Ultra Random Thoughts

Soup Up GNOME 3 Desktop using Opera Widgets

2012-01-30T02:27:00.001+05:30

This article is about customizing your GNOME 3.2.1 desktop on openSUSE 12.1 . Since GNOME 3 desktops doesn't have any desktop icons the desktop real estate is free to be taken over by widgets , screenlets ,docks etc. I propose using Opera widgets to decorate your GNOME 3 desktop as well as make it a place where you can read news , get weather updates , track stock market updates , play games, maintain your to-do lists , listen to online radio stations, maintain virtual aquarium and do a host of other things.
GNOME 3 Desktop With Opera Widgets

Opera

Opera is a modern browser which supports all major web standards currently in use, like CSS 2.1, XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.01, HTML5, WML 2.0, ECMAScript, DOM 2 and SVG 1.1 tiny.It's main focus is on speed of browsing . Its page load speed is pretty good even on dial up connection. It has a lot of neat features like:-
==>Supports browser Add-ons / extensions.
==>Supports desktop widgets.
==>Has an in built torrent client.
==>Has an inbuilt mail client
==>First browser to introduce speed dial first
==>First to introduce syncing for bookmarks and other settings
==>First to introduce tabs concept in browsers
==>Inbuilt RSS reader
Install Opera on openSUSE 12.1 / GNOME 3.2.1
One can use this 1-Click Install to install GTk version of opera on GNOME 3.21 / openSUSE 12.1. The installer / YaSt screens / wizard will guide you through the various steps in the installation process.You may need to type in admin password / passcode when prompted.You may also need to click "accept" / "Trust" when it prompts for accepting the repository key
Use Opera Widgets
There is no need for installation of a separate widget manager. It comes built into the browser . Once can download the widgets here.Opera defines widgets as "small web programs running outside the browser. Widgets can be both fun and useful, like games or development tools. They float on your desktop for quick and easy access to information or services". For those who are UN-initiated ,starting from version 10.10 Opera provides the ability to run the widgets as standalone applications. After the installation, the widgets can be seen as applications in the GNOME menu as an icon . The widgets on installation create link under "/ home / <Profile> / bin" .There is no need for the Opera browser to intervene. The widgets run as a separate process.
Each widget can be rearranged according to the need on the desktop.
Widget Launch Links in Bin Folder

Launch widgets Along with OS / Add widget to GNOME startup
To add the widget to the start up on needs to launch "gnome-session-properties" through Alt+F2 command quick launch window.Then add an entry for the required widget in "Add Startup program" pop up windows by clicking add button in "Startup Application preferences". This will essentially start the widget when the gnome session starts up.
Launch gnome-session-properties" through Alt+F2

Add new entry for widget in Gnome Session Startup Manager

Hide The widgets in GNOME window switcher
When one presses the left windows / Super key on the keyboard (OR) on moves the mouse cursor over "Activities" label in the top panel then the windows switcher can be accessed in GNOME 3 .Through the window switcher one can switch-over from using one application to the other application. In order to hide the widgets from appearing in the window switcher one can right click on each widget and set position" to "always below"
Before hiding widgets they appear in window switcher

Set to Always Below

After Hiding widgets they don't appear in window switcher

Widgets on My Desktop

The various widgets shown here in this post are:-
==>Analog Clock
==>BBC Headlines News
==>dotoo: To-do lists.One more upgraded version of too exists here
==>Stock Monitor
==>Weather forecast.This is a cool tool and has multiple display mode like 5 days forecast , compact mode etc.The display modes can be toggled by clinking on the widget.To set the city one should click the search or magnifying glass like thing on the widget and search for the relevant city and choose the required city in the search results. The tool also allows users to set the display of temperature to either Celsius or Fahrenheit
Weather Widget city search

Install sun java 1.6 update 30 and browser plugin on openSUSE 12.1

2012-01-29T22:32:00.000+05:30

Due to licensing issues openSUSE had to drop sun java from its repositories starting from openSUSE 12.1 onwards . Hence you need to install it from user maintained or community repositories . Only OpenJDK is offered in official repositories
Install Java
Based on the architecture the relevant package must be installed.You need to install two packages:-
==>JRE or Java Run-time Environment is needed for executing jars or running class files on your system.Some application software like openoffice / libreoffice need this to work properly.
==>Browser plugin is used to run applets on your browser
We can install both JRE and browser Plugin using the 1-Click Install/One-Click for plugin as YaST will automatically detect that JRE is also required.You can also locate other 1-Clicks for Sun Java Plugin here
Important Note:- You may need to type in admin password / passcode when prompted.You may also need to click "accept" / "Trust" when it prompts for accepting the repository key. Since we are using 1 click for plugin ,the installer /YaST will ask you to upgrade / install JRE also, you may need to allow the up-gradation of JRE.

Check Installation

Check version of Java/Jre in system
If you are looking to test your installation then you need to open the terminal
an execute the command "java -version"

Check version of Java plugin browser uses
To check browser plugin Navigate here or here
If the installation is successful you must see something like this :-

Run or Execute jar files

If you looking for launching (or) running jar files then ,look here

Vettai review (Contains Spoilers)

2012-01-27T10:08:00.002+05:30

Protagonists
Arya as Gurumurthy
Madhavan as Thirumurthy

Protagonist's Love interests

Sameera Reddy as Vasanthi
Amala Paul as Jayanthi

Baddie

Ashutosh Rana as Annachi

Captain Of the ship

Linguswamy

Vettai film is all about two brothers Madhavan as Thirumurthy and Arya as Gurumurthy.Like Jekyll and Hyde and two sides of a coin Guru and Thiru have diametrically opposite personalities. Thiru happens to be dull headed and is a bit of scaredy cat,whereas Guru is a Ruf & Tuf and smart.The movie is about how the brothers fare in their life after the death of their father who happens to be a police officer . There is also a running gag that both of them being sons of a policemen have policemen's blood running in them.

Pluses of the movie

==>Madhavan and Arya's screen presence is amazing.
==>As usual Lingusamy has paced the movie well.
==>Sameera Reddy looked natural even though she is not a local. Amala paul played the role of eye candy to perfection.
==>The script writers / dialogue writers have done a commendable job to keep the audiences interested even though the movie's story lacked substance.
==>The baddie sports a smart clean shaven look and performed well, and is a promising talent.
==>Did not feature any fart jokes unlike nanban

Minuses of the movie

==>The songs were terrible.The less said about the lyrics the better.This has been a typical trend in recent tamil movie.Only movie that came close to breaking this unsavoury streak was vaagai Sooda Vaa
==>Typical Kollywood,run of the mill movie.
==>This is the gazillionth film to portray an American fiancée as a dufus and complete moron.
Story
The movie starts with the Madhavan flying a kite along with other boys when another boy intentionally cuts his line When Madhavan confronts the aggressor he gets beaten and shooed away. Madhavan high-tails from the spot . He returns to the spot with his younger brother Arya who picks up a fight with the aggressor.The protagonist's father happens to catch Arya with another boy rolling in the sand and he takes both home and flogs Arya . Though Arya remains unperturbed , Madhavan weeps and feels guilty that he is the reason why Arya got flogged by their father.This scene sets the premise to rest of the film.
Arya's father dies when the boys reach the age of twenty something and Madhavan gets coaxed by Arya to join the police force . Whenever Madhavan gets into a tight situation with the baddies he calls up Arya and he takes care of them.This drama continues for sometime and Madhavan gains a reputation of being a no nonsense ,bad ass but kicking police officer.Unfortunately the bad guys find out the truth about Madhavan that he is actually a sheep in wolves clothing.The rowdie elements waste no time and make short work of Madhavan.
When Madhavan starts recovering from the serious injuries ,Arya reveals the real reason as to why he made Madhavan join the force. He wanted Madhavan to stop being a scaredy cat and stand up to the challenges he faces in the life . He further goes on to say that he cannot continue giving a long rope to Madhavan and asks him shed his fears and beome a responsible police officer.The rest of the movie is about how Madhavan KO's the bad guys.
End of story

Conclusion

Watch the film if you want to have a few laughs or you happen to be a Madhavan (or) Arya's fan. You can also watch the movie if you want to catch a glimpse of Amala Paul who offers plenty of fan service and seems to determined to change her demure image from Myna.

Cinnamon Bread oops Cinnamon Desktop is piping hot

2012-01-26T02:43:00.004+05:30

Brief
This post is an overview of cinnamon desktop of mint origin on openSUSE12.1 and GNOME 3.2.1.Cinnamon works more like a GNOME 2 emulator for GNOME 3 . What I meant is , Cinnamon still uses shell but the interface is closer to GNOME 2 . Those who have been baying for GNOME shell blood please switch to Cinnamon . No more GNOME 3 hate clubs . Those who use fallback mode intentionally due to dislike for shell interface can switch to cinnamon.

Install Cinnamon
You need to have openSUSE 12.1 / GNOME 3.2.1 installed on your system so that you can install Cinnamon on top of it.
Step 1:-
open terminal and add the repositories and refresh them.Type in the admin passcode when prompted
sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/cyberorg:/cinnamon/openSUSE_12.1/home:cyberorg:cinnamon.repo
sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/GNOME:/Cinnamon/12.1/GNOME:Cinnamon.repo
sudo zypper refresh
Step 2:-
open YaST and install all the packages in both the repositories.
Step 3:-
Finally use the option "Switch installed packages to the versions in this repository" against the first repository listed above
Important Note:-I had to use this weird approach to install as Cinnamon is not fully openSUSE12.1 integrated as i write this post.You can ignore adding first repo once Cinnamon becomes stable on openSUSE12.1

How To Use Cinnamon

After installing cinnamon you can switch to cinnamon desktop using the desktop switcher.

Standard Cinnamon Desktop

What Can You expect in Cinnamon?

Weather Extension

==>You can get all the weather updates you need on GNOME 3 desktop now thanks to the weather applet.
==>You need to find the "Where On Earth Code" first for you city or town.
To get your woeid you need to search for the weather update at weather.com and then copy / extract the code from address address bar of your browser.The following image shows how to do it for a particular city

Alternatively you can also get woeid here
==>Set the woeid using dconf-editor.To do this type in Alt+F2 and in the quick launch window type in "dconf-editor" and then hit return,this will open dconf-editor .Navigate to org==>Cinnamon==>extensions==>weather and there set the woeid

Set woeid through dconf-editor

Screenshot of Weather Extension

The GNOME 3 style Window Switcher is retained

Application Menu like GNOME 2.X

Application Menu supports application search too

cinnamon-settings

All settings can be controlled through either "gnome-tweak-tool" or "cinnamon-settings". Both can be launched through use of these commands in Alt+F2 quick launch application window.

gnome-tweak-tool
This tool is greatly useful to switch "on" the various extensions and apply themes in Cinnamon desktop.Chocolate theme applied through gnome-tweak-tool

Return Of the Classic shutdown menu

Citation :- GNOME_Cinnamon

IceWM on openSUSE 12.1

2012-01-24T12:35:00.002+05:30

According to the the project home page , IceWM is a window manager for the X Window System. The features of IceWM are speed, simplicity, and not getting in the user's way. For the ones who are itching to build it from the source, here is the link to the sourceforge project. Personal opinion of IceWM is that a simple , non flashy , practical window manager that doesn't promise much , but simply delivers.

Pluses of IceWM on openSUSE 12.1

==>It is damn fast
==>It is small and has a very very small memory footprint
==>You can get the entire application menu(list of all apps installed on your system) on the right click of your mouse which is pretty cool feature.
==>It has many built in themes and can emulate the look of Windows '95(evokes nostalgia), OS/2 Warp 3, OS/2 Warp 4, and Motif etc:
==>Fully compatible with YaST on openSUSE12.1
==>It piggyback rides on GNOME desktop and hence no need to install it separately.
==>Easy on the eyes .The shades used on the desktop seemed to give off vibes similar to that of a pastel based artwork.
==>Almost all the apps that work in GNOME be it GTK or QT based work on
IceWM
==>It is a great fall-back window manager for GNOME 3.
==>It is a solid platform or those(developers,DrJava runs fine,screenshot attached below) who don't need an frilly desktop

How and where I found out about IceWM ?

The story is quite similar to that of goldilocks and the three bears.One fine day ,similar to the bears in the story I was fuming after one of the infamous crashes of GNOME 3 desktop and when the desktop automatically got logged out ,I found that there are multiple desktops that and then I thought somebody has been piggybacking on my GNOME installations.GNOME 3 was very unstable until a few patched came rolling in on openSUSE 11.4.Those were early days when GNOME 3 desktop was introduced as an alternative to the default GNOME 2.32 desktop on openSUSE 11.4.Whenever I used "gnome-tweak-tool" to set nautilus as the desktop handler, the desktop would crash . It would also crash whenever i refreshed the desktop using the key combination "Alt+F2"==> type in"r" and press return or enter key . Whenever I tried to login after the crash the desktop would crash again,it would take me to a login screen . Then i would login into the "IceWM" Session and fix my GNOME 3 desktop. I felt that it was really very handy to keep multiple Window managers installed as a fall-back system . Hats off to the openSUSE guys for bundling IceWM and its sort of poorer cousin TWM.

Goldilocks Session switcher showing GNOME 3, IceWM and TWM

IceWM Screenshots
IceWM theme used in the screenshots is "icedesert" which happens to be the default theme on IceWM.The version installed on my system is IceWM 1.3.7.

IceWM in full throttle running Nautilus,gnome-mplayer ,GKrellM and gnome-calculator

IceWM running DrJava(light weight Java IDE),bleachbit(linux equivalent of the windows based ccleaner) and also showing the entire application menu

If you looking for article on running jar files in Linux environment(like running DrJava packages) then take a look at this post.If you are looking for installing java jre on openSUSE 12.1 take a look here.

IceWM with nautilus added as a quick launch button in the task bar.

To add a new button like a quick launch for nautilus to the task bar you need to create a new file with the name toolbar under the path /home/<Your HOME FOLDER>/.icewm and add a line prog "Nautilus" "" nautilus to the file and save it , logout and log back in to get the button working / show up on the taskbar.
Desktop icons enabled on IceWM by using "gnome-tweak-tool"

The trick to doing this is to chit on the left windows key on keyboard and launch the application menu on the left hand side and invoke "xterm".Then type in "gnome-tweak-tool" and hit return / enter key.Then using the tweak tool / Advanced Settings you can enable desktop icons and set nautilus to manage the the desktop.You may need to logout and login back again to see the changes though.
Side Note:-Logo at the beginning of post created here:- FalmingText

What are PIPA and SOPA capable of doing to the internet

2012-01-22T17:38:00.001+05:30

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

NOTE:-If video is too slow then use then click "HD",the HD mode will get switched off and the video will load faster

The above video explains as to how PIPA and SOPA can affect internet and affect the world as a whole.In short PIPA and SOPA can :-
==>Uploading a video with baby dancing to a tune over video sharing sites like youtube , metacafe etc can land one in serious trouble.
==>Not only that media companies can take down the site which allowed you to upload the aforementioned video
==>Encourage similar laws through out the world
==>Give an excuse the social networking sites scour through your private content on pretext of searching for illegal or copyrighted content in your posts
==>Governments may start preventing people from blogging, stemming from fear of the unknown

Should BCCI take a leaf out of RCA?

2012-01-22T01:08:00.004+05:30

Rajasthan's Fairy Tale

I am not an avid follower of the Indian Domestic cricket or The Ranjis. But I cannot help notice that Rajasthan's Ranji team has performed exceeding well over the past two ranji seasons and have even made to the finals of the 2011 Ranji finals and if everything goes well they should trounce and make short work of Tamil Nadu and retain the Ranji Trophy . The scores read Rajasthan 621,Tamil Nadu 66/3 (25.0 overs) at stumps as I write this article . Mr Ranji would be happy to know that atleast one team is taking the game seriously.

I have seen some cricket pundits accuse Rajasthan of playing it safe in this years tournament finals by being too conservative and amass 621 at a snail's pace and crush the day lights out of the Tamil Nadu .
==>What's wrong with Rajasthan taking advantage of the first innings lead rule to their advantage and winning the match
==>It is not Rajasthan's fault that the ground at Chepauk aided neither spin nor pace.They won a contest with the ball fair and square against harayana in Rothak.Why let Tamil Nadu cricket association prepare a dead pitch?
==>Their game-plan is different based on different pitches and this shows their organisational capacity , their dedication to win each and every game.
==>They are hungry for victory in the final and they deserve to win the trophy this year too.

Let us not forget that Rajasthan is not standing at the top as a matter of luck.They literally had to claw their way up to the top.They never reached a final before 2010/2011 Ranji series after their run in the 60',70's.One may even argue that Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) started showing their real might from the inaugural IPL in 2008 which they won with a motley bunch of youngsters under the able stewardship of the spin legend Shane warne.They have proved that it was not a fluke by translating themselves into a impeccable team in the first class cricket i.e.Ranji Trophy

It as not been a cake walk for Rajasthan team.They had to start from the bottom in 2009/2010 when they were in the plate league and they won only 1 out of the 5 matches in the league stages and occupied the bottom of Group A . For the uninitiated Ranji Trophy now has a plate leagues and super league / elite system where plate trophy is for the bottom rung teams and Elite is the for the much better playing team. Moving from the bottom of plate league in 2009/2010 to winning the 2010/2011 elite trophy and making it to the finals in 2011/2012 in the elite league is by no measure a small achievement . It is comparable to a human chiselling a tunnel through a mountain.

What did the Rajasthan team get it right?

==>They played first class cricket/non limited overs cricket as it is supposed to be played.They did not rush things.They never lost their cool.
==>They planned well and rebuilt their team after they finished at the bottom of the plate league in 2009/2010
==>They brought in good players from other teams.
==>They take their game seriously
==>They play according to a plan.
==>They developed the cricket game in non urban areas too , which would obviously lead to unearthing fresh and untested talent which will not be possible with a limited talent pool. More about it here

Why is the National Team fairing poorly overseas?

If a state team like Rajasthan with limited resources can plan well and execute the plan and play well why can't BCCI,the richest cricket body in the entire world whose coffers are loaded with unforetold wealth and treasures do a good job with the national team?
==>What is happening to the fresh talent that Ranji unearths each year ?
==>What is the national cricket academy doing ?
==>Why are we losing 7 overseas test matches on a trot ?
==>Didn't the current ,much hyped Indian team win last year's ODI World Cup(2011).
==>Why are we losing each overseas test by an innings?
==>Why can't we just draw a few of the games ?
==>Why are we the laughing stock last year in England and this year in Australia?

BCCI is rotten / corrupt / ineffective :-

Well BCCI has done every thing wrong to begin with
==>The pitch used in this year's (2011-2012) final in Chepauk is horrible . It is really is the famed dust bowl.Why can't BCCI appoint some experts to oversee pitches before important games in domestic tournaments?
==>BCCI never managed the players injury properly . During the English tour of 2011 more than half of the Indian team was changed due to injuries . Dhoni also was quick to point out this fact.
==>BCCI never plans an overseas tournament well.We played only a single practise match before the infamous 4-0 drubbing against England in 2011
==>Indian team is also not playing according to a plan.
==>We are relying too much on old warhorses like Sachin , Dravid and Laxman rather than relying on young blood.Where are the centuries and double centuries from new comers in the last 7 or so tests?
==>We are still retaining Zonal based selection system instead of picking players for the team purely based on talent.
==>As Dada has pointed out here (Dhoni not interested in Test cricket: Ganguly),Dhoni seems to have lost interest in test cricket.Then why the hell does he not quit immediately ? There is no place for half hearted players in the team.
==>The head of BCCI is still not a former test player but a politician though India has a long history of playing cricket even from times before Independence.
==>Why do the selectors go Scott free and the blame is shouldered on by the players when the team performs poorly.
==>Why doesn't BCCI reveal what it is doing (BCCI rejects Ajay Maken's revised Sports Development Bill) with its enormous funds.Is it really using it for the betterment of cricket in India

Why the hell can't BCCI take a leaf out of Rajasthan's successful run in first class cricket?

Nanban movie Review(Contains Spoilers)

2012-01-14T16:59:00.002+05:30

Saw Nanban movie in kamala theatre (known as kamala cinemas now) 11:00 Am show.Thank god the Theatre has good parking facility and had a decent parking cost of 15 bucks unlike the theatres in the malls where you are charged about 20 ~ 25 bucks per hour.Sometimes we may spend more on parking ticket rather than the movie ticket itself.The sound system in the theatre is not so good.I was sitting near the wall in the front set of rows. The speakers has caused me a headache . Also the movie theatres should stop frisking people and install metal detectors or something.The movie was not such a bad one considering vijay acted in it.

Pluses of the movie:-
==>Sathyaraj acted well,he had done his homework and was good as the college principal.Jeeva and Srikanth essayed the roles of Vijay's friends very well.
==>The story line was nearly water tight but not air tight.
==>It is not the typical shankar movies about corruption etc:
==>The movie I believe is a faithful reproduction of the original
"3 idiots".
==>Message of the movie "asking youngsters to apply themselves in areas of their interest" instead of going down the well trodden path is laudable.
==>Not a typical hodgepodge Vijay movie :-).

Minuses of the movie:-
==>There was absolutely no chemistry between the lead pair.The lead pair (Vijay , Ileane)couldn't show much of facial expressions.Ileane looked a little anorexic.
==>The songs did not gel well with the movie.The lyrics were not catchy.
Shankar did not pay much attention to the songs in this movie which I find is quite unusual.
==> People poking fun of srivatsan(sathyan) all the time was getting too tiresome to watch.The fart related jokes was a little retarded.
==>Old wine in new bottle.The age old urban legend that, "NASA spending a large amount of money to develop a pen that would write in the conditions experienced during spaceflight",has been retold through this movie.There is no point of including that story in the movie.

Story:-
Sathyan calls up Vijay's friends ( Jeeva and Srikanth) and asks them to meet him lying to them that he is with their dear friend Vijay and he is waiting to meet them.Instead he shows them a presentation of his achievements in life . After not being able to meet their dear friend who in this case happens to be Vijay start looking around for their long last friend.Vijay it seems doesn't keep in touch with them after their graduation from college . During their search for Vijay , the college days when the trio spent their times together is shown . It was shown as to how Vijay was really smart and was down to earth and witty .The flashback fails to explain as to why only these two were attracted to Vijay whereas the rest of the students did not interact a lot with vijay . Sathyaraj did a commendable role as the college principal . Back in the present,when they finally thought that they had nailed their dear friend's location that they find that their friend has impersonated another person (S.J.Surya) and did college on behalf of him.
Jeeva and Srikanth come to know about the marriage of Ileana and her finance.They gate crash Ileana's wedding and tell her that she not betray her feelings for Vijay and marry a "Mr no good" / "cold hearted"' person like her would be husband.When they finally catch up with Vijay they realise his noble objective of starting a school where each student can realise his/her hidden potentials.

Conclusion
Though nothing new has been explored in this movie it can be watched once.It has a few good scenes. My rating of the movie would be (3.5 out of 5)

Big Bash Of Video Players On Gnome 3

2012-01-13T23:05:00.008+05:30

Big Bash Of Video Players On Gnome 3 is a lazy comparative study of Linux based video players , specifically those which are available on GNOME 3.2.1 , openSUSE 12.1.openSUSE 12.1 offers a large variety of video players based on various platforms like gstreamer , phonon , xine , mplayer etc : Most of the video player options can be installed through the addition of OSS , Non OSS , Update and Packman repositories in YaST.
Before one gets on with installing video players on openSUSE one must install the codecs for restricted multimedia formats .This will enable the video players to play the wide range of video formats available nowadays like mpg , divx / avi , xvid / avi , rm , rmvb , wmv , mkv , asf , flv , webm etc:The list seems to be endless.
The various video players compared include Banshee , Gmerlin player , gnome-mplayer , gmplayer , SMPlayer , UMPlayer , Totem , VLC , Whaaw! Media Player , Xine-ui , XBMC .Though many other video players are available for openSUSE we will restrict ourselves with comparing the above ones.

Install Video Players

One can go through Step 1 in this post to install all the required multimedia libraries on openSUSE / GNOME.Then one needs to ensure that all the required community repositories have been configured / installed.
Zypper way:-
==>Press Alt+F2 and in the command launch window type in "gnome-termial" and hit enter or return key
==>Execute the command "sudo zypper in umplayer". Here "sudo" is used for switching to super user mode,"zypper" is the installation tool,"in" stands for install and "umplayer" is the name of the software / package you are going to install
==>If prompted type in the admin password / passcode
Sample zypper output :-

anonymous@linux-9p85:~> sudo zypper in umplayer
root's password:
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...
The following NEW package is going to be installed:
umplayer
1 new package to install.
Overall download size: 1.4 MiB. After the operation, additional 3.6 MiB will be
used.
Continue? [y/n/?] (y): y
Retrieving package umplayer-0.97+r180-1.5.i586 (1/1), 1.4 MiB (3.6 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving: umplayer-0.97+r180-1.5.i586.rpm [done (62.3 KiB/s)]
Installing: umplayer-0.97+r180-1.5 [done]

GUI way:-
If you are not comfortable with command line interface ( CLI ) or command mode then you can install the software through YaST.
==>Press left windows/Super key on your keyboard,this will bring up the activities window in GNOME 3
==>Click on Applications tab,it will appear on left hand side top of the activities windows
==>You can find "Install/Remove Software" menu by typing in install from your keyboard ( don't worry about placing your mouse cursor in search box,GNOME 3 is smart enough to do it for you). Alternatively you can locate it under "system tools" node of the tree like menu which sits on the right hand side in in the applications tab
==>Enter admin password when prompted and then and then wait for the tool to "refresh" your available software list
==>You can type in the name of the package / software / rpm you want to install like "gnome-mplayer" or "umplayer" and then click / check the software you want to install.You can "check" multiple software by changing the query in the "find" box and checking/selecting the software you need.
==>After checking the software your need hit apply button at the bottom of the software install window.You will be asked to confirm the software you want to install and then it will take a few minutes for the download and install process to complete.
==>You can then check the installed software "Applications" menu.
Comparison of video players
First I compare the video players based on their looks (like whether they integrate well with desktop theme) , their stability(how many times they crash) , easy of use (use of scroll in mouse to seek etc),whether they are easily configurable (setting default subtitle language etc).

Banshee
http://banshee.fm/
Looks	04 / 05
Easy Of Use	04 / 05
Stability	03 / 05
Configurability	03 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	No

Gmerlin Player
http://gmerlin.sourceforge.net/
Looks	02 / 05
Easy Of Use	02 / 05
Stability	03 / 05
Configurability	03 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	Yes

gnome-mplayer
http://code.google.com/p/gnome-mplayer/
Looks	03 / 05
Easy Of Use	04 / 05
Stability	05 / 05
Configurability	04 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	No

gmplayer
http://www.mplayerhq.hu
Looks	03 / 05
Easy Of Use	03 / 05
Stability	03 / 05
Configurability	04 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	Yes

SMPlayer
http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/
Looks	04 / 05
Easy Of Use	04 / 05
Stability	04 / 05
Configurability	05 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	Yes

UMPlayer
http://www.umplayer.com
Looks	04 / 05
Easy Of Use	04 / 05
Stability	04 / 05
Configurability	05 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	yes

Totem
http://projects.gnome.org/totem/
Looks	05 / 05
Easy Of Use	04 / 05
Stability	04 / 05
Configurability	03 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	No

VLC
http://www.videolan.org/
Looks	03 / 05
Easy Of Use	04 / 05
Stability	04 / 05
Configurability	03 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	Yes


Whaaw! Media Player
http://home.gna.org/whaawmp/
Looks	03 / 05
Easy Of Use	04 / 05
Stability	04 / 05
Configurability	02 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	No

Xine-ui
http://www.xine-project.org/home
Looks	03 / 05
Easy Of Use	03 / 05
Stability	03 / 05
Configurability	03 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	yes

XBMC
http://xbmc.org/
Looks	-N.A.-
Easy Of Use	03 / 05
Stability	04 / 05
Configurability	03 / 05
Skin/Theme Available?	Yes

Screenshots Of video Players
Banshee

Gmerlin Player

gmplayer

gnome-mplayer

SMPlayer

Totem

UMPlayer

VLC

Whaaw

XBMC

xine-ui

How Many Formats Does Your Video Player Handle?
Any good video player should support multiple video formats.The generic rule is the more formats a video player supports, the better. I have randomly selected videos in 12 different formats to rigorously test the players and here are the results:-

File Formats used in tests:-
DivX/avi <== DivX is a video compression Codec that can compress long video segments into smaller sizes while maintaining good visual quality.
flv<==Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver video over the Internet
webm<==Free and open video format designed to provide royalty-free high-quality video compression for use with HTML5 video.
asf<== Advanced Streaming Format,proprietary format from MS
rm<==RM video format is a multimedia container format created by RealNetworks
mkv<==Matroska is a extensible, open source, open standard Multimedia container
mov<==Video format for apple quicktime videos
xvid/avi<==Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 . rmvb<==RealMedia Variable Bitrate is a variable bitrate extension of the RealMedia multimedia container format
mkv with embedded subs<==Matroska is a extensible, open source, open standard Multimedia container
wmv<==Windows Media Format

Banshee
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	No	Plays Audio No Video
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	No	Plays Audio No Video
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	No	Plays Audio No Video
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

Gmerlin player
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	No	Crashes
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	No	Plays Audio No Video
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	No	Audio,video present No subtitle
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

gnome-mplayer
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	Yes
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

gmplayer
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	Yes
sample.mkv	No	Crashes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes


SMPlayer
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	Yes
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

UMPlayer
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	Yes
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

Totem
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	No	Plays Audio No Video
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

VLC
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	No	Video Present No Audio
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	No	Weird opens video in multiple windows

Whaaw! Media Player
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	No	Plays Audio No Video
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

Xine-ui
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	yes
niceday.rm	No	No Audio or Video,buzzing noise
sample.mkv	Yes
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	No	No Audio or Video,buzzing noise
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

XBMC
File/Format	Runs It	Remarks
AVI_DivX.avi	Yes
BlackJackOP.flv	Yes
HTML_5_video_~.webm	Yes
niceday.asf	Yes
niceday.rm	No	No Audio or Video
sample.mkv	No	No Audio or Video
sample_iTunes.mov	Yes
Sample-pitbull~xvid~.avi	Yes
Samurai X.mpg	Yes
szybcy sie sample.rmvb	Yes
vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv	Yes
WindowsMedia.wmv	Yes

The sample files used for testing the video players are available below:-

Conclusion

One must take a lot of things into consideration before choosing the video player for ones desktop like the file format it supports , whether it has the skins one likes etc. I would suggest keeping couple of players installed on the system and so that most the video formats can be played.

GKrellM on GNOME 3 openSUSE 12.1

2012-01-05T12:33:00.008+05:30

GKrellM is a GTK toolkit based software that can be used to monitor the status of CPUs, main memory, hard disks, network interfaces, local and remote mailboxes, and many other things. Plugins are available for a multitude of tasks like showing weather updates.This article is an overview of the capabilities of GKrellM on GNOME 3.2.1 openSUSE 12.1 (ASPARAGUS)
GKrellM is so cool because:-
==>It is compatible with GNOME 3
==>It very light weight
==>It is skinnable
==>Has a number of awesome plugins
==>Easily configurable
==>It can act in panel mode(it will not show up in alt+tab list)
==>I can monitor my monthly internet usage.It can also show day and weekly usage stats too.

Installation Of GkrellM

==>It is available in Main repo(OSS)
==>Open the terminal (type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter after pressing Alt+F2 key combination)
==> Execute the command :- "sudo zypper in gkrellm"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted and press y when it asks you whether it can install so and so software.
Add GKrellM to Startup
How to Start GKrellM along with your OS?
==>If you want to start the application along with GNOME then you need to add it to "gnome-session-properties".
==>Press key combination "Alt+F2" an type in "gnome-session-properties".

==>In the session properties windows,use add button.Give any name of your licking.In the command text-box you need to use "gkrellm" in lower case as demonstrated below. Press "Save" button and from next boot the application will start automatically

Configuring GkrellM

GKrellM can be easily configured.To access the configurations you can right click on the main window and access the configuration menu
Enable Bandwidth and Internet Usage Monitor

View internet data usage
We can view the internet data usage by clicking on the small button which will appear on the bandwidth monitor when the mouse cursor is moved over it

Enable Clock and Time

Remember screen location
This will cause the program to remember the screen location so that it will show up where it is supposed to be even after restarting the system

Set As panel or dock setting
This will cause the program to not show up in list of switchable programs when "Alt+Tab" , "Alt+`" key combinations are used.

GKrellM Weather Plugin

GKrellM has a lot of plugins whose rpms can be downloaded first,installed and then activated inside GKrellM settings and then configured to work properly. You can get weather updates on opensuse / linux / gnome using the GKrellM Weather plugin.

Download weather plugin
The program and plugins can be downloaded here:- rpms
Install GKRELLM with weather plugin
==>Open the terminal (type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter after pressing Alt+F2 key combination)
==>Navigate to the directory of the where your package or rpm is present using cd <space><dirname>
==> Execute the command :-"sudo zypper in gkrellm-weather-2.0.8-1.fc16.i686.rpm gkrellm"
Sample output for zypper installation:-

anonymous@linux-9p85:~/Software/rpms>sudo zypper in gkrellm-weather-2.0.8-1.fc16.i686 gkrellm2
root's password:
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
'gkrellm2' not found in package names. Trying capabilities.
No provider of 'gkrellm2' found.
Resolving package dependencies...
The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
gkrellm gkrellm-weather libpng12-0
3 new packages to install.
Overall download size: 497.0 KiB. After the operation, additional 1.3 MiB will
be used.
Continue? [y/n/?] (y): y
Retrieving package gkrellm-2.3.5-7.1.2.i586 (1/3), 397.0 KiB (1.1 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving: gkrellm-2.3.5-7.1.2.i586.rpm [done (63.5 KiB/s)]
Retrieving package libpng12-0-1.2.46-9.1.2.i586 (2/3), 73.0 KiB (170.0 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving: libpng12-0-1.2.46-9.1.2.i586.rpm [done (73.3 KiB/s)]
Retrieving package gkrellm-weather-2.0.8-1.fc16.i686 (3/3), 27.0 KiB (55.0 KiB unpacked)
Installing: gkrellm-2.3.5-7.1.2 [done]
Installing: libpng12-0-1.2.46-9.1.2 [done]
Retrieving package gkrellm-weather-2.0.8-1.fc16.i686 (1/3), 27.0 KiB (55.0 KiB unpacked)
Installing: gkrellm-weather-2.0.8-1.fc16 [done]
Additional rpm output:
warning: /var/cache/zypp/packages/rpms/gkrellm-weather-2.0.8-1.fc16.i686.rpm: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID a82ba4b7: NOKEY

Configuring Weather Plugin

You need to get the 4 letter ICAO Location Indicator from this site
Navigate to the required country to display the weather stations

Locate the necessary location and get the 4 letter code

Right click on GKrellM window and click on configure menu and activate the weather plugin

Enter the location code and click apply

View weather updates

Note:-Similar installation and configuration can b carried out can be carried out for other plugins too.

Skins / Themes GKrellM

GKrellM has a variety of skins that can be downloaded here :- site

Typically the skin packages are available as tar packages like "MonkeyLovers.tar.gz" .You can untar or unzip them through terminal using command "tar -xvf MonkeyLovers.tar.gz" or you can use your favourite GUi based archiving tool like "peazip" or the gnome default "File Roller".

You need to move the skin folder to gkrellm theme folder.Sample path is:- "/home/<HOME>/.gkrellm2/themes/MonkeyLovers".Then you need to right click on the main window and click on "configure" menu and enable or switch to required theme.Alternatively you can click on the main window and use PageUp and PageDown keys to cycle through installed themes

Theme switcher

GKrellM in "MonkeyLovers" Theme

If you liked this post, you may like to check out:-

Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)

(OR)

Get Weather Updates On Gnome 3.2.1 openSUSE 12.1

iTunes On Linux ,GNOME,openSUSE

2012-01-02T01:19:00.009+05:30

How to browse iTunes On Linux , GNOME , openSUSE ?

The solution offered for browsing iTunes in this post is tested on openSUSE 12.1 (ASPARAGUS) / GNOME 3.2.1 / kernel 3.1.You can browse sites like apple itunes ,and other itunes based university sites itunes.mc.maricopa.edu, itunes.stanford.edu

Get "TunesViewer"

You can download "TunesViewer" software from here. TunesViewer is originally a program to access itunes-university media and podcasts in Linux. After getting the rpm you need to install the rpm and other dependencies.To do that please go through rest of the post.

Installation Of iTunes Viewer

We should install the downloaded rpm / package and two other packages "python-webkit" and "python-lxml" .
Zypper way
==>Open the terminal (type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter after pressing Alt+F2 key combination)
==>Navigate to the directory of the where your package or rpm is present using cd <space><dirname>
==> Execute the command :-
"sudo zypper in python-lxml python-webkitgtk tunesviewer-1.4.noarch.rpm"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted and press y when it asks you whether it can install so and so software.
Sample output for zypper installation:-

anonymous@linux-9p85:~/Software/rpms> sudo zypper in python-lxml python-webkitgtk tunesviewer-1.4.noarch.rpm
root's password:
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...
The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
python-lxml python-webkitgtk tunesviewer
3 new packages to install.
Overall download size: 635.0 KiB. After the operation, additional 2.4 MiB will
be used.
Continue? [y/n/?] (y): y
Retrieving package tunesviewer-1.4-2.noarch (1/3), 68.0 KiB (192.0 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving package python-lxml-2.3-6.1.3.i586 (2/3), 532.0 KiB (2.1 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving: python-lxml-2.3-6.1.3.i586.rpm [done (64.2 KiB/s)]
Retrieving package python-webkitgtk-1.1.8-6.1.2.i586 (3/3), 35.0 KiB (115.0 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving: python-webkitgtk-1.1.8-6.1.2.i586.rpm [done (0 B/s)]
Retrieving package tunesviewer-1.4-2.noarch (1/3), 68.0 KiB (192.0 KiB unpacked)
Installing: tunesviewer-1.4-2 [done]
Installing: python-lxml-2.3-6.1.3 [done]
Installing: python-webkitgtk-1.1.8-6.1.2 [done]

YaST/GUI way

==>Press the left windows key on the keyboard and click on "Applications menu"
==>Open Install / Remove Software under "Applications"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted
==>Click on configuration==>repositories
==>Click "+Add" button in the repositories (configured software repositories) window
==>choose "Local Directory" in the "Media Type"(Screenshot below) window and click "Next"
==>In the next window and give a name to the repository like "rpms" and then choose the path where your downloaded files/rpms are.The downloaded path should be something like "/home/<User Name>/Downloads", and enable the checkbox "Plain RPM Directory"then click "Next"
==>You should see a new repository or repo by name "rpms" there.
Click "Ok" button
==>You should come back to the main window.Here you need to click a drop down on the left and navigate to repository and choose the new repository "rpms"
==>Check the packages to install i.e."tunesviewer" and hit the"Apply" button .You may also need to install "python-lxml" , "python-webkitgtk" from "MainRepository(OSS)".After the installation finishes you can check the installation. Relevant screenshots are below.

Install/Remove Software

Media Type

Choose Directory

See New Repo "rpms"

Click on "Groups"

Choose "rpms" repository and Install "tunesviewer"

Set-Up & Use "TunesViewer"

Application can be quickly launched by keying in "tunesviewer" and hitting return or Enter key in the quick launch command window which can inturn be accessed by pressing "AltF2" .You can also access the program by clicking on "Applications" tab after clicking left "windows" key on the keyboard .You can now use TunesViewer to browse and sample songs from iTunes . You may need to explore other settings available under Edit ==> preferences menu.

Applications=>TunesViewer

Launch TunesViewer though ALT+F2

TunesViewer,Browse iTunes

TunesViewer Preferences

If you liked this post, you may check out:-
Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)

What every self Respecting kid needs ?

2011-12-23T09:34:00.002+05:30

What does every self Respecting kid needs ?

A Magnetic Accelerator Cannon !!!!!!

Reflecting on 2011

2011-12-19T00:22:00.010+05:30

Reflecting on 2011 / The year that 2011 was...

Phew it is that of the year already ,the time all the news channels ,websites and newspapers / magazines put up articles saying "best of year" blah blah blah. Time sure flies fast.The year seemed to have just started,but we are at the threshold of another "new year". This year (2011) is memorable in many ways.There were a lot of things happening!!!! through out the world as well as in India.The most prominent feature of the year was the unabated rise in price of petrol.This post is essentially about 2011 seen through my sewed eyes :-D.2011 as with each new year , began with a lot of promises / new year resolutions , but it unfolded as follows:-

January , 2011
==>The Arab world literally boiled over and many countries in Arab world namely Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Bahrain faced social unrest. Some governments like the ones in Egypt and Libya even got overthrown in the ensuing protests over the course of the year.Tahrir Square became popular of all over the world.Sounds similar to Tienanmen square in china.Guess all town squares starting with letter "T" are political hotspots.
==>At that point of time before GOVT restored the Tamil New Year Day to the traditional date of April later in the year , Tamils celebrated Tamil New year on Pongal day ,atleast officially :-).

February , 2011
The country was reeling under the shame of Common Wealth games expose when on February 2, 2011, Union minister Raja was arrested and put behind bars.This really opened the flood gates and made way for many other politicians and company CEOS to be arrested under 2G scam.

March , 2011
The year began with a devastating earthquake and ensuing Tsunami which steam rolled many cities on Japan's east coast.The worst affected was Fukushima.The nuclear reactors in the town / city Dai ichi and Dai Ni were breached by the monstrous waves.This event shook the entire world.The insights it brought are:-
==>Japan makes most of the paint pigments for automotive industry and any major event in one part of the world affects the world economy in a big way.
==>Most of coastal cities around the world including Chennai are sitting on a ticking time bomb(ref:-Tsunami) which are just waiting for the right time to go kaboom!!!
==>The inherent danger and threat that nuclear reactors pose to all the countries of the world.Not only are they costly but they are very vulnerable to natural calamities.

April , 2011

==>In a daring pre dawn raid on May 2, 2011Osama Bin Laden was killed. The commandos conducted operations fearlessly on foreign soil.This showed that America is still a "super power".

==>Tamilnadu opted for change of power on 13 April 2011 in the sate elections.

==>India won the ICC,ODI world cup after 28 years.India won by 6 wickets (with 10 balls remaining) against srilanka

==>It was more than a year I switched to Linux
==>Kalmadi was put behind bars for involvement in CWG scam.

May , 2011
==>More shame was waiting for for the infamous UPA alliance when Kanimozhi was arrested in connection with involvement in 2G scam.She became the third Member Of Parliament of the current government after Raja and kalmadi.
==>On 16 May 2011 Jayalalitha was sworn in chief minister for a third term.
==>Mamata Banerjee in Bengal assumed power on 20 May 2011 after she successfully stopped the Left juggernaut after remaining unbeaten for 34 year.
==>Taliban & co exacted revenge by attacking Mehran base in Pakistan. The audacious attack is nicknamed Mehran attack.

The terrorist were very well trained and were equally well equipped with the latest gear. The amount of ammo that they carried with them was insane and they were using night vision goggles with other ultrasonic radio communication gear.Source:-Link

Terrorists and night vision goggles ? Even Indian army is still not equipped adequately for warfare at night
==>LHC reports creation of quark-gluon plasma.Densest Matter Created in Big-Bang Machine.There has been rising fears that very Large particle accelerators like Hadron Collider could be creating Black Holes within them and that these had the ability to destroy the world.Read more - here

June ,2011
==>Festivities arrived rather early at Ramlila ,Delhi this year. Ramdev showed how the Indian government is ill equipped to handle any kind challenge / emergency .On 27 February 2011 Baba Ramdev held a large rally of over 1 lakh people at the Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi to protest against corruption.Then he started a mass movement called Bhrashtachar Mitao Satyagrah 4 June 2011 at Ramlila Maidan and this led to "RamLilaBagh" event.The entire episode showed how immature our democracy was.Read more about the incident here:- Ramlila_Maidan_protests
==>Anna Hazare's anti corruption movement gathers steam.He and other civil society members decided to boycott the meeting of the joint Lokpal Bill drafting committee scheduled on 6 June 2011 in protest against the forcible eviction of Swami Ramdev and his followers by the Delhi Police from Ramlila Maidan on 5 June 2011

July , 2011
India began their disastrous away cricket series against England with a solid drubbing at Lords(Mecca of cricket).In the England v India at Lord's, Jul 21-25, 2011 Pataudi Trophy, 1st Test England won by 196 runs.Many people wondered as to how India which won the world cup couple of months ago could even have receive such a severe drubbing in the Test and ODI series.

August , 2011
==>There was mini rebirth of this blog ;-)I started blogging regularly again.
==>Facebook Overtakes Orkut in India – Another Setback for Google
==>Hazare ended his fast on 28 August 2011,after starting it on 16 August 2011 after the Indian Government had passed the resolution for the Lokpal Bill unanimously,
==>Thailand faced the worst Floods in 70 Years

September , 2011
September 8, 2011 was the 10th anniversary of the twin tower attacks

October , 2011
==>Libya's tyrannical dictator for more than a decade breathed his last on 20 October 2011
==>New Gundam series “Mobile Suit Gundam AGE” begins airing on October 9, 2011

November , 2011
==> I joined "indiblogger" on 22nd Nov 2011

December , 2011
==>On 16th I got my first Indiblogger rank

==>kim Jong II ,the North Korean dictator breathes his last
==>US pulls out of Iraq .The last of the soldiers too have left the country

Catch the fever: It'll help you fight off infection, evidence shows

2011-12-14T22:51:00.001+05:30

With cold and flu season almost here, the next time you're sick, you may want to think twice before taking something for your fever. That's because scientists have found more evidence that elevated body temperature helps certain types of immune cells to work better. This research is reported in the November 2011 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
Source:- Catch the fever: It'll help you fight off infection, evidence shows

How to Add Your Blogger Post To Search Engines ?

2011-12-14T12:23:00.006+05:30

What should one do after making a post in blogger ? Well,the obvious answer is to promote the blog post in blog aggregation sites ,share it in social sites in facebook and twitter.Finally ,one also needs to submit them to Search Engines like Goggle and Bing to increase the chances of your posts showing up in the search results. If this is not done then there is likely hood that you posts may not show up in the search results

Add Your Post To Google Index
You need to navigate to your dashboard in blogger site and then scroll down and look for "Webmaster Tools" under Other Stuff ==> Tools and Resources.
Alternatively your can use the following direct link

On clicking the webmaster link it will take you t a page where your blogger site would have been automatically added , provided you have logged in into the google account which you are using for maintaining your blog

Open your blog in the tool and using the tree menu on the left navigate to "Diagnostics" ==> "Fetch as Googlebot". You can index individual pages / posts and all links in the page.Make sure that you provide the relative URL of post in the text box and hit fetch. The tools will typically take a few seconds to fetch the post and when it shows that fetching is successful hit the link "URL and linked pages submitted to index" which is right next to the fetched post. If tools gives the message "Not found"on submitting the post then you have not provided the right / valid URL.

Submission of a post

Successful submission of a link to the Googlebot.

There are limited number of submissions that are available ,per week and you may get and error message if you exceed your limit / quota.

You can also use the following the links in your blogs in mass under "Site Configuration" ==> "sitemaps" in the webmasters tool. You may need to re-submit the "sitemap" after making new posts.

Feed URLs for your blog:-

feeds/posts/default <== Brings recent posts
feeds/posts/default?alt=rss&max-results=1000 <== Brings up to 1000 recent posts.You can modify the max results parameter in the above link to adjust the number of posts

Sitemap Submission

Re - Submission

Add Your Post To Bing Index

You need to go the Bing webmaster site and submit the main URL of your blogger site and complete the captcha dialogue and hope for the best.

Bing Webmaster Tools Page

Successful Bing Submission

Add To ASK

You can submit your site to ASK formerly known as AskJeeves search engine by using the pasting the below url in your address bar of your browser and hitting return or enter button.
==>You should first obtain the feed of you blogger site which would be something like:-http://blogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml
==>Then substitute it in the following url:-
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://blogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml
==>If the submission is successful then you will get a successful message as shown below
==>If you need more info ,go here

Ping Like there is no tomorrow

Yeah ,It is difficult to do all this each time you make a post. If there is no pain,there is no gain . Go to the following sites and submit your blog url and the full rss / atom feeds of your blog.You can instantly double your page rank and search visibility of your posts.

Tiny List Of Active pinging services:-

http://feedshark.brainbliss.com/
http://pingates.com/
http://pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
http://www.blogpingtool.com/
http://www.pingoat.com/
http://www.millionping.com/
http://pingler.com/
http://www.pingblognow.com/
http://www.blogpingsite.com/
http://www.seo41.com/blog-ping.php
http://www.blogpingtool.com/

Note:- There is also a downside to doing these optimisations . Your site may actually be targeted by unnecessary referral traffic.

You may also use this link to submit to a entire gamut of search engines

Facebook,BloggerTrap

2011-12-13T14:05:00.004+05:30

Facebook , Blogger Online Trap

This post is about my misadventure on a fake facebook site . The other day i was trying to post an article in my blog when i mis-typed the URL in my browser as "bogger.com" instead of "blogger.com". I hadn't realised it and suddenly the page was mysteriously redirected to another website.

Then a pop up appeared saying that I got a friend request . Those who spend most of their spare time in facebook will definitely fall for it.

After the hit "OK" button on the pop up window,it began to show a page similar to that of facebook .It showed a woman's picture with a "confirm" and "ignore" button.

Suddenly my senses snapped back and realised that this is definitely not facebook :-).The web page looked similar but definitely is not a facebook.Then i began telling myself that i should be more careful while browsing .

Please read this post and take care that you don't get fooled on Internet . There is a real danger that your login credentials and your computer may also get infected by malware ,worms, viruses etc...

==>The first rule of thumb is to be very cautious an alert while browsing Internet
==>The second rule of thumb is not to click any link in your mail or on the net unless it is from a known and trusted source

For brave souls this is the link to fake facebook site / friend request

There is similar facebook related scam that i had written about earlier :- Beware of Fake "Facebook Mails","Friend Request"

Sehwag Steals Thunder from Sachin

2011-12-09T08:54:00.012+05:30

Sehwag Steals Thunder from Sachin / Sehwag ,The god of records

Why did Sehwag steal the thunder from Sachin ? Why did he choose to overthrow the Indian cricketing god from the position of highest run scorer in a single innings in ODI cricket? Why did Sehwag choose this day to break Sachin (his mentor's) record

==>He wants to replace Sachin / overthrow because he has had enough hearing about Sachin's 100'th hundred (OR) Dravid's rise in test cricket and hit a purple patch?

==>He wants to claim his rightful place in hearts of India's cricket obsessed populace by putting together his own enviable set of records?

==>He has suddenly woken up from his English siesta?

==>He wants commentators to again start comparing him to ODI cricketing legends of yesteryears like Desmond Haynes,Richie Richardson?

==>He wanted to be interviewed again by Indian news channels ?

==>He wants to show up at the post match presentation and get the man of the match award from Ravi and co

==>He wants a documentary made out of him in cricinfo?

==>Like always he wants to throw a little surprise to the Indian cricket maniacs?

==>He doesn't want to get dropped from the team for the Australian Tour 2011/2012?

==>He wants to show Ashwin / Ojha their places in the Indian cricket team pecking Order by showing that he is batsmen supreme?

==>All he wanted to do is to play a captain's innings?

==>He wanted to put the West Indians in their place lest they get carried away by their victory at Motera?

==>He was losing a lot of advertisements to Dhoni that he has decided to score some runs and divert the attention of advertisers towards him ?

==>He was on a High?

==>He has just regained his form ?

==>He wanted to get a thunderous applause from the stands which he didn't for a long long time?

==>He was in a very bad mood that he wanted to belt the ball around the park?

==>He was seeing the cricket ball like a football ?

==>Did he have Boost / Bournvita / Horlicks / Complan early in the morning?

==>He wants one of the stands in In Indore, Holkar stadium to be named after him and commemorate this feat

==>He was just rockin to "why this kolaveri" tune?

==>Or he just wanted to surprise / amaze / bamboozle / the cricket fan in me ? and make me write this post (NAY)

Like always Sehwag is as unpredictable as ever.!!!!!!!! He is just being himself.

Stats

Batsmen:V Sehwag
Runs:219
Balls:149
Fours:25
Sixes:7
Strike Rate:146.97
More details here

After reading this post, you want to imitate Sehwag and hit a few fours and sixers ,then go ahead,help yourself here

Get Weather Updates On Gnome 3.2.1 openSUSE 12.1

2011-12-06T11:24:00.007+05:30

Get Weather Updates On Gnome 3.2.1 openSUSE 12.1

Everyone would like to have an applet or widget on our panel to indicate the that day's weather conditions.What we need is the shell extension gnome-shell-extension-weather - Weather forecast GNOME Shell Extension.The tool I am using gives all sorts or weather related info like temperature , humidity etc:

Download / Get The Package or rpm:-
Since it is still early days for openSUSE 12.1 there is no rpm or software package available in the openSUSE repositories for this extension.Since I am impatient I am getting it from a third party repo.Since it is a noarch rpm I am picking a fedora rpm.Link for rpm download is this
Get the binary after selecting the mirror from that site.The binary / rpm / package should resemble this name:-
"gnome-shell-extension-weather-0.0.0-0.3.14203f05git.fc16.R.noarch.rpm"

Install The Package or rpm:-
After downloading the rpm

Zypper way
==>Open the terminal
==>Navigate to the directory of the download using cd <space><dirname>
==> Execute the command :-
"sudo zypper in gnome-shell-extension-weather-0.0.0-0.3.14203f05git.fc16.R.noarch.rpm"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted

GUI Way
If you you are no too comfortable with command mode and you want to use a GUI or user interface for installation then you need to look for "YaST/GUI way" of installing the rpms under subtitle Installation here

Setting Up / Configuring and Activating the weather Applet :-

==>You need to find the "Where On Earth Code" first for you city or town.
To get your woeid you need to search for the weather update at weather.com and then copy / extract the code from address address bar of your browser.The following image shows how to do it for a particular city

Alternatively you can also get woeid here
==>Then open "weather-extension-configurator" . You can find the extension configuration tool in Activities(press left Windows key in keyboard) , sub-menu Applications .You can launch it using quick launch window or "Run Application" dialogue of GNOME and then type in "weather-extension-configurator" and hitting return or enter key . In the configuration tool you can plugin your WOEID of your city you found using above step an configure whether you want temperature display in metric system (degree Celsius) or degree Fahrenheit.
==>Then activate the extension using "gnome-tweak-tool" or "Advanced Settings". The tweak tool can be launched using command "gnome-tweak-tool" in "Run Application" dialogue or the tool can be launched using Applications menu and the name would be "Advanced Settings". The tweak tool snapshot is shown below.

Image showing weather extension,extension configuration tool and gnome tweak tool.

If you liked this post, you may like check out:-
Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)

(OR)

GKrellM Weather Plugin on GNOME 3 openSUSE 12.1

Why is corruption Good?

2011-12-03T18:47:00.005+05:30

Why is corruption Good ?{parody}

If you think corruption is bad,think again.Only if there is rampant corruption in the can the following happen in our country(INDIA).

==>People / commoners can get loads of cash during elections,especially in states like Tamil Nadu.

==>No we have parks with lots of stone elephants nicknamed hati parks in UP .These must really be a paradise for elephant enthusiasts , maniacs and wild life conservationists.The need of the hour is not splitting of UP into 4 states but splitting UP into two states,one accommodating all the hundreds, thousands of stone elephants present in the state and the other for humans to live in.

==>Lot of mines and that means more jobs,Karnataka should now resemble moon with all of its huge craters.We can change its name to Craternataka.
If we are creative enough,we can also convert the mines into tourist spots (OR)Water parks(OR) water reservoirs for irrigating fields in summer.

==>Get entertainment Non stop 365 days a year. Nowadays it is amusing to watch news channels showing many politicians running away from police , making scenes at court . This is more exiting than T20 brand of cricket. I found too many amazing ways by which we can hoodwink the law like saying that i have Bad health,by saying that you belong to fairer sex,by saying that you are too old.Long live the game of cat and mouse.

==>New way to learn numbers for young children 1G,2G,3G.This way even parent will definitely enjoy teaching children than lame 1 apple and so on.

==>Delhi police who were getting bored of dealing with terror suspects can now for a change start deal with huge crowds of people flocking to Delhi to protest against corruption led by Anna and the infamous baba Ramdev.

==>You can get decorate your city with hordes of statues of your favourite leaders.Even better, these efforts may get India one more entry into Guinness book of world records.

==>Finally owning and wearing a Gandhi topi is way cooler than a branded rebook cap or pair of shades.Don't ask me as to why it is called Gandhi topi . Personally I have never seen Ghandhi wearing it in any pictures / photos depicting him.

==>Breed and export fish using aborted pipeline projects like old veeranam .{Excerpt from article :-The ornamental fish breeding project in the coastal village of Keelamanakudi in Chidambaram district was started last year to supplement the incomes of poor, landless women. The unused hume pipes from the aborted Veeranam water project were used to set up backyard fish breeding enterprises. The project is a big success, and fish is being exported to Singapore. Overseas demand has far exceeded supply. The production cost is less than 8 per cent of the price that the fish fetch; last year each woman earned an income of over Rs.4,000.}

==>Use wads of currency notes as fans in parliament.

Play Angry Anna Online

Two Songs i like from Vaagai Sooda Vaa,Lyrics linked

2011-12-02T11:09:00.001+05:30

Vaagai Sooda Vaa-Sara Sara Saara Kathu HQ Video Song

Lyrics of Sara Sara Saara Kaathu from Vaagai Sooda Vaa Sung By Chinmayee Lyrics By Vairamuthu Music By M Ghibran humming Pallavi sara sa...

Poraney Poraney HQ Song - Vaagai Sooda Vaa Movie

Lyrics of Poraney Poraney from Vaagai Sooda Vaa Sung By Ranjith & Neha Bhasin Lyrics By Karthink Neha Music By M Ghibran

Add Personal Touch To Blogger By Adding Fav Icon

2011-12-02T01:49:00.006+05:30

Add Personal Touch To Blogger By Adding Fav Icon
After playing around with the various templates and applying them onto my blog an trying out the gadgets i have tried to add one more piece customisation to my blog by creating a fav icon.Th favourite icon not only adds a nice touch to the web page but also shows up in the bookmarks whenever you bookmark your web page in your browser.

Step 1:-
Create Icon in Pinta
The first step involves creating the icon file. I have used a tool called pinta which is a light weight image editor for which i am using to creating a simple icon file. Get your 1-click installer for pinta here
==>Open Pinta

==>Resize Canvas To either 16x16 , 32X32 or 25X25 Pixels

==>Ensure that Pixel Pixel rid and Rulers are on.This will help greatly while working with individual pixels as well as aligning your icon

==>To create a simple text based icon use the bucket tool to cover all the pixels with a single colour

==>Type in the required Text in a contrasting colour.
==> You can Apply effects like Sharpen to make the wording crispier.
==>Also note that you can choose the required font for the text to appear funky or stylish

==>Save the image in ".ico" format
==>Of course if you are good with image creation tools you can create varied patterns and designs and thus create nice icon files
==>Always upload the image and test whether the icon look fine.Though your design might awesome,one uploading it to site it might not look fabulous.

Step 2:-

Adding icon to Blogger
==>After logging into blogger ,click on "design" link of your blog
==>In the design page click on the "Edit" link of the "Favicon" gadget.

==>Browse your desktop,locate the icon file that you have created and save the page.

==>After this step i would advise to close all the browser windows and clear the browser cache and restart the blogger and view the blog.This step is needed because typically browsers cache the fav icons and they will not show new fav icon unless the browser is closed and opened.The below screen shots show the blog before and after the fav icon change

Highlights Your Posts

It will make your posts stand out in the Reading Lists in blogger if one follows you in blogger. If anyone subscribes to your blogs rss feed too your favourite icon will get displayed.

Install sun java and plugin on openSUSE 12.1

2011-11-29T11:18:00.013+05:30

Install sun java and browser plugin on openSUSE 12.1

Due to licensing issues openSUSE has dropped sun java from its repositories from openSUSE 12.1 onwards.Read the release notes here

First you need to determine the OS architecture(32 or 64 bit).
==>To do this you can open terminal(press Alt+F2 and type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter key)
==>In terminal execute the command "arch". It should give you output like "i586" or "i686" [32 bit] (Or) "x86_64" [64 bit]
Based on the architecture the relevant package must be downloaded.

You need to install
==>jre or Java Run-time Environment is needed for executing jars or running class files on your system.Some application software like openoffice / libreoffice need this to work properly.
==>Browser plugin is used to run applets on your browser

My Output

The Easy Way
This approach involves downloading the relevant rpms or software packages[Learn about packages] and then installing this using command mode(zypper way) or using YaST or GUI way

==>Get / download the rpms or packages for sun java jre here

==>Get / download the rpms or packages for browser plugin here

Warning : Don't use the one-click installs in above pages,just download the rpms and install them manually.If you use the one-click installs it will mess up your repositories unless you opt for not subscribing to 11.4 repository

JRE download

Browser Plugin download

Installation

Zypper way
==>Open the terminal
==>Navigate to the directory of the download using cd <space><dirname>
==> Execute the command :-
"sudo zypper in java-1_6_0-sun-1.6.0.u29-0.2.1.i586.rpm java-1_6_0-sun-plugin-1.6.0.u29-0.2.1.i586.rpm"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted

YaST/GUI way

==>Press the left windows key on the keyboard and click on "Applications menu"
==>Open Install / Remove Software under "Applications"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted

==>Click on configuration==>repositories
==>Click "+Add" button in the repositories (configured software repositories) window
==>choose "Local Directory" in the "Media Type"(Screenshot below) window and click "Next"
==>In the next window and give a name to the repository like "rpms" and then choose the path where your downloaded files/rpms are.The downloaded path should be something like "/home/<User Name>/Downloads", and enable the checkbox "Plain RPM Directory"then click "Next"

==>You should see a new repository or repo by name "rpms" there.
Click "Ok" button
==>You should come back to the main window.Here you need to click a drop down on the left and navigate to repository and choose the new repository "rpms"
==>Check the packages to install i.e."sun java and plugin" and hit the"Apply" button.After the installation finishes you can check the installation. Relevant screenshots are below.

Install/Remove Software

Media Type

Choose Directory

See New Repo "rpms"

Click on "Groups"

Choose rpms repo and Install JRE

If you liked this post then you might be interested in taking a a look at :-

Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)

The Hard Way

You can us this link to do a manual / geeky install.

Check Installation

If you are looking to test your installation then you need to open the terminal
an execute the command "java -version"

To check browser plugin Navigate here or here

If the installation is successful you must see something like this :-

Run or Execute jar files
If you looking for launching (or) running jar files then ,look here

Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)

2011-11-29T00:58:00.073+05:30

Things to do after installing / moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)

There are some little things that I did to suit my tastes as well as improve my desktop experience on openSUSE 12.1 This post captures some of those tweaks and customisations that i performed on my desktop.I don't recommend that all the users do this as the desktop distribution is by itself is pretty awesome and amazing .openSUSE12.1 (Asparagus) is pretty much GNOME 3.2.1 with Kernel 3.1.0 with a dash of YaST / zypper and of course openSUSE branding on some of the software.

Now its time to bring out the handyman's soul that is in deep slumber within you.Now lets get on with hacking the default installation.The pre-requisites for doing this are getting your own toolbox complete with hand drillers , pliers , wrenches and spanners,ouch sorry,all you need is a big heart before attempting something new.Beware,Some thing might go horribly wrong when you tussle with your system and rub it the wrong way.

Step 1:-

First step is to improve the desktops multimedia experience.This is required because by default openSUSE doesn't ship codecs for any of the restricted multimedia formats like mp3.To read more about this go here.

There is a famous "one-click" installation for this here . The recommended on-click for gnome desktop is named "Codecs pack for GNOME".That is it, click on the on-click installer and be ready with the trusted mouse and click on "Agree / I trust" buttons the appears endlessly.After the YaST installation exits press "Alt+F2" an key in "r",this will refresh/restart your desktop.

Step 2:-

Enable nautilus preview or folder/file manger preview so that it will be easier for you to maintain your mp3 collection or preview text files/pdfs files without opening them.I made a detailed post about this here.Don't forget to comeback to this post after viewing it :-)

Step 3:-

==>Restore / Add window minimize and maximize buttons in all windows in GNOME 3 to regain the old touch.Old habits die hard

==>Enable Icons on Menus And Buttons

==>"Use Nautilus As Desktop Manager" brings back the all familiar gnome 2.x desktop back .

All of this can be done by using the "gnome-tweak-tool" which is part of the default openSUSE 12.1 distribution.The tool can be launched through quick launch window which can be accessed through "Alt+F2" and then keying in "gnome-tweak-tool".It is available as "Advanced Settings" in Applications menu .The below screenshots demonstrate the options that need to chosen.

You may need to restart your desktop by typing in "r" and hitting return key

in quick launch window "Press Alt+F2 to open quick launch window"

Restore Maximize and minimize in all windows

Enable Icons For Menus and Buttons

Use Nautilus As Desktop manager

Yeah!!! The icons on my Desktop are back . . .

Step 4:-

==>Add and remove items from the favourites menu and rearranging the favourites menu/bar available on the left hand side of the screen under "Activities menu" of the Top panel.A detailed post is available here

==>To add new launchers to "Applications menu" you may use a tool called

"alacarte" . You can launch "alacarte" through quick launch window "press Alt+F2".

==>Add items to system start-up list.The start up configuration can be accessed through Quick launch window " Type Alt+F2" and then typing in "gnome-session-properties". A detailed post for adding an application to start up menu is available here under sub heading "How to Start Artha along with your OS?". Many other applications like "Tomboy" can e added t the start up list similarly

Step 5:-

We may need to set tracker/indexing engine preferences by keying in "tracker-preferences" and hitting return key in quick launch window "Alt+F2"

One can set options like perform indexing only when computer is not busy and stop indexing when disk space is low etc:This is an important step as this will improve your system's performance.

Step 6:-

Install the various shell extensions and then enable them through "gnome-tweak-tool" or "Advanced Settings" . If the the shell extensions don't appear on the tweak tool then you need refresh the desktop as described above in this post.The recommended extensions are :-

gnome-shell-extension-alt-status-menu<==Enables shutdown button in drop down on top left hand side of the screen.
gnome-shell-extension-apps-menu <==Adds a gnome2.x style application drop down menu
gnome-shell-extension-places-menu<==Creates a "places" drop down menu from the top panel with all the bookmarked folders in nautilus
gnome-shell-extension-noa11y <== Removes / hides Universal Access Settings menu from the gnome 3.x top panel of the desktop
gnome-shell-extension-weather <== Weather forecast GNOME Shell Extension==>Installation Instructions here

All the shell extensions are available in Main Repository(OSS). Only noally needs to be installed from a non standard repo.You can get "gnome-shell-extension-noa11y" here and install it through "1-click" installation or disable universal access settings manually.You can refer to this post for more information regarding manual removal of universal settings menu

gnome-shell-extension-apps-menu

gnome-shell-extension-places-menu

Enable Extensions through "gnome-tweak-tool'

Step 7:-

==>Install Acrobat Reader "acroread" which has a better interface than default pdf reader,evince

==>Replace gimp with pinta if your image manipulation needs are less.Though pinta may have less features than gimp it starts up really quick compared to gimp an also it is pretty light weight application( doesn't hog much memory).Pinta as icon edior

==>Install "Bleachbit". Bleachbit effectively clears all the temporary files from your system.Works like a charm.

==>Install gkrellm.gkrellm is uber cool monitoring tool for Linux.I find it particularly useful in monitoring my internet usage statistics.

==>Install sun java / jre on openSUSE 12.1.To do that go this post

==>Get latest version of opera which happens to be Opera 11.60b1.If you have not tried out opera yet then you are missing something in life.

Install Opera Zypper way
==>Open the terminal
==>Navigate to the directory of the downloaded opera rpms using cd <space><dirname>
==> Execute the command :- "sudo zypper in opera-11.60-1147.i386.rpm"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted
If you need a GUI / YaST way of installation then look here under Installation ==> YaST/GUI way

Note:-opera gtk package is not yet available in the standard 12.1 repos and hence downloading the rpm from opera site.
==>Install Artha which is a off-line dictionary / thesaurus.Checkout Artha here

Pinta

Bleachbit

Gkrellm-Main Window

Gkrellm-Usage Stats

Audio,video and doc preview features in Nautilus 3.2.1 GNOME 3.2.1

2011-11-26T00:02:00.001+05:30

How to activate audio ,video and document preview in Nautilus 3.2.1 / GNOME 3.2.1/openSUSE 12.1 ?

I you are searching for a way to activate nautilus based document and multimedia preview features in Nautilus 3.2.1 / GNOME 3.2.1 then you have landed at the correct place.This post talks about activating preview feature in openSUSE 12.1 specific terms. You many need to strain your grey matter a little if you want to implement this on other distributions.

Step1:-
To enable the preview features first you need to ensure that preview functionality is turned "ON" in Nautilus settings

Step2:-
Ensure that you install all the relevant gstreamer plugins from packman repository using YaST or zypper.The gstreamer plugins you may need are "bad","bad-orig-addon","good","good-extra","ugly","ugly-orig-addon"

Step3:-Install "Sushi".Sushi is a quick previewer for Nautilus, the GNOME desktop file manager.Sushi is available under "OSS repository". This can be done through YaST too.

All your set ups are done and now . You can test your preview feature by selecting any mp3 file and hitting "spacebar" on the keyboard .You can use preview feature for a lot of file formats like simple text file,pdf documents etc:
Of course you may need to install relevant packages like evince in case of previewing pdf files.You can see images below demonstrating preview feature on mp3,image,pdf and a simple text file.

Nautilus Tip :- Q:How to delete/move any file/files to Trash or "recycle bin" in GNOME 3.X / Nautilus 3.X onwards using keyboard?A:Select the required files and press the key combination "ctrl+Delete"

If you liked this post, you may like check out:-
Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)

Create Label or Tag Cloud In a New Page In Blogger

2011-11-25T00:32:00.002+05:30

How To Create a dynamic Label or Tag Cloud In a New Page In Blogger?

In some of our blogs there would be too many labels that it would be difficult to show all of them in main page of the blog.To solve this issue we can add the label cloud in a new page in our blog.This post aims to serve as a tutorial for doing this.

The following screenshot shows the appearance of the Labels page or tag cloud page for your blog:-

Step1:-
Step one is to create a new page and name it "labels" .For accomplishing that this you need to
==>Go into "Design Mode in blogger", henceforth will be referred to as "Design Mode" in rest of the post
==>Click on the "Posting" tab.
==>Under this "Posting" tab click on the "Edit Pages" tab.
==>Click on the "New page" button
==>Give a title for he page like "Labels"
==>and then click on "Publish Page" button

Step2:-
Ensure that in the "design view" of blogger ,otherwise click on the "Pages" gadget and rearrange so that "Pages" gadget appears below the header gadget.Ensure that "Save" the design after editing.

Step3:-

Add the labels gadget. To do that you need to:-
==>Click on "Add a Gadget" link and add a new gadget "Labels" which is available under "Basics" menu.
==>Drag the "Labels" Rearrange as required so that it appears just above "Blog Posts" gadget and below "Pages" gadget

Step 4:-
Edit the code so that the lable code appears only in the "Lables page and not the main page of the blog"
==>Click on "Edit HTML" link in "Design Mode"
==>Click on check box "Expand Widget Templates"
==>Search and Locate your label widget.It should look something like this
<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>
==>Add the following "if condition" nestle it within your gadget/widget tags so that the xml structure is well formed and then ensure that the ending if tag is added in the right place as shown below.You can then "Save Template"
If your xml is not well formed then the page will display an error. My advise is to exit the "Design Mode" and repeat Step 4 otherwise it will mess up your blog.

<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "URLOFYOURLABLEPAGE"'>
...
...

</b:if>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

Finally you will have a beautiful tag cloud which you can use to browse your blog. Try out the label tab at the top of this blog to get a feel of it.

If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it?

2011-11-23T13:55:00.007+05:30

Couple of days ago I joined indiblogger and today I was randomly browsing their site when saw an advertisement @indiblogger seeking entries for a contest titled "If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it?"

I felt like giving it a try and here is my post aimed at the contest.

When i first saw the topic the whole idea of having extra hours in a day seemed ridiculous as we are always running short of time in our day to day lives .But then I realised that this is exact thing that every body needs very badly in their life,those precious costlier than surging gold prices,extra hours.

This idea seems at first like an idea ripped off from the bonus time allotted at the end of each stage in a video/computer game.Those bonus stages are an awesome idea.You can really increase your points.I would like something similar in real life too.But that would be like asking for too much, ain't it?

My thoughts drifted to the film 12B which featured Shyam , Jyothika and Simran.The film dealt with two hypothetical situation

one==>in which hero manages his time well and manages to catch a bus for his interview
Two==>in which hero mis - manages his time fails to catch the bus
The point is whoever makes most efficient use of the time succeeds in life,earns laurels and appreciation of the ones around him/her.The film also
talks about the unforgiving,cruel nature of fate but we will leave it at that.

So what would all of us do with hour extra two hours of time . Most of us would probably would doze off the extra hours thinking it as a god's gift to provide us "quantum of relief" from the rigours of hectic life.

Some of us would probably be willing to spend us extra hours on personal development like hitting a gym daily for a workout (Or) going or a walk in the fast disappearing parks{which happens to be a reality in chennai as the corporation is busy destroying whatever parks it developed in the pretext of building infrastructure for metro rail} (Or) doing yoga

Some of us ,especially the youth(Generation Y) may be tempted to spending the the hard earned money at bars/pubs/discotheque etc:for utilising their share of the two extra hours

Some may opt for spending time in doing things{which usually sits in the farthest corner of mind and keeps bugging us} that they always wanted to do but did not do it for want of adequate time

Some may turn to visiting places of worship,especially the older generations which obviously is a big no-no for today's generation

shopaholics would probably be delighted that they can spend more hours in the malls of the big Indian cities.

Bookworms would probably drain away the extra hours by reading more

As for me I would probably spend my quality time writing more articles for my blog,editing existing posts and experimenting with the whole range of gadgets/themes that are available for the blogs nowadays.

After a long wait finally onto a proper Gnome 3.X desktop openSUSE 12.1 GNOME 3.2.1

2011-11-20T00:40:00.009+05:30

After a long wait , i am finally onto a proper Gnome 3.X desktop which is openSUSE 12.1, GNOME 3.2.1. Man !!!!!! ,it took like ever before the 12.1 release came through. I was so exited when GOME 3.X came out through in openSUSE 11.4 . It really built up the hype for the 12.1 release which is supposed to be a full fledged GNOME 3.X desktop environment.

Gnome System Monitor showing juicy items like openSUSE release version 12.1,Kernel version 3.1.x,GNOME version 3.2.1

Desktop with one amazing background{that too out of box}

Application menu or Applications menu

Totem with a Nice and sleek Skin

Very Cool looking iphonesque onscreen keyboard

Cutest YaST yet,cool integration of YaST with GNOME 3.X interface

I was itching for the first weekend to arrive after the 12.1 release,I was really raring to have a crack at the new OS . Unlike previous upgrades and installations of openSUSE this time I tried doing things a bit different.The first time I installed openSUSE which happens to be version 11.0 I installed it from a boxed DVD from which I obtained along with a computer magazine.
For the transition from 11.0 to 11.2 I downloaded a DVD ISO and burned it and upgraded the OS.Then from 11.2==>11.3 and then from 11.3==>11.4
and from 11.4 , GNOME 2.x ==> 11.4 , GNOME 3.0.X I used YaST and zypper based upgrade.This time i tried something different i.e. installed from a live image written on-to a flash drive.

The +ses of 12.1/GNOME 3.2 over 11.4/GNOME 3.0

==>Nasty bug in Nautilus 3.0 which did not allow users to copy paste files from one directory to another using commands ctrl+c and ctrl+v has been fixed in Nautilus 3.2
Nautilus 3.0 bug

==>Much better looking Totem media player

==>GNOME 3.2 has not even crashed once though GNOME 3.0 in early days crashed a lot of times

==>openSUSE 11.2/GNOME 3.2 has "gnome-tweak-tool" {lets you customise gnome 3.x} and "gnome-shell-extension-alt-status-menu" {which provides you a proper shutdown or Power off menu for GNOME 3.X desktops} are installed by default which is big relief as these two tool are more like "the most important tools" on GNOME 3.X desktops

==>As usual the interface is smooth and free flowing and beautiful like a river .The OS feels like a giant iphone ,special mention is required for the iphonesque ultra cool on-screen keyboard.

==>The icing on the cake is the installation was very fast unlike anything that I had experienced before.Probably the credit goes to the flash drive based installation instead of using an optical drive based installation.

==>Shutdown time/latency is vastly improved

The only minus I noticed so far is that sun/oracle jre is not included in the 12.1 repos / repositories .One can only install openJDK implementation from 12.1 repos.

How to get Totem 3.0.1(openSUSE 11.4,GNOME 3.0) working again after crash?

2011-10-26T10:40:00.003+05:30

How to get Totem 3.0.1 ( openSUSE 11.4 , GNOME 3.0 ) working again after crash due to plugin?

{Crash caused due to misbehaving plug-ins like bemused}

The other day I was fooling about with Totem's plug-ins .Suddenly Totem crashed and when I tried to start it Totem refused to start.Since it has a better and cleaner interface on GNOME 3.0, instead of switching to myriad other players I set upon fixing it.I found two solutions.

Solution one:-
==>This is an easy one.Remove Totem Plug-ins.Since it is the plug-ins that is causing the problem, the obvious solution is to UN-install the trouble maker.
==>Go to Install/Remove Software (YaST)and UN-install "totem-plugins"

==>Launch Totem and it will open up well

==>The cliché is that you will not be able to use any plug-ins

Solution Two:-
==>For unfortunate souls who crave to use Totem plug-ins which "actually work" the following is the solution.This one is fairly straight forward too.It involves disabling all the plug-ins that get loaded when Totem starts up
==>First one must Install Dconf-Editor{Dconf is in short is a settings editor for GNOME 3.0[GSettings]} if not available.To accomplish that all one has to do is to use the software search tool in openSUSE website and finish installing the software/package by pressing a series of "Next" and "I Agree" buttons as and when they pop-up
For installation on openSUSE 11.4,GNOME 3.0 one can use the following URL and then click on one-click link as shown below openSUSE Software Search

==>After installation of Dconf-Editor one can start it by pressing the key combination "Alt+F2" and bring up the program launch window/Run Window/ command prompt or what ever name the tool.Then one must key in the magic words "open SESAME/CHASAM/Abracadabra" into the program launch window.Nope these don't work :-) .Use"dconf-editor" instead.

==>When "Dconf-Editor" opens up then one needs to navigate the tree on the left pane of the tool to a setting called org==>gnome==>totem.After reaching Totem node in the tool when one glances into the pane on the right hand side of the the tool.one can see all the plug-ins(Active plug-ins list) loaded by Totem when it starts up.One can either double click on the list and edit it or hit "Set To Default" button on the right hand side bottom of the tool.After you have done editing the list close the tool.

Before Totem Plug-in list Reset

After Totem Plug-in list Reset

==>Launch Totem and it will open up well.If it does not start up edit the plug-in list again in the Dconf-Editor

How To Add & Remove Application from Favourites in GNOME 3.0[Pictorial]

2011-10-19T00:37:00.003+05:30

Add Application To Favourites

To to to GNOME application menu move your mouse to the top left hand side corner of your desktop onto "Activities" label.To add an application to the favourites bar click on Applications "tab" at the top and then right-click on your favourite application and then click on "Add to Favourites" menu

Application Added To Favourites

After adding to Favourites you can easily locate your application on favourites menu.Your can then drag the icons in the favourites menu/bar to re-arrange the order of your favourite applications

Remove Application From Favourites

To remove an application from favourites bar you can right - click on the required application and remove it from the favourites menu/bar.

Launch Java Jar file or package in GNOME 3.x/openSUSE 11.4/Linux/Unix

2011-10-05T22:03:00.007+05:30

I was tired of running java jar files from gnome-terminal.I thought of a work around which i use in windows which involves running the "jar" using a ".bat" file

Step 1:-
I create a new file with extension ".sh"(Shell Script)
Step 2:-
I type in the command "java -jar <filename>.jar"
Step 3:-
I change the permission of ".sh" file and make it an executable
It can be done through terminal by executing "sudo chmod 777 <filename>.sh" (Or)
By right clicking on the ".sh" file and clicking on "properties" and changing the permissions and making the file an executable in Permissions tab
Step 4:-
You can double click on the ".sh" file now and run the required jar.
you must place the jar in the same folder as jar ,else you may need to specify folder path before "jar" name in the ".sh" file.You can edit the ".sh" file using "gedit" and change the jar file name as you please and run various jar files.

NOTE:-
If you want to keep the window open after jar execution to read output from the execution of the jar then add a line {read -n 1 -p "Press any key to continue"} after the "jar" command and after double clicking the ".sh" file click on "Run in terminal" as demonstrated below

Satellite landed, exact site not yet known: NASA

2011-09-25T11:35:00.004+05:30

A decommissioned NASA satellite, the biggest piece of US space junk to fall in 30 years, has crash-landed but the precise location is not yet known, the US space agency said early Saturday.
To know more :- Satellite landed, exact site not yet known: NASA

How To Restart Network service in openSUSE ,GNOME ?

2011-09-25T11:03:00.002+05:30

Some times your internet becomes intolerably slow after long hours of browsing.Then you my need to clear cache using a handy tool like bleachbit.
After that you may feel like restarting network service alone without restarting your computer.

There are two ways to restart you network service:-
==>Through gnome-terminal :- You should open a new terminal by either right clicking on your nautilus[window manager/file explorer] and "opening in Terminal" or by pressing "Alt+F2" and typing in "gnome-terminal". After entering the terminal{ unfortunately you cannot catch a train or flight here :-) } you need to type in "sudo /etc/init.d/network restart". It will prompt you you to type in your admin password and the terminal will restart your service. Once the process is finished you can close the terminal

==>Through command launch window:-
On keying in the "Alt+F2" a launch window will appear.There you can type in "gnomesu /etc/init.d/network restart". It will prompt you you to type in your admin password and the network service will restart in the background.The advantage of former approach is you will get to know what your system is actually doing through the log being displayed in the terminal.In this approach you just assume that after a few seconds your network service would have restarted.I can confirm this by continuously refreshing a webpage in my browser.The browser will suddenly be unable to load the page.Then after sometime the internet will be "UP" again

Wormhole,Time warp,Teleportation on Roads ?

2011-09-25T01:01:00.004+05:30

Wormhole,Time warp on Roads ?

The other day i was riding my bike when suddenly i felt that i had reached half way point to my destination quite quickly and felt that i had actually warped from one location to another.I had similar experiences before.Then i realized that there are certain coincidences when this happens:-
==>The route taken by me a often one which i would have used many times.
==>There would be fair amount of traffic on the roads and i would be solely concentrating on the vehicles and road ahead rather than having a glimpse at the various landmarks dotting the route.
This leads me to a conclusion that my muscles have automatically tuned to the particular route and then body automatically turns the vehicles at appropriate turns purely based on muscle memory which is quite astounding. On the other hand if one needs to take the correct turns on roads which one travels through, less often then one would be more watchful so as to not miss a turn therby missing the portal gate to the wormhole :-)

Offline Dictionary Thesaurus For GNOME 3.X,openSUSE 11.4

2011-09-24T18:50:00.003+05:30

About "Artha":-
Artha is good offline thesaurus/dictionary tool .It is easy to use and also has great features.It can give you not only definitions of words,but also its antonyms,synonyms,derivatives of the word.It has a toggle button which can be used to switch between simple and advanced mode.The later option is cool to use to learn more about the word you are searching for.Also if you click on any word on the tool,the tool "looks-up" those words too.

How To get it:-

==>Use the search tool @ www.software.opensuse.org and search for "artha".You can search for tool for older versions of openSUSE like 11.3
==>It would be available in "Education" repository
==>Click on "1-Click Install"and the YaST tool will ask for admin password.
You need not worry about your underlying system architecture.YaST will automatically choose the best version for you.
==>YaST will add the required repositories and then after finishing the installation
==>You can alternatively click on repository link and download "rpms" from the repository and install them using "zypper".

How To use it:-
==>You can launch YaST from "Applications" in GNOME 3.X and relevant main menus in older versions.
==>The tool will sit in your notification tray.
==>By default the tool will open the definitions for any word you have selected in any tool be it a browser or application like "gedit" by pressing the key combination :- "Ctrl+Alt+W"
==>If you turn on "notify" option by right clicking on the application's icon in the notification tray,it will show the definitions as notifications instead of opening up the entire application.

Application Full Screen

Application Showing Definition as notification in GNOME 3.X

How to Start Artha along with your OS?

==>If you want to start the application along with GNOME then you need to add it to "gnome-session-properties".
==>Press key combination "Alt+F2" an type in "gnome-session-properties".
==>In the session properties windows,use add button.Give any name of your licking.In the command text-box you need to use "artha" in lower case as demonstrated below.Press "Save" button and from next boot the application will start automatically

Understanding "Package Management" in Linux

2011-09-20T23:22:00.003+05:30

This post attempts to explain a few things about Linux "Package Management" or "Software Installation/UN-Installation"[from the point of view of a typical windows user] .First thing a windows user should understand is that unlike windows where software is distributed in the form of installers,Linux based software is distributed in the form of packages and typically need other software packages to install properly .

Linux software /package management is typically comparable to that of a software repository system used by software developers to store source code,maintain different versions of the code and "build" a complete piece of software from the repository using some sort of a build tool.

A few terms one must know regarding package management:-

==>Package:-These are literally packages of various libraries.Usually contain pieces of source code or binaries and will usually contain meta data which will help in installation of the software.These are comparable to "jar" files in Java.Sample package names are "<SomeName>.deb","<SomeName>.rpm" etc

==>Binaries:- Readily executable pieces of code which are pre-compiled to suit a specific OS like ".exe" like in windows.

==>Software Repositories:-These are more like "chest of drawers",each folder holds a bunch of software packages where your software is stored and can be typically accessed through FTP clients or your web browsers or by your Linux package managers

==>Source Packages:-Since most of the Linux software is open source i.e. anyone can actually view how the software you use is written and also extend its functionality to suit your own use / tastes.Linux junkies typically "build" their software using the source packages.For new users there are always ready-made software packages that can be easily installed :-).

==>Package Managers:-These are the tools , software that are used rather invoked to actually install" your software packages.Modern package managers are capable of installing, un-installing, verifying, querying, and updating various software packages.The package managers can be broadly classified into

Command line tools(zypper in case of openSUSE ,dpkg in case of debian based systems).
GUI based tools(YaST in case of openSUSE,Synaptic in ubuntu)

==>Pre-requisites:-These are usually libraries, binaries that are usually needed by the software package you are trying to install to work properly . Dependencies are of many types like :-

Software libraries are collections of utilities used by the software.
Command line tools with no GUI.Sometimes these dependencies are command line tools / software which are "complete" in all aspects except for the fact that they don't have good user interface or poor user interface or don't have an user interface at all.An example to prove this case is "winff" which is a popular media conversion tool is a GUI wrapper built around another full fledged media conversion command line based tool called "ffmpeg"
Plug-ins which extend the functionality of the software you are installing.

==>Versioning:- Versioning plays a important part in software/package management in Linux that it not only defines which is the latest as well as newer piece of software but also tightly couples a software to its dependencies , so that installation of the required software is typically not allowed by the package manager until all dependencies are installed.

"Faceboo" is also Facebook.com

2011-09-17T09:12:00.002+05:30

Recently when i mistyped facebook url as faceboo.com in my browser , to my surprise it took me to facebook.com.How uncool is that ?"faceboo" sounds like a fake facebook site. It also sounds like facebook is getting booed.May be facebook guys recognized this and bought the domain too to prevent misuse.From a layman perceptive it awesome as it reduced my daily typing effort by one word :-).On the otherhand people who don't like facebook can hit faceboo.com and start booing it :-)
Update:- http://facebok.com/ is also "facebook" .Guess in future every url will lead to facebook just like "All roads lead to Rome"

Petrol prices may go up by Rs 3 a litre | IOC | BPCL | The New Indian Express

2011-09-15T00:15:00.001+05:30

State-owned oil firms may have to raise petrol prices by as much as Rs 3 per litre as the rupee touched two-year low against the US dollar, increasing the cost of importing crude oil.
"Oil retailers are losing Rs 2.61 per litre or Rs 15 crore per day on sale of petrol. Together with local taxes, the hike needed to level domestic rates with international prices is about Rs 3 per litre," a top government official said.
Source:-
Petrol prices may go up by Rs 3 a litre | IOC | BPCL | The New Indian Express

[Flash News]Lizard Stalker,red corner issued

2011-09-11T14:22:00.001+05:30

Interpals* has issued red corner notice for apprehending the alleged assailant and terror suspect .Interpals has released the above mug shot of the alleged repeat offender who has been avoiding the internal security agencies dragnet for the past zillion months.

This picture is from the time he was in custody of Mosqstatpol** when he was just a minor thug.He had reportedly escaped from custody by bribing the guards and nibbling a hole through the mosquito net.

The criminal nicknamed "Lizzam" also known in close circles as "The Gecko" and "Silver Tongue" has been spotted in the past lazing around on window sills,scurrying around on walls of houses,barks of trees and places his sticky padded feet takes him.Lizzam is considered to be armed and dangerous and a potential threat all species of insects . He is known to posses the Quickest Tongue in the Wild-Wild West.He is also rumoured to be the homicidal killer and usually stalks his prey and finishes them off in one swipe of his long tongue.

All the insects have been henceforth been asked to report sightings of above criminal immediately to Interpals through a hundred digit international toll free hotline number [001345454545454545654565695...]

His name featured recently in a spate of incidents some of which are listed below:-
==>Sneaking into bathrooms and Peeking at humans who are bathing.
==>Para-trooping from the ceilings and landing on heads of humans and sending them to deaths [ popular belief among humans in some parts of the world]
==>Gobbling up those pesky flies whole and all
==>Pulling out and chewing at the legs of grasshoppers
==>Tearing off the inattentive miss cockroach and eating her up . Eye witnesses claim that the poor miss cockroach was squealing trying to escape the clutches of evil villain.
==>Many unfortunate mayflies were caught in crossfire during a fierce tongue fight between Lizzam and fellow law offender Chameleon
==>He has been known to commit heinous crimes like raiding ant caravans pick up random individuals and snack on his hapless victims that too in in broad day light

Meanwhile in a related development HI*** has moved a petition and collected a million signatures seeking repeal of the "red corner" notice.Millions have poured onto the streets calling for repeal of the dastardly act of Interpals.A spokesperson of the above association has given us exclusive information stating that gecko has as a matter of saved millions of humans by chewing up dewy gewy cockroaches and gobbling up blood sucking mosquitoes by the tons

*Interpals [International Pest Association Lackadaisical Security]
**Mosqstatpol [Mosquito State Police]
***HI [Homo Sapiens International]

Haircut

2011-09-10T15:07:00.000+05:30

Various Thoughts that flood Mind Before An Impending "Hair Cut"

Is it today ?
Is today the D-day ?
Is today "The Day" .
Is today an inauspicious { Indian traditions dictate that people don't cut hair on certain days of the week } day for an hair cut ?
Is it a week day or a week end("fount of wisdom" tells me that weekends at the barber shop would be busier than weekends}?
Should I wait for one more day till the facial sprouts of hair are a little longer so that I can have a "shave" along with the "cut" at the saloon as it will save a few bucks?
Is my hair really long enough as to justify such a wasteful expenditure?
Will the hair grow back after it gets cut since I am growing no younger?
Should I try out a fancy cut or go for a cheaper "Military Cut" a la "kuruthipunal" style?
Should I take my bike to the saloon or "go green" by using my cycle for short commutes?
Should skip hair cut and grow it longer and tie it t the back to get a funcky look?
Cutting my hair will at the least keep my head cool,whereas the more hair the more number of washes it requires per week!!!
Hey it is not so bad after all !!!It is far less torturous than a visit to dentist who peeps into your mouth and you must try hard not to bite off his big nose :-)

A Commoner's Thoughts On Bomb blasts

2011-09-09T11:48:00.004+05:30

This post aims to capture the mental images /thoughts/actions that transpire when a commoner like myself learns about bomb blasts like the ones that occurred in Delhi recently and Mumbai sometime ago

Time-line:-

*As Soon as One comes to know about the news
==>Oh My God(Thought)

*After about half a second
==>Search for the relevant news on TV or Internet(Action)

*After about 20 seconds to 1 minute
==>Busy learning/reading/hearing(TV News) about the attack,where it occurred(Passive Action)
==>Some times lets out low shrieks (involuntary Action)

*After about 1 minute to 5 minutes
==>Begins to process the news (Thought)

*After about 6 minutes to 15 minutes
==>Talk about in detail with family or friends{awful,shouldn't spare the perpetrators,feel bad for the victims,blah...}(Action)
==>Feels relieved that he or she or his/her family or friends were nowhere near the blast site(Thought)

*After about 20 minutes
==> Thinks about the task one was doing before hearing the news(Thought)

*After about 25 minutes
==>Feels bad that the police forces,National Investigation Agency (NIA), RAW , CBI , Army Intelligence , and other myriad unknown security forces [damn they are too many of them !!!] had failed to prevent various attacks in the past as well the latest ones.(Thought)
==>Wonders as to how many such attacks have been happening recently (Thought)
==>Feels that tax payer's money is going down the drain(Thought)

*After about 30 minutes
==>Feels tired after all the thinking ,talking, browsing internet(Thought)
==>Gets a coffee (Action)

*After about 1 day when the investigative findings start pouring in
==>Takes special interest in the news daily that is often lies about abandoned on the floor of the living room for most of the week (Action)
==>Feels that there is some progress in the investigation and guilty must be punished after readings about the front page of the daily(Thought)
==>Feels that adequate security is needed where people congregate {there are too many damn places like that in his/her own city},almost impossible to provide adequate security at each of the locations.(Thought)
==>Feel that the busy localities in the country should be covered by security cameras(Thought)

*After about 6 months to 12 months when the next bomb blast occurs
==>[Copy paste the above para]

Intelligent Monkey

2011-09-06T13:16:00.010+05:30

Recently when i was visiting Ahobilam in Andhra Pradesh,I saw this monkey gently opening a tap and drinking water out of it . It seemed to be a clever and intelligent animal,almost human

Click Last Picture To See The animation

Beware of Fake "Facebook Mails","Friend Request"

2011-09-03T16:31:00.001+05:30

Beware Folks :- Today I received a fake "Facebook Mail"/"Friend Request" notification.Your presence on Facebook is being leaked and even your email id you provided on Facebook is not safe.Facebook should look into the leakage of email ids to third party without express consent from Facebook users.The application which sent this mail was smart enough to know the email id I use to login into Facebook and mail me a fake friend request

How To Detect fake
There is a easy way to recognise these mails.First take a look at the "From" ,"Reply-To" and "To" addresses in the email header.In my case it claims to originate from "facebookmail" domain and reply to is "LinkedIn" and it is not addressed to my id but some fictional/fake email id. If you want to confirm that it is definitely not an invite then go and login into Facebook and check
for invite notification.Never click links in such fake mails.This will compromise your system.

ISP Vs Linux User

2011-08-31T16:05:00.005+05:30

Part I :-

My Internet Service provider (henceforth referred to as ISP) is repeatedly mailing me to get free antivirus package :-)

"By upgrading now, you will be enjoying the following:

Free bundled Single Anti-Virus License."

Why would i require a Anti virus license if i am using Linux?It is a total no brainer.

Part II :-

Also whenever i have a broadband outage and report the issue with the call centre guys

==>They would ask me whether the network icon in the system tray is blinking.Since I use "ifup" instead of network manager on GNOME obviously I wouldn't be able to see a network connection icon.

==>Then they request me to clear cache ,history blah ,blash{right click on internet explorer icon etc}

==>Then as part of their next sermon they ask me to Press start button==>Run==>cmd,After which i would interrupt them and tell them politely that i am not using windows but Linux.They pause for second then repeat start saying "Press start button==>Run==>cmd".They either think i am an idiot or they don't want to understand what i am saying.
I bet Half of the ISP support personnel don't know what an OS is.

It is high time that Indian ISPs should review their support policies towards Linux and MAC users. I definitely think as the number of internet users grow in India the size of the niche segment into which I fall will definitely grow in numbers.I would say that this is a sort of discrimination if ISPs continue to work in this fashion.

Play Angry Anna Online

2011-08-26T17:15:00.002+05:30

Modelled around the famous game "Angry Birds" here is Anna in his new and latest avatar "Angry Anna". Start killing corruption by playing Angry Anna

Remove Annoying "Universal Access Settings" menu from GNOME 3.X

2011-08-24T14:01:00.015+05:30

I have been looking for a way to remove the annoying "universal Access Settings/Accessibility Icon" menu from Top Panel in GNOME 3.X and finally found it in "ArchWiki".

The solution works in openSUSE 11.4/GNOME 3.X(GNOME 3.0.2) as of date

Steps to remove the Icon/Menu:-

Step 1:-
Create a folder named noa11y.icon@panel.ui in
<HOME>/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions (or) ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions

Step 2:-
Create two new files inside the folder:

    File: ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/noa11y.icon@panel.ui/extension.js

    const Panel = imports.ui.panel;

    function main() {
      Panel.STANDARD_TRAY_ICON_SHELL_IMPLEMENTATION['a11y'] = '';
    }

    File: ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/noa11y.icon@panel.ui/metadata.json

    {
      "shell-version": ["3.0"],
      "uuid": "noa11y.icon@panel.ui",
      "name": "na11y",
      "description": "Turn off the ally icon in the panel"
    }

Step 3:-
Restart the GNOME shell.

Press Alt+F2 and in the "pop up" command line type in 'r' without quotes and then hit return key or the "Eter Key"
Viola no more "Accessibility Icon"

Edit : 01DEC2011 :- If you are on openSUSE 12.1 there is an easier way to do this.Check out this post Step 6

The Curious Case of Zaheer and India

2011-08-24T12:22:00.003+05:30

Just like the film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" where the film protagonist ages backwards which is most unbelievable,the same is the case with Zaheer Khan's performance and Indian Cricket Team.The is strange relationship between the his poor bowling and team's losing chances.It is a strange but the synergy is undeniable.

I was pondering about the humiliating defeat that the Indian cricket team was handed down by the English team(2011 Pataudi Series),when it dawned upon me that there is peculiar relationship between this series and ODI world cup final of 2003.I find strange similarities between Lord's test in 2011 Pataudi Trophy and 2003 ODI World Cup final.

==>Both matches are important as far as the series is concerned.

==>In the current series the unfit zaheer khan bowled only 14 overs and bowed out of the rest of the remaining 1s test on day one of the test.

==>Similarly in 2003 world cup Zaheer bowled a horrendous first over ceding 15 runs to Australia

==>Indians handed the Test Crown to the English in the 2011 Pataudi trophy

==>Indians handed the ODI Crown to the Australia in the 2003 ODI World Cup

==>In both the series 2003 ODI world cup as well 2011 Pataudi series India were considered the front runners

==>Zaheer khan opened the bowling in both cases

==>India won the toss on both the times and chose to field

==>The current Indian captain as well the one in 2003 were considered one of the very best were highly rated

==>Both occasions India was playing away from home and in iconic famous grounds "The Wanderers Stadium"Johannesburg,South Africa(2003)and Lord's Cricket Ground,London(2011)

In the next important match of the series that Indians play they should do the following to avoid humiliating defeats be it a test ,ODI or T20 or whatever new format they invent in future like T10,T5 etc:-

==>BCCI must haggle with ICC to get to play at a newly built stadium

==>Avoid winning toss

==>Even if they win the toss opt to bat instead of choosing to field

==>Ask some one else other than Zaheer to open the bowling in the event that they are asked to field first after the opposing team wins the toss and opts to bat first

==>BCCI can ask press to write articles telling the current team is weak and so on

==>BCCI can request ICC to drop Indian team a few places down in the ranking on the eve of the match

==>Appoint a stand in captain for the match and give the current captain(who would be certainly a very highly accomplished cricketer himself) a paid vacation to Alps or some remote location

Sound of Rain

2011-08-11T01:23:00.004+05:30

Boom Boom Boom goes the sound of rain
When accompanied by thunder

Voom Voom Voom goes the sound of rain
When married with the wind

Croak Croak Croak goes the sound of rain
When frogs count the raindrops

Clap Clap Clap goes the sound of rain
When window panes get agitated in the rain

Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh goes the sound of rain
When they fall onto the ground after a naughty child disturbs a tree after rains

Gurgle Gurgle Swoosh goes the sound of rain
When flowing along the deserted streets

Swish Swish Swish goes the sound of rain
When it hits the foliage

Plop Plop Plop goes the sound of rain
When it drips into a muddy puddle

Splatter Splatter Splatter goes the sound of rain
When it passes under the myriad wheels of the passing vehicles

Giggle Giggle Giggle goes the sound of rain
When people encounter the first rains of the season

Rahul Dravid The Bhisma pithama/Karna Of Indian Cricket

2011-08-08T10:07:00.001+05:30

Every Hindu epic has a few characters who display impeccable character.
Similarly Indian cricket has Rahul Dravid.I would like to draw upon analogical similarities between great characters of mahabharata , Bhisma pithama/Karna and Rahul Dravid.

==>Similar to how Karna was abandoned in favour of pandavas,rahul dravid despite being a good ODI player the later part of ODI career was scarified so that new faces can show up in the team.

==>It was Rahul Dravid who first announced that senior players would not take part in 20-20 cricket just before 20-20 world cup which paved way for India's success in inaugural 20-20 world cup.This is similar to the stand that Bhisma took(in staying with the kauravas) when the kurukshethra war was about to start

==>Since India lacks good batsmen in the current series(2011 IndvsEng ODIs) Rahul is being recalled by BCCI to bolster the ODI side.This is similar to th e case where druyodhana begged Bhishma to lead kaurava's into battle despite many younger warrriors like drona ,karna who were also possible suitors.The trait that tilted balance in favour of Bhisma was character integrity in addition to being a good warrior.Similarly though India has lot of Indian youngsters who are keen to make a impact in current series selectors wanted to bring back Dravid who is the epitome of classical stroke play and ofcourse good batting in IPL matches.

==>Have never seen Dravid loose his cool regardless of the moment whether India is winning or losing similar to Bhisma who put up with every nonsense in his life ranging from his old father not asking him to marry as he wanted to marry a young maiden and also allowing kauravas to run rampant when they asked pandavas to leave for vanavas

==>Dravid kept wickets for a long time for India in the ODIs and in recent test series (Ind vs Eng 2011) when Dhoni wanted to bowl a few overs .This which was not at all necessary as India has always had a great talent pool and it would be very easy for BCCI select a decent wicket keeper from the domestic circuit(Ranji,Duleep,Deodhar to name a few) . This can be equated karna donating his kavacha kundala to fully knowing that the alm seeker is Indra.This is case of sacrifice which was not required from Dravid .

The list is endless and we can just salute Rahul Dravid for his yeoman service to Indian cricket

Twists in Dravid's tale :- Mr Dependable

GNOME 3.X, openSUSE 11.4 experience

2011-08-08T00:12:00.000+05:30

GNOME 3.0, openSUSE 11.4 experience has been
==>Mouse gesture to switch between windows is really cool and likeable feature
==>Feel that more themes which work out of box which can be installed through YAST is the "need of the hour"
==>Workspaces have no much use for me anyway ,hence major changes in workspaces handling between GNOME 2.x and GNOME 3.X did not matter much for an average user like myself
==>The default mapping of Windows switching and application launching to windows key in keyboard is much appreciated
==>Hope to see more flexibility in manipulating the top panel default menus like easy way of removing "universal Access settings" which most users don't really need
==>Really appreciate people who brought in "gnome shell extensions" as it involves no more searching for shutdown menu.
==>Really looking forward for more features in "System Settings" and "Tweak Advanced Settings"
==>Eagerly awaiting next release of openSUSE in September when better integration with GNOM3.X is hoped for atleast by me.

Famson (facebook) vs Googliath (google)

2011-08-07T23:31:00.002+05:30

The latest internet rage is the fight between facebook and google
Its probably the third world war
The earlier world wars were fought for control of land and mining resources
The latest worldwar is for a piece of the internet traffic pie
The battle lines have been already drawn.
Pitched battle are being fought and here is the status of the war
==>Facebookland vs googleplus land has become a prime example of trench warfare
==>Google failed miserably in the "Buzz" land and the attempt fizzled out without a fuzz.
==>The Orkut fort lasted only till 2010 in india
==>Facebook has single handedly given death blows to all other competitors like hi5,myspace etc leaving only google in the fray
==>Facebok has made major gains in past few years of the war
==>Facebook alias samson(henceforth referred to as famson) is making huge headway against googliath bringing in more traffic to its site than google search site
==>To cover up early losses googliath has turned tide against famson by unearthing a major coup in the form of googleplusland
==>There also huge and large scale aerial bombing of ideas through "facebook like" and google "plus one"

One may join either of the forces in the below website.Happy browsing!!!!

http://likevsplus.thewebsys.com/

Exit Man Page in Linux/Unix

2011-04-24T19:02:00.002+05:30

Whenever i ran "Man" in linux or unix i had a peculiar problem of not being able to exit man using ctrl+D or ctrl+C commands.I used to close the terminal to exit :-)

Today i figured out that all i had to do is press 'q' on my keyboard.How silly of me

My Tryst with Linux takes me to openSUSE 11.4/GNOME 3.0

2011-04-24T09:46:00.002+05:30

Salient features of Gnome 3.0

==>No more start menu
==>Huge icons everwhere
==>OS looks more like a mobile computing device like iphone
==>It is written in javascript(yep you heard it right ,javascript)
==>To shutdown you need to press "ALT" to toggle suspend to "poweroff".It
seems Gnome developers never shutdown their machines

Visit gnome3.org to know more

Playing "World Cup Cricket" on openSUSE 11.3/GNOME

2010-11-06T19:11:00.005+05:30

World Cup Cricket ( WCC ) is one of my favourite DOS games ever.
When I migrated to openSUSE/GNOME(Linux) from Windows I missed the game a lot.
Today I tried to install this game and was successful in installing and playing the game.

All I one has to do is :-

Install dosbox using YaST."dosbox" is found under Packman and OSS repositories.One can it's features here :- Check out "Dosbox" here .One may use the one click links in that page to install the software too
Then get the game here :- 1.)Download Link 1 2.) Download link 2
Then hit "Alt+F2" to launch "Run Application" window and run the command "dosbox<space>/<Application fullpath>/wcc.exe"

World Beater

2010-10-29T09:09:00.000+05:30

"A keen immigrant lad applied for a salesman's job at
London's premier downtown department store.
In fact, it was the biggest store in the world - you could get
anything there.
The boss asked him, "Have you ever been a salesman before?"
"Yes sir, I was a salesman in India", replied the lad..
The boss liked the cut of him and said, "You can start tomorrow and
I'll come and see you."
The day was long and arduous for the young man, but he got through it.
And finally 6:00 PM came around.
The boss duly fronted up and asked, "How many sales did you make
today?"
"Sir, Just ONE sale." said the young salesman.
"Only one sale?" blurted the boss.
"No! No! You see here, most of my staff make 20 or 30 sales a day. "If
you want to keep this job, you'd better be doing better than just one
sale.
By the way "How much was the sale worth?"
“300534.00 pounds" said the young Marwari.
"What"," How did you manage that?" asked the flabbergasted boss.
"Well", said the salesman, "This man came in and I sold him a small
fish hook, then a medium hook and finally a really large hook.
Then I sell him new fishing rod and some fishing gear.
Then I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the
coast.
So I told him he'd be needing a boat, so I took him down to the boat
department and sold him that twenty-foot schooner with the twin
engines.
Then he said his Volkswagen probably wouldn't be able to pull it, so I
took him to our automotive department and sold him that new Deluxe 4X4
Blazer.
I then asked him where he'll be staying, and since he had no
accommodation, I took him to camping department and sold him one of
those new igloo 6-sleeper camper tents.
Then the guy said, while we're at it, I should throw in about 100
Pounds worth of groceries and two cases of beer.
The boss took two steps back and asked in astonishment, "You sold all
that to a guy who came in for a fish hook!!"
"No" answered the salesman,"he came in to buy a box of Sanitary
napkins for his wife and I said to him,
"Sir, Your weekend is screwed anyway, you might as well go fishing."
Boss - "You sit in my chair....... "