has refrained from writing his heart out in order to stick to the topic.A lot of research goes behind each of his books and it shows. This time though, it shows litterally :) Read the book to find out what I mean.The book deals with the topic

apt-get update

2005-04-10T23:43:00.000+05:30

This is why I simply love debian!I changed the package source from my 15 CD Sarge set to the DVD. All I had to do to keep my system in sync and in great shape was "apt-get update". As simple as that. No need for reinstallation, nothing. As I have said over a hundred times before, "Debian ... works".Btw, I decided to switch back to KMail. Thunderbird was good, but it just didn't feel right. I will

Indian Ocean

2005-04-04T22:20:00.000+05:30

Should have posted this long ago actually.I had been to the Indian Ocean concert here. And they didn't dissapoint. If you are an Indian Ocean fan, this was not something you could afford to miss.No words can do justice to the experience of listening to Indian Ocean live. The music makes you smile, laugh and dance.

The monk who sold his Ferrari

2005-03-27T12:38:00.001+05:30

Frankly speaking, after I read this, I wish I had listened to what my grandma told me when I was small.That book is full of advise that parents and grandparents give you in the name of Hindu religion and culture.

Sinhagad

2005-03-27T12:38:00.000+05:30

After almost 2 years I hiked up there. After a long time I listened to the wind, felt really good.The thing that I enjoyed the most, however, was silence. No sound of the TV, of "music" playing in my ears, no clickety-click of the keyboards, not annoying hum of machines that compute and most important, no sound of humans continuously chattering and driving you madMissed a days football, but I

Slow dance

2005-03-18T13:32:00.000+05:30

I read this poem in a mail that was actually a hoax. But its a good poem nonetheless.Slow dance -Have you ever watched kidson a merry-go-roundOr listened to the rainslapping on the ground?Ever followed a butterfly'serratic flightOr gazed at the sun into the fadingnight?You better slow downDon't dance so fastTime is shortThe music won't lastDo you run through each day on the flyWhen you ask "How

Tremours!

2005-03-14T22:50:00.000+05:30

A cough and cold and general weakness had forced me to stay at home. I was half asleep and half trying to make sense of the number 42 when the fluid in my ears started swaying.It took some time to realise that other things around me were also swaying. This was the first time I had seen the walls of the house move and tilt and to be very frank, it scared the hell out of me.All that came later

A footballing predicament

2005-03-08T06:18:00.000+05:30

My goal scoring streak in the inter IT tournament has put me in a predicamennt. Basically because it hass ended. The balls that once sailed in are now hitting the post, the passes that came right to my feet are going a yard askew and the smoothly rolling ball that I once dispatched accurately now hits a bad spot on the ground just when I'm about to hit it. Not to mention that many balls that I

Accident

2005-03-05T09:48:00.000+05:30

Of late, I've got tired of answering the question "Where are your specs". Now I hope to just point to this URL.For the impatient, I broke it. In an accident. On my bike.For those who care more about me than my specs, I am perfectly fine and got away with a few scratches on the ankle. I was saved by the helmet when my head hit the road though.It's not my fault. It was raining (and now is certainly

2005-02-22T20:28:00.000+05:30

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,and remember what peace there may be in silence.As far as possible, without surrender,be on good terms with all persons.Speak your truth quietly and clearly;and listen to others,even to the dull and the ignorant;they too have their story.Avoid loud and aggressive persons;they are vexatious to the spirit.If you compare yourself with others,you may become

2005-02-17T15:52:00.000+05:30

MURPHY'S AVALANCHEHere is an addition -When something can go wrong, it will. And then along with it, everything else will.This is Murphy's avalanche law.Sigh. I hate such days.

2005-02-13T00:30:00.000+05:30

"Die Gedanken Sind Frei" ...... is an old song of protest that goes back to the German peasant wars of the 16th century"Die Gedanken Sind Frei" means "Our thoughts are free".Our Thoughts Are Free Die Gedanken sind frei My thoughts freely flower, Die Gedanken sind frei My thoughts give me power. No scholar can map them, No hunter can trap them, No man can deny: Die Gedanken sind

2005-02-06T11:19:00.000+05:30

Safin or Hewitt?? Well, I'm writing this watching the Australian Open final. Safin started very much off-colour and Hewitt outplayed him completely winning 6-1. The number of unforced errors that Safin has been committing is phenomenal. Safin came back in the second set very well and thought Hewitt made him work really hard, he managed to get the second one 6-3. The match has so far been a very

Caves of Steel

2005-01-24T18:09:00.000+05:30

Another typical Asimov novel - full of surprises and a great stimulant for the brain. It keeps you hooked on throughout and is full of twists and turns. This novel introduces R. Daneel Olivaw and Elijah Bailey who have become part of Asimov folklore now.Aah ... a nice read after a looong time :)

2005-01-10T08:25:00.000+05:30

The Life of a Hacker Atul (The Shaolin) posted a poem on his blog titled - 'The Life of a Programmer'. You can read it here - http://the-shaolin.blogspot.com/2005/01/life-of-programmer.html Here is my version - 'The Life of a Hacker'. I wrote this one to bring forth the two contrasting attitudes of people in the software industry. I start my day by sitting on a chair, Giving my console a

3ddesk

2005-01-05T21:24:00.001+05:30

Here is a cool program. 3ddesk is a 3D desktop switching tool.Most window managers support multiple virtual desktops. Normally you switch the virtual desktop using the pager.3ddesk gives you a 3D pager. It zooms out into 3D and shows all your virtual desktops. You then use the arrow keys to chose the one you want and then press Enter to zoom into the one that you want to use.Nice eye-candy!

CoLinux screenshots

2005-01-05T21:24:00.000+05:30

I've put up the colinux screenshots at -http://aditya.adotout.net/image/colinux.pnghttp://aditya.adotout.net/image/colinux1.pnghttp://aditya.adotout.net/image/colinux2.png

Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance

2005-01-05T21:21:00.000+05:30

Phew. Finally managed to complete the book. I had started iit a month ago.It is a pretty good book. Delves deep into some philosophical topics. But for the first hundred pages, it doeesn't make any sense at all. Worth reading if you have read any books on philosophy before. A must read if you have never read philosophy.All in all, a thumbs up!

Ubuntu review

2005-01-03T14:43:00.000+05:30

Over the weekend I had the chance to get hold of Ubuntu as well as the 15 CD set of Debian Sarge. Ubuntu is basically a Debian based distribution which concentrates on the desktop. An 'apt' description of Ubuntu would be Mandrake:RedHat::Ubuntu:Debian. Those who still need to be told more, read on.I have been running Mdk 10 on my Dell Inspiron 1150. I chose Mandrake because that was the one that

Happy New Year

2005-01-02T11:16:00.000+05:30

Happy New Year to everybody.Had a great new year party. Thanks a lot to Dexter for playing the kind host once again. The bonfire was simply amazing (once again).There is certainly something fishy with Zoyd. During the bonfire, wherever he went, the smoke followed. And he changed his position four times. I remember that this had happened last year as well. I guess he just can't stop getting flamed

Just realised ...

2004-12-29T10:02:00.000+05:30

That the more time you spend earning a living, the less time you get to live!

Colinux and Cygwin

2004-12-22T14:11:00.000+05:30

This is another killer combination :)Ever since shifting to a new campus and giving up my old machine, I was desperate to have a working linux on my machine. One attempt at installing it ended up in the bootsector of the harddrive getting corrupted and me losing valuable time which I had to make up by doing overtime. Earlier I thought that it was Linux and Lilo that screwed up the hard-drive, and

Me on KDE website

2004-12-22T06:03:00.000+05:30

Here is me in a snap on the KDE website. This one is during the inauguration ceremony of LB 2004.http://ktown.kde.org/~wheeler/images/linux-bangalore-2004/dsc01027.jpg

Euphoria

2004-12-19T16:12:00.000+05:30

This was the second time I had been to the Euphoria concert, this first time being in Mood-I in IITB. It was more about hearing live music than anything else. I would have gone even if it had been some other decent band. The thing about live music is, even a mediocre piece sounds good. I'm beginning to belive that the widespread availability of digital music is really killing these live shows.

'X-ite'ing days ahead?

2004-12-18T18:13:00.000+05:30

Plans are brewing up. Something big lies ahead of us. X-ite is doing really well and we have come pretty far from where we started. But all things have a saturation point. Perhaps X-ite has hit it. Perhaps there is a lot that can still be done with it. But as we keep exploring the unknown seas of perl script goodies and the hazardous rock cliff shores of Xt, we are beginning to see shorelines all

Back to hacking!

2004-12-14T13:33:00.000+05:30

After a loong time I got my hands dirty with some ugly looking C code.Managed to add in a new feature in x3270 in pretty quick time! Feels good, really good.

LB Diary - Day 3

2004-12-13T23:44:00.000+05:30

The next thing that I remember is Homyar shaking me awake the nextmorning. I was feeling much better and all the exhaustion seemed to gone away. Good thing too, because I was scheduled to give my talk in three hours. The talk before ours was on Gambas (Gambas is mostly basic). Gambas is supposed to be a clone of VB. I dont know how good it really is, but the speaker managed to create a movie

LB diary - Day 1 & 2

2004-12-12T21:39:00.001+05:30

We reached on Tue at 11 pm. Unforunately we had missed the Infosysvisit and the interaction with all the hackers elite. When we reachedthe hotel, Abhay had not yet reached. He was scheduled to check in onWednesday morning. On the list of people who I knew was GuntapalliKarunakar. I decided to pay him a visit at around 11:30 in thenight. I knew that there was no way he would be sleeping. He

Thunderbird on my lap

2004-12-12T21:39:00.000+05:30

The more I use thunderbird, the more I like it. It may not have the functionality the mutt provides or the advanced filtering capabilities of KMail, but it has just enough. Just enough for me that is. So far, I have been able to find every feature I needed right where I looked. That is what I call an intuitive interface.Finally after a long time, the Silicon Mountains repairman showed up and

Thunderbird!

2004-12-07T23:30:00.000+05:30

Just tried out the thunderbird mail client today at office. Its awesome. Some really cool features include reading RSS feedsas posts. I guess this is going to be my default for some time to come.

From LB 2004

2004-12-01T23:01:00.000+05:30

Dont have much time. Ironically, there is a shortage of bandwidthhere. But to make it short, I'm having a real ball of a time :D

The jinx is broken!

2004-11-28T00:11:00.000+05:30

When it came, it was more a sense of relief than anything else. Infosys finally entered a final of a football tournament. We had been beaten in the semi-finals on the last 5 occasions. But today, finally, the jinx has been broken. The game went to sudden death penalties and Infosys beat Persistent 8-7.

History

2004-11-25T12:06:00.000+05:30

I have been wondering why all this while we have been trustinghistorians. How can I be so sure that the events reported by historyhave actually happened.Contrast this with science. In science, things are stateless withrespect to time. There is no 'event' which has 'happened'. Its all justthere in front of you whenever you want it. You can test it whenever youwant. Of course, one can argue whether

Another feather in my cap ... 'vis-a'-vis stupidity

2004-11-22T19:14:00.001+05:30

I was actually having fun at the embassy when I went for my visa stamping. The security check seemed so cool and it even beeped when I passed through the detector. It was something in my wallet.Then they asked for the documents, which I produced, all in order. Except that one was missing ... my passport. I experienced a kind of adrenalin rush that I have never experienced before. Then I calmed

Welcome to Manas

2004-11-22T19:14:00.000+05:30

Please join me in welcoming to the club of people who have lots of time and nothing to do and hence think that spending time writing blogs is a pretty neat idea, a friend of mine - Manas Alekar (http://manasalekar.blogspot.com).Maybe he will blog regularly from now on and go on to become a prominent member of the club. Or maybe he will just stop like many other clever people who realise the truth

Iska to jawab nahi

2004-11-11T23:46:00.000+05:30

The only thing I wish right now is that people respond to my mails! (Sigh).

Infy cruise past Geometric

2004-11-07T09:03:00.000+05:30

I got to know just before the match today that Infy had qualified for the semi-finals just by winning one game in the super-six, thanks to the outstanding performance in leagues.I actually had fever when I started the game. But once the game starts, you forget all these things. Geometric started well and put pressure on our defence in the early minutes. But Infy scored off a counter attack

2004-11-03T02:10:00.000+05:30

An 'eye opener' Let's say that you are teaching a class. Let's say that you are teaching Unix. You have drawn a neat sketch of the inode-wise layout of the disk and you are explaining the concept of the hierarchical filesystem and directories and inodes and hard and soft links with the help of your neat diagram. Suddenly you discover that one of the students is not getting the whole picture ...

The power of music

2004-10-28T01:31:00.000+05:30

It's not often that music can bring a smile to your face ... just like that, out of the blue. Hats off to Indian Ocean for 'Kandisa'.

Dumb and dumber

2004-10-25T19:18:00.000+05:30

I think I gave myself the proof that my dumbness is unparalleled.There are two independent queues in our canteen for getting foodcoupons. After waiting in the first queue, for some reason, I decided tospend another fifteen minutes in the second one. I realised my stupidmistake when I reached the counter and the lady asked me what I wanted.I said 'nothing' and proceeded to the food counter,