tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192995832024-02-06T20:06:12.542-08:00Geek's LogMy thoughts on linux,Security & Geek StuffAjith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-37511125677119108142015-09-04T12:29:00.000-07:002015-09-04T12:29:00.793-07:00Internet for all – Bridging the digital divide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;">F</span></b>rom the 90’s onwards, the
Internet is steadily replacing all other technologies to become the most sought
after medium for the global population. It has given us a platform for
communication, innovation, and economic opportunity. More and more chunks of
populations are being connected to it and more societies being opened to this
abundance of ideas. If the initial form of Internet in the 90’s was just for
communicating via e-mail and for web pages, new ideas are being introduced
day-by-day and we are experiencing a myriad of applications capable of doing
what we had never thought of. Realizing the potential of this medium, even the
UN recently proposed that the ‘Internet access should be made a human right’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Access
for all<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As
the Internet use become a universal phenomenon, the question of ‘network neutrality’
and ‘open access’ gains much importance. Simply speaking, it’s a neutral
architecture that’s open to every conceivable type of application that could be
developed around the world, be it databases, transfer of documents, videos on YouTube,
etc. Technological evangelists visualize a neutral architecture as one which is
unaware of the application it is bearing and which is open to all populations, irrespective
of services. The ideal one proposed is the one which focuses on end-users and
whose policies are not formulated by the owners of the network. But lately, some developments have occurred
which questions such a concept and which are shaped by the technology giants.
We could examine some such efforts:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> <b> </b></span><!--[endif]--><i>Internet.org</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is a Facebook-led initiative
which has its motto as to ‘provide affordable internet, which offers selected
services to two-thirds of the world that doesn’t have the internet access’. It
aims to deploy various technologies like mesh networks, unmanned aerial
vehicles, satellite links and optical communication to provide connectivity
based on geographical position of the target audience. Even though the aim
seems good, the embedded restrictions in offering services which are nicknamed
‘packages’ drew lots of flak from the supporters of open access.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><i>Project ‘Loon’ from Google<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The champion of search and
connectivity world, Google is behind this project which aims to provide
connectivity to remote and rural areas with the help of high-altitude balloons
placed in stratosphere. An offshoot of this project visualizes cellular
communication also through this means in future. As of now, the technology
giant has not talked of any ‘restriction’ of services that it intend to offer
through this way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><i>White Space initiative</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">White Space Coalition is a set of
technology companies including Microsoft, Dell, Google, HP, Intel, Samsung, EarthLink
etc which is working to deliver internet through analog TV signals for remote
areas.For example, Microsoft has come up with its own concept of using the
White space which is the unused TV spectrum (now owned by Doordarshan) to offer
costless connectivity to selected areas of rural India. It has opened up the
project in collusion with the ‘Digital India’ initiative charted out by the
present Government of India. The project is funded by the tech giant and the
necessary infrastructure at the operational level is also provided by it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><i>Outernet/Hughesnet</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are Internet access
initiatives by US companies which offers low-cost access to web through
satellite hotspots which receive signals from small satellite constellation
positioned on outer space. It has been currently launched in US, Europe, North
Africa and Middle East. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Along with these, mobile giants
like Telenor, Orange etc ,space
exploration companies like SpaceX and tech giants like Amazon are starting to
take part in such initiative aimed at bridging the digital divide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Initiatives at Government
level<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If we look at the
initiatives in public space, Many governments and organisations in the world
are developing broadband policies to address the digital infrastructure divide,
by stimulating investment in high-speed broadband infrastructure in rural areas;
for example, through the provision of public–private partnerships and
structural funds.Some projects as part of ‘Digital India’ proposed by the
Government of India is one such initiative.The government is working with the
Department of Telecommunications so as to ensure low-cost access in all parts
of India. Bharat Net, a high speed digital highway to connect all 2.5 lakh Gram
Panchayats of country. This would be the world's largest rural broadband
connectivity project using optical fibre. BSNL has undertaken large scale
deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the country. It has been actively
working to take the benefits of optical technology through NKN(National
Knowledge Network)to all academic institutions including Universities and
Colleges throughout India.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Looking to the outer
space<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If
we review all the projects by private
internet companies outlined above, we could see that the essential approach is
to migrate from terrestrial mode of service to service from outer space. It is
the result of some changes that have come from the late 90’s – satellite
technology has advanced and the cost of deployment has been down, new types of
drones, unmanned aerial vehicles have been developed, abundant use of spectrum
has been achieved – all these contribute to the focus on outer space and
atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Censorship
– a thorn in the path<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Censorship
is the most important impediment in the path to an open internet platform. It
is the control of information and ideas circulated within a society. In old
days, it was enforced by examination of plays, books, television/radio, news
reports etc. But in the age of internet, under the guise of censorship,
governments or societies enforce this in the name of protecting family, state
or religious beliefs. The argument which takes the first place is religious sentiments;
the close second goes to national security and government secrecy, parental
controls take the next position and so on. To control the damage done to their
reputation, the governments have climbed down from their stance and paved way
for milder controls. Most governments resort now to adopting PICS (Platform for
Internet Content Selections)as a means of enforcing censorship.. The ‘Great
Firewall’ implemented in mainland China is an example of tight restrictions in
the censorship of content .It is a government-sponsored framework for
censorship of Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
Wikileaks and Snowden Saga<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
the opening years of the new Century, US and UK governments had enforced laws
like ‘Patriot Act’ and ‘Freedom Act’ or ‘Communications Data Bill’ and snooping
mechanisms like PRISM. Global groups like Global Internet Liberty Campaign
(GILC), American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU), Electronic Frontier
Foundation(EFF), private groups like Anonymous, etc have carried the campaigns
for a neutral and open Internet to the next level by exposing the loopholes in
these mechanisms for mass surveillance which leads to attack on the privacy of
common man. But the crusades of ‘Wikileaks’ owned by Julian Assange and exposes
by Edward Snowden, a former FBI operative have successfully exposed the behind-the-scene
stories of surveillance programs by governments that have reached alarming
levels. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The Age of </b><b>Social Engineering</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nowadays,
the stress of censor mechanisms has focused on Social media platforms as they
have been recognized as the ‘happening areas’ of information dissemination. Using
latest data mining technologies and expert surveillance techniques, the
censors, agencies, governments etc are collecting the online history of
individuals so as to serve as indicators for collective social trands. These
data could even help them in finding how individuals or even populations could
act to change agents. It is no secret that such data can be used for social
engineering by media, corporations and governments as they please.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Closing
Note<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We
now know that no nation can exist as an island in the connected world.The
initiatives outlined above by big and small players is to ensure free and fair
connectivity. When a country goes “online,” the Internet has the capacity to
accelerate its economy and prompt almost immediate growth. From the experiences in developed
countries, it is now evident that the exposure to such a world without
boundaries in communication is not without its flaws. While the reason behind
the endeavors for open and free internet vary and all of them cannot be surely
said as having a positive note for the general public, in the terms of connectivity,
it is the humanity which stand to benefit ultimately. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-87639078592840785812013-07-14T10:48:00.000-07:002013-07-14T10:48:35.561-07:00Dealing with Browser Hijacking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">H</span>ave you experienced a browser
which runs sluggish in nature, starts up with a thousand uninvited redirect
pages and pop-ups which you have not intended to open even once in your life?
Have you recently experienced a barrage of ads on each page you browse that was
once clean ? Have you started to view graphics redirecting you to web-porn in
even the prime news sites you often open to hunt for news ?. Have you seen new
and unheard toolbars and add-ons on your favourite browser which offer fake
search results? Then you maybe the victim of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_hijacking" target="_blank">Browser Hijacking</a>,a not much recent phenomenon, which can compromise your PC security and
online security as a whole.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is a situation where
primarily Scammers use malicious software to take control of your computer's
Internet browser and change how and what it displays when you're surfing the
web. You can keep the hijackers away by keeping your computer updated with the
latest security software updates and practice safe Internet browsing. The
following instructions can help you to keep defended against compromised
security, and malicious attacks accompanying this type of threat:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Check
using the test <a href="http://www.removingmalware.org/5-ways-to-find-out-if-your-computer-is-infected-with-malware" target="_blank">listed here</a>
if your computer is infected with malware.</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Apart
from antivirus and antispyware check, 'Hijackthis' and 'CWShredder' are good
tools to enumerate <span> </span>browser and
system security against malware.</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Check
you browser settings and go through the plugins/add-ons and
disable/uninstall any malicious/unintended entries in this sections.</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Check
toolbars section in browser menu and disable those which you have not
intentionally enabled.</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Check
you ‘hosts’ file (at C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc)and remove any
entries other than : #<span> </span>127.0.0.1<span> </span>localhost<span> </span>and <span> </span>#<span> </span>::1<span> </span>localhost</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Check
the advanced security setting in your browser using the US-CERT guide: <a href="http://www.us-cert.gov/publications/securing-your-web-browser">http://www.us-cert.gov/publications/securing-your-web-browser</a></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Norton Power Eraser is a
free, downloadable tool that uses aggressive methods to detect threats
related to browser hijack.Check the link <a href="https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/kb20100811171926EN_EndUserProfile_en_us">https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/kb20100811171926EN_EndUserProfile_en_us</a>)</span></span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The above read
may be time-consuming and steps listed shall be painful for those who can’t
wait much…But devoting some time towards this can be a life-saving one for most
of you.</span></span></div>
</div>
Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India8.4874949 76.9486238.4874949 76.948623 8.4874949 76.948623tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-5526946414667434992012-07-10T03:24:00.000-07:002012-07-10T03:24:04.100-07:00Another first in Linux hall of fame<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSvPj4s9BD-R_3a6IeSFbefBqO55KMTU746oy81H1HDlJGBvxLJDDkyxIhvFWyCBjZnFkaf1VDMYHq0My7kVuOPG-bok7hWtIDaLOhxgRcGa82O7eLQ9quA9dtxGBcdtk7mdFLHQ/s1600/CERNlinux.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSvPj4s9BD-R_3a6IeSFbefBqO55KMTU746oy81H1HDlJGBvxLJDDkyxIhvFWyCBjZnFkaf1VDMYHq0My7kVuOPG-bok7hWtIDaLOhxgRcGa82O7eLQ9quA9dtxGBcdtk7mdFLHQ/s200/CERNlinux.gif" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSvPj4s9BD-R_3a6IeSFbefBqO55KMTU746oy81H1HDlJGBvxLJDDkyxIhvFWyCBjZnFkaf1VDMYHq0My7kVuOPG-bok7hWtIDaLOhxgRcGa82O7eLQ9quA9dtxGBcdtk7mdFLHQ/s1600/CERNlinux.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: large;">T</span>he apex organization that played the most major role in experiments leading to existance of the 'god particle' a.k.a, the Higgs Boson particle, privately and publicly lauds the part of three factors greatly helping in the process - Linux, coffee and C++.<br /><br />An unnamed physicist at CERN has quoted "I need to mention how Linux(Specifically Scientific Linux and Ubuntu) had a vital role in the discovery of the new particle at CERN" in a recent <a href="http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/07/linux-played-crucial-role-in-discovery.html" target="_blank">'Ubuntu Vibes' article.</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />But those watching the High Performance Computing scene closely will not be amused at this as it's not exactly any secret that Linux dominates the world of high-performance computing."We use it every day in our analyses, together with hosts of open software, such as ROOT, and it plays a major role in the running of our networks of computers (in the grid etc.) used for the intensive work in our calculations", the officials at CERN adds.<br /><br />CERN website has a recently featured support site for Scientific Linux at the address : <a href="http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/">http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/</a><br /><br />Then again, an anonymous scientist noted "The most important members of the team: the folks who made coffee, those who managed linux OS and apps and finally who codes in C++"<br /><br />Robert Pogson, a noted blogger wrote "Then, too, there's the fact that "the data-analysis needed at CERN for the Higgs boson is immense," he pointed out. "No scientist at a time like this wants an OS that wants to re-re-reboot, slow down, welcome malware or phone home." In short, "the fact that that other OS charges more to do less makes the choice of OS for number-crunching easy," Pogson concluded. "Go, GNU/Linux!" <br /><br />In fact the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG), which combines the power of more than 170 computing centres in 36 countries, is based on Scientific Linux. You can get a live real-time information of the worldwide LHC data processing mapped on top of Google Earth from here:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://dashb-earth.cern.ch/dashboard/doc/guides/service-monitor-gearth/html/user/index.html">http://dashb-earth.cern.ch/dashboard/doc/guides/service-monitor-gearth/html/user/index.html</a><br /><br />It is felt by everyone that when talk is of serious scientific computing, linux is the standard and is practically synonymous to High Performance Computing.Sadly,as we are now aware, the Higgs Boson is not a 'God particle' any more than any other particle can be said to have a divine connection; but it might be the elusive phenomenon of nature that helps cement Linux's reputation as science's best friend. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">NOTE: The views expressed here are exclusively the personal views of those who expressed them. This blog doesnt endorse them to any degree of exactness.The discretion of reader is advised.</span></span></div>
</div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-55796275939429978622011-06-27T03:17:00.000-07:002011-07-08T02:28:11.139-07:00The Case for MeeGo<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div style='text-align: justify;'><a onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}' href='http://swipe.nokia.com/'><img border='0' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 293px; height: 277px;' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhf5EKRwZ1TG31c6rKSymGD_ERugCYnZqgeSCK08VgEFh_i9yeNQ_82X2dbNEpz1PXTO2mRkKhn9rRf4kPbkTf_TyzAVQOp4CNa3Z3V17459veHMWOl12tGKEbg0mTaQyPiu7NQ/s320/nokia-n9-colors.jpg' alt='' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622841990982802978'/></a><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>(Cross-posted on Blog <a href='http://inquirermind.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-case-for-meego.html'>Inquirer Mind</a></span>)</small><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><big><big><big>N</big></big></big>okia unveiled its latest smartphone, <a href='http://swipe.nokia.com/'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>N9</span></a>, at the "<a href='http://www.nokiaconnection.net/'>Nokia Connection 2011</a>" summit on June 21 at Singapore.On a first look,it is everything you'd ever wanted from the company: a smartphone with a competitive spec sheet, and a touch-centric UI that looks futuristic.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>The company had laid claims that is would be the only high-end smartphone line based on <a href='https://meego.com/'>MeeGo</a>,- which is an open source, Linux project which brings together the Moblin project, headed up by Intel, and Maemo, by Nokia, into a single open source activity.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Observers believe that Nokia is at crossroads as it has announced it is abandoning the <a href='http://symbian.nokia.com/'>Symbian platform</a> in favour of <a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone'>Windows Mobile</a> but had to take U-turn with announcement of the N9 handset powered by MeeGo which is another open source platform.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>The compelling features touted by the manufacturer as being highlight of this handset are as follows:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>- Polycarbonate material</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>- Carl zeiss lens 8mp camera</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>- Gorilla glass Display,</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>- HD playing capability upto 1080p,</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>- Dolby Sound Enhancement" etc.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>The real story</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>But the real story behind this new gadget is the war between two platforms (Windows Mobile and MeeGo(or the larger open source bandwagon to be exact))on one side and two mobile giants (Nokia and Intel)on other.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Earlier, after release of Nokia N8,Nokia announced it would make Windows Phone 7 Nokia's primary mobile platform, not MeeGo. This halted a bold initiative to bring Linux to a new class of Nokia mobile devices.This had been deplored by scores of mobile enthusiasts and platform developers (especially from open source arena)as a behind the scene understanding between Nokia and Microsoft to put brakes on open-source based mobile OS's to emerge as a strong contender in market through Nokia handsets.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Moreover, Nokia at the corporate level had tried to use the wings of some negative reviews by tech gurus on MeeGo OS that is was yet to develop a viable development community. But after negative reviews from public and also the resignation of its technical head in this issue,Nokia had second thoughts and made a u-turn by this announcement that MeeGo shall be the primary OS for at least the upcoming high-end release from Nokia.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Another noted observation on the current market is that if Nokia completely turned to Propreitory OS, it would have to suffer stiff competition from MeeGo + Android on one hand and also possibility of losing its current market space to other giants which is already happening on a large scale.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>The case of MeeGo</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>But the fact remains that MeeGo also continues to be a viable choice for device manufacturers looking to enter a competitive mobile market providing a clearly differentiated experience.Nokia hadn't expected such rave reviews from onlookers when it decided to go for Windows Mobile platform forever.Intel is actively behind MeeGo and QT and this company is going to go full throttle at the mobile space over the next few years. Maybe this has prompted Nokia who want to be another monopoly to thwart the emergence of another competitor in the market.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><span style='color: rgb(0, 0, 153);'> "The fundamentals fundamentally favor open source"</span>, said Jim Zemlin, Linux foundation director, at the <a href='http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/'>Mobile World conference</a> keynote at Singapore.The late reviews on features of new handset N9 is also positive as it sports video call facility which is not included even in latest iPhone version which claims to own the major player in smarphones.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>If Intel wants MeeGo to be viable in its future, it is also needed that the platform should try to evolve as a robust one within a short span of time.The current situation though is changing soon though, as the fundamentals aren't completely horrible and the frameworks, community and ecosystem are quietly being built up for MeeGo.</span><br/><br/><span style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-family: verdana; font-size: 78%;'>The author doesn't claim that the information published in the post is authentic and is purely based on observations</span><br/></div><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=981cd597-4ead-80cc-aeff-6f4de9c0ad2e' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-69680782826227934772011-05-12T03:59:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:46:27.807-07:00Facebook comments : A farewell to anonymity ?<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}' href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuIGznOwCRAAv3rPfZBuKh5xAIiOu3cHOiywIPV1jTFxFhQOHzoNQsY_uHM0kF2GMbQXvbk94-mWK97pizxHV-sjCmQ4JSS_H10_KVY69YSBGYgIBLft7pRnlKGrHQN6KZV1FcdA/s1600/anonymity.jpg'><img border='0' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 114px;' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuIGznOwCRAAv3rPfZBuKh5xAIiOu3cHOiywIPV1jTFxFhQOHzoNQsY_uHM0kF2GMbQXvbk94-mWK97pizxHV-sjCmQ4JSS_H10_KVY69YSBGYgIBLft7pRnlKGrHQN6KZV1FcdA/s320/anonymity.jpg' alt='' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605782545522212946'/></a><br/><div style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; font-size: 180%;'>O</span>n April 2011, Facebook, the leading social networking site announced its new 'comment-box add-on' aimed at what it terms "more personalized chats on third-party sites".This has become a serious concern for those who believe in anonymous and frank discussions on the corners of the net.<br/><br/></span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/article/221106/facebook_beefs_up_comment_box_for_external_sites.html'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>http://www.pcworld.com/article/221106/facebook_beefs_up_comment_box_for_external_sites.html</span></a></span> <span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>Even though the new feature was aimed to make comments more relevant in social networking arena, the fact that facebook adds the personal info of users next to their posts and had added links to these third party sites and feeds in the posts have increased risks on privacy of the users who comment.</span></span> <span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>All this is helpful to those interested in tying thier general online activities with Facebook. But consider the scenario if you 'don't want your comments on a site to be visible to your 500 facebook friends?'.It is suggested that in this case, by default, the "Post to Facebook" box underneath the comments widget in third-party sites should be checked.Even though your comments are hidden, the people on that site will still see your Facebook Profile picture and if they click, can access your profile.<br/><br/>Sometimes serious issues of free speech can be underlying like this observation where U.S. Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin of Illinois asked Facebook Chief Executive Officer to allow users to choose anonymity, invoking the political situations in Egypt and Tunisia just a day before the former achieved freedom.The fact that many of the activists couldnt use anonymity as shield aided the state to crackdown on them.</span></span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Christopher "moot" Poole, the founder of Internet anonymity haven <a href='http://www.4chan.org'>4chan</a>, thinks Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is wrong when it comes to online identities. Remaining unknown online frees people to blaze ahead with creative endeavors they might otherwise shy away from for fear of being embarrassed. </span></span> <span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/><a href='http://techcrunch.com/'>TechCrunch</a>, which implemented Facebook Comments as an experiment last week, reports that while the total volume of comments is down significantly, the comment nastiness quotient is approaching zero -- except, apparently, for nasty comments about their new commenting system.In other words, people who might have left casual comments under the cloak of anonymity are choosing not to comment at all under the new system, turning TechCrunch into a sloppy space. This is the verification of the arguiment that the nature of commenting on the web needs to feel organic and fluid, just like it does in real life and should be anonymous if necessary.</span></span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>But being such an extremely social company, Facebook's insistence that you have one identity across the web is both short-sighted and flawed, and people are starting to realize this. </span></span> <span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>And i want to remind you if you are concerned about online security, switch over to <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymizer'>anonymous browsing options</a> and see how online anonymity can make your Facebook experience safe and secure.</span></span> </div><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=ef6234be-ea61-8a03-a84e-81b4ed187a64' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-13358669380486580692011-03-19T02:48:00.000-07:002011-03-19T03:09:39.084-07:00Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb91dwqvVNtQh8yjzOvGMMxHiA8KsBcLTl2aB4DyddDe6SY2Fc8uiT-kLkdO7TWm6qX5uMBKHRqxc8EprPM-Py_KAn4HVq9cWrcFX-ozzry3Xozj-Rl5Qom5q2mmVzzH249XYGyg/s1600/wikilogo.small.gif' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585726936917888258' alt='' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb91dwqvVNtQh8yjzOvGMMxHiA8KsBcLTl2aB4DyddDe6SY2Fc8uiT-kLkdO7TWm6qX5uMBKHRqxc8EprPM-Py_KAn4HVq9cWrcFX-ozzry3Xozj-Rl5Qom5q2mmVzzH249XYGyg/s320/wikilogo.small.gif' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 135px;'/></a><br /><div style='text-align: justify; font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 180%;'>DAKF</span> (Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom) is a association of IT workers and IT users formed on 2008 Dec 21 at Naresh Pal Centre,Ernakulam dist', Kerala,India.It works to encourage and promote FOSS and knowledge freedom. DAKF is centred in Kerala and is very much interested in FOSS meets. It is definitely not an apolitical organization and joins political activism with a free movement for its immediate ends.<br /><br /><br />DAKF is getting into the mainstream of Kerala IT field by constituting its bodies in all districts of Kerala as well as any part of globe where malayalee IT personnel concentration is there.<br /><br />Official website: <a href='http://dakf.in/'>http://dakf.in</a> (Malayalam wiki engine-based)<br />An allied blog on relevant issues can be found at :<a href='http://vivaravicharam.blogspot.com/'> http://vivaravicharam.blogspot.com</a><br /><br />The stated objectives of DAKF are:<br /><br />* Freedom of knowledge<br />* Spread of Free software and computing methods<br />* Breaking the divide between haves and havenots in software and related services<br />* Work with a social objective in Cyberspace<br />* work for the progressive development of workers and professionals in the field of IT & ITES<br />* Work to ensure that public money as well as government schemes in IT or related are implemented without corruption and to weed out <br /> impediments on the way for its results.<br /><br />Currently, 9 district committees at Kottayam, Kannur, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Kasargod, Pathanamthitta & Alappuzha have been formed in Kerala and have commenced working on the above objectives.<br /><br />Also some allied organisations work in tandem with the organization :<br /><br />* Appropriate Technology Promotion Society(ATPS) Reg. No. ER-419/2001 ,a registered society working on promotion of GPL-based software(Open <br /> Source)on technlogy and service fields<br />* <a href='http://www.ossics.com/'>Open Software Solutions Industrial Co-operative Society Limited </a>(OSSICS) No. S. IND. E-245), a conglomeration of IT professionals providing <br /> software services and consulatation based on Open Software only<br />* Free Software Industries Association, Kerala ,an association of software companies offering software and services in IT and ITES<br />* IT @ KWA, an organization of Kerala Water Authority staff for the promotion of free software<br />* <a href='http://www.cusat.ac.in/'>Cochin University of Science and Technology </a>(CUSAT)<br />* <a href='http://www.dyfi.in'>Democratic Youth Federation of India </a>(DYFI)<br />* <a href='http://www.citucentre.org/'>Centre for Indian Trade Unions</a> (CITU)<br /><br />DAKF is working now on many fields, organizing FOSS meets statewide, educating the public and professionals on various issues relating to FOSS as well as software freedom, activism on issues given as its objectives, classes and meets for students and teachers, hands-on workshops, developments of new open software and platforms etc. It is also having a major role in promoting malayalam-based computing in the state of Kerala.<br /></span></div><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=59cc4675-72ee-86fa-aad2-f82b68b154e1' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-32815055968648384292011-01-30T23:26:00.000-08:002011-01-31T00:36:48.675-08:00How to effectively recover lost/corrupted mysql data<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 130%;'>O</span>ne of the most difficult situations that a system/database administrator may comprehend is the </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>loss of mysql table data or accidental dropping/overwriting of MySQL database being hosted in a </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>production environment. In a recent study, it was revealed that even now, of the live servers </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>being hosted worldwide, only about 30% employ effective backup/recovery methods that would </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>assure data recovery at the worst case scenario.I had also gone through such a travail recently </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>and found that about 65% of the data were permanently lost which could be recovered only </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>through professional hands employing high-level data-carving/forensic tools.Anyway, i could be </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>very much near the solutions even though it took 4-5 days to go through all possible options of </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>recovery and finally recover data,and put in place, an alternative measure for future. I think </span></span><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>many people will be interested in such solutions:</span></span><br/><br/><span style='color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>The Golden Rule :</span> The first thing to be done after any db is created is to be a good backup </span></span><span style='color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>mechanism.Negligence in this would cost you money,time and most importantly, your reputation.</span></span><br/><br/><big><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new; font-size: 85%;'>Step 1: Setting the stage</span></big><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Firstly, if you are using the database as a backend of a web application and you suddenly find</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> database crashed, but you feel that the data is still being displayed in the application fully </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>or partially, dont waste even a moment and take an online db backup through mysqldump or a GUI </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>backup tool like mysql administrator.Maybe the db crash had occurred and data still persists in </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>the cache which can be extracted through mysqldump.</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>Another important thing you may look forward to at this juncture is if <font color='#660000'><b>'mysql binary logging' i</b></font>s enabled in the server.</span></span><small><font face='verdana'>Certain data recovery operations require use of the binary log. After a backup has been restored, the events in the binary log that were recorded after the backup was made are re-executed. These events bring databases up to date from the point of the backup</font></small>.<span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Just check if following directive is given uncommented in your server's '/etc/my.cnf' configuration file:</span></span><br/><b><small><br/>log-bin = /var/log/mysql/bin.log</small></b><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/>and the directory like the following one is created:</span></span><br/><pre>'/var/log/mysql/bin.xxxxxxx' (where x maybe any number)</pre><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>If both exists, we can infer that binary logging is enabled. Please use the following documentation for further proceding with recovery:<br/><br/></span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/binary-log.html'>http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/binary-log.html</a><br/><br/><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>If this doesn't work, before you attempt recovery on deleted data in any case, it is advisable to isolate</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> the system from further access from network and from further human intervention.Unplug the</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> system from network and using a proven disk imaging solution like Norton Ghost or DriveImage,</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>take an image of entire hard-disk and restore in a system having identical configuration.</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Moreover, test the mysql server in this copy system if it has the running copy of the db's in</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> the original system so that database dumps can be made and restored in original system.This can be</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> your insurance on playing with and attempting various methods in the filesystem/DB in</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> question.Never attempt recovery in the live system or otherwise, you may end up with a much</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> difficult situation.</span></span></big><br/><br/><big><big><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new; font-size: 85%;'>Step 2: Entry-level procedure</span></big><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>This should be followed next if the database in question is dropped and no identical database name had </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>come into existence.This ensures recreating all the tables and form data in '/var/lib/mysql' </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>folder(if it's a linux server) using simple file-recovery software. The most effective ones </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>are:</span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><span style='font-style: italic; font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>DiskInternals Partition Recovery</span></span></big></li><li><big><span style='font-style: italic; font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>R-Studio Corporate Edition</span></span></big></li><li><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-style: italic;'>File-Scavenge</span>r</span></span></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/>Simply find in which linux partition, the '/var' directory resides and after imaging and restore, </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>attempt recovery through a windows machine by connecting the imaged HDD(not that of live server) as slave.</span></span><br/><br/><big><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new; font-size: 85%;'>Step 3: Advanced recovery</span><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;'> <span style='font-size: 85%;'>methods</span></span></big><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>In case, the db being dropped was later created once again or overwritten with another schema, </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>you cannot ensure recovery by above methods as the recovery software only detects the latest </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>version of the form names and not which was overwritten.Then we should directly attempt </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>database-specific tools as below</span></span>:<br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>If the database in question is using <span style='font-weight: bold;'>MyISAM</span> format, the below link maybe of some help.(Also </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>some commercial solutions are available for professional recovery).</span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><a href='http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/myisam-repair.html'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/myisam-repair.html</span></span></a><br/></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>But if the DB is using <span style='font-weight: bold;'>InnoDB</span> format(most widely used in production environments)please go thru </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>some of the methods below:</span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Below link has some firsthand information as well as good documentation of InnoDB recovery tool</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>available in 'sourceforge' which is an open projects repository.</span></span><br/></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='http://www.chriscalender.com/?tag=innodb-recovery-tool'>http://www.chriscalender.com/?tag=innodb-recovery-tool</a></span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Another InnoDB recovery tool from Percona Ltd</span></span></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='https://launchpad.net/percona-innodb-recovery-tool/+download'> https://launchpad.net/percona-innodb-recovery-tool/+download</a></span></span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Above are one of the most accurate and to-the-point recovery procedures available for InnoDB</span></span><br/><br/><big><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new; font-size: 85%;'>Step 4: Prevention is better next time</span></big><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Now as recovery is made, lets not leave it here.The most essential and final step in </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>such a scenario should be putting a backup/preventive mechanism in place.</span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Most popular one is the Automysqlbackup script that takes daily/weekly/monthly backups of all</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> mysql db's in a server and which has many customisable options.Please check it out here:</span></span><br/></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/'> http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/</a></span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Mysql website has also listed out offcial backup procedures here:</span></span></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/backup-methods.html'>http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/backup-methods.html</a></span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>You could also employ tools like zmanda backup at some expense:</span></span></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='http://www.zmanda.com/backup-mysql.html'>http://www.zmanda.com/backup-mysql.html</a></span></span><br/></big><ul><li><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Finally,some real high-end geek stuff if you have time and resources for implementation ie, </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Replication</span></span></big></li></ul><big><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/replication.html'>http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/replication.html</a></span></span></big><br/><br/><span style='color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 78%;'>Note: Please note that the above methods doesn't at all ensure 100% recovery of data and scenario may arise when any this cannot work with destroyed data at all.The author doesn't give any guarantee that the above are risk-free and should be attempted carefully and by experienced hands.</span><br/></span></span></div><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=a668d829-a5bf-884f-834b-4241075ba2f8' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-16128494566883476312010-08-14T23:02:00.000-07:002010-08-14T23:44:23.109-07:00Open Source India Conference,Chennai,2010<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOiJlFlSCVhsSVuGpmyq-BBrLkjtRoOQoHd7sKfBHBZaF6jZkp8_iNII5ZEst_yGOD8xzr6J_NjUJU_ImmMfGvYt29DRlx6z_JkWwWtOzvr9eaM6M_f1_3XtDoAMB3PFWev8KTA/s1600/basic_logo.png' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505520387351963506' alt='' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOiJlFlSCVhsSVuGpmyq-BBrLkjtRoOQoHd7sKfBHBZaF6jZkp8_iNII5ZEst_yGOD8xzr6J_NjUJU_ImmMfGvYt29DRlx6z_JkWwWtOzvr9eaM6M_f1_3XtDoAMB3PFWev8KTA/s200/basic_logo.png' style='float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 67px;'/></a><div style='font-family: verdana;' class='node-inner'><div class='content'><div style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 180%;'>A </span>year of preparation & planning, fighting & execution, and the long wait is to bear fruit finally.The </span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><a href='http://osidays.com/'>Open Source India</a> Conference, 2010(formerly LinuxAsia) will be unveiled at Trade Center,Chennai on 19th September,2010. A path-breaking movement for Open Source in India started in 2003, and with the mission to accelerate the growth of adoption of Open Source in Asia. Till date, the overall mission of Open Source India remains same. A key attribute of Open Source India is that it tries to bridge the gap between the 'community' and the 'industry'</span></div> <p style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>OSI Days is the crossroads of all things open source, bringing together 3000+ of the best, brightest, and most interesting people to explore what's new, and to champion the cause of open principles and open source adoption</span></p><p style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Official Website : <a href='http://osidays.com/'>http://osidays.com/</a></span></p><p style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Registrations : <a href='http://osidays.com/register-now'>http://osidays.com/register-now</a></span></p><p style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Speakers : <a target='_blank' rel='nofollow' onmousedown=''UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this),' href='http://osidays.com/speakers'><span>http://osidays.com/speaker</span><wbr/><span class='word_break'/>s</a></span></p><p style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Sessions : <a target='_blank' rel='nofollow' onmousedown=''UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this),' href='http://osidays.com/sessions'><span>http://osidays.com/session</span><wbr/><span class='word_break'/>s</a></span></p> <span style='font-size: 85%;'>The various highlights of the conference:</span><br/><ul style='text-align: justify;'><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Meet the experts of PHP, Open Source Databases, Apache, Python, Perl, Ruby on Rails</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>See the best of breed technologies of Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Parallelism for Open Source World</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Meet decision makers, CXO level Open Source champions, students and Government Official</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Use open source to target Android, iPhone and other mobile platforms</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Learn Open Source Business Models, Legal Issues and marketing strategies</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Participate in FOSS India Awards, 2010.</span></li></ul> <p style='text-align: justify;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>At OSI Days you can choose to attend from multiple tracks around open source technologies and platforms, attend best of breed tutorials/ workshops, network with who is who of open source world and a chance to see a great city Chennai and India! The proposed tracks of event are:</span></p> <ul style='text-align: justify;'><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>Mobile(</strong>App Development, Game Development, Android, iPhone, Symbian & Others)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>IT Managers / Business</strong><span style='font-weight: bold;'>(</span>Legal, Community Management, Best Practices, Marketing Strategies, Open Web / Standardization, & Business Models)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>Cloud Computing(</strong>Tools and Platforms, Cloudnomics, Cloud for Dummies & Others)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>Government(</strong>Applications, eGovernance, Case Study, & Legal)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>Hardware(</strong>Infrastructure Management, Security, Semi Embedded Devices, Parallelization, Grid, Multi Core, Multi Threading, Virtualization & Others)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>PHP(</strong>PHP 5 & 6, PHP Security, Frameworks, Architecture / QA, & Best Practices)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>Ruby on Rails(Drupal</strong>:Best Practices, Module Development, Theme Development, Scaling/ Management/ Performance & Others)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>Databases(</strong>MySQL, NoSQL, CouchDB, PostgreSQL, Ingres, SQLite & Others)</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><strong>Developer / Tools & Techniques</strong></span></li></ul><br/><div class='socialMid'><br/> <a href='http://www.blogger.com/blog/feed'><img height='21' width='22' src='http://www.blogger.com/sites/all/themes/basic/css/images/rss_top.png'/></a><a href='http://www.facebook.com/OSIDays'><img height='21' width='22' src='http://www.blogger.com/sites/all/themes/basic/css/images/img_2.png'/></a><br/></div><span style='color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 78%;'>OSI Days is organized by the '<a href='http://fosii.org/'>Forum for Open Source Initiative in India' (FOSII)'</a>, in association with <a href='http://www.linuxforu.com/'>LINUX For You magazine</a>, and powered by the EFY Group of publications.</span> <p> </p> </div> </div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-17249784672074370882010-05-24T01:41:00.001-07:002010-05-24T01:52:08.478-07:00Ubuntu Community does it again with 'Unity'<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div align='justify'><div align='left'><img width='261' height='87' style='max-width: 800px;' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHvFWm-gdazadWB3xEhvIQaSQg4iR8d5_k7t0gO04opSGHuV0UoeNJnGn3ullpVxbR74woRbfdRSkfNXfgsfHGlThlpJrFjgtKaX_wDkfU3HfZTsfJZnAyGW0E9jj0SJ_gwAi0ag/?imgmax=800'/><br/></div><br/>The Ubuntu Developer Summit, La Hulpe, Belgium, May 10, 2010 has been host to a couple of major happenings in the linux developer world - <b>Unveiling of Canonical's Desktop Environment codenamed 'Unity' and also a range of Light versions of Ubuntu, both netbook and desktop, that are optimised for dual-boot scenarios</b>(It can install vis-a-vis Windows and present as an option to boot). The new slew of product versions is clearly aimed at gaining upperhand in domain of netbooks and related 'touch-based' devices.It has been announced that 'Unity will be the desktop environment for Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition onwards, released in October 2010, and is available to developers building applications for the netbook environment.'<br/><br/>In parallel to this, Canonical announced 'Ubuntu Light'.This cut-down version of Ubuntu features IM, browser (esp for Social Networks) and media player applications and is aimed at PC manufacturers seeking an 'instant-web' experience that complements Windows on consumer PCs.This has the greatest feature that it connects to web within 10 seconds of booting, with a running browser and a Media Player interface that integrates with Windows Clearly for Ubuntu, it is a new market segment which will witness much impetus in the near future.<br/><br/>Canonical had made available the Netbook Edition and Remix editions here:<br/><br/><a href='http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-netbook' target='_blank'>http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-netbook</a><br/><br/><a href='https://launchpad.net/%7Ecanonical-dx-team/+archive/une' target='_blank'>https://launchpad.net/~canonical-dx-team/+archive/une</a><br/><br/>Screenshots : <br/><a href='%20http://www.canonical.com/products/unity' target='_blank'><br/><a href='http://www.canonical.com/products/unity' target='_blank'>http://www.canonical.com/products/unity</a></a><br/><br/>With this release, Canonical has achieved yet another feat : evoke competition in the Netbook segmant with mac by presenting a mac-like experience and to bridge a gap between a pure OS and a Netbook UI. Unity is clearly optimized for netbooks, featuring a dock on the left side of the screen (as evident from screenshots)from which you can launch applications and browse your computer's file system. In addition, the title bars of windows will be on the menu bar instead of on the window itself, Mac OS X-style. These types of tweaks are designed to maximize vertical space for browsing, in a world where widescreen monitors are the new norm (especially on netbooks).<br/><br/>To sum up, we can quote the words of Marc Shuttleworth of Canonical on the new experience:<i> <br/><br/><font color='#660000'>"Unity is a new canvas for the collective Ubuntu imagination to paint on. It has proven a perfect base for Ubuntu Light, and the roadmap ahead promises to make Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition a landmark release."</font></i></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-13244357928015975332010-04-09T11:15:00.000-07:002010-05-23T23:47:23.376-07:00Its time to ditch the FAT<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'><big><big><big><big>M</big></big></big></big>icrosoft has been recently in news as new evangelists of open world, expressing affinity to openness and encouraging critics to give it a respite from cloud of doubts about its true intentions. But as someone has quoted, "Always the real Satan comes out from a veiled angel".When it comes to market and products, it again proves that it can't be trusted and is not willing to support truly open technologies.</span></small><br/><div align='justify'><br/></div><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'>The limelight has again fallen on it as a dispute with a reputed navigation device manufacturer in US called '<a href='http://www.tomtom.com/'>TomTom</a>'.The conflict between Microsoft and TomTom raised serious concerns within the open source software community. Microsoft alleged that TomTom's navigation products, using the open source Linux kernel, infringe on Microsoft's patents (:p). The patents cited by Microsoft include compatibility features in Microsoft's FAT filesystem, support for which is implemented in Linux. Fears were raised that the lawsuit was the beginning of another patent campaign by Microsoft against embedded Linux community. </span></small><br/><div align='justify'><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'>TomTom responded to Microsoft's lawsuit earlier this month using a countersuit that Microsoft had infringed some of its navigation patents. As conflict escalated, TomTom joined the <a href='http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/'>Open Invention Network (OIN)</a>, an organization that has accumulated a defensive patent portfolio for protecting Linux from patent infringement lawsuits. It was also speculated the the larger Open Source / linux community would assemble for defense of their embedded developer brothers which has been averted for now by the settlement agreement between Microsoft and TomTom by which TomTom would pay for any infringement from its side.</span></small><br/><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'>But the real story of this is that microsoft has suffered in both ends, in the larger embedded product market and also in the IPR world. The deal would mean that Tom Tom would remove the functionality that is covered under the FAT patents. This will guarantee that the code in TomTom's Linux kernel can continue to be broadly redistributed downstream without patent redtape and without support of Microsoft, but having broad spectrum support from Linux Community.Another thing is that the Software giant would suffer further setbacks from Upstream kernel developers as they could potentially adopt TomTom's code changes in order to avoid future patent disputes with Microsoft over FAT.</span></small><br/><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'>The linux community has also come into the scene with a prominent stand:</span></small><br/><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'>" It has even gone to extent of announcing new kernel patches to work around Microsoft FAT patents according to this story:</span></small><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'> </span></small><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'> <a href='http://www.osnews.com/story/21766/Linux_Kernel_Patch_Works_Around_Microsoft_s_FAT_Patents'>http://www.osnews.com/story/21766/Linux_Kernel_Patch_Works_Around_Microsoft_s_FAT_Patents</a></span></small><br/><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'>" In the larger Storage and Clustered filesystems front, new alliances like "<a href='http://www.opencloudmanifesto.org/'>Open Cloud Manifesto</a>" have sprung up with support of IBM to explore possibilities in </span></small><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'> building interoperable open solutions towards open storage filesystems. </span></small><br/><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'>" And lately,open source big brothers are now keeping a close watch on the embedded and mobile development scenario against any such misadventure by large </span></small><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'> monopolies.</span></small><br/><br/><small><span style='font-family: verdana;'><a href='http://www.linuxfoundation.org/'>Linux Foundation</a> executive director Jim Zemlin is the most vocal in his observation over this matter.He suggests that product makers should consider the possibility of rejecting Microsoft's legacy FAT filesystem and should instead adopt an unencumbered open source alternative.We can quote him as below:</span></small><br/><br/><span style='color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif;'><small><big><i><small>"The technology at the heart of this settlement is the FAT filesystem. As acknowledged by Microsoft in the press release, this file system is easily replaced with multiple technology alternatives. The Linux Foundation is here to assist interested parties in the technical coordination of removing the FAT filesystem from products that make use of it today," he wrote. "Microsoft does not appear to be a leopard capable of changing its spots. Maybe it's time developers go on a diet from Microsoft and get the FAT out of their products."</small></i></big></small></span><br/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-38706779653870603172009-11-06T21:48:00.000-08:002009-11-06T22:26:23.517-08:00Ubuntu v/s Windows 7 : Some early thoughts<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div style='text-align: justify;'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2GU51IhbAqTxSC86SsPd41RxivD04WcZlHXv2GMeCTCJD0i8wupl1sWc6kgs1i5WteHTqw3nIc3ca6SWPuDCmfeaxDgjEqXLK_MPPCqUZTZk3mg6KuYKaANn0_wPXKHaxDyDh1g/s1600-h/ubuntu-910-vs-windows-7.jpg' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401237018806910082' alt='' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2GU51IhbAqTxSC86SsPd41RxivD04WcZlHXv2GMeCTCJD0i8wupl1sWc6kgs1i5WteHTqw3nIc3ca6SWPuDCmfeaxDgjEqXLK_MPPCqUZTZk3mg6KuYKaANn0_wPXKHaxDyDh1g/s200/ubuntu-910-vs-windows-7.jpg' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 122px;'/></a><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 130%;'>W</span>hether you belong to either Windows or Linux territory,here is a small account of my own comparison of the new competitors in OS field.I could get a taste of both the new OS's in relatively old (3yrs !!!)desktop having 2GB RAM and an AMD Athlon XP Processor(2GHz).Here i am taking the vital aspects of an operating system into account,to decide which is better, <span style='font-weight: bold;'><a href='http://www.ubuntu.com/'>Ubuntu 9.10</a></span><span style='font-weight: bold;'/><span style='font-weight: bold;'> </span></span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>(Codename : Karmic Koala)</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>or <a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/'>Windows 7</a> </span><span>(Codename : Vienna)</span><span style='font-weight: bold;'>?</span></span> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Speed:</span> Talking about speed, if you've got an older computer that is starting to feel sluggish but you either don't want to or can't afford to buy a new computer, give Ubuntu a go. You'll get an up-to-date operating system running quite smoothly on your out-of-date computer.Although Windows 7 claims a great performance makeover, it cant keep the pace in old hardware as i found.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>Tip: Windows 7 is much better than Vista on older hardware, while Ubuntu always has been strong on a wide range of hardware.</span> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Drivers and hardware:</span> Ubuntu is generally good at recognising hardware. Windows needed a driver downloaded for my vintage Wi-Fi PC Card, but it worked right away with Ubuntu But if Ubuntu doesn't automatically install a driver, it can be quite tedious way, and not all hardware and peripherals will work with Linux. Sometimes you'll have to go to the command line, which is terrifying territory for most users. It's worth checking to see if Linux drivers exist for your printer and other key peripherals.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>It gives me headache why Windows forgets hardware that I have installed previously in even Vista. Windows 7 doesn't seem to have completely solved these issues.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>Tip: Both Microsoft and Ubuntu could improve how they handle drivers.</span> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Multimedia:</span> Looking at the default applications that come with both Windows 7 and Karmic Koala, Ubuntu installs needed Players for audio/video. Because of licensing restrictions and Ubuntu's own philosophy, it does not ship with the ability to play commercial DVDs. It's relatively easy to add commercial DVD support by adding Ubuntu Restricted Extras in the Software Centre.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Most versions of Windows 7 come with Windows Media Player and Media Centre which scores over ubuntu in DRM-restricted content . The Media Centre is impressive and polished. It organises your pictures, video and music files neatly.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>Tip: Microsoft wins this one with its Media Centre, though Linux enthusiasts will be quick to point out the digital-rights management issues of Windows.</span> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Software and applications:</span> In terms of software, i would compare Ubuntu with iPhone. Almost anything you care to do, there's an app.However, you'll have to learn your way to it. For people looking to make the switch to Linux, osalt.com is a good directory of open-source alternatives to common commercial software.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Ubuntu comes with OpenOffice and Gimp photo editing software installed.Windows 7 users will need to buy Microsoft Office and such paid packages which is also a turnoff as ever before, or you are now offered download of OpenOffice and Gimp. Ther is a refreshed tool called Ubuntu Software Centre which deserves mention. You can search the directory full of hundreds of applications.</span> <br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Tip: Ubuntu wins this hands-down with a huge range of free software packages ready to download.</span> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;'>Cloud computing & Storage:</span> Ubuntu 9.10 brings cloud storage to the masses with its Ubuntu-One service. Whenever you save a file, you have the option to save it directly to Ubuntu One. Up to 2GB of storage is free, and you can pay for higher amounts of storage.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>You can also share files with other people, and your files are easily available on other computers, even ones not running Ubuntu. The service is in beta, though, so I'd expect a few drawbacks.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Microsoft has a remote storage and remote desktop service in beta called Live Mesh, which offers 25GB of storage for free. It's not yet integrated into the operating system and Microsoft is under scrutiny about what it integrates into the OS because of its market dominance.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>Tip: Ubuntu wins this as well. Live Mesh isn't as well integrated yet as Ubuntu One is immediately from startup.</span></span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Ease of use:</span> This is subjective. I've spent the past two years using Ubuntu, and find it relatively easy.(shhh just like any linux flavour, there is a learning curve). Ubuntu has made great strides, but average users will still struggle with it at times.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Adding new software sources so that you can easily install applications such as Skype or Google Earth will be beyond most average users. User interface design still lags behind software on Windows 7.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Windows 7 will be an adjustment for XP users. Vista users won't notice a change apart from a faster, smoother experience and fewer annoying pop-ups.</span> <br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Tip: Windows still is easier to use than Linux for some key tasks. Ubuntu is making a lot of progress, but Microsoft has stepped up its game as well.</span> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Graphics:</span> Whoa !! like ever, Ubuntu is way behind Microsoft in 3D Gaming and graphics. I couldn't withstand sight of my nVidia 3D accelarator card laid useless in even new version of Ubuntu.Well, there aren't much capable 3D games in the linux front as well.Folks would you keep your promise to come up with a good effort in this front ?</span> <br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Tip: Planning for high-end multimedia and gaming ??, never look at Ubuntu.</span> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Final Verdict:</span> Windows 7 is a worthy successor to Windows XP. Vista had well-known flaws, which meant it never replaced XP for most users. For those with a lot of investment in Windows software, there probably will be no reason to look elsewhere.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>For those not that tied into the world of Windows, Ubuntu is certainly worth a look. Consumers have never had more choices for capable, powerful and easy to use operating systems, and Ubuntu is only one Linux distribution.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>I had tried Linux frequently from almost 10 years ago, but I always gave up within a few days until the arrival of Ubuntu. It is a relatively easy-to-use, modern operating system, and one that will only cost you the time to download it.</span> </span></div><br/><font color='#333333'><small>Copyright Notice: Windows 7 and Ubuntu logos and titles used in the post have respective trademark restrictions from Micorosft Corporation and Canonical Inc Ltd.</small></font><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=249b17e4-5f8d-875d-8cea-e2e945c548eb' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-52177183074518943662009-09-20T10:18:00.000-07:002009-10-03T07:14:20.940-07:00Script kidding<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>'Script' is a cool utility command in linux terminal as a way to store or share everything printed during a terminal session. </span><span style='font-size: 85%;'>It's a good way to keep a record of everything you do (or did) for a specific session at your termial.</span><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Alternatively,i</span><span style='font-size: 85%;'>t can be a great way to remotely demonstrate command-line Linux to a less experienced user.<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>First we'll look at keeping a record of everything</span>. The can be done by just issuing the command script. The output of your session will be written to a file named typescript. If you want to specify a file other than the default, use script file where file is the name of the file storing the session.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Code 1: Making a script session file<br/></span></p><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>% script<br />Script started, file is typescript<br />% uptime<br />13:27:53 up 89 days, 3:50, 1 user, load average: 0.27, 0.35, 0.29<br />% uname -srvmpio<br />Linux 2.4.20-gentoo-r4 #1 SMP Fri May 9 08:54:35 EDT 2003 i686 Intel(R) Xeon(TM)<br />CPU 2.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux<br />% exit<br />Script done, file is typescript</pre><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>The session file can be reviewed later with a pager such as more, less, or cat.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Code 2: Viewing script session file<br/></span></p><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>% more typescript</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>Script started on Wed Aug 6 13:27:47 2003</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>% uptime</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>13:27:53 up 89 days, 3:50, 1 user, load average: 0.27, 0.35, 0.29</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>uname -srvmpio</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>Linux 2.4.20-gentoo-r4 #1 SMP Fri May 9 08:54:35 EDT 2003 i686 Intel(R) Xeon(TM</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>CPU 2.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>% exit</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>Script done on Wed Aug 6 13:28:01 2003</pre><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'>Now we'll look at sharing a terminal session</span>. The easiest way to do this is combining script with mkfifo (which creates a named pipe). Note that you need to use the -f option (script -f) to flush output after each write. This way, the terminal can be written to by User A and viewed in (near) real time by User B.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Code 3: User A's terminal</span></p><pre><span style="color:#990000;">% mkfifo demo; script -f demo</span></pre><pre><span style="color:#990000;">Script started, file is demo</span></pre><pre><span style="color:#990000;">% echo 'Hello World'</span></pre><pre><span style="color:#990000;">Hello World</span></pre><pre><span style="color:#990000;">% exit</span></pre><pre><span style="color:#990000;">Script done, file is demo</span></pre><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Note: User A's terminal will wait for input until User B issues the cat command (or accesses the named pipe).</span> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Code 4: User B's terminal</span></p><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>% cat demo</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>Script started on Wed Aug 6 13:48:51 2003</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>% echo 'Hello World'</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>Hello World</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>% exit</pre><pre style='color: rgb(153, 51, 0);'>Script done on Wed Aug 6 13:49:04 2003</pre><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>There are many other cool ways script could be used. Now do you get amused how i record my complex workarounds with servers or applications for future use or for blogging ???</span><br/><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdyqLZgx2TiVkMQhb-3GlwLJtalyD49zVeZGL7kSu5hRv5UhSLWldd-wY0w8qf_n8udjePwxdIBrXZA8U-maZxCaJOB6R8_c4bedPr0XDARVDz3uNrZf6Xt5gEZGpmgEpmiPDGA/s1600-h/productPhoto1.jpg' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdyqLZgx2TiVkMQhb-3GlwLJtalyD49zVeZGL7kSu5hRv5UhSLWldd-wY0w8qf_n8udjePwxdIBrXZA8U-maZxCaJOB6R8_c4bedPr0XDARVDz3uNrZf6Xt5gEZGpmgEpmiPDGA/s200/productPhoto1.jpg' alt='' style='width: 34px; cursor: pointer; height: 33px;' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383603876168535554'/></a><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdyqLZgx2TiVkMQhb-3GlwLJtalyD49zVeZGL7kSu5hRv5UhSLWldd-wY0w8qf_n8udjePwxdIBrXZA8U-maZxCaJOB6R8_c4bedPr0XDARVDz3uNrZf6Xt5gEZGpmgEpmiPDGA/s1600-h/productPhoto1.jpg' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdyqLZgx2TiVkMQhb-3GlwLJtalyD49zVeZGL7kSu5hRv5UhSLWldd-wY0w8qf_n8udjePwxdIBrXZA8U-maZxCaJOB6R8_c4bedPr0XDARVDz3uNrZf6Xt5gEZGpmgEpmiPDGA/s200/productPhoto1.jpg' alt='' style='width: 34px; cursor: pointer; height: 33px;' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383603876168535554'/></a><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdyqLZgx2TiVkMQhb-3GlwLJtalyD49zVeZGL7kSu5hRv5UhSLWldd-wY0w8qf_n8udjePwxdIBrXZA8U-maZxCaJOB6R8_c4bedPr0XDARVDz3uNrZf6Xt5gEZGpmgEpmiPDGA/s1600-h/productPhoto1.jpg' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdyqLZgx2TiVkMQhb-3GlwLJtalyD49zVeZGL7kSu5hRv5UhSLWldd-wY0w8qf_n8udjePwxdIBrXZA8U-maZxCaJOB6R8_c4bedPr0XDARVDz3uNrZf6Xt5gEZGpmgEpmiPDGA/s200/productPhoto1.jpg' alt='' style='width: 34px; cursor: pointer; height: 33px;' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383603876168535554'/></a><br/><br/><small><span style='color: rgb(102, 102, 102);'><b>How and when here for ur reference :</b></span> <a href='http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/53729'>http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/53729</a></small><br/><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=eb4dee00-cafd-840f-8494-acaac756eb32' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-30724282453343773862009-04-04T02:01:00.000-07:002009-04-04T03:39:09.749-07:00Exporting Display between Linux hosts<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><font face='verdana'>This tip may come handy in a network environment if you want to export the display of a linux machine to another to run tools or programs in GUI mode.Think of a scenario in which you are not having the access to the display of another machine and want to test a tool or application urgently in GUI mode.All you r left with is the display of your machine booted in graphical mode and a privilaged access to the machine you want to test the tool from.<br/><br/><img width='509' height='380' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht45YIjR4OW-PHOaDPxVSsgpQaVDHFqBtDgexAR_ziPiJydKBkFBkXFq6JTutnlBHZCrqD52EoLmqZpz8-zkzS2EBrEb2w1B5XC0HE95RiOc5QJTeHFeI6G-FUBpPSU61QVIbQSg/?imgmax=800' style='max-width: 800px;'/><br/><br/>Fig: Firefox executed from remote host<br/><br/>I have found this useful in current workplace where testing of tools in GUI mode is essential often as part of OS support we are giving to the developers.This is found to work in almost all linux flavours with some additions in some distributions.<br/><br/>Note that this is heavily dependant on the speed of your network connection. If u think u can run some application like mozilla off a box on the other side of the country on a 56K modem it is probably not going to work very well. The best application for this is running programs over the same standard LAN or possibly a high-speed WAN.<br/><br/><b>Background</b><br/><br/>For this we r going to assume the machine from which we r exporting display as remote host and machine to which we export as localhost (GUI login).<br/><br/><b>Steps</b><br/><br/>First ,on the local machine you're going to need to give the remote machine access to connect to your X server. Use the command xhost to do this in localhost:<br/><br/><br/>// This command allows the machine remotehost to connect<br/><br/># xhost +ip of remotehost<br/>eg: #xhost +192.168.192.17<br/><br/>Secondly,on the remote machine, you need to export the $DISPLAY variable to your local machine. After that, you should be ready to run GUI programs remotely:<br/><br/>//This command allows the display of localhost to access that of remotehost<br/><br/># export DISPLAY="ip of localhost:0.0"<br/>eg: # export DISPLAY="192.168.192.10:0.0"<br/><br/>Now be ready to fire up the command of the tool/program in the shell of localhost after gaining access to the remotehost shell :<br/># ssh ajith@192.168.192.17 (Be sure to export the display specifically for the user)<br/><br/># gvim & (Command for GUI tool)<br/><br/><b>Securing and encrypting the data</b><br/><br/>Note that This is very unsecure and not recommended since everything you type including passwords will be transmitted over the network unencrypted.To tunnel the connection over SSH and thus encrypt the traffic,edit your '/etc/sshd2_config' file.<br/>(Refer your distribution manual for the right sshd file)<br/><br/>In /etc/sshd2_config of remote machine and local machine,<br/><br/>// Add or edit the following line as<br/><br/>ForwardX11 yes<br/><br/>Now connect from the local machine to the remote machine via ssh and start your X application.Notice that you don't have to set the DISPLAY variable, ssh automagically does that for you. You do however have to allow access to your local machine's X server (see above).<br/><br/>I happened to stumble on some issues raised in a forum on the topic : <a href='http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/how-to-export-the-display-304667/'>http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/how-to-export-the-display-304667/</a><br/><br/><br/></font><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=7736f178-f4fa-8ebd-a2f9-a9cbfe5748e1' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-29437820161934046082009-03-07T21:41:00.000-08:002009-03-07T22:19:17.131-08:00Supporting essential applications for linux desktop<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Hi there, nowadays we see lot of linux installations coming up in our organization, paving a big way to replacing the </span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>old OS's and the issues in them too seem to multiply.Along with the installation, we too have to support the applications in it installed for developers.A common issue we faced was the installation of firefox and adobe reader which is not natively available with the enterprise version of linux OS we are using.So, solution we have now come up with is :<br/><br/>i) Repository of such softwares </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>which need frequent installations </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>for developers to be hosted in our machines which act as FTP server.<br/><br/>ii) The repositories are in a common folder and needs admin-level access so that only we are authorized for copying using SFTP.<br/><br/>iii) Packages are divided into developer tools, utilities, and other folders for ease of access<br/><br/></span></span><blockquote><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Also, i am outlining a solution for installing flashplayer plugin for Firefox which is a common problem in all the machines which have installed Firefox.If you view flash charts or view flash animations in your firefox browser in linux, go for the following steps:</span></span><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'/></span></blockquote><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'/></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'/></span><ol style='font-family: verdana;'><li> <span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>wget <a rel='nofollow' title='http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz' class='external free' href='http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz'>http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz</a></span></span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> tar -zxf install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz </span></span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins/ </span></span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> mv install_flash_player_9_linux/flashplayer.xpt install_flash_player_9_linux/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/ </span></span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> nspluginwrapper -i ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so </span></span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> close all firefox instances and restart iceweasel/firefox/whatever</span></span></li></ol><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>NB: Be sure to check <a href='http://gwenole.beauchesne.info//en/projects/nspluginwrapper' target='_blank'>nspluginwrapper</a> installed before trying out this. Also, your machine must be exposed to outside network without a proxy so that wget works for download of the plugin package.Otherwise, go for http download by googling the appropriate package for your flavour of linux.<br/><br/>I tried the above steps in a both ubuntu desktop at my home and RHEL4 AS version at the workplace but can work in most linux installations.Since the workplace machines are in an isolated network, i had to use the already downloaded packages in the FTP server repository.</span> <br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Happy browsing :)</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/></span></span></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-5934616120430262992008-12-29T01:27:00.000-08:002008-12-29T01:38:38.683-08:00Build Anything<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><small style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><small/></span></small><p style='font-family: verdana;'><small>As an engineer, if you want to outwit someone who is asking you whether you can or can’t build a thing, just say, <span style='color: rgb(255, 0, 0);'>“Given enough time, I can build anything”</span>.</small></p><small style='font-family: verdana;'>They’ll believe you’re avoiding the question, and they’ll think you’re arrogant !!!<br/></small><br/><small style='font-family: verdana;'>But sure, you need to take the time to explain your thinking to thisperson. You need to walk them through your development process. It’s an opportunity to educate and not come off...<br/></small><br/><small style='font-family: verdana;'>However.</small><br/><small style='font-family: verdana;'><br/>Given enough time, an engineer can build anything. </small><small style='font-family: verdana;'><strong>I’m optimistic.</strong></small><br/><br/><small style='font-family: verdana;'>Like any profession, Technology is full of different personalities, but it finally want the optimists. It is not the mere yes-folks, but for those folks who,say “**** it, we’re going to figure it out”.</small><br/><br/><small style='font-family: verdana;'>This base optimism can be hidden in all types of personalities, but it shows up when there is an impossible situation and creates the impossible.Look at how technology people are changing pace when we are facing the worst ever economic crisis in the world !!!</small><br/><p style='font-family: verdana;'><small>I have in my career seen some Insane optimists. These are people who:</small><br/></p><ul style='font-family: verdana;'><li><small>Work hard</small></li><li><small>Over-commit and still deliver</small></li><li><small>Rampantly go out of their way to help each other</small></li><li><small>Have a track record of stunning success</small></li></ul><small style='font-family: verdana;'>This is not a population limited to Technology but in all fronts.They show up in every impossible crossroads...<br/></small><p style='font-family: verdana;'><small>So, I remain optimistic which is my new-year resolution for 2009.</small></p><small style='font-family: verdana;'>Where I sit, with the cranky engineers —the insane optimists — I hope we all share this optimism because, given enough time, <small><b><big>we can build anything.</big></b></small></small></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-1024790308307681342008-11-24T03:30:00.000-08:002008-12-28T23:17:54.427-08:00INNOPT08 , The NeST SEPG Conference<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FizacdZGe1ffXKa1ox6-4JzZ8QZV2HbS5BVeDVA3GI6rigo3n9ScgfWufm1thkx6c8THJyxjdsDZlg5smxNdmo4xTU9wvTnVuzjLUXZHnyIOCGISIF3Yd1Oqs7l-wnbSj7h4sQ/s1600-h/Innopt08.gif'><img border='0' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FizacdZGe1ffXKa1ox6-4JzZ8QZV2HbS5BVeDVA3GI6rigo3n9ScgfWufm1thkx6c8THJyxjdsDZlg5smxNdmo4xTU9wvTnVuzjLUXZHnyIOCGISIF3Yd1Oqs7l-wnbSj7h4sQ/s200/Innopt08.gif' alt='' style='margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 144px; height: 75px;' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272190180161452162'/></a><br/><div/><br/><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong/></span></p><br/><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong>Overview :</strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong><a href='https://intranest.nestgroup.net/sepg/innopt/INNOPT'>INNOPT08</a></strong> , The <a href='http://www.nesttech.com/'>NeST</a> SEPG Conference aims to bring together the practitioners, process champions </span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>and technology leaders from across the organization to share their innovative ideas, unique experiences and informative findings. Through paper presentations in the organization’s areas of interests, the conference seeks to advance the state of the art in the respective areas, while providing a platform for NeSTians to express themselves professionally. The technical exhibition planned on the sidelines of the conference is aimed at demonstrating the company’s leadership in the chosen themes through the work done in various operational units.</span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong>Conference Themes :</strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>INNOPT is coined from the two streams of this year’s conference - Process Innovation and Performance Optimization.Process innovation take a giant leap forward from mere adherence, and forms the corner stone for any process improvement efforts. Contrary to common perception, innovation is what separates a great process from a good one. The theme was chosen by SEPG to instill the importance of innovation among process champions and practitioners alike, even while adhering to the company’s renowned Quality Management System.Performance optimization has always been a traditional stronghold of NeST, with its focus on performance sensitive fields such as embedded systems, system software, multimedia codec and image processing. Thanks to the recent emergence of multi-core processors, even desktop computing is looking at ways to improve performance, actively demanding the attention of designers and programmers, rather than left to compilers alone. Needless to say, performance optimized solutions is a critical business priority, justifying the choice of technical theme.</span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong>About SEPG :</strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) is responsible for the overall software development capability of the organization, and continuously fine tune the Quality Management System of NeST.</span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong>Details : </strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong>Time :</strong> 09.00 - 17.00</span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong>Date :</strong> 28 Nov 2008</span></p><p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><strong>Venue :</strong> Travancore Hall, Park Center, Technopark, Trivandrum</span></p></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-14197695135042877662008-06-19T08:46:00.000-07:002008-12-08T15:29:19.173-08:00Adding Fonts in Linux to X Font Subsystem<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>This weekend, a new problem came my way.The problem may seem too small, but of wide implications where a customer-related environment is involved.We had installed linux to support the developer community in our organization,I had to attend to varied levels of problems in these machines which gave me ample opportunity to play with networking,applications,libraries,configurations in enterprise linux systems.All these machines were Red Hat Enterprise Linux v3 or 4.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Lets come to what exactly it is.<br/><br/>We know that <a href='http://www.openoffice.org/'>Openoffice</a> is the standard Office application in linux and it draws font information from the installed fonts of the system.Here the root of the problem is that during installation, the language support in the OS was limited to US English and only its fonts were installed.<br/><br/>Now, the developers had a new area of work in a new project which made them to deal with documents encoded in Japanese.These were confidential data.The developer needed to decode the data using some online translator page from Excite or Google.But, when they opened the document,Japanese characters were not visible at all.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>So,I had come right into this scene assuming that Japanese Language support has to be turned on either in the OS or in the application.First, i tried with enabling Japanese support in Openoffice.For that, you have to just turn on 'Asian Languages' support from Tools &gt; Options.(Click on image for a detailed screenshot)<br/><br/></span></span><a onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}' href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH1c2r_w6CuJqzgH04YPBgkEO_IuScPeMvjn9DqyGOst037kxFTmJ9z0xJFhGK3k6iSRW0r0UnLZqaoPl1sARdcK-iuEjeJdiQ70xhgIyvpTHuhQIJIjmvDDPkmCjlNPtJNXeLgA/s1600-h/untitled.bmp'><img width='323' height='198' border='0' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH1c2r_w6CuJqzgH04YPBgkEO_IuScPeMvjn9DqyGOst037kxFTmJ9z0xJFhGK3k6iSRW0r0UnLZqaoPl1sARdcK-iuEjeJdiQ70xhgIyvpTHuhQIJIjmvDDPkmCjlNPtJNXeLgA/s200/untitled.bmp' alt='' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213623318620072210'/></a><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>But from there itself, the problem was still visible for me.Under the new Japanese font support subsystem, no new fonts were visible.This meant that in the system, Japanese fonts were not installed.Also, the display of characters at the Japanese font part in the documents was still blank.<br/><br/>I tried restarting application and later, the OS at-large anticipating any change...but all in vain.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Now what is the course to be taken ?<br/><br/><br/>Of course...download a Japanese font and install it to the OS.For that, i set out on google search .At last, i came to Wazu Japan's Gallery of Japanese Unicode fonts which were open (<a href='http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html'>http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html</a>).I downloaded a less painful ttf font called Mona which was encoded in Japanese Font subsystem.<br/><br/>Now...what if the format of fonts were not supported in Linux.For that also, i went on to an extensive search.Lastly, i came to a convincible method to add fonts support to linux at a CentOS page.But most of the configuration in CentOS is supported in Enterprise Linux also.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>To install the font, the procedure is as follows(This is for the Core X Font Subsystem):<br/><br/></span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>1. Download the font to directories /usr/share/fonts</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>and Create the /usr/share/fonts/local/ directory (if it does not already exist):</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'># mkdir /usr/share/fonts/local/</span></span><span style='font-weight: bold;'> </span><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>2. Copy the new font file into /usr/share/fonts/local/</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>3. Update the font information by issuing the following commands (note that, due to formatting restrictions, the following commands may appear on more than one line; in use, each commands should be entered on a single line):</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'># ttmkfdir -d /usr/share/fonts/local/ -o /usr/share/fonts/local/fonts.scale</span></span><span style='font-weight: bold;'> </span><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: verdana;'>mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/local/</span><span style='font-weight: bold;'> </span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>4. If you had to create /usr/share/fonts/local/, you must then add it to the X font server (xfs) path:<br/><br/></span><span style='font-weight: bold;'># </span><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: verdana;'>chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/local/</span><span style='font-weight: bold;'> </span><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>5. Adding new fonts to the fontconfig font subsystem is more straightforward; the new font file only needs to be copied into the /usr/share/fonts/ directory (individual users can modify their personal font configuration by copying the font file into the ~/.fonts/ directory).</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>6. After the new font has been copied, use fc-cache to update the font information cache:</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>fc-cache <directory/></span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'># fc-cache &lt;directory&gt;<directory/></span><br/><br/>(Where <directory> directory would be either the /usr/share/fonts/ or ~/.fonts/ directories.)</directory></span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><br/>Individual users may also install fonts graphically, by browsing fonts:/// in Nautilus, and dragging the new font files there.</span> <br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;'>NOTE:</span> If the font filename ends with ".gz", it has been compressed with gzip, and must be decompressed (with the gunzip command) before the fontconfig font subsystem can use the font.</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'>Now,what did i see when i started Office once again, new font was listed under 'Fonts'<br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'>Epilogue:</span><br/><br/>The Japanese characters were visible now in both Openoffice Writer and Impress and it came under 'Fonts' in the Text Toolbar.<br/><br/><img width='354' height='157' src='http://lh6.ggpht.com/ajith.vs/SF4zrkmJZ7I/AAAAAAAABCI/4U-VjJ5ohV4/%5BUNSET%5D.jpg' style='max-width: 800px;'/><br/><br/><br/>User could now easily start testing translations on Google Translator by copying the text directly from Openoffice Impress.<br/><br/>Please refer to <a href='http://www.xfree86.org/current/fonts.html'>XFont Subsystem</a> documentation in Linux for major ideas involved in this article<br/></span> </span></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-46770380737843600622008-04-26T07:37:00.000-07:002008-04-26T08:04:43.988-07:00Installing Broadcom drivers for xSeries Server with RedHat Enterprise Linux 4<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>This is the account of a problem i experienced in setting up an IBM x3650 server with linux enterprise 4 update 2(64-bit).The following problem occurs mostly if you are performing an install using 3rd party driver-detect option or using 'pci=nommconf' or even the generic 'noapic' option.But here, i had to comprehend it in a clean install too...This post is particularly helpful in many situations if you are doing linux install in IBM xseries where network device is not taken by default.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>As we had completed install and tested network configuration, we could see that there were two network interfaces and both of them not being detected.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># ifconfig -a</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>lo Link encap:Local Loopback </span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>(No ethernet device showing up)</span><br/><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># service network restart</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>the following error comes up:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;'>Bringing up interface eth0: 3com3c501 device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization. [FAILED]</span><br/><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>We thought it as a classic PCI device detection problem since most network interfaces belong to PCI genre.But a close inspection revealed that this was not the actual cause.We could see a PCI device named '<span style='font-weight: bold;'>3Com3c501</span>'.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>This prompted me to search for drivers for that device name.But i was once again disheartened to find that the device was named obsolete in their homepage itself and that such drivers have not been in use since kernel 2.4 or Redhat 9x line of OS.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Then came the usual search for the problem in forums which have often come to my rescue in identifying which course to take.I found some useful posts here:<br/><br/>http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/3c501-device-eth0-does-not-seem-to-be-present-230505/<br/><br/>It was telling that 3com drivers as shown here is the legacy driver which pops up when the destined driver for the actual device is not taken by default.This put me in one more question.<span style='font-style: italic;'>How to detect the actual ethernet device if it has not been taken?</span> The answer was another post on the same page.Just issue<br/><br/></span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># lspci -v</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>This showed up the actual PCI listing of the motherboard.Now in the head 'Network interface', i was seeing Broadcom NetXtreme II series of device.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>I began search issuing "Broadcom NetXtreme II + EL4 driver".I could find them both in support site of IBM x series and Broadcom homepage.I downloaded the drivers as zip files,burned in into a CD,extracted them to the server and began installation as per the INSTALL.txt manual</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>I preferred the RPM source install method and the steps are as follows:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>1. Install the source RPM package:</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'># rpm -ivh bnx2-<version>.src.rpm</version></span></span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>2. CD to the RPM path and build the binary driver for your kernel:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'># cd /usr/src/{redhat,OpenLinux,turbo,packages,rpm ..}</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># rpm -bb SPECS/bnx2.spec</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>or</span><br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'>#</span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'> rpmbuild -bb SPECS/bnx2.spec (for RPM version 4.x.x)</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Note that the RPM path is different for different Linux distributions.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>The driver will be compiled for the running kernel by default. To build</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>the driver for a kernel different than the running one, specify the</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>kernel by defining it in KVER:</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'># rpmbuild -bb SPECS/bnx2.spec --define "KVER <kernel>"</kernel></span></span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>where <kernel> in the form of 2.x.y-z is the version of another</kernel></span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>kernel that is installed on the system.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>3. Install the newly built package (driver and man page):</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># rpm -ivh RPMS/<arch>/bnx2-<version>.<arch>.rpm</arch></version></arch></span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>where <arch> is the machine architecture such as i386:</arch></span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'># rpm -ivh RPMS/i386/bnx2-<version>.i386.rpm</version></span></span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Note that the --force option may be needed on some Linux distributions</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>if conflicts are reported.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>The driver will be installed in the following path:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>2.4.x kernels:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'> /lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/bnx2.o</kernel_version></span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>2.6.0 kernels:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'> /lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/bnx2.ko</kernel_version></span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>2.6.16 and newer kernels:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'> /lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/bnx2.ko</kernel_version></span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'> /lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/cnic.ko</kernel_version></span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>4. Unload existing driver if necessary:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># rmmod bnx2</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>If the cnic driver is loaded, it must be unloaded first before bnx2 can</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>be unloaded:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># rmmod cnic</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>5. Load the driver:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># insmod bnx2.o</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>or</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># insmod bnx2.ko (on 2.6.x kernels)</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>or</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># modprobe bnx2</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>To load the cnic driver:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># insmod cnic.ko</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>or</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'># modprobe cnic</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>6. To configure network protocol and address, refer to various Linux </span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>documentations</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>After the install was completed and system restarted, the Kudzu hardware configurator popped up and asked to add the new device with network settings.The network device was successfully configured for the rest.....<br/><br/><span style='font-size: 78%;'><span style='color: rgb(102, 102, 102);'>NOTE: Please check support available with the server before attempting these steps and also it is advisable to refer to documentation online.Some legacy drivers may not be enabled by this method.The outlined documentation is compatible with only <span style='font-weight: bold;'>Broadcom NetXtreme II</span> onboard and we r not claiming it could work for any other custom drivers.</span><br/><br/><span style='color: rgb(0, 51, 51);'>IBM, xSeries are trademarks or IBM Corporation, Worldwide. Broadcom,NetXtreme are trademarks of Broadcom Inc.</span><br/></span></span></span></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-26959684793459310192007-12-04T08:12:00.000-08:002008-12-08T15:29:19.517-08:00Inside Google's Intranet<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><strong><span style='font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;'/></strong><span style='font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;'><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Have you wondered ever what do employees of the world's greatest enterprise stare at in the morning when they’ve arrived at the office? They might be looking at Moma, the name for the Google intranet. The meaning of the name of “Moma” is a mystery(it reminds you of the momma of yours - the mother company),but Moma’s mission is prominently displayed on its footer: “Organize Google’s information and make it accessible and useful to Googlers.” A “Googler,” as you may know, is what Google employees call themselves (they have other nicknames for specific roles; a noogler is a new Google employee, and so on ...)<br/><br/></span><a onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}' href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc_JIxa97uD31z8Dx0Fdd2hitllWmPYb2Sa3bGCe1C5p1XprMGI-IAyfgV17FhzpJ2kUCY_NE2lDTu_BIbSC-mT2SKGKlTFJzbB23L_tl6ofLTFLF-31FUp8WyqPLg29wvT8Ky4A/s1600-h/result.jpg'><img border='0' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5140157266459333602' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; width: 251px; cursor: pointer; height: 198px;' alt='' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc_JIxa97uD31z8Dx0Fdd2hitllWmPYb2Sa3bGCe1C5p1XprMGI-IAyfgV17FhzpJ2kUCY_NE2lDTu_BIbSC-mT2SKGKlTFJzbB23L_tl6ofLTFLF-31FUp8WyqPLg29wvT8Ky4A/s200/result.jpg'/></a> <span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'>Fig :</span>Inside Moma's pages<br/><br/>"MOMA, Google's intranet, was designed by and for engineers and for the first couple of years, its home page was devoid of any aesthetic enhancements that didn't serve to provide information essential to the operation of Google. It was dense and messy and full of numbers that were hard to parse for the uninitiated, but high in nutritional value for the data hungry.<br/><br/>MOMA displayed latency times, popular search terms, traffic stats for Google-owned properties and, at the center of it all, a large graph with colored lines labeled with the names of Muppet characters.I am taking the accounts from another blog on the structure of the site for those interested.<br/><br/><br/></span><a onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}' href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwvMUEVdAgFDD7YnMOprI6F_bbkAxPpmJSBz7yt6M2B56izg3SY6LgYiUE-Z4ednBaNa7ZFoE7fmXLAhZ3yU8X18e2kBSU4T8JRFbyemArt6KMav8fsfl0oOef7zjiqxaY8MLCcA/s1600-h/login-large.jpg'><img border='0' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5140160766857679858' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;' alt='' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwvMUEVdAgFDD7YnMOprI6F_bbkAxPpmJSBz7yt6M2B56izg3SY6LgYiUE-Z4ednBaNa7ZFoE7fmXLAhZ3yU8X18e2kBSU4T8JRFbyemArt6KMav8fsfl0oOef7zjiqxaY8MLCcA/s200/login-large.jpg'/></a><span style='font-size: 85%;'><em style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>The login dialog on Moma's homepage reads, <span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);'>“Many internal apps. One login page.”</span></em></span><br/><br/><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>On the top of the homepage, you’ll find the logo reading “Moma - Inside Google.” Next to it is a search box allowing you to find information from Moma in general, information on specific Google employees, information on availability of meeting rooms, building maps and more. You can choose to include secure content or not via a checkbox. Another checkbox offers you to use “<a href='http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.gseeker.com/50226711/moma_nextiegoogleeaeccc_108169.php&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMoma%2BNEXT%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG'>Moma NEXT</a>"(&lt;--go to the link for a news piece for more info) for a more experimental variant of search results.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>To the top right, there’s an option to switch to iMoma, an iGoogle-style tool prepared by the company which allows further customization of the intranet start page. This way, employees may be able to select their own news and service widgets of interest to be displayed when they log-in.<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>The actual content of the homepage in the picture is split up into 4 columns. To the left, there’s a “My Office” section, with information for employees and a way to choose your own office for more relevant links. It’s followed by the sections “Survival Kit” and “My shortcuts.” In the middle columns, news gadgets are headlined “Welcome to Google!,” “Communications,” “HR” (human resources), “Company Info” and “Internal Google news,” all in common soft shades of Google base colors. The right column is listing Google teams.</span></p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Ex-employee Doug Edwards mentioned how he came to take for granted everything was available on the intranet, “from the status of products in development to the number of employees at any point in the company’s history.If you are concerned with coworkers, there is also an employee search part on the system which gives you relevant information without compromising the confidentiality.<br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'>How employees access the system</span><br/><br/></span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>A Google employee can log-in to the intranet from within the office, or with a so-called Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. This connection comes pre-installed on laptops Google hands out, and can be reached via a desktop icon. A Google employee is required to authenticate their sign-in with account credentials(The talk of the town is that the authentication is based on LDAP Protocol)<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>From within a Google building, an employee may likely reach the intranet via the address corp.google.com. We previously found out Google additionally uses <a href='http://ruscoe.net/google/google-subdomains-internal/'>many sub-domains</a> in their intranet, like album.corp.google.com, agency.corp.google.com, alien.corp.google.com, karma.corp.google.com, periscope.corp.google.com, pineapple.corp.google.com. You may also likely just enter e.g. “m” (which maps to “http://m” which is “http://m.corp.google.com”) to be taken to a service like your Gmail-powered email account.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Externally, like from a laptop at a conference – or if you’re one of the employees mainly working from home, as there are some – employees can access the VPN servers located on sites like Mountain View or Dublin, Ireland, with different hostnames each like man....ext.google.com or de....ext.google.com (we depleted part of the hostname).If you work in a team for a product, you may also get a prototypical version of the service. Special links to debug windows are offered to developers as well, one of them being opened in the screenshot. Google employees also get to see previews of completely unreleased tools, such as wiki service JotSpot (which is being integrated into Google Apps), or Platypus, the internal Gdrive client for file-sharing.For code reviews, Google created Mondrian, a “Perforce backend with some custom Google wrappers on top - once again it is based on<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons'> creative commons :</a> the sweetest of all licences.<br/></span></p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>Others , Welcome</span><br/><br/>But, Google doesn’t just use their own tools. For instance,many Google employees prefer social network <a href='http://www.facebook.com/'>Facebook</a> to their own production, Orkut (e.g. some Google employees considered Orkut too spammy, or too buggy in the past).</span><br/><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>If a Google employee encounters trouble with any Google tool, they can call their internal support hotline named “Tech Stop.” The hotline promises 24-hour availability. Numbers like +1 877... (last part depleted) are partly toll-free and partly with toll, and accessible from all over the world. Internally, a Google employee may also simply press 3-HELP (3-4357). Tech Stop centers aren’t just located in the US, but also in places like Hyderabad, India.</span></p><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 78%;'><br/><span style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>Big thanks to the article :</span><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>What the Google Intranet Looks Like</span><span style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'> b</span><span class='byAuthor' style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>y Philipp Lenssen & Tony Ruscoe.Images reproduced from Wikimedia Commons - the free repository.Information in this article is in no way violating the confidentiality policies of any Enterprise.<br/><br/></span><span class='byAuthor' style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'/></span></span></span></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-48963703766902253182007-10-09T10:42:00.000-07:002007-10-09T10:54:50.202-07:00One who doesn't understand the GPL<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div class='entry-content' style='font-family: verdana;'> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>"This is the absolute reproduction of the famous column by </span><span id='copyright'><span style='font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>Bennett McElwee on the Technology Blog "Semicolon" on the new venture of Microsoft to Open path and its real motives and flaws..All rights reserved by the author.We want to inform you that we are not against any trade practices of any corporation.Only for informative purposes of Open Source advocates"</span><br/></span></span></p><p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiativ.e website contains some pretty <span style='font-weight: bold;'>"outrageous</span>" falsehoods about free software licenses and the GNU General Public License (GPL). The Shared Source Initiative (SSI) allows certain third parties access to some of the Windows source code. It’s dismaying, but not entirely surprising, that the SSI website shows such a lack of understanding about the GPL.<span id='more-40'/></span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>I don’t mean to interpret this as Microsoft’s official position statement on the GPL, but it has been on their website for quite some time, on the pages for the well-publicised SSI. Also, there is no author’s byline, implying that the piece reflects Microsoft policy rather than the opinions of a Microsoft employee.</span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Articles/LicensingOverview.mspx'>Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative: Licensing Overview</a> is the main offender. In a paragraph on free software licenses (including the GPL), they say</span></p> <blockquote style='border: medium none ; position: relative; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-style: italic;'><p><font color='#000000'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>These licenses often are described as “viral,” because they purport to extend their own terms to, or to “infect,” software other than the licensed program, and even to software not yet in existence.</span></font></p></blockquote> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>This is silly; commercial software licenses also “infect” “software not yet in existence”, but you don’t hear Microsoft bemoaning this fact. If I write a program incorporating a part of the Linux kernel, I am not allowed to distribute it under a commercial license now or in the future. But the same is true for a program incorporating a part of the Windows kernel. At least with the Linux-based code, I am allowed to release it under the GPL; as for the Windows-based program, I can’t release it at all.</span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>This page goes on to a specific discussion of the <a href='http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html'>GNU General Public License</a></span> (GPL), and attempts to discuss three features of the license. Impressively, it gets all three wrong.</p> <blockquote style='border: medium none ; position: relative;'><p style='font-style: italic;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>The GPL permits unlimited free use, modification, and redistribution of software and its source code, but imposes three key restrictions on every licensee:</span></p> <ul><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-style: italic;'>If the licensee redistributes any code licensed under the GPL, it must guarantee availability of the code for the entire work for unlimited replication by anyone requesting it.</span> </span></li></ul> </blockquote> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>This is not true. GPL section 3 says that in general, the distributor has only to either distribute the source code with the program, or include a written offer to make the source code available for a period of three years. And it does not have to guarantee this to “anyone requesting it”, but only to licensees who have obtained their license from the distributor.</span></p> <blockquote style='border: medium none ; position: relative;'><ul><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-style: italic;'>If the licensee redistributes GPL code, it may not charge a licensing fee or royalty, but may charge only for distribution costs.</span> </span></li></ul> </blockquote> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Not true. This applies to source code only. The licensee is free to charge any fee for executable code.</span></p> <blockquote style='border: medium none ; position: relative;'><ul><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-style: italic;'>If the licensee includes any GPL code in another program, the entire program becomes subject to the terms of the GPL.</span> </span></li></ul> </blockquote> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Wrong again. This is Microsoft’s interpretation of the “viral” GPL, but they have it backwards. Here’s what the GPL actually says.</span></p> <blockquote title='GPL (excerpt)' style='border: medium none ; position: relative; font-style: italic;'><p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>2. b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.</span></p></blockquote> <blockquote title='GPL (excerpt)' style='border: medium none ; position: relative; font-style: italic;'><p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. […]</span></p></blockquote> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>This seems quite clear. Here’s an example of how it works.</span></p> <ol style='font-style: italic;'><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>You write a program that includes (knowingly or otherwise) someone else’s GPL code.</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>You distribute this program under a commercial license.</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Because you have failed to comply with clauses 2b and 4 of the GPL, your GPL rights are terminated. In other words, you now have no right to distribute the (copyrighted) GPL software.</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>The copyright holder of the GPL code can sue you for copyright infringement.</span></li></ol> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>The GPL license has not “infected” your program at all. All that has happened is that you have failed to comply with the terms of the GPL, so your license has been terminated. Exactly the same would happen if you distributed a program that incorporated source code from, say, Microsoft Word. Again, you may distribute your GPL code-based program under the terms of the GPL; you can’t legally distribute your Word-based program at all.</span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Microsoft may have been confused on this point by GPL section 6:</span></p> <blockquote title='GPL (excerpt)' style='border: medium none ; position: relative; font-style: italic;'><p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.</span></p></blockquote> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>So if the licensee includes any GPL code in another program and distributes it to a third party, then the third party automatically gets a GPL license for <em>the original GPL code</em> (”the Program”), <em>not</em> the entire distributed program. In our example from above, the third party would automatically get a GPL license for the GPL code incorporated into your program, not your program itself.</span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Microsoft say that they do not oppose the GPL for use by individual developers, but “our concern is based on the health of the overall software ecosystem and the effect of the GPL on the process of sustained innovation.” They recommend relatively unrestricted BSD-style licenses instead, especially by researchers, because “use of unrestrictive open-source licenses by the research community preserves the ability of the private sector to develop basic research into useful and affordable software products for individual and business consumers.”</span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>In other words, use of unrestrictive open-source licenses by the research community preserves the ability of Microsoft to make money from others’ research. Fair enough, but raising concerns about “the health of the overall software ecosystem” seems a little overblown. If Microsoft are unable to use somebody else’s research to develop products, then they’ll just have to do their own research — which they already do anyway. The same goes for other commercial software developers. This should actually increase innovation by forcing commercial developers to come up with their own original software, rather than simply build on somebody else’s.</span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>(Rather than use the GPL, presumably Microsoft would prefer researchers to patent all their new software, so that Microsoft and other commercial developers would be free to pay license fees to the patent holders — or buy the patents outright. They don’t mention this in the SSI site, for some reason.)</span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>At the end of the page, Microsoft say that developers should be free to choose licensing terms, but sensibly encourage caution: <i>“The decision to use or produce open-source or free software, however, should be based on an informed understanding of the licenses that govern such software.”</i> It looks as if Microsoft could do with some informed understanding themselves.</span></p> </div></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-11490222915569042202007-09-12T05:20:00.000-07:002008-02-08T22:01:08.521-08:00Subdomain Configuration in DNS<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>I am posting this as a quick tip for those who want to add a <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdomain'>subdomain</a> of some form in a DNS server having domains configured in it.This is usually handy for those system administrators who have to frequently add subdomains as part of hosting services.This is being narrated as a real experience of mine as recently </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>i had to</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> work over it.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>The requirement was to add a subdomain (h***dmin.a**s.net) in the form <span style='font-style: italic;'><subdomain>.<domain>.net</domain></subdomain></span> to the DNS gateway at the organisation.The domain has already been existing.I had prior knowledge of adding a domain in the <span style='font-style: italic;'>"named.conf"</span> file which is the main configuration file for the server.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>The entry is given as following steps:</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>Step 1:</span> In <span style='font-style: italic;'>/etc/named.conf</span>, find the domain file corresponding to the domain which we wish to configure the subdomain. Example for here, the domain in arys.net and the file is :</span><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-style: italic;'>"/var/named/slaves/sec.arys.net</span>" as evident from its entry in 'named.conf'</span><br/><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>Step 2:</span> Open the domain file and give the subdomain as a C or A entry.</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>This can be either as :</span><br/><br/><span style='font-style: italic; font-family: verdana;'>h***admin CNAME www (C Entry)</span><br/><br/><span style='font-family: verdana;'>or </span><br/><br/><span style='font-style: italic; font-family: verdana;'>h***admin A <nameserver><server/></nameserver></span></span></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-1105074862633171792007-08-10T01:53:00.000-07:002008-12-08T15:29:19.628-08:00"March Linux"- Simple, Lean and Fast Distro<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>"March Linux" aims to be a Simple, Lean and Fast GNU/Linux distribution for the desktop which urges the users to <em>learn</em> linux instead of holding their hands at every step!<br/></span></p> <span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>At the same time, it is</span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'> usable and fully functional with almost every software that one might need being available. It is heavily based on <a href='http://archlinux.org' onclick='window.open(this.href, '_blank'); return false;'>Arch Linux</a><br/><br/><br/></span><a onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}' href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-7p4tFHAeCsxY836daor7yutJ0hn5ozKC1D-MOKr-NmoIf15iGkSjm19UQo2UXKc3xcBbfqOMmroTPxNcjiSmrppeshMQBannjrQ575U8ZeSfidNOYQvG2bkeflaVVcDIsGi2IA/s1600-h/logo_phpBB.gif.jpg'><img border='0' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 334px; height: 67px;' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-7p4tFHAeCsxY836daor7yutJ0hn5ozKC1D-MOKr-NmoIf15iGkSjm19UQo2UXKc3xcBbfqOMmroTPxNcjiSmrppeshMQBannjrQ575U8ZeSfidNOYQvG2bkeflaVVcDIsGi2IA/s200/logo_phpBB.gif.jpg' alt='' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096998387908934594'/></a><br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-weight: bold;'><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Some Statistics<br/><br/></span></span><ul style='font-family: verdana;'><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'> The default desktop in March Linux is <a href='http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/' onclick='window.open(this.href, '_blank'); return false;'>Fluxbox</a></span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>The current version is <strong>1.0 BETA</strong>, to start off with.</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Currently, March is available only as a Live CD (built using the <a href='http://linux-live.org/' onclick='window.open(this.href, '_blank'); return false;'>Linux Live scripts</a>). </span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>No installation option is available, as of now.</span></li></ul><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'> You can do the following right out of the box :</span> <ul style='font-family: verdana;'><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Listen to music and watch movies in a variety of formats, record sounds</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>View pictures and perform graphical editing</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Connect to and browse internet, check emails, download via torrents, perform ftp transfers</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Play a number of cool games, including a few DOS based ones</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>View and edit document files, create spreadsheets, view pdf-s, perform calculations, take notes</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Do small programming in a number of languages with an IDE</span></li><li><span style='font-size: 85%;'>…… and many more!!</span></li></ul><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>March is designed to run amply well on a 128 mb RAM machine, PII or later (or equivalent). A 160 mb RAM is recommended for best performance! The apps it includes are mostly LnF (Lean and Fast), and the default desktop (fluxbox) is a minimalistic and lightweight one, which just doesn't get in your way!<br/><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'>Some Wisdom</span><br/><br/>We can say that March Linux is well suited for anyone who wants to use Linux! Even a relatively newbie can begin to "learn the ropes" on this distro, provided he/she has the will and resilience to learn!</span> <div style='text-indent: 2%; font-family: verdana;'> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'>On the other hand, if you are a windows fan-boy, and prefer being served everything on a platter to you rather than using your brains even to the least extent, then March Linux is NOT for you! March Linux tries its best to make learning linux as easy & enjoyable as possible, but really the onus is on you to actually benefit from it!<br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'><br/>Links</span><br/></span></p><p/></div><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Hear to some user comments at <a href='http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=269340'>Arch Linux Forums.</a><br/><br/>Have a first hand look at the different sides of this rocking distro at <a href='http://marchlinux.wikidot.com/start'>March Linux Homesite</a><br/><br/><br/><span style='font-size: 78%;'><br/></span></span><span style='font-size: 78%;'><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 78%;'><span style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'><font color='#999999'>Unless stated otherwise Content of these links are licensed under</font> </span><a style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153);' rel='license' href='http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/'>Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License</a><span style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153);'>.</span></span><br/></span></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-45857760905141821722007-07-16T05:09:00.001-07:002007-07-16T05:09:46.199-07:00Quick-Tip: Permission Denied error on secondary DNS server<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> I like to consider myself a newcomer in DNS/BIND,and it goes to show that you can learn something new everyday. In between my work,i was asked to setup my secondary DNS servers for both 'ar*s.net' and 'calpin*****.net' and other personal domains of the company in the way that I always have.<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'>Scenario: </span><br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>There was a gateway machine in CentOS which was acting also as the Primary DNS of the company(Set with both Public and Private IP's).The requirement was to set up a secondary DNS in another machine which will recieve updated of all domains from the primary so that it can act as a fallback server.<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>But I noticed that the secondary was consistently getting the following error:</span> </p> <blockquote><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-style: italic;'> transfer of 'ar*s'/IN' from <public>#53: failed while receiving responses: permission denied</public></span></span> </blockquote> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> From this error I assumed that my master server was not setup correctly to allow transfers from the secondary. This is normally done with the following configuration option in the /etc/named.conf file:</span></p><code>allow-transfer { <ip>; };<br/><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><br/></span></ip></code><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'> After I had checked this configuration on the master to make sure it was there and that I had not done something like typed the IP address in error. On the surface everything seemed to be perfectly setup, but I was still getting the error.<br/></span><br/><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Eventually I realized that the error was </span><strong style='font-family: verdana;'>not</strong><span style='font-family: verdana;'> a permission denied error from the remote master server, but from the local DNS server. The error turned out to be a file permission error in the default layout of BIND on a CentOS system. </span></span> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> Around the time of Fedora Core 3(Similary in CentOS 4) the default configuration for BIND is setup to chroot the daemon into it's own filesystem space to help avoid and contain any security breaches. This is a great feature. </span></p> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'>Option 1</span><br/></span></span></p><p><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>To fix your </span><em style='font-family: verdana;'>permission denied</em><span style='font-family: verdana;'> error on your secondary or slave DNS server all you need to do is change the permissions of your data directory to include group write permissions. On my system that directory is set as /var/named/sec. You can do this with a simple:</span></span> </p><code># chmod 775 /var/named/sec<br/><br/></code>or <pre><code># chmod g+w /var/named/</code></pre> <p><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> It should be noted that you will only run into this error on a secondary or slave DNS server if you have the secondary store it's slave information in a file. This happens when a slave is configured like this:</span></span> </p> <pre><code>zone "example.com" IN {<br/> type slave;<br/> file "secondary-example.com";<br/> masters { 192.168.0.1; };<br/>};</code></pre> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'>Option 2</span><span style='color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'><span style='color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'>:</span></span></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='color: rgb(102, 0, 0);'><span style='color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'/> </span>Another option, that in many ways is more correct on a Fedora Core system, is to store your secondary zone files in the slaves/ directory. This directory is in /var/named/chroot/var/named/ and already has the proper permissions for you. So instead of file "secondary-example.com"; you would simply say: file "slaves/secondary-example.com";.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Error Checking:</span></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal;'>For checking the errors during the tryout of these options, just restart named daemon like this:</span><br/></span></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span class='postcolor'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><b>#/etc/init.d/named restart</b><br/><br/>(note: the shutdown of named my fail, since it may not be running after the initial install)<br/><br/>4. Let's look in the <b>/var/log/messages</b> file and see if the named daemon started<b> without error</b>. Use the command:<br/><br/><b>#less /var/log/messages</b></span><br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Hopefully this shows you how to resolve this particular error. These suggestions have been tested on Fedora Core and CentOS alike.</span></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span class='postcolor'>Here are some other good DNS guides:</span></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span class='postcolor'><a target='_blank' href='http://ldp.hughesjr.com/HOWTO/DNS-HOWTO.html'>http://ldp.hughesjr.com/HOWTO/DNS-HOWTO.html</a><br/><a target='_blank' href='http://linux.maruhn.com/sec/dns-howto.html'>http://linux.maruhn.com/sec/dns-howto.html</a></span></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span class='postcolor'>DNS Rerource Directory : <a target='_blank' href='http://linux.maruhn.com/sec/dns-howto.html'>http://www.dns.net/dnsrd/<br/></a></span></span></p><br/><br/><p class='poweredbyperformancing'>Powered by <a href='http://scribefire.com/'>ScribeFire</a>.</p></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-64811581680651661422007-06-28T23:42:00.000-07:002007-06-29T06:21:20.594-07:00Search missing Packages With apt-file On Debian and Ubuntu<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>This article describes how you can search for missing packages with <a href='http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Apt-file'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>apt-file</span></a> on Debian and Ubuntu systems. apt-file allows you to search for a file name, and it gives back the name(s) of the package(s) containing that file so that you can install the appropriate package.</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'>NOTE:</span>Tried this on a <a href='http://www.ubuntu.com/'><span style='font-weight: bold;'>Ubuntu 7.04</span></a>(feisty fawn)distribution in my Intel 1.6GHz machine.<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>*I do not issue any guarantee that same will work for you in Debian Sarge.But worth a try !</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>*Try out as root user as no linux distro allows another poweruser as root...:)<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>You all know this: you try to compile some software from the sources, and suddenly the compilation stops because it complains that some file is missing of which you have never heard before.I had a new Ubuntu PC edition running fine until i stumbled upon such messages during some installs and upgrades:</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>(The example is just for demonstration.Some messages masked)<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;'>root@ajith:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1#</span><span style='font-style: italic;'> </span>make<br/> make all-recursive<br/> make[1]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1'<br/> Making all in src<br/> make[2]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1/src'<br/>if gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -DORBIT2=1 -pthread -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/libwnck-1.0 -I/usr/include/gconf/2 -I/usr/include/orbit-2.0 -DDATADIR=\""/usr/local/share"\" -DGNOMELOCALEDIR=\""/usr/local/share/locale"\" -g -O2 -Wall -pedantic -std=c99 -fno-strict-aliasing -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -MT main.o -MD -MP -MF ".deps/main.Tpo" -c -o main.o main.c; \<br/>then mv -f ".deps/main.Tpo" ".deps/main.Po"; else rm -f ".deps/main.Tpo"; exit 1; fi<br/><span style='color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;'>main.c:21:21: error: gtk/gtk.h: No such file or directory</span><br/>In file included from main.c:25:<br/>awn-gconf.h:69: error: expected â)â before â*â token<br/>In file included from main.c:26:<br/>awn-bar.h:43: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before âGtkWindowâ<br/>awn-bar.h:45: warning: struct has no members<br/>awn-bar.h:48: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before âGtkWindowClassâ<br/>awn-bar.h:49: warning: struct has no members<br/>awn-window.h:45: warning: struct has no members<br/>awn-window.h:48: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before âGtkWindowClassâ<br/>awn-window.h:49: warning: struct has no members<br/>awn-window.h:55: error: expected â=â, â,â, â;â, âasmâ or â__attribute__â before â*â token<br/>In file included from main.c:28:<br/>awn-app.h:30:29: error: libwnck/libwnck.h: No such file or directory<br/>In file included from main.c:28:<br/>awn-app.h:60: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before âWnckWindowâ<br/>awn-app.h:80: warning: struct has no members<br/>awn-app.h:83: error: expected â)â before â*â token<br/>In file included from main.c:29:<br/>awn-win-manager.h:35: error: expected â=â, â,â, â;â, âasmâ or â__attribute__â before â*â token<br/>main.c:32: error: expected â)â before â*â token<br/>main.c: In function âmainâ:<br/>main.c:48: error: âGtkWidgetâ undeclared (first use in this function)<br/>main.c:48: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once<br/>main.c:48: error: for each function it appears in.)<br/>main.c:48: error: âwinâ undeclared (first use in this function)<br/>main.c:49: error: âbarâ undeclared (first use in this function)<br/>main.c:50: error: âboxâ undeclared (first use in this function)<br/>main.c:51: error: âwinmanâ undeclared (first use in this function)<br/>main.c:52: error: âlabâ undeclared (first use in this function)<br/>main.c:54: warning: implicit declaration of function âgtk_initâ<br/>main.c:56: warning: implicit declaration of function âawn_bar_newâ<br/>main.c:58: warning: implicit declaration of function âawn_window_newâ<br/>main.c:59: warning: implicit declaration of function âgtk_window_set_policyâ<br/>main.c:59: warning: implicit declaration of function âGTK_WINDOWâ<br/>main.c:76: warning: implicit declaration of function âgtk_window_set_transient_forâ<br/>main.c:79: warning: implicit declaration of function âgtk_mainâ<br/>make[2]: *** [main.o] Error 1<br/>make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1/src'<br/>make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1<br/>make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1'<br/>make: *** [all] Error 2<br/><span style='font-weight: bold;'/></span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>So how do you know which (obviously missing) package contains that file so that you can install the package and try the compilation again? For Debian based systems (like Ubuntu) the solution is apt-file. apt-file lets you search for file names and gives back the package(s) containing that file.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);'> </p><h3 style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>2) Install apt-file</span></h3> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>apt-file is installed as follows:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#apt-get install apt-file</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>After the installation, we must update apt-file's package database like this:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#apt-file update</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>You must also do this whenever you modify <span class='system'>/etc/apt/sources.list</span>. </span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>3) Search For Packages</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Now let's search for the package containing the file <span class='system'>gtk/gtk.h</span>. You could search like this:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#apt-file search gtk.h</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>but this would give back lots of packages, so let's narrow down the search by running</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#apt-file search gtk/gtk.h</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>The output looks like this:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;' class='system'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#root@ajith:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1#apt-file search gtk/gtk.h</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;' class='system'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> libgfcui-dev: usr/include/gfc-2.0/gfc/gtk/gtk.hh<br/> libgtk+2.0-directfb-dev: usr/include/directfb/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h<br/> libgtk1.2-dev: usr/include/gtk-1.2/gtk/gtk.h<br/> libgtk2.0-dev: usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h<br/> libgtk2.0-doc: usr/share/doc/libgtk2.0-doc/gtk/gtk.html<br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;' class='system'><span style='font-size: 85%;'> root@ajith:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1#</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>As you see there are three packages containing <span class='system'>gtk/gtk.h</span> (one contains <span class='system'>gtk/gtk.hh</span>, another one <span class='system'>gtk/gtk.html</span> which is not what we are looking for), and it's now up to you to install the right one. If you are unsure, you can install all three packages, or you install one after the other and check after each one if the compilation error still occurs. In our case the right package is <span class='system'>libgtk2.0-dev</span>, so we install that one:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>Now we try the compilation again:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;' class='system'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;'>root@ajith:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1# make</span><br/> make all-recursive<br/> make[1]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1'<br/> Making all in src<br/> make[2]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1/src'<br/>if gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -DORBIT2=1 -pthread -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/libwnck-1.0 -I/usr/include/gconf/2 -I/usr/include/orbit-2.0 -DDATADIR=\""/usr/local/share"\" -DGNOMELOCALEDIR=\""/usr/local/share/locale"\" -g -O2 -Wall -pedantic -std=c99 -fno-strict-aliasing -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -MT main.o -MD -MP -MF ".deps/main.Tpo" -c -o main.o main.c; \<br/>then mv -f ".deps/main.Tpo" ".deps/main.Po"; else rm -f ".deps/main.Tpo"; exit 1; fi<br/>In file included from /usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h:170,<br/>from main.c:21:<br/>/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h:52: warning: ISO C restricts enumerator values to range of âintâ<br/>/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h:53: warning: ISO C restricts enumerator values to range of âintâ<br/>/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h:55: warning: ISO C restricts enumerator values to range of âintâ<br/>In file included from main.c:28:<br/><span style='color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;'>awn-app.h:30:29: error: libwnck/libwnck.h: No such file or directory</span><br/>In file included from main.c:28:<br/>awn-app.h:60: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before âWnckWindowâ<br/>awn-app.h:80: warning: struct has no members<br/>awn-app.h:83: error: expected â)â before â*â token<br/>main.c: In function âmainâ:<br/>main.c:52: warning: unused variable âlabâ<br/>make[2]: *** [main.o] Error 1<br/>make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1/src'<br/>make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1<br/>make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1'<br/>make: *** [all] Error 2<br/>root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1# </span> </p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>As you see, the initial error is now gone, but still another file is missing, <span class='system'>libwnck/libwnck.h</span>, so let's search for the missing package:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#apt-file search libwnck/libwnck.h</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>This time we're lucky, there's only one package containing that file:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;' class='system'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-style: italic;'>root@ajith:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1# apt-file search libwnck/libwnck.h</span><br/> libwnck-dev: usr/include/libwnck-1.0/libwnck/libwnck.h<br/>root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1#</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>So let's install the missing package:</span></p> <p style='font-family: verdana;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>#apt-get install libwnck-dev</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'>I think this handy post can help you from a lot of headaches sporting a debian distribution.</span></p><p style='font-family: verdana;' class='command'><span style='font-size: 85%;'><br/></span></p><p style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);'><span style='font-size: 78%;'>Thanks to article reference by Falko Timme (<ft>)</ft></span><span style='font-size: 78%;'>at <a href='http://www.howtoforge.com'>Howtoforge.com</a>.</span><span style='color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 78%;'>Ubuntu and Canonical are registered trademarks of Canonical Ltd</span></p></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19299583.post-86937424620222718232007-06-16T06:15:00.000-07:002008-12-08T15:29:19.957-08:00Apple's Smartphone - iPhone<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKi8WL-ck2SOH2dIsfeSepVsDp_2WijSkZfXuIzTyhblJ7l11sVjZRV3_akzQaKlUUBd04vciCm0q7tojAXYu4hQsIYiVOoap9zmeKJkW7822w713RZhKU-y2oxAwZWJiBRiYrkQ/s1600-h/pictures_01m_20070410.jpg' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076653059366582722' alt='' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKi8WL-ck2SOH2dIsfeSepVsDp_2WijSkZfXuIzTyhblJ7l11sVjZRV3_akzQaKlUUBd04vciCm0q7tojAXYu4hQsIYiVOoap9zmeKJkW7822w713RZhKU-y2oxAwZWJiBRiYrkQ/s200/pictures_01m_20070410.jpg' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 205px; height: 213px;'></img></a><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXeKFPSdEnYLRl_7bplwnPpcg2idMgezMAcQluMEge65GHu0XgCohi9-YhhLdbNj8v8tEUwVnO2UgGKNhntqOs_a9IqEuHwrqq8nRUqyI8l1gzsu7Dbzn1Mg73D7hBicmCb56NoQ/s1600-h/iphone_2461x500.jpg' onblur='try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}'><img border='0' id='BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076652836028283314' alt='' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXeKFPSdEnYLRl_7bplwnPpcg2idMgezMAcQluMEge65GHu0XgCohi9-YhhLdbNj8v8tEUwVnO2UgGKNhntqOs_a9IqEuHwrqq8nRUqyI8l1gzsu7Dbzn1Mg73D7hBicmCb56NoQ/s200/iphone_2461x500.jpg' style='margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 203px; height: 214px;'></img></a><br></br><br></br><br></br><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><span style='color: rgb(51, 102, 102); font-size: 180%;'><br></br><br></br><br></br><br></br><br></br><br></br><br></br>T</span>he long-awaited Apple <a href='http://www.apple.com/iphone/' style='font-weight: bold;'>iPhone</a>, which hits store shelves on June 29, marks Apple's formal entry into the cell phone world. Steve Jobs announced the iPhone at <a href='http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf07/'>Macworld 2007</a> to a frenzied reception and the handset has continued to attract wide interest since then.<br></br><br></br>iPhone combines three amazing products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device(also rumoured that the latest addition to gadget would be youtube). iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers.<br></br><br></br></span><span style='font-weight: bold; font-family: verdana;'>Features:</span> <span style='font-family: verdana;'><br></br><br></br>* A full iPod MP3 player with a wide screen, the iPhone also packs in a version of OS X</span> <br></br><br></br></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>*</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> True push e-mail via Yahoo Mail (plus compatibility with your office e-mail)</span> <br></br><br></br></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>*</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> A 2-megapixel camera</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>A 3.5-inch display with higher resolution than any current iPod. </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br></br><br></br></span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>* </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Only one </span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>physical controller and only a touch screen for a keypad<br></br><br></br></span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'></span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>*</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'> Storage: 4 or 8 GB Flash memory</span></span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><br></br><br></br></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>* </span></span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>Quad band GSM (GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900)</span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'><br></br><br></br></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>* </span></span><span style='font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;'>WiFi (802.11b/802.11g), EDGE and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR</span><br></br><span style='font-size: 85%;'><br></br><br></br><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Go thru the <a href='http://www.apple.com/iphone/gallery/'>official gallery</a> at Apple home</span><br></br><span style='font-family: verdana;'><br></br></span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>Apple received </span><a title='FCC' href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC' style='font-family: verdana;'>FCC</a><span style='font-family: verdana;'> approval for the iPhone on </span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>May 17</span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>, </span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>2007</span><span style='font-family: verdana;'>.</span></span><span style='font-size: 85%;'><span style='font-family: verdana;'>The iPhone will be available in 4GB and 8GB configurations for $499 and $599, respectively, and will be carried by AT&T starting on June 29, 2007 on the US.<br></br><br></br></span></span><span style='font-family: verdana; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 78%;'>The logo apple and all gadgets connected with it are Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.Images used for informative purposes.</span></div>Ajith Kumar.V.Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05086371735940267798noreply@blogger.com0