Phoenix

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, ...

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!].

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 abou...

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 Quic...

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.

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

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.

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