Phoenix

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.

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 fo...

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 Unive...

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.

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) Book...