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.

Fedora Core 5: Not worth an upgrade.

Finally after about 10 hours of struggle, I configured my Fedora Core 5 to work properly. I didn't have many demands though, just

• A decent photo viewing program … Well, it does provide me with F-Spot, but I am used to Digikam. So, first thing I did was to reinstall 'digikam' on the system along with a couple of dependencies.
• An audio (mp3) player… Does this look too much? Well, with Fedora systems, playing MP3 is a real problem, not because its bad but because it has chosen to not provide any support for MP3 due to patent issues. My obvious choice is Amarok player. First I needed to enable MP3 support in KDE for which I recompiled 'kdemultimedia' enabling 'mp3lib'. Due to some dependency or the other and due to power cuts, it took me 9 recompiles to finish the job.
• To install Amarok player was a real problem. Again the reason being patents. Amarok didn't support aRts and xine by default. Finally after installing xine and dependencies, I installed a total of 38 packages to install my Amarok player after recompiling it to enable xine (aRts still doesn't work!).
• I tried compiling Kaffeine player, but to no avail. It gave some wierd errors. Finally I installed the old 'kaffeine 0.7' for Fedora Core 4. It failed to load giving an error 'kaffeine_part.desktop' not found. I hope I can fix it too. Meanwhile am using the Xine player which apparently is the 'actual back-end' of Kaffeine player.

The rest of the system looks okay. My settings are AS IS, including the keyboard shortcuts I had set. Thanks to the great architecture of Linux and the power to separate user data and the operating system. It even remembered my 'firefox bookmarks'. There is nothing so great in Fedora Core 5. Its just as if I am using Core 4. I haven't seen Mono and Beagle working on my PC, maybe they will change my view.

Rest of me is fine. I couldn't meet Jawahar sir today also. Hopefully will meet him tomorrow. The reception of TV.IIIT.AC.IN TV tuner card has resumed. I will make it functional by tomorrow morning. Ashish, Ravi and me were **studying** in the Library reading room from 12:00 AM to 2 AM, a world record. We did some BC too, when Bhanu arrived, but rest of it was serious and productive. Though the Linear programming exam is on 12th, though its a PCO for us, we still burned our precious time and energy in working for it. I wonder if there can be a 'TA' post for the course.  We people have decided to jog every morning at 7 AM, lets see if I get up tomorrow. Have a good night!

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.

Just got up

Good morning everyone. I just got up, not that I slept late or something, but still. Yesterday night, again due to some reasons, 204 server disconnected from the internet. I hate it when that happens. I mean, at least in IIIT, my life revolves around the internet. And its so frustrating to see error messages saying 'unable to connect'. Anyways, its up and running today, good for me.

I've to restart work on my robotics project today, buy some spare parts, join them together and make it work. It works a lot though, we had to make a stair climbing robot with obstacle avoidance. It climbs stairs but doesn't avoid obstacles, it just madly runs, hehe. Now, we're planning to put some Infra-Red sensors to make it avoid obstacles, using some complex circuit. I really don't know anything about the circuit, will have to read and make. I could say that I've some experience in soldering from my school, but that'll hardly be an advantage. Lets hope it works, or else we'll have to write its 'shortcomings' as 'features', and show.

The tv.iiit.ac.in server is down since a couple of days. Its not that I am liking it, but there is no alternative. We want to make two TV cards work from the same connection, so that the other can be used for CVIT purposes, but then, two cards from one connection makes it degrade the connection so much that its impossible to get a clear reception. We'll be calling the cable guy and electrician to fix the same. Hopefully it'll work soon.

Yesterday, after posting the poem, I didn't expect such a great response. I thought there'll be some person to say that it is so bad and childish. Anyways, thanks to everyone for appreciating and thanks to Sukesh, Paggi and Nidhi for adding a few lines to it. You guys are much much better than me, really. I mean, Sukesh's part just added the 'hope' that was missing in it, Paggi just killed the real theme and took it in a new direction and Nidhi, wow! She took the sea beach scene to the city, lol.

There are no classes today, I've to go out for shopping for Robotics. Lets hope this day is good. Have a nice day!

Ciao.

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.

tv.iiit.ac.in

How did it happen? Another idea by our good old Jawahar sir. Tarun was already recording news using some windows software whos license expires every 16 days! He knew it could be done in Linux too, he had done it before. Finally, first we came up with a portal so that we can test how people like the interface. Still runs on http://172.17.9.33/videoserver

The next step was the harder one. Making a recording possible in Linux. It wasn’t difficult as we thought. But then, first we had to tune the channels. Those hardware frequencies given ‘human recognizable’ names. We tuned about 40-45 channels, of which the one available are of good reception. Then, as we all know, Linux and audio are the two things that never meet. We did anything, left, right, center, /dev/dsp, /dev/dsp0, alsamixer, kmix, aumix, rpm, ffmpeg, nothing made audio come out! Finally, somehow we figured out the solution and it was recording.

The first video recorded was of ‘GREAT QUALITY’ but unfortunately 40 MB per 20 seconds. We kept trying different tweaks, codecs, but the compression ratio didn’t come down for the ‘best possible’ quality. Not the disk space but the ‘feasibility of download’ was the criterion in mind. Finally, we decided to drop the quality till we find a solution. And the odd channel switches might be caused by the operator himself as there is no other way one can change the hardware frequency that the card is using.

We’re planning a discussion forum kind of thing to be added there. And as and when the requirements start looking obvious, we’ll make changes. Expect a DF coming up soon. And thanks for all your compliments.

Ciao.