Phoenix

Long due update

2010-05-18T22:36:00.006-04:00

It's been a long time since I've updated my blog; four and a half months to be exact! A lot has changed. I left Raleigh, NC; moved to San Diego, CA; joined Qualcomm as a full time employee; bought a new car with CVT (which I love to drive and boast about! :D); Schumacher joined McLaren; England won the T20 world cup; Sania wed Shoaib (not that I care, I'm more than happy that two losers wed!); Facebook suddenly became the new bad-guy-on-the-block... Boy! So much has changed since I last blogged. It seems like a whole new world!

Summers will be here, in San Diego, in a couple of days. The weather is beautiful now. Long weekend's round the corner.

Aaah... I admit it. I have nothing to post. This is probably the most "scattered-idea" post of mine, ever! This marks the birth of a new tag for my posts - 'Bullshit'!

PS: How can I miss this! Lucid Lynx was released recently and it broke some parts of Mac4Lin. I am working on the fixed, albeit slowly. I don't find much time due to my full-time job; but I am trying my best to find some time.

Bye Bye 2009, Welcome 2010!

2010-01-02T23:24:00.009-05:00

Another year has gone by. 2009 sped away; like the gusty winds of North Carolina! As with every year, here's a new year quote:

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions! -- Joey Adams

That is one more reason NOT to make a new year resolution! The year started with my second semester at NC State, then an internship at Qualcomm in San Diego and then a feverish third semester. Of course with four courses in the last semester, it was bound to be meteoric! After a laborious one-and-half years, here I am with a Master's degree in Computer Engineering. It is so satisfying to see the hard work reflected on the degree :) It really feels strange though, when I think that I no longer have projects, assignments, exams! The very next day after my exams ended I followed the routine to check the course webpage for any new projects/assignments. It was then that I realized that my MS is over and I've graduated! It's a strange feeling... no project deadlines, no exams to study for, no lectures! This year I was also able to complete my article on MS in US. I am very happy to know that a number of Master's aspirants read the article and were benefitted from it. They even gave feedback about it.

There are other things that I'm thankful for. A full-time position with Qualcomm's GPU team is one of them. I now enter a new phase in life - the corporate world - a job with Qualcomm's GPU team at San Diego, California. It's in sync with my area of specialization at NC State University - Computer Architecture. I begin work on January 11, 2010.

The other thing is that I could release version 1.0 of Mac4Lin and it turned out to be one of the most popular Linux posts of the year 2009 on Lifehacker! As with every new release of GNOME, something or the other breaks and I am now working on fixing that for Mac4Lin's next release. How can I forget that Mac4Lin was one in 85 projects out of 47,000-odd Opensource projects from around the world to be nominated for Sourceforge.net's Community Choice Awards 2009. It was at the third place in the category it was nominated for. Mac4Lin was also featured in the hugely popular ComputerWorld magazine.

Winter, this year in the US, has been harsh. Temperatures have always been in negative (deg. C) since the past week and are predicted to follow the trend. Winds are gusty and pierce right into your face. This makes the apparent temperature fall further. But I've bared this hostile weather to goto the theaters and watch movies! Avatar, 3 Idiots, Sherlock Holmes were some of the movies that I saw and liked. I've been enjoying my last few days in Raleigh, North Carolina. Malls, movies, shopping, roaming, clicking photos. Boy! What a memorable one and a half years it has been in this city! New year celebrations haven't been exactly as exciting as the last one, with just a dinner outside on a rainy New Year's eve; but I have no complaints since I wanted to welcome the new year in a peaceful and graceful manner.

I hope 2010 will be as eventful and exciting as 2009, for me and for everybody! As each year passes, it fills more pages in the book of life with experiences, happiness, sorrows. The key to a happy life is to read the book of life and learn from the text; leave behind the sorrows, put the experience to good use and thus fill the empty pages ahead with happiness. So long... Have a great year ahead. Happy New Year!

Mac4Lin figures in Lifehacker's Most Popular Linux Posts of 2009

2009-12-17T14:55:00.005-05:00

Mac4Lin is one of Lifehacker's "Most Popular Linux Posts of 2009"! The article author writes:

Mac4Lin Gives Linux Desktops the Complete Mac Look

It really, really does. If you don't mind the obvious break in your your free-as-in-speech fidelity, it's a pretty nice setup.

Read the full story here. (Mac4Lin is listed just above Jolicloud and Chrome OS)

It feels really good when you see your project figure on one of the Web's most popular tech websites! A big "THANK YOU" for all the support and appreciation :)

Chrome OS: First Impressions...

2009-11-20T18:17:00.012-05:00

To satisfy my itching hands I finally pulled Chrome OS sources and compiled them, made a VMWare disk and installed it. I must say I'm not at all impressed by it. The first thing I said was: "WTH! It lacks a Shutdown/Reboot button!" Agreed, it's a developer build, but no shutdown/reboot?? Come on... you must be kidding! Not everybody can drop to the terminal to reboot or shutdown. Yes, to get to the terminal (a geek's haven!) you need to press the key combo: Ctrl + Alt + T. Once there, you find Chrome OS familiar :)

As of now, there aren't many options to fiddle with and many features are incomplete. You can close all the tabs in Chrome and lock yourself out. It's as though everything got sucked by the black-hole and now you are there staring at your monitor, looking helpless! You cannot change the system-wide volume. To log on to the system, you need to be connected to the internet - True cloud computing! You login using your Google/Gmail ID and password. There aren't many web app shortcuts as of now. Google Wave is hell slow. Flash plugin crashes every now and then. The task manager says everything is sandboxed.

When the terminal is up, the everyday Linux user smiles :) and feels at home. Its Ubuntu under the hood with many optimizations. The most evident is the elimination of many processes and daemons which boost the startup speed. The system boots in about 13 secs, even on a VMWare-emulated SCSI disk. Phew! Thats fast. Good job, Google! 'top' shows that almost no user-level processes run in background. The /proc fs is the door to all stats-gobbling enthusiasts. The root partition (/) is read only, hence the 'lock' in /var/cache/sources can't be modified. This ensures that no 3rd party software can be installed.

Private browsing is enabled and one can switch between the private browsing and normal Chrome window with Alt + Tab. The System tray displays the Network and Battery status. The OS has a simple task manager that has a weird column: Goats Teleported. Wait a minute... "Goats Teleported"??!! WTF is that??!! Another task manager opens directly in the browser, called Task manager for Geeks. The widget toolkit used is GTK+ (Yay! Mac4Lin FTW! :D).

Overall, it's still a very half-baked product. And IMHO, even after its ready I wouldn't like this very much. I think Google has taken up a very good initiative to make the OS very simple and easy to use without giving the users many confusing options. But running this on overpowered Netbooks just doesn't cut the cake, it cannot be justified considering the power they have under the hood. Netbooks are already quite powerful. By the time Chrome OS comes out, they'll be as powerful as full-blown computers were an year ago. I agree it's still to early to comment on all the features. But the best thing Google has done to it is that it's Open Source. So let's wait and watch!

Update: Turns out that the "Goats teleported" is just a dummy column as explained here. This is what the source code says according to that source:

// An id for the most important column, made sufficiently large so as not to
// collide with anything else.
static const int64 kNuthMagicNumber = 1737350766;
static const int kBitMask = 0x7FFFFFFF;
static const int kGoatsTeleportedColumn =(94024 * kNuthMagicNumber) & kBitMask;

....

case kGoatsTeleportedColumn: // Goats Teleported.
goats_teleported_ += rand();
return FormatNumber(goats_teleported_);

.....

// See design doc at http://go/at-teleporter for more information.
static int goats_teleported_;

http://go/at-teleporter is an invalid link. Must be Google's intranet. The goats_teleported_ += rand(); statement makes the number go like crazy and overflow. Looks like this is just an internal Google joke! :D

Update 2: There are prebuilt versions of Chrome OS. You don't have to take the pains of compiling it from source. Head to this page for instructions and download.

Some screenshots:

1) Chrome OS:

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2) Google Wave: Slow as hell!

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3) This is what happens when you close all of the tabs! No way to get them back unless you fall back to the terminal:

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4) The options menu. Same as Chrome:

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5) The network config menu:

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6) The battery menu:

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7) Funny hostname!

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8 ) Under the hood! Its Ubuntu all the way...

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9) Private Browsing:

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10) Task manager. What's "Goats teleported"??!! LOL...

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11) Taskman for Geeks (thats how it's link is presented as in the Simple Task manager). Will it support IE, Safari through WINE? or is the message satirical??!!

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Iktara has been playing on my iPod since a fortnight!

2009-11-12T21:22:00.007-05:00

Yes, "long time no see". I've been way too busy with my final semester of Master's. Projects, exams, assignments and sometimes classes... I'm stuck in this infinite loop! I wish like running away. Sigh! I have no choice but to endure these. After all, there's this consolation that I'll be earning my Master's degree in a month from now.

So, with those elements in the infinite loop, what's the one thing that's "loop invariant"? Music, of course! I've been hooked to The Fray's How to save a life since quite sometime now. Not a new song (released sometime around September 2006, first version), but the lyrics are touching. The lead singer, Isaac Slade, (though has some vocabulary problems :D... weird pronunciation I must say!), says he was influenced by his experience while working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens. You can listen to this song here.

But the song that gets to be the cherry on the cake is "Iktara" from the movie Wake Up Sid. Absolutely amazing, mesmerizing, pure genius! Yes, it's a bit old as compared to the new songs like Tera hone laga hoon (from the crappy movie, Ajab prem ki ghazab kahani) etc. I am now wondering how could I have left this beautiful song unexplored, untouched! The lyrics are just so perfect and Kavita Seth's voice does complete justice to this song. Amitabh Bhattacharya complements Kavita's voice well. Add to this recipe a dash of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and lo and behold! you have the perfect delicacy! So much so, that this song's been playing on my iPod for the past 15 days in Repeat Item mode!

Listen to this song here.

PS: For some reason my last.fm scrobbling isn't working! :(

Where are all the jobs in the computing industry??!!

2009-09-06T19:08:00.007-04:00

To start with, let me clarify that this post is not meant to be a job search guide! It is intended to only give some pointers in choosing the right courses.

If you are in the field of computing, you would know that these days the mantra is Multi-core CPUs rather than Blazingly fast single-core CPUs. Gone are the days of clock-cranking where you would see a jump in the CPU clock speed every fortnight or so. In a way, the computing industry has reached a theoretical barrier of cranking the clock speed. The focus is now on inclusion of multiple cores on the same die. No wonder you see the "dual-core, tri-core, quad-core and soon octa-core CPU" ads. Unless there is a breakthrough in the field of microelectronics and cooling solutions, this "stuffing-of-more-cores-on-the-same-die" will continue.

From a normal computer user's perspective, it may seem like "Wow! Two cores, double performance!". Nope...Thats not entirely true, in fact not even half true! There are some inherent challenges in the multi-core environment. What are those challenges? If you can find the answers to these challenges, then Hey Presto you most probably would be hired! The challenge is 'Parallel Programming'. What is parallel programming? This is a concept, which deals with processing data in parallel. Lets say you need to perform this task: Fill two glasses of water. Assuming you have 2 glasses with you, 2 taps and a big container, enough to hold the water of 2 glasses, this is pretty easy and fast. You can fill in those two glasses with both your hands in parallel and there, you completed the task in half time as compared to doing that work sequentially!

Now, what happens if you have 2 glasses, but only 1 tap? Even though you have enough resources, you are forced to do the work sequentially because you need to wait on the tap (the source). What happens if you have 2 taps, 2 glasses but a container big enough to hold only one glass of water? You need to wait till its consumed and then fill in from the other glass. See something here which you can relate to the world of computing? The glasses are the cores of the CPU, the taps represent the programs, the container represents data bandwidth. Makes sense? What it all means is that if you do not have complementing system components and a program optimized to be processed in parallel by multiple cores of the CPU, the performance gain will be negligible even if you haf the world's most advanced CPU.

Let me iterate the title of this post now: "Where are all the jobs in the computing industry??!!" The jobs are here:

1) in making sure that there are as many taps as glasses - developing parallel algorithms and programs which all these years were sequential, so that each part of the program can be processed in parallel on each core of the CPU
2) in making sure that there are more glasses - designing multi-core CPUs, understanding the shared-memory problem, coherent caches etc, so that you have more "workers" for completing the task
3) in making sure that there are big enough containers - designing memory systems which can complement the multi-core CPUs by keeping them busy, feeding them with and extracting useful data/results without being the bottleneck

If you are interested in 1) then you will most probably be a Computer Sciences student and IMO you should take up courses like Algorithms, Parallel Programming, GPGPU etc.

If you are interested in 2) then you will most probably be a Computer Engineering student and IMO you should take up courses like Parallel Architecture, Design of GPUs, Advanced Microarchitecture etc.

If you are interested in 3) then you will most probably be an Electrical [Electronics] Engineering student and IMO you should take up courses like Memory Systems, Digital/IC Design etc.

Whether Computer architects come up with many-core CPUs or not, whether Electrical Engineers come up with high bandwidth systems or not, Computer Sciences students will always have the job of converting the billions of already existing sequential computer programs into parallel to make use of the current multi-core CPUs. So if you are a CS student go ahead and register for any and every Parallel Programming related course that you can. These are sure-shot job fetching courses.

I hope this post was useful :)

Mac4Lin featured in ComputerWorld!

2009-09-06T19:05:00.005-04:00

I'm very happy to inform you all that Mac4Lin has been featured in the current issue of CompterWorld. I'd like to thank Howard Wen for penning down the article. The topic of the article was Transformation Packs. It can be read here.

Back to school...

2009-08-28T12:19:00.004-04:00

Summer full of enjoyment and a trip back to India. What more could one want??? Studies and Classes??? Its the same ol' routine again - class, home, cooking, projects, assignments! Well, hopefully this will be my last semester at Graduate School. Will "try" to enjoy my time!

The palatial home at San Diego, the work at Qualcomm, the beautiful San Diego, my home in Bangalore, Mum's delicious dishes - I waved a bye bye to all that for the time being and am back to being a student at the hot-and-humid Raleigh. I'm eagerly waiting for winters. I hate summer in Raleigh.

My trip to India was really good. Its always nice to see your near and dear ones :) Most of the time I was home, helping my family pack as they are moving to a different place. Met friends, family. Had a nice time. About the travel, I'd like to caution people traveling on Lufthansa. The journey wasn't particularly a pleasant one. Especially my last leg of journey Frankfurt to Bangalore. It was an old Jumbo Jet (747) with almost absolutely no in-flight entertainment. Only I know how I managed that journey squeezed in the middle seat. If you are traveling on that route fully load and charge your iPods. You gonna need abundant supply of entertainment. So make sure your iPods are faithful!

More to come...

Thanks for your support!

2009-07-28T22:45:00.005-04:00

Thanks to everybody who voted for Mac4Lin. Xbox Media Center and Mac4Lin were hot favorite contenders for Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards 2009. But there was an unexpected winner in the "Best Visual Design" category - PortableApps!!!

I congratulate the PortableApps team for winning the award :) Mac4Lin was a finalist at CCA 09, being 1 in 85 amongst more than 47,000 Opensource projects worldwide. That is a big achievement for me. I thank you all once again.

The other news is that my internship at GPU division of Qualcomm, San Diego is almost over. I'm looking forward to my India trip but definitely NOT looking forward to going back to school again [for at least one semester!].

Final Voting: Mac4Lin - Sourceforge.net Community Awards 2009

2009-06-24T00:04:00.003-04:00

I'm very happy to announce that Mac4Lin has been declared as one of the finalists at Sourceforge.net Community Awards 2009 in the Best Visual Design category. The final phase of voting began today and will run till July 20th 2009. Please vote for Mac4Lin, if you feel it deserves to be voted. To vote click on this image:

Optionally, you can also click on the first box in the right frame on my blog. You do not need to Sourceforge.net login id. All you need is a valid email id. Each vote is associated with an email id, which needs confirmation that you actually voted (you will get an email giving a confirmation link, so all you need to do is click it). The whole voting process takes just 3 clicks.

I urge patrons to vote for Mac4Lin if they feel it should win. Mac4Lin is completing with projects like Xbox Media Center (XBMC) etc. I once again thank everyone for their continued support, feedback and appreciation. Mac4Lin exists today because of you all :) Do spread the word around about this.

Mac4Lin ver.1.0 Released!

2009-06-13T23:00:00.009-04:00

I am happy to release Mac4Lin ver.1.0. I know it was long due. Was held up with my graduate school and work. Version 1.0 finally sees light! :)

Changes:

* Fully supports GNOME 2.26 and backwards compatible
* Improved support for GlobalMenu, support integrated in the default GTK theme
* Better native Xfce support
* Icon additions
* Statusbar is now fixed
* New progress bars
* New tabs
* Improved installation and uninstallation scripts
* Integrates well with Gloobus
* Finer UI refinements
* Metacity theme now supports different button sizes
* Firefox 3 themes are now updated
* Songbird plugins included
* Pidgin AWN 64bit plugin now included
* Fonts are now consolidated
* Transparent top panel
* GDM theme is now in-line with Mac OS X login window
* Cairo dock is the default recommended dock

Issues:

* Usplash is still buggy
* Thunderbird theme is still buggy
* GDM theme is not automatically set by the script

Screenshots:

1) Mac4Lin Desktop, NOTE:Apple logo is NOT bundled with Mac4Lin

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2) Mac4Lin Desktop with Firefox

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3) Mac4Lin Login Window

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4) Mac4Lin with Nautilus File Manager

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5) Mac4Lin with Rhythmbox

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6) Mac4Lin with Terminal

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7) Mac4Lin on Xfce!

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It is available for download at Mac4Lin Sourceforge.net Download page with immediate effect. Grab your copy now!

I am eagerly waiting for the Sourceforge.net Community Awards 2009 :)

Mac4Lin : Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards 2009

2009-06-09T01:58:00.006-04:00

I am elated to announce that Mac4Lin is one of the finalists at the Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards 2009 :) I'm very optimistic about Mac4Lin being one of the winners. I do understand that being nominated and ending up as one of the finalists is in itself a big achievement!

I thank you all for your continued support, appreciation and comments which have helped me make Mac4Lin better and better with every release. Thank you all again :)

I will keep you all posted about the results.

MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX

2009-06-03T22:17:00.015-04:00

I guess this is the quickest follow-up in the series. But if this part is not up at the right time it loses its relevancy! The previous part covered packing your bags. This part [the last in the series] will cover all about traveling to the US and how to survive during the initial days of your stay.

6) Traveling to the US and initial days of stay

The first thing to do is to get a good document folder, large enough to house all the documents you wish to take. Make a list of the documents that you may ever need while you are in the US. Some generic things which come to the mind are:

1) Passport
2) I-20
3) SEVIS Fee receipt
4) Graduate School Admission letter
5) GRE, TOEFL score cards
6) Bachelors degree [or provisional] certificate and copies
7) Extra copies of your transcripts
8) Certificate of financial responsibility [the letters from your bank & CA validating the 'moolah' you showed to the VISA officer]
9) Any certificates you may wish to carry in order to support your statement of purpose/recommendation letters etc.
10) Any international warranty receipts of goods you may be carrying with you
11) Class 10th, 12th, Bachelor's mark sheets [optional]
12) Driver's License and International Driving Permit [if any]
13) Insurance papers [if any]
14) Prescriptions for any medicines that you may be carrying
15) Contact numbers from your home country as well as your destination
16) International credit/debit/travel cards [if any]
17) Calling cards [more about it later]
18) Of course, the flight tickets! ;)

(The list is not exhaustive and may change depending on the individual)

Make sure you keep them all in the folder, nice and secure and carry it along with you all times. Its best to keep the folder in your carry-on bag or backpack. Keep a copy of your passport, I-20, your home country address [+ contact number] and your destination address [+ contact number] in each of the bags that you are carrying. Also make sure your checked-in bags haf a source and destination address and your name displayed on the outside. This is helpful as sometimes there maybe a delay in receiving your checked-in bags or cases of baggage loss. They may arrive to the destination late by a day or two.

With the documents in place, what next? Money, of course! During your initial days of stay you maybe required to pay a month's rent in advance, pay the power connection, phone, internet service deposits, grocery shopping etc. Hence its a good idea to carry some cash with you. About $300-500 should be more than sufficient. Also do not forget to carry small change ($1, $5 bills [notes], some quarters [25c] for phone calls etc.). Avoid carrying $100 bills as you are unlikely to get any change for it. In case you fail to get change, you can try in the foreign exchange counters at the international airports (keep this as a last resort). Keep some cash in your carry-on baggage [cabin baggage], a little [~$10] in each of the checked-in bags and the rest with you. Its always a good idea to split the cash. What about the fees and other money? You may bring a draft (demand draft) for your fees either in the name of your university (get the correct details from your University's cashier/finance office) or your own name or you can even get the amount wired.

You may also wanna get about $3000-4000 as draft in your name for your expenses during the first semester. Its always a good idea to haf backup money. If you are at NCSU in particular, forget about funding of any sort altogether! You will soon be opening a bank account when you get here. Most of the banks take about 5-7 days to clear drafts greater than $5000 USD. Till that time you should be fine with the cash you brought. A demand draft is the cheapest medium of getting money from overseas. You can get the draft as well as the currency from the Foreign exchange branch of nationalized banks. You may also get travelers cheques. Many stores/restaurants readily accept Travelers Cheques [If you are coming to NCSU, beware of Thomas Cook Travelers cheques. I've heard that they are not accepted in most of the places; though I've never experienced it myself]. Some banks like ICICI etc. issue you international Travel cards. They are like international debit cards where you can refill the account back in your home country while you can use it in the US. You may wanna check this out with your bank.

Things to pack in your carry-on (cabin) bag: Fragile items like laptop, netbooks, camera, camcorder, PMPs (portable media players), discman, portable gaming devices, shades, cellphone, head/earphones, portable HDDs (make sure they are clean :P) and anything which you may think is delicate. Don't ever make the mistake of putting the fragile items in check-in (cargo) baggage. If you ever get a chance to see how the airport staff handles your bags, you will die of heart-attack!!! ;) Get along a novel if you wish to read [tho I'm quite sure you will doze off in the flight for most of the time!]. Stuff in a jacket too, for, the long journey may make you feel want one. Pack some dry snacks if you wish [I don't see the need of any, though].

Things NOT to pack in your carry-on bag: Toothpaste, Deo, hair gel, shampoo, talcum powder, lotions/creams (all these should go in your check-in bags), perishable food items, water (or any drink). Liquids/gels of any sort are only permitted in limited quantities. They should be carried in containers which are 3 oz. (ounce) or less and must be kept in a single quart sized zip-lock bag. Its is best to avoid them totally, if possible. It will save you a lot of headache trying to explain to the authorities and finally ending up turning your nicely packed bag upside down, in case of any discrepancy. Medicines, however, maybe permitted with prescription.

At the airport (usually after the security check) you may find counters owned by telecom companies like Airtel, Vodafone etc. who sell Calling cards. You may wanna buy a couple of these. With these cards you can make international call from any public phones. You may wanna check out what are the various denominations, rates, coverage, service etc. at the telecom company's website/store before leaving. Be sure to keep some quarters (25 cents) in case you need to make local calls in the US after landing. I do not see any benefit in getting international roaming activated. AFAIK you can only receive calls and the rate for receiving per minute is outrageous (last I heard it was Rs.40/min!). This may haf changed now, so you may wanna check that out too. Many companies like Matrix etc. sell US sim cards in India. The bill goes to your home address and your folks pay it. I'm not sure about the rates for the Matrix connection but here in the US a monthly post paid connection costs anywhere from $29 (if you are in a family plan) to $60 (data plan with an iPhone).

You may want to contact the Indian students association or the graduate students association of the university you are off to and/or your friends who are already living there to arrange airport pickup/temporary accommodation etc.. They can prolly also help you set in and get a proper accommodation. Inform them of your travel itinerary. If nobody is coming to pick you up, its better to carry a printout of google maps/directions from airport to your destination. Also be sure to get a mini-map of the airport so that you know where to pick-up a luggage cart (some airports charge $1 for this service, so make sure you haf a few dollar bills with you), claim your checked-in baggage and head for the airport cab.

The next day of your arrival, you may be required to check-in with your University's International Students' Office, pay your fees, register for courses, get student-id card, complete other formalities etc. Open a bank account asap. Go explore the university. If you are planning to take an on-campus job now is a good time to start searching for it. Since you are new in the US [and hence do not haf any credit-history yet] you maybe required to pay deposits for getting electricity and cable/internet connection for your home. You may wanna do that early as you get to know of your accommodation. You may not get a post-paid connection immediately after you land here (since it requires a social security number which can be issued only if you get an on-campus job and after your school starts). So you are better off asking your friends who are already here to get a connection for you or add you to their family plan, if getting a connection soon is important for you. You can however, get a pre-paid connection but I'm assuming it may be a bit costlier than a post-paid connection.

Your seniors/friends should help you settle down in the US and take you around the place. Since you are already prepared for your initial days in the US (I'm assuming you've read all the parts of my guide, hehe... :D Now.. thats a perfect plug for my article! haha...), you should get along without any problems. From here on, I leave you all at your friends'/seniors' mercy... lolz :P

I'm finally ending this article. This series has made a long journey. I penned the first part of this series on June 10, 2008 and the last part gets to see light on June 3rd, 2009. Its been almost an year. Before and when I came to the US, I had all kinds of experiences - good, bad, ugly... My intention was to pass on as much info as I could to the future students so that they haf as smooth a transition as possible. I hope I was able to achieve at least some part of that goal.

I am interested in your feedback. Please leave your comments at this post on what you felt about the write-ups, what you liked and what you didn't about them, any areas which need more input from my side, any areas you felt had too much or useless info, the style and organization of the article, the topics covered, the timeliness of posting etc. Your comments will help me refine this series so that the article serves its purpose.

Please pass on the link to this series to anybody who you feel would be benefited by the information in the write-up. If you are reading this post you may be interested in the following posts too:

MS in the US, a guide: Part ONE - Exams - GRE and TOEFL
MS in the US, a guide: Part TWO - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE - Post admit work to be completed
MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR - Applying for a VISA
MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE - Booking your tickets and packing your bags
MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX - Traveling to the US and initial days of stay
NCSU Specific Information

Wishing you all success in your lives and "Welcome to the US"! :)

NCSU Information [FAQ] : Fall 2009

2009-05-27T03:20:00.032-04:00

Its the time of the year when students aspiring to pursue Masters in the US are in a dilemma in finalizing a university. Some may haf finalized the university. Whether you belong to the former or the latter, you are sure to haf many Qs racing in your mind. I've been getting a lot of emails, wall posts, messages etc. regarding information about North Carolina State University (NCSU). The questions are all the same. Hence I decided to write a FAQ which will answer most of the Qs. Hope you find this blog post useful.

Q. Are there any chances of financial aid at NCSU for international students (Masters Students)? [This is the most popular Q]
A. NO. You need to be born with a golden spoon in your mouth to be funded at NCSU; be it in the CS or ECE department. There is almost absolutely NO funding at NCSU. If you are banking on funding for your MS then just forget about this university!

[Update] This was not to discourage anybody. The point is that nobody can guarantee your funding/scholarship being thousands of miles away. I have not seen a single person in ECE/CSC get scholarship right during the admission process. Most of the scholarships are awarded when the students work with a Professor for at least 1 semester, where the Professor gets to know the student and his/her abilities.

Q. How is the financial aid scene like at NCSU this Fall?
A. There are rumors that the university has cut some percentage of TA and RA funds. Hence getting funding at NCSU this semester would prolly be much much much and much more difficult now, if at all there are any.

Q. Does work experience help?
A. It surely does. Having an industry experience helps in academics, in projects students work for [under professors], while applying for internships, jobs etc. But it cannot be generalized that people with no work experience are left out. That is not true.

Q. How is the career fair like, at NCSU??
A. NCSU Career Fairs are organized at a pretty large scale. Its a big event and a huge number of companies and students [from many other universities, as well] participate in it. You can see biggies like Intel, AMD, Google, MS, Siemens, Cisco, IBM, Qualcomm, Broadcom, nVidia, NetApp, Mentor Graphics, Harris, Lockheed Martin etc. in the event. However, due to recession the job scenario for students [esp. the international students] is nothing to write about, currently.

Q. How about on-campus jobs at NCSU?
A. There are a few on-campus jobs. That is however, subject to availability. A lot of positions are held by the current students which may be vacant by December (when many students will graduate). Arriving at NCSU as early as possible may help [in the sense that you will haf lesser competition among your new-comer-peers]. But that doesn't mean you will get a job for sure.

Q. Can I change my major from CS/EE/CPE - Networks to CS/EE/CPE - General or from CS/EE/CPE - General/Networks Non-Thesis to Thesis option (or any combination thereof EXCLUDING BRANCH CHANGES - CS TO ECE AND VICE VERSA)?
A. Yes, one can do that. It must however be done asap [last day for change is before your second semester ends]. However at the time of change, if your CFR (certificate of financial responsibility) is older than 6 months, you will need to produce a fresh one as you will be issued a new I-20 due to change of major.

Q. How is the CS/ECE Networks department at NCSU?
A. AFAIK the Networks department is the best in the whole of the US. Almost the whole syllabus has been structured by companies like Cisco etc.

Q. How is the current internship/job scenario?
A. Not so good. Internships and jobs have taken a hit thanks to the recession. Its worser for international students as compared to the US citizens. However, everyone predicts that things should be fine in an year or so.

Q. How many courses can/should I take in the first semester?
A. Depending on the course difficulty and the individual's capacity one can take up 3 or 4 courses. The fee for either of them is the same. Be aware, though that the minimum number you are required to be enrolled in to maintain full-time student status in the US is 3 courses. This rule is relaxed only in the last semester where-in you may haf only 1 or 2 courses left for the completion of the 30 mandatory credit hours.

Q. Can I get books from my home country?
A. You most certainly can, if you've decided on the courses and emailed the course instructors asking them which books they'd like the students to refer to.

Q. How many credits do I need to obtain an MS degree? Can I delay my MS?
A. You need a minimum of 30 credits. Each department has specific requirements (you need to take certain courses which will enhance breath and depth in your field of study - true in ECE department, not sure about CS department). If you complete all those requirements then you will need to graduate (whether you complete all the requirements in 1.5 years or 2 years). For more information download the Graduate Handbook from your department's website.

Q. Any tips for CS/ECE/CN students?
A. Certainly! Work on your C/C++/Data Structures skills. You gonna need an unlimited supply of these capsules! Once you get here, you will be busy with projects during which time you will not get an opportunity to brush up these skills. Now that you are back home, utilize this time to dust off your programming skills and make it bright and shiny!

Q. Should I pay my first semester's fee by the due date indicated on the NCSU website?
A. The due date (usually July 31st of every year) mostly applies to the current students. New students might not haf even arrived by that date. So its better to mail the NCSU cashier's office and let them know of your arrival and request a later date for fee payment.

Q. How much is the average living expenses at Raleigh?
A. Including rent, food, utility bills it comes to about $550-600 per month. It also largely depends on your lifestyle.

Q. What about the medical immunization form?
A. Make sure you get a complete health check-up done before you come here and get the necessary vaccination done. The immunization form must be completed and signed by a registered medical practitioner (RMP). The form can be submitted after you arrive in Raleigh even though the due date mentioned on it is much earlier (But make sure you email the university and let them know that you will be submitting it after your arrival).

Q. Any useful links?
A. Of course!
Maitri: Indian Student Association [Contact them for airport pickup/temporary accommodation]
NCSU Bluwiki: A nice compilation of useful information
NCSU Newcomers Y! Group: A group to interact with your seniors and peers

If you are reading this post you may be interested in the following posts too:

MS in the US, a guide: Part ONE - Exams - GRE and TOEFL
MS in the US, a guide: Part TWO - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR - Applying for a VISA
MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE - Booking your tickets and packing your bags
MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX - Traveling to the US and initial days of stay
NCSU Specific Information

MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE

2009-05-26T23:42:00.034-04:00

After a long gap I am here to complete the penultimate part of the series which deals which pre-departure information. I've decided to split the fifth part into two articles as I feel there is enough material to be penned down.

5) Booking your tickets and packing your bags

When done with the VISA work the next major task is to book your tickets and pack your bags. All this is to be done to make your initial days in the US a not-so-horrible-experience. Beginning the article with booking your tickets, if you are traveling to the US in Fall (July-Aug) you are most likely to come across a student discount offered by most of the airlines. Be sure to check with the airline or your travel agent about the discount. Be wary of some travel agencies who levy heavy taxes on the ticket. Also most airlines will allow you to carry 3 pieces of check-in (cargo) baggages if you show your I-20, which is proof that you are a student.

It is best to visit the airline office (or call them up/visit their website) and enquire about the tickets, discounts and baggage allowance. One thing you need to be careful about (and clear with your airline) is that if your port of entry in the US (the first point you touch in the US) is not your final destination (meaning you need to take a US domestic flight from that point to your destinaiton) you may be required to pay for your checked-in baggage. In domestic US flights, only the carry-on (cabin) baggage is free; not the checked-in ones. While some airlines may issue you a US domestic ticket with an airline that is their partner (and hence you won't be charged for baggage), in other cases however you may end up paying almost about $100 USD. Clarify everything before you book your tickets. Most of the airlines will allow you to block your ticket without paying anything. You are given up to a day (usually) till which you can confirm your tickets. One important thing to remember is that you may not enter the US before 30 days of the date of start of your graduate school.

The airline you choose to fly with may haf certain baggage restrictions (dimensions, weight etc.). You may check up their website, call them or visit their office to confirm this. Most of the airlines allow up to one 12 kgs carry-on, a small backpack/laptop bag (also carry-on) and 23 kgs check-in per piece (2 or 3 depending on the airline). If the bags exceed the dimensions or weight you may end up paying penalties. It may also so happen that you get through in your international flight but are made to pay heavily in the US domestic flight. So make sure you take care of this. Also, locking your checked-in baggage is not preferable in the US. The security authorities (TSA) may break open your baggage anytime. Hence, do not use normal locks/number-lock on the bag. Instead you can buy TSA approved locks (these locks can be opened only by TSA and you). You can get these locks in showrooms selling American Tourister, VIP etc. branded bags. They may cost anywhere between Rs.100-700 depending on the lock. Be careful about not packing any liquid/gels/toothpaste/deo in your carry-on baggage which is more than 3 oz (ounce).

Before you board the aircraft make sure you get your complete health checkup done, take all vaccinations (its better if you plan this as early as possible as some vaccinations will require you to haf a gap of 2-3 months), get your dental, eye etc. checkup done. Medical services are expensive in the US. Some universities will also haf a medical certificate to be filled up by a registered medical practitioner (RMP) declaring that you are free of diseases. Contact your university for any such requirement. Secondly, many universities require you to haf a health/travel insurance till the first day of classes (from where the university's health insurance takes over). Get an insurance if there is any such requirement (in any case it is a good idea to get a travel health insurance till the first day of your classes).

If you haf an Indian Driving License, get it along. In fact, if you can apply and get an International Driving Permit its a good idea to get it as well; tho some states may not recognize it. If you can get a letter from your car insurance company indicating that you've never claimed an insurance it may help reducing the insurance you pay in the US when renting/buying a car (tho this may not hold good in every case).

The next step to do is to obtain more information about the Indian Student Association (or any student association which takes care of new-student-arrival) and contact them. In my university, the Indian student association (aptly called "Maitri") is very active and helpful to the newcomers. They arrange airport pickups and temporary accommodation for the incoming students. You may wish to contact the association and avail of any such facilities if available. If there is no such association/group try to get in touch with students studying there. You may get this information from the department website. Try to get in touch with someone who can help you with your arrival and initial setup.

The next couple of paras will give details about what to carry and what NOT to carry. Stuff to get from India:

1) Food items - Bring all the masalas (garam, chat, sambar, rasam, haldi etc.), rice, dal enough for 2 people to last for at least a week. You may want to bring these items in sufficient quantities since they are are a bit harder/costly to get in the US - jeera powder, red chili powder, cilantro seed powder (dhaniya), spices etc. Carrying Pav Bhaji masala, chole masala, pani puri masala is also a good idea. You may also wish to carry read-to-eat stuff, dry snacks to survive during the first few days. Though you get all the stuff in the US, getting them with you saves you the hassle of hunting the Indian store during your first week of stay when you haf other things to worry about. Make sure you seal all the packs and put them in the check-in bags. You are better off not carrying salt and sugar. Do not carry any perishable items with you either. You may be fined otherwise.
[BTW, the food on the right looks yummy! Hafn't had such food since long! :(]

2) Utensils - The only utensil I'd suggest you bring is a pressure cooker (for 2 or 4 people, as the case may be). All other utensils are available here. Be sure to get extra gasket and weights for the cooker and also any spares applicable. A non-stick set is available for as less as $20 USD in Walmart. This is almost the same as what you get in India. It saves you the hassle of carrying all the weight. You may however opt to bring a small non-stick pan (flat bottom only!) for quick cooking during your initial days. You will also need at least a plate, bowl, wooden spatula, spoon-knife-fork, tumbler, small knife, peeler. Make sure the cutlery is 'microwaveable'. If possible get melamine ones instead of porcelain to cut down on the weight.

3) Clothes - Get casuals. People usually dress casually for classes here. They are mostly in Jeans, cargos, shorts and Ts. Do not get too many formals as you will hardly need them (you may need them when you attend Career Fairs and/or during your internships, if the company follows a formal dress code). Get information about the place of your study, the weather pattern. Its not a good idea to get heavy woolens from India. One reason being those woolens won't be sufficient if you are in a place which experiences heavy snowfall. Second, being they hog up all your space in your bag. You may however wanna get Thermal wear and sweater/jacket if need be. Get some shorts if the place sees 'hot' weather. You may also want to get sweatshirts/pullovers with hood. Getting a set of traditional Indian clothing to wear during Indian fest celebrations (if any, by the Indian students in your university) is a nice idea. Don't forget to carry an umbrella. You may also considering bringing blankets if you wish (linen).

4) Electronics - The frequency and voltage of power outlet in the US is different from India. So most of the electrical appliances (anything with a conventional transformer) won't work. However, some electronic items (like the cellphone, laptop, digicam battery charger etc. which haf digital circuits/ICs for power conversion) will mostly work. Make sure you get a round-to-flat-pin converter/adapter for universal voltage appliances (which can work at 60Hz 110V). You can also get appliances which use normal AA or AAA batteries. You can buy batteries and charger for cheap here. A recent tri/quad band GSM cellphone will work just fine in the US. You can also buy one here at discounted prices with the connection.

5) Books - If your university already has put up the list of courses and you've decided which ones to enroll into, then it makes sense to email the instructors of the courses and ask them which books they'd want the students to refer to. If the reading material is available in India then it may be cheaper to carry the books with your than getting here. You may want to get in touch with the seniors and get information on how to obtain good deals on text books in case they are not available in India. Also carry some stationary - pens, refills, eraser, clutch pencils and leads.

6) Misc. Items - You can also get some medicines for common illness (like cold, fever etc.) or if you are on medication along with prescription from your doctor. In case you wear specs or contacts, its a good idea to haf an extra pair in case of emergency. A swiss-knife could be of immense help. Carry a small sewing kit (neither your gf nor your wife will sew the button on your shirt here! :P). You may also wanna get an extra pair of lace for your shoes. Don't forget to keep any cables that you use for your gadgets (cellphone data cable, digicam USB cable, laptop/cellphone charger etc.). Optionally you may also get your calculator that you used during your engineering (not strictly a necessity but doesn't hurt to haf one).

Ending this part here. The next (and hopefully the last) part will feature Travel and Post-arrival information.

If you are reading this post you may be interested in the following posts too:

MS in the US, a guide: Part ONE - Exams - GRE and TOEFL
MS in the US, a guide: Part TWO - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE - Post admit work to be completed
MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR - Applying for a VISA
MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE - Booking your tickets and packing your bags
MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX - Traveling to the US and initial days of stay
NCSU Specific Information

PS: If you want to be notified about the new posts on the blog then you can subscribe to the RSS feeds. This can be done by selecting the Subscribe to Posts on the right most pane [the module is to the right of the Site Stats widget].

Sourceforge Community Awards 2009 and Mac4Lin

2009-05-13T17:48:00.004-04:00

Do you use Mac4Lin? Do you like the Project? You can show your appreciation for the project by nominating it for the Sourceforge.net Community Awards 2009. Just click the nominate button below or on the right hand side. Select an appropriate category (e.g Best Visual Design etc.), leave any comments if you wish and Submit the nomination.

Mac4Lin

I thank everybody for their continued appreciation and suggestions. Your feedback is very important for the project development.

California calling.. 20 miles to go...

2009-05-10T14:28:00.010-04:00

This is a song from Enrique's album - Seven. The song is apt for this post. Landed in San Diego, California yesterday. San Diego is the second largest city in CA and rated as the finest city of the US. Well, I could see that yesterday, why!

The San Diego International Airport is located just by the bay. So when the flight lands or takes off you can see the harbor along the side. Magnificent view! The photo expresses the details stronger than words (Click to enlarge. Photo courtesy: Google) I wasn't able to click any pics as it was just too cloudy yesterday. This airport is the busiest single runway airport in the US. Its astonishing to see how every take-off and landing is managed in this single-runway airport. Flights are seldom delayed.

The city is beautiful with palm trees all over the sides on every road. High rise buildings dot the city. The place I live in is called La Jolla. Its a suburb of San Diego. The place is pronounced 'lə-HOY-ə'. This place has a lot of Spanish influence; streets, buildings etc. mostly haf a Spanish name. We are yet to explore the area.

The climate is pleasant now with temperatures hovering about 15-16C. Summers are hot but not as hot as Raleigh, NC and so are the winters. Climate is somewhat closer to Bangalore (though winters are much colder).

A lot of technology companies exist in this area. I would be interning with Qualcomm Inc. in the Graphics Division for the next 3 months. They are responsible for development of GPU for mobile devices. The work would be interesting as it is related to my field of specialization.

More to come as we explore California...

Voting in India...

2009-05-01T18:19:00.007-04:00

Its election time in India and polls are held state-wise. Being in the US I neither had the opportunity to vote nor to nullify my vote (well, if not for me I'm sure noticing my absence at the polling booth some smart@ss must've cast a vote in my name!). I remember the last time I got my finger 'inked'. I'd voted when in Bangalore just a month before I left for Raleigh.

This time I'm eager to see what the results would be since its a 'bigger' poll. Did you cast your vote? If yes, then what was the scene like at the polling booth? If not, then what was the reason for the abstinence? Did you not wanna vote or were you unable to? If you didn't wanna vote, did you know that you could nullify your vote? You can leave your comments to this post :)

On a lighter note, here is something which I couldn't resist posting. Haf a look at the Bachchan family in the pic... I fell off my chair when I first saw it! :P

Source: The Hindu

My iNav Remix - iPhone and iPod Touch UI

2009-03-22T00:29:00.052-04:00

My iTouch looked drab. It was screaming for a new UI, a new fresh face and so I got to work! Once a UI developer always a UI developer (no matter what platform :D). I took iNav and modded it to my liking - integrating widgets, editing the main menu, revamping the dock among numerous other things. I present you the iNav ANi Remix! Haf a look at the pics floating around this post. Kudos to the base iNav :)

This UI has been customized for iPod Touch, however by placing the Phone and Text/SMS icons this interface can be converted to an iPhone UI.

For those of you who dunno how to install it, I'm gonna quote the procedure. I'm too lazy to type :P Btw, before you proceed make sure you haf a jailbroken iPhone/iTouch for this (obviously!). If you are comfortable with SSH'ing into your device and uploading files then don't bother reading this tutorial! :D

[Guide]

iPhone/iPod Touch with 2.2.1 Firmware (Tested, might work with older firmware)
Categories V2.23 (Tested, Might Work with older version)

Download Categories V2.23 via Cydia.

Once downloaded make two new categories by clicking on the Add tab on the top right. Call the first one “Games” and the next one “Apps”.

Then place all your games into the Games folder. Next place every app into the Apps folder except for: Clock, Calculator, Notes, Videos, Photos, Settings, Mail, Safari and Music/iPod. Its also a good idea to add apps like Winterboard, Terminal, Categories to the SpringBoard settings Dock.

Install the blank webclips. To do this place the blank webclips (provided) in the folder: /Private/Var/Mobile/Library/Webclips (You will need a software like sshfs, if using Mac OS X or WinSCP, if using Windows).

We now need to install the iNav UI. Do this by placing the iNav folder into: /Library/Themes

Set the blank webclips so that there are 10 webclips in each page and then the application icon (11th icon). Also set Settings, Mail, Safari, iPod/Music icons on the main dock.

Go to Winterboard and select the iNav theme and also the option “No Undocked icon Labels”. Make sure this is above the theme. Respring SB and you are all done!

(Taken from here and modified accordingly)

Download the Updated iNav ANi Remix here or here.

PS: Damn! I seem to haf lost the Gimp XCF source file! I need to work on it again :(

Update: The UI now has support for "Tap Apps". This first page can be used to stack the 6 most frequently used apps for quick access. Background for Games, Apps categories and a new Wallpaper with sections are also included. The screenshot illustrates the feature. You will now need to rearrange the icons as per the wallpaper depicted. Other icons need to be moved as per the individual pages seen in the screenshot. Also the Lockscreen text has been fixed. The download link given above points to the updated version of the iPod Touch UI.

Update 2: You will need to install "No Spotlight Icon" from Cydia on iPhoneOS 3.0 to get rid of the search icon on the first page. Also the lockscreen and the keyboard skinning is not supported 3.0. Other than that all other components of this UI work fine in 3.0.

To change the location for the weather widget a JavaScript needs to be edited: Navigate to /Widgets/Configs/ directory. Now open the Weather-Config.js file and scroll down till you see "Raleigh, NC". Replace that with your [city],[state] or zip code/city code (if you use Yahoo Weather).

To change the units from Celsius to Fahrenheit, in the same file after the above mentioned line, make this change:

/* Set to 'false' for Farenheit. */
var isCelsius = false

Please leave your comments/suggestions about the UI here :)

Can't leave comments on my blog? Now you can :)

2009-03-13T20:31:00.012-04:00

Since the past couple of days I've been wondering about the '0 comments' phenomenon on my blog. It didn't strike to me till date that the recent posts were starving for comments. I guess many of you must've noticed that the ability to leave comments on my blog was completely non-functional since sometime. I dug into the template code and could find absolutely nothing. After much head-breaking, it hit on me that I'd enabled the option to embed comments in the posts which was causing the 'kirik' (Bangaloreans will understand this :P)

Finally its back to normal. You can now leave your comments on my blog. A handy pop-up window will help you abuse me now :)

TwitterBook??!!

2009-03-13T19:51:00.006-04:00

I'm sure everyone of you must've noticed the 'new, improved' TwitterBook, err... I mean Facebook. I personally do not like Twitter and keep away from it. Facebook is a nice platform (for the public as well as the web developers, I'm sure the latter will in no way disagree with me!).

But the new Facebook is bad, really bad. A complete Twitter rip off and also tries to act smart by integrating Twitter. Why, oh Why did you haf to do this, Facebook? The main interface is a complete mess now, worser than my trash can. The Wall is hidden behind another 'wall', all the 'cool and innovative' Facebook features are now lost in the oblivion and all I can see on the homepage is now garbage!

What do you all think? Do you like the new Facebook?

SVN: MKCOL 405 Method Not Allowed Error

2009-03-13T19:44:00.004-04:00

I had just pulled down Mac4Lin files from the SVN repo and was to reupload them yesterday. This time I decided to upload each folder separately, one by one. The first folder (directory for UNIX people) was properly uploaded. When I did and 'svn add ' the folder got successfully added. Next when I did an 'svn commit -m "message"', I got this dreaded error:

svn: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: MKCOL of '': 405 Method Not Allowed ()

I kept scratching my head for a long time as to why this kept happening. I was finally able to fix it. After an 'svn commit', all I had to do was an 'svn checkout '. The local copy would then be sync'd with the remote copy, brining it up to the same revision. I could then proceed to adding new folders/files and then svn commit'ting'.

It turns out that the folder previously added/uploaded needs to haf proper revision before the new folder can be added. Otherwise, svn will treat it as trying to upload the files/folder already existing in the repo. Another solution to this would be to wipe the SVN repo clean and start afresh.

I'm sure many of you would've faced this error. What were your fixes?

Happy Holi!

2009-03-10T18:44:00.003-04:00

Holi, also known as the Festival of colors is celebrated by Indians on the full moon day of the Phalguna month (usually falls in the month of March in Georgian calender). People put colors on each other to celebrate holi. While there are about 2 theories behind the origin of the festival, it is best known as the 'Spring Festival' to all.

Interested in knowing more about Holi? Head here.

We, at NC State are celebrating Holi on 15th March, 2009. Here's wishing everybody a Happy and Safe Holi :)

Howto: Use Subversion (and pull Mac4Lin v1.0 RC2 from SVN)

2009-03-09T19:33:00.009-04:00

I have been getting a lot of mails and posts on various forums asking me about the procedure to use 'subversion' to pull Mac4Lin v1.0RC2 files from the repo. Here is a post describing the same.

Your OS may or may not have 'subversion' package installed. To check if its installed, open a Terminal window and type: 'svn'. If you get a positive reply (something like: 'Type 'svn help' for usage) then skip to Step 2. If not, goto Step 1.

Step 1: Install subversion on your OS. The procedure for some commonly used OS' are given below:

1) Ubuntu: In a terminal window type: 'sudo apt-get install subversion'
2) Fedora: 'yum install subversion'
3) openSUSE: Use yast2/yast to install the package: 'subversion'
4) Arch Linux: 'pacman -Sy subversion'
5) Mac OS X: Download this DMG and install SVN (Courtesy: Coding Monkeys)
6) OS Independent: Download the 'subversion' source files from here.

For any other OS, please refer to their user guides and/or online references. If there exist none then compile from source. Note that the above given is NOT the only method to install subversion. You can fire up the Package Manager and search for subversion there. Thats probably the easiest way to install. For many platforms a GUI (frontend) for subversion may be available to make your lives easier. You may go ahead and install that. Check this post for SVN client configuration.

Step 2: Run this command to pull the files from the repo: 'svn checkout https://mac4lin.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/mac4lin'

This will download all the files from SVN to ~/mac4lin folder.

Step 3: Note that these files are decompressed. So you will need to put the components in appropriate folders (like the Mac4Lin Icons folder to ~/.icons, the various GTK themes' folders in ~/.themes and so on). You can also compress the folders in .tar.gz and install using Appearances Dialog box as you would install any other UI theme.

The structure of 'mac4lin' folder is like 'flattened' out Mac4Lin .tar.gz file available for download from Sourceforge.net downloads page (every archive being decompressed in the relevant folders). If you feel lost then download the RC1 .tar.gz, decompress it and start digging into each folder decompressing every archive you find. So that the path to each component is identifiable. The installation script will not directly work with RC2 downloaded from SVN because it searches for .tar.gz archives (which are extracted and hence don't exist). You can manually create the archives, name them the same as RC1 .tar.gz files, put them in the same folder overwriting RC1 files and let the script install, if you want to.

Hope this post was helpful :)

Edit: Mac4Lin SVN was down for sometime. Its up again now. I've restructured the whole package and updated some files (Mac4Lin GTK Splash folder is now included!). Kindly sync your copy again :)

Mac4Lin v1.0 RC2 : Subversion

2009-02-28T15:28:00.005-05:00

I'm happy to inform you all that Mac4Lin now uses the SVN version control system. The latest version Mac4Lin v1.0 RC2 is available there. Users may checkout to download the bleeding edge version.

The required info is provided here:

Subversion Server: https://mac4lin.svn.sourceforge.net

Path to Repository: /svnroot/mac4lin

Access instructions:

To access a Subversion repository, configure your Subversion client as follows:

* Hostname: mac4lin.svn.sourceforge.net
* Port: 443
* Protocol: HTTPS
* Repository Path: /svnroot/mac4lin

For clients that use a URL string:

https://mac4lin.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/mac4lin

Mac4Lin v1.0RC2 has not been released and hence is not available on the Downloads page. It can only be obtained through SVN. Btw, it includes the GTK Splash this time :P Comments, suggestions, complaints are welcome as always :)

Edit: If you are new to Subversion, then refer to this post which will explain how to install and use svn to download Mac4Lin v1.0RC2 files from SVN.

Oscars 2009: And the winners are...

2009-02-23T00:46:00.008-05:00

Oscars 2009, a big event as always. Well I guess everybody had predicted that Slumdog Millionaire would win awards, but not as many as it won!

There was no doubt that Heath "The Joker" Ledger would win an award. In fact, I liked his acting in the movie "The Dark Knight" so much that IMHO he should've been nominated for Best Actor instead of Best Supporting Actor. He was simply amazing in the movie. The award for "Make up" should've surely gone for The Dark Knight. I feel Heath Ledger's make up was the best of all times. Kate Winslet was good in the movie The Reader and I guess she deserved. I don't see any reason why Penelope Cruz was awarded the Best Supporting Actress!

As for "our" Slumdog Millionaire, I suppose it was nominated for 10 categories out of which it won 8! Thats an amazing feat that too by a "semi-Indian" movie. I've seen the movie and feel the movie was good but not an exceptional one. A.R.Rahman sure is one great music director but again I feel there was nothing out-of-this-world music in the movie. Not that I'm criticizing the number of awards this movie won, just that I feel some awards like Music (Song), Film Editing had nothing to do with the movie. What do you all feel? Did the movie of "Indian origin" win this time only coz it had a "Foreign director"? Do you all feel it was worth its weight for all of the 8 awards it won??

Movie: Delhi-6

2009-02-21T01:56:00.012-05:00

Its been movie time for me surrounded by exams. Saw Billu Barber last week. An average movie I must say. But Irrfan Khan has acted well. Lara Dutta was hopeless!

This week (actually just back sometime ago) I saw Delhi-6. Now I'm assuming (in fact, sure) that everyone reading this would haf seen Rang de Basanti. After such a movie the expectations from Rakeysh Mehra would surely be high. Delhi-6 falls in a different category. While its not a nation-awakening movie or such its like any other videsh-se-returned-love-your-country kind of movie. The plot is good. But I think the picturization could've been better. The movie has so many "cut-to"s that one may lose track of whats happening (a la Ghajni, eh? :D ).

Oh one interesting snippet: The movie is called Delhi-6 because it is picturized in Chandi Chowk, Delhi whose postal code is 110 006; hence the name Delhi - 6.

I guess its become a fad these days in Bollywood movies to include a couple of Hindi abuses and Delhi-6 is no different! Abhishek is an NRI and accompanies his Grandmother back to India (Delhi-6 - Chandni Chowk), to "leave" her where she wants to get back - her home. Everything is peaceful in the area, people of different religions live peacefully. Then comes the twist - Kala Bandar... what next???!! Ok sorry! No spoilers here... watch it! :D In a way, what the movie teaches about Kala Bandar sure is true.

The music is superb, no second thoughts about that. I recommend everyone to hear the songs. Overall I would rate the movie to be average to ok.

Go watch the movie, till then "Masakalli Masakalli... ud matakalli..." :D

PS: One thing I haf to mention is that like all typical Bollywood movies Abhishek comes back to life after dying; that too after interacting with his dead grandfather - Amitabh :D :P

Update: Grad School, Mac4Lin and more...

2009-01-06T14:04:00.015-05:00

Its been about 4 days since I'm back from my New York trip. Still gotta get out of the "vacation mood". But the sad part is that today is the last day of my vacations and classes begin from tomorrow; more accurately the "Spring 2009" semester beings at NC State University. This time I've enrolled for 4 courses which includes an MBA course. I'm either too brave or too foolish to do so. Time will tell :D

This is the time when everyone starts applying for internships and so haf I. Nobody is hiring though, everybody is firing! :P Stuff in the US is just unpredictable. The stock market, the job scenario, the weather, the fuel prices.. just about everything! Analysts say the market will stabilize in an year. Its just wait and watch for everybody.

The weather is kind of depressing and will be the same all through the month. Hafn't seen the sun since days. Its been raining continuously since the past few days. Get quite cold and may snow this month. The only thing to do during this month (and what everybody else does) is to watch American Football (if you can understand it!). Eagerly waiting for Spring to start.

kaalEDGE is a collaborative effort by a group of Indian students studying in US Universities which provides useful info to aspirants in India who wish to study abroad.. It recently published my article "MS in the US, A Guide: Part FOUR" in 2 parts. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

On the other side, I'm gearing up to release version 1.0 RC2 of Mac4Lin. The only thing thats containing me to do so is the Mozilla pack.

The Webmaster of LinuxSolved.com has created a separate forum for Mac4Lin. It can be accessed here. Users can post their queries on this forum in addition to various other forums and Mac4Lin's own forums at Sourceforge.net.

A samaritan has translated the Mac4Lin manual into Traditional Chinese for the benefit of those who can read/understand that language. Though I cannot understand even the smallest part, it sure looks colorful! The translated manual can be downloaded here.

The other exciting thing I'm into, is trying to get Android (Google) compile on the x86 architecture and get it running in a virtual machine. Though I hafn't been successful in getting this to work yet, I'm just trying.

Thats the update from my side for now. Keep a watch on Sourceforge.net for RC2 release news.

Edit: Mac4Lin v1.0 RC2 now available via SVN. Head to this post.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T16:28:00.005-05:00

Goodbye 2008, Welcome 2009! A year has gone by. Things moved fast for me in 2008. Some good events, some heartening... Graduate Studies, gOS, Mac4Lin, Linux Magazine and some more exciting things in the pipeline :)

Semester has ended and I'm getting my much needed break. "Chilling" out in Connecticut. Mind you, its really chilling. Snowing since quite sometime here. Will be getting back to Raleigh tomorrow. A week more of vacations and the usual life starts again.

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

-- Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Here's wishing everybody a Happy and Exciting New Year ahead! :)

EDIT: I'm back home. The New York/Connecticut trip was great. The photos are in "Now Playing" widget at the top right of my blog.

MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR

2008-12-15T15:52:00.012-05:00

4) Applying for a VISA

Long pending addition to the guide, I apologize for the delay. Been very busy with my graduate studies. Now that a semester is over I haf some time to breathe!

This part of the guide is about applying for the VISA and completing the other necessary formalities. The most important thing is the documentation required. The following documents are required for the VISA process:

a) I-20 issued by the University you got admit to and plan to get admit to and admission letter (if any).
b) VISA fee receipt
c) SEVIS fee receipt
d) VISA application forms (DS forms, which is filled when applying for the VISA online)
e) Passport
f) Degree Certificate (or Provisional) and Transcripts
g) GRE, TOEFL mark sheets
h) Bank Statements which prove that you haf enough money for your education
i) CA Certificate which validates your funds for education, an affidavit from sponsors and other documents
j) Any certificates or proof of awards you may want to present

You need at least 2 sets of copies of each of the above mentioned documents. Keep all the documents in a sorted/labelled order in a folder (avoid folders with a zipper as they may not be allowed at the US Consulate) so that you can present any of the documents without wasting much time. Each document is discussed in detail below:

a) I-20
This is the proof of your admission to a US University. This is generated as soon as you are given an admit by the university. An entry is created by SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which I guess is now called as Student and Exchange Visitor Program - SEVP or something) for each I-20 generated. Hence if you haf multiple admits you will haf that many entries in the SEVIS database (but only one will finally "survive" after you set foot in the US). This system is like a centralized database of people who come into the US for their education or exchange visitor program. You can think of this as a "spy system" ;) since they haf all your details, US as well as from your home country.

A point to remember is that the VISA will be associated with a University. Hence you need to take the I-20 of the university you've decided to take admission in. If later you change your mind and opt for another University you need to go through the VISA process again!

Sign on the relevant sections on the I-20 indicating that you've accepted the admission. Keep this piece of document safely as you need it as long as you are in the US (don't laminate it!! haha...)

b) VISA fee receipt
You will need to pay the VISA fee (of corz US Govt. will not give you a VISA for free! :P). VISA fee can be paid at specific branches of HDFC Bank. The list of the branches can be obtained on the VFS Global Website. Click on the HDFC bank link for more information. The fee is $131 at an exchange rate determined by the VFS authorities. Keep a look on the website for the latest rate. You can either pay the fee by cash or DD at the bank. A receipt will be generated and given to you. This will be activated in under 3 days. So you can schedule a VISA interview only after 3 days of paying the fee. Be sure to take you Passport and I-20 to the bank. Keep pink receipt safely.

c) SEVIS fee receipt
You also need to pay SEVIS $200 for "spying" on you. This can be done online at the SEVIS/SEVP Website (of corz you need a credit card for online payment). More information can be obtained here. Make sure that when you pay the fee you haf a printer (or a PDF creation software for printing later) near you so that you can take a printout of the receipt. You cannot retrieve this receipt later! You will need this receipt at the time of applying for VISA. Since the actual receipt will be mailed to you after about 20 days, you will need the printout if you schedule an interview sooner than you get the actual receipt.

d) VISA application forms
After these things are done, you can goto VFS Global website (www.vfs-usa.co.in) and create an Application. Fill in the 3 forms (DS-156, 157 and 158) with all the relevant details. You will need your Passport, I-20, VISA and SEVIS receipt for the info to be filled in. You need not fill in the forms at one go. Your forms will be saved till one week. So start early as it may take time. Fill in everything carefully. You can always come back and edit the information in the forms even after you've completed filling it.

After you've filled in everything you can either take a print out immediately or haf the forms mailed in to you in PDF for later printing. Make sure you print with high resolution on a bond sheet since these forms are machine readable many times. Also ensure there are no smudges on any sheets. Take at least 3 sets of the forms. In one of the forms (I do not remember which one exactly, guess its DS 157), you will be required to write your name. With a black or a blue ink pen, write your name in the space provided in your NATIVE language (even if you don't know it, at least learn to write your name :P Not that you will quizzed about it or something!).

Sign on all forms. Keep one set blank so that in case you need it in the last moment you can use it.

e) Passport
Nothing much to write about here except that you need to ensure that your Passport is valid for 6 months after your date of entry in the US.

f) Degree Certificate and Transcripts
Keep the original degree certificate with you. If you don't haf one yet, a Provisional Degree Certificate will do. Also keep 2-3 Transcripts with you.

g) GRE, TOEFL mark sheets
You need your original GRE and TOEFL mark sheets (not the online printouts). If you haf given any of the tests more than once then carry all the marksheets as you may be asked for them. But by default you will be presenting the latest ones.

h) Bank Statement(s)
These statement(s) are proof that you haf sufficient funds for your education abroad. The amount required should be at least about 10% more than what is indicated in your I-20 (an amount required for your "survival" for an year would be indicated in your I-20 which includes your fees, approx. living and other expenses). This amount should be in liquid assets (cash, fixed deposits etc.). I'm not sure if Shares are considered liquid (I guess not!), but you can confirm this with VFS Global. The amount should be in the name of your sponsors (your parents, uncles, you yourself etc.). You can present multiple statements summing up to the required amount. This statement should not be older than 6 months. Also take your bank pass book with you just in case you are asked.

Many people take educational loan, if that is the case with you then you also need to provide a letter from the bank that your loan as been approved and all the relevant loan documents.

i) CA Certificate, affidavit from sponsors and other documents
The Bank statements are proof of funds for at least one year (you can show all the funds you require for your stay in the US in one go however). For subsequent semester/years you need to show that you can arrange the amount. This can be in the form of your sponsors' salary slip, provident fund certificate, other savings, immovable property (property, vehicle etc.), jewelry, shares etc. All these documents need to be shown to a CA who will give a statement that you legally own all these and estimate their net worth as on date. This amount should approx. add up to twice the amount indicated in your I-20 + 20%. The slack shows that you can cushion any extra need that may arise. You will need all the documents that you showed to the CA alongwith CA certificate at the time of VISA interview. The latter should not be older than 6 months. It should preferably be sealed by the CA. Make sure you obtain a copy before its sealed so that you know what is in there!

Also during the VISA process you should be ready with documents (like IT returns of sponsors, salary slips etc.) which prove that your sponsors will not be empty handed after they fund you and they haf enough left (or earn) to support themselves.

In addition to these documents you will need affidavit attested by a Notary which indicates your name, your intent to goto the US (education, of corz!) and the full names of all your sponsors. Make sure the names of all your sponsors match exactly as in the bank statement(s).

j) Any certificates or proof of awards
If you've achieved something really big then its better to haf all the certificates and proof of awards with you during the VISA process. If there is a gap between your graduation date and your admission in a US University then do bring in documentation which indicates what you were doing during that period (for e.g Work experience certificate(s), pay slips, IT returns, information about any courses that you may haf taken during this time etc.).

Since now you haf all the documents ready its time to prepare yourself for some questions that can be asked during your VISA interview.

Some typical questions are:

1) How will you support yourself? (from the funding point of view)
2) What were you doing after your graduation? (in case there is a gap)
3) Why did you select "xyz" area/field for your MS?
4) Why did you select "abc" University?
5) What after your MS?

These are some of the common questions which can be expected. Make sure you give clear cut answers to these questions. Do not try to read all those gazillions of questions on the internet. They will only make you more nervous! Apart from these, you are the best person to make a list of questions that maybe asked to YOU. Every individual is special and so are the questions. Your scenario maybe different from person X. So reading and memorizing the answers to questions he/she was asked will do no good.

Make a list of probable questions you maybe asked depending on your background and prepare your answers. During the interview:
(a) Be confident (but not over-confident!)
(b) Look into the eyes of the interviewer and answer (but don't scare him/her!)
(c) Make sure you back every answer of yours with some proof (documentation or anything that cannot be doubted upon)
(d) Dress smartly and wear comfortable clothes (don't look like a punk who is going to the US to join some hip-hop band! You don't hafta to be in a full blown suit either)
(e) Be fluent in when speaking
(f) DON'T try to act cool. That will make you look like a fool!

With these things sorted out you are ready to take your VISA interview! The VISA officer will tell you on the spot after your interview whether you've been granted a VISA or not. If the answer is affirmative then you will get your Passport with your VISA stuck on it in a couple of days by courier. Be sure to collect all your documents when you leave the counter. A typical interview will be of about 3 minutes max.

If you were denied VISA then the exact reason would be stated in a form. If the reason was trivial you will be given a chance to improve upon in a couple of days. The most common reasons for a VISA denial are-

You give the VISA officer strong indication that:

a) your admission to the University was only a ticket to the US and you are going there with the intent of working.
b) you do not posses (or arrange) enough money for your educational funding in the US.

Make sure you answer all the interview questions appropriately. I end this part of the guide with a GOOD LUCK! :)

If you are reading this post you may be interested in the following posts too:

MS in the US, a guide: Part ONE - Exams - GRE and TOEFL
MS in the US, a guide: Part TWO - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE - Post admit work to be completed
MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR - Applying for a VISA
MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE - Booking your tickets and packing your bags
MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX - Traveling to the US and initial days of stay
NCSU Specific Information

Mac4Lin featured in Linux Magazine

2008-11-24T16:02:00.008-05:00

Mac4Lin has been featured in the January 2009 issue of Linux Magazine. It has been included under title "Projects under move" alongwith AWN and pdfsam. Here is the link to the write-up.

The whole article can be found in PDF format here or you can always buy the print version and read it there ;)

Meanwhile, the Mac4Lin downloads page at Sourceforge.net has been updated with a new archive. This contains new themes and scripts. The themes fix the infamous "Engine Error" in the newest version of GNOME. The pack includes an updated installation script which does not attempt to set the GDM theme automatically. Also, a user contributed Mac4Lin uninstall script is now included in the pack.

Feel free to drop in any complaints/suggestions.

Edit: The link seems to be down. The PDF can be viewed here.

nVidia CUDA

2008-11-16T23:55:00.007-05:00

A lot of you folks must haf heard about GPGPU (General-Purpose computation on GPUs). GPGPU is the term associated with using GPUs for general purpose computing. Today's CPUs are approaching the theoretical "speed" limit. A single core maxes out at about 3 Ghz. Going anything above does not give proportional performance gain. Its more of a liability since it involves more power, more components and hence costs more. Of corz, multi-cores is the solution which the industry has adopted; but then according to industry analysts, if there is no break-through in fundamental design of the processor then multi-cores will not scale beyond 8 cores.

So, how do we satisfy all those number hungry programs like Folding@Home? Use the shamelessly powerful GPUs as co-processors to the present-day CPUs! This idea was explored way back in the '90s. The first public project was BrookGPU which exploited the GPU for general purpose computing. But since the guys who developed it were not the ones who designed the GPU, they had little knowledge about its internals.

When they teamed up with the "GPU guys" they came out with toolkits like nVidia CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) and AMD CTM (Close To Metal or AMD Stream Computing). These toolkits enable the programmer to explicitly use the GPU for general purpose computational tasks.

nVidia CUDA can be thought as an extension to the C Programming Language. It provides the user with functions which allow interaction of the host (CPU) and the device (GPU) and its memory units. The beauty of graphic processors is that they focus little on cache etc. and instead concentrate more on processing thousands of threads simultaneously since thats what the graphics of today demand. This approach makes them ideal for scientific computing which heavily depend on pristine number crunching. Till recently nVidia did not haf a Folding@Home client, but now they do. AMD (ATi) had once since long. With these toolkits, almost anybody can now code such clients. All nVidia G8x and above GPUs are supported by the CUDA toolkit.

Our current assignment is to develop and implement a sorting algorithm in CUDA. Being completely new to CUDA, it sure is a challenging assignment.

For more information on CUDA, I'd suggest the following articles:
1) nVidia CUDA Programming Guide
2) GPGPU/CUDA Tutorials
3) CUDA Introduction
4) CUDA: Supercomputing for the masses
5) nVidia CUDA Explained - DigitLife

If you own one of the current generation nVidia Geforce cards (G8x and/or up) and know C Programming, I'd suggest you try out nVidia CUDA. The CUDA toolkit and SDK can be downloaded from nVidia CUDA Zone. Get yourself some home brewed supercomputing! :)

Birthday Boy!

2008-11-16T23:39:00.007-05:00

Being away from home you mostly don't feel like celebrating (unless of corz, you were "caged" at home! :P ), but then birthdays are something which get you in the mood; especially after getting your face painted with the cream!

About 10 of my friends were part of my birthday celebrations this year. Very thoughtfully they'd got a chocolate cake with my name "engraved" on it! The cake was looking just yummy. Poor cake.. if only it'd know its fate ;) After cutting the cake my face was "decorated" with the delicious cream, smeared all over!

We all had a ball on my birthday. The photos, as usual, are on my Picasa Album.

Being away from home I couldn't visit the orphanage this time on my birthday, unlike last year. But my wonderful mum went to the orphanage and spent time with the kids. Some simple things in life sure give us a lot of satisfaction :)

A trip to remember...

2008-10-19T17:09:00.004-04:00

With my mid-terms over, it was time for some outing. We hadn't been anywhere since our classes started. Class - Home - Lab and the cycle continued! Two cents of Hope (TCH) team decided to plan an outing to Asheville. Its like a "small" hill station, something like Ooty in India. About 30 of us in three 11 seater cars drove to Asheville on 18th October 2008. The Fall season is just beginning to show its colors. The leaves on the trees change from green to yellow then to red/pink color and finally fall off. This change is called 'Fall Colors'.

This phenomenon has just begun and trees are half green, half yellow in Raleigh as of now. To see Fall colors in full glory Asheville was the perfect place and we hit the road. The temperature was close to 0C there.

The trip was wonderful... a trip to remember. The photos can be seen in the right frame - Now Playing.

PS: I know I need to update the MS in US and the Mac4Lin posts. I'll do it soon.

Sony PS3: A multipurpose supercomputer?

2008-09-10T23:59:00.007-04:00

What does the PS3 mean to you? Just a gaming console? Think again! The power under the hood is immense. The PPU and the SPEs together make it a very powerful computing device. Stack up about 8 of them and voila! you get a supercomputer!

Haf a look at this screenshot:

(Thats our PS3 Cluster on which almost all the time I SSH to. Ah ha! Now I know where all the PS3s from our Library haf vanished! :P)

One of our labs at NCSU runs a cluster of 8 PS3s. How powerful is it? Well.. quite powerful for hundreds of NCSU students to remotely login and complete their assignments and projects on it, simultaneously! The cluster is connected to the main University network and hence sharing is a piece of cake. Its faaaast.. responsive and absolutely apt in such a scenario. The cluster runs 64-bit Fedora Core 5 over a hypervisor layer custom-developed by Sony. Fedora was an obvious choice considering the fact that Red Hat's Head Office is inside our University Campus! :P [OK, I know NCSU gets RHEL at very discounted prices :D] How much does the PS3 cluster cost? Hmmm.. not even a fraction of the cost of a normal supercomputer!

The fact that they are so powerful highlights that its architecture and design is simply miles ahead of today's processors. They are used everywhere - University computer clusters, scientific computing like Folding@Home and almost everywhere where "cheap" supercomputing is a requirement.

Interested in reading more about the PS3 and its architecture? Read this. This website tells more about NCSU's PS3 Cluster. The weird looking man in the pics there is Dr.Frank Mueller, our Operating Systems Instructor.

Two Cents of Hope...

2008-09-10T23:40:00.004-04:00

What is the value of a cent? Well.. actually nothing in the US, but certainly something in India. Just like drops fill up a bucket, cents collectively mean a lot.

In their own words: The Power of Cents - "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land."

Two Cents of Hope (TCH) is all about creating a responsible and self-sustaining society. A society like this can be created by imparting education to the aspiring children and youth. TCH focuses on providing educational opportunities to deserving children and youth who crave to learn but cannot because of financial constraints and other such factors. The organization supports such deserving students against the harsh realities of life and makes an effort to help make their dreams come true.

Committed volunteers across the globe work closely in order to ensure that resources reach deserving students and monitor the progress of the student ensuring fairness and proper utilization of funds. It intends to involve more people in the organization and spread enthusiasm. Two Cents of Hope is a registered non-profit organization in the US [ 501(c)(3) ] and India.

The story of how TCH came into existence is interesting. Usually people in the US throw away cents as its mostly currency-less transactions here and cents are almost of no value. However, when you convert it into Indian Rupees it certainly has some value. Few students of NCSU back in 2001 were sipping coffee and were discussing something. They noticed that the cents were just being throw away, discarded. They thought.. What is the power of cents? And then realized that all those "discarded" cents had the power to fund a child's primary education in India and thus began Two Cents of Hope.

We put up coin boxes wherever we can and ask people to put the cents in these boxes instead of just throwing them away. At the end of a specific period we collect all the cents and convert them into currency of higher denomination. Projects from all over India are scrutinized and we fund educational costs for deserving but poor children. I'm very proud to be a part of this organization. TCH has chapters in many parts of the world, Bangalore being the HQ in India and Raleigh being the same in the US.

We also organize cultural events in the US which showcase our rich culture and heritage. Trishna '08 was the latest which was held last Saturday. The funds/donations received from these events go straight back to India to fund someone's education. The event photos and videos will be up soon.

Interested in helping us? Head to Two Cents of Hope's website

Mac4Lin ver.1.0 Release Candidate

2008-09-10T22:01:00.007-04:00

Mac4Lin is back!

This is the version 1.0 Release Candidate. Some components are still under development. Currently the shell script is not able to set the GDM theme, cursor theme, sounds, emerald theme. They need to be manually set.

Also components like Firefox3, Thunderbird theme, awn theme/plugins etc. are still under development. The Mozilla themes may not be stable. Hence use the non-core components of Mac4Lin at your own risk. Documentation is still in the pipeline. I decided to release the RC anyway so that patrons can start using it and update to the stable version when development is complete.

Whats new: Mac4Lin v1.0 RC - 9th September, 2008

New! Automated Installer in the form of a shell script
New GDM theme
Supports the newest version of GNOME and Xfce
New Mozilla themes specifically built for Mac4Lin
Adium style AWN status icons for Pidgin
Mac style scrollbars, menus
Other tweaks in GTK theme
Adium sounds for Pidgin
New usplash

Keeping up the tradition I'm including the download stats. SF.net alone has served about 10.4TB as on today! I'm also happy to announce that Mac4Lin was one of the winners of FOSS Awards 2008.

Instructions:

Download the Mac4Lin_v1.0_RC.tar.gz archive to any folder. Extract the archive and run Mac4Lin_Install_v1.0_RC.sh file.

For any suggestions/comments/complaints/feedback/bug tracking please drop by my blog or send a mail:

My E-Mail id: infra_red_dude [A.T] users [D.O.T] sourceforge.net
Project Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin

Edit: Mac4Lin v1.0 RC2 now available via SVN. The GTK Splash hasn't been left out this time! Head to this post.

Photos...

2008-08-24T14:44:00.005-04:00

I've uploaded a few pics of my travel as well as the city I live in. Head here to my public albums on Picasa. The Raleigh city pics are "Now Playing" on the right pane as slideshow.

More pics in the pipeline. Boy! Its hot in here.. very very hot! We hardly step outta home these days. Its almost daylight bright till 8pm. Waiting for the Fall to completely set in.

Back to school!

2008-08-20T22:26:00.012-04:00

Its back to school for me. Fall 2008 semester classes started today. Feels odd attending class after a year!

The university is huge.. take my word, it is insanely huge! The campus is spread over an unimaginable area. ECE and CS departments are given step-motherly treatment by separating them from the main campus. Not that its bad or something but its away from the library which houses Xbox 360s and PS3s :D lol...

Few pics of my university:

Clockwise from top:

1) The ECE/CS building at Centennial Campus where my classes are conducted.

2) The famous tall Bell tower of NCSU.

3) That building is our library. Yes, you saw it right... its 7 floors tall!

Sorry for the interruption.. rukawat ke liye khed hai!

2008-08-03T14:57:00.002-04:00

Won't be online regularly for a week or so now.. at least till I settle there down. Only thing I'm worried about: non-stop 16 hours journey at a stretch :(

So Mac4Lin, MS Guide and other work would be temporarily under suspension. Will get back soon.

So long folks, see ya soon.....

Transcend StoreJet 25 Mobile 250GB

2008-07-18T08:56:00.009-04:00

I needed an external HDD to carry my data and was looking at the options since a week. I'd zeroed in on either Western Digital Passport or the Transcend StoreJet. Went to the electronic market to buy and saw that the WD Passport is almost on its way out. Nowhere was it available. Instead everywhere it was being replaced by WD Elements. The build quality was quite flimsy and somehow it didn't appeal to me. In the end I bought a Transcend StoreJet 25 Mobile 250GB USB 2.0.

I must say that I'm pretty impressed by this device. It has the toughest protection I've ever seen for an external drive (apparently meets the US Military drop test). Speed is impressive; a sustained 28 MB/s. Phew.. Thats fffffffaaaaaaaaast! It also has one-touch backup and sync button (works only in Windows with the StoreJet Elite software). The included Windows software lets you backup, sync, encrypt data etc.

Would I recommend this product? Certainly! :)

MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE

2008-07-18T08:23:00.010-04:00

3) Post admit work to be completed

This part picks up where Part TWO left off. One important information I forgot to give in the previous part was regarding the Transcripts and Degree Certificate. You will need to apply for at least 20 copies of Transcripts (considering that on an average you are applying to about 6 Universities) and about 4-5 attested copies of your degree certificate (or provisional degree certificate, if you've just completed or will be graduating soon). Your current university may charge you some fee for this. So get in touch with them and apply for your Transcripts/DC/PDC just about a fortnight before your GRE as it may take sometime for the university to process your request.

The universities will mostly start informing the students about admits from mid-March. The latest by which one can afford to get the "admit" news is by mid-June. You need to login to your account on the Universities' Graduate Admissions'/Application webpage and check the admission status. Keep checking this page every now and then beginning March. The varsities will first send the admit status electronically and then thru the conventional way. Before you can get a clear cut admit you need to submit Proof of Financial Status or Certificate of Financial Responsibility (CFR). Most of the universities will mail in an admission letter alongwith the CFR. The CFR can mostly also be downloaded from their website.

This form basically tells the University that you haf the moolah to afford Graduate Studies in the US. Your sponsors' need to sign on the form and submit a statement by the Bank which indicates that you haf sufficient liquid funds to cover one academic term's expenses (which includes the living expenses). The amount to be shown as liquid is indicated on the admission letter or will be mailed to you. If you haf some form of scholarship (teaching/graduate assitantship or if the university is sponsoring you) then the university will indicate that amount and you will hafta arrange a statement for the balance amount. If you are taking statements from different banks (i.e haf the money in different accounts across banks) then be sure to take them all on the same day. The Bank statement needs to indicate the sponsors' name, dress, account details and the amount in Indian Rupees as well as in equivalent US Dollars as on that day (giving info about the date and the exchange rate) on the Bank's letterhead with the signature of the highest authority in the bank (e.g Branch Manager etc.). Some universities will want the same info on a special form provided by them. This amount can range anywhere from $30k-40k USD. Also, no immovable or non-liquid assets would do.

After these documents are sent, the University will mail the I-20 to the student. If the admit has come unusually late then get in touch with the authorities so that your I-20 is sent thru courier. You may hafta pay a fee for this. If it arrives by regular postal services then give it about a month to arrive. The I-20 is the official admission letter indicating your name/other details, name of university, program name, address, fee for an academic term etc. This will also indicate that you haf proved to possess sufficient funds required for an academic term. If you are applying for an education loan then this is the right time as processing will take some time. You will need to produce your I-20 to the bank alongwith other standard documents. Checkout various banks for the loan details.

Also note that some universities will require the students to undergo specific medical tests. Hence look out for an "immunization form" either sent by the university or on their website. Invariably, all universities will want the students to undergo PPD test (for TB). In some cases, you may also be asked to get the immunization form signed by a Registered Medical Practitioner indicating the dates of your vaccination (right from childhood).

If you get multiple admits then you may be in the possession of several I-20s. Weigh the pros and cons and decide on a university wisely. Its better not to sign on the I-20s unless you've made up your mind. Also its wiser not to inform any university immediately that you will not be taking up the admission unless you get VISA with the name of your preferred university printed on it. After the VISA process is over (to be discusses in the next part) you can mail the other universities that you will not be taking up admission there. You may hafta mail them back the "unused" I-20s if they request since the I-20 is generated by SEVIS (discussed later).

In case there are any changes to be made in you Passport (name/address etc.) then do it now. Also keep few Govt. issued photo-id cards handy (like driving license, PAN etc.) as they will help in this process).

As soon as you are issued an I-20 the university will create an account for you on their portal and mail the username/password and other details to you. This portal will mostly be a centralized control center. Almost all the universities haf this. Depending on the university you maybe given a mailbox with the university id, asked to register for Courses for the first sem, update your contact info, book university housing etc. Be extra careful about registration of courses and do it asap as mostly all the good courses are booked by students as soon as they are allowed to register. So make a list of about 4-5 courses by looking at the syllabus etc. You can register a maximum of 4 courses in a semester. You can also drop a course later, in most cases.

It is also the correct time to get in touch with the Indian Student Association of the University and also your department professors, seeking their views on the courses and text books they would be referring to. You can also mail the Graduate adviser/professors asking them about your eligibility with regards to registration of courses as all courses will haf specific prerequisites.

With all these things done, its time for applying for F1 VISA. This would be covered in the next part...

If you are reading this post you may be interested in the following posts too:

MS in the US, a guide: Part ONE - Exams - GRE and TOEFL
MS in the US, a guide: Part TWO - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE - Post admit work to be completed
MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR - Applying for a VISA
MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE - Booking your tickets and packing your bags
MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX - Traveling to the US and initial days of stay
NCSU Specific Information

Mac4Lin in Linux for You, June 2008

2008-06-23T00:25:00.011-04:00

As part of the series of articles on winning projects at FOSS India Awards 2008, Linux for You magazine published about Mac4Lin in their June 2008 issue. An excerpt:

The project kicked off when Anirudh Acharya, a young open source enthusiast from Bangalore, taught himself GTK+ and decided to bring the Mac touch to the FOSS world. "A consistent, beautiful and tightly-integrated user interface is what Mac4Lin is all about", explains Acharya.... A one man army, Acharya continues to put in efforts to enhance Mac4Lin and make it compatible with other desktop systems....."

The scanned article has been uploaded here. It consists of a 4.6MB .zip file with 2 image files corresponding to the 2 pages (LFY, June 2008 Page 43 and 44) in the magazine.

I know its a bit late to post this news.. but oh well considering the fact that till now I have neither received the Award Certificate nor the Cheque my delay in posting about this in my blog is justifiable.

Petro-fuels in Karnataka

2008-06-22T00:56:00.007-04:00

Its a well known fact that Karnataka Government slaps the highest taxes compared to any other state/UT on petroleum based fuels. Thats the reason why the people in Karnataka pay the highest for a litre of petrol/diesel throughout India.

News that would bring some relief to consumers, at least for the time being: Karnataka government slashes sales tax on petroleum based fuels!

Yes, thats right! The Karnataka government reduced sales tax by 3 pc on petrol and 2 pc on diesel. It has also reduced value added tax (VAT) on domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from 4 pc to 1 pc. As a result of the reduction in tax on petrol from 28 to 25 pc, retail price of the fuel in Bangalore will be Rs.57.15 per litre as against Rs.58.89 and that of diesel will be Rs.39.15 per litre as against Rs.39.80 after the reduction of tax from 20 pc to 18 pc. The price of LPG has been reduced to Rs.348.08 from Rs.358.42.

Time to cheer?? Its just the beginning of the BJP-led Govt. Will this tax relief hold good for long.. or is it just a political gimmick played by UPA at the center and BJP at the state level???

MS in the US, a guide : Part TWO

2008-06-19T15:40:00.011-04:00

Note: ETS, GRE and TOEFL and their respective logos are registered trademarks of Educational Testing Service.

Here is the second part in the series.

2) Reporting scores and applying to universities

The next part deals with the tasks to be completed just after the exams while the results are awaited. If you've still not selected Universities to apply to then this is the correct time! Research about various universities, the programs offered, the labs, the Professors, their locations etc. and short list some. Usually students apply to an average of 6 universities.

In case you are not satisfied with the results, this is the correct time to register and give the exams again since you'll still have time to report the scores (assuming the tests were taking in the month of September or January as suggested earlier). TOEFL can be taken only once in a week and GRE once per month. Some universities will take the latest GRE/TOEFL scores while some will take the average. Its upto the Universities' discretion to interpret your scores.

If you've already selected the universities, sent scores to them during your GRE and TOEFL and don't want to send to additional ones then skip the next two paragraphs. Now comes the task of reporting your scores to the choosen universites if youv've not already done so or want to report your score to additional universities. The scores must be sent by ETS ONLY. ETS charges $15 USD and $17 USD per score receipiant plus $6 USD service charge if ordered through phone for GRE and TOEFL respectively. You can logon to the GRE/TOEFL/Universities' website and get the codes of the university and relevant department. With this information in hand you can apply to ETS for sending your scores to those universities' departments. The fastest way is by calling them. Other modes are by mail or fax. Head to this page for more information: GRE Additional Score Reports

To order additional TOEFL score reports, login to your TOEFL iBT profile and follow the link to "Order Additional Score Reports". Online ordering is the fastest way amongst all. Bear in mind that the University code will the be the same while the department code will be different for TOEFL; so make sure you are having the correct codes before applying. More information here: TOEFL Additional Score Reports

Allow about a month for the Univeristy/Dept. to receive your scores. Till then there are other tasks to be done. With every online application the student needs to submit his Statement of Purpose (SoP) and ask his teachers/employers to submit Letter of Recommendation (LoR) for you to the university. Generally most of the universities require 3 LoRs. A recommended combination is 2 LoRs by your teachers and 1 from your employer (if employed) or all 3 by your teachers if not working. The statement of purpose is more like your personal essay, highlighting why do you think the University should admit you, why you are the right candidate, your strengths etc. You can find SoP samples on the internet. Ask your recommenders to submit the LoR online, if your University provides that option. Thats preferred to conventional prints. If the option doesn't exist then get the LoR from them on the letterheads and ask them to seal the LoR in an envelope and put their signature across the flap. Do NOT tamper!

With these things in hand you are now ready to apply to universities. Start registering at the universities you intend to apply for and start filling up the form. You needn't do it in one sitting. So take your time and fill in all the details correctly. You would need a Credit Card to pay for the application fees. Tho there is an offline method but this is the fastest. After you fill in everything and check, its time to submit the application. In addition to submitting the application online you must send them the supporting documents (marksheets, transcripts, certificates - degree/provisional etc.). So make sure that the copies are attested and transcripts are sealed and not tampered. Most of the universities have a deadline of earlier than December 15th if applying for Fall term or September 1st for Spring. Check it up with each university as it may differ and be much earlier. Some universities may have 2 deadlines; one to submit the online application and one to send in the supporting documents.

After these tasks are completed, its time to relax! Take a break and enjoy for sometime... for there's a lot to be done after you get admission!

continued...

If you are reading this post you may be interested in the following posts too:

MS in the US, a guide: Part ONE - Exams - GRE and TOEFL
MS in the US, a guide: Part TWO - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE - Post admit work to be completed
MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR - Applying for a VISA
MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE - Booking your tickets and packing your bags
MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX - Traveling to the US and initial days of stay
NCSU Specific Information

VISA... its finally done!

2008-06-10T07:26:00.004-04:00

I finally got my VISA! The interview at US Consulate in Chennai lasted for just about a minute. End of the day I was a happy guy :)

Also got my tickets booked. Leaving on 4th August, 2008.

MS in USA, A Guide : Part ONE

2008-06-10T07:20:00.013-04:00

A lot of people around me have been asking about "A-to-Z details" with regards to pursuing an MS degree in the US. For the benefit of all I've been wanting to write this guide since long... guess the time has finally come to pen it!

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are solely of an individual and are not in any way associated with any University or person. Readers should not take all the scores mentioned in this guide as a definitive cut off mark. Getting an acceptance or reject from a University is dependent on various other factors and is determined by the University authorities; it is hence unpredictable. This guide assumes that the aspirant is pursuing a 4 year Bachelor's degree. MS in the US requires the aspirant to have completed 16 years of formal education. This disclaimer applies to all the parts of this guide.

Steps:
1) Exams - GRE and TOEFL
2) Reporting scores and applying to universities
3) Post admit work to be completed
4) Applying for a VISA
5) Booking your tickets and packing your bags

These points would be covered in parts.

1) Exams - GRE and TOEFL

I'll come straight to the point and start with the first step to MS in the US. Just as we haf entrance exams here you need to appear for a similar exam to pursue MS. These exams are conducted by a organization called Educational Testing Services, ETS for short (www.ets.org). The exams one needs to appear are the Graduate Record Examination - General (GRE - General) and Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The newest version of TOEFL is called Internet Based Test and is abbreviated as TOEFL iBT.

Registrations for both the exams can be done at ETS' website - www.ets.org The examination fee is to be paid through Credit Card. Tho there are other methods to register for these exams, the online version is the most preferred way. The test fee for GRE is $170 USD (as on today) and for TOEFL iBT is $165 USD (as on today). You would need sufficient preparation for the tests, especially for GRE (verbal section). Hence book the exam dates wisely. It is always better to haf your TOEFL iBT exam after your GRE (explained later), preferably with a gap of about a week.

The GRE has 3 sections - Quantitative (Quant.), Verbal (Verb.) and Analytical Writing (AWA). The Quant. section is predominantly a test of aptitude with max. marks of 800, the Verbal is more like your vocabulary test with max. marks of 800 and the Analytical Writing tests your ability to write thesis with a max. marks of 6.0. A decent score in each test for a Science and Technology aspirant student would be 730+, 530+, 4.0+ respectively. The questions and time breakup is as shown:

Analytical Writing 1 Issue Task* 45 minutes
Analytical Writing 1 Argument Task* 30 minutes
Verbal 30 Questions 30 minutes
Quantitative 28 Questions 45 minutes
Unscored** Varies Varies
Research*** Varies Varies

* For the Issue task, two essay topics are presented and you choose one. The Argument task does not present a choice of topics; instead one topic is presented.
** An unidentified unscored section may be included and may appear in any order after the Analytical Writing section. It is not counted as part of your score.
*** An identified research section that is not scored may be included, and it is always at the end of the test.

TOEFL iBT has 4 sections:
Reading (max. marks 30), Listening (max. marks 30), Speaking (max. marks 30) and Writing (max. marks 30); totalling to 120 marks. The breakup is given below:

Reading 3-5 passages 60-100 minutes 36-70 questions
Listening 4-6 lectures 60-90 minutes 34-51 questions
Break 10 minutes
Speaking 2 categories 20 minutes 6 tasks
Writing 2 categories 50 minutes 2 tasks

GRE and TOEFL preparation material is available online. You could also join preparatory classes conducted by organizations like Kaplan, The Princeton Review etc. Its always good to start preparing early for GRE as it takes time to build up your vocabulary which is very important in the Verb. section.

The best time to appear for the exams is given below:

1) If applying for MS in Fall session (in August):
GRE - Mid September
TOEFL - A week after GRE

2) If applying for MS in Spring session (January/February):
GRE - Mid February
TOEFL - A week after GRE

The reason being it takes almost about a month for the official results and your scores to be announced and sent to Universities. Your GRE score (Quant. and Verb.) would be shown to you at the end of the test. After you've taken your GRE exam you would be required to report your scores to the Universities you intend to apply to. This has to be done thru ETS only and you need to pay ETS a fee to do that. It, however, gives you the option of sending your scores to 4 Universities for free, just after you finish your GRE at the testing center. Hence, its always a good idea to make a list of Universities for a range of GRE scores before hand. A sample:

GRE Score (Quant. + Verb.): Universities to apply to:
1200-1300 A, B, C, D...
1300-1400 E, F, G, H...
and so on...

Depending on your GRE score you can select to send it to the Names and Depts. of Universities you intend to apply to. Now comes the reason why its better to take TOEFL after GRE. Unlike GRE, for TOEFL you need to provide the list of Universities to whom the score should be sent to (for free) before you take up the test. This list can be modified till one day prior to your test by loggin into your TOEFL profile. Your TOEFL scores are put up on your login id approx. 20 dayz after your test. If you make a list of Universities and the score range beforehand you can save almost about $200 USD, which you'd otherwise spend on reporting your scores to Universities later. The list of Universities is important as each University is ranked differently according to the department. Hence, do a thorough research about the University and its offered programs.. whether it suits you, the fees, the living expenses (depending on how big the city is) etc. This is also a very important aspect.

After you are done with your GRE and TOEFL you haf about a month to relax. If you've goofed up in the University list then this is the time to select the correct universities you intend to apply to. Make use of this one month time.

continued....

If you are reading this post you may be interested in the following posts too:

MS in the US, a guide: Part ONE - Exams - GRE and TOEFL
MS in the US, a guide: Part TWO - Reporting scores and applying to universities
MS in the US, a guide: Part THREE - Post admit work to be completed
MS in the US, a guide: Part FOUR - Applying for a VISA
MS in the US, a guide: Part FIVE - Booking your tickets and packing your bags
MS in the US, a guide: Part SIX - Traveling to the US and initial days of stay
NCSU Specific Information

Mac4Lin - Tested and Awarded by UptoDown.com

2008-05-26T12:06:00.004-04:00

We are happy to tell you Mac4Lin has been included in our list of software.

Our team of editors test all programs and write a review on those which are thought to be useful for the users who visit our website. After that, they have decided to award your software, so it will be highlighted from the rest of software in the same category.

This is the mail I got from the UptoDown.com team. Mac4Lin has been tested and awarded by that website. To read review, head to Mac4Lin page on UptoDown.com

Elections in Karnataka...

2008-05-12T14:47:00.006-04:00

With Elections around in Karnataka there has been much campaigning by all political parties. Bangalore voted on 10th May (Saturday). The turn out was comparatively poor. And yes, I did not contribute to the "poor turnout". I got my index finger inked! Frankly, I don't want any party to form a government at the state level; we are much better off without any goverment! But I voted for a candidate who had done good to the locality and who's been doing good since quite some time.

The noise due to campaigning was getting unbearable and I also piled up a huge number of pamphlets. A good source of income, I must say! Oh.. Raddiwala... if you didn't get it ;)

University finalized..

2008-05-04T14:01:00.003-04:00

Finally I decided on the University - North Carolina State University. NC State is on the East Coast and has India-like weather. The summers are hot with temps touching about 36 C and winters are not too cold with temps dropping to about -3 C. NCSU has one of the best Indian Students' Association aptly called "Maitri"

Got my I-20 today. Gotta proceed with admission formalities accordingly now.

Here I am again...

2008-03-20T16:22:00.007-04:00

Yeah.. I know.. I know.. its been a looooooong time since I bored everyone. So here I am, doing what I am best at - boring people with the content on my blog!

So whats new in my life?? Quite a few things...

First gOS is getting a new look. It will be an OS to look forward to! So guys and gals, get ready to witness one of the most web-centric OS'!

I replaced my laptop with a new Desktop. Its big, bad and noisy! But then can't help it.. performance comes with a price!

FOSS India guys did mail me a questionnaire regading Mac4Lin and FOSS India Awards, which I dutifully answered. Expecting that to see in the next Issue :) BTW, this month DIGIT also gave away Mac4Lin on its DVD.

Oh yes, I finally got calls from UTD and NCSU. Some universities are yet to reply. So waiting for that before I take a decision.

What else? Hmmm.. I guess thats enough for this week! :D

FOSS India Awards 2008 and Mac4Lin

2008-02-20T12:27:00.009-05:00

I feel immense pride in announcing that Mac4Lin is one of the winners of FOSS India Awards 2008. It is one of the 20 projects awarded from all over the country. The complete list is here.

I would like to thank everyone for their support. Also thanks to all those who posted comments on the openitis website. Heartfelt thanks to LFY and NRC-FOSS for recognizing our contribution to the FOSS community and congratulations to all the winners.

I haf plans to open up the project and diversify it. More details will come soon, once I'm a bit free from other things.

Finally doing something...

2008-01-26T13:03:00.002-05:00

Bored at home... sitting, sleeping and eating I'm now learning web-designing. Something that keeps me busy these dayz. Also trying to design interfaces, with the success of Mac4Lin I've now gotten my hands on UI designs :)

Yet to get call from any university. I hope I do get at least one this time! :D

Goodbye 2007, Welcome 2008!

2007-12-31T14:17:00.001-05:00

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

- Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous new year!

Mac4Lin version 0.4 released!

2007-12-18T10:45:00.002-05:00

18th December 2007

Your favorite Mac4Lin is back! A new version, more changes, better looks and an overall more polished product. Please read changelog for information of changes in this version. It gives me immense pleasure to inform all that downloads have crossed 2.6 TB till date!

Please go through the Documentation for illustrated installation instructions. Also some entities like GTK Metacity theme etc. now include two versions. Hence individual README files are included only if there is a need to convey release specific information which the generic documentation does not include. Please read the README file for more details in such cases.

Changelog

Apply it, flaunt it, enjoy it!

*****************************************************************************

Mac4Lin has been approved to be a contender for FOSS awards. If you like this project then please post your comments and vote for it. Follow the link given below. It'll help Mac4Lin.

http://www.openitis.com/openitis/project_view.php?id=89

(Jus follow the link which reads: Click here to discuss or voice your opinion)

*****************************************************************************

Screenshots

For any suggestions/comments/complaints/feedback/bug tracking please drop me a mail.

E-Mail Me
Project Website and Download

Anirudh (a.k.a infra_red_dude)

Sigh of relief...

2007-12-07T10:05:00.002-05:00

I can now breathe a sigh of relief. I am done with applying to universities; submitting the online application as well as sending the supporting documents. I now await their decision. Guess I will get to know by February. I can now concentrate on applying for a job. I am dead rotten sitting at home for the past 6 months. Time to hit the road :)

My first application for Graduate studies

2007-11-23T07:25:00.001-05:00

Today is a day of relaxation. I submitted my application to two universities (Ohio State University and University of California, Santa Barbara). One week of hectic life ended yesterday; filling up the online application, readying all the supporting documents, finishing my Statement of Purpose, requesting my Professors for Letters of Recommendation etc. All this has given me a week of sleepless nights!

More work ahead. But then everyone needs a break and here I am, getting my much needed break!

FOSS India awards

2007-11-23T07:13:00.001-05:00

Mac4Lin has been included in the "Approved Projects" category contending for FOSS India Awards! About 37 Projects are in the list. Its a matter of pride for me :)

The whole list can be seen here: Project List

Mac4Lin project page is here: Mac4Lin

Guys, please leave your feedback/comments on this page. It will help Mac4Lin Project at the FOSS India Awards: Leave your comments here

A birthday to remember.....

2007-11-15T03:53:00.003-05:00

I had a wonderful birthday, yesterday; though I'd thought otherwise. We are a group of 11 and celebrate each other's birthday with much fanfare. However, things are different this year. Most of us are scattered all over the country. Everyone's busy with their jobs.

I didn't how what to do, since only 3 of us remain in this city. But Raveesh and Bhavya surprised me with a Card, Gift and a Cake :)

One of the first to wish me on my birthday was my sis. Wishes came pouring in from everywhere, relatives, friends, seniors, teachers, professors.. everyone! I'm so happy :)

Mac4Lin reaches a new milestone!

2007-11-05T05:21:00.001-05:00

Mac4Lin Downloads: 1 TeraByte (TB) and counting......

I wanna thank everyone for their support :)

Essays, Essays and more essays....

2007-10-31T17:13:00.001-04:00

I got the official GRE results today. So now the task of writing essays awaits me. I gotta prepare Statement of Purpose and get Letters of Recommendation from the faculty of my Department.

SoP is a real time sucker! I hope I'm able to finish it by the time I get my TOEFL results so that I can apply as soon as I get the results.

Icon theme for GNOME 2.20 & Updated Documentation

2007-10-31T17:11:00.001-04:00

A new Icon theme for GNOME 2.20 and Mac4Lin Documentation Rev. 1.1 (PDF) which covers installation instructions for GNOME 2.20 have now been released!

Check them out at: Mac4Lin at SF.net

Plz report any bugs.

Today has been the day of highest downloads: 110GB and still counting..... Total downloads haf been over 580GB till this day! Over 46000 downloads haf been recorded!! I never imagined this project would scale such heights. I thank everyone for their support. Plz keep the suggestions/complaints/bugs/feedback flowing. It'll help in the betterment of this project :)

Mac4Lin ver.0.3 Released!

2007-10-24T13:35:00.001-04:00

Mac4Lin version 0.3 Released!

24th October 2007

Mac4Lin is back! A new version, more changes, better looks and an overall more polished product. Please read changelog for information of changes in this version. It gives me immense pleasure to inform all that downloads have crossed 110 GB till date!

Mac4Lin now comes with a unified documentation in PDF format. Please go through this for illustrated installation instructions. Also some entities like GTK theme/Pidgin etc. now include two versions. Hence individual README files are only included if there is any need to convey release specific important information to the user which the generic documentation does not include. Read the README file for more details, in such cases.

With the release of GNOME 2.20, there have been issues reported with the Icon theme. Work is going on to make the theme compatible with GNOME 2.20 (found in OpenSUSE 10.3/Ubuntu 7.10 - Gusty etc.). There will be a separate release of Icon theme for GNOME 2.20. Users of this version can replace the original ver.0.3 Icon theme with the new one, which will be released soon after this release. GNOME version can be checked by clicking System Menu > About GNOME. Other components of this package are reported to work with GNOME 2.20. The installation of GTK Metacity theme and Cursors is almost same execpt that the Theme Manager in GNOME 2.20 has a new look.

Thanks to Victor Hugo Casals for the Safari skin, M.Lettner for the panel backgrounds, Calande for the font guide, Mitko for nm-applet icons, Vish for Grub and Buu700 for Usplash screens. I also thank all those who tested the pack and everyone who are directly or indirectly involved in this project.

Apply it, flaunt it, enjoy it!

Anirudh (a.k.a ANi, infra_red_dude)

For any suggestions/comments/complaints/feedback/bug tracking please drop a mail to: infra_red_dude.users@sourceforge.net

Project Website and Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin

Screenshots:

PS: Keep checking this place. An Icon theme for GNOME 2.20 will soon be released.

I am free!!!!

2007-10-20T13:40:00.001-04:00

Yes, at last.... I'm free from ETS' clutches. TOEFL out and down! I can now relax for a couple of dayz. I must say it was one of the worst environment in which I gave the test. Sound proof rooms were missing and Damn! everyone had the same set of questions in the speaking section. Its hard to concentrate in that situation. You do not hear everything yet thats enough to distract you. Anyways its over am I am happy about it :)

GRE is history!

2007-10-10T09:09:00.002-04:00

I've left GRE behind. Its over and I feel so relaxed. Scored 750 and 490. Next is TOEFL on 17th October. But I don't get the feel to prepare for it. Blame GRE for that! Everything seems so calm. Yeah, exactly like the lull before the storm. A bigger task lies ahead for me. The task of applying to various universites.

Countdown to GRE

2007-10-03T03:27:00.001-04:00

The countdown begins......

I'm tired of preparation and frankly, sick of the verbal section! Feeling frustrated. Just want this to get over as soon as possible!

Mac4Lin hits half century!

2007-10-03T03:25:00.001-04:00

The Mac4Lin Project has clocked half a century downloads! Yeah, the total downloads haf crossed the 50GB mark till date! I thank everyone for supporting me :)

I'm working on version 0.3 of Mac4Lin. Expect a release in under 10 dayz. Keep checking this blog/project website.

Mac4Lin version 0.2 Released!

2007-09-17T05:49:00.001-04:00

I am happy to announce the version 0.2 release of the Mac4Lin Project. Version 0.1 alpha has received an overwhelming response. People have used and liked it and the downloads (as on this day) have touched about 6GB!!! Lots of comments/suggestions/bugs were received and I have tried to iron out all the bugs known till this day. This update also brings a whole lot of new things. See the changelog for changes.

Special thanks to Victor of vsdigital for provding the Firefox Safari Skin, lukeen of gnome-look.org for providing GNOME panel Leopard-like backgrounds and thanks to everyone who tested the version 0.1 alpha. Because of this I'm assigning version 0.2-stable to this release. Keep visiting the project website for more updates.

Apply it, flaunt it, enjoy it! :)

For any suggestions/comments/complaints/feedback/bug tracking please drop by here or send me a mail:

My E-Mail id: infra_red_dude@users.sourceforge.net
Project Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin
Screenshots: http://sourceforge.net/project/scree...roup_id=204373

Hunting universities

2007-09-12T14:29:00.001-04:00

Since the past 2 dayz I haf been gathering info about various universities. Hunting each university's website, getting down to the department I'm interested in, going thru the course/curriculum, reading the admission info etc. Boy! I must say that it sure is a tedious and boring job! I think preping and appearing for GRE is better than this!!! :(

Life after college

2007-09-03T14:04:00.002-04:00

Now that I am officially out of college, its a different life. I had been to college today for some work. That refreshed my memories, looking back at the dayz I spent there with my friends.... The classroom, the canteen, the gathering hot spots, the exam/internals study corners, the fest ads, the labs and so much more. I miss those golden dayz :(

Mac4Lin Project hosted on Sourceforge.net

2007-08-29T03:36:00.000-04:00

My Mac4Lin project is on Sourceforge.net! :) Keep visiting the page for updates. The project has been conceived on Ubuntu and GNOME. But it'll soon be tested on other distros and Unix-like OS which employ GTK+. Its in alpha version as of now. People who would like to test may please drop me a mail. Please leave your comments and suggestions regarding the project here or on the project website. Feature requests and Bug tracking welcomed :)

Let the downloads begin....................

PS: I'm indicating all the approx file sizes here so that nobody wastes their time downloading a corrupt file, if any:

Leopard_Pack_1 -> ~5MB
Leopard_Pack_2 -> ~ 7.8MB
AWN_INSTALL_INSTRUCTIONS -> ~1.2KB
Wallpapers -> ~5MB
GTK_MacMenu -> ~20.6MB

Link to project: Mac4Lin on Sourceforge.net

Setup a home wifi-lan, share internet connection

2007-08-27T13:06:00.002-04:00

Somebody asked me how to setup a wifi home network. so i thot posting here wud be a good idea. This deals wid working on Windows.

Do not be afraid on looking at the length of the tutorial. i've tried to be as descriptive as possible so that you do not haf any kinda confusion. read it once mebbe twice or thrice before attempting.

This tut. assumes that you wanna include a laptop and a desktop in ur home wifi network in the first part and share a net connection in the second part. i'm not discussing an ad-hoc connection here. its a normal wlan setup.

OK, to create a home wlan you will need the following:

1) Desktop wifi pci card/usb adaptor ~Rs. 1k
2) A wifi access point cum router (which has rj45 connectors to connect at least 1 ethernet cable). price ranges from about Rs. 2.5k to 5k. select the one which has at least 1 ethernet connector.
3) A normal ethernet cable to configure ur wifi router for the first time and also to troubleshoot. (a cross over won't do.. it shud be a normal cable.)
4) A wifi enabled laptop or a wifi adaptor (minipci or pcmcia) for a laptop widout wifi feature. ~Rs. 1k

Lets go about configuring ur setup now.

Right click on the wifi adaptor in network connection in windows OS (do lemme know if u use linux. proc will be a bit different) on ur laptop. then goto the tcp/ip protocol and enable the manual ip settings. set this laptop's ip as this: 192.168.1.4. it'll automatically fill in the subnet mask. do not bother abt the gateway and dns servers at the moment. now ur laptop wifi has the ip address of 192.168.1.4. do the same for ur desktop wifi adaptor properties and set its ip address to 192.168.1.5

You need to configure your wifi router. if u haf any other device which connects thru rj45 connect then unplug it (e.g dsl modem/router). now simply connect the wifi router to ur laptop (or even desktop) thru the ethernet cable. usually all routers haf a default lan ip address of 192.168.1.1 (refer the manual as to what is its lan ip address if this doesn't work).

Since you've connected your wifi router to your laptop's lan connection, goto ur fav. web browser on ur laptop and type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. it'll ask for username and password. get these from the wifi router's manual. after entering those it'll display the router's config page. find the category lan/network and find the field that says ip address. it will most probably be 192.168.1.1 (or whatever says the manual). change it to 192.168.1.2. save, exit and then close ur web browser. then launch ur browser again and type 192.168.1.2 in the address. it'll again open the router's config page after asking for username and password. now save and logout.

You haf assigned an ip for 3 devices in ur home wifi. u need to secure ur network now. again goto the router's config -> wireless lan config page. now find the settings that says SSID. this is the network name. u may use the default one or give any name for ur network. note it down on a piece of paper. u may also disable the 'broadcast ssid' option to stop the router from announcing your network all over the place for added security.

Now comes the real security setup. there are three types of security algorithms availalbe in modern wifi routers: WEP, WPA, WPA2. i'd recommend selecting WPA or WPA2 as these are more secure than WEP. select either of them and then give a PSK (pre-shared key) in the network/security key option. let it haf a combination of numerals, upper case and lower case alphabets for better security. a key like ser89dME7da1we3 is a good idea! note it down. save, logout, exit.... then log back in the same way to the config page and ensure whatever you did till now (ip changing, ssid, wpa psk etc.) haf been saved. ensure that logout, exit and then unplug the ethernet cable.

Goto the wireless connection wizard in control panel in ur laptop. go thru the wizard and select connect to a network. it'll search for any available wireless connection. it'll now detect ur router wid the ssid u gave (if the ssid broadcast is not turned off). click on that network and select connect. u may need to key in the ssid in case you'd disabled 'ssid broadcast'. it will now ask for the WPA PSK. jus type in the same key that u set in the router config page and then allow it to connect to the wifi network. select save connection/connect automatically. you can now see a wireless network connected icon in the system tray. congrats! half the work is done now! do the same for the desktop. double congrats!! almost full work is done now!!!

To share files you need to ensure that the 'server' service is enabled in auto mode in control panel>admn services>services. now goto my comp (on desktop), right click on it and selec properties. in the network tab under the computer name jus give a name to the laptop. in the workgroup option, give a name for the workgroup. lets say you've given the name 'mobile' as ur laptop's name and 'myhome' as the workgroup. note them down. now do the same for the desktop. but ensure that you give a DIFFERENT computer name, say 'fixed' to it. however, you need to give the SAME workgroup name to the desktop e.g 'myhome'. you may need to restart.

Now goto my computer/explorer. right click on the folder you wanna share in ur desktop/laptop and select the sharing tab. click 'i understand.....' to activate the sharing options. enable 'share this folder' option and give an identifier for it. then click ok. u will now see a hand emblem under that folder. do the same for all folders/drives/printers on both ur laptop and ur desktop that u need to share. after that goto my network places/network and sharing (vista), you can now see the other computer/shared folders/printers etc. thats it! u are done!

Happy sharing :)

The next part if for those who wanna share an always on a/dsl connection thru this wifi setup.

Setup the modem to autodail mode (router mode, always on). now it'll mostly be hafing the ip address 192.168.1.1. connect it to ur laptop (or desktop) thru lan cable and type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. enter the username and password as provided and then got the config page. ensure that it automatically dials and is in always on mode. also ensure that the ip address, subnet and dns are properly setup here. now save, logout and exit browser. disconnect the a/dsl modem from the laptop and connect it to one of the ethernet ports on the wifi router.

Some wifi routers will allow you to dial thru them. u can set it up from the wifi router's config page. but its better not to mess around and connect it automatically by modifying the a/dsl modem's config page. this will work wid all wifi routers regardless of whether the wifi router supports dialing or not.

You need to configure ur laptop and desktop now. goto the network settings> wifi card> properties (right click). select tcp/ip properties. now in the manual settings you need to fill in the details which you had left blank previsouly. enter gateway as 192.168.1.1 (the a/dsl modem's ip) and the primary dns server as again 192.168.1.1. click ok.. you may then hafta restart. do exactly same for ur desktop. thats it! everything's done..

Happy surfing!

PS: I'm so lazy to post the screenshots! :P

Enhance your SE phone by flashing it!

2007-08-27T12:53:00.002-04:00

Enhance your SE phone (W700i explained here) with new acoustic driver, increased sms capacity and more....

Some articles authored by me to enhance, rather I must say 'hack' your SE phone. Read more here... and here...

Tools to make your Windows XP desktop look like Windows Vista

2007-08-27T12:08:00.002-04:00

I must say I miss Vista looks but XP functionality is more important for me. So I set out to make my desktop look more like Vista.

OK, a more 'Vista'ish desktop here:

Resources used:
MS Visual Style: VistaVG by Vishal
Icons: Icontweaker with Vista Theme
Transparencies: XP Visual Tools
Toolbar in Explorer: Styler with Vista Theme
Sidebar: Thoosje's Sidebar
Vista Start Menu: ViStart (Though I don't use it as I haf problems with some of its features)

Reason why I don't recommend transformation packs is that of all the times I've used them and uninstalled it has completely messed up the system files (shell32.dll etc.). No matter how much I try to restore from the Installation Disc it jus won't go back. Reinstallation has been the only option for me.

Desktop screenshots

2007-08-20T07:02:00.001-04:00

The power of linux!

Is this how your default Ubuntu Linux Desktop (or any other distro) looks?

Letz jazz it up a bit.............

My desktop with latest updates to the customisation pack.

1) Desktop with Leopard Wallpaper - Clean

2) Desktop with Leopard Wallpaper - Dirty

3) Desktop with matching Apple Wallpaper - Clean

4) Desktop with matching Apple Wallpaper - Dirty

GRE TOEFL

2007-08-20T02:14:00.001-04:00

As most of you know, I'm preping for GRE and TOEFL and boy, the verbal section is the most horrible! Easier said than done, securing an admission outside the country is a looooooooong process. GRE/TOEFL/IELTS is jus the first step. A long road awaits me! Anyone interested to share info on this topic?

Revival of my blog

2007-08-20T01:41:00.002-04:00

Here I am again! With a revived blog - a new name, a new place and new contents. Welcome to my blog. Those of you who used to read my blog will surely feel at home :)