Change of blog!

I’ve moved to a new ‘wordpress’ blog on my own site. The new url is http://www.anuragsinghrana.com/blog. Actually, I’ve set up a new website of my own at http://www.anuragsinghrana.com which will be up and running soon. Please update your bookmarks in your browser, del.icio.us, blogroll and minds!

Adios,

Anurag.

Another combo post :D

Its not fair. I write so less these days and most of the posts are just a sum total of the past days. Anyways, what can I do, lets continue the trend.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a busy day. I have to prepare a BTP presentation, a Advanced Graphics course presentation along with normal classes (read it as one class at 11). The upcoming matches from 7th of this month is to be recorded match-by-match on the tv.iiit.ac.in server. Yes!! The same old server which people enjoyed. We are working on the audio-video sync of the recording system these days. Hopefully after the series, the server will be open for the public.

This week

Well, I’ve to finish a lot of things this week. There is a pile of backlog for the Cognitive science course and a pending GPU assignment. We’ve set up a YUM REPOSITORY SERVER for IIIT. But mirroring 12 repositories for 6 platforms is a wastage of disk space and bandwidth. As a result, we are working on a better mechanism to create the repository. Sagar and I are jointly working on the project to come up with something good. Lets see what do we make.

This month

Diwali is ’scheduled’ this month. And its been 3 long months since I went home. I came to college on 7th of July 2006 and today is 4th of October 2006. I’m thinking to go home from 16th to 22nd of this month. As a result I’ve to skip a few classes and also finish the BTP final report beforehand, which is to be submitted on 24th of this month. Hopefully Jawahar sir will allow me to go home. I have to restart the work on the 4th semester 4 credit Mobile Blogging software project. The placements have come very near, and I need to have a clean marksheet.

Qt 4

Wow! This new thing is such a marvel. Initially I used to hate it, because I didn’t understand how to use it. But now I am familiar with the Ui namespace, resource files and other fundas, it feels good. For starters, let me tell you a good news. In Qt 3, if we created a Ui from Qt designer, and edited the header and sources generated using the uic command, the ui files used to overwrite them next time we needed to change something in Ui. Now, they’ve separated Ui component from the functionality code. As a result, the programmer can completely rely for Ui on Qt4 designer and on his code for the rest of it. Another good thing is resources. Now we can define the resources like images, text files used by the application we develop. All of them will get embedded inside the executable itself. As a result, we need to ship only single files instead of zip archives.

My experiments - Embedder

I was thinking about making something like ’setup.exe’ of windows. Generally linux setups come as tar archives or like rpm files. Almost nothing (except jdk setups, etc) come like a single setup file which handles everything. I wrote a command line utility as the first steps to generate something similar for linux. The command is called ‘createArchive’. This command takes two arguments, name of a new executable and a resource file. The resource file contains a list of files, both executable and ordinary. The command reads all files given in the resource file and finally creates an executable by the name as specified. This new executable contains all the files embedded in itself. Upon execution, this executable creates a temporary directory in /tmp and extracts all the files. It then executes the executables in a specified order. It has options of ‘quiet’ and ‘destroy extracted files on exit’ too. You can try this too. Download the files from here. It works on Linux, but is pretty much platform independent, most of if is just CORE C++. Maybe you can try it on windows as well. Does “FILE * fp;” work on windows? Sorry, the code isn’t documented (at all).

Movies

Ok, not many in the list. Lage Raho Munnabhai has been the favorite since a few days. I don’t know if the director had any intention to spread the gandhigiri, but I can see it already spreading (at least in orkut profiles). What I think one should notice is that the ‘noble thought’ is being internalized and understood by someone who has been violent and aggressive all the time, a gunda. If such a person can understand the words of truth and non-violence, we, the ordinary people ought to.

Pyaar ke side effects… they are already there. Actually Tanu wanted me to see this one. And after people appreciated it, I got desperate to see it. Eh, well I can already notice some of the side effects in my life too, hehe. In all a fun movie, a must see for your PC and can be worthy for the cinema hall as well.

Blogging - bring me back

Oh its been so long since I last visited my blog or someone elses. I am like out of the blogging world. Not that I am busy or something, but I do other things more often. They include movies, orkutting, chatting, working on the YUM REPO, etc. And rest of the time I am outside my room doing some other activities. Lets see if I revert back with this opening post. Actually I was considering of creating a private blog as well, or making this one private or something similar. I think a lot of my thoughts don’t find place in this open blog. Maybe its too early to let my ideas open for the public to read and judge.

Conclusion

Ok fine, now that I wrote a post, I have to have a conclusion. There is nothing to conclude though. Welcome me back to the blogging world. Hopefully going home this diwali. And well keep your fingers crossed for the upcoming YUM REPOSITORY and TV.IIIT.AC.IN.

Ciao.

Tagged??

I don’t know whats TAGGING or TAGGED and stuff. I was just reading Sumeet’s blog and saw that he was tagged or something. And I saw that at the end he has TAGGED me. I went and asked him the whole funda. So, according to him, I am supposed to answer this questionaire and forward it to someone else. Here it goes…
1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on a random page and find random line..

Do you remember when you bought, or comtemplated buying, a new car?
Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis
(Yeah, am trying to try to mug up some words…lol)
2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can

Just got my room cleaned…. a lotta free space in here…

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

The song ‘No way no way’ from ‘Anthony kaun hai?’ on MTV

4.Without looking, guess what time it is?

11:40 AM

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?

11:56 AM … wow!! I am so bad at remembering time… just saw the watch before taking this questionaire.

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

Nothing! The wing is unusually calm!! :O

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

Went to brush at 10 AM. Am soooooo lazy hehehe.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?

I looked at my monitor and the lovely ‘wallpaper’ on it

9. What are you wearing?

Shorts and T shirt

10. Did you dream last night?

I dreamt that I was chatting with my dad… which has happened like only twice in this whole lifetime till now..!!

11. When did you last laugh?

Don’t remember… been a lil sad these days

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?

Dead bodies of insects… some marks left by the tapes that were stuck… cracks …. just removed all my posters and all….

13. Seen anything weird lately?

Well… cant even think of anything wierd… wierd isn’t it?

14. What do u think of this quiz?

Quiz? Is it a quiz? Its more like an interview

15. What is the Last film u saw?

Omkara …. the a-shade-less-than-DVD print… with ok ok video and crappy audio x-(

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?

I dunno… I need a bike and a Ford Icon… and maybe build another floor for my home… and surely wanna help some needy ppl.. dunno how

17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.

Well… Sumeet… you know almost everything… :).. and I wont tell you the rest of the ‘details’ .. nice try

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?

I wanna have a world without the border disputes between India and Pakistan…

19. Do you like to dance?

Like to… well thats tricky… YEAH I do.. But you see am not a professional dancer.. or rather not even a dancer… so I prefer doing it in private

20. George Bush

Screwed the world.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?

I’ve already thought about it.. I’ll call her Mahfooza…. hopefully… if my wife agrees too
Mahfooza Rana wont go… so maybe we’ll come up with something else

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?

Never imagined that… !! .. it’ll be a gal.. come on

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?

Yeah why not… I’d love to. I mean I don’t have these ‘principles’ that I’ll live in India and stuff. But then I might feel homesick and return..

24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?

I don’t think there is anything like that. Everything that IS is just in this world.

25. People who may do this memo in their journal.

Didn’t get the question. But if you mean people who take this quiz… then … well.. who have a lil time to spend outta their busy schedules

So, thats it, now my turn to TAG!! Wow!… I don’t even know how many people will actually read it and reply to tag or whatever you call it. So here is my list (skipping people who have been tagged by Sumeet)

IV … lets see what the bond has to write … AAAAAAIIIIIIIVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Hari puttar lets see what paaji writes… …

Pati … ok this one is a brave attempt… awaiting acceptence

Gokool lets see what are the ‘optimists’ thoughts

Beegle …. something techno expected

Ok fine.. as instructed.. I’ve put Five people on the TAG list. Ohh, and here are some specially invited/tagged

Gautam …. the coolant guy …. would love to know what he would answer… hey gimme the link to your blog

and last but not the least ….

Nidhi …. lets see how a PROFESSIONAL would reply

Ok thats it for this time. Am busy trying to study for GRE as you all know. Shamefully hopelessly failing to do so though, but I’ll keep trying. Rest in another post, and I promise wont delay it a lot.

Ciao.

Backlog

So, its been over a month without a single blog. Great! Actually I didn’t feel like blogging these days. Some of it was due to some personal reasons, and most of the time in the later part of July, it was due to lack of motivation. Anyways, what I remembered is that it just takes a fresh start to make things roll again. Here is the fresh start.

Let me tell you things in the reverse order. Right now I’ve just returned from my class, Middleware Systems. It was a very hectic day today, hypothetically. I haven’t done much work today practically. NOW I have to do some wordlists for GRE. Phew, god help me.

This week

I have behaved quite complacently this week. Most of it is due to the fact that most people around me are attempting their GRE in August, while I am attempting it in September. Hence, the complacency. The Barrons GRE book, as they call it, contains 50 wordlists, each having about 75 words. That makes it 3700+, wow! I haven’t even done 200 of them. Hope I get a little more sincere on that front.

Last month

The month of July has been easy going. Not many classes, unneccessarily delaying the project work, not doing any GRE preparation has been the norm. All my classes are scheduled after lunch this semester, except one on Wednesdays. Hence, sleeping late and getting up late has become the ruitine. Well, and I explain it as taking rest after the tight schedule in the internship.

Post Noida

I already mentioned how nice was my trip to Noida. Thanks to Rakhi ma’am and Deepak sir for the kind remarks. After my return my Noida, most of the days back home were spent in roaming around with my friends. And then, an unplanned return to IIIT, which I realized was unneeded. I could have easily spent another week at home. Those few days living in the campus were painful, after knowing the biting reality.

Room shift
I shifted to a new room, OBH 110. Great room it is, the room of my pal, Arun. Apart from a screeching door and an almirah without any hanging rod, its quite cozy in here. Its in the front wing in OBH. Ravi Shankar often claims that girls come for breakfast at the exact time he is leaving for a shower, so that they can have a glance at him, half naked in a towel. I don’t know how true is that, hehe. Other things are great about this room. With Ashish in the adjacent room, and Devansh around the corner, its always fun time and guidance to this poor soul. And well, teasing and irritating Ravi is like a everyday timepass.

Courses

Not very many, just 4 courses this semester. And most of them are not much into the technical side.

A perspective to Industry and Society - As the name suggests, this one is a pure philosophy subject, just write what you want in the answer sheet kind of subject. Most classes are just fun.

Introduction to Cognitive Science - Ok, no need to think it like a real course with some matter to mug up and all. Its like a discussion forum. The only constraint is the topic is chosen by the course outline. Rest of it is just the way you make it. We are divided into groups of 15 each and have group discussions on topics like human vision in 3D, illusions and stuff. Most of it is fun.

Middleware systems - This one is a great one. Real tech thingi involved, all Java, Corba, .NET, J2EE and stuff. We learn some really useful tools and concepts and well we have a project to do too. Will also learn Java in the process. Nice one it is.

Advanced topics in Graphics - This one is like a learning and experimentation based one. Most of it is related to OpenGL and GPU programming. Today was the first class, so can’t write much about it. Its going to be a great experience I think.

Projects

Eh, this is the area I am lagging. Too many projects have aggromerated (hope the usage is correct). The BTP, Mobile Blogger (4th sem project), Visual Tracking (5th sem honors project), Computer Vision course project, isn’t four enough? Hope I get to some serious work.

Fedora Core 5

Since long I have been getting irritated with Random Hangups and Freezes with FC5. I just upgraded the kernel from 2.6.16 to 2.6.17 and the hangups disappeared. It seems there was some problem in the kernel and its ATI drivers or something. The issue has been resolved in the newer version.

KDE 3.5.3

Upgraded to this new KDE after I reached college. Its simply awesome. You would say it has copied stuff from XP, but the konqueror with its metabar and the capability to play video previews (actually play the video as a preview, pause, ffwd, rew, stop) is great. It supports ALL formats supported by MPLAYER, i.e. MPEG, AVI, ASF, RM, RA, RAM, anything, you just name it and it plays. And the KBFX menu (with the normal K-menu is great), actually the button looks cool, hehe. Rest of it pretty much similar to 3.5.

Conclusion

GRE is my priority. Others are my projects. The courses are easy going so need not bother much. And well, my readers, sorry to keep you waiting…. please come back.

Ciao.

Core 5, TV Server, New Sysadmin, Love and more!

If you have a look at IIIT::Blogroll, most posts to me look like some kind of news stories at Slashdot. Well, maybe thats the whole idea, but that ways I should be thrown out of the blogger community, because I generally post for myself. Whatever comes to my mind, the moods, the ideas, the new things I see, the thoughts, I just jot them down. This blog is like my treasure, a log of my experiences in life (since April 2005 to be precise). Maybe I don't deserve any readers, but then, being subscribed to 'IIIT::Blogroll', I get some 'acceidental clicks'. I hope not many *actually* read the posts.

Fedora Core 5

Anyways, coming back to senses, I installed Fedora Core 5 yesterday. Finally, with a lot of waiting, I took this decision just because there was nothing better to do and some people said *it is faster and better*. Not much changed because I was already using KDE 3.5.1. It downgraded my gaim to 1.5.0 from 2.0beta3. There are no audio/video players and a lot of other goodies missing. F-Spot sucks, at least for me! I use digikam and thats good enough. I didn't find any beagle or something, except a little 'beagle indexer' in my Firefox. I don't know where all that stuff is. It seems it installed Mono on my system, don't know whats that for. And my net speed 'sucks'. No other word for that. I have been struggling with a meagre 1.2 KB/sec download speeds to get those huge RPM files. Maybe its actually down, or maybe its Fedora Core 5. All in all, my opinion is, if you have fully functional FC2, FC3 or FC4, there is no such *BIG* reason to get FC5.

TV.IIIT.AC.IN

Jawahar sir had asked me to meet him just after 4th. Maybe for me that means 6th, because I haven't met him yet. Not that its a very big issue, but still. The TV Server is not working for several reasons. One of them is failure of hardware, another is lack of motivation to repair it and third is lack of interest by people (mostly due to exams). The TV Tuner card's video reception has crashed, and hopefully is not a problem with the card. We'll be getting back in business soon. I guess people will need the server after exams get over. Hopefully I'll make it up and running before I leave the college for vacations.

Going home

Scheduled departure. 13 April 2006, Thursday, 9:25 PM. This is what my railways ticket says. Well, its not a 'departure', its basically a meeting. I'll be meeting my family, my parents, my friends and Tanu. Its Priyanka di's wedding too, this 20th. Hope it will be great fun, seeing her in a new roop of a married woman. My holidays are not very long though, I'll be returning on 1, 2 or 3 May. I've to work on my BTP henceforth.

Internships

I haven't got any internships for this summer. I applied in Kritikal, at least asked Manish to forward my CV. I guess soon there will be some communication. I hesitate to talk to Jawahar sir regarding internships. It is the only thing I hesitate to talk about. I mean, most people are afraid to say anything to him, but I generally am calm and composed in his presence. And so, most people (especially Freaky and Nikhil) push me forward for any negotiations with him. But now I feel he is a part of our life, no external thing to negotiate with. Some of the seniors might differ in opinion though. He has also assured us to forward our CV to some of the companies. Lets hope I get an internship too, though its not the end of the world for me if I don't get any.

Sysadmin

My first *odd* experience at the server room was last sunday. I desperately wanted to submit my MoMM assignment and had just 10 mins to print it. I went to Ranta sir and he told me to take a print in the server room, which was apparently open. As I was standing in the server room, waiting for my turn for the PC, the *new sysadmin* came and told us that *they* (the sysadmins) don't **generally** (as if its been years he has been here) allow printouts on sundays and asked us to leave. He even asked the person just about to click *Print* to stop and leave. We pleaded for some mins but to no avail. I wish there is at least one sysadmin from the students. Its not about me getting sysadminship, anyone could be made one, but at least one savior (I heard torrents also have been disabled, any downloaders having problems?)

Love

Well, actually I wanted to write this post about Love, but then so many other things just took over. I don't really understand what love is. At least didn't used to. Not that I know what it is now, but I am tending to understand. Earlier, I used to link it with *physical appearance*. Even now I do so. But then, this definition of loving someone's looks is a little complicated. You don't choose how your mom looks, but still you love her. You choose how your girlfriend looks and then you love her. Why is there a difference?

I got a forward about some boy loving some girl and the reason being LOVE. Later that girl gets really damaged by some accident and the boy still loves her. Though that really needs a very deep and strong kind of love, I agree to some extent to that, not that I can actually apply it. And why should I do so, nothing will happen to my loved ones yaar!

Now, I have started understanding that love is not just something physical. Its not a bondage, a burden. It not something like choosing the least worse. Its not about getting the same feeling from the other person too. Its unconditional. It doesn't make you worry more. Rather it frees you from all worries and makes you fly. It doesn't demand, rather it understands when you cannot do certain things because of your condition/constraints. Its not about just physical pleasure, its about a sense of belonging to someone, in any way possible. It doesn't let you go in depression, love is a ray of hope, its optimistic and brings a smile on your face whenever you think about it. In short, love is … something that pumps energy in me to survive.

Though my knowledge and understanding of love is very rudimentary and conflicting, this is what I've understood till now. Maybe I am wrong, inaccurate. But thats just my thoughts, anyone is welcome to correct me.

Conclusion

I saw the number of hits to my blog decreasing. I thought maybe dividing the post into smaller headings is a good idea. If anyone reads carefully, most of my posts are framed that way, just that there are no headings. Anyways, have to meet Jawahar sir today, and will look into the hardware for TV server. Have a nice day!

Ciao.

Humility and posers.

This post was written on March 10. I didn't find much 'meaning' in it. But still, posting for the sake of it. Please correct it where ever there are flaws, contradictions and inconsistancies.

We come across enormous amount of textual content every day, news stories, blogs, discussion forums, newsgroups, essays and what not. Generally you notice that everyone tries to be humble, down to earth person. Everyone calls himself (or herself) crazy and stupid. Some of the instances from IIIT::Blogroll are (no offense)…

• Just my'crazy erratic'self, with an ever wandering, rambling soul….composing entirely what my infatuated mind perceives!!
• I am continuously wandering from one place to another, trying to make sense of things and comprehend what my mind allows me to.
• joblessfreak
• My rambling on ideas, thoughts on technology, business and other topics that constantly feed my thinking
• Yet Another Blogger — innocent and incoherent ramblings

Talking about all people in general, how many are really humble as they show they are? The human tendency is to feel happy when we get appreciation from others. Generally people are very much interested in the number of hits to their blog or number of comments on it. The basic motive of 'stats and comments', apart from getting opinion of others, is to feel happy about the number of people that read our thoughts. I don't think there is anything wrong in seeking love and appreciation from others.

Personally, I don't think there is something like a 'purely humble' person. I mean, its good to read about great people in scriptures and all, but in the 21st century, everyone is just someone, with certain 'natural behavior'. Some might be soft spoken, some might be blunt, some might boast a lot, etc, etc. But, we all know 'the internal self' and its nature. Its not wrong to hide it, but then, posing to be a completely different person is also kind of not-right. Say for example there is some person who is a complete pervert from inside, and poses to be a really nice and 'decent' fellow, just to get some girl fall for him. Though that girl might later repent and leave him, but such an act can be termed as close to 'crime'.

Generally, people exposed to the media, or some kind of public platform end up becoming posers. A lot of them just want to show that they are modern and 'with the times'. Say for example, a son getting ashamed of his own father because he is a software professional and his father is not that well-to-do. Other reasons could be that people who are not like the majority. Take for example the Rock lovers. I am one of the few who basically doesn't find any sense in that stuff. But fortunately or unfortunately the majority of people aren't Rock lovers or at least there is a big enough group who is not (in IIIT). If it was some other place, lets say New York or something, just to keep up with the 'rock loving tendency', I would have posed to really really love rock music and actually end up growing some long hair. That ways, posers aren't completely at fault, even the environment forces them to become like that.

Till now, what I have concluded that most posers are those who want to 'look alike' the majority of people in a community. There are others who just want to look different than the rest and end up posing something which they are not. Again, being different from the rest is also a natural human tendency. Everyone wants his own independent and 'different' existance. To make our presence felt, we tend to add some 'different'ness to our profiles which otherwise are very monotonous and boring. Another thing to note is that a poser who wants to look different tries to at least acquire all 'common' attributes, and then be different on some other virtues. For example, a normal Programmer will at least learn the correct syntax and somehow digest the processes of a company, even if its not natural to him or her. Now, just to be different from others, he'd develop a 'custom style' in coding, designing or working. Does constant exposure to 'posing to be someone' change the person internally? Is it not like slowly even a 'posing rock lover' begins to understand those songs, and start liking it too.

Anyways, till now, you would have seen that this post has no connection with 'humility' (at which I began writing it). How is posing related to 'humility'? A person who is really humble will be humble. A person who wants to pose to be humble will also behave that ways. Everyone saying 'am crazy', 'I just ramble', what does it show? Is the current society completely crazy and aimless? Its generally considered cool, friendly to call oneself all that. How many of us are really cool? Most of us are 'boring, selfish, calculative' and we generally 'try to present syntactically and semantically correct facts or thoughts' in our public appearances (just like I am trying to write this post). This simply indicates that a major portion of people in this world are 'posers' (including me). If we were really cool and careless, we wouldn't care about writing all our thoughts in a public thing and making people read it and also comment on it. Why would we want to make a tamasha of our own life? We all want that people understand how pathetic lives we live and feel sympathetic about it.
Is there a way to figure out who is really humble? One of the characteristics could be that a humble person doesn't 'show' his emotions, deeds to people. He remains quiet. He does good to the society and then quiety slips into his own world. A poser on the other hand basically openly informs each and every person he knows about anything he does. And finally 'requires' that every person give a 'opinion' about the whole thing. The huge growth of blogs around the world which just write about people and their work, thoughts, deeds is just an indication of the amount of posers in this world. No, I don't think each and every blogger is a poser, or if you just write about your work, you become one. I just want to say that there is fair enough probability of finding posers among the bloggers.

Okay fine, I give up. Even I am getting confused about the whole thing. Am dumb. Can anyone help please?

Lost post due to browser crash :(

The most frustrating thing that can ever happen to me while blogging is a browser crash. I was happily writing a long post on my todays happenings and suddenly … dhuppp… the browser vanished!! Another firefox crash. I thought to myself, don’t worry yaar, my firefox session saving plugin will recover the data, but it couldn’t even open the ‘write a post’ page properly. I still didn’t give up, I thought my wordpress will have a recover post button, but alas, nothing saved me. Here I am, cooling in my cooler, and my head aching with all the anger and frustration due to the so called modern software technology. Seems my good old Blogger with the good old IE was a better option. grrr..

March

In the month of March 2006, a change has come about in me. A lot of things have changed. Say for example, I used to be a very frequent blogger. But now, I hardly write anything. Even this post which I am writing is for the sake of writing it. I mean, in the past when I wrote, I could hear myself speaking it loud to the world. But today, its as if I am just reading a boring chapter uninterestedly in a boring class. What has happened to me? Where have the words gone? The fluency, the ease of writing and going on and on and on. I have about a couple of long posts saved as drafts, not published. Why? Because I feel that if I publish them, people will laugh at me. I just feel that there is a void within me, as if I have lost the capability to write. Its as if my logics and my language don’t go together now, as if my sentence formation has gone bizarre and my vocabulary has no words left!!

Anyways, just for the sake of record, I have been fine all these days. Not doing a lot though, have been working on my BTP. Last saturday, Jawahar sir told me that my project is going too slow and in the wrong direction, and I was completely shattered. Not because I had worked too too hard, but still I respect him, and I feel bad when I am not able to live up to his expectations. On Monday, I met him again and this time he was cooler. He explained me the next few steps and we had some discussion over it. My BTP Viva went great. I had the viva at 2 PM and I began making a PPT for it at 1. I missed lunch, though the viva began only at 3:30.

I learnt how to make a presentation. On saturday, I made a ‘text based presentation’. Huge amounts of text on each page explaining everything in great detail. Jawahar sir told me that it wasn’t a presentation. It was a report converted into a presentation. Just before the viva, I knew exactly what to do, thanks to Jawahar sir and Ashish. On each page, I had a heading, at max 2 lines of text and images on almost every page. I didn’t go too deep in explaining everything, but only the summary. I kept a lot of information to be given verbally rather than writing down everything. I even omitted certain information from being transmitted in any form what so ever. These comprised of the low level details of algorithms, low level details about the problem, the motivation, etc. The lesson I learnt was,

• a presentation should be short and precise
• shouldn’t contain a lot of text
• shouldn’t contain the fine grain detail
• shouldn’t contain the information to be conveyed verbally
• its more important to understand what to omit than to understand what to keep

And with this I now know that failing and rising again is the god’s way of teaching us important lessons in life. If I had been given these 5 points written on a sheet of paper, I wouldn’t have bothered to read them even. But now, I’d never forget them.

These days I am going mad about tv.iiit.ac.in. Its not that its too great a thing, but still I just love it. Its because of the feeling of belonging. Its not a project for me, nor something else, its just done for doings sake (though it might be useful for other researchers in CVIT). All through the day, I have a konsole opened with some php file of that website. I just keep doing modifications to make it better (hopefully). I mean, at least 10 hours per day of my life are being burnt in fuelling tv.iiit.ac.in!

Riya sent me some Java code to read and explain. It was some code related to socket programming in Java. I haven’t done socket programming in Java ever! But after reading the code and understanding each and every line of it, I have a nice idea of how it can be done. Sometimes I think that I should learn Java by explicitly devoting time for it, but I never get any. These small instances keep me in touch with the language and make me learn new things side by side. ( The code isn’t open source, so can’t post it here )

I have been very busy with all the things I explained above and haven’t been able to give time to my friends. I went to Meghna’s birthday party at 1 AM instead of 12, I didn’t get to call up Riya or Tanu in all these days, and the list goes on. Its not that I don’t have time, but it some how gets used up without much productive work. I wish I could do something about it.

I bought a new cooler today, thanks to Harsha who ‘actually’ bought it for me. Its a local brand (Vaishnavi) plastic body cooler of roughly 3-4 feet. It cost me 2000 bucks. With my fan still out of order, a cooler will be a big relief. I would have loved to work in AC of the lab, but then, am lazy enough to remain in my room, more so with my new cooler, yay!!

Rest is all fine, seems like I’ve come back in tune. Or maybe its because my blog is back in the IIIT::Blogroll. Due to some technical faults, my blog didn’t show up in the blogroll since long, thanks to Ranta sir who corrected it today. That will further fuel motivation to write more.

I guess it just takes an initiative to write a post, after that it just flows!

Ciao.

Hello wordpress!

Well, I finally came to this new thing called ‘wordpress’. People kept on shifting to this blogging portal and I kept ignoring them. For me, the good old blogger was good enough. But then, now I can ‘feel’ that wordpress is kind of better. I mean, at least the first experience has been good.

For starters, the ‘republish your blog or index’ headache (for those who have used blogspot) is gone. One click and apply settings, change templates, change what you want to show on the sidebar, categorize your posts (don’t know if blogger supports that), moderation of comments, smart spam detection engines, show full posts or summaries, password protect posts, a REALLY CLEAN AND SIMPLE INTERFACE with REALLY COOL FEATURES are some of the new things which I am coming across. Lets see, whats in store.

Good morning

Good Morning, welcome 24 February 2006. Whats the occasion? Nothing, just another day. But from today, I’ve decided to welcome each day, and utilize it, live it to the fullest (possible). Yeah, I can’t just go mindless and do whatever, so thats why ‘fullest possible’.

Yesterday night, I leaned on to the bed for taking a small nap, and fell asleep. So that meant no dinner for me, hehe. Then I was like, kya yaar, if it was home, people would have given me food when I got up, hehe. Its okay, I wont die without one dinner. Missed eating the tablets too, god, eradicate that chest pain thing, its getting too dramatic now. And actually people have come to me and asked, howz your chest pain? I was like, woah, you people read my blog or what?

I had a general review meeting for the BTP yesterday. I didn’t know what to do, as it was first of its kind. I just tried to complete the code, and made a 8 page ppt. The professor wasn’t angry yesterday, he never is. Most people misunderstand him. I think Jawahar sir is the coolest professor in the college. Anyways, a lot of people were even confused about what they had to do. The professor wanted ‘clear goals’ and not ‘progress made’. He later explained that we should be able to make even the most dumb person understand what we are talking about, and basically begin from the beginning, saying all the Raam kahani of the project, motivation, problems, goals, efforts, etc. It was quite inspiring. Almost every student there was like, woah, he has changed, he is so nice, and so inspiring. But I said, he always is, its just that in your fear, you don’t understand him.

Anyways, so today I don’t have any deadline and all, but will work on the BTP. My code is producing the FACE VIDEOS, but has some problems (none seen as yet, but my psychology says there is a problem). I’ll correct it and embed it in the 24×7 system. Now the thing is, I WANT to make it work, I WANT that Jawahar sir sees my effort and becomes happy, not for the grades, but for the Excitement of Research. Oh, no, not for ExOR, but for the ‘actual’ Excitement of Research, hehe.

I came across another great blogger, Devil’s own. Great at english, and I came to know that her IQ is 170! I didn’t know what an IQ test is, but still tried out. Got a score of 137. Lets see if I can improve.

Couldn’t talk to Tanu yesterday night, poor girl, kept on buzzing online, calling on phone, and smsing, but kumbhkaran was deep in sleep. Hope this day is like what I want it to be. Good morning!

Bheega bheega sa yeh December hai,
Yeh December ka sard paani hai,
Tez dhadkan hai, Garm saansein hain,
Bheegi bheegi see ik kahani hai,
Bheega bheega sa yeh December hai…

Nice song, I’ve been listening to this one repeatedly. The tune, the voice, the lyrics, wow! My favorite song of the week!

Anyways, Sumeet said, what the hell? You writing your daily time-table in your blog? Why? I mean, blog is to write some “interesting” things. Well, yeah, the day to day life is kind of boring. There are a lot of reasons. First, I want to keep a record. Second, its really nice to write everything down, its easier to sum up the entire day’s work/thoughts. Third, it makes my own ideas/thoughts/viewpoints/stands more firm and confident. When I write this blog, I analyze everything again. This way I know exactly what went wrong, was I wrong or the other person and what to do next! It might as well convey some message directly to some person. Last, but not the least, I am free!

Today, I didn’t do much. I got up quite late. We kind of sorted out the SE offline questions. A lot of them were asked for the sake of asking, especially people like Sarath Chandra. Anyways, lets hope we finish answering soon.

I have to execute whatever I said about the PR project too. I missed the Vision tutorial too. God knows what am I going to do. I’ll contact Nikhil and find out. Rest is I guess fine. Kubuntu 5.10 Breezy didn’t work. Have to redownload the ISO.

Piece of advice: Kulbir Saini’s Linux blog is worth reading.

Alvy came online today. Lami aka Baby aka Nopy has no cell these days. Busy in studies I guess. Let her study. Best of luck to her.

Chalo then, Ciao.

Blog : An analysis

I decided that this place, MY BLOG _UnPrEdictAbLe_, should be opened up for the public, so that people can read it, find out what I feel, maybe say something about it, etc. Well, this decision didn’t come as a consequence of something, but just that everyone has a “open blog”, so shall I.

I found out that with the useless content and really bad english that I use (maybe there are no spelling mistakes, but sentence formation is completely crap), no one was interested in reading it. That can be taken as both a positive sign and a negative one. Positive because even now my privacy is intact, something like being alone in the mob. Negative because this will discourage me, as I will come to know how bad I am in writing blogs.

Err… you might think that what the hell, why am I talking about blogs?? Well, its kind of coming repeatedly to my mind, I mean this topic, so I wanted to write about it. By the way, I have a separate blog to write thoughts into, Thoughts!

I was trying to find out why people write blogs? And how is it different from a diary on paper? Some of the answers to ‘why people write blogs’ that come to my mind are,
* To remember what happened.
* To learn from their mistakes.
* To store and convey or broadcast their thoughts.
* To show off!
* To impress someone.
* To distribute some information or knowledge (all tech blogs).
* To reduce the tension on them, to vomit all the pain to the blog.

Well, even I blog for similar reasons, but then, there is a big question on ‘what content should be allowed to viewed by which people’ ? I mean, we can’t just show all our feelings openly to the public, can we? This way people can take advantage of our unstable emotional or mental or physical state. If not that, then we can actually come across a situation where we might make some person read our thoughts which we never wanted him/her to know. We might also not want to spoil our “social reputation” because there can be some difference between our behaviors/thoughts in public and the actual us.

All above issues put some kind of restriction on the content and the presentation of the blog. But, if we are untrue even to the blog, then there is no place where we don’t hide ourselves in a “good looking mask”. So, we will in turn start going away from reality and start living in a phoney world, and start believing that the virtual-reality is the real thing.

One of the solutions is to have two blogs, one for the public, and another for ourselves. This way, we can convey the “conveyable” to the public, and also remain close to the reality by writing the harsh reality in the other one. Another risky alternative is to not care about anyone and write what we want to. Though most people will call the people following the second alternative as PURE and TRUE, but then, speaking a lie is much much different from keeping quiet (where the first alternative basically does the latter thing).

Concluding the whole thing, I’d like to say that blog is a place to put forward your thoughts, but just like social behavior, we must try to follow some way of separating or hiding the harsh reality from the public. We should also ensure that even with this “hide the harshness mask”, we aren’t UNTRUE in the facts we write.

Long time no see….

28 July … 9 August… long time its been when I scribbled here. Not that I didn’t want to, or didn’t get time to, but I was hesitating to, and whenever I sat down to type in, either some disturbance or a change in mood or my health problems would stop me.

Its been nice since I last posted… err.. correction.. I didn’t write since 21 July. I actually read the last post. Things have changed a lot. We’ve had a phase of orientation as well, not all of it was much fun and it was not very long lasting. For the first few days the juniors were like, kind of fearful and almost crying. After some incidents and when faculty started interfering its been quite normal for them. The official public orietation function was fun, but after a junior got ill, the interaction has almost completely stopped.

I’ve got the job as a TA for C programming under Prof. Jawahar. Its a fun thing teaching the first years, such innocent and inquisitive faces, curious to learn, unlike us, uninterested and sleepy, hehe. I was hesitating while going to the first class, as if how will they react, will I be able to control them, or they will dominate, will I answer their doubts or not. etc. But since then, there has been no looking back, its been fun and frolic all the time, and I DID NOT FLIRT WITH ANY JUNIOR GIRL YET.

The other day Ashish had to take a “regular” class of the first years in ITWS because the professor was absent. He asked me to help. Given the mic in front of a 180 odd audience, I was a little unstable in the beginning, but then as we started catching the flow, it was all great fun, and just masti.

Tanu.. I’ve been talking and thinking about her a lot. What should I do? What does she think about me? Even about proposing her, etc. Not that I love her or anything, or do I, actually I am not sure. She is a nice girl, talks to me sweetly, but then I talk to so many people sweetly, so can she, so that doesn’t mean love or anything. My heart and mind always become uncertain when I talk about her. And Riyanca is fed up of me talking about her. Poor her, whenever she comes online, all she has to hear is her her and her, hehe.

I received the cards from Fouzia as a token of our one year old friendship. Its not that its bad or anything, but its just that it doesn’t make me much happy to see them. They are not bad or anything, they are good, just that I don’t know why they don’t give me a lot of happiness as one would expect. I’ve been ignoring her these days, not that I wanted to, but just because of our network, my work, etc, etc.

I started two more blogs, Fedora Core Solutions and Fedora Core Customizer. The first one deals with the problems and solutions of FC and the second one is about a new project to enhance Fedora, which I have been thinking of doing since months. Their links are…
http://fcsolutions.blogspot.com
http://fccustomizer.blogspot.com

Tanu and I talked on phone the other day for long, just because its free for her to call reliance mobiles. She was just mentioning that I spoilt her by making her chat late in nights. So, we decided not to talk from now on forever till one of us feels the need to, and the one who starts it will lose. We didn’t talk for a few days, but then, friendship day, smses from Chahat, and circumstances made us talk. I did the first SMS and she made the first call, I don’t know who lost.

On Sunday was Freshers Welcome Party, though I missed a major part of it doing the DIP assignment. That reminds me that the DIP assignment is kind of interesting. I’ve been adding capabilities to the software and its become quite nice now. So, coming back to the topic, the Freshers was nice, nothing to tell about, just marking a new landmark.

On Sunday, Riya got bit by a snake, she called to inform me, and also smsed. My balance got over just the minute she smsed me. I was helpless. I was moving around on the road, so I went to a Hutch Shop and recharged. I smsed her, but it didn’t reach, I tried to call but it didn’t ring. I smsed Alvy to call but it didn’t work. I was just consoling myself till late in the night saying that she sent me an sms and called me, that means that she is okay and in senses. She called up late in the night, and didn’t tell me anything clearly, but I somehow could understand that she was okay. I was still worried for most part of the night, I don’t know when did I sleep, or did I sleep? The next night she called up and told me that she is okay and she was under observation yesterday. I just tried to talk casually, but she took it as if I didn’t care. Anyways, doesn’t matter, people do misjudge me all the time, I am unpredictable, hehe.

I got a proposal from Sid to go to Mumbai this Friday. I was thinking about it, and started to fantasize meeting Riyanca. But then she is not well, and besides, I can’t lose her. What if she thinks that I am not the same person she chats with and changes her opinions, I can’t afford that. So, I decided not to go with Sid, though this decision became obvious when no one wanted to go, or the plan was not feasible, and so it was cancelled. Still, it can again come to limelight and I might be put in a situation to decide about going to Mumbai, and if I go, should I tell her and if I tell her, should I meet her, etc, etc.

Ohh, forgot to mention about my blocked ear. My ear was kind of blocked since about 10-12 days, its getting better now. I was planning to see a doctor, but I guess now its not required. I hope it becomes completely okay.

Rest is all fine, three fours projects, classes, assignments, wierd friends, and ME.

Fedora Core Solutions…

Hi people,

This blog is not about a person or any happenings or any stories. It just covers some of the issues I faced with my tryst with Fedora Core. Please read and comment. If you are also a motivated Linux user, you can ask me to allow you to join this blog and write about your own experiments.

Regards,
Anurag.

Okay, this is the first post…

Hi, I think I am too happy to find out that this blog server is actually working. My own blog server, hehe. Anyways, I have decided to post in this server till it slowly grows with more and more features. I will finally transfer the posts to blogspot. Its 10th May, 2005, 0625 hours, according to my server. I am working on it to make it better.

This evening, I was out with my friends, Ravi, Ashish and Meghna, for an outing “supposed” to be Ravi’s birthday party. Well, he insisted that he’d give it when the whole BC group was here, so this one was kinda contribution party. Anyways, I was sleeping in the evening, at about 6:25 PM, when Ravi avidly banged my door. I got up and he said that we’re going out. I had to get into shower almost immediately, I was so so deep in sleep that the soap was looking blurred to my eyes. Anyways, we went out to a restaurant, which was kinda expensive, hehe, and then, Ravi got us icecreams of HIS choice. I instantly rejected his choice for me, and took some other. The one he got for me was horrible. Then, amazingly, the other one tasted horrible too. I tasted the icecreams of everyone, and all tasted bad. Then I figured out that it was because of the Tinidazole I took in the evening.

We returned happily to the campus around 10. Then we talked and talked and talked, though Ravi got a little irritated. Anyways, then as Ravi had to get up early in the morning, and Ashish for no reason left the conversation. Meghna and I continued for a while, talking about different things, and cracking jokes. That ended at around 2:20.

When I had returned to my room, Avik sir came for some html help. After that, we saw some songs stored in my hard disk, which I never get the time to listen to. He left at around 5 AM. Then, I decided to work a little bit. It seems the Mobile Blog server is functioning quite well, and I am thinking to add more. I’ll be awake till 10 maybe.

Summary: I am happy, working and … hehe.. I don’t know.

Ray of hope…

Well, the time of posting was set to some wierd time zone. I repaired it today. So from now on, the time of posting IS the actual time of posting.

Anyways, yesterday evening, my neighbour and my friend, Ravi, returned unexpectedly. He got an internship in Satyam, will be joining today morning. Its also his birthday today, we didn’t celebrate much, as he was tired of the twenty hour long train journey. Hope today we’ll go somewhere.

His arrival has infused into me a new confidence to work. He, who wanted to live at home during the entire holidays, has come here to work, and is not at home, even on his birthday. All this has made me think and realize that I should work too. Lets hope for the best.

I have been working on the Mobile Blog project all night. Its made quite a lot of progress. I think another week of such hardwork would get me into a very good position. But, my routine is still the same, unhealthy. No sleep all night, no regular diet, it been quite bad. I have decided to repair that too. I have a few meetings with the professors and all, regarding the other CVIT project, after that, I need some sleep, I’ve been awake since,.. umm… I don’t know.

My cell phone balance, ohh, its been a thing to worry about for me. Rs. 1000.95 is what is left now. Its not that I can’t afford to spend more, but I just want to live in a responsible manner. So, I will try to reduce on this expenditure. Though, it will definitely dip below 1000 before tonight.

Rest is almost fine. I’ve stopped thinking about anything else but my projects, Mobile Blog and the CVIT one. Also, I am upgrading my website. I also think of merging the BCServer with Mobile Blog, I guess most of the readers wont get what I am saying, but it all means that I am beginning work, without wasting time in other non-constructive activities.

Cheers!!!