on the tech n geek front these days...like NBC and CBS are offering tv shows for as little as 99 cents..In my view this is really a good move..in a fast life of today n tomorrow, one should not expect people glued to TV, waiting for the next epsiode to come (some morons like us don't even have access to TV at all!) and therefore selling episodes for peanuts is definitely a good idea. From where I see it, a lot of these new things are being driven primarily by Apple and it's revolutionary iPod. With the brand new video iPod, one can now watch stuff on its tiny screen. Though, for once it may seem like people would not like to watch TV on a small screen and it has been confirmed by various online polls that people don't prefer that. Still I think TV on small screens of PDAs and iPods will soon catch up.
Imagine a day when technologies such as WCDMA catch up and become mainstream there will applications allowing us to video chat through our mobile! and believe me the day is not far even in India. Infact the way the things are folding out some of these technologies may come to India sooner than west!
Well so much for the future.
I've come across articles on net reviewing new Yahoo mail and if they are correct Yahoo! can well do a Gmail and it may even be better than what Gmail offers. After all Yahoo is definitely kicking some ass and they are in a revenge mode with Google as their only enemy.
Yahoo has 360 which is simply awesome with blogs, daily journal, photo sharing and orkut like social portal bundled into one. Though I don't plan to shift this blog to 360 anytime soon but it definitely looks compelling and reasons for not doing the same is that I am lazy. But that may not remain true for long. Yahoo, though is not as mature as The God aka Google and keeps doing silly things like vowing to kill Gmail (reported into my last post) and showing Mountain View, California(HQ of Google) as a fish shop! They even have a website up for the fish store!! It's an interesting fight to watch...
A company called "Blacklight power" headed by a electrical engineer from MIT (who is actually a doctor from Havard) is reporting that it has devised ways to generate more power and heat than available from normal combustion process and thus may produce power which may produce energy that will be 4-5 times cheaper than available from commercial sources. But what really is baffling is that the method that they are using has rendered Quantum Mechanics invalid! What a great news indeed. Apart from generating really cheap power for energy starved countries like India and China , it will also save students from going through the rigours of quantum theory! God bless Dr. Mills!(just kidding). Either this is a prank, fraud or some publicity stunt but whatever it is, is definitely worth following.
Another unkown company is all set of launch a web based service which will be a mail service, a photo album, (guess) a movie player, music player, a calender service and a excel type thingy. Ajax is really kicking some ass these days. (Ajax is the technology behind new web based services such as gmail, google map and more which allows web application to behave similarly to desktp applications... if you wish to know how advanced this technology is... visit Meebo)
More later
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005
Okay...mez back
After a long silence, PR's blog is buzzing with activity again. For those interested in knowing the reason of this silence...these words may describe it...antaragni zero five, diwali, BTP etc etc. Though I've not been blogging I've been following geek activities regularly. There have been a few interesting changes such as Google desktop 2 moving finally out of beta, yahoo putting up a geek statue a plaque on the same says (Presented to the Yahoo! Mail Team by the good people of Yahoo! in recognition of tremendous intellectual efforts put forth in order to defeat Gmail.
Not since the code breakers in Britain's Bletchley Park deciphered Germany's Enigma code during World War II has so much brainpower been focused on kicking an enemy's ass.
The Yahoo! Mail Team's bravery, courage, and cumulative intelligence will not soon be forgotten. ), Linspire CEO offering for $5m to replace windows OS on all South Korean computers with linspire, Chinese plan to land on moon by 2017, An amazing concept of a coffee with beer! and a lot more...
Not since the code breakers in Britain's Bletchley Park deciphered Germany's Enigma code during World War II has so much brainpower been focused on kicking an enemy's ass.
The Yahoo! Mail Team's bravery, courage, and cumulative intelligence will not soon be forgotten. ), Linspire CEO offering for $5m to replace windows OS on all South Korean computers with linspire, Chinese plan to land on moon by 2017, An amazing concept of a coffee with beer! and a lot more...
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Okay enough of Tech stuff...Love is in the air
One of my closest friend is madly, truely and deeply in love...Well you may ask whats there to blog about ? Given the sex ratio at iit almost half the junta always reamins "madly, deeply and truely" in love and most often the just one girl!
Lets not get out of track...This guy has this crush on this really cool and talented female of my batch. And both of these are good friends of mine and therefore I am having double the fun!
Now the exciting part, I and a few in the gang had a nice little session this morning and we were able to convince this guy that the only chance to win the girl's heart is to acocmpany her during her journey home today! And he has believed all this crap and right now standing in a queque to get a train ticket.
Well I know this is wicked but thats what I(we) are. We convinced him that if Sharukh can do this in "Chalte-Chalte" by catching a last minute flight to athens then this is his chance to do the same by catching this train in the last minute. Must say I am excited about this as this maybe one those things you may remember all your life as "wah! kya love story thi" or "wah! kya kata tha bande ka:P". Though latter would be more fun and spicy, former is what I really hope should happen. I'll keep you guys updated as things unfold. BTW train is at 10 pm today :)
UPDATE:
It was a complete filmi story! With a bitchy villan (who told the girl about the whole plan) and last minute drama. ALso I realized at the last minute that the ticket we have is for the wrong train!!! (We knew that she was going by Rajdhani and there were two rajdhanis for the same destination , almost at the same time!). But in end it all turned out to be worth it as the girl "kinda" agreed to the proposal of my friend! Yipee..
Lets not get out of track...This guy has this crush on this really cool and talented female of my batch. And both of these are good friends of mine and therefore I am having double the fun!
Now the exciting part, I and a few in the gang had a nice little session this morning and we were able to convince this guy that the only chance to win the girl's heart is to acocmpany her during her journey home today! And he has believed all this crap and right now standing in a queque to get a train ticket.
Well I know this is wicked but thats what I(we) are. We convinced him that if Sharukh can do this in "Chalte-Chalte" by catching a last minute flight to athens then this is his chance to do the same by catching this train in the last minute. Must say I am excited about this as this maybe one those things you may remember all your life as "wah! kya love story thi" or "wah! kya kata tha bande ka:P". Though latter would be more fun and spicy, former is what I really hope should happen. I'll keep you guys updated as things unfold. BTW train is at 10 pm today :)
UPDATE:
It was a complete filmi story! With a bitchy villan (who told the girl about the whole plan) and last minute drama. ALso I realized at the last minute that the ticket we have is for the wrong train!!! (We knew that she was going by Rajdhani and there were two rajdhanis for the same destination , almost at the same time!). But in end it all turned out to be worth it as the girl "kinda" agreed to the proposal of my friend! Yipee..
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Firefox 1.5
The new firefox (still in beta) seems a lot cooler and though they have not fixed the memory leak ( I've searched about it and it seems that this bug is not in mozilla engine but rather is contracted to it when we install the flash plugin!!) which has plagued it for long now. It has some cool features such as Faster browsing (this enables faster back and forward navigation), automatic updates etc. But the most notable change is the drag and drop reordering of tab buttons. Happy browsing!
Google and Sun
War lines have been drawn and the GOD is hiding somehting form us like always. There is definitely something big brewing in the works at Mountain View, California as Google and Sun have decided to bring a new spreadsheet and wordprocesser which will be closely linked to internet. It may or may not be something based on AJAX (well for the uninformed ajax is the technology used in gmail which makes it very user friendly and agile). It maybe something based on desktop (similar to google desktop search by Google) which will be based on Java and Openoffice of Sun. Must accept whatever it is, is not very clear at this point of time. One thing though is very clear that it is going to directly confront Microsoft and kick the giant in it's balls!
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Things are going to change soon
The way we toppofy our assignments may change ...soon! Look out for Google and sun's web based office which will have functionality of a desktop based office system. More on this soon as news trickles in.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Blog search!
So here we have finally an utility to search blogs. Well my first reaction was whats new in that? I mean you can always do a google search like 'search key site:blogspot.com'. And you may search all the pages (almost all) present on blogsphere. And same may be done with 360 and others. Then I thought maybe they have just done this and added links for the same eveywhere.
But then reading a bit more into the things, I soon understood that what Google is trying to do here is awesome. They are not just searching the pages but doing it in realtime. They are indexing these pages almost instantaneously. One may ask what's big in that ?
Well first for the people who don't know about this, Google indexes all the webpages that have been updated all over the world twice a month (it's called Google dance or something) and it visits all the webservers all over the world and collects all the information. Thats why those webpage contents that have been recently updated are not present on Google.
Now the question arises, what's the need for realtime search of blogsphere ? Well for the starters we may say that blogs are updated much more frequently than webpages and it's better to index them in realtime, so that all the blog content is searchable immideately.
But is there something more to it ?
There maybe! I have for long have this feeling that there is more to blog than just being amusing, informative and personal. Blogs may easily kill journalism as we know it, in this century. Already almost all important geek world information comes from blog. There are blogs by developers, managers, companies which gives much needed insight into the tech world, which is generally ignored by mainstream journalism. Apart from tech blogs there are blogs from all walks of life like cookery, psychology, economics, finance and what not. In my view blogging will change the way we look at news today. Google armed with deep personal insights of a person maybe able to come up with news and information that one actually wants to read.
I know I maybe just reading a hell lot more into it than what it is supposed to mean but still there is a possiblity that we may eventually find out what Google actually is!
But then reading a bit more into the things, I soon understood that what Google is trying to do here is awesome. They are not just searching the pages but doing it in realtime. They are indexing these pages almost instantaneously. One may ask what's big in that ?
Well first for the people who don't know about this, Google indexes all the webpages that have been updated all over the world twice a month (it's called Google dance or something) and it visits all the webservers all over the world and collects all the information. Thats why those webpage contents that have been recently updated are not present on Google.
Now the question arises, what's the need for realtime search of blogsphere ? Well for the starters we may say that blogs are updated much more frequently than webpages and it's better to index them in realtime, so that all the blog content is searchable immideately.
But is there something more to it ?
There maybe! I have for long have this feeling that there is more to blog than just being amusing, informative and personal. Blogs may easily kill journalism as we know it, in this century. Already almost all important geek world information comes from blog. There are blogs by developers, managers, companies which gives much needed insight into the tech world, which is generally ignored by mainstream journalism. Apart from tech blogs there are blogs from all walks of life like cookery, psychology, economics, finance and what not. In my view blogging will change the way we look at news today. Google armed with deep personal insights of a person maybe able to come up with news and information that one actually wants to read.
I know I maybe just reading a hell lot more into it than what it is supposed to mean but still there is a possiblity that we may eventually find out what Google actually is!
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Orkut added to Google products
And finally Orkut! has been added to Google products and now you don't have to remember seperate login/password for Orkut. For those who didn't know, Orkut was not a Google product yet. It was a part time project of a Google Engineer, Orkut Buyukkokten. Although it used resources of the Google Inc. it was no where mentioned on Google product list(not even as beta).
Now Google has finally adopted it and made it a member of Google account and now one may log onto Google account and automatically log on to Orkut and host of other services such as gmail. So far so good!
But what more we can read into it ? How this is going to benefit Google ?
I think I ve written this in this blog before about it but not in this much detail. The major advantage of this for Google is that now it knows which Gmail users are friends to which other Gmail users! It suddenly knows a lot more about it's Gmail users, there prefrences, their sexual orientation, their birthday, how they describe themselves, their religon, political view, fashion habits, hometown and what not!!! Just imagine the kind of data they can process now.
Okay again! so far so good! They know a lot about us...so what ? What is the use of this data for them ? They are not spammers or stalkers or FBI!
Well the biggest use of this data is going to be in their AdSense technology. If you don't know, Adsense is the technology Google uses to earn money. Infact it's almost the only source of income they have today. This Adsense reads our mails, sniffs our searches and other behaviour and comes up with relevant advertisments on the right side of search window, gmail mails etc. And believe me they are making small businesses go ballistic in America and elsewhere. Small retailers and vendors are the one who are benefitted by this the most. As Adsense shows only evry relevant ads on these links, it is made sure that a large number of users that actually follow that link ARE actually interested in these advertisments(products/services). And Google charges peanuts from these retailers (something like $0.05 -$0.5 per click). There have been cases where retailers or businesses have got 50-100 new customers by spending only $100!. So Orkut is now going to further strenthen that Adsense technology as Google now knows much more about us!
What else could come out of this integration?
Well for a lot of us Orkut is very effective social tool. It helps us stay in touch and a lot more than that. Google is building it's homepage services which is supposed to have very personalized items like news, mail snippets, weather details, search history etc. I hope this service will now include Orkut also and a lot of things like scrabook etc will be integrated seamlessly into it.
Just wait and watch.
Now Google has finally adopted it and made it a member of Google account and now one may log onto Google account and automatically log on to Orkut and host of other services such as gmail. So far so good!
But what more we can read into it ? How this is going to benefit Google ?
I think I ve written this in this blog before about it but not in this much detail. The major advantage of this for Google is that now it knows which Gmail users are friends to which other Gmail users! It suddenly knows a lot more about it's Gmail users, there prefrences, their sexual orientation, their birthday, how they describe themselves, their religon, political view, fashion habits, hometown and what not!!! Just imagine the kind of data they can process now.
Okay again! so far so good! They know a lot about us...so what ? What is the use of this data for them ? They are not spammers or stalkers or FBI!
Well the biggest use of this data is going to be in their AdSense technology. If you don't know, Adsense is the technology Google uses to earn money. Infact it's almost the only source of income they have today. This Adsense reads our mails, sniffs our searches and other behaviour and comes up with relevant advertisments on the right side of search window, gmail mails etc. And believe me they are making small businesses go ballistic in America and elsewhere. Small retailers and vendors are the one who are benefitted by this the most. As Adsense shows only evry relevant ads on these links, it is made sure that a large number of users that actually follow that link ARE actually interested in these advertisments(products/services). And Google charges peanuts from these retailers (something like $0.05 -$0.5 per click). There have been cases where retailers or businesses have got 50-100 new customers by spending only $100!. So Orkut is now going to further strenthen that Adsense technology as Google now knows much more about us!
What else could come out of this integration?
Well for a lot of us Orkut is very effective social tool. It helps us stay in touch and a lot more than that. Google is building it's homepage services which is supposed to have very personalized items like news, mail snippets, weather details, search history etc. I hope this service will now include Orkut also and a lot of things like scrabook etc will be integrated seamlessly into it.
Just wait and watch.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
So no one told you life was going to be this way.
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, you’re love life’s DOA.
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,
Well, it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.
But, I’ll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour.
I’ll be there for you, like I’ve been there before.
I’ll be there for you, cause you’re there for me too.
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, you’re love life’s DOA.
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,
Well, it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.
But, I’ll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour.
I’ll be there for you, like I’ve been there before.
I’ll be there for you, cause you’re there for me too.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Microsoft vs Google
Google is getting bigger everyday and microsoft is getting more irritated everyday. Ballmer is supposed to have vowed to kill google. The story is inetersting...Ballmer throws a chair when he's an employee conveys him the decision to leave M$ for Google!!!
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Linux vs Windows
This has been a question asked and answered many a times and everytime I read such an article I feel that there has been some bias towards one or the other. An example of linux bias and a whole bunch of windows biased articles. Well I know none of these articles are completely true. I strongly feel that open software is the way our society should go. But then we do live in a piracy heaven where every software is "free" software here and who cares for openess anyways! Then I have this feeling that companies like Microsoft don't push the case of piracy much in countries like India...just to get to more users. But what if one day Govt. along with Companies like Microsoft try to enforce a strict anti-piracy regime and do get successful in doing so? Is there an alternative to buying software ?
Well having used linux machines for almost 3 years I may try to summarize what is better? is it windows or linux? is linux worth it?
The OSs being compared here are Windows XP and Mandrake 10.1
Lets start with what actually comes first and i.e.
1) Installation
Linux: Mandrake 10.1 is completely graphics based installation with installation time of something around 30 min on my AMD 2400+ machine when a fair amount of packages are being installed. It asks me a few questions such as language, time zone, keyboard layout, HDD partioning (during which it shows me an image of my HDD and asks me to choose from existing partitions or create a new one). It also asks me a lot of questions about applications I need. Intead of appication names it asks me to classify the broad categories such as whether this is a development computer or a game station or whether do I need multimedia applications. After installing all these it does asks me the network parameters, sound card installtion stuff and monitor resolution things. Then it reboots the computer and when it comes again throws up a blueish screen of KDE and asks some question which I prefer not to answer.
Windows: Well as I pop in the CDs it throws up a rather ugly looking console based EULA and HDD partitioning agent. Here it sure confuses me with the details like NTFS and FAT without actually telling me the advantages of the same. But as NTFS is fist on the list I do understand that it is the preferred one. Then it goes all beautiful blue and asks me some stuff about timezone etc. And then it installs itself in less then 20mins(17 to be specific). It then reboots and takes me to a cool looking interface.
Comparison:
Here I'd like to mention that linux bores me with details of sound driver and monitor specs which windows detects by default and installs. Linux also bores me with the details of applications to be installed (though it has categorized them well can be a bit intimidating for a first timer). But hey then there is a big difference between these two. When linux is installed it comes with a plethora of applications and you'd hardly need any new software after that whereas windows is installed as bare minimum and you'd probably need some more softwares such as office, games, multimedia players (which are abe to play those .avi files) to make it useful.
Interface:
Linux : People say linux is for geeks and it is not supposed to look great. well certainly not true in my case. This is how my mandrake desktop looks like. Hmm so that goes out of the window. But there is definitely a catch. That KDE is not inherently this good looking (I never stop bragging about my KDE looks) but you need to work on it a little to make it look good.
Windows: It is a stud from birth :) just put a nice wallpaper there and there you go! It has cool looks and is very reposive to the user clicks (menus are snazzy and all) if the system idle process is around 95% +
Comparison : Windows win here. Linux does lack in terms of look... inherently but can be made to look good.
Applications:
Linux: Comes preinstalled with all you need
Image processing: Gimp, Office: open office, a bunch of arcade games, multimedia players like mplayer can play almost anything. And even if you miss something just pop in the CD and install it (there are other options also). Installing apps here is not harder than windows. All you have to do is go to install software option and search for the app you are looking for and there is a very good possiblity that you'll find it there. If not then you ve to find RPM file of the app on net and just click on it. If you are not able to find an RPM too then you are in trouble and you may land up compiling and installing. But possibilty of that is very negligible as I never had to do that.
Windows: There are almost no apps to start with. Just the IE and windows media player. You need to either download or buy a lot of things like office, photoshop, ftp client etc
Comparison: Linux wins here as there is hardly any app that you need and won't find there. If you are from the era when people used to think that installing apps ona linux machine is a pain as you have to satisfy a lot of dependencies the installation procedure throws up then you need to look a Mandarake as it makes a list of dependencies and installs them. All it does is to notify the user all the dependencies it is installing. Linux here has a lot of cost advantage. If you really do go buying all you need in windows it may cost you atleast twice the cost of the computer. Linux offers all that functionality without any cost.
Security:
Linux: Install it and run it for years and you won't find any virus or spyware there(atleast I ven't met any) No need for an antivirus!
Windows: Install it and use it for 20 mins and bang you'll start meeting a whole baggage of viruses. They will come and do things to your system that you won't ever forget. Blaster is probably will be the first one which will not allow you to drag and drop and before you realize you 'll eb served with a 60 sec death sentence(not for you exactly but the comp) and it 'll go cold before you can do anything. (go to run and type 'shutdown -a' incase you don't know the temp. remedy). Pinfi et al that follow will force you to install a firewall almost as soon as you isntall the system.
Comparison: Linux wins hands down
Games:
Linux: Sucks bigtime when it comes to fast games like quake. Though there are apps such as celdega which let you run your favs but better not to.
Windows: Buy/download/steal and fireaway
Comparison: Windows all the way
Office:
Linux: Openoffice is a decent office software and with it going 2.0 there is much less to worry about in this department. Though it is still not near where microsoft office is today but does offer decent functionality and almost comaptible with the .doc format so not much to worry about.
Windows: Having said that must tell you that there is nothing like the original. MSOffice is one hell of software and is truely amazing
Comparison: Windows...but open office beta 2 is also reaching there
Permformance:
Linux: Aha! with kernel 2.6 series around the multitasking in linux has improved so much that even if I leave my system running for months there is no sluggishness whatsoever.
Windows: Will start sucking in this department big time as it grows old and if viruses are not taken care of it won't probably grow old either :P
Comparison: Linux is the winner , though windows performance is okay if takne care off.
Well I'll add to this list soon
Well having used linux machines for almost 3 years I may try to summarize what is better? is it windows or linux? is linux worth it?
The OSs being compared here are Windows XP and Mandrake 10.1
Lets start with what actually comes first and i.e.
1) Installation
Linux: Mandrake 10.1 is completely graphics based installation with installation time of something around 30 min on my AMD 2400+ machine when a fair amount of packages are being installed. It asks me a few questions such as language, time zone, keyboard layout, HDD partioning (during which it shows me an image of my HDD and asks me to choose from existing partitions or create a new one). It also asks me a lot of questions about applications I need. Intead of appication names it asks me to classify the broad categories such as whether this is a development computer or a game station or whether do I need multimedia applications. After installing all these it does asks me the network parameters, sound card installtion stuff and monitor resolution things. Then it reboots the computer and when it comes again throws up a blueish screen of KDE and asks some question which I prefer not to answer.
Windows: Well as I pop in the CDs it throws up a rather ugly looking console based EULA and HDD partitioning agent. Here it sure confuses me with the details like NTFS and FAT without actually telling me the advantages of the same. But as NTFS is fist on the list I do understand that it is the preferred one. Then it goes all beautiful blue and asks me some stuff about timezone etc. And then it installs itself in less then 20mins(17 to be specific). It then reboots and takes me to a cool looking interface.
Comparison:
Here I'd like to mention that linux bores me with details of sound driver and monitor specs which windows detects by default and installs. Linux also bores me with the details of applications to be installed (though it has categorized them well can be a bit intimidating for a first timer). But hey then there is a big difference between these two. When linux is installed it comes with a plethora of applications and you'd hardly need any new software after that whereas windows is installed as bare minimum and you'd probably need some more softwares such as office, games, multimedia players (which are abe to play those .avi files) to make it useful.
Interface:
Linux : People say linux is for geeks and it is not supposed to look great. well certainly not true in my case. This is how my mandrake desktop looks like. Hmm so that goes out of the window. But there is definitely a catch. That KDE is not inherently this good looking (I never stop bragging about my KDE looks) but you need to work on it a little to make it look good.
Windows: It is a stud from birth :) just put a nice wallpaper there and there you go! It has cool looks and is very reposive to the user clicks (menus are snazzy and all) if the system idle process is around 95% +
Comparison : Windows win here. Linux does lack in terms of look... inherently but can be made to look good.
Applications:
Linux: Comes preinstalled with all you need
Image processing: Gimp, Office: open office, a bunch of arcade games, multimedia players like mplayer can play almost anything. And even if you miss something just pop in the CD and install it (there are other options also). Installing apps here is not harder than windows. All you have to do is go to install software option and search for the app you are looking for and there is a very good possiblity that you'll find it there. If not then you ve to find RPM file of the app on net and just click on it. If you are not able to find an RPM too then you are in trouble and you may land up compiling and installing. But possibilty of that is very negligible as I never had to do that.
Windows: There are almost no apps to start with. Just the IE and windows media player. You need to either download or buy a lot of things like office, photoshop, ftp client etc
Comparison: Linux wins here as there is hardly any app that you need and won't find there. If you are from the era when people used to think that installing apps ona linux machine is a pain as you have to satisfy a lot of dependencies the installation procedure throws up then you need to look a Mandarake as it makes a list of dependencies and installs them. All it does is to notify the user all the dependencies it is installing. Linux here has a lot of cost advantage. If you really do go buying all you need in windows it may cost you atleast twice the cost of the computer. Linux offers all that functionality without any cost.
Security:
Linux: Install it and run it for years and you won't find any virus or spyware there(atleast I ven't met any) No need for an antivirus!
Windows: Install it and use it for 20 mins and bang you'll start meeting a whole baggage of viruses. They will come and do things to your system that you won't ever forget. Blaster is probably will be the first one which will not allow you to drag and drop and before you realize you 'll eb served with a 60 sec death sentence(not for you exactly but the comp) and it 'll go cold before you can do anything. (go to run and type 'shutdown -a' incase you don't know the temp. remedy). Pinfi et al that follow will force you to install a firewall almost as soon as you isntall the system.
Comparison: Linux wins hands down
Games:
Linux: Sucks bigtime when it comes to fast games like quake. Though there are apps such as celdega which let you run your favs but better not to.
Windows: Buy/download/steal and fireaway
Comparison: Windows all the way
Office:
Linux: Openoffice is a decent office software and with it going 2.0 there is much less to worry about in this department. Though it is still not near where microsoft office is today but does offer decent functionality and almost comaptible with the .doc format so not much to worry about.
Windows: Having said that must tell you that there is nothing like the original. MSOffice is one hell of software and is truely amazing
Comparison: Windows...but open office beta 2 is also reaching there
Permformance:
Linux: Aha! with kernel 2.6 series around the multitasking in linux has improved so much that even if I leave my system running for months there is no sluggishness whatsoever.
Windows: Will start sucking in this department big time as it grows old and if viruses are not taken care of it won't probably grow old either :P
Comparison: Linux is the winner , though windows performance is okay if takne care off.
Well I'll add to this list soon
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Google talk...rockz
At least at my place...because somehow the voice works here! even though we have a pretty strict firewall which won't allow skype or yahoo voice chat to go through...maybe it also likes google! but then I 've used skype and yahoo voice chat too(from outside) and believe me they don't come near to google...there are a lot of reasons for this
1) Google, because it is god, has bestowed upon us the lightest and most effective client on us...which just works! And because this is "beta" there are not even smileys supported yet the way the UI behaves with you, it's almost amazing and firms one's belief that there are still programmers who write code that is *efficient*. well here is an example why Google is repected so much...yesterday I went to city and came back after 3-4 hours and in the meantime I got around 10 new friend requests(talk has become *the* messenger in virtually no time==one day) and had it been a yahoo or MSN it would have had 10 different windows...but GOD is different all it said that you have a lot of friend requests coming ...would you like to view all of them ! not a big deal
if(friend_request>4)
{printf("blah balh blah");
....
}
well something like that...but thats what is innovation, thats what indicates that a skilled UI designer has worked on it for long hours, thinking of each and every possibilities and tweaks and thats what makes Google what it is today. It's UI still remains so simple yet so powerful.
2) You have to use it to realize it that voice quality is *actually* better than what we have in most of the cell phone networks! This suggests the kind of bandwidth that google is offering to this project. I talked to a friend last night for 2 hours and not even once I experienced any lag or disruption.
3) Well the way Google talk is integrated to gmail is amazing. Yet again the UI designer @ google comes into picture. Yahoo despite beng in this business for so long has not realized that it's mail notification service needs a major revamp.
There are other reasons such as use of open source protocol such as jabber which is scalable and open, thus would allow third party clients to be coded without the dirty work of "protocol breaking"...this has already enabled trillion, gaim et al to connect to gaim, although voice support is missing.
What I dislike about google talk is that there is no client for linux and hence I am forced to boot into windows :((
1) Google, because it is god, has bestowed upon us the lightest and most effective client on us...which just works! And because this is "beta" there are not even smileys supported yet the way the UI behaves with you, it's almost amazing and firms one's belief that there are still programmers who write code that is *efficient*. well here is an example why Google is repected so much...yesterday I went to city and came back after 3-4 hours and in the meantime I got around 10 new friend requests(talk has become *the* messenger in virtually no time==one day) and had it been a yahoo or MSN it would have had 10 different windows...but GOD is different all it said that you have a lot of friend requests coming ...would you like to view all of them ! not a big deal
if(friend_request>4)
{printf("blah balh blah");
....
}
well something like that...but thats what is innovation, thats what indicates that a skilled UI designer has worked on it for long hours, thinking of each and every possibilities and tweaks and thats what makes Google what it is today. It's UI still remains so simple yet so powerful.
2) You have to use it to realize it that voice quality is *actually* better than what we have in most of the cell phone networks! This suggests the kind of bandwidth that google is offering to this project. I talked to a friend last night for 2 hours and not even once I experienced any lag or disruption.
3) Well the way Google talk is integrated to gmail is amazing. Yet again the UI designer @ google comes into picture. Yahoo despite beng in this business for so long has not realized that it's mail notification service needs a major revamp.
There are other reasons such as use of open source protocol such as jabber which is scalable and open, thus would allow third party clients to be coded without the dirty work of "protocol breaking"...this has already enabled trillion, gaim et al to connect to gaim, although voice support is missing.
What I dislike about google talk is that there is no client for linux and hence I am forced to boot into windows :((
After a long time!
well won't same that life has changed a lot or the pigs have started flying but definitely a brand new sem has started and before I could blink, yet another mid sem is at crashing distance :P (that's not even a phrase)...But there has been a few changes ...first I ve decided (and seems like I am gonna stick to them) on a lot of things of my life...come whatever may. hmm...what else ...a prof. in the chemical engineering department finaly knows my name and is for all wrong reasons (because I did so much fruad in a lab report that he returned it to me and told me to re-do it :O :P )...and a few days ago while teaching something in the simulation course defined something and told the class that we'll from on call it "piyush's number"(becoz I prompted it and told him the thing)!!! not a bad start, maybe a bit too late...on a second thought, who cares...
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Slashdotted again!
hurrah!
My story on an "Indian guy cracking Microsoft Genuine Advantage" was slashdotted today. This is the second occasion I am going to be famous :). Okay next time I won't give my mail ID as the link but my blog address. I am so excited like I was the last time. I had this Indian patent story slashdotted last time and it was a good story even by slashdot standards. And my goofyness was showed there too when I mispelled "regarding" as "regrading":). I can only hope that there are no such terrible luck this time.
dreamy....
My story on an "Indian guy cracking Microsoft Genuine Advantage" was slashdotted today. This is the second occasion I am going to be famous :). Okay next time I won't give my mail ID as the link but my blog address. I am so excited like I was the last time. I had this Indian patent story slashdotted last time and it was a good story even by slashdot standards. And my goofyness was showed there too when I mispelled "regarding" as "regrading":). I can only hope that there are no such terrible luck this time.
dreamy....
Friday, June 17, 2005
Finally....
After a long nightI was finally able to teach her atleast something :)
And hope that this lesson would help me in having her whenever I want and as I want.
She's sexy,
She's dynamic,
She's intelligent ,
She's open to new ideas,
She's open to new things,
She learns new things very easily,
She likes me experimenting with her,
I assure her that it was not a one night stand
and that our association will go a long way in the years to come
I am deeply and truly involved with her and hope it continues forever
I am really in love with her :)
wondering who this is ???
She's my first neural network and I was madly coding it to be as dynamic and powerul as it could be ...and boy you bet !
And hope that this lesson would help me in having her whenever I want and as I want.
She's sexy,
She's dynamic,
She's intelligent ,
She's open to new ideas,
She's open to new things,
She learns new things very easily,
She likes me experimenting with her,
I assure her that it was not a one night stand
and that our association will go a long way in the years to come
I am deeply and truly involved with her and hope it continues forever
I am really in love with her :)
wondering who this is ???
She's my first neural network and I was madly coding it to be as dynamic and powerul as it could be ...and boy you bet !
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
1st Monsson rain!
Yipeee!!! 1st monsoon rains are here ! and in full glory. It has been rainign for last 1 and 1/2 hour and still no signs of abatement:) and best part is that it brings with it a pleasent gale and I love it like anything. Though I don't go out in rain as it seems somewhat childish to me (is it ?)
Monday, June 13, 2005
For the ones who are getting bored
I ve found a few websites that maybe of your interest
like
http://googlesightseeing.com/
and
http://www.macdesignonline.com/aquabutton.html
First one is a site which uses google maps to take you around america's major destinations and there are also some strange objects that have been sighted ...it's interesting :)
Second one on the other hand is more geeky and shows how to make a apple type aqua button ..it's worth browsin atleast once ...try it!
like
http://googlesightseeing.com/
and
http://www.macdesignonline.com/aquabutton.html
First one is a site which uses google maps to take you around america's major destinations and there are also some strange objects that have been sighted ...it's interesting :)
Second one on the other hand is more geeky and shows how to make a apple type aqua button ..it's worth browsin atleast once ...try it!
Hyderabadi biryani
This city is famous for biryani and to my delight I ve found that it's completely true:)
This city boasts of one the finest chicken dishes available anywhere in the country...I ve had my share already and I am still not tired and hope to taste some more exotic chicken dishes in the near future.
My work is almost stalled because after one month of rigourous work I ve lost momentum for last four days now. I am tried and I need a break but it is hard to come by. Apart rom chicken there is nothing rocking here as I am livin at a plce far away from thecity centre and not much happens here. Infact it's even difficult to have chicken everyday but I am trying :). Though we are two guys working on this project but I can safely say that all the work came from only one of us and this frustrates me even more:( ... and today as the scientist under whose guidance we are working is absent I just bolted out from the place in search of some solitude and to gather myself again with a hope that I'll start working like before again. It has not happened as yet but I am trying:).
Anyways Apple has shocked the geek world and a lot is being read in apple's change over to Intel chips from IBM ones. Is this so big a development ? Is apple going to kill linux with it's tactics? Is OS X already available for x86 pcs? (I read an article confirming the same on the slashdot). And if OS X actually comes to x86 platform the most beneitted would be the consumers because there IS no match for apple GUI! :)
waiting for it
This city boasts of one the finest chicken dishes available anywhere in the country...I ve had my share already and I am still not tired and hope to taste some more exotic chicken dishes in the near future.
My work is almost stalled because after one month of rigourous work I ve lost momentum for last four days now. I am tried and I need a break but it is hard to come by. Apart rom chicken there is nothing rocking here as I am livin at a plce far away from thecity centre and not much happens here. Infact it's even difficult to have chicken everyday but I am trying :). Though we are two guys working on this project but I can safely say that all the work came from only one of us and this frustrates me even more:( ... and today as the scientist under whose guidance we are working is absent I just bolted out from the place in search of some solitude and to gather myself again with a hope that I'll start working like before again. It has not happened as yet but I am trying:).
Anyways Apple has shocked the geek world and a lot is being read in apple's change over to Intel chips from IBM ones. Is this so big a development ? Is apple going to kill linux with it's tactics? Is OS X already available for x86 pcs? (I read an article confirming the same on the slashdot). And if OS X actually comes to x86 platform the most beneitted would be the consumers because there IS no match for apple GUI! :)
waiting for it
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Whats in store from google!
I was browsing net as usual and suddenly an idea struck ...what if there be a portal which allows you to log in once and cater all your needs..like email,blog,instant messanging,search,bookmarks,blogs,social portal and much more!...advantage o such a website(read portal) would be that you need not remember anymore passwords...and now I ve a firm belief that this is what we may expect next from google.com. After hiring top web developers from firefox team(you know that, don't you ?), allowing customization of their news portal and rolling out services like "my yahoo" this seems to be natural next that we may expect from this company. A customized fireox browser which once asks password in the begining and after that everything is just a click away(literally)..click on the blog link and blog instantly...another pulldown menu has your bookmarks stored no matter in which part of the world you are(actually I am missing my bookmarks like anything!)...mail alerts and scraps alerts from gmail and orkut(which is still not officially on google's product list)...weather alerts, location specific searches and what not ...
so even if they are not planning such a thing they should :P(my G-drive capabilities are on a high these days and I was ging to be more elaborate but got bored ...maybe next time)
so even if they are not planning such a thing they should :P(my G-drive capabilities are on a high these days and I was ging to be more elaborate but got bored ...maybe next time)
Friday, June 03, 2005
My heart goes out to all kashmiris
After living for 1 month with a Kashmiri friend, I can safely say that kashmir for them is very different from what other Indians think about kashmir. For us it's not more than a mere tourist place ... for them it's their home ...
If this peace talk and process reach the so called "solution" of kashmir movement I am very sure it'll be best for all the parties involved in it ...though I am still skeptical as how this solution will be reached if both the countries still don't know what the solution is ?...will india allow a greater autonomy for kashmir ? will people of kashmir be content with the autonomy given >? will there be peace for a long time to come ? is soft border at all a solution ?
OR
will the loc be disolved and kashmir granted a status of an independent nation ? will it be able to sustain it's independence ?
will the armies of both sides allow any peace ? will the intelligence agiences allow the peace process to go unabated ?
Whatever be the future I really pray for kashmiris for they get what they have sacrificed so much for and the people of both sides get for which they have lost so many worthy sons for....
If this peace talk and process reach the so called "solution" of kashmir movement I am very sure it'll be best for all the parties involved in it ...though I am still skeptical as how this solution will be reached if both the countries still don't know what the solution is ?...will india allow a greater autonomy for kashmir ? will people of kashmir be content with the autonomy given >? will there be peace for a long time to come ? is soft border at all a solution ?
OR
will the loc be disolved and kashmir granted a status of an independent nation ? will it be able to sustain it's independence ?
will the armies of both sides allow any peace ? will the intelligence agiences allow the peace process to go unabated ?
Whatever be the future I really pray for kashmiris for they get what they have sacrificed so much for and the people of both sides get for which they have lost so many worthy sons for....
Missing you :(
nah! she's not a girl ...it's dal chawaal mixed with some ghee at hall 4 canteen!!! I am missing it like anything ..the taste of north indian food is simply great ..and you won't get it here at hyderabad...are these people don't even know how to make samosas ..all you'll get here is some fried triangular shaped thing with potato inside ...
I really miss north indian food :((
I really miss north indian food :((
Saturday, May 14, 2005
CCMB sucks!!!...nah it's just temporary!
CCMB is almost like a twin of IICT(where I am working) and it seems to be the preferred of the two labs of CSIR. Facilities there are extremely sexy ...it's one of the few labs in the world where stem-cell research is going on ( in India there is one other lab which is involved in this kind of research Relaince life sciences at mumbai). So we ventured inside CCMB. As CCMB and IICT share common library, hostels, health center and even a creche so there is no problem going inside and roaming about...we decided to do more ...we went to the canteen aka mess of the CCMB and whoaa!!! there were around 100 cute looking extremely sexy babes there of which my place is extremely devoid off. So we thought lets take a risk and eat there...and man the food was sexy and ltra cheap ..imagine a plate of rice with daal and a small cup of mango + 4 chappatis and a small cup of chicken curry for Rs. 14...we were all bowled !and the place was like a 3 star hotel;(if not five) with chandeliers and all.. ..and ofcourse cute north indian girl...so one night we have a lot of fun ...we ry over luck again nex afternoon and as they say if all is going too well then there's gota be something very wrong there !:O As we found it that it's not open for IICT people and hey were about to deny us lunch when a lady told us that you can eat here today but from nexct time use your own mess! godness me ..atleast not much embarrassment was there ...had those people told us to keep the plates down and go away:O:O:O ..aleast it would have been very embarassing ...
but as they say every thing is fair in love and war .I won't stop here:D(afterall rules are meant to be broken or bent) ..I 'll ask my prof to get us some permission to eat there. There is one more way ...last night we saw Dr. Bhargava at our library ..he's the founder of CCMB ...yes you got it :P...nething for food and chicks...We'll definitely try and talk to him and tell him how much we admire CCMB :D
but as they say every thing is fair in love and war .I won't stop here:D(afterall rules are meant to be broken or bent) ..I 'll ask my prof to get us some permission to eat there. There is one more way ...last night we saw Dr. Bhargava at our library ..he's the founder of CCMB ...yes you got it :P...nething for food and chicks...We'll definitely try and talk to him and tell him how much we admire CCMB :D
Thursday, May 12, 2005
hmm...
finally coming to terms with this place...found a couple of good places where they serve north indian dishes and not soo costly...seems it's time to concentrate more on my work
my work is related to neural networks and the professor(read scientist) is quite fundu ....he reads only journals and papers and his room is devoid of any books! also he has compelled us to code only in C so finally it's time to get fimilar with the baap of the languages! Actually neural networks are quite fundu things ...though the comparsion with brain, initially seemed fraud as we soon learned that it's nothing more a equation, but soon as we learned how it is applied the analogy with the human brain seemed natural.
It's like this ...when we first learn driving a car we first learn to get adapted to various controls..like how much we need to push the accelerator to race the engine as much as required and stuff...quite similarly
I'll be training a NN(or may be a smarter predessor of an ANN) to learn and control a batch distillation column.
It'll be a similar thing to teaching a person drive a car only difference being ..I'll teach this NN how much to push the "reflux ratio lever" to get an optimum output out of the column.
As I won't be working on a real distillation column, it'll be needed to make a software that mimics a batch distillation column and using the data from it we 'll train the network.
so thats what is my summer training all about and currently all I do is to read a bunch of papers that the scientist has given to us.It's a good learning experience for me and may be someday (though a far stretched dream) I'll see a paper written by me in a journal of chemical engineering.
Thats all for tonite ...
my work is related to neural networks and the professor(read scientist) is quite fundu ....he reads only journals and papers and his room is devoid of any books! also he has compelled us to code only in C so finally it's time to get fimilar with the baap of the languages! Actually neural networks are quite fundu things ...though the comparsion with brain, initially seemed fraud as we soon learned that it's nothing more a equation, but soon as we learned how it is applied the analogy with the human brain seemed natural.
It's like this ...when we first learn driving a car we first learn to get adapted to various controls..like how much we need to push the accelerator to race the engine as much as required and stuff...quite similarly
I'll be training a NN(or may be a smarter predessor of an ANN) to learn and control a batch distillation column.
It'll be a similar thing to teaching a person drive a car only difference being ..I'll teach this NN how much to push the "reflux ratio lever" to get an optimum output out of the column.
As I won't be working on a real distillation column, it'll be needed to make a software that mimics a batch distillation column and using the data from it we 'll train the network.
so thats what is my summer training all about and currently all I do is to read a bunch of papers that the scientist has given to us.It's a good learning experience for me and may be someday (though a far stretched dream) I'll see a paper written by me in a journal of chemical engineering.
Thats all for tonite ...
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Hyderabad blues :(
Yeah finally when the reality sinks in...far from home(home as in hometown or iitk) and far from my dear dear comp :(( .
Food is really bad, though not unhygenic but surely bad because idli and dosa for a day or two is okay but for two months! you gotta be kidding...but look at the brighter side ...may be I'll lose some weight :)
and may be someday I 'll find a paper in a chemical engineering journal written by me ! ...distant dreams
Food is really bad, though not unhygenic but surely bad because idli and dosa for a day or two is okay but for two months! you gotta be kidding...but look at the brighter side ...may be I'll lose some weight :)
and may be someday I 'll find a paper in a chemical engineering journal written by me ! ...distant dreams
Friday, May 06, 2005
Reporting from the Hi-Tech City
Hyderabad is a city which is actually clean and devoid of any garbage dumps! (first thing that strikes you when you reach here after smelling all that at the city of garbage ...our very own Kanpur.)
Second ...there aren't any cool looking girls here and I do wonder how Sania is cool and hep!
Third...Tata indicom is the coolest service here and I don't have to worry about changing my sim along with the cell.
Fourth ...food is goood at this place and is actually quiet cheap ..which is good.
Bad things are ...no cycle rickshaw...that is actually very bad ...but have a bus service here which seems kinda best in the world (somebody actually mentioned it) so seems it's time for the bus
see ya
Second ...there aren't any cool looking girls here and I do wonder how Sania is cool and hep!
Third...Tata indicom is the coolest service here and I don't have to worry about changing my sim along with the cell.
Fourth ...food is goood at this place and is actually quiet cheap ..which is good.
Bad things are ...no cycle rickshaw...that is actually very bad ...but have a bus service here which seems kinda best in the world (somebody actually mentioned it) so seems it's time for the bus
see ya
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Self hurting!
I was in a bad mood last night and thought that I am hurting myself by not studying. Then as a flash it struck me, is it possible to hurt yourself ??? ...knowingly? I wondered for sometime ...maybe it is. Don't I hurt myself sometimes just to show that I can endure the pain ? Like cycling down 12-13 kms to town and not stopping once. I do not study when I really need to. Then I decided to ask about it from you-know-who, yes the giant himself The Google God! ...And here is what I found. This site is very scary, giving an insight on the darkest of the human pyschology. Is it all really true? how can someone "cut" himself/herself? won't it hurt ? Hurt...some people really don't feel it because
"Some people still don't feel pain because the production of endorphins is too high. Endorphins act as natural opiates, pain killers, and anesthetics. When too many of them are being produced, a person does not feel pain.
Having said all this ... yes, there are people who self-injure who feel pain. Of course there are. To some people, this pain is welcome. They feel like they are bad in some way and that they deserve to hurt. Or they may like the pain because the sharper physical pain blunts out the emotional pain."
Hmm so the hurt funda is now clearer. But but but why would I do it in the first place ???
Reason in my view is the fucking mind! it plays games ..Why do people drink ? dope? just to relieve the pain(?) ...this may be a similar effort towards the same. Creating a pain greater than the emotional pain to dwarf it in front of the physical one.
Wow ! this is something I am gonna search more about. Don't worry I am not going to be a "cutter"... I ve better things to do :)
"Some people still don't feel pain because the production of endorphins is too high. Endorphins act as natural opiates, pain killers, and anesthetics. When too many of them are being produced, a person does not feel pain.
Having said all this ... yes, there are people who self-injure who feel pain. Of course there are. To some people, this pain is welcome. They feel like they are bad in some way and that they deserve to hurt. Or they may like the pain because the sharper physical pain blunts out the emotional pain."
Hmm so the hurt funda is now clearer. But but but why would I do it in the first place ???
Reason in my view is the fucking mind! it plays games ..Why do people drink ? dope? just to relieve the pain(?) ...this may be a similar effort towards the same. Creating a pain greater than the emotional pain to dwarf it in front of the physical one.
Wow ! this is something I am gonna search more about. Don't worry I am not going to be a "cutter"... I ve better things to do :)
Sunday, April 17, 2005
What is Google?
Yeah I know that there exists an article somewhere with the same heading. But in my view thats not the future of google. If google had aspirations to get into O.S. market they would have started doing stuff oriented towads the same. But all google tries to do is to do with browser...they hire guys from mozilla, they get a search utility going which has a browser based interface and what not. All this clearly shows that GooOS may remian a fiction for ever.
From where I see it, the future of google seems to be much more inclined towards web applications than OS. What I see coming from google in coming years is an integration of Gmail, Orkut(which as of now is not google product as such), picassa etc into one complete utility where you once log in you may do usual mail stuff, it remembers your settings and serves news to you as you want it, it shows all your friends and you may do the addictive scrapping stuff, also the normal search thing which may also be customized according to your taste and ofcourse you may blog also from the same utility.
So much for integrated utility. What more google may offer? Google Office or GOffice is the next thing that comes to my mind.Google may start a service creating a killer app where you can create a document like word (imagine writing a project report with that powerful google search, with prefecthing on, on every word, definitions, spell check, conversions, stock quotes, trivia, encyclopedia, exact distance between two places and a satellite map of the same, including video to this document, current news related to the topic, personal views in form of blogs, book search, journal serach, directory search ,image search ... an what not...An office with all the information at your door step...Also this office suite would allow you to save that "word" file or ppt in a briefcase in the gmail account and when you need it just start the presentation from the GOffice itself. Also it may allow you to publish the document on the web by just clicking a button.
You may also get advice from google answers for the document in no time. Possibilities are just limitless!
From where I see it, the future of google seems to be much more inclined towards web applications than OS. What I see coming from google in coming years is an integration of Gmail, Orkut(which as of now is not google product as such), picassa etc into one complete utility where you once log in you may do usual mail stuff, it remembers your settings and serves news to you as you want it, it shows all your friends and you may do the addictive scrapping stuff, also the normal search thing which may also be customized according to your taste and ofcourse you may blog also from the same utility.
So much for integrated utility. What more google may offer? Google Office or GOffice is the next thing that comes to my mind.Google may start a service creating a killer app where you can create a document like word (imagine writing a project report with that powerful google search, with prefecthing on, on every word, definitions, spell check, conversions, stock quotes, trivia, encyclopedia, exact distance between two places and a satellite map of the same, including video to this document, current news related to the topic, personal views in form of blogs, book search, journal serach, directory search ,image search ... an what not...An office with all the information at your door step...Also this office suite would allow you to save that "word" file or ppt in a briefcase in the gmail account and when you need it just start the presentation from the GOffice itself. Also it may allow you to publish the document on the web by just clicking a button.
You may also get advice from google answers for the document in no time. Possibilities are just limitless!
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Is O.S. self destructive?
Offlate a disturbing thought has started bothering me. What would happen after 20 years from now on ? Is open source going to destroy software businesses? Well right at the start let me clarify that I like open source a lot and as much as possible try to use open source software. But is this open source a "destructive technology "?
A few days back I read a Richard Stallman interview where he said people should not develop software for living !
Imagine thousands of families without a source of income all over India if this ever happens.So in a way I feel that what RMS says is utter crap. I'ts okay that he developed FSF and we use a lot of his code today but his view are skewed and he fails to understand what could be implications of Free software. If we make very software free then there won't be any software business and whatever would be left would be just to maintain code. If all the code is open sourced then what would be the motivation to develop a software ...if you cannot sell it?
Imagine a scenario in future when a lot of code is open source and more then 50 % people use open source model . Then a person x needs a specific program and he asks a particular company to develop this code. Having a firm belief in Open Source he asks the company to GPL the software they developed for him or atleast give him the source code. Like him a lot of people need this software and they demand the same from the company. So now a few individuals on this planet have this software and this code . What happens next is anybody's guess!
These people who have the code start selling it (piracy ) steps in. Not only does the comapny which developed the code is not able to sell it anymore ,somebody else is making money on their work !
think about it
and leave comments ..may be I m not able to see things in right perspective..correct me if I m wrong
A few days back I read a Richard Stallman interview where he said people should not develop software for living !
Imagine thousands of families without a source of income all over India if this ever happens.So in a way I feel that what RMS says is utter crap. I'ts okay that he developed FSF and we use a lot of his code today but his view are skewed and he fails to understand what could be implications of Free software. If we make very software free then there won't be any software business and whatever would be left would be just to maintain code. If all the code is open sourced then what would be the motivation to develop a software ...if you cannot sell it?
Imagine a scenario in future when a lot of code is open source and more then 50 % people use open source model . Then a person x needs a specific program and he asks a particular company to develop this code. Having a firm belief in Open Source he asks the company to GPL the software they developed for him or atleast give him the source code. Like him a lot of people need this software and they demand the same from the company. So now a few individuals on this planet have this software and this code . What happens next is anybody's guess!
These people who have the code start selling it (piracy ) steps in. Not only does the comapny which developed the code is not able to sell it anymore ,somebody else is making money on their work !
think about it
and leave comments ..may be I m not able to see things in right perspective..correct me if I m wrong
Friday, March 04, 2005
OS(open source)
We are planning to roll out an IITK specific gentoo based Linux/GNU distro.This distro would enable lesser mortals like us to use gentoo without wasting too much time on tweaking. I ve already tried gentoo once but it could not boot :) . Though I dislike the very idea of tweaking everything myself and like things that are polished. I guess this is where Open Source needs to catch up ...polished products. There are a very few polished and complete products around. Those who are there are very famous like firefox,DC++,fedora etc. What do I mean by polished here ?
A polished product is a complete product with documentation , hardware compatibility and most importantly user friendliness. I guess a lot of products in open source domain lack this.They don't worry much on UI part which in my view is the most important as not everybody is a rocket scientist to figure out things and tweak and optimize. This is the same with gentoo. It's a great product but it lacks UI. Had they concentrated on making the installation process a bit user friendly ,it would have been numero uno in linux distro market. In my view this is the sole reason why companies like M$ and apple have gained so much market, they concentrate a lot on UI.
Time has come for OS to break this shackles of Non User friendly interfaces OR crappy UIs and realize that if OS has to gain more popularity then UI is a must.
A polished product is a complete product with documentation , hardware compatibility and most importantly user friendliness. I guess a lot of products in open source domain lack this.They don't worry much on UI part which in my view is the most important as not everybody is a rocket scientist to figure out things and tweak and optimize. This is the same with gentoo. It's a great product but it lacks UI. Had they concentrated on making the installation process a bit user friendly ,it would have been numero uno in linux distro market. In my view this is the sole reason why companies like M$ and apple have gained so much market, they concentrate a lot on UI.
Time has come for OS to break this shackles of Non User friendly interfaces OR crappy UIs and realize that if OS has to gain more popularity then UI is a must.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Yippee!
Good things are happening to me
First) I won two competitions at Techkriti (technical festival at IITK) first one was hacking competition ...conducted by Sachin Deodher a huge geek! when he talked we were like "WOW!!!"
he actually runs a comp with 1 ghz overclocking ..can you believe this !!
well the prize money was 5000 and three guys share it ... my teammates were Varun from pune and anirban from jalpaigudi(must admit he was a big pain ) ...though had no idea about the last round as it involved a lot about assembely but did chipped in with my bit in the first two rounds...
second)Was really unexpected ..but I must admit that I dreamt a lot about it :) Dreams sometimes come true ... But surely it was the most unexpected...The open software contest ...a sexy 15k prize money and a geek recognition ..what more I could have asked for ...and whats more we did not even have a presentation ready or a paper to present to judges
But we did it with style ..even though my english was jerky and cheap ..I managed it
we here means nanda and me ...but I m not gonna share any prize money with him :P
hmm ..so much for techkriti
yesterday I got this summer internship at Ankeleshwar in gujrat ..must admit not a very good one ..but neither a bad one ....this one with 2000 bucks and TA and accomodation would see my summer through
and yeah I was working for a company and they gave me 500 bucks
so money is not scarce these days for me
whats more ..yeah a girl proposed to me :D
so I guess my lukha days are over ...but ...are they ?
Nah ...I am better as I am ..free like a ....street dog :P
is there somethign I m forgetting ?
well don't think so
adios
First) I won two competitions at Techkriti (technical festival at IITK) first one was hacking competition ...conducted by Sachin Deodher a huge geek! when he talked we were like "WOW!!!"
he actually runs a comp with 1 ghz overclocking ..can you believe this !!
well the prize money was 5000 and three guys share it ... my teammates were Varun from pune and anirban from jalpaigudi(must admit he was a big pain ) ...though had no idea about the last round as it involved a lot about assembely but did chipped in with my bit in the first two rounds...
second)Was really unexpected ..but I must admit that I dreamt a lot about it :) Dreams sometimes come true ... But surely it was the most unexpected...The open software contest ...a sexy 15k prize money and a geek recognition ..what more I could have asked for ...and whats more we did not even have a presentation ready or a paper to present to judges
But we did it with style ..even though my english was jerky and cheap ..I managed it
we here means nanda and me ...but I m not gonna share any prize money with him :P
hmm ..so much for techkriti
yesterday I got this summer internship at Ankeleshwar in gujrat ..must admit not a very good one ..but neither a bad one ....this one with 2000 bucks and TA and accomodation would see my summer through
and yeah I was working for a company and they gave me 500 bucks
so money is not scarce these days for me
whats more ..yeah a girl proposed to me :D
so I guess my lukha days are over ...but ...are they ?
Nah ...I am better as I am ..free like a ....street dog :P
is there somethign I m forgetting ?
well don't think so
adios
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Politics and other stuff
Politics @ iitk: is cleaner than any other place in india (yes I can safely say that after spending 3 yrs at iitk)...Elections are coming near and I was convincing my ex roomie to have ago at the presi post ...but he's not ready..I don't think I have ever seen a much more composed and maure person than him ...but maturity has some traits ..it takes away the spirit of adventure from you ...
New year: like others before have promise and excitment and I really wish to do some good work in my grade books this year ...infact I ve to do it otherwise ...
New courses this year are really crazy and weird ...one from the deadly skg seems tough right from the word go with a lot of imagination and stuff ...then the bio course has a lot of mugging to do and then there are two courses which haven't yet started !!! Infact one is going to start from 17 th jan after almost 20 days the sem starts ...some profs are really cool :)
Why aren't all of em like him ...I really hope that he takes the course at all :P
then there is this lab course we have to do which is kinda weird and we have to do a 20 min presentation of all the practicals ...weird isn't it ?
My cellphone: I miss you ...You won't ever understand why I ve left you home ...infact even I don't understand why I did that :P ....and my ex roomie told me that you are weird when I told him that I ve left my cell home ...but is there some reason behind this action ...there must be one ....is it becoz I was too pissed off wasting my parents' money ? Or is it because I was not able to control myself and was always hooked to it ? probably it's all of these ...And I don't really repent the decision now I really do have so much time to do other stuff :)
try it once ..you won't need it again
New year: like others before have promise and excitment and I really wish to do some good work in my grade books this year ...infact I ve to do it otherwise ...
New courses this year are really crazy and weird ...one from the deadly skg seems tough right from the word go with a lot of imagination and stuff ...then the bio course has a lot of mugging to do and then there are two courses which haven't yet started !!! Infact one is going to start from 17 th jan after almost 20 days the sem starts ...some profs are really cool :)
Why aren't all of em like him ...I really hope that he takes the course at all :P
then there is this lab course we have to do which is kinda weird and we have to do a 20 min presentation of all the practicals ...weird isn't it ?
My cellphone: I miss you ...You won't ever understand why I ve left you home ...infact even I don't understand why I did that :P ....and my ex roomie told me that you are weird when I told him that I ve left my cell home ...but is there some reason behind this action ...there must be one ....is it becoz I was too pissed off wasting my parents' money ? Or is it because I was not able to control myself and was always hooked to it ? probably it's all of these ...And I don't really repent the decision now I really do have so much time to do other stuff :)
try it once ..you won't need it again
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